When did this notion of Yamcha straying away from his training come to be? Has he truly fallen off as a martial artist, or has it always been in character for him to give up so easily?
We're looking through the entire story of Dragon Ball, all up to the Buu Saga, to see how accurate this perception is.
Finally I can appropriately refer to these guys as Z-Fighters T-T
Saiyan Saga
In the anime, we get some filler episodes showing what Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu have been up to all these years. Yamcha is found incorporating his martial arts into a promising baseball career to earn himself money. He seems successful enough, but he himself isn't satisfied with making a whole career out of it. He's a martial artist at heart, after all. If money were not an issue, he'd much rather be out training.
It's no surprise, then, that Yamcha immediately agrees to come along with Krillin the moment he's invited to train under Kami. Within a year's time, they all prepare to protect the Earth from a 2-man alien invasion.
While I do enjoy the idea of seeing what these characters’ personal lives are like outside of fighting, none of this is canon. I bring this filler up only to show that even Toei (at least back then) understood how Yamcha's martial arts background was a major part of his character. Also, I love a man in uniform. 💕
In reality, we’re not sure what any of the Z-Fighters have been doing after Piccolo Jr.’s defeat. It’s been years since anyone's interacted. Goku got married, became a father, and now he’s dead; a lot has happened (in Goku's life at least).
The next time we physically see Yamcha in the manga is when we are shown all the Z-Fighters training for the Saiyans' arrival. Yes, the first time we see Yamcha in the Z-era, he is in fact training. Always on the mind. Freak.
They all even get to wear the same weighted gi Goku wore for the last tournament. Yep, our earthling Z-Fighters are finally getting the full Kami treatment, as they are ALL viable martial artists who would stand a chance against the upcoming alien threat (don't snicker-).
After some months of preparation, Kami (remember, the god and ultimate master of martial arts here) told EVERYONE that he had nothing left to teach them and that they had to train on their own. They ALL surpassed him.
For some reason, Kami decided not to insist on how his students should continue training together, and instead allowed them to separate and spread across the planet. Do I think that's the most effective way to train for a dire situation like this? Not. At. All.
Sure, that made more sense for the Budokai arcs, cuz all these guys are literally competing against each other. They don't want their friends/rivals to take a peek at what they've been cooking up. That's meant to be a surprise for when they do get to beat the shit out of each other in that arena.
Now though? Not the damn time!!! The world is at stake; these characters need to know teamwork more than anything!!! They're gonna get their asses beat, Kami, tell them!!!! You can see everything from up there, TELL THEM!!!!!
(Tbf on Kami's end, Toriyama was never able to write teamwork dynamics. That's why every group battle somehow turns into a one-on-one tournament, even in literal Battle Royales 😒)
From what we do see, all the Z-Fighters take Kami's advice to heart, and thus spread out to refine their battle skills until the day in question.
Everyone but Yajirobe.
So here’s the thing with Toriyama that we lightly touched in the other post. He’s a very visual person, especially when it comes to his humor. He's also not subtle in his writing and drawings at all; he's very literal. If he wants to let you know which of these guys is the “lazy slacker" who doesn't pull his own weight, he will let you know.
Consistently amongst these training montage pages, Yajirobe is depicted as the only member who either complains about working too hard, or is shown gorging on food. Meanwhile, everyone else actually takes this seriously (cuz y'know, the Earth is at stake here). They are given their own panels depicting them sparring and sweating buckets. When you put those guys and Yajirobe side by side, it's not hard to tell who out of the group is a total loafer. Fatphobic jokes are common with this character 😬. Never said all of Toriyama's jokes were actually funny.
Unlike Yajirobe, Yamcha's seen somewhere in the wilderness (the mountains?) the very next time we see him. The Saiyans arrived earlier than expected and caught the fighters off guard. As we see everyone's shocked reactions, Yamcha is shown wearing his training gear, indicating he was training at that very moment.
Odd, given how often fans try to make him out to be someone who'd rather leisurely enjoy life and fool around with women than train so diligently in the wilderness. And yet, here is, away from civilization (and women) and focused on becoming stronger before anything else. 🤔
“Yamcha could have still messed around earlier the moment Kami released him. He also could have been training at the last minute. Are we supposed to assume he did nothing but train nonstop?”
Yes, actually. At least that's typically Toriyama's intention whenever he draws these sorts of panels. If Toriyama wanted you to read Yamcha as a slacker, he would have drawn that as a gag in the sea of montage pages he liked to create. Y’know, like the one above a couple of paragraphs showing everyone training, while Yajirobe is just eating.
Toriyama uses these montage time-skip pages to move the story along faster. Since he has only one page to establish anything, he makes clear what each character's personal goals and thoughts are through their expressions. We, as the audience, are left to assume that this is what they continue to pursue throughout the time-skip period, until we are brought back into the plot. Visual storytelling, crazy how it works, I know.
With that said, if you look at this cover page, can you identify the character who doesn't want to participate in this deadly fight?
Rhetorical question, it's obviously Yajirobe. It does raise another question of why Yajirobe is shown eating rather than training in the first place. What's the point of going to Lookout Point if he wasn't going to take this seriously til the very end?
Well, apparently Yajirobe didn’t want to concern himself with this Saiyan fight in the first place. He only trained up on Lookout cuz Korin threatened him. The moment he left and was free to do whatever, he regressed to just chilling.
I want to make this clear: Yajirobe has always been a formidable fighter, which is why he was chosen to train under Kami. He’s a skillful swordsman; we have to assume he trained himself to an extent to get where he’s at now. Although given Toriyama’s sense of humor, he probably became a swordsman just to hunt really tasty animals. 😓
(C'mon man, that don't even look appetizing)
Believe me when I say, he's still an impressive Z-Fighter who's definitely stronger than the average Earthling by this point. However, compared to Yamcha and the others who actually continued their intense regimens off Lookout, Yajirobe lacked in many areas.
