Grima on retrospect

[Jotari]

Grima didn't have much of a chance to shine in Awakening. For most of the story he's just a big looming dragon with very little impact. When he does show up as a character, he has very little time to do much of anything. But since then he's had his backstory explained in Shadows of Valentia and has been more screen time to show off his personality in Heroes.  So do you think Grima is a good or bad character now and have your opinions on Grima changed since his first appearance?

[Captain Karnage]

he's a ........................................................ kind of character

he's just there, you could remove him from the story completely and have made Validar the final boss and nothing would have really changed

[Slumber]

I maintain that his appearance that really matters, his Awakening appearance, is incredibly weak. The Grimleal as a whole are potentially the weakest group of enemies in the entire franchise. I'm struggling to think of an ensemble of bad guys that are AS bad as the Grimleal. Even the Nohrian generals, I think, were bad in more... interesting ways. And Grima is the cherry on top.

He's just a "Mwahaha I'm evil" character in a "Mwahaha I'm evil" group, with no real explanation as to why he's there. Every time anything about him is revealed throughout the game(All four times), it just feels like the game is just doing the most hamfisted messaging to tell us that, man guys, Grima's really bad. It's made even worse that he's basically a 2.0 of another character. He's basically Julius and Loptyr rolled into one, just done worse.

He's on the level of Fomortiis. Not Lyon AND Fomortiis. Just Fomortiis. The big spooky Satan that we only see once at the end of SS and hear speak only a few times, and only says generically evil shit when he does. Just a step above the Fire Dragons at the end of FE7.

SoV gave him a decent backstory and helped fill an arguable plothole(Even if these events in question are even canon), but I really can't see anything Heroes does as legitimate. It's a non-canon fanservice game. Not even a knock against the game, since it seems like it's doing characterization totally fine on its own, but I consider the Heroes' version of all characters just alternate universe versions. Heroes Grima is not Awakening Grima to me.

Edited August 2, 2018 by Slumber

[Etrurian emperor]

I'm of a mixed mind. 

On one hand Grima's no longer this utterly generic evil blob of a villain which is nice. Now Grima at least has the bare minimum required to be a decent main villain. And its certainly not a bad deal that Grima got. His backstory was a pretty big surprise for people and the extra depth in Heroes was much better than expected. 

But on the other hand its also somewhat off putting. If a non canon fanservice mobile game has better writing for its villains than a mainline FE game on modern hardware than something has gone terrible wrong. If Grima was such a failure of a villain then does he really deserve all that extra attention? They could have skipped him in favor of Gangrel or Walmarkt in Heroes and no one would mind.  And could Echoes post game not depict some interesting scenarios in Valentia or a meeting with Marth rather than spend time on a failed villain?

When returning to Awakening it might also be hard to return to this generic evil dragon when other games have shown Grima can be better than that. 

[thecrimsonflash]

Grima feels like they are trying to make a sucky villain not suck, I personally see heroes grima as more an extension of robin and incredibly dubious as far as canon is concerned, grima as an entity is very undefined and still incredibly uninteresting on a fundamental level, it isn't a good sign if it takes you two games and a spin off to be even remotely decent as a character especially if the spin off is a gacha game and the main game that has your best lore has you as a superfluous addition which could have been written out with no major change to the final release.

@Etrurian emperor 3DS was outdated before it was released, that may explain some things. 

Edited August 2, 2018 by thecrimsonflash

[Etrurian emperor]

3 hours ago, thecrimsonflash said:

Grima feels like they are trying to make a sucky villain not suck, I personally see heroes grima as more an extension of robin and incredibly dubious as far as canon is concerned, grima as an entity is very undefined and still incredibly uninteresting on a fundamental level, it isn't a good sign if it takes you two games and a spin off to be even remotely decent as a character especially if the spin off is a gacha game and the main game that has your best lore has you as a superfluous addition which could have been written out with no major change to the final release.

@Etrurian emperor 3DS was outdated before it was released, that may explain some things. 

I'd say the 3DS was as powerful as it needed to be. The 3DS characters aren't in the position of the NES/SNES ones where they ended up limited by what was possible at the time. 

[Interdimensional Observer]

First impressions matter, and Grima failed them. Retroactively correcting a character with things that didn't exist whatsoever in the original game, while better than nothing, is in a way a form of laziness. Grima doesn't really matter in SoV or FEH, only in Awakening, and there, for one who doesn't know about SoV or FEH, which would be how 98% of us played Awakening since neither SoV nor FEH existed at the time, they just "RAWR! I'm the Fell Dragon!". Which is poor writing. You should really really really try to get a character right the first time.

Not to mention even finding out the Grima stuff in the latter games requires completing an optional postgame labyrinth, getting lucky with summoning, or looking the stuff up online.

[omegaxis1]

I always loved Grima from the getgo. Immediately on his first appearance, he made an impression on me. I didn't care what his motivations were, why he hates humans. I didn't truly need a reason. 

What mattered to me was just how terrifying he was. He DESTROYED the world!

No Fire Emblem villain EVER did that. The only one that came damn close was Ashera, though she only petrified the people. But in Grima's case, he destroyed the world, all the continents, and turned them all into his puppets. His damage was so bad, the only way to ultimately counter him was to time travel, something no other hero ever needed to do. Call it silly or whatever you want to, but I just felt that just showed just how dangerous Grima was. 

The sheer size of his form, dwarfing literally everything around him. The Dragon's Table, the place where Medeus the Dark Dragon and all the Earth Dragons were sealed, Grima literally dwarfed the entire tower itself. 

