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


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36 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Sanaki's mother was never the Apostle and she can't have died 20 years ago, Sanaki is explicitly 13 in RD. We know surprisingly nothing about Sanaki's parents.

Wow, I don't know HOW I didn't realize that Sanaki couldn't have been born after her mother's death. Jesus.

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Hey Alastor, been following along with the playthrough at times, just didn't feel like I had anything to say.

On the topic of Sanaki's parents, all we really know for sure is that they're certainly not around anymore. But combined with some background info from Radiant Dawn, after Misaha was assassinated, Begnion went without an apostle for 15 years. Sanaki was crowned when she was 5, and the people were apparently calling for her to be coronated.

Her parents obviously had to be alive if she's Micaiah's full sister (and, I mean, there's nothing to doubt that because otherwise Lekain would've had a field day gloating about how Sanaki's not even actually royalty), but my theory was always that Misaha had a son instead of a daughter, since Misaha's kid didn't become Apostle after her death. And apparently Micaiah was somehow born and "assassinated" in such a short time span that only the Senators know about her???

I'll let you worry about that one when you get there.

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6 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Hey Alastor, been following along with the playthrough at times, just didn't feel like I had anything to say.

On the topic of Sanaki's parents, all we really know for sure is that they're certainly not around anymore. But combined with some background info from Radiant Dawn, after Misaha was assassinated, Begnion went without an apostle for 15 years. Sanaki was crowned when she was 5, and the people were apparently calling for her to be coronated.

Her parents obviously had to be alive if she's Micaiah's full sister (and, I mean, there's nothing to doubt that because otherwise Lekain would've had a field day gloating about how Sanaki's not even actually royalty), but my theory was always that Misaha had a son instead of a daughter, since Misaha's kid didn't become Apostle after her death. And apparently Micaiah was somehow born and "assassinated" in such a short time span that only the Senators know about her???

I'll let you worry about that one when you get there.

Hey, glad to hear you've been enjoying the read! Yeah, my memory was so borked about what went down in Radiant Dawn that I didn't even realize how ridiculous what I remembered even was.

...This also makes me question how old Micaiah was. I had the impression that she was at least like thirty from how she acted sometimes, and how there was a time when she looked older than sothe before he grew up faster than her. I guess I'll have to work out the details when I get there. The entire apostle bloodline thing sounds... really complicated.

 

Oh, also, just thought I'd share this: one of my good friends finally managed to get his hands on Conquest for the first time, and it's been pretty amusing having him describe his playthrough on discord to me. It's like what I'm doing in miniature, except I'm on the reader's end. And he seems to be enjoying it and how much it's actually making him think about strategy!

Edited by Alastor15243
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Yeah, how Micaiah fits into the timeline is honestly a bit confusing to me. Because events of RD make it seem like only the senators knew about her with certainty while commoners may have never realized she existed. At the very least, if the common folk knew that Sanaki was a second daughter instead of the firstborn, they may not have been as adamant about putting her on the throne since the Apostle would've been lost anyway, and the whole "Sanaki is a false apostle" rumor would've come as less of a shock.

I suppose the other theory is that Micaiah was born long before Misaha was assassinated but still kept a secret from the people ... however, that has the problem of "why".

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I forgot to say this yesterday, but feel free to have a break and eat ice cream (or whatever your prefered comfort food is)! We all need to take breaks sometimes!

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On 6/30/2020 at 5:54 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Also, he mentions treasure, but also... was that “occasional reports of strange figures wandering the dunes in the northeast” supposed to be a clue about how to get Stephan? Because if so... holy shit was that vague.

I agree it's vague, but it's better than Shinon's re-recruitment not even being hinted at at all. Not to mention it requires doing stuff that'd be counter-intuitive to recruitment.

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9 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I distinctly remember my fourth birthday as being about the time I acquired my stream of consciousness that continues to this day. Memories aren't strong of it, but that is certainly when "I" the thinking being began. Because trauma endures, if my life had been less blissful, maybe they would be stronger.

I think I read once the reason why people don't remember infancy, is because the brains of babies are constantly learning, developing, making connections. This state of intense cerebral growth winds up accidentally overwriting the earliest memories.

 

Sanaki's mother was never the Apostle and she can't have died 20 years ago, Sanaki is explicitly 13 in RD. We know surprisingly nothing about Sanaki's parents.

But if her mother didn't become Apostle-Empress, then I hazard Misaha had only a son, who for whatever unexplained laws of succession would have been forbidden from taking the throne. And, that any cadet branches of the Apostolic line or noble families with imperial blood with females who claimed to hear the goddess were excluded from becoming the new theocratic monarch. On grounds that as long as the son of Misaha was alive and potentially capable of siring another healthy daughter (which took almost 15 years with no surviving sons- were there miscarriages at least? How was he not deemed sterile at a point?), the need to resort to an alternative heir to was unnecessary and maybe could've made things messy if a daughter of Misaha's son was later born with their cousin enthroned. Did the Senate support this scenario for freedom to be unchecked and corrupt due to the absence of their lone legal superior? Were they incapable of finding a good puppet Apostle from the ranks of the royal cousins?

It's somewhat ridiculous.

Again, I stress that developers need to read more good history books, or just look at the faults in their setups. Even FE at its best world-building can be as porous as Swiss cheese at times- but I'm still fond of Tellius in spite of every bit of it.

If i recall Radiant Dawn correctly Sanaki wasn't even declared Apostle directly upon being born. There was a period when she was a baby in which there was still no Apostle until the people demanded it and Sephiran showed up who could parade the baby Sanaki around without her crying. Given Lekain had been in power these full twenty years it seems probable the senate were hoping to dismantle the position of Apostle entirely.

Also the timeline funkyness regarding Sanaki and her completely unknown parents probably comes from her originally being designed to be an older character, artwork of adult Sanaki exists. I guess someone suggested a child empress and they ran with the idea even though it caused some issues with their timeline that necessitated a completely lost generation.

8 hours ago, Sunwoo said:

Yeah, how Micaiah fits into the timeline is honestly a bit confusing to me. Because events of RD make it seem like only the senators knew about her with certainty while commoners may have never realized she existed. At the very least, if the common folk knew that Sanaki was a second daughter instead of the firstborn, they may not have been as adamant about putting her on the throne since the Apostle would've been lost anyway, and the whole "Sanaki is a false apostle" rumor would've come as less of a shock.

I suppose the other theory is that Micaiah was born long before Misaha was assassinated but still kept a secret from the people ... however, that has the problem of "why".

Well Elincia was hidden away from society for some unknown reason so that's not impossible. But considering Micaiah has no memories of being the heir apparent I think it's safe to say she was a baby during the Serenes massacre. Putting her age in Radiant Dawn at somewhere from 23-26.

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Path of Radiance Day 14: Chapter 17-1

For those of you who might prefer to just read the playlogs themselves and not any of the comments people make between them, I'd just like to state, for the record, that no, I have absolutely no idea how I came to think the previous apostle was Sanaki's mother, or how it didn't occur to me that for that to be true, the ten-year-old Sanaki would have had to have been born to a woman who had been dead for ten years. My best guess is that I was just grossly mis-remembering what I saw in Radiant Dawn and not thinking too hard about it because it wasn't relevant and right in front of me.

So anyway, since Oliver... ugh... slipped through Ike's grasp... we have to go and rescue Reyson from everyone's favorite basket of rancid lard.

Ah, so yeah, Tibarn is talking with Nealuchi, and Nealuchi lets slip, in pretty hilarious fashion, exactly what Naesala did.

Tibarn: If Reyson hadn't escaped on his own, perhaps the crow king would have rescued him when things cooled down.

So even other laguz call the ravens crows sometimes! Either in this universe they're synonyms, or there really is racism between ravens and hawks! But also, the line itself seems to be completely false, judging by what I noticed about Naesala's dialogue.

You're unbelievable. What is it with you crows, anyway? Everything you do is so dirty and deceptive.”

Okay, yeah, looks like it. The hawk and crow rivalry really does at least partially have to do with racism. Man, what a thing to say. Like, I get that Naeasala is completely in the wrong here, and Nealuchi is being a pathetic worm in how he defends him, but Janaff, that was still a racist comment.

Our nation has... its own issues.”

I'm going to be on the lookout for what this could be referring to. Otherwise I may have to accept that, somehow, the blood pact plot twist was planned from the start.

Is this game trying to tell me that Ulki can make out the sound of Reyson's wings... when Ulki is in Phoenicis... and Reyson is in Serenes Forest!?

...No, Janaff's orders seem to suggest that they're being ordered to... go ahead of Tibarn to scout...? I think...?

Meanwhile, back with the Greil Mercenaries...

...So the search for Prince Reyson has been going on for two days, and Oliver has... just been allowed to search the forest on his own unimpeded? Sanaki really expects Ike to take care of all of this, and is willing to risk Reyson falling back into Oliver's hands, when she could send the army after him, just because she doesn't the public to know about this!?

Like, I get that shit we see in Radiant Dawn makes this slightly more plausible, but right now, everyone in and out of story is given absolutely no reason to think this isn't just selfish moral cowardice on Sanaki's part, and yet everyone praises her for her actions!

