What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Jedah is devoted to a dragon that doesn't have a track record of abusing his followers,

Duma literally eats the souls of his followers. And Jedah willingly gave the dude his daughters for that express purpose. I think we can be fairly sure that is Alm and Celica didn't intervene then Duma would have eventually turned on Jedah (but...Jedah being the fanatic he is probably would have found that to be an excellent idea).

2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Dragons eating people's faces is the literal point of Zephiel's scheme 

Lol. True.

2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Most dragons don't seem interested in eating the faces of their followers. I think only Sombron and maybe Grima stand out as being out to get their followers. 

Sombron takes it to extreme levels turning his entire nation into Zombies for little to no reason. I guess Grima does too, but it feels a bit more egregious in Sombron's case as he was actively living in Elusia for some amount of time.

Edited January 5 by Jotari

[Samz707]

32 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Duma literally eats the souls of his followers. And Jedah willingly gave the dude his daughters for that express purpose. I think we can be fairly sure that is Alm and Celica didn't intervene then Duma would have eventually turned on Jedah (but...Jedah being the fanatic he is probably would have found that to be an excellent idea).

Hey, he only eats the souls of women. (I seriously wonder if Duma turning women into witches was something he did pre-degeneration or not.)

I guess Nuibaba exists but also she instead sold her soul to Mesdua instead of Duma. (Was that a thing in Gaiden?, it does bug me how Echoes basically implies there's another big evil thing with Medusa that's never addressed again.) 

 

[Jotari]

9 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Hey, he only eats the souls of women. (I seriously wonder if Duma turning women into witches was something he did pre-degeneration or not.)

We only get textual confirmation of Witches, but, if I'm right, I think some of the cantor's dialogue in the Japanese version is rendered in katakana which is Japanese short hand for possessed speak, suggesting they don't have souls either.

9 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

I guess Nuibaba exists but also she instead sold her soul to Mesdua instead of Duma. (Was that a thing in Gaiden?, it does bug me how Echoes basically implies there's another big evil thing with Medusa that's never addressed again.) 

I actually love how they bring up Medusa as this evil...something and then refuse to elaborate at all. I could probably claim I like it because it makes the world feel bigger or something, but, nah, I think I like it out of the sheer blatant laziness of it. I mean, it was clearly done so Nuibaba could get the the gender change to a witch while still retaining agency (even though that wasn't explicitly a thing in Gaiden).

Edit: Oh wait, Nuibaba still refers to a pact with Medusa even on NES. So it's not blatant lazy writing for gender swap, it's blatant "throw shit at the wall we live in the 90s and no one expects games to have robust lore" writing that never went anywhere until over two decades later they could use it as a convenient excuse to pull a gender swap (and still refuse to elaborate on the actual existence of Medusa).

Edited January 5 by Jotari

[Fire Emblem Fan]

The Black Knight is fine, but not this amazing-super-great antagonist or anything.

[Eltosian Kadath]

The Black Knight is just an FE Darth Vader.

Ike I am your father....'s mentor.

[Samz707]

22 hours ago, Jotari said:

We only get textual confirmation of Witches, but, if I'm right, I think some of the cantor's dialogue in the Japanese version is rendered in katakana which is Japanese short hand for possessed speak, suggesting they don't have souls either.

I actually love how they bring up Medusa as this evil...something and then refuse to elaborate at all. I could probably claim I like it because it makes the world feel bigger or something, but, nah, I think I like it out of the sheer blatant laziness of it. I mean, it was clearly done so Nuibaba could get the the gender change to a witch while still retaining agency (even though that wasn't explicitly a thing in Gaiden).

Edit: Oh wait, Nuibaba still refers to a pact with Medusa even on NES. So it's not blatant lazy writing for gender swap, it's blatant "throw shit at the wall we live in the 90s and no one expects games to have robust lore" writing that never went anywhere until over two decades later they could use it as a convenient excuse to pull a gender swap (and still refuse to elaborate on the actual existence of Medusa).

GIves random woman evil powers, refuses to elaborate and never even show up on screen. 

Honestly bugs me that the SOV post-game is dedicated to Grima instead of Medusa now. 

[Acacia Sgt]

Well, at least back in Gaiden when it was more ambiguous what exactly Duma and Mila were, you could say Medusa was another entity like them... just, not as popular as the other two perhaps.

