Robin V Corrin

[Sunsurge]

Robin wins both for me. I haven't technically finished Conquest of Birthright yet---but that's honestly because both routes are hard for me to get into the story. Corrin is so ... weak. In Conquest I could go on and on about how silly and ridiculous the whole thing seems, and how frustrating Corrin is as a character and in Birthright Corrin is just so bland.

I think Corrin just has too much of a childish, naive personality. But to me it's not written in an endearing way, or even in a way that seems realistic. And it grates on my nerves again and again because I would literally do NONE of the things Corrin has done in the game. So they feel less like the Avatar and more just like the main character I'm forced to use.

I loved Robin and even though Robin had a pretty defined personality, I still ENJOYED Robin as the Avatar. It's hard for me to self-insert into a white character (haha), so instead I usually treat Avatar's as my own personal character that I guide around, rather than an extension of myself. And in that vein, I liked Robin a lot more, because he never did anything that grated on my every nerve.

And gameplay, I really detest the animation for Corrin's sword fighting. And I hate the stupid pointy ears and becoming that ugly horse/dragon. (I LOVE dragons, but I think this one is hideous). And Robin wins in both outfit, and the Grandmaster class was my absolute favorite (and obviously a total beast).

[Sunwoo]

I miss Micaiah, and I regret that I didn't appreciate her until her game became irrelevant. Micaiah is Nohr!Kamui done right. Like Nohr!Kamui, she is fighting for the "morally wrong" side. She's fighting not necessarily for what's right, but for the country that she loves. Like how Nohr!Kamui is fighting for the people that they love.

What's different between Micaiah and Nohr!Kamui is that the other characters call out Micaiah on stuff that she does. She's treated as a savior of Daein, yes, but the Crimeans, Begnions, and the laguz see her as the enemy until part 4 happens, when all the playable characters have to cooperate and Micaiah siding with Daein was better justified and founded than Kamui with Nohr. Micaiah is allowed to do things that other characters call out despicable, even if it's the enemy. Nohr!Kamui, on the other hand … no one's allowed to criticize them. Not even the enemy. Considering that Hoshidans who have valid reasons to dislike them are railroaded into forgiving them at the end, and everyone's all "oh Kamui, you were only doing what you had to", it comes off as very ridiculous. Kamui's a more self-centered character at that, too.

[RadiantDragon]

Yeah I dont understand why people were calling Micaiah a Mary Sue when she was called out by everyone for using "heinous tactics" and fighting for the wrong side, yes even Sothe did. Remember how Sothe told Micaiah that they are fighting a senseless war that Daein shouldn't be part of? Yeah even the one closest to her criticizes her behaviour. I dont see that kind of thing for both of the Avatars who do plenty of wrong and stupid things.

Anyway not a big fan of either of the Avatars here.

Edited May 13, 2016 by RadiantDragon

[Time the Crestfallen]

There is an important difference in how both incidents were treated in universe. In Radiant Dawn, the one who objects to Micaiah's ruthless tactics is Sanaki, aka the target of the attempted (she doesn't actually succeed) fire massacre. Even then, her comments about the incident aren't to say that Micaiah is a shitty person; Sanaki was confused about what could drive Micaiah to be so vicious.

While no one on Robin's team criticized him, the correct parallel to Sanaki would be a Valmese general (which still isn't perfect because Sanaki is a sympathetic POV and Walharts forces aren't), which we don't get the perspective of. Sure, Robin's "Burn them all" strategy should have been met with something more sobering than "gg wp Robin" but it's not like Sothe criticized Micaiah for a similar tactic.

tl;dr, while RD had the maturity to have someone comment that Micaiah was being cruel, that comment didn't come from anyone on her own team, in the same way that Robin wasn't criticized by anyone of his team.

Lastly, I don't believe being above criticism is an instrinsic quality of player avatars, like Robin and Kamui seem to be. IS just sucks at writing.

