I still can’t stop laughing at the big bad slime monster “plot twist”. #SorryNotSorry
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But Muk is sexy
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Wait, so what exactly is your problem with Eldigan? In my mind, he’s one of the more sympathetic characterizations of the Camus archetype. The personal friendship that he had with Sigurd and Quan positioned him as the first major enemy that wound up on the “wrong side” of the war–one of the people that players legitimately regret having to kill. Manfroy is really no better/no worse than any of the other Gharnef clones, so I’m not exactly sure what your gripe is there either. These character archetypes are relatively consistent throughout the series, so I’m somewhat confused as to why you would point specifically to those two characters as being on the same level of bad plot devices such as blood pacts and random character revivals.
The blood pacts thing is a fair point–it was definitely the most absurd, out-of-left-field plot device in the franchise’s history, at least until Fates came along with that whole “floating sky island that you are magically prevented from speaking about in the first two routes (or else you’ll turn into bubbles or some bullshit like that)” thing. Making blood pacts look semi-sensible is quite an accomplishment on IS’s part.
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It’s quite simple when you think about it what my problem with Eldigan is, how does this asshole not know that by serving Chagall, he’s serving the king he was so loyal to’s murderer. Genealogy really doesn’t make it a secret that Chagall offed the king. Hell, Raquesis herself tells Eldigan as much before he gets captured by the guy the first time, and you’d think being thrown into a dungeon then blatantly being used to save the ass of the guy later, only for the same guy to off you the second you finally get some sense, and even with the sense Chagall must be stopped, he never gets the bright idea to use that OP af sword of his when Chagall orders him killed assuming you have Raquesis talk to him when you fight him.
On the Manfroy point, there’s a simple reason I have gripes with him, someone as brutally effective as he has been up until the point where you rescue Julia should not have been dumb enough to make the Dr. Evil esque mistake he did that effectively cost the Lopto Empire the war. I’m fine with a villain being stupid, but only if he’s consistently stupid. Manfroy up until Genealogy’s late game is portrayed as quite possibly the greatest tactician the series has ever had considering the shit he pulls off in the first generation, so why does he become a total dumbass the chapter you fight him.
Honestly tho, your right that these are common archetypes in the series’ plots, and while I despise the Camus archetype with a passion and find Gharnef’s hit or miss, Eldigan and Manfroy always stuck out to me as the worst, because without them, FE4 would actually have a rather serviceable plot that if it fixed it’s paceing issues as well, it would be the first good story in this series.
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Those aren’t problems with the plot or writing, Eldigan is just stupid. It’s bad writing if a character does something that doesn’t seem as if it’s something he or she would do or if it’s an asspull. But that’s literally all we see of Eldigan, so you can’t say it’s not in his character to make such a stupid mistake. Honestly the issue I have with FE4’s writing is how important characters are introduced and dealt with in one chapter. It makes for a very fragmented story.
Doesn’t each chapter of FE4 take span over a long period of time, at least in contrast to later titles where the fights you could essentially assume to be a day long or so, roughly?
I remember reading that in one chapter two characters meet and by the end of it they fall in love and it’s super jarring if you don’t take that time factor into consideration…
I think it’s understood to be over weeks or months. The time lapse between Eldigan’s imprisonment and his execution is at least a year.
im voting for fe4 here cause of one reason alone. I feel it had the most interesting world that wasn’t tellius, and world building is traditionally the biggest strength of the franchise in my opinion. I mean i would vote for fe9 or fe10 but i like them about the same tbh though 10 i like a bit more then 9 actually, fun times with the blood pacts.
honestly i feel fates and awakenings problems can be summed up in to points. A lack of strong world building, and shoveling the information down the players throat, cause when i think about the characters there’s nothing actually really wrong with them and the plots are perfectly serviceable in the basic outline, its just that the presentation doesn’t feel right. and thats because information is simply being shoveled down your throat, there’s no time for world building cause all this really important plot stuff is happening right now you guys, not time for things to simply exist the worlds are constantly in motion and theres no time to sit back and catch your breath.
… if anyone can get some sense from this please feel free to tell me what it is ’ 3 ’
Eldigan takes the entire “loyalty to a fault” concept to a new level, sure. Was it absolutely foolish of him to allow himself to be held hostage, and then sent on a death march by that very same person? Sure. Would Eldigan rebelling have brought the murdered king back to life? No, and he’s a rational enough character to understand that. I’d imagine that there is some level of suspicion, after Granvale’s invasion of Isaach, that they have imperialist ambitions. Eldigan is caught between a rock and a hard place: loyalty to his country (for fear that it could cease to exist if Sigurd triumphs), and the fact that Chagall is a treacherous fuckwad. Since Eldigan was raised as the heir to a subservient duchy, it makes sense that the former would outweigh the latter in Eldigan’s decision-making process. Staving off the Granvale invasion takes priority, and Chagall is an issue that can be handled internally within Agustria. Eldigan’s priorities were focused on the preservation of his nation’s sovereignty. He was right to remain suspicious of Granvale, given the fact that Lombard and Leptor appear at the end of the chapter to capture Sigurd. Even if Eldigan had killed Chagall and joined forces with Sigurd, the Granvallian army would have still continued conquering Agustria territory. They would not have honored the Sigurd x Eldigan truce.
