Alright, so basically after hearing so many times and too many times that the Hound are failed sympathetic villains, I decided to take matters in hands, and to clear up the big misunderstanding about those characters. That’s right, they are misunderstood characters BECAUSE... they aren’t supposed to be sympathetic villains, who on earth gave you the idea you were supposed to feel sympathy for those twisted puppies ?! I mean, aside from Marni and obviously Mauvier, Zephia and Griss are irreedeming villains : their backstory isn’t there to make them more sympathetic but to explain their motivations...look, I know that with 3H we got used to villains never explaining why exactly they want revenge and all, but that’s literaly all there is to it.
As for them being a “family “I feel like there is also a misunderstanding on how they works because if Engage is a tale about new found family, there is actually nothing surprising that the bad guys have a relationship that drastically differs from the postive message our characters on the good side are trying to tell.
I won’t surprise you if I tell you that what were are shown of the Hounds are a group that has family only the title and barely deserves it seeing how Zephia is an abusive feminine figure in pretty much everyway however, there is indeed one way to say that they are family. If you compare them to Sombron’s family that is, because it turns out to be EXACTLY that, the Hounds are an abusive family, disconnected in pretty much everyway and what is actually tragic about them is that they were all so deluded they didn’t even noticed that they weren’t a true family and yet left us with one scarred invidual : Mauvier. And by that token, I think it actually make sense that we don’t have the sentiment they were family since... they actually weren’t. At all. They were just a bunch of inviduals with all toxic and distorted view on love anf family. In fact, I think that the fact that their counterparts from a reverse universe where Timerra is vegeterian, the 4 Winds, have an actual family relationship and feels like one SPEAKS WORDS. But before that, I just give my thoughts on Sombron’s army in general cause I think people are really weird againts them;
Sombron’s army are excellent villains, they are doing an amazing job at being thorns in Alear’s path. They managed to kill Lumera in chapter 3, they lead succeful attacks on many villages, they manage to steal ALL of Alear’s ring in chapter 10, and when they fail, they got consquences and choosing to make this particularly cruel characters a “family” works with the whole commentary about abusive relationships. It is obvious that those people aren’t the one to believe in comradery, frienship, love, caring for one another etc... the EXTREME opposite of a familial environement !!
I mean, what better way was there to portray Zephia as an evul lady then having her killing her subordinated for failing in their tasks (cough, cough Nelluce) and beats the sheet out of everyone when they fails or get in her way ?This obviously come at the cost of depicting her as a loving mother figure.. which the game don’t really try to nor wants to do anyway, the developpement of Zephia being that the more she appears on screen, the more violent and cruel she gets which makes up for a developpement as an abusive mother figure and that’s where you see how twisted the Hounds relationships is : they aren’t a family, they are a regular group of co workers for the Evul Papabad guy who are all incredibly egoistical and entitled indivuals that won’t hesitate to back stab each others for the sake of their plans and to kill their comarades as a punishement for messing up, a scenario that makes up for an average evil team but that is made 1000% more messed up by the fact the game creates an analogy with family, making that Engage compare abusive family environement to an evil subordinate/evil general dynamic. What they are doing is horrible, but it’s made worse by the fact that those inviduals are all more or less broken and yearning for a family which leads them to fall into a deluded mindest of them “being a family” and it’s what makes their leader, Zephia, a monstruous villain since her idea of family corresponds to THIS.
Now from what I noticed, there is no debate in understanding how their character’s work, pretty much every Engage player could be able to sum up all the long dive I made for them in a few sentences, but despite all of that you somehow will still find fans thinking the game wants us to sympathetize with them even though their main victims literaly says THAT :
And no, I think that the support Mauvier and Veyle has with the Winds aren’t there for humanizing them, nor making them sympathetic.
In short, I have broken down every member of the Hounds to show exactly why some aren’t reedemed nor should whereas others are and could have been. I also went aboard to explain that they aren’t “yes they were evul but they were just a luving family that could have stayed together if it weren’t for different convictions uwu” but “they weren’t a true family, just a bunch of broken individulas clining into that word without understanding the meaning of it and acting as a cruel abusive family because being the bad guys means back stabbing each others”
So it will goes in that order : Mauvier, Marni, Griss and Zephia.
