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Why surtr is a good villain that didn't work


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38 minutes ago, Etheus said:

I don't think that Surtr has any redeeming value as a villain. He was just an unstoppable force of nature, and it was insulting seeing him talk down to and infantilizeĀ other, better antagonistsĀ (like Veronica and Xander).

I'd hardly call an idiot like story Xander a better antagonist. His supports don't count if he's unplayable in Birthright where he is a villain through and through. But maybe you meant Xander's role in Heroes. I dunno, just saying Xander is vague. I apologise if it's the case of Heroes Xander

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25 minutes ago, silveraura25 said:

I'd hardly call an idiot like story Xander a better antagonist. His supports don't count if he's unplayable in Birthright where he is a villain through and through. But maybe you meant Xander's role in Heroes. I dunno, just saying Xander is vague. I apologise if it's the case of Heroes Xander

I like support Xander. I like Warriors Xander (and he's my quite possibly my favorite Warriors character). I like Heroes Xander. I just have to pretend Birthright Xander doesn't exist, but I'd even take that over Surtr.

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the depth of a villain (as in how good is he) is only driven by the narrativ and interraction of a character. As such Surtr was flat out a terrible, possibly the worst villain. We have no clue about his motivation why he started the war, what was his goal, and more importantly what led to it.
To top it all off i dont know how he had a daughter liek Leagjarn that is like... totally different them him.

If you look at it Laegjarn got less screentime but developed more personality in that little screentime then Surtr ever did. Infact i would say Laegjarn would have made a much better Villain if you would have given her a logical and reasonable reason to invade Nifl with the character traits she has.

Remember also good persons can be seen as a villain, it allways depends from which angle you look at them.

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Honestly I love Surtr. I love how unstopable and flat out unrealistic he was. I loved all the MĆŗspell characters in fact. I don't think he needs much depth. So I don't think he is a terrible villain.

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Effective =/= Good

Don't get me wrong. Surtr was a very welcomeĀ threat in the slow lull that was the story's progress as far as actions are concerned. He got stuff done and did it without stalling for chapters at a time, but that's as far as the extent of his "character" went. He had zero motivation andĀ zero backstory. He was just a massive fireball of destruction, figuratively and literally, in the shape of a person. If anything good did come from his character, it's the characterizations of other characters asĀ foils to him, for differingĀ reasons, those being Laegjarn and Helbindi.

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Surtr is basically a Saturday morning cartoon villain. This is fine for games that only need at least basic stories. However, this isn't what at least vocal players are looking for or care about - they want more engaging characters and stories (which may be better foundĀ in main series FE titles or, better yet, books).

Edited by Roflolxp54
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1 hour ago, Hilda said:

the depth of a villain (as in how good is he) is only driven by the narrativ and interraction of a character. As such Surtr was flat out a terrible, possibly the worst villain. We have no clue about his motivation why he started the war, what was his goal, and more importantly what led to it.
To top it all off i dont know how he had a daughter liek Leagjarn that is like... totally different them him.

you know you would be right if surtr was a narrative villain but he's not. He's a force of nature. As I explained in my original post. A force of nature villain does not need an understandable motivation, backstory, etc. To criticize a force of nature for not having those things would be missing the point. They're not characters.Ā A good character needs an understandable motivation as why they do the things that they do. A narrative villain is a character while a force of nature villain is not. A force of nature villain can be almost anything really even a literal force of nature. If the villain of a story is a tornado, you don't criticize the tornado for "not having a motivation" or whatever because a tornado can't have a motivation. It's a tornado it can't speak. It's not a character. It just comes in and does what a tornado does. It's mere existence creates conflict which the actual characters need to overcome. That's what Surtr is, a force of nature. We don't need to understand why he does the things that he does because that's not the point. Surtr does not need depth at least in the traditional sense anyway. He's supposed to add depth and nuance. The depth of his character comes from how he effects other characters as well as the world around him. He doesn't need to be a character. To say otherwise would be missing the point.

Edited by Otts486
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He was fine being the pure out-of-control evil bad guy type. He mainly lacked backstory, but with the simplified story IS seems to be going with I wasn't really expecting that anyway. Was he always that evil? He managed to have 2 daughters, so maybe he wasn't as bad at one point? Or maybe he's just an evil anomaly, since one of his castle or tap lines is like "none of the previous rules of Muspell have stoked the flames as much as I." It's kind of like how Garon was pure evil too at the time of Fates, but we also know he was taken over by the dragon/goo monster at some point so he wasn't always that way.

