More Unpopular Fire Emblem Opinions

[Moblin Major General]

They go for headcanons and treat them as indisputable facts.

This is a problem with more than just Fates. Elibian Nights is dedicated to headcanons about what happened between Blazing Sword and Binding Blade, and some of those tales don't even make sense within the context of the story, especially the immediate rebellion in Ostia after Hector takes the throne. The people knew Uther was dead, and that Hector would be their new marquess. Erik would've also gone out of his way to not piss off Ostia or Pherae purely because of the threat of war. Yet so many tout a hack as part of the timeline.

[Rezzy]

Fire Emblem is not real life, and Ryouma did not attack her. Even if he did, like Takumi, he'd be well within his right to do so since she unquestionably serves the man invading their country and is a person of influence and power.

If we go by real life standards during medieval times, we can always ask Blah the Prussian what happened to high value hostages like royalty.

Typically they tried to take high profile royals hostage, rather than killing them. They could then be used as bargaining chips or exchanged for a literal king's ransom.

[Thane]

Typically they tried to take high profile royals hostage, rather than killing them. They could then be used as bargaining chips or exchanged for a literal king's ransom.

Precisely. They did not give them medicine to be nice, and I'm baffled by people thinking this is a point against Ryouma or Hoshido in general. If anything the truly surprising part is Corrin not immediately accepting the demands.

[Augestein]

Precisely. They did not give them medicine to be nice, and I'm baffled by people thinking this is a point against Ryouma or Hoshido in general. If anything the truly surprising part is Corrin not immediately accepting the demands.

Well I'd still say it could count as a point against him. He's still a jerk for doing it, but honestly? It's not something that's done in a stupid way. So it gives him -2 nice guy points and + 2 smart guy points. When doing something that's not so nice is balanced by the intelligence behind it, it's not so bad, but I can see how it could bother people.

[MCProductions]

The difference, of course, being that, while I don't like particularly care for Tharja, we at least see her do good things in her supports. Yes, I know about her treatment of Noire and no, I don't like it, even if it was another version of her, but she helps people out in Virion's support, laments not being able to save innocents in Vaike's and tries hard to comfort Nowi in hers. Tharja is also called out on her behavior by people like Gaius, who calls her "unbelievably creepy". This is a stark contrast to Camilla, who we're simply told is a good person, yet we only see the complete opposite. We're told she's nurturing, but she doesn't really care about other people's feelings, instead doing only what she wants and tries to sway other people to do what she wants. Camilla has almost no humanizing moments to speak of, unlike Tharja.

Camilla is by far one of the worst written characters in Fire Emblem. First and foremost, her role in the main story is miniscule, where two out of three cutscenes she appears in are entirely centered around her appearance. Like Alastor said, she's not even really a part of the Conquest story, much like the rest of the siblings, because she's kept in the dark about Garon, robbing her of any potential character development that could've come from dealing with the dilemma of having to kill your own father.

She would've been salvageable had she had decent supports, but she just doesn't. It seems like whenever people discuss Camilla, they go for headcanons and treat them as indisputable facts. The fact of the matter is that we know very little about her background, only getting a few allusions to it in Niles' support, and the personality we see in other supports is frankly speaking appalling, and the other people putting up with her is completely unbelievable.

We're going to have to agree to disagree here I guess, because I haven't seen her supports with Niles or most of her supports in general because Beruka bias in my use of certain characters, yet I still felt like these "concubine wars" as I've seen the fandom call them and her nurturing nature were fleshed out enough in what I've seen for me to not be able to see Camilla as anything more than a highly traumatized and disturbingly enough, highly sexulized, variant of the Minerva archetype. Granted, we seem destined to disagree on EVERYTHING when it comes to FE plot, so I guess the tradition continues.

[Azure Sen]

We're going to have to agree to disagree here I guess, because I haven't seen her supports with Niles or most of her supports in general because Beruka bias in my use of certain characters, yet I still felt like these "concubine wars" as I've seen the fandom call them and her nurturing nature were fleshed out enough in what I've seen for me to not be able to see Camilla as anything more than a highly traumatized and disturbingly enough, highly sexulized, variant of the Minerva archetype. Granted, we seem destined to disagree on EVERYTHING when it comes to FE plot, so I guess the tradition continues.