It's also funnier how SoV's DLC adds a full pantheon of "Old Gods". So then what is Medusa. Once again missed out? Never bothered and only sought humans she could work with? Who knows...

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Samz707 said:

GIves random woman evil powers, refuses to elaborate and never even show up on screen. 

Well Medusa does... probably...show up on screen in the form of the Medusa spell that Nuibaba and other enemies use. The implication, with the reference being in Nuibaba's battle quote, that she is actively summoning Medusa to do her bidding Knoll Style. Course, does that mean Medusa made a pact with Gharn and all those other random Arcanists who use the spell in the tower? Is it the same Medusa making a pact with all these enemies or are there multiple Medusas? And why is Gharn the only one with the outright Pact skill (well, that's probably mostly gameplay).

Edited January 6 by Jotari

[Shaky Jones]

On 1/4/2024 at 6:08 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

The Black Knight is just an FE Darth Vader.

 

Can you imagine if they just told you BK was your actual dad and Greil was just a mentor this whole time? That'd be funny.

 

Oh uh, my unpopular opinion is that the Thracia remake should have an avatar. Specifically so the player can wake up from a coma and go "Urrghh...where am I....what year is it?", to which Finn pulls you up and says "It is Thracia, 776.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 1/4/2024 at 8:28 PM, Jotari said:

We only get textual confirmation of Witches, but, if I'm right, I think some of the cantor's dialogue in the Japanese version is rendered in katakana which is Japanese short hand for possessed speak, suggesting they don't have souls either.

On 1/4/2024 at 8:20 PM, Samz707 said:

Well, it's worth keeping in mind that there are forms of possession that don't include soul-death. Like, what Tatarrah does to Delthea before you recruit her. Of course, killing Tatarrah frees Delthea from the control... so when Duma is killed, are the remaining Witches freed? Do they die as well? Or lead a soulless life? Makes you wonder...

On 1/5/2024 at 6:46 PM, Samz707 said:

GIves random woman evil powers, refuses to elaborate and never even show up on screen. 

Honestly bugs me that the SOV post-game is dedicated to Grima instead of Medusa now. 

They tried to make it about Medusa, but it wound up bricking the 3DS. Whole system turned to stone.

22 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Oh uh, my unpopular opinion is that the Thracia remake should have an avatar. Specifically so the player can wake up from a coma and go "Urrghh...where am I....what year is it?", to which Finn pulls you up and says "It is Thracia, 776.

"Written and Directed by Shouzou Kaga"

On 1/4/2024 at 8:47 PM, Fire Emblem Fan said:

The Black Knight is fine, but not this amazing-super-great antagonist or anything.

I think people like him more for his style than his substance. He's undeniably intimidating and cool, without looking over-designed or "tryhard". He's also shown as actually powerful in gameplay - in most appearances, a nigh-undefeatable force. This stuff makes him compelling, regardless of his personality or motivations.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I think people like him more for his style than his substance. He's undeniably intimidating and cool, without looking over-designed or "tryhard". He's also shown as actually powerful in gameplay - in most appearances, a nigh-undefeatable force. This stuff makes him compelling, regardless of his personality or motivations.

Well I guess my next unpopular opinion is that I don't think he looks super cool, and I don't think he's any more intimidating or compelling than someone like Nergal, Gharnef, or Arvis.

[Etrurian emperor]

I think the Tellius games make a pretty smart move in regards to making the Black Knight intimidating. They incorporate it into the stages. Two times in POR the Black Knight will appear and you'll be completely helpless against him. Don't pursue the Black Knight and all that. Then Radiant Dawn switches it around and its the enemies turn to be completely helpless when you control the Black Knight.

The difference between Ike and BK is probably smaller than between Eliwood and Nergal. But Nergal dominates the cast purely in cutscenes. You don't actually experience it yourself. 

Its a shame the Fire Emblem games kinda lost the ability to make its villains intimidating. These days most of them come off as losers who are probably a lot weaker than the playable characters. The prime example being Team Garon. Iago clearly doesn't come off as very competent or powerful in the grand scheme of things, and Hans is introduced with the notice that Xander has already kicked his ass before. Aside from the little sisters I doubt any of the royals are weaker than Hans and Iago. Thales also never comes across as all that intimidating. Its clear that Edelgard could crush him like a fly, and Dimitri even does so purely by accident. 

