Surtr is my favorite Heroes OC, fight me

[omegaxis1]

13 minutes ago, Lewyn said:

Sure Celica you can trust Jedah, just cause he sacrificed his own daughters to Duma to make them mindless husks and looks like a demon rather than a human, sure.  

 

While yes, Jedah is evil, the case is that Celica was desiring to have Mila be restored, and ultimately, both Celica and Jedah believe that the gods are the solution to their problems. How it was handled is the issue.

[Lewyn]

1 minute ago, omegaxis1 said:

While yes, Jedah is evil, the case is that Celica was desiring to have Mila be restored, and ultimately, both Celica and Jedah believe that the gods are the solution to their problems. How it was handled is the issue.

The way it was handled was atrocious and a disservice to her character, it seemed a very forced plot device.  

[omegaxis1]

2 minutes ago, Lewyn said:

The way it was handled was atrocious and a disservice to her character, it seemed a very forced plot device.  

It was handled very badly. However, the desire to believe that gods are the solution is a problem that Valentia is facing, as humanity is revolved around them. Though Celica's selflessness to offer her soul for the sake of the people along with Alm's speech about humans no longer needing gods is what made Mila lift the seal on Falchion. 

... Except because of the presentation, someone actually assumed that Celica was actually not needed.

[bottlegnomes]

3 hours ago, omegaxis1 said:

Have you seen Marth's arms? The guy has the face of someone that is pure and innocent, just looking at those arms closer shows that Marth is seriously buff underneath that armor.

You were not kidding. Some of the others are pretty slim, but DS Marth is jacked 0_0

Edited September 9, 2018 by bottlegnomes

[saisymbolic]

My thoughts on Surtr:

Positives: I quite like his design. I won't say it's groundbreaking by any means, but I think he looks cool and gets across the kind of place Muspell is and the kind of character Surtr is.

Negatives: Um, everything else?

So, let me explain. I do agree with the notion that Surtr is meant to be more a force of nature than a person - or, at least, that's how he comes off to me. But, whether he's a force of nature or not, he's bad regardless. This stems from two major things, in my opinion:

1.) The Book 2 plot line and characters were abruptly and poorly introduced. Had the conflict between Fire and Ice Lands been foreshadowed or mentioned Day 1, I think all the characters involved would have benefited greatly, and we as players would have been more receptive to the shift. Because there was no build up of the Fire-Ice Land Conflict in any type of way, there is no cohesion between the two plot points. This makes Surtr seem more like a "villain of the week," instead of an intimidating force that looms over the heroes like the writers may have been trying to achieve. 

and

2.) He offers nothing to the story or characters in any way. A good villain, in my opinion, challenges the main character(s) on a fundamental level; they make the character(s) change internally by forcing them to constantly reexamine, readjust or reaffirm themselves internally throughout the narrative. Surtr does not do that. At all. Ever. He does nothing for the narrative other than provide pain for the characters and players. And not even good pain that serves a narrative purpose, such as character development or plot advancement. Just pain from being a stain on an already mediocre plot. They could replace him with a talking amorphous blob, and things would still be the same.

The thing with "force of nature" villains is that a writer can forego certain elements of them without compromising the effectiveness of the villain too much. This is because a "force of nature" villain is not about who they are but what they represent. The best force of nature villain I've ever experienced is Fire Lord Ozai from Avatar: the Last Airbender. What he lacked in characterization was more than made up for in what he represented in opposition to the main character, Aang. He forced Aang to constantly change as Aang desperately sought a way to defeat him in a manner that didn't compromise his core values and beliefs.

I don't see that with Surtr. He's just . . . not good. At all. And the only thing that will make me happy at this point is when he dies for good, never to return. Ever.

also best boi is helbendi and the ink machine get it straight

[Sunwoo]

I don't find Surtr interesting, but I think I've long given up on the story of Heroes at this point.

But I will say one thing that does annoy me with regard to Surtr -- it's not really Surtr himself but Surtr compared to the other villain of Heroes.

