How Evil do you want Nohr to be?

[Thane]

I've always preferred when things are a bit morally gray. Fortunately, as it stands now, it seems like Garon is the only really evil one since I highly doubt Marx would question what he's up to if he, too, was on the baby kicking train.

As long as the two factions differ enough to warrant multiple playthroughs in terms of story as well as gameplay, I'll be satisfied.

[BlueLore]

Overall I think moral ambiguity would be nice,since I fear that it basically turns out "the hoshida are all good and nice and while the nohr look evil,but in fact its only their boss who is evil and most of them are actually good guys"

However I want the Nohr to actually do some dirty stuff where you question yourself if it is the right thing to do.

I mean there is no point in being on the side of the attacking and seemingly "evil" faction if they don't use it to its fullest potential.

Am I the only one who doesn't want Garon to be evil?

Nope,I think it would be a welcome surprise to see that the evil and creepy looking king of the attacking nation actually turns out to be a kinda decent person(or at least a well intentioned extremist)

[ReaperGuardian]

I've always preferred when things are a bit morally gray.

Aye this, it would make the choice of choosing sides harder and much more interesting imho. If Garon would indeed be a more gray person instead of being wholly evil, or if Hoshido had dark features, like practising forbidden magics or I don't know what, the story would imo get very interesting.

However, can we expect this in this Fire Emblem? I hope so.. but I think not :<

[Crysta]

If we go by gaming cliche's, the uglier you are the more likely you're gonna be evil, so I'm not gonna hold my breath on Garon. There are exceptions, but it's usually a pretty person who happens to be batshit, not king fugly who is simply misunderstood.

Marx, on the other hand, reeks of anti-hero/anti-villain imo. And he's predictably more attractive.

[Thane]

If we go by gaming cliche's, the uglier you are the more likely you're gonna be evil, so I'm not gonna hold my breath on Garon. There are exceptions, but it's usually a pretty person who happens to be batshit, not king fugly who is simply misunderstood.

Marx, on the other hand, reeks of anti-hero/anti-villain imo. And he's predictably more attractive.

I'm fairly new to the series and unfamiliar with a lot of the installments, but isn't Fire Emblem the master of this trope? You control supermodels and must win against an army of uglies + the most evil-looking person on the planet who attacked your peaceful kingdom unprovoked.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Thane

[Crysta]

I think FE4 has some prettyful bad guys. Like Julius.

But I haven't seen good uglies yet, as far as I can tell.

EDIT: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BeautyEqualsGoodness - lol at the image they used

Edited April 11, 2015 by Crysta

[-Cynthia-]

There are some good uglies (FE6 Gonzales for instance) but by and large it's pretty good people against ugly bad people.

I hope Garon isn't like obviously mwahaha evil at least, his appearance is so over the top I hope it's to throw people's expectations off.

[Rekt no Ken]

Voted for Pretty Evil. I think that would add a nice new twist to the game. Otherwise it will just be another typical FE where you're the righteous goody two-shoes. Flawed characters can often be more complex and captivating than morally upright ones.

[blah the Prussian]

I really want to be able to be full on evil.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah, it's rather ridiculous how good ugliness is a predictor of evil in FE. Even amongst villains you can usually expect the attractive ones to be relatively symapthetic (Lloyd, Glen, Brenya, etc.) while the uglies are scum (Riev, Ashnard, damn near every bandit), although obviously there are exceptions.

Garon has an extremely villainous design. I hope there's some nuance to him for sure, but I don't hold out that much hope. I definitely don't want Nohr to be a full country full of evil people since I find that completely unbelievable (even Daein was pushing it, although FE10 did help somewhat in humanising them). Shades of grey are definitely what I'm hoping for (but I won't hold my breath).

[Draco]

Huh, I think I'm on the Moral Ambiguity train too. I wanna feel bad about the choices I make. :c

[Sroy]

Huh, I think I'm on the Moral Ambiguity train too. I wanna feel bad about the choices I make. :c

I'm also going with this.

I want to feel bad for the choices I make for the good of the country or my family.

[NekoKnight]

Wouldn't it be interesting if you had to kill Marx and Ryoma REGARDLESS of the side you choose? For Nohr, you need to kill Garon but Marx doesn't think his father is that bad so you need to defeat him. For Hoshido, after to defeat the invaders, Ryoma goes on a revenge murder spree in Nohr and you need to stop him to restore peace.

