NekoKnight

That wasn't a personal attack directed at you, rather other people on this site who will retreat behind their "everything is subjective" shield whenever presented with a value judgement they don't agree with and can't provide a counterargument for. Subjectivity is something to keep in mind but taken to extremes, it hampers meaningful discourse. In regards to your spoiler

Unpopular opinion, but I think more Fire Emblem threads should tackle broad literary concepts rather than Fire Emblem. But seriously though, "Everything is subjective" is really worthless as a stance to take and it kills off meaningful discussion for stories. If you want to be strict with the terms objective/subjective, almost nothing but the most straightforward of facts is objective. We aren't able to suggest any kind of value judgement without delving into the subjective, but what are discussions if not for value judgements backed up by objective facts? Why even log in to a forum if you're going to backpedal to "well, that's just your opinion" whenever someone provides a contrary argument? ---- Back on topic, my unpopular opinion: Three House Spoilers

While I also enjoy such stories (Hello, Dark Souls), I think it would clash with the tone of Fire Emblem games. They run a gambit of more light hearted (Awakening) to serious drama (Three Houses) but unending misery might not fit the series.

Sadder is something I generally prefer in stories involving war. There is a place for idealism and heroism but there should also be consequences for these clashes. There are going to be good people on both sides of a conflict and I want to hear all their stories. TH was a good step in this direction. I think the conversations you have with students at the monastery help to flesh them out, even if you don't recruit them. Even if you know your own house better, I think it's still possible to get attached with other house students just by the hints of their personality or even their looks. You might be sad running a lance through Bernadetta, just having seen that she's terrified and never even wanted to be there. I will agree with you on the point of the lords however. There was far too little interaction with them in the school phase (and even the war phase, honestly) to know what drives them, and unlike the other students, knowing about their motivations is important in caring about what happens to them. Playing Crimson Flower, you really can't even begin to care about Dimitri unless you've played Azure Moon. He's just barely in the plot at all, despite his high rank in the enemy forces.

There are even more layers of contrivance. Only Vallites can travel through the water way to get to Valla, which means they'd have to all go to the chasm if they wanted to reveal it to the Nohr sibs. But Iago is apparently keeping tabs on the group for no reason at all, which means that it would be hard for them to get to the chasm unnoticed. And the whole plot has to happen because the siblings will never accept that Garon is evil, despite all the supporting evidence, unless they can see that he's a literal monster.

While we know next to nothing about the Nohrian court, I don't think it's farfetched to think that people generally didn't like Garon. His own children lived in fear of him on a daily basis and he put down insurrections with extreme prejudice. Xander could score points with potential supporters by being a more even handed ruler. Also, if Xander cooperated with the Hoshidans, he might secure more cordial relations with them and get Nohr more aid.

It's not like IS takes a hardline on that stance. Plenty of characters rebell against their immoral family members in this series. One of the villains, Zephiel, tried his best to forgive his father and keep their family whole but even he eventually snapped. In that same game, Guinevere flees to Lycia because she knows her brother must be stopped.

While we definitely need to give some leeway when it comes to how love rationalizes a character's decisions, I don't think we, as critical thinkers, should use "love isn't logical" as an excuse for all writing. For Selena, we see that it causes her pain to see Vigarde as he is now, and while the logical part of her brain would tell her that she's on the wrong side, she doesn't have the emotional strength to turn on him. It also helps her case that we never see Vigarde abuse Selena or people she cares about. Vigarde is less than half the man he used to be, but he's not a villain on a person level. So we get to Xander. Xander witnesses extreme abuse by his father to people he cares about, even hearing him gloat about how he's going to make Corrin suffer so much, she'll beg for a death she won't receive. I can almost understand Xander downplaying Garon's actions because of his bias, but to such extremes, it strains one's suspension of disbelief. Xander doesn't show any sort of conflict between his love for Garon and his love for his siblings. In fact, when Corrin brings up the subject of Garon being a monster that needs to be killed, he goes as far to threaten Corrin with execution if they're lying about it. Those aren't the words of someone who has had doubt about Garon, and he should have at least some, having seen all the things he did.

I think FE8 Selena would be the best one, if you want to talk about someone's inability to turn on a person they love. Selena confesses that she knows that the Vigarde she loved is no more but can't bring herself to turn against the man who saved her life and raised her out of poverty. Xander seems to be sticking his head in the sand and will only take the most damning of evidence as legitimate that there is anything wrong with Garon. Fates' presentation of Xander was just awkward. Their intention, it would seem, was that Xander was the one who best knew Garon and was looking at him with rose colored glasses. I'm told that the JP version and JP exclusive side media painted a clearer picture of Xander being scared of Garon (ie he was a coward more than a blind fool) but the NA version shows us something different. Sometimes Xander is gobsmacked by the very notion that Garon could be evil (like in Chapter 6 in Birthright, or near endgame for Conquest). At other times he seems to be aware that Garon has changed but he feels its his duty to fight on behalf of Garon and Nohr as the crown prince (when you mortally wound him in Birthright). Sometimes he's brave enough to stand up to Garon (like his Corrin A support) and other times he folds to Garon's will with little resistance (like the massacre of Sakura's soldiers). The reason why people talk about there being multiple Xanders is that he always acts differently for the purpose of the scene. It's hard to stick to a "Xander was weak and cowardly" interpretation when the game never calls him out for it. He never has a character moment where he realizes his faults and vows to atone for them.

