Jotari
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1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:
Sorry if this comes across as a kind of "toxic positivity", as that's in no way my goal. You're allowed to have whichever issues you have! I just don't think I feel the same way.
Don't worry, I'll balance out your (actually not at all) toxic positivity with some toxic cynicism. You are absolutely right. Not only do we have access to various genres easy, we have access to world wide media, almost of all of it translated as we have the good fortune to speak the lingia franca (and probably have the knowledge to be a pirate of Netflix and the like is falling short). Not only do we have that, but we also have a hundred years worth of visual media from the past century, and several thousand years of written works from before that. If there was a complete and total ban on new content tomorrow there would still be enough high quality stuff out there to take up more than a life time's worth of consumption.
And here's where the cynasicism comes in. Because all that is true. And it's also irrelevant. Because you are absolutely not going to watch the latest Iranian drama no matter how good it is. Unless you have a friend who's really into it and recommends it. And while you might read the best book sold in England in 1878, you're not going to read the second best book because only scholars with a specific interest in the period are even going to know about the second most famous stuff. We are, as we've always been, at the absolutely mercy of the capitalist system and what they want to show us. All of it is there, but you're only going to watch what's put in front of you and pushed by the algorithm and marketing titans. Which means a bit of your local stuff, a bit of Britain, and lot of America, and any noteworthy foreign language work these days will almost certainly be Japanese or Korean. I think we have all seen far too many movies that are well known to be bad, well reported to be bad and then watched and found subjectively bad, but watched anyway just because they were the trend everyone's talking about.
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12 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:
I can see the appeal.Oh! What! Oh no, I was, eh, talking about her, uh, Volcannon. I mean Bolganone. Yeah, that's one hot book.
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3 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:
Hilda's great. She's not sympathetic, she's not possessed, she's not sexy... She's as horribly, unabashedly, generically evil as every ugly recolored man ever, and she's about as physically unattractive as anime women are allowed to be. And, you know what? That's neat.
Hmm...Should I confess to thinking this collection of pixels is hot or not?
3 hours ago, ping said:Oh, I agree. But just saying "Oh, I agree." is boring.
One thing that's remarkable about Hilda is that she looks like she's about 50 years old. I think she's the only woman in the game who is allowed to be and look middle-aged? Rahna is probably 40-50 years old, but has a generic "somewhere between 25 and 40" portrait. Other than that, there's only two of the generic village women - the one with the headscarf looks about as old as Hilda, and then there's the one portrait that's actually old.
She's probably a few years shy of fifty if you think about it. Assuming Bloom's marriage was a result of Chapter 5 and not something that happened earlier, Ishtar is at most 17, possibly younger. And assuming Hilda was a hot young bride of about 22 when she was an eligible bachelorette, that would but her in her late 30s now. Well maybe an extra year for Gen 2 having taken place in to put her in her early 40s. Unless she was older when she married because she was putting herself through Sorceress School first or something.
2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:Hilda's exact genealogical relationship to Arvis is never explained.
However, I would like to headcanon that she's one of the bastards (and thus, half-sibling to Arvis) that Victor purportedly sired and showered favoritism on.
It wouldn't make Hilda sympathetic, she is likely by nature a terrible person, but it could add to her vileness. She was living the decadent life of a princess -until Arvis suddenly ruined it all. Ostracized, Hilda came to think being poor SUCKS, and ruthlessly dedicated her life to regaining wealth and status.
Notes in the Treasure art book say Arvis sent his non-Azelle bastard siblings into exile or servitude. I could imagine that being a duke's bastard didn't exclude one from all of high society, just the most public social circles. A few secondary cliques off to the side would still accept Hilda, and somebody would take her in until she wedded. There, she waited for her best possible bankroll/title-giver, and caught no finer a marlin than the heir to Freege.
...But the problem here is the timeline and Ishtar's & Ishtore's ages. Realistically, I don't see Blume wedding a bastard -until Lombard & Leptor agree that Arvis will become Regent after Azmur's coming death. Once that pact happened, a woman of House Velthomer, even a bastard whom Arvis probably would hate, saw their value on the wife market soar by 50000%. It's only then that Blume sidelines considerations of any other woman and selects Hilda. Are Ishtar and Ishtore old enough to work within these constraints?
-Although, really, I'd take just about any explanation. A perfectly legitimate cadet branch of House Velthomer would do fine too.😅
I think perfectly legitimate cadet family is the Occam's razor answer. She says her family is from Velthomer, like the royal family. That kind of suggests it's not the royal family. And you'd think she's either be bragging about a close family connection to Alvis or denying it completely if she were a bastard. Instead she's bragging about a loose geographical connection.