But anyway, having finally come into a ridiculous amount of money, I decide to make my first forge, a thunder tome to help Soren eventually learn how to use bolting, and I'm delighted to learn that there's juuuuust enough space that I can call it “Dire Thunder”. I gave it maxed out might and crit, and also dropped its weight to one.

I give Marcia the full guard, before I forget. She doesn't need to cap anything as badly as Jill does, and she's less durable than Jill too, so she gets it.

Then I move on to info conversations after stocking up on some more staves.

The priest from Oliver's manor... it's kind of amusing hearing him refer to Ike as “Master mercenary”, like it's a title.

So yeah, this guy brings it up again, but Oliver's mansion is right next door to Serenes Forest. And if that's always been the case... and given how old Oliver is...

...What do you suppose his reaction was to seeing Serenes Forest get burned to the ground?

Also, okay, so Oliver seems to have tried multiple naive and ignorant things to try and get herons to come to him, like using priests and virgin maidens, so... something tells me he doesn't actually know as much about what herons eat as I may have assumed.

Anyway, the priest gives a lot of useful advice about the next few battles, namely that we're gonna want to bring lots of supplies, and that Oliver's best units are his mages and cavalry, but he has units of all types in his army.

And now we get Ike's second info conversation with Jill. It's... it's pretty good, though I feel the fact that Jill's first support with Lethe can happen before this can ruin the pacing of this scene. The scene felt way better when I didn't support Jill with anyone.

And now we meet Devdan. He asks Ike what he thinks about flowers, and I think he gave a better reaction than “all right, I suppose” when he talked to Gatrie.

Though I like how Devdan suddenly shifts to pretty serious “real talk” about how if Ike runs himself ragged focusing on preparations to defeat Daein, he'll never stand a chance of beating them.

...So, funny story, I went away to do something, and when I came back and rebooted the game, I accidentally assumed that even my brand-new rechargeable batteries had run out after just a couple of days despite me using them for nothing but turning on gamecube mode. Turns out I was mistaken, I was trying to turn my wiimote on while already in gamecube mode because I got distracted and the Wii start screen looks nearly identical to the Path of Radiance start screen.

But anyway, funny I should mention Jill and Lethe's support, because we just got the B one. And here, Lethe lectures Jill on the reasons laguz hate beorc, and... I have several questions.

Apparently due to the laguz's “superior strength”, they ruled Begnion more often than not after Altina, the first ruler, ended her rule. But apparently the senate was still exclusively beorc? Why? How the hell would that work?

But apparently the laguz lost the resulting second big war between beorc and laguz due to... sheer arrogance, by the sound of it. Even by Lethe's admission, it was because they were convinced they would never lose to beorc, and then got their asses handed to them “in the face of superior human weapons and magic”.

...Yeeeaaaaaah.

About that arrogance...

I've got a pretty serious hunch that there were tensions between these two races for a while before the big war started. And if I'm reading this right, “the laguz's superior strength led us to rule more often than not”... suggests to me that Begnion rulership was originally decided in the laguz's traditional method of trial by combat.

This tells me two things:

1: Altina was a fucking badass if she was stronger than literally every laguz on the continent who protested the idea of her ruling the country, and I deeply resent that Fire Emblem Heroes is the only game in the series where anyone will ever be able to play as this amazing, amazing woman.

2: The entire beorc race was forced to put up with a government system where the method of choosing rulers was rigged against them, and didn't really have much of anything at all to do with who would do a good job running the country, meaning that when such a pious people were introduced to the alternative of being ruled by someone who spoke directly to the goddess they all believed in, that must have sounded like an infinitely better way of running things.

Meanwhile, all this time, there was a massive culture of superiority permeating all of laguz society that made them absolutely convinced that beorc could never defeat them in a million years, and they also seemed to isolate themselves from beorc culture almost completely, having extremely little interest in, or knowledge of, beorc technology and weapons, thinking such pursuits beneath them, otherwise the laguz would have been able to use them to fight back when they realized their natural strength wasn't enough to win.

...Which probably didn't mean many good things for how science was treated by the predominantly-laguz rulers. I mean, think about it: we've had massive political arguments in real life over if or how our governments allow us to research one particular branch of medical technology, or teach one particular aspect of biology. Imagine the kinds of political tensions that must have resulted in a world rich with the potential of fantastic magical science... predominantly ruled by people who have no respect for said world's version of scientific research at all.

I'd really, really like to get more information about what this post-flood Begnion was like, so I could get a better picture... but given that I can gather this much from the words of someone who has every desire to make the laguz look good in this story... I'm starting to think that this race war wasn't just a case of “humans are bastards”, however much the game (or I guess maybe just Lethe) tries to paint it as that. Obviously slavery is completely inexcusable no matter what was going on here, but something tells me there were genuine, serious grievances motivating the beorc to declare war.

Especially since this conversation all but confirms that the laguz were indeed the oppressors in the pre-flood conflict, and the time Nasir alluded to where laguz oppressed beorc wasn't just that century-ish-long period when Laguz got more kings and queens than the beorc did.

How does it confirm that, I hear you ask? Because, unless I'm missing something here...

The flood, and crucially the first beorc-laguz war that prompted it, happened in the year -155.

The second beorc-laguz war, and the beorc-supremacist regime change, happened some time between the year 0 and the year 160, between 155 and 315 years later. Given that Gallia was founded in the 350s, which Lethe says was around 200 years after laguz oppression and slavery started, I'm going to assume it had been closer to 300 years since the great flood when this war happened.

According to the wiki, the average non-dragon laguz lifespan is roughly 200 years.

Human men have demonstrated the ability to still father children in their nineties.

If a goddess-mental-breakdown-inducingly brutal race war happened recently enough that it is physically possible for you to be the child of someone who fought in it, and you are absolutely convinced that you could not possibly lose a race war, you either won the shit out of that previous race war, or you are out of your goddamned mind.

...But if so, unless these implications of genuine grievances were entirely by accident and the beorc were meant to be depicted as completely and one-dimensionally in the wrong here...

...it's curious to note the difference in cultural reactions to oppression here. Laguz have completely kept alive the memories of the crimes of the race they hate so much. But the same doesn't seem to be the case for the beorc. Why doesn't Jill know about this? Why doesn't she know even a warped version of this incident that hypes up the beorc grievances against the laguz, as an attempt to justify their current hatred of these people? The fact that she has no idea about any of this would suggest to me that the beorc, unlike the laguz, don't want to admit they were once oppressed by the people they despise and look down upon as inferior.

...Also, I'm frankly stunned by Lethe's self-serving hypocrisy here. Did you notice, viewers? For the entire game, and as recently as Jill and Lethe's last conversation together, Lethe has been insisting that beorc weapons are nothing but cheap and sad attempts to fight against laguz's superior natural weapons. Yet now she admits that beorc technology is better than the laguz's fangs and claws... only when it's suddenly become convenient to do so in order to emphasize the laguz's role in the story as victims.

Yeah, I uh... this pretty much cements it. I don't like Lethe. Especially not here. I'm kind of unnerved by the fact that a racist is being lectured and taught the error of her ways... by another racist. No, scratch that, by a bigger racist. Whatever my issues with the pacing of Jill's development (which honestly only this support chain makes a problem), Jill has still demonstrated way more capacity for personal growth and an ability to learn to not paint an entire race with a broad brush than Lethe has demonstrated all game, and Lethe still seems to be proud of her hatred of beorckind, while Jill was already pretty thoroughly ashamed of her past behavior when she entered this conversation.

And I know this is a bit of a strange reaction if you think about it, given that Jill has way more to atone for than Lethe has ever had, but... the sheer difference in how willing these two people are to atone is just staggering. Jill is summoning outright heroic levels of courage to soul-search and examine all the lies she's been fed her entire life, at agonizing personal and social cost. Lethe, judging by her interactions with Mordecai, can't even summon the energy to stop being a bitch to the people she isn't racist towards.

Jill came to Lethe in peace with genuine questions about why laguz don't use weapons, and she was met with unwarranted insults about how weak her entire species is. Which isn't even a comment that can be justified as sympathetic vengeful anger against the moral failings of a people that have wronged Lethe. If she lashed out at Jill demanding how she could possibly think she had the right to speak to her after everything she and her people had done, that would be a different, and much more understandable, story. But no, she instead replied with laguz supremacist drivel about how the beorc are her inferiors, rather than evil. And yet in spite of this, Jill remained patient and calm, and refused to use this as an excuse to relapse into her old behavior, even though facing the truth about the laguz would force her to face the reality of the atrocities she had been taught to commit, and alienate her from literally everyone she has ever known or loved.

And to top it off, this conversation indirectly demonstrates that Lethe treats Jill, a Daein soldier who's been trained to hunt and kill laguz since she was a child, and Ike, a man who she knows full well has done literally nothing to her or her people at all, with exactly the same level of reflexive hatred and contempt.

So... yeah. Lethe... kind of annoys me.

...But I'm still really curious how this support chain ends, so I will be checking out the last one when it comes up. I have to know how the hell this results in friendship.

