Character Endings

[GAIDENBRO]

Faye's written to be terrible. Which is a much needed twist. Not everyone who looks pretty needs to be pure and likable. That's lame and it makes it more realistic. At least one will do and that one is Faye. Like it or not.

[Tuvy2]

Can someone post a link to the character endings in valentia? I am having trouble finding it.

[Azz]

3 minutes ago, Tuvy2 said:

Can someone post a link to the character endings in valentia? I am having trouble finding it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Sc-g7gqZFlOvIhcChf9CMhbaidvS0poM4bls4baGeFo/edit#heading=h.iq1xwoyf2y8b

[Tuvy2]

Thank you

[boarbaque]

5 hours ago, GAIDENBRO said:

Faye's written to be terrible. Which is a much needed twist. Not everyone who looks pretty needs to be pure and likable. That's lame and it makes it more realistic. At least one will do and that one is Faye. Like it or not.

I like to think Faye is a psychopath who can't really feel emotions and just feels lust towards Alm, and since she can't truly feel emotions she thinks its love

[Nanima]

8 hours ago, Reese Balaski said:

Oh, goodness, that's just... unfortunate, if I want to be nice about it. Faye, I think you need some help. Maybe because it's a literal translation it sounds more... offensive, I guess?

Maybe once she's been localized she'll sound less creepy. I mean, her Heroes dialogue is still 'Alm, Alm, Alm' but at least she's not too strange about it.

8-4 changed Gregor and Henry a lot, and since they're doing this game too, maybe they'll change Faye for the better.

Notice how I'm saying maybe a lot. You can tell how much hope I have in this.

Literal translations of Japanese tend to sound politer than the original, because of how indirect and polite the language is on a general level.

Looking at that dialogue, I'd say the translation is spot on, which is.. yeah.

Putting Faye on "Nice Girl" alert.

[Cute Chao]

It does annoy me how nearly all the women seem to have to marry or remarry, whilst many of the men either remain single, or it's not important enough to mention their families. Especially since some are specifically changed to include marriage or remarriage for some of the women. 

Also, can we do away with the 'x disappeared' endings? They are the stupidest, laziest endings in all of Fire Emblem. There's always a few in each one and it always smacks of 'can't think what to do with this character'. I hate them -.- 

Some of the endings are very sweet, though. Some are a bit dark. I sort of like Tatiana's 'doesn't want him to regain his memories' in a way, but it feels sad he doesn't just tell her he's chosen her and cease all her worrying. Oh well, I need to stop overthinking them. I'm going to ignore canon and write whatever the heck I want, anyway xD 

[warchiefwilliams]

16 hours ago, Thane said:

Does anyone want to read one of Faye's base conversations? 'Cause here is one: http://imgur.com/a/X6Igc

 

It's as worse as we feared. It has been a pleasure serving with you all. God-Emperor preserve our souls....

11 hours ago, GAIDENBRO said:

Faye's written to be terrible. Which is a much needed twist. Not everyone who looks pretty needs to be pure and likable. That's lame and it makes it more realistic. At least one will do and that one is Faye. Like it or not.

You know what? You are right. There needs to be at least one character like that. Part of the reason why I have always liked Fire Emblem as a series is because they at least attempt to deliver those kinds of characters to add in more gray/grey morality. Unfortunately...

(Note: Subjective opinion incoming. Get your pitchforks ready)