And finding out his backstory in Echoes and learning more about his motivations, I loved him more for it. All it did for me was add to his awesomeness already. 

There's nothing but up for him. 

[omegaxis1]

11 hours ago, Slumber said:

It's made even worse that he's basically a 2.0 of another character. He's basically Julius and Loptyr rolled into one, just done worse.

Loptous is one of the most uninteresting villains there is. Nothing about Loptous himself is interesting. The only thing about Loptous that's interesting is only what's around Loptous. Loptous himself is about as basic and petty of a villain as you can get. 

[Sunwoo]

Echoes trying to give Grima backstory reeks of "too little too late," and is the Heroes portrayal of Grima even all that canon? While Grima does get a bit more characterization after their debut in Awakening, everything else that's added to them feels like an afterthought. Not like it was planned naturally, but they're throwing whatever they can at Grima to make them more likable and interesting. So ... I really can't say I'm any more impressed.

Male Grima is an amazing unit in Heroes, though.

[Slumber]

1 hour ago, omegaxis1 said:

Loptous is one of the most uninteresting villains there is. Nothing about Loptous himself is interesting. The only thing about Loptous that's interesting is only what's around Loptous. Loptous himself is about as basic and petty of a villain as you can get. 

The part that makes Loptyr interesting is everything we're told about Julius in gen 2. Throughout the whole thing, we're told that it's barely Julius anymore, and by the end, Loptyr has completely taken over. Everything we see of Julius in gen 2 of FE4 and the bits he's in of FE5 have the lingering question of "Is this Julius, or is this Loptyr?"

A dragon potentially acting in human ways like that is more interesting than what we see of Grima. When Grima is in Robin's body, he's essentially just another Validar. Once he's a dragon, he all but stops talking.

Oh, AND WE GET A PROPER BACKSTORY FOR LOPTYR PRIOR TO THE DEVS GOING "Oh, whoops, we wrote a bad character in a world that's thousands of years old and didn't explain at all why he's there."

[omegaxis1]

3 minutes ago, Slumber said:

The part that makes Loptyr interesting is everything we're told about Julius in gen 2. Throughout the whole thing, we're told that it's barely Julius anymore, and by the end, Loptyr has completely taken over. Everything we see of Julius in gen 2 of FE4 and the bits he's in of FE5 have the lingering question of "Is this Julius, or is this Loptyr?"

A dragon potentially acting in human ways like that is more interesting than what we see of Grima. When Grima is in Robin's body, he's essentially just another Validar. Once he's a dragon, he all but stops talking.

Oh, AND WE GET A PROPER BACKSTORY FOR LOPTYR PRIOR TO THE DEVS GOING "Oh, whoops, we wrote a bad character in a world that's thousands of years old and didn't explain at all why he's there."

Except that's just it. Loptous doesn't possess anyone. It's just his resentment and anger that corrupts others. There's no true possession (except for maybe when Julius is dying) in that Julius is just himself, but just has a warped personality that is influenced by Loptous. That's what the blood pact is in the end. It's the same with Lewyn. It's Lewyn, but his personality has become warped because of Forseti's will and personality. That's also why Julius has this possessive love towards Ishtar that makes him have jealousy. It's Julius' own feelings that have become warped by Loptous.

But Loptous himself has no real personality other than the fact he hates humans just cause they exist. He wanted to make humans suffer just because they existed. 

And no, we didn't get ANY proper backstory of Loptous. We only learned what he is, but even the interview with Kaga told us absolutely nothing anything personal about Loptous. 

[thecrimsonflash]

2 hours ago, omegaxis1 said:

What mattered to me was just how terrifying he was. He DESTROYED the world!

I beg to differ, any villain incapable of killing one child who rightfully should have at the top of his hit list (Robin knew about lucina and there is no good reason that grima should not have knw that she was out there in his decade of thumb twiddling) is not to be feared, more so laughed at for how sad that is, ashera wiped out all of humanity (save for a few who were even then under the protection of her equal and the most powerful individuals of their time) in an instant, over one decade later grima still hasn't even killed the only child he needed to kill to guarantee that he wouldn't be gutted as usual, shoot, nah's supports imply that the world is still very much functional even after grima killed chrom's army, quite frankly, one of the saddest villains ever, and even if you want to go by logic of "he destroyed the world therefore he is good", anankos almost destroyed the multiverse and wiped out corrin and his group several times, even in that ideal timeline where corrin has the omega yato which can kill anankos, anankos 2.0 comes out and kills everyone anyways and uses them for something afterwards (sorry grima, but where is that boss fight against chrom's corpse?) and it required two omega yatos to kill him, he also had an actual backstory in his game, which is something grima also didn't have.

God Fire Emblem villains have really gone downhill if I am defending anankos of all people.

1 hour ago, omegaxis1 said:

Loptous is one of the most uninteresting villains there is. Nothing about Loptous himself is interesting. The only thing about Loptous that's interesting is only what's around Loptous. Loptous himself is about as basic and petty of a villain as you can get. 

Grima never evolves beyond "I must destroy the world", I wouldn't call that exactly deep.