Hubris. At least, that’s my interpretation of Manfroy’s downfall. He was so brutally effective for so long, had ushered in the revival of an empire and the revival of an ancient dark deity, that he finally was arrogant enough to think that he could control that deity’s mortal enemy. It bites him in the ass, sure, as often happens to exceptionally successful individuals who overstep the boundaries of their power.
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I wasn’t entirely sure if the question here was “which plot is the best” or “which plot was told the best” so I voted for FE5, as the one I feel was told the best. I think that FE4 has the more interesting story to tell, and based on that alone I might say FE4 is the best. However, I feel that FE5 conveys its story so much better in almost every way, so it gets my vote.
While its not another “saving the world” plot that you can find a variation of in literally every other Fire Emblem game ever made, I think the smaller scale does FE5 a lot of favors in terms of characterization. It knows what it’s supposed to be from the beginning: an underdog story. The game pounds it into your head time and time again that you are vastly outnumbered and in way over your head. You spend a large part of the game on the run, which realistically more FE Lords should be doing instead of charging in headfirst.
Because you’re playing the underdog, each victory feels like you really earned it, and I’m not talking from a game play standpoint either. Even when you go on the offensive in the story, its almost always credited to superior tactics, rather than brute force, and the game makes it known in-universe. Without your tactician, you’re boned, and the game sticks to that until the end.
FE4 was pretty good about its worldbuilding, at least in Gen 1, but I feel like FE5 does just as well if not better for its own story. In FE5 we get to see the Loptyr Empire being assholes instead of just hearing about it. We get more information on the Thracian people, and really get to see firsthand that even though the country is technically unified, there’s a LOT of problems going on behind the scenes. We get to see a lot more people who are good men/women manipulated into working for this corrupt system, whereas FE4 had Hannibal. And this isn’t me trying to shit on FE4’s plot, quite the opposite actually. FE4 had a pretty good plot and it’s not entirely fair to say FE5 did it better when it wouldn’t exist without FE4. Regardless, the fact that FE5 takes this established world and brings it up close as if under a magnifying glass really does a lot to create a more cohesive narrative. I don’t feel like the story glosses over things because there just isn’t enough time to explain all the relevant information without a 30 minute text dump at the end of each chapter. And really, that is Thracia 776’s greatest strength when it comes to the story. Because the story itself isn’t as grand, there’s enough time to explore the details.
On a side note, while I’m not trying to take away from the other games, I really wish more FE titles wouldn’t be afraid to stray from “Lord beats empire, fist fights God, bangs (sometimes a dragon) girl, The End” type stories. I’m not knocking it because it’s a cliche, but because the more I think about it I genuinely don’t think that Fire Emblem is a good platform for telling these kinds of stories. Generally, the only way to learn about the world in FE is to read about it. It might be Pre-Chapter Dialogue, visiting a house, support conversations, or whatever. The bottom line is, that’s all you can really do with it. There’s really no exploring the world yourself, unraveling of mysteries, or any of that stuff to flesh out a world/universe besides reading text boxes. Writing a more personal story doesn’t necessarily fix any of that, but at least then the narrative tends to be more focused on the characters themselves, rather than a bigger picture that is often hard to grasp the way its explained in game. On the flipside, for a series with so many recruitable characters in each game, a large number are surprisingly well thought out, and tend to be at the very least 2-dimensional. Maybe IS should try another game where the characters drive the story (like FE5), rather than having the story drive the characters?
/my .02
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Ok, a little late to the game. But, going to put my opinion in this.
I feel more than anything that the best plot in the franchise would be FE 8. Just the characters brought it down. I mean we have Eirika and Ephraim as the two twin lords. If Ephraim had more characteristics or maybe change during the plot he would have been fun to play as. But, he remains static. Eirika is different she starts out a determined woman who wants to save her brother to a very stubborn woman. (Why the fk did you give Lyon the stone.) That part basically made the first six chapters pointless. Then theres Ephraim charges in trying to be all high and mighty tries to take the stone but because plot armor Lyon basically becomes OP as fk and freezes Ephraim and destroys the stone. Then theres Princess Tana who had a lot of potential of being a badass as well to being a damsel in distress. (Twice, if you take Ephraims route.) Oh well, least she’s a beast Falcon Knight.) Prince Innes felt pretty cool though, I mean yeah he’s an asshole, but he only means to protect his sister or comeades. L’archel is simply put weird, but at least she has a noble cause. Joshua has a nice characterization not the mother/father death its he likes to gamble and the runaway Prince from duties character I like.
Other than some of the characters the story itself is pretty solid. Arc One, the rescue of Ephraim, Arc Two, Fall of the Stones, Arc Three, the Demon King.
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