Veronica is a cute, preteen girl who is lonely under her bratty exterior and actually grows to realize that caring about the people is what makes one a good ruler (thanks Seth, no sarcasm), and her villainous deeds are actually driven by a voice in her head. Standing besides Surtr, she's not really a villain at all. Surtr is a hideous guy with no redeeming traits who somehow has two gorgeous (aka normal-looking) daughters. Like Garon from Fates, he's just there to be evil for the lulz except for the part where he was apparently a reasonable man once. Do we know why he's going around conquering and killing anything? Nope, but the game doesn't care, they just want him to be the obligatory enemy that we have to fight against. If it turns out he was actually the pawn for something else, is anyone going to give a shit? No, because he will be dead and he did a lot of unforgivable things.

So, what I'm saying is that IS are predictable cowards who can't make an actually evil female villain, and want us to sympathize with the good-looking women while they're perfectly fine with making hideous male villains with no redeeming traits because we're not supposed to sympathize with them. As bored as I am of Loki (because being mysterious does not work in your favor when the story advances at a snail's pace), IS is clearly trying to make her stick around and have motivations that are supposed to pique our interest. Surtr is just there to be a hate sponge. Surtr is a tool, and therefore I feel nothing towards him. I'm kind in the same boat with regards to Veronica and Surtr's daughters for the same reason.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Sunwoo

[Jotari]

12 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

SD makes it clear that Medeus isn't back at full power yet, which is why he can only maintain dragon form in Dolhr Keep. Having never died before during Anri's time, Medeus was at full power, a Shadow Dragon. It was in Anri's time that Medeus got his epithet, humans carried it over to him in Marth's, not knowing that Medeus had weakened and could no longer claim the title for the time being.

Why Medeus is stronger in Mystery over SD, despite having been resurrected for a shorter time, I would imagine might have something to do with the maidens sacrifice and being at the Dragon's Table. 

He's resurrected before the maidens are sacrificed however. And Gotoh says he's becoming a Dark Dragon naturally before he even realizes Gharnef is still around and the reason for the maidens being captured.

10 hours ago, omegaxis1 said:

The Medeus in New Mystery is stronger than Medeus was in both in SD and back in his prime. However, even at that level, he was not fully resurrected, as he had not yet harnessed the life essence of the four maidens. Some argue that the Shadow/Dark Dragon is basically an Earth Dragon attaining the power of a Divine Dragon. 

Divine Dragons are NEVER depicted at full strength. They are always handicapped. So it makes sense that the Dark Dragon Medeus would be handicapped as well, not being fully revived and thus not at full power.

Considering the Earth Dragons managed to wipe out all but three divine dragons during the war, I think it's safe to assume Earth Dragons are close to if not already on par with Divine Dragons. Unless a tonne of the Earth Dragons in that war were actually Dark Dragons. They at least seem to be as equally durable as Divine Dragons even outside of the Dark Dragon form.

6 hours ago, omegaxis1 said:

While yes, Jedah is evil, the case is that Celica was desiring to have Mila be restored, and ultimately, both Celica and Jedah believe that the gods are the solution to their problems. How it was handled is the issue.

If they just changed Jedah's facial expressions to make him look even slightly trustworthy or sympathetic and cut three or four of his crazier lines, it would have done wonders for that plotline. He can even keep the blue skin, just don't make him look like this

Edited September 10, 2018 by Jotari

[bottlegnomes]

1 hour ago, saisymbolic said:

A good villain, in my opinion, challenges the main character(s) on a fundamental level

I'm fully aware that, despite not meaning to, I'm going to sound like a douche in saying this, but that's 100% not true. Even in FE, that's not true. Most fans like Nergal and Lyon is oft cited as the best villain in the series, and neither of them do that. Lyon is just we need to stop our friend because he sold his soul to the devil. Eirika and Ephraim never question whether Lyon's course of action was right or even justified and Nergal's entire backstory is basically hidden from the protagonists. Heck, Arvis is about the only one that does that to any extent that people like. Ashnard is another, and while people like him a lot, he also gets a lot of crap for not taking an active enough role in the story, despite that making complete sense in the context of his character. Camus is another example of people bashing characters who do challenge ideals. Not so much in story, as he's simply viewed as a dedicated knight by Marth and company, but Camus's ideology is diametrically opposed to how we're taught to think about enemy allegiances in Fire Emblem, despite his beliefs being something very common in the real world: Don't commit high treason. I can't tell you how many people have criticized Camus for being a bad character because, when it gets down to it, their beliefs differ from his.