If this is an unpopular opinion, it shouldn't be. When I saw her character before the game was released, I thought she'd be that boring normal friend to Mercedes but she became one of my favorites. She's hard working, goofy in all the right ways, has an interesting dynamic with her father, and to really sell the whole character, she has some of the most natural voice acting in the game, in my humble opinion. She's just an all around charming person that doesn't need an absurd character gimmick to construct a personality around.

In my series of "stop liking things I don't like" following Berkut, I'd like to bring up Felix from Three Houses.

This is wrong. Corrin's decision to stand against Garon is rooted in a myriad of factors. 1. Garon showed his intention to put Corrin to the sword for disobeying an order to execute two POWs. 2. Garon assigns a subordinate to Corrin that later tries to kill her on Garon's orders. 3. The sword Garon gave Corrin apparently tried to kill her by throwing her into the Bottomless Chasm. 4. Corrin remembers Garon murdering Sumeragi. With these 4 points in mind, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that Garon is evil and now wants her dead. Ryoma posits that Garon was behind the attack that killed Mikoto but Corrin isn't trusting this blindly. It all lines up perfectly with the things she has observed with her own eyes. This is irrelevant because all things point to Garon being responsible. This half-truth is still the basis of Corrin choosing Hoshido. Corrin makes two claims to her siblings. 1. Corrin doesn't wish harm on her siblings (backed up by her plea that they join her against Garon) 2. Garon is evil (backed up with her testimony of a brutal attack on Hoshido) Xander offers the same two claims but the second in reverse. 1. The Nohrian sibs love Corrin as family 2. Garon would forgive Corrin if she returned (the implication being that Garon is not evil) Corrin accepts the first claim readily, stating that Garon is their true foe and tries to get the Nohrian sibs to join her. She rejects the second claim because apart from it contradicting character evidence that both Corrin and Xander should both be aware of, it also contradicts all of the observations Corrin has made since the start of the story. Corrin isn't looking at two parties with equally valid positions and choosing a side, she's weighing the evidence and sees it's stacked against Garon. Corrin doesn't "mistrust" Xander, she knows more than he does and is explaining it to him. She does value her siblings, through word and action, but the Nohrians are too dense to figure it out. The problem with your reading of this scene and the story as a whole is that the drama isn't about Corrin mistrusting the Nohrian siblings, it's her effort to get them to trust her. There is no contradiction unless you have the unreasonable standard that the only way to demonstrate good faith to your loved ones is to blindly follow anything they say, even if it contradicts your better judgment. And it's absolutely important that this alleged contradiction is comparable to the one made by Nohrrin. You're arguing the existence of a theme when one half of your argument is, charitably speaking, really flimsy.

It isn't. Watch the scene again. (Time 1:50) Corrin states her reasons for siding with Hoshido, explicitly denouncing Garon for the attack that killed Mikoto and nearly killed Corrin. She then asked Xander to join her, right there on the spot. She wanted to be allies against Garon. Xander threw her offer right back in her face. This isn't even a matter of trusting the Hoshidans over her Nohrian siblings. Xander confirms that Corrin is indeed a captured Hoshidan. You're saying Birthright Corrin is a hypocrite because she continues to try to get the Nohrian sibs on her side even though that was her intention from the very beginning. And even if we did believe this crazy idea, you're saying this is on par with Conquest Corrin sabotaging every effort to end the war sooner.

That's a pretty big reach for a very dubious theme. Birthright Corrin doesn't "go against the trust" of his Nohrian siblings, he sides with the moral party in the war and his birth family he was taken from, and hopes he can convince his Nohr sibs of his position. Also, Garon has tried to kill Corrin no less than three times since the game started so that's plenty of reason to not choose Nohr. His beef was always with Garon, not the siblings.

Eeeeeeeh You're going to need some solid evidence to back that theory up. How is Corrin a hypocrite in Birthright?

You raise an excellent point. The game gets this weird notion in its head that the most moral way to conduct the war isn't to minimize casualties by striking hard at the leaders, rather the war should be fought "honorably". Which is probably a small consolation to all of the people who died because the war didn't end sooner. Killing Kotaro and Zola might have been horribly misguided but denouncing Kumagera was outright hypocritical considering that Corrin adopted that same plan of attack since chapter 15.

Hoo boy, the second gen is a HUGE can of worms. The first time you unlock a child paralogue, the game gives you a little screen that says that as soon as the child was born, they were in danger by SPOOKY specters so the children were put in deeprealms. What this suggests is that a couple in your play through got married, the woman got pregnant and carried that baby to term for 9 months, all without showing any signs of being pregnant, all while a war is going on. Don't even get me started on what the deeprealms says about how awful the Fates characters are as parents. Is this a canon story element? Do you want it to be? The game likes to play it fast and lose with this gameplay mechanic. I disagree. My Castle might be out of thought, out of mind, but it's very much tied to Corrin in canon. We choose to ignore it because we acknowledge it's just a silly gameplay thing.

