Can We Talk About How Bizzare TH Avatar is? (And how it could be fixed)

[ciphertul]

41 minutes ago, Florete said:

Imagine something you like a lot. Your favorite band, favorite food, whatever. Now imagine you bring it up to someone and they respond with, "I'm genuinely curious here, do you actually like that trash?" Is that really 'genuine?' Does it sound like they're trying to meet you where you're at?

I don't see Byleth as a "malignant plot tumor that hurts the stories and character of others," so how am I meant to answer your question?

Uhh... it's very genuine, not everyone will agree with you or even understand how you find it enjoyable as seen here. I personally hate the idea of Ironman runs but they are popular even though I can't understand why. You can simple answer the question which you finally did do. That is all you had to say "Yes, I like it".

However, I simple see Byleth as they exist. I don't think it drags the story down more then the many other issues but it does help any either.

[Florete]

18 minutes ago, ciphertul said:

Uhh... it's very genuine, not everyone will agree with you or even understand how you find it enjoyable as seen here. I personally hate the idea of Ironman runs but they are popular even though I can't understand why. You can simple answer the question which you finally did do. That is all you had to say "Yes, I like it".

However, I simple see Byleth as they exist. I don't think it drags the story down more then the many other issues but it does help any either.

No, it's not. Ironically, your post here is genuine. You said you hate ironman runs instead of trashing on them; you expressed your own taste rather than passing judgement. That's the difference.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but if I'm going to hold a conversation with someone, I do expect a certain level of respect and understanding in said disagreement.

[ciphertul]

1 minute ago, Florete said:

I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but if I'm going to hold a conversation with someone, I do expect a certain level of respect and understanding in said disagreement

However you must consider the situation, the person who asked you clearly has what seems to be an irrational hate toward Byleth. If someone hold that amount of contempted towards something they may be completely dumbfounded by someone liking the thing the hate.

[Florete]

1 minute ago, ciphertul said:

However you must consider the situation, the person who asked you clearly has what seems to be an irrational hate toward Byleth. If someone hold that amount of contempted towards something they may be completely dumbfounded by someone liking the thing the hate.

And that's why I'm responding the way I am.

[ciphertul]

Just now, Florete said:

And that's why I'm responding the way I am.

But why go out of your way knowing they have no intention of moving on this?

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

On 2/4/2022 at 9:18 PM, Sasori said:

But I see no scenario in how Byleth would not know what a 'church of Seiros' is. He's a famed mercenary that traveled through the continent. Even a braindead zombie like Byleth must have seen a church at one time.

This.

Seriously, what the heck is up with that? Even if Jeralt is avoiding the church, it's damn near impossible to raise a merc that never even heard of it.
Also, the whole famous merc makes the idea of him blocking an axe with his spine even worse. Like bro, if these are your battlefield reflexes, you got hard-carried by Jeralt.

Byleth is a whole mess that I just can't take seriously. They fail as a protag because they're all but a cardboard cutout. It would make sense as an avatar, but they also fail on that front because they're as customizable as a cardboard cutout.

Seriously, it doesn't take a lot to get an avatar going. Just have more customization options and especially some dialogue options. They already have branching dialogue in 3H, but it basically amounts to nothing because all the options are samey.

I'm not buying the pre-rendered cutscenes argument either. The reason is very simple. Why do they even exist to begin with? In-Engine cutscenes have been the standard in gaming for a minute now and IS used them on the 3DS.

Somehow, even in the context of 3H, Byleth manages to be a bad avatar gameplay-wise. As you know, Byleth starts with 13 Strength, 45% Str growth, and gets a 1-2 Sword with a solid combat art. In contrast, if you want to go down the magic route, they start with 6 Mag, 35% growth, and a dismal spell list. Great job. 

 

Also, everyone has access to all classes depending on your actions barring Gender-Locks and the like. All they need is the proper ranks. Speaking of which, the good old professor does NOT do well on that front.

