Ramblings of a random nobody

"Say Alm, what if "individuals coming together" move the world in a wrong direction? One that oppresses people ?"

"As long as it comes from people's will, it's fine by me!"

"Even if it means you and your loved ones will be targeted? And maybe killed?"

"Silly, of course not. My will trumps other's, when I said the world should be molded "by us" I meant by me! Remember when I said the world could burn if it meant saving Celica? Who gives a crap about Clive and Atlas?"

"He never self-reflects nor is swayed by anyone's words! Just like Marquis Dain! What a great man of powerful convictions!"

"I will not flee from forging my own destiny - the same destiny my father forged for me since I was born! Because that is the belief he passed on to me!"

the fuck?

"We must get stronger! So we won't sacrifice the ones we love! Strength > Love!"

And he's telling this to Eliwood???

Whose strength doesn't come from his own, but from relying on his comrades???

"The roots of suffering are the same no matter the world! People like you actually Alm."

"Imagine if in 25 years the kid I've saved parrots the same bullshit? That's definitely the quality of being a king/ruler. Something, alas, I am not, being full of doubt, reconsidering my actions and relying on the ones I love despite not being as strong as my good friend Hector."

Eliwood: I heard of a battle just like the Scouring with the dragon gods of your world. If you survived, it's no wonder you're considered a hero of the people.

When you realise Eliwood apologises to the Nini siblings on behalf of humanity for what the Scouring did, aka exiling them forever from their home, it's...

Well, IDK. I'm not even a super fan of Eliwood, but it's as if you'd have Elincia accept to kill her people because they are "necessary sacrifices" and praise Supreme Leader for sending hers to Uncle's scientific squad.

Alm: I only did what I swore I would— protect the country my father entrusted to me. I'm no hero.

Alm, Rudy only entrusted Rigel to you after forcing you to attack... well, Rigel.

Eliwood: Nor am I. I fought to avenge my father, and to protect my dearest friend and those closest to me. My reasons were ultimately personal.

"And then I fought a war mongering Marquis who wanted to start a continental War to become Rule of the World, and ultimately, my not father in law who puppeted him because he wanted to create more wars to harvest dead people's energies, or even summon dragons to harvest them. My reasons were very personal. Very."

Also, since when Eliwood wants to avenge his father, or even Ninian??? He never mentions vengeance in any of his quotes against Nergal!

But Alm, I thought the wicked were wicked because Duma forced them to act like asshats? Do you mean Desaix and your asshole cousin were assholes on their own? And oppressed people for the lols ? Why did you kill Duma and blame him for their assholery then?

"I'm glad to have met you Alm. Sure, Hector is as strong as you and doesn't have paper morals, so I still prefer him to you who are pushing and forcing your vision on people using your strength, and refusing to share the world with dragonkin, but we're in FEH, and I have to be thrown in a blender to bow to you so, here we go."

Eliwood: Everyone has their weaknesses. Mine is my frail body.

It has been ages since I've played FE7, but when was this ever mentionned? Eliwood and Hector routinely duel and they're tied - so what's this thing about his frail body?

Is it supposed to be a nod to Oldiwood, who cannot accompany Roy on his journey 20 years later?

Also, is it me of the word "strength" or "strong" is mentionned way too multiple times? Sure, Alm is Duma's champion, but Gaiden was explicitely about leaning too much towards one ideal sucks, so why is Alm talking about his strength here and there, and no lines mention Eliwood's compassion and care for the people? I mean, Eliwood is the one who ultimately pities Nergal ffs!

Alm could have compared him to Celica - down to their hair - but no, IS wanted to wank him to death so Eliwood became his cheerleader? Even if it destroys his character?

Lekain is all "oh noes Sanaki did no one ever told you about your older sister??" but, uh, are we, as players, supposed to be as clueless as Sanaki or what?

