blah the Prussian
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Posts posted by blah the Prussian
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13 hours ago, Logos said:
I know this feels kind of random, but after listening to Season 3 OST on repeat, I just felt I had to come back to this thread and say this:
Looking back ever since Season 5 the show has noticeably dropped in quality of writing with Season 7 having been the worst so far (at least for me). I'm not sure what is store for us in Season 8, but I sincerely hope the writers of the show get their act together, and take elements from Season 1-4, and start making the show as good as it was back then.
Also I'm curious how do other ASOIAF and Game of Thrones fans rate the season in terms of quality? For me it was 4/3 > 1 > 2 > 6 > 5 > 7.
For me, 3>2>4>1>6>5>7. Season 7 has a huge issue in that the Others only get past the wall thanks to Diabolous ex Machina. They should have kept how the Wall will fall from the books; makes much more sense.
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28 minutes ago, Tryhard said:
Wishful thinking, but Trump probably won because of many reasons, to narrow it down to one is more than likely wrong.
An area of concern is that we can't trust Wikileaks to be non-partisan if they do this sort of thing, which is kind of the thing they present themselves as independent whistle blowers. There's nothing to really say that Wikileaks didn't have GOP emails as well and decided not to release them as was a concern during the election.
This. The Russia/Wikileaks narrative will likely be paraded around for a while by Clinton Democrats, but it will ignore the other factors leading to her defeat, most of which were more significant.
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That makes sense, I suppose. I hadn't been following this situation much at all and wasn't aware that these allegations were a consistent thing. I am somewhat reminded of Casey Affleck who had the best handling of this I've seen in that he never denied it and settled out of court.
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1 hour ago, Archer of Red said:
I mean, what we've seen here is very evident that Assange doesn't care for transparency as much as he says he does. The fact that Wikileaks thought that Trump would get him appointed Australia's ambassador to the US is, aside from being fucking disgusting to me as an Australian citizen, emblematic of a rather extreme level of hypocrisy.
I think that's the point. News outlets rejecting his apology isn't down to anything wrong with the apology, and more saying that his apology isn't good enough. Which is absolutely true, but like you said, he's handling it better than others. *Cough cough* Kevin Spacey *cough cough*
I feel like rejecting someone's apology is saying that their apology isn't good enough AS AN APOLOGY, though. Plus Res putting it in quotes suggests that he didn't apologize enough. Right now my attitude is "good apology, now work to make it right".
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Wikileaks is a dangerous organization, and I regret supporting it before I realized that it wouldn't just leak stuff from people I didn't like. Assange's ideology is based on radical transparency; I don't like hyperbole but I do believe that this could lead to collapse. This whole situation really is emblematic of the idea that there are no bad actions, only bad motives that is unfortunately becoming more and more common.
2 hours ago, Res said:As a note on that article: Clinton was impeached and Louis CK has been rightly dropped by FX and HBO, had his premier canceled and, thankfully, I've seen a lot of outlets reject his so-called 'apology'. So I'm not sure either of them has normalized anything.
That being said; sure, there's abuse of power everywhere (and yes, there are a few female celebrities in positions of power who've also been accused), from politics to entertainment to religion; has been for decades, and a lot of it has been wrongly tolerated for too long. I'm not sure why Weinstein was finally a tipping point (this is the first time I've really felt public tide turning), but I'm glad, and I hope it means the end of careers for lots of people.
Wait, what was the problem with his apology? I have seen a lot of extremely inadequate apologies from many people accused of stuff like this, and I didn't think his was one of them; it admitted to wrongdoing with no reservations, it made no excuses, etc. Now, obviously I agree with dropping his show and I personally don't think any apology is enough to completely make amends(he has to back it up with action and has to make things right with the individuals he hurt) but I saw nothing wrong with the apology itself.
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It really depends on how much I didn't believe in it; if there was a draft I'd probably volunteer for a non-combat role.