That was a lot of ranting, but this bugs me because it's conflating the idea of an external conflict and an internal conflict which can exist completely independently, even if great stories do intertwine the two. This is what bugs me about a lot of the criticisms of Surtr and stories in general. People act as if a story can't be good if it doesn't have some deep nuanced internal strife for the protagonist or that the villain has to play into that in a major way when there's literally 1000s of years of beloved stories that don't have that. Scar's only contribution to Simba's arc is telling him he killed his dad. It makes Scar hatable, but Scar doesn't challenge Simba's beliefs in any serious way. Voldemort is just wizard Hitler. Harry's internal struggle is basically about whether he can shoulder being the chosen one; it's basically completely independent of anything specific to Voldemort. Ramsay Bolton is a completely unrepentant asshole. Sauron is basically just Surtr. People love all of them. Speaking of Sauron, conquering is a valid motive. It motivated 1000s of years of humanity. Maybe sometimes there's financial or economic reasons, but there's also a lot of just hubris, which is exactly what Surtr is.

For as much as people say they want nuance and philosophy in their characters, basically all it breaks down to is they want a villain with a sob story at the end of the day. Helbindi is a perfect example of that. Aside from having a little sister and being kinda nice to Yrid, he's done nothing of note, but people love him. I like him too. I think he's humorous, but he's not more subtle or nuanced than Surtr or any of the rest of the lot. I know this might sound like I'm insulting you personally here, but I really don't mean to. Your post just reminded me of a recurring theme in this fandom.

Anyway, this phase of ranting over.

1 hour ago, Sunwoo said:

Veronica is a cute, preteen girl who is lonely under her bratty exterior and actually grows to realize that caring about the people is what makes one a good ruler (thanks Seth, no sarcasm), and her villainous deeds are actually driven by a voice in her head.

Speaking of heavy-handed storytelling, this is the biggest fucking copout, and yet I've heard barely anyone complain about this in remotely the same way they do about Surtr. He's regularly called evil for the sake of evil, but Veronica's destruction is rooted largely in what amounts to a demon told her to do it. The bad man told me to so I did. If that's not evil for the sake of evil, I don't know what is. All the other stuff about her isolation and brattiness, are well and good. I don't have any issues with those in regard to the rest of this ranting, but this is a gigantic middle finger to the rest of her character.

Basically, what all of this comes down to is that there's liking something and thinking something is good. Everyone has preferences for certain styles of things; that's perfectly normal and perfectly reasonable. My issue is that, a lot of the time, it seems like people decide anything that falls outside of their stylistic preferences is bad rather than just saying I don't like this style, or probably less  judging a character based on criteria drastically different than what they were intended to be. (Tangent: Music is a great example of this; ask a rock or country fan about rap or a rap fan about rock or country.) I feel like 90% of the criticisms I see of Surtr fall into this category.

@Jotari What are you talking about? He looks just like my grandpa

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 minutes ago, Jotari said:

He's resurrected before the maidens are sacrificed however. And Gotoh says he's becoming a Dark Dragon naturally before he even realizes Gharnef is still around and the reason for the maidens being captured.

I, perhaps mistakenly, thought that simply having the maidens had some effect on Medeus. As for Gotoh not realizing Gharnef had returned, odd, since how could one explain Medeus's very quick return otherwise? Unless rage = power, and being owned AGAIN! made him really, really, really upset.

 

3 hours ago, bottlegnomes said:

You were not kidding. Some of the others are pretty slim, but DS Marth is jacked 0_0

Evidence?

Not a lot shown, but I've been owned. The limited amount of arms on display is indeed very muscular. 

NM Marth appears to have lost muscle mass however.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Sunwoo said:

So, what I'm saying is that IS are predictable cowards who can't make an actually evil female villain, and want us to sympathize with the good-looking women while they're perfectly fine with making hideous male villains with no redeeming traits because we're not supposed to sympathize with them. As bored as I am of Loki (because being mysterious does not work in your favor when the story advances at a snail's pace), IS is clearly trying to make her stick around and have motivations that are supposed to pique our interest. Surtr is just there to be a hate sponge. Surtr is a tool, and therefore I feel nothing towards him. I'm kind in the same boat with regards to Veronica and Surtr's daughters for the same reason.

