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Unraveled analyzes, improves, and then destroys Fire Emblem Archetypes


Zapp Branniglenn
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Brian David Gilbert (AKA Hanneman Lite) sets off on a quest to redefine character archetypes into something more manageable in his Commedia 'Dell Anime. But things don't go quite as planned. Nonetheless I hope you all take the time to study up on these as there will be a quiz later.

What's your favorite new Fire Emblem Archetypes? Mine are Narc, Cain Siblings Inc, and Comrade. 

Edited by Glennstavos
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I thought the pronunciations would be awful, but for the most part he was good. Vaike was bad, but otherwise there weren't any flaws.

Although there were, other issues.

Sothe is an Oifey apparently, even though he falls off immediately after Part 1 ends, never to get back to being good unless you invest way too much into him, or get extremely lucky. They don't list Marcus as an Oifey, which like sure, repeat appearances are weird but come on man. Finn is also not listed for Oifeys or Jagens, which he should be under since FE5. (They also used young Oifey's artwork which like, sure you could use that but it feels a little disingenuous) 

His explanation of Gotohs is also kinda bad. The whole archetype is that it's an OP boss murderer that you get near the end of the game in case you really fucked up.

Is Chuaninn the official english name of Holyn, or however that's spelled? Just feels wrong man.

The explanation of the Villain archetypes also kinda suck. Camus's are fine, but "Power" and "Ambition" could mean virtually the same thing. Also not saying that a key trait of Minervas is that they're playable, that's iffy. I get that it's just one 15 minute video, but it's about archetypes for christ's sake.

The people they left out on the Est chart is just questionable. Nino is an infamous Est, and calling Jesse an Est is kinda stretching it. I'd call him an Ogma or Navarre before I'd call him an Est. 

Also he didn't include the entirety of the Three Houses cast in the Villager Archetype how could he. Although for real he left Tobin out. I get leaving Gray (Grey?) out, but Tobin?

Luchar and Lucharaba hurt me with how bad they are, but same thing with Chuaninn.

Putting Quan and Sigurd as Corneliuses just feels wrong to me. Like, they're both main characters in their own rights, I'd say they have a much more important spot than to limit them with that label.

Wasn't Kris a tactician, or wasn't he called Marth's tactician? Besides that, the omission of Mark is odd. He ain't much of a character, but there's more there than most of the Archenea cast.

That thieves list is horrifically short. None of the FE6 thieves, no Gaius, no young Sothe (this is why not splitting up characters based on the game is dumb since they can change archetypes between them), ect.

I'd probably include Nah, maybe Kana, in the Tiki list

Some of those additions when he combines the archetypes really feel like they should've just been there to begin with, or also don't make any sense. Starting with the "Bad Folks gone Good", which is just a terrible name that only fits the Camus archetype to an extent. Like, Bruno probably should just be in the Camus archetype, and Rinkah/Rinea shouldn't even be there. Why the fuck is Finn in the "Cain Siblings Inc." section, that is not where he should be in the slightest. Yoder should be in "Mentors", not "Diamonds in the Rough", and Say'ri should be in "Spicy Swords". Why is Nolan with "Mentors", just why? Also a large chunk of "Spicy Swords" should've just been in the "Navarre" category in the first place. And why some characters were kept out of "Linde" or "Maria" but are now in "Magic Babies" is just perplexing. 

Then we get into the massive amounts of Archetypes, and like, even I have a life so I'm not gonna do as in-depth analysis into this because I want to still have my sanity.

Who the hell is Ralf? This isn't even a criticism I'm just curious.

Hrid shouldn't be in "Loyal Knights", he's a prince for Christ's sake. I don't blame Brian for forgetting that, Hrid is such a non-character that it's hard to remember a thing about him other than that he looks like Ninja, but come on man. This entire category has some more issues but I'm just not gonna bring those up.

