Badguydiology

[deranger]

Throughout the FE games, I thought IS has done a pretty good job of giving reasons as to why enemies are fighting you. Most would probably fall under being bandits trying to steal or soldiers in the army of a country you're at war with. However, most major and powerful antagonists seem to have more complex reasons.

For example:

Zephiel (FE6) wanted Dragons to rule Elibe because he thought humans unfit to rule. Theres strong evidence that he got his negative views of human nature based on the fact that his father, who tried to kill him twice

Conversely, Ashnard (FE9) wanted to make the whole world run on Darwinism, supposedly true human nature, basing survival on fitness. Which is again countered by Ashera(FE10) wanting to end the world because humans weren't perfect. In all these cases, your job is to fight extremism.

Then you have Nergal(FE7) who's obsessed with power, and whose ethics got left behind at some point in his quest. Towards this end, he enslaves a vigilante group (the Black Fang) who formed to kill corrupt nobles, to his cause, directing their blades in the wrong direction. Lyon(FE8) just wanted to see his father again, but was possessed.

What do you guys&gals think of fire emblem enemies' justification for fighting?

Edited November 10, 2011 by deranger

[Celice]

I actually usually like it. Most villains are a mix of blatantly cruel and then innocence twisted. It's these tragic villains that make the games more appealing to me, story-wise. I'm always reminded a bit of Richard II when I see these archetypes...

The villains which are corrupted almost always didn't seek the corruption itself (to become so dark), but instead wanted to use the power or their circumstances to better things around them. Other things provoke a fall in these characters which lead them to their corrupted evil states. Hardain and Leon certainly follow this path, as does, to an extent, the Dark Knight/Zelgius, Ishtar, Alvis, Rudolph (Alm's pappy?).

Because there's a transition which leads the villains from innocence to corruption, the player can develop an empathy and honest hesitancy when it comes time to put the "old dogs down."

FE10's villain was really taken from mythos involving Pelé, and so excuses itself from that trend.

[deranger]

good points, think I'll edit my first post to include reasons for corruption, even Nergal has a reason.

[whase]

I like all those villains, except for the demon king. all these villains have a great story, or at least a story that can be if looked into further.

the demon king is just some monster doing what monsters do, I see no real story there.

like I've said before, I feel villains like Zephiel, Lehran and Ashera make good points. They almost make me doubt if I'm fighting with the right team...almost.

[Byte2222]

This is something FE tends to reuse from game to game but it sorta gets away with it because it makes excellent villains. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and FE really knows how to ram this point home; I've always considered 'Camus archetypes', Lyon and Alvis to be really sympathetic villains (I think Alvis was amazingly well done, particularly because he was a fundamentally good guy who Manfroy played like a Steinbach Grand Piano).

Now Rudolph (mentioned by Celice above) I think is a particularly interesting case and I think he could have been done much better if the game had had the technology and design to develop him before we meet him. I thoroughly expect that if Gaiden ever gets remade (which I reckon it will someday) that Rudolph will get a much more developed role so the big plot twist can have a bit more oomph (I also reckon that Dozer's death quote is either going to be changed or made a way bigger deal but that's another story).

[deranger]

I like all those villains, except for the demon king. all these villains have a great story, or at least a story that can be if looked into further.

the demon king is just some monster doing what monsters do, I see no real story there.

I think they could have done a much better job of making the demon king more than purely evil. Maybe make him reflect the evil inside the person he's possessing (kinda like Briammond, but only the evil) and have him possess multiple people (since he didn't have a personality anyways). I haven't played FE8 in forever, though, so I can't remember too much of the Demon King. What I gather from FEwiki is that Lyon wants to do good, and the Demon King wants to do evil and plays on Lyon's attempts to do good. They could have done a much better job developing Lyons and Formortiis's characters and woes.

[Baldrick]

I didn't really like Zephiel's motivation. There was one bad person, so all of humanity deserves to die?

[zahlman]

I didn't really like Zephiel's motivation. There was one bad person, so all of humanity deserves to die?

Agreed. It also felt to me like FE7 did a poor job of giving backstory for his character. The "wow, his family is fucked up" thing goes surprisingly un-far in explaining his evil.

