Why do a lot of FE games start with bandit attacks?

[Etrurian emperor]

42 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

Take FE4 for example, the bandits ended up threatening northern Augustria due to how bad the situation got. 

Pirates actually. But yes, you're right. 

[Icelerate]

2 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Pirates actually. But yes, you're right. 

Lyn doesn't care about the difference.

Eliwood:
“I heard that Lyndis’s parents were slain by bandits. Bandits at land, pirates at sea… They’re all the same to Lyndis. Lawbreakers and murderers.”

[Interdimensional Observer]

And random realization I knew before, but forgot to mention- Mystery of the Emblem Book 2/New Mystery.

This game really shouldn't have had an opening chapter with bandits. The game kicks it off with trying to repress Lorenz's one-chapter rebellion, so you should be fighting Grustian rebels. The game makes up the excuse that only Lorenz himself is left and that bandits have taken over in the chaos.

But this excuse only exists to keep the player from dirtying their hands. Lorenz and his rebellion are in the right, but IS didn't want the player to massacre good people, so they killed all the good people beforehand via bad people. They even deny you Lorenz's head by making him too durable to take down and hence Marth just talks to him and he dies on his own accord.

 

10 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Some Fire Emblem settings do leave room for a powerful bandit force threatening countries. 

As mentioned Zophia being a complete mess allows bandits to get powerful. Or Ylisse which pretty much dismantled its army after the war. But there's also Talys, a teensy tiny island nation that probably isn't any more populated than your local bandit clan. Taken individually the Lycian domains probably aren't very strong either. 

Don't forget the Barbarian Clans of Archanea. Primarily all those who Gharnef brainwash into protecting the Dragon's Altar/Table/Place Where Medeus Lives For Four Minutes.

But the rest of them practically own the northern wastelands (not that anyone civilized would want to own them), and put the wastelands' powerful feral dragons in domesticated shackles. Honestly, if they could drag a handful of Wyverns, Fire, and Ice Dragons down into Aurelis, they could possibly destroy it overnight.

Edited July 27, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[Etrurian emperor]

56 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

But the rest of them practically own the northern wastelands (not that anyone civilized would want to own them), and put the wastelands' powerful feral dragons in domesticated shackles. Honestly, if they could drag a handful of Wyverns, Fire, and Ice Dragons down into Aurelis, they could possibly destroy it overnight.

The filthy barbarians up north uniting and attacking Archenea with their feral dragons is probably something one of Marth's descendants had to tackle with before Awakening. That's how it always goes with barbarians. 

[Emperor Hardin]

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And random realization I knew before, but forgot to mention- Mystery of the Emblem Book 2/New Mystery.

This game really shouldn't have had an opening chapter with bandits. The game kicks it off with trying to repress Lorenz's one-chapter rebellion, so you should be fighting Grustian rebels. The game makes up the excuse that only Lorenz himself is left and that bandits have taken over in the chaos.

But this excuse only exists to keep the player from dirtying their hands. Lorenz and his rebellion are in the right, but IS didn't want the player to massacre good people, so they killed all the good people beforehand via bad people. They even deny you Lorenz's head by making him too durable to take down and hence Marth just talks to him and he dies on his own accord.

Whilst the part about Lorenz being the only rebel left and all the other guys on the map being bandits is definitely an excuse, Lorenz is fully killable and indeed many players do so, especially in the DS Remakes. Remember Arran can reach him and Lorenz only has a broken lance in the SNES version.

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Don't forget the Barbarian Clans of Archanea. Primarily all those who Gharnef brainwash into protecting the Dragon's Altar/Table/Place Where Medeus Lives For Four Minutes.

 But the rest of them practically own the northern wastelands (not that anyone civilized would want to own them), and put the wastelands' powerful feral dragons in domesticated shackles. Honestly, if they could drag a handful of Wyverns, Fire, and Ice Dragons down into Aurelis, they could possibly destroy it overnight.

I always felt the "elemental" clans were unexplored. The Shadow Clan, in particular, is implied to be connected to Dolhr in the DS remake as the Earth Dragon and Sorcerer in Archanea's palace are labeled as from that faction.

16 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

The strength of the Grieth pirates kind of make sense in that lawless setting, and are never portrayed as being bigger or more dangerous than Rigel's army or the Duma Faithful. I was going to bring up the Fates/Awakening paralogues as direct examples of how immersion breaking bandits can be when they're at late game levels of strong, but it felt like I would have been going out of my way to trash on those games just to make a point. Only in a post apocalyptic setting should bandits ever match or surpass the military force of a country, but in that setting you'd have no armies in the world to compare to anyway.

That is true, but the united bandits are still a definite threat to the regular threat.

Thracia 776 also has you fight bandits in the mid game, such as Zyle in chapter 14. Except for Gomes, they aren't too powerful even within the actual gameplay.

Edited July 28, 2019 by Emperor Hardin

[Jotari]

9 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And random realization I knew before, but forgot to mention- Mystery of the Emblem Book 2/New Mystery.

