More Unpopular Fire Emblem Opinions

[Troykv]

Still - I think Micaiah is a really interesting Lord and I wished that the writers would have kept more focus on her instead of putting the (at least in RD) rather bland Ike back in charge.

Poor Miccy... you lose so much spotlight time for reasons that I understand (the game's nature) but also other that don't understand... they give the Ike's Mercenaries almost the same amount the chapters that the Dawn Brigade got.

Part 1 + 3-6, 3-12 and 3-13 (14 chapters) against Chapter 3-P to 3-5, 3-7, 3-8, 3-10, 3-11 and 3-F (11 chapters)

That even considering that Ike's group (specially Ike himself) is already developed both story-wise and gameplay-wise (And one of the Part 1 Chapters is essencially Ike/BK Fanservice)

And everyday I ask myself. Why?.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Troykv

[Thane]

That even considering that Ike's group (specially Ike himself) is already developed both story-wise and gameplay-wise (And one of the Part 1 Chapters is essencially Ike/BK Fanservice)

And everyday I ask myself. Why?.

Judging by Ike's sprite, he doesn't rightly know himself. The man looks dead inside.

[MCProductions]

Judging by Ike's sprite, he doesn't rightly know himself. The man looks dead inside.

Well I mean, he fathered Sothe's children, that's gotta take a lot out of a man

I want to like Micaiah, I really really do, especially since I'm usually a big fan of weak unit wise FE lords, but I can't, and I'm not really sure why.

[Radiant head]

I mean I appreciate they tried to develop a female mage lord, but her character is too underdeveloped outside her supposed special traits to care about her. though corrin probably made me appreciate micaiah more.

[ping]

It has been a long while since the last time I've played RD, but I remember her going against only Izuka, so,if you don't mind me asking,

what were these moments of her going against Pelleas and tauroneo?

I was thinking of the Swamp chapter and I was pretty sure that both Pelleas and Tauroneo disagreed with Micaiah's plan to walk into the obvious trap to save the prisoners. But according to the script on the main page, Pelleas instantly tells Izana that "she hasn't disappointed [them] yet" after his initial surprise and Tauroneo doesn't even comment at all. Guess my memory is a bit fuzzy :/

Fake-edit cause I'm too lazy to rewrite the paragraph: Found the Tauroneo part, although he's still less vocal in his opinion than I remembered. It's in the base convo with him before the fight and he just says that he agrees with Izana this one time, but he doesn't even try to convince Micaiah to reconsider.

@the Sothe part: Well, he acts that way all the time. From a base convo in the same Swamp chapter:

Micaiah: I suppose this isn’t the time to worry about such things. If my power is needed to liberate Daein, I will stand my ground and fight.

Sothe: Well, not to spoil your resolve… But if things get too hot, I’m just going to grab you and run.

Micaiah: Sothe…

Sothe: Friends and Daein are important, but not as important as you are to me. Remember that.

Micaiah: …All right. Thank you, Sothe.

Micaiah tells him that she's determined to fight for Daein and her people, but Sothe is having none of that. The scene you described is probably not that bad on its own, but (unless I'm suffering from headcanon again :D) that possessiveness is Sothe's modus operandi all the fucking time.

[Magical Glace]

My biggest problem with Micaiah and Sothe's relationship is they possess a marriage ending, which considering that she practically raised him and they refer to themselves as being like a younger brother/older sister, is pretty creepy.

I guess my unpopular opinion of the day is I don't like Micaiah x Sothe. I personally prefer Micaiah/Pelleas.

[Irysa]

I mean, unconventional relationships is...pretty much how RD rolls though? There are a few normal ones but most of them are kinda weird in one manner or other, which I respect.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Irysa

[Ebony]

I guess my unpopular opinion of the day is I don't like Micaiah x Sothe. I personally prefer Micaiah/Pelleas.

Is that unpopular? I held the same opinion. I actually didn't know if it is.

[solrocknroll]

My unpopular opinion of the day: I do dislike Micaiah, not because she's perfect, but rather because she's too flawed. I hated how she blamed Ike for all of Daein's problems, when he was only defended his own country that was attacked first. I hated how she was willing to kill everyone else in the world, even attacking innocents, just for her country, and i hated how she was a big hypocrital.

Don't get me wrong, i wouldn't really change her character, she fits the story just fine and sometimes it's nice to have a character to dislike in the game. I just wish the game maybe put her on a more negative light, with, idk, Sothe (who knew both sides of the story) criticizing her more or something.

I think Ike is awful and the worst protagonist in the series. He's a complete tool who has a disgusting "too-cool" attitude. Unlike actually cool protagonists like Eliwood, Ike is terrible to others. Micaiah hating him only makes her even sweeter in my eyes.