RE Nergal: I'm probably super-weird for this, but one of the key things that stood out for me about Nergal's evilness was convincing/letting Sonia believe she was human. I would have liked to play this up, and have Nergal not actually mentioned in the story until, oh, the outro of Night of Farewells (or else the intro to the next chapter, if you skip the gaiden).

Picture it: you're already anticipating Sonia, the wife of the head of the Black Fang, because of previous conversations with Ursula, one of the Reed brothers, and IIRC the random villager who gives you Silence. The Reed brothers, in turn, you've heard about long before their appearance because of all the general rabble about the Black Fang, and Ursula appears all the way back in Ch. 7x running the show. You spend the whole game up to this point trying to figure out who the real leader of the Black Fang is, eventually getting the idea that this Sonia character might actually be more dangerous than even Brendan himself. Once Sonia appears to you, it finally becomes clear: she's been running the show the whole time. (Hell, this might even be important enough to make Night of Farewells a normal chapter...)

And then, suddenly, Or Has She? No, she's really the puppet of Nergal, who until now you've never even heard of (must be hard for Athos to hold his tongue, though :/), yet is really in charge of the whole thing, having corrupted an entire organization through the literal puppet-dictatorship of Sonia. A man evil enough to basically create a voluptuous sexbot to tear apart a family, just to wrest control of an army for himself. (Of course, this doesn't reflect all that well on Brendan, either...) A man who, moreover, will let her believe she's god (or at least, you know, a real girl!), and then desecrate her corpse to reclaim precious quintessence the moment she's no longer useful. (Oh, yeah, that was another thing about the plot that bothered me: quintessence seems to violate several laws of conservation...)

To say nothing of the child-abuse of Jaffar and Nino.

And instead of thinking "well, the Black Fang sure seems to have changed ever since that Nergal fellow came around" for like half the game, and being able to overlook some of those details because they just aren't presented all that strikingly, you get to have it all sink in all at once. Right after Nino is done with her epic sob story. The whole time you've been trying to figure out who's really in charge, and now you finally actually know.

Now that's what I call a villain!

I think they could have done a much better job of making the demon king more than purely evil. Maybe make him reflect the evil inside the person he's possessing (kinda like Briammond, but only the evil) and have him possess multiple people (since he didn't have a personality anyways). I haven't played FE8 in forever, though, so I can't remember too much of the Demon King. What I gather from FEwiki is that Lyon wants to do good, and the Demon King wants to do evil and plays on Lyon's attempts to do good. They could have done a much better job developing Lyons and Formortiis's characters and woes.

Ooh, now this is a can of worms. I can imagine a lot of potential for that approach, although I don't see a reason why Fomortiis needs to be more than purely evil. It could just be so much fun to play with, though. I could even see having seven major bosses themed after the seven deadly sins (Lyon = Jealousy?), or something like that.

There are three problems I can see with this, two minor and one major. The first minor problem is that we now need a plot justification for the Demon King voluntarily transferring from one perfectly good "host" to the next. Simple: we can just say that corpses are no use to him, although this obviously means that we have to replace at least one of Lyon's appearances. (OTOH, you can defeat Riev twice, too, and there's never any explanation offered for that...) Another minor problem is justifying game balance: if the Demon King is the same Demon King all the time, why do the bosses start easy and get progressively stronger?

The major problem: if not for the whole Demon King and dark stone thing, why does anyone care in the slightest who Lyon is? We could wrap up his story earlier, but then we'd have to give it far less attention (and change a bunch of things about the epilogue) to make sense. If he's still the penultimate boss, then what's his importance? If he's still the one who played with the Fire emblem and got burnt (see what I did there?) then why, upon release does Fomortiis ignore him, play around with a bunch of other dudes (why are they chosen?) and then only come back to him at the end?

tl;dr parenthetical comments are awesome.

Edited October 29, 2011 by zahlman

[deranger]

Slowly revealing who's in control of the black fang would be cool, but I think IS'd have to be to vague and reveal things too slowly to do that. They like having an ultimate bad guy that seems impossible to defeat at first, but you can work up to.

As for Lyon, maybe he's reserving Lyon, and Forty keeps looking for stronger hosts every time he's defeated (to cover increased host strength). Also, if you compare any early game stats to any late game stats, they don't make sense.

[Aethereal]

The main appeal to me in Fire Emblems' stories is these tragic villains. They're incredibly well made, and awesome.