I do agree the fake-out "you actually didn't kill me" thing near the end did just felt like dragging things out, though.

Edited by Alkaid
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I don't consider Surtr to be a good villain; I find him to be rather terrible. In my view, Surtr is just another generic, cookie-cutter, mustache-twirling cartoon villain. This is something I've seen a thousand times before, so seeing it again is just yawn.

For a point of comparison, I found the stupid tree in the newest Sword Art Online anime to be a more compelling villain than Surtr. Sure, it was essentially nothing more than a huge tree that people in the virtual world spent generations trying to chop down, but at least it was something new. The arc featuring the tree at least had proper narrative progression, even if the situation was pretty dumb. The invincible tree had no character, no backstory, etc., but I thought it managed to do its job as a plot device better than Surtr.

Surtr's function was just as a plot device, he's just the stereotypical villain. He's appropriately villainous, therefore detestable, so he works for the plot, but I don't think that's sufficient to make him a good villain; he's just adequate for the job. Really, though, he's the sort of villain the plot deserved, because holy hell has the story been a hot mess.

To me, I rather find the stupidity of it all to be the main redeeming factor of the story in Heroes. I find it terribly amusing to think about the fact that, somewhere, a group of people came together, did some thinking and brainstorming, and eventually decided that this all was a good idea and should be implemented.

The absurdity of the story also yields a certain amount of meta-enjoyment, as reminiscing upon it just makes me think, "Wtf! Wtf!?"

Edited by Astellius
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16 minutes ago, Otts486 said:

you know you would be right if surtr was a narrative villain but he's not. He's a force of nature. As I explained in my original post. A force of nature villain does not need an understandable motivation, backstory, etc. To criticize a force of nature for not having those things would be missing the point. They're not characters.Ā A good character needs an understandable motivation as why they do the things that they do. A narrative villain is a character while a force of nature villain is not. A force of nature villain can be almost anything really even a literal force of nature. If the villain of a story is a tornado, you don't criticize the tornado for "not having a motivation" or whatever because a tornado can't have a motivation. It's a tornado it can't speak. It's not a character. It just comes in and does what a tornado does. It's mere existence creates conflict which the actual characters need to overcome. That's what Surtr is, a force of nature. We don't need to understand why he does the things that he does because that's not the point. Surtr does not need depth at least in the traditional sense anyway. He's supposed to add depth and nuance. The depth of his character comes from how he effects other characters as well as the world around him. He doesn't need to be a character. To say otherwise would be missing the point.

Force of nature villains done good: Joker in the Batman 2 (although that was huge part due to the actor). you even get a grasp through dialogue why Joker might have ended up the messed up person he is.

Surtr is just bad... sorry even as a force of nature villain he is really just bad

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2 hours ago, Stercus said:

I'm glad that my synopsis is appreciated. I drew emphasis to the last thing you said because I feel like it's important. I actually enjoyed most of Book 2 for what it was. It had a rather promising start and it was much better handled than Book 1 was. But this is a serious problem. The narrative cannot make up its mind. I understand that we have an entire year that the story needs to be spread out through, but the denying the player any sense of narrative "progress" because it's not the end of the book yet isn't a solution to that. There was no reason why Gunnthra needed to die. There was no reason the Rite of Frost couldn't have worked the first time. There's no reason why we couldn't have had Laegjarn in our custody for longer than two scenes. But for every development in the story that benefits the protagonists, two or three more are hastily added to stymie them or invalidate those benefits entirely. The point of a traditional narrative is that the hero earns his ultimate victory. In a twisted way, a good villain needs to earn his gains too. Surtr didn't earn Gunnthra, or his double invincibility, or anything like that. He didn't earn a damn thing. It was handed to him on a silver platter.

Yeah, the Laegjarn thing was really bad too. IIRC, doesn't she surrender herself so that Laevatein can escape? But yeah, they have her sacrifice herself, not that anything bad would happen while she was with Askr, and introduce it as this chance for Fjorm and the Askrs to interact with someone from Muspell. Then, not five narrative minutes later, she escapes and nothing was gained from having her captured other than being one more piece to pull out from under the feet of the audience. Oh hey, Gunnthra's dead. AND ALSO, Laegjarn escaped. Like what narrative value did that add?

Ā 

39 minutes ago, Alkaid said:

It's kind of like how Garon was pure evil too at the time of Fates, but we also know he was taken over by the dragon/goo monster at some point so he wasn't always that way.