[omegaxis1]

9 minutes ago, thecrimsonflash said:

I beg to differ, any villain incapable of killing one child who rightfully should have at the top of his hit list (Robin knew about lucina and there is no good reason that grima should not have knw that she was out there in his decade of thumb twiddling) is not to be feared, more so laughed at for how sad that is, ashera wiped out all of humanity (save for a few who were even then under the protection of her equal and the most powerful individuals of their time) in an instant, over one decade later grima still hasn't even killed the only child he needed to kill to guarantee that he wouldn't be gutted as usual, shoot, nah's supports imply that the world is still very much functional even after grima killed chrom's army, quite frankly, one of the saddest villains ever, and even if you want to go by logic of "he destroyed the world therefore he is good", anankos almost destroyed the multiverse and wiped out corrin and his group several times, even in that ideal timeline where corrin has the omega yato which can kill anankos, anankos 2.0 comes out and kills everyone anyways and uses them for something afterwards (sorry grima, but where is that boss fight against chrom's corpse?) and it required two omega yatos to kill him, he also had an actual backstory in his game, which is something grima also didn't have.

God Fire Emblem villains have really gone downhill if I am defending anankos of all people.

 

I would argue that Ashera and Yune were HARDLY equals, but honestly, at this point, RD has a lot more messes that I don't even need to tell you how many messes there are there. Especially Part 4.

And it's literally obvious why Grima wasn't killing them immediately. He was literally playing them. What better way to make humanity suffer than to dangle hope right in front of them and let them think they have a shot? You see Grima as sadistic and with his power, he was already at the top of the form. Seriously, the moment that Grima got even a little serious, Ylisstol fell and Lucina and the others only barely survived the encounter. And even then, Grima was impossible to beat in the original timeline, because the Sable Gemstone was lost. Unlike other villains, who had a counter neatly there for them, Grima didn't have counters. The only downfall was him not understanding how time travel worked. 

But even without it, he still succeeded. The only one that ultimately did ruin his plans... was Robin, aka Grima's vessel. Robin was the only one that was beyond Grima's calculations, that was able to serve as the wild card. 

Even in Future Past, where Grima also won, his only defeat is through otherworldly interventions, and Robin himself. Grima doesn't lose otherwise. 

And Anankos did destroy several Fateslandias, but I would like to point out that that is not an accomplishment given that in all those other worlds, Anankos no longer has an opponent that can counter him. Remember that those worlds are a Birthright and Conquest routes, where one nation has already been defeated and the other is sufficiently exhausted. And the Yato is incomplete. There were no counters for him so conquering them was easy. 

And that's way more than I can say about Loptous/Julius, who stupidly let Julia alive when SHE WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM, just because Manfroy said to let her live. Despite how Julius was saying how Naga is the threat and that the danger lies in the blood, not the book. But no, he had the opportunity right there, and he didn't take it. And even Manfroy, who planned for Loptous' revival, protected Julia in the end.

And even Arvis is not that great of a villain considering how stupid he ended up being in not realizing how he got played. If he was able to think even a little, he'd have realized that hooking up with Deirdre was a terrible idea the moment that he canonically found out that she was his sister after the Battle of Belhalla. 

So saying that FE villains went downhill is hilarious since there wasn't much of a hill, to begin with.

10 minutes ago, thecrimsonflash said:

Grima never evolves beyond "I must destroy the world", I wouldn't call that exactly deep.

He doesn't need to. He views himself as the destroyer. Why should he see beyond that?

[Interdimensional Observer]

3 hours ago, omegaxis1 said:

What mattered to me was just how terrifying he was. He DESTROYED the world!

No Fire Emblem villain EVER did that. The only one that came damn close was Ashera, though she only petrified the people. But in Grima's case, he destroyed the world, all the continents, and turned them all into his puppets. His damage was so bad, the only way to ultimately counter him was to time travel, something no other hero ever needed to do. Call it silly or whatever you want to, but I just felt that just showed just how dangerous Grima was. 

 

Power levels do not in themselves make a villain great.

Chaos and Ultimecia in Final Fantasy are able to establish time loops ensuring their existence forever (and with it their eternal defeat). Neither is the best FF villain to me. Nor is the force of nature-like figure of the Cloud of Darkness, or Sin.

Lucifer and YHVH in SMT in every single game, or their alignment proxies, fight it out in most mainline games, deciding the fate of a universe in a multiverse which they can freely move through in the process. Lucifer and YHVH, so as long as somebody in this nigh-infinite multiverse craves what they represent, will resurrect endlessly. This doesn't stop either villain from coming off as, like most of SMT's characters, flat.

 

Luca Blight on the other hand, of Suikoden II, is well-written and intimidating. This is despite him being practically just human, like Walhart, but much better.

Luca is very strong within the Suikoden II world, which is a very mundane one, able to threaten armies with just himself, a nothing-special (not even named) sword, some oil to coat it in for fire slashes, and maybe some undefined help from the Beast Rune. You do really feel him early on when he is burning towns to the ground, and his strength never relents up to his death. It takes the enemy officers, who are supposed to be Luca's servants, giving you information that enables you to set a trap consisting of a hailstorm of arrows all aimed at him, and three teams of 6 heroes, plus one more final blow, to finally kill him. 

Luca Blight >>>>> Grima, with just a fraction of the power on a scale that goes from multiverse god down to petty murderer. 

 

Time travel plots where people go back in time to fix things are also nothing new. It's been used by such glorious things as Disney cartoon TV movies, as well as a Terminator sequel, and the JRPG classic Chrono Trigger (and Lavos is just a parasite). Does it say a villain was strong, or at least successful? Yes. But that does not mean that they are a good villain.

