Himbo Lover

He/Him. Black. Gay. Progressive. Tired. Trans people are always welcome here! Non-Anon asks are always answered privately unless requested otherwise.

[emblemxeno]

Fates Localization Masterpost

Treehouse’s localization of Fire Emblem Fates is infamous already, but how much was changed or removed is often still misunderstood. So I’m compiling my long posts about it here!

Here is a link to my sources post!

Where I get translated stuff!

Here are links to posts I’ve made so far!

Before Branch of Fate Story Changes

Birthright Story Changes

Conquest Story Changes

Revelation Story Changes

Character Changes: Takumi

Character Changes: Peri

Character Changes: Niles 

Shura’s Inconsistent Age

Character Ending Changes 

Fates Name Changes and Ratings (For Fun) (Newest Addition)

[emblemxeno]

I think the most beautiful thing about the FE Fates fandom is that despite us being effectively not allowed to be unironic about one of our favorite games and despite ten years of bullshit, the Fates fandom endures and is still one of Tumblr's most searched tags, AO3 having over 10K+ fanfics for it with more on the way, and is unironically in a better place than most fandoms I've seen.

Like, Steven Universe's and Star vs. The Forces of Evil's fandoms, despite being at their prime at the same time FE Fates was, are dead in the water due to the show having such an ending of finality it wraps up any kind of discourse in a bow. I think the same will happen with The Amazing Digital Circus, hard as it is to imagine now, because the show's ending was so dissatisfying to so many people that all people are going to remember for it was the very bad Jax gender discourse. Even now, people just have moved on collectively to other things.

But Fates did something relative to FE that I think only 3H has done likewise; it's still being talked about and debated. Sure, this debating isn't inherently a good thing as so many people are toxic idiots about people liking the game unironically, but there's still even now so much fanart, fanfics, cosplaying and discussion of the characters and stories to this day in a way most fandoms have not endured so long for, despite the hardcore fans' attempts to try and snuff out our game's relevance and the fact even on sites that strongly dislike FE Fates like Reddit FE and Serenes Forest there's still an undeniable undercurrent of people who come from and for those games on there, especially the FE Fates modding community which I'm a part of. Fates has so many people trying to act like it sucks but it somehow manages to endure even after all this time because the game struck a real chord with people, and the endless discussion of its flaws has caused it to live on in ways something the "better" (quotations obvious) FEs like Tellius hasn't due to how definitive those games' endings were.

I think that's unironically beautiful, and shows how many people love this game even when idiots like Edeldicks and FE tryhards tried to push us out or exclude us. There's something to be said about that.

I think what also helps the Fates fandom is that it was pretty clear early on that the story was divisive and that people were already clowning on it, and it being bad is the generally accepted norm.

Steven Universe, as what I can tell, ebbed and flowed between being a cultural cornerstone to being seen as embarrassing to be associated with, with major highs and lows with each extreme. IIRC, there were popular videos denying its artistic value, one of which is currently memed on for being a pretty terrible and poorly thought out critique of the show, that damaged the series' and fandom's reputation.

So Fates kind of had the benefit of maintaining a consistent activity in the fandom, before newer games released, despite its divisive reception. There's also the fact that it's a game rather than a show, so naturally the amount of content produced for either medium is gonna be on a different level of frequency.

[emblemxeno]

I still think Xander in Fates (ESPECIALLY Conquest) is one of the best written examples of a redemption arc I can think of because it highlights a very unspoken rule to a redemption arc; you need the redeemed to be somebody who is believably a good person or at least sympathetic who happens to be on the wrong side.

Zuko is the all-time GOAT in ATLA because from his first appearance he’s very clearly sympathetic and we’re rooting for him to restore his honor, but his exposure to the world and guidance from Iroh makes clear he was always a hero who had an extremely traumatic family life much like Xander, and being exposed to the truth they tried to repress for so long had them realize that they were wrong. Hell, even Kratos for as evil as he was in the Greek Saga was SYMPATHETIC because the Greek Gods were colossal assholes who made his life a living hell, and you can see why he turned out he way he did and how him traveling to Midgard and finding a second love changed him as he overcomes his trauma to become a true hero.

The recurring theme between those two examples is why Xander works so well as a redemption arc — because he’s not at all characters we were meant to rooting against so much as realize that he’s a good person on the wrong side.

Xander was always somebody who is equal parts a hero as Corrin was; he genuinely was raised to be the crown prince of Nohr under his kind and caring dad who, one day, after a traumatic civil war that killed all but three of his half-siblings and Garon, went mad, cold and tyrannical, and is the source of an incredible amount of trauma and parental abuse on Xander’s part that the sheer 180 of a dad who went from a good dad into a paranoid maniac who will happily kill his own children if they defy him led to him heavily compartmentalizing his desire to be a good person with being a good prince — and even in Birthright, he frequently gets many scenes dedicated to him as Corrin and we’re meant to heavily sympathize with him as well as his denial and fear leading to Elise’s death and him committing suicide out of grief. That’s all set-up to him in Conquest going against Garon to send backup on Corrin’s suicide mission in the Ice Tribe, to him standing up for Corrin in the Nohrian Court… so much of his character is so full of fear and anxiety masked with superficial confident aggression and he’s deep down hating what he’s trapped into but feels a compulsive need to stay with it because he has family he needs to protect — what makes him lose all will to live in Birthright was realizing not even his family was safe from himself, and tragically, he gives into his depression after that.