Is that really a good thing though?

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3 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

Is that really a good thing though?

It's an explanation, which is more than IS gave Surtr. It would have been enough for me to even just say, "the fire dragon blood was especially strong in him and corrupted him abnormally bad even for Muspell royalty, so he went full evil destruction mode." But I guess IS preferred to keep it as simple as possible and not even go into it.

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5 hours ago, bottlegnomes said:

I can agree on backstory, but not so much motivation and justification. Think of motivation as their reason for existing or what they challenge the MCs on in this sense if that makes more sense. If the force of nature villain doesn't have any reason for existing, they are just the raid boss that only exists to endanger the MCs. Justification can be looked at as the philosophy behind the belief the character represents. Take Surtr with fire. Fire destroys anything that doesn't get out of the way. That's conveyed by Surtr killing anyone who stands in his way, claiming it's the natural order. If a FoN doesn't have a semi-decent philosophy behind their beliefs, there's no real reason for the MC's beliefs to be thrown into question. All that said, rereading your post, I think we might just be differing on terminologies.

Yeah I agree with this. What i meant by "motivation" in my original post is sort the "why" of a character like why a character acts the way that they do. FoN villains don't need that. You can can give them that of course but it's not necessary. Other than that yeah I pretty much agree with everything you said here.

5 hours ago, bottlegnomes said:

Also, as a kind of pointless side anecdote, I think I made a similar sort of statement as you are in this topic (which again, I do agree with on the whole) in one of my 400-level CRW classes in college. The story was about a girl who was into jazz and the dad hated jazz, and one of the workshop critiques was to flesh out the dad's character more. I made the comment that I could see it going either way, either flesh him out as a character or double down on the vagueness and make him really more representative of her fears than an actual character. The professor nearly had a conniption. No real point to that story other than "literary" people can be very pretentious, and this topic made me think of that.

sheesh. You know I hateĀ people like that professor because they feel there's always "right" or a "wrong" way to write a story. While yes, there are solidified "don'ts" when it comes to storytelling, there are always exceptions to the rule.

5 hours ago, bottlegnomes said:

Oh, one other thing actually, I think there's some merit to Surtr being nothing more than an animate roadblock so to speak. If you take FEH as a purely external conflict, Surtr doesn't have to challenge the MCs beliefs nor does he have to be a particularly compelling character in terms of more literary elements. He exists solely as an impediment for the MCs to find the strength to overcome, no different than say a kid learning to ride a bike. I tend to fall back to DBZ for this quite a bit since Frieza and Cell are almost perfect examples of this, so let me know if you're not familiar with it, and I can try to find a different example or go into more detail. Frieza more so since Cell does work as a FoN against Gohan, so I'll just focus on him. But basically, Frieza has essentially the same motivation, personality, and beliefs as Surtr, i.e. conquest, sadistic, and I'm strong so do what I say. What makes Frieza work so well though is, simply put, charisma. He's delightfully smarmy, he's got a great set of designs, and he manages to balance villainistic hubris with not fucking around when he actually feels there's a problem (he committed genocide just because of his fears of a legend). Surtr, I think, actually hits all these points too, but again, having about a paragraph's worth of story activity doesn't give much room to embellish.

I see where you're coming but even then I think Frieza is a FoN just in a slightly different way. The reason being is how his existence effects the characters and world of dragon ball. We see vegeta, a former villain, fight along side the heroes because of how afraid he is of frieza in certain instances anyway. His mere presence creates conflict and completely strangulates the status quo forcing characters to take actions they normally wouldn't take because he's THAT big of a threat. It let's us see different sides of these characters and explore different aspects of the world and themes and that is the entire purpose of a FoN. Frieza to me is good example of giving "character" to a force of nature. Then again I haven't seen too much dragon ball and most of what I know about frieza comes from analysis videos and the abridged series.

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32 minutes ago, Alkaid said:

It's an explanation, which is more than IS gave Surtr. It would have been enough for me to even just say, "the fire dragon blood was especially strong in him and corrupted him abnormally bad even for Muspell royalty, so he went full evil destruction mode." But I guess IS preferred to keep it as simple as possible and not even go into it.

