The narrative problems with Wire

[Whisky]

At the beginning of Hector Mode, Hector is trying to sneak out of the castle without telling Uther. At the same time, on the same day, Black Fang Assassins led by Wire attempt to kill him. That’s pretty coincidental timing. What if they showed up after Hector left? Why did Nergal want Hector killed anyway? How did he even know who Hector was at this point? Hector is the younger brother of the Marquess of Ostia. Wouldn’t it make more sense to target Uther? Wire works directly for Nergal, by the way. When he dies he says “forgive me... Lord ... Nergal”. Why is Nergal directly giving orders to low ranking Black Fangs instead of going through Sonia? And why does Nergal want Hector killed enough to directly order a Black Fang to kill him, but not enough to actually get someone other than such an incompetent and low ranking member?

Wire’s assassination attempt was a complete failure. Hector realizes the first assassin is hiding and kills him before he has a chance to try anything. Wire and the rest of the squad are in other rooms waiting for Hector to try to leave. Hector could have called for the guards at this point. Did Wire know that Hector was too stubborn to call for guards? What a failure of an assassin. Wait, why is an assassin wearing heavy armour? Oh, he’s trying to sneak into Castle Ostia which is known for its Armour Knights, so he’s wearing the armour as a disguise to sneak in. That makes sense right? Well the disguise completely failed because Hector immediately kills the first assailant and never thinks that Wire is a Castle guard.

Later on in the Pirate Ship chapter, Hector says that he was attacked by “dark roped” guys. So apparently the armour wasn’t a disguise. Their dark robes still made them stand out. Why are assassins wearing clothes that make them stand out enough for Hector to remember seeing similar clothes from the enemies several chapter later? And this brings us back to:

 

Why was Wire, an assassin, wearing heavy armour? Why was he such a failure? And why did Nergal directly order him to kill Hector?

Does any of this make sense?

[Hanes]

FE7's story just doesn't make sense. The end.

[Shadow Mir]

Nergal is trying to start a war in Lycia for the sake of obtaining quintessence at that point. Killing Hector (or even failing to do so) would probably cause Ostia to declare war if they found out about it.

Edited April 12, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Benice]

Why can people heal with staves? Why can a scholar use dark magic and ROFL stomp the game?

In all seriousness, I see what you're saying, but FE isn't supposed to be an accurate depiction of warfare; if it were, FE7 wouldn't exist in the way we know it.

[Florete]

Wire exists so a battle can happen.

[eclipse]

My guess:

1. The assassin really was wearing dark robes, but for the sake of gameplay, he's an armor knight.
2. I don't think Wire had to work directly with Nergal for his death quote.  Maybe Wire saw Nergal as his master, but he was actually some grunt-or-other in realtiy, and Nergal didn't know he existed.  Kind of like how soldiers will swear fealty to a king, without the king knowing/ordering them personally.
3. As for why?  To give Hector an excuse to GTFO.

[The Roger The Paladin]

1 minute ago, eclipse said:

My guess:

1. The assassin really was wearing dark robes, but for the sake of gameplay, he's an armor knight.
2. I don't think Wire had to work directly with Nergal for his death quote.  Maybe Wire saw Nergal as his master, but he was actually some grunt-or-other in realtiy, and Nergal didn't know he existed.  Kind of like how soldiers will swear fealty to a king, without the king knowing/ordering them personally.
3. As for why?  To give Hector an excuse to GTFO.

4. Wire is a moron who did no recon in his haste to please his masters, and forgot that his armor was distinct when he used it for a disguise. Possibly related to Martel from FE6. Or...

6 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Nergal is trying to start a war in Lycia for the sake of obtaining quintessence at that point. Killing Hector (or even failing to do so) would probably cause Ostia to declare war if they found out about it.

Perhaps the armor was deliberate to make it clear an enemy faction tried to kill Hector. Success was never part of the plan, and Wire was dumb enough to be deemed disposable. War starts. Quintessence harvest. Plot derailed by the fact Hector is pig-headed enough to try and deal with it without Uther's knowledge.

[Whisky]

16 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

FE7's story just doesn't make sense. The end.

This is true.

