Do you dislike any popular video game characters?

[Snail Racer]

4 hours ago, Anacybele said:

Oh yeah, that reminds me, I can't believe I didn't mention Felix. He's the only Blue Lion I can't stand. I just hate his attitude. Even worse, his attitude is mostly about chivalry, which I am a fan of.

  Hey, that makes two of us, although I do chuckle to many of Felix's jokes.  Regardless, I hate him for being selfishly obsessed with strength to the point of being unreasonably harsh to his kind father.  (I didn't yet reach Azure Moon's time skip, and I want to finish Azure Moon as blind as possible, so may people please avoid spoiling me on how Felix's "bond" with his father "develops"?  Thank you.)

  Also, because I hate profanity, I dislike/hate many characters whom cuss, and this tends to be common with characters from T-rated games that 8-4 localized.  This includes Chrom, Echoes Alm, Echoes Celica, and Echoes Mila; don't get me started with Berkut and localized Sully!  Speaking of Echoes Alm and Echoes Celica, because I hate public displays of love, their shamelessly lovey-dovey duo alt. in "Heroes" sealed my hatred for them.  Also, for cursing, I dislike Edelgard, Claude, and pre-time-skip Dimitri and hate Yuri, Balthus, and time-skip Dimitri!  Outside of Fire Emblem, I hate Remake Cloud, Remake Aerith, all members the playable main cast of Dragalia Lost except the two newest members (Don't spoil them without spoiler tags, please.), every character in Critical Role, seemingly every playable character in Persona 5, and more.  These characters' foul mouths make me feel uncomfortable with witnessing them grow.

  Plus, I tend to dislike characters with outfits that I dislike, and those outfits tend to be needlessly fan-servicey to me.  For instance, I dislike Altena, Ayra, and Lachesis when they're in their "canon" outfits, but I love them when they're in outfits based on their original concept art. Also, I hate adult Tiki only because her stripper-like outfit contradicts her calmness and elegance, but I'd love her if her canon outfit was an elegant dress or even an outfit like Nagi's.  However, I do love young Tiki; her fan-servicey outfit is okay to me.  Generally though, I'm reluctant to like characters whose outfits don't match their personalities to me (Nowi).  

  Now, for Pokemon. I hate Pikachu for its overexposure.  Its absence in the Unova Pokedex is partially why Gen. 5 is my favorite Gen.  Also, I don't hate Cynthia or Zinnia, but I believe that they're overrated.  In addition, I dislike Elesa when she's in her Black/White 2 outfit or her Sygna Suit, but I love her in her Black/White 1 outfit.  Lastly, I didn't dislike Jasmine at first, but hearing her say "Darn" when she loses in Pokemon Masters made me squarely dislike her because that feels a little too "vulgar" for her character considering her other quotes throughout the series.

  That's all for now.

Edited June 23, 2020 by Snail Racer
I'm correcting my grammar errors and trimming down words.

[Ottservia]

4 hours ago, Samz707 said:

I still know it's the writers but if a character consistently acts like a poorly written character. (Such as IMO Chrom.) then I tend to associate them with it.

Would you please define what a poorly written character is cause I’ve seen my fair share of poorly written characters and Chrom is far from one of them. Just because a character takes actions you personally don’t agree with that doesn’t make them poorly written. It just means you don’t like the character which is fine but far from an actual fair criticism of the writing in question.

As for the topic at hand, I’ll just say Alm simply because I don’t think he fits the story he’s a part of. The way his character is written pretty much contradicts everything his story stands for. Also I don’t care for Annette either. She’s just extremely boring and one dimensional to me. Like she’s cute and all but nothing more than that. 

[Interdimensional Observer]

38 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

and Chrom is far from one of them. Just because a character takes actions you personally don’t agree with that doesn’t make them poorly written. It just means you don’t like the character which is fine but far from an actual fair criticism of the writing in question.

Although my feelings towards him have tempered with time, I'd say you can call his "I'd never let you be sacrificed Robin, you're my frieeeeeeeend!" a serious flaw. One person for the sake of the world? There is no guarantee that Grima upon their next potential return won't conquer the world and light dies out forever. Look at your grown daughter Chrom, her world is doomed forever. Yours is only spared the same fate for now because she miraculously escaped to warn you.

Now, I don't think you'd have to get rid of this lack of character development scene altogether- Chrom acts here as pathetically emotionally over the greater good as he did with Emmeryn's leap of faith. What could've fixed this would be a separate scene, later in the night, Robin pondering what they should do. Chrom visits them and says "Sorry I was all emotional earlier, that wasn't proper behavior for a king. Listen, I want you to live, but it's your life thats on the line, not mine, live it as you see fit. If you chose to sacrifice yourself, it would be for the betterment of this world, at peace knowing Grima can never return. I'd respect that choice, my dear friend. Take your time, don't feel pressured by me. Whatever you choose, I'll stand by you to the end."

There, Chrom admits to being overly emotional, and shouted according to his heart first thing, but now he can show that he can reign it in. He has a character flaw, but he's developed to get better at managing it.

