The Fell Xenologue Villain is a complete moron [Spoilers]

[Jotari]

So I'm finally playing through the fell Xenologues, trying to rush them all before Tears of the Kingdom came out (I've failed, still trying to beat the final chapter, it's freaking hard, don't think it was balanced for Maddening Endgame as the story characters which can't be undeployed are bloody useless), and while I've liked the story and the twist...Nil is a total idiot. Very little of what he does makes sense. He controls or can influence literally every military force on the continent and his solution is to...have them fight each other. Now if his goal was general chaos than fair enough, only it's not, he specifically wants the seven Dragon Balls rings so he can make a wish to be a real dragon...so why are we going around fighting each kingdom when he could compel them to just hand the rings over? I thought maybe he actually couldn't control the corrupted royals, which coupled with them not knowing they're corrupted puts them in an odd philosophical position, but considering they all show up to join in the final battle he clearly can...so yeah, he chose to have everyone fight each other for basically no reason. He even has Solm invade Elyusia because...well I can't even bullshit a reason. If it were critical that Alear and the gang have to fight the corrupted kingdoms to wear down the party, then why have two of the kingdoms fight each other and make our job easier? Firene was about to invade Brodia too, so it seemed to be his overall intention. I can guess that maybe the continent wasn't nearly filled with as many corrupted as our protagonists just assume and the wars were intended to make more corrupted...but that still doesn't explain why he doesn't just have the monarchs hand them over when politely asked.

And things don't get much better when he actually reveals himself as a villain to Alear. He has literally no reason to do that, and, in fact, has every reason not to do that, since he needs Alear's help specifically to get the last ring from the Somniel. Just...don't out yourself as a villain and tell Alear that's where you need to go next. It's so ridiculously less risky than trying to kill the one person you need alive. In fact, why didn't they visit the Somniel first? It's right beside Lythos and it's the only ring that's actually inaccessible to him.

Things get even more moronic when he either just fucks up and somehow let's the surprised Alear escape to Solm or he...brings Alear to Solm to kill him for no discernible reason. I found it a bit unclear whether Alear escaped to there or was brought there, either way you do end up in Solm and Nil is trying to kill Alear in Chapter 5, despite very desperately needing Alear to be alive for the last ring. The idiot ball must be contagious though as Alear and Nel just...leave him there after they beat him in that chapter. They know he's not dead, they specifically say he's unconscious. The guy controls every person (and wolf) in the entire continent, you think he's just going to stop if he wakes up (that in particular could have been fixed by making killing Fogdao and Hortensea the game clear condition of that map).

Despite hie best intentions to shoot himself in the foot at every step along the way, he somehow still manages to collect all the rings and get his wish to be a dragon. And the ironic thing is, if he'd just not revealed himself as a villain and they'd just travelled there...then they probably would have let him make that wish anyway. The wish can only be made once every 1,000 years, he could have made a decent attempt to ask for him to wish to be a real dragon just to use up the wish and stop the mysterious enemy from having a wish. But at least that I can buy him not thinking of due to his personality. Still, pretty much every action he takes other than somehow killing literally everyone off screen serves to work more against him than for him. I know he's low key suicidal but come on dude, you're capable of at least some rationality.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Jotari

[Acacia Sgt]

It's the Fell Xenologue, what did you expect.

Well, do keep in mind they went the route of "Sombron corrupted Rafal through the Dragonstone", so that's always going to factor in Rafal's actions.

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

 I thought maybe he actually couldn't control the corrupted royals, which coupled with them not knowing they're corrupted puts them in an odd philosophical position, but considering they all show up to join in the final battle he clearly can...so yeah, he chose to have everyone fight each other for basically no reason.

I mean, for the final fight it can be explained that they had been re-killed and he simply brought them back under his control. So assuming he wasn't the one who brought them back the first time around (the one royal we definitely know that was under his control before the final chapter, Fogado, it's implied he was only brought back recently, so if the other royals were already under Rafal's control, why did he waited to bring back Fogado, then? Sounds more like he was the only one he could give orders to), then Nel kinda was shooting herself in the foot by killing them just because she thought they were undeserving to "live". So you can "thank" her for giving Rafal the means to bring them all under his control.

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

I can guess that maybe the continent wasn't nearly filled with as many corrupted as our protagonists just assume and the wars were intended to make more corrupted...

If I recall, every single person you fight is a Corrupted. It's more that whatever brought them back, it didn't do it to everybody (the retainers are still dead, after all).

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

but that still doesn't explain why he doesn't just have the monarchs hand them over when politely asked.

Honestly, this sounds more that he truly didn't had them under his control. Maybe he brought them back but, like Veyle with Alear in the main story, left them be at first.

