Fire Emblem Heroes General Discussion and Links

[Stroud]

21 minutes ago, Othin said:

Having every female character get pressure to be a "waifu" is a really shitty situation for those of us who want female characters for their own sake.

It truly is, I even would like to have Byleth in the next game to have a different approach which is not the epicenter of waifu/husbando emblem. But somehow I think this is impossible.

Some other characters might profit from it, like Tatiana. Mix Zeke to her and she is more likely to be released in FEH. As a stand alone I could not imagine her getting a release..
Other characters like Vaida, Niime end up short here. Those characters could be appreciated, Vaida only has an unlucky character portrait, so far her official art gives her another vibe.

Even as one who likes "fanservice" I also find it questionable that its totally ok to have characters like Dorcas, Arden but female characters always have to shine through aesthetic. I mean they don't have to look "ugly" now. I often think about Akane from Psycho Pass who does not shine through her appearance but her actions. 
Even Reina has a difficult time and she still be a waifu, just a bit aged. But she has her own beauty and her experience in battle is what makes her a likeable and fitting character for fire emblem. Also those kind of characters I miss in fire emblem overall. 

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Othin said:

It's certainly an issue that gacha exacerbates, but it's also been increasingly an issue in regular FE, especially with the whole dating sim aspects.

In both cases, it ultimately all turns into misogyny, and I certainly don't plan on stopping complaining about that.

Yeah, the villains lineup has been getting better. I'm guessing Medeus will be the first Dark mythic, probably in May. I guess he'll probably be another red armor dragon?

I'd describe it more as objectivication more than misogyny. It definitely cuts harder in the female direction, but it does go both ways too. I'd also say there's more descrimination of age than sex. Gunther's basically the only properly old playable character since...wow like Binding Blade. Oh wait there's Nealuchi in Telluis I guess (and some characters chest like Haar, who should be close to fifty but looks like he's barely thirty). The series as a whole used to be better with its old guys though, Archanea in particular has quite a few. And heaven forbid we get a visibly old woman in the cast. In a series with almost a thousand characters there Niime and that's it, even among the villains (at least off the top of my head, HIlda's probably the closest second and even than she only has a few wrinkles)!

1 hour ago, Stroud said:

It truly is, I even would like to have Byleth in the next game to have a different approach which is not the epicenter of waifu/husbando emblem. But somehow I think this is impossible.

Some other characters might profit from it, like Tatiana. Mix Zeke to her and she is more likely to be released in FEH. As a stand alone I could not imagine her getting a release..
Other characters like Vaida, Niime end up short here. Those characters could be appreciated, Vaida only has an unlucky character portrait, so far her official art gives her another vibe.

Even as one who likes "fanservice" I also find it questionable that its totally ok to have characters like Dorcas, Arden but female characters always have to shine through aesthetic. I mean they don't have to look "ugly" now. I often think about Akane from Psycho Pass who does not shine through her appearance but her actions. 
Even Reina has a difficult time and she still be a waifu, just a bit aged. But she has her own beauty and her experience in battle is what makes her a likeable and fitting character for fire emblem. Also those kind of characters I miss in fire emblem overall. 

Vaida has the Uber Spear (granted it probably wouldn't be called that) which gives her a chance of getting in, as basically every character needs a prf weapon now apparently.

Edited March 6, 2019 by Jotari

[Othin]

5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I'd describe it more as objectivication more than misogyny. It definitely cuts harder in the female direction, but it does go both ways too. I'd also say there's more descrimination of age than sex. Gunther's basically the only properly old playable character since...wow like Binding Blade. Oh wait there's Nealuchi in Telluis I guess (and some characters chest like Haar, who should be close to fifty but looks like he's barely thirty). The series as a whole used to be better with its old guys though, Archanea in particular has quite a few. And heaven forbid we get a visibly old woman in the cast. In a series with almost a thousand characters there Niime and that's it, even among the villains (at least off the top of my head, HIlda's probably the closest second and even than she only has a few wrinkles)!

I feel like that's splitting hairs. The disproportional objectification of women is misogyny. And it's why lots of media has the same issues as FE about being reluctant to depict women they don't consider young and attractive, much more so than men.

