Othin

Of course it isn't farfetched. But I'm not talking about the translators; I'm talking about you. Do you want the translators to listen to your complaints or not? All it takes is a simple yes or no answer; don't avoid the question.

The alternative is that when you and others post a complaint about what the translators are doing, they just ignore it completely. Is that what you want? I'm sure they wouldn't complain if it was.

We don't have to know what exact criteria they used. Some subjective criteria existed there, some subjective criteria can be used here. Subjectivity is unavoidable in a translation like this; you have yet to give any reason why it should be avoided in this particular area more than in others. Every romanized name, hmm? Every playable character, every boss, every NPC throughout five games? Do you have evidence of all of these? Such a claim is a bit much to ask people to believe without evidence. Furthermore, it seems to be the basis for every argument you've posted in this thread. So I don't think it's too much to ask for you to validate that basis if you want your arguments to be taken seriously. So, if you insist on saying that the FE12 translators cannot take the liberty of changing so much as a single syllable in the process of romanizing a single name, please post or link to evidence that every playable character, every boss, and every NPC throughout FE7, FE8, FE9, FE10, and FE11 whose localized name appears to be based on the Japanese one fits the kana perfectly to every syllable. And that also means evidence that all the other names are not based on the Japanese names. According to your claim, all of this is true, yes? If I've misunderstood anything, just give just as complete evidence that whatever you are saying is true and we can see how much that goes to show. So your opinion is that the translation should not attempt to be like a flexible, professional translation such as the official FE game translations, including subjectivity where it can improve the work; it should rather be a rigid, literal, amateur translation. Are you aware of this?

Indeed, official translations tend to take the Japanese kana as a good approximation for what pronunciations to use when feasible for the English game, especially when the pronunciation corresponds to an existing English name. By listing about 20 names, you've proven that much and nothing more. I have not argued that point, because it's irrelevant. What I said was that the translators were never concerned about being perfectly accurate with respect to the kana. Perhaps I should clarify - I meant the entire game being perfectly accurate, not individual names. The translators have takes considerable to complete liberties in deciding how to translate names such as Chap, Stella, Dalahowe, Soanevalcke, Kilroy, Ulysses, and Topuck, to use the FE9 translation as an example. Now, I don't know the kana for these names. It's certainly possible that a few of these have kana a bit closer to the English translations than it looks from this perspective, but I'm guessing not all of them do. If you believe the kana for all of these names lines up perfectly with the English translations, feel free to show proof of that. But if even one of these names is different by a syllable, that means the official translations have been willing to bend a syllable here and there when they feel there is a good reason. And if even one of these names is largely or completely different from the kana pronunciation, that means the official translations have been willing to entirely rewrite a name here and there when they feel there is a good reason. And that is all that is being proposed here: the occasional minor or significant change. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is my impression that you have been arguing that the translation team is overstepping its bounds to pick a few choice characters and change their names by a syllable or two. Keeping all of this in mind, is this (still) your stance?

Being perfectly literal with the pronunciation of the kana has never mattered in any official translation of an FE game, and that's as it should be. A good translation is not a literal one. As has been noted, we would never use a raw, unaltered or nearly unaltered result from Google Translate for the script; there's no reason we would want to use the same process for the names. Jeorge and Lorenz are names. Lorenz seems to be particularly rare as a first name, but they both are indeed real, legitimate names.

With a project set up like this, most people involved are proofreaders, in different senses. Which perhaps shows the issue with this setup better than anything else.

In other words, Belf was a poor name, which you just got used to having because it was there. That's how name changes like this work. I hated most of the FE11 name changes when it was first released. Then, after pretty much forgetting about it for a year, I looked back at the names and found little to be concerned about. The names were just there, they were the official American names of the characters, and they weren't anything notably different than what the rest of the series had. There was nothing I could do about them, and nothing I wanted to do about them. That's why the people in charge of this project need to stop getting community input on the names. They need to just stick in whatever names they think sound good and tell the people to deal with it. People will end up pissed for a while, but eventually they'll just get used to them and stop caring, because there was nothing they could ever do by complaining about the names and they don't fucking matter anyway. On the other hand, leaving this matter to polls and letting everyone have a say, then going with the majority opinion or whatever means that the 70% or so who agree will be perfectly satisfied and the other 30% will get pissed and stay pissed, because when people have any influence over something, what they want is to have it exactly the way they want it, and they won't want to let go of that influence. This thread is evidence of that. Getting community input needs to be saved for things that actually matter, like translating the script well. Getting community input for trivialities only makes people forget that they're trivialities.

