Alastor plays and ranks the whole series! Mission Complete! ...For now.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Hey its been a very long time and its great to see you again.

It seems the Grimleal founded the country, but lost power, it isn't explained well..like many things in Awakening.

Gangrel's motivations in particular are infamously inconsistent, but the picture painted in suppports and the Art of Awakening is alot like Arvis relationship with the Loptyrians:

1. Grimleal find an angry and crazy criminal on the streets, they prop him up and help him attain power over the country.
2. As part of the deal he made, the now King Gangrel gives the Grimleal almost absolute power to send inquisitions to persecute and oppress Plegian citizens into joining the Grimleal among other things, thus setting the stage for Grima's revival.
3. Gangrel is basically just power-mad and has no real motivation or beliefs, he's just with the Grimleal for conveniences sake and knows they're using him as well .

Hey, great to see you again too! Thanks for the info! You gonna be sticking around for this one?

Edited December 17, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Emperor Hardin]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Hey, great to see you again too! Thanks for the info! You gonna be sticking around for this one?

I'll try to.

Thoughts on the weird Gangrel and Grimleal backstory?

Edited December 17, 2020 by Emperor Hardin

[Acacia Sgt]

4 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Where was that directly established?

Unless Naga delayed turning for some reason, the Decline of the Dragon Age happened centuries before Tiki was born, when it was declared they must turn to Manaketes or go mad. Tiki is always referred as recently born when she was put to sleep, which was after around 250 years from the Divine-Earth War, which was definitely after those that became Manaketes did so.

Edited December 17, 2020 by Acacia Sgt

[Emperor Hardin]

2 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Unless Naga delayed turning for some reason, the Decline of the Dragon Age happened centuries before Tiki was born, when it was declared they must turn to Manaketes or go mad. Tiki is always referred as recently born when she was put to sleep, which was after around 250 years from the Divine-Earth War, which was definitely after those that became Manaketes did so.

Looking at the timeline, it doesn't say when Tiki was born.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Unless Naga delayed turning for some reason, the Decline of the Dragon Age happened centuries before Tiki was born, when it was declared they must turn to Manaketes or go mad. Tiki is always referred as recently born when she was put to sleep, which was after around 250 years from the Divine-Earth War, which was definitely after those that became Manaketes did so.

That's like, what, 2 years old in dragon years though? We don't know what their standards are for "recently born".

[Acacia Sgt]

3 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Looking at the timeline, it doesn't say when Tiki was born.

Exactly. Only that she's "recently" born when put to sleep.

3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

That's like, what, 2 years old in dragon years though? We don't know what their standards are for "recently born".

Who knows. Naga was still a "Young Maiden" at 5000, before her premature death. They might be biologically immortal for all we know since we have no indication a dragon has ever died of old age.

That said, Ch14's narration of Mystery has this:

So Chiki only had 10 human year’s worth of memory…

Repeated in New Mystery:

That's why Tiki's memories are just the ten years she lived as a human...

Do we even know she was born a dragon or Manakete already? Can't possible be her memory was wiped?

Edited December 17, 2020 by Acacia Sgt

[Alastor15243]

2 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Thoughts on the weird Gangrel and Grimleal backstory?

It's about what I expected from this game. There are so many cool ideas in this game but none of them are developed to any intellectually or emotionally satisfying degree.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Acacia Sgt]

Even then, even if Tiki was born during the war, that would still be centuries after Naga most likely became a Manakete. Since, again, it would require for her to still be a dragon centuries after it was told that by turning to Manaketes they'd be spared from the madness.

[Shotguner159]

According to Warriors, Tiki was about a thousand years old when Marth was alive, placing her birth 500 years before the establishment of the Archanean calendar.

Naga became a Manakete 1000 years before the establishment of the calendar.

Course, Warriors could be wrong, but that lines up with Tiki being 3000 in Awakening, and that taking place 2000 years after Marth's games too,

 

[Jotari]

Could it be that onset degeneration reduces fertility, but by going manakete you still have fertility? Hence Naga didn't have Tiki because she delayed becoming a manakete, but because she became a manakete so quickly compared to others?

