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Alastor plays and ranks the whole series! Mission Complete! ...For now.


Alastor15243
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1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

No, like I said, these characters often get into situations where they'd have to kill somebody in order to save the day, but other people do it instead so that the story can preserve the hero's "purity". They've demonstrated in doing so that there is no moral to teach because somtimes murder is the most or even only moral solution. They just want to keep their protagonist "wholesome" for cynical marketing or narrative reasons.

I always think of disney animated films in these discussions: the hero always spares the villain, then the villain immediately tries to backstab them, but then gets strike by lightning and falls off a cliff or some deus ex machine along those lines.

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Does Plegia just know how to deal with Risen with Grimleal magic or something?

Chapter 9 spoilers below

Spoiler

It's implied that the Grimleal are able to control the Risen, given that Aversa is able to get Risen archers to attack Philia's squad.

 

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11 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Likely heard about it a story Chrom or Robin told her. That or she’s bullshitting a reason and the real reason she knows is because she’s friends with Yarne and that is his mother so she knows for a fact that Panne is an ally but again she doesn’t want to fuck with the past too much. Like obviously if she knows Yarne she’s gonna know who his mother is.

Well the question is more how Panne entered the story of the bad timeline, because in this timeline she enters it directly through Lucina intervening to tell her where she can go to help and assuring Chrom she's an ally. Does it ever explain how Panne wound up joining Chrom's army in the bad timeline which didn't have a Lucina to tell her where to go and vouch for her to Chrom?

@deskita Ah yes, I suppose the Grimleal have thorough integration into Plegian society, so they'd take care of it.

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Just now, Alastor15243 said:

Well the question is more how Panne entered the story of the bad timeline, because in this timeline she enters it directly through Lucina intervening to tell her where she can go to help and assuring Chrom she's an ally. Does it ever explain how Panne wound up joining Chrom's army in the bad timeline which didn't have a Lucina to tell her where to go and vouch for her to Chrom?

Spoiler

Henry told her. That happens in both timelines. No intervention from Lucina there.

 

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1 minute ago, Acacia Sgt said:
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Henry told her. That happens in both timelines. No intervention from Lucina there.

 

Oh it was Henry? I could've sworn I heard somewhere it was Lucina. Yeah, that makes more sense.

Edited by Alastor15243
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1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Well the question is more how Panne entered the story of the bad timeline, because in this timeline she enters it directly through Lucina intervening to tell her where she can go to help and assuring Chrom she's an ally. Does it ever explain how Panne wound up joining Chrom's army in the bad timeline which didn't have a Lucina to tell her where to go and vouch for her to Chrom?

Actually the one who told her about Emmeryn’s assassination was Henry. That’s revealed in either supports or a drama CD

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4 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Actually the one who told her about Emmeryn’s assassination was Henry. That’s revealed in either supports or a drama CD

I believe he mentions he did it because Emmeryn's death would mean stopping the war which would mean stopping the "fun."

 

Also here's that stupid Warriors line about women not falling into evil.

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4 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

I believe he mentions he did it because Emmeryn's death would mean stopping the war which would mean stopping the "fun."

Yep and that’s why he’s one of my favorite characters.

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7 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Also here's that stupid Warriors line about women not falling into evil.

Yeah... that doesn't say Miloah made it women only because they don't fall into evil. Only that he put such a restriction to avoid it falling into evil.

As you know, the current evil around was a certain dark MALE sorcerer who ended up killing Miloah because Gotoh didn't gave the tome to him.

Could've even be a spur of the moment thing. "I must restrict it, but how!? Hmm, if I do this then my daughter can still use it!"

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1 minute ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Yeah... that doesn't say Miloah made it women only because they don't fall into evil. Only that he put such a restriction to avoid it falling into evil.

As you know, the current evil around was a certain dark MALE sorcerer who ended up killing Miloah because Gotoh didn't gave the tome to him.

Could've even be a spur of the moment thing. "I must restrict it, but how!? Hmm, if I do this then my daughter can still use it!"

The wording said evil in general, not specifically Gharnef, as if one of Gharnef's heretic bishops or Medeus's followers would never be female.

The original explanation of it being sealed to Miloah's bloodline makes the most, other females being able to use it at A-rank in the DS games comes off as a mere gameplay measure and in Warriors only Linde can use Aura anyhow, so there was no reason for that stupid and sexist line.

