Lord or Lords?

[BlazingSwordOfSeals]

Based on the title and Edelgard's line about the Crests, it's looking like her, Dimitri, and Claude, are the "Lords" of the titular Three Houses, with "Teacher"/Byleth acting as a faction-neutral Avatar. We still don't know whether all four will be in the same army like Lyn, Eliwood, and Hector in Blazing Sword (or Chrom, Robin, and Lucina in Awakening, for newer fans), but if they do, Three Houses would have the highest number of playable Lords in the series*.

That got me thinking, how many "Lord" characters should a Fire Emblem game have? Do the they ride together or can there be only one?

Before We Do This, Let's Set A Few Ground Rules...

• For this discussion,  a "Lord" is defined as a unit who...
  1. ...is the protagonist or a major character in the story.
  2. ...has higher stats and growths than the other units, as well as exclusive weapons (Ephraim's Reginleif, Hector's Wolf Beil, the Rapier, Legendary/Divine Weapons etc.). 
  3. ...is required to be on the map. (Depending on the game or chapter, this can be only the main lord or all of them)
  4. ...and whose death results in an automatic Game Over.

*Radiant Dawn technically had five Lords: Micaiah, Ike, Elincia, Geoffrey, and Tibarn. However, the latter three were only Lords for certain parts, whereas Ike and Micaiah retained their Lord status throughout the entire game.

My Thoughts
Narrative-wise, I like this. Having a deuter- or even a tritagonist Lord gives the protagonist someone to interact with and flesh out their character. For example, back when I still owned a copy of Blazing Sword, I could never figure out how to trigger Support conversations, so the main story was my only way to get invested in the characters. I'll admit, Eliwood may be the main Lord of one of my favorite FEs, but he's the weakest personality of the trio. But thanks to Hector's battle-hungry boisterousness and Lyn's kind, but stubborn spirit providing contrast, I still found him likable.

As for gameplay, I'm a bit mixed. On one hand, a Lord's higher stats and growths, and their special equipment (especially Legendary Weapons) can make them gamebreakingly overpowered, so having more than one can make things worse. On the other hand, extra Lords means the enemy has extra chances to instantly defeat you, so the risk and reward sort of balance eachother out, to an extent. 

 

But what do you think?

Edited November 19, 2018 by BlazingSwordOfSeals

[Etrurian emperor]

I don't really have any strong feelings about this. A singular lord like Marth and Corrin, Co lords like Alm, Celica and the twins or opposing lords like Ike and Michy are all fine by me. 

I think multiple lords is a more interesting concept but its also a more dangerous one. For some reason IS has a hard time doing this and treating the lords like equals. Celica clearly didn't get off as well as Alm, Eirika wasn't the invincible titan Ephraim was and Michy was depicted as wrong in comparison to Ike and not even close to the person he was. And I noticed this gets on people's nerves a bit. 

[Rose482]

I like having more than one lord, while it could be risky, but having one lord is also risky.

 

Like lets say you didn't like the one and only lord in the game, that could...really hurt the game in your eyes, but having more than one lord at least makes it so the chances are you would like someone at the very least, of course everyone here has a different opinion about what they consider to be a good lord, so having more than one lord, while making sure they have differences would for sure please people I think.

 

It's true sometimes some lords steal the screen time of another lord, which sucks, but I do think they could still do a better job at this and make sure everyone gets the same amount of screen time if they put their minds into it, so I don't think it's impossible. 

Edited November 19, 2018 by Rose482

[Icelerate]

It depends. Either can work IMO but multiple lords who are treated fairly by the narrative would be ideal. The better the character interactions and dynamics between the lords, the better they can be.

I think PoR Ike works wonderfully as a sole protagonist because he has great character interactions with the rest of the cast. Lyn in Lyn mode and Micaiah in part one are also great sole protagonists of their arcs for similar reasons. Marth and Roy don't work, for me personally, because their character interactions are pretty bland. Those two could use another lord to have better character interactions with. 

