Are people who think Shinon is racist but still like him safe from your wrath? :0 I do not wish to be smitten by the wrath of JD!
Of course! The difference is that the plain ol' haters are the ones who see nothing but "he's racist". They don't consider all the other aspect of him and don't care to. He IS racist, and primarily at the beginning of PoR. My issue is when people refuse to acknowledge he gets better about it even if he's never perfect about it.
There are people who won't even acknowledge his development and act like he's nothing but a racist jerk with zero actual character or consider why he acts like an asshole. I see comments like "he's just a racist asshole" and that's extremely misleading for anyone getting into these games not already knowing who he is. It paints a certain expectation over him that people are more likely to feed into because it's the first thing they heard, which is also super unfortunate that people don't think for themselves, but sadly as we know, media literacy is dead... and with Shinon, it always has been.
I've known people who don't like him but are able to recognize that "he's racist" is not the only trait he has. Soren is racist too, but imagine if I went around saying it's the only trait he has aside from being an asshole? Because frankly, yes, Soren is a racist asshole. I love him and he's one of my favorites in Tellius, but Soren is inarguably worse about it than Shinon is because he only tries to be more polite toward laguz for someone else (i.e. Ike, not even a laguz) rather than getting better through his own relationships with laguz or just in general growing as a person.
And look how beloved he is by the fandom. The same fandom that will smite Shinon for the same issue. And you know why? Because he doesn't like Ike. Because he's not queer coded enough. Because he's not the "gay twink" in love with another male. Soren only gets past it and people overlook it because he's mlm representation, whereas Shinon's mlm representation needs a magnifier (and even then he's not a standard macho straight man in any regard).
Soren gets away with it and gets away with actually having almost attacked Mordecai (not even Lethe, and even I was pissed off by Lethe in that scene lol but no way in hell could ever condone attacking Mordecai). Shinon doesn't... ever actually raise a weapon to his allies. Him and Janaff quite mutually threaten to whack each other and then both stand down.
Shinon and Janaff are extremely similar, including that Janaff was and still kind of is racist at that time in PoR, but since he's a laguz and racist toward the big bad humans, he gets away with it (same reason Reyson, Tibarn and Ulki never get called out for it in the fandom! And because they're uwu cool characters "who got better". Yeah, you know what I'm about to say to that).
My problem is when people just look at him and reduce him to a horrible trait and refuse to acknowledge he's... really not that bad, because a really bad person would not want to get better. They would not want to acknowledge they're wrong in any capacity. Shinon struggles, but he improves. His racism is based on ignorance (and from not meeting a laguz properly prior and not having laguz allies), and once that ignorance is proven wrong, he starts to get better (and that's why I clamor on and on about how important his supports with Janaff are).
Most people who leave hateful comments abt him (especially in tags about him) are the ones who base his entire character on racism alone and nothing else. If you did that to the gay twink Soren, the fandom would beat you down for it and probably call you homophobic to boot!
Also, a bit of a side tangent, but...
I also hate the Bitch Ass Stupid meme of Claude and Shinon, with the whole CEO of ending racism and CEO of racism, because actually no, I think they'd have very interesting interactions. I think Claude would want to understand where this perception comes from and work to improve it, because Shinon is very loving and very much a protector parent type (between both Rolf and the GMs as a whole).
To see someone like that have so much hate for a race he doesn't even know or understand would probably be confusing to Claude and even be personal to him. I think he'd want to understand the problem and try to help improve it both for the laguz and for Shinon. I do not at all think he'd hate Shinon if he actually knew Shinon. I think he'd see an ally in him who could be even more amazing if he could get past those bad habits and that ignorance.
Claude's whole character arc is to try to get good people to understand other races, not to hate those people and turn them away (or he would've left Fodlan a long time ago when he realized how fucking racist Leicester as a whole was, regardless of "whose fault" it is, which is another discussion in itself). I think the two of them would have a lot to talk about and a lot of introspection together.
So yeah, tl;dr, if you recognize Shinon is written as a person with flaws and not just one bad trait while willfully ignoring every single blatant positive aspect of him, you're fine lol. It's the people who purposely wall themselves off from seeing anything else about his character and hating him not for who he is, but because of one single trait that plenty of other characters either exhibit at some point in the story (Naesala is a big one, but he's another fandom beloved so he gets away with it, and he's not a big bad human), with one of them being Soren himself.
And yes, I recognize Soren has trauma. That's another discussion for another post, but fact is, even despite knowing good people and knowing Ike's perception, he does not in fact ever get that much better. Shinon gets past him in that regard if you've seen all his content, which I've written about in depth. Soren uses the term "laguz" for Ike's sake, because need I remind you, he refers to them as "sub-humans" before Ike actually knows about them. He does not bother correcting Shinon in the forest in chapter six because he does not want to - because he agrees with it (he refers to them as laguz one time in that conv iirc as the "it's the more neutral/proper term", but not as the "this is my preference" term). He only begins to correct himself when Ike gets pissed off at him. That's not growth - that's a selfish and personal reason to do it and one he felt forced to have to do to keep Ike happy and not angry at him.
And would you look at that, Soren has an entire character outside of that.
Well I'll be.
GUESS SHINON MUST TOO.
tl;dr you're safe bby.
I'm not even read more-ing this. For reasons you all already know.
Oh man I really agree with your tags on that one post. The whole king of delusion thing is terrible to me bc like. Delusions aren’t some gotcha you can use against him? It’s a serious mental health issue? But I’d also like to add I hate when people mock him for smelling bad or having poor hygiene or w/e… :/ It’s not funny when people with mental illness can’t properly take care of their hygiene lol I thought we were all understanding of this?
EXACTLY. It's not like "wow look how wrong you are and how terrible you are for being delusional".
Also the hygiene thing pisses me off too. I know lots of his fans use it as a joke, even affectionately, but like... he was homeless. He was living in the slums. Most people around him probably smelled bad. I'm sure they and he cleaned up whenever they could, but buddy, the slums isn't a public showering area. They'd be lucky if they were able to bathe. It's not something they take for granted. Even the "smelly cape" jokes bother me.
