GuardianSing

John Nintendo, famous founder of the company and inventor of video games back in 1889.

Crucial difference there being that the cultural view of Gods as a concept differed pre and post-monotheism. Gods in pagan mythologies were more of a way to explain how certain functions of the natural world worked and why. Gods were essentially just humans with powerful abilities who acted the same as us and had the same moral shortcomings. The worshiping of these Gods was largely done so out of desire for natural blessings, such as rain, fertility, safety in battle, and all that jazz. The gods did not inherently respect or care about you but if you suck up to them they may give you some of their power, that kind of thing. Even in these mythologies, the head honcho god tends to be male. Zeus in Greek mythology is the chief of all gods as is his Roman equivalent Jupiter. With monotheistic religions, theologically God exists beyond the natural world, he is both the epitome of all morality and nature. People worship him because of his inherent role as the sole deity of the universe, because they see him as the sole authority over everything. He is both theologically and literally your father who you must respect and seek guidance, forgiveness, and mercy from. Fire Emblem wants to have it both ways by having it so Gods are flawed characters with limited power but have the people look to them as though they are the sole authority and moral power. The way that Rhea talks about Sothis is not the same way that an ancient Greek priest would talk about Aphrodite if you get me. People undermine to a massive degree just how much gender roles are factored in when making characters. Most folks are a lot more attached to gender conformity than they like to admit and when you start noticing it in any kind of story it becomes imposssible to ignore. All forms of media has biases and the most present one by a landslide is assumptions based on gender roles and creating characters based around that.

I can understand skipping Arvis because he is prince consort. I'll see if he becomes any kind of king consort or just...the king. They should just do the Jadwiga thing and make Deidre king I'm willing to believe it as being based off of implicit biases of the creators rather than an intentional endorsement of sexism. Still feels pretty insistent but it could be a translation thing. Oh I despise that as well, especially when it becomes obvious the complaints are coming from people who have a somewhat limited knowledge of history and only criticize inaccurate history when it portends to their own modern views and biases. There is a massive difference between showing the disrespect and oppression of a certain group of people in history and giving a certain group of people barely any agency at all on an inherent level in a piece of media. And when it comes to fictional fantasy games like Fire Emblem the critique makes even less sense because again. I don't remember that part of history... I think Three Houses does a decent job at displaying sexism as an existing issue in it's world and how it affects various female characters. Genealogy so far feels more on the side of "Author's personal biases" on the scale of narrative thematic framing. Honestly the most interesting stories of real life monarchies are when succession happens and the rules for such are almost never commonly defined or the rules at place come into clash with the current situation of the dynasty. The rise of the few women monarchs in history are especially interesting because of that. Also 1980 being the earliest absolute primogeniture was adopted in a country reminds of one of my personal favorite quotes from comedian Jay Foreman. "There's been some changes over the past few years to drag the House of Lords, kicking and screaming into the 19th century." I genuinely think they should make the naginata infantry from Fates a standard in the series. Male preference yes, though I can't help but feel like the rest wouldn't even be brought up if Dierdre was a prince. It wouldn't be "Oh you must have Arvisa bear the real heir as quickly as possible." Dierdre would just be the next heir. Perhaps that is indicative of the male preference but I can't tell if that's intentional or because of a lack of imagination. Minerva in particular, even if Marth didn't manifest destiny, was well on the road to be overtaken by her thought-to-be-dead brother which depletes a lot of her original agency. Note how both of these characters are always referred to as princesses, never queens. Fire Emblem in general is reluctant to use queen or any other female gendered term for the very few female rulers it has. Celica and Elincia are the only ones I can think of at the top of my head with Celica fitting the description as more queen consort than anything. "In marrying Alm, Celica became the first queen of the One Kingdom of Valentia, and aided her king with wisdom and compassion. Believed by the people to be a reincarnation of Mila, she was universally loved for her work fostering peace in the nascent kingdom." -Echoes ending for Celica "As first king of the One Kingdom of Valentia, Alm spent his life restoring the land to glory. He would be remembered fondly by later generations as Saint-King Alm I, who cast off the gods' oppressive yoke and founded a dynasty that would last a thousand years." -Echoes ending for Alm Celica's explicitly displaying her dependency on Alm with Alm's not even mentioning Celica. She is only queen because she married the real monarch. Edelgard is referred to as Imperial Princess and then just Emperor after succession, not Empress. Of course I'm remembering Corrin now who can become queen of Valla at the end of Revelations, no strings attached, though I don't know if I'd count avatars since by nature they are divorced from characterization. Corrin is only queen if the player picked the female version of her and bought the 20 dollar DLC of the actual Fates games. In Birthright Ryoma becomes king of Hoshido and Camilla, despite being the eldest heir, specifically abdicates as queen and passes it onto Leo to become the king of Nohr. In fairness this is countered in Conquest with Hinoka becoming queen of Hoshido but only after both males in her family have already died. I would be remiss not to also mention how Mikoto was queen of two kingdoms, both of which she was queen consort to the real monarch though since Sumeragi is long dead she might as well be the absolute queen for the 5 minutes of screen time she gets and is treated as such. Sanaki however does get to be an Empress. And Micaiah always becomes queen of Daein regardless if Pelleas is alive or not. And of course Elincia is always queen. Leave it to the egalitarian game to have the most egalitarian view of its female rulers. N-Not that a monarchy is egalitarian, a girlboss is still a boss It is a very common thing in fantasy to have female religious figures bless men to go out on dangerous holy quests. Whether this is inspired from the Catholic idea of the Mother Mary or in Fire Emblem the Japanese idea of Shrine Maidens I'm not sure but either way I've always been fascinated with the fact that many fantasy worlds will have Goddesses and female religious figures yet still have an explicitly patriarchal world. After all in real life the justification for patriarchal society was that God himself was a man and so only men could be godly. It's why you have father priests and popes but never mother priestesses and just sister nuns who are married to God. That's honestly a big reason misogyny bugs me in these games because it's always in a world where it doesn't really make sense to exist as a prejudice, at least not in the same way. In general it comes from the fact that most Fire Emblem games, despite having a 13th century aesthetic, have a 19th century culture with the ideas of nationalism and rationalism overshadowing the ideas of divine right of Kings and general religious matters, stuff that would be much more significant in that time in actual European history. Most priests, monks, or clerics in FE aren't religious, especially in the modern titles. If a character is religious that is usually their gimmick as a character and very rarely are characters presented as being casually religious. The state and the nation is a lot more important to these stories than the Gods and faith. The religious characters in FE are almost always women while the nationalists are almost always men, and historically Fire Emblem has been far more willing to do away with the faith to protect the state.