So it made him being the *first* to realize Garon was long-dead after Corrin showed him the truth and choosing to trust Corrin after so long and clearly being torn between his desire to be a good person versus be a good prince and made an incredible capstone to his journey. There’s a reason why he’s in my Top 10 favorite characters in all of FE.

And like I said, that’s the commonality Xander, Zuko and Kratos have — *you’re meant to root for them and sympathize with them even as villains*, the former two because they’re not even bad guys so much as on the wrong side, and the latter because as evil as old!Kratos was, it was clear the Greek gods were far worse and he had every reason to despise them — and it made his redemption in the Norse saga all the greater for that reason. I’m not saying the character being somebody we have to root for is always required (Vegeta from DBZ is a fascinating exception to this rule due to how much effort went into his redemption), but it helps a LOT for a character to be actually sympathetic and clearly a decent person who’s on the wrong side if you want to make a redemption arc work.

YES YES YES YOU GET IT!

The duality and doublethink is core to Xander and why his redemption and atonement works!

He's a caring and kind, if strict, older brother in Fates chapter 1. He's depicted as someone to look up to and surpass, someone to make proud.

But in chapter 2, he switches up. He defers to Garon's wanton violence and villainy. He's influenced and controlled; he's easily scared into being complicit in evil.

And we see this very same "consistent inconsistency" in the entirety of Conquest, and even Fates as a whole.

He goes on missions assigned by Garon, most likely inherently immoral or dubious. But he finds loopholes as much as he can in order to keep his sanity.

He defers to Corrin's kindness when sparing Shura. He spares Hoshidan combatants in the ninja map instead of killing them like Kotaro wanted. He respects the rules of Izumo by not breaking the non-violence edict.

But all of that crumbles when Garon's right in front of him. He finds himself frozen in fear and inaction, while soldiers who surrendered, are now slaughtered after they were promised mere imprisonment.

It's raw and ugly and pitiable and human. He's someone who's very clearly complicit in evil. What makes him a hero, i.e. what triggers the Yato's final transformation in Conquest, is him breaking that cycle and putting a stop to Garon directly. Even just minutes before that, he was trying to justify what he'd do if it turned out Corrin was wrong, because his fear of Garon and detachment from what was in front of him was THAT deep. He *needed* to be shown that Garon was a monster, in both the literal and metaphorical sense, in order for his heroism to eclipse his fear.

[emblemxeno]

As a strictly cis-het guy, I don’t get why men feel entitled to sexual contact or ownership of women solely for being the bare minimum.

So many old, married men made sexual comments to my trans man friend at work over the course of his job. Five called him “darling” at work on Monday, another couple offered him alcohol.

As a guy, it's just... baffling to me, how many men think doing the bare minimum is enough to entitle them to sex. And these guys get so fucking violent and mad when you tell them to fuck off into the sun when it’s clear you’re not giving them a relationship for the bare minimum, because they want a partner in spite of their mediocrity and avoidance of their emotions and laziness. And many of these men decide to turn to far-right politics to express anger and pent-up emotions of grief and unresolved sorrow, as if a sort of "look at what you made me do!" kind of deal.

And if you think its bad here, it's 1000x worse in South Korea. Literal CSAM rings on Telegram them of Korean men pimping out their sisters and daughters there, with hundreds of thousands of watchers. It's sick, disgusting shit and I really don't get it because I derive more enjoyment from bonding and learning about other people than they do and don't feel entitled to women. Like, yes, I have degenerate kinks of my own, but where's the fun in it if it's not with a woman who's into it herself?

It's just so baffling to me as a guy and tbh I'm glad I don't get it.

It's that awareness that makes you a great friend, and a great man, anon!

Once you learn about it, you start seeing it everywhere, from the big, obvious examples, to the micro, subtle ones.

And a huge part of it, is how patriarchy is constructed to restrict men and boys. They're taught that affection is limited, that it can only look or feel a certain way if it's between other men, and that if a woman is affectionate, it's out of desire to be with them; because patriarchy as well teaches girls and women that being with a man is the ultimate life goal.

Rules like these are embedded in children very young, and it takes awareness, curiosity, and patience to even begin to understand them, let alone unlearn them. And doing those things is very, very hard! It's a constant day to day process, because our brains being as strong as they are is a curse as much as it is a blessing.

In lieu of doing that, a lot of people choose to just accept it and operate within those rules and try to "win" at them, and that's how we get men who feel entitled to women in the same way a child would feel entitled to a toy.

Again, it's good that you're aware of this. It may sound like the bare minimum-and in a way, it can be-but it really, really goes to show how many cis-het men do not meet the ever evolving standard of decency.

