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Is Nohrrin a Villain?


Thane
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Is Nohrrin a Villain?  

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  1. 1. Is Nohrrin a Villain?



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Hello everyone.

First of all, since it's me writing this, I want to start by saying that I don't intend for this to be a Fates' plot complaint thread. I'm merely interested in hearing what everyone has to say on this matter.

After recently writing two posts about Xander and another one where I called Nohrrin a bad guy, it struck me that I don't know how other people on the forum classify Corrin's role in Conquest; I know that many consider their actions awful and poorly thought through, but I don't know if people think that pushes Nohrrin into villain territory.

As I just said, I personally consider them to be a villain. They go back to an invading nation without a plan and follows the evil overlord's commands loyally at first, then chooses to sacrifice Hoshido by betting that Garon will sit on its throne once the country is captured, something they've got no guarantee for. They don't really stop and think about it, but determines it's the only way immediately while at the same time keeping both the Nohrian siblings out of it while not even trying to mend the gap with the Hoshidan royals when they meet in chapter 18. Thus, Corrin's poor judgement directly leads to a lot of death, suffering and destruction.

Lyon is another Fire Emblem character whose poor judgement leads to similar results. While he was directly possessed by Fomortiis, I believe Lyon is widely considered a villain, even though he did what he did with the best intentions in mind. Corrin's mind is entirely their own, however, yet the ending of Conquest brushes off their actions throughout the game. Why is that?

A point in Corrin's favor is that they stopped the war just as promised when Garon was defeated, but that makes me wonder something else: what would Corrin have done if Garon hadn't sat on the throne? What would they have done, and how far would they have gone to defeat Garon then? Corrin would then have sacrificed a lot of lives and placed an entire country under the control of a madman with nothing to show for it, and to me, that's the straw that breaks the camel's back for me and puts them in villain territory, regardless of their intentions.

What do you all think?

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Well, Lyon's role in Sacred Stones is a bit different in that his noble intentions died some time before the start of the game. Corrin's goal throughout CQ is to establish peace between Hoshido and Nohr, at first by trying to influence Nohr from within and later, when he learns about Garon's slimey interior, by exposing his true nature to his siblings.

His methods are questionable (I, too, don't want this to devolve into a bashing festival) because he supports the war even though his plan is far from waterproof, but since he isn't in there for personal gain, I wouldn't categorize him as a villain.

Weirdly enough, his actions in CQ make him seem rather like a pragmatic hero, who will use any means necessary to achieve the Greater Good. He might not be very good at it - as you say, he is basically sacrificing innocent lives for a rather risky gambit - but incompetence alone doesn't make him a villain.

Edited by ping
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After beating FE CQ the only thing i feel is that about the plot is that Corrin patched up lot of things he help to broke in the first place. I can't think of CQ Corrin as villainous, because as least will lead it to a more solid conclusion even as a villain than being praised for being a poor excuse of a chosen hero by everyone including the ones affected by his/her bad choices.

Edited by pinguyFrank
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I guess he's indirectly a villain. I mean Corrin or Nohrrin is kinda a coward and only steps up to plate because people tell him/her to. So by that logic he already misses the Hero/Good archetype and leads more toward a evil archetype. A villain is as a coward who seeks revenge sending troops before himself always hiding till the poison settles in and he strikes. Nohrrin kinda meets this; He is a coward living under his not-father's rule, he clearly doesn't agree to what his father says and does and has been targeted several times and instead of facing the problem with bravery he doesn't... He listens to his siblings and Azura and instead hides to plot against him which goes against the code of a hero. He waits in the shadows for a chance to take over...

Corrin as a character is morally Good and based on that you wouldn't really expect him to act the way he does. So it comes out as awkward for who is suppose to be a hero and not to mention "myself" since Corrin is the avatar then does intelligent systems just assume what I'd do in the situation delivered in conquest? Sorry this very quickly became a complain post so I'll stop myself here before I continue ranting pages of text. Noarrin is not really a villain but his character doesn't work as a hero either so I pick other

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I don't believe in the motion that Corrin is a villain, they had good intentions, but their idealism just got in the way and ended up with a worse reality compared to other paths. If Corrin had the intentions of creating destruction, then I would be more inclined to believe they're a villain.

