What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Lightchao42]

10 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Lilith's death is also an example. Its nonsensical that we're expected to feel anything when a gameplay mechanic dies, but it makes more sense if you see it as a case of the writers wanting a death scene to raise the stakes, make Corrin cry and get a tearjerker moment while also being unwilling to kill off a playable character the player might miss in gameplay, or an important character the player might miss in cutscenes. In a very cynical sense no one is being stupid, they just uh....''pragmatically'' use their cast to get what they want. Same goes with only bare bones Corrinsexuals dying in the golden route. Because they want to raise the stakes, but don't want to risk soiling your golden route by killing characters you or Corrin cares about. Its cowardly. But its not stupid. 

I don't think the developers should be shunned for avoiding deaths that would hamper the gameplay. For example, one of the writers of Xenoblade Chronicles suggested having a party member betray the rest of the cast, but the other writer shot it down because it would be inconvenient from a gameplay perspective to lose a unique character. Sure, Aerith dies in FFVII but most of the character uniqueness in that game comes from Materia. Birthright has Kaze die unless you support him and I don't think most people like how it was handled.

I especially wouldn't shun Revelation for not killing anyone important because using the entire cast is the whole point of the route. They should've made Yukimura and Izana playable too; if you're going to make almost everyone recruitable, why not go all the way? It would be like if Super Smash Bros. Ultimate included everyone except Squirtle and Ivysaur for some reason.

I actually think Lilith's death scene is well written in a vacuum, though it would work better if Lilith has a bigger role. At least she got Heroes to give her more screentime.

[Sunwoo]

1 hour ago, Samz707 said:

Yeah obviously but he's not the only one.

Lyndis got flanderized in Awakening and we're still stuck with that characterization. (I hear that her Uncle, her literal driving motivation in Lyn mode, gets mentioned in one or two non voiced lines, in all of Lyn's alts, because why talk about that when we can have her simp for the player?)

Oh yeah Veronica has a thing for Xander, I actually completely forgot about that.

Doesn't Shinon actually get over it? but it's late-game and easy to miss.

I think Xander bugs me the most because characters like Lyn and Shinon were decently characterized in their own games, without the game's narrative trying to convince us that they were something that they were not. Xander, on the other hand, is consistently heralded as the "good prince" when his actions in his own game show no such thing.

Nope, Shinon never gets over his racism. It could be argued that he hates Ike less by the end of RD, but he's still a complete tosser when it comes to the laguz.

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Doesn't Shinon actually get over it? but it's late-game and easy to miss.

The possibility is tantalizingly thrown out there in the last line of his PoR A Janaff support.:

Shinon: How old are you, anyway?
Janaff: I’m a bit over 110 years old.
Shinon: Wha–?! You half-br…you guys must have a different way of counting than us humans.
Janaff: Don’t spring, summer, fall, and winter make a year in your calendar, too?
Shinon: So if I’m twenty-seven, you must be at least…eighty-five years older than me!
Janaff: Indeed. So give me some respect, you young pup. If you run into trouble in the future, come see me. I’ll give you the kind of advice that only an elder can give.
Shinon: Oh, hey! Hold on! Um…tell me more about your life. You’ve seen a lot, you know?

...But RD unfortunately does not follow up on this. Any chance he improved is buried by his Base Convo involving Lyre. 

While still idealized, some racists IRL never stop being racist, the Janaff convo opened the door towards a slightly more realistic end to racism within an individual. That being as I see it- start learning about one individual whom you're prejudiced against, and slowly and incompletely begin shedding some of your prejudices, and start granting grudging respect where it is due. IRL, I wish the most idealized and fast ends to racism happened, because it's reality, so it's real. But in a video game, I can appreciate something with a greater semblance of realism, because a video game is fantasy, which isn't real.

Edited November 1, 2021 by Interdimensional Observer

[Dark Holy Elf]

5 hours ago, Sunwoo said:

Which is why so much of the fanbase keeps on imploding over Edelgard vs. Rhea vs. Dimitri in arguments that one side is entirely in the right, isn't it? Because I'm sure the devs were going for "X did nothing wrong and Y is pure evil".

The IS of today can't do morally gray right. After playing through all of CF, SS, and AM (and the vast majority of VW), it became very obvious to me that even if "morally gray" and "no side is completely bad" is what they were going for IS was too afraid to let Edelgard actually face the consequences of her actions because at the end of the day she's still the waifu they're trying to market. Hence, on her own path Edelgard is never really challenged in her beliefs and everyone else is made "worse" to make her look better, while in everyone else's routes she's portrayed far more sympathetically. It's basically what they did with Conquest. They were so afraid of their Nohr waifus and husbandos being less marketable if people thought they were "bad" that they basically divorced the actions of their route from the characters.

I'm not sure what you're getting at, exactly.