I've met homeless people. I've lived in a shelter where I met people who prior to that shelter lived in tents. Showering and bathing isn't something they could just get up and do before being in the shelter. Those people are lucky if they can even go to the bathroom in a proper bathroom, let alone being able to bathe.
Then like you said, on top of that, he's mentally ill. He's not thinking about his next bath. He's talking to people who are dead, believing they are answering him back and responding to their answers to him. There's also the general idea that Lambert's last words were not actually what were told to us via Dimitri's flashback, but the words he remembers because of his illness. He is very likely remembering wrong, because that version of Lambert matches the version of him that Dimtiri talks to, but does not match the version of him in Rodrigue's flashback.
Even depression can cause a lack of proper hygiene, and that's also a mental illness. In his case he has full on episodes of either psychotic breaks or having conversations with people who aren't there, and when he's out of those states he's desperately trying to do what he's been told to do by those voices. He's trying to do it both for those people and because, as he expresses later into AM, he wants them to stop. Those voices harass him day in and out and ridicule him and it hurts him, so he becomes desperate to do what they tell him so they stop tormenting him (which is part why he's so hellbent on hurrying to finish his tasks in the first half of AM).
It's an absolute spiral of a situation, where he already has these delusions but now on top of them feels absolutely terrible and like someone who has been emotionally abused by loved ones for years and years. He loves them but is terrified of them because they always say awful things to him or try to say things about him that aren't true. The worst part is that these are delusions of people who loved him and were nothing like this, so it causes even more suffering for him.
I don't really understand why it's so funny to people to poke fun at characters with or for bad hygiene. Like, firstly it's... just not a funny thing/topic? And secondly I'm sure there are people uncomfortable with it because they have bad hygiene or lower than "socially acceptable" hygiene due to mental illness and feel they're being laughed at as well for their hygiene. That's definitely a stereotypical mindset and something society does to make fun of people less fortunate than them, be it physically, mentally or both (like not having access to bathing.
Rich people can bathe whenever they want and often in media look down on "stinky people" who are always the poor, generally living in the slums). It's a very unfortunate dominant mindset and almost always comes from people who are more well off and haven't experienced it for themselves to realize how awful it can be (and there are of course people who don't need to experience something to know how bad it is, and I wish there were just more people like that).
I just don't understand what's so funny about hygiene. If anything it just feels like people laughing at the concept of someone not being up to society's standards about health, and it's what literal kids do to make fun of each other. Like, if someone smells bad, I feel like we should be more concerned about the person and why that is... and that would be the case if society raised its people to think that way, but since society raised people to be the opposite (to make fun of smelly people), most people who haven't experienced it for themselves make fun of it.
Like... idk am I missing something lol, I just don't see the humor in someone smelling bad. Even without considering any implications behind it I still don't see the humor in it. Considering Dimitri's circumstances though it just feels very wrong to see people make fun of him for that. I know fans of his that do it are doing it harmlessly and most likely wouldn't make fun of real people for similar things, but it just doesn't sit right with me. There's just nothing amusing about poor hygiene.
Using it as fuel to hate on him though is just is a show of someone's true character and who they really are. :/ Anyone who makes fun of him for his hygiene and mental illness are the kind of people who look down on people with those problems and deserve to experience it for themselves to see just how awful that shit can be. It being fictional doesn't change the fact that it's a show on someone's true character to be able to make fun of someone suffering, and especially to the extent Dimitri does.
Like yes, Edelgard suffered, but she has her own way of moving past it. She's not suffering in the same way as Dimitri or handling it the same way and comes across as "strong" for that - another societal mindset from people who think it's "strong" to not show that you're suffering or have suffered. It's how she handles it, sure, and that's fine... but it's people's reactions to how differently they handle their trauma that's so obnoxious.
People can only be pushed so far, and people hate on Dimtiri for his violence despite that being part of his illness and trauma. Hating on people for being violent as a result of their feelings or past is an awful thing and I really think anyone who can hate on a good and well meaning/intentioned person (real or fictional) simply because they're violent toward bad things needs some serious introspection (like Dimitri having violent reactions to seeing innocents being slaughtered in front of him at Remire. It was an impulsive reaction that he would've hid if he could have, but he wasn't able to).
Like oh no, how dare someone be violent and aggressive toward murderers! How dare someone say off with their head when they've done terrible things! Not everyone is perfectly peaceful and puritan. Hell, Edelgard isn't either and chooses violence as her first and foremost answer to everything, and only considers "negotiations" (i.e. anything that will benefit her/the Empire and only her) if she's losing and only stands to gain from them.
Her first solution to everything is violence, and yet Dimitri is the one who gets shat on for... being violent. Because of his trauma and illness specifically, both in game and out. But since Edelgard has been able to moved past her trauma for the most part and has a different way of handling it that "looks better", he looks "bad" for not having gotten past his trauma yet. Good for her to be able to handle it the way she does, but why is it "bad for him" that he can't handle it "better"?
it's so interesting for me to hear that houses localization changed the script to vilify(?word?) the church bc when i played the game (i recently finished my first and so far only playthrough in lions route) for the first half of the game i was waiting for the shoe to drop to reveal the church is the big bad guys but it never came and the revealed was actually ed. idk if it should have been obvious but i was too focused on suspecting the church to see it or if it was actually subtle as i tend to be oblivious to hints(¿word again?) given in media lol.
idk where im going with this but i hope it makes at least some sense bc i am so sleep deprived rn
and the thing tou said about Henry being changed i am so curious of that too
hope you have a nice day and better sleep than me!
I'll answer the last part first since the rest is more descriptive.
Basically Henry went to Wizard School (tee em) and it was a cool and great experience. In JP, it was... iirc basically close to torture/hellish? It was a more mature situation/topic, but the loc changed it to be silly and fun sounding. For some reason Treehouse in particular seems deeply if not fatally allergic to mature topics and/or properly handling them.
Thank for about the sleep comment and I assure you, I sleep too often!! I wish I could send you some of my sleep and make it extra quality for you. :(
As for Three Houses, yeah, in AM it doesn't really happen that way. Nobody is really vilified (not even the imperialist warmonger invading neutral lands!) in AM (same with AG in Hopes).