I also saw critiscim about their backstory being kind of dumpt here and not explored further but I think it keeps in line with the idea of “yes they were once victims but now they are abusers and no ammount of sad backstory can justify this” and the fews line we got still managed to explain the whole psychology of an indivdual. Realistically speaking, Alear and Veyle were not there for the whole unpackage. Zephia just alluded to the idea before them without explaining it further, they leaved before Griss could speak of his for little he shares, and the main detail are in the supports between Mauvier and the Winds which both Alear and Veyle remains unaware of. So while I don’t disagree with it, I feel like it was not necessary to expand unto it this much since it already explains reasonably enough their motivations and purposes, and it aligns with what we are shown of them. Moreover, it aligns also with the fact that at least 2 of the Hounds, Zephia and Griss, had a somehow genuine bound and that’s only when it’s the 2 of them that they are able to be true to themselves compared to character like Marni and Mauvier being unable to read into them. Much like I think that way about Sombron himself since the villains in Engage are motivates by the EXACT same things as our heroes.
But regardless here I start and I will be linking this post to the one I will make in the future
Part 1 : Mauvier
Part 2 : Marni
Part 3 : Griss
Part 4 : Zephia
By the way, from now on I am calling this game Fire emblem emotional Damage. You’ll see why.
Edit : something I though I could add but if you ever listen to the 4 hounds theme song it’s very unsettling and a bit cacophonic and disharmonious which i think not only illustrates that they are actually threatining and scarry individuals but also emprison their inner twisted minds as well as showing their disharmonious and twisted relationship
Kind of a sequel to that post except this time I focus more on Engage’s plot as a whole. If you recall, in this post I said that game like Engage had dark stuff going on too but it simply choose to not exploit this as much as it could have did and yet it still did got pretty dark moments but hey, let’s see how dark Engage could have been !!
1- Alear’s subconsious memory.
Ok, we all know by now that the reason why Alear is so afraid by the Corrupted is because they killed many of their siblings and they feared it would happen to them too. Remember the first scene where we had an insight of this
Yep, that scene right here. I must admit, when i watched this scene the first time, I laughed. But now, when I think about how the reason why, despite their amnesiac state Alear still deeply fears them,... i feel guitly for laughing. To be fair, it’s the scene’s portrayal that makes you laugh. But compare it to the scene in the manga
The scene is much more dramatic here, Alear is paralyzed and the sight, the simple sight, a simple glance at one of the corrupted, made them collapsed.
Now let me recapitulate brieffly. Alear is a child that grew up with the fear of being killed by the Corrupted and had to watch their brother and sister being killed by them.
And there, they say how they had two younger sibling being tored apart by them. The fact that Alear, unlike for the others siblings, mentions how they were torn apart means that they witness those two siblings being killed in such a violent way, just like they witness their onee chan being burned and their onichan being drowned. For the others, despite being more vague about it, Alear mentioning how they died during the war means that they must have seen the dead body, since Zephia was the one to collect it as in chapter 18-19, Sombron ask her if she did for Alear but she admitt she did not. By the point we meet Past Alear, they are the only sibling of Veyle that survived as they managed to escape this fate the longest. They are 17 physically. Imagine, surviving 17 years of this. Surviving is the best word honestly, seeing how they could have died at any moments. Moreover, seeing how in the parralel world, Nil died in a battle during the same time where Alear alone survived in their world, Veyle being spared too, and that Nil died before reaching aduldhood so this means that Alear saw many of their siblings died before reaching their age, while keeping in mind that Alear is still not an adult, they are a teenager. 17 year old. Now if you focus on that sentence, Alear mentions how she thought her younger siblings were cute. In the jpn version she says “kawaii watashi no imoutou to outotou” meaning “my cute little sister and little brother”. While the idea is more or less the same, the previous formulation emphasised on the closness of Alear with those 2 siblings, and the adjective cute shows that Alear was indeed attached to them, so it’s not only for winning pity points imagining cute little kids being brutally ripped apart, it’s also here to make things seems even worse as this means a 17 years old Alear, maybe even younger when that occured, had to watch 2 siblings whom they were close and thought they were cute, be ripped apart, a violent death, and they had to witness this, maybe powerless, maybe wanting to save their siblings seeing how Alear said they wished to protect Veyle but felt unable to do so because of their fear to die themselves. Hence Alear seeing the Corrupted is not just a traumatic vision due to the fear of being killed, or the fact they killed all their siblings, but also reminds them of the guilt they bear to not have been able to help their siblings the way they wished to have did so. When you realize that, the manga portrayal makes more sense, but the scene in the game makes you then feel unneasy... that it’s supposed to be funny when there is that deep meaning makes it very, very uneasy. Now imo would the game had Alear reacts the same way as he did in the manga, I am sure it would have