Also, before I forget: this seems to de-confirm that thought I had that the laguz let Begnion's government become beorc-dominated out of laguz guilt for the previous conflict. Good to know.

...Aaaanyway... back to the gameplay!

So, knowing that this is going to be a gauntlet where, I think, you can't even go back to convoy between battles after the first one, I decide to plan ahead by having Mordecai and Lethe carry a bunch of weapons in their otherwise-useless spare 3 inventory slots.

Hey Jotari, remember that topic you brought up about the limits of laguz hammerspace, and whether or not they could use it to carry weapons for when they're recharging? If gameplay is any indication, it's good enough that they can carry three spare weapons around with them. And it's gotta be the hammerspace, given their beast forms' complete lack of pockets, clothes, or opposable thumbs.

I bought four restore staves, because I don't know how common they're going to be, and I know that in an ironman run I'm going to be glad to have them on as many of my staff users as possible.

(Note: This entry is shorter than usual, but for some reason I'm still getting the "confirm you're human" message that I always get before posting something I'm not going to be allowed to edit later, so I'm splitting this up anyway to see if that fixes it)

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Chapter 17-1 Continued

Anyway, the pre-battle story scenes start, and amusingly, Oliver seems to think he can rout the Greil Mercenaries and then “deal with [the apostle] once this is finished”. Either he's completely delusional, or there are indeed already plans behind the scenes he's aware of to get rid of the apostle.

...Or both could coincidentally be true at once, I suppose. Actually, “both” is probably way more likely than merely option B.

Alright. So, the units that are most in need of training here are Boyd (16) and Oscar (15). Ike, Zihark and Soren are all level 18, and everyone else in my main army is or was already promoted. I'm dropping Marcia for now (she'll come in later with the reinforcements) because she doesn't need to develop supports with anyone in my army, unlike basically everyone else. I also brought in Stefan solely to start gaining supports with Soren, because I don't know how strict those support thresholds are and I've already missed one map I could have deployed him on. Alas, this means I have to yet again not deploy Titania, so she'll also be a reinforcement later.

Yeah, for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about... this map is... a gauntlet. It's four chapters taking place on four different quarters of the same massive map, with no base or shopping in-between them. I remember hating this part as a kid, mostly because it felt to me like it was trying to intentionally drag out the remaining time before Ike's imminent promotion into the coolest-looking version of the lord class in the entire franchise. But now... I don't mind so much! Or at least I didn't last time I played, which was relatively recently.

Not much to think about here. The enemy units are... shockingly sparse, and it makes the map feel really empty. Unless there are reinforcements, this should be done pretty quickly, and I should be able to handle it with ease using the guys who need the training the most.

But we'll see.

Let's go.

...Aaaand I forgot to replenish Jill's supplies. She's still got the iron axe and hand axe I gave her for when she promoted last map, but that's all. Good thing I left some spare stuff with Mordecai!

It's kind of hilarious... the axe swings Jill's doing at this archer I sent her after are clearly not even reaching him. She's just swinging at air, feet away from his face.

Ooh! And it looks like either getting to a certain part of the map with Jill, or maybe just having the second turn pass, has prompted some more enemies to start marching besides the initial group!

And there are reinforcements from behind by the end of turn 2, which... makes me wonder where the fuck they came from, since that's where we just came from and left Elincia and Sanaki. But anyway, one of them has a killing edge, so I have to be careful about my approach.

...And then more reinforcements just... spontaneously appear out of thin air. I like how they're keeping things interesting with reinforcements, but... yeah, that's kind of obnoxious how they won't even explain where they come from.

But Jill is officially a badass now. She's fast enough to double, powerful enough to one-round a lot of stuff, and can go pretty much anywhere she pleases.

Anyway, the reinforcements almost immediately subsided, so I think this chapter is gonna be over pretty quickly. In fairness, this is just one fourth of an extremely long chapter, so I guess it makes sense, and is fortunate, that it isn't that long on its own.

I used a restore staff on a poisoned Mordecai out of curiosity, to see how much exp you get for using it. You get 20. Not worth it compared to what you can get healing until the poison stops, obviously, but when you have someone to heal every turn and you aren't stopping to milk staff exp... pretty good!

At any rate, 4 more experience and she promotes.

...Aaaand she's promoted.

Curious how Chapter 17 is the time most of my units promote both in this game and in Conquest. But she gains absolutely massive promotion gains, most helpfully 3 in defense and 4 in magic. And most importantly, she gets a horse, so now the fun can really start.

Shortly after, Soren scores the kill against the killer lance halberdier boss, so we're done for the day. Tomorrow we'll be dealing with part 2 of this chapter, and hopefully seeing some more promotions!

Stay safe, everyone!

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26 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

But apparently the laguz lost the resulting second big war between beorc and laguz due to... sheer arrogance, by the sound of it. Even by Lethe's admission, it was because they were convinced they would never lose to beorc, and then got their asses handed to them “in the face of superior human weapons and magic”.

The lower half of this page in the Recollection artbooks slightly expands on what Lethe says here.:

008history.jpg

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2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The lower half of this page in the Recollection artbooks slightly expands on what Lethe says here.:

008history.jpg

Thanks for that! That was simultaneously enlightening and... extremely confusing.

So the "senate" was never an actual Senate until it made itself a Senate? It was just a bunch of religious leaders?

Also, that comment that the laguz outnumbered the beorc... did that change by the time the war started?

I wish it said more about the rulers' succession, because it sounds like there was some agreement to alternate rulers that was... later defied?

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35 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

For those of you who might prefer to just read the playlogs themselves and not any of the comments people make between them, I'd just like to state, for the record, that no, I have absolutely no idea how I came to think the previous apostle was Sanaki's mother, or how it didn't occur to me that for that to be true, the ten-year-old Sanaki would have had to have been born to a woman who had been dead for ten years. My best guess is that I was just grossly mis-remembering what I saw in Radiant Dawn and not thinking too hard about it because it wasn't relevant and right in front of me.

Honestly, Begnion going years without an apostle, and the unmentioned parents of Sanaki and Micaiah is something important enough that at least one of the games should go over it, instead of us having to assume it must have happened. Its such an obvious hole in the story that never really gets addressed, and just gets exacerbated by the reveal about Micaiah being Sanaki's sister, and all the questions that come with that. As for the mis-remembering my guess is that you filled the hole in the narrative with what made the most sense narratively, without thinking about it enough to realize the contradiction in time.

 

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm dropping Marcia for now (she'll come in later with the reinforcements) because she doesn't need to develop supports with anyone in my army, unlike basically everyone else.

My suggestion is to bring her back in the next map to make it easier to deal with the bog shortcut.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

I also brought in Stefan solely to start gaining supports with Soren, because I don't know how strict those support thresholds are and I've already missed one map I could have deployed him on. Alas, this means I have to yet again not deploy Titania, so she'll also be a reinforcement later.

If you are going for Stefan and Soren support, can I suggest you look at the script for the Stefan and Mordecai support (if you haven't already) as it touches on topics about Laguz and Branded that came up a while ago.

 

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

So the "senate" was never an actual Senate until it made itself a Senate? It was just a bunch of religious leaders?

So more of a Synod... I wonder if this was actually a mistranslation, it probably isn't but...

 

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13 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Hey Jotari, remember that topic you brought up about the limits of laguz hammerspace, and whether or not they could use it to carry weapons for when they're recharging? If gameplay is any indication, it's good enough that they can carry three spare weapons around with them. And it's gotta be the hammerspace, given their beast forms' complete lack of pockets, clothes, or opposable thumbs.

 

Them not having thumbs is precisely what I was trying to say on that earlier comment. That they can still carry weapons they can't use I put that down to the same logic that allows Edward to juggle seven or eight different swords at once. Unless you think everyone has their own personal pocket dimension in Fire Emblem that no one ever mentions in the text (which I guess would explain why you can't use enemy weapons when you kill an enemy 90% of the time, though it also brings up some significant questions about that other 10% of the time along with some other questionable mechanics).

Edited by Jotari
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13 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Them not having thumbs is precisely what I was trying to say on that earlier comment. That they can still carry weapons they can't use I put that down to the same logic that allows Edward to juggle seven or eight different swords at once. Unless you think everyone has their own personal pocket dimension in Fire Emblem that no one ever mentions in the text (which I guess would explain why you can't use enemy weapons when you kill an enemy 90% of the time, though it also brings up some significant questions about that other 10% of the time along with some other questionable mechanics).

...If I ever finish my SRPG Studio game, I'm actually tempted to use that as the explanation for that profoundly weird concept.

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4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...If I ever finish my SRPG Studio game, I'm actually tempted to use that as the explanation for that profoundly weird concept.

Of course then you have to ask questions like why couldn't Guinevere just hide the Fire Emblem in her inventory. Only thieves can steal from the inventory so it is accessible to outsiders in someway. And then natural questions about how inventories are different between games as thieves can't steal weapons somehow in the GBA games. And also the inventory size changing between Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn where in the former it's divided between weapons and items while in the latter it's combined. It all raises far more questions than it answers.

