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Book V Speculation and Discussion Thread


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Nifl showing up reminded me of something: Hel and the dream realms already have their gods, but we haven't seen any for Nidavellir or Jotunheim yet. Those two realms have also been more "SCIENCE!"-y than the others, but do you think we'll be seeing anymore steampunk dragons in the future?

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Well.. in midpoint trailer.. Fafnir transforms into a dragon.

Which I'm say gonna Fafnir is going to die/transform on tomorrow chapters, making him a mythic of this month as his base form.

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Just came back from going through the new piece of story and... *sigh* does IS honestly think it isn't obvious that Reginn is from the true royal bloodline? And Embla being attacked isn't surprising; there are only so many places that can be attacked. Veronica being home is what surprised me. Even then, I don't know if that's true or not. Bruno showing up like this is a little too convenient. Like, what's he doing all the way out here? Considering mention of the steampunk land's dragon (which was among the most interesting developments -- Chinese element "metal" coming up?) he could've been doing curse research, but I find it much more likely that he's actually Loki in disguise. True, he was recognized for his lance techniques first (for some reason) but there's no reason why Loki (a trickster deity) couldn't mimic that.

Also, Reginn following weird voices and then not thinking of said voices as all that significant when Sharena is all "well, let's get going!" is just...dumb. Like, they were clearly telling her important stuff, and she just kind of goes "okay!" when told they're leaving. Like, doesn't even talk to the Askrans about it. And Alfonse (who's usually keen on this sort of stuff) for some reason doesn't say anything about Reginn's behavior or talk about it.

Another interesting development, though, is how clear it's become that Otr is hiding things from Fafnir. He's definitely working with Eitri behind his back and encouraging him not to try to remember stuff in order to keep him with him. Like, he feels like he can't stand on his own without Fafnir and has become dependent on him, to the point where he's willing to sacrifice Fafnir's health and needs toward this end. It's kind of sad. I don't think Otr's going to come to any realizations about his behavior, either. Seems more likely to snap when Fafnir is inevitably taken away from him, and lash out at Reginn and maybe blame the Askrans and the summoner, too. With that in mind, I wonder how he'll react to Lif if he gets invited to join him. Or maybe he'll be recruited by, or start an entirely separate group at the end of the book. I could see Loki playing with his desperate and broken heart like that if she decides to make her own team. I don't know if IS will go into anything that convoluted, though, so it's probably Lif's group for Otr (with Otr maybe recognizing Lif's similarity to Alfonse and hating his guts, only falling in line out of necessity.)

@ARMADS!!!

Good call on the dragon deity of the steampunk world.

Edited by Mercakete
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5 hours ago, Mercakete said:

I could see Loki playing with his desperate and broken heart like that if she decides to make her own team.

Loki kills him in mythology, for what it's worth: that may be implemented by a forced team up here.

5 hours ago, Mercakete said:

Good call on the dragon deity of the steampunk world.

Indeed: right after I asked about that too! I wonder if Dragon!Fafnir is meant to be a vessel for the deity, or maybe the deity himself with amnesia? I didn't think of the Metal element before actually, but that could be really neat too, thanks Mercakete! I wonder what this means for Jotunheimr...

And yes, it is painfully obvious who Reginn is. I'm more surprised by the "reveal" that Fafnir isn't of royal blood: wasn't that a given, given he was explicitly stated as taking the crown for himself in the past? Also, it was nice to see that Fafnir is still cognizant enough to recognize Otr going behind his back, even if he hasn't put his foot down yet. Hopefully this doesn't end with him being stabbed in the back, but now that I think of it, the midpoint trailer did suggest Otr was aware of the impending dragon transformation.

And Veronica's finally getting involved! After so long I'd started to think she'd sit this book out, but I suppose not. As for Bruno being Loki, I guess it comes down to whether she can also mimick the talents of the people she's possessing. Hmm...

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7 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

Loki kills him in mythology, for what it's worth: that may be implemented by a forced team up here.

Indeed: right after I asked about that too! I wonder if Dragon!Fafnir is meant to be a vessel for the deity, or maybe the deity himself with amnesia? I didn't think of the Metal element before actually, but that could be really neat too, thanks Mercakete! I wonder what this means for Jotunheimr...

And yes, it is painfully obvious who Reginn is. I'm more surprised by the "reveal" that Fafnir isn't of royal blood: wasn't that a given, given he was explicitly stated as taking the crown for himself in the past? Also, it was nice to see that Fafnir is still cognizant enough to recognize Otr going behind his back, even if he hasn't put his foot down yet. Hopefully this doesn't end with him being stabbed in the back, but now that I think of it, the midpoint trailer did suggest Otr was aware of the impending dragon transformation.

