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Random Showerthought: What if We Were Jeralt Instead?


Twin
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I was just thinking about this earlier and I figured I'd post about it since I think it's an interesting topic. In short, I don't really like Byleth. For me, both Byleth and Bylass are By-land (sorry) and I wish that we had a different character as the main character instead of a silent protagonist. So here's what I was thinking, what if Byleth didn't exist and we followed Jeralt as the main character?

So in this scenario, you're Jeralt, a traveling mercenary who has to face the shadows of his past after stepping in to save three young lords. Jeralt is convinced to be the new teacher at Garreg Mach, leads the house, and you as the player slowly learn more about the dark secrets of the Church of Seiros and the history of Fodlan through your interactions and experiences with students. Students are drawn to you based on your experience and adept military prowess and charm, instead of your "personality" like Byleth. Then, after your untimely demise at the hands of TWSITD, you then follow your house leader as the main lord post-timeskip.

Obviously this would require huge changes to the story, but I think it would be a different direction that would be a lot different to conventional FE. No more Byleth (sorry to the fans), maybe get rid of the awkward post timeskip tutoring, and shake things up a bit. Plus this way, you have an older, grizzled main chatacter who serves as a mentor to the rest of the cast. Then following his death, his former pupils are left to pick up the pieces and push forward upholding the values and morals he taught them.

But like I said, just a thought.

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As a general rule, I dislike switching perspectives in a video game. If we're Jeralt, then we should be Jeralt all the way through.

The "problem" with developing the game along these lines though is that a large part of the mass appeal of the game is wooing your chosen waifu, and the change would make this model rather unpalatable to many people. A shame. If only they had the courage to make a game without teenagers one day.

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I don't really like Byleth either, but the game is built around them being an empty vessel whose position the player can act from. Which entails not just stuff like instructing, but also making dialogue choices for content and support points. Byleth being boring is part of them being effective at what they were intended for. Plus, if you remove them, Rhea's plot mission is suddenly tanked.

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3 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I don't really like Byleth either, but the game is built around them being an empty vessel whose position the player can act from.

So are all the other avatar characters, but they weren't as bad as Byleth was (and I'm including Corrin in that).

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3 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

So are all the other avatar characters, but they weren't as bad as Byleth was (and I'm including Corrin in that).

I have to disagree, I found Corrin at least to be worse. Plus, you don't have the same degree of control or decision-making over Kris/Robin/Corrin, at least when it comes to actions taken in-game. They each have their own personality, apart from any player input.

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I sure can't wait to play a whole nine chapters of story.

1 minute ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I have to disagree, I found Corrin at least to be worse.

I agree on this front.

Generally speaking, I most prefer Robin out of all the avatars.  Out of Robin, Kris, Byleth, and Corrin, I'd say Byleth is 2nd place and Corrin is last place.  Kris is almost as bad as Corrin, but the thing that just barely eeks them out of that rut for me is being involved with one of the characters in the assassination side story and having a genuine bond with the recruit characters from the beginning of Book 2's story.

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Byleth to me felt a lot like Corvo in Dishonored 1, where I had that persistent feeling that I was always being talked *at*, not talked to. They fixed that in the sequel, so hopefully IS can learn a similar lesson from this.

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Hmm, sounds like an interesting idea. Personally, in addition to this, I'd keep Byleth around, enrolling into the school and just being one more student. Would've been interesting if role-wise Byleth was mostly unchanged outside not being a teacher; but Jeralt was still the protagonist and PoV character. Kinda like Hector in his mode in Blazing Blade.

Alternatively, his death could be kept. Since they took one idea from Genealogy, they could've taken another and have Jeralt and Byleth be another Sigurd and Seliph situation.

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I don't have a problem with Byleth, but I think this would have been really cool too, and another homage to FE4 - your first lord is a beastly mounted pre-promote who dies in the story. More importantly, Jeralt is a bro who deserves more characterization. Byleth (Jeralt's child) can still be a character, just not the main playable character - perhaps he's a young child pre-timeskip and post-skip you can play as him in whichever house you chose alongside your house leader as the lord. This way the rest of the plot is kept intact.