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The main problem I had with Dual Destinies was... the entire game minus Athena's theme, that kicks ass, but the main problem I had with Spirit of Justice is the fact that the villain is basically the first person you think it is. That is a big issue for a story that's fundamentally a mystery. Frankly I could suspend my disbelief for Kuhrain or whatever it was called if the core mystery was competently handled, but even if the writing of individual characters pleasantly surprised me, the mystery of the climactic case was nonexistent. It doesn't help that AA5's villain was a suprise in the same way that C-3PO being revealed to actually be the Emperor would have been a suprise. Still, though, SoJ was an improvement on DD, so I'll be cautiously optimistic that Yamazaki is improving.
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7 hours ago, Thane said:
You know, it really is sad when we expect Pokémon to have more competently told and more serious stories than Fire Emblem. I mean Sun & Moon's story had a better plot and characterization than your average Fire Emblem game, too.
Sun and Moon had a better story than any FE game full stop. So, for that matter, did Black and White. I guess it might be because FE's genre lends itself too easily to taking itself too seriously.
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Some ideas for Tellius:
Zelgius meeting Sephiran, Ashnard's early service with the Daein army, Apostle Misaha, the day Crimea fell to Ashnard, Micaiah being taken to Daein after Misaha's death(probably in the same episode dealing with Misaha).
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I agree with pretty much everything Acacia has said. I'd like to add before I forget to scrap the whole "Micaiah is the true Apostle" thing. It was pointless.
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A few reasons to make Elincia co-protagonist:
It would give insight into what's going on politically without forcing some mercenary nobody into a meeting with the damn Empress of Begnion.
Elincia's development in RD worked well, but I felt it was too rushed, and would be better spread out in a whole game, You could have her discover that Ludveck is leading a Quisling regime; so she goes through the same arc of deciding to enforce the law on her people. Another moment that was criminally missed is her recognizing Bertram as Renning. You could easily do her development in POR.
Finally, giving her a more nuanced characterization and active role could help develop Ike's perception of the aristocracy.
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9 hours ago, omegaxis1 said:
Lot of people say that. I don't deny that Elincia would have been a great protag, but Ike was quite the fresh breath of air, where he is completely non-royal. Even Alm, despite growing as commoner, was always stated to be different from others, because Alm is a "blueblood" through and through.
As I said before, though, him being a commoner in practice doesn't really change much. Sure, he bad mouths nobles a bit, but him being a commoner doesn't really play into his character arc, which is the standard "hero learns to be a good leader" arc transitioned onto a Mercenary company. That's why making his rival Ashnard works so well; it gives his being a commoner relevance. Here is a man offering to build a world where his strength, not his birth, determines his status, and Ike rejects this, because he doesn't want to replace tyranny by blood with tyranny by force even if he will benefit from the latter. Even with this I think Elincia should have been co-protagonist.
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9 hours ago, Silver-Haired Maiden said:
While I do like your changes to Jarrod, I must say I really disagree about the whole line with Daein being the bad guys once again. They were the bad guys in PoR, and making them the bad guys two games in a row? I don't like that. Part of what I liked about RD was how it showed that you have good and bad in every country, making Daein the big bads again just undermines that whole premise. Sure the Daein people are racist and they don't mind joining the war against the laguz but the simple fact remains that Daein was still rebuilding from years of their country being reduced to ruin - stated in RD. They shouldn't be getting involved in a war to begin with and one guy couldn't change that without some major power over the leaders of the country. There's too many people in high positions to challenge that - Micaiah, Sothe, Tauroneo. Even Almedha for as much as I don't like her, and Pelleas who didn't want to get involved in another war either! With as weak willed as he is he stood up to a Begnion Senator until he literally had no other options and that's really what it would take and why the blood pact was a thing to begin with. It wasn't handled well but in my reading it seems people have less of a problem with the blood pact itself and more of an issue with how it was handled.
(Also I'd like to point out that Zelgius isn't wearing the Black Knight's armor in that part of the game and even if he was its stated that particular blessing is no longer on the armor, allowing him to be killed by weapons other than Ragnell)
Also genuine clap for you killing off Soren. Seriously, I've stated before that I think the game would be better without him in it. I still don't think Micaiah and Daein should be demonized in yet another game to accomplish that though.
