IV-Red

Agreed. Such deadly enemies! They rip the poor girls' clothing in aesthetically pleasing and convenient places BUT don't damage their skin one bit. Why attack lethal places with weapons that do actual damage when you can just rip a bit of clothing? It's not like they're fighting wars or anything. Also of course it's only the girls. Cause yeah. Not fap material for preteens at all... I'm really salty about this, sorry.

I'm hoping they go back to simpler systems too. There's some things that I don't think will change, probably ever, and that's both the angle of romantic relationships and the style of character writing. Those things weren't done because of handheld limitations, they were straight-up creative decisions, and from a business viewpoint they WORKED. Romantic relationships where everyone can fall in love with absolutely anyone made the new fanbases happy. Silly, exaggerated characters made more of an impression on fandom, artists and all those people who make noise online, show excitement, generate memes and overall show that the new characters written in that style were popular and well-received. I most definitely don't like it, but we all have to recognize that videogames NEED to sell. They're made with love, for sure, but they don't survive on love alone. Videogame development is a job that needs to be paid, like any other. Popular things did save the franchise and will continue to be done, as long as they continue to be sold. So... even if I don't like them, I accept that some of the new popular things are gonna come back, and expecting them not to would lead to unneeded frustrations. What might change and I really hope it does, is the world map. Being able to do infinite extra maps and grind really nullifies the difficulty of the game. Map too hard to beat? Go grind. Now it's easy to beat. Rinse and repeat. It also kinda breaks the flow of the narrative, with sometimes forced interruptions since here and there the enemies become super stronger and it's go grind or never get past this map. I really really really hope we get a continued story that just goes from one chapter to the next, I find it so much more exciting!

It's a pretty good theory and you've looked at it super carefully, for sure. There's one thing I'd like to comment-- well, two, and a question. Firstly, I'm not sure similarities should be regarded as proof, I mean, couldn't they easily be just clichés? Both being evil dragons, both having cults, both using avatars... most of all, the first bit I quoted (the bit with the Dreadlords) is most likely an intended reference. Awakening DLC and other-world appearances are full of plot holes as it is (bringing Ashera's chosen in a world where her canon story literally cannot exist), the main Awakening story is one thing, but all the downloadables and extras aren't reliable sources of lore or things that can actually exist in that world. That's why I suspect the Dreadlords having Holy Weapons is just intended to be a cool reference. That's my questioning bit. Now, the part where I'd really like to follow your theory and read some more is... well, a connection with Loptyr would imply a connection between the Akaneia-Valentia universe and the Jugdral universe. So far I've never seen any hard, not self-contradicting proof that any FE universes are connected aside from Akaneia (Ylisse) and Valentia (Valm). Can you expand a bit on the implication of Seliph being related to Anri and Marth? I never played Thracia 776 and never finished Genealogy of the Holy War, but this really really really interests me!

It was worked with in the past, having character intrusion de cut out when said character was dead-- or having characters with strong story presence not die, but "retire" permanently from battlefields. In the most recent games, a loooooot of characters just retire and not die. Considering that it was worked with in the past, I can't imagine how it stopped being done, but I really doubt it's the cause of not giving them development. Thanks for the input and sorry if I sound too negative disagreeing!

Mine's all Pelleas... xD I am and was always fully aware there was no point in voting for one of the not-that-popular characters. The more popular ones would win by overwhelming numbers, it would've been smarter to see who I liked best out of the ones I KNEW had an actual chance and vote for that one. But it just made me happy that everybody was an option, so I went and voted for my FE fav! At least to throw in my grain of sand and show that somebody remembers/loves Pelleas. Soooooo silly voting on my part, but no regrets!