[emblemxeno]

I know Raxis is going to see this since he won’t leave you alone so let’s even assume he “cares” so much about others. He and Diaphin are on Twitter I’m sorry X, still. If they cared about others they’d leave the site owned by a pedophile Nazi like I did and yes it was hard and yes most of my friends are still there posting like nothing has happened but a couple of them like me have left. Because we care about people, we don’t want to give Musk attention or revenue. If someone shares a link it’s Xcancel or bust. They could do that, they could leave and stop posting on X completely and have their words match their actions but as they don’t automatically that tells me the kind of people they are.

On top of that?

Why is he still after you, stalking someone who wants nothing to do with him and blocked since 2022 or even earlier, instead of doing the normal thing of pretending the person who blocked you doesn’t exist he is going to a Nazi site posting Nazi rhetoric and then screenshotting his critics only on the Nazi site giving it attention and revenue does he not see this?

If Raxis really is in his forty’s instead of arguing people on the Nazi site he should leave and go make his own website! Neo and geocities are coming back, he is old enough to remember those put his love of Edelgard into that, be creative get a hobby, stop harassing others if debating is his hobby it’s probably because he just likes being right the final word etc and from my experience nothing you can do will change these people who make up things constantly, play the victim when they’re the bully and use their followers as their personal army

Anyway I’m sorry you have to keep dealing with this. You’re stronger than me I myself am still stalked despite blocking someone I was harassed by it sucks and also over fictional characters though if you know about yumeshipping and people thinking they own characters it’s that. It’s all so dumb I need people to stop treating fictional characters as real people and real people like fictional characters the world is burning daily I know it’s not 3H’s fault but something shifted in fandoms that makes others think because they’re right they’re the exception to I don’t know life itself

I honestly think he has some sort of resentful attachment to me, because before I blocked him for his behavior (which included being involved in harassing a couple other users off this site, though I may be misremembering) I did interact with him on friendly terms a few times.

So he may subconsciously have viewed my changed perspective on Edelgard and Three Houses as some kind of betrayal, and has been bitter about it ever since.

Other than that, I can't think of a reason why? I don't have that big of a following, I just post a lot.

Thank you for the concerns, it's really sweet!

[emblemxeno]

Have you ever thought of writting a book/videogane/story of any kind? 👀

I've written short stories and screenplays as part of my education, but for personal fulfillment or even as a career? Well it'd be neat to do so, but as of now I'm not interested at the moment. I think I need more life experience, and writing experience, before settling down to try and nab a writing job on that level.

For now, I'm mostly just looking for a job that'd let me write reviews and such for existing stories. A movie critic would be a fun job, I think, but I think I'd need some education in film to do that, and I don't have that haha.

[emblemxeno]

Are you sure that Japanese anon is even Japanese, Xeno? Whenever someone says Japanese games aren't political and that Western games are, I get incredibly sus especially considering that only 8% of Japanese people are conversant in English, the Japanosphere of the internet is largely separate from the Anglosphere of the internet, and only 2.8% of people on here are from Japan. "Western games are less blatantly political," especially in using Dragon Age as an example (which has been since Veilguard frequently the go-to punching bag for rightoids on social media due to being an average game that happens to have up-and-front queer representation whose execution is hit-and-miss), is frequently code for "politics I agree with or do not understand."

I'm not saying there isn't a kernel of truth otherwise given it is true Japan's opinions on Fates and 3H are mostly the same as in the West, I feel a lot of what said anon is saying is a huge red flag, especially the idea that "Crests are pointless, that's the point" when the game dedicates so much of its runtimes showing how important Crests are, like did we even play the same game?

I'm personally not in the business of questioning another person's identity online, since I've had it done to me in the past given how I'm Black. Hell, I still have it done to me to this day, now that Edelstans are questioning my higher education.

Unless I have solid proof that a person is lying or covering something up for a secret agenda, I take it as they say. At the end of the day, in these circumstances, I don't think anyone's being hurt by it I think.

Thank you for your concern, though!

[emblemxeno]

Thank you alot for your second answer. But I feel the need to correct you a bit. Your ideas are very interesting but not very likely. I hope this does not sound too harsh? I am not an expert in buddhism but the connection you draw sound a bit too weak. And Byleth goes the under way around, doesn't he/she? Byleth starts without any attachments but becomes more human by forming many. We understand Byleths promotion to Nirvana as something that sounds cool. It sounds like a ultimate class. I guess we are also not very good at inventing new names. Westerners are very creative in inventing fantasy names but japanese writers are more pragmatic. It is a common trope in japanese fantasy that we just use names from existing mythology because they sound fitting. Huh I don't even know many video games that have any strong buddhist themes. I guess many people from the outside think buddhism is a very big thing in japan but for us it is not. It is a bit embarassing but when I was a kid I thought Buddha and Bhodisattva are more connected to martial arts than religion. Nowadays I think I know more about ideas like gnosticism than jungianism than I know about buddhism. It seems more useful for a good education and I need them more to understand the themes of games I like.