I suppose it was Toriyama’s way of emphasizing his laziness: Yajirobe CAN hypothetically train himself to become stronger; he simply chooses NOT to if given the option. He's content with where he is now, which doesn't really align with the other Z-Fighters.
It REALLY doesn't match Yamcha’s personality from what we've read so far. Yet, this is the exact attitude that the fanbase accuses him of having. We have actual lazy characters, guys. There's no need to bastardize Yamcha's character to justify this upcoming, monumental loss (You knew it was coming).
(Notice who's not in this lineup)
The battle between the Z-Fighters and the Saiyans finally arrives. After some unpleasant introductions, we start off with a "friendly" competition - a small tournament, if you will (we're never gonna escape this, huh?). Tien manages to take down a strong plant minion called a Saibaman, who was intimidatingly finished off by Vegeta with a simple hand gesture. Ugly lil gremlin, I know. The Saibamen ain't that cute either. 🥁
(Censored a bit cuz Tumblr would probably mark this as mature if I didn't)
Krillin volunteers as tribute, but Yamcha steps in instead. He believes Krillin shouldn't risk losing his life again for such a shady set-up. It's here that we finally get to see the infamous Yamcha vs. Saibaman brawl and the eventual TRAGEDY that follows.
Listen, I’ve already covered my thoughts on the fight and that damn meme; no need to repeat myself entirely. Read this when you got the chance.
TLDR: your main takeaway should be that Yamcha’s training over the years has gotten him to the point where he can take on 99% of any member of the Saiyan race. This wounded Nappa's pride for a reason. Despite fans’ insistence that Yamcha’s death was due to his own arrogance, and that he simply didn’t train as hard as the others, the manga/story begs to differ. It was a series of bad circumstances and poor luck that applied to a lot of characters in this battle.
Regardless of everyone's intense training, most of the Z-Fighters were killed. It was not pretty. What makes it worse is that almost everyone’s heroic sacrifices came in vain; they all barely inflicted any damage on Nappa and Vegeta. It was a total one-sided massacre.
Oh hey, is this that whole “It can also be equally as devastating when all that time, sweat, and tears seem to have been all for nothing.” message I talked about in my intro? Haha, yeah storytelling!
(too soon?)
‼️‼️Edited additional note: Hang on, everyone was in the middle of training when the Saiyans unexpectedly arrived earlier than anticipated. It probably didn't help that no one had a chance to rest up and heal their bodies before the actual fight! Aghhhhh!!!!!‼️‼️
Goku finally showed up, ever so late. Pissed to see his friends left in such a state, Goku proceeds to beat the shit out of Nappa. It was Vegeta who proved to be a real challenge.
After an intense battle that almost destroyed the Earth, Goku is left exhausted and vulnerable. Vegeta, in his Great Ape form, was close to squashing Goku for good had a brave young soul not cut his tail off in the nick of time.
Ok kids, which character is most likely going to be brave AND skilled enough to cut off Great Ape Vegeta's tail? Could it be Gohan, the timid, inexperienced fighter who wants to prove himself? Could it be Krillin, a veteran who uses ki-slicing moves and desperately wants to save his best friend? Nope, neither of them are able to do anything (debateable). The person who saved Goku is none other than Yajirobe......
YAJIROBE?!?!?!
I mean…sure is a highlight for the 5 Yajirobe fans out there, I guess 😅. Does it suck to see how the cowardly, lazy character (who still runs away from the scene afterwards) became more essential to the plot than those who gave it their all? Yeah…yeah…….it kinda stings….. 🥲🥲🥲
Supposedly, that was the "twist" Toriyama intended. The guy who can’t fly, the guy who is nowhere near the same power scaling as the rest due to his lack of training, the guy who keeps on leaving Goku in difficult situations so he can duck for cover - yeah, that's the human earthling who somehow inflicted the most damage on Vegeta. Not Tien, not Yamcha, not Krillin - Yajirobe. Can’t say we saw that coming.
As much as this stirs some conflicted feelings, honestly, it's all the more reason we can’t suspect Yamcha of not training to his fullest extent. Toriyama kept this joke in mind for this specific Z-Fighter: the guy who was the least committed to this entire thing.
Moral of this story: Kami’s a shitty teacher who plays favorites.
Namek Saga
Four of our beloved Z-Fighters are now dead, and it's mainly King Kai's fault for sending Goku back to Earth too late. Dare I say they have been Left4Dead. 🥁 (🍅🍅🍅)
But no, seriously, King Kai really did screw them all over.
Since they're already deceased, surely Yamcha is allowed to grant himself some grace, and reward himself with a period of well-deserved rest, right? Well, apparently not. Not in his life, or even his afterlife!
Within a month, Yamcha and the others ALL simultaneously reached King Kai’s Planet with the intent to train under him. King Kai himself confirms to Goku that they ALL traveled down Snake Way much faster than he did. Goku had to travel down that same route for six months.
This is, of course, in the context that compared to Goku when he first died, our Left4Dead crew became much stronger and faster in comparison. It shows you the scope of where their training prior to the Saiyans’ arrival got them. If there’s one thing I would find odd, it’s that Piccolo didn’t somehow leave the others in the dust, 'cuz it's Piccolo. Then again, Snake Way is essentially cardio training. Slow and steady wins the race.
Really quick break, as I want to briefly talk about the DBZ Infinite World games. As you may have guessed, they include a feature about Yamcha that contradicts this canon for the sake of "the joke".
There’s a mini-game where players run through Snake Way under a time limit, with any character of their choosing. Each character has a losing animation in which, for the most part, they slouch and appear exhausted. However, for Yamcha’s unique losing animation, they have him staggering in a pitiful state. His face is also contorted with this zoned-out, gaping expression. Remember that stupid Resurrection F Gohan face, yeah, it was like that.