What you saw/understood was the whole point! It was made it look at first like the Church was suspicious, but then the reveal was meant to be no, it was a fellow house leader all along. That was what the red herring part about the Church was all about. You were supposed to suspect the Church at first, hence Jeralt's warnings, and if you're playing GD, Claude's suspicions.
Unfortunately what happens in the other routes, especially in CF, is that Rhea's trauma is never explored, no characters stop to understand her motivation, etc. She's just used as the resident bad guy because she's Edelgard's enemy. Basically, you're seeing it from the point of view that Rhea is bad because you see it from Edelgard's perspective... but it fails to work because the game, in particular the localization, amps Edelgard up as a huge progressive hero. AM is the only route that really confronts her about her "views", and even then, it's a mess because all the things she argues with Dimitri about aren't her end goal (i.e. they don't ever end up actually happening in the vast capacity she claims she's going to do).
About Edelgard:
The localization avoids any particularly negative comments about her and changes or outright removes them (true of Hopes as well). In Dimitri's case it would make sense because of their connection, but when it ends up just being another route in the pile of feeling sorry for Edelgard (and... not Rhea, who had her family massacred and their bones turned into weapons), it just feels stale.
They basically tell you Edelgard is very cute and easily embarrassed, and she's just this headstrong progressive woman fighting For The People (tee em). The truth is (as per the game itself, i.e. content they can't change/localized because it's the contents of the game itself) that she's invading innocent lands, conscripting her own citizens, turning her citizens into demonic beasts to add to her military strength (lelz when u can't even rely on ur nation's own military strength without demonic beasts), and victim blaming anyone who fights back (if you have yet to see the extremely infamous "no u" line from Edegard to Dimitri in CF, you've been blessed) among other things.
They basically shove it down your throat, characters and narrative both (in the loc in particular), that Edelgard is good and just, while the story itself is looking at all that like ???. The JP script still tries to take good care of her and her image, but they're a lot more blunt about her/her goals (i.e. they don't dance around them nearly as much).
The localization showers what she does with love and attention, and even when they have to say she's the problem/aggressor, they still pretty it up as much as possible (such as Dimitri wondering if maybe her vision of society could possibly be just and righteous, instead of outright admitting what she's done is absolutely atrocious when it's way worse than anything he ever did, all of which he admits to doing and takes responsibility for).
The JP version is more clear on her being the villain. There's definitely bias toward her (as the writers were, confirmed by an interview), but it doesn't slap you in the face with it nearly as badly. Also, Dimitri has won a character popularity poll every year since the game's inception in Japan. In the west, Edelgard is much more popular than she is in the east. That, of course, is because of the way the loc pushed the writing for her/about her.
Edelgard's "progressive" stuff is supposed to be just propaganda (which is ultimately, even as per the western endings because there's only so much they can change). The way the loc frames it is that it's actually what she's aiming for. It's what she uses to inspire people to fight for her though, not what she's actually doing.
About Rhea:
This one's the real doozy because it's a victim of the above. Since they wanted to pretty up Edelgard's dialogue and make her A Hero (tee em), they needed whoever her main enemy was to be the "villain". Since Edelgard, now popular because of the tweaks in her dialogue, hated and wanted to kill Rhea, so too did her raging fans who gave no fucks whatsoever about any character who opposed her... even if it was just to save their own life!
They changed the tone of Rhea's voice in the loc to make her more angry and villainous sounding, rather than sad or kind. She was basically altered in the loc to make Edelgard look better. Like, of course, in the perspective of playing a villain in CF, she's the bad guy and the enemy. The problem comes when they have Rhea say things that are more aggressive than in the original script, and change her tone to sound demeaning and vicious (when she was otherwise not or not as much).
But like, why? The only reason any of us can think of is because they wanted to market Edelgard more. This is likely a result of the west's views and especially political views, since Edelgard's pretty words would sound good to a westerner's political beliefs... until you dig into them/the actual story content more.
Rhea also being the head of a Church probably got tweaked because of the west's recent irl views on religion. Religion in the west has been looked poorly upon in recent years. Instead of accepting this is just a fictional game though, the loc team just... pushed that they're Really Bad.
Rhea is more of a victim of them needing someone to be worse than Edelgard to make Edelgard look like less of a villain (which again, this isn't the case in the original script nearly as much), and they couldn't use Thales/the Agarthans because you were allied with them in that route.
The other characters vs Rhea as a villain choice:
The goal wasn't to make a playable lord a villain in the loc's case. It was the intention of the original script with Edelgard, but the loc tried to make her actions sound more justified because ??? like idk, I can't wrap my head around them justifying what she does.
Dimitri isn't handled too badly by the narrative itself and he's overall seen as a good person (even the loc didn't alter that or Edelgard's ablest mentality toward a mentally unwell person), so he wasn't really a good candidate for all that. Also, Dimitri's story is one of recovery, and because they ventured into mental illness, he wasn't a good candidate. He was treated well and pretty fairly (Edelgard not treating him particularly well makes sense with her character, but the narrative itself doesn't push him as being a monstrous person. Even in the time he considers that he was, there's depth, logic and complexity to the situation).
Claude being the main bipoc character would have just been an all around disaster if the loc or even original script tried to make him the top villain, yadda yadda (understandably). There was no chance that was going to go over well, especially in the west (have you seen the shitstorm GW caused? And that was with the writing not considering him a villain!!). He was basically safe from the get go as far as villainy if they writers/localizers didn't want serious backlash (there are discussions about the overall treatment of poc characters in Houses/Hopes, but I can guarantee it would've been legit backlash if he was made to be a genuinely and intentionally horrible person, so that wasn't really an option if they wanted this game to actually sell and be enjoyed).
So since Rhea isn't playable and is the head of a Church, that kind of makes her the only candidate. Players will get attached to the other lords and not like killing them, so it won't feel like a badass victory to kill them. I guess for some reason the loc team just... hated Rhea or something?