You also sound a bit too harsh about Crimson Flower. It is discussed alot in japan as well, but nobody would lean into making the story very buddhist just to interpret it as a bad ending. There isn't a right or wrong in Three Houses and it would greatly hurt its themes to interpret it this way. Each route has its own justice and it is a battle of different values and perspectives. Most have strong preferences based on which Lord we like or want Byleth to marry but we understand that the game does not give us a true moral answer. If it wanted to it would have created a golden ending where all Lords and Rhea put their values together to creat a perfect outcome. But this would remove the tragedy of having to pick a side even if all sides have justified views.

But it is very interesting to hear about your catholic upbringing! I think my knowledge is alot more superficial than yours but I read about it and I have friends that went to christian schools. I guess the church of seiros really isn't the same as the catholic church? But in discussions we draw more similarities to the church as organisations. I think the church isn't really about religion and more about how a organisation that provide order can become too stagnant to undergo necessary reforms.

To be specific about denominations, I wasn't raised atholic, but rather Lutheran (a version of protestant), the first in my immediate family; but all of my older relatives were raised catholic, so by nature of being exposed to it, I know about it. Even then, as things got tougher economically, we stopped regularly going to church.

When it comes to how much the Church of Seiros is reflective of the actual catholic church, the similarities are superficial. Aesthetics, yes there's statues, relics, bishops and priests, but in all honesty, that's common in any religion, or even spiritual practice. Many religious factions in past Fire Emblem games have had those very same things (the only thing unique to the Church of Seiros is that there's stained glass), yet only the Seiros faith is accused as Catholic. Because 3H/Fuka was the first Fire Emblem game for a lot of people, I believe that it naturally drew comparisons to the Catholic church because they have never encountered such imagery in an RPG before, much less played another FE game before.

Furthermore, even the tenets and teachings are themselves extremely simple. They are basics that, while taught in Christianity and Catholicism, are still taught in other religions and even in basic societal norms and manners regardless of religious belief. "Don't be disrespectful to your mom, your dad, or religious figures" is one of these very common ones, as an example.

As for why I argue about the Crimson Flower connection to Buddhism and losing Nirvana, it's because of the nature of how Byleth is traveling down the path itself. Having attachment and connections to others isn't itself enough to lose enlightenment, as those are things that can still be recognized as impermanent. However, by choosing to retain an attachment to a being like Edelgard, who represents violence, deception, and (unfortunately) temptation, even after witnessing her crimes first hand, Nirvana is lost, and the connection to a higher plane (Sothis and her Crest stone) vanishes. A traditional practice to liberate oneself from Samsara (the painful cycle of rebirth), is the noble eightfold path, which involves adhering to rules and practices that are broken by Byleth on Edelgard's path only.

As for why I'm harsh on Crimson Flower, it's because according to interviews, it was included only because people on the development team began to have a big preference for Edelgard and wanted a route to side with her, despite that being opposite to the other three routes. It's naturally an outlier that ends up weakening the overall story, because if the point of the narrative is that it's a war of differing perspectives, and no one is truly right or wrong, then what does it say about the whole game when one route takes the role of the conquerer, and the other three are all opposed to said conquerer for more or less the same reason?

That's what I believe, and even though I don't like Crimson Flower as a story, it still holds enough symbolism related to the initial premise of the game (a conqueror who starts as an ally before betraying you) to warrant figuring out what it means. And "loss of Nirvana and falling into vice, deception, violence and domination" is what I personally got from it.

[emblemxeno]

Abyss is also weird because for the most part it's presented more as "sanctuary for people who have nowhere else to go and would be ostracized outside" but it's like. it seems like people can kind of come and go as they please from there for the most part? Yuri is running a whole group of criminals from down there and Constance seems to mostly only hide out there because of her condition, but all the DLC characters (including Hapi!) hang around on the surface at least once or twice pre-timeskip and don't even comment on it like it's strange that they're there, so it's also really weird that Hapi is the only one who talks about it like she's being imprisoned when it doesn't seem like that's actually being enforced for her or anyone else, they just don't have anywhere else they'd be able to go given their circumstances, but this IS a game that loves having characters say shit and then nothing that happens actually backs it up, lol

YEAH!

Like, nobles who've been run out of their home, people who owe debt, assassins and former murderers...

And yet they can go on the surface if they want? There's an "Abysskeeper"? It's under church authority yet they don't even know that one of their former teachers is hiding down there? Yet also because Hapi is so dangerous they'd need to keep tabs on her, but also she's allowed to go on the surface with everyone else and even go on missions, just because Byleth is taking her?

Why is Constance even down there? She didn't commit any crime, she just chooses to be down there because of her terribly written personality shift gimmick? Do parasols not exist in Fodlan? Why does she have one in Heroes then?

How many people is Yuri actually in charge of to have influence stretching from Abyss back to Faerghus?