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1 minute ago, Emperor Hardin said:

The wording said evil in general, not specifically Gharnef, as if one of Gharnef's heretic bishops or Medeus's followers would never be female.

The original explanation of it being sealed to Miloah's bloodline makes the most, other females being able to use it at A-rank in the DS games comes off as a mere gameplay measure and in Warriors only Linde can use Aura anyhow, so there was no reason for that stupid and sexist line.

The line is "Father feared [the tome] would fall into the wrong hands". That implies he was thinking on Gharnef in mind, since I'm sure Gharnef didn't made it a secret he resented not being the one who got the tome. Sure, making it women-only sounds perhaps too drastic, but again, we don't know the circumstances when he made such restriction. He at least found a way to restrict it so Gharnef couldn't use it, but his daughter could.

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Just now, Acacia Sgt said:

The line is "Father feared [the tome] would fall into the wrong hands". That implies he was thinking on Gharnef in mind, since I'm sure Gharnef didn't made it a secret he resented not being the one who got the tome. Sure, making it women-only sounds perhaps too drastic, but again, we don't know the circumstances when he made such restriction. He at least found a way to restrict it so Gharnef couldn't use it, but his daughter could.

Linde: Maybe you're sensing the restriction on the tome? Father feared it would fall into the wrong hands, so only women can use it.

Nope its specifically wrong hands in general, not specifically Gharnef. And again its dumb because its assuming the wrong hands would never be a woman's and its an unnecessary explanation since Aura is Linde only in Warriors anyhow.

If Miloah wanted to protect it, he'd seal it to his blood line, so only he and Linde could use it, not perform some idiotic gender restriction spell. 

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3 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Linde: Maybe you're sensing the restriction on the tome? Father feared it would fall into the wrong hands, so only women can use it.

Nope its specifically wrong hands in general, not specifically Gharnef. And again its dumb because its assuming the wrong hands would never be a woman's and its an unnecessary explanation since Aura is Linde only in Warriors anyhow.

If Miloah wanted to protect it, he'd seal it to his blood line, so only he and Linde could use it, not perform some idiotic gender restriction spell. 

The expression "wrong hands" can imply just one person. In this case Gharnef. Again, we don't know the circumstances of Miliah resorting to such a thing. Maybe he thought as long it didn't went to Gharnef directly, it'd be fine since few magic users are as strong as him. Saying he didn't had any inclination that a woman magic user who could be evil is too much of a presumption.

Can he even do it? The whole "only Miloah's bloodline can use it" was actually the work of Gotoh. He blood binded Aura, same as he blood binded Falchion to Anri and his family. Miloah likely just couldn't do such a thing as it was out of his league.

Edited by Acacia Sgt
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2 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

The expression "wrong hands" can imply just one person. In this case Gharnef. Again, we don't know the circumstances of Miliah resorting to such a thing. Maybe he thought as long it didn't went to Gharnef directly, it'd be fine since few magic users are as strong as him. Saying he didn't had any inclination that a woman magic user who could be evil is too much of a presumption.

Can he even do it? The whole "only Miloah's bloodline can use it" was actually the work of Gotoh. He blood binded Aura, same as he blood binded Falchion to Anri and his family. Miloah likely just couldn't do such a thing as it was out of his league.

Its almost always used as a general term meaning anyone bad, not a specific bad guy. And given all the other weaker magicians able to blood bond their stuff, I see no reason why Miloah wouldn't be able to do the same thing and its the original explanation.

Falchion is not mentioned to be Blood bonded, otherwise Marth wouldn't be able to use it.

And of course there was no reason for idiotic explanation in the first place given Aura is Linde only in Warriors. 

Whats next, Wendell sealing Excalibur to males because his feared its power would be too much for females to handle?

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Just now, Emperor Hardin said:

Its almost always used as a general term meaning anyone bad, not a specific bad guy. And given all the other weaker magicians able to blood bond their stuff, I see no reason why Miloah wouldn't be able to do the same thing and its the original explanation.

Falchion is not mentioned to be Blood bonded, otherwise Marth wouldn't be able to use it.

And of course there was no reason for idiotic explanation in the first place given Aura is Linde only in Warriors. 