The likes of Nergal, Zephiel, the Black Knight or even the likes of Valter and Petrine come off as dangerous and imposing while the likes of validar or Iago come across as mere nuisances at best. Often I think this is reflected in their designs too. Nergal comes across as a dangerous arch mage and Valter like a mad dog, but Validar kinda looks like a mini boss. 

[lenticular]

11 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I think the Tellius games make a pretty smart move in regards to making the Black Knight intimidating. They incorporate it into the stages. Two times in POR the Black Knight will appear and you'll be completely helpless against him. Don't pursue the Black Knight and all that. Then Radiant Dawn switches it around and its the enemies turn to be completely helpless when you control the Black Knight.

I agree with this. I'm not a fan of the Black Knight character design (those pauldrons are absurd!) but I do think they absolutely nail it in terms of gameplay/story integration.

11 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Its a shame the Fire Emblem games kinda lost the ability to make its villains intimidating. These days most of them come off as losers who are probably a lot weaker than the playable characters. The prime example being Team Garon.

I'd point to the Four Hounds as a particularly egregious example of this. It's impossible to take an enemy seriously after you've already beaten them multiple times. The Death Knight is almost as bad, but at least taking him down starts off as an optional challenge, so it takes a bit longer for him to become completely impotent.

[Etrurian emperor]

7 hours ago, lenticular said:

I'd point to the Four Hounds as a particularly egregious example of this. It's impossible to take an enemy seriously after you've already beaten them multiple times. The Death Knight is almost as bad, but at least taking him down starts off as an optional challenge, so it takes a bit longer for him to become completely impotent.

I'd say Berkut is also akin to the Hounds in that he's never allowed to win and thus never comes off as intimidating. 

They could learn a thing or two from Petrine. Ultimately her chase of the Greil mercenaries ends up in defeat too, but she's still established as a mortal danger to the group that might have completely crushed them if Greil wasn't secretly the supreme baddass of the continent. Same with Narcian who despite being a complete nitwit still gets depicted as vastly more powerful than Roy at the beginning. 

[Jotari]

11 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I'd say Berkut is also akin to the Hounds in that he's never allowed to win and thus never comes off as intimidating. 

They could learn a thing or two from Petrine. Ultimately her chase of the Greil mercenaries ends up in defeat too, but she's still established as a mortal danger to the group that might have completely crushed them if Greil wasn't secretly the supreme baddass of the continent. Same with Narcian who despite being a complete nitwit still gets depicted as vastly more powerful than Roy at the beginning. 

In (reluctant) defense of the Hounds. I'm not sure how else they could have been handled. The main reason we fight the hounds so often is that they're the enemies using the Emblems against the player. And the player doesn't reclaim the lost Emblems every time they fight the Hounds. Because they want to have the player keep fighting Emblem enemies. So the bosses using the Emblems need to be able to get away. If instead of fighting Marnie and Mauvier in the Chapter 16 we fought Random Boss #9 and #10 and killed them, then how are the enemies going to get the rings back? Are we going to have evil Veyle show up again to steal the rings and teleport away? That'd probably be even less satisfying than the enemies simply running away. The other option would be to divorce the enemies use of emblems in gameplay from the plot, by giving them some other source of power. But I like that they're using the same mechanics that you eventually have access too. The only thing I could really suggest is more Hounds to reduce the number of times you actually face each individual one. Because you fight each of them five times, four if we discount the mire where you're not expected to beat them. That's a little much. If there was a fifth hound you could probably reduce it down to fighting them only three or four times each.

Tl:Dr Engage needed retreating enemies you fight multiple times because the enemies need to keep hold of the Emblem rings to keep the gameplay interesting.

[vanguard333]

22 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I think the Tellius games make a pretty smart move in regards to making the Black Knight intimidating. They incorporate it into the stages. Two times in POR the Black Knight will appear and you'll be completely helpless against him. Don't pursue the Black Knight and all that. Then Radiant Dawn switches it around and its the enemies turn to be completely helpless when you control the Black Knight.

Yeah; the Black Knight is a fantastic example of gameplay/story integration. Another reason that the Black Knight works is that we see characters actually lose to him: we saw Petrine have trouble against Greil, and then Greil is beaten by the Black Knight, Ike loses immediately, Ranulf loses to him, etc. One big problem with villains in more recent Fire Emblem games is that they never get any sort of victory.