Well that's all well and good when there are people on the other side who's opinions are actually worth listening to. Sanaki pointing out the viciousness is fine, but who's going to call out Robin? Walhart, the big bad of the arc who 'razes villages for sport'? Some generic plebian who's will be forgotten about by the next chapter? Fucking Excellus?! Even if they did complain, the rest of the arc establishes them as friggin caricatures of Saturday morning cartoon villains (Walhart's surprisingly complex morality aside). There;s also the fact that when we do see the other side talking, it's all generic villain banter or, in one case, sucking Robin's dick (when Walhart says that Excellus is shit compared to Robin).

Also, while I will agree saying that 'all main character avatars suck', the way they're implemented in Fire Emblem is awful. Most video game avatars appear in games that let you dictate their personality to an extent i.e. Mass Effect's Paragon/Renegade system and the dialogue trees that appear in just about everything nowadays. What IntSys is doing is keeping the Avatar's as blank as possible so that the player can project themselves onto them more easily which, while fine for headcanons and fanfiction, doesn't work with the game's attempts to tell a story. If IntSys wants to fix this, they either need to allow more direct control over the Avatar or they need to give them an actual personality.

Edited May 13, 2016 by Phillius

[Sentinel07]

Yeah I dont understand why people were calling Micaiah a Mary Sue when she was called out by everyone for using "heinous tactics" and fighting for the wrong side, yes even Sothe did. Remember how Sothe told Micaiah that they are fighting a senseless war that Daein shouldn't be part of? Yeah even the one closest to her criticizes her behaviour. I dont see that kind of thing for both of the Avatars who do plenty of wrong and stupid things.

Anyway not a big fan of either of the Avatars here.

Agreed.

In so many ways, Intelligent Systems really needs to look back at their history. Most of the story and character attempts in Fates were done extremely better in previous games. They need to take a look back at those.

[Dark Sage]

I can say this with certainty: the Avatar system isn't going anywhere—at least, for the moment.

The first thing I would like to point out is that I feel that, while the Avatar system is meant to integrate the player into the game, it does not. For one, the Avatar isn't a self-insert—they are literally characters that you can slightly customize with their own predetermined personality and quirks. A self-insert would be something like the MC from the SMT series, Elder Scrolls dammit when is the next one coming out or Dragon Age; even still, those characters have a semblance of a personality due to how some choices are worded in-game.

I feel like the problem with Avatar characters in FE is that the writers don't want that character to have too little spotlight—because, then what would be the point of having them there? Robin was a good try, honestly. It seems most people are disgruntled because they became the main focus during the second half, when Chrom is the main character. With Fates, they made Corrin the main character, which sort of helped circumvent his stealing spotlight, but, in wanting to keep him in the spotlight, they made all the characters bend over to eat Corrin's dookie.

I feel like the Avatar character could be an interesting Narrator type. My favorite example would be if the Avatar was like Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby. He isn't the main focus; he's just the vessel through which we experience the story.

Granted, you could take out the Avatar and still have that but... Eh.

@bolded: yeah this.

I think Nick Carraway is the exact person to model the Avatar off of. Like, Nick has a connection to the main characters and he does have some importance in the plot (since he's part of the reason why Gatsby is able to meet with Daisy again) but he's not the focus and the characters and he's not a top priority for any of the characters. He also successfully captures the everyman archetype rather well since he's an ordinary guy who happens to be involved in the story, mainly as an observer. The avatar should ideally be this and the game should also stop pretending they're a self inseft.

You don't even need an avatar for customization. You can instead customize the lord's stats and reclass options instead, it's basically the same thing. Shit, you can even choose the gender if you want, Persona 3 Portable and a few other games do that pretty well.

[Sentinel07]

In all honesty, I kind of wonder how the Japanese players view Corrin's character (and Fates' story in general)

I know Female Corrin was voted the top female character, but I can't help but think that's mostly due to being able to marry the good looking guys in the game.

[saisymbolic]

@bolded: yeah this.

I think Nick Carraway is the exact person to model the Avatar off of. Like, Nick has a connection to the main characters and he does have some importance in the plot (since he's part of the reason why Gatsby is able to meet with Daisy again) but he's not the focus and the characters and he's not a top priority for any of the characters. He also successfully captures the everyman archetype rather well since he's an ordinary guy who happens to be involved in the story, mainly as an observer. The avatar should ideally be this and the game should also stop pretending they're a self inseft.