Course the infertitlity of dragons is also directly contradicted by the Macedonians apperantly breeding mounts for themselves from degenerated wyverns (if they had a set number of them then you'd think casualties of war would have them drying up quite quickly, but it's n ever a concern). Maybe it was better they retconned wyvern mounts into something entirely different.

[Alastor15243]

8 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Maybe it was better they retconned wyvern mounts into something entirely different.

Did they though? You can still buy dragonstones that turn you into a wyvern, and dragon-slaying weapons still work on the un-mounted wyverns.

[Jotari]

9 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Did they though? You can still buy dragonstones that turn you into a wyvern, and dragon-slaying weapons still work on the un-mounted wyverns.

Well they don't outright say they're different things, but the two things look visually different where before they looked identical. So I can't imagine why they'd redesign one of them unless their intention is to say it's different to this other thing that we already have a model for. Course the New Mystery Wyvern Tribe Wyverns look closer to the original Wyvern Sprites from Old Mystery while the Shadow Dragon Wyvern Riders look closer to more modern Wyvren depictions in the series, so it's possible the disparity is because they outright didn't realize they were redesigining the wyvren tribe to look different to the wyvern mounts already in the game.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

Well they don't outright say they're different things, but the two things look visually different where before they looked identical. So I can't imagine why they'd redesign one of them unless their intention is to say it's different to this other thing that we already have a model for.

I could've sworn the game still said that dracoknights ride wyverns, which felt odd to me due to the different number of limbs but I know I heard characters say that.

[Jotari]

6 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I could've sworn the game still said that dracoknights ride wyverns, which felt odd to me due to the different number of limbs but I know I heard characters say that.

Well they could just be calling two entirely different species by the same name. But like I edited into the comment above, the Wyvern Tribe wyverns look more like Old Mystery's wyverns while the DracoKnight Wyverns look more like the GBA Tellius Wyverns, so it's possible they did this entirely by mistake. When they made Shadow Dragon they were just designing wyvern riders taking inspiration from the series as a whole, while they made the wyvern tribe enemies they just looked at what the enemies looked like in Old Mystery without delving into the lore. So the writers might not have retconned it, but the artists did accidentally since it was a job for a different game (and maybe even a different person) and the writing isn't their department.

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well they could just be calling two entirely different species by the same name. But like I edited into the comment above, the Wyvern Tribe wyverns look more like Old Mystery's wyverns while the DracoKnight Wyverns look more like the GBA Tellius Wyverns, so it's possible they did this entirely by mistake. When they made Shadow Dragon they were just designing wyvern riders taking inspiration from the series as a whole, while they made the wyvern tribe enemies they just looked at what the enemies looked like in Old Mystery without delving into the lore. So the writers might not have retconned it, but the artists did accidentally since it was a job for a different game (and maybe even a different person) and the writing isn't their department.

Theres another inconsistency. SD and NM did way with the dragon-effectiveness of Wyrmslayers which their 8 & 16-bit originals had, only for Awakening to restore it. Although, in Awakening's defense, enemy Manaketes don't exist as in SD & NM, so a Wyrmslayer would be total junk if they didn't give it their The Flying Things People Ride That Have Scales effectiveness back.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Theres another inconsistency. SD and NM did way with the dragon-effectiveness of Wyrmslayers which their 8 & 16-bit originals had, only for Awakening to restore it. Although, in Awakening's defense, enemy Manaketes don't exist as in SD & NM, so a Wyrmslayer would be total junk if they didn't give it their The Flying Things People Ride That Have Scales effectiveness back.

One detail Awakening has that I do like is that Tiki and the other manaketes (and Taugel) retain their dragon status even if you reclass them. Because hey, even if they're using magic, they're still dragons after all. It's an objective nerf in terms of gameplay (and it could be rationlized away by saying the wyrmslayer has particularly good properties for cutting through scales which Tiki doesn't have as a mage), but I find it cute. I think they could have extended it to Whalhart by confirming he survived because he actually is a risen (who just refuses to bow to anyone's domination over him) and give him the monster status and a weakness to Blessed weapons. Although I'm not sure regular risen even have the monster property, I think it might be only the very frequently unseen entombed that do.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

4 minutes ago, Jotari said:

It's an objective nerf in terms of gameplay

Thankfully at least in Awakening the shifters have boosts to their stat cap mod totals to compensate. Not nearly as good in Fates though.