I personally headcanon one of her parents are Thracian. Since for some bizarre reason they accidentally gave her Dainn holy blood in the final chapter.
1 hour ago, BrightBow said:Doesn't exactly help that Julia is way more powerful than Deidre. I mean, Deidre cannot even change classes even if she does get to level 20. Julia is in a whole different league. It feels absurd that he can just take her without any meaningful resistance.
But the worst part is that unlike Deidre, Manfroy doesn't actually need Julia for anything. He already has his dark god. If he can kidnap her, then he can also just kill her.
Hmm. How could this be fixed? I say we leave her in this chapter as normal until you seize Miletos. Throughout the chapter she's given lines suggesting she's starting to remember her past (maybe she can have a battle quote with Hilda, since those two have probably met before, even if neither might realize st first). And it all comes rushing back when she see's Julius on the battlefield. Unlike the brother she knew, but a haunting reminder of the way he looked the last time she saw him. She then leaves Miletos on her own volition because she simply has to speak to Alvis, whom she here's is at Chalphy. She has to appeal to daddy to put an end to this and stop Julius. And then things play out the same way. We get out dramatic scene and Julia falls into Manfroy's lap because he just happens to get lucky. This shifts it from Manfroy just being super naturally capable (until he isn't) to Julia being an idiot. But I think it's okay for her to take the idiot ball for this one to make the plot happen. Because even if abandoning the army to speak to Alvis is misguided and foolish, it could still be brave and a strong character beat for her, taking things into her own hands. And let's face it, Julia needs a moment like that because she is a bit fat nothing as far as characterization goes. She exists for the gameplay situation she provides for the final chapter first and foremost.
And this way we only lose her for one chapter instead of two.
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6 hours ago, vanguard333 said:
There are two major differences though: first, Alm is treated throughout the game as someone special with everyone fawning over him and saying he was born special and better than them, with the explanation for it given by the second difference: Alm is secret royalty, and him being secret royalty plays into the plot as he inherits the empire. Alm's plot is a King Arthur and the Sword in the Stone plot. Also, Alm wasn't raised by a mercenary, but by a renowned knight and he was told that he was that knight's grandson, which gave him political perks.
But Alm very much was raised as a commoner in the same way Ike was. He grew up in a tiny village without servants or feudal responsibilities. And Ike likewise is treated specially because of his connection to Greil. That's what Shinon was so pissed about.
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7 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:
Even if you don't count the Gawain bit, there's still the fact Ike is still effectively a "Mercenary Prince". So not exactly "common" either, even if he wasn't of noble origins.
Well he objectively does get a noble title, and then throws it away. Better question is why should anyone really care? None of us are believers in the divine right of kings and the rightful place of feudalism. Nobility literally doesn't exist (though super genes do exist in some Fire Embelm settings, not Tellius though...unless you're Micaiah). People like Ike in this regard not because he's a commoner, but because he's different from other Fire Emblem lords. But it is a bit of a misconception that he's unique or unprecedented in that regard, as he hits a lot of the same plot beats as Alm. And later Byleth too as commoner raised mercenary protagonists. It's the less common of Fire Embelm's stock character tropes, but "Seemingly ordinary guy raised by a gruff old dude of renowned martial skill with a secret origin" is one of the two Fire Emblem protagonist along with "Lordling with responsibilities". Kris even follows that archetype, minus any significant secret backstory (and we never get to see Mac Lir, sounds like a cool guy though).
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1 hour ago, lenticular said:
I think it largely depends on exactly what the opinion is. For instance, I've never played Genealogy. If I state my opinion that I don't really care for the art style of the character portraits in that game, then I think that's pretty reasonable. I have seen a lot of the character portraits, after all. Maybe I should equivocate and disclaim a bit by saying that I've never seen them in their original context and for all I know maybe they work better there, but at the most basic level I don't think this is an unreasonable opinion for me to share. On the other hand, if I started to express opinions about the game's pacing or difficulty or story then I would rightly be laughed out of the room.
Only legitimate opinions on Genealogy's artstyle are those who've played it on a 1990s CRT TV with a RCA composite connection XD
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2 minutes ago, Revier said:
Yeah, they actually went out of their way to make sprites for lady archers, lady swordfighters, even lady paladins, on top of the "traditionally feminine" classes(wizards, clerics and pegasi). Quite impressive honestly.