What point of view? The point of view that directing people to the page they want to get to matters? That's the most neutral possible point of view they could use to decide which should be the main page.

Even more relevant, it's not as if the article about the town has any meaningful information about the people in the first place, or that would benefit any of those people. At the very least, the disambiguation page should be the redirect, although it's not as though anyone going to the redirect page would likely do so without the intent of immediately going to the Marth character page. There's just no point in not immediately sending people where they want to go.

It's unfortunate that you feel that way. I'd ask for specific examples, but I'm already getting the feeling that arguing this point won't get anyone anywhere, either. What I will say is that your feelings do not appear to be widespread. Many people here have encouraged discussion even when they disagree with the opening statement, to the point where they have even requested a second thread like this one, which will be made and run to its conclusion whether or not you find it mildly distasteful. In fact, your feelings about our methods of argument seem to be held only by those who hold FE7 as their favorite game. Coincidence? I think not. Really, if you dislike this thread so much, let it die rather than bumping it with more of this derailment. Please do not derail this thread again with discussion about whether or not it should be locked; it's honestly just not your business at all what happens to it. Whether or not you or others agree to cease this, though, this will be my last response on the subject. Anyway, now that you've drawn my attention to this thread again, I must bring up an interesting point about FE7's story that I realized while discussing the stories of the earlier games with Banzai. The early games in general do not explore particularly deep into any characters or their motivations at all, and have particularly undeveloped villains, at least within the respective games' stories. The most concrete part of this I observed is that unless I am mistaken, FE7 is the first FE game to show scenes occurring outside the map where the main character currently is. It is not, as Banzai and I portrayed it before, some random tangent in terms of storytelling away from a particularly good pattern. Rather, FE7 was the first FE game to try to really develop the characters and especially the villains, and failed only because IS did not yet have the experience with such matters to learn how to do it properly. It is worth giving it credit for this, even though I would not say this makes its story or overall quality any better. FE7 was a step in the right direction for the FE series, towards the development seen in FE8, FE9, and FE10; it was simply not a step into the right place. I believe this may help put things into a better perspective. Anyone agree? Disagree?

Revisit all 8 worlds and check again to make sure they all have the Star Coin Complete thing. If you really have everything, you should have exactly enough, so I can't think of any possibility other than you forgetting one somewhere.

There is nothing to gain whatsoever from having this locked. If anyone else has anything to say here, they'll say it and the thread will continue. If not, they won't say anything, the thread will die, and we'll move on to the FE8 analysis when Banzai posts it. That's how threads are expected to work; there's no reason to be concerned about forcing it into one fate or another, and certainly no reason to continue distracting from any meaningful discussion anyone might care to post by continuing to harp on this pointless matter of meta-discussion.

Well, I'm not sure what just happened, but if we're all happy now, I'm not too concerned. Anyway, Banzai's offline for the rest of the day, but he says he'll do the rest of the FE8 analysis tomorrow, and I'm posting this here to hold him to that.

Doomguy, you say you've read through this thread. In doing so, you may have noticed the unbalanced numbers of people arguing for the two sides. Banzai and I can't respond to everything here, not for as long as anyone might wish to keep pressing the point. After a few exchanges, we must figure out if we think there is any merit in continuing to argue a particular point. If it's not going anywhere, we must leave it be; we have no choice. Some arguments we've had have lead to results and greater understanding. Banzai and I have conceded multiple points when the opposing argument has been sufficiently supported. We have no aversion to conceding points; we simply will not do it when it is not warranted. This argument will not lead to greater understanding of anything. It is not going anywhere; you have noted yourself that both sides have just been repeating the same arguments over and over. We disagree about why the argument has stagnated, but no attempt to convince the other about it is going to go anywhere, either. As such, there is nothing left to argue here, no reason for us to continue responding to your posts. You seem to be the only one who thinks there's any point in continuing this back-and-forth, and that's just not enough. I will not respond to any more of your posts in this thread, and I believe I've convinced Banzai to not do so, either. I realize this is not what you wish, but it is not something you will be able to change by continuing to post requesting responses. Here, although we will never agree about why it will be necessary, we must agree to disagree.