attracted a bit more the player’s attention, but like I mentionned that’s not the point since the writters could have perfectly decided to paint it like that too, they simply choose a different execution but this was driven by a desire to make Engage more light hearted while the manga seems to be less interested by a light hearted style seeing how chapter 3 got graphic, way more graphic than the game. But this, all this I mentionned above, it explains why Alear’s still have this fear of the corrupted. This is also being brought up in the Diamant/Alear support where Alear runs away and Diamant mentions how scared they looked. Imo when Diamant mentions how he would hate to have a caterpillar in his plate, they probably assumed Diamant had a real phobia of it for it to make such an equation because it’s the only logical and sensible explanation for some people to deduce that “If Alear’s fear of the Corrupted is like being scarred of caterpillar so it prouves they aren’t that traumatise unlike [insert said 3 houses character’s name] but eh... DID YOU EVEN PAYED ATTENTION TO THE CONVERSATION ? Alear said that they run away, they could NOT HELP IT. It was more then they could handle. The. mere.sight.of.the.Corrupted.made.them.run. And Diamant pointed out of terrified they looked like. Why in your opinion ? Alear also mentions how in the battlefiel they got the time to mentally prepare for it and feel more confident with the Emblem ring to protect them. They need to be mentally prepared and feel protected to be able to fight them. Like how a child has to be protected by some sort of object or at least feel protected to feel reassured. They also mentions how they feel to be a easy target. Why in your opinion is Alear so scared of having their guard down knowing that even thought they were amnesiac them lowering their guard subjected them to the Corrupted at any moments ? Sure, Alear say that the Corrupted have the same effect on them that catterpillar have on Diamant, but it was simply to EXPLAIN through a concrete example, not trying to imply that they are not that scared when literally all the things I pointed out shows it is clearly not true. Even Alear said the example was weird, it was just for Diamant to follow. Obviously you would feel that comparing a trauma to a phobia is dumb, but when it happened at a state where Alear themselves consider it to be a irrational fear and seeing how phobia victim can go through literal hysteria... it’s not that dumb and most importantly, it is NOT a proof that Alear isn’t that scared. The sole fact that an amnesiac person is still this terrified about things they don’t even remember does show the extent of the trauma. In the mange it is more obvious how, despite not having a single memory about it, Alear’s body still remembered it. It’s still present in their conversation with Diamant too. So, would they have portrayed the scene differently, which i repeat was a deliberate narrative choice, this scene would have hitted waay more. But I wont be able to see it the same way ever again.
2- Alear’s “nightmare” and how subsconcious memory altered the scene
Look at that devilish smile....Now some people mentions how this scene did not make sense, but here is the thing... it’s actually the same scene has Alear’s memories since Lumera’s JP dialogue is the same, the localization kind of chnage it, in that sequence Lumera ask “why are you here alone” whereas in the actual scene she ask “why are you here by yourself” when the jp dialogue is litteraly the same. Remember that : Alear just commited a murder.. sort of. I actually wondered if that devilsih grin was not because in retrospective Alear could see how delighted they were to have killed the man who killed all their siblings and whom they used to call “Father” but it actually is more of red hearing due to Alear not exactly remembering what happened and the scene being cut out of it’s full context leading Alear themselves to misunderstand their own smiles. It’s far from being a “plot hole”, it’s a common narrative technique, Jun Mochizuki used it for her own twist in Pandora Hearts and it’s only when you realize what happened in full context that the right way of “reading the scene”appears. It’s was simply that, but you could also argue that Alear having a lot of negative memories as a fell dragon seeing how they think they were an evil one ( remember, in jpn Fell dragon is a translation for Jaryu... which means evil dragon) maybe have twister their vision. At any rate, the actual reason why I am bringing up this scene is for the next point *
3- One scene was enough to show how much Lumera meant to Alear and why their death affected them
Like literaly everyone I too, was unfazed by it and though it had as much impact as Queen Mikoto’s death... except we were never shown how much she meant to Corrin after, i repeat AFTER her death. Now, there is 2 way of making a character’s death impactful. The first one is to have the audience getting attached then kill them. The one people usually considered to be better. The second one, is to kill that character and then, to show how much they meant to the characters and how their death affect them. People usually shit on this on but it CAN be done well, it was the case for Blue Exorcist. Here what exactly makes the situation different ?
Well, seeing how Alear’s organism still got marked by their memories despite having lost them, we can say that them crying at Lumera’s death must have been linked to subconsious memory of how Lumera was an important person to Alear’s life. Now granted we did not had the proper developping of their relationship, but that one Alear memory is actually enough to realize how much she was important.
In this post, @dancerladyaqua mentions how Past Alear uses hiragana, like children do, but that their voice makes it incredibly emotionless.
Now look at those screenshots.