Dimitri's death in CF is either extremely sad and garners audience sympathy, or in the other version of his death in CF it's clear his mentally stability is starting to break right before he's killed, which in and of itself is another topic. Claude is either free to go by choice of the player or can be killed, and his death is sad and he's not villainized. Aside from how some characters treat Claude's death (in contrast to Dimitri's which is never outright villainized even by Edelgard), the scene meant for the player at the time it happens is supposed to leave a bad taste in your mouth.
So again, it really just leaves the loc team with the option of Rhea if they want to make the final battle seem like a big victory for the player. VW also has its big happy victory, and surprise surprise, Rhea dies in that route (offscreen no less!).
SS kills off Rhea but actually makes it sad, and it's, you know, actually the route that focuses on her/the Church most. AM doesn't kill her off and doesn't treat any character death as a badass victory, and instead gives a bittersweet ending (which again would be in line with Dimitri's connection to Edelgard, and it only feels botched down because of all routes obsessing over her).
So while, technically, the writing in the JP script wasn't trying to make Rhea as bad as the western version of the game, if the loc wanted to go for that, she was the best option. It just... came at the expense of butchering her character to make Edelgard shine, which shouldn't have been done but it was.
Claude in CF, when he's on the backfoot, is up against an entire Empire that has shown itself a huge threat (including having someone everyone believes was directly blessed by god fight for them), and is under the belief that he can't go to the Kingdom/Church for help: *makes sure as few nobles are involved in the fighting as possible so that the Alliance remains intact even he if fails, makes sure the people of Derdriu are safe, and takes a stand against specifically and only the Empire by calling on Almyran forces to fight back as best he can in a way that causes the absolute least destruction possible, before either leaving the country to keep his people safe or dying in his attempt to keep them safe*
Hopes!Claude in SB's bad route, when he's on the backfoot against someone he is shown to be able to handle just fine in the exact same conditions as GW, and is under the belief that he can't go to the Kingdom and Church for help: *declares outright war on the Empire AND the Kingdom and Church who've done nothing to him at all, painting a giant target on Leicester's forehead for EVERYONE to try to hit, before (potentially) dying soon afterwards*
(some parts of the) Fandom: I don't see how anyone could possibly believe these aren't the same character :/
(some parts of the) Fandom: Hopes!Claude is actually way better than 3H!Claude actually
See, I don't have an issue with people liking this version of him, but for some reason a lot of them just tend to push away the fans who prefer his Houses version. Those of us who don't like Hopes Claude also don't like him because they botched the story in a lot of our opinions. Between Almyra and Leicester both, the whole thing was just a mess.
I think Hopes Claude could've been interesting if they featured Almyra more prominently and didn't make them, you know, brainless buffoons who make even Houses Miklan look like a stand up guy (I'm not even being sarcastic about that LOL it's just that bad). If his story didn't seem so senseless and didn't fail to utilize all the things we still needed to know about him from Houses, it wouldn't have been entirely that bad.
Like you're saying though, he ultimately just didn't end up the same character as much as people say he is. He's definitely not better and most of it seems to be because he... killed people. You might have been there for the "killed in a wargame" anon where apparently all it takes for them to like characters is to kill in a wargame.
People can like Hopes Claude, but he's just not the same overall character. I can't feasibly see Houses Claude doing any of that. Even during the academy phase, most of what happened in the second half of GW would baffle him. It's not just that it isn't like him, it's that a lot of it made a really wonky and meaningless plot.
The only specific kill I would like to see from Claude is him finally shanking one of his abusive siblings who have been trying to assassinate him his whole life. :)
If Edelgard starts a war on cats it would be a CATastrophe.
Bad pun aside, it really speaks volumes when people are so enamored and defensive about their fave that they're willing to say "racism, genocide and terrorism is good actually". Fiction may not affect reality most of the time, but it exposes views that some people share that makes you go "yikes.".
I can't believe I didn't even think of that when I wrote it LOL.
For people missing the context, this ask is in response to a reply I wrote on another post.
When it comes to media, it's one thing if there's nuance to the situation and it's not as direct (is she being brainwashed? Controlled? Forced? Somehow unaware? Shown to be conflicted about her actions/what she says? etc). In her case though that's not present and she means what she says. Even still, liking her as a character is fine.
It's different when people start using real life situations or making outright harmful rhetoric, which is something they do both to lift their favorite up and to vilify her enemies (which is why they have to reach so hard, and farther than their arms actually can reach to make up reasons to hate Dimitri. It's not him, it's the fact that they hate anyone who opposes Edelgard, and if Edegard wants them dead they also want them dead. Unfortunately that also turned into demonizing those with mental illness).
Fiction in and of itself doesn't affect reality or indicate what a person is like irl, but their behavior toward others is no longer fiction. Story wise you could argue it makes an interesting character to have these flaws and villainous traits, but it's another story entirely when people double down to insist their characters' actions are just and they go into detail to force it down people's throats - 99.99% of the time unprompted, when that character actively associates with people who have willingly and intentionally committed genocide and aims to do the same herself by finishing the job.
Which you'd think she wouldn't because... those same people wiped out all her siblings, but okay. Somehow the CoS is worse than them. I guess bc Agarthans are human at the end of the day, so no matter how inhumane and atrocious their actions are, they get a pass as long as there's a non-human in the vicinity. Racism typically goes hand in hand with genocide, so. Yeah.
It's not even just that though - it's how the arguments go that indicates if a person is just trying to defend their favorite. If they start brainlessly spewing harmful rhetoric at real people, and if what they say would actively defend real life issues, it's concerning. It's the manner in which they defend their favorite. If the way they argue is exactly how American-hard-rights defend themselves, it starts becoming uncomfortable for people and no longer applies to just fiction.
If what you argue sounds exactly what irl politics sounds like, that's a pretty powerful indicator of who you're dealing with. It doesn't matter if they are or claim to be American-left (specifying because Random said it's different in Europe!). If their arguing points shit on all the values American-lefts stand for, they are not, whether they like it or not, arguing for the left (which all stans claim to do, and then they start regurgitating American-right political stances, extremely often at the expense and discomfort of actual American-lefts. Might I remind you that one of them, a straight man, used abortion and gay marriage both being legally in jeoprady as a gotcha to argue for Edelgard).