And for as many people say it's immoral for the church to throw the "unwanted wretches of society" into a dank underground tunnel... well, what does it say that they're even providing a space for them in the first place? What does it say that, considering Abyss is ironically pretty lax on its rules, that a supposed "prison" for those abused on the Fodlan surface, even exists? That Fodlan under rule of nobles with Crests is so bad, that the Church-the alleged high authority-has to secretly hide away accused criminals and survivors so as not to raise suspicion?

With every instance of being told something about Abyss, there then springs up three new contradictions! It's crazy.

[emblemxeno]

I’ve decided I’m going to try FE Shadows, in large part because it’s not locking blorbos behind slot machines. Any thoughts before I try? What’re your feelings on Shadows and do you have any advice before I play?

Never played it myself, since I don't have the best internet connection and I imagine that's needed for a deduction simulator.

That said, I've heard good things! So far it definitely seems more player friendly than FEH is, especially for beginners. It'll probably be pretty tough getting the materials needed to get legacy FE characters, but the designs and abilities are probably worth it.

I've read through some of the story scripts and I can definitely give praise! The story from book to book is pretty simple, but the actual writing, in a prose sense, is extremely engaging. So if anything, I imagine you'll find even the original characters entertaining.

Thanks for the ask!

[emblemxeno]

This isn't a condemnation of either game (I like both), just an observation: it occurs to me that the ways in which Engage and 3H narrate their world, juxtaposed, greatly resemble that one "Chinese history be like vs European history be like" 4chan greentext about how those respective histories are taught in the West. (I recommend looking up a dramatic reading of it on YouTube.)

Consider:

Elyos history be like

>Sombron wakes up

>247 million perish

Fódlan history be like

>Crown Prince of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and leader of the Blue Lions house at the Garreg Mach Officers Academy Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd whiffs his javelin throw aimed at the head of his stepsister the Emperor of Adrestia and leader of the rival Black Eagles house at said Academy Edelgard von Hresvelg, thus failing to prevent a proxy war between the Agarthan force Those Who Slither In The Dark based in Shambhala, and the Nabateans of the Church of Seiros that venerates its titular Saint as well as the Goddess Sothis, thereby partially destroying the Garreg Mach Monastery, a theocratic microstate with a population of 16

LOL yeah, it's probably why I fuck with one and not the other. Hell, it's probably why I fuck with the whole series, except for 3H, because that game specifically is bloated with words upon words upon words; it can't be concise to save its life.

Even compared to the Jugdral or Tellius games, you can still get the general gist even when they're being flowery and dramatic, given they remain connected to a general theme, a moral, etc. 3H loses itself in oceans of moral myopia, where no completely satisfying conclusion can be reached due to the "questions" taking up more space than the "answers."

[emblemxeno]

It's not just Xander's reputation that Ghast did irreversible damage to. He is one of the biggest culprits of the general hatred of Fates on YouTube. I hold him partly responsible for the horrific cyberbullying I've had to endure for the unforgiveable crime of liking a video game. Fuck him. Fuck everyone who likes him. I will never forgive him as long as I live.

A very big response. I think it'd benefit you if you were to take some time off and heal without being online.

That said, regardless of my feelings on that, I agree to a certain extent. His Fates videos have definitely been used as cudgels to prove that the game has an irredeemably bad story, even when he didn't do enough of the proper work to come to those conclusions.

Hell, not even just his videos, but when he featured in Mangs' Conquest and Revelation's playthroughs, where he famously was doing the same low-informed analyses that served as the backbone of his own videos, with Mangs' effusive support and frequent additions and rants.

He may have denounced Mangs later, but still. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth knowing just where it all stemmed from.

[emblemxeno]

What are your thoughts on the hybrid structure that a lot of JRPGs follow where we have a linear structure of a narrative fused with modular structure of dating sims aspects and whatnot? For example, Fire Emblem has a narrative structure with supports and S support acting as modular structure.

I very much enjoy it, but IMO, it very much needs to feel like a part of the experience; integrated well enough into the gameplay loop that you feel like it's just an additive, rather than a disruption or a time sink.

I haven't played Persona, but from what I've seen, from 3 onwards, that's what social links and the life sim aspects seem to do best. They influence the dungeon crawling, and the dungeon crawling influences it back. Not to mention that both major gameplay actions are themselves intertwined with the world, the menus, etc. Hell, even from what I've watched of Persona 1 and the 2 duology, there's still stuff that intertwines with each other on the basis of saying certain things as the protagonist, which is a classic life-sim foundation.

Xenoblade is another series example, and while it may not seem life-simmy at first, there's actually a lot of it! The affinity chart, character specific quests, heart-to-hearts, even the very nature of having distinct areas and people to interact with. It all serves to give better equipment, stat boosts, new techniques and skills, more chances for luck based things to happen in battle, etc. Hell, in XC2, building affinity with various Blades is how you even access certain areas in the game!

Fire Emblem's modular structure is almost always no exception. The modular and contained supports feeds into the gameplay, which feeds back into supports. Sure, it may only be due to stat boosts and such, but that's kind of all you need! It's a war simulator, and building bonds between troops is a historically accurate way to increase morale and battle prowess.