Micaiah being special is a good thing. Protagonists are only interesting if they outshine everyone else in their cast in some way or another. Otherwise, they're only the protagonist by chance. That's another reason why vanilla, no-special-qualities Ike is so terrible. He only leads due to nepotism.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Freyjadour

[Radiant head]

My biggest problem with Micaiah and Sothe's relationship is they possess a marriage ending, which considering that she practically raised him and they refer to themselves as being like a younger brother/older sister, is pretty creepy.I guess my unpopular opinion of the day is I don't like Micaiah x Sothe. I personally prefer Micaiah/Pelleas.

yeah that was weird. I kind of like micaiah/soren as a crack pairing, but ultimately I like that tellius avoids romantic supports

[Etrurian emperor]

On a related note I don't think I like RD Sothe when compared to his shota form.

Not that POR Sothe was that great. I hardly realized he existed before RD made him prominent but he at least had some additional traits I didn't expect they bothered to give him. Aside from being a loner he was also implied to have a hostile view of nobles and to possess a bit of a cowardly side to him as well.

I feel those traits are overwritten by the singular trait of being overprotective of Michaia. There's his friendship with Tormod in RD but since Tormod is MIA for most of the game that doesn't mean as much as it should. A lot of things Sothe says in RD sound rather corny as well which I don't think was intentional.

Also thanks to that ever present grumpy look on his face I don't think he's got a very appealing design either.

Sothe is probably an objectively better character in RD but he doesn't live up to the prominence the plot wants him to have while POR Sothe managed to pleasantly surprise me due to having no expectations of him at all.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Etrurian emperor

[Baldrick]

I think Ike is awful and the worst protagonist in the series. He's a complete tool who has a disgusting "too-cool" attitude. Unlike actually cool protagonists like Eliwood, Ike is terrible to others. Micaiah hating him only makes her even sweeter in my eyes.

Could you share some quotes to illustrate the bolded?

Micaiah being special is a good thing. Protagonists are only interesting if they outshine everyone else in their cast in some way or another. Otherwise, they're only the protagonist by chance. That's another reason why vanilla, no-special-qualities Ike is so terrible. He only leads due to nepotism.

As opposed to every other protagonist in the series, who became a prince/princess/feudal lord on merit?

Ike gets a lordship from Elincia based on valor in battle.

Ike does become head of the Greil Mercenaries, but he still has more difficulties with leadership than most protagonists. Shinon and Gatrie leave the company, and he implies that he wouldn't be able to do it without Titania.

Heck, Ike is arguably special anyway, being the son of an ex-rider of Daein with a unique swordfighting style.

[solrocknroll]

Could you share some quotes to illustrate the bolded?

As opposed to every other protagonist in the series, who became a prince/princess/feudal lord on merit?

Ike gets a lordship from Elincia based on valor in battle.

Ike does become head of the Greil Mercenaries, but he still has more difficulties with leadership than most protagonists. Shinon and Gatrie leave the company, and he implies that he wouldn't be able to do it without Titania.

Heck, Ike is arguably special anyway, being the son of an ex-rider of Daein with a unique swordfighting style.

It's mainly from Path of Radiance, such as Chapter 14's "Makalov" conversation, where he treats Makalov like complete garbage for comedy's sake. In the conversations with Jorge and Daniel, he shames them for basically just playing a chess-type game. He has little patience in the main story, unlike most other main Lords who typically let the eccentric people pass.

In Radiant Dawn, Ike offers no mercy to any of his former allies, which is remarkably heartless. Compare him to Marth, who goes to almost extreme lengths to get back friends from Shadow Dragon. Ike doesn't even have a conversation when fighting Meg, and Meg is literally a 12 year old girl.

as for the second thing, I find royalty to be more interesting for the focus of a game. I don't enjoy rags to riches or coming of age stories, so Path of Radiance is particularly annoying. Honestly, I only really like the Dawn Brigade because I find them so much more interesting than the Greil Mercenaries, though some characters like Astrid and Kurth are good too.

I guess an unpopular opinion I have is that I couldn't care less about "world building." As long as we have enough information about where we currently are in story and the locations are varied, I don't care how they fit together. Awakening and Fates were both good enough on the world front for me. I'd like some more aesthetic diversity from Awakening though, but Fates is nice and diverse with its locations.

Edited January 7, 2017 by Freyjadour

[Lord Raven]

It's mainly from Path of Radiance, such as Chapter 14's "Makalov" conversation, where he treats Makalov like complete garbage for comedy's sake. In the conversations with Jorge and Daniel, he shames them for basically just playing a chess-type game. He has little patience in the main story, unlike most other main Lords who typically let the eccentric people pass.

