Theme of Conquest

[Armchair General]

1 hour ago, Integrity said:

yeah he's permabanned for overall being a fucker

 

EDIT: for clarity, y'all, don't make alts just to launch back into your own arguments to get around punishments. it is very frowned upon.

He'll be back, you know.

But anyways, Fates could have done better by showing us exactly why Garon went to war against Hoshido in the prologue, aside from kidnapping Cotton.

[Ottservia]

3 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

Sure you can have a theme, but if the in between writing is dull, what's the point? 

That’s mostly a subjective statement though. Dull and uninteresting to you but not necessarily to everyone else. Some people might find it interesting. It’s all s matter of personal preference. I think MHA fights are dull but that doesn’t mean they actually are by the definition of them not mattering.

 

3 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

Leo being an idiot not recognising Azura? Corrin repeating "Garon, you need to sit on the throne!" 6 chapters long isn't exactly good writing for a story.

These are essentially nitpicks because again you’re essentially criticizing the story for doing things you personally don’t like which again is a matter of taste not a fault of the narrative itself.

[Lightcosmo]

39 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

These are essentially nitpicks because again you’re essentially criticizing the story for doing things you personally don’t like which again is a matter of taste not a fault of the narrative itself.

Not really. The game gives me info that Leo is very intelligent. Wheres the evidence to back this claim up? Making him oblivious is not the best way to say, "hey, Leo is really smart!" 

The story makes fun of itself. Repeating the same line in different words isnt a nitpick either, it just makes it simply boring. This isnt Fates specific, any story that's like that is going to be dull. 

[Yexin]

35 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

criticizing for doing things you personally don’t like

i mean that's the whole point of criticizing, to show others those which you think are flaws, and discuss about them

if you dismiss others' criticisms and label them as "nitpicks" simply because you don't agree with them, that's the moment the discussion dies

[Lightcosmo]

A story having ideals doesnt make it immune from criticism. Thats silly. That isnt the entire story, every angle has to be considered. 

As the above user said, you cant dismiss everything you don't like to hear.

[Ottservia]

2 minutes ago, Yexin said:

i mean that's the whole point of criticizing, to show others those which you think are flaws, and discuss about them

if you dismiss others' criticisms and label them as "nitpicks" simply because you don't agree with them, that's the moment the discussion dies

I mean kind of fair but some criticisms just need to stop and cease because they are dumb and don’t matter. Like criticizing SAO for being a game that wouldn’t work in real life. Like what the hell does that matter to the story being told. It’s like saying Deku should’ve stayed quirkless. That is a dumb statement that people need to stop saying because it is dumb and not really a criticism. Seriously fuck anyone who says that unironically but that’s a tangent for another time.

 

7 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

Not really. The game gives me info that Leo is very intelligent. Wheres the evidence to back this claim up? Making him oblivious is not the best way to say, "hey, Leo is really smart!" 

The story makes fun of itself. Repeating the same line in different words isnt a nitpick either, it just makes it simply boring. This isnt Fates specific, any story that's like that is going to be dull. 

First point on Leo is fair but ultimately I feel like it’s a minor that doesn’t really affect much. The second one isn’t a criticism at all though. Repetition isn’t inherently bad. I mean awakening is constantly beating you over the head with it’s whole “power of friendship” at every given opportunity. Does that make story any worse? No not really. It just means the story is overt with its ideas. Most Fire Emblem stories aren’t exactly subtle.

[null]

On 11/27/2020 at 11:06 AM, SRPG Tryhard said:

The game is genius in its symbolism. It's a pity it flew over so many people's heads. 

Maybe others didn't feel the same way about the game's story, perhaps? What is genius symbolism to you is hot garbage to others, y'know.

On 11/27/2020 at 11:06 AM, SRPG Tryhard said:

The reason Takumi is the final boss is because the true evil is hate and Takumi represents just that. What pushed people to war in Fates was not Garon but their hate. Even when Corrin refuses to follow Garon's orders to kill the prisoners of war they literally ask to be killed themselves. They hate you so much that they prefer to die than be your prisoner. Some even commit suicide.

Three houses also followed up on that theme in AM and CF. Hubert's input on that was genius: "When I was a child, I feared such trivial things as divine punishment and grudges held by the dead. These days, I fear zealots and grudges held by the living instead."

Continuing from the last thread, I want to hear others' opinion on this. What do you think about my interpretation? 

With that said, I can respect the amount of effort put into interpreting Conquest like this. It's admirable to try to extract as much meaning out of something as possible, especially when you love it.