The female paladins (and princess) even get an extra weapon type.
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1 hour ago, lenticular said:
Ike is/isn't a commoner, maybe? I've seen that being argued from both sides by people who are convinced that their take is Objective Reality and not just their interpretation.
I think that's something that definitely can be argued though. Because Greil no doubt was a noble being a general in the pre-Ashnard regime, with it specifically being noted that Ashnard made it possible for commoners to achieve such ranks ergo someone from before had to have been a noble. It's more deductive than fanfiction. But then maybe I'm exactly the kind of person who was being called out, lol.
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2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:
They went ahead and gave us four variants of Knight, four unpromoted mono-weapon cavs plus unique promotions, and still retained the typical two-weapon Cavalier + Paladin. Threw in Bard when Mage would functionally make no difference for Lewyn, three Wyvern classes in a one-promotion game, and has that Forrest oddity.
I don't think it was storage.😝 Or it was, yet they wasted their limited capacity on arguably sillier things.
Don't forget distinct female versions of most of those classes too. Which I don't think the previous game had for knights and cavalry (though they did for mages). And this is in a game with a relatively small pool of available units compared to other games.
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8 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:
Asugi is a big one for me and he brings down Gaius by association.
The big reason I hold Asugi in contempt is because I don't think Gaius deserved his own clone. Tharja and Cordelia were at least a phenomenon during Awakening so them being cloned made sense. But who ever talked about Gaius? I know he ranked high in one poll where the western fans weren't even consulted but more should be required.
I guess we can presume from that one poll, which let's not forget was significant enough to influence the game, that he was a bit of a phenomenon in the Japanese fandom. Though he certainly hasn't had much staying power. In the first CYL poll he was below Nowi, Lon'Qu and Donnel, among the more widely viewed popular Awakening characters. What's also a shame is that Asugi is a fine character all by himself. At least from what I remember. He has hang ups about his family legacy and a distaste for Saizo that doesn't rely on the Gaius character gimmick at all.
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9 minutes ago, Tybrosion said:
Yeah, I just straight up had to use Nabata Igrene and Louise on my Arena team last week just to deal with any Emblem Ikes.
AoE Specials are more or less the only consistent way of dealing with him.
Or the age old method of combating power creep.
Replace "Dragonite" with "Emblem Ike."
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6 minutes ago, Revier said:
Oh boy. If you asked me to "fix" Genealogy's story, I could spit out an entire novel. 😆
But that does overall look like a solid improvement over the current setup, even if it darkens some of Travant's "greyness". Of course, that wouldn't really fix either Chapter 7 or 8, which I meant to include when mentioning the "Thracian arc", but I'm reasonably confident we could find a way to improve those too.
The intent wasn't to darken Travant's greyness. It was actually a little the opposite. The point being that he's acted so treacherous for so long that people just plain won't believe him if he tries peaceful cooperation.
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1 hour ago, indigoasis said:
my headcanon is that you're wrongI think I kinda feel this, too, especially when headcanons I read about actively go against established canon or rules. I don't mind the stuff that's actually plausible, or the stuff I can easily dismiss, but the incorrect stuff that's so widespread to the point that it's treated as fact is what bothers me (basically popular headcanon that's actually just misinformation). If I understand what you're saying correctly, I do believe I'm in the same boat.
I see this a lot in the A Song of Ice and Fire community. Theories built upon a foundation that's only true if a multitude of other theories are correct. It's an inevitable consequence of the writer releasing only one installment of the series in almost 20 years. Fans have over analyzed stuff so thoroughly that evolving their own fanfiction into their view of the series in lieu of any actual forward progression is the only avenue of new conversation, if nothing else.
But, what I really wanted to ask is examples from the Fire Emblem series. Who, or what, or when is fan ideas being treated as fact
(well aside from the very wrong headcanon that Edelgard is a good person). -
2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:
The way Charlot calls Hannibal immensely reminds me of Nikolaj in Brooklyn 99. Very wholesome!
It's actually pronounced Nikolaj.
1 hour ago, Revier said:But yeah, that chapter ended pretty anticlimactically, and might've been one of the worst written chapters yet. Honestly, the game would arguably be improved if the entire Thracian arc were either: a. considerably refined or b. chucked out the window. Oh, boohoo, Kaga doesn't get to cutely "foreshadow" his future game or have Seliph avenge Quan and Ethlyn, cry me a river. Gen 2 is supposed to be the epic payoff for Sigurd's suffering, depicting his successor taking on and overthrowing the evil empire he inadvertently helped forge, yet they spend too much time on this mediocre sidetrack for not much payoff.
