Thoughts on Sigurd?

[Garland Chaos]

jesusonwheels/10

Except replace wheels with horse.

Sigurd murders the first few chapters of Gen 1, and his character is really damn well flushed out.

[Refa]

Really though, is that what you assumed when you read it? That I was being a sexist jerk rather than having a more reasonable explanation for what I said that you just weren't clear on? I honestly feel hurt. It's like you automatically assumed the worst of me!

OK, I have some serious issues with your stance, but I was overly reactionary in my response. It was wrong of me to assume such, apologies for that. I still don't think you quite get what my issues are, but we're getting too far off topic like you said before, so dropping it.

Also how about that Zigludosansamasenpaisansenpaikun? Well, he's great in 0% growths, but he can't solo it quite as well as Seth (0/10 what a chump! I kid, I kid). And he does get his revenge on Celice for being essentially a better version of him with a slower start in vanilla by absolutely trouncing him in 0% growths. Good on you, Sigurd.

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

i admit there isn't all that much to this opinion, and maybe "fumble" is a bit strong, but i guess there isn't all that much to it beyond what's already been said about Quan's attitudes. throughout the first generation, a fair bit of time is spent reinforcing how Thracia is a bloodthirsty enemy willing to do unspeakable things if the BRAVE HEROES OF LEONSTER aren't there to keep an eye on them, but our only real sources there are Quan, Ethlyn and the occasional villager, and like we've been saying Quan's attitude toward it isn't exactly a stellar case of honest and unbiased news. the Thracians who show up in chapter 3 don't seem all that objectionable - hell, Travant himself acts pretty reasonably given the situation - and it's not until chapter 5 that we get any indication that Thracians are the thugs Quan makes them out to be... which comes only in the form of attacking Quan, which given his behaviour seems like a perfectly reasonable thing for them to be doing (his last words were basically calling them wild hyenas in a derogatory sense so...)

...

of course, the backstory stuff makes it pretty clear that the Manster District seceded from Thracia under some pretty awful circumstances on the part of the second Thracian king, so in that respect Quan has historical precedent supporting his distrust of Thracia, but requiring people to rely on information provided in sources outside the game itself to justify his behaviour isn't exactly a good idea

...

wait no, i've changed my mind: it's fine as it is solely because being able to interpret Quan as a huge asshole is fun

touche, but still it's not like the entire nation is its army. the townsfolk seemed decent enough, not to mention Deirdre and Jamke. obviously the army and Jamke's brothers are pretty awful and brutal people, but when a country is called a "barbarian kingdom" the implication is that the title is supposed to refer to everyone in it, not just the army or two douchebag princes

Re: Verdane: Yeah, Jamke's brothers are not good people. On the other hand, we have King Mananan of Isaach invading his own son-in-law's kingdom, plus we have a whole bucketload of awful Grannvale nobles like Reptor & Langobalt engineering wars that kill god-knows-how-many people and Danan, whose soldiers did terrible things to the women of Isaach in the course of a brutal occupation. So Verdane hardly had the market cornered on an evil ruling class, and yet they and Isaach are specifically treated as The Other. Sure looks like fantasy racism.

"oh, and of course he actually does something vaguely immoral with the whole Corple/Sharlow hostage thing. even though it's a dick move that doesn't really fit with everything else he does, at the very least we finally get something resembling evidence that maybe Quan had a point all along so idk'

Travant also does order a massacre, too. Anyway, as far as Quan goes, there's also the part in the FE5 backstory material wherein he's been pissing off his own allies by going aggro on Thracia over their objections. Key stuff like that not making it into the actual games is why I'd agree it's all something of a fumble. I mean, I appreciate the ambiguity to a certain extent, but it's also frustrating.

I actually sympathize with Eldigan as far as the choices he makes, not least because being a party to the death of a "legitimate" ruler at the hands of outside forces and then taking the throne with the backing of Grannvale does sound (IMO) more sketch from an Agustrian perspective than propping up Chagall and hoping he learned his lesson in Chapter 2. I don't sympathize as much with Sigurd but I think he's basically a good guy who's in over his head and doesn't understand how treacherous his fellow nobles can be because he expects the rest of the world to be as good and uncomplicated as he is. With Quan, we get some clues that he's actually part of the problem.

[RJWalker]

I think the Agustrian people wanted Eldigan on the throne. Or was that just in the Oosawa manga?

[DodgeDusk]

I think the Agustrian people wanted Eldigan on the throne. Or was that just in the Oosawa manga?

