Theme of Conquest

[eclipse]

There's more than one reason to criticize something.  There's more than one reason to dislike something.  And even if someone dislike something as trivial as a video game story/character for patently false reasons. . .doesn't it say more about them than anything?

[Ottservia]

Well it shows that they weren’t paying attention for one thing

[eclipse]

Okay.  And?  Again, is it really worth several walls of text?

[Armchair General]

15 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

Well in that defense, most Fe games are like that to an extent, so I wont judge for lack of presence. But when they are present i don't want them to be as boring as a wooden board.

Awakening kind of does a decent job with integrating the secondary characters into the main story, but it's not at the point to where everyone has a crucial role in it.

[Ottservia]

 

9 hours ago, eclipse said:

Okay.  And?  Again, is it really worth several walls of text?

I mean is that not really the point of discussion though. Pardon the slippery slope but then by that logic why should I care about anyone saying anything? Why should I engage with differing world views and perspectives? Should I just not engage with anyone who disagrees with me then? Like that line of thinking defeats the purpose of a forum if you ask me or any form of online discourse be it YouTube videos, forum posts, or social media in general. You’re basically telling me to not engage with people and to not have a discussion. And to that notion, I don’t take kindly to people blatantly spreading lies and misinformation. I’m not gonna just stand here and have people lie to my face like that.

[German FE Nino]

Is the english script being used for discussion here or is the japanese one used? I am just curious because they are both bad and have overlapping issues, but they have differing highs and lows due to the way Treehouse rewrote the game.

[eclipse]

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

 

I mean is that not really the point of discussion though. Pardon the slippery slope but then by that logic why should I care about anyone saying anything? Why should I engage with differing world views and perspectives? Should I just not engage with anyone who disagrees with me then? Like that line of thinking defeats the purpose of a forum if you ask me or any form of online discourse be it YouTube videos, forum posts, or social media in general. You’re basically telling me to not engage with people and to not have a discussion. And to that notion, I don’t take kindly to people blatantly spreading lies and misinformation. I’m not gonna just stand here and have people lie to my face like that.

This is a pretty dishonest interpretation of what I wrote.  And an equally dishonest answer.  So, let's try this again:

Why is it so important to die on the Fates writing hill?

2 hours ago, German FE Nino said:

Is the english script being used for discussion here or is the japanese one used? I am just curious because they are both bad and have overlapping issues, but they have differing highs and lows due to the way Treehouse rewrote the game.

I think we're using the localized version.

[Ottservia]

3 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Why is it so important to die on the Fates writing hill?

Cause why not? I want to analyze and better understand stories and gleam what they have to offer. I want to better understand storytelling as an artistic medium and discuss that with others. I analyze stories to come to a better understanding of myself and the world around me. I want to respect the medium that has had a significant impact on my life and made ne who I am. Healthy discussion cannot exist if all there are dumb takes that do nothing but spread misinformation and disrespect the medium. Simply put, I wanna see more balance and better discussion based in proper debate and not false information. I want an open honest discussion where we can criticize something fairly without defaulting to personal bias. Bad takes exist and I feel we shouldn’t promote the spreading of poor criticism based in false information.

[eclipse]

1 minute ago, Ottservia said:

Cause why not? I want to analyze and better understand stories and gleam what they have to offer. I want to better understand storytelling as an artistic medium and discuss that with others. I analyze stories to come to a better understanding of myself and the world around me. I want to respect the medium that has had a significant impact on my life and made ne who I am. Healthy discussion cannot exist if all there are dumb takes that do nothing but spread misinformation and disrespect the medium. Simply put, I wanna see more balance and better discussion based in proper debate and not false information. I want an open honest discussion where we can criticize something fairly without defaulting to personal bias. Bad takes exist and I feel we shouldn’t promote the spreading of poor criticism based in false information.

If you're not willing to accept that other people will analyze things differently, and come to a different conclusion, then this is patently false.

Which is the attitude that I see from you.

[Ottservia]

21 minutes ago, eclipse said:

If you're not willing to accept that other people will analyze things differently, and come to a different conclusion, then this is patently false.

Which is the attitude that I see from you.

I am willing to accept people will interpret things differently. Here’s the thing about that. Not all discussion is good discussion. Not every argument people is a good one. I’m not gonna sit here and listen to an argument that is blatently faulty. Like I’ve ranted about comparison before because I genuinely believe that is just a poor argument you shouldn’t use in regards to criticism. Because at the end of the day what does comparison really amount to in the end.

”A is worse than B for not being B” is a bad argument. It should only be used in discussions of personal preference. Why? Because you can’t really compare stories. Like Fates does not benefit from being like RD. Fates benefits from being like Fates. Fates had no intention of being like radiant dawn so you shouldn’t expect it to be. It’s not the fault of the game that it is not to your personal taste and to suggest otherwise is, in my opinion, not very constructive because they’re not the same thing. To expect any piece of media to pander to your personal taste is a little arrogant if you ask me because no piece of media is obligated to do that. 