FE does tend to skew younger, but to a much bigger extent with women than with men. Consider the like 30-50 range, as well, with characters like Valbar, Frederick, Seth, etc. And don't forget Athos!

[Flying Shogi]

Random thought but I wonder what they're going to do for Volug's dialog if they ever decide to add him since he doesn't speak the modern tongue.

Edited March 6, 2019 by Flying Shogi

[Cute Chao]

5 minutes ago, Flying Shogi said:

Random thought but I wonder what they're going to do for Volug's dialog if they ever to add him since he doesn't speak the modern tongue.

I think he can speak broken English a bit, but I cbb to go through the gamescript to check. 

That being said, would love if he spoke in a different language. One of the best moments was finding the translation to his supports on here and finding out that he was musing about eating people xD 

[Othin]

6 minutes ago, Flying Shogi said:

Random thought but I wonder what they're going to do for Volug's dialog if they ever to add him since he doesn't speak the modern tongue.

He learns a bit of it eventually. I'm guessing they'll take a similar approach as with Leanne.

1 minute ago, Cute Chao said:

I think he can speak broken English a bit, but I cbb to go through the gamescript to check. 

That being said, would love if he spoke in a different language. One of the best moments was finding the translation to his supports on here and finding out that he was musing about eating people xD 

Yeah, he has a base conversation with Nailah and Ike in Part 4.

And wait, he what?

[Cute Chao]

1 minute ago, Othin said:

He learns a bit of it eventually. I'm guessing they'll take a similar approach as with Leanne.

Yeah, he has a base conversation with Nailah and Ike in Part 4.

And wait, he what?

If you go to the RD section and look up the translations, one of his supports goes something like 'I wonder... if I was to eat someone, would the rest run away' xD 

[Interdimensional Observer]

8 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Vaida has the Uber Spear (granted it probably wouldn't be called that)

Cursed Lance is already taken, and Blessed Lance too (right?- either way it sounds holy when the blessing is evil). The spear gets the boosts Vaida is supposed to be getting in lore from Nergal, but I'm not sure of a good adjective for it though. "Quintessence Spear"? Since Nergal's powers involve a lot of Quintessence manipulation.

They could give her Veteran Ranged Mount BST and she'd still be good with it if they copied its original boosts. +17 HP, +5 Atk, +9 Spd, +4 Def, +14 Res, and Distant Counter.

 

15 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Archanea in particular has quite a few.

To be fair, Archanea were the first and third games, before there was any premise of "popularity".

FE4 Gen 1 excludes old people because love, FE4 Gen 2 looks younger even if the kids should be around their parents' ages or just a little younger on the whole- Finn, Oifey, and Hannibal are the non-kid exceptions. FE5 has plenty of oldies, and FE6 has some really young crew members, but also oldies, in particular as you point out, the only old woman in Niime.

You'd probably be right to pin Tellius as where "old" people start to disappear, although Caineghis still sorta qualifies I think, he gave off the impression of being based on the "good old king" trope. 

This said, there is a difference between whiteheads- the really old, and "mature-but-not-whitehead" adults.

 

4 minutes ago, Flying Shogi said:

Random thought but I wonder what they're going to do for Volug's dialog if they ever to add him since he doesn't speak the modern tongue.

I'd love for FEH to add an Ancient Tongue font, but if they didn't do that for Leanne, Volug ain't getting it.

This said, he does utter a single line in the modern tongue in RD:

Volug: …I will… I…will try.

So just fill his dialogue with ellipses and leave it sparse on the whole to indicate he is new to the language.

 

1 minute ago, Othin said:

And wait, he what?

Volug's support dialogue (parentheses indicate it is displayed in the Ancient Tongue in game):

C support – addressing

Type 1: (…Hey. You ever wonder what would happen if I just ate everyone we fought? Would the rest keep fighting?)

C support – addressed

Type 1: (Oh, hello. I don’t know why I’m speaking. I’m sure you can’t understand me anyway.)

B support – addressing

Type 1: (Do you want to join forces? I promise I’ll talk occasionally.)

B support – addressed

Type 1: (All right. I don’t care.)

A support – addressing

Type 1: (I’ll never let anything happen to you.)

A support – addressed

Type 1: (You know how hard it is to be this charming when you never say anything? You should try it. It’s hard.)