13 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Nergal is trying to start a war in Lycia for the sake of obtaining quintessence at that point. Killing Hector (or even failing to do so) would probably cause Ostia to declare war if they found out about it.

That’s actually a surprisingly good explanation. So theoretically, if Hector did call the guards, it might have started a war? Why wasn’t Wire working for Ephidel though instead of Nergal? And did finding the bodies not start the war?

13 minutes ago, Benice said:

Why can people heal with staves? Why can a scholar use dark magic and ROFL stomp the game?

In all seriousness, I see what you're saying, but FE isn't supposed to be an accurate depiction of warfare; if it were, FE7 wouldn't exist in the way we know it.

I don’t think that’s fair. Healing Staves can exist. They only become a problem when we have a scene of someone injured and no one tried to heal him... which does happen at least once.

And Canas is just a badass.

13 minutes ago, Florete said:

Wire exists so a battle can happen.

This is probably true.

13 minutes ago, eclipse said:

My guess:

1. The assassin really was wearing dark robes, but for the sake of gameplay, he's an armor knight.
2. I don't think Wire had to work directly with Nergal for his death quote.  Maybe Wire saw Nergal as his master, but he was actually some grunt-or-other in realtiy, and Nergal didn't know he existed.  Kind of like how soldiers will swear fealty to a king, without the king knowing/ordering them personally.
3. As for why?  To give Hector an excuse to GTFO.

1. That works, but it’s weird.

2. You think so? How much of a presence did Nergal have on the Black Fang exactly? Brenden was still the leader and Sonia was the one manipulating him. So Nergal would have appeared to be a mid level Black Fang member, if anyone knew about him? I kind of thought his existence wasn’t known to most of the Black Fang. I guess some people definitely knew.

3. yay! Excuses! Good job writers!

10 minutes ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

4. Wire is a moron who did no recon in his haste to please his masters, and forgot that his armor was distinct when he used it for a disguise. Possibly related to Martel from FE6. Or...

Just an incompetent failure. What did Martel do that was similar?

10 minutes ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

Perhaps the armor was deliberate to make it clear an enemy faction tried to kill Hector. Success was never part of the plan, and Wire was dumb enough to be deemed disposable. War starts. Quintessence harvest. Plot derailed by the fact Hector is pig-headed enough to try and deal with it without Uther's knowledge.

This could explain it. I mean, I doubt the writers put as much thought into as you, but it works lol.

Wouldn’t the corpses raise some questions though?

[The Roger The Paladin]

15 minutes ago, Whisky said:

Just an incompetent failure. What did Martel do that was similar?

Martel has the "brilliant" plan in the Ilia chapter 18 to have Niime use an ancient spell to control the weather, which she specifically tells him might not function as he intends, to flood the rivers to push back Roy's advance. Except it freezes the rivers in the map instead because just like Niime warned might happen before he THREATENED her, the one person capable of using the spell into using it anyway (which could have stopped him from making such an ass out of himself if she refused and he followed through on the threat). But regardless, Niime gets blamed and imprisoned in the dungeon assuring she switches sides, the frozen rivers make it easier to advance, he gets completely wrecked, whines he is "too brilliant to die". To add insult to injury, the fact is the way his castle is positioned, if the rivers flooded it would probably have been hit too. I mean, look at the map.

15 minutes ago, Whisky said:

Wouldn’t the corpses raise some questions though?

I'm not sure why. I mean, unless they were all morphs, and even then it's not like forensics would be a big deal in a feudal society. Odds are they'd just get buried and associated with whoever it was blamed on. Likely Laus and co, given they were already being used to set up that war, which would have been on a larger scale than what the various protagonists waged on Nergal.

 

Edited April 12, 2020 by The Roger The Paladin

[Whisky]

4 minutes ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

Martel has the "brilliant" plan in the Ilia chapter 18 to have Niime use an ancient spell to control the weather, which she specifically tells him might not function as he intends, to flood the rivers to push back Roy's advance. Except it freezes the rivers in the map instead because just like Niime warned might happen before he THREATENED her, the one person capable of using the spell into using it anyway (which could have stopped him from making such an ass out of himself if she refused and he followed through on the threat). But regardless, Niime gets blamed and imprisoned in the dungeon assuring she switches sides, the frozen rivers make it easier to advance, he gets completely wrecked, whines he is "too brilliant to die". To add insult to injury, the fact is the way his castle is positioned, if the rivers flooded it would probably have been hit too. I mean, look at the map.

