Jump to content

The Reason for the Problems With Awakening


Topaz Light
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 436
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

It's that there's more merit to the point of it being there than simply saying "it's a marketing gimmick". There is some more integration than you're giving it credit for.

Yes, it could have not been Marth. It could also have not been Tiki. It could also have not been in Archanea at all. But the point is it IS and there is a shared history.

Edited by Irysa
Link to comment
Share on other sites

From what we get in Tiki's dialogue, it hints that she went off to sleep and isolate herself from the world because she has difficulty dealing with everyone she knew growing old and dying (which would make the task that put her in Valm one of selfishness). In a few of the supports where she's caught napping, she mumbles things to 'Mar-Mar', so it's quite likely she's still not completely over it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can bring up excuses and/or handwaves all day. Lucina has no shown pressing need to dress like Marth in particular. Let alone fight Chrom with a lethal weapon in Ferox's arena.

And Awakening didn't do a good at having a shared history with Marth's games. What with how many times the game clashed with details from the setting of Marth's games (see Grima).

Edited by Saladus
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's really funny how I don't even like Awakening's plot much but I end up feeling compelled to argue with you because of the absurdities you spout.

You can handwave it all you want. Lucina has no shown pressing need to dress like Marth in particular. Let alone fight Chrom with a lethal weapon in Ferox's arena.

I haven't handwaved anything, I've just given some extra integration that is present.

Define "pressing need". She gave her reason in the quote I outlined before, and it's not wholly unbelievable considering the circumstances of the future. If you want explictly detailed, nitty gritty reasons for a character's motivations to do anything, I would again remind you that if you employ this same level of scrutiny to most works of fiction, (Fire Emblem included) you're going to reach the same end result. eg; Why didn't Zephiel just summon the Dragons and kill Roy in Chapter 3 of FE6? Why would Marquess Araphen employ Rath if he seems to hate Sacaens so much in FE7? Why does Legault, a famous Black Fang member, not know where the Fang's base is? Where did Riev dissapear to in Chapter 6 of FE8 instead of killing Eirika? Why didn't Ashnard send more troops after Elincia in FE9? Why does FE10 have so many plot contrivances (randomly convenient future sight, medallion singing, Blood Pacts, etc)? Why didn't Medeus do anything about Marth in the years after Altea was destroyed, nobody else could use the Falchion? Why didn't Hardin just kill Marth in Chapter 8?

You're approaching this from what I would call "A Creationist Standpoint", you already have your conclusion and you're just looking for evidence to justify your claim. Stop letting your dislike of Awakening result in such absurdities.

Also, Lucina's design is also not really that reminiscient of Marth anyway, she has a somewhat blue outfit with a small internally red cape, which Eliwood and Roy also have, just she's spouting blue hair as well. It's not a 1-to-1 in any respect, if it didn't refer to Marth it would quite possible people wouldn't have made a deliberate connection.

Edited by Irysa
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lucina dressing as Marth gives her an easy source of character development.

Exactly; they're cheating. They're using their marketing gimmick of "Marth as a girl" to define a character in its entirety and expecting people not to get offended.

And judging from how they created that damn Chapter 21 scene making her the player's canon waifu, it worked.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think calling Tiki the daughter of Naga is supposed to be metaphorical, like how Jesus is called the son of God. In that case it's not really important to the plot.

Tiki is not the metaphorical daughter of Naga. Tiki is the daughter of Naga.

Yes, it's not important to the plot but neither is TIki herself. Her role would have been better served by someone who actually knew Naga, like say, Xane or Gotoh. But we all know the only reason Tiki was chosen over those two is that she is more recognisable. There is no deeper meaning to it.

Still, leaving out the fact that Tiki is Naga's daughter is a strange omission.

Also, Lucina looks more like Seliph and shares more in common with him than Marth. In fact, the whole game would have been suited as a distant follow up to FE4 instead.

Edited by Ranger Jack Walker
Link to comment
Share on other sites

the only reason Tiki was chosen over those two is that she is more recognisable. There is no deeper meaning to it.