Since Byleth is the teacher, they can't attend classes. And boy does that make getting said ranks with them an enormous pain.
Spending activity points on Byleth's training instead of meals and the like means you're going to lose out on 2 students' training sessions unless you bribe them with gifts and lost items, and you're missing out on professor level. The closer to part 2, the less of a problem this is, but the early-mid game is crucial because of how important the Intermediate classes mastery skills are.

They don't even have Bow proficiency. Their whole skill set is based around being adjacent to allies so they can get more exp, do more damage and all that stuff, but when it counts, all Byleth has to offer is a solid bonk with the Sword of the Creator. (Which defeats the purpose as that's more of a killing tool than a weakening tool.)

It's not like they're bad as a unit, they are pretty good, but man, that's not an avatar kit at all!

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Barren said:

A Byleth with a set of boons and banes that you can chose form is a great idea! I would also add in changing Byleth’s growths based on their birthday that corresponds to the boons and banes of your choosing. Like a mage Byleth would have a +10% in magic and res but -5% in strength and defense for example.

I wouldn't tie it to a birthday. Just make stat boons and banes a thing you choose like in Fates.

5 hours ago, Florete said:

Imagine something you like a lot. Your favorite band, favorite food, whatever. Now imagine you bring it up to someone and they respond with, "I'm genuinely curious here, do you actually like that trash?" Is that really 'genuine?' Does it sound like they're trying to meet you where you're at?

Yes? People can and do like things in an ironic way, so it doesn't hurt to ask.

Edited February 6, 2022 by Jotari

[Florete]

6 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Yes? People can and do like things in an ironic way, so it doesn't hurt to ask.

That's not what was being asked, and that's not a good assumption to make, anyway.

[Jotari]

1 minute ago, Florete said:

That's not what was being asked, and that's not a good assumption to make, anyway.

Sounds like it is to me. But I can only offer my own perspective. If someone says they're being genuine I don't see much reason to doubt them.

[Florete]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Sounds like it is to me. But I can only offer my own perspective. If someone says they're being genuine I don't see much reason to doubt them.

I don't see how.

For the record, I'm not doubting DoomRPG's intent, I'm criticizing the approach.

[Jotari]

3 minutes ago, Florete said:

I don't see how.

For the record, I'm not doubting DoomRPG's intent, I'm criticizing the approach.

You dont see how what? How someone could ask if another genuinely likes something while simultaneous showing their own feelings on it?

[Florete]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

You dont see how what? How someone could ask if another genuinely likes something while simultaneous showing their own feelings on it?

How the question being asked was that.

[Jotari]

34 minutes ago, Florete said:

How the question being asked was that.

By being a question asking for an answer while also giving an opinion on the same question.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'm with Florete here. Simultaneously asking how someone could like something while making your own contempt for it clear (the language used was certainly strong) comes off as pre-emptively insulting the person for having bad taste. It might not be intended, but that's certainly how it comes off. Phrasing matters. Saying "I didn't like this character at all, but I'm genuinely curious to hear the opinion of someone who did. Would you mind elaborating on why you feel this way?" communicates the same thoughts but comes across as much more genuine, non-judgement, and interested in the other person's response.

On 2/4/2022 at 4:15 PM, DoomRPG said:

Claude never gets to show a single smidge of genius literally anywhere. His every plan is repeated on at least one other route. Shown off-screen entirely (holding alliance together.) And Byleth does all the tacticing on the battlefield soooo.
Claude's claim of being a strategist is just never shown. Its told, this would be fine if Byleth didn't exist or if the lords were the main tacticians. Since the gameplay would be their "proof."

...

Other examples that are far more minor but exist.
2. Edelgard is an avatarsexual for literally no reason. Hubert and Ferdinand both make far more sense for her to have any romantic inclination for. If she has them. They are only expressed in paired endings (which. Well. Anything can happen in those. SoV anyone?)