The events of the "concubine wars" are 99% fanon; literally all we get to hear about them in-game is:

Camilla: Oh. Didn't you know? Xander is the only one of my siblings born to the queen. The rest of us—Leo, Elise, and I—we're all children of King Garon's mistresses. Different mistresses, I might add. He loved to pit our mothers against each other.

Niles: I had no idea.

Camilla: Our mothers were the lowest of the low, trying to claw their way to a better status. Naturally, they used us as bait in all of their conflicts.

Niles: Lady Camilla, I'm—

Camilla: You said I was pathetic, and you were right! My mother loved me, but only as a pawn.

[MCProductions]

The events of the "concubine wars" are 99% fanon; literally all we get to hear about them in-game is:

Which is 90% more backstory than anyone else in Fartes so...

Kinda curious how I learned of Camilla's backstory since I avoided fanfics and fanon theroies like the plauge when I marathoned Fartes, yet I swear this stuff was conveyed to me despite never getting Niles support with Camilla. Regardless, I still think she's a much better character than SF gives her credit for. Kinda like my thoughts on Fates story as a whole, it's not good by any means, but it's by no means the worst thing ever, hell it's not the worst plot in the series either.

[Refa]

Not necessarily an unpopular opinion but relevant to the above: I don't like how most of the character development in Fates is relegated to supports and DLC over actually being in the main story and relevant to it. This is fair for side characters because there's no way in hell those guys are getting too much done in the main story without it feeling bloated, but at least the royal siblings should have had more of their development in the main plot itself.

[Thane]

Which is 90% more backstory than anyone else in Fartes so...

Kinda curious how I learned of Camilla's backstory since I avoided fanfics and fanon theroies like the plauge when I marathoned Fartes, yet I swear this stuff was conveyed to me despite never getting Niles support with Camilla. Regardless, I still think she's a much better character than SF gives her credit for. Kinda like my thoughts on Fates story as a whole, it's not good by any means, but it's by no means the worst thing ever, hell it's not the worst plot in the series either.

You said you thought the "Concubine Wars" were fleshed out enough, yet they only real allusion to it are three lines? It's no wonder we keep clashing.

If I were to guess, you found this out on a thread discussing Camilla because, as previously stated, a lot of people convey these things as facts even though we've got very, very little information to go on. If you think this is enough fleshing-out for a character and enough to justify her horrible, horrible supports and role in the main story, then I really don't know how to respond, and I'll be forced to agree to disagree with you.

[Azure Sen]

Which is 90% more backstory than anyone else in Fartes so...

I mean, if you ignore Jakob, Felicia, Flora, Oboro, Beruka, Niles, Gunther, Tsubaki, Reina, Kagero, Orochi, Mikoto, Anankos, Azura, Arete, Hinoka, Azama, Garon, the other royals, Peri, Scarlet, Kaze, Saizo and Effie's backstories, all of which are given in the game, either in supports, the story or locked behind a paywall explained in DLC, then that's true. Granted, none of the backstories in Fates are particularly fleshed out, but three lines and a ton of fanon do not more backstory make.

As a side note, I am a little disappointed that Leo, despite apparently being born into the same situation as Camilla, never talks about his experiences in Nohr's court.

Edited October 13, 2016 by AzureSen

[Troykv]

Which is 90% more backstory than anyone else in Fartes so...

Kinda curious how I learned of Camilla's backstory since I avoided fanfics and fanon theroies like the plauge when I marathoned Fartes, yet I swear this stuff was conveyed to me despite never getting Niles support with Camilla. Regardless, I still think she's a much better character than SF gives her credit for. Kinda like my thoughts on Fates story as a whole, it's not good by any means, but it's by no means the worst thing ever, hell it's not the worst plot in the series either.

Well, that talk about how this fanon is so popular that even the people that don't read fan fiction can know it.

[NekoKnight]

We're going to have to agree to disagree here I guess, because I haven't seen her supports with Niles or most of her supports in general because Beruka bias in my use of certain characters, yet I still felt like these "concubine wars" as I've seen the fandom call them and her nurturing nature were fleshed out enough in what I've seen for me to not be able to see Camilla as anything more than a highly traumatized and disturbingly enough, highly sexulized, variant of the Minerva archetype. Granted, we seem destined to disagree on EVERYTHING when it comes to FE plot, so I guess the tradition continues.