I personally don't think any aspect of Fates goes nearly that deep, but hey. You do you.

27 minutes ago, Yexin said:

i mean that's the whole point of criticizing, to show others those which you think are flaws, and discuss about them

if you dismiss others' criticisms and label them as "nitpicks" simply because you don't agree with them, that's the moment the discussion dies

Agreed. There's nothing open-minded about going into a discussion firmly set in the idea that your opinion is the correct one.

19 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

A story having ideals doesnt make it immune from criticism. Thats silly. That isnt the entire story, every angle has to be considered. 

As the above user said, you cant dismiss everything you don't like to hear.

Also very true.

[Lightcosmo]

27 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

First point on Leo is fair but ultimately I feel like it’s a minor that doesn’t really affect much. The second one isn’t a criticism at all though. Repetition isn’t inherently bad. I mean awakening is constantly beating you over the head with it’s whole “power of friendship” at every given opportunity. Does that make story any worse? No not really. It just means the story is overt with its ideas. Most Fire Emblem stories aren’t exactly subtle.

The "minor" is what makes it so bad. The small things add up. You cant ignore them for the bigger picture.

Depends on how its handled. Awakening showcases it in different ways, not the same way, 12 different times. If your going to showcase an idea, it needs to be able to draw the crowd in.

[Whirlwind]

I feel like the reason awakening is better than fates is because 1, the story is more bizarre in a good way 2, the maps (In my opinion) are more interesting and different (although I like fates use of dragon veins) and 3, fates recycled characters from awakening (I like how they gave laslow, Selena, and Odin their own paralogue on why they are there) they just rearranged the order of letters in their names (except laslow, Selena, and odin) it’s disappointing to be honest but I still like fates overall story 

[Ottservia]

11 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

Agreed. There's nothing open-minded about going into a discussion firmly set in the idea that your opinion is the correct one.

Here’s the thing about that. Have you ever thought to consider that your logic may in regards to how you criticize stories may be somewhat flawed? This is generally what I dislike about this subjectivist mindset. If it was all subjective then the terms “good” and “bad” have no meaning. It’s all subjective so an infant randomly smashing random keys on a piano is of the same level of quality as fucking Mozart which we all know isn’t true. But that would be true if it was all subjective. And another thing I’m not infallible. I’ve been proven wrong about shit all the team. I used to say characters like Luffy had no character development. That was dumb! It’s just that no one has really made a strong enough argument to convince me otherwise as arrogant that sounds. Again it’s like people who say that Deku should’ve remained quirkless. That is just a dumb incorrect statement that has no actual place in MHA criticism. Like don’t get me wrong I have my own issues with Fates’s story but at least I can try to be fair to it and not nitpick it to pieces. The fact is I just don’t think a lot of the criticism people attribute to fates are fair or at the very least no one has really explained to me why it is fair without contradicting themselves somehow. I’m not dismissing these criticisms on the grounds of subjectivity. Think about what exactly your criticism means and how much does it truly matter in the grand scheme of the narrative.

For example, Leo being stupid in not reconizing Azura is yes a criticism that is true but how much does that matter at the end of the day. Does it take away from or contradict any ideas or themes in the narrative? No not really. It’s just a minor inconsistency in Leo’s character which yeah is a thing but again it’s so minor that it’s like who cares. It’s just one tiny mistake. There are much bigger issues with Fates’s narrative to be concerned with believe me. Leo being somewhat dumb one moment is the least of this story’s problems. Ugh this is why I hate cinemasins.

13 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

The "minor" is what makes it so bad. The small things add up. You cant ignore them for the bigger picture.

Depends on how its handled. Awakening showcases it in different ways, not the same way, 12 different times. If your going to showcase an idea, it needs to be able to draw the crowd in.

Here’s the thing I kind of agree but I don’t think that fates is that egregious with it. Here’s how I like to think about it. Think of the story as a blimp. Each tiny plot or character inconsistency is a tiny pin on that blimp. On its own a couple of those pins don’t matter. They’re just tiny little mistakes that won’t crash the blimp but if you get enough of them then well yeah. Thing is I don’t think fates is that bad with it. SAO season 1 is that bad with it but fates is far from that level if you ask me.

[Lightcosmo]

Just now, Ottservia said:

But that No not really. It’s just a minor inconsistency in Leo’s character which yeah is a thing but again it’s so minor that it’s like who cares. It’s just one tiny mistake. There are much bigger issues with Fates’s narrative to be concerned with believe me. Leo being somewhat dumb one moment is the least of this story’s problems. Ugh this is why I hate cinemasins.