18 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The lower half of this page in the Recollection artbooks slightly expands on what Lethe says here.:

008history.jpg

The name Begnion took influence from Beorc and Laguz sources? Well the Be seems like it could easily be taken from Beorc, but the gnion? Were laguz called Gnion's at some point (or possibly the silent G was part of Begorc)?

Also apparently Goldoa's official founding came three years after that of Begnion, so narrator wasn't lying or wrong when referring to Begnion as the oldest country. Still that does give rise to a lot of questions as to how Degehensea and the dragno tribes were organized back then. Because judging from this, he was already considered old back in the olden days.

And lastly wow, Serenes is massive! I thought it was basically just a singular forest, which I guess that still could be, but I more mean a really small area similar to the likes of San Marino. I can buy that the Heron's were physically incapable of fighting back, but how far did that crazy mob walk to the extent that they managed to overwhelm the whole country!? And how is there so few herons that they're now a near extinct species when the area they lived in was comparable to Galia?

Edited by Jotari
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Path of Radiance Day 15: Chapter 17-2

Aaaaaand I just remembered what happens at the beginning of the next section, and that this is my last chance to train Ike to level 20 while he can properly fight. He's close enough that he can easily manage, but this may put my plans to promote some other units this map on hold.

So, apparently Mist has... really good hearing, like, on the level of the laguz?

I'm not sure whether I'm more amazed by that, or by the fact that Lethe managed to compliment a beorc without backhanding out some patronizing insult while she did it.

Oh, also, Nasir confirms that the effects of heronsong, galdrar, depend on the lyrics and melody.

Which means that whatever lyrics Reyson's singing to re-invigorate people... he can canonically sing them with a heron's beak.

Okay, so, by the sound of things... this is the point where Lethe is starting to properly warm up to the Greil Mercenaries. Alright. So maybe you could argue that she's reached the point where she's only being a beginning-of-the-game-level bitch around Jill because of the shit Jill's done, and that to everyone else she's learned to treat them better? Maybe? But you also have to take into account how weird that support is as to how it depicts Jill's character arc by the time you can get it, so... can't really say for sure. I'll have to read her supports with Ike, the only other beorc she can support with, later.

Thankfully, Ike only needs 37 experience to hit level 20, so I'm golden.

Looks like I was right: only your reinforcement units can access the convoy and trade menus. Wow, I'm really glad I left those hand axes with Mordecai!

...Unfortunately, there's really nothing else I can do here to prepare, because you can't even reposition. That's... a dick move, but one I can forgive due to the fact that the design of this map doesn't make that a problem. There are no enemies in your range on turn one you have to take out immediately.

So... let's start!

...Oh wow. Okay, so, it looks like there's a chance you can seriously cheese this map with a flier. You can't end your turn on top of these trees (which makes no fucking sense, but gameplay balance is gameplay balance, but there are gaps in the thick mass of trees to the east allowing you to send your fliers through them and get them to the arrive space.

I'm gonna move over there with Jill to see if there's anything fun I can do with that, but I'll be using the opportunity to get exp for my close-to-promotion units, so I won't be ending the map early unless I somehow need to to keep someone from dying.

The enemy cavalry seems pretty aggressive, but the swamp terrain is making it a bit more manageable to beat enemies before the new wave gets in range.

Alright, so I dealt with the initial two waves. I'm gonna see if I can't mix shit up by putting Jill in range of the arrive tile and seeing if that prompts the others to move by passing some invisible area flag.

...If this happens immediately as reinforcements arrive, well, I guess I can have Jill hit the arrive tile, though then I'd have to find a way to feed a speed-crippled Ike some kills.

You know what I love about the physic staff? Just by having it in your inventory, it lets you immediately highlight everyone in your army who needs healing. In this game it's even better, because you can see them highlighted in red without having to cycle through them!

Oscar's offense is still amazingly terrible. I can't wait to promote him and give him some goddamned axes, because holy shit. He just can't do good damage to anyone. He has pretty much the worst combination of speed and str/mag in my entire army. And this is on fixed mode. I thought I was just getting unlucky before, but no, this is actually how he normally is. And he's level seventeen.

It looks like a cavalier decided to canto off to the arrive space after fighting Jill. I wonder if there's a reason for that. Does the arrive space heal you and I just never noticed?

...Fuck it, there's bonus experience to be had for finishing this gauntlet quickly, and Ike's level 20, so I'm finishing now, on turn 7. Jill arrives.

...I really hope there weren't any weapons I could have gotten from these enemies.

But anyway, it's like an hour, and less than two pages, into playing today, and I'm already done with the map.

Which means...


 

Day 15 Bonus: Chapter 17-3

Anyway, this is where Leanne shows up, and holy shit is it lucky that she did. Without Leanne being alive for Ike to rescue, there would have been absolutely no conceivable way for Sanaki to gain Reyson's forgiveness (I hesitate to say “earn” his forgiveness, since that implies she even needs to be forgiven for the Serenes Massacre when she's a 10 year old girl and it happened a decade before she was born, though I suppose she is speaking on behalf of a country at fault). Without Tibarn and Reyson witnessing Ike endangering his own life to protect Reyson's thought-dead sister, and without Leanne urging Reyson to forgive Sanaki, it's doubtful that any of those people would have given Sanaki the time of day.

...Honestly, while I like Leanne as a character, her introduction feels like... a massive cop-out... like, if I remember correctly, she was just magically put into some kind of pocket-dimensional hammerspace coma... by the trees? In all honesty? That sounds like the sort of bullshit retcon a terrible tv-show would do in, like, its fifth season, to pull another member of an extinct species out of their ass. I'm frankly amazed they did it in the same game in which the herons were established as nearly extinct.

...Lemme read the script to see what she's saying. If you didn't know, that “galdrspeak” that Leanne and certain other characters speak in is actually completely translatable to English. It's just a character-replacement code, and the script on Serenes Forest will just flat-out tell you what they're saying.

...That's interesting. So Leanne actually uses the slur “human” right before she faints in fright from seeing Ike approach her. So I know she says “the forest told her” what happened while she was asleep all these years... Is the forest going to tell her what Ike's going to do to help her?

...But then who should show up but Oliver!

And after hearing that absolutely delightful theme of his yet again, I'm suddenly struck with an urge to hear it remixed to be like... like a rap battle backing track. Just add a sick drum beat to it and it would be hilarious.

...But now the battle prep starts, and now I'm a little more pissed off that I can't reposition. Because holy shit! I'm surrounded on all sides from turn one, and it's a survive map!

But thankfully, it looks like I can indeed manage a setup where I end the turn with nobody in range of anyone alive. Good.

Then let's do this.

I brought in Rhys and Gatrie, mostly because I'm running out of useful units to bring.

Let's go.

So, first turn, everything goes pretty smoothly. It was a bit of a puzzle working out how to get rid of all the enemies nearby, but I managed it. And then Titania managed to activate sol for the first time, healing up the damage she just received before finishing a mage off.

And Soren has finally promoted, and can now heal! Awesome!

Hahahaha! OH GOD I FORGOT ABOUT THIS.

THE GAME'S ASKING ME WHETHER OR NOT I WANT TO LET SOREN USE STAVES... OR KNIVES.

...Would you believe that as a kid, I always picked knives, simply because, after playing nothing but the GBA games, I was that in love with the idea of a unit who could use both weapons and magic?

...Yeah, you can imagine my reaction to playing Genealogy for the first time.

But yeah, seriously, always pick staves. Volke had amazing bases, but knives were so shit that they ruined even his combat. Meanwhile, Soren, post-promotion, mind you, has a strength stat of three. It will be a miracle if knives wind up doing more damage than magic would to anyone.

It'll be a miracle if knives wind up doing any damage at all.

I can't believe anyone thought this was a remotely balanced decision.

Marcia and Jill are doing the brunt of the work taking out the incoming enemies, with Marcia focusing on the mages.

Honestly, while I was initially intimidated by the large enemy numbers... they all have so little attack that enemy-phasing is pretty much a snap.

Oh! Okay, so, an alert went off on my phone, reminding me to talk about stuff I initially thought about at 5 in the morning.

First off:

...I've been thinking some stuff about Radiant Dawn, and I've gotta ask... am I playing as Soren right now? Like, when I move the cursor around and move unis, am I controlling the metaphorical manifestation of Soren's strategies? How much is Ike actually leading the group? Because if I remember correctly, when the Greil Mercenaries are hired to fight alongside the laguz against Begnion... Soren's the one doing most of the actual strategizing. But it's just occurred to me... we basically never see him do that in this game. Not nearly to the degree we see in those war meetings in Radiant Dawn. Oh, he has a lot of advice to give, but that's usually in the form of pragmatic cynical advice for how to handle things other than actual combat. So it's kind of jarring to suddenly see Soren's role in decision-making just... jump up drastically in the sequel.

Second off, Stefan and Mordecai's supports, which, at Eltosian's prompting, I read.

And immediately hated.

First off, the C and B supports are basically complete shit. Ridiculously short, and also they had the nerve to tease me with the idea of getting more information about Gallian culture, only to just have Mordecai basically just say: “I like Gallia. Gallia is good.”

