Might want to spoiler tag this?
Am I really forced ? I’m pretty sure that everyone who reach this post either doesn’t care about getting spoiled, or has already made at least one playthrough. Not to mention, this is light spoiling as the twist of Dolus being a Lightwringer is obvious due to him having the bishop class.
You’re not forced to, but it would be nice if you did.
I’m pretty sure that everyone who reach this post either doesn’t care about getting spoiled, or has already made at least one playthrough
That’s pretty obviously objectively untrue. You don’t have to read through the whole thread to see the most recent post — the moment you make a reply to comment about anything at all, such as “hey this looks cool I’m gonna give it a try” or “I just got to this point and am really liking it so far” or “hey I think I found a bug”, you’re immediately taken to the most recent discussion, and from that point on, any time you click into the thread again you will see whatever’s most recent. Please be considerate with spoilers, it’s really not asking much.
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jus wanted to pop this here for ya man. if u ever wanna watch n comment.
I went and looked into it. DavisG did a Rebellion Saga stream only 2 months ago.
And he did a collab stream with Mangs on the latter’s channel only 5 months ago.
So DavisG either broke with Mangs very recently or is still within Mangs’s sphere (and is just no longer his editor).
I see. either way, thx for letting me know
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Can we please NOT
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Question. Why does Sandraudiga Has the Ice affinity ? I know that is a nitpick, but this doesn’t really respect the relation between affinity and characters established by Fire emblem games.The characters with Ice affinity distinguish themselves by being set in their ways. We can see that Wolt and Marcus, who both want to serve Roy to their fullest capacity. We see that with Lyon and Zephiel, who are ready to do evil to fulfill the role they gave to themselves.We also get Barth, who is pretty much the caricature of the armor knight. Meanwhile,Sandraudiga is not bound by some ideological goal and ideal. She has no morals, serving the inquisition has always been nothing but a path to power. She just does what please her, not caring for the consequences.She is also sadistic and likes to play with her food, taking her time. For that reason, I think the Wind affinity would have been a much stronger fit for her.
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Spoilers
Meanwhile,Sandraudiga is not bound by some ideological goal and ideal. She has no morals, serving the inquisition has always been nothing but a path to power. She just does what please her, not caring for the consequences.She is also sadistic and likes to play with her food, taking her time.
Hmm, you’re right, such a psychopathic, amoral, hedonistic, character, who specifically likes to savor the hunt and take their time, would never have the Ice affin-
Oh.
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But valter, unlike Sandy, is completely set on his path. Sandy can refrain her sadism when she needs it to get power.
Meanwhile Valter is utterly dedicated to having as many peoples die in the war of the stones, even throwing the conflict by letting erika and later ephraim escape. He is unflexible, unlike Sandy.
And finally, unlike Sandy , his goals are not merely self-serving.
First of all, “Valter’s goals are not merely self-serving” did you play the same FE8 I did? He’s quite possibly the most self-serving major villain across all of the GBAFE games except for maybe Narcian, the guy whose name is literally a play on “narcissist”.
But seriously, you’re reading more into affinities than I think vanilla did. They’re purely vibes-based at the discretion of the creator, and everyone’s interpretations of what they mean, If Anything At All, is going to be different. I can’t speak for Ruben’s exact reasoning but I can easily see Sandy being given Ice because she’s “cold and calculating” or because she “has a heart of ice” or any of a million other reasons.
Allow me to list out a handful of vanilla characters with ice affinity for whom “set in their ways” doesn’t apply to their characterization: Natasha, Artur, Beran, Pent, Jaffar, Ninian, Nils, Legault, Klein, Raigh, the list goes on and there’s a bunch more where you can technically make the argument that it’s there but it’s just clearly not a major part of them. (Also, you cited Zephiel, who has no affinity in either FE6 or FE7.) As far as we know, vanilla affinities may very well just be based on the month of the year a character was born in, as evidenced by Mark. It’s really not a well-defined thing. It can mean anything from “character has a specific magical or narrative association with this element” to “character has some combination of personality traits that ‘feel right’ for this element” to “character synergizes well with this affinity’s support bonuses” to “I just thought it went well with their color scheme”.