Well, that'll be fun, won't it? Noe that we're done with this little diversion, I'll talk with Banzai about that. Alright then.

Not sure where you're going with this. Can't speak for anyone else, but I like stories that make for a more interesting story than my own life.

Brendan investigated Sonia's past. That makes it hard to imagine he really trusted her the whole time.

I've attempted to create a story for an FE game. I never finished it; it's a skeleton plot that hasn't been filled in, and I don't think I ever came up with anything creative enough for the story to be all that interesting. I won't claim it to be good enough to be worth posting. I did find myself having to deal with problems with the story, and worked on cleaning up and avoiding each of them, even when it wasn't easy. I know what it's like. Legault: Yep. As the cleaner, I was responsible for executing anyone who betrayed the Fang. Black Fang members never beg for mercy. They’d rather die than be captured. It’s ‘cause they know... What happens to traitors. You can never run from the cleaner. That’s Fang law. I worked to protect that law. Also, they could imprison Pascal, apparently. My view of the quote was that Legault was saying Jaffar, as an infant, had somehow committed a massacre. It's not the speed that's the issue; it's the method. Travel to Valor isn't easy to get, and Ephidel and Darin had to have already left by that time. Maybe they would've gotten the message, maybe they wouldn't have. Either way, sticking around only increased the likelihood that they'd learn important things about the Black Fang until the point where they did. Eliwood's team couldn't have done a thing to stop the Black Fang until Leila was left behind to run into them. I can't find a coherent and relevant point in these sentences. I mean I'd expect him to have people lining up. In the scene with Brendan, he seems completely clueless, as if there had been no warning whatsoever. I'd check the exact quote from Lloyd, but Serenes doesn't have his chapter. Do you have the line? That could have happened, but it can't have been their intention. It's clear that no such thing happened, so if Darin and/or Ephidel had expected it to, in talking about fleeing to Valor, the primary reason would have been the failure of the pro-Laus territories to respond, and they would have said as much, but they said no such thing. Occasional filler can't really be held against the plot. When the filler is more than the relevant, logical parts of the story, there's an issue. Momentum needs to be kept up by substance, not filler.

Legault's role in the old Black Fang was killing traitors. This shows that Brendan did not respect the lives of traitors, of which Pascal was one. Nothing to link to; they aren't posted publicly. That's not how it sounded to me, but alright, let's go with that.