Well, I care, thank you. Those "one moments" can mean alot. 

Just cause you choose to ignore story inconsistencies doesnt mean I have to.

[Ottservia]

1 minute ago, lightcosmo said:

Well, I care, thank you. Those "one moments" can mean alot. 

Just cause you choose to ignore story inconsistencies doesnt mean I have to.

I mean sure fair that moment is dumb enough to affect your enjoyment of the story not mine though and that is solely a matter of personal preference not a narrative flaw you can criticize and blame the story for. 

[null]

1 minute ago, Ottservia said:

I mean sure fair that moment is dumb enough to affect your enjoyment of the story not mine though and that is solely a matter of personal preference not a narrative flaw you can criticize and blame the story for. 

Stop telling people what they can and can't criticize media for. You have no authority to do so.

[Lightcosmo]

Just now, Ottservia said:

I mean sure fair that moment is dumb enough to affect your enjoyment of the story not mine though and that is solely a matter of personal preference not a narrative flaw you can criticize and blame the story for. 

If a character doesnt follow their design by the writer, its either poor writing or poor translation, either way. Those things affect the story so, yeah, I can blame those moments. 

Like if he didn't sound dumb I could have taken that actually seriously and it would have had some tension. That's what I see as poor storyline. Those tiny moments adding up to make characters... not themselves? 

[Ottservia]

3 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

Stop telling people what they can and can't criticize media for. You have no authority to do so.

On that same token you have no authority to tell me what I can or cannot do. I am no academic authority just someone who has thought about storytelling long enough to the point where I think I have a grasp on how it works. Here’s the thing all I am doing is pointing out the flaws in your logic that is all. Again I bring back the Edelgard is racist example. You can’t just defend yourself with “it’s just my opinion” on that one. It is just objectively wrong. It’s flawed logic. It shows ignorance and a lack of understanding. I’m not infallible. If you think I am wrong please debate with me. Try to prove me wrong I welcome that discussion. But you don’t seem to want to have that discussion. Also on the idea on the idea of it all being subjective well then why do you care if someone disagrees with you? If you truly thought it was all subjective then you shouldn’t care if someone disagrees with you on anything because it’s subjective it doesn’t matter if someone disagrees that is their subjective opinion that you cannot argue or debate. 

 

7 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

If a character doesnt follow their design by the writer, its either poor writing or poor translation, either way. Those things affect the story so, yeah, I can blame those moments. 

Like if he didn't sound dumb I could have taken that actually seriously and it would have had some tension. That's what I see as poor storyline. Those tiny moments adding up to make characters... not themselves? 

I’m just gonna link a couple videos here because I feel like these videos do a better job of explaining what I’m trying to here.

 

[Lightcosmo]

3 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

On that same token you have no authority to tell me what I can or cannot do. I am no academic authority just someone who has thought about storytelling long enough to the point where I think I have a grasp on how it works.

I dont think that's how it works.

You have an understanding but no one else does? I doubt that. I'm certainly not convinced. 

But you just avoid confrontation by arguing "well I can do this and you cant" or vice versa.

[Ottservia]

3 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

You have an understanding but no one else does? I doubt that. I'm certainly not convinced. 

Did I say that? No I didn’t. I said I think I have an idea of how works not that I think no one does. I think anyone who says stupid bullshit doesn’t but that’s besides the point. 

 

4 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

But you just avoid confrontation by arguing "well I can do this and you cant" or vice versa.

Please explain to me the logic behind this statement cause I am not avoiding confrontation here. Here’s the thing about subjectivity. You pretty much forfeit all right to complain about someone else’s opinion if it was all subjective. If you think people can be right or wrong about stories then you are inherently admitting to a level of objectivity and are therefore contradicting yourself. I am simply pointing out the flaws in the logic

[ping]

You cannot prove to me that this right here is bad writing. On the action level, it's just a small group of teenagers interacting teasingly. The writing style may not be everybody's cuppa, but XXXbloodyrists666XXX keeps that tone consistently (I think. Never mananged to read through this entirely) and it's subjective if you like it or not.

--

Please do not try and convince me that the acting or the writing in Tommy Wiseau's "The Room" is bad. It has a rather serious theme of how the trust and goodwill of a good man can be abused by those around him. And before you claim that the acting seems artificial - keep in mind that the very nature of acting is that someone is pretending to be somebody they're not.

Spoiler

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERFUKERS! You ludacris fools!