Whats next, Wendell sealing Excalibur to males because his feared its power would be too much for females to handle?

Who are these other magicians? Whenever weapon restrictions are brought up, it's usually the work of dragons.

From the material:

Meanwhile, to protect the most powerful spells, like Aura or Excalibur, Gotoh attached a contract to them so that only the user could wield them. The same kind of protection was also placed on the Falchion.

Gotoh placed restrictions on who can use Falchion. Also, who else you think the restriction that Marth's family is the only one who can use Falchion comes from if not from a blood bind?

Why not? The tome and the restriction still exist, and people exist that could get curious as ask.

Now that's an explanation I'd like to see on why Excalibur was retcon to have a similar bind. Specially since unless there's a connection we don't know about, Merric inheriting Excalibur from Wendell isn't the same as the Miloah to Linde pass.

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5 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Gotoh placed restrictions on who can use Falchion. Also, who else you think the restriction that Marth's family is the only one who can use Falchion comes from if not from a blood bind?

Why not? The tome and the restriction still exist, and people exist that could get curious as ask.

Now that's an explanation I'd like to see on why Excalibur was retcon to have a similar bind. Specially since unless there's a connection we don't know about, Merric inheriting Excalibur from Wendell isn't the same as the Miloah to Linde pass.

There's plenty of other weapon restrictions like Rapiers to Princes and Lady sword to ladies.

Marth is descended from Anri's brother and not the man himself, remember? And that says nothing about blood line, only that that only the user could wield them. 

Females being able to use Aura at A-Rank is simply gameplay and story separation so people who leveled a female magic user who wasn't Linde wouldn't be screwed out of the most powerful tome. Its the exact same for Excalibur. That Linde and Merric are the still only ones that can use Aura and Excalibur respectively at E-Rank shows its still canon that they're locked to them and not their gender.

Warriors doesn't even include the gender restriction and goes with the FE1-FE3 style rule of Aura is Linde only so including such a lorebreaking and backwards reasoning is simply terrible writing and I'm not going to hear any more defenses of it in this topic.

Edited by Emperor Hardin
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I had quite a bit to say, but unfortunately Serenes deleted some (read: all but one thing) of what I quoted, so I guess I'll have to backtrack to do that another day

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, Emmeryn just shows complete shock that a genocide against Panne's people happened. Where did her people live? Why does Panne's warren owe Ylisse a debt that she came tonight to repay? I have so many questions!

I believe it's mentioned in her support with Libra that her "debt" was to the first Exalt since he freed the taguel. At least, if I'm remembering that support correctly

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10 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

 

Quote

...Ugh, I'm reminded of characters with contractual pacifism, like Superman, Batman and the Doctor. They can't kill anyone ever, the laws of the universe will perpetually bend over backwards to give them non-lethal solutions to literally everything, and when they run into a situation where unspeakably awful things will happen unless somebody is killed, somebody else has to do the killing for them. The result being that these characters never have to face the consequences of their ideals, solely so they can remain “wholesome” enough for kids to watch. It is... really annoying.

I'll give you Batman and Superman on that, but the Doctor's pacificsm is regularly challenged and he does frequently kill his enemies (though usually by tricking them into killing themselves). He is a character who is has been very much sliding on that slippery slope Batman and Superman want to avoid for decades. At least when he's written well.

Quote

 

 

And this quote box is here because I can't get rid of it on mobile.

8 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

The wording said evil in general, not specifically Gharnef, as if one of Gharnef's heretic bishops or Medeus's followers would never be female.

The original explanation of it being sealed to Miloah's bloodline makes the most, other females being able to use it at A-rank in the DS games comes off as a mere gameplay measure and in Warriors only Linde can use Aura anyhow, so there was no reason for that stupid and sexist line.

Hell we don't even need evil female heretics for this to be a futile gesture. Gharnef can mind control people. He could easily mind control a woman into being an aurabot for him. Erimiya already existed when this conversation was written! As I have said before and so shall say again, the solution here was to always keep Aura and Excalibur as prf weapons and to make Starlight the best tome in the game.

Edited by Jotari
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1 hour ago, Jotari said:

And this quote box is here because I can't get rid of it on mobile.