Look at those expression. If we take aside the fact that Alear speaking like a child did in JPN version, just compare how they are in chapter 24 and how they are in these scene. In chapter 24, their Eng Va sounded mature but emotionless. Same in jpn, emotionless and speaking in hiragana. But in both scenes, their voice is full of emotions, the eng voice is even a bit higher pitched. This scene hits even more when you realize how different Alear acts and it’s because of Lumera. In front of Sombron and for 17 years at least, they were incapable of expressing any emotions, they were literaly broken. Compare their gaze to the one they had in chapter 24, that bland and cold gaze that made me feel like they could not even blink, to that genuine gaze they gave Lumera. This scene really struck when you replay it after chapter 24 because of how Alear’s voice sounded soft and full of emotions compared to the first time they intereacted wuth Lumera. Sure we don’t know what exactly happened between them, but seeing how soft Alear was in front of Lumera, you can tell alone, with those elements alone how much of an important person she was to Alear. It’s thanks to this scene that was already really well done and tragic that Alear’s tears at Lumera’s death makes complete sense and it makes fighting against Lumera even worse, even more hurtful for Alear... they had to fight the person that brought them kindness and made them able to finally emote, someone that was able to change their broken gaze into a soft one, to gave a soft tone to that voice devoided of emotions, she was, along with Veyle, one of the person Alear wanted to stand by more then anyone, yet they have to fight her and to depare with her once again... this makes the first death of Lumera incredibly more impactful when you realize how much information there is after that death...remembering that promise scene clearly made me more sensible to that first death scene that at first, I found boring. And oh boi do I feel guilty for thinking it was, Lumimi I am sooo sorrry !!
4- Veyle
sweet precious baby dragon daughter/sister
What we know of her is just heartbreaking isn’t it ? She is the only child (besides Alear) of Sombron to have survived. When she was very young, she must have been close to Alear but seeing how things went, i think that Veyle never got to meet her older siblings because they all died when she was way too young, but Alear being only 1 year older physically then her although in chapter 24, Alear mentions how she is younger than 16 at that time and that she was the youngest of Sombron’s children, this means Alear must have been closer to their little siblings and that she was the only one to somehow survive. My thought are that at the time only Veyle and Alear were alive, explaning why Sombron did not get rid of them right away after all he tolerated Veyle much more longer than his others children but it was because he did not had a choice even if he ends up losing patience and tried to kill her. Regardless, she did not only lose her siblings but also her mom at a young age (ouch), felt in a deep slumber once her dad was sealed and that she was alone (ouch), got found and protected by Fell dragon monks but got found by Zephia (ouch) who then deciced to “fix her” (ouch). Now let’s recapitulate what exaclty happenen to her : she found herself all alone, deprived of her family that loved her and ended up in the nad of Zephia, a woman that literally brainwashed her into being another person who does awful things, that sweet child ended up causing what she hates more :harming others, and for the one person she loved and tried to impress, her dad... it’s being “fixed”... she is being called a defect, for literaly being herself, someone who wants to do good and have a loving family, literaly every average’s person most wanted desire... just, imagine for a second, Imagine someone telling you that your true self is worthless, a “defect” and therefore decides to create a new personality for you, a personality that does what you hate most, hurting others... in case you forgot when Past Alear found themselves incapable of hurting Lumera because of how kind she was, they start saying they are a “defect” and repeating it over and over again and oh boi, just thinking about this scene makes it worse, both this scene and everytime “defect” has been thrown at Veyle. This poor baby just wanted to have a peaceful life with Sombron and she really thought she could have it if she followed her dead’s mother desire of stoping Sombron, she wanted him to look at her for who she really is. But that’s not how Sombron works... if you think about it Zephia sort of saved Veyle by using this spell to change her personality and while I despise her, she must have done this part of by pity seeing how Sombron would have never accepted her if she kept on being herself. Alear avoided the fate of being killed because they literaly became like the corrupted, they said it themselves “I am like the Corrupted, i don’t think” which makes it even worse... Alear hates the Corrupted so realizing they are actually like them and that’s how they can survive must probably have cause some self existencial crisis here even more so as Alear pointed to their past self how they don’t have their own desires. But Veyle how could she escape it knowing she was in a deep slumber and when she woke up, she wanted to be with Sombron as father and daughter, which is to Sombron, worth death (ahhhrrr). Unlike Alear that had to shield themselves to the point they became a empty shell that could kill without feeling anything, Veyle could not have such a protection on her fragile mind. The sole fact she literaly broke down when she realized what Zephia did to her