Alternatively, the countries were hostile to each other to convince Nel to do the summoning ritual to bring a Divine Dragon to their world. Because of the sealed Bracelet, yes.

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

And things don't get much better when he actually reveals himself as a villain to Alear. He has literally no reason to do that, and, in fact, has every reason not to do that, since he needs Alear's help specifically to get the last ring from the Somniel. Just...don't out yourself as a villain and tell Alear that's where you need to go next. It's so ridiculously less risky than trying to kill the one person you need alive. In fact, why didn't they visit the Somniel first? It's right beside Lythos and it's the only ring that's actually inaccessible to him.

Because that wasn't the plan. The plan was to seal the rest of the Bracelets away. So there was no way Rafal could convince them to unseal the Bracelet that already was. He'd need to force them to, hence why he decided to reveal himself as the villain.

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

Things get even more moronic when he either just fucks up and somehow let's the surprised Alear escape to Solm or he...brings Alear to Solm to kill him for no discernible reason. I found it a bit unclear whether Alear escaped to there or was brought there, either way you do end up in Solm and Nil is trying to kill Alear in Chapter 5, despite very desperately needing Alear to be alive for the last ring.

He brings Alear to Solm. The plan is to take advantage of Nel's feelings for Alear to make a prisoner exchange... then guilt-trip Alear to unseal the Bracelet in exchange of Nel's life. He couldn't take Nel directly since the Winds were with her... but Alear was left alone with him, so he took the chance he had at the moment. Since he wouldn't know if he'd have another. Remember this was after Nel and Alear had their brief fallout. Or well, almost fallout, since Nel quickly deflected with her love confession.

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

Despite hie best intentions to shoot himself in the foot at every step along the way, he somehow still manages to collect all the rings and get his wish to be a dragon. And the ironic thing is, if he'd just not revealed himself as a villain and they'd just travelled there...then they probably would have let him make that wish anyway. The wish can only be made once every 1,000 years, he could have made a decent attempt to ask for him to wish to be a real dragon just to use up the wish and stop the mysterious enemy from having a wish.

Well, again, the party was not going to unseal the Bracelet. They weren't even going to use the Wish to fix the alt Elyos instead, evidently. Or even use the Wish at all.

Edited May 12, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

[Armchair General]

You know, I was going to binge-watch an playthrough of this by an certain streamer; but after reading this, I'm almost glad that I didn't, though.

[Seazas]

His actions are pretty much reminiscent of a guy who does and doesn't want to go through with hurting the others. Since he reveals to clearly be under some form of control by Sombron at the end. Rafal doesn't fully control the corrupted if he kept their personality intact, which he did otherwise suspicion on him would grow. Plus, he played 5D chess by sandbagging and making Nel + Alear do all the work to further lower their guards to "Nil". Rafal would have to explain why he randomly has all the bracelets if he just coerced them like you suggested, which puts a wrench in the plan of lowering their guards.

[Jotari]

44 minutes ago, Seazas said:

His actions are pretty much reminiscent of a guy who does and doesn't want to go through with hurting the others. Since he reveals to clearly be under some form of control by Sombron at the end. Rafal doesn't fully control the corrupted if he kept their personality intact, which he did otherwise suspicion on him would grow. Plus, he played 5D chess by sandbagging and making Nel + Alear do all the work to further lower their guards to "Nil". Rafal would have to explain why he randomly has all the bracelets if he just coerced them like you suggested, which puts a wrench in the plan of lowering their guards.

He wouldn't need to do it by himself. I mean like when everyone goes to Firene Castle and ask for them. If he has any control over the Corrupted Royals he could have had them say "okay I believe you, here's our Dragon Ball."

[Acacia Sgt]

Yeah. Either the corruption clouded his judgement, or he wasn't the one to bring back the Corrupted, as otherwise he could just... go through the almost-emptied lands and snatch the bracelets. THEN come up with a scheme to convince Nel to summon a Divine Dragon to unlock the last one.

Wait, it just hit me. There could be a way for the whole "mass death and brought back as Corrupted without anyone noticing" could've happened without Rafal being involved. There is one Fell Dragon whose actions in the alt Elyos are still mostly unaccounted:

Veyle

Maybe she did it? And died in the process or something...

So if she did it, then Rafal wouldn't have control over them (at least until Nel re-killed them), so he couldn't just get the Bracelets the easy way.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

[Jotari]

29 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Yeah. Either the corruption clouded his judgement, or he wasn't the one to bring back the Corrupted, as otherwise he could just... go through the almost-emptied lands and snatch the bracelets. THEN come up with a scheme to convince Nel to summon a Divine Dragon to unlock the last one.