...the problem is, they assigned that role to a design which 1) doesn't scream yandere psycho to me, and 2) had the potential to be a lot more... I don't know, involved? When I read through her various supports before her one with Alm, the only (slightly) optimistic part of my mind wondered if Faye was going to act as a bit of a foil to Alm's plans to explore the world (don't know as much as I would like to about the Gaiden characters, so sorry if I screw up some characterizations) and she would represent that ever-smaller part of him that did want to return to his old life. Their A support should be bleak, given how he has a greater fate (and better waifu) ahead of him than being a plebeian scrub on a farm (and Faye's desire to be said-scrub's companion) It should be a moment of revelation to both characters, with Alm realizing that he doesn't want to go back to his old life, and Faye realizing that her childish dreams are but that, dreams, but she has a chance to move past her dreams and live her life for herself. Perhaps Faye's ending would be brighter if she did achieve an A support with Alm, as she could move past him and learn to be happy with her life, and if that support level was not obtained, we would get the current ending. Yeah, Faye is fated by canon to be surpassed and cast aside, and her development as a character should focus on how she does not desire this path, and her support with Alm should be centered around her learning to move on.But there just wasn't any of that, not in the support or in the ending. 

There was potential for Faye beyond just being another poorly-written yandere/yandere-lite, archetype 24c, sub-section 91a: The Childhood friend, a common, and usually boring/infuriating addition to any medium. Either IS had no idea what they wanted to do with Faye's character and simply slotted her into a standard-issue paradigm, or they had everything lined up to make her... different, but decided that more ratfucking with the Gaiden canon was not worth the risk of alienating the veteran portion of the fanbase, and in their rush to leave, left her character an unrefined (and poorly done) yandere!Catria. That's why I am disappointed. Faye represents wasted potential, and few things wreck my morale more than that. The inner cynic in me is beginning to dread what lore content might come up for the Switch Fire Emblem given IS's track record for new characters/lore/mythoses post-Awakening, and that is not a good thing.

At least, this has been my impression from the data-mine and from her script in Heroes. 8-4 might be able to do something to mitigate this, but all things considered, I'm not taking that bet.

(End subjective opinion. You are clear to engage)

Edited April 15, 2017 by warchiefwilliams

[NekoKnight]

21 hours ago, GAIDENBRO said:

Faye's written to be terrible. Which is a much needed twist. Not everyone who looks pretty needs to be pure and likable. That's lame and it makes it more realistic. At least one will do and that one is Faye. Like it or not.

I think that even in the case of a person being "unlikable", you still need to do something to elicit feelings from the audience. It's entirely possible to find a character personally unlikable but sympathize with them because they can't help their own flaws. Take the character Theon Greyjoy from ASOIAF. He's arrogant, treats women like shit and is extremely envious of others. He does some really terrible things in the plot and ultimately his karma catches up to him. Are we supposed to hate Theon? Maybe for what he does, yes, but what makes him a good character is that many of his flaws stem from him not feeling like he's valued, either by his real family or his "foster" family. He wishes he could repent but by the time he realizes his mistakes it's too late.

Now, I know the game doesn't have the time to flesh out Faye's character in such a way but rather than the one-note borderline yandere character we got (afaik), they should have given her a mini character arc. Let's start with the base. Faye is a country girl and from the start of her youth she had dreams of settling down in her village with her childhood crush Alm. She is so narrow-minded in this pursuit of getting Alm that she scorns other potential friendships. This idealistic vision of her future blinds her from the fact that she and Alm don't have a lot of chemistry and Alm has other goals in life besides settling down as a country bumpkin. By the time she realizes that Alm will never feel the same way about her, she realizes she doesn't have her beloved or any friends for that matter. She returns to her village and tries to build a new life but has difficulty making new friends because they can sense her desperation. There, that's a character arc and a sad ending, but at least the player can get invested and feel sorry for her. I don't feel sorry for canon!Faye, she's a jerk and more than a little unhinged.