[Alastor15243]

Awakening Day 5: Paralogue 2

Alright, I'm gonna check out Paralogue 2 to see what the enemy stats are like and if it's a good time to tackle it. On Lunatic+, the notion of actually saving the village is out of the question entirely. You don't have strong enough forces to take on these enemies with Lunatic+ skills head on, so you have to abuse the fact that most enemies won't move until the village is visited or destroyed in order to flee to the central island and slowly take potshots at all the enemies on the map at range. On Lunatic though? Probably more manageable, even as an ironman.

So we're in Feroxi territory now, in the territory of “The Twins”. Yep, it's time again for the macho camp gay bandit duo. Honestly I think Vincent and Victor are my favorites of these, though I'll try to elaborate why once they actually show up.

So the characters about “refugees” here, and... what kind of refugees? I'm assuming due to the zombie apocalypse, but are these people fleeing Ylisse to Regna Ferox? Why is the Risen situation any better in Regna Ferox? Also, it's strange to think that the villagers of Regna Ferox are... basically identical in culture to the villagers of Ylisse. Of course, plenty of games have this problem, but the more starkly different the cultures get, the more annoying it is when the generic character sprites are indistinguishable between nations. Several games, this included, thankfully make it a bit better by mixing up the makeup of each nation's armed forces so they each have their own character (though some games don't even do that), but it still can get ridiculous when it comes to the villagers.

Hmmm... Snow... North...

...Okay, I'm gonna check the map real quick, I've got an uncomfortable hunch the game just did something really, really stupid.

...Okay, so I just watched the opening map narration scene of FE12 Chapter 13 again and determined where the Fire Dragon Graveyard and the icy mountains around that dragon temple were. I've circled them in red and blue respectively here:

And assuming that place I circled in green is supposed to have transformed into that tiny island at the eastern end of the Feroxi border wall here...

...then that would put this village... basically exactly where the Fire Dragon Graveyard used to be. Which I have to assume was too big to be easily walked around, otherwise why the fuck would we walk through a dragon-infested hellpit of molten magma?

...Can... can climate and geological formations change this drastically in 2,000 years? How long does it take a volcanic wasteland to stop being a volcanic wasteland? Genuine question. I'm no geologist. I just thought I'd throw all this info out there before we begin.

Speaking of things we'll do before we begin, I'm gonna use the bonus box to summon Katarina and buy some items from her. Namely a second levin sword for Alexandria and a Katarina's Bolt for Miriel. Katarina's Bolt is an extremely powerful C rank tome with 30 crit, so I think that'll be great for Miriel to have. And of course levin swords are now Alexandria's only means of attacking at range, so she's gonna need to stay well-stocked on those until she gets enough luck to really reliably activate armsthrift.

Alright, I'm gonna check out the stats on these enemies to work out how well my army fares against them and whether or not Chapter 6 would be a better idea. I'm grateful that this game added the option to back out of chapters and back to the world map. Sacred Stones didn't have that, and that was pretty dang annoying.

...Okay, this is actually looking pretty dicey, given how many axe users and archers there are and how many different directions the enemies are coming from. Let's check out Chapter 6 then.

 

Day 5 New Plan: Chapter 6

Man, it sucks that I haven't gotten any merchants yet. I got one, but she's on a Risen spawn point and she doesn't have anything good anyway. It would be nice to have some more shots at getting some seals.

Chrom talks a lot about his allegedly brutal and shitty father, and... really, given that, again, the country he invaded was founded with the express purpose of trying to bring about the end of human existence, we're gonna need some more details about what his father did to Plegia that would make Plegia justified in being angry about the conflict. We do at least hear that the war brutally impacted his own country, because he was such a colossal dumbass that he conscripted farmers into the war when his army started running out, which crippled the nation's food supply and nearly completely destroyed the country.

...Okay, so, I'm no anthropologist, but... that sounds, just on instinct, like we'd be seeing more of the effects of this damage if all this only happened fifteen years ago. A quick google search says that the reconstruction of the south after the American Civil War took twelve years, but something tells me we should still be seeing the effects of this.

