Jotari

Blue Tomr Saias? Thought for sure he'd be red tome. Though if they really wanted to stay through to his appearance, they should have made him a stave user with some really annoying status stave. Escape route certainly suits him though.

Certainly everything's possible. But I think Shanty Pete is a bit of an obscure in joke. The reason Final Fantasy pays homage to all it's spoony lines is because fans made a big deal out of it...which just means WE have to have more threads like this and spread the glorious gospel of Pete if we want to see him in the future. Let IS know Shanty Pete is a thing and we love him!

One of Kellam's supports are missing...Are you really surprised?

I actually find it cooler as a pre Awakening thing. Manaketes and Dark Tomes might not be consistent, but Shanty Pete exists regardless, just like Killing Edges.

According to the official timeline, the Pirate Nation was actually made up of the islands in between Valentia and Archanea, not on a continent. Probably like that one where you recruit Sumia's daughter in Awakening. It does suggest that the pirates went on to form Macedonia though. Yeah, Macedonia was made up of Flying Vikings. It's basically How to Train Your Dragon.

Huh, seems like he only exists in the English version. I'm a little disappointed as it means we'll never actually see Shanty Pete, but props to the localizers for making and maintaining their own little meme. Especially since it's pretty obscure and I think several different companies actually worked on the games.

You ever see a pirate us a lance? He should get swords. Or like Dark Magic, with the ability to summon skeleton pirate allies. Hell, even knives would be more piratey than lances.

Anna makes a big deal about him in one of the Awakening supports (can't quite remember which one), but it's implied she's lying her ass off (apparently he likes to donate to orphanages or something). I'd take that to mean he likely exists in the Japanese version, unless they just did some arc welding by connecting several unrelated Pirate folk heroes.

How not to do a tragic story? Do a happy one! Okay, to be serious. Upon reading some of the great classic tragedies in literature (Shakespeare, Dumas, Hugo would be my go to examples), I've come to the conclusion that there's two types of tragedy in fiction. The Cautionary Tale and the Conspiracy. The first is a tragedy born from a characters actions. Every action they take slowly brings them one step closer to their destruction. The actions are usually born from one inherent flaw, most likely hubris but it can be anything really, even kindness. In the end the character suffers and it's their own fault, even if they're not entirely to blame (if that makes any sense). If you want Fire Emblem, Lyon is a good example of this. He doesn't deserve to get his soul eaten by the Demon King, but it's happening purely thanks to his own actions. The Conspiracy is the opposite of the Cautionary Tale. That's when the character's choices are completely inconsequential. Something has targeted that character, be it a group in power or destiny itself, and that character is absolutely fucked as a result. Every action they take is logical, smart and even laudable. But it doesn't matter at all, because they're just a cog in a machine that's much larger than themselves and they're going to suffer for it. I find Sigurd is actually a pretty decent example of this. After his first decision to leave home and save Adean, his fate is sealed. Every step he takes brings him closer to that barbecue no matter what he does, because the people in power have decided that he's the right guy in the right place to serve as their patsy. There's also the random tragedy where something happens suddenly without reason or cause. That's probably the absolute most tragic thing that can happen to someone in real life, but you won't find many stories even attempting it because something that has no reason or cause is generally bad writing (although it can work if the tone is just right). I think the way to stop such stories from just becoming a sob story is to remember that the characters have to be involved in some way. Even in the Conspiracy, the character has to be trying to do something, making decisions of some sort, it just so happens that their choices are meaningless. If a character sits around and does nothing and suffers for it, then most people likely won't care (even if that's something that's pretty common in real life too). It's also a case where seeing is so much more powerful than telling (though I do have one nifty quote that is pure telling but is absolutely fantastic at depicting utter despair, so no hard and fast rules). EDIT: I realize this thread is about Backstories specifically, when I went on to write a diatribe about Tragedies in general. But I still think a lot of what I wrote works to a certain extent. The only caveat I have is that a backstory really has to mean something for it to exist (while also, at the same time, as someone else pointed out, don't just use it as an excuse for certain actions or as a tool to draw sympathy). It has to heavily tie into the plot and character to really justify existing. It's good to have a character fully realized, but if their backstory isn't tying into the actual story, then the audience doesn't really need to know.

Yeah, if you don't like that, then that's fine. That's just boring gameplay (and not even limited to Genealogy, certain maps in Binding Blade are much worse). But that's a different complaint than saying Genealogy of Holy War chapters are bad because they take twice as long to finish as chapters in other games is illogical when they're deigned to take longer to finish. That's why there's half as many of them. And now before we get into a bit long off topic argument on yet another thread, take a moment to realise that's not something you ever actually said, so you have no reason to defend the statement. It's just a comment I made on a frequently seen complaint about the game.

Haha. I meant it as more of a joke (with the express purpose of hoping someone would know who I'm talking about), as the art style would be pretty unfitting for Fire Emblem, but still semi seriously, because it probably would be absolutely beautiful.

Huh. Might do it some time just for fun. I've played through Shadow Dragon half a dozen times, but I don't think I've bothered to get the Falchion since my first.

Oh wow. Always knew you could revive Tiki, but I never considered giving her the Falchion and getting it back that way. I'd assume it would have automatically gone back to the Convoy. Hmm, still, you lose the Star Sphere to get the Falchion, and I think I'd rather keep that for infinite Divine Stone use.

