0 Def Cleric

I personally would like all units to have Canto. I get the lore reason for it just being mounted units, but I think the flexibility of moving part of your range and then moving back would add an extra layer to strategy if applied to all units. As it is, locking it to mounts just makes them dumb.

The pragmatic explanation is that Awakening and retcons related to it absolutely wreck Archanea's lore. The more interesting explanation is that Gharnef was more interested in the Risen, considering he works on coming back from the dead in Mystery, and put off looking into this "perfect being" until he'd done the research that was more immediately to his benefit. And then Marth came along before he finished, since he comes back in an incomplete (somewhat spiritual) state. I dunno, I think that could be interesting to go into in a Mystery remake. (Also, doesn't dark dragon Medeus look exactly like the Medeus from Anri's time, in Shadow Dragon's opening narration? I know the him-being-Grima thing is Joke but he's more often seen as a dark dragon than not!)

...Well, it certainly would have worked much better, except for the fact that it's established a great deal in chapter 10 that Manfroy sees Julia as absolutely no threat, just as Julius sees Seliph as absolutely none. Manfroy explicitly mentions how he doesn't see how she could be a threat with the Book of Naga being sealed away, while Julius says that Naga lives within her blood. Manfroy thinks she's essentially just some damsel that has absolutely no power without Naga (and remember, he isn't aware that the circlet is the key to the Book of Naga's hiding place), whereas Julius thinks that since Seliph is only an heir to Baldr, he's no threat at all, despite leading a gigantic liberation army. Both of them make the mistake of underestimating one half of the duo, and that's essentially their downfall. Loptyr appears to be paranoid about Naga, and Manfroy appears to be overstating Seliph's competence, but they're actually both correct in that the siblings are just absolutely wrecking face together. (Can you tell I've thought over this plot point a lot? Anyway, the summary boils down to "even if it is stupid of Manfroy, it's not out of character considering what he's said before.") Anyway, worst parent in the series is Naga, because who leaves their daughter all alone for a thousand years when they're aware that she could go on a rampage? Naga ends her own life, as stated in Mystery- she could have easily gone on living and monitoring Tiki to make sure she wasn't a danger to herself or others, but no, apparently ascending to a higher plane of existence to protect humanity was far more important than, you know, actively protecting humanity by making sure your nuclear-powered kid doesn't go mad.

There's probably some imprint of Lewyn's personality left, but not too terribly much (he does cry when hearing about what happened to Tailtiu). And that's 1RN, baby!

Unfortunately, they get pretty flanderized into bad characters in Fates. Especially poor Owain and Severa.

My effortposting quota for the month has been met. But essentially: if a story can consistently portray its characters and world, and still get across its theme well, and it doesn't, I consider it poor. A theme is the basic white bread of the meal that is a story. You have to complement it with seasoning (worldbuilding) and meat (consistent plot and characterization) for it to be a "Good Story". With only a theme, a work is only "a story." (Also I have no idea what relevance that video has to my post that was a piece of literary analysis, not deriding literary analysis.)