(God, Super's ugly)
The way it's framed implies that even running poses a serious challenge for someone like Yamcha, which.....no-
As I pointed out before, Yamcha arrived at the same time as everyone else in the actual story, and he appears just fine. He's excited and ready to finally train under King Kai himself, a master who's even greater than Kami.
It goes to show how these games love to sell the Yamcha-bashing so much that they'll risk going against the story's canon. Then we wonder why Dragon Ball fans have a hard time discerning which information out there is accurate. Once again: read the manga, and don't base your entire understanding of the story on games and TFS jokes. Back to the story!
If arriving at King Kai’s on record time wasn’t a remarkable enough feat, Yamcha and the others ALL agreed they wanted even more intense training from King Kai than what Goku received during his time there. The question is, do they hold up on their endeavors?
Unfortunately, we have not been given a clear answer in that regard 😅. Typically, whenever our heroes return to the story after their training sessions, they would demonstrate a new technique or a boost in battle performance. Basically, it's to show us what kept them so busy the whole time.
We don't get that here.
This saga primarily focused on everyone’s time on Namek. Our Left4Dead Crew is occasionally shown training, but for the most part, they act as spectators. Piccolo leaves early, making him the only member who got to have some action in this saga. Yamcha had to wait for a few months after the grand battle between Goku and Frieza to get revived. Tien and Chiaotzu are revived some months later. Three of these guys essentially had no real plot relevancy throughout this arc. They don't even get a proper welcome-back sequence in the manga as they do in the anime. It's just one page of narration going, "and then this happened," before you turn the next page and we already in the Android Saga (in the same chapter and everything).
ONE would reason that those who were left to stay at King Kai’s longer should have learned Kaioken or even the Spirit Bomb. ONE would reason that if they supposedly worked harder and faster than Goku, as King Kai puts it, they could easily have learned these techniques before they were all revived...
They don’t.
Not even Tenshinhan comes up with a signature technique from his time on King Kai's Planet. Odd, given that’s LITERALLY HIS BIT!!!
Look, I don't buy into the idea that Tien does nothing but train his entire life, cuz fans seem to get that information only from Super or the games. Still, Tien (like Yamcha and Krillin) shows a tenacious mindset when it comes to perfecting his martial arts, and he's super talented at it. That’s what the third eye is for (which what do you mean there are fans that thought that was painted on??!!!)
So it does say a lot that Tien was visually shown plotting how to surpass Goku in his own training, AND was there the longest (with Chiaotzu), but nothing came out of that.
Perhaps it was for the sake of this throwaway gag of "these two serious characters can't tell a joke," but it doesn't apply to everyone else who also wanted more intense training than Goku's. We also see everyone train later on, so they clearly earned their spots regardless.
In short: Chekhov's gun, unfired.
I'm under the impression that Toriyama hyped these guys' reappearance and their supposed brutal regimen to serve as potential fighters on standby. It’s similar to how he wrote in Bulma for this Saga, IN CASE he needed a mechanic for the plot. Since he never actually needed a mechanic for the story, Bulma was just kinda there doing nothing.
Likewise, our Left4Dead crew would wait for the opportunity to become relevant, which will never come. Well no, actually, Piccolo does get to be involved near the end. Good for him, but there goes my Left4Dead joke 🤬. You probably recognize this issue with Toriyama's writing for Dragon Ball; it's only gonna get worse.
In the anime, they at least had the Left3Dead (nah, it don’t work no more) Crew fight the deceased Ginyu Force to show where these guys stand, skill-wise. As fun and interesting I would say that sequence would play out, it’s also not canon. By now, we should be used to Toriyama's habit of avoiding actually writing these guys' progression in their training arcs. At best, again, he’ll draw one panel to show they are indeed training, but that’s it.
"Then what makes you so sure they did train harder than Goku, if there’s no evidence they did?”
The same reason the plot needed Piccolo to fuse with Nail, while Gohan and Krillin get their potentials unlocked: Everyone gotta play catch-up.
Speaking of which, I do want to bring up again how Krillin gets that power boost from Grand Elder Guru. More specifically, Guru unlocks Krillin’s potential and removes the limiter cap, but it's literally just a power-up boost. I bring this up because up til this point, Krillin and Yamcha were the only martial artists who relied on their own efforts to become stronger. Everyone else is either a descendant of an unusual race that inherits quirks that amplify their strength/skills, or they obtain a power-up through other external means. For folks like Goku, it’s both.
I didn't forget about Yajirobe, but by the end of the Saiyan saga, he kinda stopped being relevant enough to bother training. Now he's our resident Bean Daddy. For everyone else tho? Yeah, they all get something, which I find funny cuz every other time, folks would call this a cheat.
Since Krillin obtained his power-up through external means, Yamcha as of now, is the only Z-Fighter who has gotten this strong through his own efforts.
Will it matter in future sagas? No. Practically everyone who isn’t a Saiyan is reduced to Goku’s cheerleader. Nonetheless, it makes you think how bizarre it is that so many fans conclude Yamcha doesn’t train as efficiently as everyone else; he's actually one of the more self-disciplined Earthlings. He was literally a normal human being who somehow persevered through intense training and battles, which overtime made him strong enough to be considered a planet-buster. Literal Saitama moment, bro locked in fr.
But no, really, imagine all your friends are lucky enough to get items that give them crazy stat boosts, which help them level up easily. Meanwhile, you out here grinding at Lvl 1 in order to catch up to your team, and all you get is a motivational poster. Idk about y’all, but I’m mature enough to admit I’d just quit. That grind would be too much, and I'd already be frustrated with everyone else essentially cheating. I know most of y’all would feel the same way, given how y'all rage-quit whenever you're forced to fight a hacker in Xenoverse 2. To get over that mental barrier is nearly impossible for the average person. That's the sort of determination we tend to appreciate in our well-written protagonists. What is it about Yamcha then, that makes everyone fail to recognize such commitment? We'll have to discuss that in the final post.