You don't even need an avatar for customization. You can instead customize the lord's stats and reclass options instead, it's basically the same thing. Shit, you can even choose the gender if you want, Persona 3 Portable and a few other games do that pretty well.

Yeah, Nick actually does a lot more in the story than I made it seem like. However, that would start a spiel about literary devices and terms such as the difference between a protagonist, the main character(s), narrators and heroes (all of which the writers of IS need to brush up on). And I don't want it to seem like the writers are horrible at their jobs nor do I want to downplay their works but, at the same time, I reserve the right to give constructive criticism (even though I doubt they'll ever read it).

It would be cool if the gender of the Avatar (or Lord character) altered the story in a large way, not just the people they could romance. The thing loved about the female MC of P3P was that she was a completely different character than that of the male MC and had her own set of supports she is the canon MC i don't care what they try to make me believe; the only thing I didn't really like was that her story still played out the same way as the male's did. I also understand that was most likely due to hardware limitations.

Then again, it might end up being like Sacred Stones...Hm. At the very least, there are several different ways the Avatar system could be done and, while it may be difficult, it is completely doable in my eyes.

[NekoKnight]

I miss Micaiah, and I regret that I didn't appreciate her until her game became irrelevant. Micaiah is Nohr!Kamui done right. Like Nohr!Kamui, she is fighting for the "morally wrong" side. She's fighting not necessarily for what's right, but for the country that she loves. Like how Nohr!Kamui is fighting for the people that they love.

What's different between Micaiah and Nohr!Kamui is that the other characters call out Micaiah on stuff that she does. She's treated as a savior of Daein, yes, but the Crimeans, Begnions, and the laguz see her as the enemy until part 4 happens, when all the playable characters have to cooperate and Micaiah siding with Daein was better justified and founded than Kamui with Nohr. Micaiah is allowed to do things that other characters call out despicable, even if it's the enemy. Nohr!Kamui, on the other hand … no one's allowed to criticize them. Not even the enemy. Considering that Hoshidans who have valid reasons to dislike them are railroaded into forgiving them at the end, and everyone's all "oh Kamui, you were only doing what you had to", it comes off as very ridiculous. Kamui's a more self-centered character at that, too.

Yes, YES!

Micaiah was done perfectly and Radiant Dawn's drama (Blood Pact bullshit regardless) was handled way better than Conquest. When Micaiah was forced to serve the people she despised and fight in a war she had no desire to, what did she do? Did she say "Okay, let's serve the bad guys until a lot of innocent people are killed, THEN we take action."? NO! She immediately asked Pelleas to search for a way break the blood pact, all while stalling as long as she can to keep her people out of the conflict. She's aware that she's doing bad things but she accepts them because it's to protect her homeland. She never gets any self-righteous thoughts like "I'm doing this for everyone's sake!" as Kamui does.

Well that's all well and good when there are people on the other side who's opinions are actually worth listening to. Sanaki pointing out the viciousness is fine, but who's going to call out Robin? Walhart, the big bad of the arc who 'razes villages for sport'? Some generic plebian who's will be forgotten about by the next chapter? Fucking Excellus?! Even if they did complain, the rest of the arc establishes them as friggin caricatures of Saturday morning cartoon villains (Walhart's surprisingly complex morality aside). There;s also the fact that when we do see the other side talking, it's all generic villain banter or, in one case, sucking Robin's dick (when Walhart says that Excellus is shit compared to Robin).

That's my point though. Neither Robin or Micaiah (for that specific action, Sothe still calls her out in other situations) are criticized by their own teams for using ruthless tactics, so the problem isn't with them. The action of using fire was necessary for both characters because they had no chance of winning in direct combat. What makes Radiant Dawn work is having other sympathetic points of view to criticize the protagonist. Sanaki's forces didn't even WANT to fight Micaiah's forces so she is able to make criticism that we care about. Awakening's foes are not at all sympathetic so neither the player nor characters in game have a reason to feel bad about what they're doing.

In other words, the fault lies not in Robin, it's in the story not giving you a reason to sympathize with his enemies. One could argue that the tone of the battle was too light, but that's an issue with the entire game.