Paragraph 1: you seem to be responding to me sarcastically, but... no, the devs were not going for "X did nothing wrong and Y is pure evil" (unless Y is the Agarthans, perhaps, as Jotari correctly notes... but they're not why we care about 3H). That was my point. The fact that some fans choose to do so is on them. FWIW I think you're underrating the fandom anyway, i think a lot of people acknowledge the moral ambiguities even if they come down more overall on one side or the other.

Paragraph 2: Edelgard absolutely faces consequences for her actions: she dies on three routes out of four, for reasons that can be traced to her character flaws. Kinda like Dimitri has one route where he's redeemed and three where he dies. Obviously there is a route about her winning, too. If you were expecting the game to be about "Edelgard is bad and needs to suffer for it", then it's you who have missed the point of the game, not the writers doing a bad job.

I also strongly disagree with "the IS of today can't do morally grey right" given that in my opinion, 3H is easily the best thing they've ever done writing-wise and it's not even particularly close. And this isn't an uncommon opinion; 3H was by any measure incredibly successful, and that includes on writing metrics like the volume of essays, fan fiction, and other works that it has inspired. Anecdotally I have numerous friends who either raise 3H far above other games in the series for writing, or simply believe that 3H is the only game in the series with writing worth a damn.

[Interdimensional Observer]

8 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

3H was by any measure incredibly successful, and that includes on writing metrics like the volume of essays, fan fiction, and other works that it has inspired.

Much madness is divinest sense. I've seen people who've found Final Fantasy wholly overrated, who think Pokemon is an abomination that should've never succeeded. For all we know, Shakespeare could've been a hack and we all just don't realize it.

Though by that, I don't mean to invalidate the opinions of tens or hundreds of thousands of fans. This is a late night should-be-heading-to-dreamland-instead-of-posting critique.🥱 Like I have any high ground to stand on when I find arguably the greatest script in all of gaming to be in a 7/10, 200k sold at best, very "anime" niche RPG. I'm as much if not more a weirdo as the 3H devotees, if not even more so. So in line with the Golden Rule, I'll not criticize their ardent passion for 3H, and it's just a video game after all.

Sales are one of the few alright "objective" barometers we have of some form of "success", and success implies quality in at least a few regards. This is true. And yet, my basic point in this rambling- sales and quantity of fanfiction output are by no means "perfectly objective" measures of verity in the realms of art and entertainment. Nature speaks not to us directly, an oak tree never told us its name is "oak tree". Art speaks not to us directly, it does not tell us its strengths, nor its flaws. Let us never forget, in these particular matters not actually all that seriously affecting the lives of humans and other beings on this planet we share, that there is ever the chance, however slight, that we could be completely wrong. And so we should show some respect to differing opinions.

Strongly asserting majority opinion about a game, even in situations where I happen to be in that majority opinion, kinda rubs me the wrong way. I'm a little too considerate.

That's all.😅

[Eltosian Kadath]

1 hour ago, Ottservia said:

Yeah because the criticisms people make towards Fates are usually completely stupid if I’m being honest. It reminds me a lot of Naruto discussion where people will actually lie or misconstrue context just to make it look worse than it actually is and that’s what really bothers me here. Because people completely disregard what fates is trying to say in order to create their dumb criticisms.

I could say the same thing with your Shadows of Valentia criticism. Multiple times I have pulled direct quotes from the game itself to show how you are either lying, or misconstruing the context just to make it look worse than it actually is. The way you completely disregard what SoV is saying to create your criticism bothers me mostly due to how hypocritical it is with your defense of the other 3DS games.

 

2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Yes, to you but that doesn’t apply to other people like myself. Just because you can’t see a deeper that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I’m just gonna keep repeating myself. Don’t dismiss things for not mattering when you can instead aim to figure why they do. 

...I seem to remember a nice big Shadows of Valentia discussion we had about you dismissing things for not mattering, instead of trying to figure out why they matter. Seeing you complain about people talking about Fates, the way you do about Shadows of Valentia is kinda galling.

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Yes, to you but that doesn’t apply to other people like myself. Just because you can’t see a deeper that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I’m just gonna keep repeating myself. Don’t dismiss things for not mattering when you can instead aim to figure why they do. 

 

Yeah because the criticisms people make towards Fates are usually completely stupid if I’m being honest. It reminds me a lot of Naruto discussion where people will actually lie or misconstrue context just to make it look worse than it actually is and that’s what really bothers me here. Because people completely disregard what fates is trying to say in order to create their dumb criticisms. Corrin isn’t a mary sue. Not everyone loves Corrin unconditionally and in regards to all the royals trusting Corrin that’s kind of the point. Fates’s narrative deals in themes regarding trust and family. It’s directly stated multiple times mind you that the Yato only grows in power when Corrin gains the trust of other people. Like literally in the heirs of fate dlc Kanna directly states that Yato didn’t transform into the omega Yato because she doubted Shigure. I don’t know how you can get more blunt than that. It’s also stated and shown multiple times that Corrin’s Naivete is both a strength and a weakness but oh no people just say “oh that’s player pandering worship” completely disregarding the themes of trust, truth, deceit, and betrayal the story tries to set up. This is what I mean by people being dismissive. They completely ignore these things about the story in order to make Fates look worse. I don’t mind criticisms of fates. In fact, I have plenty of my own but my criticisms respect what the narrative is trying to say and how certain things go against that point like being able to S-support the royals for instance.
 