And Veronica's finally getting involved! After so long I'd started to think she'd sit this book out, but I suppose not. As for Bruno being Loki, I guess it comes down to whether she can also mimick the talents of the people she's possessing. Hmm...

Thank you. Also, in regards to Fafnir not being royalty, that was already stated by Reginn when she was telling the Askr trio about her childhood. What surprised her was that he wasn't from their country at all. Of course, again, it's too obvious... He was partially summoned, which is why he wants to go through the gate in Askr, back to his own world in order to re-complete himself. As for the crown, he has it, but it's not like he took it by force. Because he brought this country to peace, he was named the next king and given the crown.

As for Fafnir being the dragon with amnesia or a vessel foe the dragon, I don't think so. I think it's more that he just gets turned into one, but you could be right. If that was the case, though, he wouldn't have been summoned to this world from another one, since the dragon is from this world.

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I'm liking the villain pileup here. Different factions going different directions, rather than one villain at the head of all the others. 

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  • 5 weeks later...

I can't stop thinking about what Eitri said at the final conversation there. Did Eitri somehow get cursed to be stuck in a little girl's body? I'm very intrigued.

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I'm kind of surprised no one's said anything yet about the new set of story events (at the time I began writing this post anyway.) Anyway, I just finished playing through the new chapter. Here we go.

So, guess that was the real Bruno. Also, a couple of theories were confirmed for me.

First, indeed, Embla is an Earth dragon, and Askr is a Wind dragon. Though this wasn't outright stated yet, Fafnir (I believe. Maybe it was Otr, but I'm pretty sure it was Fafnir) says "Return to the ground you love so dearly" (I'm paraphrasing since I'm not reading the quote word for word right now) as he's conquering Embla. I believe this is an allusion to Embla being an Earth dragon. Also, Embla and Askr hate each other (or at least Embla hates Askr) so it stands to reason that they would be opposite elements. Plus, there is a track in the FEH OST called "the Winds of Askr." Though this could easily be handwaved, I believe it's alluding to the dragon's actual element.

Second, Eitri is now confirmed to be the guy who summoned Fafnir from another world and indeed, he was a "failure" because he wasn't summoned "completely," but did maintain some sort of sanity. So, it was Fafnir and Eitri in the opening scene to the book. I pretty much got the bull's eye here.

Third, Otr has been working to keep Fafnir with him, despite Fafnir's actual needs and wishes, because he's dependent on him. Yep; called that one too.

And now, we see Eitri as the actual big bad and Fafnir has taken his place as her unfortunate tool, as I also predicted.

Further, indeed, Otr and Eitri are conspiring and will turn Fafnir into the metal dragon against his will. The bit I didn't quite get here is that they're trying to revive their country's god. Okay (though this is a secondary goal for both of them. Eitri wants summoner powers, Otr wants Fafnir. Almost makes me want to see a harmonic of Otr and Tharja since they have obsession in common. Also, I think they could pull off a sort of creepy-cool look together.)

Also of note: there were a couple typos in the dialogue.

Now onto new stuff.

I'm kind of impressed that Loki's getting development here. I don't really like her, but this really did give us something interesting. As it turns out, she's more devoted to Alfador than we thought, and is clearly carrying out his plans for him. Also, I wonder if it's true that she tried to get in on playing with the fake summon gun. That seems like something she'd do. It's interesting that Embla was holding onto it. I wonder what happened in the past... Eitri is certainly very old, especially since the summon gun and the fake summon gun seem to have been enshrined a LONG time ago. I wonder if Eitri killed the last summoner or something in order to get the summon gun and then tried to make her own based on the stolen item... I could be reading into it too much, though. Could even be that this fake wasn't made more than a couple of decades ago (explaining why Veronica probably didn't know about it.)

And the crown... Yep, it sure is something important that Fafnir apparently doesn't like. Poor guy.

Anyway, I may be forgetting stuff, but that's all from me for now.

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2 hours ago, Michelaar said:

I can't stop thinking about what Eitri said at the final conversation there. Did Eitri somehow get cursed to be stuck in a little girl's body? I'm very intrigued.

Yeah, that was really interesting.

@Ice Dragon - Does the bit about Eitri seeming to refer to herself as male hold up in Japanese?

Edited by Othin
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3 hours ago, Michelaar said:

I can't stop thinking about what Eitri said at the final conversation there. Did Eitri somehow get cursed to be stuck in a little girl's body? I'm very intrigued.

