[ehrmangout]

Nintendo you want to get Kid Icarus on Switch 2 you want me to buy a Switch 2 oooooooooooooo

[swadloom]

There very much is depth to Pit and Palutena's dynamic in that there's a negative side to it that the game explores but truly it feels like some people bend over backwards to make Palutena seem worse than she honestly is. Like until I replayed the game I forgot how much Palutena yells Pit's name when she thinks he's seriously hurt or says she'll pull him out if things get too dangerous or asks if he's okay, because some of the fandom jokes of "yeah go die for me Pit lol" made me forget. Like this is all stressful for Pit and she teases him in sometimes mean ways but like. There is a character who gleefully says "well anything is possible" when Pit says he might die and it wasn't Palutena is all I'm saying

[swadloom]

Also my friend pointed out that like. Pit says when he isn't okay with something. Like you could argue he can't talk back as much to Palutena but he gets snarky with her too or gets direct ("Could you be a little more gentle next time?") like. Again there's nuance there he probably doesn't feel great about it but sometimes it feels like in this fanbase when Palutena isn't being sexualized she's getting all the nuance sucked out and it makes me kinda crazy I can't lie

[ehrmangout]

I might be a little too woke here but I think it IS misogyny, at least in part. I saw something (can't remember where), that said fanbases tend to do two things with female characters. They sexualize them, and they hold them to a higher moral standard. With Palutena, it's both (not by the same people, no goomba fallacy here). I don't think I need to really go over the sexualization part, so I'll instead talk about the higher moral standard. Basically, Palutena is really the only god in the game that isn't a complete piece of shit. Hades, Thanatos, and Pandora are all pure evil, Medusa is also evil, Dyntos and Poseidon are apathetic narcissists who are too far up their own asses to care about anything that doesn't directly involve them or their domains, and Viridi is a literal genocidal maniac. But no, Palutena must be secretly evil because she *checks notes* teases Pit sometimes and makes mistakes.

[swadloom]

The characterization in palutena's guidance is fine at its very worst it's just kinda mid

[ehrmangout]

I think generally the characterization is fine, but the worst parts really stick out. I actually think Dark Pit joining Viridi is in character for him (although it's a stupid move by Viridi if her plan is still to wipe out humanity). But the running "joke" of Viridi crushing on every man she sees feels like a flanderization of her status as a tsundere, and the part during Inkling's conversation where she laughs about an environmental catastrophe because it killed all the humans is blatantly out of character (also they straight up made her racist). There's also the fact that she inexplicably has the Lightning Chariot, which was addressed in the JP version but not the international one. Overall I just kind of hate what they did with Viridi.

[ehrmangout]

Thinking about how in Kid Icarus: Uprising, it's implied that Brawl is simultaneously something Pit fought in prior to the events of the game and a video game that exists in-universe. Normally this would be something that I would be tearing my hair out about, but this is funny so it gets a pass. This begs the question, though, what else falls into this category? Hades name-drops Uprising during his after-credits speech, so is Uprising an in-universe game? Do the first two games exist in-universe? What about the anime shorts? Does fucking CAPTAIN N exist as a show in the Kid Icarus universe?(the events of the show definitely didn't happen, though)

[holograms-in-the-night]

Don't mess with online Kid Icarus fans and the shippers, they straight up making headcanons as if they were part of the real canon

[ehrmangout]

Fuck it this comment is so ridiculous I need to refute every part of it. Ok so, right off the bat we have Pit "going to college". First off, he's illiterate. Second of all, this is obviously him just going along with whatever Palutena says. He clearly doesn't even know what branchial respiration is, and only figures it out after he says he minored in it. He's going along with the joke, how do you misread that so badly? Second point, insurance. Pit gets insurance because he is an employee of Palutena, not because he's an adult. Also, child labor laws definitely don't exist in this universe. And finally, saving on laundry just means "saving on the labor required to do laundry". That's not even an adult thing, do you really think kids don't wear the same thing for multiple days to do less laundry? And Viridi having a brain age of 24 doesn't mean anything, do you really think that means she's mentally 24? And finally, the crown jewel of this comment. "An *outdated* decade-old tweet". WHAT DO YOU MEAN OUTDATED? THERE HASN'T BEEN A NEW GAME IN 14 YEARS! THEIR DESIGNS HAVEN'T CHANGED IN THE SLIGHTEST SINCE THEN! All of this to support shipping Piridi (I'm assuming). You can ship them if you want, just don't claim that the two of them are adults when they clearly aren't. And also don't do it around me.