Moral of this story: King Kai’s a shitty teacher who plays favorites. Cuz literally why don't Yamcha and Tien KNOW KAIOKEN -
You've probably noticed by now that, despite entering DBZ, I have yet to mention anything about Power Levels, and Yamcha's placement in that regard. Fact of the matter is that Power Levels are entirely bullshit, and that has always been the point for Dragon Ball's narrative. It was a numerical value the villains crutched on, only to be severely proven wrong. We never hear about it beyond the Namek/Frieza Saga for this reason - it served its purpose.
"But Yamcha's P.L. was a mere 177, while Krillin's and Tien's were in the 200-250 range!"
And what is that meant to imply? Is that meant to be proof he slacked off on his training? Alright, I'll play this game (no one asked you-).
If we go by non-canon sources, Yamcha jumped from 177 to 1480. That is a pretty damn drastic leap, all things considered. As we've witnessed in this post, Yamcha has done nothing BUT train for the Saiyans' arrival. He surpassed Roshi long ago, and eventually surpassed Kami as well. What could he possibly have been lacking in his training? Perhaps he needed a proper partner, but oh wait, no one ever trains together in the series for too long. Whoops.
(Blonde Bulma is not real, she can't hurt me-)
"It's still not as impressive as Tien's 1830," yeah, but Tien still died a meaningless death, so what does that matter? Did that power level give him a fighting chance? Did that power level prevent his arm from getting punched off? Did that power level protect Chiaotzu?
(Tien, baby, I'm so sorry, but I know folks gonna act stupid about this, please endure and understand my intent here my pookie 🙏🏾)
Meanwhile, it was Krillin's skills and luck that got him to protect Gohan when Piccolo went down. It was also Yajirobe who cut off Vegeta's tail while Vegeta was in his x10 multiplier form (What's the power level of that sword, Yajirobe?). This isn't even going into how your power levels can fluctuate depending on your attacks, and how much energy you're mustering up if you just shift your body's weight a bit (for someone who didn't want to talk about P.L. she sure got a lot to say-).
Like y'all, Toriyama simply came up with random numbers he had no intention of keeping track of. We're not even sure if the ones here and the Daizenshuu are even from him directly. Stop taking Power Level talk seriously, cuz it was never accurate. That's the point.
Actually no, I refuse to end this with Vegeta, even if it's abridged
Nonny is right, it's SO hard to find Rhea centric fics. Partly because she doesn't have any popular ships, and ship fics make up most of ao3. Rhealeth is controversial, and Catherine is usually shipped with shamir. So your best options are crack ships. There's Rheagard but they're usually more focused on Edelgard than Rhea, in my experience.
Hell I'm writing a Rhea centric fic and it's not doing well because most people don't care for protagonist Rhea. It's a real shame.
Not gonna lie, at this point I just laugh at these people and feel so bad for them. It's kind of pitiable because they deadass don't even interact with what the plot says or stops to think critically on "well, what does this mean or imply? Does this intersect with what other people say here, or...?" and instead think of "this makes no sense, what is happening, what is the details of it, it makes no sense?!" like a blind animal who's trying to comprehend shit he can't even get at.
It makes sense if you actually partake in interacting with the story and critically thinking while paying attention to the details, but this is too hard for people apparently, lmao.
Like, it's actively funny to me now seeing people STILL be this salty over a game released a decade ago because they lack any imagination to think on the story as a whole. This stuff is obvious and they don't even engage with it? What am I supposed to do than kind of pity you for not being able to critically think on story details?
I think we need to normalize more often pointing at and laughing people who are unwilling to listen or at least show empathy to the story and world as if it was real and critically think about narrative depths because it's clear these people are just intellectually spiritless. They don't question whatever the story tells them instead of partaking with the narrative at the same time, like of course FE stories suck if you don't care about participating with the narrative! That's kind of the whole deal with FE games in general!
It's really hard to find a fic with Rhea as a main focus (with any focus) that doesn't demonize her, bash her, or treat her like a negative presence.
It's doesn't even have to be an edelgard focus fic, meaning that they just treat Rhea as ticking bomb without edelgard's made up bullshot about her. There's a Golden Deer longfic which was basically a Rhea hit piece.
I'm not going to say it doesn't happen to the other characters. I am saying it happens to Rhea far more than all of them put together.
Not to knock previous anon, but that's not right. Khalidstans were a thing before Three Hopes. They got called that because they insisted on always calling Claude Khalid even though that name only appeared in a dev interview and wasn't actually used anywhere in Three Houses.
There were only 2-3 notorious ones, but they became infamous for attempting to troll some other BNFs and pissing off basically every other corner of fandom. They were heavy antishippers, so shipping Byleth x student is grooming kind of thing, and also trashed all the white characters for one reason or another. One of them infamously used the term "white of color" which no one else could ever figure out. Best guess was that they applied it to white characters they were giving themselves permission to like ex. Ashe and Marianne. Very strange.
IIRC they either started or popularized some bigger discourse points, like Nabatean genocide doesn't count because they're white, Edelgard is a white feminist, and Hubert is racist because of what he says to Petra. They put up the headcanon that Dagdans are Asian coded and Lorenz is half Asian (specifically Korean) because of his hair and eye shape, all so they could justify supporting Claurenz in a ship war against Dimiclaude lmao.
Their fic game was something else too man. They were behind a Claurenz medical kink fic getting flamed, and one of them wrote the troll fic where Claude's mom comes to the monastery and beats up Byleth over the grooming allegations.
