Book IV Official Speculation & Discussion Thread

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, Mercakete said:

@Interdimensional Observer

Just wanted to say that I appreciate the spoiler tags. Though I've never played Bravely Default (apart from the demo) that doesn't mean I don't want to play it. Time and money and all that, you know?

You're welcome! 

I honestly was going back and forth about what and how to post what I wanted to say, and I finally decided putting it in spoilers would be for the best. Even if the game isn't the newest thing around.

I hope the two Bravely games get ported eventually. I would like to think there are plans for a third game, and since it'd be a direct sequel to the other two, porting Bravely Default and Bravely Second would be a good idea.

[DefyingFates]

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

You're welcome! 

I honestly was going back and forth about what and how to post what I wanted to say, and I finally decided putting it in spoilers would be for the best. Even if the game isn't the newest thing around.

I hope the two Bravely games get ported eventually. I would like to think there are plans for a third game, and since it'd be a direct sequel to the other two, porting Bravely Default and Bravely Second would be a good idea.

I agree with @Mercakete, thank you for your consideration! The internet needs more folk like you, who decide it's better to be safe than sorry 🙂

[Humanoid]

It was only a few years ago that I impulse-bought a 3DS and asked for a few game recommendations. I ended up with Fire Emblem Awakening and Bravely Default. Obviously the Awakening choice turned out to be a good one, or I wouldn't be here posting this. However try as I might I just couldn't get into Bravely Default at all. Oh well, one out of two ain't bad I suppose.

[Sentinel07]

4 hours ago, Humanoid said:

It was only a few years ago that I impulse-bought a 3DS and asked for a few game recommendations. I ended up with Fire Emblem Awakening and Bravely Default. Obviously the Awakening choice turned out to be a good one, or I wouldn't be here posting this. However try as I might I just couldn't get into Bravely Default at all. Oh well, one out of two ain't bad I suppose.

Tried Bravely Default and Bravely Second myself. Fun games though hard as hell for me. I actually was never able to beat Second. 😄

 

[daisy jane]

16 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

You're welcome! 

I honestly was going back and forth about what and how to post what I wanted to say, and I finally decided putting it in spoilers would be for the best. Even if the game isn't the newest thing around.

I hope the two Bravely games get ported eventually. I would like to think there are plans for a third game, and since it'd be a direct sequel to the other two, porting Bravely Default and Bravely Second would be a good idea.

 

there was talk about a third, and I think it's still there but I think Octopath kinda took overthat instead? 

but i do get it especially with the dream within a dream. 

 

Spoiler

if Peony ends up like Airy that would be the best. twist. ever. 

 

7 hours ago, Sentinel07 said:

Tried Bravely Default and Bravely Second myself. Fun games though hard as hell for me. I actually was never able to beat Second. 😄

 

Me either. I never got into 2nd as much as the 1st one. but yeah very difficult. 

like all book chapters (well you know the third because that's when i really got into it) - i am very intrigued about what is going to happen. I do feel Peony compared to like Eir and Fjorm sooo perky is freaks me out lol

[DefyingFates]

2 hours ago, daisy jane said:

I do feel Peony compared to like Eir and Fjorm sooo perky is freaks me out lol

You're worried because she's so positive? It is a first isn't it, having someone so upbeat? No wonder she's holding hands with Sharena on the poster xD

Edit: I had a look at the datamine today and noticed that (possible spoiler?):

Spoiler

Triandra has sprites for being happy and scared. Hopefully it means we'll see some development to the antagonists this time, as we did with Book 3, Laegjarn and Helbindi?

They could just as easily be meaningless or a bunch of placeholder sprites, of course, but I still thought they were worth mentioning. I have to say, though...

Spoiler

given how sad Triandra is in her default arts, she definitely invokes "When She Smiles" when she does so, but I'll reserve judgement on whether this is worth noting or not for after we actually learn something about her beyond these first impressions.