 

Is it wrong to point out the flaws in the way someone criticizes something? Because that’s how I’m interpreting what you’re saying here. If someone makes a comparison on the grounds of “A is worse than B for not being B” then yeah I’m going to dismiss it because I think it’s dumb and I’ve given(at least what I believe to be) a sound reason as to why. That’s generally how I approach it. I dismiss criticisms of contrivance for similar reasons. I don’t think it’s a good criticism for reasons I’ve ranted about before. If you can make a good argument for contrivance I will listen but I have yet to see one. I’ve explained why the argument doesn’t work so why should I not dismiss it? I’m willing to listen to your argument if you can make a good one. I am not infallible. I’ve been proven wrong about plenty of things before on these very forums in fact. It’s just sometimes I feel like an argument is extremely faulty and doesn’t make sense and I’m going to point out the flaws in that argument.

Edited December 5, 2020 by Ottservia

[Lightcosmo]

2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I want an open honest discussion where we can criticize something fairly without defaulting to personal bias.

This wont ever happen. It sounds nice and all, but it won't happen. It's how people are made, you cant change that.

[Anathaco]

4 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I am willing to accept people will interpret things differently. Here’s the thing about that. Not all discussion is good discussion. Not every argument people is a good one. I’m not gonna sit here and listen to an argument that is blatently faulty. Like I’ve ranted about comparison before because I genuinely believe that is just a poor argument you shouldn’t use in regards to criticism. Because at the end of the day what does comparison really amount to in the end.

”A is worse than B for not being B” is a bad argument. It should only be used in discussions of personal preference. Why? Because you can’t really compare stories. Like Fates does not benefit from being like RD. Fates benefits from being like Fates. Fates had no intention of being like radiant dawn so you shouldn’t expect it to be. It’s not the fault of the game that it is not to your personal taste and to suggest otherwise is, in my opinion, not very constructive because they’re not the same thing. To expect any piece of media to pander to your personal taste is a little arrogant if you ask me because no piece of media is obligated to do that. 

 

Is it wrong to point out the flaws in the way someone criticizes something? Because that’s how I’m interpreting what you’re saying here. If someone makes a comparison on the grounds of “A is worse than B for not being B” then yeah I’m going to dismiss it because I think it’s dumb and I’ve given(at least what I believe to be) a sound reason as to why. That’s generally how I approach it. I dismiss criticisms of contrivance for similar reasons. I don’t think it’s a good criticism for reasons I’ve ranted about before. If you can make a good argument for contrivance I will listen but I have yet to see one. I’ve explained why the argument doesn’t work so why should I not dismiss it? I’m willing to listen to your argument if you can make a good one. I am not infallible. I’ve been proven wrong about plenty of things before on these very forums in fact. It’s just sometimes I feel like an argument is extremely faulty and doesn’t make sense and I’m going to point out the flaws in that argument.

Aside from actual logical fallacies I'd disagree. People have their own reasons to criticise or enjoy something, and you can see it as nitpicky, or whatever, but if that's what they think would have improved the story then thats what they think would have improved the story.

As for contrivance, people who argue against contrivance aren't saying that everything has to happen perfectly as in reality. The way I see it, there's good contrivance and bad contrivance- good contrivance is just called foreshadowing, verisimilitude or just plain good writing, while bad contrivance is left with that original "contrivance" label.

An example of what I mean of good contrivance: (spoilers for the Fruits Basket manga, so definitely don't click if you're watching the anime.)

Spoiler

Towards the end of the manga, the protagonist, Tohru, and the antagonist, Akito, are confronting each other on a cliff. A wholesome emotional moment has just happened where Tohru has actually managed to get through to Akito, and reintroduces herself as a way to start their relationship over. But before Akito reintroduces herself, the cliff crumbles beneath Tohru's feet and she falls. On paper this sounds heavily contrived, but at the very beginning of the story Tohru loses her tent in the woods thanks to a landslide by that very same cliff, which set into motion the story's events by forcing her to move in with the Sohma family. This cliff has already been canonically established as unstable, so it crumbling at some other crucial moment is a shock to the reader, but makes sense within the rules of the world, so its an example of good contrivance- it comes kinda out of nowhere but also doesnt at the same time, its just really crappy luck which could happen to anybody.

An example of ok contrivance (IMO, obviously) comes from Spider Man: Far from Home, with that whole thing with Nick Fury, the man who has lived his whole life by the FE7 commercial (build an army, trust nobody), trusting some random stranger and having that propel the whole plot forward. It's stupid until you consider the end credit scene where its revealed that it wasn't Nick at all, it was a Skrull covering for him while he was on vacation. This twist could also be argued to be a contrivance in and of itself, but it at least makes sense within what the audience knows of the world. We know shape-shifting aliens exist and we have met these particular ones before. Plus this reveal does explain the bad contrivance that drove the plot as it did, so in that way I can at least partially excuse it.