Those Khalidstans fizzled out before Three Hopes, probably because nobody was taking their shit and folks were actively mocking their attempts at trolling. But maybe some other people took up the label after Hopes since it actually uses the name Khalid for Claude.
My posts/comments have been screenshot by that one group of Edelgard fans on Twitter before and they were making up all sorts of bs about my character and identity lmao. Felt like I was some zoo animal they were observing
Let's be real, being a Byleth(and Rhea) fan is much harder than being a fan of the House Leaders.
It's so easy for people to get hooked on them from the getgo due to marketing. Byleth, the main protagonist who's arguably experimental handling initially did them dirty, makes them unnoticed and misunderstood by the general playerbase. Then there's Rhea, who tends to be treated as this evil dragon along with just basically being tossed aside for the majority of Houses, preventing her character from being fully explored and understood by many.
These two honestly deserved a better team or game or what have you
it's only fair that Rhea and Byleth fuck next to Edelgard's corpse, what with the amount of posts and fics I've seen of Byleth and Edelgard fucking on Rhea's room, both before and after they killed her.
personally, the coolest way to refer to Silver Snow is calling it the "skeleton route", it's both the first made path and was meant to be "the foundation for the worldview at the beginning"
like, Kusakihara acknowledging that "players call it" the 'church route' isn't a gotcha, hell, he instead calls it "the Empire route", and additionally "the Black Eagles as the hardest route"
Silver Snow was always considered by the devs as Black Eagles-central, which btw, NO KIDDING.
Most of Silver Snow is about dealing with Edelgard's betrayal and fighting to stop her conquest in Fodlan, with Byleth personally standing as the sole lead with the remaining Beagles at their side (which, as an extra reminder, the reunion battle against Pallardo and the house members' chatting together before they fight Edelgard herself involves all the Black Eagles characters left with only one church-aligned character for both events, Flayn for the house chat / Seteth in the reunion battle against Pallardo).
there's additionally the Resistance Army flag, the reveal in the final chapter and Rhea's S-Support highlighting the importance in Byleth's origins, status, and individuality more than anything! Then again ik this fandom often struggles or outright hates acknowledging and respecting the idea of Byleth NOT being nothing but miserable in SS because the three lords eat dirt there, sooooo....
*shrugs*
before I ramble even further, long story short, Silver Snow makes way more sense being called Byleth's or the original Black Eagles route before a "church route"
Which then results in a bunch of criticism that doesn't make much sense due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what the route was actually doing.
Like if you're going to critique the route that basically is the start of everything, the least you can do is properly understand its intent and see how one can better it
To be fair in the Smash stuff, Sothis simply just gets a png in Byleth's final smash and color scheme since she's linked to Byleth. Rhea actually got a model along with Seteth and Flayn.
As for Engage, barring a few exceptions, the choices were simply the protags of the respective games and Byleth....is the main protagonist objectively speaking. Though I recall some wondering why Byleth was the base emblem and not Edelgard or who else and ugh. It really pains me to like Edelgard a lot yet see some of her big fans say strange things.
looking at sothis regalia byleth from the gacha, who has darker green hair and eyes…..
and it reminded me of how enlightened byleth was interestingly given light minty green hair instead of the darker green we see on sothis. the only other character we see with minty green hair is rhea🤔🤔 nearly that same shade at that. see this image for best example
byleth takes on rhea’s role in some routes and in general rhea is trying to get them to be her successor… byleth is sothis’ vessel but visuals in game connect them to rhea/ being rhea’s successor….many thoughts to be had
Thinking about how Kusakihara said he doesn't consider Fodlan a continent and tried to make sure it was never called a continent, only for the English localization to immediately call it a continent in advertising and within the first half hour of the game
Besides the fact that it's extremely funny how the fandom at large just calls it a continent anyway, it also is genuinely a fascinating look at what his thought process was, and how a lot of it boils down to "yeah this sounds cool."
Because think about it. Does he have a grand design in saying Fodlan isn't a continent? Was he going for a Christendom thing with Fodlan, where it's multiple different countries/lands all following an explicit rule set from a religious power?
Well, not really, since we see from the game itself that that comparison doesn't work. Leicester began with no approval from, crowning by or strict adherence towards the Church of Seiros. No matter how angry Rhea got about it when yelling at Claude in Three Hopes, it doesn't change the fact that it started and maintained itself as a kingless nation with no rulers and explicitly no religious power from its own church branch. For three entire centuries. And Adrestia booted out its own church branch a century before the game began with no lasting repercussions.
"But doesn't Rhea call Edelgard and the empire rebels after she starts her war?"
Yes, she does. However, authority is not a strict "X party controls Y party." Again, Rhea does not have supreme authority... over any of the countries, really. She has soft power, symbolically relevant, but ultimately not the be all end all. If you really want to compare this whole thing to the Catholic church, it'd be like the rulers of [Insert European nation here] going to Vatican City to study before sneaking their armies there to overthrow the church across Europe. Then after they capture Pope Leo and lock him in a basement, they declare war on surrounding countries in Europe because... before the Catholic Church was around and fucked everything up, Europe was one land with one glorious imperial ruler.
It devolves into nonsense, doesn't it? Because the structure of Edelgard's motives is nonsense.
We know she's wrong/lying about the church splitting up nations to control people, because even if Faerghus history could potentially be muddled, Rhea's newly introduced anger towards Claude and the Alliance in hopes proves she had no involvement in the Alliance's creation.
We know she's wrong/lying about the church raking in money, because the CoS doesn't take taxes. The Central Church operates on donations from nobles in the three countries. Shamir and Alois collect rewards from the Eastern Church in their paralogue, rather than take the reward from the Derdriu merchants. Hell, Mercedes confirms that the church she called home before being adopted was able to be successfully threatened with money from Random McMerchantGuy, so local churches either don't collect taxes at all, or not enough to hold socio-economic sway.