I'm glad to read a lot of people against the existence of an avatar altogether. I, too, think it seriously hurts the story and unless it's DIRECTLY a storyteller character or practically inexistent like FE7's Mark, chances are it'll lead to the same spotlight excess seen in Awakening and Fates. The problem with a self-insert avatar is that it causes a need for the narrative to revolve strongly against them. It's different from a protagonist. The protagonist is the character who's quest you're watching; it's hard to tell a story without a protagonist or with too many of them because there's no clear start or end, making it hard to have a story climax. But a protagonist still shares the spotlight. Ike, as protagonist of Path of Radiance was the one who's quest we were watching, but wasn't always the most important guy around. Sometimes it was more important to watch Naesala, Tibarn and Reyson's scenes, sometimes what was goin on with other countries was more important than him, sometimes he was quiet because he had nothing in particular to add to the scene, leaving it up to the other characters to have their development, opinions and overall spotlight time. The same goes with Blazing Sword's interesting three-lord approach (granted, in the GBA ones there was less varied-character dialogue, but it existed nonetheless) and many other early FE titles. It's different with a self-insert avatar. By making it exist to start with, you're forced to give them all the spotlight; 'cause you're telling the gamer "this story is about YOU". It's a type of importance that goes way beyond that a protagonist; they're not the quest person, they're the more-important-than-anybody-else person. This CAN be handled tastefully, but the FE series has proven not to have a neat way to make avatars work. Robin was handled MUCH better than Corrin, but in general hey, can't blame them, that's just what self-insert avatars do to a story. But what is this damage I'm talkin about? What's the actual disadvantage of having 1 character who is more important than everybody else? Why is it bad, when having a character's story (protagonist) be the spine of the whole game is good? Because it absolutely erases the voice of most other characters. That's what it does. In Fates, in-between maps, in the development of the story, who talks? Corrin and their family members, mostly. (Thank god the family members got their share of spotlight!) The other army characters only speak when it's their recruitment chapter or if they're filling a plot-tool role, such as Kaze saving Corrin, but other than that, nothing to say, no opinions, no life, no development of their own. How about Awakening? Did Tharja and Henry seriously have NOTHING to say or do when their god was about to awaken? No character complexity or development from going against Plegia, but then knowing Robin was their actual god all the time? There are no scenes for the others, usually just their first scene and that's that, even when it's something they might wanna have some self-expression in, such as Oboro when recruiting nohrians. Because the avatar must be the one to speak, and their closest of course. It might have a lot to do with the way supports work in avatar-centric stories. There's a lot more conversations, a lot more writing, leaving less time and space for in-story writing. Though I don't consider it a fair trade, personally I think getting development, participation and a voice in the actual story is much better than having everybody silent and only get to have a personality and their own actions in the supports... I know it's nice to have a customizable character, I know it's fun, i know it's food for the ego and a real easy way to get people interested in the game, but it's something I really have to reject in order to support a proper story. But what chances do avatars have of being in the Switch FE game? I've no idea if avatars are present in handheld FE games cause of something to do with the handheld's capacity in some way, or just because they're the most recent ones. I've no idea whether the Switch FE being a console FE influences the existence of avatars or not D: Does anybody know anything about this? Whether avatars are a handheld-game thing or if it has nothing to do with that?

Yoooo everyone! I sure have missed game communities. With the FE saga growin as much as it has lately, I've had a real need to do SOMETHING besides waiting and playing-- so here I am! I'm an old-school FE fan, my favorite game in the series (and the one I believe was the peak of FE in terms of plot and interestingness just eternal love from me) is Radiant Dawn, my first language is spanish (I'm chilean so be forgiving about grammar and spelling mistakes, 'kay?), I'm 25 annndddd uh... I guess I could say I'm an artist! For over a year now I've been leading Fire Emblem roleplay groups here and there, and it's given me an opportunity to do a lot of FE-style sprite work. I'm hoping to share my sprites with you guys, and maybe look around the fangames section to see if I can get involved or help with anythin. I'm still lookin around and I'm preeeetty slow when entering a new place or community or site or such, so I'm gonna tiptoe around till I get a hang of where and how I should do my thing. Guess that's all for now! See y'all around!