Retconning a Laguz Villain into a Radiant Dawn Remake (or rewrite)

[Jotari]

One of the biggest criticisms people levee at the game is that the laguz come out as too flawless in the Laguz-Beorc racism. In other words, the game needs a Laguz antagonist. To those criticisms I usually say, well Lehran is the biggest antagonist in the game and is a Laguz, but given how sympathetic he is, how he can't transform and how he's only ever depicted as a villain for a single chapter, it's pretty understandable how people just don't register that. So yeah, I could see the game needing a Laguz antagonist. How exactly one could naturally be implemented into the story however is another matter, given the enemy nation in Radiant Dawn is so anti laguz.They do still pull the whole black mail people to fight for them with the Ravens, but that while providing enemies for the player to phase, is a bit of a cop out for having an actual antagonistic Laguz character. What people want is an actual Laguz doing evil by their own volition (hence why people don't really count Deghensea either).

So with all that preamble out of the way, to give us an actually evil Laguz character who can fit naturally into the plot, I suggest a third Wolf character, for three reasons.

1) Well there's only two wolves in the game already, so it's by far the least populated Laguz type.

2) Said two Laguz and Hatari as a whole are severely undeveloped, as is typical for characters introduced in Radiant Dawn who aren't Micaiah or Pelleas.

3) Having the new antagonist be from Hatari gives them their own agenda that can provide trouble for the protagonists, without necessarily stepping on the toes of pre-established politics of the game. In other words, this character wouldn't have to choose a side, since they'd have their own agenda out of the context of everything else that's going on.

 

As for the character, I shall name him Vadik, the Black Wolf.

He is a cadet member of the Hatari royal family, or maybe a rival clan, whatever way they want to develop the unexamined politics of Hatari. Upon hearing word the Nailah has decided to go venturing off into a foreign land, he pursues her to Tellius intending to kill her and Volug so he has a closer route to King of Hatari. He also has a few wolf underlings along with him. Radiant Dawn is already long enough a game as it is, so I don't think it particularly needs many more chapters, so instead of having dedicated chapters, Vadik would show up as mid map reinforcements on existing chapters. At first he'd be too powerful to kill and would serve as an enemy to push you towards finishing the chapter quicker, but as you get deeper into the game you stand a better chance of taking him out. His minons won't have names or personalities, however they will be unique enemies. That is to say if you kill them in one chapter, they will not spawn in the next chapter. Vadik will continue to appear if you do somehow manage to beat him before end game however (he can have the miracle skill as an attempt to handwave that, as Radiant Dawn is actually pretty good about having characters killed on maps actually die).

The chapters Vadik and his cohorts appear in include

Raise the Standard Part 1: Chapter condition would still be rout, but is now instead rout all the Begnion forces, Vadik will also attack Begnion forces.

Tides of Intrigue: They will be stationary enemies in the north west of this chapter, hanging around a brazier. The plot will suggest he doesn't even know Lucia and the group are around and only happens upon them if you move close to them. Maybe they can have items to steal using Heather in this chapter to encourage going near them (having such dangerous enemies in Fog of War going on the offensive is a bit scummy).

The Heart of Crimea: Spawns in the south east, inside the forest. Like Raise the Standard, the victory of the condition changes from rout, to rout all the Begnion forces, and Vadik will fight the Begnion Forces.

From Pain, Awakening: Vadik finally shows up on a map where Nailah is actually deployed, though she's an enemy in this map, so they probably will never face each other. Spawns from the south east of the chapter. Will fight both the laguz and Micaiah's army. Him being here also does nice to add to the general Chaos of the battle to help awaking Yune and adds more to the theory people have that Yune didn't wake in Path of Radiance because Hatari was uninvolved.

The Holy City: A new chapter added to Part 4 of Radiant Dawn, where you take storm Sienne, with the armies reuniting mid map. This is something that happens entirely offscreen in Radiant Dawn and I think that's a bit disappointing. Vadik will also fight the Disciples of Order, though this map will finally require you to kill him.

