Who else thinks Sylvain is awesome? (minor spoilers)

[Dual Dragons]

2 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

You know, having given it some thought, I can very well understand why some would feel that Sylvain is an asshole, because by all accounts, he IS. 

Sure, he has his reasons, and I am certain there are women that have wanted him just for his Crest or title. But that's not saying ALL women were like that. How many women were serious about him? How many women did he play with and ultimately leave heartbroken cause he thought they were using him?

Hell, Leonie clearly has a crush on him by the B support at least, and was jealous that she wasn't flirted with in their C support, that she would actually care for him as him, rather than his Crest. 

Well, yeah, Sylvain is undeniably an asshole. He has his moments of being kind but in no way does that excuse his behavior--and the game doesn't excuse his behavior either. Everyone--including himself--calls him out for it. It's that awareness by himself while also not stopping his actions that's both terrible and sad about him.

Sylvain is the Fire Emblem Zelos Wilder. They both are (socially) self-destructive people with an skewed perspective of life, using horrible defensive and coping mechanisms to deal with their problems, and generally have terrible ways of expressing themselves without resorting to a, "Ahhhh, I was just joking," attitude. It's a not a 1:1 ratio; they have their own awful ways of treating others. They're tragic people... but tragedy should not make the player forget the malicious intents Sylvain and Zelos had in their actions.

Really, I think this is why I love the Byleth support. Not just for the insight on his character, but we are given choices to call him a jerk, to highlight his actions, or to be more understanding by questioning who he really is. What we lack are choices where we feel sorry for him, which would mean to me we are willing to wave his issues and now he's completely absolved of his past actions. If Sylvain took a page out of Zelos's book, Zelos hated people feeling sorry for him, mainly because he didn't know how to handle people showing genuine care for him. He would rather joke about it and have the person be annoyed with him than feel sorry and care for him.

It was mentioned before about the B supports. I personally love this design. It reminds me of the Tales of Symphonia affection system. Zelos is one of the hardest--if not the hardest--characters to max affection for on a first playthrough. You really need to work hard for him to like you. I could ramble on about why I think the Sylvain and Zelos gameplay-integration is fantastic but that would be an extremely long post. All in all, having it where Sylvain can only have a few paired endings speaks loads about him. Definite potential for discourse over why the developers decided Sylvain could only pair with the few given.

[Anacybele]

If you guys think Sylvain is so bad with his behavior, what about Felix? At least Sylvain isn't a freaking bully. I hate how Felix treats Dedue and Dimitri. He's downright cruel to them. Felix sorta gives a reason why he hates Dimitri and it might be understandable, but he's just...so jerkish about it. And that still doesn't give him the right to treat Dedue so badly. Dedue more or less threatens him back, but Dimitri just...lets Felix be a jerk. Come on, dude. Oh yeah, Felix seems to hate his father for some reason too.

Sylvain's behavior is bad, but Felix is the real asshat in this group. I really don't like him. I'm not sure if him changing his ways could redeem him. I can't really understand why he's so mean, whereas I could completely understand Sylvain's situation.

Hell, Ingrid and Dorothea's paralogue makes me understand it even further.

Spoiler

Some garbage nobleman wanted to marry Ingrid for her crest and he sent bandits to capture her! Sylvain's right to believe some women could act the same way with him.

I won't ever understand Felix literally calling Dedue and Dimitri mean names and just treating them like they're monsters or idiots.

Edited September 8, 2019 by Anacybele

[Ottservia]

10 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

If you guys think Sylvain is so bad with his behavior, what about Felix? At least Sylvain isn't a freaking bully. I hate how Felix treats Dedue and Dimitri. He's downright cruel to them. Felix sorta gives a reason why he hates Dimitri and it might be understandable, but he's just...so jerkish about it. And that still doesn't give him the right to treat Dedue so badly. Dedue more or less threatens him back, but Dimitri just...lets Felix be a jerk. Come on, dude. Oh yeah, Felix seems to hate his father for some reason too.

Sylvain's behavior is bad, but Felix is the real asshat in this group. I really don't like him. I'm not sure if him changing his ways could redeem him. I can't really understand why he's so mean, whereas I could completely understand Sylvain's situation.

Hell, Ingrid and Dorothea's paralogue makes me understand it even further.

  Reveal hidden contents

Some garbage nobleman wanted to marry Ingrid for her crest and he sent bandits to capture her! Sylvain's right to believe some women could act the same way with him.

I won't ever understand Felix literally calling Dedue and Dimitri mean names and just treating them like they're monsters or idiots.

To be fair Felix is right about Dimitri at least. That man really is nothing more than a beast in human skin. He only hates Dedue by proxy of being Dimitri’s vassal. Felix is dealing with a lot honestly and the way he deals with his grief and loss of ambition is interesting if you ask me 

That said, I do understand your overall sentiment of noticing people’s double standards. Geez do those never cease. All FE characters have to be perfect little angels without a hint of an unlikable trait or else they’re automatically terrible. Man am I sick of dealing with this mentality.