10 hours ago, warchiefwilliams said:

..the problem is, they assigned that role to a design which 1) doesn't scream yandere psycho to me, and 2) had the potential to be a lot more... I don't know, involved? When I read through her various supports before her one with Alm, the only (slightly) optimistic part of my mind wondered if Faye was going to act as a bit of a foil to Alm's plans to explore the world (don't know as much as I would like to about the Gaiden characters, so sorry if I screw up some characterizations) and she would represent that ever-smaller part of him that did want to return to his old life. Their A support should be bleak, given how he has a greater fate (and better waifu) ahead of him than being a plebeian scrub on a farm (and Faye's desire to be said-scrub's companion) It should be a moment of revelation to both characters, with Alm realizing that he doesn't want to go back to his old life, and Faye realizing that her childish dreams are but that, dreams, but she has a chance to move past her dreams and live her life for herself. Perhaps Faye's ending would be brighter if she did achieve an A support with Alm, as she could move past him and learn to be happy with her life, and if that support level was not obtained, we would get the current ending. Yeah, Faye is fated by canon to be surpassed and cast aside, and her development as a character should focus on how she does not desire this path, and her support with Alm should be centered around her learning to move on.But there just wasn't any of that, not in the support or in the ending.

This would be a great development for her character. Even though she gets spurned in her Alm support, it's actually a good thing because she can break off and become her own person rather than be forever bound to unrequited feelings.

Edited April 15, 2017 by NekoKnight

[Slumber]

I'm just gonna make it my head-canon that Faye's ending is a response to Tharja, Camilla, and every other character in the last few years who really only have "I am obsessed with this main character." for the last few games.

Instead of just pushing their weird obsession onto other characters or disappearing/admiring from the shadows, Faye lives a sad life and probably dies miserable.

Edited April 15, 2017 by Slumber

[Cat Villager]

I still think Faye is unironically aimed at the same crowd who love female characters obsessed with player avatars. This type of character is currently very popular in Japan especially if they have prominent yandere tendencies.  Yes, Alm is not an avatar but he is the next closest thing in Echoes. The fact that she doesn't get a good ending just adds her some pity points and it doesn't matter because she is still showering Alm with her dedication through the whole game.

[NekoKnight]

On 4/14/2017 at 0:55 AM, SlipperySlippy said:

Personally, their friendship should be brought into question when Gray decides to go out with the chick his best friend supposedly likes. Not a very good friend, really. And to call someone childish for being depressed over the love of their life leaving them is extremely self-centred. Depression is not something easily gotten over, some people never get over it. To label someone as childish is very insulting for people who have these personal struggles in real life, whether they're depressed for more or even less. 

This sounds like an exaggeration. Alm and Faye never had a relationship. The "love of her life" was nothing more than a crush. How could someone be so emotionally attached to a childhood crush that they continued to dwell on it the rest of their life? I think that sounds like mental illness (and the behavior she shows in the base conversation makes her sound very mentally unstable) which is an entirely different conversation to have.

Edited April 15, 2017 by NekoKnight

[TheWill]

3 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

This sounds like an exaggeration. Alm and Faye never had a relationship. The "love of her life" was nothing more than a crush. How could someone be so emotionally attached to a childhood crush that they continued to dwell on it the rest of their life? I think that sounds like mental illness which is an entirely different conversation to have.

We don't know how their relationship really was all those years, so she could very well be justified for her feelings. Either way, all we really know it's years of bottled emotions toward Alm that ultimately gets rejected. She's naturally conditioned herself and her happiness towards Alm, so it's completely understandable that she couldn't get over it with time.  

Either way, yes, as I mentioned earlier Faye's ending does imply she has depression. 

[Thane]

7 minutes ago, SlipperySlippy said:

We don't know how their relationship really was all those years, so she could very well be justified for her feelings.

This doesn't strike you as odd? We've got a brand new character whose only real trait is her obsession with the main character, and their relationship is not even explored. In the prologue, she's sad Alm hangs out with Celica so much and we don't see her interacting with him at all. Building an obsession with a character without going into any detail why is a strange writing decision, and exactly one of the main reasons many people didn't like Tharja.

10 minutes ago, SlipperySlippy said:

She's naturally conditioned herself and her happiness towards Alm, so it's completely understandable that she couldn't get over it with time.  