Not to deny RD's goddess v. goddess thing is also cliched. It is a cliche splendidly done in Final Fantasy X and Luminous Arc, and even barebones done in original Gaiden. Evil sorcerers, kings, dragons and demons are on the whole nothing new. Manfroy in particular finds close parallel in Kefka of FFVI released two years prior. Namely, Kefka and Manfroy both find perfect success at the end of the first half of their games. Only illogically for them to allow the heroes to rise up again and defeat them.

 

9 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

He doesn't need to. He views himself as the destroyer. Why should he see beyond that?

And should King Nachtigal in Tales of Xillia have seen past the world as his birthright? He doesn't need to. -Well he should have to be a more interesting villain!

 

14 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

And Anankos did destroy several Fateslandias, but I would like to point out that that is not an accomplishment given that in all those other worlds, Anankos no longer has an opponent that can counter him. Remember that those worlds are a Birthright and Conquest routes, where one nation has already been defeated and the other is sufficiently exhausted. And the Yato is incomplete. There were no counters for him so conquering them was easy. 

 

And being manipulative/letting things naturally flow in your direction instead of constant forceful intervention isn't a good thing? It's cunning, and practiced by Grima since Chrom and co. delightfully wipe out Walhart for it. You also say Grima had no counters in Lucina's world, and yet praise them for it. Yato being incomplete and Falchion being incomplete is different how?

Also, Robin being the only counter to Grima is little different from Julia being the only counter to Grima. Why did Grima need Robin intact? Why not, instead of attempting to brainwash them at the very beginning, didn't Grima just kill them and hijack the soul fragments or body or blood or whatever was useful of them? "Playing?" Loplius likes to play too.

 

17 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Except that's just it. Loptous doesn't possess anyone. It's just his resentment and anger that corrupts others. There's no true possession (except for maybe when Julius is dying) in that Julius is just himself, but just has a warped personality that is influenced by Loptous.

Insofar as Ephraim!Lyon is anything to go by, I prefer the blurred possession approach to a direct one.

 

2 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

So saying that FE villains went downhill is hilarious since there wasn't much of a hill, to begin with.

16 minutes ago, thecrimsonflash said:

NOTHING IS SACRED IN THIS WORLD DON'T YOU GET IT?! 

And what is hilarious is how quickly this topic is going to get locked.

...I'm afraid this topic is going to turn into people bashing you, and you just responding because you're such an ardent Awakening defender (not that there is anything wrong with defending Awakening) that you can't let the slights go (I'm sure after our little spat you think the same of me with regards to RD). And that thus it'll get locked. I already see the coals burning hot in comments like this when you denigrate the rest of the franchise. I mean to hold good, fair argument with my criticism, but I'm afraid it won't go that way. Somebody, you, me, another, or all of us, are going to trip the mod wire trigger and thus the Binding Shield we can't ever undo.

[Sunwoo]

I think one major issue with Grima compared to Loptyr is that when Awakening focuses on Validar, he usually just looks incompetent. Which makes me wonder how much plot bullshit it is that the first generation actually lost to him just to make it so there is a plot. We never really see Validar doing anything to revive Grima in the game, unless it also includes failing massively in his task. Which makes Validar more forgettable and not a good villain, and Grima coming to power in the first place even odder.

Manfroy made a really big fuck up by letting Julia live, yes, but in the first generation we see him do things that succeed and lead the way for Loptyr to return to Jugdral. He and the Loptyr clan are actively searching for Deirdre. He was in contact with Arvis. He abducted Deirdre away from Sigurd's army. He made it so that Arvis married Deirdre. And we're told he gave Julius the book. So aside from his biggest mistake ever, Manfroy was shown doing a lot of things to make Loptyr reborn on-screen. Which I do think is better done than Validar constantly fucking up at every opportunity.

Call me a cynic, but I get the feeling that the only reason Awakening and Fates had such world-destroying villains was to write outrealms and time traveling into their plot.

[omegaxis1]

19 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Power levels do not in themselves make a villain great.

 

Fair point. But Grima isn't the strongest, though (I would say that Ashunera is the strongest). It's not the fact that he destroyed stuff that mattered to me. It's the fact that he WON.

There are small victories here and there with other villains, where the villains get really close or have a victory that feels like they have won everything, but then the heroes make a comeback and the villains are beaten. But Grima's victory was so much assured that it took time travel just to undo it. His victory was that gripping. It's a feat that no other villain or godlike entity ever achieved. Ashera was close.

That's what got me. He won. Without otherworldly intervention and distorting reality itself, defeating Grima is impossible. Even in Future Past, without Naga sending in the Awakening team in there, Grima wins. 

19 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Time travel plots where people go back in time to fix things are also nothing new. It's been used by such glorious things as Disney cartoon TV movies, as well as a Terminator sequel, and the JRPG classic Chrono Trigger (and Lavos is just a parasite). Does it say a villain was strong, or at least successful? Yes. But that does not mean that they are a good villain.

 

I am annoyed you did not include Radiant Historia there. XP

Play it.

19 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And should King Nachtigal in Tales of Xillia have seen past the world as his birthright? He doesn't need to. -Well he should have to be a more interesting villain!

1

I really need to get back to my Tales of series games. So many Tales games that I have not yet played.

19 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And being manipulative/letting things naturally flow in your direction instead of constant forceful intervention isn't a good thing? It's cunning, and practiced by Grima since Chrom and co. delightfully wipe out Walhart for it. You also say Grima had no counters in Lucina's world, and yet praise them for it. Yato being incomplete and Falchion being incomplete is different how?

2

Actually, there WERE counters. Only that Grima has it protected. The heroes managed to get the counters but then failed to deliver them all. And when Grima realized Lucina made contact with Naga, he got serious and Lucina and the Awakening kids only barely survived the attack. 