How to improve Chapter 9.
Step 1. Have Travant be the one to propose a peace treaty right from the very start. Seliph (and idk, Shannan) wants to take him up on this, but Lewyn and especially Leif, if he's still alive, argue against it saying they can't trust Travant and that he'll renege and seize North Leinster the moment they leave the continent. At Thracia castle Areone even suggests this very idea to Travant "I see what you're doing father, the moment they're gone we'll take all of the north ourselves. Thracia will be reunited at all." To which Trvant answers "...Maybe."
Step 2: Travant dies the same way. All that stuff is fine. We can add the extra line Ping wanted, and also make it clear that Areone's lines supporting treachery against the Heroes his motivating him. Not only is his daughter killed or seemingly killed, but his son is turning out like him in the worst ways.
Step 3: Now, with Travant dead, Seliph can argue for peace with a still belligerent Lewyn and Leif.
Step 4: Use the suggested interpretation where Areone is listening to the 99% of the time Travant and not the 1% of the time. Instead of referring to Travant's last lines as the reason for his rejection of peace, he makes a statement that he literally cannot understand what Travant was trying to tell him because it's so contrary to what he's always been told. Maybe have Julius show up earlier to observe the battle and give Areone someone he can talk to to explain his motivation (and provide some subtle threat against turning on the empire).
Step 5: If Julius has to rescue Travant, then let Julius and Seliph actually talk to each other a bit. Make a moment of it instead of an out of nowhere WTF.
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32 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:
This is the reason I said, "appear less often" rather than the more specific, "not appear at all anymore" and titled this "Trends in Media That You're Tired of Seeing" and not "Tropes in Media That You're Tired of Seeing". I agree that Everything, Everywhere All At Once was great, and I don't want to see multiverse stories end; I want to see the huge surge in multiverse stories end.
I guess to more clearly put what I wanted to say, would be that I wouldn't mind a huge surge in multiverse stories of they consistently engaged with and utilized the idea well.
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9 hours ago, vanguard333 said:
Tropes are tools; ultimately, it's about how they are used. However, often when one is used well, it inevitably spawns imitators who use it poorly, leading to storytelling trends that boom and then bust. I recently made a thread about storytelling tropes that you don't see often and would like to see appear more; this thread is the opposite: this is about storytelling tropes that you feel you see too often, even if they're used well, and that you think should appear less often.
Here's an example:
1. Timeline/Multiverse Stories:
For the past few years, there have been a ton of branching-timeline/multiverse stories: Into the Spider-verse, Across the Spider-verse, No Way Home, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Loki, Multiverse of Madness, Quantumania, The Flash, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, the Final Fantasy 7R project (Remake, Rebirth, and the untitled part 3), and even Fire Emblem Engage to some extent, for just a few of the many examples I could list. And I'm tired of them.
To be clear, I am not saying that all these examples are bad or that timeline/multiverse stories are inherently bad: Into the Spider-verse and Everything Everywhere All at Once were great movies that did a good job handling their multiverse stories, and I have yet to see Across the Spider-verse, but I've heard that it's really good. What I'm trying to say is that there has been a ton of them recently, and, for a lot of them, the timeline/multiverse aspect hurts more than it helps, and the timeline/multiverse aspect is sometimes stapled on to a story that would've been better without it.
I wouldn't say there's any individual tropes I'm sick of seeing in of themselves. And multiverse is a really good example of this. I'm sick of seeing it done poorly or for no real reason. But Everything, Everywhere, All At Once is a genuinely great movie that properly engages with it's multiverse premise to tell a genuinely heartwarming and philosophical story (fight scenes could drag on a little long though). I wouldn't want to see something like that not made just because the market is saturated.
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20 minutes ago, ponty said:
cause thats Selphina not Ethlyn silly
Well...
you're probably not wrong....but why in the world are you replying to a post from seven years ago that's buried in the 1380th page of a thread over 3000 pages long XD
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22 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:
Seriously, I should've just used the DLC in my Maddening run of Engage. But my stubborn ass just couldn't stop thinking "I need to beat it properly once so I prove I can do it." Well, I didn't. I'm the one crying a river now.
Hey, I beat Maddening Engage before the DLC ever came out. I guess that makes me a better Fire Emblemler than you. And you've seen my Eckesachs play log, so you know how mistake prone I am!