What? Why? The overwhelming majority of people get over crushes undramatically. It's usually a painful process and it involves a lot of whining, but you get over it. Having a fictional character remain obsessed with her childhood crush who never reciprocated her feelings is absurd.

12 minutes ago, SlipperySlippy said:

Either way, yes, as I mentioned earlier Faye's ending does imply she has depression. 

Ah, there it is. Every time we get a new Fire Emblem character who's not a straight up good guy, they must have mental problems.

[TheWill]

Just now, Thane said:

This doesn't strike you as odd? We've got a brand new character whose only real trait is her obsession with the main character, and their relationship is not even explored. In the prologue, she's sad Alm hangs out with Celica so much and we don't see her interacting with him at all. Building an obsession with a character without going into any detail why is a strange writing decision, and exactly one of the main reasons many people didn't like Tharja.

What? Why? The overwhelming majority of people get over crushes undramatically. It's usually a painful process and it involves a lot of whining, but you get over it. Having a fictional character remain obsessed with her childhood crush who never reciprocated her feelings is absurd.

Ah, there it is. Every time we get a new Fire Emblem character who's not a straight up good guy, they must have mental problems.

Being odd or not is irrelevant to my point. Yes, it is bad writing.

We don't understand the context of her crush. Obviously, with how much she's conditioned her happiness towards Alm, he clearly meant a lot to her. You're attempting to downgrade Faye's affection towards Alm without knowing the context of the situation. Maybe they forged an extremely close bond over the years they stayed at Ram Village together or maybe she fell in love with him at first sight and barely even communicated with him but is highly obsessive over him. The reality is, Alm and her feelings towards him, meant a lot to her as a character. That is what is important in this discussion. To call her absurd for being unable to get over those feelings is asinine as there are many people in real life unable to cope as people they care about leave them. 

Depression is extremely common anyhow, I don't think it degrades her in anyway, although I'm not sure what your last point was trying to get at.

[Thane]

1 minute ago, SlipperySlippy said:

We don't understand the context of her crush. Obviously, with how much she's conditioned her happiness towards Alm, he clearly meant a lot to her. You're attempting to downgrade Faye's affection towards Alm without knowing the context of the situation.

And the game doesn't tell us, making the players unable to relate to Faye's strong feelings.

2 minutes ago, SlipperySlippy said:

The reality is, Alm and her feelings towards him, meant a lot to her as a character. That is what is important in this discussion.

There is very little else to talk about because the game doesn't bother giving her a personality outside of that. Her paralogue dialogue is about Alm, both her supports are about Alm, her battle dialogue revolves around Alm and the base conversation we've seen revolves around Alm. 

6 minutes ago, SlipperySlippy said:

To call her absurd for being unable to get over those feelings is asinine as there are many people in real life unable to cope as people they care about leave them.

Alm doesn't "leave" her. He doesn't reciprocate her feelings. Being unable to get over a childhood crush strikes me as absurd.

8 minutes ago, SlipperySlippy said:

Depression is extremely common anyhow, I don't think it degrades her in anyway, although I'm not sure what your last point was trying to get at.

What I mean is that people have said the same thing about so many other poorly received or controversial characters as a sort of defense for their actions. More than a few people think Peri is traumatized and thus can't be blamed for her actions, and that Camilla's past explains and justifies why she's so creepy and no one around her pays her any mind, to name two of the more recent examples. 

Claiming that Faye is depressed with so little information about her as a character is ridiculous.

[TheWill]

Just now, Thane said:

And the game doesn't tell us, making the players unable to relate to Faye's strong feelings.

Again, that has nothing to do with my point. I even agreed there was bad writing here.

Just now, Thane said:

Alm doesn't "leave" her. He doesn't reciprocate her feelings. Being unable to get over a childhood crush strikes me as absurd.

Alm does " leave"  her, as she asks him to go back to Ram Village, of which he declines. They go down different paths.