I do find it interesting that Chrom wishes to spare her sister from having to order the necessary action of killing Gangrel... by doing it himself without her orders. On one hand, it can be seen as sweet, but also...

...Ugh, I'm reminded of characters with contractual pacifism, like Superman, Batman and the Doctor. They can't kill anyone ever, the laws of the universe will perpetually bend over backwards to give them non-lethal solutions to literally everything, and when they run into a situation where unspeakably awful things will happen unless somebody is killed, somebody else has to do the killing for them. The result being that these characters never have to face the consequences of their ideals, solely so they can remain “wholesome” enough for kids to watch. It is... really annoying.

But anyway, “Marth” shows up, revealing that... there's a hole in the castle wall big enough for a person to sneak through. Chrom created it during training one day by accident, and never told anyone so they could get it fixed.

But yeah, anyway, we get another badass cutscene where “Marth” takes out an assassin... only to then trip on the assassin's sword (that somehow got right under her feet) and come so close to getting slashed through the face that her mask is cut clean in half and it's revealed she's a woman.

Anyway, Lucina said “I'm about to save your life”, but... no she wasn't. That assassin wasn't going to kill him, just gravely injure him. Obviously he didn't die before that scene at the Dragon's Table, certainly since he hasn't even fathered baby Lucina yet, and also she says as much later, that that assassin wouldn't have actually managed to kill him.

Anyway, we hear a huge explosion at the end of the cutscene... and then it instantly shifts to us in map prep. I don't know what that explosion was, because I don't see them having made any openings in the building.

My strategy's gonna be pretty similar to the one I was taught for this map on Lunatic+, except with way, way more of a margin for error. The only majorly annoying thing is that to recruit Gaius, I have to have Chrom split up from Alexandria temporarily. I'll have Vaike supporting her instead. This is really only an annoyance when it comes to building up their support ranks, because Alexandria decidedly doesn't need Chrom's speed boost to double anymore. Nothing but the thieves can withstand her 21 speed, and all she needs to do is use one of our two Alm's Blades to take them out in a single attack.

Yeah, so, this is basically a defense map... except it isn't. The objective is to route, we just have an NPC, Emmeryn, who we have to keep alive. This is pretty easy once you get rid of the thieves who threaten to open the back entrance to the room. Of course on Lunatic+ there's still a hell of a lot of stuff that can ruin your day, but here, I think it's gonna be pretty smooth sailing. I'll explain my plan as I carry it out.

Let's go.

So there's a quick scene with Validar talking to a dark mage who's inexplicably given an assassin portrait in the conversation, and Gaius overhears this from halfway across the map and very clumsily exposits to the audience that he didn't think they were actually here to assassinate Emmeryn, just rob her blind. Cringey line, but it does at least do its job of cluing us in to the fact that he can be recruited.

Also, Alexandria inexplicably says that “The assassins should scatter if we can defeat their leader”, and like, bitch I can see the win objective on the bottom. It says rout!

Validar apparently can see Alexandria through the castle's walls. Is that a special ubermensch tactician power that Alexandria inherited from Daddy Validar and that breeding plan they were all a part of or something?

Okay. So.

“Marth” has a Falchion.

“Marth” can use a Falchion.

“Marth” says she's seen the future.

How did I never guess that she was Chrom's daughter from the future when I played this?

Wow, not only can Alexandria one-shot thieves with Alm's Blade, but with a Vaike pairup, she can one-shot fighters too! But yeah, anyway, first step is to have Alexandria take out the fighter by the central hallway so that she can plug it up and defend it next turn. Frederick then takes out his Sigurd's Lance (if he didn't have this I'd have had him pair up with Vaike or something and use his silver lance) and prepares to enemy-phase the thief without getting into range of the other enemies on the east side of the map. Finally, Miriel takes out the fighter on the west side from across the wall, which is how she'll be taking out most of the enemies on this side of the map. This allows Chrom to get closer to Gaius and prepare to recruit him next turn.