It doesn't matter what you claim you're doing. If your arguments actually start reflecting things that can be real, you need to be careful about how you word it. Houses deals with a political atmosphere very heavily, which shouldn't have really been a problem... but it got too close to real life politics within the fandom and people's true colors started to show.
It should have been "I love Edelgard but damn some of what she does is fucked up" and not trying to vehemently defend every singular word she's ever said. As I've mentioned in my very lengthy "why the writing failed Edelgard", the writing is partly to blame for people being divided on her, but it's the fans' own faults if they can't draw a line between liking her character and supporting things in a way that makes it sound like you'd support them irl.
It's even worse that all that nonsense picked up really badly right around the time Ukraine got invaded and Putin was out there spewing nonsense. It became a sensitive issue to have people defending Edelgard invading other countries proudly with false claims/propaganda, because the arguments fell perfectly to a T in line with what Putin was doing.
Evidently that didn't matter to the people who never touch grass and waste their time and energy only thinking of defending Edelgard instead of just enjoying her character, but then, they don't really even enjoy her character; they just enjoy their made up version of her who fights for what they want her to fight for instead of realizing what she's actually doing. These people would be damn easy bait for irl politics and it shows. Dangerously.
So for anyone arguing about your fictional favorites, remember that context is important and how you treat the topic(s) at hand are just as important. I absolutely adore a villain just like Edelgard because of good writing, and there are points I can actually defend him (if you've been on this blog for more than like a week you prooOOOObably know who I'm referring to AT THIS POINT lmao). That doesn't mean I'm going to call invasion, racism, etc good and just for his better talking points to be achieved.
In my opinion Edelgard ended up poorly written because the writers wanted to be bias in the context of the story but couldn't properly justify the atrocities. I'll be honest, if this is how they handle (main) female villains, I'd rather just not have them. I'd rather go back to the days of Petrine and Hilda who were side villains and allowed to be as disgusting and horrendous as they wanted.
If writing a lead villain who is female won't work because they can't stop pushing their bias into the writing (don't even look at poor Petra, she got SKEWERED in CF and especially in SB) and it reflects poorly, I just don't want it. I know men at the writing table for some wild reason throughout the years have been unable to properly write females (which like, why. Just write human beings. But no, they seem to act like females are a different entity entirely), but if that's going to remain the case, I don't want them to write them in situations like these because they clearly can't handle it. They treat Edelgard as a trophy wife who has to be perfect for them and not as a complex, legitimate person.
Mind you, I also made a post before about how Edelgard is separated from other female villains by being drawn as "attractive". Ishtar gets treated much better than other female villains as well, with Heroes going as far as to outright shit on canon and give her an alt where she "joins the Liberation Army", which... the whole point of her character and her fighting in that war was that she was on the opposite side but wasn't a bad person. I could argue similar things for Burian, but that's more headcanon/literally based on just his death quote lmfao.
Point being, Ishtar is drawn to be attractive. Petrine and Hilda are not, and are outright villainous, terrible, not complex people at all (Hilda is a hypocrite, but she's not complex). Edelgard was drawn to be attractive, and was thus not treated like a villain proper. Unfortunately this got warped into the fandom we know now, but... like we both said, the way they argue for her is pretty telling and honestly pretty scary. Let's not forget that they've spewed death threats at people simply for not liking Edelgard.
No, that last sentence was not a joke nor an exaggeration. In a way it makes sense though, considering they defend genocide, racism, etc.
How is path of Radiance? Like the characters, writing, the plot.. I heard really good things about Elincia and getting good writing for female characters is so rare in FE games I want to try it now
I'm gonna take a wild guess and ask if it's @randomnameless you heard the Elincia stuff from LOL.
What I will say first about the females before getting into the other stuff is that the females are handled perfectly. They get the same amount and kind of development as the males and aren't there just to be male gaze eye candy. Petrine is the closest thing I could say is like that by appearance, but her personality doesn't match what they do a lot more often nowadays, and she's not a bad character (she's a good villain if nothing else). The females are treated very equally to the males.
PoR also kinda has a "no character left behind" deal where you can continue getting bits and pieces from everyone you recruit, either via base conversations or boss conversations (outside of just supports). Usually in FE after you get a character to join you, that's it and all you get is supports for development, but PoR continues to reuse those characters in various base conversations (including ones that phase out in story importance, like how the Greil Mercenaries are story important but most of them lose importance midgame).
One other good thing though about characters losing importance is that they all do. Aside from the very very main handful, you get sections where different characters get spotlight. For instance, the GMs are the first section of the game, but later on you start seeing more of Begnion's cast, and then you start seeing the bird tribes for a while and so on. Importance is split between a wide range of characters and it gives a whole bunch of them actual story relevance even if they're not in the immediate main handful.
The characters are all stellar because they're all very different and not single-trope based. These days we get one or two tropes and/or aspects about a character (like Boucheron in Engage gets lost all the time and he cries a lot from reading books/generally cries often, and that's... pretty much his whole personality. Citrinne is rich and doesn't know how to give gifts that aren't expensive and wants to protect her people and that's it) and just have to accept that it's their entire character.
There's also a lot of reading between the lines to understand all the characters and not just taking things at surface level. For instance, most people HATE Makalov because he uses people's money and gambles it all away, but he consistently tries to better himself. He ultimately fails in both games to lose that bad habit, but he does regularly bring the idea up of trying to lose that addition and tries to be a better brother for his sister. Just because he fails at actually breaking his bad habits doesn't mean that's it, clean cut, that's all there is to him. He's not my favorite personally, but imo he gets a lot of unjustified hate. He has a gambling addiction but he does have a lot of self awareness and knows when he's being a scoundrel. He doesn't like it, but he knows it's part of him.