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What I like about Musar is that he actually has holy blood. Minor Forseti. This is almost certainly so he has the weapon rank to wield his Tornado tome, but it's fun to think of the story implications. Is he from Silesse? Is he a bastard brother of Lewyn? We know for sure he's not Lewyn's cousin, at least of the same generation, as neither of Lewyn's uncles have holy blood. Unless there was an unmentioned sister or something that got shipped off to be married in Grannvale. We later see some falcon knights with minor Forseti blood too, for less clear reasons, probably to give them more speed or something.
EDIT: I see two other people have already commented on Musar's blood purity before me. But I'll have you know I actually had my full comment about him written out before either of you guys posted. I just had to cycle to the train station immediately before I could finish writing about Arion.
Arion can certainly be a pain to deal with. One solution is to actually just not fight him and seize his castle from beneath him. And if I were on charge of things I would have made that the suggested goal, with him only surviving to reach the final chapter if you don't kill him here. Because I agree that the Julius rescue is a bit nonsensical.
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15 minutes ago, Revier said:
I think it's much more likely that they just didn't think up the placement/dialogue of most villages too thoroughly, after all many of them are basically just cash handouts with small bits of lore. And this isn't the first time their lore has contradicted the broader situation/narrative either.
Well, none of the villages in any of the chapters are marked on the intro map, only the castles are (at least in Genealogy, we get some more names in 776). And they are the ones that don't have accurate placement in relation to coastlines, or even each other.
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1 hour ago, ping said:
You're right, it is a bit surprising that it's part of Leonster. I haven't really been thinking about the four realms of the Manster district, so that never occurred to me. Directly west of Meath and north of Luthecia would put it here on the map:
So we probably just have to assume that Leonster controls like half of the Manster district.
Yeah, while it's really cool that you can put the Genealogy maps together and they make the recognizeable shape of the Jugdral continent....much less care was taken to ensure any of the castle positions reflect where they actually are in the gameplay maps. Because the spot you marked on that map corresponds to here in Chapter 7
Which...yeah, those clumps of villages are definitely not. Hell Melgen and Ulster are practically on the same line of latitude yet on the intro chapter map Ulster is quite a bit to the north. I wonder if Kaga came up with his world map first and then tried to design the chapters around that map and had to make compromises for the sake of gameplay, or if it was all gameplay first and someone just really half assed their job of designing the intro map.
43 minutes ago, ping said:SEQUEL IDEA: Thracia 1492, in which the seafarer Chris O'Lumbus from the Manster district conducts an naval exploration in the name of the Thracian king and queen. And lo and behold, he actually discovers what will later be known as Valentia! Unfortunately, he turns out to be a complete piece of shit, killing and enslaving the natives, and it's the mission of the player character to expose his evil deeds.
Funny enough, that would place you directly in the middle of a 200 year period where Valentia was dealing with a mysterious pirate nation that resulted in the dual monarchies getting the blond bond with Mila and Duma. Though I think the official Valentian timeline says the pirate nation was related to the predecessors of the Macedonians.
43 minutes ago, ping said:(A small detail that is missing and that I would've liked: Characters like Ares and Johalvier could've given an answer from the augury, too. If nothing else, it would allow Jotari to add Finn's parents to his list of named FE characters that never actually make an on-screen appearance)
I would absolutely love if they went to the bother of naming the parents of everyone in the first gen purely for the Augary. So many Holy Blood Nobles with only theoretically existing wives. Oh god, Hannibal must have had parents. TELL ME WHO THEY ARE MAGIC MAN!
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19 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:
Hmmm... Actually? I have to concede the point, as I am the living proof. I did, in fact, do a sub run with Cairpre present. A really bad Cairpre too, his father was Alec lmao. He was still a lot more useful than the big scrub-tier subs like Tristan and Roddlebahn or whatever his name is this time of year.
Really, his biggest problem is just that he's worse than Sharlow and they can't exist together. Combined with Laylea being arguably as good as Lene, leaving Sylvia alone ends up seeming like a better choice, and this is very bad for poor Cairpre.
Yeah, and if my suggestion of a parent-child money transfer idea is to be in effect, then Sharlow would naturally be entitled to get that too. Especially if they use my other idea which is to make Sharlow Hannibal's actual son. What? You really think I was going to talk about another sub and not shill that thread XD
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9 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:
Oh, Cairpre is definitely better than Hannibal, as is Sharlow and every other unit in gen 2. Cairpre's problem is that being better than Hannibal means nothing, he wants Sylvia to marry Claude or else he gets didly squat out of his dad and his sub has everything you'll ever need of him with less effort required. Except Valkyria, I guess, but Valkyria is a lot better in theory than it is in practice.