3. Byleth's martial abilities are constantly shilled in supports and some base dialogue. Felix is a prime example. Despite it being a very realistic probability that not only does Felix have a much higher sword skill than Byleth. (Dialogue does not change to reflect this ever.) He will always claim Byleth is superior. This is in spite of the fact Byleth has no reason to be more skilled or experienced then Felix. (Most other students. Yes. But not Felix in particular. Whose been through battle. Spends 100% of time training. And has nothing else to spend his time on.)

I disagree with several points here.

1. Claude shows plenty of cleverness. Manipulating the church into believing he's on their side using Byleth so he can secure the cooperation of the Knights of Seiros. Making a feint to distract Gloucester so he can seize the Bridge of Myrrdin and break Gloucester's connection with the Empire. Sneaking into Fort Merceus. Using the pretext of war to secure Almyran forces in Fodlan, helping him toward his goal of normalizing Almyran/Fodlan friendship. Staking the future of the war on a dramatic showdown in Derdriu CF (complete with said Almyran support, again) such that little damage will be done to the Alliance, and that the winner (preferably him) will be well-placed to go on to unify Fodlan thereafter. Literally achieving his goal in every route unless you choose to kill him in CF, in that no matter what, someone ends up in charge of Fodlan who is friendlier to Almyra than the previous regime was (his last scene with either CF Edelgard or AM Dimitri is remarkably friendly). He's got a pretty good track record, especially considering the plot constrains him to only be able to have a total victory on his own route.

2. The term "avatarsexual" is historically used for characters like Awakening!Anna, Reina, Fuga, etc., who can literally only romance the avatar. Such is not true of Edelgard in the slightest; she has loads of paired endings. The supports themselves can't be as overtly shippy because you can potentially get all of them in one playthrough, but there's certainly romantic tension in, at minimum, her Dorothea and Hubert supports (both of which, incidentally, are popular enough ships within the fandom to have their own fanzines, among lots of other content). If you mean that she obviously has some connection with Byleth... well, sure. Whether romantic or not, they share a close connection on CF (and to a lesser extent SS). And there are well-justified reasons for that connection.

3. Byleth is three years older than Felix and has more combat experience on top of that (s/he's been a mercenary for their entire adult life). That's not a good enough reason for you? Felix does win a duel against Byleth post-timeskip (see their A support), so it's not like the game thinks there's a large gap in their ability. Fire Emblem doesn't typically account for characters' current stats when talking about combat prowess in plot, so that seems like a weird thing to get hung up on.

[henrymidfields]

To be honest, I'm not all that fussed with Byleth as is - though not ideal. Ideally, I wouldn't mind some more customization, and maybe show a bit more expression when s/he answers.

Point taken about Byleth's suprisingly ignorant moments. I think they can be reframed easily, though. As for exposition for the monastery, maybe Jeralt can reminisce in his thoughts, or mention the exposition in passing with Alois, Hanneman/Manuela, or Rhea. Or Leonie too, instead of explaining to Byleth as if the latter was a five-year-old.

As far as gameplay is concerned though, I've never thought Byleth would be bad in the in-chapter battles. I mean, this is news to me. In tier-lists for Maddening gameplay in the Three Houses reddit page, Byleth's usually at the top of the list thanks to how busted Enlightened One and SotC are. Say what you want about Byleth's surprising lack of knowledge, but lack of gameplay utility isn't considered to be her/his flaw.

As someone who enjoyed Persona 3-4, those protagonists were also not much of actual protagonists, neither customizable avatars either. So I guess I'm used to that? And please don't get me started in how Conquest bends over backwards and forwards in acquitting Corrin from unintentionally invading Hoshido. Or Kris hijacking Marth's story. (Or, even, how Ike hijacks Micaiah and Elincia's story and has a cardboard character development in a game that really shouldn't have one.) At least Byleth and her/his team faces actual consequences with their decisions to stay with their house, and people out-of-house actually oppose the team. And don't constantly whinge about it.