5 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

A singular lord like Marth and Corrin, Co lords like Alm, Celica and the twins or opposing lords like Ike and Michy are all fine by me.

Wasn't one of Corrin's problems that he's too important to the narrative so wouldn't adding another lord would ease that problem? Also, I'm pretty sure Marth himself is quite over-hyped by the cast as some type of legendary savior so toning that down would make him more relatable. Adding Kris didn't work because he himself starts hyping up and blindly following Marth like the rest of the cast making Marth come off as too perfect. 

Edited November 19, 2018 by Icelerate

[Etrurian emperor]

4 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

Wasn't one of Corrin's problems that he's too important to the narrative so wouldn't adding another lord would ease that problem? Also, I'm pretty sure Marth himself is quite over-hyped by the cast as some type of legendary savior so toning that down would make him more relatable. 

I mean more the concept than the execution. Even ripping on poor Corrin eventually gets old. 

I wouldn't say Marth is too overhyped. He's frequently dismissed as a boy and even after he saved the world he's still just an underling to Archenea which causes Hardin's corrupt governor to walk all over Marth in the beginning of new mystery. The many Archenean characters don't really speak about Marth with much reference either when they go up against him. 

Edited November 19, 2018 by Etrurian emperor

[Jotari]

7 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

It depends. Either can work IMO but multiple lords who are treated fairly by the narrative would be ideal. The better the character interactions and dynamics between the lords, the better they can be.

I think PoR Ike works wonderfully as a sole protagonist because he has great character interactions with the rest of the cast. Lyn in Lyn mode and Micaiah in part one are also great sole protagonists of their arcs for similar reasons. Marth and Roy don't work, for me personally, because their character interactions are pretty bland. Those two could use another lord to have better character interactions with. 

Wasn't one of Corrin's problems that he's too important to the narrative so wouldn't adding another lord would ease that problem? Also, I'm pretty sure Marth himself is quite over-hyped by the cast as some type of legendary savior so toning that down would make him more relatable. Adding Kris didn't work because he himself starts hyping up and blindly following Marth like the rest of the cast making Marth come off as too perfect. 

In terms of plot, Azura essentially was the co-lord of Fates though. They easily could have slapped a gameover condition and forced map deployment on her without changing any dialogue and we'd all be calling her a lord now. She even breaks the genetic rules of the game by having a kid. Only other units that do that are Chrom and Avatars.

[Icelerate]

1 minute ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I mean more the concept than the execution. Even ripping on poor Corrin eventually gets old. 

I wouldn't say Marth is too overhyped. He's frequently dismissed as a boy and even after he saved the world he's still just an underling to Archenea which causes Hardin's corrupt governor to walk all over Marth in the beginning of new mystery. The many Archenean characters don't really speak about Marth with much reference either. 

That much is true. 

Being dismissed doesn't matter when everything you do ends up being right. Even when he followed Hardin in the beginning, he never had to do anything except fight bandits. 

Didn't all the rulers of Archanae just surrender their territories to Marth at the end of book 2? I've heard about this but haven't actually seen the story because I got bored after the first half. 

[indigoasis]

I'm fine with both honestly, but I really liked what FE4 did with Sigurd and Seliph where there was only ever one Lord present for each half of the game, so there were technically two Lords. It's a similar concept to Gaiden and Echoes' two army system, except you control one Lord and their army for the first half of the game, and then the other Lord and their army for the second half, starting more or less from the ground up each time (other than when Finn joins Seliph's army). It was almost like two games in one, but not.

Personal bias for FE4 aside, I like having one Lord, but if there are multiple, at least keep them out of the same army. If there's a character that acts as a semi-Lord in one Lord's army, I'm fine with that.

[Sunwoo]

I like the idea of having two or three lords, but IS hasn't really been doing it very well when they have to coexist at the same time. When it's just two lords, one of them tends to come off as "cooler" or "more important" than the other (usually the male over the female), and when they have three characters (Blazing Sword) one of them (Lyn) seems to be pretty much insignificant in the main plot.