So as I think can be seen from these chapters, Vadik would be more memorable for the role he plays in the gamepaly, spicing up chapters that might be a little disinteresting otherwise in terms of gameplay. In most of his appearances he's attacking completely different people, so there's no grand new narrative thread being created. He has simple motivation, shows up and causes trouble and then vanishes again to continue on his hunt for Nailah, who is vaguely aware of his presence after his first appearance, and maybe we can have Nailah explain how she's traveled far away to send him on a wild goose chase as an explanation why she's nowhere to be seen for much of part 3. I think this is the best way to handle a new antagonist in a remake, especially in a game like Radiant Dawn which already has a tonne of different actors. I think the Berkut method of creating a new character and just tossing them at the player again and again without them ever influencing things doesn't work. Vadik isn't meant to influence things, he's meant to complicate things by showing up in places he has no business to be and fighting everyone. Embodying the chaotic side of the laguz. It's either something like this or do what New Mystery did and introduce a new subplot, and given how dense Radiant Dawn already is and how you jump perspectives so much, I don't think that's the best approach.

This is a repost of a comment I made on a thread about adding more characters to Radiant Dawn. I was just reminded about it from someone pointing out the issue of laguz and beorc being unequally depicted in terms of racism, and, while I toot my own horn in saying this, I think it's a rather good solution to fixing  the problem (provided one believes the problem actually requires fixing). I didn't just make this thread to talk about my own ideas though, I'd like to hear your thoughts on how the racism in Tellius could be made more balanced. You can either talk about adding a villainous laguz character like I have, or even an extensive rewrite if you have any good ideas (I think something could be done to better solidify Naesala's motivation beyond "Yo, forgot to tell you I was being black mailed, sorry guys").

[X-Naut]

They don't have to retcon in a new villain, all they have to do is write in the Laguz's own shady truths. Like cover how they were the oppressive race in the early days of Begnion as the Tellius Recollection reveals. Throw in names for historic Laguz figures who might be divisive among the two races for their poor treatment of Beorc.

[AnonymousSpeed]

2 hours ago, X-Naut said:

They don't have to retcon in a new villain, all they have to do is write in the Laguz's own shady truths. Like cover how they were the oppressive race in the early days of Begnion as the Tellius Recollection reveals. Throw in names for historic Laguz figures who might be divisive among the two races for their poor treatment of Beorc.

I was unaware of that, but that's actually quite interesting. A sort of Zaire-situation.

We should have Laguz who profit from selling other Laguz into slavery.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, X-Naut said:

They don't have to retcon in a new villain, all they have to do is write in the Laguz's own shady truths. Like cover how they were the oppressive race in the early days of Begnion as the Tellius Recollection reveals. Throw in names for historic Laguz figures who might be divisive among the two races for their poor treatment of Beorc.

I'm pretty sure that's not just extraneous materials stuff. From what I recall, Deghensea says as much in one of the flashbacks, specifically the "Goldoa will not move!" one.

4 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I was unaware of that, but that's actually quite interesting. A sort of Zaire-situation.

We should have Laguz who profit from selling other Laguz into slavery.

A laguz slaver would actually be great.  A really simple idea for an easily hatable character.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

I do like the idea of enemy wolves showing up? Hm... what if Pain and Agony were Wolves, rather than Tigers? Suppose they traveled with Nailah and Volug from Hatari. Upon reaching the Ruins, they wanted to abscond with the treasure, while Nailah wanted to stay and wait with Rafiel. Leading the errant Wolves to fight against Micaiah and company.

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

We should have Laguz who profit from selling other Laguz into slavery.

This could fit really well with my idea for paralogues starring the Laguz Emancipation Army. The first one would depict Tormod and Muarim rrscuing Vika, among other Laguz, from slavery. Perhaps her slaver (and the boss) is another Raven laguz, who's doing a "transaction" in the desert with representatives of Duke Numida? The chapter mission would be to open Vika's cage and have her escape the map, with other captured laguz granting BEXP upon their escape, and the boss-kill essentially optional (but rewarding the player with a dropped Laguz Stone).