You forget: she's female. That makes her one more piece of pandering eye candy to add for horny weeaboos to obsess over.

Also, Lucina looks more like Seliph and shares more in common with him than Marth. In fact, the whole game would have been suited as a distant follow up to FE4 instead.

That's only natural; she's the kid of the ostensible (sub-)protagonist of this story, has blue hair, possesses lineage to a holy sword, etc. But apart from the first detail, she's interchangable with every FE protagonist.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Still, leaving out the fact that Tiki is Naga's daughter is a strange omission.

It most certainly fits well with my personal theory that the game was supposed to be an original setting until somebody decided to have it take place in Akaneia but only went as far as changing a few names.

Sure it's not impossible for Tiki to be a shrine maiden on a continent far away from her home and her caretaker. It's not impossible for her to "long to better know the world" despite having had 2000 years to explore it and having at least seen enough of it to end up all the way over in Valencia. And it not impossible for her to feel lonely because her powers "isloated her" and made her "weep alone" for "many days" in addition to the reasons that Akaneia Tiki already felt lonely, because she spend 1000 years by herself before Bantu woke her up. There is just nothing intuitive about any of it it.

It'd be far easier to imagine Awakening Tiki as an entirely new character if the game just didn't insist they were the same person because she is not only easily replaceable but she sounds more like a normal oracle character anyway. Like a curious young girl who was never allowed to travel or get close to other people because of her gift as opposed to someone who lived several millenia and can do as she pleases.

Edit:

That's only natural; she's the kid of the ostensible (sub-)protagonist of this story, has blue hair, possesses lineage to a holy sword, etc. But apart from the first detail, she's interchangable with every FE protagonist.

Eh, Fire Emblem Lords, as young as they all are, are at least leaders and have a sense of responsibility.

Lucina on the other hand, doesn't care about anyone outside of her friends and family. And this isn't even a case of her not getting to show it because of the limitations of her role, as only two of her many endings at least allow for the possiblity that she may have gone go back to her time to save the country that she is the freaking ruler of. This is a massive contrast towards every other Fire Emblem Lord, especially towards Marth who not only felt responsible for his own country but actually went as far as protecting an enemy nation from his own allies. Outside of apperances, they couldn't have less in common.

As far as Fire Emblem heroes go, she is only similar to Ike because just like her, he only fights for his family and friends (and money of course). And it just so happens that Ike's friends are the kind of people who take responsibility for entire countries. But Ike is also a guy who never wanted to be a noble and gave his title away at the first opportunity to return to his old life.

Edited by BrightBow
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Irysa: Medeus "didn't do anything" about Marth because he didn't know where Marth was. The whole point of him being in Talys for two years was to hide from the Dolhr & co. alliance. And Hardin didn't kill Marth during chapter 8 because Marth managed to escape the battle.

@BrightBow: I find the part about Tiki "feeling alone" before meeting Bantu to be quite unlikely give the fact that they met when Bantu woke her from the dormancy that Naga placed upon her. Not to mention that she was an infant when she was put in said state.

Also, do those endings of Lucina's outright state that she went back or is that just in-universe speculation? I mean, all of the children seemingly stayed in the current timeline, which would imply that they can't go back to begin with.

Edited by RedEyedDrake
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@BrightBow: I find the part about Tiki "feeling alone" before meeting Bantu to be quite unlikely give the fact that they met when Bantu woke her from the dormancy that Naga placed upon her. Not to mention that she was an infant when she was put in said state.

Well, I did say felt alone because of being asleep for so long, not that she was necessarily feeling lonely before meeting Bantu. (Given the content of her dreams, terror is probably a more appropiate feeling) And she directly says in FE3 that she doesn't want to sleep because when she does, she is alone:

"The bishop told me that I had to sleep again.

But I don’t want to…

Because when I sleep I’m always alone."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Irysa: Medeus "didn't do anything" about Marth because he didn't know where Marth was. The whole point of him being in Talys for two years was to hide from the Dolhr & co. alliance. And Hardin didn't kill Marth during chapter 8 because Marth managed to escape the battle.