Second off... if I thought Lethe was being too much of a bitch to Jill, hoooooo boy, was I being naive.

Stefan is a complete asshole here, with literally no sympathetic justification at all. Unlike Jill, Mordecai is, and has never been anything other than, a precious, gentle, loving teddy tiger, and the two extremely brief C and B supports amount to little more than Stefan patronizing or insulting Mordecai and then letting Mordecai run off to find a dictionary to figure out what those beorc words he used meant. I'm not kidding. That's how both conversations end, with Mordecai not understanding a word Stefan uses, with the next support opening with Mordecai coming back, having looked up the answer.

And, like, people being awful isn't an automatic dealbreaker when it comes to good supports. Conversations with complete assholes can be very entertaining. But like... I dunno... like with Lethe... I just get this sense from the writing that the narrative is trying to tell us that Stefan's rudeness... isn't something that should be held against him. That it's not a problem, because it's fueled by personal trauma. But like... that trauma has nothing to do with Mordecai, and the way Stefan treats Mordecai doesn't even feel like the way somebody mistreated by the laguz would lash out. He's just patronizing someone with bad English and giving them “homework” like they're a goddamned child.

And this entire thing is a roundabout lead up to a big lecture from Stefan about how the laguz mistreat the branded, which... was really anticlimactic. That's it? They pretend you don't exist? I suppose I'm open to the possibility of that being more emotionally damaging than being hated and feared by the beorc, but... you didn't make any effort to really sell that. You just said that they deny your very existence, while at least the beorc grant you the dignity of admitting you're related to them. Which... I mean, given that this is a world where racism can result in shit like slavery, murder, and, according to Tormod, “or worse”... you're gonna have to do a better job than just saying the laguz shun you.

Radiant Dawn also brings up the concept that laguz are just way, way better at sensing when someone is a branded rather than a beorc, which... this conversation seems to pretty thoroughly confirm wasn't planned to be a thing before that game. Mordecai goes the whole conversation without showing a single sign that he finds anything “off” about Stefan.

...Oh, and I had another topic I wanted to bring up, something that I think will allow me to finally put into words part of what bothers me so heavily about how the laguz are depicted in this game, but... I think I'll save that for Monday. I'm doing two maps here, so I don't wanna push the story rants right now if I can save them for later.

Little hint though: I'm going to argue, among other things, that this game's worldbuilding would be drastically improved by the introduction of class changing.

Feel free to speculate on how the hell that makes sense all weekend.

Speaking of class changing: Zihark is the next one to promote! And honestly I'm kind of disappointed by his new model. I thought he looked much cooler before, in that mercenary outfit, than with the swordmaster robe.

But I've gone ahead with Marcia and Jill to see if I can rout the map early to check if that ends the map.

It does not. I have a few more turns left, then.

Hopefully I can finish the next map fast enough to get some decent bonus experience. Pity it's determined for a total turn count for all of Chapter 17, and you can't check that total anywhere.

Well, the map's over, which means we've got the last one left.

Do we finish Chapter 17 today?


 

Day 15 Bonus: Chapter 17-4

...Sure, this is like three pages so far. Let's just finish it. Let the next week start off with the Daein war.

One thing that annoys me is that Ike says Leanne is unbelievably light, to the point where he barely knows she's there.

Yeah, your speed and skill stats beg to differ, Ike.

Oh yeah! I remember this scene! I didn't see it last time because Boyd was dead, but Boyd and Mist get into a little argument that results in Mist smiting Boyd, sending him back two spaces for calling Mist fat because Ike said Leanne weighs “half as much as Mist”.

Hilariously, this is just flat-out impossible no matter what. There is no scenario where Mist weighs enough to shove or smite Boyd, and isn't on a horse. So either she's smiting someone way heavier than her, or she's smiting someone while on horseback. Which means they actually had to attach a horseback animation to the act of smiting just for this scene.

Anyway, Ike says “Maybe I exaggerated a bit, but she's still lighter than you”, to which Mist says “Well what did you expect? She's a bird!”

...Do bird laguz have hollow bones?

...Do pegasi?

Anyway, we move on to the scene with Reyson and Tibarn, and, before I mention an issue I have with this scene, I just wanna point out how much I like this music that plays whenever the Serenes Massacre is brought up. This weird, initially-beautiful-sounding song that quickly turns super creepy with these horns and this xylophone (or some other mallet instrument). Super effective at conveying the emotions of how fucked up it was.

But okay, so Reyson talks, as if he had been there firsthand, about how the beorc slaughtered the herons, laughing and singing, drunk with joy, and... okay... two things...

1: If you were indeed there, how was the state of the forest a surprise to you in that scene with Naesala? Did you not watch it burn down firsthand?

2: I'm suddenly reminded of what I thought when I watched Hotel Transylvania for the first time and saw that whole tragic flashback in the second half of the movie. And I will say to the entire heron species what I said to that spoiler character:

Bitch, you can fucking fly! How can you not escape from peasants with torches and pitchforks!?

Also, Jotari, thank you so much for pointing out that Serenes is labeled as its own fucking country on that map in the bottom right corner of that Begnion history page. I hadn't even noticed that. And like you said, it makes this so much worse.

Game, are you telling me that an entire country, a country that is both the size of, and bordering, Gallia, was slaughtered, with fewer known survivors than can be counted on a single fucking hand, by unorganized peasants with torches and pitchforks, when the people they were hunting didn't have to do anything to escape death other than fly over some fucking mountains!?

(Inhale)

...Okay.

I'm still going to wait until Monday to talk about that issue I have with how the game depicts the laguz.

But I'd just like to state, for the record, right now, that I've noticed a rather... concerning pattern with this game's writing.

Whenever it comes time in the story for the beorc to do something horrible to the laguz, the game has a tendency to nerf laguz competence into the fucking ground.

First the beorc completely kicked the laguz's ass in the second big laguz-beorc war despite being significantly outnumbered (presumably due to the previous war they lost), despite laguz being depicted in nearly every cutscene as more than a match for the average beorc soldier.

Then they enslaved the laguz for use in intense (which usually means outdoor) physical labor without ever having to use any magical technology that could have restricted the laguz's ability to transform or even just fly away.

And now I'm expected to believe that a bunch of rioting, unorganized peasants were able to sweep across a forest the size of a fucking country and commit genocide on an entire species, and not even a percent of a percent of those herons managed to flee into Gallia?

...Oh god, it is so hard to not segue from this into the issues I have with the game's depiction of the laguz, but I just can't get into this rant today. I just can't. It has to wait.

...Let's... move... on.

So now it's time for the fourth and final part of Chapter 17. My main objective is to see if I can use Marcia and Jill to take out that meteor mage and then sneak a kill on Oliver to end this map early.

Zihark's 15% crit boost is already coming in handy to take out some enemies more flexibly, so that's nice. Honestly though, if it weren't for how good he is in Radiant Dawn, I wouldn't be trying so hard to train him. Low defense, shaky offense, and no 1-2 range. It's a constant effort to make sure this guy stays relevant. But I'm managing.

Soren has finally reached a point where he can double myrmidons, and thanks to his newfound strength, he's even using thunder to do it!

Also, Oscar's... finally managed to become faster than Titania?

...Only for her to suddenly level up speed and become his equal again, but whatever, the point is, Oscar's finally starting to become something resembling halfway decent at combat. Good. About damned time. And then when he promotes it'll only be better.

Because I'm giving him axes.

Man, having a healer with console canto is absolutely awesome.

...Yeah, speaking of, has anyone noticed that the full, complete, “move again after attacking” canto has only ever appeared in console games, and has been in every console game since it was initially introduced, and every handheld game has coincidentally not had it to that full degree?

I wonder if there's a reason for that. Is it just harder to implement in handheld games for some reason?

Anyway, I could, with some significant risk, try to kill Oliver before the bird laguz even show up, and part of me is sorely tempted to do so, but I think I'm going to wait a turn and see if I can't get a better opening to attack Oliver with some more accurate and powerful weapons than thrown ones. It would have been nice to not have to deal with this incoming massive charge of cavalry this turn, but... charging now with Marcia and Jill is unquestionably the greater danger. I'm gonna hope I can bait in these short-spear-carrying fuckers guarding Oliver's fat ass, kill one of them, and then then get at Oliver in melee.

And of course, now Tibarn shows up to help, just in time to save us from this massive swarm of cavalry. Much appreciated! I was starting to get a little worried about how I'd fight them. But interestingly, Tibarn's first assumption when he sees Ike carrying Leanne on his back is that he's trying to protect her. Not that he's trying to keep her for himself, but that he's trying to protect her. Weird to come to that conclusion without getting some intel from Ulki about what the Greil Mercenaries are saying, given his intense hatred of all beorckind at this moment, but...

Also...

Holy shit.

Tibarn's posse shows up, and then immediately acts.

THE AMBUSH SPAWNS ARE ON MY SIDE THIS TIME.

But yeah, thanks to a critical hit from Jill, I could one-round Oliver with Marcia. But if I fail, she takes...

...Not enough to be killed! Okay! I'm doing it!

But first, I'm gonna try and kill as many of these cavalry as I safely can, since experience is experience, and I don't get more for leaving them alive, just doing the map quickly.