For the story and plot, both are fantastic. Everything is connected, even between both games, giving the sense that the game was made with a sequel planned before it was even released. The game literally ends on a cliffhanger ffs lmao. The story starts as just the GMs doing their job, then they get hired to guard Elincia and have to take a journey to do so to gain enough army strength, but once you get about halfway into the game, it starts getting a lot more serious and kind of grows with Ike in a way. Like, he grows more into being a leader and understanding how to manage his mercenaries, but the story progresses with his maturity and becomes in a sense a more mature story.
There's also the way racism is done that's really well handled, in which a good chunk of the cast, including very main characters in both games, start out extremely racist (Tibarn and Reyson are among the most racist, human hating characters in the first game for a good half or more of the game, because the halfway point is chapter fifteen (there are thirty chapters total including the prologue, IF you don't count that chapter 17 is four parts long). Over time they all change and grow at their own pace. Naesala is even a tricky one because he seems like he's still not quite a villain but not really an ally by the end, but he actively drops the term "human" in favor of "beorc" once Reyson informs him he's in service to the Crimean army to repay their deeds in protecting his sister. Even more minor characters like Jill and Lethe take it at their own pace and Jill in particular you get base conversations with repeatedly, where she grows as a person in every single one. She joins you in chapter 12 and is still relevant in her own way through chapter 20, i.e. through base conversations.
Also, I really love that all the characters come together by the end and piece the plot together together, as a group. It's not just the main character and another one or two people who are suddenly like OH I UNDERSTAND. They literally have group conversations to work things out and add their own insight to bring the plot together. For example, there's a conversation with Caineghis, Tibarn, Ike, Soren, Titania, Elincia, and Ranulf where they're all discussing Ashnard and his motivations. They all use pieces of what they've learned individually throughout the war to tell everyone else what they know, and they piece it all together.
It's honestly kind of fascinating to see even now, at least for me, considering FE games don't do that anymore. Usually you get a few characters total who are main characters (like Awakening, how you get a handful of characters who have any plot relevance whatsoever and nobody else gives their two cents about what's going on, despite being part of a large army). It really gives each character individuality and purpose, where it doesn't feel like they're just a number in your army. It feels like another person in your army. Even if not all of them are directly in your army/playable, they still integrate with the story.
Supports are pretty great too because you can glean a lot from just small supports. If you've been following me long enough you knew he was going to come up sooner or later: HURRAY, SHINON, WHOOOO. 🥳🎉🎉🎉 Shinon has a pretty rocky B support with Janaff, but it's so valuable for both of their characters. Both of them think the other is stupid for not knowing "something totally obvious lelzies", but they end up having a good discussion about it and learning from each other, despite Shinon being grumbly grumble bag because he's talking to a yeehaw half-breed who was rood to him last support when he was minding his own business (Janaff had never seen him before but Shinon didn't like the way he was talking to him, so being the idiots they truly are had a ten second verbal battle of "if i wanted to i could kill u, just so u r aware lel"). It ends with Shinon like ugh ugh why am I doing this tho, and he skedaddles and Janaff is all huffy puffy because he wanted to ask more questions about beorc (humans). Their A support is a fountain of goodness for both of them/their characters because you learn a lot about Janaff that I think you otherwise would never even consider. This time it's Janaff who just happily opts out of the conversation after realizing Shinon isn't so bad and he enjoyed learning from him, and Shinon is the one who is like hey wait come back... except last time Janaff was aggravated when Shinon peaced out. This time Shinon is actually interested and intrigued and wants Janaff to come back because Janaff has seen more of the world than him and he wants to hear more, but he's nice about it (there's more development than that, but I'm summarizing to give an example of how supports go in this game).
Can you tell I adore them by the way I make fun of them so intensely? Thank you.
Imo the writing is good enough that I can reread the whole game even despite playing it over 20 times. Sometimes I do just play it for gameplay and skip dialogue, but there are plenty of times I read the whole script over again. The characters are very full of personality with depth and growth. Very few are kind of left in the dust, like extremely late game randoms like Calill and Largo who have no reason to exist except to give you a sage in case for some wild ass reason you did not train any of your three mages by that point, and Largo being the only Berserker class character in the entire Tellius franchise, which is a wah wah when you realize he's not even playable in RD. Probably Tellius' biggest wah wah what's the point, honestly.
Have you seen my posts about Ashnard that get littered around my blog regularly? When I complained about Houses' failures for making an intriguing villain? To put it simply, Tellius has characters like him, who are Happy and They Know It, aka A Villain and They Know It, and then you have villains who have actually unfortunate backstories (yeehaw spoiler for RD just in case you don't know who it is, but it's actually set up in PoR very, VERY sneakily, and you realize it's all there after you've beaten both/beaten RD at least twice because unfortunately there is a chunk of story/plot locked behind a second or higher playthrough in RD, some of which also requires very specific gameplay to have happened). No, I'm not talking about the Black Knight... though he is probably the worst written case of a villain in RD, when he was perfectly handled in PoR. Granted, he also has second or higher run locked story. In fact... so does Soren's entire identity lol. RD really just said replayability or bust.
As much as PoR is my second favorite game, I actually still think that in general it's the absolutely best written story/plot with the most diverse and detailed characters. Tbh I'd go so far as to say it's the actual best, because most FE games lack either in story, plot or characters, or even just lack in tolerable females/female designs. PoR doesn't miss a beat with any of those, and tbph I actively despise PoR Lethe but don't at all mind or dislike her in RD because there's actual growth there and her personality toward the main cast is basically a 180.
RD doesn't handle the group discussions, and adding in as many characters to the story as possible all the way throughout, as well as PoR, but it does try and it does give you various armies to work with to learn about a good chunk of them. It's definitely behind PoR in terms of the three things I've brought up that you asked about (the females aren't sexualized or treated poorly, but I'd argue that Micaiah was a point of contention when the game first came out. Think, Three Houses discourse except it was Ike fans versus Micaiah fans on a significantly tinier scale. Other than her (and Lyre being very annoying imo and having no redeeming traits lol), there wasn't really anything distasteful and the females as a whole weren't mishandled.