Also, while I will agree saying that 'all main character avatars suck', the way they're implemented in Fire Emblem is awful. Most video game avatars appear in games that let you dictate their personality to an extent i.e. Mass Effect's Paragon/Renegade system and the dialogue trees that appear in just about everything nowadays. What IntSys is doing is keeping the Avatar's as blank as possible so that the player can project themselves onto them more easily which, while fine for headcanons and fanfiction, doesn't work with the game's attempts to tell a story. If IntSys wants to fix this, they either need to allow more direct control over the Avatar or they need to give them an actual personality.

Until they let us make relevant choices that define our morality, the Avatar is never going to be a good representation of what players want their character to be. Even now, the only thing we really have control over are class sets, appearance and who we ship our Avatar with. If we can't actually choose who they are as a character, rather than give us a generic personality to project on, they should give us a personality that players will like.

Edited May 14, 2016 by NekoKnight

[Sunwoo]

In all honesty, I kind of wonder how the Japanese players view Corrin's character (and Fates' story in general)

I know Female Corrin was voted the top female character, but I can't help but think that's mostly due to being able to marry the good looking guys in the game.

I've heard some people say that even a vocal part of Japan's FE community didn't like Fates' story.

As for female Kamui being voted top female character … well, I'm not buying it. For one, male and female Kamui are near identical characters and the male scored fifth (still high, but a far cry from first). I can't help but get the idea that a large number of female fans had voted their husbando of choice and their self inserto, while guys are less likely to vote for their self inserto if they did have a male character they really liked. And it's possible that female Kamui got votes from dudes who want to bang her over all of the other female characters or just think she's hot, while female fans would rather vote for their husbando, rather than the male version of the self-insert.

What can I say? People are shallow.

EDIT: Unrelated, but here's some more evidence that Micaiah is Nohrmui done right.

Micaiah: I… I want to save them all. The world is a better place with people like them in it.

Sothe: I know how you feel, Micaiah. That’s why we started all this. We’ve always been fighting for them. But this war we’re in… It’s not just. We’re fighting on the wrong side.

Micaiah: I know. I don’t want to see anyone die. It’s ironic… I’m killing with no malice, because I don’t want anyone to be killed. I… What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to stand back and let all of Daein perish? Is that the “just” thing to do?

Sothe: …

Micaiah: If that’s what it takes to be just, then I want nothing to do with justice. I’d rather be hated and feared like Mad King Ashnard. I’d rather the dark god take my soul. I’m going to save my people, Sothe. If the rest of the world paints me as a beast to be reviled and hated, so be it.

How did we go from this to whatever the hell Nohrmui does …

Edited May 14, 2016 by Sunwoo

[Ebony]

Welcome to the Micaiah appreciation club please enjoy your stay.

Yeah, Nick actually does a lot more in the story than I made it seem like. However, that would start a spiel about literary devices and terms such as the difference between a protagonist, the main character(s), narrators and heroes (all of which the writers of IS need to brush up on). And I don't want it to seem like the writers are horrible at their jobs nor do I want to downplay their works but, at the same time, I reserve the right to give constructive criticism (even though I doubt they'll ever read it).

It would be cool if the gender of the Avatar (or Lord character) altered the story in a large way, not just the people they could romance. The thing loved about the female MC of P3P was that she was a completely different character than that of the male MC and had her own set of supports she is the canon MC i don't care what they try to make me believe; the only thing I didn't really like was that her story still played out the same way as the male's did. I also understand that was most likely due to hardware limitations.

Then again, it might end up being like Sacred Stones...Hm. At the very least, there are several different ways the Avatar system could be done and, while it may be difficult, it is completely doable in my eyes.

Minako and Minato are both canon to me. They are hanging out after the finale. Neither is alone.

I think a Sacred Stones approach could have worked for Fates even tbh...

[Jedi]

Yeah, Nick actually does a lot more in the story than I made it seem like. However, that would start a spiel about literary devices and terms such as the difference between a protagonist, the main character(s), narrators and heroes (all of which the writers of IS need to brush up on). And I don't want it to seem like the writers are horrible at their jobs nor do I want to downplay their works but, at the same time, I reserve the right to give constructive criticism (even though I doubt they'll ever read it).