Apologies. I've discussed this with them in the past, so I suppose I was a little flippant. Anyway, theme really isn't that important to the quality of a story, in my personal opinion, compared to it making sense within the universe it creates. You can't create a theme and call that a "good story"- with only a theme and no other qualities, it's essentially a PSA. Or just a summary of the author(s)'s views on existence. I would argue that Fates doesn't even pull theme off well (it's inconsistent in what "finding the truth" amounts to) but that's pretty much irrelevant to what I'm saying, so I'll ignore that for now. Essentially, Fates is just a set of plot elements that exist solely to portray the author's views on what the world should be like, rather than a series of elements that portray the author's views on what the world should be like and also exist on their own. If we want to take a very basic example of storytelling that incorporates its theme rather than just is its theme, let's look at Mystery of the Emblem. Mystery's theme is pretty simple: All isn't fair in love and war, especially when you combine the two. The basic plot of the game contains this theme, as does the ending, in the plight of Hardin most prominently (political marriage; was already treading on thin ice before Hardin realized that Nyna was still in love with Camus) but in the endings, with Est and Abel, and in the final map, with two out of the four conversations that play "Theme of Love" existing only to hammer home a particular tragedy of the characters' bonds with each other being severed thanks to the events of the war. Yet there is a massively developed world outside these events, and indeed the development of the world serves to make these events cut deeper. Had the War of Heroes never happened, Camus would never have been forced to turn his lance against Archanea, and Michalis's ambitions might not have been realized and deepened into what eventually leads to his death, thanks to Dolhr's expansion. The aristocratic view that commoners and nobles should not intermarry leads directly into part of the game's plot. The entire war of the dragons in the ages past has absolutely no relevance to the theme whatsoever, yet is an integral part of the world becoming the place that it currently is, politically and socially. Events happen that have are irrelevant to the theme, and yet they strengthen it, showing that it is true even in a world that doesn't revolve around it. On the other hand, yes, Fates does portray its theme passably in showing that not looking at unusual events deeply enough can lead to tragedy. However, every event that has happened and will happen within the world of the game exists to serve that theme. Rather than being people, the characters are essentially a greek chorus, showing the audience the terrible things that could happen if they do not look deeper into their own world. Every plot piece exists to serve the clumsily delivered theme, instead of simply happening to portray it. Valla's curse does not simply exist because Valla is a kingdom of secrecy, or because Anankos does not wish for his kingdom to be found to exist (he shows essentially no resistance to its invasion besides attempting to kill Corrin, due to the fact that they wield the Dragon-Slaying Plot Weapon); it simply exists because how could one make the "two wrong routes and a golden route" structure work when someone could simply explain Valla's existence at any time? (Besides, you know, having people not believe that they're puppets under a dragon's sway, like decent writing would do; I mean, has anyone heard of the place before the game begins at all?) The Dragon-Slaying Plot Weapon itself has no reason to exist; why it is there is never explained, and why it can slay Anankos is never explained as well. Even within the same game, there are less plot-contrived weapons; the princes' weapons of Hoshido and Nohr are said to be blessings from the kingdoms' respective dragons. It is simply there to make Corrin the only one who can truly save the day, thus existing as a embodiment of Fates' discarding of plot for the theme that "you must find what is hidden", "you" being specifically the player. A story with good themes and a good story don't have to be mutually exclusive, but you'd certainly think that they are, given Fates' sorry excuse for a plot. September's effortposting quota has been met.

Otts. You should probably stop focusing so much on theme. It's taking away from your focus on other elements.

FE3 is the only one that could be argued to not be made obsolete because of the inclusion of an Avatar into FE12, which made a good few changes to the story that aren't always taken well. Shadow Dragon and SoV are basically "the original but better" so yes, they do obsolete them in that case.

I don't mind Brave!Camilla, so I'll not be too pissed if she wins. The victory feathers for Micaiah would be nice, though. Plus she's not won a gauntlet before. Just glad that all of the cardboard men (Eliwood, Alm, RD!Ike) have been eliminated.

Medeus ranks higher than Ashera for me on the level of morality, simply because the guy's entire species was wiped out and he had to watch over their sleeping/as good as dead bodies for eternity, essentially, in service of Naga's ideals which were proven (to his perspective) to be false, in that humans did not deserve to inherit the earth with how they acted. Ashera has essentially the same "humans (including laguz in this, they have basically the same role) do not deserve to be the dominant species" thing, but with less of a personal my-entire-species-was-destroyed-for-the-idea-that-humans-deserved-to-be-the-dominant-species bent to it. For the most evil, Loptyr (for being pretty much entirely sane and doing All That) is far, far and away the worst.

What weapon rank do these enemies have? Awakening gives you a few points of MT when you have a higher weapon rank. A lot of your units will probably have E or D ranks, which do not increase MT. Check Frederick's attack and base weapon might and see if he has a boost with his silver lance and B rank.

Unfortunately, that's just an artifact of how the NES works. It has 4 channels for sound, period, so if a song uses 4 channels (like a lot of the NES FE music) if you do anything that has any other sound effect, it'll cut over it. (You see stuff like this in the early Mega Man games, where it's even more of a shame with the wonderful chiptune work.) (Also, yes, that means you'll be having the same problem in Gaiden. Enjoy!)

I'm so glad Micaiah won! I hope she gets to make a victory lap for her Brave version's release. N...not just because I want the victory feathers, mind you!

I mean, there is the depiction of her as a male hero in the opening tapestry. And she is referred to in specifically non-gender-ambiguous terms in her following appearances. If they wanted to depict her as a goddess, or someone who was exclusively female, they'd probably just do what they did with Mila and kanojo her up.