Yes, to you but that doesn’t apply to other people like myself. Just because you see a deeper that doesn’t mean it is there. I’m just gonna keep repeating myself. Don’t dismiss arguments for not mattering when you can instead aim to figure why people are say ing they don't like something . 

Quote

Also you still haven’t provided a good counter argument for my previous point. instead, only pointing out that I’m strawmanning which ironically is a logical fallacy in it of itself. The fallacy fallacy to be specific. And even I’m not even strawmanning, you’re just being pedantic to say that I am

Nah man, you actually are arguing against something people aren't actually saying. I (and no one else here from whar I can see) never said Fates is devpid of meaning. To say it devoid of meaning would be to praise the game. It's the fact that it handles pretty much everything badly that's the problem. 

48 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Much madness is divinest sense. I've seen people who've found Final Fantasy wholly overrated, who think Pokemon is an abomination that should've never succeeded. For all we know, Shakespeare could've been a hack and we all just don't realize it.

Actually Shakespeare being a bit of hack is something  we know. A genius, no doubt, but still a bit of a hack. They say all those unnecessary scenes in Hamlet were thrown in to make the play longer ro sell more snacks.

Edited November 1, 2021 by Jotari

[Ottservia]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Yes, to you but that doesn’t apply to other people like myself. Just because you see a deeper that doesn’t mean it is there.

Imagine if someone said that to you regarding something you created. How would you feel? That’d be pretty darn rude if you asked me but that’s just my personal opinion

 

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Don’t dismiss arguments for not mattering when you can instead aim to figure why people are say ing they don't like something . 

This isn’t the gotcha you think it is because I never said you’re not allowed to dislike something. What I am saying though is that you shouldn’t be stupid. Don’t say shit that isn’t true. If you’re gonna make a claim then back it up. There are plenty of ways to criticize something while being constructive and in good faith. You shouldn’t have to lie or misconstrue context to make something look worse that’s just bad faith criticism. Saying Fates bad because Corrin is a mary sue is an example of that sort of bad faith criticism. Or saying Lilith’s death is dumb because it adds nothing to the story is another such example of bad faith criticism. The same goes with saying Moral gray can’t exist in Fire Emblem because IS is too afraid to make people’s waifus look like bad people. It’s a stupid criticism because it makes no amount of logical sense. I just ask you give criticism in good faith which so far you haven’t done. All you’ve done is point at things and call it bad storytelling without really explaining why. Lilith’s death scene works in the context of the narrative the story is trying to convey as Lilith herself is thematically similar to Azura in her role in the story. Both are strongly related to Corrin, both know more about the greater context of what’s going on, both of them follow corrin regardless of their chosen path as well as help and support them along that path, and both die in BR and CQ as a result of the inherent flaws of Corrin’s character explored in each route. These similarities are made even more apparent in the heirs of fate DLC where both Azura and Lilith help guide the kids into doing what they need to do. Lilith helping them use the teleportation crystals and Azura teaching Shigure the final verse as well as giving Kana the dragon stone. Lilith being Corrin’s actual sibling adds weight to the whole family theme the story explores especially with Lilith being the one to help repair the Yato which is repaired thanks to Corrin’s belief in themselves and their family which is what Lilith helps them realize.

 

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Nah man, you actually are arguing against something people aren't actually saying. I (and no one else here from whar I can see) never said Fates is devpid of meaning. To say it devoid of meaning would be to praise the game. It's the fact that it handles pretty much everything badly that's the problem. 

No that’s exactly what people are arguing just not in those exact words. Again you’re just being pedantic. You are arguing Lilith’s death is dumb because it adds nothing to the story which might as well be the same as saying it has no deeper thematic meaning. This happens every single time you start losing an argument you just start crying strawman fallacy at me because you can’t think of any other way to counter me can you? Cause so far you haven’t posed a strong enough counter argument. Instead you keep trying to say I’m strawmanning you when I’m not. 
 

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I could say the same thing with your Shadows of Valentia criticism. Multiple times I have pulled direct quotes from the game itself to show how you are either lying, or misconstruing the context just to make it look worse than it actually is. The way you completely disregard what SoV is saying to create your criticism bothers me mostly due to how hypocritical it is with your defense of the other 3DS games.

 

...I seem to remember a nice big Shadows of Valentia discussion we had about you dismissing things for not mattering, instead of trying to figure out why they matter. Seeing you complain about people talking about Fates, the way you do about Shadows of Valentia is kinda galling.