[ehrmangout]

This is something I've mentioned before in comments, but figured I'd make a proper post about: Viridi is absolutely responsible for the events of the Chaos Kin arc, but refuses to take any real responsibility for what happened. Let me be 100% clear here, I'm not blaming her for being absent during the events of Chapter 13, nor for swearing Arlon to an oath of silence. Those are both completely reasonable. I'm only blaming her for her actions from Chapter 14 onwards.

Obviously, after the Lunar Sanctum falls and the Chaos Kin escapes, Viridi doesn't let Palutena know about the Chaos Kin. The two of them are at war, but this isn't really a defensible decision. Palutena would absolutely be willing to put their differences aside to attempt to capture the Kin, and Viridi should know this. It's not like Viridi isn't attempting to recapture it either, the Electro Traps you use in Chapter 21's boss fight were developed by Phosphora during her time in the abandoned temple she squats in. What is the disadvantage to keeping the secret of the Kin's existence when Pit is actively seeking out your only remaining commander? Even giving Viridi the benefit of the doubt and saying she was going to let Palutena know after Chapter 17, that's still four chapters that she kept the secret for literally no reason other than plot.

However, it doesn't end there. Not only is she at fault for the whole fiasco, she doesn't really feel any guilt about the whole thing, and actively avoids taking responsibility. She jokes about Palutena getting eaten in Chapter 20, and blames Hades, Pit, Palutena and Arlon before admitting that she could have done something to stop the Chaos Kin from escaping(notably, only stop it from escaping, apparently she sees no issue with how she handled the situation after it escaped). Admittedly, everyone she listed IS at fault, at least partially, but her and Arlon are mainly at fault. I also don't feel like the narrative really holds her accountable for this. The characters certainly don't, she just kind of becomes part of the team, and nobody ever calls her out on it.

[thesilliestguys]

I’ve seen this take before, actually! I agree with some parts of it, particularly her lack of accountability, but I do think there is a misrepresentation of her perspective. For starters, up until around Chapter 16, she doesn’t trust Palutena and sees her as an active participant in making the world a worse place by supporting the humans. They are at war, so letting her know may be used as a vulnerability to be taken advantage of, and there is no point where Palutena would let her know that she’d relent to team up against the Chaos Kin’s (again, Viridi was absent in 13) to dispute this. We can’t expect her to know information that we as viewer know. While what I just mentioned may not be enough to completely disregard reaching out to her about this, their choice to target the Lunar Sanctum—which was not a military base of any sort, which is acknowledged by Arlon in Chapter 13—may have cause Viridi might assume that they already knew of the Chaos Kin’s existence and were trying to free it. Obviously this isn’t the case, but it may see the way from her perspective, at least at first.

[ehrmangout]

I actually agree with most of this, but I think there are two things that make her decision to not tell anyone baffling.

1. Arlon is still alive. While he could be in a coma or something along those lines, he should know that Palutena is unaware of the true purpose of the Sanctum. He should also know that she would be willing to put their differences aside and work together, considering she literally offers to do that in the chapter.

2. There's not even a throwaway line in which Viridi mentions the events of Chapter 13. In four chapters, two of which she is an explicit ally in, and she doesn't even ask why Palutena went after the Sanctum. Even if there had been a line at the end of 17 (which wouldn't have changed anything, mind you, it's implied the Chaos Kin took Palutena over directly after the chapter ends), I'd be more forgiving. But we get absolutely nothing.

