Karel should have been a villain in Blazing Blade

[Jotari]

So, this is the scene. You come to the end of Binding Blade and this random ass swordmaster shows up to be your final character. He's apparently related to some other playable characters even though they've never mentioned him before. He has the most ridiculous growth rates the series has ever seen and is apparently atoning for a blood stained past. All in all, he's a pretty cool character concept and not disappointing for the final character of the game.

And then they make a prequel! Surely we'll get to know more about our mysterious Swordmaster. And hey, it seems his country of origin is getting the main focus in this game, the new lord is from there at least. Will we see how he got the title of Sword Saint? Or will it be a redemption story for him?...Well he's certainly in it, but no. It's none of these things. He's just Peri 1.0. Or rather Peri is just Karel 2.0. And despite Lyn being a thing, he plays zero actual role in the story and, in fact, is a completely optional character that can be missed due to joining on a route split. And to make matters worse there isn't a hint of his insane growth rates.

Karel is a boring character in Blazing Blade and doesn't even have the thing that made him mechanically interesting in Binding Blade. And that's a shame, because he's actually a pretty cool guy in Binding Blade. He has this zen aspect to him, yet at the same time he is humble and acknowledges the strength of others (which is also great gameplay story intergration, for as great as Karel is as a unit, the plain truth is that the units you've been training up all game probably will be stronger). He feels like guy who can genuinely give sage advice and has a lot of regrets about how his life went. But in Blazing Blade, the dude is just plain psycho. Before an example of his mindless killing was saving a village from Bandits, but not out of a desire to protect anyone, it was just out of a desire to kill. But in this game he killed his own parents and siblings for basically no reason and virtually every one of his supports involves him saying he'd kill his support partner if they were worth it. The justification for him to even fight alongside Hector and Eliwood is also really shoddy. It's because he wants them to get stronger so he can later kill them. The dude is just a walking sterotype of the blood knight through and through and I question why Eliwood and Hector would even want to have such a lunatic hanging around with them. Unless it's all bravado and lies, he's more inclined to lop off an important ally's head than an enemy's.

But if we're going into the past then Karel should be in the game. And he should be a pretty blood thirsty dude. Maybe not literally killing his entire family bloodthirsty, but his purpose is to kill strong people. So I ask, why make him a playable character? What benefit does he actually bring (well other than a mandatory Swordmaster, though if they'd put Karla in the game earlier he wouldn't even be needed for that niche)? It seems obvious to me that Karel should have been an antagonist of Blazing Blade. We have a dude just interested in killing as many people as possible, well, stick him in that terrorist assassin group that wants to kill as many people as possible to start wars and shit. It's like a hand fitting a glove. Let's go further. The fact that he's from Sacae can let him give Lyn more relevance in the story. Make him be the one who killed Lyn's parents and give her a score to settle with her. Or, if you just really like Wallace's Support with Lyn for espousing a theme of not being consumed by revenge (and to be fair it's a decent support and idea), just having both of them be major characters and Saceans still gives Lyn more importance in the story. We all love how she interacts with Uhai, right? It just feels to me that Karel offers nothing as a playable character other than putting Eliwood and Hector's morals into question, and presents multiple possible advantages as a villain. The only major issue with making him a villain is that you'd need some satisfying conclusion to his appearance, especially if you make him a personal villain for Lyn, but he's also destined to survive into Binding Blade. Though, there are work arounds for that. Just give him the Eric treatment and have the heroes randomly spare him (despite killing hoards of other people) or make him only die in a route split or Gaiden so you can have the other route be the canon scenario (that's called having your cake and eating it too).

Well, that's just how I feel. Binding Blade Karel = Cool. Blazing Blade Karel = Cliched and Boring, but could work more effectively as a villain.

Edited March 6, 2023 by Jotari

[Acacia Sgt]

Nah, it's even more of a cliche if he had been an enemy. At least as an ally we get to see the start of his redemption arc, through his supports. The fact it stops there, at the very start, is also a bit interesting I'd say. Since we now know the start and the end, but not the middle. That remains a desire to get that juicy middle portion to leave our imaginations wander, or can infer somewhat between what we already got.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

The player certainly doesn't get time to think about Karel and his place in the world since the very next chapter has us running after smol child and murderer about to be redeemed. As far as you know, he's a Punisher-esque vigilante just looking for the sorts of people that need killin'. Welcome aboard. Hey, maybe they should have wrote Karel into Jaffar's place in the story? Nino would have been the start of his redemption, and by that point of the story you've met the most devout members of the Black Fang to know that they're all nuts. Karel would fit in better as a member of the cult, then a vigilant. Him being playable without any arc only communicates to us that the Black Fang and Bern King don't have a Monopoly on Crazy.

Edited March 5, 2023 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Idea: Karel really wants the Mani Katti. He killed his entire family over a worse Killing Edge, so it makes sense he'd obsess over a legendary sword of Sacae. After Lyn draws the sword, he elects to follow her. As a result, he shows up a couple times, Galzus-style, in Lyn's Story. Probably just on Hard Mode, since "unkillable murder reinforcement chasing you down" is not super amenable to new players.