You see the key difference between common fates criticism and my criticisms of SoV is that I’m able to frame my arguments in a way that does at least respect what SoV is trying to say as a story. It’s a story about duality where two opposite yet complementary ideals must come together in order to achieve true prosperity. It does that very poorly mind you but that’s the idea it’s going for and it’s not at all subtle about it. I mean that’s quite literally what Duma says when you stick the sword through his head at the end of the game so again I don’t see how you can be any more blunt that. Problem is that story doesn’t showcase that idea very well with its protagonists. Instead opting to portray Alm as the most generic light novel protagonist you’ll ever see. One thing I will concede through is that Alm refers to himself with “Boku” in Japanese both in gaiden amd SoV which I find to be an odd choice of characterization considering what his character is supposed to represent. You would think “Ore” would make more sense but I guess not. Regardless, my point is that I’ll never say a plot point in SoV is pointless or adds nothing to the story because every plot point has some kind of thematic value be it big or small. I’ll say that in regards to supports though because the supports are so barebones even a skeleton has more meat on them but I digress.

Edited November 1, 2021 by Ottservia

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I also strongly disagree with "the IS of today can't do morally grey right" given that in my opinion, 3H is easily the best thing they've ever done writing-wise and it's not even particularly close. And this isn't an uncommon opinion; 3H was by any measure incredibly successful, and that includes on writing metrics like the volume of essays, fan fiction, and other works that it has inspired. Anecdotally I have numerous friends who either raise 3H far above other games in the series for writing, or simply believe that 3H is the only game in the series with writing worth a damn.

I thinl that's a particularly poor metric to judge by. Fates was also phenomenally successful. And it's not like these are novels. They're video games. There can be far more attracting people to the game other than the writing. It's also a franchise, meaning it's past success is influential on its future success.

2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

No that’s exactly what people are arguing just not in those exact words. Again you’re just being pedantic. You are arguing Lilith’s death is dumb because it adds nothing to the story which might as well be the same as saying it has no deeper thematic meaning. This happens every single time you start losing an argument you just start crying strawman fallacy at me because you can’t think of any other way to counter me can you? Cause so far you haven’t posed a strong enough counter argument. Instead you keep trying to say I’m strawmanning you when I'm not.

I say it because It's something you keep doing, not just to me but to most people  you get into debates with. I have just said that Fates tries (and fails) to have deeper meaning and that if it didn't try at all then it would actually be better, yet you're still saying that I'm saying it's completeldevoid of meaning.  The issue isn't that it utterly lacks meaning, it's that it does things that are meant to be meaningful badly.

2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Imagine if someone said that to you regarding something you created. How would you feel? That’d be pretty darn rude if you asked me but that’s just my personal opinion

You think my writing hasn't been criticized? Of course it has. I have loads of room to grow as a writer. And if my meaning has failed to come across in a story and someone says that then that's on me. Im the one who hasn't written well enough to enthrall my audience. If the meaning is lost in transition from my head to the page then I'm the one who lost it. It doesn't matter how hard the writer tries, what matters is how well they succeed. 

Quote

This isn’t the gotcha you think it is because I never said you’re not allowed to dislike something. What I am saying though is that you shouldn’t be stupid. Don’t say shit that isn’t true. If you’re gonna make a claim then back it up. There are plenty of ways to criticize something while being constructive and in good faith. You shouldn’t have to lie or misconstrue context to make something look worse that’s just bad faith criticism. Saying Fates bad because Corrin is a mary sue is an example of that sort of bad faith criticism. Or saying Lilith’s death is dumb because it adds nothing to the story is another such example of bad faith criticism. The same goes with saying Moral gray can’t exist in Fire Emblem because IS is too afraid to make people’s waifus look like bad people. It’s a stupid criticism because it makes no amount of logical sense. I just ask you give criticism in good faith which so far you haven’t done. All you’ve done is point at things and call it bad storytelling without really explaining why. Lilith’s death scene works in the context of the narrative the story is trying to convey as Lilith herself is thematically similar to Azura in her role in the story. Both are strongly related to Corrin, both know more about the greater context of what’s going on, both of them follow corrin regardless of their chosen path as well as help and support them along that path, and both die in BR and CQ as a result of the inherent flaws of Corrin’s character explored in each route. These similarities are made even more apparent in the heirs of fate DLC where both Azura and Lilith help guide the kids into doing what they need to do. Lilith helping them use the teleportation crystals and Azura teaching Shigure the final verse as well as giving Kana the dragon stone. Lilith being Corrin’s actual sibling adds weight to the whole family theme the story explores especially with Lilith being the one to help repair the Yato which is repaired thanks to Corrin’s belief in themselves and their family which is what Lilith helps them realize.

It wasnt meant to be a gotcha. It was meant to be half a joke and half a display if your doublestandard by using the exact same words and logic as you only changing the nouns.