Do you think they're setting up something climactic?? Talk about a fate worse than death. Again, very very strong aversion to considering the princess an actual heir. It almost feels intentional at this point. I mean points for realism I suppose, old medieval dynasties were very desperate to get male heirs but in a game with mages and dragons I'm not exactly throwing up my hands and cheering "Thank god they at least remembered the misogyny!" And considering the lead developers real world views I doubt apple falls far from the fiction Double dad deathbed Broken promises as well

Fucking beat me to it. I was a minute away.

One thing at a time. Mandatory voting laws is the setup to a break up the two party monopoly. I would be remiss not to mention that the US has plenty of third parties as well as state local parties that you are definitely allowed to vote for and they theoretically could become a major party, it's just that nobody does because why would you.

The "At least 3" response to being asked how many genders there are is still my personal favorite. The algorithm is pretty well attuned to that shit which is why I watch 30 communist videos every day to counter it. Checkmate liberal. Its been pretty wild seeing right-wingers in this country call the neoliberal party "Radical woke socialists!" I feel like their heads would explode in any actual left-wing spaces. But also yeah sorry, the Black Panther Party was killed in the 60s and with it the mainstream left in American society. Red scare Reagan and all that. Makes sense, the average right-wing indoctrination video is a 10 minute SJW cringe compilation while the average left-wing indoctrination is a 3 hour video essay about how everything is awful and there's nothing we can do about it. The algorithm's excessive focus on easy to consume short-form content left us doomed from the start. That being said I'm not particularly worried about it compared to other things since the majority of active voters in the US are older folks whom even the republican side of aren't deep into the terminally online culture war bullshit. I don't even think its that huge of an influence on young teens outside of a couple year-long phase that they'll quickly grow out of since its a lot more dependent on other external factors in one's life to get them to actually vote on it when they become old enough.

As many many people who have attempted suicide may tell you, there is often an immediate regret to the action of trying to kill one's self as the reality of such a deed hits them like a truck. Your body will do just about everything to keep yourself alive and can very drastically shift one's mental attitude away from suicide or self-harm. So I think I would revive them. Besides, they now know best whether death really is the preferred option over life. Earthbound came to mind for some reason.