Why he never destroyed them is likely because I attribute it that they simply cannot be destroyed. And given the firm believer over fate and destiny that both Grima and the Grimleal are, Grima would never allow himself to simply throw the items far away since he would likely believe the items would have a way of letting fate return itself to the hands of his enemies.

21 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Also, Robin being the only counter to Grima is little different from Julia being the only counter to Grima. Why did Grima need Robin intact? Why not, instead of attempting to brainwash them at the very beginning, didn't Grima just kill them and hijack the soul fragments or body or blood or whatever was useful of them? "Playing?" Loplius likes to play too.

 

Like I said above. Grima is a firm believer of fate and destiny. His hasty attempt to become Grima already backfired, in that he tried to revive himself before it was timed in destiny. So he would try to instead let events play out with only some interventions to set things back up. To most, destiny is just a figure of speech, but in Fire Emblem, destiny tends to be a real force. Hell, Kaga literally calls quintessence a "force of fate". 

25 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Insofar as Ephraim!Lyon is anything to go by, I prefer the blurred possession approach to a direct one.

1

This is more of a matter of perspective, but the blurred possession for me tends to make it harder to even know the ultimate villain in the end, and it just feels disappointing. Like Loptous.

27 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

...I'm afraid this topic is going to turn into people bashing you, and you just responding because you're such an ardent Awakening defender (not that there is anything wrong with defending Awakening) that you can't let the slights go (I'm sure after our little spat you think the same of me with regards to RD). And that thus it'll get locked. I already see the coals burning hot in comments like this when you denigrate the rest of the franchise. I mean to hold good, fair argument with my criticism, but I'm afraid it won't go that way. Somebody, you, me, another, or all of us, are going to trip the mod wire trigger and thus the Binding Shield we can't ever undo.

Maybe they will flame me for this. But you know what? I'll speak my mind and point out how even the other villains aren't exactly that great either. People talk like the best villains are like Manfroy, Arvis, and Lotpous, because the Jugdral series is some Holy Grail. Well tough shit, they made some of the dumbest mistakes ever. Arvis not realizing he was being played despite being a cunning mind himself, or Manfroy for making such a mistake.

Grima is mostly one note, but how many Fire Emblem villains are so super deep? 

21 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

I think one major issue with Grima compared to Loptyr is that when Awakening focuses on Validar, he usually just looks incompetent. Which makes me wonder how much plot bullshit it is that the first generation actually lost to him just to make it so there is a plot. We never really see Validar doing anything to revive Grima in the game, unless it also includes failing massively in his task. Which makes Validar more forgettable and not a good villain, and Grima coming to power in the first place even odder.

1

You mean how in the original timeline, Validar killed Emmeryn and stole the Fire Emblem successfully? He'd have been an unknown mastermind in the shadows had it not been for Lucina's intervention. 

19 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Manfroy made a really big fuck up by letting Julia live, yes, but in the first generation we see him do things that succeed and lead the way for Loptyr to return to Jugdral. He and the Loptyr clan are actively searching for Deirdre. He was in contact with Arvis. He abducted Deirdre away from Sigurd's army. He made it so that Arvis married Deirdre. And we're told he gave Julius the book. So aside from his biggest mistake ever, Manfroy was shown doing a lot of things to make Loptyr reborn on-screen. Which I do think is better done than Validar constantly fucking up at every opportunity.

1

That's the problem I have with Manfroy. He's such a mastermind that this one fuck up he did is just too stupid to forgive. Like, he could have won. Right there. This wasn't like Grima where Grima had all the resources to completely crush his enemies if they became a threat. If Julia became a real threat, they were done for. Julius even makes that clear, but Manfroy just insists that she stays alive. Right when the enemy is coming after them. 

22 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Call me a cynic, but I get the feeling that the only reason Awakening and Fates had such world-destroying villains was to write outrealms and time traveling into their plot.

Not really. FE7 is the first game to introduce the concept of there being other worlds, since the Dragon's Gate appears there. 

And Fates was trying to copy off of Awakening's popularity and success.

And world destroying villains already existed with Ashera/Ashunera.

[Sunwoo]

4 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Grima is mostly one note, but how many Fire Emblem villains are so super deep? 

No one has an issue with anyone liking Grima as a villain, but objectively Grima is just as weak (if not weaker) than every other FE villain. One can be positively biased towards something and admit it has problems.

Personally, I think Sephiran was the best done villain.

4 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

You mean how in the original timeline, Validar killed Emmeryn and stole the Fire Emblem successfully? He'd have been an unknown mastermind in the shadows had it not been for Lucina's intervention.

That sounds like it would've been interesting to see. So why didn't we?

You seem to have missed my point. I don't care how imposing or successful a villain was in "a previous life" or "in another timeline". If I don't see that competence and success in the timeline we are playing in now in some form of on-screen, that villain has failed in my eyes. That's similar to someone bragging that they're a "master tactician" but never doing any "master tactician" things in their actual story. Show, don't tell.

6 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

That's the problem I have with Manfroy. He's such a mastermind that this one fuck up he did is just too stupid to forgive. Like, he could have won. Right there. This wasn't like Grima where Grima had all the resources to completely crush his enemies if they became a threat. If Julia became a real threat, they were done for. Julius even makes that clear, but Manfroy just insists that she stays alive. Right when the enemy is coming after them. 

Again, Manfroy done fucked up. But that doesn't change the fact that he's had more on-screen successes than Validar.