...Yeah, the cavalry wound up being in a much more convenient position than I thought I saw on enemy phase, so I managed to kill all of them except the paladin. If I can't kill Oliver this turn, I'll have Stefan kill the paladin with the Vague Katti. Otherwise, I won't waste it.

Aaaand he's down! Awesome!

...Not sure how the hell he's supposed to have the opportunity to fake his death here, or how it didn't raise suspicion when his body must have disappeared in the aftermath of this battle, but at any rate, I don't have to deal with him anymore.

So yeah, according to Serenes Forest, a bunch of Leanne's “sisters” (not sure if literal or some heron religious thing) put her to sleep with galdrar, and then Reyson adds in that “the forest protected her”.

Oh! And Tibarn uses the word “beorc” when he addresses Ike!

Reyson seems genuinely surprised when she learns that the apostle actually, physically came all the way to the forest to speak with Reyson.

Also, he seems surprised to find it was a 10-year-old girl.

I'm wondering if that last bit might have helped convince him, along with Leanne's words.

And then Sanaki gets on her knees and apologizes, to Sigrun's horror.

So, the galdrspeak dialogue that we can't directly read has Leanne ask “Apostle Sanaki” to please rise, and that it wasn't her fault.

And while Leanne genuinely feels Sanaki deserves to be forgiven (understandable), she also makes the same appeal to Reyson that Tibarn made, that he needs to let go of his hatred for his own sake, because as a heron, being consumed so thoroughly by hate is hurting his very soul, and that in Leanne's case, it hurts her to see her brother's soul so clouded by hatred.

And so... Reyson forgives her. He's still clearly having difficulty forgiving beorc as a whole, but he at least tells Sanaki that she doesn't need to feel guilty about it anymore, as she had nothing to do with it.

And now, super cheesily, as if that simple apology magically made everything all better again, Reyson and Leanne sing a magical song in a big, dramatic cutscene that instantly brings life back to the entire forest.

...Only for it to, if I remember correctly, get burned down again next game. Offscreen.

But anyway, this reveals to Ike and Mist that the song their mother used to sing to them is extremely similar to heronsong.

And then Nasir's like “Ah, excellent. The gap between laguz and beorc has been bridged. I think this may be enough...”

Yes, everything is totally all better again, you guys.

While Reyson's actual line of forgiveness was much more believable (given how conditional and reluctant it was), the tone of everything after this is as if Sanaki and the Greil Mercenaries have magically solved racism forever, which... I mean, not just in the context of what happens in the next game, but also in the context of, y'know, real fucking life, this is some of the most hilariously, childishly, patronizingly naive nonsense I think I have ever seen.

...But I got 660 bonus experience! YAY!

...And it looks like that's the end of the chapter. They're saving all the other stuff, like Ike's promotion, for chapter 18.

Well then, in that case, then we will be saving all the other stuff for next week!

Stay safe, everyone!

Edited by Alastor15243
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4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

You know what I love about the physic staff? Just by having it in your inventory, it lets you immediately highlight everyone in your army who needs healing. In this game it's even better, because you can see them highlighted in red without having to cycle through them!

Now that is a handy feature that I never noticed before.

 

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Oscar's offense is still amazingly terrible. I can't wait to promote him and give him some goddamned axes, because holy shit. He just can't do good damage to anyone. He has pretty much the worst combination of speed and str/mag in my entire army. And this is on fixed mode. I thought I was just getting unlucky before, but no, this is actually how he normally is. And he's level seventeen.

Yeah, I can think of one time Oscar got good stats for me... That double earth support with Ike really carries him.

 

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Second off, Stefan and Mordecai's supports, which, at Eltosian's prompting, I read.

And immediately hated.

I probably should have warned you about how bad it was; but the topics it went over seemed relevant to enough of the issues you have been finding that I thought it was worth seeing.

 

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I suppose I'm open to the possibility of that being more emotionally damaging than being hated and feared by the beorc, but... you didn't make any effort to really sell that. You just said that they deny your very existence, while at least the beorc grant you the dignity of admitting you're related to them. Which... I mean, given that this is a world where racism can result in shit like slavery, murder, and, according to Tormod, “or worse”... you're gonna have to do a better job than just saying the laguz shun you.

The real trauma of that would be severe isolation (which can be extremely emotionally damaging especially to children), but it gets undermined by the way Mordecai interacts with Stefan. Mordecai never treated Stefan the way he claims Laguz treat the Branded, and it makes his whole spiel at the end feel especially empty.

 

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Little hint though: I'm going to argue, among other things, that this game's worldbuilding would be drastically improved by the introduction of class changing.

My guess is this will involve Laguz being able to reclass into weapon wielding classes, but I suppose we will see...

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

1: If you were indeed there, how was the state of the forest a surprise to you in that scene with Naesala? Did you not watch it burn down firsthand?

My best guess is he got spirited away to safety fairly early on in the slaughter, and seeing the full extent of the damage he only got a brief glimpse of before (especially when the damage spanned a nation sized forest) was fairly extreme.

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

So now it's time for the fourth and final part of Chapter 17. My main objective is to see if I can use Marcia and Jill to take out that meteor mage and then sneak a kill on Oliver to end this map early.

One of your objectives wasn't to get the droppable Adept scroll before the NPCs got to it? I feel like that the main reason outside LTC to go for that strategy...

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

First the beorc completely kicked the laguz's ass in the second big laguz-beorc war despite being significantly outnumbered (presumably due to the previous war they lost), despite laguz being depicted in nearly every cutscene as more than a match for the average beorc soldier.

I always got the impression that a big factor in that first major Beorc victory was that the Laguz were overconfident, and didn't see the Beorc and their weapons as much of a threat, and thus made foolish mistakes that let the Beorc win despite their disadvantages.

 

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6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

P

Also, Jotari, thank you so much for pointing out that Serenes is labeled as its own fucking country on that map in the bottom right corner of that Begnion history page. I hadn't even noticed that. And like you said, it makes this so much worse.

Game, are you telling me that an entire country, a country that is both the size of, and bordering, Gallia, was slaughtered, with fewer known survivors than can be counted on a single fucking hand, by unorganized peasants with torches and pitchforks, when the people they were hunting didn't have to do anything to escape death other than fly over some fucking mountains!?

 

Yeah, it's really weird. The best solution would be to assume that the actual populations of Herons is located in one central area while the rest of the country is some kind of uninhabited nature reserve that the herons protect. Only I'm pretty sure early Part 3 of Radiant Dawn takes place over this Western Begnion region and we see nothing of the like to suggest that. Everything else about the story suggests Serenes is a much smaller area. Even the whole "The forest burnt down" aspect makes little sense since we're looking at a land mass way to big to be burnt down. And if the whole thing isn't untenable forest like the Amazon (which as I said I think Radiant Dawn suggests is not the case) then how did the Herones stop Beorc from just waltzing in and using the land for their own purposes. It very likely wasn't martial force given this is herons we're talking about and I highly doubt it's respect for Sovereignty given this is laguz we're talking about. The herons and their massacre just doesn't work if it's a full sized country.

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7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Do bird laguz have hollow bones?

On the one hand, this:

Reyson: When I bashed Duke Tanas’s face, he only suffered a bloody nose, but it cracked the bones in the back of my hand.

On the other...

Tibarn.jpg

can hollow bones support all of this?

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Thankfully, Ike only needs 37 experience to hit level 20, so I'm golden

Ike tends to cap level at Chapter 8 for me. The very restrictive roster of early FE9 and Shinon and Gatrie being iffy investments did that.

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

And now, super cheesily, as if that simple apology magically made everything all better again, Reyson and Leanne sing a magical song in a big, dramatic cutscene that instantly brings life back to the entire forest.

They did try to explain slightly better here:

Reyson: It was Serenes Forest. For my people, there is no more sacred a place. And the galdr I chanted was a part of an ancient clan ritual performed on a very holy altar. Most importantly, my seid magic succeeded because Leanne was by my side. That galdr holds little force when I chant it alone.
Tormod: Then all we need is Leanne!
Reyson: You’re not very quick, are you? Even if both of us chanted the galdr until we collapsed from exhaustion, there’s no way we could turn sand into soil. Even if the desert was a fertile valley eons ago, I don’t have the power to restore it. Have I made myself clear?

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

But I'd just like to state, for the record, right now, that I've noticed a rather... concerning pattern with this game's writing.

Whenever it comes time in the story for the beorc to do something horrible to the laguz, the game has a tendency to nerf laguz competence into the fucking ground.

Never noticed this criticism, but I can see your point. The racial conflict does paint the Laguz as the victims too much, and this does play a role in it. The Beorc are perfectly "ordinary" majority people and the Laguz are the "different" minority in this light and transparent "racism is bad!" fantasy allegory, you want to make sure the audience sympathizes with the oppressed- so was their thinking I imagine.

However, I do like the near totality of the Serenes Massacre in the sense that barring Sephiran, who is powerless now, the entire dark-winged Heron common variant was eradicated, a Laguz subspecies no more and no hopes of recovery. Not that I'd be opposed to more survivors, or, other changes to show greater Laguz resilience or struggle in the face of oppression- mention of great (and failed) historical slave revolts in Begnion for instance.