 

Edited December 10, 2019 by DefyingFates

[Mercakete]

@DefyingFates

I definitely feel like Tiandra has growth planned for her, just because she's being characterized as one who has lost her hope. If it's lost, then something happened to make it lost, and it's entirely possible to find it again, especially if the main heroes (Peony and Sharena) are so gosh darn upbeat and hopeful. Like always, we're going to wind up making friends with the baddies, I'm sure, partially because Sharena's M.O. is "make friends with every hero ever" and partially because IS are all "we gave these guys unique designs and stats and personalities so some people will want to summon them so they'll get to summon them because that's what FEH is all about: giving you access to every FE character ever!....eventually!"

[DefyingFates]

4 hours ago, Mercakete said:

I definitely feel like Tiandra has growth planned for her, just because she's being characterized as one who has lost her hope.

Exactly my reasoning 😄

4 hours ago, Mercakete said:

If it's lost, then something happened to make it lost, and it's entirely possible to find it again

I didn't think this far ahead though, but I hope we do learn about her backstory. Just the fact that she looks so miserable all the time (except for a few frames of the trailer) screams that something (or a series of somethings) happened to make her that way. Especially compared to Plumeria who just looks smug in both her default art and the poster. I was expecting Peony to bring her 'round single-handedly in the end after their conversation in Chapter 2, but Sharena joining in would make sense as what tips the balance in their favor (you know, since Peony and Triandra so far appear to be equal and opposite).

If Triandra does come around though, I expect she'll just duck out of the conflict instead of switching sides, both because she's spent so much time with the Dark Elves and so that we don't get a free copy of her (boo). Basically, I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up as Book 4's Camus (and survives) with Plumeria being the sadistic one who wants to have fun at others' expense.

5 hours ago, Mercakete said:

partially because IS are all "we gave these guys unique designs and stats and personalities so some people will want to summon them so they'll get to summon them because that's what FEH is all about: giving you access to every FE character ever!....eventually!"

I don't want to name names, but there are several OCs with terrible or non-existent personalities that people still want to summon for 😛

Seriously though, I really hope we get another Lif in Triandra instead of, say, Laevatein (who I feel had so much potential that was just wasted).

[Othin]

11 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

If Triandra does come around though, I expect she'll just duck out of the conflict instead of switching sides, both because she's spent so much time with the Dark Elves and so that we don't get a free copy of her (boo).

They can do anything in the story and not give us more free OCs. They established early on that the policy is one per book.

[DefyingFates]

6 hours ago, Othin said:

They can do anything in the story and not give us more free OCs. They established early on that the policy is one per book.

That's true enough, thank you! I guess I'm still on edge after Book 2's bloodbath xD

[Sentinel07]

So yeah, we're getting Plumeria as expected in the next chapter. In fact, her art and Freyr's are already out.

https://www.4gamer.net/games/369/G036904/20200106111/

[Mercakete]

Oh my... What do these fairies have against covering their lower halves?! Please, someone give them shorts; they FLY for crying out loud!

[Sentinel07]

8 minutes ago, Mercakete said:

Oh my... What do these fairies have against covering their lower halves?! Please, someone give them shorts; they FLY for crying out loud!

Peony actually had shorts in the Book 4 trailer, though that doesn't seem to be the case with her artwork.

Guess Yoshiku doesn't care.

[Diovani Bressan]

7 hours ago, Sentinel07 said:

So yeah, we're getting Plumeria as expected in the next chapter. In fact, her art and Freyr's are already out.

https://www.4gamer.net/games/369/G036904/20200106111/

In my opinion, Freyr looks to be a staff unit... what if he is the Mythic Hero this month?

I mean, both Red and Colorless have two slots, and having a staff unit as a Dark/Anima hero wouldn't be a bad idea.

I still thinks it will be Líf, though...

[Sunwoo]

Freyr being a mythic unit already would be kind of odd, imo. I'd expect to see him once book 4 wraps up, but it would be odd to see him already. Aside from Gunnthra, whose early release might've just been a weird quirk of the developers figuring out the legendary banner, all the OCs except for the freebie were released after the book ended, weren't they?