To be honest, I find Azura's actions to be more morally questionable then Corrin's in Conquest. She withholds important information from Corrin in not only Conquest but in Birthright as well for no reason, and her actions costed a lot of lives that could have been saved if she just got over herself and told Corrin and crew about what's really going on, like she did in Revelations right at the start of the game. (Sometimes I feel like Conquest should have had Revelations' story, Azura tells Corrin about Garon, Corrin tells the royal family, get to the core of the conflict)

Edited by CooledEvergreen
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No, they're just a poorly written character in a poorly written plot. Obviously the intent was for Norrin to be heroic, considering how other characters react to them and how events are portrayed.

Edited by Refa
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Well, I suppose that depends on what you define as a Villain in this context. IS obviously considers him the greatest hero ever.

I would definitely consider him more evil then the likes of Lyon or Hetzel. Both of them have a very visible potential to do good but end up doing bad things due to a tragic flaw, Hetzel due to his cowardice and Lyon due to his self-perceived weakness. Meanwhile Corrin called the idea of going up against his evil father "insane", yet he immediately jumped upon the idea of invading an innocent nation. There is no tragic flaw to explain this. The only conclusion to draw is that the lives of innocent Hoshidians simply don't matter to him.

I think an angle that deserves some more recognition is that Garon's action don't become magically worse just because they were committed by a slime monster. Whether or not Garon is a literal monster or merely a metaphorical one shouldn't matter. So the fact that this revelation was the deciding factor for Corrin to finally to do something and not Garon's blatant villainy doesn't reflect well on him either. Especially given his famous "You want to win peace through death? This is madness!" line in the same chapter, because it shows that he is a hypocrite who only applies that line of thinking when it comes to people that he personally knows.

Edited by BrightBow
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I think Nohrrin is kind of a villain. Having good intentions alone doesn't necessarily make you a hero, since well-intentioned extremists, no matter how noble their goal may have been, are still considered villains. The "sort of" comes because the story itself doesn't believe that Nohrrin is the villain, and does everything it can to make us see them as this hero who did everything right. Clearly this isn't meant to be the story of a villain protagonist, we're actually supposed to believe that Nohrrin is the hero.

Looking at Nohrrin through a meta sense, or from Hoshido's POV, they are and should be the villain. What "saves" them from being full-on villain is that the story doesn't want them to be.

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No, they're just a poorly written character in a poorly written plot. Obviously the intent was for Norrin to be heroic, considering how other characters react to them and how events are portrayed.

I pretty much agree with this.

If I were forced to give an answer, however, I wouldn't call Nohrrin an evil character—their actions paints them as more of a damn fool. A fool is someone who is unwise, lacks sense, lacks judgement and turns their eyes from the truth (at least in a biblical sense, but it can be applied to this situation). Nohrrin fits those traits perfectly.

As the famous Mr. T once said, I pity the foo'.

Edited by saisymbolic
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A lot of what was said in the first post I agree with. I also think that Corrin didn't put any thought into their plans and just did things based on the first idea he got which isn't very smart. Corrin had potential to recruit Leon into his little circle with Azura. In C14 after Corrin openly speaks against Garon. Leon hints that he does defy Garon in subtle ways and that Corrin will lose his life if he continued openly doing that. So at that point Corrin was aware that Leon was willing to go behind his father's back to do the right thing.

Xander wouldn't work because he is loyal to a fault. Camilla, because she fears Garon a lot more that the rest of the siblings, in c13 she literally tells Corrin to put his head down and try to ignore the slaughter, if he wants to survive, just like she does. Elise would join Corrin but she wouldn't be able to do anything imo.

Corrin is trying to do the right thing but the way he goes about it is wrong, in the sense that he doesn't consider all of his possible options before acting. He does truly believe in what he is doing and stops caring if he becomes a hated for slaughtering everyone in Hoshido. I'm going to pick "other" as my choice, since Corrin isn't smart enough to be a villain or a hero.

Edited by Avarice_Shadow
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Sort of is what I answered, seeing as he's effective a hero for Nohr, but a villain to Hoshido depending on perspective. Of course the Nohrian people are going to praise him as a hero, and Fuga and bullshit near death hallucinations aside, the majority of Hoshido would paint him as a villain, something the game tries but does a shitty job of showcasing to do when the Nohrian army arrives in Shirasagi because what do nameless villagers insulting mean when the rest of the game praises the poor naive bastard. However, history is written by the victors, and Nohr effectively won, so Nohrrin IS going to be seen as a hero by Conquest's world's history books.