Anyway, this culminates in a fight between the two, after chapter 9. Karel demands the Sword, because he wants - needs - to become stronger. Lyn reflects that she started her journey for the same reason... but then it turned into fighting to save her grandfather, and for the friends she's met. Karel disarms Lyn, but finds he still cannot wield the Sword. Because he wants it for the wrong reasons, he wonders? Rather than kill Lyn, he spares her. With Lyn dead, the riddle of why the Mani Katti chose her would remain unsolved forever. He leaves, intending to meditate at the Shrine of Spirits, where it was first drawn from.

Beyond that, there are a few different ways he could be handled:

1. Write Karel out after Lyn's Story. This means he wouldn't be a playable character anymore. But Lyn's Story would still show the start of his "redemption", which culminates in his FE6 appearance. The chapter where he shows up would just offer Harken instead.

2. Keep his current place in Eliwood's and Hector's Stories. His recruitment would mention his encounter with Lyn, and maybe his supports would be "softened" somewhat. But otherwise, he's the same Karel we know and... tolerate.

3. Make Karel an antagonist in Eliwood's and Hector's Stories, as you proposed. Have him in the hire of the Black Fang, taking the job upon learning that Lyn is part of the group they're targeting. He wants to understand her, and to see the Sword again.

3b. He's still a villain, but can be recruited, in his last appearance on the Dread Isle. Either Karla (who should be recruitable on either story) or Lyn can recruit him. He's sort of a Gotoh, similar to his FE6 role.

4. Do what @Zapp Branniglenn said. It's totally plausible that Karel could've been warped by a Jaffar-style upbringing. And it's a little weird to be getting two "sword infantry Edgey McEdgester" units right around the same time. If we still need an Assassin, perhaps Legault could be retconned into the class? He's renowned as "The Hurricane", so it's kind of weird that he joins as a first-tier unit with pretty average stats.

[AnonymousSpeed]

I think this is a great deal of thought, and perhaps some ideas here are interesting, but the entire thought process of putting Karel in FE7 probably didn't go further than "this would be a cool FE6 reference", which it was not, because FE7 is a bad game and its references are not compliments.

There may be no chance of any real plot changes in any official capacity for FE7, but there are no shortage of rewrite fanfictions from the aughts if you want to take back up the torch there. Speaking of torch, you should review the Hardest.

The only other hypothetical option is a derivative work, but that would require both an FE6 derivative and an FE7 derivative, which is quite a lot just to give Lyn a rival and some vague facsimile of importance to the plot.

On a totally unrelated note I've been using the Lyn ring on Etie and I get there A support and let me tell you I'm pissed. Etie basically says the exact same line as Hector's "a little too much is just enough for me" and Lyn says nothing to reference it and I'm pissed off because that's so obvious and they didn't do it.

Still a good game though.

[Jotari]

9 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

The player certainly doesn't get time to think about Karel and his place in the world since the very next chapter has us running after smol child and murderer about to be redeemed. As far as you know, he's a Punisher-esque vigilante just looking for the sorts of people that need killin'. Welcome aboard. Hey, maybe they should have wrote Karel into Jaffar's place in the story? Nino would have been the start of his redemption, and by that point of the story you've met the most devout members of the Black Fang to know that they're all nuts. Karel would fit in better as a member of the cult, then a vigilant. Him being playable without any arc only communicates to us that the Black Fang and Bern King don't have a Monopoly on Crazy.

Yeah, Karel actually would have slotted very well into Jaffar's role in the story. I didn't think about it at all, but it makes perfect sense.

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

Idea: Karel really wants the Mani Katti. He killed his entire family over a worse Killing Edge, so it makes sense he'd obsess over a legendary sword of Sacae. After Lyn draws the sword, he elects to follow her. As a result, he shows up a couple times, Galzus-style, in Lyn's Story. Probably just on Hard Mode, since "unkillable murder reinforcement chasing you down" is not super amenable to new players.

Anyway, this culminates in a fight between the two, after chapter 9. Karel demands the Sword, because he wants - needs - to become stronger. Lyn reflects that she started her journey for the same reason... but then it turned into fighting to save her grandfather, and for the friends she's met. Karel disarms Lyn, but finds he still cannot wield the Sword. Because he wants it for the wrong reasons, he wonders? Rather than kill Lyn, he spares her. With Lyn dead, the riddle of why the Mani Katti chose her would remain unsolved forever. He leaves, intending to meditate at the Shrine of Spirits, where it was first drawn from.

Beyond that, there are a few different ways he could be handled:

1. Write Karel out after Lyn's Story. This means he wouldn't be a playable character anymore. But Lyn's Story would still show the start of his "redemption", which culminates in his FE6 appearance. The chapter where he shows up would just offer Harken instead.

2. Keep his current place in Eliwood's and Hector's Stories. His recruitment would mention his encounter with Lyn, and maybe his supports would be "softened" somewhat. But otherwise, he's the same Karel we know and... tolerate.

3. Make Karel an antagonist in Eliwood's and Hector's Stories, as you proposed. Have him in the hire of the Black Fang, taking the job upon learning that Lyn is part of the group they're targeting. He wants to understand her, and to see the Sword again.