Well it could be explained that he had no other choice but to risk the spell back firing. Roy was going to defeat him regardless otherwise. However, that’s contradicted by him being confident rather than desperate. He also blames Niime instead of taking responsibility. I kind of thought that she knew what she was doing and purposeful froze the river. I thought the only reason she tells him it might backfire is to have an excuse for when she purposely freezes the river. Maybe I interpreted that event wrong.

Anyway, I’m sure we can find a lot of bosses that make mistakes due to being overly cocky. Doesn’t Narshen fit this too?

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Uther was sick for the entirety of the game's events, I think. Maybe the Black Fang were aware of his illness (maybe even caused it? They seem to have little trouble breaching the defenses at any stage of the story), so killing the next in line while the current leader is on death's door is a pretty great way to make the emergency-installed leader of the nation's largest military power start some petty conflict and create some quintessence. That's my best guess anyway.

[The Roger The Paladin]

2 minutes ago, Whisky said:

Well it could be explained that he had no other choice but to risk the spell back firing. Roy was going to defeat him regardless otherwise. However, that’s contradicted by him being confident rather than desperate. He also blames Niime instead of taking responsibility. I kind of thought that she knew what she was doing and purposeful froze the river. I thought the only reason she tells him it might backfire is to have an excuse for when she purposely freezes the river. Maybe I interpreted that event wrong.

Anyway, I’m sure we can find a lot of bosses that make mistakes due to being overly cocky. Doesn’t Narshen fit this too?

Given the spell is most likely similar to a tome or stave, I kind of imagine it'd have a set effect. It's entirely possible Niime knew what effect it'd be though. Either way, I can't take a guy who insists he's too brilliant to die while coming up with a plan that, to be honest, was dubious at best. If he were portrayed as panicked, I'd feel sorry for him, but the confidence makes me laugh at him any chance I get (so whenever a boss has a bad idea)

Bosses do have a way with that. Narcian/Narshen's name being seemingly derived from narcissist makes him an ideal candidate for believing he's better than he is.

Reading a certain Berwick Saga Ironman LP lately, I was introduced to Disaad... who is so cocky he didn't bother to have his weapon (a rather powerful orb, which is the equivalent to a tome), instead having a minion deliver it. While this could be justified by him being caught offguard, he's so far behind enemy lines when this happens it's hard to believe this was anything but a severe case of misjudgement. Plus he completely acts like he's in control if you stop said minion reaching him and attack his now weaponless, and harmless self.

Then there's the fact Roro/Legion lets his some of his doubles use the devil axe (though this might just be because of how the assassins were raised), resulting in a fond memory from my first time through New Mystery where one suicided on enemy phase. Which was hilarious because of the way he jumped back in the standard berserker animation to his starting point before doing a fade-out and establishing the Devil Axe curse as my single favourite thing in the series.

[Icelerate]

Hector is Ostian and the Black Fang was working with Laus to eventually overthrow Ostia so killing a major figure like Hector would weaken Ostia. 

[eclipse]

7 hours ago, Whisky said:

1. That works, but it’s weird.

2. You think so? How much of a presence did Nergal have on the Black Fang exactly? Brenden was still the leader and Sonia was the one manipulating him. So Nergal would have appeared to be a mid level Black Fang member, if anyone knew about him? I kind of thought his existence wasn’t known to most of the Black Fang. I guess some people definitely knew.

3. yay! Excuses! Good job writers!

An armored knight is something that Matthew can't scratch, but Wolf Beil can make short work of.  That's what I meant by gameplay.

Perhaps Wire answered to someone who answered to Ephidel.

[Paper Jam]

And did finding the bodies not start the war?

Who says anyone found the bodies? Hector and Matthew were trying to make their exit as stealthy as possible; they might have buried the bodies of Wire and his agents.