You're once again downplaying Faye's feelings towards Alm. You're labelling it as a childhood crush as if that devalues her feelings. In this relative context, it's asinine to assume you can label someone else's emotions for them and describe their behaviour as absurd or not when you don't understand the context of the person at hand. From a psychological perspective, you are not that person, you don't judge their actions and behaviour, but rather try and understand the context of their behaviour. Of which, you can't do because it wasn't detailed.

Just now, Thane said:

Claiming that Faye is depressed with so little information about her as a character is ridiculous.

It's a pretty logical claim and is supported by her ending. Despite going back to the village, she continually ruminates about Alm despite not seeing him anymore. It's clear throughout the story, her happiness, dreams and ideals were staying with Alm, of which did not occur. She continually goes missing despite being married to a person she clearly doesn't love and as her family doesn't know where she's going, she's clearly not going to them for the emotional support she needs. None of this is a supportive or healthy environment for her to overcome her feelings. 

Also no, none of this "justifies" any actions she may have done. I'm not sure why people feel the need to defend their favourite characters like that.

[Thane]

1 minute ago, SlipperySlippy said:

Again, that has nothing to do with my point. I even agreed there was bad writing here.

It has everything to do with your point because you're claiming things like she's depressed while at the same time admitting we don't know the context of her crush. 

2 minutes ago, SlipperySlippy said:

Alm does " leave"  her, as she asks him to go back to Ram Village, of which he declines. They go down different paths.

Considering how everyone else can stay close to Alm, it's more her leaving him. She had every chance to stay by his side if that was what she wanted. 

3 minutes ago, SlipperySlippy said:

From a psychological perspective, you are not that person, you don't judge their actions and behaviour, but rather try and understand the context of their behaviour. Of which, you can't do because it wasn't detailed.

Or - and follow me on this one - Faye happens to be a poorly written fictional character who happen to conform to a popular trope. You're the one playing psychologist by bringing up her being depressed.

[TheWill]

5 minutes ago, Thane said:

It has everything to do with your point because you're claiming things like she's depressed while at the same time admitting we don't know the context of her crush. 

Considering how everyone else can stay close to Alm, it's more her leaving him. She had every chance to stay by his side if that was what she wanted. 

Or - and follow me on this one - Faye happens to be a poorly written fictional character who happen to conform to a popular trope. You're the one playing psychologist by bringing up her being depressed.

I'm claiming that she develops depression based on her ending, which is extremely likely. That again, has nothing to do with the historical context on why she likes Alm, the only important factor is that she does.

Yes, I agree that it was more Faye leaving him. Whether that would be a smart choice is another question, since she would feel terrible seeing Alm and Cellica together, but she also feels terrible leaving him, so it's a lose-lose situation. 

Her being a poorly written character again has nothing to do with my point.

[Thane]

1 minute ago, SlipperySlippy said:

Her being a poorly written character again has nothing to do with my point.

And what exactly is your point? That she's depressed and that's it?

[Azure Sen]

On 4/14/2017 at 3:55 AM, SlipperySlippy said:

And to call someone childish for being depressed over the love of their life leaving them is extremely self-centred. Depression is not something easily gotten over, some people never get over it. To label someone as childish is very insulting for people who have these personal struggles in real life, whether they're depressed for more or even less. 

Speaking as someone who has in the past suffered from depression, the only person in this conversation who's being insulting is you. Faye is a self-centered, childish person who can't see beyond her silly, shallow unrequited crush, as both her supports and her base convos show. The fact that she's sad that her crush married someone else and spent the rest of her life pining after him does not mean she's suffering from depression, it just means she can't get over her crush which is perfectly in-line with how she's portrayed in game. That you're trying to claim Faye never getting Alm is this big, psychologically complex deal while scorning Gray for being depressed to the point of alcoholism over Tobin's death and devaluing his suffering because Clair and the rest of his friends still being alive while putting Faye's overblown angst over a childhood crush on a pedestal is both ignorant and insulting, and I'd kindly ask you to stop trying to speak on behalf of myself and others who have suffered from depression.