Agreed that Hannibal and his son needed a special relationship. Especially considering Hannibal can't marry, it'd been cool to make him have that parental bond with his son so he can make money for him at the arena. That'd been pretty cute.
Yeah, I should have said he's better than Hannibal, at the very least. But I think his chip healing and instant warping capabilities puts him at more useful than a lot of the substitute units and eugenics units with substitute levels of pairing quality. I guess, I could say, if one were to do an "all subs except Sylvia" run then he'd be of middling quality of contribution to the remaining two maps. Though Sharlow would still be better as innate paragon and berserk are pretty great for the unit late game healer Est is trying to be.
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42 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:
Erase him, have Sharlow always exist.
...in all seriousness, letting both get berserk would help, but the problem is that Coirpre really really needs paragon due to his starting situation, and he just... Doesn't get it, unlike Sharlow. Unless they completely change how they function as units, I fear the concept is kinda dead on arrival. I mean, seriously, level 1 priest halfway through chapter 8?
Hot take. Coirpre is not that bad. In fact, I'd say he's more useful than Hannibal. Sure, he's a level 1 staff bot more than half way through the generation. But really, what are you expecting to do with him? He has A rank staves, he can use any staff you want (except variable Valkyrie), his stats basically don't matter. You don't need another combat unit. He's pure staffbot/10. If you had to grind his weapon ranks then yes, absolutely that would be horrible. But from the moment he's out the gate, he's good to go. Sure, he won't heal as much as Ced or Lana because his magic will probably be a lot lower than theirs, but he'll heal enough to get you out of a tight spot when you need it with physic. And magic is completely irrelevant for Warp and Return. Besides, most of the time you'll be having him use mend from inside the home castle anyway to heal up people who have failed an arena run. That's a function. And if you're going for a rank, even without paragon, having staff at all if much more useful for grinding out levels. Of course, with no Arena potential, he'll run out of money fast abusing Warps and Returns, so what he really needs is a special relationship with Hannibal where there's one way Parent to Child money transfer (and give it to Finn->Leif and Oifey/Shannon->Seliph too, maybe). That would give Hannibal more of a purpose too, as you can have him go through the Arena to raise money for Coirpre.
To Become an Elitist [Playlogs FE1-5] [currently playing: Thracia 776]
in NES and SNES Era
Posted
We're actually okay on the culture front for Miletos. In fact, far better than some of the nations. We know it's a rich mercantile nation with exotic trading stuff and that it was a bunch of mostly independent city states (I think Kaga's notes say that somewhere, though I might be making it up) before the empire took over. And we know it was the site of child hunts in the original Lopt empire with massive sacrifices there and it's enduring this horror again.We even get a tidbit that Quan and Ethlyn visited there once. What we do lack for Miletos is representation (
seriously no black trans women at all) and a role in the wider world. Fire Emblem nations get their characterization through three main methods. The characters from there and what aspects of the society they represent. The role they play on the war and the types of classes they usually deeply. Miletos has none of that. We have loads (okay more like a few, but far more than most countries) of small details about it's culture and history, but none of those central three. Not only are there no characters from there, but they have no agency in the conflict and don't even get enough of a face to have generic enemies or NPCs to give flavor. I contrast to Gra, which also has pathetically small representation being just Sheena and Jiol (and Mr Captain). We feel like there should be more characters from there, but, even though there's not, we still have a good grasp of how Gra feels about things and it's motivation for doing things. Even though we see zero suffering Gra commoners, I feel like that countries misery is more palpable than Miletos just because we can understand it better, have Sheena to act as a vehicle for it and actual soldier troops to identify with that work better than the child hunts, ground we've already covered in the Leinster arc.On the subject of random arena enemies and the Queen class, Indra, the Queen you fight here is also fought at the start of the previous chapter where s(he?) was a social knight. How's that for a class change! Outside of the final chapter this is the only time you fight and arena enemy with the same name. The final chapter arena enemies also retain their classes. Which makes me think someone fucked up and accidentally used the same arena name twice for two different enemies.
I do wonder where she's Queen of thou? Maybe she's actually Travant's wife!
Overnight! Are you insane!....that would require making a night palette!