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Fire Emblem Fates Plot is Better that people think because...


Dr. C
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Flaws in Fate’s Story abound and admittedly I haven’t finished either path though I did get to the Ryoma chapter in Conquest and Camilla in Birthright. My progress in Revelations was nothing to write home about. 

However,  if there’s one thing I CAN appreciate about Fate’s story it’s the Chapter 6 choice.

It’s not a perfect comparison , but as a child of divorce, whether parents intend to or not they often make you feel like you’re picking sides in a war.

i can honestly say that I have made.a lot of stupid choices in my life to appease sides so while the decisions that Corrin makes don’t always make sense from a plot standpoint, they make sense to me on a personal level of being able to relate to being a compulsive people pleaser and not realizing you’re behaving idiotically even when everyone else’ can see you’re not acting in your best interest at all. 

The fact you can’t buy a Revelations cartridge really hammers in this idea that your family coming together as one big happy one is an idyllic fantasy that doesn’t exist unless you’re wiling to take the risk and make peace with yourself or in this case, your purchase. 

You have to pay extra to get the unified family that Corrin wants no matter what you do. 

Is it the intention of the writers of this story to write a divorce allegory? Probably not but that’s the beauty of literary interpretation.

Fate’s story is far from the best written in the series but there is just enough relatability however unintentional I think may be to keep me from hating on it as much as a lot of people do.

 

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2 hours ago, Dr. C said:

Is it the intention of the writers of this story to write a divorce allegory?

if you think the fire emblem community as a divorced couple, then yes

by the way, i'm sorry for what life has decided to put you through, and i can understand that you feel the story of the game very close to your personal experiences, but should this really make it better to everyone else's eyes, as you say in this topic's title?

or maybe you just wanted to share your story, that would be fine, but i just can't see how that should make the story look better for everyone else

Edited by Yexin
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If you play through Revelation, you'll see why people say the story's bad.

It only has partly to do with Corrin's idiocy throughout the stories.  The game's plot is held together by duct tape and thinly veiled plot devices, all supposedly propped up by a secret villain that barely gets any actual character development.  Not only that, but when all is said and done, Revelation results in objectively the happiest ending, as the only sacrifices you actually have to make in order to establish peace between two warring nations are two relatively minor characters you'd probably forget about because they only can support with your avatar.

Also, I personally find the tone of Fates to be very disorienting, especially in Conquest.  One minute Camilla will be crying to you about how Hans brutally executed a woman and then the next Arthur will stub his toe on Benny's armor or whatever.  Like, you go from extremely dark and serious scene to silly hijinks with gimmicky, tropey characters.

I did like the idea of reforming Nohr from the inside and I also liked the idea of the Nohrian siblings pretending to commit atrocities while secretly saving their "victims" from Garon's cruelty, but that seems to mostly get abandoned the moment you enter Hoshido proper, and the idea of reforming Nohr from the inside basically just entails "wait until Garon goes into goo form after having basically conquered the entirety of Hoshido, then kill him", when I actually thought it would be more along the lines of securing support from important Nohrians for a revolution while simultaneously fending off a Hoshidan invasion.  In fact, I thought both sides would be aggressors in their own ways, instead of lil' Hoshido getting bullied by Nohr.

 

That said, I also just don't like Corrin.  If some can relate to them and their struggles, great.  However, I think if they were trying to go for a character everyone can relate to, they should've done things differently.  Or just stuck to the usual formula of having the main lord be a different entity from the actual player.

Personally, I think Robin's more relatable as a self-insert type of character.  And I also prefer Byleth.

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41 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

Also, I personally find the tone of Fates to be very disorienting, especially in Conquest.  One minute Camilla will be crying to you about how Hans brutally executed a woman and then the next Arthur will stub his toe on Benny's armor or whatever.  Like, you go from extremely dark and serious scene to silly hijinks with gimmicky, tropey characters.

This is hardly a fates thing tbh. Felix and dimitri can have silly supports 5 minutes after Rodrigue died. It's almost impossible tonhave thematic choherence between story and optional content. Every game whit supports may have those if you do the "wrong" support at the wrong time, even if PoR tries to avoid it to a degree.

Hell it's even possible to have those kind of stuff in Planescape motherfucking Torment, wich is easily one of the best videogame story ever. For example in the mortuary you can have revelations about horrible things that TNO did in the past and Morte flirting whit zombies whitin a few minutes. 

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Just now, Flere210 said:

This is hardly a fates thing tbh. Felix and dimitri can have silly supports 5 minutes after Rodrigue died. It's almost impossible tonhave thematic choherence between story and optional content. Every game whit supports may have those if you do the "wrong" support at the wrong time, even if PoR tries to avoid it to a degree.

Perhaps I went about explaining my problem the wrong way.

What I mean is you have all these silly, gimmicky characters who are almost entirely comprised of comical moments and mishaps in a world where horrible things happen - characters who are practically unrealistic comics fighting in gruesome wars and rebellions with executions and wanton slaughter.

