Headcanon Thread

[Anacybele]

Ooh, I've got that pic in my favorites on DA! :3

[BANRYU]

I like to think that 90% of the support convos take place in an AU where all the characters just live together in a little village or something, seeing as many of them largely ignore and/or brush off the fact that we're at war beyond the occasional dismissive mention, and that they're not actually the ones fighting the war.

[Faye]

Casually talking about random things unrelated to the war is pretty common in most Fire Emblem supports, aren't they? 8U I'm more bugged by how the Support Convo always has the same background...

[Airship Canon]

Casually talking about random things unrelated to the war is pretty common in most Fire Emblem supports, aren't they? 8U I'm more bugged by how the Support Convo always has the same background...

Programming limitation, I'd guess, because it's pretty obvious in several of the supports, it's NOT in the barracks for them. [Like Lon'qu/Lissa A.]

[i doubt it was development, wouldn't be hard to swap in backgrounds from other assets.]

[RJWalker]

Casually talking about random things unrelated to the war is pretty common in most Fire Emblem supports, aren't they? 8U I'm more bugged by how the Support Convo always has the same background...

Occasionally but it's only with characters who are know to slack off, like say Forde, and he gets called out on it by Kyle. The disconnect between the story and the supports is still very bad in Awakening. Like Lucina and Mom going shopping or Severa being a spoiled little bitch in her support with dad just after conquering Valm Castle Gate but before assualting the interior. Yeah, it gets hard to take these characters seriously.

[Loki Laufeyson]

Thats what made FE9's supports so good. The backgrounds did change occasionally and most of them were often relating to the plot in some way. In some cases, very significantly. (Mist/Jill, Ike/Soren, and so on) D: I wish all supports could be like FE9

[BANRYU]

Casually talking about random things unrelated to the war is pretty common in most Fire Emblem supports, aren't they? 8U I'm more bugged by how the Support Convo always has the same background...

Somehow, I feel like other supports had more of a sense of weight to them, even if they weren't or they were shorter than those in Awakening.

It's hard to pinpoint what exactly makes it seem that way to me, though.

[BrightBow]

Occasionally but it's only with characters who are know to slack off, like say Forde, and he gets called out on it by Kyle. The disconnect between the story and the supports is still very bad in Awakening. Like Lucina and Mom going shopping or Severa being a spoiled little bitch in her support with dad just after conquering Valm Castle Gate but before assualting the interior. Yeah, it gets hard to take these characters seriously.

Not exactly. Titania and Mist can still go shopping in the country they are currently invading for example.

Nevertheless, PoR's supports definitely do have way stronger ties to the story, events, the world and the game's themes.

Like, let's use Ranulf and Lethe's supports as an example.

-The first is about Lethe being upset that Ranulf left her alone for a year with a group of beorc.

-The second is about Lethe asking how her men are doing in her absence.

-The third is about Lethe elaborating how her feelings towards beorc have changed during the year.

So the entire series depends on events happening during the main plot. That the two of them were separated for a very long time and that Ranulf didn't go with the Greil mercenaries. And that Lethe had enough time to change her view point.

PoR does what it can do to take advantage of circumstances. Be it joining time, numbers of chapters needed to support, the stuff the characters did before being recruited and whatnot.

Like, the writers knew that supports were available only after Greil died, so a lot of supports of the mercs mention him. They integrated Shihiram into Jill's support knowing that Haar and Jill would only support after Shihram's death and they knew that Jill could support with Mist before Talrega, so they gave their A support two variations. They knew that Reyson will have decked Oliver and that he restored the Serenes Forest before he can support anyone, etc... That stuff is all over the place.

Sacred Stones is more limited but it makes up for it for the most part by giving the war itself a larger present in the supports.

However, it is still present, like most of Knoll's supports contain what would be spoilers of he joined earlier and EirikaxEphraim A assumes that they fight the forces of evil as their main opponent now.

Awakening effectively doesn't do that at all.

Like, the writer's could have taken advantage of the fact that Flavia and Basillo can't have any supports before the arrival of Grima, yet all their supports are about random, unrelated crap. You would think this kind of challenge and the approaching apocalypse would be of some concern for warriors like them.

All supports in Awakening seem to be designed to fit in anywhere in the game, no matter what happens in the story and how and when characters were recruited. And hence feel trivial because they can't talk about anything that is actually relevant or have character development that actually sticks.