Edited June 23, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

The half Nohr cast from Fire Emblem Fates but especially Camilla and Xander. Camilla for prioritizing her appearance more than her character and Xander for being responsible for Elise's death in Birthright. Of the Avatar rounds everything up. 

Though my most disliked character is Anise Tatlin from Tales of the Abyss because she's extremely annoying, dumb and responsible for Ion's death.

[MagicCanonBalls]

Quite a few itself in FE, but that's because the cast is so big in every game. Ike, Hector, Ephraim, basically I dislike macho/hot headed protagonists. It's's fine when they are side characters who doesnt get much spotlight, but being reminded that they exist constantly is just causing me to dislike them even more. So I guess that's why it seems like you are disliking many popular charatcers, because we have much more options and access to know these characters nowadays. This is coming from someone who like the new star wars better, not a fan of Tolkien stuff, and don't like the story or gameplay of witcher series at all. Don't let it bother you, I never think that my taste in subjective matters is inferior here just because I like FE12 casts and story more than Judgral series despite getting reminded almost every where that it is weird to have such opinion.

[DarthR0xas]

It's kinda hard for me to actively dislike characters. They have to really piss me off for me to go beyond a neutral stance. There are plenty of characters I'd rather not pay much attention to, like basically the entire cast of the Archanea games, but I don't hate them. Even controversial characters like Edelgard, Camilla, or Tharja I generally keep neutral on, although I like Tharja the least of the three. There are a few characters I massively dislike, but they generally don't seem to be that popular. Faye is an obvious shoe-in since one of my favorite lords is Alm. Some people will defend her by saying that I just strawman her by saying she only has her obsession with Alm, and while I will say she does have a little more under the hood, that fucking ending just broke any sense of neutrality I could have on her. Irritated me to hell and back. Leonie is another one. Again, while she is obviously more than Jeralt worship, the fact that it's her main character trait and it frankly doesn't work put her on the side I liked less. She just always turned out bad for me. Gameplay can heavily effect my opinion on a character. It's why I love Ganondorf so much, and also why Ganon is one of my least favorite characters. He's just so fucking boring. He has none of the charm, moxy, and outward strength of Ganondorf. Ganon is just a pathetic blue pig whose corpse gets dragged around whenever Ganondorf is taking his beauty nap. Another character on the less popular side, but since she's one of the few females in KH she still has a bit of popularity, Larxene. Good fucking god Larxene. Sure she's written for you to hate her guts, but every word she utters makes me want to drive a knife down her throat. Her boss fight drove that home for me. I don't care if it's technically well designed, I still despise fighting her and hate doing it every time I get the the data org room for a playthrough.

Onto characters that appear in video games but aren't really "video game characters", but I'm still talking about them since where else would I mention it. The entire cast of Dragon Ball has just never appealed to me, unless we're in Abridged. They're just so bland and forgettable. I dislike most of them based on appearance more than anything else. Toriyama is a good artist, but I just don't really like the way his style gets animated a lot. Super's animation just looks bad imo. Other than that, I really can't think of much else off the top of my head

[Anathaco]

Hmm. I have characters I dislike, but its mainly due to irrational reasons, and I can appreciate them as characters despite that. Take Catherine, for example. I enjoy her as an example of what happens when devotion to any one cause (in this case, the Church) takes over any other redeeming aspects of her character, and her support with Ashe is great. The problem is that I'm one of the few Cyril fans, so seeing her get praise as a character while Cyril gets nothing (despite the fact that they share their character flaw and I'd argue that Cyril is more justifiable in his devotion to Rhea) kinda pisses me off. Then again I also understand that people probably like Catherine more because of gameplay, so I can't even really attribute that to why I don't like her. Now I'm not sure why I don't like her, but I still don't.

Lysithea is my other big one from 3H. She just bullies way too much of the cast for my liking, and its usually over stupid things that make her seem way more immature than she's trying to act- which is probably the point of her character, but I can't stand it.

Outside of FE... I honestly can't think of anybody.

[Samz707]

10 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Lissa is a plot important character so I'm guessing that if she falls in battle she merely retires and still appears in cutscenes. And I think that Samz was referring to anime hijinks happening after Lissa was forcefully retired from the battlefield. 

Yeah there's so many wacky anime-hi-jinks in Awakening that the game feels completely tonally disconnected with the whole fact that most characters can die.

FE7 and Echoes didn't try to be this jokey so their usually wasn't a disconnect if someone died while in Awakening there's pretty much wacky hi-jinks in most cutscenes/supports in what I was able to play. (A little after Chapter 5)

It feels more like watching a bad romantic comedy, which doesn't quite gel well with the whole "People can die at any time" thing when there's so many attempts at a joke that I'm probably more likely to get an out-of-place comedy scene just after someone got burnt to a crisp than otherwise which just serves to make it look like the characters can just brush off others die/getting crippled easily.

6 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Would you please define what a poorly written character is cause I’ve seen my fair share of poorly written characters and Chrom is far from one of them. Just because a character takes actions you personally don’t agree with that doesn’t make them poorly written. It just means you don’t like the character which is fine but far from an actual fair criticism of the writing in question.