[Anacybele]

6 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

To be fair Felix is right about Dimitri at least. That man really is nothing more than a beast in human skin. He only hates Dedue by proxy of being Dimitri’s vassal. Felix is dealing with a lot honestly and the way he deals with his grief and loss of ambition is interesting if you ask me 

That said, I do understand your overall sentiment of noticing people’s double standards. Geez do those never cease. All FE characters have to be perfect little angels without a hint of an unlikable trait or else they’re automatically terrible. Man am I sick of dealing with this mentality.

Maybe, but as it is, Dimitri's being a good guy. Like he's trying not to be that beast anymore. I can believe there's a part of him that's a beast, because holy crap, he was acting like one in the Golden Deer route after the time skip, that's for sure...though I can see why (Edelgard did/caused some nasty shit). And Dedue still doesn't deserve to be treated like that imo. He didn't do anything to Felix.

And exactly! That is a bad mentality. It annoys me, for example, when people say they don't care about Frederick simply because he's a Jagen and Jagens "suck" or whatever. But they're missing out on some great supports and I honestly believe Frederick is one of the more complex Awakening characters, regardless of any bias I have for him.

I believe Sylvain is complex too and a really good representation of how screwy Fodlan's society is, and in the end, he turns out to really be the good man he's got hiding deep in that heart of his. I love his writing, as well as his design, admittedly. I actually think he's hot. XD And that he could get tons of girls with just that cute smile and wink alone if he didn't feel the need to treat them badly.

Edited September 8, 2019 by Anacybele

[eclipse]

1 hour ago, Ottservia said:

That said, I do understand your overall sentiment of noticing people’s double standards. Geez do those never cease. All FE characters have to be perfect little angels without a hint of an unlikable trait or else they’re automatically terrible. Man am I sick of dealing with this mentality.

Yeah, it's annoying.  But IMO 3H does a better job with characters that most of the series (especially Teillius).  In his paired endings

Spoiler

Sylvain stays faithful (at least with Dorothea/Ingrid, and it's very telling with Dorothea)

which tells me that he's more than just shitty behavior.  He has his good moments, his bad moments, and both of them make sense given the context of his character.

Was he a shit?  Yep.  Does he stop being a shit?  He tries, and that's all I can ask of anyone.

[Anacybele]

7 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Yeah, it's annoying.  But IMO 3H does a better job with characters that most of the series (especially Teillius).  In his paired endings

  Reveal hidden contents

Sylvain stays faithful (at least with Dorothea/Ingrid, and it's very telling with Dorothea)

which tells me that he's more than just shitty behavior.  He has his good moments, his bad moments, and both of them make sense given the context of his character.

Was he a shit?  Yep.  Does he stop being a shit?  He tries, and that's all I can ask of anyone.

Yeah, I can confirm this too. Sylvain does try and at least sometimes succeed.

Spoiler

His ending with Byleth says he's not just faithful, he's a gentle husband too. He really sounds like one of the most loving guys you could ask for! He's so cute on top of that. ❤️

 

Edited September 8, 2019 by Anacybele

[Dual Dragons]

 

30 minutes ago, eclipse said:

He has his good moments, his bad moments, and both of them make sense given the context of his character.

Was he a shit?  Yep.  Does he stop being a shit?  He tries, and that's all I can ask of anyone.

What I was trying to say in my original post but I love being analytical on what I find the most interesting (his bad qualities) vs. the whole product, haha.

[omegaxis1]

 

 

 

 

 

 

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14 hours ago, Dual Dragons said:

Well, yeah, Sylvain is undeniably an asshole. He has his moments of being kind but in no way does that excuse his behavior--and the game doesn't excuse his behavior either. Everyone--including himself--calls him out for it. It's that awareness by himself while also not stopping his actions that's both terrible and sad about him.

Sylvain is the Fire Emblem Zelos Wilder. They both are (socially) self-destructive people with an skewed perspective of life, using horrible defensive and coping mechanisms to deal with their problems, and generally have terrible ways of expressing themselves without resorting to a, "Ahhhh, I was just joking," attitude. It's a not a 1:1 ratio; they have their own awful ways of treating others. They're tragic people... but tragedy should not make the player forget the malicious intents Sylvain and Zelos had in their actions.

Really, I think this is why I love the Byleth support. Not just for the insight on his character, but we are given choices to call him a jerk, to highlight his actions, or to be more understanding by questioning who he really is. What we lack are choices where we feel sorry for him, which would mean to me we are willing to wave his issues and now he's completely absolved of his past actions. If Sylvain took a page out of Zelos's book, Zelos hated people feeling sorry for him, mainly because he didn't know how to handle people showing genuine care for him. He would rather joke about it and have the person be annoyed with him than feel sorry and care for him.

