blah the Prussian

Yeah, fair enough. Still, though, I'd consider staying in Ashnard's Daein to be putting his daughter in danger.

That's... surprisingly not disastrously messy. I'm pretty sure I make a bigger mess eating tacos now.

Huh, I thought he was explicitly anti racist. I still think he loses points for not leaving Daein when someone as obviously batshit insane as Ashnard came to power, though that's probably because I dislike the Camus in general.

Shiharam is a good father? Really? I don't buy it. He fled Begnion because he hated the corruption of the Senate; that's fair. But was it really the best choice for his daughter's moral development to flee to the FE equivalent of Nazi Germany? Remember, Jill is still racist when you recruit her, implying that Shiharam didn't teach her to not be racist himself. That's pretty obviously bad parenting.

Well yeah but the Ottoman practice was to do it right before Ascension. It's also important that European culture had established succession laws, while Turkish culture still borrowed some elements of their steppe horde ancestors, such as no hereditary rule, but rather the strong survive. I think history has shown which is better. Regarding villain fathers, I actually think Arvis does a decent job; he's faced with essentially Rosemary's baby and he still does his best to protect his daughter and people from his possessed son. The possession is hardly his fault, either.

In Germany its 16 and in the Czech Republic its de facto 0. The police just don't give a fuck.

*comes out of corner*Well actually that was quite common in the Ottoman Empire; the Sultan knew that if his heir had competition it would lead to a civil war every time the Sultan died, so he had all competition killed. This practice was ended by Selim II, however, which many historians believe contributed to the Empire's decline. What? Best and worst FE dads? Well, alright. Best: if surrogates count, Finn or Oifaye, definitely. Come to think of it, Trabant isn't that bad as a father, and he actually shows the conflict of interest in being a father and a King quite well. So in terms of villain parents Trabant wins. Also he's named after an East German car. Worst: Again, if surrogate fathers count, I'm definitely going to say, hands down, Sephiran. Why? He lied to Sanaki for like a decade, all while manipulating events to not only dethrone her, not only get her imprisoned, but also to eventually to lead to the deaths of not just her but all her people and, indeed, everyone. That is simply sociopathic, manipulating the closest thing you have to a daughter like that when she already has enough shit to deal with. Sephiran's redemption was the stupidest part of RD for me. No, sorry, Sephiran, you don't get off with a slap on the wrist for attempting Omnicide! Come to think of it, the way Sanaki forgives him is kind of similar to the behavior of an abused child... but that would require the writers actually putting thought into any part of RD's story besides Part 2, which is just absurd. For heroes... Sumeragi. Cuban at least didn't know Trabant was going to ambush him. Sumeragi knew full well Garon was there but took his son anyway.

In the Czech Republic alcohol is very important to the culture so I've had it a number of times. The beer here is quite good. In any case, happy birthday, and feel free to have any opinion you like about alcohol (unless you think it's secretly a conspiracy by ants to take over the world because that's just weird, man).

SO! Serebii says that the Japanese site emntions a Melimeli Dexter. Second region, anyone?

Well do they each get the weapons the other is weak to? Because otherwise they'll just stare at each other.

Eh; I never thought that was a bad thing in RD either. I haven't finished my first run, mind you. I know an average first play through it 10 hours, but it has more replay ability than any FE game.

This one isn't Japanese, but the Banner Saga is an amazing game; the best part of it is that you make choices through the game that often lead to vastly different results; this makes you often second guess your decisions. It also has a story far superior to any FE game, IMO. In terms of gameplay it has a strategic element as well as a tactical element, and for big battles you act as a commander for your entire army while fighting yourself at the same time. The tactical gameplay kicks ass, although FE somewhat beats it out in that regard. Still, the other elements of the Banner Saga make it beat out FE in general, IMO.

Well in the gorillas case it refused orders to go back in its enclosure and then grabbed the kid and started dragging him around. It did plenty wrong.

Yes, but that shouldn't be the case. When a parent needs to defend their child, security didn't do its job. All of these measures are good ideas, though.

Not if the kid has reached the point where they're midway through the enclosure. That involves the parent putting themselves in danger, and they shouldn't have to do that. This is what security exists for.