Quote

 

You see the key difference between common fates criticism and my criticisms of SoV is that I’m able to frame my arguments in a way that does at least respect what SoV is trying to say as a story. It’s a story about duality where two opposite yet complementary ideals must come together in order to achieve true prosperity. It does that very poorly mind you but that’s the idea it’s going for and it’s not at all subtle about it. I mean that’s quite literally what Duma says when you stick the sword through his head at the end of the game so again I don’t see how you can be any more blunt that. Problem is that story doesn’t showcase that idea very well with its protagonists. Instead opting to portray Alm as the most generic light novel protagonist you’ll ever see. One thing I will concede through is that Alm refers to himself with “Boku” in Japanese both in gaiden amd SoV which I find to be an odd choice of characterization considering what his character is supposed to represent. You would think “Ore” would make more sense but I guess not. Regardless, my point is that I’ll never say a plot point in SoV is pointless or adds nothing to the story because every plot point has some kind of thematic value be it big or small. I’ll say that in regards to supports though because the supports are so barebones even a skeleton has more meat on them but I digress.

I will say plot points add nothing to the story if Shadows of Valentia as if all titles in the series this is demonstratably true with Gaiden. Slayer surviving does add nothing to the story of Shadows of Valentia. The writer might have intended to add something by keeping Slayer alive and then ignoring him until one of the last chapters, but their attempt at making him a meaningful or interesting character failed at best, and actively contradicts Rigel's world building at worse. Does having this opinion  mean I don't respect Shadows of Valentia or it's writers? No, not at all. It's one of my favourite games I  the series. But me liking the game is not going to make me blind towards is issues, both in terms if gameplay and plot.

Edited November 1, 2021 by Jotari

[Samz707]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

I thinl that's a particularly poor metric to judge by. Fates was also phenomenally successful. And it's not like these are novels. They're video games. There can be far more attracting people to the game other than the writing. It's also a franchise, meaning it's past success is influential on its future success.

Tomb Raider 2013 sold the best out of any TR game, it also did so by literally changing genres entirely and is a highly controversial game in the fandom. 

Resident Evil 6 is wildly accepted to the worst or at least, one of the worst Resident Evil Games ever and it's the one that sold the best.

Sales if anything can be argued to be more indicative of Hype as well as the performance of past-games, Resident Evil 7 for instance didn't sell anywhere near Resident Evil 6 when it came out, yet it's one of the most positively received Resident Evil games in recent years.

I and a friend for instance, were initially turned off from Echoes, because I played Awakening and he played Awakening/Birthright first and we both hated our experiences with FE, while I don't know if he saw Echoes on a shelf back then, I did, thought it would be like Awakening and therefore didn't play it, so I didn't buy Echoes because I actually knew I wouldn't like it, I didn't buy it because I assumed it'd be like the past game, which I hated. (You can even kinda see this with the Tomb Raider reboots, since if I remember those had a sharp drop-off in sales compared to 2013.)

 

Edited November 1, 2021 by Samz707

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, Samz707 said:

Sales if anything can be argued to be more indicative of Hype as well as the performance of past-games, Resident Evil 7 for instance didn't sell anywhere near Resident Evil 6 when it came out, yet it's one of the most positively received Resident Evil games in recent years.

Another case- Mega Man Battle Network 3, 4 , and 5.

MMBN3 is, in the general consensus, considered the greatest title in the franchise. 4 on the other hand is considered the worst, yet 4 outsold the significantly better 5 (and 6 too). Perhaps six titles on the GBA were too many and a lot of people had already had their fill of BN by the fifth entry, but, it could very well have been MMBN4 was bought because of 3, and that MMBN5 wasn't bought because of 4.

[Lightcosmo]

21 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Another case- Mega Man Battle Network 3, 4 , and 5.

MMBN3 is, in the general consensus, considered the greatest title in the franchise. 4 on the other hand is considered the worst, yet 4 outsold the significantly better 5 (and 6 too). Perhaps six titles on the GBA were too many and a lot of people had already had their fill of BN by the fifth entry, but, it could very well have been MMBN4 was bought because of 3, and that MMBN5 wasn't bought because of 4.

Hey, i'm one of these! MMBN3 Blue supremacy! XD

Jokes aside, i would say all hype after 3 got killed by 4 being 4 and no one had any faith left and 5 took a completely different turn and when 6 tried to mitigate the damage, it was too late.

[Dark Holy Elf]

16 hours ago, Jotari said:

I thinl that's a particularly poor metric to judge by. Fates was also phenomenally successful. And it's not like these are novels. They're video games. There can be far more attracting people to the game other than the writing. It's also a franchise, meaning it's past success is influential on its future success.

Fates was extremely successful, yes, but it gets a lot of "I liked Fates but its plot isn't great". Same with Awakening, and other FEs besides. With 3H... all I got for this is anecdotal (plus the metrics I cited, imperfect though they may be), but again I've seen a lot of people who like the game specifically for its writing, and it's still inspiring good discussion to this day. I think there's quite a bit of data to point at to say its writing was more overall liked than any FE in at least a decade (and probably ever, tbh, but the former statement should be very uncontroversial).

[Ottservia]

16 hours ago, Jotari said:

I say it because It's something you keep doing, not just to me but to most people  you get into debates with. I have just said that Fates tries (and fails) to have deeper meaning and that if it didn't try at all then it would actually be better, yet you're still saying that I'm saying it's completeldevoid of meaning.  The issue isn't that it utterly lacks meaning, it's that it does things that are meant to be meaningful badly.