The ones based on general summations of their personalities feel weird, but ultimately there's nothing wrong with them,

The "Blank Slate" category feels like a cop-out. Characters in there could've totally gone elsewhere, like Dalsin whose only major character trait is that he has a sister, so he could've gone in the sibling section, or Artur, who is totally a Merric, or Barst, who should've just gone with the Axe Boys, or Astolfo, who should've been with the thieves and also totally isn't a Blank Slate since he is literally the best thief in that game. Also Nanna probably should've gone with Lena's.

The "Thembo" category is just confusing to me, I don't get it.

The main issue with some of these is that many characters fall into multiple of these archetypes. Like Forde is a classic Cain and Able archetype, but is also a Painter, and Lazy. So now it just feels like Brian put them in categories randomly so that each category felt like it had more that 3 characters unless it's comedically viable for them to have less than 3.

Also the listing of characters by alphabetical order instead of by game order was annoying, especially for the linked characters. Like, I know which characters belong together, but the average non-weebs won't. But even then, it made it so much harder to actually analyze his lists because I couldn't see if anyone was missing with a quick glance since they aren't ordered by game. I could look and see "Wow, Marcus isn't between Oifey and Seth, that's weird" instead of "Welp, gotta analyze this whole thing". And sure, for that it's easy but if you don't remember ever character exactly, then the ordering would help with that.

I really like Unraveled, and this is a fun episode, but geez it just falls apart under closer inspection.

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Many of the antagonistic archetypes stay villainous, so bad folks gone good didn't really work and would be better as "good folks gone bad." Outside from that, it was funny.

2 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

Putting Quan and Sigurd as Corneliuses just feels wrong to me. Like, they're both main characters in their own rights, I'd say they have a much more important spot than to limit them with that label.

 

Calf, Leif's grandpa, felt more like the Cornelius type to me, we get a little bit on him but he doesn't live long.

2 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

Wasn't Kris a tactician, or wasn't he called Marth's tactician? Besides that, the omission of Mark is odd. He ain't much of a character, but there's more there than most of the Archenea cast.

No Kris was never a tactician. It was always Malledeus or Jagen.

2 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

Some of those additions when he combines the archetypes really feel like they should've just been there to begin with, or also don't make any sense. Starting with the "Bad Folks gone Good", which is just a terrible name that only fits the Camus archetype to an extent

"Good folks gone bad" fits far better, as almost none of those characters side with the protagonists.

2 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

Why the fuck is Finn in the "Cain Siblings Inc." section, that is not where he should be in the slightest.

Error I'd assume.

2 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

Why is Nolan with "Mentors

Its a slight stretch, but remember he is technically the leader of the Dawn Brigade.

2 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

Who the hell is Ralf? This isn't even a criticism I'm just curious.

The perfect filler unit in Thracia 776, read about him here.

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21 minutes ago, DarthR0xas said:

Is Chuaninn the official english name of Holyn, or however that's spelled? Just feels wrong man.

Coo-hoo-lin. Hear the old name in the pronunciation?

Although Dictionary.com gives a second viable pronunciation.

Cu Chulainn is the name of the Celtic mythological hero who used the spear Gae Bolg. He was not a minotaur though, contrary to the above use of his name, but he did drive a chariot in the original myths.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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Since we clearly have issues with how this list was handled, how about we seek to improve it and make these archetypes an actual thing? With the "official ones" like Cain and Abel as sub categories within a broad category or something?

It's still silly to me that we have tons of FE characters not listed in any archetypes. 

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1 hour ago, Emperor Hardin said:

The perfect filler unit in Thracia 776, read about him here.

Oh, Ralph. I'm used to another spelling, that threw me off. Thanks

1 hour ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Its a slight stretch, but remember he is technically the leader of the Dawn Brigade.

I guess, but even then I wouldn't really call him a mentor to the group.

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Coo-hoo-lin. Hear the old name in the pronunciation?

Although Dictionary.com gives a second viable pronunciation.