And of course, there is the issue that supports are more diverse in PoR.

Like Shinon gets three supports: Rolf, his pupil. Gatrie, his friend and Janaff, a Laguz.

Three characters to which his relationship is entirely different, hence they allow him to show a different side of his character.

By contrast, Panne's support list is almost entirely humans, which means that her relationship towards them is entirely the same. Namely, that they can all kiss her ass. It matters little that her support list is a lot larger then his when it's the same thing over and over, let alone that it's odd that character development doesn't kick in after a few A-supports with the resident man spawn.

And naturally nobody is racist to her either. Apparently genocides in Ylisse are like rain and thunderstorms in other areas. It's just something that happens occasionally.

It's not much better with the rest. The basis for just about everyone's relationship is effectively just that they just so happen to be best buddies with each other. Since that apparently comes automatically with being a Shepherd. Even if you are an evil psychopath who constantly abuses everyone, it's the same boring dynamic.

Edited March 19, 2014 by BrightBow

[Sunwoo]

PoR supports also had "checks" for minor characters like Marcia being alive or not. The support between Makalov and Astrid can differ in either the C support or the A support depending on whether Marcia is alive at that time or not. PoR's base conversations were also nice, it gave more insight into characters and their motivations in joining.

Awakening's problem is that the characters are very … well, they are one-dimensional and not too exciting. Also, Virion can support people before his reveal in chapter 12, so talking to Panne about how he couldn't save his people after chapter 10 when … you don't know he's a noble is ???

It's kind of frustrating and makes you come up with head canon to put the support conversations at "proper" times so it's not all weird. *glares at Chrom/Olivia supports, or lack thereof*

[Anacybele]

Yeah, I agree that PoR handled supports a lot better than Awakening, but at the same time, I'm not sure how a marriage system could have worked out with that kind of system. Still, there are definitely some things that could have been improved regardless.

[Roivann]

I'm not sure how a marriage system could have worked out with that kind of system.

Simple: cut down everyone to one or two, or three (at the absolute MAXIMUM) marriage options. Chrom could marry Sully, his childhood friend, or Sumia, his sweetheart. Frederick could marry either Lissa, whom he swore to protect, or Sully, whom he taught about combat and knighthood. Virion could marry Maribelle, a fellow noble, or Cherche, his vassal. Vaike could marry Cordelia (Vaike boasts about skills he doesn't have; Cordelia is humble about skills she does have), or Maribelle (the Aladdin-style "street rat falls for royalty/nobility" kind of thing). Ricken could marry Miriel or Nowi, Stahl could marry Sully or Cherche, and so on. Supports could thus be fine-tuned so that they're meaningful and make sense, rather than cranking out a whole bunch of supports that are decent at best and pretty bad and insubstantial at worst.

[BANRYU]

TBH I think I would have rather seen something like that too, but I can't deny that I think it's sort of important that they did what they did to get so much mass-market appeal. I guess it raises the question of is it important for it to be more artful and meaningful in spite of the pending twilight of the series, or for it to do whatever it can to cling to existence? Then again, it's possible too that it didn't need to stoop like that to stick around... But it's impossible to know now.

Incidentally, Vaike x Maribelle is one of my favorite pairings for her story-wise. It gives Brady his natural hair color, makes him well suited to being a War Cleric (his default upgraded class), and is pretty sweet besides, with their endings meshing rather nicely (Vaike continuing to fight for his lower-class neighborhood's rights + Maribelle's philanthropy to the lower-class).

Edited March 19, 2014 by BANRYU

[Anacybele]

Simple: cut down everyone to one or two, or three (at the absolute MAXIMUM) marriage options. Chrom could marry Sully, his childhood friend, or Sumia, his sweetheart. Frederick could marry either Lissa, whom he swore to protect, or Sully, whom he taught about combat and knighthood. Virion could marry Maribelle, a fellow noble, or Cherche, his vassal. Vaike could marry Cordelia (Vaike boasts about skills he doesn't have; Cordelia is humble about skills she does have), or Maribelle (the Aladdin-style "street rat falls for royalty/nobility" kind of thing). Ricken could marry Miriel or Nowi, Stahl could marry Sully or Cherche, and so on. Supports could thus be fine-tuned so that they're meaningful and make sense, rather than cranking out a whole bunch of supports that are decent at best and pretty bad and insubstantial at worst.