 Fates often gets labelled with contrivance because it is the bad kind of contrivance- the kind where foreshadowing doesn't occur, or it introduces a new aspect of the world specifically for this one moment. Fates is riddled with this kind of contrivance, but I'll probably just stick with the classic "noooooo we can't just TELL people what we're fighting because of the CUUUUUUUUURSEEEEE". This is something completely unestablished by the story until the very moment Azura brings it up for the first time- afaik there's no other curse in the game that works like that, and there are a lot of better ways to make it harder to talk about Valla too. Instead of just instantly dying when anybody says the name, why not have like assassins come after them and anyone who heard them say it to keep the secret from getting out or something? We have met Valla's invisible soldiers in the story, so utilising them again specifically as agents to silence anybody who hears or speaks about Valla isn't a massive stretch of the imagination. Compare that to what we got, where the audience is given no explanation as to why Valla is how it is, and why nobody can say its name. People label it as forced, contrived, and lazy because the writers didn't even find a way to give it that justification (plus its not even a good deterrent, insert one of the hundreds of memes about somebody just writing the word Valla on a piece of paper and passing it around the royals). And this is why people call the kind of contrivance that Fates regularly dabbles in "contrived"- they don't mean the good kind, where the world of the story contains ample information for it to be believable, they mean the bad kind, where it seems blatantly obvious that the writers were either not trying or were just incompetent.

To address the "suspension of belief" argument, yes I understand that different people are more willing to endorse certain plot points than other people are. But if you want to look at a story objectively, you can't judge a story by the people who are most willing to look the other way. Similarly, you can't judge it by its worst critics either (though tbf i'd almost see that as preferable). Ideally people would set a metric for this kind of stuff- there are things that stories do that make more people willing to overlook the plot contrivances, as there are things that make less people willing to overlook it. Some stories fill these criteria, others don't. But in the absence of such a criteria people are going to argue based on personal bias. Hell, even if there were a criteria people would probably still default to personal bias. The best we can do is argue our own views and try to have a good time doing it because otherwise it would get boring.

tl;dr: Contrivance in stories is good when they give some kind of explanation in-world that makes it more palatable. Fates doesn't do that, hence the contrivance it does is considered bad. And personal bias exists, sadly, but eh. that's life.

[Ottservia]

23 minutes ago, Anathaco said:

An example of what I mean of good contrivance: (spoilers for the Fruits Basket manga, so definitely don't click if you're watching the anime.)

  Reveal hidden contents

Towards the end of the manga, the protagonist, Tohru, and the antagonist, Akito, are confronting each other on a cliff. A wholesome emotional moment has just happened where Tohru has actually managed to get through to Akito, and reintroduces herself as a way to start their relationship over. But before Akito reintroduces herself, the cliff crumbles beneath Tohru's feet and she falls. On paper this sounds heavily contrived, but at the very beginning of the story Tohru loses her tent in the woods thanks to a landslide by that very same cliff, which set into motion the story's events by forcing her to move in with the Sohma family. This cliff has already been canonically established as unstable, so it crumbling at some other crucial moment is a shock to the reader, but makes sense within the rules of the world, so its an example of good contrivance- it comes kinda out of nowhere but also doesnt at the same time, its just really crappy luck which could happen to anybody.

An example of ok contrivance (IMO, obviously) comes from Spider Man: Far from Home, with that whole thing with Nick Fury, the man who has lived his whole life by the FE7 commercial (build an army, trust nobody), trusting some random stranger and having that propel the whole plot forward. It's stupid until you consider the end credit scene where its revealed that it wasn't Nick at all, it was a Skrull covering for him while he was on vacation. This twist could also be argued to be a contrivance in and of itself, but it at least makes sense within what the audience knows of the world. We know shape-shifting aliens exist and we have met these particular ones before. Plus this reveal does explain the bad contrivance that drove the plot as it did, so in that way I can at least partially excuse it.

Okay fair enough and I can see what you’re trying to say but I would still disagree to an extent. To this, I bring up the opening events to persona 5. I’m not bothering with a spoiler tag cause this occurs within the first couple hours of the game. It’s starts off with the traditional persona set up. The protagonist has just moved to a new town/city and is now heading to their first day of school. On the way it begins to rain so the protagonists takes shelter under a nearby building sign alongside a girl(with a unique enough design to stand out so you know she’s gonna be important later). This event is then followed by a man driving up in his car asking if the two of you need a ride. Ren(the protagonist) declines but the girl accepts the offer and goes in his car and they drive off. A vulgar boy then runs up screaming about Kamashida being some pervert castle king which triggers an app on Ren’s phone and picks up their conversation. The app then transports them to a different world where long story short Kamoshida’s distorted desires have materialized. Later it is revealed that the only way to enter such a place is by entering the palace ruler’s keywords(basically their name, a place, and what they view that place as). It’s only after all of this happens that plot actually has some kind of conflict to push it forward. The sheer amount of coincidences that needed to happen for these events to occur as did is asinine in real life. But they happened in this story for no other reason than to kick start the plot. You just so happen to transfer to this school where on your first day it just so happens to rain and you just so happen to forget your umbrella. Then you just so happen to run into the main villain of the arc and not one but two of his abuse victims one after the other. Not only that but one of them you had a conversation with just so happened to say the precise palace keywords necessary in order to enter that other world and he just so happened to be in range so that the app could hear him. Again, these events are only there for the sake of the plot. There is no thematic or character motivated reason for how all this happens. There is no foreshadowing to it either. There’s no thematic connection like the fruits basket example. It’s all just pure “coincidence”. If that isn’t contrived I don’t know what it is and if you use the argument of it being okay only because it happens at the start of the story then you need to know the story does shit like this all the time namely as a way to start the second story arc. Even the final arc of the game is built on these coincidences occurring for the sake of the plot. Would you could consider persona 5 a poorly written story for that reason? I wouldn’t and a lot of people would agree with me. Persona 5 is a fantastically written game that many people, myself included, love and hold in high regard. 
 