As for the topic at hand, I’ll just say Alm simply because I don’t think he fits the story he’s a part of. The way his character is written pretty much contradicts everything his story stands for. Also I don’t care for Annette either. She’s just extremely boring and one dimensional to me. Like she’s cute and all but nothing more than that. 

For me, a character making bad choices, still has to be making bad choices that make sense in the context of the story.

Chrom doesn't

Robin is an "Able-Tactician" after the very first chapter, you know, the one where there aren't even any tile bonuses where it's just you versus a handful of dudes in an chapter that is pretty much just "Pray they don't get a crit" and uh....yeah that's the strategy pretty much, even when it was my first FE game, I was blown away at how nonsensical it was, Robin has in no way proven they're a tactician even slightly in that first battle nor does he do so in the entire first 5-ish chapters of the game.

 

That's actually a big problem in what I played of Awakening, Robin, does not ever actually display an tactical genius in what I've played, instead he displays a basic grasp, that Chrom thinks is tactical genius except it's very clearly not so Chrom just comes off as an idiot.

He's surprised at the concept of Soldiers fighting together, he leads a group of soldiers, So I find the idea that an leader of a military group who has probably recieved training, needing to be told that soldiers should fight together kinda absolutely stupid, then he goes on a weird odd tirade about how fighting together build's bonds which considering the context of that battle (Killing people at a border over a misunderstanding since I don't exactly buy that you can set a fireball to stun.) feels completely out of place and just outright bad writing, it'd feel awkward enough if we were just fighting Risen.

By Chrom's Logic, Ricken must be a near godly tactical genius for realizing that just rescuing Maribelle by  force instead of negotating with the obviously evil Gangrel who would never give her up. (Which actually only serves to make Robin, again, look like someone who isn't actually a tactical genius when they're seemingly behind in strategy to a literal child, hell if they made Robin the one with the idea of a sneak attack in the first place that would have actually made me start thinking Robin was actually a Tactician but no the literal child gets the one bit of actual strategy in the first quarter of the game.) 

Then you recruit Donnel where he does a completely stupid speech about how "A sickle isn't far from a sword" and how the "Principle is all the same.", the gameplay then proceeds to prove that Chrom is completely wrong when Donnel can be one-rounded easily by literally almost every enemy on the map so Chrom's speech that already makes no sense is proven completely wrong by the actual gameplay, which just again, makes Chrom look like an idiot who literally only was made the leader of the Shepards because of nepotism rather than any sort of skill since he so clearly lacks any skill in leading and sucks as an unit in-game. (Also for a group about protecting the innocent, good job presuading a clearly inexperienced farmer to risk death Chrom.)

 

Chrom comes off as completely incompetent at being the leader of the Shepards and just in general an obnoxious character for me, nothing he does makes sense in the context of the story for me, they're contrivances so Robin can be accepted and praised because he's the player character, they don't at all feel like anything someone would actually do or say, just contrived stupidity so we can get Robin accepted into this group that really shouldn't accept him right away as fast as possible because I guess a slow paced beginning like Lyn mode where the stakes are actually low so Robin being trusted when the stakes get serious isn't something Awakening wants to actually do.

 

Edited June 23, 2020 by Samz707

[Rapaille]

I tend to not often feel passionate about popular characters (there are exceptions but they're that for a reason) but I never actively dislike them because I can often understand why people like them. I always found it more to find out why characters appeal to people then talk about who I dislike.

That being said, I always liked female characters way less then male characters in Fire Emblem. They often feel more one-note and like they aren't allowed to be characters. I think this is because the games are made mostly by males for a generally male audience. This means that male characters tend to be more well defined because are the characters most of the player base will relate to and female characters tend to fill supporting roles (with a couple of exceptions like Micaiah & Edelgard). Even within supports I often found them lacking and often felt they lacked a well defined personality. Of course there are female characters that I like a lot but even some of those are more because of their design or qualities as a unit. Don't know how other people feel about this and maybe it's just me having a hard time relating to female characters but thought it was worth mentioning.

For other games

• Dislike Keldeo for outclassing Poliwrath as a water/fighting type in every way conceivable but don't really know how popular Keldeo is.
• All characters in Kingdom Hearts. Really like the gameplay but despise whenever the characters talk (especially Dream Drop Distance).

[Ottservia]

43 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Yeah there's so many wacky anime-hi-jinks in Awakening that the game feels completely tonally disconnected with the whole fact that most characters can die.

FE7 and Echoes didn't try to be this jokey so their usually wasn't a disconnect if someone died while in Awakening there's pretty much wacky hi-jinks in most cutscenes/supports in what I was able to play. (A little after Chapter 5)

It feels more like watching a bad romantic comedy, which doesn't quite gel well with the whole "People can die at any time" thing when there's so many attempts at a joke that I'm probably more likely to get an out-of-place comedy scene just after someone got burnt to a crisp than otherwise which just serves to make it look like the characters can just brush off others die/getting crippled easily.

For me, a character making bad choices, still has to be making bad choices that make sense in the context of the story.