I hate typing on mobile.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Hell we don't even need evil female heretics for this to be a futile gesture. Gharnef can mind control people. He could easily mind control a woman into being an aurabot for him. Erimiya already existed when this conversation was written! As I have said before and so shall say again, the solution here was to always keep Aura and Excalibur as prf weapons and to make Starlight the best tome in the game.

Exactly. Females other then Linde being able to use Aura in the DS remakes always felt like a clear gameplay decision to allow Aura users in Iron Man runs. I always got the impression, lorewise, it was still Miloah/Linde only, same for Excalibur and Wendell/Merric. 

Not only is that Warriors explanation asinine and unnecessary given its Linde-locked in Warriors anyhow, its terribly sexist.

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You know, if you want yet another interpretation, and depending on how much you take her on her word, that same support conversation has Tharja sorta imply that maybe it's not really a gender-restriction, but rather a piece of Miloah's essence residing in the tome and might be the one letting only Linde use the tome.

Edited by Acacia Sgt
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15 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

You know, if you want yet another interpretation, and depending on how much you take her on her word, that same support conversation has Tharja sorta imply that maybe it's not really a gender-restriction, but rather a piece of Miloah's essence residing in the tome and might be the one letting only Linde use the tome.

That begs the question, why then can other females use it in the DS games?

...Come to think of it, this could also be asked about Excalibur, except it's men that can use it.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

That begs the question, why then can other females use it in the DS games?

...Come to think of it, this could also be asked about Excalibur, except it's men that can use it.

You know, there is an explanation, at least for Merric.

Merric:
I guess... But, would you be surprised if I said I didn't choose Excalibur, but rather Excalibur chose me?

Chris:
Excalibur chose you?

Merric:
That's right. Our teacher, Master Wendell, once gave Excalibur to me and Thoron to Elrean. I didn't receive Excalibur because I was better than Elrean. But, rather, it was because of the magic's personality.

Chris:
Magic has personality?

Merric:
While very rare, some spellbooks have a "will" of their own and the magic itself chooses its owner. Excalibur is one such spellbook. I guess Excalibur liked my personality since it chose me.
 

And the thing is, as far as I've search, it's only Linde herself who brings up the gender restriction on Aura in-story.

Linde:
Aha, that makes sense. But, you do know that magic tome can only be used by women, right?

Merric:
That's why I borrowed it. As I thought, I couldn't use it... How strange. I wonder why? Your father... Pontifex Miloah was able to wield Aura, right?

Linde:
...Father once told me. Advanced tomes have restrictions on who can use them, based on who created and inherited them.

Merric:
...I see. So you mean to say the condition to use a magic tome isn't necessarily just gender. I wonder how these user restrictions are set into place...
 

If we consider magic does have a will of its own (could be Gotoh's doing since he gave magic to humans?), then Aura chose Miloah as its wielder then. And that's the thing. Has Linde allowed other female magic users to try the tome? Merric tried, Leo tried, but their failures doesn't disprove or proves the claim. And even then Linde doesn't bring it up with Leo, just that maybe he needs to focus on Aura's light. Back in Archanea, any other female magic user in Marth's army are clerics (let's discount the remakes' reclass since that's a gameplay thing), who would likely not bother and/or focus on staffs. New Mystery does add Katarina, but it's not like Linde interacts with her over such a thing.

As for why the DS remakes did it in the first place... that ultimately may just be a gameplay thing. FE has done this as a whole, where some weapon restriction only exist in the gameplay, while others do have in-story explanations for existing. Excalibur's might be to balance making Aura female only. But ultimately unlike Aura's, the male only thing is never brought up in-story.

It may just be my opinion, but I see the LindexTharja support as an acknowledgement of such a gameplay restriction and neither confirming it or denying it from an in-universe point. Tharja offers an alternative explanation, but since she refrains from trying the tome out, we don't get a concrete answer.

Edited by Acacia Sgt
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On 12/17/2020 at 4:45 PM, Alastor15243 said:

He didn't get anything like that. I don't understand what you're trying to say here. Gangrel didn't need an excuse to declare war. He was already ordering his soldiers to kill Emmeryn, and they were going to do it. He didn't just use words to provoke Chrom into doing something he could paint as an aggressive act. He just outright declared war, attacked the royal family, and then lied about who started it the moment the royal family fought back. There was literally nothing Chrom could have done differently in this situation to give Gangrel less of an "excuse" for war aside from let those brigands attack Emmeryn.