Looks like Mekkah's find debunks this. If it was that easy to get enough quintessence, Nergal wouldn't have needed to start full wars anyway, and the convoluted methods his Morphs used to cause those wars was what drew so much attention to the Black Fang in the first place, something Nergal would want to avoid. It wouldn't take much of a background check to find out about Pascal's massacre. In order to effectively assassinate anyone, you have to be able to get good information about what's going on, and that same information could also be used to make such a basic background check, so why wouldn't they do so? Besides, I would think the massacre would be well-known enough that a background check wouldn't be needed in the first place. And yes, the matter of him being jailed is another question that's been open since the start of the thread. There was no reason for time to be a concern. At the time of Ch14, Eliwood's team didn't know anything about the Dread Isle being involved, so if Ephidel had just disappeared to there, there would be no reason for him to expect Eliwood to follow him. Instead, he sticks around, allowing Eliwood's team to follow his actions even more, until they wind up in contact with Leila, who tells them about the Dread Isle, and only because Ephidel didn't bring her with him, instead leaving her behind to waste time that was only a factor because he left her behind. On that note, how'd she get to the Dread Isle so quickly after that, anyway? Besides, was there anything about the ritual that was shown to take any significant amount of time anyway? I don't know if the game can really be held accountable for that, but it seems odd that time would be such a factor when the only thing that's shown to matter is get quintessence --> use quintessence. As I noted above, assassins need to get information to do their job properly. Even if Brendan may not have had the information gathering powers of the morphs, he had to have people working for him who could get good information before that for the Black Fang to be effective at all. And no, Pascal never lived halfway across the continent from Brendan. The Black Fang is based in Bern, and Pascal was from Bern. And as others brought up, while the Black Fang had morals, respecting the life of people they had judged as evil was not one of them. The entire purpose of the Black Fang was to kill people they had judged as evil, and based on their actions in the game, that was shown to extend just as clearly to their own members. It's not about her personality or her working for Nergal in her spare time. The issue is her taking control of the Black Fang right in front of Brendan's face and using them for missions that had no basis in the Black Fang's morals. How could he not notice that? Woman: Long ago…the lord who ruled this area was an awful man. Every night he would hold an extravagant feast below the castle. Meanwhile, we villagers slowly starved to death. One day, though, it ended. The lord was dead. The Black Fang had given him a death sentence. To us, the Black Fang were heroes. It matters not what others said. That's what makes it so hard… Why did they have to change? Helping you…means that I'm betraying the Black Fang. And yet…I want you to have this. With a reputation like that, it's impossible to believe Brendan couldn't have gotten what he wanted from someone else. And yet for this one woman, he throws it all away, destroying the Black Fang's reputation to that extent in just a year. Yes, she's hot. But for someone who had killed so many people in the name of the Black Fang's morals to let them crumble just for that is unbelievable. To use the religious analogies, Brendan was not simply a follower of his morals, but a priest of his morals, a monk, a zealot. They're supposed to be better at this stuff. This proves that Sonia did seduce Brendan. It doesn't make it plausible, which is where the plot issue happened - it occurred, but it shouldn't have occurred. Also, again the issue Mekkah brought up with Brendan being suspicious of Sonia earlier. And she says the Reed brothers distrusted her... they didn't hide it well enough to keep it from Sonia, but they didn't even suggest it to Brendan, not when the Black Fang's actions were changing so much, so obviously, so fast that their reputation among the citizens fell apart in just a year? Base or not, invading Caelin was suicidal as well. I don't understand why I've had to repeat this over and over. The moment Darin invaded Caelin, his life was as good as over. Banzai is an amazing writer. I doubt he could be persuaded to post one of his books here in its entirety, but he knows what he's talking about. I'm not a writer, and for this reason I've taken a subordinate role to Banzai on this topic whenever possible. However, I can see the plotholes just like anyone else. I can recognize that it's okay for some flaws to exist in a game or even for any other story to not be perfect, but as Banzai and I have repeated so many times, it's not the existence of some flaws; it's the extent of the countless flaws that tear up the plot to the point that there's almost nothing left. If there had just been a handful of notable flaws, like in FE8, we would not have made this thread. But instead, there are only a handful of chapters not made fundamentally... wrong by those flaws. --- Something else I found while looking at supports. Legault: There were countless corpses stacked one on top of the other... And there, atop of the bodies, they found a lone infant sleeping... You. You are death incarnate. You feel nothing, fear nothing, desire nothing... You kill. Nothing more. Angel of Death... The perfect name. What?

There's no evidence of magic having a use anything like that in FE7, and again, Brendan is indicated to have strong feelings about his morals; it's difficult to imagine him caving so easily. See, the problem here is that any way you look at it, attacking Caelin is suicidal too. It's just going to get Ostia and other territories involved, quashing the rebellion before it could truly even begin. Ephidel didn't need Darin for any purpose other than starting wars. If he just used Darin for that purpose in invading Ostia and doing enough damage to get the rest of Lycia involved, that would have been all Ephidel needed Darin to do. Notably, he didn't even use him for that purpose; Ephidel just called Darin to take over Caelin then pull out, causing nothing big to happen whatsoever. Pretending to want to be good shouldn't matter when what you actually do is just evil, which was true for all three of them. If Brendan just didn't take enough note of that, it's just another "bad guys are stupid" excuse that makes for a boring story. The Black Fang could only conceivably function if it was good at getting information, which apparently it is, at least after Nergal takes over. Such information would not have missed such crucial facts about them. If the Black Fang can find out what way Hector is headed out of the castle when almost no one knew he was even leaving, they can find out about a massacre Pascal committed at least before allowing him into their upper ranks. I think this is a plot hole not because of what isn't shown, but because of what is shown.