It was mentioned before about the B supports. I personally love this design. It reminds me of the Tales of Symphonia affection system. Zelos is one of the hardest--if not the hardest--characters to max affection for on a first playthrough. You really need to work hard for him to like you. I could ramble on about why I think the Sylvain and Zelos gameplay-integration is fantastic but that would be an extremely long post. All in all, having it where Sylvain can only have a few paired endings speaks loads about him. Definite potential for discourse over why the developers decided Sylvain could only pair with the few given.

Funny thing, someone goes about how there are a LOT of things similar to Tales of Symphonia, with Byleth's case being basically like Martel and Mithos. 

 

[Dual Dragons]

1 hour ago, omegaxis1 said:

Funny thing, someone goes about how there are a LOT of things similar to Tales of Symphonia, with Byleth's case being basically like Martel and Mithos. 

Yep! I definitely noticed that too. You can't let that slip by if Tales of Symphonia is your favorite JRPG.

God, if Tales of Symphonia wasn't such a long game, I'd easily recommend it to anyone who's even remotely interested in a Sylvain as a plot character.

[omegaxis1]

Just now, Dual Dragons said:

Yep! I definitely noticed that too. You can't let that slip by if Tales of Symphonia is your favorite JRPG.

God, if Tales of Symphonia wasn't such a long game, I'd easily recommend it to anyone who's even remotely interested in a Sylvain as a plot character.

I have Tales of Symphonia: World Chronicles. But... I haven't gotten far, like, at all. Mostly cause I wanna try to get the hard to get titles in one go.

[Metal Flash]

I like Sylvain as a character and the way he gives us insight on how the crests affect peoples lives. Even so, I find his cheating inexusable. I don`t care what your reasons are, cheating is never okay. At least he gets better in his paired endings, though it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I also find the amount of B-supports to be a little stupid.

[Anacybele]

Sorry to bring back this thread again. But I just wanna say I got the ring this time. I made sure to do that quest. lol Now I can't fail to get that Sylvain S support. XD

Edited September 13, 2019 by Anacybele

[Metal Flash]

10 hours ago, Anacybele said:

Sorry to bring back this thread again. But I just wanna say I got the ring this time. I made sure to do that quest. lol Now I can't fail to get that Sylvain S support. XD

Nice, hope you like the support.

[Dual Dragons]

On 9/8/2019 at 1:24 PM, omegaxis1 said:

I have Tales of Symphonia: World Chronicles. But... I haven't gotten far, like, at all. Mostly cause I wanna try to get the hard to get titles in one go.

Please don’t tell me you’re going for Sheena’s Treasure Hunter or Lloyd’s Midlife Crisis. I absolutely hate those.

 

Since this thread got resurrected after Maddening came out...

Is Sylvain still good as a unit? Yeah... I’d say so. I’m going Golden Deer, non-NG+. After the fallout known as the Mock Battle Massacre (10 AS Dimitri this early in the game is a nightmare in of itself), Sylvain gets auto-leveled to 3 if you recruit him right away as F!Byleth. This is actually a pretty good boon because EXP gets cut (supposedly) around half. He’s that much closer to Beginner promo.

He’s likely to take a massive beating from all the high AS enemies now in Maddening. Philanderer is now way more important to master. Even with Hilda backing him up for +5 damage, he couldn’t kill the soldiers from the mandatory auxiliary battle despite doubling them. They’re that strong now! Him mastering Commoner by the time of Beginner promo is likely.

God, and now Charm is important in this mode. Enemies have high Charm, making Gambits way harder to land. 40% growth with a 7 base is decent. You can spam Tea Time to raise his and Byleth’s Charm. An early Byleth birthday gives you the Charm accessory. If he gets lucky, he can become a good Gambit user. You’re going to need someone like that.

To sum up: he’s been carrying me as a frontliner thanks to his support with Hilda and being a decent Gambit user. This is my appreciation for him tanking everything while someone like Ignatz is crying bloody murder in the corner. 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Dual Dragons

[B.Leu]

On 8/26/2019 at 12:27 AM, NekoKnight said:

I found him to be cynical to the point where he's cruel to women. There is definitely more depth to him than your typical playboy character but there is also a lot of disregard for the feelings of others. Zelos at least wasn't a serial cheater.

*slam* Thankyou !

Like, I get it, I like him too, I see where he come from. His character shows the flaws of the society of Fodlan.

But he's also an asshole, and he and the game justify, his flirting, breaking hearts, playing fiddle and all that, by 'Oh it's alright, no girls wants me, they just want my crest and money. They deserve it' Like, bruh.

But he seem to try to get over himself and gosh, that's good.
Well, probably, his ending with Ingrid leave me puzzled.