I've been thinking about this, and it could be that Eitri's been body-hopping, if she can half-summon vessels for herself (especially if the current vessel gets to be too old.) Could also just be a summoning accident during a test of the fake summon gun. Could even be that that "man" Fafnir remembers was actually this Eitri, and his brain's just messed up. We already know he's somewhat off his rocker on top of being an amnesiac, so his memory isn't the most reliable. Basically, there are too many possibilities to really narrow it down right now.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Hmm I was the last one to post stuff, but the new chapter is out, so...

Man, poor Otr. He had a good monologue there. The book must be coming to a close relatively soon if we get to find out the whole spiel about Princess Reginn and his backstories. Still, I feel bad for Otr. He's so focused on how painful the bad things in his life were that he lost sight of the good. And to die like that in the end...poor guy lost his sanity to his obsession, seeing his brother as the only escape he had.

... Huh. In some ways, he reminds me of Berkut. Both kind of hung everything on 1 particular resolution and couldn't see what good they did have. At least in the end Berkut realized what he'd had. Otr's end was just plain tragic... Hmm I'd really be interested to see Alm and Reginn have a conversation, and maybe post-death Berkut and Otr.

Anyway, it would've been nice if they'd made it more obvious that Otr was fighting to the death. It was a bit of a jarring jump from "I can still fight!" to "No matter what, at this point, I'm not surviving." Still, it's about the only thing, I think, I can criticize this time. The writing was good. It drew out emotion and gave explanation for things we needed to know.

Oh, but one other thing... Otr wanted to kill the summoner, but that wouldn't stop the gates. To stop gates from opening, the ones he had to kill were the Askran royals. The summon gun plucks heroes from other worlds -- it doesn't open gates, exactly. So, uh...maybe he just wasn't informed correctly, but that's kind of a hole in the canon otherwise.

Edit:

Also, MAN I want to see Hel Otr. He'd look pretty cool if his ballistics gel was green. With that black hair and yellow eyes, he'd have a sort of oil/grease aesthetic, which matches well with being a cog in Eitri's plans in the steampunk world. I don't think Lif and Thrasir can make dead folks undead like they are, but if anyone can revive him enough to join the villain team, it's them.

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2 hours ago, Mercakete said:

Hmm I was the last one to post stuff, but the new chapter is out, so...

Man, poor Otr. He had a good monologue there. The book must be coming to a close relatively soon if we get to find out the whole spiel about Princess Reginn and his backstories. Still, I feel bad for Otr. He's so focused on how painful the bad things in his life were that he lost sight of the good. And to die like that in the end...poor guy lost his sanity to his obsession, seeing his brother as the only escape he had.

... Huh. In some ways, he reminds me of Berkut. Both kind of hung everything on 1 particular resolution and couldn't see what good they did have. At least in the end Berkut realized what he'd had. Otr's end was just plain tragic... Hmm I'd really be interested to see Alm and Reginn have a conversation, and maybe post-death Berkut and Otr.

Anyway, it would've been nice if they'd made it more obvious that Otr was fighting to the death. It was a bit of a jarring jump from "I can still fight!" to "No matter what, at this point, I'm not surviving." Still, it's about the only thing, I think, I can criticize this time. The writing was good. It drew out emotion and gave explanation for things we needed to know.

Oh, but one other thing... Otr wanted to kill the summoner, but that wouldn't stop the gates. To stop gates from opening, the ones he had to kill were the Askran royals. The summon gun plucks heroes from other worlds -- it doesn't open gates, exactly. So, uh...maybe he just wasn't informed correctly, but that's kind of a hole in the canon otherwise.

Edit:

Also, MAN I want to see Hel Otr. He'd look pretty cool if his ballistics gel was green. With that black hair and yellow eyes, he'd have a sort of oil/grease aesthetic, which matches well with being a cog in Eitri's plans in the steampunk world. I don't think Lif and Thrasir can make dead folks undead like they are, but if anyone can revive him enough to join the villain team, it's them.

I was pleasantly surprised by Otr this chapter. He's not very likeable or...sane, but thats what makes him interesting. Most oc villains are a bit boring, but Otr really delivered.

But man Reginn being a princess must have been the most obvious 'twist' i've seen in a long long while. Kind of robs it of any impact. Though how She and 'otr' where family was a lot less boring.

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18 hours ago, Sasori said:

I was pleasantly surprised by Otr this chapter. He's not very likeable or...sane, but thats what makes him interesting. Most oc villains are a bit boring, but Otr really delivered.

But man Reginn being a princess must have been the most obvious 'twist' i've seen in a long long while. Kind of robs it of any impact. Though how She and 'otr' where family was a lot less boring.