Remind me of some of this? Makalov's a bum and doesn't rub people otherwise, and Ike has got no room for nonsense considering he has PTSD from watching his dad get killed and narrowly surviving. He's not going to take shit and he's going to be stingy because as it stands it's pretty clear that they are under some degree of tension. A sense of urgency leads to a lack of patience if exercised badly - and if you're referring to a scene where Sanaki casually shit on all of them then you can see where this could wear on people.

In Radiant Dawn, Ike offers no mercy to any of his former allies, which is remarkably heartless. Compare him to Marth, who goes to almost extreme lengths to get back friends from Shadow Dragon. Ike doesn't even have a conversation when fighting Meg, and Meg is literally a 12 year old girl.

It's war. You see the conflict with faces. They don't. Their livelihood is at stake and people are more concerned with survival than formalities, especially in a medieval time, especially since they're teaming up with the Black Knight - a source of some sort of PTSD.

as for the second thing, I find royalty to be more interesting for the focus of a game. I don't enjoy rags to riches or coming of age stories, so Path of Radiance is particularly annoying. Honestly, I only really like the Dawn Brigade because I find them so much more interesting than the Greil Mercenaries, though some characters like Astrid and Kurth are good too.

I guess an unpopular opinion I have is that I couldn't care less about "world building." As long as we have enough information about where we currently are in story and the locations are varied, I don't care how they fit together. Awakening and Fates were both good enough on the world front for me. I'd like some more aesthetic diversity from Awakening though, but Fates is nice and diverse with its locations.

Fair. I think certain types of stories need world building and others don't, but many people don't like personal conflicts being the crux of something that's meant to affect a larger-scale without going into the details of the larger scale. Different strokes though.

Micaiah being special is a good thing. Protagonists are only interesting if they outshine everyone else in their cast in some way or another. Otherwise, they're only the protagonist by chance. That's another reason why vanilla, no-special-qualities Ike is so terrible. He only leads due to nepotism.

This is also subjective. Some people are generally interesting because they possess an everyman quality, and larger than life personalities or noble upbringing comes off as lame. Ike's main trait is his growth and adaptability, not everyone necessarily likes a noble that loves everyone. Edited January 7, 2017 by Lord Raven

[BrightBow]

It's mainly from Path of Radiance, such as Chapter 14's "Makalov" conversation, where he treats Makalov like complete garbage for comedy's sake. In the conversations with Jorge and Daniel, he shames them for basically just playing a chess-type game. He has little patience in the main story, unlike most other main Lords who typically let the eccentric people pass.

Well, how do you think Makalov should be treated? Makalov is not eccentric, he is an utter sleazebag. Seriously, even as Ike got him a job he was already planning to slack of and do as little work as he could get away with. He has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

As for Jorge, it's hardly surprising that as someone who sees real people dying around him on a daily basis, Ike would get annoyed being pestered about their wargames. This is something that Ike specifically says, btw. And Ike immediately apologized for his outburst anyway. Jorge happily accepts the apologies, saying that he knows how much he is under stress currently.

And he's got quite a lot of stress indeed. He is leading an entire army now, there was the whole mess with Talrega where he ended up killing the father of his sister's friend, he learned that his mother was murdered by his father, that Mist's memento is actually the prison of the dark god who once destroyed the entire known world save for Tellius and then the Medallion got stolen. And said thief turned out to be Nasir who betrayed Ike and Mist's trust to stab them in the back. That conversation with Jorge was right after chapter 21, which is the chapter where Ike learned of Nasir's betrayal.

In Radiant Dawn, Ike offers no mercy to any of his former allies, which is remarkably heartless. Compare him to Marth, who goes to almost extreme lengths to get back friends from Shadow Dragon. Ike doesn't even have a conversation when fighting Meg, and Meg is literally a 12 year old girl.

Ike refuses to hold back against someone coming at him with a weapon. He gives his opponents every chance to pull back. Heck, the entire reason Micaiah was able to do so much damage to Ike's army was that he was going out of his way to avoid engaging the Daein army in combat, to the point of leaving himself vulnerable. And despite all the people Micaiah killed, to the very end he desperately pleaded with her to stop fighting:

Ike: Micaiah, I don’t want you to die. I don’t want all of your soldiers to die. You have to let me help you.

Edit: And why does it matter if he doesn't have a conversation with Meg? I mean, lots of people don't have conversations with Meg. Surely you can't mean that they are all heartless too. In fact, Meg doesn't have battle conversations with anyone. Brom and Zihark can talk to her and the two of them along with Nephenee won't ever attack her. That's all the consideration that we ever see her getting from her opponents.

Edited January 7, 2017 by BrightBow

[Etrurian emperor]

It's mainly from Path of Radiance, such as Chapter 14's "Makalov" conversation, where he treats Makalov like complete garbage for comedy's sake. In the conversations with Jorge and Daniel, he shames them for basically just playing a chess-type game. He has little patience in the main story, unlike most other main Lords who typically let the eccentric people pass.