Hardin just stands around brooding at the side of the map in Chapter 8 then in a CG walks up to Marth and says I HATE YOUUUUUU then doesn't do anything.

fe12-hardin-threatens-marth.png

As for SD, fair point (although if I wanted to be like Saladus, I'd say it's "unrealistic" that they didn't find him after two years since they own like 90% of the entire continent), but it's quite hard to find "plot holes" in a game like SD I suppose! How about this - why couldn't Caeda have given the same kind of speech she gave to Lorenz to convert Camus? They both had the same convictions for staying with Grust. Alternatively, why didn't he just conquer Talys in 2 years, it's some tiny ass Island nation that could barely put up any resistance.

To be clear, I don't really care about finding answers to these, I'm just demonstrating the point that the depths he's dredging to try to fault Awakening are ridiculous because we can do the same to nearly anything and then try to write it off as "bad writing". I've outlined my own personal analysis of the problems with Awakening before and I'm simply not of the opinion that stuff like "well Lucina kinda looked like Marth guys" has somehow anything to do with it. Awakening's problem is first and foremost not being a very compelling story after the first half of the game.

Exactly; they're cheating. They're using their marketing gimmick of "Marth as a girl" to define a character in its entirety and expecting people not to get offended.

And judging from how they created that damn Chapter 21 scene making her the player's canon waifu, it worked.

Lucina's character is in no way similar to Marth though...they're quite clearly very separate entities. Brightbow make some good comparisons prior, but Lucina has a lot more conviction than Marth does, which is easy to see when she's willing to kill someone who hasn't done anything wrong (yet) to save someone else.

Also, you keep using that word but I don't think you even know what it means. I suppose you think Lyn is complete "canon waifu" material as well...

Edited by Irysa
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Honestly, I never really liked the villages as exposition tools since getting that information hindered gameplay (moving to the village and taking an action which doesn't help complete the chapter). I think that base conversations as in FE9/FE10 are a better method for giving that sort of worldbuilding background information.

Base convos are a really good way to handle it. There's also FE4 Villages which always gave 5000g. Some gave exposition on top of that, and others gave another item on top of that. Every village was worth visiting.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Video games have a lot of things that can seem unrealistic. For example, Dolhr apparantly having its own air force, or Volzein, Heimler and Dejanira having status in their army. I think we're supposed to take some kind of three-pronged excuse that:

1: Dolhr had its military limited to Anri and the Milennial Palace so as to keep watch and protrction against their allies,

2: Macedon was busy with Hardin and Grust busy with Midia, and

3: Past Aurelis, the land route to Talys was blocked off by bandit-infested mountains, and the harbor taken over by pirates.

Either way, we're here to fight about FE13, not to excuse it because other games had similar problems. You're stonewalling.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@BrightBow: Oh. Now that I went over this particular conversation again, I see that I misinterpretated some of the more fine details in it. My bad. You are entirely corret on this.

@Irysa: I did not forget that scene. However, that does not change the fact that Marth and his allies still managed to escape.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I felt Camus doesn't defect because he's loyal to his king and fellow soldiers whereas Lorenz is loyal to the citizens and that he couldn't abandon his fellow soldiers to die.

Speaking of which, is it me, or was anyone else reminded of that recruitment speech when reading the FE10 2-E Extended script?

Still, ripoff or not, at least Lorenz isn't aquieseing to "But dragons aren't humans!".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Irysa: I did not forget that scene. However, that does not change the fact that Marth and his allies still managed to escape.

So basically Hardin is a shitty incompetant villain? Got it!

Video games have a lot of things that can seem unrealistic. For example, Dolhr apparantly having its own air force, or Volzein, Heimler and Dejanira having status in their army. I think we're supposed to take some kind of three-pronged excuse that:

1: Dolhr had its military limited to Anri and the Milennial Palace so as to keep watch and protrction against their allies,

2: Macedon was busy with Hardin and Grust busy with Midia, and

3: Past Aurelis, the land route to Talys was blocked off by bandit-infested mountains, and the harbor taken over by pirates.