I didn't even feel that Reginn being the princess being a "twist" was worth mentioning, but yeah, you're right about it. It was called and proven earlier, at least in my view, but yeah, it was only just explicitly stated. But yeah, getting to hear Otr's backstory was the real reveal (as well as just how Reginn went from princess to pauper), since all we knew before was that Otr and Fafnir were her brothers and they all lived in poverty during war times.

16 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Otr earlier in the story:
''Regin! If you die I'll be big brother's only sibling! Hahahaha!''

Regin in the current chapter
"'Hey Otr! Now you're dead I'm big brothers only sibling!''

Kind of a shame she didn't throw that parody line back into Otr's face.

That would be grossly out of character and flat-out mean, especially since he sees her as effortlessly possessing everything he's wanted, and that includes being Fafnir's only sibling at the end. That fact probably pains Reginn, too, since it kind of proves Otr's point, and it's not something she ever wanted.

Edited by Mercakete
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I expected nothing, but somehow I'm still disappointed.

Assuming that they're not changing up the 13-chapter formula (which, you know, why would they) they're going to cram a shit ton of story in the last two chapters and it's going to be rushed as fuuuuck. There really wasn't a point in the ~S U R P R I S E T W I S T~ of Otr and Reginn not actually being siblings. Even if Reginn reacted to it at all, it didn't change anything fundamentally ... well, except that Reginn is the only SUPER SPESHUL one of the three because of course she is.

Don't even need to wait for the end for me to call it. Book 3 was the pinnacle of FEH's writing for me, and even then Book 3 wasn't all that spectacular anyway.

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3 felt urgent because Lif / Thrasir / Hel all seemed like they were legitimately intent and capable of taking the Askr team down ... 4 was also fun to me because of the brain twist with the dream - sure, everyone was going to survive, but would they all make it out of their minds in one piece?

imo I find the family drama bits to this book a little boring, but Eitri is fun ... the whole body horror aspect to the half-summons + her connection to the Summoner has some potentially fun twists in there. I hope the story moves back to her soon. 

(like shoot, imagine - can the summoner fuck up a summon to the level of her shadow-summons? can Eitri summon a summoner's husbando/waifu to fuck with their head?)

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Honestly, this has really been a ho hum book so far.

They heavy-handed Reginn being the true princess so much that I just sighed when it was finally revealed. These writers truly have no sense of subtlety. 

As for Otr, he might just be the most pathetic character in all of FEH now. That sob story of his just felt like complete nonsense. I can honestly say I felt nothing at him getting killed, particularly since I have no idea what the writers were even trying to achieve with him. At least him being gone gets his over-the-top antics out of the way.

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9 minutes ago, Sentinel07 said:

As for Otr, he might just be the most pathetic character in all of FEH now. That sob story of his just felt like complete nonsense. I can honestly say I felt nothing at him getting killed, particularly since I have no idea what the writers were even trying to achieve with him. At least him being gone gets his over-the-top antics out of the way.

Not that I gave two shits about Otr anyway, but if he were a female character I wonder if that bad attempt at making the player feel sympathy would've suckered more (male) people into feeling sorry for Otr. This feels like the same dumb backstory drama they gave Plumeria and Triandra (and I felt nothing for them either).

But yeah, Otr's backstory just feels dumb. It would've honestly made as much sense if he were Reginn's older half brother who was a bastard prince, and he resents her because she's the legitimate princess and got all the love and adoration and birthright of the kingdom.

Edited by Sunwoo
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1 hour ago, Sunwoo said:

Not that I gave two shits about Otr anyway, but if he were a female character I wonder if that bad attempt at making the player feel sympathy would've suckered more (male) people into feeling sorry for Otr. This feels like the same dumb backstory drama they gave Plumeria and Triandra (and I felt nothing for them either).

But yeah, Otr's backstory just feels dumb. It would've honestly made as much sense if he were Reginn's older half brother who was a bastard prince, and he resents her because she's the legitimate princess and got all the love and adoration and birthright of the kingdom.

For me, at least with Triandra and Plumeria, I can understand what they were going for. I wouldn't call their backstories good or anything even remotely close, but at least I can understand what their story was and what the writers were going for. I'm not really all that sympathetic towards them but at least I get it.

Otr I still don't understand what the point of his story was, and I still don't even after playing through that chapter a second time. I mean, he apparently feels worthless and hatred because of how family was, hated Reginn for living the life of a privileged princess, and yet he saves and protects her? This guy's sense of love and hate feels like they swap at the drop of a hat.