Oh hey, look, it's Panne! The last surviving member of a race of creatures who came into existence and then went extinct in the utterly bullshit evolutionary timeframe of a mere 2000 years! Also, she uses stones to transform, inexplicably. The fuck's going on with that? Did a similar calamity happen with the Taguel forcing them to lock their true forms away (though not nearly as well given the ears and fur), or have they just coincidentally always had to transform in the exact same way that dragons later wound up forced to transform? How did the Taguel discover their mysterious symbiotic relationship with these stones? Why do shops all over the two fucking continents sell these stones that only one living creature on earth can possibly make use of? Do they have other purposes?

...I don't know why I'm asking these questions. The game doesn't care.

So, Lucina tells Chrom that Panne isn't their enemy, because she's heard about her from the future. But like... how did this play out when Lucina wasn't here to tell her they become allies? How was he convinced she wasn't here to assassinate Emmeryn?

Anyway, Gaius's recruitment conversation happens. It's funny, but also really dumb, like the kind of humor that most games in the series wouldn't be caught dead using in their recruitment conversations.

Plan's going pretty well so far. Alexandria is now completely immune to physical damage, though enough determined mages and some bad luck would finish her off. Sumia and Frederick are completely incapable of holding off the eastern flank on their own, so they retreated to the west along with Maribelle and Lissa (there wasn't enough deployment space to put everyone on the west side) so that we can take advantage of the thieves' failure to unlock the door so Alexandria and Lucina can intercept every enemy coming from the east. I have been able to feed some kills to Sumia though by having her bait in an enemy or two, since nobody's interested in ganging up on Alexandria since there's no chance for kills.

Oh yeah! That's another thing! This game finally makes the enemy AI coordinate with other enemies to try to go for kills! I'm so glad that's been fixed. The old way was so frustrating, especially the way FE12 made you exploit it.

Lucina puts up a good fight, but she's unfortunately taken out pretty quickly. Her stats for this map just don't translate well to Lunatic.

...This cavalier apparently decided to equip his droppable iron lance instead of the steel one he was using. I guess that just gave him a better chance of dealing the final blow to Lucina since even an iron could kill and it was more accurate.

Lissa's finally reached level 10 and gotten the healtouch skill, a super useful skill that boosts her healing power by 5, which is obviously a godsend for any healer.

...And that's everyone but the boss! Alright, let's see if this is as terrifying as I remember...

...Yeah, if we let him try to proc vengeance, we could be in serious trouble. But thankfully he doesn't have vantage or anything, which means we get three free hits before he can try it. So since he seems so eager to chase after Miriel (he's probably pathing towards Emmeryn so he can take her out himself), I'll have her fight with Katarina's Bolt. If that doesn't kill him in one round, then another hit from basically any of my... four usable units should finish the job.

His anathema skill means he has a 1% crit rate against Miriel, but I managed to negate it with Alexandria's solidarity skill.

...Unfortunately, I had to let him get closer in order to get Alexandria in position on time. If I try to player-phase him, he could proc vengeance and easily one-sho Miriel, so I'm gonna have to retreat everyone but Alexandria and Miriel, let Validar attack first, and hope for the best.

And it's at this point that I totally forgot I was supposed to grab that chest, so I grab it real quick on this last turn. Validar unfortunately went for Alexandria, who can't do as much damage at range with her levin sword, but Miriel can still get the kill thanks to a lucky dual-strike from Chrom. So maybe it was fortunate, since it gave me more of a chance to get that secret book. Miriel critting would have automatically ended the map.

...Okay, so Lucina talks about a “great war” that originally resulted from the Fire Emblem being stolen after Emmeryn's assassination. Is this still the war with Plegia?

...Yeah, and... okay, we're back on the subject of Panne... now I'm really curious. I could've sworn I heard the explanation for why Panne showed up to help stop this secret assassination attempt was because Lucina warned her about it in advance. But obviously that didn't happen in the first timeline, so... when exactly did Panne show up?

Anyway, Panne's talking about the long history of oppression of her people, and I'm like... okay, even the way the Tellius games did that was cringey, and I found this awkward even when I first played this game, before I realized what complete bullshit the Taguel were as a species. Now that I actually know just how deep into the writers' asses the Taguel were pulled out from-

...Taguel isn't capitalized.

...Manakete apparently isn't capitalized in this game either, despite it being capitalized in previous games.

Holy fuck is this annoying.

