Banzai's Archetypes

[Dr. Tarrasque]

And frankly, if that doesn't get through to you, then it actually more or less raises the question as to why we even try anymore.

You could use the ignore function to not see his posts. After all, it's not like you've been given the task to read them.

You jump wildly to conclusions and hurl harsh accusations, so wildly that you can only either be delusional or trolling in an attempt to get this thread locked as well.

Because a response like this is totally more constructive than Raven's post right? Knock it off you 2.

[Tangerine]

This is pretty dumb and not worth arguing over. If he cannot accept criticism, of which there is much of in this thread, then he shouldn't have created it to begin with. Obviously the concept behind it is not even close to being widely accepted within the community.

[General Banzai]

This is pretty dumb and not worth arguing over. If he cannot accept criticism, of which there is much of in this thread, then he shouldn't have created it to begin with. Obviously the concept behind it is not even close to being widely accepted within the community.

Just because Raven SAYS I can't accept criticism doesn't mean that's true. In case you haven't noticed, Raven has a bit of a vendetta against me. I feel we came to some good conclusions in the FE7 thread and I think that we can here. In chat Raven argued against my initial attempt to argue that Sain was the Cain and Kent was the Abel of FE7; an argument which I saw was right and used to reformulate my idea of the archetype into what I have now. When he argued that Zelgius as the Black Knight DID make sense, it caused me to reconsider what I had previously thought until I uncovered textual evidence indicating that he was right.

The fact that despite this Raven still continues to see me as a stubborn contrarian who argues against the grain simply because I want to baffles me. As soon as I admitted he was right about Kent and Sain and changed my archetype accordingly, he said that I was simply changing my argument in the middle of a debate to suit my interests, not realizing that I was actually coalescing and admitting defeat.

Secondly people seem to be bringing up "Why is Banzai doing this?" I'll tell you. It's because I feel for far too long the community has overlooked the plot aspects of the Fire Emblem series, either writing them off as cliched copies of one another or generally and generically "good". There has been little to no actual depth of argument analyzing these stories, not in the same way that we have spent hours upon hours upon hours analyzing statistical distributions and mathematical strategies and hidden coding indicating things as pointless as dynamic growths in Shadow Dragon. This thread is just one in a series of arguments to try and get people to think about the story for once, not merely as a mere thing to write off as "good" or "bad" and then stifle all argument with "it's just opinion". There's more to that. People like/dislike stories for a REASON, and that reason we can probe and analyze and discuss in actual debate.

I have an anecdote that I've shared before and I'll share it again here. On the old Nsider (the official Nintendo forums before its closure Summer 2007), there was a random person on the Fire Emblem board who I don't believe any of the standard community knew about. He just materialized out of air, and after one post disappeared again. But the one thing he posted was telling beyond belief. This was near the end of Nsider; sometime shortly after PoR was released, before any of us even knew that a sequel (FERD) was coming. This man analyzed the entire story of PoR, creating a multi-paragraph post in which he discovered the duality of chaos and order in Path of Radiance. Now of course chaos/order became an obviously important theme in Radiant Dawn, directly symbolized by Yune/Ashera. In PoR, though, it was far more subtle, and when we at Nsider saw the post we laughed him off as "thinking too much" or "seeing too much into it". And then FERD came out and we reconsidered our initial jeers at the mysterious poster, who by that time had vanished again.

My point is that there IS more to these stories than a simple first glance indicates; that there are common themes and recurring elements and underlying strings of meaning which go beyond what we have said before. I have touched on before in other threads the storytelling shift between the Kaga FEs and the Maeda FEs; the development of agency to the main character which marks a major shift in FE plot structure; why certain FE stories succeed and why some fail despite all of them being shadows of a similar prototype. Even in this thread I touch upon how the Malledus and Jagen archetypes have changed over time; these changes MEAN something, they go in line with how much control the main character has, and thus how much control the player APPEARS to have over his or her actions. We go from August in Thracia being a shadowy envoy sent to manipulate Leaf to do the church's bidding, from Celice and Marth constantly reminded by Levin and Malledus of their destiny, their duty to their kingdom; we go from those tropes to Eliwood and Hector acting outside of standard circles of authority, to Eirika refusing Hayden's offer to remain in Frelia and "let the men do the fighting", to Ike speaking out against Sanaki and the power structure in Begnion. It is inconceivable that Marth, Leaf, or Roy would do things outside of what they are expected to do, outside of what older people tell them to do.