contrived as it may be those things hardly effect what people take away from this narrative. Hell Persona 5 in general deals in themes of defiance and fate. I hardly see anyone complaining about those contrivances and if contrivance is a universal sign of bad writing then that should be considered a flaw on the part of P5’s story. If it’s a sign of bad writing for fates then it should be a sign of bad writing for P5 as well otherwise you contradict yourself. Yet, even with all that said no one complains about it in P5 at least not to my knowledge. Personally, I’m fine with both. They both don’t bother me. If there’s an exception to the rule, then it can’t be universally applied. As I’ve said before there are no universal rules to storytelling. Well there are but contrivance is no where near one of them. The thing about it is those moments in Persona 5 don’t detract from the story’s overall message or what people take away from it. If those things do bother you fine but just because it breaks your suspension of disbelief it won’t break another’s meaning it’s not a hard rule that can be applied as a legitimate criticism. You can’t be objective with it at all therefore it is a moot point. 

On the subject of foreshadowing, things can be surprising in stories not everything needs to be foreshadowed in order for it to be good. Retconing isn’t inherently bad either. Sometimes retcons can actually improve a story. This is what happens when you try to apply universal metrics like this to stories. All I need is one counter example of it working in another story to prove the rule false. This is the case with contrivance. If the rule is that it needs to be foreshadowed before hand then I can just point to the beginning of any story ever in order to contradict that claim. If it needs to have a thematic connection again I point to Persona 5 where that story works just fine regardless. If the rule is that there needs to be an explanation again I just need to point to the beginning of every story ever where sometimes there is no explanation and the plot just kind of happens. “Contrivance” is not a hard universal rule whatsoever so you shouldn’t treat it as one. A story breaking its own rules can be considered a form of contrivance I will admit. And that’s the only time I can see the criticism working but even then that should be measured on a case by case basis as every story follows a different set of rules. 

1 hour ago, Anathaco said:

Fates often gets labelled with contrivance because it is the bad kind of contrivance- the kind where foreshadowing doesn't occur, or it introduces a new aspect of the world specifically for this one moment. Fates is riddled with this kind of contrivance, but I'll probably just stick with the classic "noooooo we can't just TELL people what we're fighting because of the CUUUUUUUUURSEEEEE". This is something completely unestablished by the story until the very moment Azura brings it up for the first time- afaik there's no other curse in the game that works like that, and there are a lot of better ways to make it harder to talk about Valla too. Instead of just instantly dying when anybody says the name, why not have like assassins come after them and anyone who heard them say it to keep the secret from getting out or something? We have met Valla's invisible soldiers in the story, so utilising them again specifically as agents to silence anybody who hears or speaks about Valla isn't a massive stretch of the imagination. Compare that to what we got, where the audience is given no explanation as to why Valla is how it is, and why nobody can say its name. People label it as forced, contrived, and lazy because the writers didn't even find a way to give it that justification (plus its not even a good deterrent, insert one of the hundreds of memes about somebody just writing the word Valla on a piece of paper and passing it around the royals). And this is why people call the kind of contrivance that Fates regularly dabbles in "contrived"- they don't mean the good kind, where the world of the story contains ample information for it to be believable, they mean the bad kind, where it seems blatantly obvious that the writers were either not trying or were just incompetent.

 

In regards to the vallite curse, the issue isn’t so much the curse just the lack of detail surrounding it. It even serves a decent thematic purpose. It’s mere existence and what it’s supposed to do is not really the issue because again it’s a moot argument if it hinges on suspension of disbelief. It also has an explanation for existing as it was created by Anankos. It has an in-universe explanation. Is it good one? I wouldn’t say so but it is at least an explanation for why it exists. Is it foreshadowed? Yes it is actually at the end of birthright. It’s that very curse that kills Azura. So it fits all your criteria for what “good contrivance” is. Would you still say it’s good? I wouldn’t. The problem is as you put it yourself “why can’t they just write it down?” That is the main issue. Not the fact that it exists as in-universe spoiler warning. They don’t go into detail on how it works in order to answer obvious questions like that. The curse on its own is simply a rule the narrative sets for itself for the story to function the way it wants to. It’s no different from P5’s rule of “you need to enter the palace owner’s keywords in order to access their palace” In order to build a scenario where Corrin and Azura must build trust with others(the main theme of the game) in order to beat Anankos. The problem, however, is that the rule is too vague and they never go into detail about it. 
 

the rule is as follows “you can’t speak of valla outside of valla” which, again, is fine on its own. It establishes a narrative rule.The question arises of “why can’t they just write it down or something” which is a problem. A problem they never explain when it is the story’s duty to explain its rules to its audience so they can understand. Hell they even break this rule a little bit in the hidden truth’s dlc where Anankos is mentioned by name in Ylisse not only by Anankos himself but also Inigo, Severa, and Owain. Y’see that’s an actual problem with the story because it actively breaks its own established rules without explanation. 