If memory is serving me correctly, there's a villager in chapter...2 who says that s/he wanted Eldigan on the throne, and so did some other villagers. I might be wrong though

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

I think the Agustrian people wanted Eldigan on the throne. Or was that just in the Oosawa manga?

One of the villagers in Ch2 definitely did say it, BUT Eldy's already aware of the threat that Agustria will turn into be a tributary state of Grannvale and by Chapter 3 the Agustrian people are really not happy about the occupation. If Eldy were the puppet-king reigning over the occupation and giving it his blessing, well... that wouldn't be so good for Eldigan, would it?

Sigurd trusts some crappy people. Eldigan doesn't know who to trust because he can see he's surrounded by threats, so he backs the home-grown threat of Chagall for longer than he "should have," and it gets him killed. But if King Eldigan took the throne and then proved troublesome to the Grannvale nobles, he most likely would've been eliminated by the end of Chapter 5 anyway, so there's really no way to win.

[dondon151]

The difference there is motive, and he was taking her against her will. He would've married her whether she wanted to or not.

i don't think that difference exists. not many women that i know would appreciate the notion of being taken as spoils of war.

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

i don't think that difference exists. not many women that i know would appreciate the notion of being taken as spoils of war.

See also: Elliot's threat to take Raquesis and make her his wife when she wants nothin' to do with him. That's why we personally kill these guys.

[Rehab]

Seeing other people read this much into fe4 warms my gnarled heart

Not only do I love you guys for it, most of what I would've said RE Sigurd has already been said

[FionordeQuester]

Actually, my line of thought brings up an interesting question. What exactly DID Sigurd and co. (and for that matter, Celice) do with all the non-combatants within the castles they conquered? The servants and all of that? Bring them along with them? Drop them all off at the closest village they could find? It does make you think of how exactly that scenario would go down in that medieval time period.

Edited February 1, 2014 by FionordeQuester

[rexcalibur]

Actually, my line of thought brings up an interesting question. What exactly DID Sigurd and co. (and for that matter, Celice) do with all the non-combatants within the castles they conquered? The servants and all of that? Bring them along with them? Drop them all off at the closest village they could find? It does make you think of how exactly that scenario would go down in that medieval time period.

That's an interesting thought. I wonder what they would do to the women as well...

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

That's an interesting thought. I wonder what they would do to the women as well...

Well, do keep in mind that for the most part Sigurd'n'Seliph, especially the latter, are being welcomed as liberators. We're probably supposed to assume that the servants of Castle X are perfectly happy to see their (evil) lord taken out and will be preparing Sigurd/Seliph and company a nice hot meal.

Now, you could argue that in, say, Thracia, that wouldn't possibly be the case because as far as Thracia's concerned Seliph and Leif are invaders, but the "liberator" idea probably works in more cases than not. And even in the case of something like Thracia, Leif wants these people to be his own subjects so he's probably not staging mass executions and deflowering the serving girls just to show them who's boss.

Remember the emphasis throughout FE4 on objecting to crappy leaders as opposed to making war on the common people. Maybe a couple of inconvenient bishops and high-ranking advisors get shoved in a dungeon here and there, but probably Sigurd/Seliph/Leif just get the castle staff together and say, "Look, we're here, we won, we mean you no harm, and we won't ask any questions about your allegiance to Lord X if you promise to serve us from now on."

[Refa]

That would explain why all of the soldiers disappear after you've conquered the castle.

[DarkCrusader]

As a Unit: Love him. I <3 gamebreaking OP units.

As a Character: Ehh....I'm a huge fan of protagonists so that's a plus. He does seem like the Eddard Stark of Jugdral. Naive, honorable, but in the end he got screwed over. I do feel really bad about him once Alvis shows Sigurd that he stole his wife and then proceeds to slaughter Sigurd's army and kill Sigurd.

THE FEELS. THE FEELS! FREAKING ALVIS!

[Warrior1234]

Pretty sure Gandalf is actually all about consentual sex and legal marriage, which is why he was taking her back home to be his bride. Please do not make uncalled judgement calls about this fine and upstanding gentleman, thank you very much.

EDIT Holding Shanan hostage was all Kinbois, he's definitely a jerk.

EDIT 2

Hahahaha, I will admit your interpretation is a lot more interesting.

Kinbois isn't even an actual prince. He's just that one mook who blocks the bridge in the Prologue chapter trying to look important.