3b. He's still a villain, but can be recruited, in his last appearance on the Dread Isle. Either Karla (who should be recruitable on either story) or Lyn can recruit him. He's sort of a Gotoh, similar to his FE6 role.

4. Do what @Zapp Branniglenn said. It's totally plausible that Karel could've been warped by a Jaffar-style upbringing. And it's a little weird to be getting two "sword infantry Edgey McEdgester" units right around the same time. If we still need an Assassin, perhaps Legault could be retconned into the class? He's renowned as "The Hurricane", so it's kind of weird that he joins as a first-tier unit with pretty average stats.

Honestly, I think I'd be completely fine if Karel was the same regular old playable character but you inserted him into Lyn mode like you suggest. At least it's giving him some importance and familiarity before he just shows up and insists on joining you so he can later kill you.

 

Another idea I had would have been to just make Lyn and Karla the same character. I don't think Karla's name is ever mentioned in Binding Blade, she's just Fir's mother and Karel's sister. Make her the new protagonist, give her a crazy brother to deal with and then you kill two birds with one stone in terms of Lyn not being integrated into Binding Blade's world and Lyn not having any wider relevance. And also solves the issue that Karla was also horrendously integrated into the game, coming so late like that. Of course then Lyn's canon pairing would have to be Bartre XD But wouldn't that be hilariously unexpected for all the people who assumed she's meant to be paired with Hector or Eliwood.

Edited March 6, 2023 by Jotari

[ARMADS!!!]

Lol I liked every single responde and idea in here, as crazy as some of them might seem they all make sense and make me think about how it couldv'e been: Karel taking Jaffar's role, having Karel meet Lyn in Lyn's mode, Lyn be Karla and Karel be her brother (even with the "Lyn's canon pair would have to be Bartre" thing it still is an interesting idea).

 

 For me Karel in FE7 always looked like it was supposed to be kinda... Funny. Basically just this and a reference to FE7. Like if you had a hella mature and calm friend that told you that he did horrible things on the past but then you managed to see a video of his past and realized that it was WAY worse and edgier than you could ever imagine: He had long hair covering an eye and talked on elipses (AKA ".... .... ......"), killed his whole family for a sword, was planning on killing his sister that on FE6 he mourns, joined an army just to kill people,... Basically the edgiest person you can imagine. I mean, imagine if Uther, that is a serious and mature dude, had told Hector that he commited some mistakes during his life and you thought "ok" but then they showed a flashback revealing that he was a ridiculous and edgy dude that wanted to see blood rain, weirded everyone out for being creepy and using several unecessary elipses on his sentences, had hair covering his eye and killed a bunch of people for a sword? Wouldn't it be funny, because it's ridiculous? Like, "There's no way that this was seriously that much of an edgelord". 

 Like, you know when an adult character, in any series with adults as main characters, talks about how he was in Highschool or how he used to be in college and it's always something like a stoner, harcore gothic with a heavy metal band, an ex teen pop star or something of the sort, basically something absurd that has nothing to do with the actual character on the present, to be funny? Or when a character comes back in time and meet their parents as teenagers and basically the same trope applies (usually hippies, or had a band, etc)? Yeah, that's what Karel feels like too me. Thats not bad at all, it's just that for me the point always seemed to be that it was supposed to be funny or ridiculous, But from what I've read it seems like no one agrees with it.

[KMT4ever]

A lot of these ideas feel like they're trying to give Karel more importance than his role in FE6 really warrants. In the end he's there to be a wise swordmaster with a mysterious past. He doesn't even have a particularly noble reason to help; the only reason he's even involved is his family connection to Fir and Bartre. He doesn't convey any plot-relevant information and basically all we learn about him is that he used to be a wandering slaughterer before becoming the man he is now at some point before his last meeting with Fir and/or Bartre. Not knowing exactly how that happened appeals to me because it lets us come up with our own ideas when we see him in FE7. Did he end up killing his one and only student Guy in their duel and regretting it? Did learning that Karla was sick permanently reawaken his familial love for her?

What I do think could have been done in FE7 is give Karla more time to shine by switching her and Karel's recruitments, as well as obviously making his appearance in Ostia dependent on her reaching a certain level rather than Bartre. They fight, and if Karla wins she spares Karel despite him urging her to kill him as their blood demands. He then joins the army, nominally to make sure Karla doesn't die before he kills her, but as shown in his supports he starts to mellow out after "normal" interactions with other people. If I may nerd out a bit, this would also present two interesting character contrasts.

1. Karla vs. Harken: On the one hand a vagabond swordswoman searching for her bloodthirsty brother, not to kill him but instead simply to reconnect with him as family. On the other hand a rogue knight who forsook his comrades and fiancee in pursuit of bloody vengeance.
2. Karel vs. Renault: From what we can tell Renault used to be a lot like Karel when he worked under Nergal, killing anyone strong enough to put up a good fight (albeit in order to acquire quintessence). In turn Karel ends up a lot like Renault by the time of FE6, regretful of his bloody past and consequently averse to conflict despite his immense power.