prouve me right on this. Her support with Zelestia and Gregory proved how traumatized she was: her reaction seeing someone who looked like her abusers was downright heartbreakin. Some people said it did not make sense because Zephia and Griss pretented to be on her side, but I disagree and the fact that those two even pretented to be on her side makes it even more creepy, because Veyle was in the same state as innocence victims are thinking their abusers are trusted people without even realizing the danger she was actually in, because would have Veyle guessed, maybe it would have scarred her way less, and I think it’s because of Mauvier being so kind to her she though she could trust Zephia and Griss since he was part of the quartet, but this conversation is supposed to happen after Veyle was 1) revelead of everything Griss and especially Zephia did to her 2) after Zephia was being violent towars her, so obviously innocent littler 16(00) year old dragon that she was was going to be scarred, and while Zelestia failed to notice it right away despite her good intentions, Gregory noticed how the simple glance at him made her shudder of fear, probably because he too was a traumatized kid because of violence. Those supports really did showed how scarred Veyle is. Other than that her support, notably those with Clanne and Nel show how desesperatly alone she was and seeking for siblings. It even made Clanne reconsider how lucky he actually was to have Framme and offer to be a little brother to Veyle whereas the support with Nel shows how Veyle perceives family, and her definition actually doesn’t make it that different than being friends, when you think about it. What struck me in this conversation is that she first tried to justify it by bringing Sombron into it but it obviously won’t work since... well other than the fact that it’s actually a different Sombron, Sombron or Xenobron don’t really feel like a good solid argument to justify a family bond seeing how awful they are (makes me feel like if Nel and Rafal were the actual children of Sombron it would have made it even more interesting) but the reason why Veyle managed to convince Veyle was bringing up this idealized vision of the family she never had and she wants to offer it to Nel after realizing how similar they are. But since I was planning to make a post about the twins’s support I’ll try to not dwell to much unto this, next point please !
5- Fell Xenologue : Nel and Nil/Rafal story
The whole Fell Xenologue is really dark in contrast to the main story : Altlear is dead, everyone is dead, the Royalts are corrupted and there is no survivors from the Fell dragon tribe of XenElyos but Nel and Rafal. The difference is that Xenobron had more kids due to his twin quirck that apparently Sombron do not have since Nel precised “in this world”, and in semantics, each words place being important, this emphasis means that this has to be about XenElyos only, sure Nel don’t know whether or not this applies to Elyos but i am assuming this means that in doubt, she would still precise how this might be true for her world but not necesseraily ours and seeing how the two universe turned out to be so different hum... wouldn’t surprise me if this was actually because Xenobron is a different biological entity then his yandere daddy analogue. Unlike Alear who had the “blessing” of being amnesiac and Veyle who had to face Sombron only when she woke up, Nel and Rafal still had their memories of the traumatics events and seeing how Nel mentionned that twins had to kill each other and that she herself ended up killing some of her siblings, I think the situation with Xenobron was arguably worse than what Alear had to face, and Nel and Rafal seems to be close to Alear’s age, maybe older has the supports with Nel mentions how Nel’s appearance is older than 16 whereas the support with Alfred may suggest that Rafal is younger then 21 physically. So basically they are in their late teens at least. Imagine having to deal with 1) the fear of being killed by Xenobron or the Corrupted 2) the fear of dying in battle 3) the fear of being stabbed in the back by one of their siblings 4) a constant guard that they should have had for at least 1 000 years... yep. There is no wonder that the only person Nel accepted to be family up until now was Rafal. Speaking of the devil dragon.
6- Rafal
Yep, that’s him, the dragon whose fandom had gone growing quite fast during the last weeks.
His story is pretty traumatic when you think about it. First, he lost his twin when he was too young to remember it... hum, you get it right ? that this mean he lost his twin sister (because i am 100% sure that fell dragon twins are always composed of sister and brother) at a very young age, meaning he ended up all alone, in a family where everyone had a twin, I repeat alone in an environement which is 1) the fear of being killed by Xenobron or the Corrupted 2) the fear of dying in battle 3) the fear of being stabbed in the back by one of their siblings 4) a constant guard that they should have had for at least 1 000 years. He also had one thing in common with Nil : being treated like a failure, and this was made worse by the fact that unlike Nil who had Nel to back him up, Rafal was alone... and the DLC did show how loving other sibling were to each other, so you can pretty much imagine how worse this must have made his acceptance and self validation issue, probably worse then the one we saw with Veyle. You want to know what worse ? Not only did he lost his only friend and brother as a child but he was also the one to see him agonizing as a child, and he had to pretend for 1 000 years to have died and to be Nil... and yk after having play Matsuro palette, a game where at some