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I think Nohrrin is about on par as a villain as Micaiah is. Corrin is a naive person who is a bit in over their head. They made a bad decision and they regretted it. The problem is that it is Azura who comes up with the plan (which would make her more of a villain than Corrin) and they just go with it. No questions asked.

Micaiah gets put in a bad situation (due to Pelleas's naivety) and has to do the corrupt Senate's bidding... the problem is that she finds out the Senate is behind this them wants to minimize the casualties.... by setting the apostle and her army on fire.

Both people are trying to do what they think is best. And neither one of them are going about this in a malicious way. Yet both of them are doing a very destructive tactic in order to stop the war

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Sort of is what I answered, seeing as he's effective a hero for Nohr, but a villain to Hoshido depending on perspective. Of course the Nohrian people are going to praise him as a hero, and Fuga and bullshit near death hallucinations aside, the majority of Hoshido would paint him as a villain, something the game tries but does a shitty job of showcasing to do when the Nohrian army arrives in Shirasagi because what do nameless villagers insulting mean when the rest of the game praises the poor naive bastard. However, history is written by the victors, and Nohr effectively won, so Nohrrin IS going to be seen as a hero by Conquest's world's history books.

And even that's debatable on the account that there were still people that were loyal to Garon-- otherwise you wouldn't have had the split between pro-Xander and pro-Garon. Thus, many would probably see Corrin as an opportunist and a warmonger (after all, all they know is that what sparked Hoshido finally going to war was the murder of Mikoto-- something that only happened after Corrin "infiltrated into their ranks").

What would probably happen for Corrin is that some scholars would say that Corrin was a fool, others would praise him/her. The only thing that'd they would agree on is that he shifted the axis of power between Hoshido and Nohr.

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Imo, what makes Micaiah a better character than Nohrrin is that Micaiah at least shows some self awareness. She knows that history is likely to paint her as a villain like Mad King Ashnard for fighting this war, but she doesn't care if that's what it takes to save her country. Micaiah doesn't feel bad for herself, she might not like what she has to do but she's made her decision and she abides by it once she realizes what she is fighting for.

Nohrrin whines. And whines. And makes everything all about them. Hoshidans are getting killed left and right? "They don't understand what I am trying to do." It's all about Nohrrin. Also, Micaiah technically is fighting for what's "right" at the end of RD by joining with Ike under Yune to fight Ashera. Nohrrin doesn't really get a moment like that in Conquest. Going against snot Garon doesn't really count, as Nohrrin is kind of responsible for putting him in Hoshido in the first place.

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Yes, Nohrrin is 100% a villain in my books. His good intentions are ultimately irrelevant; the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, after all. Nohrrin's actions in Conquest paint a portrait of a deeply unsympathetic, self-righteous, martyr complex-having coward, more preoccupied with the feelings of his siblings and the sacrifices he claims he's making by helping Garon's invasion than he is with the destruction, suffering and death he's enabling and in some cases indirectly causing. The suffering of the citizens of Nohr and Hoshido hardly pass his mind (I'm fairly certain he never mentions the former at all in Conquest), and when they do it's framed in such a way that it's clear he considers his "suffering" far worse and laments that they could never understand what he's doing is ultimately for their own good, those poor ignorant fools.

I didn't intend for this to turn into my "why Nohrrin is awful" manifesto, I swear.

Edited by AzureSen
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Nohr's Corrin is basically Superman from the Red Son elseworld comic, but written without the irony / ultimately realizing what a monster he was.

Because of the plot's structure he is not the antagonist, but that shouldn't be a requirement for villainy anyway.

I will probably make a Corrin vs Mark Millar thread later. just to show a bunch of eerie similarities in dialogue between Conquest and Red Son, as well as for the comedy value of seeing which Fates characters match up with Lex Luthor, Braniac, and Bizarro.

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Nohr's Corrin is basically Superman from the Red Son elseworld comic, but written without the irony / ultimately realizing what a monster he was.

Because of the plot's structure he is not the antagonist, but that shouldn't be a requirement for villainy anyway.

