Why I still play Classic despite not liking permadeath, and how things could be better.

[Jotari]

I'm not sure the narrative argument really holds as much weight as it seems. Let's take Engage as an example. Alfred is a character who retreats in Engage. He cannot die for the purpose of the story. But what does he actually do in the story? He stands around and makes casual aside comments. He's basically just a banner representing his country (and they don't even bother to put him in half the FMVs). You could very easily have perma death be a thing for Alfred and almost all characters aside from Alear, and you could tell the exact same story. Some lines would just have to be shifted around to account for dead characters.

Now, of course, Engage isn't the height of story telling, but I think does example does show how important characters are less important than they might seem. Once a character joins your army, whether permadeath exists or not, they effectively become a stooge for the main character. Their role in universe is to fight for the protagonist and carry out their will. Once someone joins your army, they aren't going to be making massively influential decisions to the plot. And any decisions they do make can probably be shifted to another character since everyone is on the same side.

Now of course there are characters in universe with the same level of authority as the player character who can and do make important decisions. But Radiant Dawn has already figured out a way to deal with that. You simply don't make them playable characters. Tibarn and Skrmir join the player's side from basically the start of part 3, but you don't get to play as them until part 4, and that actually feels natural and right since they are doing their own thing with their own people. You can't kill Skrmir before his confrontation with Zelgius, but he doesn't actually need to be a playable character before that point, and, given his personality is bumping against the player character, it actually works better on a narrative thematic level if he isn't a playable character.

Tl;dr Playable characters are narratively and politically aligned with the protagonist and thus don't actually have much major story potential that can't be shifted to another unit if they're dead.

[Florete]

53 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Tl;dr Playable characters are narratively and politically aligned with the protagonist and thus don't actually have much major story potential that can't be shifted to another unit if they're dead.

All you're saying is that FE to date doesn't always have the best character writing, not that permadeath won't ever limit how that writing is done. If a character's role can be easily replaced, they're just not a well-integrated character. It doesn't change the argument.

[Jotari]

1 minute ago, Florete said:

All you're saying is that FE to date doesn't always have the best character writing, not that permadeath won't ever limit how that writing is done. If a character's role can be easily replaced, they're just not a well-integrated character. It doesn't change the argument.

Well let's get into some specifics. What kind of story would you like to see from Fire Emblem that perma death is making impossible?

[Florete]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well let's get into some specifics. What kind of story would you like to see from Fire Emblem that perma death is making impossible?

Nothing specific. I just think getting rid of "this character can't be involved in any cutscene because they might be dead" would be helpful. It's not even just the story proper, if you knew characters would be around you could have outside characters be involved in supports and such. The support system as it is in FE only exists because of permadeath, which is unfortunate because strictly 1-on-1 conversations for character development are also quite limiting.

[Jotari]

59 minutes ago, Florete said:

Nothing specific. I just think getting rid of "this character can't be involved in any cutscene because they might be dead" would be helpful. It's not even just the story proper, if you knew characters would be around you could have outside characters be involved in supports and such. The support system as it is in FE only exists because of permadeath, which is unfortunate because strictly 1-on-1 conversations for character development are also quite limiting.

I don't see any actual limitations there. You just have to create alternate scenarios based on conditional character existence, like they did in Path of Radiance. It's certainly a lot more work to construct alternate scenarios, but it's more than possible, and we have seen it in the series. The one that comes to mind most readily is Pelleas's survival or death (which funnily enough isn't a result of Perma Death, but still fully illustrates how a character can be used for such). Another one that comes to mind is Leif's decisions post reclaiming Leinster castle. In one route, if you recruited Miranda, it's her fiery personality that convinces Leif to march south and reclaim her kingdom, if you took the other route where Miranda isn't recruited (and, possibly what happens if Miranda dies or isn't recruited on B route, I'm not sure), that role in the plot is substituted for an elderly peasant woman who pleads with Leif. It's certainly nicer for the plot for Miranda's personalty to be a driving force, but in Lieu of Miranda's existence (and in this example the scenario 50% of people will encounter due to a route split) another way of getting the plot into alignment can be accomplished. Chrom's Maiden girl is a similar example of this.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Jotari

[Samz707]

On 2/27/2023 at 3:37 AM, Florete said:

Nothing specific. I just think getting rid of "this character can't be involved in any cutscene because they might be dead" would be helpful. It's not even just the story proper, if you knew characters would be around you could have outside characters be involved in supports and such. The support system as it is in FE only exists because of permadeath, which is unfortunate because strictly 1-on-1 conversations for character development are also quite limiting.

Alternatively, they could simply pull a FE7 Matthew, have alternative versions of cutscenes for if they're dead, just on a somewhat larger scale.

FE3H's group chats I feel even get a decent bit in negating this.