Chrom doesn't

Robin is an "Able-Tactician" after the very first chapter, you know, the one where there aren't even any tile bonuses where it's just you versus a handful of dudes in an chapter that is pretty much just "Pray they don't get a crit" and uh....yeah that's the strategy pretty much, even when it was my first FE game, I was blown away at how nonsensical it was, Robin has in no way proven they're a tactician even slightly in that first battle nor does he do so in the entire first 5-ish chapters of the game.

 

That's actually a big problem in what I played of Awakening, Robin, does not ever actually display an tactical genius in what I've played, instead he displays a basic grasp, that Chrom thinks is tactical genius except it's very clearly not so Chrom just comes off as an idiot.

He's surprised at the concept of Soldiers fighting together, he leads a group of soldiers, So I find the idea that an leader of a military group who has probably recieved training, needing to be told that soldiers should fight together kinda absolutely stupid, then he goes on a weird odd tirade about how fighting together build's bonds which considering the context of that battle (Killing people at a border over a misunderstanding since I don't exactly buy that you can set a fireball to stun.) feels completely out of place and just outright bad writing, it'd feel awkward enough if we were just fighting Risen.

By Chrom's Logic, Ricken must be a near godly tactical genius for realizing that just rescuing Maribelle by  force instead of negotating with the obviously evil Gangrel who would never give her up. (Which actually only serves to make Robin, again, look like someone who isn't actually a tactical genius when they're seemingly behind in strategy to a literal child, hell if they made Robin the one with the idea of a sneak attack in the first place that would have actually made me start thinking Robin was actually a Tactician but no the literal child gets the one bit of actual strategy in the first quarter of the game.) 

Then you recruit Donnel where he does a completely stupid speech about how "A sickle isn't far from a sword" and how the "Principle is all the same.", the gameplay then proceeds to prove that Chrom is completely wrong when Donnel can be one-rounded easily by literally almost every enemy on the map so Chrom's speech that already makes no sense is proven completely wrong by the actual gameplay, which just again, makes Chrom look like an idiot who literally only was made the leader of the Shepards because of nepotism rather than any sort of skill since he so clearly lacks any skill in leading and sucks as an unit in-game. (Also for a group about protecting the innocent, good job presuading a clearly inexperienced farmer to risk death Chrom.)

 

Chrom comes off as completely incompetent at being the leader of the Shepards and just in general an obnoxious character for me, nothing he does makes sense in the context of the story for me, they're contrivances so Robin can be accepted and praised because he's the player character, they don't at all feel like anything someone would actually do or say, just contrived stupidity so we can get Robin accepted into this group that really shouldn't accept him right away as fast as possible because I guess a slow paced beginning like Lyn mode where the stakes are actually low so Robin being trusted when the stakes get serious isn't something Awakening wants to actually do.

 

Here’s the thing I’m not necessarily gonna disagree with you here though I personally wouldn’t call that bad writing simply because that just sounds like a series of nitpicks to me that kinda ignore the ideas the story is trying to get across. I mean personally none of what you said ever bothered me. I can suspend my disbelief enough to ignore those things as they don’t really effect what I take away from the story. Now am I saying you should just get over it and that this shit shouldn’t bother you like it doesn’t bother me? No, absolutely not but what I will say is that you shouldn’t call it bad writing simply because it doesn’t align with your own personal sense of immersion or suspension of disbelief as that is mostly a subjective thing. Just because it bothers you doesn’t mean it will bother anyone else.

[Samz707]

8 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Here’s the thing I’m not necessarily gonna disagree with you here though I personally wouldn’t call that bad writing simply because that just sounds like a series of nitpicks to me that kinda ignore the ideas the story is trying to get across. I mean personally none of what you said ever bothered me. I can suspend my disbelief enough to ignore those things as they don’t really effect what I take away from the story. Now am I saying you should just get over it and that this shit shouldn’t bother you like it doesn’t bother me? No, absolutely not but what I will say is that you shouldn’t call it bad writing simply because it doesn’t align with your own personal sense of immersion or suspension of disbelief as that is mostly a subjective thing. Just because it bothers you doesn’t mean it will bother anyone else.

To me, having a character act nonsensically stupid to praise a player's self-insert is bad writing, bad writing in itself is subjective.

By that logic we can't call almost anything bad writing since at least one person will probably like it.

Again, thats why personally I hate Chrom since his entire early game (Which is as far as I'm able to stomach of Awakening since I really don't like it.) consists of "Robin gud" interspliced with moments of stupidity that I cannot believe anyone in his position would realistically make.

 

Edited June 23, 2020 by Samz707

[Ottservia]

1 minute ago, Samz707 said:

To me, having a character act nonsensically stupid to praise a player's self-insert is bad writing, bad writing in itself is subjective.

By that logic we can't call almost anything bad writing since at least one person will probably like it.

Again, thats why personally I hate Chrom since his entire early game (Which is as far as I'm able to stomach of Awakening since I really don't like it.) consists of "Robin gud" interspliced with moments of stupidity that I cannot believe anyone in his position would realistically make.