I actually really enjoyed Zephiel's character, but maybe that's just me. Childhood abuse and trauma changes people dramatically, and oftentimes for the long term. The idea that people are unfit to rule Elibe is presented and reinforced when he's a child, and as he grows up, his father still abusive and controlling until the day he has to end his own father's life, the idea simply becomes more and more reinforced. If his own father tried to kill him, at least twice, how can he trust any one is good?

I agree that the Demon King is a bit shaky, but then, he's necessary for Lyon, who is a great villain.

Ashnard bothers me a lot. I get that he's into this whole "Power is more important than anything" ideal, but where does that come from? Why is he so twisted? He's perfectly willing to torture, abuse, and murder any one and every one. But, I never feel like we find out why. Why was he so obsessed with power that he wrote the blood pact to gain the throne? I understand that powerful people sometimes crave as much power as they can get, so I guess he's not totally unrealistic. But he's just so bland, especially compared to Sephiran, Zelgius, Lyon, Nergal, Zephiel, and Alvis. It's hard for me to care about him when there's so many awesome villains that are tragic figures to compare him to.

[Celice]

You're not supposed to care for Ashnard. That's why he falls way to the greater villians. Ashnard is a sub-plot which allows the game to develop into the greater plot. No more, he is a mere prop.

[Defeatist Elitist]

You're not supposed to care for Ashnard. That's why he falls way to the greater villians. Ashnard is a sub-plot which allows the game to develop into the greater plot. No more, he is a mere prop.

Basically, this. Ashnard isn't supposed to be tragic or particularily sympathizable with, he's just supposed to be someone who acts the villain. I still think he's a good villain, because he does have reasons for doing what he does, and I think he's a decently pulled off "insane villain". Pretty much everything he does throughout the entire game tends to contribute more and more to the idea that he's just completely crazy, right up until the end when it's essentially revealed straight up. At the same time however, I think it's interesting that they introduce the Black Knight and the various other characters that end up playing far more ambiguous roles later. I did really like how for basically the entirety of PoR it seems like the Black Knight is just mindlessly following Ashnard's commands, and for a while you're not really sure who the "final boss" is, or what have you.

Another thing I kind of liked about RD is that Micaiah is basically falling head first into the tragic villain (though you could argue it's more just straight up villain I guess) role until she's sort of shocked out of it at the end of Part 3/beginning of Part 4.

[deranger]

It'd be interesting if the protagonist from the first half of a fire emblem game became the antagonist and the events were revealed in the right order, Anakin Skywalker.

Also, the thing I like about Ashnard was the originality(at least to me) of his ideals. Also, I like how they made him less anti-laguz than all of his countrymen. I thought having a f*cking evil b*stard who is more ethical than some citizens of the "good-guy" country in one regard was a good demonstration of how there are evils people often do not know they support everyday.

[Original Alear]

Just a few corrections I wanted to make:

-Ashnard doesn't want Darwinism to rule the world as far as we know, because it doesn't seem like he even knows what Darwinism is. If you were to say he wants the world to be ruled based on Social Darwinism, I might agree with you.

-Ashera, AFAIK, never said she wanted to end the world, she wanted to judge it. That judgment might have been the death of many/all living creatures, but we don't really know...it certainly seems like Lehran, for example, was going to be spared. That's catastrophic, but I think one could quibble that she wasn't going to end the world, just change it dramatically.

-Nergal, I think, wasn't just obsessed with power, at some point I'm pretty sure he wanted to bring back his spouse, for want of official knowledge of their relationship, back from the dragon's gate. But because he used elder magic, he lost himself, not to the extent that the hero who used apocalypse (can't remember his name) did, but he still lost track of what he wanted. So he still had an obsession with dragons, but just wanted power for its own sake, without any clearly defined objective for what to do with it.

The villains which are corrupted almost always didn't seek the corruption itself (to become so dark), but instead wanted to use the power or their circumstances to better things around them. Other things provoke a fall in these characters which lead them to their corrupted evil states. Hardain and Leon certainly follow this path, as does, to an extent, the Dark Knight/Zelgius, Ishtar, Alvis, Rudolph (Alm's pappy?).