Now your idea surrounding Yune and Ashera is interesting, but Micaiah is not a goddess and your changes there make her read like a goddess. If people had an issue with her powers before that would just take it to another level. Those two work better as individual goddesses and Yune taking over Micaiah in the first place is generally considered a bad move by everyone who has played the game. I do think it would be cool to explore that they're really just order and chaos and neither of them is good or inherently evil, which is touched on but never really explored, and Sephiran... I don't know, I like that he's redeemable. Perhaps a bit too late, but he can still be convinced to change his mind. But again, more exploration of the two goddesses would be nice. They could even be compared to sides of Micaiah's personality but not be actual sides to her personality.
Well, I do fundamentally oppose the Blood Pact, because I find it to be pretty ridiculous; if this kind of power exists, all it would take is one gullible monarch and one good con man. I'm open to altering the idea of a revanchist movement in Daein, though, and making it simply Begnion influence over Daein, although I do think that there should be some support for it. More generally, though, I would want to explore the idea of Micaiah having to work with evil people to achieve her goals, because that's what all guerrilla movements end up being; for every Free Syrian Army you have an ISIS. I also don't see how having Daein kill Soren is demonizing them; he's an enemy combatant,
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I wouldn't change Part 1 that much. The main changes I'd make: play up the racism of Daein rebels, and explore the idea that Micaiah is increasingly unable to control her movement. I'd also change Jarrod to make him not so cartoonishly evil; for example, as the Dawn Brigade are fleeing he gives the civilians full warning that lethal force will be used if they do not step aside. I have always held that Daein should have remained occupied, but whatever. I think an interesting arc for Jarrod would be having him be impacted by the DB's guerrilla war in a similar way to how Vietnam impacted US soldiers; he's increasingly frustrated by his inability to pacify the country, and over the course of Part 1 goes from an honorable soldier just doing his job to the man who orders Nevassa fired on. Finally, I'd make Micaiah only gain victory with the help of some Ashnard loyalists, led probably by a new character, who hate Laguz and have a lot of influence in the newly free Daein.
I've also made my opinions on the Black Knight clear in other threads(I don't like him) but assuming he is in the game the best thing the story can do is not whitewash him. The Black Knight in POR is an evil person who kills Greil because he feels like it. Thus, if you must include the BK in this game, make him a major antagonist. So in Part 1 he shows up to save Micaiah but then leaves(this is also so the player can't just cheat through Chapter 10).
Part 2 is overall fine. I agree Silver Haired Maiden here; it should be longer and really introduce Elincia as co-protagonist of the game. I'd also say she should be making more decisions, so we can see her decision making process grow into genuine competence. Finally, the defense chapter should be the second to last chapter of the story, and Ludveck shouldn't be the boss. When Elincia decides not to surrender for Lucia's life, Lucia should actually die. This gives meaning to Elincia's choice. The endgame, then, is Elincia, in a rage, leading the Royal Knights out to smash the rebels where she and Geoffrey kick Ludveck's ass.
So, a big problem here is the need to keep Ike from being the main character and the need to have him in the plot as it doesn't make sense for him to just not be there. So yes, the Greil Mercenaries do join the Laguz Alliance, but the initial stages of the war happen offscreen, until Pelleas, under the influence of General Evilman, decides to join the war to kill the Laguz. YOU DON'T NEED A BLOOD PACT HERE; make Daein's leadership go to war of their own accord, because they want to kill Laguz. This makes the liberation of Daein more ambiguous, and also explores themes about the drawbacks of Revolution. Part 3 focuses on the Dawn Brigade joining the Central Army in pushing back the Laguz Alliance. Have Micaiah and Zelgius meet, build up a relationship. Don't make Zelgius be a little bitch; if he's going to secretly be the Black Knight, what's his plan when the executioner's axe bounces off of him because he's vulnerable to everything but Ragnell? These scenes can also be an opportunity for more world building about Begnion society, politics, the role of the Empress, and the Begnion civil war. Anyway, Part Three ends with Micaiah decisively defeating the Laguz Alliance army, forcing them into Crimea and- and this is going to be controversial- killing Soren.