Edited February 8, 2022 by henrymidfields

[vikingsfan92]

On 2/4/2022 at 4:02 PM, SnowFire said:

don't know where you're getting Byleth is dumb from.  The game goes to pains to have characters compliment Byleth on their Unbeatable Strategies after their class wins the Battle of Eagle & Lion.  Byleth never really makes any notable "mistakes" either (Which, unfortunately, makes them boring - great characters make great mistakes - but cuts against your point here, there's no Eirika-giving-the-Stone-to-Lyon moment).  Then again, Roy isn't dumb either (a touch naive, perhaps, but he's freaking 15 years old), so maybe you mean something else with that.

On this point (Byleth making errors) I think this is a damned if you and damned if you don't situation for writing stand point. Mainly because of Divine pulse and Bylth being able to undo events which we canonically see Byleth use to try to save Jeralt. Sure it fails but thats probably a Thales thing and not something that happens very many other charcters can do if any.  If they wrote Byleth making a big mistake it would probably have to be in a situation against those that slither for it to make any sense to not be instant undone by Divine pulse like it happens in gameplay during the chapters. But that also opens up other messes but thats its own issue in of itself.

That being said you can go back in time all you want but if you don't know what you did wrong you won't fix it so I do think Byleth has to be a pretty good tactician to get through it in the first place. Byleth just has the luxury of being able to clean up messes a little more cleanly when they do occur.

Edited February 9, 2022 by vikingsfan92

[SnowFire]

10 hours ago, vikingsfan92 said:

On this point (Byleth making errors) I think this is a damned if you and damned if you don't situation for writing stand point. Mainly because of Divine pulse and Bylth being able to undo events which we canonically see Byleth use to try to save Jeralt. Sure it fails but thats probably a Thales thing and not something that happens very many other charcters can do if any.  If they wrote Byleth making a big mistake it would probably have to be in a situation against those that slither for it to make any sense to not be instant undone by Divine pulse like it happens in gameplay during the chapters. But that also opens up other messes but thats its own issue in of itself.

That being said you can go back in time all you want but if you don't know what you did wrong you won't fix it so I do think Byleth has to be a pretty good tactician to get through it in the first place. Byleth just has the luxury of being able to clean up messes a little more cleanly when they do occur.

Fair point.  After the Prologue established "use DP to save Byleth's life!", the two major times afterward where something goes really wrong while Byleth is around are Jeralt's death, which the game explicitly invokes Destiny or something to explain why it can't be DP'd, and Byleth getting banished to the shadow realm, which I guess was some specially designed anti-Sothis spell that by the time Byleth realized they needed to DP back, it was too late, or it was too powerful.  That said, there's longer term "mistakes" too.  It wouldn't shock me if pushback on Conquest Corrin was part of why Byleth is so boringly perfect.  It's unfortunate because part of this is unfair; to the extent Corrin is making mistakes out of misguided loyalty, it's understandable / interesting, and you can clearly see the intended melodrama in the best parts of Conquest of realizing a parental figure is evil and convincing others of that fact.  Garon is so openly trying to murder CQ Corrin (what with the Hans kicking Corrin into the Bottomless Canyon incident if nothing else!), combined with Corrin making the same mistake multiple times (e.g. attempting to spare the Chevois rebels / Sakura's forces before Hans/Iago teleport in to murder them all), that it cuts against the core of a good idea.  But the narrative problem wasn't the main character making mistakes for an understandable reason, just that the plot surrounding said mistakes was too stupid.

--

Also, to briefly respond to the earlier points in the thread, I agree with lenticular's reply to DoomRPG - these examples are trivial non-mistakes, just some Rule Of Cool in cutscene animations at worst, or some hackneyed destiny excuse unrelated to Byleth's intelligence.