I mean ... I guess I wouldn't complain because getting more playable male OCs is nice. It's just odd.

[Tybrosion]

Don't mind me, I'm just going to leave this here [DATAMINE SPOILERS FOR PLUMERIA]:

Spoiler

https://feheroes.gamepedia.com/Plumeria:_Lewd_Dream/Quotes

Yes, her title really is "Lewd Dream". Even I have to admit that's kinda amazing that they went there.

 

[Sunwoo]

23 minutes ago, Tybrosion said:

Don't mind me, I'm just going to leave this here [DATAMINE SPOILERS FOR PLUMERIA]:

  Reveal hidden contents

https://feheroes.gamepedia.com/Plumeria:_Lewd_Dream/Quotes

Yes, her title really is "Lewd Dream". Even I have to admit that's kinda amazing that they went there.

 

They stopped pretending that they weren't a waifu simulator

[BZL8]

Looking at Plumeria's quotes, I honestly think this is IntSys' way of lampshading the whole waifu nature of the game lol.

[Tybrosion]

13 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

They stopped pretending that they weren't a waifu simulator

Yeah, but I can at least appreciate them for this outright admission that most of the female OCs (Veronica, Ylgr and I guess Hel being the exceptions) are just waifu bait and nothing more.

[BZL8]

[SPOILERS FOR PLUMERIA]

Spoiler

Plumeria sounds like MCU Ultron getting sick of humanity's violent tendencies and proceeding to go mad: she gets sick of humanity's depravity and wishes hell on them.

 

Edited January 8, 2020 by BZL8

[XRay]

3 hours ago, Tybrosion said:

Don't mind me, I'm just going to leave this here [DATAMINE SPOILERS FOR PLUMERIA]:

  Reveal hidden contents

https://feheroes.gamepedia.com/Plumeria:_Lewd_Dream/Quotes

Yes, her title really is "Lewd Dream". Even I have to admit that's kinda amazing that they went there.

 

I love it. She sounds amazing! Maybe I am turning into a masochist.

And her title is perfect for someone like me.

[DefyingFates]

5 hours ago, Tybrosion said:

Veronica, Ylgr being the exceptions

How I wish you were right about that...

I'm pretty darn upset about Plumeria's epithet and dialogue. She's portrayed as being sick to death of what she's dealing with, but it doesn't change the fact that the same people she's designed to appeal to are the same ones who are just going to see her revealing outfit and crude title and call it a day. IS can pretend that she's a subversion of the "blatant fanservice" archetype but it doesn't change the fact that she's just another Loki. Her voice lines don't help matters. Again, they're a bit more jaded, but they're still just as suggestive as the stuff Loki and others of her ilk come up with.

On the other hand, I was a tad worried about Loki come CYL. At least now I know her "fanbase" will be split between her and Plumeria...

[GrandeRampel]

2 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

I'm pretty darn upset about Plumeria's epithet and dialogue. She's portrayed as being sick to death of what she's dealing with, but it doesn't change the fact that the same people she's designed to appeal to are the same ones who are just going to see her revealing outfit and crude title and call it a day. IS can pretend that she's a subversion of the "blatant fanservice" archetype but it doesn't change the fact that she's just another Loki. Her voice lines don't help matters. Again, they're a bit more jaded, but they're still just as suggestive as the stuff Loki and others of her ilk come up with.

As far as I heard her japanese lines are a bit more explicit about her hate for humanity and what she has to deal with.

I for one think that her character is really interesting because it's basically the trope of the "succubus that treats her jobs as a regular job" which is rather common in anime, with the "I hate my job" variant, which is far less common.

The problem is that I can't see IS using her to her full potential in-universe and out-of-universe too.