Fuck it. I'm capitalizing Manakete and Taguel.

Yeah, Emmeryn just shows complete shock that a genocide against Panne's people happened. Where did her people live? Why does Panne's warren owe Ylisse a debt that she came tonight to repay? I have so many questions!

But the game has no desire to explain. This is like... this is like the bare minimum effort you can put in to establishing an oppressed fantasy race.

Yeah... this scene is deeply uncomfortable and embarrassing.

...But yeah, now we're at the scene where Grima saves Validar's life, and... well... so Validar expresses shock that Grima is here. And yet... like... okay, did Validar not hear about the Risen? And if they already existed in Plegia before now without Grima's help... did Chrom not hear about them? And why do we never hear anyone in Plegia call them by their actual name, instead of the ones that the Ylissean royal council just made up for practicality's sake?

So, Chrom tells Emmeryn to flee the country to Ferox “where it's safe”, and like... yeah, I've got to agree with Emmeryn on this one. Fleeing the country to safety is tantamount to admitting you're going to lose the war and won't even be able to defend your own capital. Surely they have protocols, or a safehouse, or something that would let her be kept safe within the country, right?

Why aren't we standing our ground and actually fighting this damned war?

Okay, apparently there is a “safehouse” of sorts. An eastern palace that apparently none of the other countries know about.

...The other two countries.

It's finally sunk in just how boring it is that the wide variety of countries that used to populate this continent... have been consolidated into just three. I mean, there will be more when we get to Valm, but... I think we really only see Valm proper. The remaining handful we're told about are never properly visited or explored in any meaningful way.

...Why does Chrom need to leave for Ferox? Like, did we get any sense of the initial military support he got before deciding he needs more? And why is it taken basically as a given that Plegia has a vastly superior military to Ylisse and Ylisse can't win without help from Ferox? Is Ylisse's military that tied up dealing with the Risen? Why isn't Plegia's tied up the same way? Does Plegia just know how to deal with Risen with Grimleal magic or something? I mean the risen show up everywhere on the world map, so obviously it's not just localized to Ylisse...

...Christ, and I complained about the shit I didn't know in Tellius. Seeing the bullshit here about how little I know about all of these countries is making that feel petty.

So, right after winning, we get a merchant! Sadly the only thing of real value she's offering is a rescue staff and a concoction, but I'll get those at least before signing off for the day. But I really want a seal.

...I seem to remember Paralogue 2 spawning a lot of merchants after you beat it. Maybe that's what I should tackle on Monday... but I'll be sure to check the game out over the weekend to see if any seal merchants spawn.

But for now... that concludes this week. I think my “army” might be at the point where we'll be able to start tackling some DLC soon, so... we'll look into that on Monday.

Stay safe, everyone!

Edited December 18, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Samz707]

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, Emmeryn just shows complete shock that a genocide against Panne's people happened. Where did her people live? Why does Panne's warren owe Ylisse a debt that she came tonight to repay? I have so many questions!

 

Honestly I was just amazed Emmeryn in like 2 sentences was able to make Panne go from "Humans suck" to "Eh I guess you guys are alright.", I can't say much about Tellius as I've not played them but I feel fantasy racism rarely lands, granted most don't have an literal instant 180 like Panne as your introduction but I still feel that generally it's kind of a difficult thing, too underplayed and it feels like it's pointless but too overplayed and it can feel like preaching about real world issues to the point of being obnoxious.

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Why does Chrom need to leave for Ferox? Like, did we get any sense of the initial military support he got before deciding he needs more? And why is it taken basically as a given that Plegia has a vastly superior military to Ylisse and Ylisse can't win without help from Ferox? Is Ylisse's military that tied up dealing with the Risen? Why isn't Plegia's tied up the same way? Does Plegia just know how to deal with Risen with Grimleal magic or something? I mean the risen show up everywhere on the world map, so obviously it's not just localized to Ylisse...

Honestly considering Emmeryn is a pacifist to the point of absurdity, I wouldn't be surprised if she reduced the army on some fashion. (At least significantly. considering how they seemingly only have a single note-worthy group dealing with the bandit problem.)