All it's really doing is shifting the blame. There's no actual explanation as to why Gooron is evil. He just looks like a guy who didn't used to be evil. It's not a motivation any more than sadism or conquest are. The possession works in FE8 because there's ambiguity as to when and how much Lyon is lost, his naivety in being willing to submit to that, and forcing Ephraim and Eirika to confront the harsh truth that their friend is gone even while staring at him and stop him. Possession is basically a FoN villain in and of itself, i.e. evil and gains its significance in how people confront evil. Replace possession with drug addiction. Garon is he stabbed me because he's a junky. Lyon is he turned to drugs because of feelings of inadequacy, but those stopped helping as much so he started doing more. His friends tried to help, but eventually had to admit he was a lost cause and he died alone after having just made things worse.

23 minutes ago, Otts486 said:

Yeah I agree with this. What i meant by "motivation" in my original post is sort the "why" of a character like why a character acts the way that they do. FoN villains don't need that. You can can give them that of course but it's not necessary. Other than that yeah I pretty much agree with everything you said here.

I gotcha. Yeah, they don't need a narratively compelling backstory since their worth is in how others deal with them.

Ā 

23 minutes ago, Otts486 said:

sheesh. You know I hateĀ people like that professor because they feel there's always "right" or a "wrong" way to write a story. While yes, there are solidified "don'ts" when it comes to storytelling, there are always exceptions to the rule.

I don't want to be too harsh on him, since he was a good teacher and a smart guy, but yeah, he was a bit caught up in the idea of literary fiction.

Ā 

23 minutes ago, Otts486 said:

I see where you're coming but even then I think Frieza is a FoN just in a slightly different way. The reason being is how his existence effects the characters and world of dragon ball. We see vegeta, a former villain, fight along side the heroes because of how afraid he is of frieza in certain instances anyway. His mere presence creates conflict and completely strangulates the status quo forcing characters to take actions they normally wouldn't take because he's THAT big of a threat. It let's us see different sides of these characters and explore different aspects of the world and themes and that is the entire purpose of a FoN. Frieza to me is good example of giving "character" to a force of nature. Then again I haven't seen too much dragon ball and most of what I know about frieza comes from analysis videos and the abridged series.

Abridged Frieza is probably the best incarnation of him, and is fairly accurate. Actual is less tongue-in-cheek and had worse VAing and translations at the time (better in recent material), but was largely the same type of character. That said, I definitely see what you mean, and I think I was being a bit narrow in my definition of a FoN. I was thinking more strictly philosophical, whereas yours includes what I'd labeled as roadblock villains and is probably more accurate since it would include literal forces of nature. In that regard, Surtr is an effective one, since he does force the characters to react and overcome him, but it doesn't really work since we don't care about the characters, which was the entire point of your OP.

Ā 

Anyway, unrelated and inspired by @Stercus decided to give a go at breaking the chapters into a more traditional narrative structure.

  1. They go to investigate reports of combat
  2. They encounter Surtr and have to flee
  3. Veronica pursues while they have to regroup. Surtr goes to do other villain stuff.
  4. They push back against Veronica and turn the tide
  5. They beat Veronica but choose to let her go (furthers her unsureness about hating Askr)
  6. With the immediate problem dealt with, Fjorm tells them about the right of ice
  7. They encounter Laegjarn on their way to Gunnthra
  8. They meet up with Gunnthra and perform the Rite of Ice, putting Surtr on the defensive
  9. They encounter Laev who is seeking vengeance for her sister
  10. They break into Muspell and fight Helbindi, seeing that most of the country submits due to fear, not because they're evil
  11. Loki shows up to cause trouble and be coy
  12. Laegjarn and Laev team up, but Laegjarn tells Laev this fight should be solely for duty, not vengeance. Laegjarn can still die and tell Laev to escape or whatever
  13. They kill Surtr, end of book 2

Still would be awkward because there's so long between each chapter and any momentum would probably be lost and I'm not real sure it'd be any better, but at least there wouldn't be all the nah, that didn't actually matter.

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I think the worst thing about Surtr was when he resurrected himself because fuck you. Honestly, while Surtr isn't the most interesting villain ever I think it's just a combination of various things in the story that just make Surtr worse because of how he contributes to it.

One thing I remember people complaining about was how Surtr beat you to Gunnthra, despite having been left behind in Askr and showing no signs of teleportation and the whole "find Gunnthra" subplot being rendered pointless. Hrid and Ylgr being added so late into the story also makes them feel rather unnecessary, and Surtr coming back to life because of the Rite of Flames is just frustrating because this story did not need to be dragged out any longer.