I think you have it backwards. They could have just given you My Castle without any in-story introduction and just given you a text message explaining its functions. If they did it that way, players could cleanly separate it from the story and conclude "this is a gameplay mechanic, it has no bearing on the story". But now that it's canon, we HAVE to consider this power in scenes where it could have made a difference but it wasn't used. I understand where you're coming from. Divine Pulse is easier to point out as being inconsistent because it's more visible in the story, but I'd call it a pretty huge double standard to pin that narrative failing on Byleth if we're giving the 3DS lords a pass on their gameplay powers.

I feel this is a moot point to argue as I don't blame Corrin for not using My Castle in the story, but I disagree with everything you wrote here. There was no "had to be made canon" because the astral plane is utterly irrelevant to the plot. At most, it's suggested to be a place where dragons were able to hang out in the past but that gets a throwaway line and the astral plane is never visited again by any characters in the plot. It exists to justify a gameplay mechanic. I'll grant you that Corrin doesn't need to do any out-of-character stuff for My Castle to be introduced, but it was also completely unnecessary for it to be included in the plot. She demonstrates that power, apparently, in order to avoid a storm but a flash of lightning is a pretty weak excuse to hop dimensions. This isn't an argument. Just because they never use it in battle or cutscenes doesn't mean they are unable to. We are never told any limitations for the power beyond the enter/exit to the astral plane being the same location. The fact that Lilith is able to use the ability for something as trivial as avoiding a thunderstorm would imply that she could use it for any dangerous situation. And you go to My Castle after every mission so she can use the power frequently as well. There are plenty of situations where My Castle would have been helpful in the plot. Take the Faceless ambush in Conquest. Lilith actually DIES there but why should she when she could have whisked everyone off to her pocket dimension? She could let everyone lie low until the danger had passed and then they could leave again. Or how about when Corrin is ambushed by Anthony in Revelation? That sure would be an easy way to get out of that. My Castle is 'better plot integrated' insofar that it's introduced and then forgotten about. It's unobtrusive to the point where you don't realize it's a power they could use to undermine the dramatic scenes.

Forgivable is a good way to put it, yes. I recognize it as a problem but when I see how disconnected it is to the narrative, I can handwave it as being a non-issue. Now, if they were to establish clear rules about how time travel could be used in the story and they broke those rules (let's say Sothis explains that she can only reset time once a month and after a month of inaction Byleth claims he can't use it at a crucial moment), I'd call that a serious plot hole.

Invisible Inc? Is this a different game series because I don't have anything to say about non-FE games. I agree that divine pulse didn't need to be in the story at all, but that just strengthens my point that it was gameplay first, narrative second for importance. I assume they just gave it to Byleth because it's nifty when gameplay ties into the narrative, even if it's superficial.

My original point was how a gameplay mechanic was justified by the story and whether or not we should be forgiving of that if they ignore a gameplay element when it would hamper the story. Like time travel for Alm or My Castle for Corrin (and you could extend this conversation to Outrealms shenanigans. Why not recruit aid from other worlds if that's an option??), the over use of these gameplay powers in story would completely destroy any sense of tension. So why is Corrin's stupidity and immorality different? Well, you could frame the discussion as him being rail roaded into making bad decisions to justify the premise of Conquest, but that's just completely denying agency to our characters. So the writer wants to you to invade Hoshido, that's fine. If they didn't want Corrin to be stupid, selfish or cowardly, they were still well within their ability to write a scenario that accommodated that. Have Corrin search earnestly for another path and have those options logically explained as being nonviable before Corrin throws his hands up saying "I guess killing countless innocents is the only way! I'm so sad! Poor me!" This isn't even something limited to Conquest. In Revelation, Corrin makes the extremely dimwitted decision to trust someone who was very untrustworthy and it was not necessary for gameplay or even the story. This is a consistent characterization of Corrin. It's easier to isolate the flaws in books and movies because they don't have that pesky interactive element called gameplay. Gameplay must be balanced with and will often be at odds with the precise details of a story in a game. If they wanted to make it more intertwined with the story, they could have established clear rules with how time travel can be used, but the fact that they didn't makes me think that it was not their intention for it to be as integral to the story. You called Corrin not using My Castle at integral moments "less in your face" but My Castle is very much a canon power he/Lilith have, with no stated limitations. It's pretty much the same thing going on for Byleth, the only difference is Fates is happy to let that tension destroying power fade into the background until you forget about it.

I am a pillar of salt. Sure is a dick move to make people buy DLC in bulk or just miss the party. I don't think I'll endorse that. Thanks for the reply anyway.

So forgive me if I'm just blind but are you not able to get paid DLC unless you buy the entire season pass? That's the only option I see when looking at the DLC menu. That would be disheartening if true because I only want some parts of it.