blah the Prussian

Which was founded no thanks to Venice on account of Venice being roflstomped by Napoleon 60 years earlier?

Nah, my feathers aren't ruffled, man, I found it funny.

Something I was actually called today over Facebook. Two out of three ain't bad I guess. I had declared my dislike of the Republic of Venice. This ruffled his feathers quite a bit. He then proceeded to call me edgy despite he himself using one of the more offensive words in the English dictionary. At around this time my friend blocked him. Moral of the story: don't tell homophobic Italian nationalists that you hate Venice.

I had a dream where I was playing the game, but then for some reason I was in the game (didn't get sucked in, the dream just changed) and for whatever reason this crappy burger place next to my house was there and I had a burger at it.

So long as you don't have a moral objection to it we're fine.

I agree with you about torture and cruel treatment, essentially because I'm against being a dick. What, however, about hunting, which was the issue that started this topic?

Right. I'm conceding the point. I'll switch to what I was arguing from the beginning: if human morality is a social construct, why should it apply to animals, including human interactions with animals?

Humans didn't develop civilization for thousands of years without a natural predator. I'd be interested to see what a population of animals kept in captivity for thousands of years would become, but there simply hasn't been enough time for the lack of danger to override the basic instincts of animals. And yes, there are exceptions, but none of them have achieved what humans have, probably due to other factors that vary from case to case.

I'm all for making Elincia more relevant to the plot, but again, the Black Knight remains essentially pointless. If Elincia and Ike had two separate arch enemies, it would make the story feel disjointed and disconnected. Plus, it's simply easier to flesh out one villain than two; FE9 simply picked the wrong one.

Then why do asexual people exist? Maybe we still have evolution acting on us, but we're also at the point where we don't necessarily care if we don't pass on our genes. We have also unambiguously moved beyond survival of the fittest in developed nations. You still have some rights, but your right to liberty is taken away, and you must obey the prison guards. Execution also represents taking away the right to life. The only right that's really inviolable is freedom from torture and degrading treatment.

Well, you know, and then the government of Zimbabwe, a brutal, kleptocratic totalitarian dictatorship, proceeded to cry crocodile tears as an excuse to bash the west. But actually, there are plenty of hunters who take contracts from communities to go after animals that are a problem. There are also ones who target the sick and the weak. So would you consider a lion who roars after killing a gazelle evil?

Basically. Most humans in the developed world do not have their lives threatened on a daily basis. Even in the less developed world, while people are hardly well off, their lives aren't necessarily in danger. The very existence of people who never try to gt married proves my point; we have moved beyond primal motivations.

Yes, but individual humans in general don't work towards the explicit goal of survival. We are at the point where the main threat to our survival is our own species, and to some extent the selfishness of individual members of our species.

The very fact that humans can and do sacrifice or risk their wellbeing and/or survival for a variety of selfless reasons, from ideology to family to your country, shows that we are more selfless than animals. Sure, you could argue that we do it for emotional satisfaction, but then humans are the only animals that get emotional satisfaction out of being selfless.Edit: Also, Cykes-dono, you said that no one should be offended for something they can't control. Well, rest assured I'm quite offended at you wishing death on a number of my friends and family.

Basically the only thing that's a bitch abut living in Prague is the delivery times. I'm not getting my physical copy of Sun until Christmas. I also can't find any 3ds compatible SD cards.

There are also more good humans than there are good animals. Animals as a whole are a bunch of selfish sons of bitches. You hunk people are selfish? The only goal of animals is to survive. This isn't intelligence being rewarded with life, this is recognizing that animals fundamentally have no rules governing them, and thus are quite literally a different beast legally and morally from humans.

But why aren't the hunters who are hunting when they don't absolutely need to a part of nature?

Well, Thane beat me to Ghost Trick. My favorite game of all time is The World Ends With You, which is sort of obscure but not really. I really like the game Sturmovik, which is a WWII flight simulator game that has some of the most realistic combat ever. Really recommend it if you like history.

Maybe so, but at the same time that position is essentially the same that all predators have. What I'm saying is that nature has always and almost certainly will always be a place far, far crueler than humans. That we recognize some things as unacceptable to do to animals demonstrates our moral superiority. I do take issue with your statement that you would side with the animal against the hunter/ Question: would you side with the gazelle against the lion, or the rabbit against the wolf? Humans aren't some new thing, I consider us just another predator with relations to nature. A very deadly and effective predator, sure, but a predator nonetheless. If a hunter shoots and eat a deer its no different from a mountain lion mauling and eating a deer, or, for that matter, a Tyrannosaurus killing and eating an Anatotitan.

My mental image of the real Garon is of Emperor Marcus Aurelius: he fought like hell to keep his kingdom together, was a great warrior and general, and a benevolent King, but at the end of it just before he got replaced, he was just tired. Then, as the Ice tribe refused to pay tribute, he gave in to Anankos because he didn't want everything he did to be for nothing. Now, if the game actually did that, that would be a good explanation for his possession. He could even be a good foil to Takumi. Unfortunately it doesn't do that, and... you know... Sanaki looked to Sephiran as a surrogate father. That makes his trying to use her to bring about the end of everything all the more dickish. Valter was popular with the common soldiers of the Grado army, probably because he let them sack the cities they conquered. Lyon putting him into the army only makes sense this way; if Lyon was sympathetic, why would he put such a clear sadist in charge. You could argue that Formotiis was doing it, but Formotiis clearly wanted Lyon to think he was in control, so why risk that jut for a common thug?

I have news for you: orders of magnitude more animals die every single day from natural processes that anything to do with us. We are not by any measure the worst thing to happen to the planet. Fuck, in the Oermean period a desert did much, much more to kill than we ever have- 99% of life on earth to be exact. Animals die all the time. The life of an individual wild animal frankly doesn't have value, because there are a lot more of them. Of course, endangered species are an exception. Animals don't exist in some magical state where they don't feel pain until us evil humans come along. Virtually every single cow we have lives a much more comfortable and happy life than it would have had we left it in the wild. So no, animal's suffering in most cases doesn't overly concern me.

Fine. Then have Ashnard chasing after Elincia. Ashnard fights Greil while Elincia escapes. Ashnard kills Greil, but is wounded himself. This also removes the BK's ridiculous motivations from the picture.

The difference here is that WWII was an actual historical event, and, since Hitler historically speaking wasn't killed by a French partisan, it makes no sense to change it. It it was entirely fictional, however, and the story ends with the protagonist killing this fictional Hitler, I would consider it bad writing to devote most of the characterization to an SS officer and completely abandon characterization and development for Hitler, the main antagonist who the protagonist fights at the end. The difference here is that Hitler would be what TV tropes calls a Bigger Bad- the overarching cause of the conflict, but not the main antagonist. Ashnard, though, is the main antagonist, and as such doesn't get nearly enough attention. The Black Knight, meanwhile, is a bad character because the majority of his appeal is in the mystery as to his identity and motives; since the truth behind both of those is absolute horseshit, this ruins his character.

Not quite, actually. George Bush Sr. defended Kuwait and didn't proceed into Iraq, and Dubya was the one who invaded Iraq 12 years later.

I'm sort of aware of them, but not really, but regardless if the villain's true motives are hidden from the player to that degree that isn't good writing.