This game really shouldn't have had an opening chapter with bandits. The game kicks it off with trying to repress Lorenz's one-chapter rebellion, so you should be fighting Grustian rebels. The game makes up the excuse that only Lorenz himself is left and that bandits have taken over in the chaos.

But this excuse only exists to keep the player from dirtying their hands. Lorenz and his rebellion are in the right, but IS didn't want the player to massacre good people, so they killed all the good people beforehand via bad people. They even deny you Lorenz's head by making him too durable to take down and hence Marth just talks to him and he dies on his own accord.

 

Don't forget the Barbarian Clans of Archanea. Primarily all those who Gharnef brainwash into protecting the Dragon's Altar/Table/Place Where Medeus Lives For Four Minutes.

But the rest of them practically own the northern wastelands (not that anyone civilized would want to own them), and put the wastelands' powerful feral dragons in domesticated shackles. Honestly, if they could drag a handful of Wyverns, Fire, and Ice Dragons down into Aurelis, they could possibly destroy it overnight.

How could you bring up Lorenz's death without referencing the fact that he inexplicably (and hilariously) explodes in the original version.

 

 

Edited July 28, 2019 by Jotari

[Interdimensional Observer]

3 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Thracia 776 also has you fight bandits in the mid game, such as Zyle in chapter 14. Except for Gomes, they aren't too powerful even within the actual gameplay.

For 8 and 8x, the bandits are there to get back Dagda, Tanya, and Marty. Though at the same time, the game explains how the barrenness of South Thracia's land leads to banditry in desperation. 

Besides that, the bandits of 8, 12, and 15 all serve another purpose I think. That purpose being carefully planned relaxations of difficulty.

• 8 is the first chapter where Fatigue sets in, after the menacing Manster Escape. So the game relents to compensate for having a large number of allies tired out.
• Chapters 11 and 11x weren't so bad I think that they needed a Fatigue-relief chapter, but at the same time, the player has gotten a lot of new allies in the past few fights. Chapter 12 lets you train them up without fear of ballistae and murder holes galore. Steal is useless on all those Brigands, and yet they have it and it causes them to provide increased EXP when slain. With Fog of War, Salem's Sleep, and the Capture + turn limit to get to 12x in, Chapter 12 still isn't too easy.
• Chapter 15 is a fun breather before the route split, and for some, Chapters 14 and 14x might have been problematic (but 14 is actually easy if you aren't trying to the Dragonpike and Nosferatu without Warp).

[Icelerate]

9 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

 But this excuse only exists to keep the player from dirtying their hands. Lorenz and his rebellion are in the right, but IS didn't want the player to massacre good people, so they killed all the good people beforehand via bad people. They even deny you Lorenz's head by making him too durable to take down and hence Marth just talks to him and he dies on his own accord.

 

IS had no problem allowing you to kill laguz and later the Apostle's Army in RD. I guess Ike and Marth aren't allowed to get their hands dirty. 

[Jotari]

9 hours ago, Icelerate said:

IS had no problem allowing you to kill laguz and later the Apostle's Army in RD. I guess Ike and Marth aren't allowed to get their hands dirty. 

Plus like 90% of Conquest.

[Interdimensional Observer]

19 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Plus like 90% of Conquest.

Now that I think about, despite it being a good way to kill two birds with one stone, FE6's corrupt Etrurian nobles never make Roy fight the Western Isles resistance fighters. The bandits of Chapter 9 are just bandits paid for by the Etrurian nobles to kill Roy and oppress the locals I think.

The odd thing is, if one reads Binding Blade as inspired by Marth's two journeys narratively, then I've interpreted the Western Isles as the Grust and Macedon Expeditions. So just as Marth's hands were kept clean with Lorenz's honest rebellion and Macedon under Archanea stooges, so Roy is kept out of slaying Larum and Elffin's comrades.

 

You do kill good people in FE, all those Camuses and the valiant masses drafted into their nations' warfare and fighting either against their will or without knowing the hidden truth. But in certain cases from time to time, IS has tried to keep the player from killing the good.

Edited July 28, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[Faellin]

Its a good way of building up a character. going from dealing with small time thugs to world ending dragons or insane kings who want nothing but world domination. But yeah, I would like to see it be mixed up a bit. Have some games start off with other small time threats. Not just bandits.

Feels pretty good seeing that whole thing play out.

[SSbardock84]

Fire Emblem usually takes similar formulas like their many archetypes, so it's not just the repetition of bandits. They're not actual soldiers, so they aren't trained and can be seen as less threats when it comes to actual combat making them a more ideal opponent to start off with. On top of that, bandits almost always wield axes and most of the time the main protagonist has a sword. It just makes sense to start the games off easy with having the main character with the weapon advantage. This isn't always the case however as in Radiant Dawn, Micaiah doesn't use swords. But Edward (best character ever) is still there with his sword.