In-universe we have a trend of FEH introducing supernatural beings that rule over aspects of reality (Hel rules over death, Thorr rules over war, Loki rules over deception/illusions, Peony rules over happy dreams, Triandra over unhappy ones, and now Plumeria rules over wet dreams) and an easy to understand motivation for the villain to distrust humanity (honestly if I had to deal with Lachesis' dreams about her brother, Valter's dreams about S&M with Eirika, Oliver's dreams about birds and... Nina... I would assume the worst when meeting any human too), but a motivation that can be easily resolved to make her a good guy in the end.

In her description it says that she wants to quit her job but she can't. The only reason I can think of is that the main villain of the book is forcing her. If we simply kill them, Plumeria becomes free and I guess someone else will have to take her place, or people will simply stop having lewd dreams. I doubt she would care either way. Or she could just die, and we summon her from another dimension before she died.

But either way I don't trust IS to use her in any meaningful way during the story, because of the dozens of OCs that they wasted already. Veronica and Alfonse are the only two that were treated well, and the jury is still out about Loki since we got some interesting clues about her true nature sprinkled here and there that make my "plot predicting" senses tingle and theorize that she might end up being the true final boss of this game in her true form, or at the very least the "Starscream" of the story. But beside these three, all the other OCs scream wasted potential, and even if by some miracle this book is way better written than the others, she will probably get less screentime than Peony and Triandra. The best she can hope for is to become the Helbindi of this book and not the Thrasir of this book.

Out-of-universe her character is meant to be a joke at our expense.

"Haha, players be horny. They spend a lot of orbs to get their Summer Lyn, Hot Spring Ryoma and Spring Loki. You perverts, we know the reason why LOL!" - IS, probably.

Now, comedy is subjective. I find the joke funny, someone who is a big prude, or a SERIOUS FIRE EMBLEM FAN who only plays to build a perfect team with characters such as Hardin or Tibarn and uses the seasonals as fodder probably wouldn't find it so funny, but rather frustrating.

But the point is that I think IS plans to use Plumeria and her alts just for the sake of funny lines and situations, and not as a serious character. Because if they take her problems too seriously they might hurt their own business model. What if some players realize that it isn't swell that so many characters are forced to wear outfits that make them uncomfortable (see Summer Noire) and stop spending money to pull?

We can't risk that. Let's make Bride Plumeria instead and give her lines about how she would never marry a human because we are all disgusting.

Unless... maybe some humans are not complete perverts. What if summoner not pervert? What if summoner treats Plumeria good? OwO

I'm just making this up, but watch as it actually happens in 2021.

Plumeria isn't the kind of character that's doomed by design. You can take everything we just learned about her and build an excellent character arc out of it. But I doubt the developers want to do that, or are competent enough to do that, or both.

But if the fanbase ends up really loving her she could become "fixed by fanon". Come on Fanfic writers, it's in your hands now.

 

Edited January 8, 2020 by GrandeRampel

[DefyingFates]

6 minutes ago, GrandeRampel said:

But I doubt the developers want to do that, or are competent enough to do that, or both.

This is the part that worries me, aside from what I said about the fanbase being too "base" to see past her appearance. She could be really interesting and subversive, but most of her fans will just be there for the fanservice and eventually IS is just going to double down on that aspect of her (if the whole concept of Plumeria isn't them doing that already).

[GrandeRampel]

Speaking of another issue brought by Plumeria's inclusion. For how much we rant about how perverted and lewd this game is, in reality it always stops itself from going too far.

The poses can get suggestive, but never to the point of actually resembling sexual acts, and the outfits (even the bath towels) always cover the important bits well.

The dialogue, assuming you are really thick-headed or an actual child, isn't that sexual. Camilla just likes baths guys, what's wrong with taking baths? And what's wrong if she likes to show affection to her siblings? Lots of people do. The line about bunnies isn't explicit at all. It's not Loki's fault if you have a dirty mind and inmediatly think about reproduction.

But Plumeria... she is straight up a succubus in-universe. There's no misunderstanding it, she's here to remind us that people get horny even in the Fire Emblem universe. How often does that happen? I remember Silvia flashing her breasts and Narcian wanting to "have fun" with Clarine, but I don't think we have ever got to this level of bluntness before.

Should we start worrying?