[PuffPuff]

Yeah, it makes you really mad at Alvis, but then when I saw him get pushed around by Julius and Manfroy in second gen I couldn't help but feel sorry for Alvis. It was epic defeating him with Celice and then meeting the ghosts of Sigurd and Deirdre.

Surprised that Arvis had Manfloy order him around when Arvis was alot more powerful than him.

This is true. If Verdane- Or well, Augustria didn't attack Nodion, none of this would've happened. Well Sigurds death to be more specific

True, that's some of the only times though. Though Alvis is stronger than Manfroy and could've killed him on the spot. But you know... PLOT. Julius according to some resources was a pretty cool guy until he touched Loptyr. So I pity him as well. Mostly.

All and All, Sigurds death shouldn't happened. What Jack Walker said is pretty flawless about his situation.

.

Exactly.

Great Guy, and probobly one of the best units in the series history.

Sigurd or Seliph?

Answer is...both.

also obviously a huge sword fanboy i mean did you SEE his reaction to getting that silver sword from Arvis

That attitude is something he can't help even though it costed his life at the Belhalla kingdom.

1. Part of it might be parental pressure from her mother who wants the power and the prestige that marrying her daughter to the Imperial Prince would give. And incest, since both are Fala related.

2. Either way, Sigurd's alright. Despite being older than most FE protagonists he's still naive and somewhat easy to influence which end up being his downfall, while as a unit he has just about everything he needs.

1. ^

2. ...And that's why he has Eldigan for.

Sure. I'm just saying that we can conclude from what we have seen, how the stuff we didn't see looked like.

By contrast to Sigurd, Reptor and Langobalt murdered the king of a foreign nation so they could feign ignorance over the actual political environment there and justify an invasion.

Then they arranged the death of their prince and the lord of another duchy and framed the son of said lord for treason, for no better reason but to seize power for themselves.

There is nothing in their on screen behavior that makes them rescuing orphans a reasonable assumption. It's not impossible but it's something that would need to be specifically stated or shown.

...And to why Arvis double crossed them long ago.

Because women can't be self sufficient haha strangle me.

Um...hello?! Ayra and Larcei would like to have a word with you.

Re: Verdane: Yeah, Jamke's brothers are not good people. On the other hand, we have King Mananan of Isaach invading his own son-in-law's kingdom, plus we have a whole bucketload of awful Grannvale nobles like Reptor & Langobalt engineering wars that kill god-knows-how-many people and Danan, whose soldiers did terrible things to the women of Isaach in the course of a brutal occupation. So Verdane hardly had the market cornered on an evil ruling class, and yet they and Isaach are specifically treated as The Other. Sure looks like fantasy racism.

"oh, and of course he actually does something vaguely immoral with the whole Corple/Sharlow hostage thing. even though it's a dick move that doesn't really fit with everything else he does, at the very least we finally get something resembling evidence that maybe Quan had a point all along so idk'

Travant also does order a massacre, too. Anyway, as far as Quan goes, there's also the part in the FE5 backstory material wherein he's been pissing off his own allies by going aggro on Thracia over their objections. Key stuff like that not making it into the actual games is why I'd agree it's all something of a fumble. I mean, I appreciate the ambiguity to a certain extent, but it's also frustrating.

I actually sympathize with Eldigan as far as the choices he makes, not least because being a party to the death of a "legitimate" ruler at the hands of outside forces and then taking the throne with the backing of Grannvale does sound (IMO) more sketch from an Agustrian perspective than propping up Chagall and hoping he learned his lesson in Chapter 2. I don't sympathize as much with Sigurd but I think he's basically a good guy who's in over his head and doesn't understand how treacherous his fellow nobles can be because he expects the rest of the world to be as good and uncomplicated as he is. With Quan, we get some clues that he's actually part of the problem.

Quan was never fit to be king.

Misjudging Travant was part of the problem when he was right about one thing about Travant. He didn't life a finger to help those Northern Thracians who were starving on the fucking mountains and had to resort to banditry to survive.

But if King Eldigan took the throne and then proved troublesome to the Grannvale nobles, he most likely would've been eliminated by the end of Chapter 5 anyway, so there's really no way to win.

Not if he had some skills he does in the hacks.

Edited April 3, 2014 by Dark_Huntress

[Cowboy Karimov]

I like Sigurd, I actually like him a lot, but I still prefer Cuan. Maybe because he was the father or Leif and Altena, my two favorite G2 characters.

[CT075]

jesusonahorse/10

[Ledah*]

That's an interesting thought. I wonder what they would do to the women as well...