-Dumbledore (he had a headache at the time)

 

[Ottservia]

8 minutes ago, ping said:

Please do not try and convince me that the acting or the writing in Tommy Wiseau's "The Room" is bad. It has a rather serious theme of how the trust and goodwill of a good man can be abused by those around him. And before you claim that the acting seems artificial - keep in mind that the very nature of acting is that someone is pretending to be somebody they're not.

Honest to god if that’s what they were going for then that’s pretty genius not gonna lie. Still though this is a strawman. Because the point of acting is for it to seem “real” in that sense. That’s literally the point. The point of fiction is not to seem realistic. Storytelling is inherently unrealistic. The point of acting is to bring fictional characters to life in a sense. Bad acting is what happens when it’s clear that the audience is completely unable to understand the character which can make it feel artificial. Storytelling on the other hand does not need to adhere to the rules of reality. It’s not meant to. It doesn’t have to.

Edited December 4, 2020 by Ottservia

[Lightcosmo]

29 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

Bad acting is what happens when it’s clear that the audience is completely unable to understand the character which can make it feel artificial. Storytelling on the other hand does not need to adhere to the rules of reality. It’s not meant to. It doesn’t have to.

The same can apply here, you just dont want it to. Reality or not. 

[Ottservia]

7 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

The same can apply here, you just dont want it to. Reality or not. 

No, not necessarily. Here’s the thing about stories. Not every story should be boholden to reality. Stories are inherently artificial. The point of acting is to get across an idea or emotion to the audience so they can better understand the character. It’s not much different from dialogue in that sense. Dialogue is probably the best example I can point to in regards to stories being inherently unrealistic.

To quote the video I posted above, “And lets not get started on dialogue. Real conversation has people stuttering, stammering, forgetting what they were trying to say, changing their minds or opinions, going off topic, suffering interruptions, points being poorly formed but still understood due to the familiarity both sides have with each other. Conversation is a fucking mess, but scripted dialogue is meant to be clear and understandable, good dialogue containing denser and layered meanings, setting it at a level of literacy well above two people talking with each other. And yet, even though this is the case, a realistic show is good and an unrealistic one dumb and schlocky.”

By this logic any story that has scripted dialogue is unrealistic by definition because it’s nothing like real life conversation. What matters more is not realism but verisimilitude which is what “acting” falls under. Again judge each piece of media by its own rules and what it sets out to do within those rules not arbitrary rules you set for it.

[Lightcosmo]

I'm not playing Fire Emblem for a realistic story, and I dont like the characters because they are a single way all the time. Differences make up the characters I like, positive and negative. Everyone has them, realistic or not they should strive to make good on both sides. This is a huge part where a game like Fates fails. Alot of the cast is one dimensional. They dont "feel". Take Effie for example, I mentioned this before but to me, she's hardly human. She has no human qualities besides one, making her boring in any conversation she's in. I dont want to read the same thing 8 different times, I want to learn new things about a character. Not trying to jab at all, just that a character like that drags down interactions In alot of different ways. 

[Armchair General]

1 hour ago, lightcosmo said:

I'm not playing Fire Emblem for a realistic story, and I dont like the characters because they are a single way all the time. Differences make up the characters I like, positive and negative. Everyone has them, realistic or not they should strive to make good on both sides. This is a huge part where a game like Fates fails. Alot of the cast is one dimensional. They dont "feel". Take Effie for example, I mentioned this before but to me, she's hardly human. She has no human qualities besides one, making her boring in any conversation she's in. I dont want to read the same thing 8 different times, I want to learn new things about a character. Not trying to jab at all, just that a character like that drags down interactions In alot of different ways. 

Well, it doesn't really help that the secondary characters are mainly there for extra muscle or surprise reinforcements in the main story. Let's take Nyx, for example. She's mainly there to point out a potential detour and to add another mage to your ranks. But she has nothing more to say outside of her debut chapter and support conversations.

[Ottservia]

20 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

Well, it doesn't really help that the secondary characters are mainly there for extra muscle or surprise reinforcements in the main story. Let's take Nyx, for example. She's mainly there to point out a potential detour and to add another mage to your ranks. But she has nothing more to say outside of her debut chapter and support conversations.

But Nyx is an actually good character though. Effie though, I mean I don’t care for her character personally but I’m not gonna say she’s a poorly written one because of that. I’d have to read her supports but I don’t care enough about her to do that

[Lightcosmo]

1 hour ago, Armchair General said:

Well, it doesn't really help that the secondary characters are mainly there for extra muscle or surprise reinforcements in the main story. Let's take Nyx, for example. She's mainly there to point out a potential detour and to add another mage to your ranks. But she has nothing more to say outside of her debut chapter and support conversations.

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.