 

Edited December 18, 2020 by Samz707

[Emperor Hardin]

Ugh I'm reminded by the earlier discussion that Warriors claims in a support that Miloah sealed Aura so only females could use it because females would always have pure hearts.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

...then that would put this village... basically exactly where the Fire Dragon Graveyard used to be. Which I have to assume was too big to be easily walked around, otherwise why the fuck would we walk through a dragon-infested hellpit of molten magma?

...Can... can climate and geological formations change this drastically in 2,000 years? How long does it take a volcanic wasteland to stop being a volcanic wasteland? Genuine question. I'm no geologist. I just thought I'd throw all this info out there before we begin.

They didn't even check the map is what I gather given all the other mistakes.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Chrom talks a lot about his allegedly brutal and shitty father, and... really, given that, again, the country he invaded was founded with the express purpose of trying to bring about the end of human existence, we're gonna need some more details about what his father did to Plegia that would make Plegia justified in being angry about the conflict. We do at least hear that the war brutally impacted his own country, because he was such a colossal dumbass that he conscripted farmers into the war when his army started running out, which crippled the nation's food supply and nearly completely destroyed the country.

...Okay, so, I'm no anthropologist, but... that sounds, just on instinct, like we'd be seeing more of the effects of this damage if all this only happened fifteen years ago. A quick google search says that the reconstruction of the south after the American Civil War took twelve years, but something tells me we should still be seeing the effects of this.

This issue will get worse later.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh hey, look, it's Panne! The last surviving member of a race of creatures who came into existence and then went extinct in the utterly bullshit evolutionary timeframe of a mere 2000 years! Also, she uses stones to transform, inexplicably. The fuck's going on with that? Did a similar calamity happen with the Taguel forcing them to lock their true forms away (though not nearly as well given the ears and fur), or have they just coincidentally always had to transform in the exact same way that dragons later wound up forced to transform? How did the Taguel discover their mysterious symbiotic relationship with these stones? Why do shops all over the two fucking continents sell these stones that only one living creature on earth can possibly make use of? Do they have other purposes?

Ugh the taguel are an attempt to shoehorn in Beast Laguz with zero actual effort in world building in a setting that in no way permits their proclaimed history. Why didn't they just bring in Halberdiers if they wanted something from Tellius?

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, Emmeryn just shows complete shock that a genocide against Panne's people happened. Where did her people live? Why does Panne's warren owe Ylisse a debt that she came tonight to repay? I have so many questions!

But the game has no desire to explain. This is like... this is like the bare minimum effort you can put in to establishing an oppressed fantasy race.

With Lethe, we saw countless examples of the Laguz prejudice, with Panne, we see her talking about how everyone oppresses Taguel, but everyone we meet has no idea the Taguel exist in the first place! 

No one cares enough about the genocide to research it, not even Chrom.

 

[Alastor15243]

8 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Ugh I'm reminded by the earlier discussion that Warriors claims in a support that Miloah sealed Aura so only females could use it because females would always have pure hearts.

Chriiiiiiiist. Seriously? This I have to see. That's dumb.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Emperor Hardin]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

Chriiiiiiiist. Seriously? This I have to see. That's dumb.

Its in Linde and Tharja's supports.

Remember what I said about many writers for Fire Emblem being too sexist/old fashioned to have females being evil of their own violition.

[Ottservia]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh hey, look, it's Panne! The last surviving member of a race of creatures who came into existence and then went extinct in the utterly bullshit evolutionary timeframe of a mere 2000 years! Also, she uses stones to transform, inexplicably. The fuck's going on with that? Did a similar calamity happen with the Taguel forcing them to lock their true forms away (though not nearly as well given the ears and fur), or have they just coincidentally always had to transform in the exact same way that dragons later wound up forced to transform? How did the Taguel discover their mysterious symbiotic relationship with these stones? Why do shops all over the two fucking continents sell these stones that only one living creature on earth can possibly make use of? Do they have other purposes?