[ehrmangout]

This is something I've mentioned before in comments, but figured I'd make a proper post about: Viridi is absolutely responsible for the events of the Chaos Kin arc, but refuses to take any real responsibility for what happened. Let me be 100% clear here, I'm not blaming her for being absent during the events of Chapter 13, nor for swearing Arlon to an oath of silence. Those are both completely reasonable. I'm only blaming her for her actions from Chapter 14 onwards.

Obviously, after the Lunar Sanctum falls and the Chaos Kin escapes, Viridi doesn't let Palutena know about the Chaos Kin. The two of them are at war, but this isn't really a defensible decision. Palutena would absolutely be willing to put their differences aside to attempt to capture the Kin, and Viridi should know this. It's not like Viridi isn't attempting to recapture it either, the Electro Traps you use in Chapter 21's boss fight were developed by Phosphora during her time in the abandoned temple she squats in. What is the disadvantage to keeping the secret of the Kin's existence when Pit is actively seeking out your only remaining commander? Even giving Viridi the benefit of the doubt and saying she was going to let Palutena know after Chapter 17, that's still four chapters that she kept the secret for literally no reason other than plot.

However, it doesn't end there. Not only is she at fault for the whole fiasco, she doesn't really feel any guilt about the whole thing, and actively avoids taking responsibility. She jokes about Palutena getting eaten in Chapter 20, and blames Hades, Pit, Palutena and Arlon before admitting that she could have done something to stop the Chaos Kin from escaping(notably, only stop it from escaping, apparently she sees no issue with how she handled the situation after it escaped). Admittedly, everyone she listed IS at fault, at least partially, but her and Arlon are mainly at fault. I also don't feel like the narrative really holds her accountable for this. The characters certainly don't, she just kind of becomes part of the team, and nobody ever calls her out on it.

[ehrmangout]

This new round of Palutena discourse on here reminds me of something I've never seen anyone else talk about: the fact that she attempts to negotiate whenever possible instead of fighting. She tries to convince Thanatos to hand over the Underworld Key in exchange for sparing him, she makes an attempt at taking up Arlon's offer of negotiation (granted, she gives him awful terms that he can't accept and goes immediately back to fighting, but it could've easily been a trap), and gaslights herself into walking back her order to kill Dark Pit. She even attempts to negotiate with MEDUSA (and gives her really good terms, to boot)! Obviously none of these work, but the fact that she tries to spare her enemies before feeding them to the winged meat grinder is pretty emblematic of who she is as a person.

[thesilliestguys]

nuanced palutena my beloved

[ehrmangout]

There are reasons as to why she doesn't try to negotiate with anyone else (I also forgot about her trying to negotiate with Viridi). They're either an animal (Twinbellows, Phoenix,Space Kraken), can't communicate properly (Great Reaper, Space Pirate Captain, Cragalanche, the Bomb Depot guards, the Aurum), are already clearly past negotiation (Hewdraw, Hades, Pyrrhon after his betrayal), or have some other circumstances that prevent her from negotiating (Gaol, Phosphora). The only exception is Pandora, who Palutena thinks is insane (she's not entirely wrong tbh). Negotiating with Gaol would require also negotiating with Magnus, which is possible but unlikely. And for Phosphora, Viridi was right there and would have just rejected her terms (also Phosphora had already pissed Palutena off by that point).

[topherchris]

[ehrmangout]

This new round of Palutena discourse on here reminds me of something I've never seen anyone else talk about: the fact that she attempts to negotiate whenever possible instead of fighting. She tries to convince Thanatos to hand over the Underworld Key in exchange for sparing him, she makes an attempt at taking up Arlon's offer of negotiation (granted, she gives him awful terms that he can't accept and goes immediately back to fighting, but it could've easily been a trap), and gaslights herself into walking back her order to kill Dark Pit. She even attempts to negotiate with MEDUSA (and gives her really good terms, to boot)! Obviously none of these work, but the fact that she tries to spare her enemies before feeding them to the winged meat grinder is pretty emblematic of who she is as a person.

