Do Fire Emblem Lords need Character Development?

[Icelerate]

Often times, it is often argued that certain lords are boring just because they don't have character arcs. But protagonists in other media have shown to be compelling in spite of them being flat characters. Here is a video that discusses this often repeated criticism. Do you believe this also applies to various Fire Emblem lords or do they need to be developed as much as possible? 

[Slumber]

If they don't start out interesting and there's a clear character arc, yes.

Secondary and tertiary characters can typically get by without it if we can get the gist of their character. You need to be a really good writer to pull off a main character undergoing no growth, because it often feels like there's no forward momentum in the story due to the main character's role as the central character.

Edited August 29, 2018 by Slumber

[TheGoodHoms]

I my opinion, Fire Emblem is as a series isn't really interested in telling compelling narratives for the most part. It only really wants to make its characters just likable enough to make perma-death feel more threatening. After all, it always sucks when a character you like bites the dust in any game, not just Fire Emblem.

[omegaxis1]

Fire Emblem always follows the exact same formula. There's a war, a group, or an evil cult, and you need to stop it. 

All protags follow under three principles:

• They dislike war.
• They have a desire to protect the people around them.
• They have a strong sense of responsibility, especially in times of need.

Even characters like Hector, Ephraim, Ike, and Chrom, who prefers not to be the ruler and enjoys a good fight, they never shirk from a responsibility that is placed upon them. Even if Ike complains about having to be the leader of the united armies twice, would still do it since he's the only one that can. 

So with this, Fire Emblem should actually be more of a character-driven story, rather than a plot-driven story.

[Ertrick36]

Well, there has to be something to them.

Sigurd is a character who doesn't really develop - he doesn't change between the Prologue and Chapter 5.  But he manages to be a good protagonist by playing a compelling role and through the gradual exposition of his character (so he gets character development in some sense, it's just not character progression).  Indeed, without Sigurd, the 2nd Generation wouldn't have been as compelling.

A lot of the time too, these characters receive most of their development in supports/base conversations, just like any of the minor characters.  That comes at the expense of development in the story, so you might not really see a character get past a death or betrayal in a natural way, or otherwise develop in a sensible progression.  I hope someone here has married Lucina to Robin immediately after a few choice scenes as their first Awakening marriage.

4 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

There's a war, a group, or an evil cult, and you need to stop it. 

This description honestly applies so broadly to most media that it's like saying water can make stuff wet.

6 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

• They dislike war.

Same with this.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Neat video.

However, I think Fire Emblem is missing an opportunity by not giving it's protagonists an arc. The video points out how the main character's arc can be substituted with the arcs, which is true, but Fire Emblem's supporting cast is...inconsistent. While this mechanic might not always be around, for the moment, we can assume that most of the characters in these games can die. That means they can't really impact the story all that much and can't have all that many scenes about them outside of support conversations. Their arcs are tertiary and hidden away. The only character (or at least, one the only characters) who can't die is the main character, which means they're one of the only characters who can, guaranteed, experience growth and development that the player can witness.

[Jotari]

Well Ike's whole character arc in Path of Radiance is specifically about how he doesn't develop, so I'm going to say no. They do need to be interesting and feel relevant and natural in the plot though.

[Interdimensional Observer]

33 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well Ike's whole character arc in Path of Radiance is specifically about how he doesn't develop, so I'm going to say no.

I'm feeling this is because Ike is in ways an idealist, like many FE lords.

"Development" would mean losing some of that starry-eyed idealism, but realism and cynicism are bad things, we want people to be idealists IRL and not to be cynical/realists.

Therefore development is dodged to press home the point "be an idealist and do not waiver from your ideals" and you shouldn't compromise, particularly with bad, because bad is bad and bad is never good. A character must stay "pure" and true, even through hardships.

Is this message wrong? Well we don't want people to give up conviction in good causes. We don't want people to stop trusting everyone else completely, we don't want a world of immoral unscrupulous cynics. We don't want Ike to become a racist, we don't want Roy compromising with the misanthrope Zephiel, or worse ever consider agreeing with him. And IRL, people survive terrible ordeals and hardships and cling to their causes and faith and we praise it. We like environmentalists who don't just give up in light of so so so much environmental screwing by humanity, we like people who provide aid in war zones despite all the dangers keep to the belief humanity is inherently good and the world is a good place. We want athletes who don't do drugs even when everyone else they're competing with is doing so.