With a game like Three Houses, characters will have their silly moments, sure, but generally speaking they have more to them than that.  One moment Felix will be remarking about Bernadetta's accidental sword-swiping "technique" and then the next he'll be begging Sylvain not to needlessly risk his own life.  He's a character that can actually work in a world with dark elements.  Even someone like Raphael can work in such a world because he's allowed to have moments of genuine clarity and sobriety from the sillier moments.  But a character like Arthur... just can't be believed because all he is is a jolly fellow with a keen sense of justice and crummy luck who never really has genuine moments that bring him back to earth, so to speak.

It's like... like if you throw the cast of Always Sunny in Philadelphia into a movie like Schindler's List, and they just continue on with their antics and schemes while the movie plays out normally.  It's just extremely off-putting.

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4 hours ago, Yexin said:

if you think the fire emblem community as a divorced couple, then yes

by the way, i'm sorry for what life has decided to put you through, and i can understand that you feel the story of the game very close to your personal experiences, but should this really make it better to everyone else's eyes, as you say in this topic's title?

or maybe you just wanted to share your story, that would be fine, but i just can't see how that should make the story look better for everyone else

I did that’s how it comes off then my apologies it is not my intent.

I migrated over here from gamefaqs to do Fire Emblem posts and I just naturally expect to get crapped on for having an unconventional opinion. 

I suppose you could say I’m reflexively defensive. I intellectually realize that this is a different forum but old habits die hard.

The breaking point was when I first bought Exhies I found the game unplayable because the damage display was so awkward so after a some people explained to me how the damage display and s damage calculations work I was good to go but then a bunch of people started posting how I’m an idiot who doesn’t understand basic math when math had nothing to do with it and after a few posts trying to explain that Ithey doubles down and at that point, I realized that mass flagging people who I felt for harassing me wasn’t going to end well so I stopped being as active on the board. 

 

EDIT: Forget to say, Thabk you for kind words 🙂

Edited by Dr. C
Forgot to say something
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1 hour ago, Ertrick36 said:

If you play through Revelation, you'll see why people say the story's bad.

It only has partly to do with Corrin's idiocy throughout the stories.  The game's plot is held together by duct tape and thinly veiled plot devices, all supposedly propped up by a secret villain that barely gets any actual character development.  Not only that, but when all is said and done, Revelation results in objectively the happiest ending, as the only sacrifices you actually have to make in order to establish peace between two warring nations are two relatively minor characters you'd probably forget about because they only can support with your avatar.

Also, I personally find the tone of Fates to be very disorienting, especially in Conquest.  One minute Camilla will be crying to you about how Hans brutally executed a woman and then the next Arthur will stub his toe on Benny's armor or whatever.  Like, you go from extremely dark and serious scene to silly hijinks with gimmicky, tropey characters.

I did like the idea of reforming Nohr from the inside and I also liked the idea of the Nohrian siblings pretending to commit atrocities while secretly saving their "victims" from Garon's cruelty, but that seems to mostly get abandoned the moment you enter Hoshido proper, and the idea of reforming Nohr from the inside basically just entails "wait until Garon goes into goo form after having basically conquered the entirety of Hoshido, then kill him", when I actually thought it would be more along the lines of securing support from important Nohrians for a revolution while simultaneously fending off a Hoshidan invasion.  In fact, I thought both sides would be aggressors in their own ways, instead of lil' Hoshido getting bullied by Nohr.

 

That said, I also just don't like Corrin.  If some can relate to them and their struggles, great.  However, I think if they were trying to go for a character everyone can relate to, they should've done things differently.  Or just stuck to the usual formula of having the main lord be a different entity from the actual player.

Personally, I think Robin's more relatable as a self-insert type of character.  And I also prefer Byleth.

Well I got far enough to see death number 1 at least lol. To be honest, the map with the the ships that separate your party members and unnecessarily deploy Berserkers before any of your units should actually be  promoted is kind of what turned me off. My reaction was literally “Oh COME ON! I’m playing NORMAL mode here!!”

It is certainly a flaw of Conquest that the support conversations tend to be much more lighthearted than their story counter parts and citing Fire Emblem Youtuber Ghaststation here, Xander really gets the most bizarre character development where his motivations make perfect sense in supports but not so in the story itself. Nohr could have been better written but given the rise of wokeness in popular culture and politics, I literally just  dismisses it as, “Of course the metaphorical White European Kingdom is going to be evil, I mean after all they are colonizing Asia... I mean Hoshido!” 

And yeah I agree  Robin is a sweetheart but I played  Fates before Awakening. (Didn’t have a 3DS and was a bit preoccupied with finishing my degree at the time)  so he was kind of my first “Mark who talks”  as it were so I will admit there’s a bit of a sentimental attachment much like those who were there in the thick of Awakening hype are going to be understandably nostalgic for Robin . I’m not going to make any such case for who of the two is the better character. I’ve only just got Lucina to join my party. I can’t make that judgment  but  I can speak to the fact that differing experiences leave different emotional impressions. 

By no means am I excusing the story’s flaws but I appreciate them in the context of the relatability I feel to Corrin’s plight. I think a good analogy is the cracks in a broken glass make refractory edges for rainbows and produce something that’s beautiful in its own way. 

Going to have to skip out on Byleth. I don’t own a Switch and it’s not in the budget anytime soon.

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