But then we wouldn't be able to see as much potential character development or replay value. I'd give each character three or four potential spouses. And they'd actually make sense age-wise too. Frederick would be able to wed people like Panne, Cherche, and Cordelia, Ricken could get with Lissa, Maribelle, or Nowi, etc.

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

But then we wouldn't be able to see as much potential character development or replay value. I'd give each character three or four potential spouses. And they'd actually make sense age-wise too. Frederick would be able to wed people like Panne, Cherche, and Cordelia, Ricken could get with Lissa, Maribelle, or Nowi, etc.

"Make sense age-wise"? :/

Given you're proposing a knight-dude marrying a rabbit-woman and a shota mage marrying a centuries-old manakete, proposing age restrictions to get rid of something like Frederick/Lissa seems really bizarre.

[Anacybele]

"Make sense age-wise"? :/

Given you're proposing a knight-dude marrying a rabbit-woman and a shota mage marrying a centuries-old manakete, proposing age restrictions to get rid of something like Frederick/Lissa seems really bizarre.

Not just Frederick x Lissa. Also weird shit like Ricken x Cordelia or Donnel x Panne. Panne looks like she's the oldest female in the game that's capable of marriage outside of Nowi. And Nowi is technically a child even if she's 1000 years old.

I also can't realistically see Frederick marrying Lissa anyway because of some of his DLC dialogue. He tells Chrom that they're not equals and that marriage is for people who consider each other equals. By this logic, he doesn't consider Lissa his equal either.

[Faye]

Large age gaps are fairly common in Fire Emblem, and Fred/Lissa's S-Support is very cute, even when I prefer them with other characters.

It's almost like Seth/Eirik in Sacred Stones, where Seth says they can't be together because of class, but they get married in the end anyway. Love cares not for class barriers, unless you're Priscilla.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Faye

[Roivann]

But then we wouldn't be able to see as much potential character development or replay value. I'd give each character three or four potential spouses. And they'd actually make sense age-wise too. Frederick would be able to wed people like Panne, Cherche, and Cordelia, Ricken could get with Lissa, Maribelle, or Nowi, etc.

The thing about supports is that there can't be too much character development, because their other dialogues would all have to change to reflect that, which results in a freakishly large amount of extra coding and writing. That's the problem with having unlimited supports, a complaint that many denizens of Serenes Forest, myself included, have voiced before, and that is that the supports can't contradict each other. Even now, supports can, and do, contradict. In Sully x Sumia's conversations, Sully says something about her love life being boring and dull, even if she's married by that point. It's either a contradiction, or well, you know.

[Purple Frog]

The point of the extensive marriage system was not to crank out meaningful supports, it was to provide substantial gameplay aspects via children. If everyone only had two possible S supports you'd have ~5 unpaired guys instead of just ~2 and worse yet, you'd have unpaired females which means no full parties. The support convos were intended to be icing on the cake, not THE cake. They could have just generic'd it like in Radiant Dawn but they chose not to which shows some very devoted development, not something to be criticised.

[Anacybele]

Large age gaps are fairly common in Fire Emblem, and Fred/Lissa's S-Support is very cute, even when I prefer them with other characters.

Yeah, but Lissa is a fourteen year old child while Frederick is a grown man that has to at least be in his mid to late twenties. Other kinds of age gaps I don't really have an issue with.

It's true that there are weird contradictions with some supports though. Like for example, I choose not to view Freddy's support with Cordelia because it would just be weird due to the latter already being married. I'm a believer that Cordelia gets over her crush on Chrom too.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Anacybele

[RJWalker]

The point of the extensive marriage system was not to crank out meaningful supports, it was to provide substantial gameplay aspects via children. If everyone only had two possible S supports you'd have ~5 unpaired guys instead of just ~2 and worse yet, you'd have unpaired females which means no full parties. The support convos were intended to be icing on the cake, not THE cake. They could have just generic'd it like in Radiant Dawn but they chose not to which shows some very devoted development, not something to be criticised.

If the supports were the icing on the cake, then I want my cake without icing.

FE4 had marriage options and only few pairings got conversations and it's way better.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Ranger Jack Walker

[Purple Frog]

If the supports were the icing on the cake, then I want my cake without icing.

FE4 had marriage options and only few pairings got conversations and it's way better.