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To UltraxBlade
Firstly, yes Valter is not self-serving. He is ready to do actions even at risk to himself, like the war crimes which got him sent to prison by Vigarde, or sabotaging the war effort during the war of the stones (a good way to get executed for treason).
Secondly, before offering your rebuttal, perhaps you should verify if what you are saying is actually true.But fortunately for you, I shall do it in your stead.
Zephiel has an affinity in FE6. In this game there are trial maps, where you can deploy Zephiel. If you do, you can see he has the Ice affinity.
Now, let us see that list of yours :
-Natasha:Ready to risk her life to tell eirika of Lyon true goal. Work herself into exhaustion.
-Artur :Very pious
-Beran :Obsessed about getting trophies.
-Pent:Keeps working to the point of not eatting until he is reminded to.
-Jaffar:Very focused on his job of assassin.
-Legault:One of the first members of the Black Fang. Carried assassinations of traitors, only jumping ship much later when he felt the Black Fang had lost its ways.
-Klein:Very loyal and humble.
-Raigh:Obsessed by learning more about dark magic.
-Ninian and Nils:only exception, because they are ice dragons.
So no, the examples you gave for the most part confirm what I say. There is a logic. Next time, check if what you say is true before saying it.
And finally, I think that simply using the affinities as to support a unit is a missed opportunity. The affinity can quickly inform a player of hidden layers of the personnality, helping to get hindsight on his true nature.
Sighs
“Stuck in their ways”, the phrase you used, does not mean “has convictions of any form” or “possesses the ability to focus”, it means “refuses to change the way they act or handle things”, usually with the connotation that changing their ways would be better for them. Jaffar’s entire character arc is that he does, in fact, change as a result of meeting Nino. Legault turned on the Fang. Beran runs away when he realizes he’s out of time to kill Duessel. “Loyal” doesn’t inherently mean “stuck in their ways”, it just means loyal – they’re often correlated, but not always. “Stuck in their ways” loyal is Camus loyal.
“Self-serving” also doesn’t necessarily mean “doing what’s objectively in their own best interest”, it means “selfishly prioritizing what serves their own goals and desires”. Valter serves nothing and no one beyond his own desire for bloodshed – he goes against orders, lets enemies get away, and even kills his own allies purely because it’s more fun for Him. I would very much call that self-serving, even if it’s not in the objective best interest of his official status as a general. Status just isn’t the selfish desire being served.
And finally, I think that simply using the affinities as to support a unit is a missed opportunity. The affinity can quickly inform a player of hidden layers of the personnality, helping to get hindsight on his true nature.
I agree! I just think that you have One Interpretation of the vanilla games that, while certainly interesting and not unfounded, is neither officially-confirmed nor widely-accepted, and you’re trying to enforce it on something that is Not a vanilla game and was made by someone who could easily have a Different Interpretation of the affinity characteristics vanilla or otherwise. I am sure Ruben did, in fact, have ideas for why he gave different characters different affinities, it just might not line up with Your Interpretation.
Personally, my own interpretation of the ice affinity generally, which I do think applies to vanilla at least as well as yours does, is that it primarily represents the opposite set of character traits to the fire affinity – fire is hot-headed, reckless, energetic, while ice is more cold, calculating, logical, distant. I probably wouldn’t have given Sandy ice affinity myself, but she does still have those traits beneath the over-the-top demeanor, and different people’s works having different interpretations are part of what makes affinities fun – rather than trying to force things to conform to vanilla, maybe try looking for the patterns in how Rubenio assigned them and see what inferences you can draw there!
Zephiel has an affinity in FE6. In this game there are trial maps, where you can deploy Zephiel. If you do, you can see he has the Ice affinity.
(Also, for this, I was looking in the ROM with Builder and could not find any unit ID for him that had an affinity assigned. If his trial map version is somehow hardcoded to have it despite that, then I apologize – FE6 hardcoding is a mess so I wouldn’t be surprised, and I’ve never played the trial maps with him unlocked myself.)