Well my guess would be the medieval standard of etiquette is kill the men rape the women make the child slaves but since Sigurd and Celice are "good guys" from what we see I guess they give the (good)POW treatment to them

But this discussion here of moral ambiguity(going off topic) made me think of how some stories in FE games(mostly of the Kaga era) can be viewed differently if we think about it. One major example is how in FE3 Marth gets the Akaneia control after princess Nyna "left Akaneia in Marth's hands and vanished..." Just a little after Hardin conveniently drop dead making the control of the realm falling conveniently in Marth lap. It does make one wonder if Marth didn't really saw everything going bad in Hardin rule and decided that everything would be better with him in power...but of course after the war for that to happen Nyna would have to mysteriously disappear. And yeah I know there is justifications for all that but it's an interesting food for thought albeit very contradictory with all the game story

On topic now Sigurd is a personal favorite character of mine both gameplay and storywise a good guy that pays the price of being a few of the honest lords in a era dominated by the corrupted. He is almost the lord version of the "last honest cop troupe"

And my opinion of Alvis and his idealism and all that crap is that if the game let me make Celice pee on his corpse and let it hanging from the walls of the castle I would totally do that plus Ishtar should have controlled her almost entire asshole family and boyfriend a lot of people in this game died trying to do the right thing why should she get special treatment for not even having the balls to do that even if meant dying

[Shadow Mir]

I just don't like him. I don't know why, but I don't like him in the least.

[Guy Starwind]

Not to go off topic but Levant that is the longest location I've read on these forums.

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

But this discussion here of moral ambiguity(going off topic) made me think of how some stories in FE games(mostly of the Kaga era) can be viewed differently if we think about it. One major example is how in FE3 Marth gets the Akaneia control after princess Nyna "left Akaneia in Marth's hands and vanished..." Just a little after Hardin conveniently drop dead making the control of the realm falling conveniently in Marth lap. It does make one wonder if Marth didn't really saw everything going bad in Hardin rule and decided that everything would be better with him in power...but of course after the war for that to happen Nyna would have to mysteriously disappear. And yeah I know there is justifications for all that but it's an interesting food for thought albeit very contradictory with all the game story

...

And my opinion of Alvis and his idealism and all that crap is that if the game let me make Celice pee on his corpse and let it hanging from the walls of the castle I would totally do that plus Ishtar should have controlled her almost entire asshole family and boyfriend a lot of people in this game died trying to do the right thing why should she get special treatment for not even having the balls to do that even if meant dying

Re: Marth, I think it's the disinheriting of the Grust twins that bothers me the most since IIRC FE3 never even mentions them ceding their claim to Marth the way Sheema/Nyna/Minerva all do. But of course Marth is the pinnacle of goodness and purity, so...

As for Ishtar, that scene where she competes with Julius to see who can murder-a-rebel first doesn't help any.

[Duke of Dozel]

This topic is alive? Alright.

As a unit, Sigurd is as good as they get. If his caps weren't a tad bit low, he'd be perfect.

As a character, I like that he goes through more hardships than most FE lords. But he can be a bit boring at times, and his forced marriage is hilariously hastened.

In comparison to other lords, if rate him above his Girly Marth of a son, but still lower than Ike, Leif, and maybe Alm.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

i like sigurd, he's a pretty cool guy, great unit and a fine personality, tragic character to have died while doing everything he could due to political maneuvering outside of his control

[BrightBow]

As for Ishtar, that scene where she competes with Julius to see who can murder-a-rebel first doesn't help any.

It's not like the game was her idea. And making a scene around Julius probably wouldn't have been smart anyway. As a rule of thumb, nothing that that Ishtar says when she is around Julius can be taken seriously. And even if we assume that her behavior is serious, she behaves no worse about killing enemies then the average Awakening PC.

And just because the empire is bad doesn't automatically mean that the rebels are good guys. She had little reason to assume they are to be trusted. But they did kill her brother, his wife, her father and Yune knows how many people that she is close too. They might very well have taken everything from her that she had. The game is ambigious about Ishtar's motivations to the very end but for my part I couldn't hold it against her even if she absolutely loved the opportunity to kill some of the people who murdered them with her own hands.

But be it as it may be, the scene were we learn that Ishtar protects children from certain death doesn't work well with the image of a bloodthirsty psychopath without a consciene. And does anybody seriously expect that a little kid like her could have controlled the Freedge? What could she have possibly done?

Edited May 9, 2014 by BrightBow