9 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Not really. FE7 is the first game to introduce the concept of there being other worlds, since the Dragon's Gate appears there. 

And Fates was trying to copy off of Awakening's popularity and success.

And world destroying villains already existed with Ashera/Ashunera.

Awakening and Fates use it with much more obnoxiousness. FE7 may have technically been the first, but "other worlds" are not used in FE7 like they are in the FE13 and FE14. In FE7, that "other world" has more dragons and apparently the air is different from that of Elibe. It's an actual different world In FE13 and FE14, they're taken to be more of "parallel version of Ylisse/Hoshido/Nohr where the avatar might be of the opposite gender, different appearance, and different people are married". And time travel wasn't possible in Elibe either. I don't consider the world beyond the Dragon's Gate, and FE13/14's outrealms to be the same thing.

Yeah, Ashera could destroy the world, but Ashera destroying the world and causing its survivors to flee to another time or to another world is never the plot of RD.

[omegaxis1]

2 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

No one has an issue with anyone liking Grima as a villain, but objectively Grima is just as weak (if not weaker) than every other FE villain. One can be positively biased towards something and admit it has problems.

Personally, I think Sephiran was the best done villain.

The term you're using there, objectively, is very much subjective. Where you find Grima to be weak, I do not. I find villains like Loptous to be overall weaker as a villain. Grima at the very least I felt was truly built up. Thanks to cutscenes, I got to SEE the terror Grima reigned, and how even Lucina ended up showing how terrified of Grima she was. And thanks to Future Past, we got to see just how badly the future was. We ended up seeing how the Awakening kids are fighting valiantly, but they ultimately were destined to die. They were fighting in vain and had we not intervened, they were done. Which is way more than what I ever got from Loptous. 

Plus, Grima one shotting the entire army is also something I found awesome.

So no, your mention that Grima is "objectively" weaker is untrue. Because it's purely subjective because it isn't a cold hard fact.

5 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

That sounds like it would've been interesting to see. So why didn't we?

 

Because Lucina intervened. 

5 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

You seem to have missed my point. I don't care how imposing or successful a villain was in "a previous life" or "in another timeline". If I don't see that competence and success in the timeline we are playing in now in some form of on-screen, that villain has failed in my eyes. That's similar to someone bragging that they're a "master tactician" but never doing any "master tactician" things in their actual story. Show, don't tell.

1

Really? Look closer at what had happened.

In Chapter 1, we learn that Plegia is trying to instigate a war with Ylisse. Chapter 3, we learn that Plegia is trying to raise tensions between Ylisse and Ferox. Chapter 5, when Plegia realizes that Ylisse and Ferox are gonna ally with one another, they immediately abducted Maribelle and managed to create an ultimatum where no matter what happens, Gangrel will be able to provoke a war. He was able to perfectly make it that Ylisse are the provokers of the war.

Chapter 6, we see how without Lucina's intervention, Chrom would get critically injured by an assassin, and Emmeryn would have died, that Validar got all the way into Ylisstol castle right after the war was declared. And Grima shows himself to intervene from Lucina's meddling and thus saved Validar.

Despite the intervention, chapter 7 shows how Gangrel immediately attacked and got Emmeryn and laid a trap to get Chrom to come in. 

Chapter 9, despite nearly saving Emmeryn, Aversa, and possibly Grima himself, intervened in that the Risen archers.

We DO see the competence of the villains. It's just because it's so rushed that people overlook it so easily.

13 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Again, Manfroy done fucked up. But that doesn't change the fact that he's had more on-screen successes than Validar.

The on-screen success for me is countered MASSIVELY by the on-screen screw up he did. No matter how competently a villain is in the beginning if they screw up in something this badly, it just ruins everything about them. Becuase they SHOULDN'T be that stupid. 

If a villain is incompetent, fine. It's easy to expect them to fail. But if a villain is that super competent that they build themselves up, that failure is all the more damaging.

16 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Awakening and Fates use it with much more obnoxiousness. FE7 may have technically been the first, but "other worlds" are not used in FE7 like they are in the FE13 and FE14. In FE7, that "other world" has more dragons and apparently the air is different from that of Elibe. It's an actual different world In FE13 and FE14, they're taken to be more of "parallel version of Ylisse/Hoshido/Nohr where the avatar might be of the opposite gender, different appearance, and different people are married". And time travel wasn't possible in Elibe either. I don't consider the world beyond the Dragon's Gate, and FE13/14's outrealms to be the same thing.

2

Except they are. It's not a simple case of being a different continent. If going on a different continent would save the dragons, then the dragons would not need to create a portal like the Dragon's Gate like they did. Cause dragons would clearly have the ability to cross oceans rather easily given their abilities. So if you allow for dimension hopping, you opened time travel right then and there. There's no going around that. Because to cross dimensions means to cross time and space itself.

18 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Yeah, Ashera could destroy the world, but Ashera destroying the world and causing its survivors to flee to another time or to another world is never the plot of RD.

Doesn't change the fact that anything that is criticized on Awakening and Fates, it isn't something that they started. It was started way earlier. 

Awakening was the last intended game of the franchise. So Awakening wanted to be able to cram references in. It was to give Fire Emblem a send-off. Fates wasn't trying to do that. It was just trying to ride off the popularity of Awakening.

[Sunwoo]

Okay, this is way too long so I'm just not going to quote anymore.