[Jotari]

3 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I do like the idea of enemy wolves showing up? Hm... what if Pain and Agony were Wolves, rather than Tigers? Suppose they traveled with Nailah and Volug from Hatari. Upon reaching the Ruins, they wanted to abscond with the treasure, while Nailah wanted to stay and wait with Rafiel. Leading the errant Wolves to fight against Micaiah and company.

That would serve to make Pain and Agaony (who are literally our only other example of Laguz doing evil of their own volition) less random in the plot...though I can't help put think that would put a bit of a dampener on Micaiah's relationship with Nailah. Even if Pain and Agony remain unscrupulous bandits, if Nailah traveled to Daein with them and then Micaiah goes and kills them all, it would be a bit of a sore spot.

[ping]

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

We should have Laguz who profit from selling other Laguz into slavery.

For example the king of some bird-laguz kingdom who betrays one of his closest friends and sells him to a fat, beauty-obsessed noble from a beorc empire?

Naesala could've been a great villain if he would've been allowed to be a villain and not a scoundrel who got strong-armed into betraying the heroes. Maybe by willingly allying himself to the Begnion nobility, hoping to leverage that alliance to subjugate the hawk kingdom. Give him personal power, or maybe revenge against Tibarn for some petty reason, as a motivation istead of that bloody blood contract. Make his backstab an actual, lasting betrayal and make him the boss in one of the part 4 maps, or maybe the tower. Or, if you still want to retain some tragedy in his story, have Izuka trick him into drinking his concoction, which forces the heroes to kill him.

I think that would be the minimally intensive surgery to give an example of a laguz with the potential of evil, even without adding any new major characters. Naesala already has a couple "fuck those humans in particular" scene, I believe - when he refuses to join a fight because he wasn't offered enough coin, for example - so maybe this could be expanded to him backstabbing his beorc allies at an opportune moment, too. Maybe in order to hide his plans in front of Reyson, or something like that.

[Jotari]

Thinking on this issue a bit more, what could actually work well for furthering Tellius as a whole could be a distant prequel set in thebtime period where Laguz are the dominant species. A prequel focusing in Ashera's three heroes is the most obvious source for a story, but I think I'd rather the freedom that comes with going even earlier and depicting some kind of human uprising against a ruling class of Laguz. We could still have the likes of young Deghensea for fanservice though (possibly with hair).

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

21 hours ago, Jotari said:

Thinking on this issue a bit more, what could actually work well for furthering Tellius as a whole could be a distant prequel set in thebtime period where Laguz are the dominant species. A prequel focusing in Ashera's three heroes is the most obvious source for a story, but I think I'd rather the freedom that comes with going even earlier and depicting some kind of human uprising against a ruling class of Laguz. We could still have the likes of young Deghensea for fanservice though (possibly with hair).

And now I can't get the image of Dheginsea with a poofy greenish-black pompadour out of my head. Thanks for that.

Maybe one of Altina's ancestors could play a pivotal role in the rebellion, too? And the main villain could be related to a not-yet-born Soan.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

And now I can't get the image of Dheginsea with a poofy greenish-black pompadour out of my head. Thanks for that.

Dang. I'm not at my computer right now. Otherwise I'd immediately get to work editing it into reality.

[Jotari]

15 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

And now I can't get the image of Dheginsea with a poofy greenish-black pompadour out of my head. Thanks for that.

Maybe one of Altina's ancestors could play a pivotal role in the rebellion, too? And the main villain could be related to a not-yet-born Soan.

Ask and thou shall receive it.

I'm actually surprised at how well it turned out. For a pompadour.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Ask and thou shall receive it.

I'm actually surprised at how well it turned out. For a pompadour.

Oh, this? This is beautiful. 

At long last, we know what Dheginsea would look like in FE4.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Damn Dheginsea, save some word salad women for the rest of us. Lookin' like Johnny Bravo or Captain Battleship over here.