point we discover that the girl had to be a remplacement despite being a different person... it hurts. The one difference is that Rafal did it out of free will unlike Girl with the Blue flower that did it because she had no choice but it must have been something to have to pretend to be someone you aren’t, to grew attached to someone knowing fully well the love they gave you was because they saw someone else in you, someone you aren’t and you will never be, and the support with Mauvier, especially the one with Mauvier and Maddie made it worse because this supports, along with the one Alear and Nel have, is about seeing each counterpart for who they truly are rather then their analogue in regular Elyos, Maddie couldn’t handle it for long and i can’t blame her, but imagine that Rafal accepted to do this for 1 000 years, that’s... yk what make it worse ? well, i went through that hell of a DLC just to remember that
That is the face he made as he though Nel was going to kill him... smiling, freaking SMILING. Remember ? despite the “spell” thing, you could sense deep down Rafal kind of wished someone would end his tourment ... (what’s up with all my fav male character wanting the person dear to them to end their life ??) and this scene confirms it since it takes place BEFORE the “cursed” dragon stone broke, once it got broke... you all know what happens, he resolve to repents by looking after Nel until she woke up in a world where everyone died, all alone, for 1 000 years...again. That’s not worse. The worse is the redemption arc. Yes. Veyle had this too, but the difference is that Veyle got the chance to ask forgiveness from the one she hurts but Rafal ? he can’t. The support with Mauvier and Ivy made it clear, he will never be forgiven by Ivyalt or Mauve, they are dead and Ivy and Mauvier are just lookalike, but different people. Despite knowing that, he still tried to seek redemption by helping them but... nope, and it doesn’t help with his suicidal tendencies that you can notice in his support with Nel and his solo ending.. (yes another character that you have to marry to save him from doom) and those are just the point I though worth of mentionning, about him but it make me realize how much similar he is to Veyle. Too bad there was an alternate Veyle in XenyElyos too, or else, I might have though that Rafal is a genderbend mirror self of Veyle seeing how they mirror eahc other ! remind me why we did not get a support between the 2 ?
7- Alear
Alright, we have to talk again about Pepsi kun and toothpaste chan again. I want you to notice the difference between Nel, Rafal, Veyle and Past Alear. Unlike the 2 others dragon, Past Alear was completely broken. Now, i know, Nel and Rafal have a different dad and different life but it’s still important to compare how the events are different. In the case of Nel and Rafal, like I mentionned, no amnesia nor 1 000 slumber to spare them from the hell that was Xenobron’s household if I might say, but at least Nel and Rafal had each other. Remember ? even though Nel knew she lost Nil, Rafal was still there to hold her compagny, to the point she ended up caring deeply for him, and seeing how they were the only twins in that situation, it doesn’t surprise me they are still capable of emoting, because unlike Past Alear who was completely broken Nel and Rafal are just stern, but Nel is perfectly capable of emoting, even if she is cold on the surface. But like I mentionned, they are children of another Sombron whose life wasn’t the same at all as the one Alear had as a fell child, the sole fact that the “siblings killing each other” seemed to be more of a XenElyos thing seeing how Past Alear never mentions having to kill their own sibling during exposition dialogue in chapter 24. They blame it on Sombron, the corrupted and the war. And I think that due to Sombron having less children than Xenobron even if it was still a number of such that he could not remember all their faces nor name (despite being the one to give them their name, great) this probably made the children closer to each other then in the XenElyos, especially seeing how Past Alear seemed to care about their siblings, would it be the same as for the Fell Twins, Past Alear would have acctually be happier that Sombron, war and the corrupted got rid of “the competitor” but the whole “succesor” also seems to be a XenElyos thing (might dwell on it in another post) but that’s not just Veyle they care about, their other siblings too, recall the “cute little siblings”. So while in their own hell which is different Nel and Rafal had each other during those 1 000 years, while Veyle, a better comparision since she and Alear have the same dad, was too young to remember much of it, especially with her 1 000 year of slumber, and apparently was too young to be send in the battle field, because meanwhile, in the parallel world, Nil died a child meaning... that Xenobron send his young children on battle before they came of age.... and since Nel and Rafal appears to be physically older then Veyle, who in Elyos was the youngest child of Sombron meaning AltVeyle was about the same age, and that a 1000 years ago, she was younger than 16 years old... you can guess this means Nil died around that young age, meaning those kids were send there on the battle field, being way younger than 16, probably not even reaching the teens seein how youg the twins looked like here