Alois may say the Eastern Church controls eastern fodlan (in JP he says they hold jurisdiction in eastern fodlan), but later in the same conversation, Alois says they don't have a standing army and Shamir says that they don't actually have a presence given they're caught between the Central Church and the Alliance lords. And the Southern Church, again, no longer exists by the time of the game.
By all measures, there is only vague similarities to Christendom when looking at the Church of Seiros in theory, and no similarities at all in practice.
So really, what was Kusakihara saying when he meant Fodlan wasn't a continent?
Well... he probably just did it for fun. He doesn't care to mention anything about Fodlan itself that would pertain to it not being a continent, aside from it being isolated enough to where the term "continent" isn't applicable because a continent would need worldwide recognition and acceptance, in accordance to post-Age of Discovery standards. And Fodlan's isolation is because its three nations are themselves extremely fucking volatile and terrible at doing anything with other countries, given what we know of Brigid, Dagda, Sreng, Duscur and Almyra. Not to excuse the other non-Duscur nations of any wrong doing on their part, since they also had a hand in invading.
But still, that and the fact that Claude in Verdant Wind is like "Um, actually looking at the Church tenets for more than 5 minutes shows that contact with the outside world isn't forbidden or sinful, guys", which should have been obvious given that Rhea let foreigners into her academy and into her personal retinue of knights; and the fact that a quest shows the Western Church hates the Central Church/Rhea because of her tolerance of foreigners... yeah, it's clear it's because each nation doesn't know how to actually treat foreign lands rather than Rhea or her church declaring non-Fodlan entities to be dangerous.
I digress. It's a similar technique to dramatic irony, where we as the readers are able to contexualize Fodlan as a continent in accordance to how we define what a "continent" is in the years 2019 and beyond. But the characters aren't meant to really... know or have awareness of those kinds of concepts.
Which naturally bumps up against, once again, the fact that there's internal contradiction in Kusakihara's statement. Yeah, of course pegasi and wyverns can fly and that's why it's easy to draw a map and stuff... does that not literally go against what you just said about isolation though? No force is shooting out every flying creature from going too far to discover what the fucking world is? There's detailed awareness of other landmasses, to the extent that there's knowlegde of other populations and even industries in these non-Fodlan places. Why then, would you try to stress to not call it a continent, before creating a world with lore that is extremely continental? "Realism" isn't an explanation nor an excuse, this is a game written by people in the past decade, striving for realism only creates issues in structure and presentation, as I just laid out.
TL;DR Kusakihara's writing is fucking weird, including when trying to intentionally make Fodlan "not a continent" before then making the rest of the world's lore extremely continent-coded.
Kusakihara's writing is bonkers - you're willing to tell me people could, thanks to pegasi and wyverns, look at fodlan from high enough to see it resembles a dragon's head (that'd be, quite far enough, like modern planes high enough!) -
But as the same time he writes one of his leads cry about isolationism when his comrade's dad got rich by trading with foreigners? When there are books all around depicting, as you noted, knowledge of other countries, isles and landmasses even down to their industry?
When one of his potential wives who's not from his country comes from a family that traditionally trades with a foreign country? (Anette and Albinea). When Enbarr is the largest harbour and a bustling center of trade?
Granted, the last two came from Nopes, aka after this interview - but even in Houses, this "IsOlAtIoNiSm" take smelt bad, I remember being bored during Covid and having written a post about recipes lol, thing being a third of Garreg Mach's recipes (iirc) include ingredients coming from foreign lands.
This suggests trade, at least frequent enough to have ingredients shipped to a monastery located in the center of the "totes not continent!". And this is supported by Edmund's description, being a land that became rich - to the point of buying their seat in the Alliance - thanks to trade with foreign lands.
So why is Kusakihara's writing so ass?
Why did he write that thing about isolationism, and three lines below, mentions there's trade? Or depicts Fodlan's neighbours as agressive assholes - save for the ones who were defeated/destroyed and the survivors welcomed in, apparently, the seat of "IsOlAtIoNiSm" itself?
Bcs, imo, the general writing makes me think of the three headed dragon meme, save that, in this case, they eat themselves.
Fraud's character is basically an isekai protag's journey : he goes to new land, new land is shit, tries to improve it, doesn't rule it but lets his bestie rule in the end, with his "improved" values.
Thing is... This story is also set in a verse where Supreme Leader and Dimitri's stories exist.
Supreme Story is basically lizards BaD and imperialism 101 to make Fodl Adrestia great again. But if the land has to be great "again" then it can't be as shitty as what Fraud's story suggests - he can't be the only one to bring "improved values", otherwise what would be the point of the Supreme Story? Isolationism doesn't exist in Adrestia they have overseas vassals !(whose princess was brought in as a hostage to make sure the vassals won't rebel).
And Dimitri's story is, well... a Fire Emblem story : Lord is ousted from his land and has to retake it as the legitimate ruler and beloved son of the previous one who was murdered, and improve on what existed before.
To show how benevolent and legitimate his, and his Father's, rule were, well, suddenly, his land isn't "IsOlAtIoNiSt" at all, Lambert went on a diplomatic visit to Duscur, Sreng people lead raids, there's trade with Albinea... Then everything went to shit when Red Emperor's faction - helped by the evil sorcerers - ruined everything. The world was fine - not perfect but fine and could be improved - before Red Emperor and her sorcerers ruined it.
"Imperialism 101" dragon head and "Fire Emblem" dragon head try to bite each other because they are not compatible with each other, and the "Isekai" head can only exist if the other two are down.
The game cannot favor (it shouldn't lol) a lead over the other two and so the writing is riddled with plot holes to have every protagonist, somehow, have a point (even if their point is shit).
And since there is no objective truth "were either of the three countries + the church promoting isolationism or not" the Kusakihara's writing should, sometimes, state X, then Y, and never, ever, refute one or the other, because that would mean reflecting on one of the three marketable heads.
