In defence of Engage's 'pinky promise' scenes
In a lot of critique's of Engage's writing and tone, I've seen several comments pointing to the corny nature of Lumera and Alear's 'pinky promise' scenes. As cheesy as these lines can be, I'm here to argue why I think these lines are actually pretty suited for their dynamic.
When Lumera approaches Alear for the first time, she sees his repressed state and his fears of defection and death at the hands of his father - what she sees is an abused child walking on eggshells as not to displease him. And she clicks onto this through listening to Alear’s speech - his expressionless voice, as well as his words:
“This is the first time for me… you’re being… kind.”
“Really? I’m… sorry to hear that.”
Thus, she approaches him in a completely opposite sense to his father - she’s careful to reassure him against his father’s insults, stating he isn’t a defect and telling him she doesn’t want him to die. This culminates in using a juvenile playground interaction as you would a child. Something Alear was never able to be under Sombron's thumb.
In return upon Lumera's final death scene, the two express their love for their found family in each other. For Alear, who has finally regained the knowledge and memory of his past, he can finally express his true gratitude and affection in return for Lumera's unconditional love. In this scene, he lets his emotions free - and of course, mirrors Lumera's own question of 'pinky promise’ - I know we all meme on Lumera’s first death scene being so tedious, but this scene actually hit the mark and was quite emotional (which kinda makes me wish they held back a bit on the first death scene to wait for the payoff of this one - after all, Alear had no memories of her during the first cutscene). By repeating her own ‘pinky promise,’ Alear reassured her of 2 things before she disappeared. 1 - that he had indeed regained his memories of how they met and their time together. And 2 - he finally feels safe enough to express himself beyond his repressed persona as a Fell Dragon (she probably also guessed from both this and from Veyle and Alfred’s presence at the scene that he now has a loving support system with his group - which puts her at peace that her child will stay safe and loved without her)
Its not the greatest FE dialogue of all time, and Engage's cheesier tone and story is hit-or-miss for a lot of fans - the story and characters did grow on me a lot on my replay, and there are tons of great character moments. And I do definitely think that these scenes work perfectly for the dynamic between these two characters and the bond they share in their circumstances.