I'm not sure I agree that the Black Knight wanted to better things around him. I'm not saying he didn't, but his path seems to be more seeking someone to trust and put his power in service to. He served Daien, but couldn't stay there for fear of his branded mark being discovered. Lehran put him in his service, and the loyalty to a higher power was all he needed. Greil was an obsession, a way of proving his power to himself.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and FE really knows how to ram this point home;

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, what is the road to heaven paved with, and what are bad intentions used to pave?

(Oh, yeah, that was another thing about the plot that bothered me: quintessence seems to violate several laws of conservation...)

Why would FEverse follow laws of conservation? There's MAGIC for god's sake. DRAGONS.

Another thing I kind of liked about RD is that Micaiah is basically falling head first into the tragic villain (though you could argue it's more just straight up villain I guess) role until she's sort of shocked out of it at the end of Part 3/beginning of Part 4.

I would argue that she's not really a villain, though, because Pelleas is the one who fucked up by signing the blood contract. And she arguably has a responsibility to fight for the safety of her own people after that, because they've invested their hopes in her due to the miracles she's performed.

Also, the thing I like about Ashnard was the originality(at least to me) of his ideals. Also, I like how they made him less anti-laguz than all of his countrymen. I thought having a f*cking evil b*stard who is more ethical than some citizens of the "good-guy" country in one regard was a good demonstration of how there are evils people often do not know they support everyday.

Ashnard was also more meritocratic than those surrounding him, very laguz-like (laguz rule based on strength). This is what I think reveals his character. As a prince far down the line of succession, he fought territorial wars with Begnion (I believe this is mentioned by one of the Begnion characters, like Sigrun, Tanith or Zelgius, at some point in POR) and proved his skill, but it went unrecognized along the path he wanted it to - succession of the throne. So perhaps out of jealousy he killed the rest of his family because he craved power, but on the flip-side he made sure that others in similar situations didn't go unrecognized by raising up knights from the lower classes who proved themselves good fighters.

Personally, I thought Ashnard was a magnificent villain because of the sheer force of his personality and bravado, his willingness to make enemies of an entire continent to bring about his aim of a great war. The fact that he becomes a moving final boss on Hard Mode really brings forth his sort of arrogant swagger, his ability to overcome the Fire Emblem's maddening effects by already being so chaotic that he could keep a clear head on his shoulders in the final battle, his willingness to field his drug-addled adversary Renning on the field of battle as a major commander...he was a damned epic villain.

One other thing I want to note is that I really favor the madness of Lehran, who is capable of simultaneously calling Sanaki "his moon and stars" (or something like that) and consigning the world she lives to potentially fatal judgment by Ashera.

Edited November 5, 2011 by BlueMartianKitty

[Celice]

I'm not sure I agree that the Black Knight wanted to better things around him. I'm not saying he didn't, but his path seems to be more seeking someone to trust and put his power in service to.

And thus, he found this, and did better things around him. The concept doesn't demand that he give altruistic aid to others or become part of a community. Better the world means to better his existence. Maslow was certainly appeased with Zelgius's actions.

[deranger]

Just a few corrections I wanted to make:

-Ashnard doesn't want Darwinism to rule the world as far as we know, because it doesn't seem like he even knows what Darwinism is. If you were to say he wants the world to be ruled based on Social Darwinism, I might agree with you.

I don't think there was anything "social" about the darwinism Ashnard wanted. Fittest in his mind seemed to be combat ability.

I would argue that she's (Micaiah) not really a villain, though, because Pelleas is the one who fucked up by signing the blood contract. And she arguably has a responsibility to fight for the safety of her own people after that, because they've invested their hopes in her due to the miracles she's performed.

There are a lot of Villains in the FEverse that have good reasons for fighting you to their deaths. She went against what was best for all of Tellius to do what was good for the people of Daein. Kinda similar to Eagler form FE7 Ch9 among others, whose families were taken hostage by the enemy.

[Celice]

Mikaya is the one who gives the OK to dump oil on numerous people and then set them aflame.

That doesn't exactly get covered by Pelleas's responsibility. Mikaya made the decision to take that many lives. Her decision, and method, are definable as villainous.

[Stark]

There are a lot of Villains in the FEverse that have good reasons for fighting you to their deaths. She went against what was best for all of Tellius to do what was good for the people of Daein. Kinda similar to Eagler form FE7 Ch9 among others, whose families were taken hostage by the enemy.