They look barely older than Anna and Jean... now keep in mind, that was only for Nel and Rafal, but seeing how the events took place in a parallel fashion and that by the time of the war of 1 000 years ago, Alear was the only surving siblings, this means that like them, they must have had to fight at such young age... seeing their siblings, younger than that AGE dying. Now the real reason why I emphasied on how it happen in Nel and Rafal’s world even it in parallel, Alear was the only surviving siblings of Veyle is because... after the first war, many of Sombron’s children SURVIVED THE PARALLEL WAR OF 1 000 years ago. The proof of that is that this war took place 1 000 when Nil was still a child, and therefore, Nel and Rafal too... yet there was a CG showing Nel killing most of her siblings... remember that in Elyos, Zephia was postive that all children of Sombron except Veyle died during the war meaning that indeed, in our Elyos, only Alear and Veyle survived this war, while keeping in mind that Alear was the only remaining siblings by the time of the war. This means that there were less children of Xenobron to die during the Parallel war in which Lumeralt perished, the others probably died when Altlear fought against Xenobron and seeing how Nel and Rafal never felt close to their other siblings that were ready to kill them for Xenobron’s approval, them changing side would not have been so much of a terrible decision. But like I mentionned, Alear is a special case. Unlike Veyle who was too young to remember all of their siblings, and as the youngest must not have met any besides Alear that she ended up proving being able to recognize when they traveled back to the past, Alear showed they remembered many of their siblings and knew at least personally 5 of them : 2 older siblings, 2 younger one and Veyle. To put it shortly, Alear’s broken mind come from the fact that they were exposed to killing at a very young age, which explain why they showed to be this broken and this state of mind must have sort of being a coping mechanism, they also lived the longest out of all their others siblings meaning they witnessed many of them dying. But even Nel showed remorse and horror and though Xenobron would be angry at her for killing her siblings, whereas Alear... well, they really don’t emote at all. Another difference, is that unlike Veyle who still speak in a chidish manner, calling Sombron Papa, Nel and Rafal both were shown using kanji, whereas Alear in their past state used hiragana. Not only does this makes them devoid of emotion and contrast to their “more mature self” but it also shows that deep down Alear was still a child at this period, and by the time all their siblings but Veyle died, this means their mind was still that of a child and this appears as even more stricking with the reuinion with Lumera cutscene before Sombron stabbed Alear once they lowered their guard, seeing how Alear’s reaction was so drastically different then their introduction in chapter 24, even more so as the children of Alternate Sombron that had the same trauma were still capable of showing emotions and used kanji, whereas Alear’s still had a childlike way of expressing themselves. This show the “maturity” they seems to have was more of way of coping by their mind to not broke entirely into insanity, but deep down it was a broken child and even the way they behave after defeating Sombron showed they were deeply as innocent and genuine as a child...Compared to the twins that seems to have had to mature faster and deal with it more or less, Alear had to mature fast too except this maturity is entirely a facade, they are deep down still a child that have to act like they are older, but it seems obvious from their language they got broken at a young age and still speak that way because in reality, they did not grew up yet . In short, Alear deep down had the same personailty as Veyle, but like I mentionned, Veyle could never have survivied if it were not for Sombron having to accept to deal with her longer and Zephia making a spell for her to be the perfect little solider, meaning that even the broken state that Alear had was a mean of surving, not only to preserves their fragile mind, but to preserves themselves from Sombron’s warth, since they avoided the longest the fate of being killed, thei prooved that Alear showed themselves to be a good little soldier, and that this strategy worked, even though it seems not only to something they were forced to do as a mean of surviving as for the betrayal, I think it’s obvious that Alear would not have betrayed Sombron if it were not for Veyle. Remember ? she was their only remaining sibling, when they fought against Alear’s party which is supposed to have happened shortly before they meet Lumimi, Alear express their worry about Veyle and i think the guilt of not having stand against Sombron sooner to protect their others siblings helped them in their decision to side with Lumera, so much as to protect Veyle and I think that Veyle being the only remaining sibling also helped that decision because 1) Alear was shown to care about their sibling deeply so would others of them have survived, Alear would probably not have accepted to join side with Lumimi as it would have mean having to kill them, which is somethin, again, Past Alear never showed sign of having done, and the Fell Xenologue can’ be used as an argument they did since at first, whe we had those scenes, we would have never though of that which is normal with Alear never mentioning it, making it more likely they never had to kill themselves their sibling, and it would probably have been too much for them to do 2) it’s precisely because Veyle was their only remaining sibling that Alear was drove to accept since they showed they wanted to protect her, and what better way to do it then killing the one who started all of this and threatened to kill her at any moments plus with Lumimi offering to be a mother for both of them, so that Veyle too might have had a loving mother and be spared the childhood that Alear had ?