Ah, ok. Now I can hear/see it. Thanks

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@DarthR0xas I know its been answered but honestly your better off winging things when it comes to Genealogy names since they are mostly Irish name inspired and those are known to be a mess

 

The one example i can think off is Othin. Othin, Oirsin, and Osian all means the exact same shit so theres legitimately no reason to say one is better than the others. Another is Ulster who was Skashasher, which is also Scathatch.

Only a few Irish names have simplistic shift like Fionn --> Finn. Its actually kind of amusing how Finn never get named Fionn in any translation FE4 ever had
 

@Emperor Hardin With how blatant it is that FE4 part 1 is based on FE3(you know, like.... the entire fucking series is based on FE3. FE4 just did it more blatantly) i think its fair to call Quan and Sigurd as Cornelius since if you view it based on SelLeif viewpoint they ARE Cornelius. Quan is obviously partially Jagen - its even said by the interview that he is at one point meant to be one.

 

You know whose a "Cornelius" that is surprisingly barely mentioned? Eyvel. Bar being playable she basically had all the notes of the trend, and Greil is like very blatantly based on her

 


As with many of these stuff a lot of archetype "broke" once you started overanalyzing it lol. Finn is "the Jagen" because its very clear hes a father figure/advisor senior knight to the main character. You can add that he's stronger than your average units(although lets be honest Thracia early units ARE deliberately overpowered due to how the game is set up) but once you go in about how "hes not a prepromote REEEEE" or "He didn't fall off REEEEE" or "Leif is more powerful early game than everyone else in reality so is Leif a Jagen REEEE" it broke.

 

To begin with Archetype is just a simplistic concepts used to shorthand stuff in, so its meant to be extremely simplistic and broad instead of overly specific. For example FE4 Finn technically is part of the Cain Abel stuff because Cain Abel is really just the FE developer ways to shorthand the concept of "In your team you have multiple Cavalier to choose from". 

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On 11/26/2019 at 1:17 AM, DarthR0xas said:

Besides that, the omission of Mark is odd. He ain't much of a character, but there's more there than most of the Archenea cast.

He was only doing playable characters, and Mark isn't a playable character.

Speaking of which,  I want to know is why Petrine is in "Bad Guys Gone Good", seeing as she doesn't join your group, and instead serves as the boss of the bridge chapter. Sure, she's playable in the Trial Maps (once you've unlocked her), but those maps aren't canon.

 

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9 hours ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Speaking of which,  I want to know is why Petrine is in "Bad Guys Gone Good", seeing as she doesn't join your group, and instead serves as the boss of the bridge chapter. Sure, she's playable in the Trial Maps (once you've unlocked her), but those maps aren't canon.

I dunno, but playability isn't really a requirement for that category. Sure, some of the ones he added are playable in some for, but reminder, it's a combination of all the villain archetypes. So, you know, the Camus's (which is basically defined around their lack of being playable), Rudolf's (Which none of them are playable), Gharnef's (Same applies to none being playable), Michalis's (You get the point), and Hardin's (Which are playable in games where they aren't the villains). I am not counting Heroes for playability, that's cheating. The only reason I can think of her only being added later is that she isn't really a major villain, and since those categories really only apply to major villains, then it's weird for her to fit in. 

I'm fully convinced he named it "Bad Guys Gone Good" so he could fit more vague Camus types in there, i.e. Renault, Rinkah, and Bruno, and just vague villains in general, i.e. Loki, Jeritza, uhhh, Aversa?

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20 hours ago, DarthR0xas said:

I dunno, but playability isn't really a requirement for that category. 

Surely the requirement is that they start off as an enemy and then join your side, something that Petrine never does?

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Wow, the ending was a surprise change for all this, I mean I didn't see him pulling that out of his hat (if he has one). But the whole work of Hanneman in this video is just as questionable as anything else in the Fire Emblem series. (like why he put Nanna between the ones who should just die in their game)

Edited by Garlyle
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I found the video very funny and decently researched for the most part.  Not going to nitpick about characters being in the wrong archetype as he has joke categories of "actually interesting" and "what the fuck". 

 

He praised the series for minimal reuse of names but missed a few playable character names like Selena and Claude.

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