I will probably make a Corrin vs Mark Millar thread later. just to show a bunch of eerie similarities in dialogue between Conquest and Red Son, as well as for the comedy value of seeing which Fates characters match up with Lex Luthor, Braniac, and Bizarro.

I...

I have no idea what some of those words mean, but I'm glad you're passionate about the topic.

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I feel Nohrrin is like Domitian the Roman Emperor: changing something for the better in his area and beyond, at the expense of his postmortem reputation. I don't think any revisionist was going to salvage Nohrrin as a character, unlike Domitian, and Arvis as an in-universe example. Domitian's reputation was almost irreparably damaged for nearly 2 millennia, and is only now being seen as a good, but hated, emperor.

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I think Nohrrin is about on par as a villain as Micaiah is. Corrin is a naive person who is a bit in over their head. They made a bad decision and they regretted it. The problem is that it is Azura who comes up with the plan (which would make her more of a villain than Corrin) and they just go with it. No questions asked.

Micaiah gets put in a bad situation (due to Pelleas's naivety) and has to do the corrupt Senate's bidding... the problem is that she finds out the Senate is behind this them wants to minimize the casualties.... by setting the apostle and her army on fire.

Both people are trying to do what they think is best. And neither one of them are going about this in a malicious way. Yet both of them are doing a very destructive tactic in order to stop the war

Yeah I pretty much agree with this 100%
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I realize this isn't supposed to be a fates-bashing thread, but my opinion on the matter cannot be conveyed without doing it to a degree.

I think the story of Conquest could believably be rewritten to have Corrin as an anti-villain if the consequences of his actions were treated with any seriousness rather than whitewashed because he's the protagonist and they didn't want their excuse plot to make Corrin fight Hoshido while still being a good guy to result in too sad of an ending.

Seriously, I'm shocked at how forgiving Hinoka is of what he does once she finds out why he did it. Two of her brothers are dead, her lands are pillaged, her country's entire army is now dead... and the only reason this is the case is because Corrin decided that he valued his Nohrian family over any of that.

Hinoka knows that's why he did it at the end of the game.

In any properly written story, that ending scene would have gone way differently, probably with Hinoka (and possibly even Sakura) telling Corrin to never set foot in Hoshido ever again.

But instead she forgives him, no, worse still, acts as if there's nothing to forgive.

I cannot conceive of a human being without serious mental issues who would behave like that.

So no, as it stands, he's not an anti-villain, but a really badly written tragic hero.

Edited by Alastor15243
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I...

I have no idea what some of those words mean, but I'm glad you're passionate about the topic.

They're referencing Superman Red Son, a what-if? Superman story built on the idea of Superman landing in Soviet Russia as a baby rather than America.

Anyway, I feel that Nohrrin is by no means a villain, but instead some kind of warped, tragic hero. I don't think Nohrrin would agree to anyone calling him a hero because he's obviously afflicted and narrowed by the atrocities he commits at the time, even if they're brushed off by the narrative later. I don't think Nohrrin's stupid either. I think he's insane.

I mean, imagine growing up the way he has, having spent your whole life believing some shady, war-mongering dictator is your father who loves and only wants what's best for you. You've spent at least sixteen years of your life locked in a tower having only your servants and "siblings" for company.

On the day you're finally let out into the world (after narrowly avoiding having to kill two defenceless prisoners, mind), you botch the first mission you're given, watching your surrogate father killed by a madman in the process. Later you are captured by those who you have been taught are you deadly enemies, yet they're treating you with the utmost respect and compassion. Soon after, their leader is revealed to be your mother, whom you were taken from at a very tender age. Just hours after finding this out, she dies in your arms in a nonsensical attack, the sheer trauma of which causes you to turn into a goddamned dragon, nearly killing the only one who understands your situation as her own with your own hands.

And then the war starts and you must pick a side.

When looked at in this light, I feel like Nohrrin's gambitting makes a lot of sense. He's not thinking straight and is trying to rationalise all he's seen. By siding with Nohr and trying to change them from the inside, Corrin is trying, in the face of utter futility, to bring an end to the madness around him with tearing down everything he has ever known. His plans are half-baked and inconsiderate of the wider consequences because his mind is also struggling with an identity crisis. You really have to feel sorry for the poor guy.

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