Micaiah finds herself very much falling into the "lawful stupid" villian role that is so famously repeated throughout the series. She does what she does for her country, but I wouldn't say that justifies it, or makes it the correct decision at all. Fortunately Ashera's nuke knocks here out of it before she gets herself killed.

Also, I want to mention Nasir and Naesala as awesome characters from from Tellius saga. While not really villains, they do act against your party, and have well explained motivations to do so. (Not to mention excellent dialog.) I also love how Naesala's desire for gold, as well as Zelgius himself were plants for the story in Radiant Dawn.

[Original Alear]

I don't think there was anything "social" about the darwinism Ashnard wanted. Fittest in his mind seemed to be combat ability.

He promoted people in his army based on their ability to fight, however, a meritocracy. It certainly isn't biological Darwinism, since he was paying mind to results, not necessarily genes which can but won't always yield better results.

There are a lot of Villains in the FEverse that have good reasons for fighting you to their deaths. She went against what was best for all of Tellius to do what was good for the people of Daein. Kinda similar to Eagler form FE7 Ch9 among others, whose families were taken hostage by the enemy.

But there isn't a "you" in fe9 or fe10, unlike in fe7 where there's a clear strategist character who's a player proxy. You play as Micaiah less often than you play as Ike, but you still play as Micaiah, meaning that she isn't necessarily the villain - it's a matter of perspective. If everyone in Daien has to die to in order to do what's best for Tellius, why should everyone in Daien go along with what's best for Tellius?

Mikaya is the one who gives the OK to dump oil on numerous people and then set them aflame.

That doesn't exactly get covered by Pelleas's responsibility. Mikaya made the decision to take that many lives. Her decision, and method, are definable as villainous.

They were soldiers in a war. Is every fire mage a villain now? Why is burning someone to death reprehensible, but killing them on the field of battle acceptable? What makes death through strategy and ruthless trickery more horrible to contemplate doing to others than a straightforward death faced on the opponent's lance in open warfare? You're still dead either way. The worst you might be able to say is that camp followers might have been killed in the attack, but FE doesn't give us enough detail to really know that for certain.

[deranger]

If everyone in Daien has to die to in order to do what's best for Tellius, why should everyone in Daien go along with what's best for Tellius?

Which is why we have conflicts in the world to this day. If everyone were martyrs, everyone'd be dead.

Maybe I was too harsh on Micaiah, Nasir, and Naesala's category. They aren't evil or selfish, but they do do what's best for their group (Daein, Ena, and Kilvas respectively) and end up hurting a lot of those outside those they want to protect. IS's point is that even if someone has wronged you, they are not necessarily evil. In the end of Radiant Dawn, you the protagonists get to kill those truely responsible. Wish Dolphin ran faster so I could.

Edited November 6, 2011 by deranger

[Anouleth]

They were soldiers in a war. Is every fire mage a villain now? Why is burning someone to death reprehensible, but killing them on the field of battle acceptable? What makes death through strategy and ruthless trickery more horrible to contemplate doing to others than a straightforward death faced on the opponent's lance in open warfare? You're still dead either way. The worst you might be able to say is that camp followers might have been killed in the attack,

Not Daniel and Muston! Anyone but them!

[Celice]

They were soldiers in a war. Is every fire mage a villain now? Why is burning someone to death reprehensible, but killing them on the field of battle acceptable? What makes death through strategy and ruthless trickery more horrible to contemplate doing to others than a straightforward death faced on the opponent's lance in open warfare?

While you avoid the point, regardless: objectively, there is no difference. But as far as the people are concerned, they can believe there's a difference between accepting you may die, and having life taken without consent. Reality and Actuality do not coincide, no, but Actuality has very little importance when one sees their world through the lens of Reality.

[Original Alear]

Which is why we have conflicts in the world to this day. If everyone were martyrs, everyone'd be dead.

I think there are other reasons for conflict...among other things, there are times, I believe, when people fail to try and do what's best for others even when it wouldn't cost them everything, or all that much at all. Generosity is not martyrdom. Humility is not martyrdom. But I see what you mean.