 

10 hours ago, lenticular said:

I'd point to the Four Hounds as a particularly egregious example of this. It's impossible to take an enemy seriously after you've already beaten them multiple times. The Death Knight is almost as bad, but at least taking him down starts off as an optional challenge, so it takes a bit longer for him to become completely impotent.

In fairness to the Four Hounds, at least there's chapter 11 where the player characters have to flee from Evil-Veyle and the Four Hounds. I think the idea was that the later chapters with them would be cathartic; that the player character finally has emblem rings again and can now directly fight the Four Hounds and defeat them. Chapters like chapter 17, where the player has six emblem rings and the Four Hounds and Evil-Veyle have six emblem rings, would seem to support that idea. The problem was that they overdid it; the fact that they are all beaten repeatedly reduces their impact.

Incidentally, I still maintain that the Four Hounds should've tested whether or not Alear is a child of Sombron by giving Alear their dragonstone, which they know Veyle carries, rather than by having Griss deliberately lose the Celica emblem to Alear immediately after Griss told Marni and Mauvier that they can't afford to lose any more emblem rings.

 

10 hours ago, lenticular said:

I agree with this. I'm not a fan of the Black Knight character design (those pauldrons are absurd!) but I do think they absolutely nail it in terms of gameplay/story integration.

I like the Black Knight's design overall and even I don't like the oversized pauldrons. But that's mainly because I really like historical armour and I'm not a fan of oversized pauldrons in general.

Edited January 8 by vanguard333

[lenticular]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

Tl:Dr Engage needed retreating enemies you fight multiple times because the enemies need to keep hold of the Emblem rings to keep the gameplay interesting.

I don't think that's an insurmountable problem. It's been a while since I played, but aren't there places where you fight Hounds but they aren't actually using Emblem Rings? Looking it up, both fireemblemwiki and Triangle Attack list that Marni and Mauvier arne't actually using rings in Chapter 16. Is that right, or are they both wrong? From what I'm seeing online, there are three chpaters where you fight the hounds without Emblems: Chapter 14 (Zephia, Marni, and Mauvier), Chapter 16 (Marni and Mauvier), Chapter 21 (Zephia and Gris). If this is accurate, then just replacing them with single-chapter bosses in these instances would have gone a long way to improving things. If they could have cut the hounds down to just an initial encounter in chapter 11 where they're scary and you run away, then the big 6v6 where you win but they run away, and then one additional encounter with each of them where you get the catharsis of taking them out, then I think that would have worked.

But even beyond that, I think there are other ways that the story could have been written to allow for "we beat a boss with an Emblem but we don't recover the Emblem" that didn't involve fighting the same enemies over and over. Just off the top of my head:

• Sombron has put some sort of enchantment on the rings so that they teleport away as soon as their owner dies (as in Chapter 11). We have to find a way to break or work around that enchantment.
• The bosses with the rings manage to escape, but Sombron executes them for failure and gives the rings to someone else.
• We recover the rings but they've been corrupted to the point that we can't use them and we have to find a way to purify them.
• We kill the boss, but at the same time that we do so a vast army of corrupted reinforcements show up and we don't have the time to recover the ring before we have to flea.

It's really not that difficult to hand-wave other justifications. And yeah, they can be a little contrived, but there's no need to use the same justification every time. If you only use each of them once, then they don't become nearly as stale.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Thirding what makes the Black Knight work. I don't think the character is great in PoR (I like him better in RD once we start learning about the human underneath the armour and what makes him tick) but from a gameplay/story point of view? Yeah I get it. Plus he gets a memorable theme music, can't underestimate that.

2 hours ago, lenticular said:

From what I'm seeing online, there are three chpaters where you fight the hounds without Emblems: Chapter 14 (Zephia, Marni, and Mauvier), Chapter 16 (Marni and Mauvier), Chapter 21 (Zephia and Gris).

There's also Zephia and Griss in Chapter 23. I'd say it's very clear that the emblem rings aren't the reason you fight them so many times. Zephia is only fought once with her emblem ring (not counting Chapter 11).