For FE, it doesn't need to be anymore complicated than that, and I fear that when it does try to be any more complicated, it turns tedious and boring.

[emblemxeno]

Kinda funny how FW is giving us four lords to work with as our biggest ally in the Games, but only one of which is in any ways a decent person, Cai. The others consist of the strength-obsessed scion of an imperialist empire, the Jeritza ersatz scion of another imperialist empire, and a woman out for blood and thirsting for revenge. So much for "grey morality," but I'm interested to see how much of it sticks.

One of the things I liked the most about Fates is you can really make a case for any of the routes in that game, because the whole point of the story was that the war between Hoshido and Nohr is unnaturally made and both have good people that are not different from each other at all. 3H did NOT have that, as that game had three clear-cut morally good-to-decent options and one "evil route but the devs were too cowardly to portray Edelgard as the warmongering revanchist she is," yet people talk so much of how "morally grey" it is when it's not morally complicated at all? To me, Nohr is how you do a faction that's in the wrong but is morally complex enough that you actually have a valid reason to go back there (to protect the only family you've ever known from a tyrant who will execute them for looking at him wrong, investigate the truth of the war and use your privilege as a Nohrian royal to try and break the system internally... even if that last bit did not fall through at all for various reasons that make total sense in-universe).

The fact they're just making Cai straight up an unambiguous good guy who has a genuinely selfless wish for participating in the Games makes me deeply curious what exactly they're cooking, because that's like the one thing 3H avoided with extreme prejudice, making one of them an unambiguous good guy (even Claude, who has objectively the least wrong with him of the four leaders, was intended to be a trickster conman and general skeevy traitorous snake but that was never realized and slapdashedly added in 3Hopes to be addressed in one scene and then never again as you're Edelcuck's attack dog after that point God I fucking hate Koei's writing for FE). So the fact Cai is genuinely a decent person while the other lords are... genuinely wretched in their own ways (and in "not beating the 3H Lord Ersatzes" allegations, Leda also has the least wrong with her when, like Claude, she's the Sun Ce/Wu of the trio to what I'm guessing is Edelgard/Theodora's Cao Cao/Wei and Dimitri/Dietrich's Liu Bei/Shu). So I'm genuinely wondering just what it is they're cooking.

...OH, MY GOD. What if Dietrich ends up realizing as a pawn of the Adrestian Empire what his people are doing, begins questioning everything regarding his upbringing during imperialism, and turns against Adrestia in a sort of rebellion?! That'd be a fascinating way to do him and would likely solidify the comparison I'm making, especially given IntSys has always had far more moral backbone than Koei does.

We're genuinely going to have to see. At this stage, I genuinely have no fucking idea whether I'm going to absolutely love or absolutely hate this game. I have not gotten feelings this mixed in a hot minute, and I am praying IntSys actually sticks the landing.

Well, that's the thing, I imagine part of the twists in the narrative (I assume there'll be a lot considering they're enjoying being hush-hush on important things even this close to release) will be adding depth and color to each of the characters as ways to enhance their stories.

I do think part of why Cai is so nice is because he's the youngest of the main characters, so he's kind and authentic by virtue of being a child who probably hasn't suffered too much yet. But seeing as he has strange powers, that'll most likely come into play in his story; I predict a possible corruption on the "what if a child with strong and clear morals suddenly got superpowers" question.

Dietrich is from Fodlan and is prototype Jeritza, so melodrama's expected, and I also foresee him getting the gap moe scenes of him liking sweets and his sister and blah blah blah that will be endlessly posted about to subconsciously endear his (likely) murderous and criminal tendencies to the fandom. It hangs in the air whether it'll come across as pretty artificial this time.

Theodora is faced with the trials and tribulations of being a queen and the political weight of that all, on top of having to succeed her murdered father. So, it's more of a "we'll see" scenario with her, rather than a condemnation I think. She could go down a virtuous "puts her kingdom before her desires" path just as easily as a "strength is all that matters to be a leader" one.

And Leda... well given that her pre-release information has been mostly centered around her revenge, I think it's sort of clear cut that there'll be a twist on that story, be it conditional, consequential, or emotional. She'll either not attain revenge for one reason or another, she'll attain it and there'll be a disastrous consequence for being single-minded in it, or she'll attain it and go through an intense "who am I as a person now if not a seeker of vengeance" moment. Any way it goes, I see her coming out of it a better person than how she started.

There's genuinely a lot of ways the story could go, even irrespective of the 4 paths that are allegedly gonna be split. So it'll surely be interesting to know when more info comes out.

[emblemxeno]

Deadass, I gave an essay on why I love the permadeath mechanic of FE so much to somebody who prefers casual. Both are valid! But I’d love to give my feelings why I adore it so much.

Just so we’re clear, it’s 100% fair why it is somebody wants to stick to Casual and feels locked out of the older games due to it. I absolutely get why somebody would hate having to do a map all over again like that due to bad RNG, and frequently in FE if the RNG hates you enough and you’re aiming for a perfect playthrough, it’s extremely tedious to go about the experience trying to optimize it. A major reason why I struggle greatly to like roguelites is because I HAAAAATE the idea of having to do a run of a game all over again while losing ALL of your progression — all of your levels, your stats, your items, everything. I really hate it when games do that because I absolutely despite having my emotional investment wasted in general.