Honestly, if they'd introduced Hrid sooner, before the Askrs went after Surtr the first timeĀ so he could tell them "hey Surtr is kind of invincible because of his Rite of Flames thing oh yeah he also has our younger sister", and if Gunnthra had been alive longer so we got more screen time of herĀ and she sacrifices herself for the Rite of Frost at that one temple instead ofĀ Fjorm coughing herself to death for the rest of the story, and the Rite of FrostĀ actually succeedsĀ in killing off Surtr for good, this might've worked out better in terms of pacing.

As a villain, Surtr is (as the OP said) a force of nature. He's not particularly interesting because the focus is not meant to be on him. And if he stays longer than he should then he quickly wears out his welcome.

Ā 

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12 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

All it's really doing is shifting the blame. There's no actual explanation as to why Gooron is evil. He just looks like a guy who didn't used to be evil. It's not a motivation any more than sadism or conquest are. The possession works in FE8 because there's ambiguity as to when and how much Lyon is lost, his naivety in being willing to submit to that, and forcing Ephraim and Eirika to confront the harsh truth that their friend is gone even while staring at him and stop him. Possession is basically a FoN villain in and of itself, i.e. evil and gains its significance in how people confront evil. Replace possession with drug addiction. Garon is he stabbed me because he's a junky. Lyon is he turned to drugs because of feelings of inadequacy, but those stopped helping as much so he started doing more. His friends tried to help, but eventually had to admit he was a lost cause and he died alone after having just made things worse.

I don't mind the simplicity of Garon, but at least we get where he came from and more on what the situation with him was. I just wish we'd gotten a bit more context on Surtr's rampage too, even if sadism and conquest were exactly it. It'd just be nice to know more than nothing at all. I don't think there's much point thinking too critically about it though, since IS probably just took the road of simplifying their already simple story-telling for the game, so they didn't sweat the details. Again, being a mobile spin-off I'm neither surprised nor really blaming them for that choice anyway.

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8 minutes ago, Alkaid said:

I don't mind the simplicity of Garon, but at least we get where he came from and more on what the situation with him was. I just wish we'd gotten a bit more context on Surtr's rampage too, even if sadism and conquest were exactly it. It'd just be nice to know more than nothing at all. I don't think there's much point thinking too critically about it though, since IS probably just took the road of simplifying their already simple story-telling for the game, so they didn't sweat the details. Again, being a mobile spin-off I'm neither surprised nor really blaming them for that choice anyway.

But it's not even him anymore. It's literally there was this guy who was pretty chill, but he's gone and now there's a doppelgƤnger that's evil for no apparent reason.

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30 minutes ago, Alkaid said:

I don't mind the simplicity of Garon, but at least we get where he came from and more on what the situation with him was. I just wish we'd gotten a bit more context on Surtr's rampage too, even if sadism and conquest were exactly it. It'd just be nice to know more than nothing at all. I don't think there's much point thinking too critically about it though, since IS probably just took the road of simplifying their already simple story-telling for the game, so they didn't sweat the details. Again, being a mobile spin-off I'm neither surprised nor really blaming them for that choice anyway.

You see Garon doesn't work as neither a narrative villain nor a force of nature villain. As a narrative villain, he has really no real reason to do any of the sh*t he does. I don't understand garon as a character. He has a goal(albeit an incredibly stupid and generic one) but no reason as to why he wants that goal. In that sense he has no character because generally that is what a character is at their core "what do they want?" and "why do they want it?" and the reason needs to lend well to humanizing them and giving them nuance. This is something Garon doesn't really have. Now since he's not a character that would mean he is a "good" force of nature right? Nope. He doesn't work as FoN because he hardly has any effect on the characters or world and if/when he does it's either brushed aside or not felt as heavy as it should. There's no weight to garon's sheer presence. His presence doesn't automatically generate conflict like Surtr, Grima, or formortis. There's no specificity to gaoron. He just represents "evil" which is not something a FoN can represent. It's far too broad. I mean to compare him to Surtr. Surtr represents how destructive and dangerous flames can be if they grow out of control. Flames are inherently dangerous which by extension Surtr is also dangerous because that's what he's supposed to be a physical manifestation of. He doesn't just represent "evil".Ā  He represents the dangers of an uncontrollable and undying flameĀ which consumes almost everything in its path.

Edited by Otts486
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@bottlegnomes@Otts486 I think you guys are missing my point. I wasn't saying Garon was great or anything, just EVEN Garon had more context to why he was being evil than Surtr. Even "he's just possessed by an evil creature" is more than nothing. I just wish we'd gotten a little bit more on what Surtr's deal was, that's all.