[Anathaco]

I guess to clarify a bit more, I wasn't saying that bad contrivance immediately ruins a story. The contrivance in P5 is a problem with the story, and is often what I see criticised most about it (particularly in arcs like the Okumura one), but avoids falling into many other story pitfalls that games like Fates do fall into. Essentially my viewpoint is that contrivance (the bad kind) is a flaw for a story as much as anything else, but its only when the story fails on multiple accounts that it ends up with the well-deserved label of "bad".

1 hour ago, Ottservia said:

“Contrivance” is not a hard universal rule whatsoever so you shouldn’t treat it as one. A story breaking its own rules can be considered a form of contrivance I will admit. And that’s the only time I can see the criticism working but even then that should be measured on a case by case basis as every story follows a different set of rules. 

That bit about breaking a story's own rules is probably the best way to summarise my views on bad contrivance, that and creating rules for the situation at hand without any kind of pre-requisite. Foreshadowing and thematic connection is more like a metric to measure that, rather than qualify contrivance on their own. Probably should have made that clearer, before hand, mb. Anyway, I disagree that measuring contrivance case by case disqualifies it from being a hard-universal rule. Basically everything when it comes to stories is done on a case-by-case basis. 

1 hour ago, Ottservia said:

In regards to the vallite curse, the issue isn’t so much the curse just the lack of detail surrounding it. It even serves a decent thematic purpose. It’s mere existence and what it’s supposed to do is not really the issue because again it’s a moot argument if it hinges on suspension of disbelief. It also has an explanation for existing as it was created by Anankos. It has an in-universe explanation. Is it good one? I wouldn’t say so but it is at least an explanation for why it exists. Is it foreshadowed? Yes it is actually at the end of birthright. It’s that very curse that kills Azura. So it fits all your criteria for what “good contrivance” is. Would you still say it’s good? I wouldn’t. The problem is as you put it yourself “why can’t they just write it down?” That is the main issue. Not the fact that it exists as in-universe spoiler warning. They don’t go into detail on how it works in order to answer obvious questions like that. The curse on its own is simply a rule the narrative sets for itself for the story to function the way it wants to. It’s no different from P5’s rule of “you need to enter the palace owner’s keywords in order to access their palace” In order to build a scenario where Corrin and Azura must build trust with others(the main theme of the game) in order to beat Anankos. The problem, however, is that the rule is too vague and they never go into detail about it. 

The curse isn't what kills Azura in Birthright, for one thing. She dies because of the energy it requires to sing her song and weaken Garon. Same in Conquest afaik. Besides that, as you say, it still sucks as a contrivance. As well as the write it down plot hole I'd also point to the fact that it deliberately invents a new rule for Fates' world when it could very easily have gotten away with using established rules like Valla's soldiers and achieved much the same effect. 

I guess to summarise, the write it down plot hole is what makes the curse a legitimate, massive problem with Revelation's story that arguably ruins it almost immediately. However it is still a bad contrivance (assuming we're following my arbitrary rule of breaking/inventing new rules of the world), just not so bad that it immediately ruins Revelation.

1 hour ago, Ottservia said:

If those things do bother you fine but just because it breaks your suspension of disbelief it won’t break another’s meaning it’s not a hard rule that can be applied as a legitimate criticism. You can’t be objective with it at all therefore it is a moot point. 

My problem with this logic is that it can be applied to almost anything. When it comes to stories almost nothing is objective. A story contradicting its own themes at times doesn't bother Frank over here, for example, so thematic value isn't a hard rule that can be applied as a legitimate criticism. Exceptions exist literally everywhere but that doesn't rule out anything as a legitimate criticism. Thus its not really fair to ignore contrivance as a criticism for that reason alone.

 

Overall the point I'm trying to make, albeit clumsily, is that contrivance is an issue that exists in basically every story, but some stories do better jobs than others at making the audience accept it as an explanation, and that good contrivance/bad contrivance distinction is worth discussing and criticising. So ignoring it as a criticism in stories where people often see contrivance as a problem stifles that discussion.

[Ottservia]

45 minutes ago, Anathaco said:

My problem with this logic is that it can be applied to almost anything. When it comes to stories almost nothing is objective. A story contradicting its own themes at times doesn't bother Frank over here, for example, so thematic value isn't a hard rule that can be applied as a legitimate criticism. Exceptions exist literally everywhere but that doesn't rule out anything as a legitimate criticism. Thus its not really fair to ignore contrivance as a criticism for that reason alone.