However, there’s something in spite of such which is a huge reason why I love the permadeath mechanic:

1. It’s thematically significant. Fire Emblem is fundamentally about your characters, their hopes, dreams, people they love, bonds, emotions… each unit is a living human being you want to see succeed and grow as a person and see their story conclude. And permadeath, at least to me, is genius because it reminds people these characters can die if you make poor tactical decisions or just bad luck. It’s obviously tedious to lose progress in a chapter, but it gives a firm reminder of the stakes of fighting in a war and just makes me care even more as a result. It’s extremely significant and can directly change the storyline as a result of that, and it’s a huge reason why I care.

2. You can reset at any point. Don’t like that your blorbo died? Reset the chapter and do it right the second time! The only thing stopping a player from being able to undo the death of a unit is saving over the save where they died, and even then, some games have that as an optional feature in limited quantities with the presence of resurrection staves. There is no saves overriding it. You can freely L+R+Select whenever you want.

3. It’s very much avoidable if you’re smart. In the end, FE is about strategy and barring some instances of bad luck, you ultimately beat each chapter by having a better strategy than the enemy can afford (even if that strategy is just “pump your blorbo full of stats, give them a 1-2 range weapon and sic’ em on the enemy army”). If you’re playing smartly, there’s nothing the games can do that can outdo a smart player.

Not that it invalidates how others feel, but the beauty of FE to me is that it gives real weight to the lives of your characters, and not just let’s you overcome the risk if you’re good enough, it’s easily reversible if you have a unit you like. It’s beautiful IMHO because it teaches people the value of human life and how much it’s worth protecting, which ties perfectly to the FE series’s themes of using who you love and themes of love, bonds and kickass swords.

I 100% get why others prefer Casual still, by the way. It isn’t for everyone. But it is for me. If it wasn’t for that and by extension my GOAT Boyd, I wouldn’t value the sanctity of human life as much as I do.

No notes, this is why despite being a person who plays pretty "badly" in certain terms, I still use Classic mode. There's a seasoning to the connection I get when using my units, knowing I could lose them.

I still respect Casual mode absolutely, it's just a different experience compared to Classic, haha.

[emblemxeno]

I think what drives people like J.K. Rowling and their extreme hatred of trans people or another minorities is just selfishness more than anything. They desperately want to go back to a magical time they weren’t “under attack” by minorities or other people and not have to think of them, so they’d sooner throw other humans like them under the bus so they don’t have to think or consider other people, because it’s too different from what they know as they instead want compress that depth into easily-digested stereotypes that don’t have any bearing on what they see as “the real world”. It FEELS right to them as it alleviates certainty, but they’re not willing to do the work to empathize with others or understand the truth because they’re too scared of difference or anything they don’t know challenging what they’re used to — and to them, they’d sooner deal with a clear threat than an unknowable one, because an unknowable threat fucking terrifies them to the point of wanting it destroyed utterly so they can just stop having to think about it. They don’t want to just not know about it, they want it to stop existing. And if they cannot get it to stop existing, they would sooner have everyone else stop existing than accept that thing. It’s a fundamental inability to handle the unknown and ambiguity and it would drive people like Rowling mad trying to analyze it, because her brain is overwhelmingly fearful of ambiguous or blank spaces that she sees as a potential threat. She doesn’t see trans people as people. She sees them with fear over being hurt by them like men have hurt her.

Yep! And for as much as she and other terfs like her try to claim otherwise, that's social conservatism in a nutshell. It's unchecked paranoia of a bogeyman under the bed, only the "bogeyman" in question is other human beings living their lives.

TERF-ism in general is brutal, because it takes an actual real societal issue, that being patriarchal practices and acceptable abuses, and applies it to people who, by their very nature, are BREAKING THOSE CYCLES!

And, in a vicious irony, terf-ism adheres to the very same patriarchal, conservative beliefs that pose a danger to women and humanity as a whole. The belief that men and boys are unfeeling, relentlessly sexual and violent beings who want to dominate, is a belief shared by terfs and conservatives alike, only the difference is that the former see it as an evil and the latter sees it as good or otherwise excusable; regardless, both groups believe it these things are immutable traits of "men", down to their very biology and chromosomes. That's why they abuse trans women so much, because they really do believe having a "male" body with a penis, just naturally inclines an individual to patriarchal abuses.

But patriarchy is not a natural thing, it's a construct of social practices and expectations. They may span millennia, but they are still nonetheless things created and enforced by us, not by any immutable nor biological fact. They can be undone.

The very nature of being trans, is itself, an example of undoing those practices and beliefs. Now, it's not enough to be trans, as we see many trans conversatives exist for some reason. But for the vast majority of trans people, coming out is not just a personal acceptance, it intertwines with undoing a shit ton of baggage put on them by patriarchy. Saying, just because some people have certain parts or are assigned with one identity at birth, doesn't mean they're actually gonna be people who adhere to those stereotypes.