[Othin]

2 minutes ago, Cute Chao said:

If you go to the RD section and look up the translations, one of his supports goes something like 'I wonder... if I was to eat someone, would the rest run away' xD 

 

2 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Volug's support dialogue (parentheses indicate it is displayed in the Ancient Tongue in game):

C support – addressing

Type 1: (…Hey. You ever wonder what would happen if I just ate everyone we fought? Would the rest keep fighting?)

C support – addressed

Type 1: (Oh, hello. I don’t know why I’m speaking. I’m sure you can’t understand me anyway.)

B support – addressing

Type 1: (Do you want to join forces? I promise I’ll talk occasionally.)

B support – addressed

Type 1: (All right. I don’t care.)

A support – addressing

Type 1: (I’ll never let anything happen to you.)

A support – addressed

Type 1: (You know how hard it is to be this charming when you never say anything? You should try it. It’s hard.)

Omg, that's great.

[Cute Chao]

@Othin

That's why I was so sad he didn't make it on the previous beasts banner xD 

Sadly, I just don't think he's popular enough, unless they go with the route of adding in every canon beast... He's good looking, at least, so he has that going for him, but not waifu...

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, Othin said:

Omg, that's great.

I never really noticed the last line, that one is rather good too. It's something you couldn't say out loud normally, and adds an unexpected bit of egotism to Volug.

In the Part 4 Base Conversation with Volug, you also have this snippet:

Volug: (Here, I want you to have this. Um, here… Take.)
Ike: Oh, I understand. Thanks.
Volug: (It’s about time!)
Ike: I think I understood that. You were happy that I understood what you just said.
Volug: (I guess you could say that.)

A little humor here, since Ike misunderstood exactly what Volug meant. Less "happy" and more "no longer exasperated". But I think this is it for hidden Volug oddities.

 

Since people aren't exactly fond of Lugh's artstyle, I just felt like posting  Yuji Himukai's Etrian Odyssey work for comparison, only for the magical offense classes though:

Spoiler

The Alchemists

The Hexers

The Zodiacs

The Warlocks

The Necromancers

Lugh and Raigh seem closer to the older (higher up here) artwork on this listing. And they have a higher amount of polish/gloss layered atop them, and less definition, I think. Perhaps they'd be more liked if they were toned down. Raigh might be more popular if they aged him to 40 and made him a recolor of the 2nd Male Necromancer.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Othin said:

I feel like that's splitting hairs. The disproportional objectification of women is misogyny. And it's why lots of media has the same issues as FE about being reluctant to depict women they don't consider young and attractive, much more so than men.

FE does tend to skew younger, but to a much bigger extent with women than with men. Consider the like 30-50 range, as well, with characters like Valbar, Frederick, Seth, etc. And don't forget Athos!

I'm not saying it's not misogyny. I'm saying it's a larger issue than just women. Men are objectified too, not to the same extent, but not to a negligible degree either. Even characters like Frederick and Seth are designed to be sexy (Valbar...eh not so much. Even though he's probably the most overtly lusted after character in the canon after Robin...). Even UglyAsSin Gharnef got a sexy overhaul for Heroes. Calling it misogyny simplifies it and ignores the other issues at play.

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Cursed Lance is already taken, and Blessed Lance too (right?- either way it sounds holy when the blessing is evil). The spear gets the boosts Vaida is supposed to be getting in lore from Nergal, but I'm not sure of a good adjective for it though. "Quintessence Spear"? Since Nergal's powers involve a lot of Quintessence manipulation.

They could give her Veteran Ranged Mount BST and she'd still be good with it if they copied its original boosts. +17 HP, +5 Atk, +9 Spd, +4 Def, +14 Res, and Distant Counter.

Uber Spear is a fan name but it's a damn good one. Don't expect them to go with it though. If they're being uncreative they could just call it Vaida's Spear.

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

To be fair, Archanea were the first and third games, before there was any premise of "popularity".

FE4 Gen 1 excludes old people because love, FE4 Gen 2 looks younger even if the kids should be around their parents' ages or just a little younger on the whole- Finn, Oifey, and Hannibal are the non-kid exceptions. FE5 has plenty of oldies, and FE6 has some really young crew members, but also oldies, in particular as you point out, the only old woman in Niime.