I'm a bit ambivalent to having bosses you fight multiple times. I think it can serve a good story purpose, but at a certain point it tends to get a bit ridiculous. I'm pretty happy with the encounters with the Death Knight with the exception of the VW/SS bit where you fight him in two consecutive maps near the end, but I agree the Hounds definitely got tiring.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, lenticular said:

Looking it up, both fireemblemwiki and Triangle Attack list that Marni and Mauvier arne't actually using rings in Chapter 16. Is that right, or are they both wrong? From what I'm seeing online, there are three chpaters where you fight the hounds without Emblems: Chapter 14 (Zephia, Marni, and Mauvier), Chapter 16 (Marni and Mauvier), Chapter 21 (Zephia and Gris). 

Yes they actually don't use any Emblems in Chapter 16. I was misremembering Marnie having Hold Out, but on further thinking I definitely would have remembered Mauvier staff spamming if he's used an emblem. And as far as chapters go, the shifting tides beach chapter is by far the least necessary for the hounds to show up as they don't do anything at all in terms of plot or gameplay there. Maybe they just wanted them to be fought an equal number of times?

Chapter 14 we could definitely cut Marnie and Mauvier again. Zephia kind of had to be there because of plot and having her hang around for gameplay works too, I think. She could also have an Emblem Ring there too. Hortensia isn't really that threatening with Byleth.

As for Chapter 21, I think the reason we still have the hounds is two fold. One, the Veyle stuff in the previous chapter is way too busy to try and include both Griss and Zephia's death too. We've already killed Marnie in the intro cutscene, were effectively killing evil Veyle and then Alear has his/her death and revival too. If Griss or Zephia died there it would be generic boss tier (which they might deserve but let's pretend they're a big deal).

The other issue is that we're at the end game now. We can't have random generic bosses in the final few chapters of the game. It's a bit weak narrative wise. Which penultimate bosses leave more of an impact, the gauntlet of plot relevant characters in Radiant Dawn or freaking Xemcel? Someone needed to guard the first shard. It didn't need to be both Griss and Zephia, but one of them. I would preferably say Zephia and have her actually turn into a dragon to make the battle more dramatic (dragons not transforming into dragons is kind of meme about Engage).

If we were to bring down the Hound fights from Five to three, a pattern of Mire+Emblem Show Down+Individual Fight, I think we could have Zephia with Hortensia, Marnie and Mauvier at the port (they work best of kept together for plot), and Griss is already golden as a boss at the castle, with Zephia getting an additional battle as their leader but transforming into a dragon to make the battle different. (not sure when Griss would actually die in such a scenario if we keep him having that plot role with losing Celica on purpose, but as far as plot points go that could be handled better in many ways).

[Acacia Sgt]

I guess it's unpopular for me to not be bothered by recurring bosses... heck, even like it.

[lenticular]

One other issue I have with recurring bosses is that they can push balance a bit askew by putting a premium on characters/tools that can deal with them. The Death Knight is possibly the worst offender here. Because you have so many fights with him, you're incentivised to make sure you have a way of dealing with a high level mounted unit. Lysithea would still be a good unit even if the Death Knight didn't exist, but because she learns Dark Spikes Τ she is also a premiere counter to the toughest enemy of a lot of chapters. If his three appearences in White Clouds had instead been a Fortress Knight, a Falcon Knight, and a Gremory (or special unique classes based on them) then we'd have to use different characters/classes against each of them.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

The main reason we fight the hounds so often is that they're the enemies using the Emblems against the player.

They don't need to be. In chapter 11, they're perfectly willing to give Emblem support to total randos. They could've done the same, or else invented other enemy characters to wield the Emblem Rings. Hell, maybe make a "12 Rings" organization of named enemies, each of whom has an affinity with a particular ring? The Four Hounds could be a subset of them, or their internal leaders.

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

And the player doesn't reclaim the lost Emblems every time they fight the Hounds. Because they want to have the player keep fighting Emblem enemies. So the bosses using the Emblems need to be able to get away.

See, this was frustrating. If a boss dies, it makes sense that they'd drop the Ring, and you'd get it. But the goddamn Hounds never. Fucking. Die. Why can't they take the Ring with them whenever they lose? Why do you ever get it back, if you haven't killed them? This story wasn't even trying.

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I'm a bit ambivalent to having bosses you fight multiple times. I think it can serve a good story purpose, but at a certain point it tends to get a bit ridiculous. I'm pretty happy with the encounters with the Death Knight with the exception of the VW/SS bit where you fight him in two consecutive maps near the end, but I agree the Hounds definitely got tiring.