It would be cool if the gender of the Avatar (or Lord character) altered the story in a large way, not just the people they could romance. The thing loved about the female MC of P3P was that she was a completely different character than that of the male MC and had her own set of supports she is the canon MC i don't care what they try to make me believe; the only thing I didn't really like was that her story still played out the same way as the male's did. I also understand that was most likely due to hardware limitations.

Then again, it might end up being like Sacred Stones...Hm. At the very least, there are several different ways the Avatar system could be done and, while it may be difficult, it is completely doable in my eyes.

The sad thing is, I doubt we'll see a change considering how successful Fates and Awakening were, they probably don't see or care about the glaring issues as long as they are now a hot selling game franchise.

Its just the general gist I get, I like your idea of the gender altering story parts btw.

Edited May 14, 2016 by Jedi

[mikethepokemaster]

And this is why any remakes if they decide to do them, will be raising an eyebrow from the people who've played the past games, because they'll likely do what they did in FE12 and have an avatar take center stage and completely overshadow and make the protagonist a figurehead sobbing wreck of a man (See Marth in FE12 after his really good FE11 characterization.)

Lucina doesn't even really get to shine either speaking of her, she's about as relevant to Awakening's plot as Lyn is to Blazing Swords.

I can see Blazing Sword(fire Emblem) Avatar being the only one with the Avatar. Fe4 could have a macanery as the Avatar. F6 can just play off of 7 with the Avatar child unit being Roy best bud or dudette. Edited May 14, 2016 by mikethepokemaster

[Sentinel07]

I've heard some people say that even a vocal part of Japan's FE community didn't like Fates' story.

As for female Kamui being voted top female character … well, I'm not buying it. For one, male and female Kamui are near identical characters and the male scored fifth (still high, but a far cry from first). I can't help but get the idea that a large number of female fans had voted their husbando of choice and their self inserto, while guys are less likely to vote for their self inserto if they did have a male character they really liked. And it's possible that female Kamui got votes from dudes who want to bang her over all of the other female characters or just think she's hot, while female fans would rather vote for their husbando, rather than the male version of the self-insert.

What can I say? People are shallow.

EDIT: Unrelated, but here's some more evidence that Micaiah is Nohrmui done right.

Micaiah: I… I want to save them all. The world is a better place with people like them in it.

Sothe: I know how you feel, Micaiah. That’s why we started all this. We’ve always been fighting for them. But this war we’re in… It’s not just. We’re fighting on the wrong side.

Micaiah: I know. I don’t want to see anyone die. It’s ironic… I’m killing with no malice, because I don’t want anyone to be killed. I… What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to stand back and let all of Daein perish? Is that the “just” thing to do?

Sothe: …

Micaiah: If that’s what it takes to be just, then I want nothing to do with justice. I’d rather be hated and feared like Mad King Ashnard. I’d rather the dark god take my soul. I’m going to save my people, Sothe. If the rest of the world paints me as a beast to be reviled and hated, so be it.

How did we go from this to whatever the hell Nohrmui does …

That's part of why I honestly really like Micaiah. Unlike Corrin, she never glorified what she was trying to do. She did what she thought she had to do, consequences be damned.

[TheWerdna]

I now understand why Azuresen and Quintessence are for avatar removal. Creating an avatar that is important, but not so important that they steal the show could be a tricky thing to do and may lead to more botched ideas leading to more awful stories. It can be done but IS are going to need to step up their game.

Personality selection is a good idea and a step in the right direction,but that will probably be a lot of work to pull off.

I mean, giving player meaningful choice (and not in the sense of choosing what game you buy, because seriously) and more occasions to pick dialogue options (even if its only like 1-2 per chapter) would help as well

[Sunwoo]

I can see Blazing Sword(fire Emblem) Avatar being the only one with the Avatar. Fe4 could have a macanery as the Avatar. F6 can just play off of 7 with the Avatar child unit being Roy best bud or dudette.

NO. We already have Wolt. And even if Wolt is a trivial, non-important character (and a terrible unit), he already exists as basically Roy's best friend. I'm opposed to the principle of kicking out pre-existing characters out of their established roles just for the sake of fitting in an avatar.