And that’s fine. I’m not saying you have to like it. I’m just saying don’t criticize something for doing what it sets out to do. Is awakening light hearted? Yeah it is. Is that inherently a bad thing? No, it’s not. Stories should be criticized on the things they set out to accomplish and the rules it sets for itself not the rules you set for it. If awakening wants to tell a light hearted shounen story about the strength in one’s bonds, then it should have every right to and should be criticized on that front. Are there awkward moments of gameplay-story segregation? Yeah, there are but those moments don’t really take away from the story’s core message if you ask me. You can dislike the optimism the story presents with its ideas or the ideas themselves but it’s never really inconsistent with itself so I don’t really see any problems.

[ping]

Squall from FF8. I don't necessarily think he's a bad or inconsistent character, but I found it very frustrating to explore the world through his permanently annoyed, dismissive attitude.

The protagonist from Persona 4. Despite enjoying the story overall, I think that the player-insert nature of the protagonist weakens it. Everyone has dark, repressed thoughts that they loathe themselves for having? Nah, not Yu The Player who is too awesome and well-balanced for that. Kanji's infatuation with Naoto doesn't go anywhere - but is it because it's in-character for Kanji to be super-anxious about it and for Naoto to not reading it? Or is it because Naoto has to be kept availabie as a romance option for Yu The Player? In the same vein, how would the relationship between Chie and Yukiko be written if Chie was allowed to look elsewhere than Yu?

I generally prefer to play as a pre-set character in an RPG with some dialogue choices here and there to decide how I think they would react in that situation - like, how much of a troll is Cloud, or how flirty will Zidane be. I think I would actually like the amount of this in P4, but the wish-fulfillment aspect of Yu restrains the rest of the cast and he honestly doesn't have much of a character outside of "everybody likes him" to begin with.

[Samz707]

46 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

And that’s fine. I’m not saying you have to like it. I’m just saying don’t criticize something for doing what it sets out to do. Is awakening light hearted? Yeah it is. Is that inherently a bad thing? No, it’s not. Stories should be criticized on the things they set out to accomplish and the rules it sets for itself not the rules you set for it. If awakening wants to tell a light hearted shounen story about the strength in one’s bonds, then it should have every right to and should be criticized on that front. Are there awkward moments of gameplay-story segregation? Yeah, there are but those moments don’t really take away from the story’s core message if you ask me. You can dislike the optimism the story presents with its ideas or the ideas themselves but it’s never really inconsistent with itself so I don’t really see any problems.

You can be light-hearted without making your characters act stupid though, I don't really think those are related.

I don't think light-hearted and optimism means you need to have your characters act the way they do in Awakening, having Robin go through some amount of distrust wouldn't compromise the message and infact I'd actually make the whole friendship bond thing well, actually meaningful instead of Frederick being the sole person who distrusts Robin and is clearly ment to be seen as "In the wrong" I feel. (Also because ironically personally, Awakening's attempts to make everyone quirky and likeable...actually make them the most irritating characters in FE as well as making their bonds feel cheap when you know that they're able to literally S-rank almost everyone of the opposite gender, if everyone's friends to the point of marriage, then their bonds aren't actually special I feel also still no death reactions undercuts this even more.)

 

Edited June 23, 2020 by Samz707

[Ottservia]

1 minute ago, Samz707 said:

You can be light-hearted without making your characters act stupid though. (Also I think making Robin able to solo the game actually takes away from the whole message I feel and I've heard that's even the actual meta for Lunatic mode.)

I don't think light-hearted and optimism means you need to have your characters act the way they do in Awakening, having Robin go through some amount of distrust wouldn't compromise the message and infact I'd actually make the whole friendship bond thing well, actually meaningful instead of Frederick being the sole person who distrusts Robin and is clearly ment to be seen as "In the wrong" I feel. (Also because ironically personally, Awakening's attempts to make everyone quirky and likeable...actually make them the most irritating characters in FE as well as making their bonds feel cheap when you know that they're able to literally S-rank almost everyone of the opposite gender, if everyone's friends to the point of marriage, then their bonds aren't actually special I feel also still no death reactions undercuts this even more.)

 

I never said those things couldn’t have been elaborated more just that the characterization in awakening is fine. Chrom trusts Robin not only because he was a smart tactician(which is an awkward gameplay story segregation moment but it’s a fucking tutorial level what do you expect?) but because he risked his life to protect ylissean lives when he clearly could’ve chosen to just up and run away. Hell Chrom outright states this after the battle is done. So again, I ask what’s the problem here? Sure you can say it’s overly optimistic or unrealistic but it’s not inconsistent with anything regarding the story’s own rules and characterization up to that point so yeah. I don’t see the issue. 

[Samz707]

16 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I never said those things couldn’t have been elaborated more just that the characterization in awakening is fine. Chrom trusts Robin not only because he was a smart tactician(which is an awkward gameplay story segregation moment but it’s a fucking tutorial level what do you expect?) but because he risked his life to protect ylissean lives when he clearly could’ve chosen to just up and run away. Hell Chrom outright states this after the battle is done. So again, I ask what’s the problem here? Sure you can say it’s overly optimistic or unrealistic but it’s not inconsistent with anything regarding the story’s own rules and characterization up to that point so yeah. I don’t see the issue. 