Well they made Nuibaba a flat out evil villain, and she wasn't even female in Gaiden (at least like, recognizably so. Considering they also changed her class to Witch, I think it's easy to say its a retcon). Ashera is also evil, for a given definition of evil. She claims to be above it all, but she's still going around creating mass extinction events which is definitely bad, if not evil. And while they mishandled the Mila Duma philosophy aspect in regards to Alm, at the very least they didn't treat Mila as an uncorruptedly pure Goddess of goodness in Shadows of Valentia. You wouldn't quite call her evil and her one real appearance in the game flashback aside she's pretty regretful of her actions, but she does have some nuance is what I'm saying.

1 minute ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I, perhaps mistakenly, thought that simply having the maidens had some effect on Medeus. As for Gotoh not realizing Gharnef had returned, odd, since how could one explain Medeus's very quick return otherwise? Unless rage = power, and being owned AGAIN! made him really, really, really upset.

No, it's a case of Gotoh knew Medeus was returning and knew he was returning as a Dark Dragon, but didn't realize he was retutning so quickly until he connected the dots and realized why the maidens had gone missing.

[Marth]
He's going to resurrect again!?
[Gato]
No, even an Earth Dragon shouldn't wake within a hundred years.
Mediuth is now changing his form.
When he next awakens, he will become a fearful Dark Dragon...
No... Could it be...
So that's why... Why Garnef...
[Marth]
Huh, what is it, Gato!?
[Gato]
Prince Marth, I finally understand why the sisters have been taken.
Garnef plans to use them to resurrect Mediuth.
To awaken a dragon requires the life force of females with pure and noble
blood.
Garnef knew about this, so he went to capture the sisters.

So the Dark Dragon aspect is unrelated to Gharnef, but Gharnef still had a hand in why he came back so soon.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Jotari

[bottlegnomes]

1 minute ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

NM Marth appears to have lost muscle mass however.

He got soft from the peacetime

Also, as an addendum to my rant: I'm not particularly fond of Surtr. All the plot points that make him up are perfectly valid; he's just not very charismatic.

[Jotari]

8 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

 

@Jotari What are you talking about? He looks just like my grandpa

Well if your grandfather tries to convince you that killing yourself will save the world while sneering like that, then I suggest you don't listen to him.

[bottlegnomes]

9 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well if your grandfather tries to convince you that killing yourself will save the world while sneering like that, then I suggest you don't listen to him.

Nah, that's not an evil sneer. That's the face Iale when I tell a terrible pun.

[Sunwoo]

18 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well they made Nuibaba a flat out evil villain, and she wasn't even female in Gaiden (at least like, recognizably so. Considering they also changed her class to Witch, I think it's easy to say its a retcon). Ashera is also evil, for a given definition of evil. She claims to be above it all, but she's still going around creating mass extinction events which is definitely bad, if not evil. And while they mishandled the Mila Duma philosophy aspect in regards to Alm, at the very least they didn't treat Mila as an uncorruptedly pure Goddess of goodness in Shadows of Valentia. You wouldn't quite call her evil and her one real appearance in the game flashback aside she's pretty regretful of her actions, but she does have some nuance is what I'm saying.

I actually never finished SoV (got really demotivated around the time I bought it, nothing wrong with the game itself), so I won't speak for SoV. Ashera, however, I wouldn't say she is evil. Ashera has a pretty clear reason for the things she does. She was the goddess of Tellius who saw her beloved "children" kill each other, and is only half of the whole creator goddess, and because she isolated herself from humans she forgot how to care for them. Also, the people of Tellius technically broke their covenant to her.

Now, I'm not saying she's right. But there's clearly more of a reason to what she does than just "the lulz". RD took a great amount of time to explain the backstory of the two goddesses. So there is reason to her actions, and there are a fuckload of flashbacks in part 5 that give us some insight into what happened in the past.

Compare this to Garon, where any mentions of humanity are never backed up by anything other than Xander's word, and Surtr, who just has no good qualities whatsoever, even from the past. Although I suppose the decrease in writing quality should be blamed for that.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Its not even a new tradition', Ishtar is every bit as vile as some of the worst of FE4 villains and they dial it back later on, badly. Maybe this is the intention with her character from the get go, and they just suck at delivering the points but meh

Edited September 10, 2018 by JSND Alter Dragon Boner

[saisymbolic]

3 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

I know this might sound like I'm insulting you personally here, but I really don't mean to. Your post just reminded me of a recurring theme in this fandom.

It's fine. I didn't take it that way, so don't worry about it. But I will address two points, but only because they stood out to me.