[Azure Sen]

Honestly, I think games like Fire Emblem are completely unsuited to the concept of a complete player insert. There should definately be characters with traits that allow the audience to relate to them because that's just good writing, but linear storytelling where you have no actual choice in how the events of the story proceed is the worst place to try and establish direct player involvement in the events of the story. Especially given its track record in the series so far, where it's either "has no relevance to the plot whatsoever and is in fact totally omitted by the game on certain difficulties which changes nothing of importance" (Mark, Kris to some extent) or "hogs all the spotlight and makes the plot do gymnastics to make them a perfect flawless saint so as to not insult the player" (Kris again to some extent, Robin, Corrin).

Since SaiSymbolic brought up SMT, let's compare. The protagonists of the mainline SMT games (I-IV and Strange Journey) are characters you can name and determine the personalities and alignments of. However, their choices actually affect the story, from what bosses you have to fight (mostly in I and II) and what demons you can recruit to your ending and how it shapes the world. Characters will call you out or try to kill you for not joining their side, and will do the same if you mess up. Even Persona, the series where the silent protagonists actually have personality and which has gone in the same kind of self-insert route as of late, isn't afraid to call out the player for screwing up or being an ass (see also: the bad endings of Persona 1, 3 and 4).

I'm opposed to the principle of kicking out pre-existing characters out of their established roles just for the sake of fitting in an avatar.

Especially since we've already seen the result of that, and it's Kris. While I don't hate Kris, I don't think being forced into the roles of several other characters (including Caeda, if Kris is female) helped Kris's reputation any, and it's honestly one of my major problems with New Mystery's implementation of the Avatar system.

[BlueBloodEmblazer]

I prefer Robin over Corrin.

The avatar should never be the main lord, but a tactician instead since that's what you are. A tactician.

Also Corrin is so naive he's a little stupid.

I hope the next game's avatar is a quiet-ish tactician amnesiac, with little to do storyline-wise. Also make them a character to bring out character development in every other characters with supports. By keeping him quiet like that it could feel like I'm playing as myself and not a different character

[Time the Crestfallen]

That's my point though. Neither Robin or Micaiah (for that specific action, Sothe still calls her out in other situations) are criticized by their own teams for using ruthless tactics, so the problem isn't with them. The action of using fire was necessary for both characters because they had no chance of winning in direct combat. What makes Radiant Dawn work is having other sympathetic points of view to criticize the protagonist. Sanaki's forces didn't even WANT to fight Micaiah's forces so she is able to make criticism that we care about. Awakening's foes are not at all sympathetic so neither the player nor characters in game have a reason to feel bad about what they're doing.

Exactly. The only moral difference between Robin and Micaiah is that Awakening has a case or protagonist-centered morality i.e. who cares what the villains think, they're all monsters anyway. Fates has the same problem, only Corrin is probably the biggest victim of it in terms of characterisation as opposed to benefiting from it like Robin does.

I can see Blazing Sword(fire Emblem) Avatar being the only one with the Avatar. Fe4 could have a macanery as the Avatar. F6 can just play off of 7 with the Avatar child unit being Roy best bud or dudette.

They tried that. The character was called Kris and they fucking sucked.

Edited May 14, 2016 by Phillius

[Jedi]

I can see Blazing Sword(fire Emblem) Avatar being the only one with the Avatar. Fe4 could have a macanery as the Avatar. F6 can just play off of 7 with the Avatar child unit being Roy best bud or dudette.

See heres the thing FE12 is what introduced the Avatar concept, and in FE3 there was no character remotely like Kris, so I think its safe to say any remake will shoehorn in an avatar like character because of the mechanics popularity.

Just my opinion though.

[Roflolxp54]

Sort of lame how the mute option (in which the Avatar has no spoken lines whatsoever and simply speaks only in ellipses similar to Trainer Red in Pokemon GSC; of course the story script and the supports have to be re-written to account for the silent protagonist) doesn't exist in Fates (as far as I know). Of course, it most likely wouldn't fly in localization if Awakening was any indication.

... If anything, that can be a thing that was done right on Reflet (NOT Robin since this was only in Kakusei, not Awakening; felt like pulling Dogasu's Backpack).