You could just have Chrom not trust Robin as much right away, and on a story level, it's a minor fight against some bandits so I doubt it proves Robin's Tactical prowess and it combined with other things just makes it come as the game is sucking up to the player via Chrom. (and stuff like being surprised at Soldier's pairing up only further makes it feel like the game is just sucking up to you.)

It's not even about being optimistic , it's just being nonsensical.

You can tell a light-hearted story without having to constantly praise the player's self-insert.

I don't think my complaints with the writing mean that Awakening can't be light-hearted/optimistic, I just think it does so poorly.

 

Edited June 23, 2020 by Samz707

[Ottservia]

1 minute ago, Samz707 said:

You could just have Chrom not trust Robin as much right away, and on a story level, it's a minor fight against some bandits so I doubt it proves Robin's Tactical prowess and it combined with other things just makes it come as the game is sucking up to the player via Chrom.

It's not even about being optimistic , it's just being nonsensical.

You can tell a light-hearted story without having to constantly praise the player's self-insert.

Yeah but is it inconsistent? To my knowledge no therefore I hesitate to call it bad and the “praise” robin gets makes some kind of sense at least to me. Like my point is that yeah it’s nonsensical to you but it doesn’t bother me at all nor does it have to. Chrom never really trusted Robin right away either he was just trying to be polite is all at least the impression I got. He did heed Frederick’s warnings after all. He’s just the kinda guy to be kind to others regardless of who they may be because he feels that’s what his Sister would do(which is something he contradicts later but he grows from it and corrects his mistake so I’d say that was a good character arc). Even if he has no reason to trust Robin, he still feels Robin is a person deserving of kindness just like everyone else. Kindness begets more kindness. Hate and distrust only breeds more hate and distrust. That’s the core conflict of Chrom’s character arc in the first eleven chapters of the game. Had Chrom not been kind and trusting to Robin then Maybe Robin wouldn’t have helped them fight off those bandits and more lives could’ve possibly been lost. Chrom chose to trust Robin and Robin returned the favor. That’s just how it works.

[Samz707]

18 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Yeah but is it inconsistent? To my knowledge no therefore I hesitate to call it bad and the “praise” robin gets makes some kind of sense at least to me. Like my point is that yeah it’s nonsensical to you but it doesn’t bother me at all nor does it have to. Chrom never really trusted Robin right away either he was just trying to be polite is all at least the impression I got. He did heed Frederick’s warnings after all. He’s just the kinda guy to be kind to others regardless of who they may be because he feels that’s what his Sister would do(which is something he contradicts later but he grows from it and corrects his mistake so I’d say that was a good character arc). Even if he has no reason to trust Robin, he still feels Robin is a person deserving of kindness just like everyone else. Kindness begets more kindness. Hate and distrust only breeds more hate and distrust. That’s the core conflict of Chrom’s character arc in the first eleven chapters of the game. Had Chrom not been kind and trusting to Robin then Maybe Robin wouldn’t have helped them fight off those bandits and more lives could’ve possibly been lost. Chrom chose to trust Robin and Robin returned the favor. That’s just how it works.

Chrom comes off to me as surprised at the idea of Soldier's pairing up which is frankly absurd to me since you know, he leads an military group alread, as said before he also drags Donnel into life or death combat with an flimsy speech. (that gameplay promptly proves he was dead wrong about as Donnel basically gets beaten up if most enemies so much as look at him.) So yeah in my experience in the first quarter of the main story, it does not come across as Chrom just being kind to Robin when the same lack of sense applies to very nearly getting a farmboy killed, if anything it just makes it look like yes, Chrom is actually this stupid and probably is only the leader of the Shepards via Nepotism than anything else because he clearly isn't a good leader nor a fighter.

Again, Chrom is also stupid on the subjects of Gangrel and Donnel early on. (Like I said, Ricken, an honest to god child, shows better strategy than either Robin or Chrom in that scene by recognising that just freeing Maribelle with force is the only actually viable way.)

I'm pretty sure you could do a version of Awakening' start where A: Robin isn't as obviously suspicious to the Shepards, B: Chrom isn't impressed by basic battle tactics (You can have a character recognise someone's skill without being surprised by basic stuff.) and C :  Donnel actually opts to join instead of Chrom persuading him with a flimsy speech that I'd take as a terrible attempt at manipulation of Chrom wasn't stupid in other scenes.

Again, Optomism and trust doesn't require the other characters to lose braincells, It doesn't require Chrom to be somewhat Callous with Donnel's life, it doesn't require showing an actual honest to god Child be smarter in tactics than your actual Tactician character and it doesn't require basically everything that I have a problem with in Awakening' story/characters, I do not feel these instances of what I believe to be bad writing comes about because of Awakening's attempt at a lighter tone. 

You can have a fun postive story but the way Awakening does it entirely is just irritating for me and Chrom ends up being a frankly terrible character for me in the process.  (The only way he could be any worse was if he could marry Nowi.)