Edited April 15, 2017 by AzureSen

[Jedi]

I found this line of thinking that is actually relevant to the conversation at hand in a reddit thread 

I can't judge myself yet, but I figured this may be something to inject here

Edited April 15, 2017 by Jedi

[Thane]

8 minutes ago, Jedi said:

I can't judge myself yet, but I figured this may be something to inject here

Is that supposed to be a joke post? They're arguing that being a one-note static character is good because she's also manipulative and it's unclear what she does when she leaves Ram village for long periods of time, not to mention they're using Heroes dialogue to support that claim.

This isn't serious, right?

[TheWill]

Just now, AzureSen said:

Speaking as someone who has in the past suffered from depression, the only person in this conversation who's being insulting is you. Faye is a self-centered, childish person who can't see beyond her silly, shallow unrequited crush, as both her supports and her base convos show. The fact that she's sad that her crush married someone else and spent the rest of her life pining after him does not mean she's suffering from depression, it just means she can't get over her crush which is perfectly in-line with how she's portrayed in game. That you're trying to claim Faye never getting Alm is this big, psychologically complex deal while scorning Gray for being depressed to the point of alcoholism over Tobin's death and devaluing his suffering because Clair and the rest of his friends still being alive while putting Faye's ridiculous, overblown wangst over a childhood crush on a pedestal is both ignorant and insulting, and I'd kindly ask you to stop trying to speak on behalf of myself and others who have suffered from depression.

I never once spoke on the behalf of people with depression, I would actually like some explanation on why you feel I insulted people with depression. If stating the plausibility of a character developing depression is insulting to you, then my apologies. It sucks that you've had to go through a depressive period of your life, but please don't incorporate that into your argument as means to suggest you have more say in the topic (this is the only conclusion I can make, otherwise I don't know why you mentioned it in the first place) than someone who hasn't suffered from depression. Yours (and everyone else) opinions have value in this discussion whether you've suffered from a mood or personality disorder or went through life relatively unscathed.

As for the topic at hand, once again I think it's terrible people are devaluing Faye's feelings for Alm. If Faye wasn't a fictional character, to label another person in a similar situations love as shallow is pretty disgusting. The reason I questioned Gray's depression was not in an attempt to say he shouldn't be depressed, but rather question the friendship at hand when they're supposedly best friends yet fight over the same girl instead of talk it out like the friends they should. Gray being depressed indicates Tobin meant a lot to him as a friend, yet the ending where they're both alive, Gray does a pretty big disservice to Tobin. That is to say, both Gray AND Faye have every right to their feelings of depression. If it came across as scorning Gray, then my bad. The fact that you went through depression yourself, attempting to invalidate Faye's feelings on the other hand is inexcusable. The nature of unrequited love, especially on the level of Faye's endearment towards Alm, it's completely natural to be depressed over life not working out the way she wanted. People can and have been depressed for much less.

23 minutes ago, Thane said:

And what exactly is your point? That she's depressed and that's it?

My point is that Faye's ending is indicative that she's got depression and that people should not be trying to invalidate her feelings of depression, lonesome or whatever they may be by labelling her relationship with Alm as just a 'childhood crush', as if that makes her lose the right to be upset or be depressed about it. 

[Thane]

2 minutes ago, SlipperySlippy said:

My point is that Faye's ending is indicative that she's got depression and that people should not be trying to invalidate her feelings of depression, lonesome or whatever they may be by labelling her relationship with Alm as just a 'childhood crush', as if that makes her lose the right to be upset or be depressed about it. 

And then we come back to the fact that she's just a poorly written character who was most likely inserted into Alm's party to balance out all that testosterone. As AzureSen pointed out, you're reading way, way too much into this, and it's frankly a bit silly.