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

this is some of the most hilariously, childishly, patronizingly naive nonsense I think I have ever seen.

Sure you could've left out the forest restoration and still it'd be well and good, but give 'em a little break here. This ends the Begnion midgame arc, what was ultimately a tangent from the liberate Crimea that the main narrative is about. They wanted something glorious to justify Ike's promotion next chapter and I suppose start the Daein invasion with high morale.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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35 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

 

Sure you could've left out the forest restoration and still it'd be well and good, but give 'em a little break here. This ends the Begnion midgame arc, what was ultimately a tangent from the liberate Crimea that the main narrative is about. They wanted something glorious to justify Ike's promotion next chapter and I suppose start the Daein invasion with high morale.

And my does the music assist with that starting next chapter.

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Personally, I think I'm just going to assume that all the maps that we see are pretty bad. It wouldn't really be surprising; in our world, when we were at a comparable tech level to Tellius, our cartography was also fairly rubbish by modern standards. There's also at least some evidence that they don't have great maps. Nasir running the ship aground when being chased by ravens suggests they probably don't have great naval charts. The desert east of Daein was completely unmapped allowing Hatari to remain hidden. Stuff like that. If all the maps that we see are considered as in-universe maps, then all the problems with size and distance can be explained away.

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2 hours ago, lenticular said:

Personally, I think I'm just going to assume that all the maps that we see are pretty bad. It wouldn't really be surprising; in our world, when we were at a comparable tech level to Tellius, our cartography was also fairly rubbish by modern standards. There's also at least some evidence that they don't have great maps. Nasir running the ship aground when being chased by ravens suggests they probably don't have great naval charts. The desert east of Daein was completely unmapped allowing Hatari to remain hidden. Stuff like that. If all the maps that we see are considered as in-universe maps, then all the problems with size and distance can be explained away.

Rubbish cartography wouldn't explain the size difference between the way Serenes is treated, as a singular forest small enough to be overrun by a mob and wipe out a species in a matter of hours, and the way it is shown, as a country as large as Gallia. Unless Gallia is equally tiny and Tellius takes place in an area the size of Corsica (which a two month boat journey would definitely suggest is not the case).

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8 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

One of your objectives wasn't to get the droppable Adept scroll before the NPCs got to it? I feel like that the main reason outside LTC to go for that strategy...

I'll admit, that was a mix of not finding the skill worth it in an ironman, paranoia about getting overconfident, and also just forgetting it existed in the crucial moment.

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

Yeah, it's really weird. The best solution would be to assume that the actual populations of Herons is located in one central area while the rest of the country is some kind of uninhabited nature reserve that the herons protect. Only I'm pretty sure early Part 3 of Radiant Dawn takes place over this Western Begnion region and we see nothing of the like to suggest that. Everything else about the story suggests Serenes is a much smaller area. Even the whole "The forest burnt down" aspect makes little sense since we're looking at a land mass way to big to be burnt down. And if the whole thing isn't untenable forest like the Amazon (which as I said I think Radiant Dawn suggests is not the case) then how did the Herones stop Beorc from just waltzing in and using the land for their own purposes. It very likely wasn't martial force given this is herons we're talking about and I highly doubt it's respect for Sovereignty given this is laguz we're talking about. The herons and their massacre just doesn't work if it's a full sized country.

Fun fact: When I was a kid, I assumed the forest was the size of a big park, only a bit bigger than the part we actually saw in-game.

7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Sure you could've left out the forest restoration and still it'd be well and good, but give 'em a little break here. This ends the Begnion midgame arc, what was ultimately a tangent from the liberate Crimea that the main narrative is about. They wanted something glorious to justify Ike's promotion next chapter and I suppose start the Daein invasion with high morale.

Honestly, I think if they toned down the attitude of "we've ended racism" and maybe foreshadowed that the magic to restore the forest existed but couldn't be used, it could've accomplished that and still satisfied me. It's just that the scene feels super goofy and... well I guess I'll check the dialogue of the next chapter to see if they even mention continuing the slave liberation momentum (the liberation that, again, Sanaki wants to do secretly, something she cannot do without the mercenaries she has apparently decided she's done with). Because really all Ike accomplished was freeing one laguz slave and saving one laguz's life, and that's apparently good enough for the narrative that laguz slavery never has to be brought up ever again.

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Fun fact: When I was a kid, I assumed the forest was the size of a big park, only a bit bigger than the part we actually saw in-game.

 

That's what I assumed as an adult! Up until I saw that map at any rate.

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Path of Radiance Day 16: Chapter 18

Yes. Today's the day. At long last, it's finally come.

...But before that... time for that bitching about the laguz I promised.

Now, you may remember from a while back that it's a major theme of the Begnion arc that the beorc, and only the beorc, have a social hierarchy based on hereditary nobility, unlike the laguz, who do not, and are instead a meritocracy.

This claim is undermined by... well, damned near everything about how the laguz are depicted. Let's focus on Gallia for my point, since it's the only laguz country we see more of than one castle.

First off, even if Gallia were a strict meritocracy, free of the concept of hereditary nobility, their version of a meritocracy would still if anything be worse than how the beorc run things. Radiant Dawn makes it clear that the king never actually fights in wars unless said wars come to Gallian soil, because once the king is on the move, if his home were to be attacked, it would be nearly impossible to get back in time to defend it since he can't fly like the bird laguz can.

Meaning that the “strength” on which Gallia decides its king is, except in the case of invasion, a completely useless quality in a leader, and one that they have to waste a massive amount of their time as leader keeping up every day, lest someone challenge them for the position.

Thus, strength isn't just barely a useful quality in a leader, it's an active hindrance. At least in Begnion, when you're lucky enough to have leaders that are wise and just (which being strong is no guarantee of), they actually have the time to do shit without having to do intense daily training to keep their job. Have you seen those before-and-after photos of what presidents look like after just a few years in office? Yeah, imagine having to do a job that stressful and having to make sure you're incontestably the strongest person in the entire country the entire damned time you do it, or else somebody comes along and takes your job.

Second, the whole “deciding your leader based on who is the strongest” thing means there is a privileged noble class in Gallia.

It's called the lions.

I mean, lemme just quote the wiki, because it, without any irony whatsoever, talks about the lions in a way that really drives home exactly why Gallia's system of government is no better than the beorc one:

Residing in the nation of Gallia, Lions are regarded as the strongest members of the country. As national traditions mandate that only those possessing supreme strength are deemed fit to rule, lions are recognised [sic] as the leaders of the country by both Cats and Tigers alike. A small segment of the Lions make up the royal family that presides over the laws of the country, with the only known members including King Caineghis and his nephew Skrimir.”

How is that not a genetic nobility?

Every single king, or future-king, or legendary champion that we have ever seen come out of the feline beast tribe in this story has been a lion. And, more importantly, there isn't a single lion we see in the story that isn't in a privileged position of society. We see plenty of generic laguz grunt green units in Radiant Dawn, but to my knowledge, not a single one of them was a lion. So not only are only the lions deemed fit to rule the country, but they're also considered too important to be rank-and-file soldiers. The absolute lowest-ranked lion we ever see in the story is still a personal attendant and agent of the king!

...And I mean, just think about the implications of the fact that Gallia has a “future king”. A nation that doesn't have a line of succession... somehow still manages to have a “future king”. The king is supposed to be decided by some kind of demonstration of strength, and yet well before the time where said demonstration could possibly be relevant, there's no doubt among basically anyone who the next king is going to be, to the point that it's basically talked about as if he's just “next in line for the throne”. And it's Caineghis's fucking nephew. It's not even a lion from a different family! It's the same fucking family line!

...Which brings me to what really pisses me off about the laguz. One thing that I feel really demonstrates how shallow the laguz are in many ways as a concept and how it undermines one of the major themes of the story if you think about it for too long.

A major theme of the story is the inherent flaws of nobility, and of defining people's worth by the circumstances of their birth as opposed to what they do with their lives, and this is a problem that is repeatedly described as exclusively a problem with beorc society.

Yet, especially as far as gameplay is concerned... the laguz are defined entirely by the circumstances of their birth.

Let's... look at some class names in this game, beorc and laguz, and see if we can't spot the problem:

What makes you a lance knight? Years of training and practice in the art of fighting with a lance on horseback.

What makes you a mage? Years of training and study in the arcane arts.

What makes you a myrmidon? Years of training in the ways of the sword.

What makes you an archer? Years of training in the art of using the bow.

What makes you a cat? Being a fucking cat.

The beorc classes are all defined by training and study and work, by individual choices and talents and preferences leading people down one of many possible paths they could have taken.

The laguz classes are all defined by what you were born as.

You're a tiger. You specialize in tigering. You do tiger things, because you're a tiger.

It's like... this class system feels like a caricature of the laguz that an actual beorc-supremacist racist would put into an in-universe tabletop game. Ignoring promotions, there are nearly twice as many beorc classes are there are laguz classes, and the only reason there are eight playable classes of laguz is because there are eight playable races of laguz.