 

But in entertainment media, well things are different. We don't mind suffering and value compromising/swaying so much, even if we don't necessarily absolutely love it and want it all the time. But I'm too tired presently to explain this further right now.

[Re: The weirdo.]

well even in spite of the video, yeah, they do need development usually, since FE's setup tends to make it hard to flesh out minor characters without wasting everyone's time, or creating a very clumsy support system. I think that FE4 does this quite well, with its short, on the battlefield convos, that add lore, and flesh out certain character relationships, but even then Sigurd doesn't get much development, and is not responsible for developing other characters at all. He's basically an engine for the story, and, I mean, sure he's flawed, but he's a boring character, in a lateral sense. HOWEVER, this is fine for gen 1 of FE4, because, despite him being the protagonist, he is not the crux of the story.

I would argue that gen 1 is a tragic tale with the build up to a tragic end, with the convos between Quan and Ayra, the king of Verdane's death, etc. all hinting towards a grand plan that is being prepared for, which is fulfilled in SPITE of Sigurd's role in the story, meaning that you don't even need to make the main character the crux of others' development to produce a good story. this is a good way to dodge the pitfall of marry sue-ing the MC, because marry sues, by necessity, over centralize the world of the story around them and their "awesome talent".

So those are my thoughts on main characters in general not being developed. 

[Icelerate]

On 29/08/2018 at 11:59 PM, Jotari said:

Well Ike's whole character arc in Path of Radiance is specifically about how he doesn't develop, so I'm going to say no. They do need to be interesting and feel relevant and natural in the plot though.

But I always hear from Ike fans that Ike's development and character arc in PoR is really good. But I think they misinterpret what Ike's character is supposed to be. He's a paragon first and foremost, and whatever character development he gets is minor and irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. 

[bottlegnomes]

On 8/30/2018 at 12:47 AM, Interdimensional Observer said:

immoral unscrupulous cynics

Hey! Most cynics are just bitter, not immoral or unscrupulous.

Interesting video, so definitely thanks for sharing that, OP.

I'm in agreement with the video, though I'd go further. There's external conflict and internal conflict. A lot of stories do have both, but they don't have to to be good. In a purely external conflict, the arc is overcoming the bad guy. This is exactly what Fire Emblem is. Indiana Jones, A New Hope, Seven Samurai, The Iliad, The Odyssey, the vast majority of video games. There's lots of beloved books and movies that are exactly that. When there's internal conflict, i.e. the character wrestling with some part of themselves, then there actually has to be a character arc. But that doesn't actually have to result in a change. The lack of change can be the arc. They don't affect change in others, like in the video, nor do they change in any fundamental way. For example, someone failing to overcome their flaws or learn from their mistakes. Generally, they're not exactly cheerful stories. A very well received movie that's one of my favorite relatively recent movies (spoilered below just to be safe) is a wonderful example of this.

Spoiler

Inside Llewyn Davis

Returning to the internal vs. external thing for a moment, I feel like a lot of the criticism of this kind comes from a preoccupation our society has with character-driven stories, generally centering around or heavily featuring internal conflict. This is ironic coming from me because I lean toward preferring those, but I think it's a little misguided. They're viewed as more literary because, generally, they allow an avenue to explore more themes and often incorporate more literary elements , but that's resulted in us being told internal conflict is good, which has resulted in us thinking that anything that doesn't have internal conflict and a definite character arc isn't good. It also doesn't help that the literary community can be unbelievably pretentious and dismissive. But anyway, this focus goes to the point where we'll shoehorn in a character arc to justify why a story that's basically all external is good, re the works I mentioned earlier, or people saying things like "It's not a good story but it's a good movie."

Edited September 15, 2018 by bottlegnomes

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Icelerate said:

But I always hear from Ike fans that Ike's development and character arc in PoR is really good. But I think they misinterpret what Ike's character is supposed to be. He's a paragon first and foremost, and whatever character development he gets is minor and irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. 

Well to expand on what I said, throughout the game, several characters, most prominently Nasir, comment on how young and naive Ike is and how experiencing war will change him as a character. Part of his character arc is the fact that he doesn't actually change and become more jaded, cynical or morally questionable due to the situation he's forced in. Be it allies above his station or enemies he has no hope of beating, Ike presses forward and stays fundamentally true to himself. He of course does still grow and become more accustomed to leadership, so it's not fair to say he doesn't develop at all, but a large part of the point is that he doesn't need to change who he is to adapt to a world he's largely unfamiliar with.