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Sure why not ? As long as the whole Rhea and Crests thing is properly done with or something. I really enjoy aged protagonist who done their lot in life, like Geralt from The Witcher.Well, Byleth kinda is, but without the age. ...Don't really enjoy Jeralt's hair though.
Gasp ! Jeralt, Geralt !
...Imagine romance with with the student, when your avatar is double their age. 😛
Enjoy this mental image.

I don't understand how people can say that Byleth is bad and or the worst, when we have something called Corin, Kris, and Robin.
Byleth is so much better it's hilarious , and I have to stop myself from gloating how I was right that taking a cue from Mark and making him mute was a step in the right direction.

Edited by B.Leu
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On 10/24/2019 at 7:44 PM, Twin said:

I was just thinking about this earlier and I figured I'd post about it since I think it's an interesting topic. In short, I don't really like Byleth. For me, both Byleth and Bylass are By-land (sorry) and I wish that we had a different character as the main character instead of a silent protagonist. So here's what I was thinking, what if Byleth didn't exist and we followed Jeralt as the main character?

So in this scenario, you're Jeralt, a traveling mercenary who has to face the shadows of his past after stepping in to save three young lords. Jeralt is convinced to be the new teacher at Garreg Mach, leads the house, and you as the player slowly learn more about the dark secrets of the Church of Seiros and the history of Fodlan through your interactions and experiences with students. Students are drawn to you based on your experience and adept military prowess and charm, instead of your "personality" like Byleth. Then, after your untimely demise at the hands of TWSITD, you then follow your house leader as the main lord post-timeskip.

Obviously this would require huge changes to the story, but I think it would be a different direction that would be a lot different to conventional FE. No more Byleth (sorry to the fans), maybe get rid of the awkward post timeskip tutoring, and shake things up a bit. Plus this way, you have an older, grizzled main chatacter who serves as a mentor to the rest of the cast. Then following his death, his former pupils are left to pick up the pieces and push forward upholding the values and morals he taught them.

But like I said, just a thought.

I mean, this is basically what I thought Byleth was going to be, Grizzled mercenary dude with maybe a lineage to Satan Nemesis. Then there was the whole time magic thing and I became less sure of where they were going with it and then we got a dad and I realized our character was basically a kid. Goddamnit, you almost had it Japan.

 

On 10/24/2019 at 9:30 PM, Acacia Sgt said:

Hmm, sounds like an interesting idea. Personally, in addition to this, I'd keep Byleth around, enrolling into the school and just being one more student. Would've been interesting if role-wise Byleth was mostly unchanged outside not being a teacher; but Jeralt was still the protagonist and PoV character. Kinda like Hector in his mode in Blazing Blade.

Alternatively, his death could be kept. Since they took one idea from Genealogy, they could've taken another and have Jeralt and Byleth be another Sigurd and Seliph situation.

This would be honestly terrible for me, no offense. I can accept or even enjoy this character when they're the one I'm choosing dialogue for, but his archetype as an NPC would be unbearable.

 

 

Now I won't pretend it'd be popular or even the best option but. I'd completely cut the divinity aspect of it, Byleth already has the most important crest in history, he doesn't need to be literally Jesus on top of it. Sothis can exist as a character still by simply rewriting that in rare cases echoes of the dragon the crest descended from can communicate/share echoes of memories and feelings with their bearers, like how dragons could possess humans through their relics in FE4 or Tiki and Nah could speak with Naga. This would tie in the Flayn/Lindhart support of crests affecting personality. Elements of Jeralt and Byleth could be combined into a more composite character, they'd have more of an established personality, be fully voiced, and players could still make certain choices or refine their personality within this scope. As a bonus despite the sacrifice of Jeralt, you could keep Sothis throughout the whole game and the changing hair color could be due to your character essentially burning them self out channeling Sothis' power (what I originally thought was happening) turning from a dark green to light green to near Nemesis white. The story could be rewritten to have Solon's spell be the vehicle for the timeskip, so that he doesn't come off as completely incompetent and pointless. Rhea would of course need to be almost completely rewritten, but I think this could be to her benefit as well. It wouldn't have to be all of this, you can pick and choose what fits your personal "perfect game" best but its difficult to start changing or removing characters without falling into needing to rewrite the whole story.

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