Really the worst part about people wanting to try the game is that it's approximately ~300 USD to buy a used copy of the original game, and RD isn't particularly cheap either. You'd be best off playing it on an emulator, but you also unfortunately need at least somewhat decent specs or a gaming computer for RD for it to run well, and POR can run okay on a bland computer but it might look/sound laggy. From my experience when using an emulator for it (since sometimes I like to fuck around with cheats because the debug stuff is so fun in that game), the sound is the worst in laggyness and it's just otherwise a bit slow. It might be doable, but at least much more so than RD. Just might not be a seamless experience, sadly.
If you can play it smoothly either via emulator or have the extra money to dish out (or if you find it up for a cheap enough bid online, or someone does an oopsie and puts it up for a steal), I'd definitely say try to grab one and play it for yourself. It's still awesome to watch a playthrough of if you have no decent access to it, but it's also very fun to play.
Also, it's a super good game for newer FE fans because it's not that difficult. I know lots of newer fans who only know casual and classic as options are a bit deterred from playing older games with no casual mode (FE12 and up have Casual, so anything from Shadow Dragon and backwards doesn't have that option, though SD has the benefit of having save points, like two per map, and RD lets you save at literally any time on any map as long as it's your turn). This game is at least a tolerable difficulty even on normal mode, so if you're really unsure, you can play your first run on easy mode and it should definitely not be too difficult.
There's also an added bonus of a way to tell if you might do well or ill in battle with any character at any given time and that's through the biorhythm, which you can see on the character's menu screen when you shift through their screens. It's a feature only in the Tellius games, but it adds the bonus of determining battle outcomes for every single unit and changes every turn throughout the battle. It's not an absolute, but it's helpful if you're looking at a unit who has a fifty chance of hitting, because if they have a poor biorhythm they're almost definitely not going to hit. If they have a perfect biorhythm, they have an even better chance of getting that hit.
So honestly, if you're struggling to pick a game to play that's older and doesn't have the safety net of Casual mode to help you see the story while not being worried about gameplay messing up getting to watch your favorite characters' development, I'd say pick up PoR and play on easy mode on your first go to make it much more comfortable. It's literally great for newcomers and/or fans who have never experienced classic mode not being a choice, and it has story/plot/characters to match the enjoyment.
Just because it's my second favorite and not my number one doesn't mean I won't advocate for it the most heavily! My favorite is still lacking in a fair bit of things PoR has and has wonderfully done.
Tbh, looking back on it too, even now my opinions on things are still growing and changing. I looked back on my recent ongoing run and went wow, I wonder how I felt about Naesala before chapter 16/17 on my first ever playthroughs, because I actually understand his point of view a lot better even without needing to consider the spoilers I'm now aware of. Just seeing what's in front of me, I actually think Naesala comes across as more likeable of a character than Tibarn and Reyson start out as, then it shifts the other way where they're more likable and he's not, and then it evens out lategame/by the end. After that RD is a rollercoaster with a resolution for a lot of characters, Naesala especially (especially especially if you bring him with you into the last portion of the game, which is a multi chaptered endgame with a set army/characters of your choice from throughout the entire game) that makes playing PoR again even better, because there's a lot of hindsight that was planned in PoR and dropped throughout.
Even if I wouldn't say RD is definitely as fascinating as PoR, it does answer a whole load of questions and makes replaying PoR much more reasonable if you otherwise saw little to no reason to replay it. Since I talked about PoR here it's kind of impossible not to include RD in terms of PoR's story since they are wholly connected, but even just by itself PoR is a perfect experience for story/plot/character balance.
Also, Ranulf is a cat. A blue cat. And he's funny. And he's kind. And he's sweet. Why hasn't he won CYL yet? Why does he not have even a single alt in Heroes yet? There will never be true justice in this world.
Also worth mentioning that Adrestia has a social darwinist/bootstrap mentality, where those who can't pick up the slack regardless of circumstance gets left behind/suffers which is not a very favorable mentality environment especially for the people whose circumstances are beyond their control.
I've definitely noticed that too, and it feels like a very ablest situation in terms of how we would equate it to modern life. Some people may not have the skills that are in demand, especially if they're very physical. They may have other skills that they're excellent at but that aren't in demand and are rarely sought out, making their prowess in their best field(s) basically useless to society. They could be the best person ever at something, but if they have nothing they can use it for to get by in life, then it won't help them in a society that will leave them behind because they're not part of the majority who are capable of living the expected way.
Part of why I agree with Dimitri's way of managing Faerghus is because as someone with mental disability and someone who is physically not a strong person, opportunity for me is very limited. If I were living in Faerghus, I would have more chance to have a successful and comfortable life without having to be worried that my disadvantages are going to screw me over. I could use the skills I do have to get by and be equally as accepted.
Edelgard's way of thinking, which is more or less actually the society we do live in, reprimands you for not being able to do what the "normal" people can do. Some people aren't as strong as others, whether it's physically, emotionally or mentally. If you're not "good enough" to do something, you get tossed out on the street.
Some people don't have a choice but to rely on others, but it doesn't mean they're just dead weight. Relying on people doesn't mean you're doing nothing to help them out. Having to rely on people isn't always someone's choice! There are people who rely on others but do it out of necessity, but Edelgard has a very Adrestian way of looking at things (because it's not just her, really - a lot of people there seem to have a general mentality like she does, but as emperor she's the person in charge so her opinions and views hold the most weight since she can change whatever she wants there).
Also, Dimitri mentioning she can say that because being strong is also, again, what we would equate to an ablest situation in our modern world. The simple way of explaining their conversation here is advantaged people versus disadvantaged people and how someone in power would help bridge the gap between how those people survive.
Edelgard implies, in general, that if you're capable you can get into power. That means if you're book smart but physically weak, she could find a place for you where you can use your brain. However, what about people who are not especially talented in anything? What about people who aren't exceptional in any field? With her way of thinking, they'd be the lowest of society's low no matter how hard they tried, because for her, trying is not good enough. If you don’t or can’t produce results, you’re at the bottom of the barrel. Some very normal people who have no particular talents that she finds noteworthy would have the shittiest lives.