Breaking free of those restrictions is itself tackling the societal oppression of gender in the modern era, while being a TERF is digging your heels in and believing that "having a penis means you're always gonna be a violent predator, you monster"

It's dehumanizing, disgusting and sad. And the fact that Rowling can use her fucking wealth to influence politics in that direction is doubly wretched.

[emblemxeno]

Japanese anon here again! This time I looked up all t he english names to better communicate. But wow this is such a unique viewpoint! In japan most people say this about Fates! Conquest Lunatic has the best gameplay but the story of Fates is a mess. But I don't know what you mean with gameplay narrative. Do you mean crests? It is a topic many fans criticize. I think it is handled well. Heroes Relics are powerful weapons but crests are not that significant. I think this supports the question if society puts too much stock into crests. Is crest nobility privileged because they are powerful? Or are they powerful because they are privileged? Making crests too powerful would solve this question too easily.

But I feel like many westerners discuss the story too much with modern political biases in mind. I like western RPGs like Dragon Age that include many modern politics into its fantasy world but it is not how most japanese writers do things. We use historical inspiration but focus more on exploring ideas instead of drawing connections to modern politics. Three Houses has many inspirations but the goal is to explore a society that values lineage over individuals.

I also notice a very difference in opinion when it comes to the church. Westerners discuss it often with religion in mind. I have seen that you interpret it as buddhist which I never heard before. For us the church feels more christian inspired but its role is not really about religion but as a organisation that creats social coherence. We acknowledge that without Rhea creating the church Fodlan would have fallen into chaos. This is why our discussions are more about if the church became to stagnant to solve Fodlans issues. Or if it created the conditions that made war inevitable? Many of us noticed that the church is too centered on Rhea. Without Rhea it falls apart very quickly. This is why even Edelgard fans acknowledge that it is not religion that is at fault but its reliance on Rhea. Rhea can't let go of the past and this is why the church became incapable to reform itself for the future.

But another topic that I noticed many westerners get wrong is the ancient history of Nabatea and Agartha. Many westerners on both sides see it as an allegory for identity politics and colonialization. We see them more as what happens if societies become too attached to the past. This is why many love Arval as a agarthan mirror to Sothis. He has after all this two personalites. One wants connection and the other wants revenge. He is very much like Sothis, isn't it? When I realized it I became very happy that Musou Three Hopes has routes where both Sothis and Arval can coexist. I'm a bit sad that they can't form a connection to each other though, it would surely have answered many questions.

Hello again! Yes the Crests are exactly what I mean.

I feel that they are too underpowered to convey the sort of influence they have in the story of Fuka. Mechanically, only having a slight chance at providing a beneficial effect does not convince me that people would go into conflict about them, disown children over not having them, abuse women into marriage if they have them, etc.

I also believe another issue with this extends into how Crests are then portrayed in the story, which I believe is disconnected a lot of the time. Dimitri has super strength because of his Crest, but that same Crest in the gameplay does not activate too often. The benefit of wielding the Heroes Relics (Heroes' Legacy) is better at showing why they're significant, though on the other hand, the cons of not having a Crest and wielding a Relic are also not too detrimental, which contradicts the story example of Miklan turning into a monster.

Compared to other games which have similar weapons and powers, like Genealogy of the Holy War (Seisen no Keifu), altering the growth rates of characters and providing extremely powerful stat boosts depending on the weapon, is simple yet very good at showing how certain groups having certain blood ties the story and the gameplay together.

For interpreting the game as Buddhist, it mainly came from similar signs that I've seen when I've studied religions and beliefs as part of my education.

The Buddhist belief of Nirvana, the freedom from the path of Samsara, I believe is heavily referenced in Byleth for example. They attain a higher state of being when they accept their role as a savior and guide for their students when they're in danger, shortly after being locked in darkness when following a selfish desire. Releasing oneself from earthly attachment and desire is how one obtains Nirvana, ascending to a higher plane. Byleth's class after fusing with Sothis is even called Nirvana in Japanese, I believe.

Byleth losing his powers from Sothis in Edelgard's path is showcasing him losing Nirvana; a result of his selfish desire and attachment to the earthly world, chosen over his role as a guide for those with power. Byleth's dialogue in English is also noticeably more rude in Edelgard's path, he's more accepting of violence, lying and even intimate misconduct (considering how he acts around Edelgard during two separate incidents in her private quarters), which are aspects that represent straying from the path of Nirvana.

I myself was raised with Christian influences, and from my perspective, none of the alleged Catholic inspirations are really true, beyond an artistic or aesthetic standpoint. The proselytization is too vague to apply solely to Catholicism, the tenets and scripture that Rhea created aren't strict enough to compare, and having a Mother Goddess is, by itself, too different to apply to biblical Catholicism, which is too intertwined with men dominating women to be similar. Those are just my feelings, however.

Thank you again for the question!