I legit disagree. Both Grima and Loptyr had their issues, but Awakening's issue was that its plot was so split up that it doesn't really get to focus on the threat of Grima as much as it should. Gangrel arc really doesn't talk about Grima. Valm arc is such filler I forget why we're even going through this every time I play it. Grima's presence doesn't really feel as "imposing" until the last five chapters, which is too little too late.

But again, that's just my opinion. When I say objectively, I mean someone who's not me or you or has any emotional connections to FE. If you asked a person who doesn't know about the games or the characters and has no stake in the matter about all FE villains and asked them who they thought was best or worse, I do not think that hypothetical person would say that Grima is better than the other villains. That doesn't mean I think they'll say Grima is worse, but that they're about equal to the majority of the other villains. Equally meh. Which is the point. It is not my subjective opinion I am talking about.

Lucina intervening to stop Validar is a cop out excuse. Even if he failed in that one particular aspect, why don't we see him succeeding in anything else? That is my issue! That he never succeeds at anything on-screen. There are plenty of things he could do to show success that doesn't involve Lucina interfering. Also, "we don't see the competence of the villains because the plot is rushed" isn't an excuse. If it is, then it's a terrible one that doesn't excuse anything.

Manfroy's existent on-screen successes is better than Validar's no on-screen successes, even with the major fuck-up. It doesn't make him better, but it does make him feel more of a threat.

You miss the point that I'm trying to make in the last two statements. The issue that I have isn't that things like outrealms and world destroying villains exist. I'm perfectly fine with that.  What I'm not fine with is that the existence of outrealms and time traveling and world destroying villains drive the plot.

Ultimately, time traveling and outrealm babies is just a way to justify grown kids fighting alongside their parents while the parents themselves are still young without the need to kill them off in the main story, avoiding possible fan outrage at having their waifu or husbando (and themselves) die. Outrealms in Fates specifically is used as a justification for "all three paths are technically canon and have occurred". Outrealms in general are used as a way to say "look, every playthrough is a different outrealm so every marriage option is canon somewhere!"

Basically, I don't think outrealms and world destroying villains are used to primarily drive the story. I think they're primarily used to justify more fanservice-y elements and the story has to justify why this exists.

We can agree to disagree on Grima's effectiveness as a villain compared to Loptyr. But until you can actually see the point I'm trying to make with my latter statements (whether you agree with it or not) I'm not going to bother arguing over something I'm not even saying because you seem to think I'm making a different point than I am.

[omegaxis1]

9 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

I legit disagree. Both Grima and Loptyr had their issues, but Awakening's issue was that its plot was so split up that it doesn't really get to focus on the threat of Grima as much as it should. Gangrel arc really doesn't talk about Grima. Valm arc is such filler I forget why we're even going through this every time I play it. Grima's presence doesn't really feel as "imposing" until the last five chapters, which is too little too late.

 

Awesome. And that's your perspective. Whereas I found the story to actually make sense. Yeah, the game is extremely rushed with its three arcs. Plegia arc is all about Plegia, but remember why the war was desired, or what the reason the war was desired. Because the former Exalt attacked them, and it was stated that it was his attempt to wipe out the Grimleal.

Valm arc, Walhart desired to end the reign of gods, and Grima was the threat that was arriving. And because of the threat he imposed, the Grimleal sent Excellus and managed to provoke Walhart to attack Ylisse before Walhart's reign over Valm was secured and he hadn't stamped out the rebellion. Not to mention, the gathering of the Gemstones. 

Though it all seems like they are different and unimportant, everything leads to Grima. He was the threat, but he was the looming threat that was arriving that people were focused on what was in front of him to realize it. 

Was it too rushed? Definitely. I cannot deny that. They crammed a lot, but the story definitely showed that everything was in fact connected, and even what feels like filler had a purpose behind it.

5 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

But again, that's just my opinion. When I say objectively, I mean someone who's not me or you or has any emotional connections to FE. If you asked a person who doesn't know about the games or the characters and has no stake in the matter about all FE villains and asked them who they thought was best or worse, I do not think that hypothetical person would say that Grima is better than the other villains. That doesn't mean I think they'll say Grima is worse, but that they're about equal to the majority of the other villains. Equally meh. Which is the point. It is not my subjective opinion I am talking about.

1

There is no such thing. Because everything about who you ask can already have been developed to like or appreciate this or that. What you say to someone that never played Fire Emblem or any emotional investment in it, they could find Grima to be awesome, or they could find them to be meh, or bad. So if one person says that Grima is good, and one says Grima is bad, neither of which have any emotional ties to FE. What is the fact? 

15 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Lucina intervening to stop Validar is a cop out excuse. Even if he failed in that one particular aspect, why don't we see him succeeding in anything else? That is my issue! That he never succeeds at anything on-screen. There are plenty of things he could do to show success that doesn't involve Lucina interfering. Also, "we don't see the competence of the villains because the plot is rushed" isn't an excuse. If it is, then it's a terrible one that doesn't excuse anything.

2

Really? Pretty sure him being able to get the Fire Emblem and the gemstones in one place counts as being very competent. Instead of having to work to get it, he had the good guys do the work for him. It's really smart and saves a lot of effort. The cop out was Robin having Basilio switch things out. I can believe the vision he had since that was shown in the very beginning, but they hadn't set the twist of Basilio well enough. Can't deny that. 

19 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Manfroy's existent on-screen successes is better than Validar's no on-screen successes, even with the major fuck-up. It doesn't make him better, but it does make him feel more of a threat.