Don't know what their motivation might be, but I believe they're capable of doing something like that if it suited them.

I do indeed seem to be conflating them, but that's more down to me only skimming the actual context here rather than not understanding the situation in Syria. But I think regardless of that, there is truth in what I say. I think the that this is either a false flag operation, or that retaliation was a planned and expected response are both real possibility.

I don't know like any of the details, but it seems using a poison attack to assassinate traitors or defectors would be a really inefficient plan. Not when you could just drone strike or something on them just as easily (once again, naive on the details, but I imagine a drone strike would be just as easy for an assassination as a gas attack in this particular context, correct me if I'm wrong). Not to mention using gas for the particular weapon of choice would undoubtedly get this exact reaction from the Western powers. I can't help but feel that who ever was behind it wanted this exact reaction. Assassinating people that fail you is certainly a thing, but so are false flag operations. Now I'm not saying it definitely was a false flag, just that I wouldn't put it past any of the powers involved to do basically anything if they thought it suited their needs.

Well it was an idea I suggested before the game was released and we all seen that cutscene. Still, I don't think that's a particularly impeding issue. We don't see the extent of the fight at all. Mila could have several priests rush in right afterwards (including a version of Cantors that summon enemies like you can with your units) with Rudolf summoning his generals. I want to see the Mila Faithful in action as a military force. There is beta elements to suggest they would appear as units at one point. Probably a more pressing issue is the fact that because they refused to give characters more than one weapon type, it's just plain weird that Rudolf is wielding a sword. He'd need to have some kind of unique class for it or just plain hack the game to ignore the rules. What we eventually got in the game also wouldn't serve the most interesting map, as it's just a straight walkway surrounded by a pond on either side. Definitely need fliers to make that interesting and Rigel doesn't have any fliers outside of their monster forces. But given that all we had in Gaiden was "Rudolf attacked the Temple and sealed Mila," there was more than enough leg room to create a really fun fanservicy chapter where you play as the bad guys in a way that makes sense.

Yeah, he's not that active in the present game, but he still is the most active. And when it comes to the backstory, he's the most active too, being the one who started the whole mess by releasing Medeus in the first place, killing Miloah, kidnapping Elice and Falchion. One of the only actual arcs in the game is centered around him, that being getting the Star and Life Orbs to get Starlight to defeat him. This is also what links Gotoh into the plot and makes up his main concern. I can understand how this all might still not be good enough for some people, as compared to more developed stories, it's still just a rather minor list of things, but Shadow Dragon is written pretty differently to most stories and I like it for that fact (Michelis does even less than Gharnef and I like him too, not a big fan of Medeus though). Not a big fan of him in the sequel though where he pulls a Hijacked By Bowser at the end and is just generally responsible for everything again even though he's kind of dead and wasn't even that necessary to bring back (couldn't the Dark Sphere just corrupt Hardin by itself? Or couldn't Eremiya just be evil all on her own?). Is fun to play as him in that side mission though. To Narcian's credit, he's just a lazy ass who has no reason to personally get his hands dirty when he could just delegate it to someone else (who at least once just delegates the task to someone else too). I find it to make the most sense for him since he doesn't have any grand ambitions that Roy is messing up for him, unlike Nergal and Gharnef.

I suddenly want to fight Mila's dragon form. Why oh why didn't IS plagiarize my idea and have Rudolf's assault on the temple as a DLC map!?

I liked Shadow Dragon Gharnef. Mainly because he was the only villain in the plot that was actually doing anything.

So are there just no requirements for the Gaidens? You just go to them every time? I assume Tiki still needs to be dead and the Falchion lost for the last one, otherwise it's just sort of weird.

Thinking on the matter of Roy's promotion and promotion item competition, I think it could be really cool if characters leveled up past 20 and promotion was just for the stat boosts and extra weapon type, like in Genealogy of Holy War (only with the standard 40 level cap). This would put Roy on the same footing as everyone else when it comes to exp gain, but would stay true to the spirit of the original game in keeping his promotion away for so long. Additionally, the competition for promotion items would remain, but characters wouldn't be stuck at level 20, just waiting for you to reach the right item. It would also make early promotion much more desirable as there would be no downside to it.

Constance had dispersed the shadow armour she decided to wear. Such a garb was only suited for battle. She followed the prince and the rest of his army to the docks and listened as the Wykian Baron described the situation. "I can prepare some meals and keep the place tidy," she offered when there was a lull in the conversation. She had already admitted to the prince that she'd never been on a ship before, making things hospitable was the least she could do.

Well Emmeryn died by falling on her head...Oh wait, she didn't. She got brain damaged and magically warped to an island where the characters stumbled on her without explanation and Robin proceeded to rape Chrom's disabled sister. Better example would be Ashera. You also have Female Grima I think? Though I always felt Grima was more male regardless as to what the Avatar's gender is. Not sure if the script supports that interpretation though.

Enemy Archers are also going to attack the unit they're likely to deal the most damage to, and given their large range, it means they're more than likely able to hit half your army. So they're more likely to target your mages than any of your Barons to begin with. I never said he can solo all of Birthright. I specifically said several end game maps.