Well yeah because that’s kind of what you are saying because you’re just being dismissive towards it. Once again you’re completely misunderstanding what I mean when I say you’re being dismissive. Once again, don’t dismiss things for not mattering when you could instead aim to find out why they do. Or to put it another way, just because something bored you or failed to grab you emotionally that doesn’t mean it’s devoid of narrative value. I’m not arguing the execution of the ideas I’m arguing about the existence of those ideas in it of themselves. You just look at Lilith’s death and go “it doesn’t work because Lilith is an underdeveloped character so I don’t feel anything therefore it’s bad writing”. I look at Lilith’s death and say “yeah she’s an underdeveloped character but this was put here for a reason and how does that relate to the story as a whole?” Lilith’s death doesn’t do anything for me personally on an emotional level because like you said she’s an underdeveloped character(DLC aside anyway) but that shouldn’t limit my ability to meet the story on its own terms and understand what it’s trying to say regardless of my own personal feelings. It’s not about judging whether the story was able to get me to feel emotionally invested because that’s entirely subjective. It’s about being able to understand the story regardless of that.

 

17 hours ago, Jotari said:

I will say plot points add nothing to the story if Shadows of Valentia as if all titles in the series this is demonstratably true with Gaiden. Slayer surviving does add nothing to the story of Shadows of Valentia. The writer might have intended to add something by keeping Slayer alive and then ignoring him until one of the last chapters, but their attempt at making him a meaningful or interesting character failed at best, and actively contradicts Rigel's world building at worse. Does having this opinion  mean I don't respect Shadows of Valentia or it's writers? No, not at all. It's one of my favourite games I  the series. But me liking the game is not going to make me blind towards is issues, both in terms if gameplay and plot.

There’s a difference between being critical and being a nitpicky dismissive asshole. You are the ladder. Being critical does not mean blatently ignoring the context of what the story is trying to say and calling something bad due to arbritrary subjective personal standard. There’s a big difference between criticizing a story for what it is trying to do vs critcizing it for not being what you want it to be. A lot of fates criticism falls into the latter category.

 

17 hours ago, Jotari said:

You think my writing hasn't been criticized? Of course it has. I have loads of room to grow as a writer. And if my meaning has failed to come across in a story and someone says that then that's on me. Im the one who hasn't written well enough to enthrall my audience. If the meaning is lost in transition from my head to the page then I'm the one who lost it. It doesn't matter how hard the writer tries, what matters is how well they succeed. 

I’m glad we can agree on this matter but like I said there’s a difference between good criticism and bad criticism and it’s your job as a writer to discern the difference. Like I said before, if you show ten different people your story and half of them hate it while the other half love it. Work on pleasing the people who love it rather than those who hate it. You can’t please everyone no matter how hard you try. You shouldn’t have to sacrife the “purity” of your work to conform to the opinions of others as the legend, himself, Tite Kubo puts it.

[Florete]

5 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I think there's quite a bit of data to point at to say its writing was more overall liked than any FE in at least a decade (and probably ever, tbh, but the former statement should be very uncontroversial).

Pretty sure Genealogy and PoR have it beat. You also have to consider that 3H is still the newest in the series so a lot of people haven't properly reflected on it. Blazing Blade's story got a lot of praise back in its day, but it hasn't aged too well. Sacred Stones, too, though to a lesser degree.

[Jotari]

13 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Fates was extremely successful, yes, but it gets a lot of "I liked Fates but its plot isn't great". Same with Awakening, and other FEs besides. With 3H... all I got for this is anecdotal (plus the metrics I cited, imperfect though they may be), but again I've seen a lot of people who like the game specifically for its writing, and it's still inspiring good discussion to this day. I think there's quite a bit of data to point at to say its writing was more overall liked than any FE in at least a decade (and probably ever, tbh, but the former statement should be very uncontroversial).

But a lot of people do say they don't like the plot of Three Houses . 

13 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Well yeah because that’s kind of what you are saying because you’re just being dismissive towards it. Once again you’re completely misunderstanding what I mean when I say you’re being dismissive. Once again, don’t dismiss things for not mattering when you could instead aim to find out why they do. Or to put it another way, just because something bored you or failed to grab you emotionally that doesn’t mean it’s devoid of narrative value. I’m not arguing the execution of the ideas I’m arguing about the existence of those ideas in it of themselves. You just look at Lilith’s death and go “it doesn’t work because Lilith is an underdeveloped character so I don’t feel anything therefore it’s bad writing”. I look at Lilith’s death and say “yeah she’s an underdeveloped character but this was put here for a reason and how does that relate to the story as a whole?” Lilith’s death doesn’t do anything for me personally on an emotional level because like you said she’s an underdeveloped character(DLC aside anyway) but that shouldn’t limit my ability to meet the story on its own terms and understand what it’s trying to say regardless of my own personal feelings. It’s not about judging whether the story was able to get me to feel emotionally invested because that’s entirely subjective. It’s about being able to understand the story regardless of that.