Here's to hoping that Three Houses actually uses its three protagonists well. But if they fail at handling multiple lords, then I really think they should go back and relearn how to write ONE lord well instead of shoving all of these characters in our faces that they can't even write properly.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, indigoceans said:

I'm fine with both honestly, but I really liked what FE4 did with Sigurd and Seliph where there was only ever one Lord present for each half of the game, so there were technically two Lords. It's a similar concept to Gaiden and Echoes' two army system, except you control one Lord and their army for the first half of the game, and then the other Lord and their army for the second half, starting more or less from the ground up each time (other than when Finn joins Seliph's army). It was almost like two games in one, but not.

Personal bias for FE4 aside, I like having one Lord, but if there are multiple, at least keep them out of the same army. If there's a character that acts as a semi-Lord in one Lord's army, I'm fine with that.

I actually would have liked it if Leif was considered a Lord in Genealogy of Holy War. Not only does he have more than enough plot justification and a unique class, but it would have been really handy to have two units able to seize, so you could effectively split your army and go after two castles simultaneously (which in Thracia's canon is what happens with Munster and Connacht).

[GrandeRampel]

In my opinion there are only so many stories you can tell with a single lord and his/her adventure to solve everything.

Having more than one lord can help shake things up. Even if the game seems to prefer one of them in particular, it's still interesting to control them separately and see how they interact.

One idea that I had is a Fire Emblem game in which you control a single lord since the beginning, but there is another character that you recruit soon who is a good friend, noble of another country, or maybe the lord younger sibling or relative. This character appears often in the plot, but more like how Gray and Tobin appear in Echoes, in the sense that they appear often because they have a connection to the lord and want to help them make difficult decisions. But after a good portion of the story, the main lord shockingly dies. Maybe they are betrayed, defeated and killed by the true villains, and their army escapes with great losses. At that point the second half of the game begins and the character who was a playable good friend/relative of the lord becomes the main lord of the game, but they still have the same stats they had before (although this could be a good moment to give them the classic story related class change we had in the Tellius games). This is different from what Genealogy did, because you would still use the same units, not their kids. And the villains who murdered the lord would be confronted immediately, instead of giving them years to reign.

To give you more concrete examples, think about Geneaology. What if after Sigurd was betrayed and killed by Arvis, his allies were captured and not killed. But at that moment you shift prospective to Quan (obviously the whole thing with Travant didn't happen in this version of the game) who is now the main lord, and has to free the playable cast, solve the little problem between Leonster and Thracia, confront Travant, stop the evil cult of Loptous and of course get revenge by killing Arvis, stopping his ambitions right when it seemed like they were almost realized.

Or what if, at the moment of Emmeryn sacrifice, Chrom actually surrendered the Fire Emblem to Gangrel, but was betrayed and killed together with his sister. From that point onward, the main lord would be Lissa (who pulls a Lachesis and becomes a badass Master Knight, because why not) who would have to guide the surviving sheperds and defeat Gangrel who is now more insane and powerful than ever (think Ashnard with Lehran's medallion level od insane and powerful). Of course in this version, "Marth" would have to be a completely different character, and the role of Robin would have to be different too.

Or imagine if at the beginning of PoR we actually played as Greil, with its mercenaries. Ike and Mist would still be his kids and playable, but they would be the trainee units (or at least the game would make you think that). Just when the plot seems to be picking up and get interesting, with the whole invasion, protecting princess Elincia and the group beginning to travel to Gallia, the fated duel with the Black Knight would happen. And perhaps it would even be a playable chapter, with a shocking conclusion. The main lord we were playing as dies, and the role of protagonist goes to his son.

This were examples based on existing games, but imagine a new FE that is built around this kind of plot twist? Wouldn't it be interesting? Similar to Genealogy but also different.