Raven (and others) have constantly pointed out my shifting statements and arguments, my contradictory points from one debate to the next. That's true. My opinions on these matters are always changing. That is why I need these debates, to help solidify my thoughts into one cohesive statement on these stories. That's the point, that's why I'm doing this, I'll make a list of Ogmas and Navarres sometime this week.

EDIT: My warn status went up? Lol

Edited March 1, 2012 by General Banzai

[Othin]

I think we've all said our piece on this. So, how about those Ogmas and Navarres?

Edited March 1, 2012 by Othin

[Tangerine]

EDIT: My warn status went up? Lol

Sirius warned you for multiple cases of thread derailment. You can check your warns by clicking "warn status".

[Balcerzak]

I personally am interested in this approach, and infact anticipated the reference to Jungian archetypes being brought up. It might also be an interesting story analysis if you ever go through the monomyth elements laid out by Joseph Campbell in his Hero With a Thousand Faces, but I digress.

That said, I don't have any real comments on the folks you've already dropped down, but I was thinking about a Bantu archetype, as the (often) elderly guardian to a princess of an endangered tribe. Other notables would include Igrene, Saleh, and Nealuchi, at least superficially. I haven't gone into any in-depth personality analysis there, and Igrene may not fit so well as the others, but Nealuchi at least seems to fit the role to a T.

[Anouleth]

Oh, and there's one other archetype: the Royal Bitch. She's haughty with delusions of grandeur and is usually incapable of understanding why her companions aren't happy to wait on her hand and foot. See: Clarine, Serra, L'arachel, Kindle, Tabitha.

[General Banzai]

Oh, and there's one other archetype: the Royal Bitch. She's haughty with delusions of grandeur and is usually incapable of understanding why her companions aren't happy to wait on her hand and foot. See: Clarine, Serra, L'arachel, Kindle, Tabitha.

Generally I'd call that "the Maria"

[Elieson]

So the Maria archetype doesn't need to be related to anyone else of storyline progression?

Clarine is Pent/Louise's daughter.

Maria is Minerva's sister.

Serra is...Erk's cargo?

See where I'm going?

[Anouleth]

So the Maria archetype doesn't need to be related to anyone else of storyline progression?

Clarine is Pent/Louise's daughter.

Maria is Minerva's sister.

Serra is...Erk's cargo?

See where I'm going?

No, since Erk is a pretty minor character, and L'arachel is a plot-important character in her own right, and Clarine isn't related to any important characters in her own game?

[CrashGordon94]

Oh, and there's one other archetype: the Royal Bitch. She's haughty with delusions of grandeur and is usually incapable of understanding why her companions aren't happy to wait on her hand and foot. See: Clarine, Serra, L'arachel, Kindle, Tabitha.

Who?!

[Dr. Tarrasque]

Well they're not listed under FE13 and I don't remember there being any characters with those names in any other FE so... he's probably talking about characters from Advance Wars, Days of Ruin and Dual Strike which do fit the description.

Edited March 1, 2012 by Sirius

[Othin]

Generally I'd call that "the Maria"

How dare you not release me from this sack?

Yeah, relationships don't seem relevant for this.

I'm wondering about how TRS and BS might fit into this. The archetypes remain in those games in full force, certainly by no coincidence, so it seems to me that it's worth looking at how they fit in and change in those games. Obvious choices for the Jagen/Cain/Abel are Raffin/Arkis/Kriess in TRS and Ward/Aidan/Leon in BS, unless anyone thinks otherwise?

Not sure about which of Arkis and Kriess fit best as which, though.

[Anouleth]

Who?!

Kindle (Candy in the EU version) and Tabitha (Larissa in the EU version) are characters from Advance Wars, which is another IS series. I guess that Kindle and Tabitha are both pretty evil, though, which isn't true of the FE staffchicks.

[General Banzai]

How dare you not release me from this sack?

Yeah, relationships don't seem relevant for this.

