Commoner Lords vs Noble Lords

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, ping said:

I assume the polite thing is to not mention it.

RE: Ashnard -
I think his ideology is still consistent, albeit obviously inane. He thinks that the "strong" should rise and the "strongest" should rule, but he doesn't have any reservations about how to become strong. He became stronger by aquiring an impenetrable armour and a big fuck-you dragon. If you can't overcome those things, well, sucks to be you. I can't hear your complaints up here riding my big fuck-you dragon.

The other strength-obsessed characters - BK, the Laguz, Ike to a degree - all seem to have some addtional code of honour in place which would prevent them from looking for cheap auto-wins, but Ashnard doesn't seem to give a damn about 'fairness' or other concepts of the sorts.

I don't think that this diminishes the point, to be honest. Ike carrying Ragnell is presented as happenstance, or as something that came from the BK's decision to leave it with Greil's body, presumably in the hope that Ike would prove to grow to be his father's equal. But Ike doesn't have any divine spark or noble blood or whatnot that lets only him wield it - he just called dibs, basically. Yes, mechanically it's the same as Falchion being Marth's personal weapon, but the narrative justification is very different.

Ashnard also became king by outright using black magic to wipe out half the population, rather than doing it the Laguz way and kicking the was of anyone who challenged him.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Jotari

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Wow. That's quite the track record. I wonder how many users of SF are themselves nobles, or just don't know it yet. In my grade school re-enactment of the revolutionary war, I played the role of King George III, so I've had a taste of the life, let me tell you

I was indeed one of those enamored with Ike as a protagonist when I first played PoR. Because he's not the stock standard, holier than thou Lord we've come to expect. But honestly, I'm not the sort of person hung up on those details today. I understand a need to make your protagonist relatable. To give them a story where they protect friends and family rather than fight for lofty, esoteric ideals and the right of kings to rule. But I think there's a bit of stigma that "noble lord = uninteresting", and that's a little unfair.

Nobles can be written with their own struggles and frustrations. Sometimes they literally can't act without setting off a national incident, so their personal morals clash with their station - that's some of the most interesting bits of Sigurd in FE4. Or to go in a direction we've never seen in Fire Emblem, a blue blood taken out of his comfortable bubble, stripped of his title, is interesting to me. It's a natural all is lost moment in your narrative. Our Lord is about to secure a hard won peace with a neighboring region when suddenly their rule is proven to be a false one. Perhaps your political rival convinces everyone that you being put in power is some long standing conspiracy that you can't exactly refute. Old allies cannot associate with you anymore. Imagine your protagonist is some illigitimate child of a parental figure they thought they knew before this adventure. And since this is fire emblem, said parent is also dead, so we can't grill them for answers. For the first time in their life, our Lord is wondering who they really are and what sort of person they WANT to be rather than HAVE to be. That's empowering. And imagine our Lord's story based promotion where he class changes into something that looks LESS regal. Good subversion!

[Jotari]

35 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Wow. That's quite the track record. I wonder how many users of SF are themselves nobles, or just don't know it yet. In my grade school re-enactment of the revolutionary war, I played the role of King George III, so I've had a taste of the life, let me tell you

I was indeed one of those enamored with Ike as a protagonist when I first played PoR. Because he's not the stock standard, holier than thou Lord we've come to expect. But honestly, I'm not the sort of person hung up on those details today. I understand a need to make your protagonist relatable. To give them a story where they protect friends and family rather than fight for lofty, esoteric ideals and the right of kings to rule. But I think there's a bit of stigma that "noble lord = uninteresting", and that's a little unfair.