So you're making a judgement on her character despite not reading any of her supports and are just making an opinion based on second-hand information? Opinions can't be wrong but that is the definition of uninformed.

The events of the "concubine wars" are 99% fanon; literally all we get to hear about them in-game is:

Camilla: Oh. Didn't you know? Xander is the only one of my siblings born to the queen. The rest of us—Leo, Elise, and I—we're all children of King Garon's mistresses. Different mistresses, I might add. He loved to pit our mothers against each other.

Niles: I had no idea.

Camilla: Our mothers were the lowest of the low, trying to claw their way to a better status. Naturally, they used us as bait in all of their conflicts.

Niles: Lady Camilla, I'm—

Camilla: You said I was pathetic, and you were right! My mother loved me, but only as a pawn.

I believe the conflict is also mentioned in Leo x Elise, although also with vague details.

Edited October 14, 2016 by NekoKnight

[Azure Sen]

I believe the conflict is also mentioned in Leo x Elise, although also with vague details.

Very vague. Here's what it says:

Leo: I know it's hard to believe now, but he was known as an extremely charismatic leader. Unfortunately, this charisma inspired much chaos among his suitors. There were so many vying for his favor that they frequently turned to violence. Some even turned on members of their own family.

Elise: What?! How could someone do that to their own family?

Leo: I suppose they lost all sense of self-control in their effort to rise in position. I agree, it certainly does not speak well of their character.

It also directly contradicts Camilla/Niles, where Camilla says Garon pitted his wives against each other.

Edited October 14, 2016 by AzureSen

[Florete]

It also directly contradicts Camilla/Niles, where Camilla says Garon pitted his wives against each other.

That's not a direct contradiction at all. Not only are those two accounts not really contradicting in the first place, it's entirely reasonable to see it as the difference between how two different people witnessed events.

[Azure Sen]

That's not a direct contradiction at all. Not only are those two accounts not really contradicting in the first place, it's entirely reasonable to see it as the difference between how two different people witnessed events.

The game doesn't present it that way, and given that there are other supports that contradict both each other and the main story, I'm not inclined to believe this is intentional.

[Florete]

The game doesn't present it that way, and given that there are other supports that contradict both each other and the main story, I'm not inclined to believe this is intentional.

I mean, I'm not exactly one to defend Fates' story since I think it's the worst in the series, but I'm not following this. When I look at those conversations all I see is differing accounts from different viewpoints. This is completely normal and there is nothing contradictory.

[NekoKnight]

Very vague. Here's what it says:

It also directly contradicts Camilla/Niles, where Camilla says Garon pitted his wives against each other.

It's not that much of a discrepancy and I'm more inclined to believe Florete's interpretation. In both versions of the story, the wives vie for Garon's attention/status in the court. The only difference is in Camilla's interpretation Garon encouraged the rivalry, whereas Leo's infers they did it all by their own will.

[Azure Sen]

I mean, I'm not exactly one to defend Fates' story since I think it's the worst in the series, but I'm not following this. When I look at those conversations all I see is differing accounts from different viewpoints. This is completely normal and there is nothing contradictory.

It's not that much of a discrepancy and I'm more inclined to believe Florete's interpretation. In both versions of the story, the wives vie for Garon's attention/status in the court. The only difference is in Camilla's interpretation Garon encouraged the rivalry, whereas Leo's infers they did it all by their own will.

Eh, fair enough. I'm also more inclined to believe Leo's account because a( it fits better with the kind of person Garon was before he got goo'd, and b( there's much more basis in it in real life royal courts.

[NekoKnight]

Eh, fair enough. I'm also more inclined to believe Leo's account because a( it fits better with the kind of person Garon was before he got goo'd, and b( there's much more basis in it in real life royal courts.

It's probably worth mentioning that Camilla is older than Leo so she probably has better memory of what happened. What was the last memory Leo had of good!Garon? When he was young enough to be riding on his shoulders? Either way, Camilla and Leo are different people so it's okay if their reporting on the conflict varies a little.

Edited October 14, 2016 by NekoKnight

[Azure Sen]

It's probably worth mentioning that Camilla is older than Leo so she probably has better memory of what happened. What was the last memory Leo had of good!Garon? When he was young enough to be riding on his shoulders?