You miss my point. My point in saying that suspension of disbelief is subjective is that it is impossible to use it as any kind of metric because you cannot prove suspension of disbelief. It is entirely subjective. If you assert a story is objectively bad because it broke your suspension of disbelief in some way then that argument is flawed inherently. You cannot prove your suspension of disbelief was broken. There’s no evidence to support a claim like that simply because it is wholly subjective. If I assert that a story is bad because it contradicts its rules/themes that’s something that can be proven and backed up with hard evidence from the text. You’re thinking about my argument too much from a black and white mindset. The problem with your little counter example there is that like I said before investment in a story is inherently subjective. Things having context and meaning to them isn’t magically going to make someone begin to care even if they can see the value in what it accomplishes. Again take Makoto from P5. Her character arc revolves around trying to be useful to others and learning to take action when she feels she has to. Throughout the entire arc we see people tell her she’s useless and a push-over. She acts as the principle’s lap dog trying to hunt down the phantom thieves.

This reaches its inevitable climax when Ann calls her useless and she recklessly chases after Kaneshiro which gets all of them in a 3 million yen black mail situation with a crime boss. Makoto feels she doesn’t have value to people as shown when she was yelled at by her sister or how she feels like she needs to depend on the principle for a letter or rec. This feeling of uselessness is even contrasted on Kaneshiro who feels that without money no one will like him. He projects this image of a tough mafia boss but in actuality he’s nothing more than a meek insect that leeches off of the sucess of others. Again this contrasts with how Makoto feels like a burden to her sister(who is, as Sae herself puts it, “eating away at my life” similar to how Kaneshiro eats away at the lives of his “customers”) and desperately feels this need to prove herself to society just like Kaneshiro.

All that said, does that mean I care about Makoto or even like her as a character? Hell no. I couldn’t give less of a shit about her or Kaneshiro if I tried. They’re both just boring to me personally. But that’s just a matter of personal taste at the end of the day not a fault of the story itself. The fact that I don’t care isn’t really a reflection of its quality as there are many people who, unlike me, do care and I can certainly understand why. She’s a well written character all things considered even if I personally don’t care for her. It’s just a matter of personal preference at that point which is unprovable and cannot be used as the basis for any form of argument. That’s the difference between arguing on suspension of disbelief and arguing on themes/interpretations. The latter can be proven and backed up to create a sound argument. The former cannot.

[Lightcosmo]

20 hours ago, Armchair General said:

Awakening kind of does a decent job with integrating the secondary characters into the main story, but it's not at the point to where everyone has a crucial role in it.

Well yeah but in Kellams supports, all the characters talk about is not noticing him. This gets boring to read and is not the least bit enjoyable. Not only is it boring to read, it's generally kind of sad to think that those characters would do that to someone.  None of the other characters sound at all In character in those supports.

[null]

33 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

Well yeah but in Kellams supports, all the characters talk about is not noticing him. This gets boring to read and is not the least bit enjoyable. Not only is it boring to read, it's generally kind of sad to think that those characters would do that to someone.  None of the other characters sound at all In character in those supports.

That's one of the more notable problems with Awakening's writing. While the characters have the opportunity to express depth of personality and whatnot in their supports, they often don't (with exceptions, of course), instead focusing on one trope/joke/character trait. It starts to feel one-note after a while, and tonally inconsistent with the idea of a narrative about war/supernatural conflict, as FE is typically about. That's not to say that humor/lighter moments are incompatible with FE. Far from it. But there's a place and a time that are appropriate for that, and I don't think Awakening had a good grasp on when and where such humor/trope-focused scenes should have been placed.

[Lightcosmo]

2 hours ago, twilitfalchion said:

That's one of the more notable problems with Awakening's writing. While the characters have the opportunity to express depth of personality and whatnot in their supports, they often don't (with exceptions, of course), instead focusing on one trope/joke/character trait. It starts to feel one-note after a while, and tonally inconsistent with the idea of a narrative about war/supernatural conflict, as FE is typically about. That's not to say that humor/lighter moments are incompatible with FE. Far from it. But there's a place and a time that are appropriate for that, and I don't think Awakening had a good grasp on when and where such humor/trope-focused scenes should have been placed.

Yeah, I agree. A set few characters in Awakening stand out for not being one dimensional.  I also agree that humor is okay, but as you said, theres a time and place for everything. 

[Ottservia]

3 hours ago, twilitfalchion said:

That's one of the more notable problems with Awakening's writing. While the characters have the opportunity to express depth of personality and whatnot in their supports, they often don't (with exceptions, of course), instead focusing on one trope/joke/character trait. It starts to feel one-note after a while, and tonally inconsistent with the idea of a narrative about war/supernatural conflict, as FE is typically about. That's not to say that humor/lighter moments are incompatible with FE. Far from it. But there's a place and a time that are appropriate for that, and I don't think Awakening had a good grasp on when and where such humor/trope-focused scenes should have been placed.