I can't say I find actual literary analysis worth the effort on most FE stories. This is just not really the series for it, in my opinion, and that's fine. (even if I do wish there was more to the stories, sometimes)

Edited by Alkaid
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6 minutes ago, Alkaid said:

@bottlegnomes@Otts486 I think you guys are missing my point. I wasn't saying Garon was great or anything, just EVEN Garon had more context to why he was being evil than Surtr. Even "he's just possessed by an evil creature" is more than nothing. I just wish we'd gotten a little bit more on what Surtr's deal was, that's all.

I can't say I find actual literary analysis worth the effort on most FE stories. This is just not really the series for it, in my opinion, and that's fine. (even if I do wish there was more to the stories, sometimes)

yeah I'm sorry though I will say Surtr doesn't really need context for his actions. I mean you could give him one but it's not really necessary. Giving his actions context won't in any way give us a new perspective or humanize him. Cause again he's a force of nature he doesn't need to be humanized in order to work.

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12 minutes ago, Otts486 said:

yeah I'm sorry though I will say Surtr doesn't really need context for his actions. I mean you could give him one but it's not really necessary. Giving his actions context won't in any way give us a new perspective or humanize him. Cause again he's a force of nature he doesn't need to be humanized in order to work.

It may not be necessary, but I think the reason he doesn't have any is because IS didn't feel like it and the FEH story is simple and streamlined, not so much because he's intended to be a force of nature villain in the literary sense. It just feels like a side effect of fleshed out story and characters not being IS' priority.

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3 hours ago, Otts486 said:

They're not characters.Ā 

Then they're not villains either. It'd be like calling the iceberg in Titanic a villain.

Quote

It's a tornado it can't speak. It's not a character. It just comes in and does what a tornado does. It's mere existence creates conflict which the actual characters need to overcome. That's what Surtr is, a force of nature.

The difference between Surtr and a tornado/iceberg/force of nature is that he is a person. He speaks, he has the capacity to make choices, he presumably enjoys burninating the countryside.

EDIT: I don't know much about him, but doesn't the Joker have the motivation of wanting to prove people are inherently selfish?

Edited by Baldrick
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12 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

Then they're not villains either. It'd be like calling the iceberg in Titanic a villain.

yes but they also serve the same purpose as a villain which is to generate conflict and move the story forward. I have yet to see Titanic so I can not say much more than that.

12 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

The difference between Surtr and a tornado/iceberg/force of nature is that he is a person. He speaks, he has the capacity to make choices, he presumably enjoys burninating the countryside.

you see this is why human force of nature villains are weird. If the villain is a god, monster, or hell a literal force of nature, it's easier for us as an audience to just sort of accept them as forces of nature because they're not human so by default we don't try to connect with them on a human level. If they are human, however, the author is gonna have to put in a little more effort to try to convince us that the character isn't "human" in a sense.

I suppose a better way to put is that force of nature villains are not humans even if they are if that makes sense. They don't need understandable reasons to do the things that they do. They just do because that's their entire reason for existing. There's no 'why' just 'what' and 'how'.

Edited by Otts486
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12 minutes ago, Alkaid said:

@bottlegnomes@Otts486 I think you guys are missing my point. I wasn't saying Garon was great or anything, just EVEN Garon had more context to why he was being evil than Surtr. Even "he's just possessed by an evil creature" is more than nothing. I just wish we'd gotten a little bit more on what Surtr's deal was, that's all.

I can't say I find actual literary analysis worth the effort on most FE stories. This is just not really the series for it, in my opinion, and that's fine. (even if I do wish there was more to the stories, sometimes)

I'm saying I disagree. I'm of the opinion that I'm possessed is every bit as hollow a motivation as I'm a conqueror. Everything pre-possession might as well not happen since it's a different character entirely. Take Gooron as an independent character from Xander's dad since he is for all intents and purposes. What makes his motivation and more fleshed out?

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4 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

I'm saying I disagree. I'm of the opinion that I'm possessed is every bit as hollow a motivation as I'm a conqueror. Everything pre-possession might as well not happen since it's a different character entirely. Take Gooron as an independent character from Xander's dad since he is for all intents and purposes. What makes his motivation and more fleshed out?

You can call it hollow reasoning all you want, but knowing an evil power-hungry creature possessed him still tells us why Garon's gone bad and is attacking Hoshido. For Surtr we don't even know that much.

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