As for your post, I agree, but I feel like when someone is given no right answer, as is the case for Micaiah, Naesalea and Nasir, it isn't just to call them villains, and in Micaiah's case, because you play as her I don't think you can even properly term her an antagonist in part 3. Also, I'm not sure that it's just a matter of being unwilling to be a martyr, it's more a matter of being unwilling to martyr others (the ravens of Kilvas, the people of Daien, Ena) for a cause. Not that you said as much, but I thought the distinction was worth making.

I'm not sure if there's much more to pursue on this line of thought, so don't feel a response is necessary, and depending on what you say in response I might not find anything to say in kind.

EDIT-sorry, I missed the second page of responses. Here are my responses.

Not Daniel and Muston! Anyone but them!

The reason I was outlining them as particularly poor people to die is that they have not volunteered their lives for the war. They may have thrown their fates in with one side, however, so I suppose they aren't entirely innocent, either.

While you avoid the point, regardless: objectively, there is no difference. But as far as the people are concerned, they can believe there's a difference between accepting you may die, and having life taken without consent. Reality and Actuality do not coincide, no, but Actuality has very little importance when one sees their world through the lens of Reality.

I'm sorry, I don't grasp what you are saying fully, and my best response will have to pend an explanation of reality and actuality, but I believe the proper response to make is that since my reality is obviously different than the reality of the fictional soldiers who died and saw comrades die as a result of Micaiah's fire attack, I am actually perfectly certified, like anyone else who hears of her exploits, to make rulings regarding whether she is a villain or not depending on circumstances. I do not deny that another may call her a villain, but I would contest the argument unless I was persuaded otherwise.

Micaiah might be a villain to the Crimean army, but she remains a hero to the Daien army. Whether she is viewed as a hero or as a villain, or as neither, for the purposes of the video game depends completely on the opinions of the fanbase, not on the opinions of the characters within the videogame except insofar as they shape the opinions of us. We have the fullest picture.

I also believe that being in an army, and for that matter being alive, means accepting that you may die, and that accepting you may die on the field of battle does not involve conceeding your life will be taken. That doesn't mean that it can be taken, on the field of battle or off of it, and that simply taking a life on the field of battle or off of it does not make someone a villain. Otherwise we would be calling Ike a villain.

Really I am floundering here because I am not sure I understand your point, so if you clarified I'd appreciate it greatly.

Edited November 8, 2011 by BlueMartianKitty

[Celice]

Making judgements as a reserved, third-place observer is entirely different from making judgements from the direct, first-place observer who engages war based on a set design of rules and regulations. To die with these rules enforced is to be expected--to have the rules broken, as Mikaya had done, and take lives therefore outside of rules, breaks the line between war and villainy.

or as neither, for the purposes of the video game depends completely on the opinions of the fanbase, not on the opinions of the characters within the videogame except

But, you were not talking about the purpose of the game. You were speaking about Mikaya's actions, and whether she is a villain. Mikaya as a character exists irregardless of us as observers--she does not depend on the observer to validate or negate what she does. The game includes opinions as well which exist regardless of a player and their observation.

I also believe that being in an army, and for that matter being alive, means accepting that you may die, and that accepting you may die on the field of battle does not involve conceeding your life will be taken. That doesn't mean that it can be taken, on the field of battle or off of it, and that simply taking a life on the field of battle or off of it does not make someone a villain. Otherwise we would be calling Ike a villain.

Part of the problem is you're applying your personal opinion, while casting out the opinions of other sources because you cast out the sources of the videogame itself.

Again, there are certain expectations in the war which slant the morale and worth of fighting, on all sides. I'm sure it's mentioned once or twice throughout the two games. Part of the villainy of Mikaya, Ike, and Ashnard stems from the unexpected actions.

You avoided the point because you threw out or did not consider factors for your personal reasons. That's a trend which sets you on the path of unobjectivism. All characters, including the player, have valid observations and rulings of the actions of the fictional war. One does not usurp, and negate, the others.

[Rehab]

Again, there are certain expectations in the war which slant the morale and worth of fighting, on all sides. I'm sure it's mentioned once or twice throughout the two games. Part of the villainy of Mikaya, Ike, and Ashnard stems from the unexpected actions.

Now, I'm curious. To google, unless somebody would be so kind as to link the writing from offhand knowledge?

Edited November 8, 2011 by Rehab