I disagree can you provide examples of such things occurring in awakening besides Kellam? If you’re gonna make blanket statements like that then you should be able to provide evidence for your claim. Cause here’s the thing about the support system. The game does not know at what point you will unlock any given support and awakening has a pretty good mix of comedic and serious ones. If you unlock a comedic support after say chapter 10 and it creates whiplash that’s not really the game’s fault rather than the rng of support points lining up in a weird way. You just so happen to unlock a comedic support at the wrong time which will not apply to everyone’s experience. If we’re excluding supports from the equation then again provide examples of awakening being tonally inconsistent. Awakening is no more tonally inconsistent than say persona 4 or 5 as in to say yeah it has its light hearted and comedic moments but they’re properly placed. I’d say awakening’s tone is about as consistent as PoR or SoV because again those games aren’t really excused from having jokes and comedic supports/moments in between its serious ones(IllyanaxMia anyone?). Again if you’re gonna make a statement like this and pass it as a legitimate criticism all I ask is that you provide evidence for your claim otherwise you’re making a baseless claim which isn’t an argument and therefore can be dismissed on the grounds of it being baseless.

tl;dr citation needed.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Ottservia

[null]

2 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I disagree can you provide examples of such things occurring in awakening besides Kellam? If you’re gonna make blanket statements like that then you should be able to provide evidence for your claim. Cause here’s the thing about the support system. The game does not know at what point you will unlock any given support and awakening has a pretty good mix of comedic and serious ones. If you unlock a comedic support after say chapter 10 and it creates whiplash that’s not really the game’s fault rather than the rng of support points lining up in a weird way. You just so happen to unlock a comedic support at the wrong time which will not apply to everyone’s experience. If we’re excluding supports from the equation then again provide examples of awakening being tonally inconsistent. Awakening is no more tonally inconsistent than say persona 4 or 5 as in to say yeah it has its light hearted and comedic moments but they’re properly placed. I’d say awakening’s tone is about as consistent as PoR or SoV because again those games aren’t really excused from having jokes and comedic supports/moments in between its serious ones(IllyanaxMia anyone?). Again if you’re gonna make a statement like this and pass it as a legitimate criticism all I ask is that you provide evidence for your claim otherwise you’re making a baseless claim which isn’t an argument and therefore can be dismissed on the grounds of it being baseless.

tl;dr citation needed.

Ah, yes. Because I have to provide evidence to prove that my opinion is valid (despite my having played Awakening multiple times through and being very familiar with the game). Because when I offer my thoughts on something it's automatically an objectively arguable topic. Because you have the self-declared authority to dismiss anyone's statement because you deem it unworthy for an arbitrary reason.

The entire point of me commenting at all was to express my thoughts on Awakening's story, a comment sparked by a statement someone else made. Thinking you can dismiss my statement simply because it makes no sense to you is absurdly presumptuous.

But I'm beating a dead horse here, am I not?

Edited December 6, 2020 by twilitfalchion

[Ottservia]

7 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

Ah, yes. Because I have to provide evidence to prove that my opinion is valid (despite my having played Awakening multiple times through and being very familiar with the game). Because when I offer my thoughts on something it's automatically an objectively arguable topic. Because you have the self-declared authority to dismiss anyone's statement because you deem it unworthy for an arbitrary reason.

The entire point of me commenting at all was to express my thoughts on Awakening's story, a comment sparked by a statement someone else made. Thinking you can dismiss my statement simply because it makes no sense to you is absurdly presumptuous.

But I'm beating a dead horse here, am I not?

You are by no means obligated to explain yourself however in terms of criticism that is poor rhetoric on your part. Like think about it this way. PoR is a bad story because it’s characters are one dimensional. Greil’s death doesn’t mean anything in the story and is only there for shock value nothing more. It doesn’t affect Ike’s character arc at all. What you think I’m wrong? Of course I’m not wrong it’s just my opinion. I played PoR I know what I’m talking about you can’t say that I’m wrong. Ike doesn’t even use Ragnell against the black knight. That’s garbage storytelling. What you want to explain how I think that? Well I’m not going to you’re just have to take my word for it because it’s just my opinion. I can’t be wrong about anything in a story because it’s all subjective and if you say I’m wrong then you’re saying I’m not allowed to have an opinion. Do you see the issue here? If your argument or opinion is based in flawed misinformation then it is liable to be criticized saying awakening is “tonally inconsistent” is a flawed statement as there is no evidence to support that claim. Where’s the logic in that statement? For what reason do you say that? Awakening having tonal inconsistency is a statement that can be proven or disproven. Your opinion is not a shield to deflect criticism. If you simply said “I don’t like how awakening handles its tone balancing” then that is a matter is a matter of personal tase and cannot be argued against. There is a difference between those two statements. 
 

If I believe you say something that is incorrect I am fully allowed to correct you on that. If you disagree with me, fine let’s have that discussion. Who knows maybe you’ll prove me wrong but we can’t have that discussion if you deflect all criticism of your argument with the subjectivity card. Even then using the subjectivity card can only work if you’re consistent with it. If you think someone can be right or wrong about a story in any way you’re contradicting yourself because you are admitting to a level of objectivity. 