This is exactly the logic you yourself dismissed repeatedly throughout when people try to give you explanations for things in Awakening. Don't you see how hypocritical you're being?

Either way, we're here to fight about FE13, not to excuse it because other games had similar problems. You're stonewalling.

I'm here to point out that Saladus is being a huge douche when it comes to trying to dredge the depths of anything he can find to justify Awakening being "badly written" instead of providing actually concise examples. You're not as bad but you've done the same thing throughout. I'm not trying to say that this is an excuse, I'm pointing out that you're letting your disgruntlement hide your better judgement. Comment on the things that are actually wrong in the context of the story as a whole, not something completely fickle like Lucina's outfit. I do think many FE games have compelling narratives, and I think Awakening flounders in this area, but the kind of nitpicks going on have almost nothing to do with it. This is just confirmation bias.

Awakening's writing is significantly cheesier but when it comes to pure inconsistencies and plot holes, Radiant Dawn and Blazing Sword really have to take the cake. Awakening doesn't give the care it should to some of it's Archanean history, but at least it doesn't shit all it's own past like the FE12 remake insert script did or most of Radiant Dawn's Part 3.

I felt Camus doesn't defect because he's loyal to his king and fellow soldiers whereas Lorenz is loyal to the citizens and that he couldn't abandon his fellow soldiers to die.

This is actually my theory too to an extent, like I said, I was just bringing up examples of stuff where you have to infer to get some kind of idea of what's going on. The game doesn't have to say EVERYTHING. Camus shows how much he cares about Yubello and Yumina and clearly has a dedication to the Royal House of Grust, wheras Lorenz is very much dedicated to Grust as a nation, aka the people of Grust. Although Lorenz killing himself in Chapter 1 of Book 2/FE12 is still kind of...

Edited by Irysa
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not trying to say that this is an excuse, I'm pointing out that you're letting your disgruntlement hide your better judgement.

I can't really do this any other way. This game emotionally hurt me. Everywhere I look in it, I just see shrewdly recycled concepts, neglect towards worldbuilding, and a script that cares more about boosting the reader's self-esteem than any desire to tell a story.

Okay, then I'll just roll out my second-biggest gun in defense of 3 to 11 and attack of 13: The story absolutely refuses to be reasonably serious with what goes on in the game.

And the DLC is just a wide variety of not-Ike giving lame sarcasm, with the occasional grimdark instances of Death's Embrace and the Future Past instalments.

Edited by Delphi Sage
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Irysa: They didn't escape because Hardin was being incompetent. When I say that they escaped I mean that they managed to both reach their destination fast enough and cover their backs from Hardin's forces well enough to give them the slip. I mean, you did play through that battle at least once, right? Marth and his allies didn't waltz away, they simply managed to make it by the skin of their teeth.

Edited by RedEyedDrake
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, then I'll just roll out my second-biggest gun in defense of 1-11 and attack of 13: The story absolutely refuses to be reasonably serious with what goes on in the game.

Demonstrate an example.

And the DLC is just a wide variety of not-Ike giving lame sarcasm, with the occasional grimdark instances of Death's Embrace and the Future Past instalments.

Haven't played it, wouldn't know.

@Irysa: They didn't escape because Hardin was being incompetent. When I say that they escaped I mean that they managed to both reach their destination fast enough and cover their backs from Hardin's forces well enough to give them the slip. I mean, you did play through that battle at least once, right? Marth and his allies didn't waltz away, they simply managed to make it by the skin of their teeth.

Except the CG implies Hardin walks right up to him then doesn't do anything. Hardin also doesn't order the Generals to attack Marth until after like, a significant amount of time has passed. Come on dude.

And again I repeat, I really don't care to get into this. I'm comfortable with the way it is. I'm using it to highlight how I can twist things to make other games look like they have "bad writing" when I don't even actually feel that way (10 and 7 aside) because of how misreprestative nitpicking is.

Edited by Irysa
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...