Chapter 8 The Levantine War War. War never changes. Well, maybe that isn't entirely true. Over the course of human history, ideologies, nation-states, and people have evolved. Reasons for war are perhaps most emblematic of this change. In the age of Alexander the Great and the Romans, conquest was seen as a justifiable reason in and of itself. As the Roman Empire fell and new feudal Kingdoms rose, land claims became the reason for war. With the rise of Islam and the Protestant Reformation, wars increasingly became about religion, as Catholics and Protestants warred many times over for dominance of Europe, and they both lived in fear of the Turk. The coming of the French Revolution brought about a new age of war, as nations marched to war in the name of ideology; first Monarchism vs Republicanism, then Capitalism vs Communism, then Fascism vs Communism vs Monarchism, and finally Monarchism vs Communism. Some things, though, never change. One of those things is that a primary reason for war is the Holy Land. This may have been in Marshal Georgy Zhukov’s mind as he stepped off his private jet in Jerusalem, ready to begin a new wave of major Russian involvement in the war. We may never know. What we do know is that in mid 1945 Marshal Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov was ordered by the Russian government to take over the Russian pacification campaign in the Holy Land. The Holy Land had been the dream of every Russian Tsar since Nicholas I. Zhukov would be damned if he lost what Nicholas II had won. Opposing the Russians were the other two major groups in the Holy Land: Jews and Muslims. Representing the Jews was the Judean People’s Front, who were, as their name somewhat implied, Communist. Led by General Moshe Dayan, they were a massive headache for the Russian army, using guerrilla tactics to great effect. They were joined by the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which was the first real instance of a fundamentalist Islamic terrorist group. Led by Yasser Arafat and supplied by Saudi Arabia, their goal as simple: drive out the Russians, and exterminate the Jews. All of this was a recipe for one of the ugliest wars in the history of the world. The PLO had an explicitly genocidal goal against both the Christians and the Jews, the Judean People’s Front was de facto genocidal, and the Russians, while by no means genocidal, would resort to atrocities to combat a hostile population. This was also a war Russia intended to win. Possession of the Holy Land had been the crux of Russia’s foreign policy since Alexander I, and they would use the need to protect oppressed Christian Arabs from Ottoman oppression as a frequent casus belli against the Turks. Being responsible for the loss of the Holy Land was not something that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Nobokov wanted to do; it would be political suicide. Thus, Zhukov went to the Levant. The First Levantine War would last from 1945 to 1960. As you can probably tell from it being the FIRST Levantine War, it was by no means an end to said conflict. Russia would deploy a total of 1,000,000 troops to the region over the course of the conflict. At the beginning of the war, the Russians hoped to hold all major cities in the region with 200,000 troops. It quickly became clear, though, that this was an unrealistic goal, as the Russians, spread far too thin, were unable to prevent vast swathes of the countryside from falling into enemy hands. To combat this problem Zhukov encouraged the training of Christian militias in 1946. This would bring with it its own host of problems, however; the Christian Arabs were difficult for the Russians to control, and often would carry out their own atrocities against Jews and Muslims. This divided the populace of the region in the long term, which was disastrous for Russia’s pacification efforts. Zhukov was a great general; that can not be called into dispute. He had, after all, utterly crushed the largest army the world had ever known at Novosibirsk. However, he was simply not suited to guerrilla warfare. He was used to a kind of warfare where it was not clear who controlled what land; this was why the Russian effort in the Levant utterly failed. Zhukov’s strategy was to hold the major cities and supply routes, while launching glorified raids against rebel holdouts, killing every enemy soldier in the area, and leaving. This did nothing, though, to win the war: the Russians could not kill every single enemy soldier, they had to hold the territory. This, they were simply unable to accomplish. The war continued like this for ten years, until 1955. Hundreds of thousands of Arab and Jewish soldiers died to Russian attacks, but the Russians hardly benefitted from any of these victories. Zhukov retired in 1950, and was replaced with Marshal Oleg Konstantinovich. Konstantinovich would essentially continue the tactics of his predecessor. The two rebel groups, though, did not keep their tactics the same. In 1955 Dayan and Arafat met in secret in the Golan Heights. The Golan Heights agreement would put the Judean People’s Front and the PLO in a formal alliance of cooperation. Before, they had very rarely fought, but they were now officially cooperating. The effects for Russia were disastrous. Russian forces were now losing battles for the first time. JPF forces managed to capture the town of Eilat in November of 1957. Although it was retaken, the morale blow was immense. Russia was losing the war on the home front, that much was certain. The civilian population was increasingly turning against the war, led by new Kadet firebrand politician Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn would win the 1960 elections to become Prime Minister, and immediately initiated peace negotiations with the JPF and PLO. The Treaty of Jerusalem, perhaps more than anything else, confirms the immortal words of American dissident Bill Waterson: “A good compromise always makes everyone mad.” The only areas Russia still had firm control over by 1960 was Lebanon. Lebanon, coincidentally, had the highest population of Arab Christians. Almost immediately, Dayan and Arafat both agreed that Russia could keep Lebanon. They also agreed to expel all Christian Arabs to Lebanon, although Russia allowed all Jews and Muslims to stay if they wished (most did not wish). Russia would liberate Lebanon as the Christian Kingdom of Lebanon, with its capitol in Beirut, and ruled by one of Olga’s sisters, Anastasia. Queen Anastasia would go on to be a popular ruler, leading Lebanon through its nation building phase. The rest of the Levant would not be so lucky, unfortunately. Almost as soon as Russia withdrew from negotiations, Arafat and Dayan were at each other’s throats. They and their men both knew full well that the fight with Russia was only the beginning. Now, the true battle, between Judaism and Islam, Communism and Wahhabism, had begun. It was this battle that would shape the future of the Levant. That battle, though, will have to wait. As attentive readers might remember, 1960 was also the year that the Great Middle Eastern War began. Lets get to that, shall we? Author's notes: Okay, definitely no further updates until June 15 at least, because exams are a thing. I have seen Satan, and he looks like redox reactions. After that, I'm going to Dubrovnik for 4 days. After that, I have a few weeks and then I'm going to Scandinavia with my family. So yeah, expect only sporadic updates throughout all of Summer.