1

And makes the same on-screen screw up that much worse. No matter how you dish it, a villain that is built up to be super competent that should not screw up that badly infinitely worse than a villain that doesn't have as much on-screen success. Not to say that Validar had no on-screen success since we literally see him take the Fire Emblem in the end. And we saw that Validar can get inside Robin's head way earlier, so him being able to control Robin doesn't actually look like it's a cop out there.

23 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

You miss the point that I'm trying to make in the last two statements. The issue that I have isn't that things like outrealms and world destroying villains exist. I'm perfectly fine with that.  What I'm not fine with is that the existence of outrealms and time traveling and world destroying villains drive the plot.

5

No, it doesn't. Time travel doesn't DRIVE the plot. It's not something that is used so much that the plot revolves solely around it.

You know what drives the plot? When Ashera wakes up all of a sudden, fires  a beam, petrifies everyone that isn't plot-related or player-related, and then despite everyone fighting, they go, "Let's now STOP fighting, and now work together so that we can stop this goddess." THAT'S driving the plot. The plot literally FORCED them to work together.

Or the Blood Contract FORCING them to fight one another in the first place. That is what drives the plot. 

Time travel didn't DRIVE the plot. It was a plot point and was mentioned really one-time and that's it. It wasn't the major factor that was used to determine literally everything. It was used as a means to try and avert, but even time travel wasn't what defeated Grima. Robin himself acted as the thing that stopped Grima in the long run. 

27 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Ultimately, time traveling and outrealm babies is just a way to justify grown kids fighting alongside their parents while the parents themselves are still young without the need to kill them off in the main story, avoiding possible fan outrage at having their waifu or husbando (and themselves) die. Outrealms in Fates specifically is used as a justification for "all three paths are technically canon and have occurred". Outrealms in general are used as a way to say "look, every playthrough is a different outrealm so every marriage option is canon somewhere!"

5

Just like how, ever since FE4, multiple types of marriages and pairings existed, and then FE6 did it again. Oh look, so many pairings, but all of them could and likely are canon. Because Kaga designed the game with the intention that players create their own story. Who marries who is just one aspect he added in. You think Awakening is the first there too? 

That's what I have issues with. People trying to pin that everything that Awakening did and criticize for is all Awakening's fault when really, the problem has existed for a long time back. 

Awakening didn't start anything. It took what the other games did and made it noticeable.

[Ottservia]

Okay for me personally I don't think Grima's appearance in awakening isn't all too bad if you view him with the mind set that he's supposed to be a force of nature villain. Now it's handled somewhat clumsily but I feel they did an okay-ish job especially when you take into account future past. He also has a decent intimidation factor thanks to some flashback cutscenes courtesy of Lucina. which in my opinion makes him slightly better than formortiis because we do actually see him once before the big reveal.  Going back to the whole force of nature thing is that Force of nature villains don't necessarily need a motivation.The draw of a force of nature villain isn't so much their motivations, characterization, goals, etc. it's how their presence/actions effect the main characters and the exploration of those effects. In this sense I believe Grima succeeds to a degree because we see how bad Grima's take over effects Lucina and the other future kids. How his actions in killing most of humanity turns them depressed, jaded, and overall traumatized and had to develop coping mechanisms to deal with it all. In the future past we see how the fate of being Grima's vessal has effected robin and by extension Morgan. He loathes his fate and wishes for death. The scene in the bad ending with Lucina is probably one of the best moments in the entire game. Those are just my two cents on the matter. I might mull over this some more to get a better grasp of my thoughts.

[saisymbolic]

I thought Grima had a cool dragon design. Kind of irked such a decent design was wasted on a villain, I personally feel, had no real threatening presence.

Never played SoV and don't particularly care to, so any characterization there is lost on me.

I sort of like the personality given in Heroes, despite being non-canon. His VA really sells it as well. I do think some fans take Heroes' characterization too far and make Grima a little too sympathetic, but it's not like I dislike it, am repulsed by it or anything like that.

I also want to summon him with a nature other than a -DEF in Heroes; I will even take -ATK at this point in exchange. My summoner support can only do so much in patching up his defense.

That's it.

Edited August 2, 2018 by saisymbolic
grammar

[omegaxis1]

5 minutes ago, saisymbolic said:

I sort of like the personality given in Heroes, despite being non-canon. His VA really sells it as well. I do think some fans take Heroes' characterization too far and make Grima a little too sympathetic, but it's not like I dislike it, am repulsed by it or anything like that.

 

Is it really non-canon? I mean, here we have a much weaker and calmer Grima talking. The Grima we end up seeing in Awakening is either already at full power, or is nearly at full power. 

8 minutes ago, saisymbolic said:

I thought Grima had a cool dragon design.

Love that design too, especially how it's to display that Grima is so above humans that he has no physique where he has to truly touch the ground with his dragon body.

[saisymbolic]

8 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Is it really non-canon? I mean, here we have a much weaker and calmer Grima talking. The Grima we end up seeing in Awakening is either already at full power, or is nearly at full power. 

I mean, it could be canon. It could not be. Or maybe it's both at the same time?

We can also say Xander in tight swimming trunks smacking people with a giant Lilith Floatie, Leo using a tome that spits tomatoes at people's faces and Chrom crushing naughty heroes' heads with a Sack-o'-Gifts is canon, too.

and i wouldn't necessarily be against any of those

8 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Love that design too, especially how it's to display that Grima is so above humans that he has no physique where he has to truly touch the ground with his dragon body.

Yeah, that was one aspect I really liked about Grima. Overall, I really liked the Grimleal aesthetic, to be honest.

Edited August 2, 2018 by saisymbolic
more grammar