You'd probably be right to pin Tellius as where "old" people start to disappear, although Caineghis still sorta qualifies I think, he gave off the impression of being based on the "good old king" trope. 

This said, there is a difference between whiteheads- the really old, and "mature-but-not-whitehead" adults.

I think the fact that it's a modern trend, with the exception of FE4 (which had some good older villains to compensate, and while I'm here I'll add Thracia skews more towards the middle aged than the Wendell Gotoh oldies) is pretty clear that the dearth of older characters is very much an intentional design decision ever since they've leaned into pairings and made sex sell. And I doubt it's going to go away any time soon. We can complain about discrimination of all types until the cows come home, but it's clearly working for them because the majority of people simply don't care. And for me personally it's not a big enough deal to boycott the series which is the only real power we have to change things as consumers (short of some organised mass letter writing campaign or something). Ultimately if we are to get a more evened cast (for want of a better word, the pairing approach has actually lead to a much larger number of females in each game I reckon) it's probably going to come down to some developer designing a different type of character because they're board of drawing cute girls and manly/bishonen men. And even then some producer who doesn't care would probably just say "Stick em in a prepubescent loli body. Worked for Nyx."

31 minutes ago, Cute Chao said:

@Othin

That's why I was so sad he didn't make it on the previous beasts banner xD 

Sadly, I just don't think he's popular enough, unless they go with the route of adding in every canon beast... He's good looking, at least, so he has that going for him, but not waifu...

Beasts are a full weapon type with four colours. I'm sure they'll try to add every canon type aside from maybe some of the cats for the sake of variety eventually. He just needs a Radiant Dawn banner or even a beast themed tempest trials or something if one of them ever gets a legendary alt. Or even just a second beast banner (Caineghis, Grifca, Ranulf Volug doesn't seem unlikely. They could also have an amusing theme by pairing him with Yarne).

 

Edited March 6, 2019 by Jotari

[Stroud]

Wow, I would be happy if Vaida gets the wild card. At least one blazing blade banner with GHB and such would be nice this year. Guy was the reason I played Myrmidons/Swordmaster most of the time I started with fire emblem. Would also love to see Dart, but I expect his chance to be slim. Pent and Loise will be likely anyway. These 2 might be the reason for the next BB banner anyway.

[Interdimensional Observer]

35 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Or even just a second beast banner (Caineghis, Grifca, Ranulf Volug doesn't seem unlikely. They could also have an amusing theme by pairing him with Yarne).

I'd rather they not do a third pure Beast banner, two is enough. I'd rather they blur Laguz and Beorc together. Ranulf is known for being friendly with just about everyone, and Lethe with Jill would make good sense, or Shinon with Janaff. I'd also like some less popular Beorc to come in on the coattails of "exotic" Beasts. But given how FEH has operated so far, they don't care to blend the popular and less popular together.

 

Wonder what the next calendar is going to show? I'm expecting a Seasonal, yet I'd want another New Heroes. But when was the last time there were 3 NHs in a row?

 

And BTW, Rutger is if my counting is right, our 43rd Sword Infantry. Thea is only our 14th Lance Flier.

Edited March 6, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[Johann]

20 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I'm not saying it's not misogyny. I'm saying it's a larger issue than just women. Men are objectified too, not to the same extent, but not to a negligible degree either. Even characters like Frederick and Seth are designed to be sexy (Valbar...eh not so much. Even though he's probably the most overtly lusted after character in the canon after Robin...). Even UglyAsSin Gharnef got a sexy overhaul for Heroes. Calling it misogyny simplifies it and ignores the other issues at play.

Nah man, the proportion of male characters being objectified is ridiculously small compared to how many female characters are, and in nowhere near as absurd with the degree that it's done. On top of that, there exists a societal power imbalance between men and women, which by default gives a different context to objectified women compared to objectified men.

There are problems with many depictions of men in fiction, but being overtly sexualized and objectified is a massive outlier. Meanwhile, it's the norm for women.

[Ice Dragon]

Does literally every mention of waifus and husbandos have to devolve into this fucking cesspool of an argument? Seriously?

 

38 minutes ago, Jotari said:

(Valbar...eh not so much. Even though he's probably the most overtly lusted after character in the canon after Robin...)

What did you just say about Valbar's manliest of chins?