 

 

 

 

Edited June 23, 2020 by Samz707

[Ottservia]

9 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Chrom comes off to me as surprised at the idea of Soldier's pairing up which is frankly absurd to me since you know, he leads an military group alread, as said before he also drags Donnel into life or death combat with an flimsy speech. (that gameplay promptly proves he was dead wrong about as Donnel basically gets beaten up if most enemies so much as look at him.) So yeah in my experience in the first quarter of the main story, it does not come across as Chrom just being kind to Robin when the same lack of sense applies to very nearly getting a farmboy killed, if anything it just makes it look like yes, Chrom is actually this stupid and probably is only the leader of the Shepards via Nepotism than anything else because he clearly isn't a good leader nor a fighter.

Again, Chrom is also stupid on the subjects of Gangrel and Donnel early on. (Like I said, Ricken, an honest to god child, shows better strategy than either Robin or Chrom in that scene by recognising that just freeing Maribelle with force is the only actually viable way.)

I feel like you’re missing the point with Donnel’s paralogue. Yeah Donnel is a weak farm boy. He doesn’t know how to fight but if he wants to protect his loved ones yhen he’s gonna have to learn. He’s gonna have to get stronger. Donnel at the beginning of the paralogue says he’s weak and can’t fight. Chrom says you’re only weak if you think you’re weak and that if you feel that you are work to improve yourself and get stronger so that you aren’t weak. You shouldn’t just give up like that. This is shown through gameplay that the only way to recruit Donnel is for him to literally grow stronger by gaining exp and leveling up. Yeah Donnel is weak but put in the effort and he can become strong. Which is literally the point of what Chrom was saying. 
 

Also you’re missing the point with that Maribelle scene or need I remind you that Chrom was very much so against the idea of a peace talk with Gangrel and that it was Emmeryn’s idea. Chrom even says himself, “I feel we should just put a sword in his gut and be done with it”. Hell, Chrom was the one who attacked first and made the declaration of war. Yeah Gangrel baited him into it but he still did it. Honestly if you’re gonna levy any criticism at all the least you can do is get your facts straight.

[Samz707]

10 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I feel like you’re missing the point with Donnel’s paralogue. Yeah Donnel is a weak farm boy. He doesn’t know how to fight but if he wants to protect his loved ones yhen he’s gonna have to learn. He’s gonna have to get stronger. Donnel at the beginning of the paralogue says he’s weak and can’t fight. Chrom says you’re only weak if you think you’re weak and that if you feel that you are work to improve yourself and get stronger so that you aren’t weak. You shouldn’t just give up like that. This is shown through gameplay that the only way to recruit Donnel is for him to literally grow stronger by gaining exp and leveling up. Yeah Donnel is weak but put in the effort and he can become strong. Which is literally the point of what Chrom was saying. 
 

Also you’re missing the point with that Maribelle scene or need I remind you that Chrom was very much so against the idea of a peace talk with Gangrel and that it was Emmeryn’s idea. Chrom even says himself, “I feel we should just put a sword in his gut and be done with it”. Hell, Chrom was the one who attacked first and made the declaration of war. Yeah Gangrel baited him into it but he still did it. Honestly if you’re gonna levy any criticism at all the least you can do is get your facts straight.

Pretty sure you have people learn via training first, rather than just throwing them at armed bandits ready to kill people and hoping for the best, that's not "Helping someone get stronger" that's being rather callous about someone's life with a "Sink or Swim" mentality in my eyes, that's not how you help someone, that's how you get someone killed. (yes I know he has plot-armor if he goes down there, no that doesn't make it better.)

Except Ricken is still the only one to actually go off and rescue Maribelle, which is the actually smart thing to do when you know the person you're going to talk with isn't going to let them go, if Gangrel acts even half as sterotypically evil before the game started as he does in the actual talk, then pretty much every single character (Yes including Emmeryn.) should know that talking to him is a lost cause and at best just use that was a way to stall him while they plan out a rescue, Ricken is still the only one out of the entire Shepards group to realise that a rescue mission is the only way Maribelle is leaving that talk alive and back with them.

 

Edited June 23, 2020 by Samz707

[DragonFlames]

12 hours ago, Anacybele said:

No worries here. While I tend to be fond of this archtype (Sylvain is my fav, and I love Sain and Inigo and I like Gatrie as well. Virion...for some reason I didn't like him as much as the others, but I definitely don't dislike him), I know it isn't for everyone. It seems to be pretty hit and miss, actually, and that's probably what hurt Sylvain a bit.

That's fair.
The only character that fits this archetype that I ever liked was Ringabel from Bravely Default. The jokes involving him actually landed well.

12 hours ago, Anacybele said:

He cracked the top ten males of the latest Heroes CYL, but he couldn't beat his fellow Blue Lion guys save for Dedue.

That's kind of surprising to hear. I never thought Ashe was more popular than Sylvain.
I was always under the impression that the general consensus about Ashe is that he is bland and boring. Glad to know that that's apparently not the case.

---

Somebody brought up Persona, which reminded me that I quit playing Persona 4 Golden largely because half the main cast was just getting on my nerves. Of course there's Teddie, but I don't know many people who like that trainwreck, but the two characters that annoyed me that are popular are Chie and Yosuke, especially Yosuke. Good lord, I hated that guy. His attitude, his personality, everything about him just drove me up the wall.