I always interpreted this moment as Grangel in damage control, like a child who lost a game and then accuses their opponent of cheating. Remember, he wants war and tries to use Ylisse's previous treatment of Plegia to justify it. So that fact makes Emmeryn's murder not, well, a murder in their eyes, but a reparation. All of this is bullshit, but at this point they act as if the Shepherds were wrong to fight back and should have bowed their heads in acceptance of the punishment for the crimes of their ancestors. While said past crimes are not Gangrel's top priority, what he really wants to is guilt trip our heroes into believing that they're evil bastards whose suffering of countless people is their cause. It's actually a really clever tactic.

On 12/17/2020 at 2:38 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, this feels as dumb as when they tried to make us feel bad for the worshippers of Loptyr in Genealogy of the Holy War. I mean, they were still worshipping and praising and actively associating with a demon who literally eats children. There's only so much sympathy I can have.

I don't think the goal was to garner sympathy, but to show the cycle of violence that was part of Jugdral and how it affected the lives of several people. People were afraid of Loptous (with good reason), so they did everything so that Loptous would never be able to torment them again, including banishing Loptyrians to a desert and burning people suspected of having Loptous blood at the stake. These actions eventually created Manfroy, who tried to throw all the hate he received back into the world. In that state that Jugdral was in, several people would suffer. For ordinary people, Loptyrians should perish so that they can live without fear. For the Loptyrians, to live well it was necessary to subjugate those who wanted them dead. To put it simply, the conflict was us versus them, where the welfare of those close to you was more important than the welfare of everyone else.

This question that Genealogy poses is interesting, and if it were turned into a focus of the narrative, it would easily be a more interesting conflict than that of the Beorc x Laguz in Tellius. Kaga did racism first.

On 12/17/2020 at 5:24 PM, Alastor15243 said:

@Ottservia Justifying nonsensical behavior "in the name of making the story interesting" is a very dangerous game, and should be done with extreme care, because more often than not that's just an excuse writers use when they can't think of any sensible ways to get to their preconceived ideas of where the story should go. If you ever find yourself defending a story by saying that "if they acted rationally, there'd be no story", then that's generally a sign of a bad story, or at least one that's a flagrant excuse plot. Most stories can come up with better logic than that for why things happen.

On 12/17/2020 at 5:36 PM, Ottservia said:

storytelling is inherently contrived

I have to side with Otts in this one, because more often than not stories need very specific events in order for something to happen, and I can use GOTHW itself as an example. We have dumb things happening like Maera and his descendants still having children and putting the world in danger, or Julius not killing literally the only person who can defeat him, even though there is no reason to keep her alive. Without moments like these there would be no story, but just because it happened doesn't mean that GOTHW doesn't have a good story. If there's something I learned while reading countless works is that reality is often unrealistic.

I'm sorry if I am late and you guys have already moved on from this discussion.

Edited by Maof06
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22 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

I have to side with Otts in this one, because more often than not stories need very specific events in order for something to happen, and I can use GOTHW itself as an example. We have dumb things happening like Maera and his descendants still having children and putting the world in danger, or Julius not killing literally the only person who can defeat him, even though there is no reason to keep her alive. Without moments like these there would be no story, but just because it happened doesn't mean that GOTHW doesn't have a good story. If there's something I learned while reading countless works is that reality is often unrealistic.

 

Finally someone else gets it! Storytelling is inherently unrealistic and inherently contrived. When you really get right down to it complaining about those things in stories is kind of pointless. The problem with trying to apply realism to a story is that it can be freely done to the biases of the one applying it. All unrealistic really means is something that is not true to reality. Which stories already are inherently to some degree. It’s called fiction for a reason. The rules any given story follows is not gonna be completely 1:1 with reality because a story can never truly represent reality. A story will inevitably break reality in order to get across its ideas. Dialogue being the prominent example. Real life conversation is nothing like scripted dialogue. But at the same stories will inevitably be invocative of reality simply because they spring from the human which does draw from reality. Really at the end of the day complaining about “realism” doesn’t really mean anything because stories are inherently unrealistic. Judge each piece of media by the rules it sets for itself not the rules you apply to it. 

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