Nobles can be written with their own struggles and frustrations. Sometimes they literally can't act without setting off a national incident, so their personal morals clash with their station - that's some of the most interesting bits of Sigurd in FE4. Or to go in a direction we've never seen in Fire Emblem, a blue blood taken out of his comfortable bubble, stripped of his title, is interesting to me. It's a natural all is lost moment in your narrative. Our Lord is about to secure a hard won peace with a neighboring region when suddenly their rule is proven to be a false one. Perhaps your political rival convinces everyone that you being put in power is some long standing conspiracy that you can't exactly refute. Old allies cannot associate with you anymore. Imagine your protagonist is some illigitimate child of a parental figure they thought they knew before this adventure. And since this is fire emblem, said parent is also dead, so we can't grill them for answers. For the first time in their life, our Lord is wondering who they really are and what sort of person they WANT to be rather than HAVE to be. That's empowering. And imagine our Lord's story based promotion where he class changes into something that looks LESS regal. Good subversion!

We should promote Sigurd into a Jr Lord in Chapter 4 to nerf him in a Genealogy Remake! I actually did have an idea similar to that in my Fire Emblem game concept back in the day. Where basically the lord's parent would disown them resulting in a "promotion" that reduces stats (but in the long term is actually good as it provides more levels if you've maxed their tier 1 class in time as they promote again properly later in the game, course that was back when I thought growths were everything in Fire Emblem. Now I probably wouldn't sacrifice 2 strength in favour of 10 levels even with a 50% strength growth. Give me good stats now, not later!).

Edited August 10, 2022 by Jotari

[Acacia Sgt]

Heh, that's kinda what Corrin does. They promote from a Prince(ss) to a... Noble. Title wise that's a downgrade. Though that's just the gameplay classes, if I recall.

[Jotari]

23 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Heh, that's kinda what Corrin does. They promote from a Prince(ss) to a... Noble. Title wise that's a downgrade. Though that's just the gameplay classes, if I recall.

Yeah that...doesn't make any sense going to Nohr Noble as their status doesn't change. At least Prince [of Nohr] to Hoshido Noble indicates some change in status since they defected. But then Nohr Noble is the one that gets the more dramatic costume change. In either case they look snazzier in both classes over Prince, so there's probably no intended theming here and they just decided to have a Nohr and Hoshido promoted classes with Noble just being thrown on as Prince to Nohr Prince would feel redundant.

Edited August 10, 2022 by Jotari

[SnowFire]

10 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Nobles can be written with their own struggles and frustrations. Sometimes they literally can't act without setting off a national incident, so their personal morals clash with their station - that's some of the most interesting bits of Sigurd in FE4. Or to go in a direction we've never seen in Fire Emblem, a blue blood taken out of his comfortable bubble, stripped of his title, is interesting to me. It's a natural all is lost moment in your narrative. Our Lord is about to secure a hard won peace with a neighboring region when suddenly their rule is proven to be a false one. Perhaps your political rival convinces everyone that you being put in power is some long standing conspiracy that you can't exactly refute. Old allies cannot associate with you anymore. Imagine your protagonist is some illigitimate child of a parental figure they thought they knew before this adventure. And since this is fire emblem, said parent is also dead, so we can't grill them for answers. For the first time in their life, our Lord is wondering who they really are and what sort of person they WANT to be rather than HAVE to be. That's empowering. And imagine our Lord's story based promotion where he class changes into something that looks LESS regal. Good subversion!

Don't take this as a recommendation of actually playing the game - it's not great - but if you read the "Rondo of Swords" LP, to that game's credit, it does something like this if in reverse.  Basically the glorious fated magic bloodline Prince dies in the prologue, and his body double homunculus who explicitly *does not have* the proper magic blood or whatever to wield the magic holy sword gets tapped by him to live the rest of his life for him as a kind of dying request.  The rest of the game proceeds mostly as normal for an FE plotline about a deposed prince trying to assemble an army and allies to take back his country, except with the added twist that you are not actually that prince.  But who cares?  The cause is just, right?  If the people need a prince, I'll be one.  I much prefer "surprise no magic blood" (aka Sanaki's plot, sort of, along with the RoS protagonist) than "surprise you did have magic bloodline powers" (Micaiah, Alm, etc.  Robin sort of qualifies but also doesn't become a leader/ruler in the end unless she marries Chrom so eh.  Maybe Corrin too, although I guess that one's muted since everyone knows Corrin is special from the start, just the twist is one of *degree* in that Corrin has substantially more draconic heritage than the other nobles.).