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Plothole in the prologue?


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Recently started playing this and am loving it so far. Big thanks to all the people who made the translation patch, Luke is awesome and funny xD

Now for the purpose of this topic. Roro says that him and the assassins set up the bandit attack in the prologue chapters to put their plan into action, but why? I don't see how MU and them killing bandits would have anything to do with an assassination attempt on Marth. The assassins should already know anyone who follows Marth would intervene. I'm confused.

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I haven't played for quite a time but if I remember correctly their goal was to increase the reputation of Katarina's group so she could more easily do her job.

Something like that, I believe.

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^I'm pretty sure he's referring to how quickly Marth decides to promote Kris and Katarina to royal guards after the bandit attack, tho this felt very in character for Marth for me.

I honestly feel the assassin subplot is pointless, but I don't feel it makes Altea's government a joke by any means.

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What do you even mean by "making Altea's government look like a joke"?

I didn't know appointing an assassin to the bodyguard of the prince she's supposed to assassinate was a mark of top-notch government. Really, some newbies helping to fight off bandits was grounds to appoint them to the positions of royal bodyguards?

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You're misrepresenting my statement. I didn't imply that the Altean government is perfect, so your sarcastic argument is meaningless.

At the start of FE12, Altea is in a reconstruction phase (recall that a big part of the army died at the start of FE11, along with the king and the queen), so it's nothing remarkable that the government is a bit messy. Would you say that Katarina has a suspicious appearance? By arguing "the government is made look like a joke" you're taking for granted that the average government in a similar situation would have discovered it with ease, which is pretty questionable. Perhaps it'd be different if Marth would've been deceived multiple times, but that isn't the case.

For the gaiden chapters (which make up 3/4 of the assassins subplot), your claim is irrelevant because they are just immediate attacks from the assassins and have nothing to do with the government.

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Please, Katarina even managed to force other soldiers into sleep. No matter how hard you try to excuse it, Katarina being put in the position to to threaten Marth how she did reflects poorly on Marth and his actually loyal subordinates.

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In which case, why does it only reflect poorly on Marth and Altea when literally every Lord in the series is just as trusting?

Sides, Katarina still failed despite Marth's overtrustfulness, and she was supported by quite the well trained group of people. Combined with a basically ruined from war country that really needed all the help it could get, Katarina getting as close as she did doesn't make Altea's government a joke, since they effectively dealed with the threat even tho they were still in full country reconstruction mode aka their most vulnerable point.

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Yeah, my point exactly. I'm not trying hard to excuse that mistake / the trust Marth puts into people (arguably overly), nor do I seek to say that that would happen to a country at its full power. I'm just saying that it's not due to a weakness intrinsic to the Altean government, and that this kind of plot element is a very realistic one given Altea's condition at the start of FE12.

That's why it's not a joke. It just has a realistic weakness.

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Haha yeeeeaaah. Good going Marth. Luckily it works out for him in the end, but...

Caeda says he's a "naive, scared child" or something to that effect so it is in character. But I'm getting the feeling if he wasn't royalty, he'd be dead a long time ago for trusting someone he shouldn't. Then again, there's going to be more people trying to lead royals into traps that cost them their lives than commoners.

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Yeah, as needless as the assassin subplot is, I have to give props to the writers for showing what would most likely happen to an FE lord when they are as trusting as they are.

I get the feeling that's what FE8 was going for with Lyon, but demonic possession kinda ruined that idea.

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In which case, why does it only reflect poorly on Marth and Altea when literally every Lord in the series is just as trusting?

When did Marth do anything close to that in the War of Shadows?

Caeda says he's a "naive, scared child" or something to that effect so it is in character.

I'm sure you're referring to Elice's talk with Kris. That's not really one of New Mystery's better moments considering how Marth acted in Shadow Dragon and the shilling Kris gets.

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I dunno, Marth isn't lacking on actual "elite" Soldiers to serve as his personal guard. Soldiers who fought with him over the course of an entire war. And who gets the position? A bunch of rookies who've done a few weeks/months of training and beat up some bandits.

That's pretty stupid.

For the gaiden chapters (which make up 3/4 of the assassins subplot), your claim is irrelevant because they are just immediate attacks from the assassins and have nothing to do with the government.

They do fuck with other characters or the overall flow of the story though. 1, 2.

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Roger, Lorenz, Navarre, Julian who it's worth mentioning straight up tells Marth he's a bad guy, and every other red unit that's recruited that didn't have previous Archenean or Altean ties.

Also, Shadow Dragon flat out says the army thought Marth was being to trusting of Minerva when she asked him to save Maria, but Marth decides to trust her based on one fight they had anyway. Just like Kris and Katarina winning his trust with one battle.

Heck, if anything trusting Minerva in SD reflects more poorly on Marth's character by your logic , since all she did was actively impede Marth's progress over the course of the game thus far, hostage or not, Marth would of had no reason to believe that, and considering who Minerva's brother is, trusting her as easily as he did makes way less sense than trusting two Alteans who want to help out during his country's reconstruction.

Also, finally it's worth stating that Shadow Dragon's localization actually got Marth's character wrong to make him appeal more to the American audience, FE12 Marth is much closer to Marth's original character than FE11 Marth, and if New Mystery was actually localized, his character would of been closer to his SD counterpart.