Sometimes I wonder why Panne is in the story at all. Well I do know the reason but this is one of those instances where I think more world building would’ve actually been helpful at the very least a few supports on the matter would’ve been helpful. Even the artbook doesn’t say much as all it really says is that the Taguel are vaguely related to the Laguz from Tellius. Cause a lot of the other continueity breaks in awakening can simply be justified under “a lot can happen in 2000 years” or “Grima’s initial rise fucked with continent” cause I personally like to headcanon that the reason Grima is now associated with the dragon’s table is that he went there and pretty much devoured all the earth dragons in a bid to gain power. but the taguel? Yeah there’s no excuse here. They needed to elaborate at the very least put information in the artbook if not in the game itself. 

I mean thematically it kind of works into that theme of how the future is built upon the past that awakening leans so heavily into but again it’s I wish the developers elaborated on.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Ugh, I'm reminded of characters with contractual pacifism, like Superman, Batman and the Doctor. They can't kill anyone ever, the laws of the universe will perpetually bend over backwards to give them non-lethal solutions to literally everything, and when they run into a situation where unspeakably awful things will happen unless somebody is killed, somebody else has to do the killing for them. The result being that these characters never have to face the consequences of their ideals, solely so they can remain “wholesome” enough for kids to watch. It is... really annoying.

 

but that’s the point with those characters though. The entire message is that they shouldn’t kill because then they’d be no better. That’s the point. That’s the message you’re supposed to take away from it. It’s not bad writing. You just don’t agree with the message.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Chrom talks a lot about his allegedly brutal and shitty father, and... really, given that, again, the country he invaded was founded with the express purpose of trying to bring about the end of human existence, we're gonna need some more details about what his father did to Plegia that would make Plegia justified in being angry about the conflict. We do at least hear that the war brutally impacted his own country, because he was such a colossal dumbass that he conscripted farmers into the war when his army started running out, which crippled the nation's food supply and nearly completely destroyed the country.

...Okay, so, I'm no anthropologist, but... that sounds, just on instinct, like we'd be seeing more of the effects of this damage if all this only happened fifteen years ago. A quick google search says that the reconstruction of the south after the American Civil War took twelve years, but something tells me we should still be seeing the effects of this.

is it unrealistic? Yeah but so is scripted dialogue so it doesn’t bother me too much personally. Like stories don’t need to follow the rules of reality. They follow their own rules. Like every story is unrealistic so long as the story follows its own rules and verisimilitude then I don’t see the issue. Like if we wanna go the unrealistic route I can just say the story is poorly written because it’s unrealistic for having characters engage in actually coherent conversation. Because again, dialogue is nothing like real life conversation.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

So, Lucina tells Chrom that Panne isn't their enemy, because she's heard about her from the future. But like... how did this play out when Lucina wasn't here to tell her they become allies? How was he convinced she wasn't here to assassinate Emmeryn?

Likely heard about it a story Chrom or Robin told her. That or she’s bullshitting a reason and the real reason she knows is because she’s friends with Yarne and that is his mother so she knows for a fact that Panne is an ally but again she doesn’t want to fuck with the past too much. Like obviously if she knows Yarne she’s gonna know who his mother is.

[Acacia Sgt]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

A...then that would put this village... basically exactly where the Fire Dragon Graveyard used to be. Which I have to assume was too big to be easily walked around, otherwise why the fuck would we walk through a dragon-infested hellpit of molten magma?

...Can... can climate and geological formations change this drastically in 2,000 years? How long does it take a volcanic wasteland to stop being a volcanic wasteland? Genuine question. I'm no geologist. I just thought I'd throw all this info out there before we begin.

Not exactly. The Fire Dragon Graveyard is a pass through the mountains. The Awakening dot is nearby, but not on the mountains.

Also, yes. Volcanos can go dormant, or even extinct. Sometimes they appear where there was none there. Might become more relevant later on, but I'll mention now even here on Earth you have volcanoes which aren't even a hundred years old yet.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Acacia Sgt

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Ottservia said:

but that’s the point with those characters though. The entire message is that they shouldn’t kill because then they’d be no better. That’s the point. That’s the message you’re supposed to take away from it. It’s not bad writing. You just don’t agree with the message.

No, like I said, these characters often get into situations where they'd have to kill somebody in order to save the day, but other people do it instead so that the story can preserve the hero's "purity". They've demonstrated in doing so that there is no moral to teach because somtimes murder is the most or even only moral solution. They just want to keep their protagonist "wholesome" for cynical marketing or narrative reasons.