No, I do understand what the intentions are. I just don't dismiss the bad execution because there were good intentions somewhere. Divining what the intentions are with a scene is generally a very easy thing to do with Fire Emblem. The only scene in the series where I really don't know what they were trying to do is Kronya's death in Three Houses.

Quote

There’s a difference between being critical and being a nitpicky dismissive asshole. You are the ladder. Being critical does not mean blatently ignoring the context of what the story is trying to say and calling something bad due to arbritrary subjective personal standard. There’s a big difference between criticizing a story for what it is trying to do vs critcizing it for not being what you want it to be. A lot of fates criticism falls into the latter category.

I can assure you I am not a ladder. A step ladder perhaps, but not a ladder. And no, I'm not a nicpicky as whole either. You're resorting to petty name calling rather than genuine analysis of any criticism I present (of which I have actually done very little of here as we have been talking about criticism as an idea and not as a concept). You dismiss criticism by declaring valid complaints as nitpicking using the same arbitrary personal standard you condemn. 

Quote

I’m glad we can agree on this matter but like I said there’s a difference between good criticism and bad criticism and it’s your job as a writer to discern the difference. Like I said before, if you show ten different people your story and half of them hate it while the other half love it. Work on pleasing the people who love it rather than those who hate it. You can’t please everyone no matter how hard you try. You shouldn’t have to sacrife the “purity” of your work to conform to the opinions of others as the legend, himself, Tite Kubo puts it.

No, don't work on pleasing the five people. What that creates is pandering. Work on pleasing yourself, adhere to your own standards of quality. Writers have come to hate their work and hate their fans by shilling out what was asked of them just to make a quick buck. Listening to blind praise can be far more damaging than blind criticism. Ignore the haters and listen only to unconditional praise and eventually only your (proverbial) mother will be interested. An artist's job is not to please people, it is to create art. And people are entitled to feel however they feel about that art.

Edited November 2, 2021 by Jotari

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

6 hours ago, Florete said:

Pretty sure Genealogy and PoR have it beat. You also have to consider that 3H is still the newest in the series so a lot of people haven't properly reflected on it. Blazing Blade's story got a lot of praise back in its day, but it hasn't aged too well. Sacred Stones, too, though to a lesser degree.

Most people who played Three Houses haven't played the Tellius games - much less Genealogy. So those games may have better stories, but their relatively limited exposure would explain the current lack of fanwork of the "classics" rather than 3H. For my part, while I agree with @Dark Holy Elf that 3H has a ton of fanfic, I'd attribute that less to the story and more to the impression left by its characters (artwork and voice acting can go a long way here). Claude doesn't need a convincing narrative to make a great virtual boyfriend, after all (with apologies to Joe Zieja).

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

I can assure you I am not a ladder. A step ladder perhaps, but not a ladder.

You need to stop judging things based on narrow-minded cultural assumptions!

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

You need to stop judging things based on narrow-minded cultural assumptions!

Truly society still needs to advance a few more rungs.

[Eltosian Kadath]

 On 10/31/2021 at 11:38 PM, Ottservia said:

What I am saying though is that you shouldn’t be stupid. Don’t say shit that isn’t true. If you’re gonna make a claim then back it up. There are plenty of ways to criticize something while being constructive and in good faith. You shouldn’t have to lie or misconstrue context to make something look worse that’s just bad faith criticism.

Words that you could follow when talking about SoV.

 

On 10/31/2021 at 11:38 PM, Ottservia said:

Instead opting to portray Alm as the most generic light novel protagonist you’ll ever see.

Sounds a lot like

On 10/31/2021 at 11:38 PM, Ottservia said:

Saying Fates bad because Corrin is a mary sue is an example of that sort of bad faith criticism.

and also seems to be a bad faith criticism...

 

8 hours ago, Ottservia said:

There’s a difference between being critical and being a nitpicky dismissive asshole. You are the ladder. Being critical does not mean blatently ignoring the context of what the story is trying to say and calling something bad due to arbritrary subjective personal standard. There’s a big difference between criticizing a story for what it is trying to do vs critcizing it for not being what you want it to be. A lot of fates criticism falls into the latter category.

...Still sounds a lot like your SoV criticism.

Also you act like there is a clear line between what a story IS trying to do, and what people want/think it is trying to do. None of us are involved enough in the creation of any of these games to know for a certainty what its IS trying to do, we are only able to speculate, and what you think/want a game to be trying to do holds no more weight than what any others person thinks/wants a game to be trying to do, unless you support it with some textual evidence (which is something I haven't seen you do much...).

 

On 10/31/2021 at 11:38 PM, Ottservia said:

Regardless, my point is that I’ll never say a plot point in SoV is pointless or adds nothing to the story because every plot point has some kind of thematic value be it big or small. 

There are multiple times I have pointed out plot points in SoV that you repeatedly dismissed...