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Roger, Lorenz, Navarre, Julian who it's worth mentioning straight up tells Marth he's a bad guy, and every other red unit that's recruited that didn't have previous Archenean or Altean ties.

Recruitment =/= personal guard/knights of altea with access to everything. Nobody has a problem with Altea recruiting soldiers, it's the status they get elevated to.

Also, Shadow Dragon flat out says the army thought Marth was being to trusting of Minerva when she asked him to save Maria, but Marth decides to trust her based on one fight they had anyway. Just like Kris and Katarina winning his trust with one battle.

Heck, if anything trusting Minerva in SD reflects more poorly on Marth's character by your logic , since all she did was actively impede Marth's progress over the course of the game thus far, hostage or not, Marth would of had no reason to believe that, and considering who Minerva's brother is, trusting her as easily as he did makes way less sense than trusting two Alteans who want to help out during his country's reconstruction.

Minerva is nobility, much like Hardin and Marth, so there's an element of general diplomacy and trust that follows. Forming alliances between nations is a rather different matter than just taking on rookies into your personal guard. Additionally, Marth's goal was the liberation of the entire continent from Dolhr, and he has as much reason to trust someone like Nyna as he does to trust Minerva in that respect; they're both important figureheads representing nation states which are currently operating as vassals of Dolhr. Being a representative figurehead also puts many leverages on Minerva. Underhandedly attacking Marth puts her entire nation into disrepute, and it's unlikely she'd be able to assassinate Marth herself without being killed or taken hostage. That's a bigger problem than random assassins that have been retconned into existance with no ties to anybody dying.

You may say that's bullshit but there have been concepts of proper conduct in warfare going back to BC eras. Granted, not everyone always obeys them, but the concepts existed. Plus, "rescuing" Maria also potentially gives them claims of legitimacy on Marth's imperial romp across the continent, or at least something of a hostage if you want to think more brutishly.

Also, finally it's worth stating that Shadow Dragon's localization actually got Marth's character wrong to make him appeal more to the American audience, FE12 Marth is much closer to Marth's original character than FE11 Marth, and if New Mystery was actually localized, his character would of been closer to his SD counterpart.

This was not a product of the localisation solely. Japanese Marth in SD is angrier than he is in FE3.

People recognise SD Marth to be a more nuanced and better written character anyway as far as an update goes anyway.

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When did Marth do anything close to that in the War of Shadows?

I'm sure you're referring to Elice's talk with Kris. That's not really one of New Mystery's better moments considering how Marth acted in Shadow Dragon and the shilling Kris gets.

The English version of Marth is far different from his actually Japanese counterpart in Shadow Dragon. In the English version of Shadow Dragon they made him much more calm, collected, and overall a real leader while in the Japanese was more naive and innocent. So what Elice is talking about in FE12 actually is accurate.

And on topic, yeah. I agree with Dragoncat about, if Marth wasn't royalty, he'd be dead long ago. Marth may be one of my favorite characters in the entire series, but I won't deny that he's also one of the most idiotic/childish at times.

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SD didn't get much character development for anybody as far as I remember though.

Well the number of characters that get any kind of depth or development can be counted on one hand sure, but they exist.

Marth for example, being one of the few characters with a substantial amount of dialogue, has several moments that delve into his character. Shadow Dragon has excellent writing, there just isn't as much to work with as other games(plenty was added compared to the original game, but many including myself argue that it still wasn't enough), but of course Marth is the exception here. This is why Shadow Dragon's version of the character gets so much praise.

And that's also why FE12's version gets so much flak. Despite FE12 adding more dialogue for other characters(mostly through support conversations), Marth somehow lost depth to his character.

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The English version of Marth is far different from his actually Japanese counterpart in Shadow Dragon. In the English version of Shadow Dragon they made him much more calm, collected, and overall a real leader while in the Japanese was more naive and innocent. So what Elice is talking about in FE12 actually is accurate.

Irysa already addressed this. Anyway, it's one thing for Marth to be all sheltered, it's another thing to have him cling to the legs of Kris.

And on topic, yeah. I agree with Dragoncat about, if Marth wasn't royalty, he'd be dead long ago. Marth may be one of my favorite characters in the entire series, but I won't deny that he's also one of the most idiotic/childish at times.

I still haven't seen someone post an example of Marth doing something even close to letting an assassin serve as one of his bodyguards on flimsy grounds.

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I will just openly admit that I had never played FE11 and was entirely unaware that my translation was tonally inconsistent. I also thought that the localization team would edit a lot more of my manuscript, which didn't end up happening. So a lot of what you're seeing is as literal as possible, which was the goal, honestly. It was very difficult to remain faithful to the text and spice things up at the same time. I think my job was mostly just to make the game digestible and without too much flavour.

I have no doubt that the FE11 localisation made Marth a much "edgier" protagonist but the way he was written in FE12 is much more consistent with FE franchise's depiction of his being an overly trusting person.

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Marth was going around shilling Kris. How Kris became Marth's bodyguard was transparently shoehorning a retcon character into Marth's inner circle. Going on about how Marth is supposedly overly trusting is really avoiding the point.

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