Ike does seem to be the most judgmental lord and he's not at all shy about expressing that to the people he talks with. That's probably because he didn't receive the fancy upbringing that the likes of Eliwood or Eirika received. Good manners aren't really essential for a mercenary.

Ike can be a bit of a jerk but its not always undeserved. Makalov is a complete scumbag and a lot of Begnion commanders are either very snobby or very eccentric. When the enemy commander is depicted as an honest warrior Ike tends to address them more respectfully.

He can take it a bit to far though like when it comes to nobles. At one point Ike even says the whole class is rotten and that anyone who doesn't fit into the Begnion senator archetype is merely an exception to the rule. He never quite says something that indicates he grows out of this despite him knowing plenty of good nobles by the end of the game.

Edited January 7, 2017 by Etrurian emperor

[Water Mage]

Edit: And why does it matter if he doesn't have a conversation with Meg? I mean, lots of people don't have conversations with Meg. Surely you can't mean that they are all heartless too. In fact, Meg doesn't have battle conversations with anyone. Brom and Zihark can talk to her and the two of them along with Nephenee won't ever attack her. That's all the consideration that we ever see her getting from her opponents.

Not disagreeing with you, but Meg also has a conversation with Jill if they are on opposing sides.

It implies that the two were somewhat close.

[ping]

Sure does:

Jill: Meg! I’m glad I found you! Lower your sword and listen to me!
Meg: No, I can’t! I’m not supposed to talk to my enemies.
Jill: Enemies? Am I an enemy to you, Meg?
Meg: Um… Not really. But this being a battlefield and all, I just thought it’d be easier for both of us if–
Jill: Meg, I could never attack you, no matter the circumstance.
Meg: I couldn’t hurt you either, Jill. It’s probably a bad thing for a soldier, but I don’t care. You’re my friend.
Jill: I don’t understand what’s going on… This war is so meaningless. Can’t you tell me why Daein is still fighting?
Meg: I’m sorry, Jill. I can’t. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s because I want to protect you. All I can say is that I feel as helpless as a plow without an ox. I wish we could all be together like a family again.
Jill: Meg…

I can't remember any other interactions between the two, so this comes pretty much out of nowhere, even though Jill's defection to Crimea/Begnion has been rather recently when you're triggering the convo. But unlike Ike, Jill fought on the same side as Mag not too long ago, so I still don't hold it against the developers that they didn't include an Ike/Meg convo in the game.

But really, the weirdest part about this is that Meg stays in Daein's army even after they start fighting against Crimean troops and even her father can't convince her to stop.

[Radiant head]

nothing about meg as a character makes any sense tbh.

[Magical Glace]

Meg is literally just a punchline to a random support in FE9. I don't think a whole lot of thought went into her.

[saisymbolic]

I just wished the members of the DB weren't mostly garbage units and weren't outshined by the units allied with the other playable factions. It makes it even worse when the best units that start with the DB - Jill, Zihark and arguably Ilyana - can get recruited to the already OP other factions.

[Radiant head]

illyana is definitely not better than nolan, edward, etc. she's probably higher than meg/fiona and neck to neck with leo

[twistedxgrace]

I didn't think Meg not being a likable character was an unpopular opinion?

[saisymbolic]

illyana is definitely not better than nolan, edward, etc. she's probably higher than meg/fiona and neck to neck with leo

I suppose I should have noted that I meant through my own experience. I always had the advantage of transferring data from PoR, boosting her stats somewhat. Plus, I liked Ilyana so I used her when most people probably bench her. It also helped that she was locked to a class that used weapons that were all 1-2 ranged, so I could always keep her out of danger. Edward is a good unit, but he suffers from being really fragile and having to use 1 range weapons (minus that Wind Sword, I think it's called). Well, I guess he's a classic myrmidon, so I can't fault him or anything. Nolan is one of the better DB units, I can't deny that.

Please do not mention the garbage pail that is Fiona. She triggers me.

[NekoKnight]

My biggest problem with Micaiah and Sothe's relationship is they possess a marriage ending, which considering that she practically raised him and they refer to themselves as being like a younger brother/older sister, is pretty creepy.

I guess my unpopular opinion of the day is I don't like Micaiah x Sothe. I personally prefer Micaiah/Pelleas.

I thought they had an ambiguous but close relationship It's true that Micaiah is the older of the two and played some part of raising him, but the adult Sothe acts as much a guardian to Micaiah as she does an older sister. I didn't take away an explicit sibling relationship so much as them being very supportive of each other.

As for Micaiah x Pelleas, it's hard to imagine a relationship between them when they are such polar opposites. Micaiah is driven and charismatic, whereas Pelleas is helpless and only had anyone's respect because Micaiah was backing him.