See, I think his appearance at Remire just came out of nowhere. He's just kind of a "hurry up!" feature that most players can completely ignore. Hell, you don't need to visit that side of the map to begin with. It's cool gameplay-wise, to get a couple Crescent Sickles, but they could've easily added those to chapter 6 instead. I'd drop his appearance here, and maybe put a Demonic Beast in his place, if you need a threat.

On 1/7/2024 at 2:55 PM, Fire Emblem Fan said:

Well I guess my next unpopular opinion is that I don't think he looks super cool, and I don't think he's any more intimidating or compelling than someone like Nergal, Gharnef, or Arvis.

Hm, I've never thought of Arvis as "intimidating". Azelle does, but as his brother, it makes sense. The game does a great job of showing him off as "powerful" and "commanding" from the Prologue, where he can roast enemy Brigands alive. But in that sense, he's more like Pent - and while I see Pent as respectable, even formidable, he's not intimidating.

 

 

[Acacia Sgt]

5 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

See, this was frustrating. If a boss dies, it makes sense that they'd drop the Ring, and you'd get it. But the goddamn Hounds never. Fucking. Die. Why can't they take the Ring with them whenever they lose? Why do you ever get it back, if you haven't killed them? This story wasn't even trying.

Well, this one they did tried to explain it.

In Chapter 19, they actually stop Marni and Mauvier from fleeing right away, so they take the rings off them (like how it was done to Ivy all the way back in Chapter 8). In Chapter 20, Griss willingly gives up his ring (though not before still fighting them, at least) so he can see Alear reawaken it and confirm their growing suspicions that Alear is, in fact, a Fell Dragon.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

12 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

In Chapter 20, Griss willingly gives up his ring (though not before still fighting them, at least) so he can see Alear reawaken it and confirm their growing suspicions that Alear is, in fact, a Fell Dragon.

Fair point on this one, I didn't remember.

12 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

In Chapter 19, they actually stop Marni and Mauvier from fleeing right away, so they take the rings off them (like how it was done to Ivy all the way back in Chapter 8).

Okay, but like - how does this work, mechanically-speaking? How were we able to take Ivy's Ring, but not take her into custody? After Hortensia retained her Ring upon defeat, in the prior chapter, I assumed that's just how it'd go. So when Ivy lost hers, it came across as arbitrary. Did she drop it? Did someone on our side sneak it off her hand? Is she stupid? Why do Marni and Mauvier surrender their Rings, knowing they'll be punished for doing so?

Perhaps I'm being too harsh, or else failing to remember something that was well-explained. But I can never recall an instance where, after defeating (but not killing, capturing, or recruiting) an enemy, and getting their Ring, I thought "that makes sense, narratively speaking".

[Acacia Sgt]

7 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Okay, but like - how does this work, mechanically-speaking? How were we able to take Ivy's Ring, but not take her into custody? After Hortensia retained her Ring upon defeat, in the prior chapter, I assumed that's just how it'd go. So when Ivy lost hers, it came across as arbitrary. Did she drop it? Did someone on our side sneak it off her hand? Is she stupid? Why do Marni and Mauvier surrender their Rings, knowing they'll be punished for doing so?

Hey, when her subject of worship is right there...

Yeah, that one was certainly handled a bit weird. It's clear she's detained, hence the ring is removed from her. It's the fact that she manages to escape that becomes questionable. So read the manga, it handles it much better!

Marni at least seems to be in denial/hope their punishment won't be too severe. Boy was she wrong...

I can only think since the fight happened in the middle of a miasma-filled town, the heroes simply surrounded them and there was no room for them to escape. They only live since Alear doesn't feel like killing them, just take the rings and continue towards Elusia Castle.

7 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Perhaps I'm being too harsh, or else failing to remember something that was well-explained. But I can never recall an instance where, after defeating (but not killing, capturing, or recruiting) an enemy, and getting their Ring, I thought "that makes sense, narratively speaking".

Ignoring the game mechanics, it's simply a case of them retreating as they're not fighting to the last breath. Or, if you want to add game mechanics, then even if they're displayed as having X HP, in "actuality" they have X + Y, and they flee after taking X damage but before Y.