The only problem with this idea is that I can't see IS pulling the "decoy protagonist" trope with their recent focus on supports and interatcions between units. Imagine bringing the protagonist and another character to support level S and in the next chapter the protagonist dies. All your work is lost, and you can't give that other character a different S-support now. Now that I think about it, IS pulled off something similar in both Birthright and Revelation, but we are talking about the main character this time, not a minor one.

[indigoasis]

19 minutes ago, GrandeRampel said:

In my opinion there are only so many stories you can tell with a single lord and his/her adventure to solve everything.

Having more than one lord can help shake things up. Even if the game seems to prefer one of them in particular, it's still interesting to control them separately and see how they interact.

One idea that I had is a Fire Emblem game in which you control a single lord since the beginning, but there is another character that you recruit soon who is a good friend, noble of another country, or maybe the lord younger sibling or relative. This character appears often in the plot, but more like how Gray and Tobin appear in Echoes, in the sense that they appear often because they have a connection to the lord and want to help them make difficult decisions. But after a good portion of the story, the main lord shockingly dies. Maybe they are betrayed, defeated and killed by the true villains, and their army escapes with great losses. At that point the second half of the game begins and the character who was a playable good friend/relative of the lord becomes the main lord of the game, but they still have the same stats they had before (although this could be a good moment to give them the classic story related class change we had in the Tellius games). This is different from what Genealogy did, because you would still use the same units, not their kids. And the villains who murdered the lord would be confronted immediately, instead of giving them years to reign.

To give you more concrete examples, think about Geneaology. What if after Sigurd was betrayed and killed by Arvis, his allies were captured and not killed. But at that moment you shift prospective to Quan (obviously the whole thing with Travant didn't happen in this version of the game) who is now the main lord, and has to free the playable cast, solve the little problem between Leonster and Thracia, confront Travant, stop the evil cult of Loptous and of course get revenge by killing Arvis, stopping his ambitions right when it seemed like they were almost realized.

Or what if, at the moment of Emmeryn sacrifice, Chrom actually surrendered the Fire Emblem to Gangrel, but was betrayed and killed together with his sister. From that point onward, the main lord would be Lissa (who pulls a Lachesis and becomes a badass Master Knight, because why not) who would have to guide the surviving sheperds and defeat Gangrel who is now more insane and powerful than ever (think Ashnard with Lehran's medallion level od insane and powerful). Of course in this version, "Marth" would have to be a completely different character, and the role of Robin would have to be different too.

Or imagine if at the beginning of PoR we actually played as Greil, with its mercenaries. Ike and Mist would still be his kids and playable, but they would be the trainee units (or at least the game would make you think that). Just when the plot seems to be picking up and get interesting, with the whole invasion, protecting princess Elincia and the group beginning to travel to Gallia, the fated duel with the Black Knight would happen. And perhaps it would even be a playable chapter, with a shocking conclusion. The main lord we were playing as dies, and the role of protagonist goes to his son.

This were examples based on existing games, but imagine a new FE that is built around this kind of plot twist? Wouldn't it be interesting? Similar to Genealogy but also different.

The only problem with this idea is that I can't see IS pulling the "decoy protagonist" trope with their recent focus on supports and interatcions between units. Imagine bringing the protagonist and another character to support level S and in the next chapter the protagonist dies. All your work is lost, and you can't give that other character a different S-support now. Now that I think about it, IS pulled off something similar in both Birthright and Revelation, but we are talking about the main character this time, not a minor one.

I've mulled over a similar idea to that, too, although it was more like a branching path sort of thing, or a "what if" scenario. For example, you can make it through the entire game without the main Lord dying at all, and you would get the normal ending. However, if the main Lord dies at any point during the game, the secondary protagonist would take over, and then you would be on track for the alternate ending. Resurrecting the main Lord after they die wouldn't be possible at all, which would make permadeath that much more devasting.

I love the idea you proposed. I hope that there's a game with that concept in the future.