Part 4 begins with Elincia receiving a message from Valtome demanding that the Imperial Army be let into Crimea. After a fighting retreat that takes several chapters, they get to the Crimean capitol, where Sanaki arrives and does her thing where she splits the Begnion army; the commoners generally join the Empress while the nobility join the Senate. Valtome retreats from Crimea, as the Senate fights the Monarchists, but General Evilman wants to occupy Crimea. The Daein army is pushed back and Elincia orders the invasion of Daein to defeat Evilman. In the second to last chapter Evilman is killed, and Micaiah's faction takes over court; however, a mysterious figure(revealed to be the Black Knight) kills Pelleas, and the Daein army blames Elincia, while in the Crimean and Laguz camp Ike still wants revenge for the death of Soren. So there's a battle similar to the Part Three endgame that ends in much the same way.
For what will be here Part Five, a few things. First, don't make Yune good; make too much order and too much chaos bad. Make Yune reflect the dark side of Micaiah's personality, and her character arc be focused on using Yune's power without being consumed by it. The march to the Tower of whatever goes similar; the Black Knight is still evil and his motive is to judge society for treating him as a outcast for being branded. Don't redeem Sephiran. Make Sephiran reveal himself as the big bad at the beginning of part Five so the cast has the chance to properly react. Micaiah has to strike the final blow against Yune. The game ends with them being combined, this time focused on the idea that it represents some structure while still allowing people some freedom. So that's how I fix Radiant Dawn.
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9 hours ago, Icelerate said:
What type of role do you think Zelgius should play in RD? I think his role there is fine and there'd be no inconsistencies in regards to him being honourable. I mainly like Zelgius in RD anyway and do agree with you that he made Ashnard look like a pretty pathetic villain.
Firstly, don't make him the Black Knight. I think that having Zelgius be his own character who's loyal to Sephiran works fine, and play him up as a foil to Micaiah. I also think Elincia and Micaiah should have been the co-protagonists of Radiant Dawn. More than anything, though, I'd change the retcon that Sephiran was backing Ashnard. I'd want Sephiran to provide a lot of aid and speak up in favor of Begnion warring with Daein precisely because Ashnard's plans to awaken Yune and have her bring chaos are at odds with his plans to awaken Ashara. I think that the RD retcon made POR's story somewhat pointless from the perspective of the history of Tellius, and it's also ludicrous that if Sephiran was focusing so much on propping up Ashnard he'd be able to get another war started in just three years. Then again I think a lot of things could have been ironed out about Tellius. It's the most ambitious FE series; a lot works story wise, a lot doesn't.
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8 hours ago, NekoKnight said:
I feel Ike's character would be lesser if Ashnard took BK's scenes. Yes, Ike would be just as eager to grow stronger and defeat Ashnard, but you'd miss out on a deeper connection Ike has with BK. Both Ike and BK studied under Greil and neither of them could really match him before he died. Ike wants to become as strong as he can be to live up to his father's legacy as does BK to prove he is the best swordsman. Ashnard doesn't care about mastery of technique, he just wants to create a dog-eats-dog world. Ike would oppose him, but it would be as any other protagonist would. "Ashnard is evil, so I must stop him."
Se, but here you run into another issue with the Black Knight, that he has arguably the most confused characterization in the series. When he first shows up he kills Greil basically in cold blood and threatens to torture Mist basically because he really, really wants to fight Greil. Then, later, he's a worthy opponent, for essentially no reason. I frankly think the Ike-Black Knight connection was terribly done, and not just because of the confused characterization. His character as General Zelgius isn't related to Ike much at all; if anything Zelgius's backstory makes him a much better foil for Micaiah; they're both branded, but Zelgius lets others define his identity(in this case Sephiran) while Micaiah makes her own identity. Ultimately, the Black Knight isn't anything more than a bad Darth Vader ripoff except the narrative's really iffy on if he turned to the Dark Side.