Feels like the writers just couldn't fully commit to someone who's scummy and instead tried to pull a sympathy card right at the end.

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Yeah, I have no clue where they're going with Otr either. What I did glean is that we will not be getting a Reginn & Otr duo for New Year's because we're instead getting a Dagr & Nott duo, complete with more Pathfinder bullshit.

Oh well, ashes to ashes with you Otr. Maybe your next life serving Ashley will be a better one by comparison.

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@Sentinel07 @Tybrosion @Sunwoo

I think I know what the writers were going for with Otr, if you want my perspective on it.

This story (Book 5) is, at its core, a story about the bonds of siblings. You have the main group of Reginn, Otr, and Fafnir, and the side pair of Dagr and Nott. Besides being found family vs blood siblings, the major difference between these two groups is in how they handle adversity between them. Dagr and Nott have some strife from the dispute over who will rule next, but pretty much get over it in relatively short order. (They still compete, but the feelings they share between them aren't nearly as harsh as they once were.) Reginn, meanwhile, has had regaining the only family she's ever known -- her brothers -- as her only goal. This contrasts thematically with the quarreling giant sisters, but it also contrasts what the main character is usually trying to accomplish in like stories. It's not about restoring a country or taking her rightful place as a ruler. She doesn't identify herself with her country very much at all, actually. For her, it's always just been about being happy as a trio of siblings again. It's a much simpler and more relatable goal than the typical main royal character's, and maybe that's a reason I kind of like Reginn as a character. She's just more real in that way, and she doesn't really feel "tomboyish" or "girly," but more just "a person." (That said, the crybaby aspect is kind of annoying since it's "feminine" in this genre. It wouldn't feel so bad if it was shown more realistically, I think, when you have a bunch of characters to take death in stride to compare her to.)

So, Otr being a villain is a rather natural choice. His own motivation is, like Reginn, to live happily as siblings. Toward the beginning of the book, he felt betrayed by Reginn, and wasn't opposed to her before she joined Askr's side. Even after she did, and he began to go a bit murderous, he stopped himself at one point and asked himself "What am I saying?" So, him going crazy and hating Reginn was actually a later development. When your emotions are going berserk, you say a lot of inaccurate things. The story about his parents and his relation to the royals is probably true, but what is probably untrue is his claims that he'd always wanted to kill Reginn, and had always hated her. Something has been influencing him, and he got beyond the point of noticing it. It could be that Eitri did something to him (to make him think he was using her, when she was actually using his using her to her own ends), or there could be some other factor at play...such as the crown.

Otr has his facts straight, for the most part, but his feelings are completely confused. I believe his info on how the crown messes with your head is accurate. It could even be that just by being close to Fafnir, Otr was getting more diluted effects off of it, steadily driving him insane. Of course, being the actual princess, Reginn never would have been subjected to those negative side effects. Even at the beginning of the book, Reginn said that Fafnir used to be kind, but he and Otr both began to change after Fafnir took the throne.

So, from a story construction viewpoint, I see 2 possible reasons Otr became how he is. Either 1: the writers wanted him to be this way in order to be a direct foil to Reginn and her goals. Or 2: the writers let Otr write himself and just put down what he revealed to them as they went.

This is one of those cases where it feels less like the writing is bad and more like the format isn't particularly suited to the story. The only way to learn about Otr and his past was through a monologue, when it would have flowed more naturally as something narrated by a third party. His story makes sense if you just look at the facts as they are. The only real hiccup is that Otr himself monologued about it (but even then, I could kind of see him doing that, especially since he was literally dying, and desperately wanted to express this pain.) By contrast, with the dark fairies, the story was presented well (in a flashback format, then translated by a manipulative Freyja) but the stories themselves were bad (far too dramatic and over the top without any buildup or explanation. It was "feel sorry for them" pure and simple.) Otr's story does more than just explain his actions (which is actually kind of a red herring, I think), it expands the world. Now we know how this country's previous monarchs were killed, how Reginn lost her parents, her true relation to Otr... It was entirely contained within the story that was already being told (as opposed to the dark fairies, whose backstories were tragic for the sake of tragedy and did not directly relate to the dream world, the darkness they were made into fairies to defeat (which was never really brought back or explained after that), the goat siblings, or anything else) and filled in the timeline, connecting the catalyst for the country's years of war and strife (the murder of the previous monarchs), Reginn's personal quest (reuniting with her brothers), and the timeline in general (everything from when Reginn was taken from the castle to now.)

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No, both the story sucks and the medium isn't conducive to the story they're trying to tell either.

Edited by Sunwoo
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