Edited November 20, 2018 by indigoceans

[Shadow Mir]

The big issue I have with multiple lords is that one of them often gets the short straw compared to the other. Case in point: Eirika and Ephraim. Not only is her part of the story insignificant relative to his (it feels more like some random filler arc for most of it, ffs), she makes an apocalyptic, facepalm-worthy blunder near the end.

[Etrurian emperor]

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

The big issue I have with multiple lords is that one of them often gets the short straw compared to the other. Case in point: Eirika and Ephraim. Not only is her part of the story insignificant relative to his (it feels more like some random filler arc for most of it, ffs), she makes an apocalyptic, facepalm-worthy blunder near the end.

Though doesn't Ephraim make a similar blunder? He loses the stone as well. I never thought that should be held against Eirika that much. She was always naive and pretty desperate at the time too.

[Shadow Mir]

5 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Though doesn't Ephraim make a similar blunder? He loses the stone as well. I never thought that should be held against Eirika that much. She was always naive and pretty desperate at the time too.

Ephraim loses the stone too, but he doesn't just give it away like Eirika did - instead, the possessed Lyon immobilizes Ephraim and takes it from him. And what really bothers me about Eirika giving the stone away is that L'arachel told her beforehand (as in at the beginning of the chapter beforehand) it wouldn't work.

[NekoKnight]

On 11/21/2018 at 2:07 AM, Shadow Mir said:

And what really bothers me about Eirika giving the stone away is that L'arachel told her beforehand (as in at the beginning of the chapter beforehand) it wouldn't work.

L'arachel stating something doesn't mean Eirika has to believe it. If your family member went missing and an informed person told you that it's unlikely they'll be found after 72 hours have passed, would you just give up? Sometimes people cling to hope even when rationally there isn't much.

----

On topic, I'm down for multiple lords. Blazing Sword did an excellent job of this creating a power trio with great chemistry. Multiple lords offers multiple reactions to a conflict and they can even have independent character arcs (again, Blazing Sword). If you have a game with multiple lords/factions (Radiant Dawn), you also have the benefit of having multiple positions in a setting, like how Micaiah dislikes Ike for completely valid reasons, even though the players know that Ike is a moral person.

It all comes back to writing talent, naturally. Azura might have been a co-lord if she was ever used as something besides an exposition bot or mysterious waif.

 

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

L'arachel stating something doesn't mean Eirika has to believe it. If your family member went missing and an informed person told you that it's unlikely they'll be found after 72 hours have passed, would you just give up? Sometimes people cling to hope even when rationally there isn't much.

----

On topic, I'm down for multiple lords. Blazing Sword did an excellent job of this creating a power trio with great chemistry. Multiple lords offers multiple reactions to a conflict and they can even have independent character arcs (again, Blazing Sword). If you have a game with multiple lords/factions (Radiant Dawn), you also have the benefit of having multiple positions in a setting, like how Micaiah dislikes Ike for completely valid reasons, even though the players know that Ike is a moral person.

It all comes back to writing talent, naturally. Azura might have been a co-lord if she was ever used as something besides an exposition bot or mysterious waif.

 

To be honest, I would, because sooner or later, you have to face reality.  And if someone's been missing for 3 days, that's long enough for me to start thinking that the worst-case scenario might have happened after all.

Edited November 24, 2018 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

It all comes back to writing talent, naturally. Azura might have been a co-lord if she was ever used as something besides an exposition bot or mysterious waif.

 

Can't see the logic there. The writing around Corrin is far from great and he/she's definitely a lord. Only reason Azura isn't a lord is because she can die at any point without a game over.

[NekoKnight]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Can't see the logic there. The writing around Corrin is far from great and he/she's definitely a lord. Only reason Azura isn't a lord is because she can die at any point without a game over.

Perhaps I should have worded that as "a good co-lord". Besides Revelation (and arguably even then), the game never really feels like it's Azura's journey. She plays a support role to Corrin.