I never thought about it before but I wonder why the Chinese New Year is a commonly celebrated and recognized thing over here in the US and not any other Non-Gregorian calendar dates. There are some Non-Gregorian holidays but only the Chinese one has the New Year commonly talked about in the public conscious. Regardless happy Chinese New Year. We should celebrate even more new years from other calendars!

Oh fuck you. Oh thank god, the guard finally died of hypothermia. Jesus Christ, I don't even need any other units anymore, she has fills all but one niche. "So please take his book and use it to kill people at twice the normal speed." Despair.

That's why localizers and translators have to work together for these kinds of things. Most languages don't have the same fundamental base and so many things end up being lost in translation. If you translate directly without editing, it tends to sound very strange in the language it's being translated to, which is why you have localizers working to change certain wordings or phrases to make it make more sense in said language. Subs do this as well so in either case if you don't speak the original language, there will always be some things lost in translation, not to mention that how characters speak in media is usually completely different from how real people of that language speak it. I recall hearing from an interview with Miyazaki saying that he preferred working with English VAs for his films because it was easier to get them to "speak as they normally would" in roles, with many Japanese VAs he worked with supposedly trying too hard to be dramatic and unnaturally high or low pitch with their voice. Generally I agree with Ruben. With anything animated everything thing is a dub, even the original language, because the original voice actors won't know about the original author's intent on a certain line anymore than a foreign VA would, and a dub is only as bad as it is neglected by said author or studio. I feel like that's only true if you accept the idea that there exists a default linguistic way to define things right? Because naturally the best way to explain things in a certain language is to explain it...in that language. There is no external vibe meter for languages that ranks how well a certain thing is conveyed in a specific language, it's all about how we individually can understand what is being said. It all depends on what language you are speaking at the moment. That being said, historically the way languages grow is by feeding off of each other. Since languages have no true inherent standardization, the history of one language is often the history of multiple different languages merging and diverging and continuing to grow today. Case in point, there are a couple Japanese words that most English speakers know of and use frequently, even if there is an English equivalent. So you may be onto something.

Also I take back the comment I made ages ago about Fire Emblem music not being particularly memorable till Awakening. I really like Genealogy's music so far.

AHAH! I HAVE IT! I had never heard the Grannvale song specifically before but I swore it reminded me of another song, which was Stone Tower Temple from Majora's Mask. They definitely are different but the way they set up the beat is very similar and quite unique. They also start with nearly the exact same rhythm melody. Now that I'm listening to it again though, some parts of the melody for Army of Grannvale also kind of remind of parts in Twilight of The Gods, though maybe I'm just hearing things. Azel is with Aideen. Sylvia is with Lewyn (A fact that I only learned after a conversation between Lewyn and Erin where she talked about winning him over despite Erin's obvious crush on him. In fact I tried to hard switch relationship building of Lewyn so Erin could get what she wanted but it was too late, so big oof for her) Midir is with Bridget because I though that initial meeting was cute and Claude is with Taillte. In terms of relationships I wanna push going forward, I've always had a "Ship them for their designs and dynamic, not their stats" mentality to these games but if we're being honest, the remaining bachelors for any of the bachelorettes kinda bore me so I settled on them a bit arbitrarily. So far I'm thinking Ayra with Holyn, Erin with Jamke and Raquesis with Dew. I like how I had more to say on shipping characters in this one game than I have had to say on managing stats and classes in literally all of the other games I've ever played on here

"That's what I've been doing the entire damn game, Claude!" The music playing during this scene sounds very familiar and I can't put my finger on it. So uh...are ya gonna let us in and help or...

We are both complicit and victims of the society we live under. As an individual you are powerless but perhaps thinking the world in terms of individuals, not collectives, is part of the problem.