[Whisky]

On 4/12/2020 at 1:40 PM, Glennstavos said:

Uther was sick for the entirety of the game's events, I think. Maybe the Black Fang were aware of his illness (maybe even caused it? They seem to have little trouble breaching the defenses at any stage of the story), so killing the next in line while the current leader is on death's door is a pretty great way to make the emergency-installed leader of the nation's largest military power start some petty conflict and create some quintessence. That's my best guess anyway.

Yeah, that’s not a bad theory. Maybe they were planing on blaming Laus for hiring Wire.

 

On 4/12/2020 at 4:17 PM, Icelerate said:

Hector is Ostian and the Black Fang was working with Laus to eventually overthrow Ostia so killing a major figure like Hector would weaken Ostia. 

Their plan wasn’t to overthrow Ostia. It ways just to create a war to gather quintessence. Weakening Ostia might have caused the war to go for longer though which could create more quintessence. Otherwise, Ostia might be able to put Laus’ rebellion down easily without creating much quintessence.

 

On 4/12/2020 at 8:25 PM, eclipse said:

An armored knight is something that Matthew can't scratch, but Wolf Beil can make short work of.  That's what I meant by gameplay.

Perhaps Wire answered to someone who answered to Ephidel.

Most bosses are a class that makes sense for them though. Gameplay wise, it makes sense to fight an Armour Knight here, but it would been cooler if they could have made it for the plot a little better. I like my theory of him wearing armour to blend in with Ostia’s Armour Knights in order to sneak into the castle, but the dialogue unfortunately doesn’t support that theory.

Yeah, it seems like Ephidel was the acting leader of all the Black Fang’s actions in Lycia, so it makes sense that he would be involved in some way.

 

On 4/15/2020 at 10:31 AM, Paper Jam said:

 

Who says anyone found the bodies? Hector and Matthew were trying to make their exit as stealthy as possible; they might have buried the bodies of Wire and his agents.

Unfortunately the dialogue doesn’t support that. Immoderately after the battle, Matthew states that the guards must have heard the battle and they need to leave quickly to get seen.

 

On 4/12/2020 at 1:43 PM, The Roger The Paladin said:

Given the spell is most likely similar to a tome or stave, I kind of imagine it'd have a set effect. It's entirely possible Niime knew what effect it'd be though. Either way, I can't take a guy who insists he's too brilliant to die while coming up with a plan that, to be honest, was dubious at best. If he were portrayed as panicked, I'd feel sorry for him, but the confidence makes me laugh at him any chance I get (so whenever a boss has a bad idea)

Bosses do have a way with that. Narcian/Narshen's name being seemingly derived from narcissist makes him an ideal candidate for believing he's better than he is.

Reading a certain Berwick Saga Ironman LP lately, I was introduced to Disaad... who is so cocky he didn't bother to have his weapon (a rather powerful orb, which is the equivalent to a tome), instead having a minion deliver it. While this could be justified by him being caught offguard, he's so far behind enemy lines when this happens it's hard to believe this was anything but a severe case of misjudgement. Plus he completely acts like he's in control if you stop said minion reaching him and attack his now weaponless, and harmless self.

Then there's the fact Roro/Legion lets his some of his doubles use the devil axe (though this might just be because of how the assassins were raised), resulting in a fond memory from my first time through New Mystery where one suicided on enemy phase. Which was hilarious because of the way he jumped back in the standard berserker animation to his starting point before doing a fade-out and establishing the Devil Axe curse as my single favourite thing in the series.

Yeah, I agree with that. They could have portrayed him as desperate but they didn’t. He was cocky instead so ends up as somewhat of a joke when he fails.

Yeah, Narshen is a great example.

Sounds strange. I assume there’s no reason as to why he didn’t have his weapon besides being lazy or cocky? It definitely does seem like he should be panicked if you fight him without his weapon. Aion in FE7 is similar to this too. His battle quote is about summoning Thunder to destroy his enemies, but it’s weird when he says this while instead the Magic Seal’s effect. I’ve always found it weird that his battle quote isn’t more panicked if you fight him when the Magic Seal is still there.

I haven’t played that game but it sounds like a fun moment. Depending on dialogue, I would say this might be more of culture thing like you said rather than being overconfident. Being willing to take a risk to win a fight is different from being cocky, but I’d say it depends on how he acts.