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Affinities represent personality? I thought it was just like astrology, horoscope stuff.
Like I said, different people have different interpretations. It’s fairly common for hacks to assign affinities based on the creator’s interpretation of personality traits they represent – if nothing else, it makes the process of assigning them as a creator a little more interesting to think about than just rolling dice for when different characters were born – but there’s no strict evidence for what they “officially” mean in any given context and no obligation for them to have any defined meaning at all.
Mark FE7 has an affinity determined by their birth month, which is the closest we get to evidence of anything and does point at them just being meaningless astrology, but A) that could just be an arbitrary means of making it differ between playthroughs and B) even if you take that to be the case in vanilla, it doesn’t have to be the case for hacks which, y’know, Aren’t Vanilla.
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Interestingly enough, there is actually another nugget about what affinities represent in-universe, and from the other Elibe game, at that:
B Support
Dayan: We Sacaeans pray to the Sky and the Earth. The light of day and the darkness of night that engulfs this land… They produce wind, lightning, fire, ice, and many other affinities… Every person on this planet is protected by one of the elements. According to my clan’s beliefs, I am protected by the Anima affinity.
Yoder: I see. Interesting.
Dayan: What do you mean?
Yoder: The Elimine Church has similar beliefs. When the creator made man, he blessed them all with one of the seven affinities. However, those elements…
Dayan: …Those elements hold no power on their own.
Yoder: Exactly.
Dayan: Hm. …Interesting, indeed.
Yoder: Yes. Perhaps… This is one of the truths of the creation of our world.A Support
Dayan: The seven affinities… Their effects will only appear through bonds with other people. When your heart is linked with someone else’s… That is when the elements reveal their true power.
Yoder: Yes. Saint Elimine also said to cherish your relationships.
Dayan: Hm… I wonder if we have been able to link our hearts with each other.
Yoder: I am sure we have. We have yet to find out what effects it has…
So, it doesn’t say anything about the basis on which who has what elemental affinity, but it seems that at least in Elibe they’re sorta vaguely akin to guardian angel-like natural forces that grant their corresponding blessings to people… I guess in contexts to which their strong bonds with others are relevant? Presumably? They definitely just worked backwards from the gameplay function to write up a quick lore explanation for it here, but it’s still germane to the conversation.
Yeah, though, each hack/fangame creator can decide for themselves what affinities do or don’t mean in the context of their own projects. It’s not even clear that the affinity lore in Elibe applies to Magvel or Tellius; it certainly doesn’t have to apply to fans’ original-setting FE hacks.
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Okay so I don’t think Ruben thought about affinities outside of “What will this do mechanically” and “Yeah that seems about right.”
Actually, mechanical stuff was the least of my concerns with regards to affinities. I don’t have the stat bonuses committed to memory and, quite frankly, it’s been a few years since I last bothered with the intricacies of them. I know “two characters souping = good” and that’s about it.
Anyway, I tried to have a decent spread of affinities across the cast, and to have the affinities at least vaguely match the characters based on my personal and, admittedly, totally arbitrary perception of their meanings (with some exceptions, such as a certain couple of characters having light affinity simply for the sake of irony).
I’ll say that it wasn’t something I spent too much time dwelling on, though. A few of them were set on a whim, and some were just “ok I only have three of this affinity, let’s see where I can reasonably fit a couple more.”
Heck, in a few cases I set an affinity for a character when first creating them, and then their character would evolve in a different direction but I would neglect changing the affinity lol. The most egregious case of this being Thyone having light affinity on release, despite the fact that the word “fiery” is on her character bio lmao, homegirl did not deserve sharing an affinity with her husband I hate that I did her like that at first
For the record, with regards to Sandraudiga, yeah, this was just about it for my reasoning. Thinking about it, maybe she would’ve fit thunder more, but, ehh.
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Hey beard, have you ever thought about making your own project based on some other abandoned project? I remember this rom called “FE: Decay of the Fangs”, in which you controlled the remains of the Black Fang after the events of FE7. There was LOTS of death in that one, seems like something you would enjoy getting your hands on. Just an example.