Edited May 14, 2016 by Roflolxp54

[mikethepokemaster]

NO. We already have Wolt. And even if Wolt is a trivial, non-important character (and a terrible unit), he already exists as basically Roy's best friend. I'm opposed to the principle of kicking out pre-existing characters out of their established roles just for the sake of fitting in an avatar.

You know people can have more than one best friend right? But I guess I get your point. Maybe they can be good friends instead.

See heres the thing FE12 is what introduced the Avatar concept, and in FE3 there was no character remotely like Kris, so I think its safe to say any remake will shoehorn in an avatar like character because of the mechanics popularity.

Just my opinion though.

Yeah I can see that and plus the only ones who would know about the Avatar are neither old fans or fans who went to play the older version, which I hear on different sites is kind of small.

Exactly. The only moral difference between Robin and Micaiah is that Awakening has a case or protagonist-centered morality i.e. who cares what the villains think, they're all monsters anyway. Fates has the same problem, only Corrin is probably the biggest victim of it in terms of characterisation as opposed to benefiting from it like Robin does.

They tried that. The character was called Kris and they fucking sucked.

I want to ask did Japan dislike Kris or is just English fans who dislike him. Since I haven't and probably won't play the original version of fe3 he was okay to me.

[NekoKnight]

Exactly. The only moral difference between Robin and Micaiah is that Awakening has a case or protagonist-centered morality i.e. who cares what the villains think, they're all monsters anyway.

I think you are misusing that term. Protagonist centered morality is when another character's morality is determined by how much the protagonist likes them, regardless of their actual merit. Ex. Pardoning a serial killer because he saved your girlfriend's life one time, or framing a guy for a heinous crime because he had the audacity to insult your haircut.

The morality of the Walharts forces wasn't determined because Chrom or Robin didn't like them, it's because they were enemies who intended to invade their continent. Robin used a legitimate military tactic against hostile soldiers. You're acting like Robin's actions were unethical but the game ignored it because he's on the protagonist's side.

Fates has the same problem, only Corrin is probably the biggest victim of it in terms of characterisation as opposed to benefiting from it like Robin does.

[Rukina]

Birthright: Corrin; Long story short, I got to know him better. Not being the son of a 'serpent' is also a plus.

Corrin again! Robin was far to powerful for his own good. Him and (strong ally unit) together were basically immortal. >.> Bosses were lucky to survive one rotation against him with an ally and often missed their attacks before getting counter attacked.

Edited May 14, 2016 by Sarracenia

[Time the Crestfallen]

I think you are misusing that term. Protagonist centered morality is when another character's morality is determined by how much the protagonist likes them, regardless of their actual merit. Ex. Pardoning a serial killer because he saved your girlfriend's life one time, or framing a guy for a heinous crime because he had the audacity to insult your haircut.

The morality of the Walharts forces wasn't determined because Chrom or Robin didn't like them, it's because they were enemies who intended to invade their continent. Robin used a legitimate military tactic against hostile soldiers. You're acting like Robin's actions were unethical but the game ignored it because he's on the protagonist's side.

I'm sorry, my tropespeak isn't what it used to be and 'moral dissonance' didn't feel like the appropriate description. Regardless, my complaint isn't that Robin's actions were 'unethical' persay, but that Micaiah doing so is treated as, while not necessarily 'evil', as a vicious tactic rather than something that's nothing out of the ordinary. I'm actually more pissed about Robin's ability to pull such a tactic of with little preparation or planning and have it succeed flawlessly than I am about any moral implications and don't even get me started on the fucking volcano level.

I was going to write a whole spiel about this, but I'm really exhausted now (sleep is for the weak!), so I'll give the short version; Awakening's lack of moral complexity benefits Robin in that he is presented as being morally right and gets away with it because the villains are so obviously evil that they make HYDRA look benign by comparison. However, Fates attempting to keep the same 'the avatar is always right' storyline while attempting a more morally complex plot not only forces Corrin into a role that doesn't suit them (as leader of the army), but also denies him the opportunity to grow as a character, often while derailing other characters in the process and leading to a lot of undeserved (or rather, undeserved in my opinion) hate, despite the fact that a lot of what people claim makes Corrin a terrible character can be largely attributed to other characters or the overall narrative as opposed to any failings on Corrin's part.

And yes, this is the 'short' version.