[Ottservia]

18 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Pretty sure you have people learn via training first, rather than just throwing them at armed bandits ready to kill people, that's not "Helping someone get stronger" that's being rather callous about someone's life with a "Sink or Swim" mentality in my eyes.

*sigh* once again you’re missing the point. It’s an intense situation. Donnel feels he’s too weak to protect those he cares about in this situation Chrom says that if he truly wishes to protect those he loves then he should just pick up a weapon and fight to get stronger so he can protect them. It doesn’t matter if you’re a farmboy or not if you truly wish to protect something then protect it. Don’t make excuses such as you’re weak and can’t fight. Get stronger so you can fight. Like that’s the whole point. It’s only when Donnel actually tries and gets stronger that he succeeds. Like that’s the point of the story being told.

 

18 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Except Ricken is still the only one to actually go off and rescue Maribelle, which is the actually smart thing to do when you know the person you're going to talk with isn't going to let them go.

Yeah because Ricken was the only one able to get close enough too rescue her. Everyone else was surrounded by enemies and likely couldn’t reach her in time before Aversa killed her. Ricken was only able to sneak past because he was small and not with the main army. Chrom was all for just putting a sword in Gangrel’s gut but respected his sister’s wishes as you do. Like what’s your point here? Cause like your argument is just wrong cause you’re neglecting to mention a lot of context. I can cherry pick my points too Y’know. It’s not a very hard thing to do.

Edited June 23, 2020 by Ottservia

[Samz707]

11 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

*sigh* once again you’re missing the point. It’s an intense situation. Donnel feels he’s too weak to protect those he cares about in this situation Chrom says that if he truly wishes to protect those he loves then he should just pick up a weapon and fight to get stronger so he can protect them. It doesn’t matter if you’re a farmboy or not if you truly wish to protect something then protect it. Don’t make excuses such as you’re weak and can’t fight. Get stronger so you can fight. Like that’s the whole point. It’s only when Donnel actually tries and gets stronger that he succeeds. Like that’s the point of the story being told.

 

Yeah because Ricken was the only one able to get close enough too rescue her. Everyone else was surrounded by enemies and likely couldn’t reach her in time before Aversa killed her. Ricken was only able to sneak past because he was small and not with the main army. Chrom was all for just putting a sword in Gangrel’s gut but respected his sister’s wishes as you do. Like what’s your point here? Cause like your argument is just wrong cause you’re neglecting to mention a lot of context. I can cherry pick my points too Y’know.

 

Again, That's not how fighting works, You generally need a bit of training/the element of surprise and like I said, Donnel IS infact actually way too weak to be of any real use in that chapter, he literally gets one-rounded by almost everyone, if you don't want to recruit him you're literally better off having him stay behind, again, proper training is better than a trial by fire, Chrom isn't helping Donnel, he's being an idiot and it's only really by fortune that Donnel isn't dead, the actual gameplay mechanics pretty much confirm Chrom was full of bullcrap in his speech and the fact Donnel Is actualy considered generally to be one of the worst units in Awakening only proves my point that Chrom is an idiot here, just because it can work if the player is good enough doesn't suddenly make it a good idea.

 

No, there wasn't even a rescue plan in the first place, everyone just went there. (if I recall Ricken was even told to stay behind by Chrom, since you know, child.) , Ricken decided of his own accord to do a rescue attempt when the characters should have recognised that a rescue attempt was needed before even arriving and organised to have some of the Shepards try to sneak up on Gangrel's forces (Since again, Gagnrel is sterotypically evil.) , you could even still have Ricken on his own by jumping the gun or something.

If it doesn't bother you fine but to me this just makes Chrom an unlikeable callous moron who should have never been made Leader of any sort of military group.

Edited June 23, 2020 by Samz707

[Anacybele]

4 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

That's kind of surprising to hear. I never thought Ashe was more popular than Sylvain.
I was always under the impression that the general consensus about Ashe is that he is bland and boring. Glad to know that that's apparently not the case.

I'm not sure what the appeal for Ashe is myself. I like him, but he doesn't stand out THAT much. As for Sylvain, I was happy to see him get so high on the list, but mad that he actually dropped three spots in the end. He was ahead of Ashe halfway through at #7 but dropped to #10. 😕

3 hours ago, Rapaille said:

Dislike Keldeo for outclassing Poliwrath as a water/fighting type in every way conceivable but don't really know how popular Keldeo is.

Keldeo was 18th on a Pokemon popularity poll some years back, so he is popular to some extent. But interesting to see you mention him. He was my top favorite until Galarian Ponyta/Rapidash came along.

[TheGoodHoms]

In most circumstances I tend to be very neutral on characters I don't like because most of the time it's not worth expending the energy for it. I guess I just prefer celebrating characters I do enjoy rather than complaining about the ones I don't. One popular character type that's always baffled me is the sadistic girl. An example from Fire Emblem would be Tharja, I will never understand why people think she's top tier waifu material when shes so cruel to everyone around her, would anyone honestly what to be friends with a person like that in real life? I think her appearances in fates, heroes and warriors definitely make thinks worse for me because I think there are better characters out there that deserve more attention. Another good example would be Juri from Street Fighter, she doesn't bother me as much as Tharja, but many of my criticisms still stand.