5 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

I'm fully aware that, despite not meaning to, I'm going to sound like a douche in saying this, but that's 100% not true. Even in FE, that's not true.

I mean, that is why I said "in my opinion."

In my opinion, a good villain does challenge the protagonist. Perhaps I should have specified that there are exceptions to this, and the way they challenge the characters vary. But, overall, their presence should somehow spark a change in the main character(s) via by opposing the main character directly or causing some event to happen that is a catalyst.

Of those villains that you mentioned and I knew of them, I can say that I personally think the majority range from mediocre to just bad as villains. That includes both Nergal and Lyon. Ashnard, though, I was actually going to mention as a good force of nature character but decided to cut it because I didn't want the post to be too long.

10 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

For as much as people say they want nuance and philosophy in their characters, basically all it breaks down to is they want a villain with a sob story at the end of the day. Helbindi is a perfect example of that. Aside from having a little sister and being kinda nice to Yrid, he's done nothing of note, but people love him. I like him too. I think he's humorous, but he's not more subtle or nuanced than Surtr or any of the rest of the lot.

I'm not asking for a character study, but I do want decently written characters. And nuance, to me, isn't some esoteric concept that includes some Nietzche or Jung-level psychology elements of the character. If anything, a nuanced character can be incredibly simple for me to be satisfied.

I can't speak for anyone else, but there's a reason why I favor Helbendi. And it has less to do with his character and more about the execution of him. You say he's not any more nuanced or subtle than Surtr, but I beg to differ. In the span of a few chapters, Helbendi has established more about his character than any of the others combined outside of maybe Alfonse and Elder Fire Sister. And the story portrays this clearly via a good mix of telling and showing. Literally, that static portrait of Helbendi and his silence when Elder Fire Sister told him the news spoke volumes more than any of Surtr's numerous lines of dialogue did through out the entirety of Book 2. That scene in general was a boon to both him and Elder Fire Sister.

And, I suppose my qualms comes down to not so great writing, which the characters are a result of, than the actual characters themselves.

46 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

I know this might sound like I'm insulting you personally here, but I really don't mean to. Your post just reminded me of a recurring theme in this fandom.

And I'm quoting this again because I hope I didn't come off as aggressive in my post. Just kinda elaborating on my opinions.

I honestly might make a topic talking about the writing in FE and what fans personally want.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

Its not even a new tradition', Ishtar is every bit as vile as some of the worst of FE4 villains and they dial it back later on, badly. Maybe this is the intention with her character from the get go, and they just suck at delivering the points but meh

Do you mean Hilda? Because Ishtat is the one that goes out of her way to save the children.

[Lewyn]

Let's just face it.  The art design/character designers are talented.  That FMV for book 2 got many people excited.  The writers are terrible.  You have to have interesting characters, and/or interesting storyline.  It has to have something of value.  It isn't just Surtr's fault it is a lot of characters.  What does Sharena do except look cute and act really naive.  I want to be friends with everyone!  While that is sweet and all, can we get some more to her character.  The others don't fare much better.  These characters have been through a lot, but we don't see it.  We don't see growth, except Veronica (yeah maybe she is the best written).  

A 'great story' isn't expected.  Truly great writers are incredibly rare.  However it shouldn't be hard to do a servicable story, especially with how incredibly slow it progresses.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Do you mean Hilda? Because Ishtat is the one that goes out of her way to save the children.

They didnt dial back on Hilda, at all.

And yes, Ishtar, followed by the sequel known as Reinhardt did nothing wrong

[Jotari]

20 minutes ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

They didnt dial back on Hilda, at all.

And yes, Ishtar, followed by the sequel known as Reinhardt did nothing wrong

Well we don't have nearly enough info on Reinhardt's character to know where his morality lies. The closest we get is when Olwen directly brings up the child hunts and he sort of changes topics, suggesting he might be in denial about how bad the empire is.

[omegaxis1]

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

Considering the Earth Dragons managed to wipe out all but three divine dragons during the war, I think it's safe to assume Earth Dragons are close to if not already on par with Divine Dragons. Unless a tonne of the Earth Dragons in that war were actually Dark Dragons. They at least seem to be as equally durable as Divine Dragons even outside of the Dark Dragon form.