I've already touched on how Ashnard works well as a foil for Ike(in that Ike as a strong commoner stands to benefit basically more than anyone from the world Ashnard wants to create but refuses because he doesn't believe his strength should give him authority over others) but you could give him a further connection with Greil; Greil, as a general of Daein, trained the Young Prince Ashnard; despite being Greil's best pupil Ashnard could never beat him. Ashnard began identifying more with commoners than with the Daein nobility, and Greil and him often talk about how competence rather than birth should define one's place in society. Then, the plague comes. Greil's suspicion builds as heir after heir dies, until at Ashnard's coronation he confronts him; Ashnard admits to engineering the plague through a blood pact and justifies himself by asking "what are my thirteen brothers compared to all of the people of Daein?" Horrified, Greil flees to Crimea with Elena(this is also how Ashnard gets introduced to Lehran's Medallion, so he aims to free Yune and create a world of chaos) and decides to raise Ike a warrior to fight the monster he helped create. Replacing Ashnard with the Black Knight doesn't just have to be in game; their back stories can be combined too.
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9 hours ago, DefyingFates said:
Using spoiler tags, for @Silver-Haired Maiden's sake, why do you think Ashnard is a better protagonist than BK? (I hope I don't come across as confrontational, I'm genuinely curious.)
Ashnard is the second best antagonist in FE because he represents ideology and an entirely human driven conflict. The narrative focuses on Ashnard's drive to establish a Social Darwinist society as the main driver of the plot, and sticks with that as the reason for the Mad King's War to the end. That's also why certain retcons in RD piss me off, because they make Ashnard part of a grand plan.
As for the Black Knight, I dislike him for two main reasons. First, in POR he doesn't serve a distinct narrative purpose from Ashnard. They're both big, imposing bruisers who fight in close combat and have armor that makes them invulnerable to all but divine weapons. You could give all of the Black Knight's scenes to Ashnard and nothing would change. Have Ashnard be the one to kill Greil, have Ashnard constantly chasing the protagonists, have Ashnard, for example, be baffled as to why Ike rejects his darwinian world order; after all, isn't Ike strong? Doesn't Ike have everything to gain? Ike could then reply that it is the duty of the strong to help the weak, not use them like playthings.
Second, the Black Knight in POR only worked because of the mystery associated with who he is. Thus, his character in POR is ruined by his disappointing RD reveal. How he acts in RD is at odds with how he acts in POR, and he is never anything more than a lackey who gets too much attention. Again, you can make SPOILER FOR RD DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVENT PLAYED I SWEAR TO GOD Zelgius be a minion of Ashnard and nothing would have changed. The Black Knight's relationship with Ike is contradictory and nonsensical, and he detracts from more interesting villains like Ashnard. So, while this isn't Ike's fault, since his identity is so tied to his rivalry with the Black Knight he is somewhat dragged down by his lukewarm rival.
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I think Ike is overall quite overrated.
His character arc is essentially your standard FE lord coming of age, except that he's only learning responsibility for a mercenary group instead of a nation. The whole commoner angle could have been interesting, but the narrative doesn't really engage with it; Ike starts and ends the game with, among other things, the same attitudes towards nobility, the same attitudes towards discrimination, and the same general perspective, and I don't see how him being a commoner changes this perspective. Finally, I feel that Ike is simply a less interesting character than Elincia, and that his moronic rivalry with the Black Knight distracts from Ashnard, a much better antagonist. Ike isn't bad, but he's far from the best FE has to offer in terms of protagonists.
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8 hours ago, Hylian Air Force said:
>Wilson
Tread carefully, you don't want to accidentally wank blah's hate boner for Wilson.
Nah man, I've moved onto Enrico Dandolo. 1204 never forget
9 hours ago, SullyMcGully said:Didn't Woodrow Wilson develop some kind of seven-step plan for restoring Germany after WWI? I think it would have helped if France and Britain had listened.
The Fourteen Points were completely impractical and Wilson practiced biased self determination where only the people of Entente aligned nations got it. However, his plan for Germany was decent(although as I've detailed before disposing of the Monarchy was a boneheaded move) if completely unworkable because France was out for blood. It was all Lloyd George and Wilson could do to keep Clemenceau from demanding everything up to the Rhine. Anyway, ultimately it wouldn't have mattered, because, as I said before, the Nazis weren't shit until the Great Depression. If anything, a Germany grateful to the US for keeping it from harsher terms would have been more devastated because it would have been more tied to the US. Ultimately, the flat for the rise of the Nazis lies on the GERMAN leaders who decided it would be a good idea to take massive loans from a single country. Wiemar made its own bed, with the Entente at most bringing the bed into the room and leaving.