[thesilliestguys]

okay so. for some reason I’ve seen a lot of stuff on here (maybe it was Old Fandom People idk) where it’s like “whyyy are we making Palutena evil and abusive and manipulative! why are we mischaracterizing her!?” and so, being the nosy pig I am, I went rooting for these truffles. And yet… excluding smut fics (GOD THERES A LOT OF THOSE IN THE KID ICARUS FANDOM but we persist!) I found… 3. There were 3 perpetrators. One was unfinished, one gave her a redemption arc, and the two were from Smash Bros. They were all on different sites.

Who is doing this on such a degree that everyone knows?? Did I miss someone??? In what world is this occurring?????

[ehrmangout]

Even if it is uncommon, I personally despise the abusive Palutena headcanon. I can, however, understand where they're coming from with it. Palutena is objectively manipulative. She withholds information, frequently outright lies, and convinces him to follow her orders, even when he has reservations (the most obvious example being her "wicked and destructive" speech). However, I'm not quite sure if she is actually abusive. The two of them are definitely codependent, but I don't think Pit is afraid of her the way victims fear their abusers. She does pick on him a lot, though, even after the Chaos Kin arc, so that could constitute abuse. Portraying her as evil or cruel, though, is completely out of character. I think people just lack the ability to properly comprehend the nuances of her character, and this is the less flattering version of the "silly mom 😝" character that is more common throughout the fandom.

[ehrmangout]

I love being the one person on Earth whose hyperfixation is specifically KI lore because the lore fucking sucks. Like yes, Viridi figured out multiversal travel and only used it to have a weird superhero guy shoot comets. Yes the Lightning Chariot can travel hundreds of millions of times the speed of light. That doesn't break the story at all, dw about it. Floor ice cream gives you health, right fellas?

[cs-saiyajin]

this post made me remember that phosphora was absolutely absent from the aurum arc and now it’s lowkey making me mad. literally No One Else showing as much hatred for the aurum as viridi but she didn’t bother sending PHOSPHORA ??? one of the strongest assets of the FON (and also doubles as the commander of the FON) ??? that doesn’t make any sense …! there are So Many Things in uprising that clearly only serve to drive the story forward and it drives me crazy

[ehrmangout]

Phosphora being absent from the Aurum arc does make logical sense, she and Viridi's other commanders are probably just recovering from their battles with Pit. I do know Viridi offers to send in one of her commanders in Ch 15, but fucking with Pit is one of her favorite activities.

[ehrmangout]

I love being the one person on Earth whose hyperfixation is specifically KI lore because the lore fucking sucks. Like yes, Viridi figured out multiversal travel and only used it to have a weird superhero guy shoot comets. Yes the Lightning Chariot can travel hundreds of millions of times the speed of light. That doesn't break the story at all, dw about it. Floor ice cream gives you health, right fellas?

[ehrmangout]

Ok this is a complete nitpick and is obviously a retcon but how did Palutena banish Medusa to the Underworld before the events of the first game? You can't access the Underworld without a key, which is in the possession of the Underworld (presumably). It could be something to do with banishment (although that would be an easy loophole to exploit in order to get around using the key). Somehow, this isn't the biggest plot hole surrounding the Underworld Key (Dark Pit in Ch9 and the GST seem to be completely immune to it, maybe Dark Pit is able to get through because he was created by the Mirror?)

[cogneartive]

person in fandom: eeeyikes!!! i hope im writing this character in this short little fanfic right >_< eeekkk what if my takes on my meta are all wrong and everyone will Kill me!!

guy in professional comic industry: okay lets mischaracterize every single character that appears in this comic for 50 or so issues

[ehrmangout]

Ok, this is another weird KI lore thing, but: we have no idea how many Reset Bombs Viridi manages to drop. There are at least three (the one in Chapter 11, the one Pit defuses in Chapter 12, and the one that fails against Pyrrhon in Chapter 17), but there's no mention of any other Reset Bombs anywhere else. There technically IS another Reset Bomb mentioned during the end cutscene of 11, but it's likely that's one of the other two we see used in-game, especially because the one in 17 is apparently the last one. It's kind of funny for Viridi to declare war on humanity when she only has two functional bombs (the other is still being grown), but I think it's in character for her.

[oneclickangel]

reblog if you're corny and insufferable