So then this brings other flaws to the attention of people who care. What's the problem, in that case? Again, if it's not for you, that's fine; no one will tell you that it should be. Just realize that it's meaningful for others here, as the responses have shown. Brendan is shown as having cared greatly about upholding the Black Fang's morals, and despite being the leader of a criminal group, he was respected well enough that it's difficult to imagine him being that desperate.

Pointing out the same plothole occurring somewhere else in the story doesn't mean the instance we were originally talking about wasn't a plothole; it just means you've found another plothole. Or, in Pascal's case, another plothole that would be created by justifying an existing plothole. This only goes to show how FE7's plot lacks any coherency at all; every time it's inspected, another plothole appears. I hadn't given Brandan's marriage to Sonia any thought previously, but that's yet another big issue with FE7's story - the method by which the Black Fang was controlled to be used by Nergal doesn't even make any sense in the first place.

It's not what the game says; it's about what it shows. Pascal, as quoted previously, had invited his citizens to his castle and slaughtered them, then later openly mocked the Black Fang's morals. Both of those show a person who wouldn't plausibly even bother trying to hide his actions and feelings, even if he could hide them from the Black Fang, which he couldn't. Serenes doesn't have scripts from Jerme's chapter to reference here, but he, too, is very explicit about his desire to maim people. Jerme may be more questionable; it's reasonable to expect to not be held accountable for what he says to people he intends to kill, and as Banzai noted, he might plausibly have joined and left the Four Fangs within part of the year since Nergal started gaining power - less likely, because of how little time that leaves for Nergal to gain power, Jerme to have power, and then Jaffar to have power, but it's not an issue I intend to press. What is significant is that Pascal's massacre is not something he could have expected to not be held accountable for, and therefore it's clear that he just didn't care. He shouldn't have been able to gain power in the Black Fang in the first place, or been left alive when he went against their morals and started murdering. In other words, exactly what's been explained since the first post. So in other words, you think the analysis is accurate, but it doesn't affect how you feel about the game. In that case, I ask again: Why post? There are people for whom plot does play a factor in playing FE, and they are who this thread is directed at. If you aren't one of them, why impede the discussion for those who do care? This isn't a question that needs to be answered if you intend on ceasing posting in this thread, of course.

Again, when people make and support valid arguments against our points, we accept their theories as closing the plothole. This is what happened with most of the matter of Legault. However, most of the arguments made against the analysis have lacked validity, sufficient support from the game, or both, or simply been irrelevant, and of course we do not simply roll over and drop our views the moment such complaints are made. Again, take bottlegnomes' approach to this thread, and in the event that you're actually right, we will withdraw our corresponding arguments and in fact be thankful for your input. We have shown this, and as such, your complaints are very much unfounded. This is a problem with some video games. It is not a problem for other video games; FE4, for example, or in a different sense, the first two Metroid Prime games. Certainly, it is not a limit on the medium, just a failing from many games within the medium - such as FE7, where almost nothing plot-relevant happens in any of the battles. These failings can be measured, as we do here. And we can also decide whether or not to enjoy the games in spite of the failings, but as I have explained many times, that is not the purpose of this thread. While I'm on this note, perhaps I should explain this better for anyone here who might not understand - not directed at Paperblade unless any of it is pertinent to what he's saying, but rather to the whole thread. If you want to say, "Yes, FE7 has a bad plot, but I can enjoy it anyway", go ahead, no one's stopping you. However, what people here have chosen to do instead is say, "I don't care whether or not FE7 has a bad plot, and therefore your analysis is bad", and that's just a false conclusion and posting it does nothing but annoy people. Really, for anyone who doesn't care how good FE7's plot is, why even bother posting here when this thread clearly isn't directed at you, but only towards the people who do? My standpoint is that Pascal couldn't plausibly have come to power, period. Neither could Jerme, for that matter. Both of them are huge contradictions with the Black Fang if they came to power before Nergal took over, and wouldn't make sense in the short time they were in power after Nergal took over, so they just don't make sense, period. There isn't a good explanation for them.