I'm wondering about how TRS and BS might fit into this. The archetypes remain in those games in full force, certainly by no coincidence, so it seems to me that it's worth looking at how they fit in and change in those games. Obvious choices for the Jagen/Cain/Abel are Raffin/Arkis/Kriess in TRS and Ward/Aidan/Leon in BS, unless anyone thinks otherwise?

Not sure about which of Arkis and Kriess fit best as which, though.

I'm not sure if Berwick fits any of the other archetypes. I mean, there's someone who may be a Malledus, but we'd have to really crack into her dialogue, and there's a brooding killer swordsman who may be a Navarre, but we can't be sure yet.

I thought about putting relationships in but they're really all over the place. Especially looking at Navarre/Julian/Lena. Sometimes there's a correlation between those three and sometimes there just isn't, or everything's backwards or something.

[CrashGordon94]

Well they're not listed under FE13 and I don't remember there being any characters with those names in any other FE so... he's probably talking about characters from Advance Wars, Days of Ruin and Dual Strike which do fit the description.

Kindle (Candy in the EU version) and Tabitha (Larissa in the EU version) are characters from Advance Wars, which is another IS series. I guess that Kindle and Tabitha are both pretty evil, though, which isn't true of the FE staffchicks.

Ah, right, thanks.

[Othin]

I'm not sure if Berwick fits any of the other archetypes. I mean, there's someone who may be a Malledus, but we'd have to really crack into her dialogue, and there's a brooding killer swordsman who may be a Navarre, but we can't be sure yet.

Well, we'll have to see as we continue on. For TRS at least, Vega and Maruju seem to perfectly fit any possible definition of Navarre and Merric.

Edited March 1, 2012 by Othin

[General Banzai]

The Ogma

Leader of a band of mercenaries. A highly masculinized figure. He is a jovial, fatherly figure to his soldiers, all of whom he knows on a personal basis. Despite his outward nature of approachability and friendliness, however, he is haunted by an unsavory past, usually as an arena fighter. He is hired by the lordly character although he makes it clear that he is not simply in it for the money, instead choosing to follow employers of character.

The Ogma is always set in contrast to highly feminine characters, perhaps to emphasize his masculinity. What is interesting about this contrast, however, is how detached these relationships are, how particularly unromantic. The Ogma never ends the game happily married, can never “pair up” with a female character. Two of the Ogma archetype have been married in the past, these marriages have since ended and are never mentioned at all by the Ogma, and are perhaps part of the past that the Ogma attempts to flee. One Ogma, Zealot, remains married during the course of the game but is constantly detached and separated from his wife, to the point that he has not even seen his year-old child. A sense of homoeroticism sometimes surrounds the Ogma and his most trusted man.

FE1: Ogma

FE4: —

FE5: Dagda

FE6: Deke, Zealot

FE7: (Raven?)

FE8: Gerik

FE9: Greil

FE10: Ike

Possible Issues: Raven is marked here as being highly suspect. On one hand, he has the brooding past, the hyper-masculinity, and the homoerotic undertones, but on the other, he lacks the jovial personality and the band of mercenaries under his command. In a sense, Raven is a fusion of the Ogma and Navarre archetypes. I expect that people may point out that Gerik does “pair” with both Marisa and Tethys, and thus violates the detached/homosexual nature of archetype.

Gerik I argue is in one sense an anomaly and yet in one sense not at all. His band of mercenaries, unlike the band of every other Ogma, is not a band of men but a band of women. His relationships are still with his most trusted subordinates, it’s simply that those subordinates happen to be women. However, there is even more than that going on here. Let’s look closer at Gerik’s two endings with Tethys and Marisa. Tethys’s ending is particularly non-romantic, with no mention of love or marriage or anything of that sort. For that, I will omit it from the discussion of Love and the Ogma. I want to focus in on Gerik’s ending with Marisa, however (Marisa is another anomaly character who I will bring up in Navarre discussion). We have, of course, a reference to “shared affection” between the two. Romantic, yes, but think about Marisa’s character. She is a specifically de-feminized character (judging by her character, not her appearance). She is quiet, reserved, in her supports constantly referring to her inability to do anything but fight (this is even brought up in the Gerik/Marisa ending). Now the Ogma archetype insists that although the Ogma has close relationships with heavily feminized characters, in the end these relationships bear no romantic fruition and instead he tends to lean towards his most trusted man. In Gerik’s case, then, Tethys is the hyper-feminine, and Marisa is the trusted man. Marisa in a sense is depicted as masculine as well, especially in terms of sexuality:

Gerik: Speaking of which, when I first met you, you were always working alone. I remember thinking how odd that was. I figured a woman as beautiful and talented as you would have men all around her.
Marisa: Don't need 'em.