More generally, re DoomRPG...  just to stress this again, I don't like Byleth either.  I just think you've latched onto entirely the wrong reasons for it.  Imagine judging something creative, like art, architecture, or a novel.  If someone says they don't like the work, but then explain it by saying that the picture uses green paint, or that the building is only 2 stories tall, or that the novel doesn't have an explanatory appendix, these are pretty clearly weak complaints.  Why?  Because these are matters separate from the nebulous "quality".  There's both great and terrible art that uses the color green, great buildings that are short and tall, novels of all manner of structure and book bindings and indices.  So complaints like "Byleth is customizable, they have set skill boons, a unique class and unique skill" is just...  so what?  That's descriptive, not a statement on quality.  As noted before, avatars can be designed to be both very flexible and very inflexible.  Approaches on either end, or the middle, of the spectrum can work or not work.   I don't think there's any issue with the way that the game interprets Byleth, "has access to the full class tree but is better at certain things and has a unique class" has a long and storied pedigree.  There isn't even, strictly speaking, a problem with a super-talented blessed person with superpowers.  It's all about what you do with it.

 

Edited February 9, 2022 by SnowFire

[Magenta Fantasies]

On 2/5/2022 at 8:28 PM, Volt-Ikazuchi said:

This.

Seriously, what the heck is up with that? Even if Jeralt is avoiding the church, it's damn near impossible to raise a merc that never even heard of it.
Also, the whole famous merc makes the idea of him blocking an axe with his spine even worse. Like bro, if these are your battlefield reflexes, you got hard-carried by Jeralt.

Byleth is a whole mess that I just can't take seriously. They fail as a protag because they're all but a cardboard cutout. It would make sense as an avatar, but they also fail on that front because they're as customizable as a cardboard cutout.

Seriously, it doesn't take a lot to get an avatar going. Just have more customization options and especially some dialogue options. They already have branching dialogue in 3H, but it basically amounts to nothing because all the options are samey.

I'm not buying the pre-rendered cutscenes argument either. The reason is very simple. Why do they even exist to begin with? In-Engine cutscenes have been the standard in gaming for a minute now and IS used them on the 3DS.

I agree with everything you said. 

Both Awakening and Fates had pre-rendered cutscenes that used camera angles to obscure the avatar’s customizable parts and recorded with different voice options. They also used lower-quality in-engine cutscenes to show the avatar’s customizable features. Three Houses has better quality in-engine graphics than Fates or Awakening, so there is really no excuse.

Byleth is my least favorite lord for many of the reasons that have been mentioned in this topic. I’ve never liked silent protagonists. The trope feels like a cop-out for writers to avoid giving their protagonists any real personality or character development. I don’t buy the idea that “players can insert/immerse themselves in the world better through a character that doesn’t have a defined personality.” It has never had that effect on me.

While Corrin is also a divisive character, part of what I love about Corrin is that s/he has a very defined personality, which makes his/her interactions with other characters far more interesting and (for me, at least) immersive than just brief responses like in Byleth’s supports. I like the concept of Byleth having different dialogue choices, but it wasn’t well-executed. I wish they were more meaningful, both in how other characters react and in giving the player more say in Byleth’s “personality” even if these choices don’t influence the story.

[5PointGordin]

Out of all the Avatars I think Byleth was the best handled. I like Kris, Corrin, and Robin, but none of what they said really represented what I was thinking. They didn't feel like self insert characters, but rather their own defined characters, which is fine, but not really what I want in an avatar character. Byleth's simple dialogue choices actually works pretty well for me since they feel like pretty natural reactions to a given situation, at least for me. I like that some remarks they make  lead to other characters support going up or down depending on what you saying.

The fact that they don't develop too extensively as a character is fine since I don't think they need to, outside of the opening chapters where they are getting more accustomed to their new situation, (and the game admittingly does a solid job of showing this). Though them not developing still doesn't make their journey interesting to watch because there are a lot of obstacles for them to overcome. Gaining Seteth's trust, playing detective to see what happened to Flayn, dealing with Jerault's death, etc was all still entertaining to watch.

Most of his background information is pretty easy for me to buy as well. Doing jobs as a mercenary doesn't necessarily mean you'll learn too much bar the bare minimum regarding certain topics (I know this from personal experience).

I don't really like most of the avatar modifier stuff in Fates apart from the optional secondary class, largely because I have to use an external guide to know which boons mean what. Customizable options like accessories and appearance are ok though.