Thinking about how Kusakihara said he doesn't consider Fodlan a continent and tried to make sure it was never called a continent, only for the English localization to immediately call it a continent in advertising and within the first half hour of the game
Besides the fact that it's extremely funny how the fandom at large just calls it a continent anyway, it also is genuinely a fascinating look at what his thought process was, and how a lot of it boils down to "yeah this sounds cool."
Because think about it. Does he have a grand design in saying Fodlan isn't a continent? Was he going for a Christendom thing with Fodlan, where it's multiple different countries/lands all following an explicit rule set from a religious power?
Well, not really, since we see from the game itself that that comparison doesn't work. Leicester began with no approval from, crowning by or strict adherence towards the Church of Seiros. No matter how angry Rhea got about it when yelling at Claude in Three Hopes, it doesn't change the fact that it started and maintained itself as a kingless nation with no rulers and explicitly no religious power from its own church branch. For three entire centuries. And Adrestia booted out its own church branch a century before the game began with no lasting repercussions.
"But doesn't Rhea call Edelgard and the empire rebels after she starts her war?"
Yes, she does. However, authority is not a strict "X party controls Y party." Again, Rhea does not have supreme authority... over any of the countries, really. She has soft power, symbolically relevant, but ultimately not the be all end all. If you really want to compare this whole thing to the Catholic church, it'd be like the rulers of [Insert European nation here] going to Vatican City to study before sneaking their armies there to overthrow the church across Europe. Then after they capture Pope Leo and lock him in a basement, they declare war on surrounding countries in Europe because... before the Catholic Church was around and fucked everything up, Europe was one land with one glorious imperial ruler.
It devolves into nonsense, doesn't it? Because the structure of Edelgard's motives is nonsense.
We know she's wrong/lying about the church splitting up nations to control people, because even if Faerghus history could potentially be muddled, Rhea's newly introduced anger towards Claude and the Alliance in hopes proves she had no involvement in the Alliance's creation.
We know she's wrong/lying about the church raking in money, because the CoS doesn't take taxes. The Central Church operates on donations from nobles in the three countries. Shamir and Alois collect rewards from the Eastern Church in their paralogue, rather than take the reward from the Derdriu merchants. Hell, Mercedes confirms that the church she called home before being adopted was able to be successfully threatened with money from Random McMerchantGuy, so local churches either don't collect taxes at all, or not enough to hold socio-economic sway.
Alois may say the Eastern Church controls eastern fodlan (in JP he says they hold jurisdiction in eastern fodlan), but later in the same conversation, Alois says they don't have a standing army and Shamir says that they don't actually have a presence given they're caught between the Central Church and the Alliance lords. And the Southern Church, again, no longer exists by the time of the game.
By all measures, there is only vague similarities to Christendom when looking at the Church of Seiros in theory, and no similarities at all in practice.
So really, what was Kusakihara saying when he meant Fodlan wasn't a continent?
Well... he probably just did it for fun. He doesn't care to mention anything about Fodlan itself that would pertain to it not being a continent, aside from it being isolated enough to where the term "continent" isn't applicable because a continent would need worldwide recognition and acceptance, in accordance to post-Age of Discovery standards. And Fodlan's isolation is because its three nations are themselves extremely fucking volatile and terrible at doing anything with other countries, given what we know of Brigid, Dagda, Sreng, Duscur and Almyra. Not to excuse the other non-Duscur nations of any wrong doing on their part, since they also had a hand in invading.
But still, that and the fact that Claude in Verdant Wind is like "Um, actually looking at the Church tenets for more than 5 minutes shows that contact with the outside world isn't forbidden or sinful, guys", which should have been obvious given that Rhea let foreigners into her academy and into her personal retinue of knights; and the fact that a quest shows the Western Church hates the Central Church/Rhea because of her tolerance of foreigners... yeah, it's clear it's because each nation doesn't know how to actually treat foreign lands rather than Rhea or her church declaring non-Fodlan entities to be dangerous.
I digress. It's a similar technique to dramatic irony, where we as the readers are able to contexualize Fodlan as a continent in accordance to how we define what a "continent" is in the years 2019 and beyond. But the characters aren't meant to really... know or have awareness of those kinds of concepts.
Which naturally bumps up against, once again, the fact that there's internal contradiction in Kusakihara's statement. Yeah, of course pegasi and wyverns can fly and that's why it's easy to draw a map and stuff... does that not literally go against what you just said about isolation though? No force is shooting out every flying creature from going too far to discover what the fucking world is? There's detailed awareness of other landmasses, to the extent that there's knowlegde of other populations and even industries in these non-Fodlan places. Why then, would you try to stress to not call it a continent, before creating a world with lore that is extremely continental? "Realism" isn't an explanation nor an excuse, this is a game written by people in the past decade, striving for realism only creates issues in structure and presentation, as I just laid out.
TL;DR Kusakihara's writing is fucking weird, including when trying to intentionally make Fodlan "not a continent" before then making the rest of the world's lore extremely continent-coded.
Kusakihara's writing is bonkers - you're willing to tell me people could, thanks to pegasi and wyverns, look at fodlan from high enough to see it resembles a dragon's head (that'd be, quite far enough, like modern planes high enough!) -
But as the same time he writes one of his leads cry about isolationism when his comrade's dad got rich by trading with foreigners? When there are books all around depicting, as you noted, knowledge of other countries, isles and landmasses even down to their industry?
When one of his potential wives who's not from his country comes from a family that traditionally trades with a foreign country? (Anette and Albinea). When Enbarr is the largest harbour and a bustling center of trade?
Granted, the last two came from Nopes, aka after this interview - but even in Houses, this "IsOlAtIoNiSm" take smelt bad, I remember being bored during Covid and having written a post about recipes lol, thing being a third of Garreg Mach's recipes (iirc) include ingredients coming from foreign lands.