The fact that Gerik pairs with a masculinized character thus affirms his status in the Ogma archetype.

So what does this mean? Well, for starters, it certainly allows us to understand Ike’s character, especially his development arc between Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. Ike’s refusal of Elincia and turn instead to Soren is not, as some have stated before, “a pandering to the yaoi fangirls.” Instead it is an archetypal standard which Intelligent Systems has followed since at least Thracia.

[Sunwoo]

So what does this mean? Well, for starters, it certainly allows us to understand Ike's character, especially his development arc between Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. Ike's refusal of Elincia and turn instead to Soren is not, as some have stated before, "a pandering to the yaoi fangirls." Instead it is an archetypal standard which Intelligent Systems has followed since at least Thracia.

I never saw Ike's feelings towards Soren as anything more than a "comrade in arms" kind of thing. It's true that Ike doesn't show interest in women and doesn't settle down like the other FE lords, but a lack of interest in women doesn't equate to an interest in men. If you ask me, Ike doesn't really care about anyone "that way" and is more asexual than anything.

[General Banzai]

I never saw Ike's feelings towards Soren as anything more than a "comrade in arms" kind of thing. It's true that Ike doesn't show interest in women and doesn't settle down like the other FE lords, but a lack of interest in women doesn't equate to an interest in men. If you ask me, Ike doesn't really care about anyone "that way" and is more asexual than anything.

One could make that case for any seemingly homosexual relationship in this series. It's not something that developers perhaps have the liberty to go out and address openly, and thus these relationships are typically more subtle than the blatant "X married Y" pairings.

[Icon of Sin]

Not sure about which of Arkis and Kriess fit best as which, though.

Arkis and Kreiss are pretty much a carbon copy of Alec and Noish repesctively.

Then you have Vega as Shiva with a custom sword, Marj is the token wind mage (though definitely not as good), Sasha the playable princess, the pegasus sisters, etc.

Edited March 2, 2012 by Dio

[Loki Laufeyson]

Soren is one of the only people Ike opens up to. (next to Ranulf) Titania is like, the other but he doesnt see her as anything more than a commander. Soren and Ike's relationship is pretty...open to interpretation due to Soren's..err interactions. (Ike being the ONLY person Soren opens up to.)

[dondon151]

what about brighton

[Refa]

I never saw Ike's feelings towards Soren as anything more than a "comrade in arms" kind of thing. It's true that Ike doesn't show interest in women and doesn't settle down like the other FE lords, but a lack of interest in women doesn't equate to an interest in men. If you ask me, Ike doesn't really care about anyone "that way" and is more asexual than anything.

THANK YOU. I never saw why people read too much into these things.

Edited March 2, 2012 by Refa

[General Banzai]

Soren is one of the only people Ike opens up to. (next to Ranulf) Titania is like, the other but he doesnt see her as anything more than a commander. Soren and Ike's relationship is pretty...open to interpretation due to Soren's..err interactions. (Ike being the ONLY person Soren opens up to.)

Exactly. Compare Ike's relationships to Titania and Elincia to that of Soren. With the latter two there is a strict chain of command in place; Titania is captain, Elincia is employer. Soren, meanwhile, is more than that, and Ike often transcends what one would consider normal hierarchal boundaries.

Even look at IkexTitania and IkexSoren in PoR. In Ike and Titania, Ike remains detached the entire time, referring to any relationship with Titania only in terms of Titania's relationship to Greil. By the end of the A conversation, Titania is sobbing and all Ike can say is "Thank you for caring for my father."

In Ike and Soren, Ike explicitly refers to Soren as a friend, something he does not do with Titania. With Titania, she is a capable officer of the army. With Soren, he is a capable officer of the army... and Ike's friend.

what about brighton

He's a knight, not a mercenary. Also, he's not even in charge of the Magi Squad--Sety is.

Edited March 2, 2012 by General Banzai