Yeah but FE4 had limited pairings and you couldn't have ultimate kiddy dream team. Which wasn't a big deal because FE4 didn't really have grinding. Awakening made some pretty touching and amusing supports to supplement the fact that you could m8 whatever two bruvs you wanted and get a supreme Hitler-friendly race of perfect genes. If you want your cake w/out icing, only pair what makes sense and don't read the supports… nothing's stopping you. That's what otp is for

[BrightBow]

Yeah but FE4 had limited pairings and you couldn't have ultimate kiddy dream team. Which wasn't a big deal because FE4 didn't really have grinding. Awakening made some pretty touching and amusing supports to supplement the fact that you could m8 whatever two bruvs you wanted and get a supreme Hitler-friendly race of perfect genes. If you want your cake w/out icing, only pair what makes sense and don't read the supports… nothing's stopping you. That's what otp is for

Limited pairings? You could marry anyone to anyone in FE4. They even gave Tiltyu and Briggid a massive love growth with Finn, so you could still pair them up in the one chapter that they are together if you want to.

Awakening lacks the freedom of FE4 and yet still has no more text worth a darn then that old Super Famicom game. But FE4 has a lot more emphasis on inheritance and legacy. Stuff that actually gives a purpose to that system.

Edited March 19, 2014 by BrightBow

[Purple Frog]

Limited pairings? You could marry anyone to anyone in FE4. They even gave Tiltyu and Briggid a massive love growth with Finn, so you could still pair them up in the one chapter that they are together if you want to.

Awakening lacks the freedom of FE4 and yet still has no more text worth a darn then that old Super Famicom game. But FE4 has a lot more emphasis on inheritance and legacy. Stuff that actually gives a purpose to that system.

How does Awakening lack freedom when you're able to pair every pairable unit bar Sumia and Chrom with any other? Sounds like you're overselling FE4 because inheritance and such still work the same. Kids still inherit skills, they inherit the OP Dark Mage class instead of Jugdrali Holy Blood and there's really not much different. Awakening was made to make Fire Emblem more popular and it tried out a lot of new things but that doesn't mean it was so bad that old poorly translated Famicom games kick its ass scriptwise. That's just exaggeration.

And by limited I meant that there's only so many pairings that are considered good. Kids can get SERIOUSLY screwed over and just suck because there's no grinding so it's touch and go just like any other FE. Awakening's dynamics were different enough that it didn't have this to such a degree.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Purple Frog

[BrightBow]

How does Awakening lack freedom when you're able to pair every pairable unit bar Sumia and Chrom with any other? Sounds like you're overselling FE4 because inheritance and such still work the same. Kids still inherit skills, they inherit the OP Dark Mage class instead of Jugdrali Holy Blood and there's really not much different. Awakening was made to make Fire Emblem more popular and it tried out a lot of new things but that doesn't mean it was so bad that old poorly translated Famicom games kick it's ass scriptwise. That's just exaggeration.

For one thing... everyone after Lucina lacks supports? Which is still after only half of the game in a game with perma death. They serve as marriage fodder for the Mary Sue and that's it. Not to mention... units in fe13 need supports just to stay competitive because enemies are scaled to take those bonuses into account. Those avoid and hit bonuses back then were nice but they were not vital to avoid being double attacked into submission.

The kids in FE4 got their parent's items (In a game where even an ordinary Iron Sword is unique and every weapon can gain Exp. Possession actually means something there.), money but most of all: Purpose.

The story is actually about the kids actually taking over their parents legacy and to have them deal with the world that they left behind. They are not tagged on like the kids in FE13, "Oh yeah, we came totally from the future along with Lucina, even though you saw the portal through which she came and we were nowhere. Afterwards we just kinda got lost for two years. But now we are here and we are going to show Grima's prepromotes what unpaired level 10 units are made of. So... could you please stay of the battlefield for once so that I can get a slot and a support partner? Also, if you want to doom the future of our resident namesakes by leaving Grima alive, we are all totally okay with that because 'après nous le déluge' is the best motto that a game about generations and legacy can have."

They are redundant low level clones in gameplay and drag down the story.

Edited March 19, 2014 by BrightBow

[BANRYU]

^ That was kind of the main problem that I had with the kids, even though I think the concept is cool and I like quite a lot of them on an individual basis.

But perhaps we're getting a bit off-topic. So... uh...

Minerva totally has the hots for Sully's badass demon horse.