[Yexin]

13 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

If I believe you say something that is incorrect I am fully allowed to correct you on that. If you disagree with me, fine let’s have that discussion. Who knows maybe you’ll prove me wrong but we can’t have that discussion if you deflect all criticism of your argument with the subjectivity card.

you see it's not exactly easy to create a healthy discussion with someone who's already sure to be right unless proven wrong, and even then said someone dismisses those proofs due to them being "stupid" and spreading misinformation, stating that "not all discussion is good discussion" 

because that's the problem i'm seeing in your arguments: not what you say, but what your mindset is while saying them

 

also, since "not all discussion is good discussion", then let me ask you: "is yours good? do you think you're doing everything you can to make those discussions you decide to take on healthy and good? or is it always others' fault because all they always do is spreading misinformation and stupid arguments?"

[null]

2 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

PoR is a bad story because it’s characters are one dimensional. Greil’s death doesn’t mean anything in the story and is only there for shock value nothing more. It doesn’t affect Ike’s character arc at all. What you think I’m wrong? Of course I’m not wrong it’s just my opinion. I played PoR I know what I’m talking about you can’t say that I’m wrong.

If you felt that way (based on the text that has not been struck through), you wouldn't be wrong for thinking that, since everyone's perspective is different. I wouldn't tell you you're wrong for that any more than I would say to someone that they're wrong for saying that RD is a bad game.

Conversely, if you said that Greil's death means nothing to the plot and doesn't affect Ike's character at all, that could be proven incorrect. It's a matter of facts vs. interpretation. You're mixing the two.

3 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Ike doesn’t even use Ragnell against the black knight.

That's completely inaccurate.

And it's implying that I somehow made a statement that I tried to say was based in fact when it was simply me relaying my experience with the story.

4 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I can’t be wrong about anything in a story because it’s all subjective and if you say I’m wrong then you’re saying I’m not allowed to have an opinion.

That is a blatant misrepresentation of what I said. Facts are facts. Those are objective. Someone's thoughts on said facts, however...now those are indeed subjective.

5 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Do you see the issue here?

Yes, you didn't read what I said.

6 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

If your argument or opinion is based in flawed misinformation then it is liable to be criticized saying awakening is “tonally inconsistent” is a flawed statement as there is no evidence to support that claim.

Implying that my experience with Awakening is insignificant relative to my opinions about the game. I don't need evidence to support what are entirely my thoughts on something, just as you need no real reason to appreciate a character like Severa.

7 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Where’s the logic in that statement? For what reason do you say that?

Because, after playing through the game multiple times, that is the impression I was left with. That's it.

I don't need more than that. Not every opinion is logical.

9 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Awakening having tonal inconsistency is a statement that can be proven or disproven.

No, it's not. It's an aspect of a creative medium that is purely subjective. That's like saying I can prove whether or not a character or plot has depth or nuance. Those terms mean different things to different people and cannot be objectively proven to exist.

12 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Your opinion is not a shield to deflect criticism.

Never said it was.

11 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

If you simply said “I don’t like how awakening handles its tone balancing” then that is a matter is a matter of personal tase and cannot be argued against. There is a difference between those two statements. 

You are completely overthinking what I said. Let me make this clear. If I am discussing something, what I say is my own opinion--my thoughts--unless I explicitly say I'm speaking objectively. Which I rarely do anyway.

13 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

If I believe you say something that is incorrect I am fully allowed to correct you on that.

Once again implying that an opinion can be incorrect. If I think Severa is a one-note garbage tsundere tropefest of a character, I am no more incorrect for thinking that than you are for thinking she's the best character in FE. You act like I based my opinion on a non-existent aspect of Awakening when I'm merely interpreting what is already there.

15 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

we can’t have that discussion if you deflect all criticism of your argument with the subjectivity card. Even then using the subjectivity card can only work if you’re consistent with it. If you think someone can be right or wrong about a story in any way you’re contradicting yourself because you are admitting to a level of objectivity. 

As if I use subjectivity as a defense for everything.

I also never said that, nor have I acted that that statement is factual.

[Specta]

@Ottservia There is merit in asking for someone to provide some evidence because you're interested in hearing their opinion more in depth but it's not as productive to just tell them they're bad at arguing as a whole because they didn't expand enough yet. That is not productive. That went from 0 to 10 too fast

You could stop at just "what other supports are like Kellam's, do you think?" and let them provide more in-depth detailing about their opinion, not making it into a critique about their argumentative methods. That lets you address that you don't think it's enough information and you want more without making it weird, man

Remember a good, productive discussion doesn't necessarily mean everyone tosses out an air-tight argument with bibliography off the bat. Sometimes you gotta prompt each other and that's okay

[Lightcosmo]

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

I disagree can you provide examples of such things occurring in awakening besides Kellam?

You cant just exclude him. He still counts as evidence.