I get what Edelgard is trying to do, but she’s not doing it the right way because like Dimitri says, it can only benefit the “strong” - i.e. people who fit into her definition of capable. You would have a situation like Abyss, where people have nowhere else to go and end up having to commit crimes to survive, then have to live in hiding for committing crimes.
Now, compare that to Lonato, who was a lord of Faerghus. I’ve had plenty of discussions of Lonato, but mainly as a father and his relationship to Ashe. In this case though he’s a perfect example of how ordinary people can still get by in the right circumstances before even Dimitri took the throne. When he found a thief in his home, he couldn’t have known about any of Ashe’s skills. He just would’ve seen that someone had broken into his home. He didn’t know what this boy could do or was capable of, but he still took him in because he saw a homeless child who needed his help.
Why didn’t he do that sooner? Because often, people of his status don’t or are advised not to visit poorer areas. It’s not because they despise poorer people, but because that’s where crimes and even killings happen most because those people have too little and will attack nobles. That’s why in Hopes, Yuri tells Dimitri it’s dangerous to visit the poor areas of town, and of all people Yuri would know best what poor areas are like and what the people living there will do. He’s the best advocate for poor folks, but he also knows what goes on there and that Dimitri, who is clearly wealthy even if they don’t know he’s the king, will be a quick target.
Reminder too, Yuri is from Faerghus. He knows what he’s talking about both from Faerghus’ climate and from his time in Abyss.
So basically, Lonato had no idea what this kid was capable of beyond being able to steal from people. His only impression of this child was that he was a thief. Surprise, the thief is poor and trying to find a way to survive. Mind you, Ashe really is just an ordinary boy. He’s not particularly over talented in any field. He’s good at some things, but he’s not what society would classify as “special”. That didn’t matter to Lonato because he just saw a struggling boy, found out he had younger siblings and that they had no parents, and took them in to give them a better life. Again, Ashe isn’t particular talented (especially with how the nobles would view a peasant child), so he wasn’t exactly someone who could do much more than rely on Lonato for a long time. It wasn’t really until he got into GM that he was able to really get going and figure out what he wanted to do. Prior to that, he and his siblings had to just be content being kids who had to rely on someone else.
People like Ashe wouldn’t be able to make it in the world Edelgard envisions, because what she wants is kind of like... just Adrestia 2.0. It still has the same general lifestyle, but she’s making some changes to it. She’s allowing commoners to rise up, sure, but they need to have some kind of talent to do so which is already what Adrestia is like (see: Dorothea. Ordinary commoner, had nothing to her name but did have talent, and so rose to prominence within Adrestian society).
A regular commoner with no notable talents wouldn’t have that chance, and Edelgard seems to think that people who can’t get those chances only can’t because they’re too used to... relying on others, I guess. Which is ironic to say, considering again, Ashe never relied on anyone else before he met Lonato. He tried and tried and tried and did what he could for his siblings to survive, taking what few odd moral jobs he could get. Despite all his trying, he wasn’t like Dorothea. He wasn’t “special”. He couldn’t find a way to rise to prominence. Under Edelgard’s rule, he would just get left behind and keep struggling.
Again, I get what Edelgard is going for, but the gaping flaw in it is that if you’re just an ordinary person with no particular noteworthy talents trying to live an ordinary life, you’re going to be poor because you don’t have the skillset to get her attention. Not everyone is just born into a decent life, and some children lose their parents so early that they have to live on the street. In Dorothea’s case, she also lived on the street despite that her father was supposedly a noble, but her mother was just a regular woman who had nothing and Dorothea’s father had left them. If Dorothea didn’t have her singing talent or her beauty to go with it, she’d be just like Ashe.
There are people who just... don’t have the chance or good circumstances to get into a better life. The reason Ashe ended up living a better life was because a lord took pity on him and didn’t want to kick this poor child back to the streets where he’d just continue to struggle and probably eventually get killed for stealing. Lonato didn’t care about what Ashe was good at or good for. Yuri often was helped out because he was charming and he could do a lot of things for all kinds of people, but Ashe was just a dirty boy living on the streets. Thanks to Lonato giving him a chance, he grew up to be a very polite, considerate and helpful young man who loves helping others.
What it sounds like Edelgard wants is for people to prove themselves first, but... some people just don’t get that chance, and some people have nothing to prove. It doesn’t mean they rely on others or on their faith to help them survive. Hell, Yuri is devout as all fuck and basically Fodlan’s Top Model Assassin. Religion isn’t a box you can put people in and say who they are or aren’t just because they are or aren’t devout.
I just wanted to spread Shinon love and inform you that I am very happy I discovered you, and, Shinon has more fans than you think! Depending on whether or not you enjoy romantic drawings/BL, it is possible to find 700+ Shinon fanarts! Believe me, I know ;)
Wow! I think maybe it's the JP fandom that likes him more, since ordinarily the western fandom seems to just kind of look over him or hate him.
I know Shinon/Rhys is popular but I don't ship them, so I don't really go into the ship rabbit hole. Since my ship for him is a huge rarepair I don't really delve into ship art with him. I'll be buying some from commissions whenever I can though! I'm definitely okay with shippy art, though I don't really see Shinon as particularly romantic.
Glad to hear someone out there loves him very much! Also happy to hear you're glad to have found me! It took me a very very long time to figure out who my favorite was from Tellius because I had so many at the top of my list, so one day a couple years ago I asked myself who I thought of first when I asked myself who my real favorite was. I figured, if I were to ask myself who my top favorite was, surely the answer was whoever came to mind before anyone else. Being more of a critical thinker with characters in fiction is probably what brought me to my conclusion.
He's one of the characters that has more implications and story hinting in his dialogue where can tell you things about his life that you don't get with every character. Reading between the lines gives you a lot of information about him, and not only do I love the content that it gives, but I love that I can think more about him in depth because of it. Some characters are more simple and speak their thoughts and feelings outright, like Marcia for instance, so there's a lot less thought provoking going on in her dialogue. I like learning things about characters through hints and evasive dialogue. Even his development comes in that form and I love that he feels like the same character in both games but you can definitely feel a difference in his demeaner.
I love my blorbo and you can come talk to me about him any time. ;v;