In short the reason why Alear seem out of all fell children to have been the most broken is because at a very young age, they had to kill, they witnessed all their siblings being brutally killed, could not helped them, feared to know the same fate yet still cared for Veyle, but unlike Nel and Rafal who had each other and who still had siblings after the 1 000 year war, Alear was completely alone, seeing how young Veyle was, and had to fight alone, survive alone while keeping in mind that they actually did not mature at all, they still had the mentality of the child they were ... i am honestly surprised regaining their memories did not let them to a breakdown, wow *
9- The Four Hounds
I know that unlike 3 houses’ cast who all had a tragedy at some point, there is less character in Engage who had to face that (less, but even that is arguable) but out of all, the 4 hounds are those who most likely had a traumatic past. Not so much Mauvier though he did lost his dad, but the 3 others, especially Marni and Griss. Zephia’s story was similar to Aversa : being a talented mage, but like Nyx, her talent led her to sin since her magic was so powerful she destroyed her own home village, before joining Sombro’s side. I already touched on Griss and Marni’s past in my Timeline comparions post but it’s quite a pity they did not get to explore more of it. After all, what makes it incredible is sometimes the contrast that come from their counterpart. Gregory, out of all Hounds, is the only one who’se childhood and past ressembles that of Griss, except that the ritual scarred him so much he hates any form of pain whereas it turn Griss into... that. Sure, it doesn’t dwell too much on it, but when you realize how much Gregory hate pain because of it and how much of a degenerate it turned Griss into, you can expect the worse... doesn’t helped that it made Griss being mute for years until Zephia appeared and that he ended up becoming incrediby devoted to her, almost worshipping her. Meanwhile, the interesting part of Marni’s story is how she delivered it. She did after learning of Veyle’s story, and when she shared her own, she dismiss it as being not that much of a big deal compared to what Veyle suffered which is... i mean, saying how your mom that never cared about you despite everything you did to help her abandonned you in front of the chruch as if it was nothing is... and whereas pain was what Griss got addicted to, it’s praise Marni got addicted to, and another interesting thing is that she received those and the love and affection she never had... from the followers of Sombron’s cult, yk ? the one supposed to be the bad guys... (this remind me how Awakening never dwelt on how the Plegian weren’t monster, we had to wait a festival theme in Heroes to have this, that’s a pity Engage did not got to explain how Elusia came to worship Sombron nor to show that they were not all monsters) makes you thing Engage is not entirely manichean
10- Sombron
I think the reason why Sombron work so well as an antagonist is because he is the reason why the entire world of Elyos is in danger and the story was great at showing how the single presence of Evul yandere daddy dragon plonged the world into darkness, heck, all the points have listed are about character linked to him !! I think nothing shows it better than that all the character’s who most definitely had the most tragic backstory all happens to be linked to him !
It doesn’t help that his backstory SHOWED the reason why. Elyos had originally no fell dragons, just divine dragon and mage dragon, until Sombron was sent there and destroyed the village that welcomed him to seek for 0 Emblem. And what did he do exaclty to make this story so simple this dark : he commited genocide against Lumera’s kind, killed his own children, had a whole harem of Mage dragon he either seduced (that was the case of Veyle’s mother) either manipulated since they seemed to be really devoted toward him, why do you think her turned down Zephia despite 1) her grand power making her his equal and giving it the possibility of making powerful children 2) the fact that at the time only 2 of his children were alive ? because he is a manipulator, like this he could still have control over Zephia since Mauvier told Zelestia that Zephia was so powerful she could have easily beat him but in reality, the real reason why Sombron turned her down was because of how close to his goal he felt like (would it not be for the 1 000 years of being sealed) and he just wanted to leave Elyos to find 0 Emblem, but still the guy literaly had a harem of Mage dragon he got throught his own... charm ? ehum,... well still he did the most horrible stuff and he is the reason why the entire story is even happening so it prouves how his sole presence makes him an excellet villain but i will clean the honnor of Daddybron in another post !
So that’s it, that’s how Engage story is actually super dark, and while it hold back a lot of it’s darkness, replaying some moments that were at first light and all ends up becoming pretty dark when you know what is the full context. IDK if i forgot some aspects of if you want to add something, but feel free to discuss it with me !
* To support the view that Alear saw themselves from the past in a light not entirely positive, in their pact support with Rafal when he will mentions how Alear deserves someone as pure as them, Alear will mentions how they fought by Sombron’s side too (albeit a different Sombron) and how they are actually different than Rafal’s Alear, thinking the reason why Rafal mentions that is because he is thinking of Altlear, when i think he was indeed speaking of our Alear but what i said about Past Alear proved that in fact Rafal is right, Alear has always been pure and genuine like a child, even when they were on Sombron’s side
* Also, have you noticed how out of all the fell children Alear is the only one scared by the Corrupted ? The Cg in XenElyos did showed the twins being scared, but growing up, Nel did not seemed to have such a trauma and Rafal was able to use them as pawn just fine... this really shows that Alear is the only fell child to be this broken but once again there was so many difference in the childhood Rafal and Nel had compared to Alear and Veyle that comparing them is not the most ideal option but i can’t really help it, it’s just incredible to realize how broken Alear was * pat their multihaired head*