 

8 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Once again, don’t dismiss things for not mattering when you could instead aim to find out why they do. Or to put it another way, just because something bored you or failed to grab you emotionally that doesn’t mean it’s devoid of narrative value. I’m not arguing the execution of the ideas I’m arguing about the existence of those ideas in it of themselves.

More sage advice you could follow when criticizing SoV...

 

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

I can assure you I am not a ladder. A step ladder perhaps, but not a ladder.

18 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

You need to stop judging things based on narrow-minded cultural assumptions!

Quote

Truly society still needs to advance a few more rungs.

...I love that the two of you added this classic bit of Ace Attorney humor.

 

7 hours ago, Florete said:

Pretty sure Genealogy and PoR have it beat. You also have to consider that 3H is still the newest in the series so a lot of people haven't properly reflected on it. Blazing Blade's story got a lot of praise back in its day, but it hasn't aged too well. Sacred Stones, too, though to a lesser degree.

Just wanted to add Thracia 776 to those that beat it, but otherwise I agree.

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Claude doesn't need a convincing narrative to make a great virtual boyfriend, after all

Indeed. All one needs for that is either a convincing bod or a convincing personality, both would be nice!, a fitting VA another blessed boon. I speak from experience.😛

-Not about Claude, I haven't any passions over 3H's cast. But pixels are pixels, and I know as much Takumi as I do Claude -very very little that is- but that didn't stop me from fawning over the former's summer Heroes artwork.😆

 

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

But a lot of people do say they don't like the plot of Three Houses . 

Let's keep in mind that ultimately, our understanding of quantity is limited. Let our human cognitive limitations, that find a more 50 dissenters to feel like so many more, not cloud out judgements. Internet posters can add up to what, a few thousand for this a game that sold over a million? In the absence of scientific polling, which I doubt will come to video games any time soon, we remain at something of a loss over this matter.

[Ottservia]

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

 

No, I do understand what the intentions are. I just don't dismiss the bad execution because there were good intentions somewhere. Divining what the intentions are with a scene is generally a very easy thing to do with Fire Emblem. The only scene in the series where I really don't know what they were trying to do is Kronya's death in Three Houses.

 

Then prove that to me because you haven’t done that so far. You keep going on and on about bad execution this and bad execution that but you never quite explain what that means. Because from my understanding said “bad execution” you keep droning on about doesn’t really exist at least in the way you think it does

[Florete]

4 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Most people who played Three Houses haven't played the Tellius games - much less Genealogy. So those games may have better stories, but their relatively limited exposure would explain the current lack of fanwork of the "classics" rather than 3H. For my part, while I agree with @Dark Holy Elf that 3H has a ton of fanfic, I'd attribute that less to the story and more to the impression left by its characters (artwork and voice acting can go a long way here). Claude doesn't need a convincing narrative to make a great virtual boyfriend, after all (with apologies to Joe Zieja).

What does fanwork have to do with anything? Not that it matters when it comes to ratio. There's probably a greater number of people who liked Fates' story than PoR's if we judge by a basic popularity metric.

[Etrurian emperor]

One thing that I guess is unpopular is that I really don't get the appeal of Laegjarn. She's obviously meant to be the Camus of the FE Heroes story but she's really not a very good one. 

Camus are usually loyal to their obviously evil nation either because they are patriots or because they have a lot of loyalty and love to certain figures. Neither applies to Laegjarn. Never does she give the impression she likes either her kingdom or her father very much, and daddy only threatens her little sister at the very end of the story. Unlike the Nohrian siblings she doesn't seem to fear her tyrant dad either. So why was this supposedly noble lady fighting for Surtr again? Because her lack of explanation about this is a pretty big handicap for a supposedly noble Camus. And now the story is setting up her grand return I keep remembering that she mostly fell flat to me in book 2, and that at best she seemed to be about the most bare bones Camus out there. 

Edited November 2, 2021 by Etrurian emperor

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Ottservia said:

 

Then prove that to me because you haven’t done that so far. You keep going on and on about bad execution this and bad execution that but you never quite explain what that means. Because from my understanding said “bad execution” you keep droning on about doesn’t really exist at least in the way you think it does

I don't particularly need to explain bad execution to you, because we're in agreement that the only specific plot point discussed here, Lilith's death, was badly  executed. You already know why it's badly executed.

7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Let's keep in mind that ultimately, our understanding of quantity is limited. Let our human cognitive limitations, that find a more 50 dissenters to feel like so many more, not cloud out judgements. Internet posters can add up to what, a few thousand for this a game that sold over a million? In the absence of scientific polling, which I doubt will come to video games any time soon, we remain at something of a loss over this matter.

Indeed, but the same goes for Fates too.

Edited November 2, 2021 by Jotari

[Parrhesia]

Things are getting out of hand. Touch some grass and get back to posting unpopular opinions rather than endlessly bickering over their validity. Some amount of engagement is great; this has gone way beyond that, and from there, nowhere.