So even if he climbed over a bunch of shit to get in, the zoo didn't have someone on hand to drag him down? It shouldn't be the job of the parent to protect their kids in most cases.

Disclaimer: a gorilla died. Yeah, that sucks. What I want to know is this: why is it that human beings of all races are dying every day, and yet this one gorilla gets more outrage? The same thing was essentially repeated with Cecil the Lion; people were more outraged over the death of some lion in Zimbabwe than they were over the countless people murdered by the Mugabe regime every day. Yeah, animals are cute. But the thing is that it's emblematic of an outright dangerous apathy that we can muster more grief for a gorilla and a lion than we can for human beings, and a lot of them too. Shit, people are actually saying that the zoo made the wrong decision in shooting the gorilla to save a child. "The gorilla was protecting him!" sounds to me like something right out of George Zimmerman's defense. The apathy of the human race towards the problems we face is bordering on suicidal.

Currently playing through Radiant Historia and The Banner Saga. After that I have to play through Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam and Revelations. After that, god help me, I have to play Stellaris and Hearts of Iron 4 more.

Nah, you've been reading too much of my timeline. De Guall wasn't a nationalist. Team Flare being Fascists actually makes perfect sense though; their rhetoric is essentially that the world is running out of resources, there isn't enough to go around, and the chosen will survive. That's almost word for word original Lebensraum theory, which was the ideology of the Nazis.

IIRC Night at the Museum. I had no idea what was going on, I just knew there was a dinosaur.

Corrin's would be "I am a well written, well developed character whose actions make sense".

Lucian fought Chrom at Ferox for one reason and one reason only: so the trailers could focus on a fight between Chrom and "Marth" to an outright dishonest degree.

And Ike doesn't start off weak (emotionally) and uncertain? Amd Corrin being put in charge of the Nohrian army was stupid because Xander was older and Garon hated Corrin anyway. If we're talking about the most believable candidate in POR Ike hardly fits the bill either; Titania is the pretty natural choice to succeed Greil. I find it, also, less likely that Ike would grow into a good leader, as Elimcia was prepared for said position all her life. Her demonstrating growth as a leader, like I said before, is her demonstrating willingness to kill Bertram (it goes to show, by the way, how little that they cared about her character in POR that when she fights Bertram she whimpers generically instead of saying anything to the effect of "huh you look like my uncle"). Regarding fighting her own people, good point. My amendment, then, is to make the liberation of Crimea be about fighting a Quisling government led by Duke Ludveck; put the anti Laguz racism shown in that port chapter that I forgot the number of to good use.

Worldbuilding, to be honest. I mean, what was the last Zelda game with good worldbuilding, TP? I'd also like some more steampunk elements.