[Book of Ereshkigal]

Wouldn't it be interesting if you had to kill Marx and Ryoma REGARDLESS of the side you choose?

At the same time, this robs value from your choice. It'd be an interesting twist, possibly, but at the same times it undermines the choice making. (Ideally, you'd chose to kill them or not)

[jessehyuga]

I don't want Nohr to be completely evil, and I don't want Hoshido to be perfectly good. I am a man who REALLY enjoys grey on grey morality in my stories, and I'm really hoping that neither side will be as black and white as they are set up to be. I want to AGONIZE about which side that I'm going to choose, and even after I choose my side I want to regret it every step of the way. I want to feel the pain in the decisions Kamui is going to have to take.

[Jester Capri]

I feel like they won't be too evil due to Marx actually suspecting and questioning Garon's motives, though, for some reason, I feel like they might just kill off or conquer Hoshido just to get them out of their way to fight a greater evil or something, similar to when Satsuki just killed off competing high schools just to kill off Nudist Beach before heading off to the big bad.

[Dark Holy Elf]

At the same time, this robs value from your choice. It'd be an interesting twist, possibly, but at the same times it undermines the choice making. (Ideally, you'd chose to kill them or not)

Well... one important thing to reflect in any choice-making is that sometimes your choices can't change things. One way to do that is with characters who can't be saved.

(Not that I'm cheering for or against this particular plot point... it's far too early to have any idea if it would be appropriate to the story or not.)

[NekoKnight]

At the same time, this robs value from your choice. It'd be an interesting twist, possibly, but at the same times it undermines the choice making. (Ideally, you'd chose to kill them or not)

Well yes and no. Yes, it 'undermines' the choice in that the final outcome for that character remains the same, but the circumstances change. Let me give you some anime examples, so brace yourself for SPOILERS for Madoka and Steins;Gate. Ready?

In both of those stories, the main character uses time travel to save someone they love from dying. Each time they reset time and try again, the person they try to save just dies in another way. Ultimately, there is a happy ending but a lot of the drama and personal tragedy of the main character comes from not being able to save their loved one, no matter what path they choose. Fire Emblem if could write a powerful story where you, torn between two worlds, are forced to destroy BOTH things that you love for the greater good.

[Nyanko]

Wouldn't it be interesting if you had to kill Marx and Ryoma REGARDLESS of the side you choose? For Nohr, you need to kill Garon but Marx doesn't think his father is that bad so you need to defeat him. For Hoshido, after to defeat the invaders, Ryoma goes on a revenge murder spree in Nohr and you need to stop him to restore peace.

I would hate that with a burning passion. I want the characters on the side I choose to stay alive and fight with me to the end. Especially the two older brothers. They seem so important to the story.

I mainly just hate it when a character I've gotten attached to dies in any story. It ruins it for me. That's why, when this game has been out in Japan for a bit, I'm going to make sure none of the characters I'm interested in don't die due to story reasons. I need to be prepared if they actually do something like that.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Sir_Frederick

[NekoKnight]

I would hate that with a burning passion. I want the characters on the side I choose to stay alive and fight with me to the end. Especially the two older brothers. They seem so important to the story.

I mainly just hate it when a character I've gotten attached to dies in any story. It ruins it for me. That's why, when this game has been out in Japan for a bit, I'm going to make sure none of the characters I'm interested in don't die due to story reasons. I need to be prepared if they actually do something like that.

I feel you. I was really sad when I had to kill the penultimate boss of Sacred Stones. When a certain character died in Valkyria Chronicles, I couldn't believe it and stopped playing the game for another week. It's painful but well written tragedy can make an average work beautiful.

Edited April 13, 2015 by NekoKnight

[Nyanko]

I feel you. I was really sad when I had to kill the penultimate boss of Sacred Stones. When a certain character died in Valkyria Chronicles, I couldn't believe it and stopped playing the game for another week. It's painful but well written tragedy can make an average work beautiful.

I agree. I just hope they don't do it with this game. They put so much emphasis on family that I hope everyone on the side you choose survives. I'm assuming we'll be killing off some off the siblings from the opposing side. That'll be hard enough for me. I'm a sucker for happy endings, you see.

[blah the Prussian]

If there is an arc that takes place in Hoshido (oh the Nohr side), one of the choices should involve using your family in Hoshido to assassinate people. I hope that in both paths you come under suspicion.