It really gives off the extremely unfortunate implication that the laguz don't actually have any more complicated ways of fighting than just relying on raw instinct. There's no individuality. If you're a tiger laguz, you're a tiger. You're not a tiger skirmisher, you're not a tiger guardian, you're not a tiger vanguard... you're just a tiger. Really, if this game were remade, and given reclassing, I feel it would be a great idea to divide up each race of laguz into multiple classes that they can reclass to, just so that it feels less like...

...Jesus Christ, look at me. It's been an hour and a half since I started writing, I've written two and a half pages without playing a single goddamned second of the day's chapter, and now I'm ranting about the unfortunate implications of a shifter class system that I've never taken issue with before now and still see no issue with in any game other than this one, and I'm proposing changes that I would in any other context perceive as completely excessive and inefficient feature bloat focused on what is usually a disproportionally small percentage of playable characters, done for no other reason than to avoid appearing to be kinda-sorta-indirectly-maybe racist in their depiction of a species that does not exist.

This is what scrutinizing a game about racism does to me, people.

Ugh... I think I need to take a deep breath, think about this for a while, and work out how much this particular point really matters. Because I sure as shit know that if the themes of this game weren't so heavily about racism and classism, I would never have come up with 90% of the shit I just ranted about. It's like... it's like I only feel they've become a problem because the game made them a problem.

Damn it, and here I thought I'd finally be able to put into words, in a quick, one-sentence summary, exactly what viscerally bugs me about this game's depiction of the laguz. There's just this over-arching theme about them, some tidy way to sum up most of my issues with it, and it's on the tip of my tongue, and it's been on the tip of my tongue for the past two weeks or so.

...Alright.

Guess I'll have to move on. Come back to this later, maybe.

But one more thing before we start:

I've... come to accept that finding a Fire Emblem story that I will lack the ability to roast the shit out of... is basically going to be impossible. If I can't get through Tellius without shitting on it, then there is no hope whatsoever. So really, part of me feels that most of this feels kinda pointless, like it's for shits and giggles, because really in most cases I'll be basing the writing rankings on which stories do the most right, not which stories do the least wrong.

But I still feel the need to do it, or else I could unfairly positively color my impression of this game when all of its competition for “best writing” has already been done on the list and nitpicked to hell and back.

...Alright, let's get moving.

...So, Sanaki praises Ike, saying that thanks to him, “the wound that has scarred Begnion for many long years can finally begin to heal”.

Let's see if she actually mentions what she's gonna do about the rest of the slave trade without her secret “sweep it under the rug while still fixing it” weapon, or why she's decided that's a shitty thing to do and needs to go all out about this if she's to have any self-respect at all.

...Okay, so... apparently... Sanaki's grandmother was that assassinated apostle. That... wow... sorry, hearing the words “grandmother” associated with that woman I remember being a young lady in a flashback... makes me suddenly wonder what happened to apostles when they got to those old ages but stayed super young due to their branded nature. Really makes you wonder how many apostles haven't been assassinated.

...Okay so... the grandmother was the beloved apostle, one of Sanaki's un-mentioned parents was her child, who had two children, Micaiah and Sanaki, and this was... was...

...Fuck it, for some reason, thinking about this apostle bloodline hurts my brain way more than it by all rights should.

Sanaki: In the very near future, I will give the imperial senate a few... suggestions on achieving a fully integrated society.

Oh, lovely. Let's see how that goes.

But yeah, it seems that Sanaki is mostly willing to help Crimea because she wants another laguz-friendly ruler in power again to help her pressure her country and the rest of the world into changing. But anyway, Ike's about to leave and let the two ruling ladies talk, when Sanaki demands he get back in there and receive his promotion. Yeah, he needs a noble title to be able to command the Begnion troops Sanaki's sending his way without complications, and apparently this is a world where princesses can just give these titles to commoners.

I don't fucking care.

Show me that promotion sequence.

Show me the coolest-looking lord class of all time.

What am I supposed to do now? Put on a funny hat or something?”

Ike. Is. The. Best.

Hahaha, Ike's portrait just disappears when he's instructed to kneel.

And it is done. Ike... is now Lord Ike. To this day my favorite main character class in the whole series in terms of aesthetics (and by the end of the game, also gameplay, but being swordlocked until the absolute endgame does put a damper on that). But with that... it's time to move on to the long-overdue narration.

Anyway, so, yes... looks like I just wasn't thinking about it much as a kid. The intro narrative to this chapter does in fact highlight that hugeass western forest of Begnion as being Serenes Forest. And it is indeed as huge as that map implied. I wonder if I'd be having Friday's rant today if this was the first clue I had that Serenes was so huge? Would I have noticed?

Alas, the world will never know.

OH YES. YES. SHOW US THAT HUGE, GLOSSY CG OF LORD IKE, WITH HIS BLACK JACKET AND HIS BLUE CAPE AND SINGLE BLUE STEEL PAULDRON, FUCK YES WHAT A BADASS.

Apparently it's the first snow of the season, and that's why it's snowing here. Part of me thought it was just a cold part of Daein.

...Okay, I'm sure that I have to be mis-reading this, and it looks like if you interpret a few words differently, it's not nearly as stupid, but for a second, it sounded like BK and Ashnard were saying that their spy said that the Crimean Liberation Army plans on going through Daein... on route to Crimea. As in, as a necessary action they have to do just while they're passing through to get to Crimea. As if that's the most convenient way to get from Begnion to Crimea, which it could not possibly be if Radiant Dawn is to make any sense at all.

...Okay, apparently Ashnard only now has learned that a heron is still alive. He didn't even know about Reyson until this moment. Weird. And only now do his plans involve kidnapping one. What for? And why could his plans go ahead anyway without one, with adding one just making things better?

Tanith says that “Pegasus knights fare better than most against wyvern riders”.

...I mean, Marcia's pretty good, but...

Anyway, I use most of my bonus experience on Volke. It gets drastically less valuable when used on promoted units, and Volke's promotion is coming soon, so I might as well use this on him.

No new supports for the sets I'm actually doing in this game, so let's move on to info.

We get a support explaining how Tanith's reinforcements ability works, and then a talk with Tanith about King Ashnard.

And Tanith says she's never fought King Ashnard, in such a way as to suggest it were perfectly reasonable for someone to think she would have.

Alright, so Ashnard's coronation was 18 years ago, 2 years after the Serenes Massacre that, if I remember correctly, drove Sephiran into his “everyone, Beorc and Laguz, needs to die because I've seen too much shit from both of them” madness. I... wonder if Sephiran had anything to do with Ashnard getting his hands on a blood pact.

...But the game says that the “plague” the blood pact had been mistaken for... started at the capital and spread out to affect the surrounding region. But... the blood pact just randomly kills people throughout the country, doesn't it? Would that really be in any manner that could be mistaken for a plague? And yet the way this is discussed, and the way I remember it being discussed in the final chapter, it had to be some sort of controlled, intelligent act on Ashnard's part, so that suggests the blood pact was in fact planned during Path of Radiance.

Two years before, it struck Begnion, and the entire population of Serenes was nearly obliterated.”

...What?

Wait, but two years before was... the Serenes Massacre. Okay, so either:

1: The Begnion government officially denies the Serenes Massacre and blames it on a nonexistent heron plague (basically impossible given how much guilt the people are said to have about it, and also the fact that Tanith knows full well about the Serenes Massacre)...

2: The herons had already nearly been wiped out by a completely unrelated plague before the Serenes Massacre happened almost immediately afterwards...

3: The Herons were included as victims of the Kilvas blood pact Naesala is currently at the mercy of, and that story about what happened when a raven king defied Begnion was just 20 years ago, and not further back in time like I assumed...

or 4: Serenes is a region of Begnion entirely separate from Serenes Forest, and the beorc population there was nearly wiped out by an unrelated plague mistaken for being the same thing that took out Daein.

...I am both fascinated and extremely confused. This is just too bizarre a thing to bring up and not explain, game.

Moving on.

Apparently Begnion and Daein do get into some dogfights with their border patrols.

Alright, so Tormod and Muarim are still with us, and apparently Tormod and Muarim are satisfied with what they've done in Begnion and what Sanaki has promised to do. I personally wouldn't be, but...

Right, time to give Ike aether (and also miracle now that I've confirmed it can fit on him with aether), forge a nice weapon for Oscar to help him get up to speed with his axe rank once he promotes, and... move on out!

...Okay, that's weird. I just checked, and swords seem way more expensive to forge than other weapons. Just boosting an iron sword's attack by 5 makes it nearly cost 4,000 gold. Meanwhile, making a +5 might and plus 25 hit steel axe costs just 2,500 gold! And the same goes with lances, they're cheap too! Meanwhile bows are super expensive to forge, just like swords! Why are the two worst physical weapon types more expensive to forge than the two best ones?

But anyway, I forge Oscar a neon green axe called the Trashtaker, in honor of he Sesame Street character he shares his name and color with.

Oscar, so far you have been trash. But just because you are trash does not mean you can't do great things.

It's called garbage can, not garbage cannot.

Anyway, go time.

Edited by Alastor15243
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