The old Khedivate of Egypt founded by Muhammad Ali would go onto to becoming a Great Power in the eyes of the world and the home of an Arab Republic from the gulf all the way to Algiers. Three kings and one Emperor oversaw the military regime that had the ambition to unite the Muslim world into a single caliphate and standing up against European imperialist powers by mass industrializing and expanding the army. Once the third Otto-Egyptian war had ended with the annexation of Baghdad and Basra, King Gjon Al -' Alawi declared himself emperor of Arabia. But all was not well within the new Arabian parliament. The government had long been a topic of contested nature following liberal reforms as wealthy aristocrats, capitalists, and academics were all competing against each other for seats in the house. Complications furthered as the bar for voting had been reached by increasingly wealthy middle class farmers representing the Fellahin, earning them far more seats in the house than anyone had expected with an agrarian prime minister focusing on the issues of farmers (Note: Farmers as in growers owning farmland and hiring laborers. Not like lower class peasants" while still trying to match the industrialization of their ally France and enemy Britain. Palestine, Constantine, and Lower Egypt being the prime urban centers of the Empire, being situated across the Mediterranean they had the best access to traded goods across the Empire and from other countries, as well as many poor peasants and laborers immigrating to find work in the new industrial centers. This illustrating a new gradual shift in power from the old aristocracy to capitalists obtaining huge hordes of wealth from textile mills and selling luxury clothing to foreign markets. However, excessive demand for dye and silk from the limited supply in the fertile crescent and Nile River kept the Fellahin absurdly rich and powerful for a long time. That however all changed when the Emperor declared war on Britain for the capture of the Trucial States under British control. Just about everyone in the Arabian parliament agreed that a direct confrontation with Great Britain was a fools errand and that though they may try and oppose them economically, they could never do so militarily. Not to mention Arabia was still recovering from several campaigns in the peninsula and the Ottoman Empire, the latter of which was especially harsh on the national gold reserve. Despite it all, the Emperor saw a golden opportunity. Britain at this time was entangled in a war against France and the US and so their highest numbers were occupied. He also saw this as a chance to throw the political tides to his militaristic favor, doing away with elections and believing that the people would rally under him as the sole authority to unite the Muslim world. Ever since the declaration of the Arabian empire, a wave of nationalism overtook the Empire's academics and armed forces. Though peasantry and urban laborers toiled away in the factories and farms, not even knowing how to read, the middle and upper class waved the new national flag with cheers as the army marched out of Cairo towards the Trucial states. The Emperor believed it would be through this rising nationalism and distraction of war that he would be able to succeed in a play for absolute power in the state. However the war proved much longer than was originally expected. Several attempts at landed invasion of Arabia were attempting, and though all failed, the exhaustion of constant war from the people grew more and more, especially in Alexandria as British naval ships bombarded the city walls. And the Emperor's play for power was becoming more and more obvious. It began when radical students in Cairo began agitating for the abdication of the Emperor. They were dismissed at first but as time went on and goods became more and more expansive, especially in the recently conquered regions of the Arab peninsula. More and more students protested, and soon other academics and learned people started to organize and radicalize. However things really kicked steam when a peaceful demonstration from Sunni leaders in Cairo got out of hand. The Emperor, becoming increasingly paranoid, lashed out and demanded the dissolution of the marchers. One thing lead to another and marchers were soon being beaten on the street by armed guards before they could reach the palace. A leading Sunni leader was severely wounded and traumatized by the event. Losing his faith in god he became jaded and turned to communism and atheism. He preached that his followers must throw away their faiths, claiming that God had abandoned them long ago. Nearly everyone thought he was insane, but his great influence on the church caused a great split in the Sunni Ulema. Nonetheless, many other Sunni leaders saw the police beatings as a point of radicalizing as well, perhaps not to the extant of atheism, but to demanding the Emperor abdicate from the throne. It was around then that the growing unrest really reached a critical level, and though the war was almost over, it was feared that the country would burn in a civil war before then. In any other time the Emperor would be willing to fight that war, but with Britain knocking at his doorstep he had no choice but to cave in to the demands. The Emperor abdicated, and with so threw parliament into chaos as his young heir of 6 was hardly ready to lead a country. In what took about a year, the legislation was cleared up by the prime minister and he declared the first Arabian Republic. For the time being this stabilized things. The abolishing of the monarchy angered many but the voting laws remained the same with an elected president as the new head of office. The people, and voters wealthy enough to vote, exhausted from the constant war under the military regime, elected pacifist Ahmet Al-Hasi as first president of Arabia. The war with Britain ended and the Trucial states were ceded to Arabia, and the new president promised no wars no more for the remainder of his time in office. With the discovery of Oil and founding of the free trade and conservative parties, who knows what the future of this country will hold. Also in other news, Finland is- I'd probably still exist, I just wouldn't be the Edelguardian anymore. I'd be like...the Joshua Jouster or something.