1

Remember how I said that Divine Dragons are NEVER depicted to be at full strength? Turning into a Manakete, in fact, is a handicap. Xane explains in FE3 that the Divine Dragons died because they "overused" their Dragonstones. There are several cases one can make where becoming a Manakete had limited how much power they can even utilize. Earth Dragons were only the closest in strength to the Divine Dragons but weren't actually rivals to them. Under normal circumstances, the Divine Dragons would not have suffered the extinction like they had. 

[Diovani Bressan]

I don't like Surtr as a villan, because he is too boring. But his design is cool.

Also, what is his weapon?! I mean... +3 Def and "Threaten Savage Blow" is cool, but no Distant Counter? Loki is more annoying to defeat than Surtr!

[bottlegnomes]

6 hours ago, saisymbolic said:

I can't speak for anyone else, but there's a reason why I favor Helbendi. And it has less to do with his character and more about the execution of him. You say he's not any more nuanced or subtle than Surtr, but I beg to differ. In the span of a few chapters, Helbendi has established more about his character than any of the others combined outside of maybe Alfonse and Elder Fire Sister. And the story portrays this clearly via a good mix of telling and showing. Literally, that static portrait of Helbendi and his silence when Elder Fire Sister told him the news spoke volumes more than any of Surtr's numerous lines of dialogue did through out the entirety of Book 2. That scene in general was a boon to both him and Elder Fire Sister.

Fair enough. I'd still give Helbindi like a 3/10 as far as subtlety, but at least he's higher than Surtr's 1/10. Helbindi in particular just kinda irks me because his whole little sister thing feels like a lazy way to get sympathy from the audience and it feels like people eat it up despite talking about how they want depth to characters. It's kinda like another topic where someone said Surtr would be better if his motivation was that his wife died. The whole thing, unless actually explored just feels incredibly trite. Like if you're just going to have that be a throwaway line to give them "motivation," why even bother? That said, at least it seems like they might be going somewhere with Helbindi's sister, even if she herself is just a plot device.

 

7 hours ago, saisymbolic said:

I mean, that is why I said "in my opinion."

I actually did miss that, so my apologies. That said, that kind of gets to my point about judging something by criteria it was never meant to achieve. I guess basically my issue comes down to what about a solely external threat makes them less valid than one that is an internal threat or a mix? I know I prefer the latter two, but I'd much rather have the first than a lazy or bungled latter two, re my irritation at the Surtr wife thing.

In a character-driven piece, absolutely, yes, the villain should be a fleshed our character as well. But FE as a whole is not a character driven set of stories nor does it aim to be.

 

7 hours ago, saisymbolic said:

And, I suppose my qualms comes down to not so great writing, which the characters are a result of, than the actual characters themselves.

Just wanted to let you know I wasn't ignoring this. Just figured I'd touch on my views as far as other points you brought up.

 

7 hours ago, saisymbolic said:

And I'm quoting this again because I hope I didn't come off as aggressive in my post. Just kinda elaborating on my opinions.

No worries. Been an interesting talk and you were certainly much less antagonistic about it than I was last night.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, omegaxis1 said:

Remember how I said that Divine Dragons are NEVER depicted to be at full strength? Turning into a Manakete, in fact, is a handicap. Xane explains in FE3 that the Divine Dragons died because they "overused" their Dragonstones. There are several cases one can make where becoming a Manakete had limited how much power they can even utilize. Earth Dragons were only the closest in strength to the Divine Dragons but weren't actually rivals to them. Under normal circumstances, the Divine Dragons would not have suffered the extinction like they had. 

I don't know. Duma and Mila were defeated by humans with Falchion and they didn't seem to be manaketes.

[Interdimensional Observer]

10 hours ago, Sunwoo said:

I actually never finished SoV (got really demotivated around the time I bought it, nothing wrong with the game itself), so I won't speak for SoV.

To argue against her being pure unsympathetic evil though, we have the Valentia Accordion. While in game, which I feel matters more, there is absolutely no hint of sympathy or alluding to her backstory whatsoever, the canonical artbook has one for her.

According to it, she was once young and pretty and had a boyfriend. Bandits then scarred her face, and her boyfriend dumped her for her younger sister, together they pushed Nuibaba off a cliff. Nearly dying, she survived only by making a pact with some malevolent spirit, afterwards she used the powers of darkness to get revenge, and then settled into a beauty-obsessed evil life.

Since there is zero mention of this backstory in SoV, we may doubt it existed when SoV was being made, since why otherwise leave it out? But we cannot be certain either way.