This suggests trade, at least frequent enough to have ingredients shipped to a monastery located in the center of the "totes not continent!". And this is supported by Edmund's description, being a land that became rich - to the point of buying their seat in the Alliance - thanks to trade with foreign lands.
So why is Kusakihara's writing so ass?
Why did he write that thing about isolationism, and three lines below, mentions there's trade? Or depicts Fodlan's neighbours as agressive assholes - save for the ones who were defeated/destroyed and the survivors welcomed in, apparently, the seat of "IsOlAtIoNiSm" itself?
Bcs, imo, the general writing makes me think of the three headed dragon meme, save that, in this case, they eat themselves.
Fraud's character is basically an isekai protag's journey : he goes to new land, new land is shit, tries to improve it, doesn't rule it but lets his bestie rule in the end, with his "improved" values.
Thing is... This story is also set in a verse where Supreme Leader and Dimitri's stories exist.
Supreme Story is basically lizards BaD and imperialism 101 to make Fodl Adrestia great again. But if the land has to be great "again" then it can't be as shitty as what Fraud's story suggests - he can't be the only one to bring "improved values", otherwise what would be the point of the Supreme Story? Isolationism doesn't exist in Adrestia they have overseas vassals !(whose princess was brought in as a hostage to make sure the vassals won't rebel).
And Dimitri's story is, well... a Fire Emblem story : Lord is ousted from his land and has to retake it as the legitimate ruler and beloved son of the previous one who was murdered, and improve on what existed before.
To show how benevolent and legitimate his, and his Father's, rule were, well, suddenly, his land isn't "IsOlAtIoNiSt" at all, Lambert went on a diplomatic visit to Duscur, Sreng people lead raids, there's trade with Albinea... Then everything went to shit when Red Emperor's faction - helped by the evil sorcerers - ruined everything. The world was fine - not perfect but fine and could be improved - before Red Emperor and her sorcerers ruined it.
"Imperialism 101" dragon head and "Fire Emblem" dragon head try to bite each other because they are not compatible with each other, and the "Isekai" head can only exist if the other two are down.
The game cannot favor (it shouldn't lol) a lead over the other two and so the writing is riddled with plot holes to have every protagonist, somehow, have a point (even if their point is shit).
And since there is no objective truth "were either of the three countries + the church promoting isolationism or not" the Kusakihara's writing should, sometimes, state X, then Y, and never, ever, refute one or the other, because that would mean reflecting on one of the three marketable heads.
I think the problem is, the game was written so that the players would play detective. Even if we weren’t supposed to play every route ourselves, the expectation was for us to immerse ourselves in the setting and begin comparing notes to figure out the big picture of what is going on, who is right and who is wrong. That we would start documenting all the lore revealed in various supports, or library books, or NPC dialogue, or just little details in the setting we may notice.
The problem is that mystery stories generally come to a moment of denouement. A scene where the truth is revealed, the villain unmasked, the “I’d have gotten away with it if not for you meddling kids.” Houses, since we the players are meant to be the proverbial Scooby Gang, does not have that. We are on the other side of the screen while the characters are repeating their lines like a bunch of wooden theater kids.
The characters don’t feel like they actually live in Fodlan or are even paying attention to the story. This is very damning, as it inadvertantly gives characters making claims that we are meant to find out are wrong apparent legitimacy. In a well-written game, if Claude tried his “the Church is keeping Fodlan isolated from the rest of the world,” a character would set him straight by pointing out stuff like international trade existing or that other nations try to invade Fodlan which may have something to do with it not liking foreigners. Hell, it wouldn’t be Claude himself to later point out the diversity at Garreg Mach. Same thing with Edelgard’s many claims, easily debunkable with just a casual glance of the world around her.
But instead, the game gives her her soapbox. Her actions stop being a major issue after the reveal, and everyone feels bad that they’re fighting her like they all forgot about the events of White Clouds up until that point.
It’s not a believable setup. With the things Edelgard has done, and what she is doing, normal people wouldn’t have a problem fighting her. Her accusations would be called out. But it’s not, because that makes the game too one-sided. It’s not vague enough, people won’t pass around notes to figure out the full picture if we can understand it just by following along with the stories of the routes. The world and story feel like they are separated by a wall rather than fully integrated with each other, and the stories can come off as nonsensical within the full context of the setting.
And I get it, some audience need exposition. A lot of people don’t like it when game’s don’t hand it out, look at FF13 for instance. It’s why a fish out of water protagonist works, it serves to facilitate that exposition and Byleth works as such a protagonist. But since Byleth is silent and their arc is implied, they don’t react like a normal protagonist would and people take their silence as the game endorsing whatever path they are on when one of those paths is meant to be a villain path. People project onto Byleth rather than see them as their own character through the bits of characterization we do get, effectively erasing them.
The game tried to be smart but did it in the dumbest way possible. And as a result of this, we have people who believe the route that leads to tyranny is a people’s revolution, while the people’s revolution route in addition to the one that empowers the commoners the most protect the status quo while the protagonist of the last route is locked by the fandom into his early game ignorant self who want him to join the villainess. A well written game wouldn’t be misread like Three Houses is, but Houses is with the localization only making things worse.
I’m possibly getting Fortune’s Weave because I dig the sword and sandals aesthetic. If we could get a Fire Emblem lord that could pull off a Conan, I wouldn’t hold out for an Elric, I’d play that in a heartbeat but at least in Fortune’s Weave Conan wouldn’t look out of place. Hopefully it tries to be more direct rather than just serving out more of that 10k years worth of lore that the devs couldn’t fit into Houses like they did with Hopes. They write all that crap, but it led to such a poorly executed game that presented itself as smarter than it actually was.
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