Depends on what you think the age gap between Leo and Camilla is, really, which unlike Hinoka to Takumi is difficult to figure out because Camilla and Leo have different mothers. I just think it clashes with pre-goo Garon's portrayal as a caring father and good ruler but romantically irresponsible for Garon to pit his mistresses against each other pretty much for the lols, and that's not taking into account that we have no idea how much Camilla interacted with Garon before Elise was born or how biased Camilla's account is. But I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

[Augestein]

Depends on what you think the age gap between Leo and Camilla is, really, which unlike Hinoka to Takumi is difficult to figure out because Camilla and Leo have different mothers. I just think it clashes with pre-goo Garon's portrayal as a caring father and good ruler but romantically irresponsible for Garon to pit his mistresses against each other pretty much for the lols, and that's not taking into account that we have no idea how much Camilla interacted with Garon before Elise was born or how biased Camilla's account is. But I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

The thing is though, it's still easy to see though. He may not have really cared too much for the women and may have just been a bit of a philanderer. A young boy being played with by his father is going to see his father in a wondrous light even with all of the terrible things happening. If you remember, Elise says she doesn't remember that at all, and here's another thing to think of: both Xander and Leo seem more fond of Garon than Elise and Camilla, so it's possible that Garon happens to treat his sons better than he does his daughters. Remember, Azura's not fond of him, Camilla's not particularly fond of him, and neither is Elise. Honestly, it would have been easier to accept if the ages went Xander -> Leo -> Camilla -> Elise, but here, I think it still works. Garon was obviously kind of garbage (you can get this from Camilla) when Leo was a kid too, it's just that Leo wasn't perceptive enough to notice is my bet.

[henrymidfields]

...On a different note, I just realised, the very first time I played Binding Blade, and also my very first FE entry, I actually thought generally below-average stat Lords like Roy are the norm. Obviously, that is not the case seeing Sigurd and Ike and all that. However, to this day, I actually prefer Lords that aren't all that OP or even above-average, to be honest.

I actually like Roy, for two reasons.

1. Roy and co was one of the more obvious examples where I had to actually use some strategy and utilise teamwork between units. I would be surprised if they weren't the ones that won various historical battles. (Let's face it, the Ardennes was lost on the French in 1940 despite her Char B1s being more powerful than the German Panzers - and that was because, long story short, the French/British failed to strategically plan for what they thought were the unlikely, and also not using their tanks in an effective manner.)

2. The game really felt like all of the characters I used for my run actually matter. This is partially because, in general, they are the ones fighting for the Lord, and also because of more characters in FE having backstories than of non-main characters from other Nintendo series I've played.

I feel that unlike Mario, Zelda, or even Pokémon/Star Fox, FE actually benefits when, for a lack of better words, everyone does their part. Which means, in this case, Roy planned the battle and aroused his troops' morale.

In the case of Roy in gameplay terms, in addition to adjusting his level caps to be 30/10 (or even completely independent to promotion), he could have an area-of-effect where nearby units attain bonuses in hits, avoid, criticals, and critical dodge. Such effect (and maybe even area of radius) would grow as the gameplay progresses. Of course other leading-role units like Marcus (who I think was the leader for Pharaean cavaliers), Douglas (the top general for Etruria), or Elphin/Echidna (who I think were the leaders for the Western Resistance) could give smaller bonuses on a more limited groups of units.

Edited October 17, 2016 by henrymidfields

[Augestein]

I just plain wish that was a thing tbh. Sort of how Valkyria Chronicles had Welkin as the leader and then you other leaders in the group as well.

My first game was FE4, so I thought it was strange when my lord wasn't super powerful.

[Rezzy]

It's not that much of a discrepancy and I'm more inclined to believe Florete's interpretation. In both versions of the story, the wives vie for Garon's attention/status in the court. The only difference is in Camilla's interpretation Garon encouraged the rivalry, whereas Leo's infers they did it all by their own will.

Eh, fair enough. I'm also more inclined to believe Leo's account because a( it fits better with the kind of person Garon was before he got goo'd, and b( there's much more basis in it in real life royal courts.

Garon's harem politics may have been somewhere in between. The wives probably tried to use their kids to get closer to the king, and Garon may have not done enough to prevent it, even if he didn't actively encourage it.

[Jave]

I'll say that after factoring everything in, including story and gameplay, Fates is tied with FE5 as my all-time favorite FE game. I can acknowledge the flaws in the writing but I still enjoyed playing through nearly all of it.