Wait, it just hit me. There could be a way for the whole "mass death and brought back as Corrupted without anyone noticing" could've happened without Rafal being involved. There is one Fell Dragon whose actions in the alt Elyos are still mostly unaccounted:

Veyle

Maybe she did it? And died in the process or something...

So if she did it, then Rafal wouldn't have control over them (at least until Nel re-killed them), so he couldn't just get the Bracelets the easy way.

Mauvier still seems pretty fond of Veyle in this timeline though, suggesting she wasn't that bad. Though, I guess its possible her split personality was at work and it was E-Veyle's doing.

[Acacia Sgt]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

Mauvier still seems pretty fond of Veyle in this timeline though, suggesting she wasn't that bad. Though, I guess its possible her split personality was at work and it was E-Veyle's doing.

Unless someone had the role that main Zephia had, there'd be no split-personality Veyle, since that was artificially induced by Zephia's spell. Also, even if someone was, the spell was not an outright personality implant. Rather, a magnification spell of someone's inner nature/behavior. Evil!Veyle is basically Veyle acting on Fell Dragon and "must please Father" desires, basically.

Either way, it's a good guess as any, for Veyle to make like a mass-resurrection only to die in the process since it asked too much of her. Likely done in secret to boot.

[Jotari]

1 minute ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Unless someone had the role that main Zephia had, there'd be no split-personality Veyle, since that was artificially induced by Zephia's spell. Also, even if someone was, the spell was not an outright personality implant. Rather, a magnification spell of someone's inner nature/behavior. Evil!Veyle is basically Veyle acting on Fell Dragon and "must please Father" desires, basically.

Either way, it's a good guess as any, for Veyle to make like a mass-resurrection only to die in the process since it asked too much of her. Likely done in secret to boot.

I could see Veyle pulling a mass ressurection to try and undo what went wrong, but that depends on a mass killing in he first place to necessitate. And it begs belief that so many people, both major and ordinary citizens, could be killed with literally none of the Four Winds or Nel noticing. I mean, you already have that with the case of them all being corrupted, but it is marginally less noticable if the person who killed them all was also the one who immediately resurrected them.

Also, Eve and Seforia are apparently dead for reals. Which is a bit weird since they're alive and well in the main timeline. However they died it must have been before the mass resurrection. I get why they're dead, as the whole formula was to fight all the royal playable characters, but it kind of would have been nice to seem them deployed and give them official classes.

[Acacia Sgt]

Just now, Jotari said:

I could see Veyle pulling a mass ressurection to try and undo what went wrong, but that depends on a mass killing in he first place to necessitate. And it begs belief that so many people, both major and ordinary citizens, could be killed with literally none of the Four Winds or Nel noticing. I mean, you already have that with the case of them all being corrupted, but it is marginally less noticable if the person who killed them all was also the one who immediately resurrected them.

Also, Eve and Seforia are apparently dead for reals. Which is a bit weird since they're alive and well in the main timeline. However they died it must have been before the mass resurrection. I get why they're dead, as the whole formula was to fight all the royal playable characters, but it kind of would have been nice to seem them deployed and give them official classes.

If I recall, for a time the Fell Dragons and Winds were holed up in Lythos, not knowing exactly what was happening in the rest of Elyos. Perhaps that's when it happened?

The resurrection is implied to happen after the war where Alear and Sombron slew each other, yes. So yep, the royals (sans Hyacinth, actually) all died, but only the princes and princesses were brought back.

It would've interesting if they hadn't been brought back and it's instead the Kings and Queens having to run things as they wallow in grief for the loss of their children. Would've allow to give them the screentime they lacked in the main game.

[Mizerous]

On 5/13/2023 at 12:05 PM, Acacia Sgt said:

If I recall, for a time the Fell Dragons and Winds were holed up in Lythos, not knowing exactly what was happening in the rest of Elyos. Perhaps that's when it happened?

The resurrection is implied to happen after the war where Alear and Sombron slew each other, yes. So yep, the royals (sans Hyacinth, actually) all died, but only the princes and princesses were brought back.

It would've interesting if they hadn't been brought back and it's instead the Kings and Queens having to run things as they wallow in grief for the loss of their children. Would've allow to give them the screentime they lacked in the main game.

Pfft Fire Emblem letting parents get screen time. You know they only serve as characters deaths for the kids.

[Acacia Sgt]

Fire Emblem Engage Devs On "Drastically Different" DLC And Characters "Living As The Person They Want To Be" | Nintendo Life

Well, turns out, we finally have some answers at last.