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At this point my big concern is that the plot will be a rehash of the first game. You have your obvious bad guys, you have the potential for a plot twist that they're misunderstood, and you have a God is evil plot twist just waiting to happen. Xenoblade had an amazing story with interesting themes; I just hope this game has its own themes.
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8 minutes ago, Sigismund of Luxemburg said:
Would the Kempeitai have been useful, or were they a creation of the military government?
Well, they were the military police, so would likely support the military. The silver bullet would be the Emperor opposing the military; they would not proceed if he explicitly opposed it. There were members of the Imperial Family who were actively opposed, such as Empress Dowager Teimei and Prince Nobuhito(these two tried to overthrow the military and negotiate peace in '44, but failed, and Nobuhito also used his influence to improve the treatment of POWs).
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7 hours ago, Sigismund of Luxemburg said:
How would democracy have been stabilized?
Well, you had a bunch of political assassinations, specifically that of Hara Takashi, who was trying to reform Japan further, that made it hard to reform the government.
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8 hours ago, Hylian Air Force said:
But what of Japan? Was Japan too steeped in its own mythos to avoid warmongering? Or was it because Japan felt too limited because of things like the Washington Naval Treaty and the anti-Japanese sentiment growing in Kuomintang China?
I wouldn't call Japan Fascist, I'd call it a military dictatorship. But I'd say you basically need to have a more stable Taisho democracy, which could prevent the rise of militarism.
8 hours ago, Sigismund of Luxemburg said:@blah the Prussian: What are your sentiments on the Austrian Schussnigg and Dollfuss, or the Hungarian Horthy? Were they actually fascist?
They were part of a general right wing trend. I definitely wouldn't call Horthy Fascist, and I don't know about Dolfuss and Schussnig. If Franco was Fascist they're Fascist but I don't really think Franco was Fascist either.
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42 minutes ago, ping said:
My last history lessons are quite a while ago, but...
As far as I remember, the Weimar Republic did not have sufficient checks and balances against extremists from any side seizing power. The position of the president was way too powerful (it was basically built to be an "Ersatzkaiser", which I probably don't even have to translate) and the parliament could easily deside to take away its own power. There's also the fact that Hitler had been grossly underestimeated when he was elected Chancellor - the Zeit (a German weekly magazine) actually did an article about that some months ago. Basically, people thought that the Nazis would be the weakest part of their coalition with the conservative parties, and that Hitler would mellow out once he'd be in office. It certainly didn't help that the left was completely divided at the time - the social democrats didn't particularly mind when the Nazis went after the communists after the Reichstag burning and when the Enabling Act was passed, they were the only faction left to oppose it.
The Treaty of Versailles certainly was a powerful tool of propaganda, especially in conjecture with the "Dolchstoßlegende" (Stab-in-the-back-myth), but the Weimar Republic as a whole was just a house of carts.
I'm inclined to agree overall. The Wiemar Republic was ultimately a failed state. Aside from the problems you mentioned, none of its institutions were loyal to it, so it was never really able to even attempt the reforms it needed. I'm inclined to go with Churchill and say that the Monarchy should have been kept under Wilhelm II's son as a figurehead, to increase institutional loyalty to the new government and give it some breathing room to reform. Also, whatever you do, don't base your entire economy off of loans from one country. Stressemann was quite overrated.
As for Italy, what you need is a government willing to enforce the law. Unlike Germany where Hitler was committed to legality, Fascism in Italy rose because Mussolini threatened violent Revolution and the King placed him in power rather than risk civil war. If you cracked down on the Fascists, it would be bloody but my bet would be on the Loyalists beating the Fascists and Communists.
A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones thread: A Clash of Threads
in Entertainment
Posted
Seasons Six and Five at least kept some of the politics, which the show IMO was actually doing sort of well, while character growth and fantasy is what they screwed up. Come Season Sevdn all that's gone and we get stuff like the Others only being able to destroy the Wall with Viserion and Euron passing out.