Me ceasing to exist because of the altered timeline

I recall an interesting video by game reviewer Yahtzee making the claim that a game can be engaging without being necessarily being "fun" and any game in how in portrays its context alongside the gameplay can be very engaging and interesting even if it isn't fun. That isn't to say games should be purposefully made bad or excuse games for frustrating experiences but it's like, if the game is supposed to be a gritty realistic anti-war world war 1 simulator and the gameplay thus is incredibly boring and extremely stressful, that is still in service to engaging the player in what the creators wanted them to engage in. Art doesn't really have a strict definition to it and I don't think it should beyond "Art is what people experience in it" but generally if you apply the same gameplay = fun puritan attitude to things like movies and books you run into some implications, that If you think that those art forms should always be fun and happy all the time or that a film could never be engaging without also being a fun happy time than you'll have to deal with the vast majority of that media containing some kind of downer scene that isn't fun to watch nor is it supposed to be. And you might say, "Well it's a game, so it's different." To which I respond, how? How is gameplay being purposefully made uncomfortable to convey a certain type of theming any different from a scene in a movie or book having a purposefully uncomfortable scene to convey a certain type of theming? You might say it's because of the direct player control but why shouldn't that be changed to be fit with the intended engagement even if some players may find it "not fun" I'll stress again that this isn't him saying that games shouldn't ever be fun or that something being bad because of dev oversight is good actually, but that a game can be engaging without being "fun" in the traditional sense.

I present to you a unified Pan-Arab state led by the only Albanian in the entire country. Ah, don't worry. It was just a politician agitating for secret police to be enacted. Our actual security law is much more progressive!

JESUS FUCK He's fine, don't worry. True. I was referencing that the game seems reluctant to refer to her as an heir specifically while being eager to point out that any son she may give birth to will be an heir. There's gotta be like a manual that came with the original game that gives this kind of crucial information. I don't know who Levin is but okay. Was it the village the closest to the castle because if so it unfortunately does not exist anymore.

Man, it would sure be a shame if my only restore staff went with the character who left right before this mission. Game, it's so cute that you think I'll remember any of these names. Prince Kurth's daughter 🤝Nearly every other female royal figure in a Nintendo game Never being called a queen for some reason Now look here as Ayra misses three times in a row with the bolt sword qt 76 despite being hit twice in response by a 59, and right after that have Lewyn be hit three times in a row by a 31 Blizzard, causing his death. This combined with Sigurd being hit by a 5 percent earlier as well as Lachesis missing a 70 four consecutive times, makes me have grounds to claim that God hates me. Clearly, the obvious strategy is to have Erin kill everyone across this bridge singlehandedly. Probably? I just don't recall much of it. I feel this game would benefit from having cutscenes taking place in the court to show what is happening rather than just info-dumping it all to Sigurd. Such a shame too, I couldn't even see her in action since all enemies were already gone with she promoted.

There are a lot of complexities regarding local prices and trading policies, how high or low tariffs are on specific imports, and all that explaining why a grocery worker in one state is earning twice the wages of a grocery worker in another, which also plays into how migration works. Generally, capitalists in the game oppose state interference in the market, and so they oppose things like subsidized wages and support privatization of all industries, even for public services like railroads and power plants, which is why laissez-faire as a law makes you as the state unable to subsidize or nationalize certain industries. If that all sounds very familiar...yeah its supposed to. What makes it all very impressive is that its all modeled at the pop level, making it more dynamic and materially inspired.

Your honor, he's just a little guy Sibling rivalry If only Brigid's pirate dad was still alive, they could reenact the Fates plot with this. This was definitely needed Your country A thing that, in fact, has never fought for you Oh wonderful! She'll be able to give birth to the next king! I was joking but if they actually go that route... B-But I just promoted you! You can't leave me now!! I've never played Vicky 2 but in Vicky 3 it works slightly differently, with capitalist pops aiming for balanced profit in the local and global market and thus not caring about lowing food prices for poor pops or paying them a fair wage. The Industrialists always advocate for tax breaks for the well-to-do and the lowest possible wages on every industry. They want a surplus to sell on the international market but not to mass sell locally as they would have to drive down prices so that everybody could afford them. There is somewhat of a flow, as there was in real life, but it is inconsistent and one-sided. But you still promote them early game as they are much better than the aristocrats in the landed gentry.

Its funny because in Paradox games there are debates in the community about whether or not a certain thing being annoying is okay for historical accuracy reasons. Like, oh its frustrating that you can't grow your economy fast enough because rich landlords horde the money for themselves and denounce any kind of progress? Wehehell, I guess the devs did their jobs right.