We could also try to talk about Dorothea too, hmhm, I don't do double standard after all.

Edited September 13, 2019 by B.Leu

[NekoKnight]

Just now, B.Leu said:

*slam* Thankyou !

Like, I get it, I like him too, I see where he come from. His character shows the flaws of the society of Fodlan.

But he's also an asshole, and he and the game justify, his flirting, breaking hearts, playing fiddle and all that, by 'Oh it's alright, no girls wants me, they just want my crest and money. They deserve it' Like, bruh.

But he get over himself and seems willing to try, and gosh, that's good.
Well, probably, his ending with Ingrid leave me puzzled.

It's mostly his avatar support where he's an asshole to woman and deflects criticism with "Whatever, they were just planning to use me anyway". Normally I would be able to shake off a single bad support if the others were good (Felix x Dedue has the latter claim he'd be a-okay with murdering women and children if Dimitri asked him too. I mean, yikes) but the avatar supports usually drive at the core of the character's personality, which makes me think that his mistreatment of women is something that happens even if he's kinder to the playable named characters. Other supports also seem to validate what we see in the Avatar support such as Dorothea x Sylvain C where she accuses him of being a playboy that actually hates women.

What did you find puzzling about the Ingrid ending? From what I recall, it seemed rather sweet in regards to how they both felt about crests.

[B.Leu]

1 hour ago, NekoKnight said:

It's mostly his avatar support where he's an asshole to woman and deflects criticism with "Whatever, they were just planning to use me anyway". Normally I would be able to shake off a single bad support if the others were good (Felix x Dedue has the latter claim he'd be a-okay with murdering women and children if Dimitri asked him too. I mean, yikes) but the avatar supports usually drive at the core of the character's personality, which makes me think that his mistreatment of women is something that happens even if he's kinder to the playable named characters. Other supports also seem to validate what we see in the Avatar support such as Dorothea x Sylvain C where she accuses him of being a playboy that actually hates women.

What did you find puzzling about the Ingrid ending? From what I recall, it seemed rather sweet in regards to how they both felt about crests.

Well this is awkward. I confused it with another ending... Probably one Ferdinand's.
Apologies. I'm sorry.

Eh, you think Hubert is over the top about his loyaty, Dedue and Catherine says hello. 😛
Kind of funny how it's "the big guy" who is subtle, and the "sneaky guy" who's not.

Edited September 13, 2019 by B.Leu

[NekoKnight]

6 minutes ago, B.Leu said:

Well this is awkward. I confused it with another ending... Probably one Ferdinand's.
Apologies. I'm sorry.

Eh, you think Hubert is over the top about his loyaty, Dedue and Catherine says hello. 😛
Kind of funny how it's "the big guy" who is subtle, and the "sneaky guy" who's not.

I actually found it pretty interesting that while extremely loyal to Edelgard, Hubert will disobey her orders if he thinks she's making a mistake. Dedue, meanwhile is so loyal that he'll even do horrible and out of character things, if it's for Dimitri.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Unfortunately I have to say that Sylvain is really not great in lunatic mode, at least earlygame. I am actually really sorry for him that I have overwritten my normal mode save file of BL in which Sylvain was blessed statwise. He got so many amazing levels stole Ingrid's speed. But in lunatic he cannot do much. 😟

Still he is most favorite guy in this game. 

Want to pair him with Ingrid. 

[Anacybele]

Ingrid would probably be my choice for him too if I didn't already want to give him to Byleth all the time. lol Though I like the idea of Dimitri and Ingrid as well because they're also childhood friends.

[omegaxis1]

3 hours ago, Anacybele said:

Ingrid would probably be my choice for him too if I didn't already want to give him to Byleth all the time. lol Though I like the idea of Dimitri and Ingrid as well because they're also childhood friends.

Sylvain and Ingrid are also childhood friends. I ship them cause she's the only girl that Sylvain generally doesn't flirt with, and when he finally does a little, he acts so shy. It's adorable. XD

[Anacybele]

39 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Sylvain and Ingrid are also childhood friends. I ship them cause she's the only girl that Sylvain generally doesn't flirt with, and when he finally does a little, he acts so shy. It's adorable. XD

Yes, I'm aware. I love him too much not to be my Byleth's S support tho, so... 😛

[eclipse]

Got his C support with Dedue.  It's refreshing to hear him talk about something other that women/crests as a main topic.

[omegaxis1]

2 hours ago, eclipse said:

Got his C support with Dedue.  It's refreshing to hear him talk about something other that women/crests as a main topic.

Yeah. The dude just goes and treats Dedue like a person, and is by no means racist. Dedue is just amazed by that.

[Rose482]

Lowkey everyone in the Blue Lions house needs a hug for one reason or another. 

Edited September 15, 2019 by Rose482