Simply put, yes, it was Rafal who brought them all back, and part of the process was actually after the war, including killing the alt royals to begin with.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

[SnowFire]

Kinda unfortunate it's an interview with "Intelligent Systems" rather than a specific person.  Oh well.

The game wants you to think toward the end of the maingame that Sombron is just somebody who wanted to leave Elyos and GTFO, yet Fell Xenologue also makes him a bit of a card-carrying villain who wanted to ensure that one of his kids would continue to do bad stuff because (???).  It's hard to do character assassination of someone who ate an entire town, but...  FellX tries!  And yeah, having it be Nil single-handedly who revived everyone is a bit...  he shouldn't be THAT powerful without a Dragonball wish, come on.  I'll grant him the resurrections afterward, but saying that the situation at the start was all his "fault" definitely raises questions, since it seems to imply a much godlier level of magic power for dragons then we see in the main game.

Also, it's kind of amusing the interview basically says "It is quite rare for them to care about their siblings like Alear, Veyle, Nel and Nil do" when these are literally the only kids of Sombron we ever see.  I still don't think that anybody actually sat down and thought about WTF was going on with the "Brood of Sombron."  Normal Veyle is basically a normal person who doesn't come across as being raised in a twisted cult, but how did she ever learn to be such?  Not from Alear, who only met her once (!) in the backstory, and briefly.  Did Sombron have human mistresses / wives and they were allowed to raise the kids normally?  That's what I had presumed, and Veyle was merely "lucky" to survive as being too weak to be sent to the front lines.  But maybe everyone else was raised in a "fight your siblings" cult and Veyle wasn't, for reasons?  (But it almost sounds like the Fell kids spent more time fighting each other, maybe to clean Lumera's hands as if she wasn't fighting the other side of the war?!  Sigh.)

[Jotari]

14 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

Kinda unfortunate it's an interview with "Intelligent Systems" rather than a specific person.  Oh well.

The game wants you to think toward the end of the maingame that Sombron is just somebody who wanted to leave Elyos and GTFO, yet Fell Xenologue also makes him a bit of a card-carrying villain who wanted to ensure that one of his kids would continue to do bad stuff because (???).  It's hard to do character assassination of someone who ate an entire town, but...  FellX tries!

That's....a really good point XD oh well I still like Sombron in Fell Xenologue as the voice actor really sells it.

14 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

And yeah, having it be Nil single-handedly who revived everyone is a bit...  he shouldn't be THAT powerful without a Dragonball wish, come on.  I'll grant him the resurrections afterward, but saying that the situation at the start was all his "fault" definitely raises questions, since it seems to imply a much godlier level of magic power for dragons then we see in the main game.

Also, it's kind of amusing the interview basically says "It is quite rare for them to care about their siblings like Alear, Veyle, Nel and Nil do" when these are literally the only kids of Sombron we ever see.  I still don't think that anybody actually sat down and thought about WTF was going on with the "Brood of Sombron."  Normal Veyle is basically a normal person who doesn't come across as being raised in a twisted cult, but how did she ever learn to be such?  Not from Alear, who only met her once (!) in the backstory, and briefly.  Did Sombron have human mistresses / wives and they were allowed to raise the kids normally?  That's what I had presumed, and Veyle was merely "lucky" to survive as being too weak to be sent to the front lines.  But maybe everyone else was raised in a "fight your siblings" cult and Veyle wasn't, for reasons?  (But it almost sounds like the Fell kids spent more time fighting each other, maybe to clean Lumera's hands as if she wasn't fighting the other side of the war?!  Sigh.)

Well to be fair Veyle was considered too young during the first war. So she presumably didn't have much of a chance to be abused before Sombron was killed. We can only guess, but she looks in the main game to be about the same age Nil and Nel are in their flashbacks. So it might be a case of "equivalent to 13=Okay to fight siblings and die on the front line" while "equivalent to 4=Not". I say 4 and not an outright baby because we know she does remember Alear from the first war which an age approximate of four or five would let her remember while also making her too young to fight believable.

[Acacia Sgt]

I mean, it is a Mirror World, so Sombron also being different enough is... well, the norm. Not that it makes it any much better, but it's not coming out of nowhere at least.

[Mizerous]

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I mean, it is a Mirror World, so Sombron also being different enough is... well, the norm. Not that it makes it any much better, but it's not coming out of nowhere at least.

Its like Marvel's Multiverse then where people can be less of a douche in another universe.

[Acacia Sgt]

4 minutes ago, Mizerous said:

Its like Marvel's Multiverse then where people can be less of a douche in another universe.

Or more. But yeah, pretty much a staple of adding the multiverse to anything.

[Jotari]

So the Sombron of the main game is the good version of him, but he's just kind of so shitty that even the good half of him is a villain.