[Othin]

4 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Does literally every mention of waifus and husbandos have to devolve into this fucking cesspool of an argument? Seriously?

This isn't some tangent, it's the whole premise of how the discussion came up in the first place: people bringing up the misogyny that makes it harder for characters like Amalda to get into Heroes.

And as long as people keep needing it explained, I'll keep explaining it.

[Ice Dragon]

3 minutes ago, Othin said:

This isn't some tangent, it's the whole premise of how the discussion came up in the first place: people bringing up the misogyny that makes it harder for characters like Amalda to get into Heroes.

And as long as people keep needing it explained, I'll keep explaining it.

This is a tangent. This literally started when someone latched onto the words "waifu" and "husbando" and ignored everything else being mentioned in the same breath just to harp on that one word.

[Othin]

2 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

This is a tangent. This literally started when someone latched onto the words "waifu" and "husbando" and ignored everything else being mentioned in the same breath just to harp on that one word.

Looking back, while I disagree with how you're framing it, you're right that it started as a tangent from talk about Lara and Linoan, with Amalda only coming up later.

[Johann]

24 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Does literally every mention of waifus and husbandos have to devolve into this fucking cesspool of an argument? Seriously?

Does literally every criticism of the way female characters are treated need to be considered a "fucking cesspool of an argument"? Even if it was sparked by those dumb words doesn't diminish the significance of where the discussion went.

[Jotari]

51 minutes ago, Johann said:

Nah man, the proportion of male characters being objectified is ridiculously small compared to how many female characters are, and in nowhere near as absurd with the degree that it's done. On top of that, there exists a societal power imbalance between men and women, which by default gives a different context to objectified women compared to objectified men.

There are problems with many depictions of men in fiction, but being overtly sexualized and objectified is a massive outlier. Meanwhile, it's the norm for women.

You can bet that every character in Heroes is very carefully designed to be as widely appealing to as many people as possible. Like I said, even Gharnef got the sexy treatment. No, it's not nearly as overt with men as it is with women, and it manifests itself in a variety of ways, but it's still very much there. The issue isn't that "People don't respect women enough" the issue is that objectification sells because one of the biggest things people care about it looks. Ignoring that is basically saying it's only wrong when it happens to women, which is basically how negative male gender issues have been treated since the dawn of time. This thread started because people were saying they're disappointed Amalda isn't objectified enough to get into Heroes. Direct parallel, I wish Blume would get into Heroes because he'd be an armoured mage and I think some of the subtler aspects of his character are interesting. But he stands virtually 0% chance of getting in because he's one of the least popular characters in the entire franchise which comes mostly down to the fact that he's an angry looking old guy (without a monocle).

[Othin]

2 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

This is a tangent. This literally started when someone latched onto the words "waifu" and "husbando" and ignored everything else being mentioned in the same breath just to harp on that one word.

Looking back, while I disagree with how you're framing it, you're right that it started as a tangent from talk about Lara and Linoan, with Amalda only coming up later.

[Ice Dragon]

17 minutes ago, Johann said:

Does literally every criticism of the way female characters are treated need to be considered a "fucking cesspool of an argument"? Even if it was sparked by those dumb words doesn't diminish the significance of where the discussion went.

The "cesspool" is because this is one of those arguments where neither side is willing to budge on their stance. It's an argument that cannot resolve because continuing the discussion tends to make each side more confident of their position rather than bring the sides to common ground.

[Tybrosion]

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Wonder what the next calendar is going to show? I'm expecting a Seasonal, yet I'd want another New Heroes. But when was the last time there were 3 NHs in a row?

Technically, it was Brave Redux - Adrift - Fire and Ice but for those who don’t count Adrift as a New Heroes banner, then Doorway to Destiny - Nohrian Dusk - Generals of Muspell.

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And BTW, Rutger is if my counting is right, our 43rd Sword Infantry. Thea is only our 14th Lance Flier.

I’ll at least give them credit for going four months without adding an new sword infantry. That might be a new record too.

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 minutes ago, Tybrosion said:

I’ll at least give them credit for going four months without adding an new sword infantry. That might be a new record too.

Although we have three Legendary Sword Infantry (thanks Roy), and Masked Marth, they haven't done a single Seasonal Sword Infantry yet either. For the better of course.