Ignoring their dad, wouldn't that even be a major turning point or even, say, a point regarding Begnion's armed forces? Couldn't they have fit this in, idk, Tanith's backstory? Sure, she's too young (27 in RD?) to have been part of the Royal Guard back when the Serenes massacre happened, but we could have had some support in FE9 where it'd more or less be revealed she became the very strict instructor she is now because during her days as a knight her own instructor blamed herself or the knights for having been unable to protect the apostle and her grandchild!

Maybe with someone (Marcia) realising she's not talking about Empress Sanaki, since she's too young, but about Sanaki's older sister.

I mean, those games were designed as duology, and somehow, the main character from the sequel only had a passing mention by her love interest but none regarding her political standing and importance in the greater scheme of things?

It of course culminates in Part 4 where Miccy is yeeted away from the culmination of her own game because she has to be a soul jar, so

1/ Sephiran can only lie to her about "how he would have done things differently had he known she lived" despite the fact he sent Zelgius in Daien to definitly not eat popcorn but to protect her

2/Sephiran's FB is all about Misaha telling him she came to understand why she has a kickass tatoo... but Misaha never mentionned how her cute lil'granddaughter has the same?? Or that part wasn't in the flashback? Hell Sephiran, when he has his breakdown, can't even spare a thought about her who was supposed, remember, to have been killed along with Misaha by the evil herons? No? Not a single thought?

3/

Micaiah: You… Forgive me for asking, but… Aren’t you my– Lehran: Can we talk about this later? Micaiah: What? Oh, I mean, of course… Sorry to bother you… Lehran: Child, you couldn’t possibly bother me. It’s just, the talk you and I must have is going to take a long time. I don’t think Ashera would wait for us to finish.

"I don't have time to talk to you nor say I'm one of your only relatives to you who might have been searching for a long time if you had any family, we have to defeat Ashera!"

3 minutes later

Sanaki: You finally made it, Sephiran. Lehran: Sanaki, I… Sanaki: I was starting to wonder I would punish you. Lehran: I’m sorry? Sanaki: You are my subordinate, after all. I’ve decided that leaving one’s empress to die is punishable by drowning in a pool of rancid butter. Lehran: Of course it is, my empress. Sanaki: I hope you’re a strong swimmer.

"Ah yes Sanaki, I will stop to listen to you, even if I want to engage the conversation and talk to you first. And yes, I definitely have time to listen to you come up with ridiculous ideas about me swimming in butter to apologise for having destroyed the world. Of course my Empress."

5 minutes later

Lehran: Prince Kurthnaga… How you’ve grown. Kurthnaga: You know who I am? Lehran: I’ve resided in Goldoa for more than seven hundred years. Kurthnaga: I… I had no idea. Lehran: That’s because I was kept in hiding. But I did meet you several times, when you were just an infant. Kurthnaga: I remember a… a mysterious man with black wings. Was that you? I always thought that was a dream… Lehran: … Kurthnaga: I was always so fascinated by that man and his songs… I remember him well, and fondly.

"OMG Kurthanaga, how much you've grown! I remember you from back then, when you were a wee lil'thing!"

Only one of those three isn't his grandchild, can you guess who?

That being said, and because Tellius is obviously a template for Fodlan -

Supreme Leader's missing siblings and stepmothers isn't as ridiculous when you consider poor Miccy's situation.

Adding Julia to the mix bcs of white hair and we get :

1996 : The princess of Granvalle disappeared - or has been rumoured to be dead? Or what? The game never has any NPC appearing in the 2nd Gen mentionning her, afaik, or how after some "tragic accident" Prince Julius changed after losing both his mother and sister. Nope, nothing!

But this can get a pass, Julia is the OG member of the "Julia Tier" and, according to Kaga, nothing but a Falchion with Legs so...

2007 : 21 years later, a new princess (?) with white hair! Her existence was hidden from everyone, even from the plot! But she totes existed before the game was released, her future love interest mentions her!!! She's akshually a rightful princess of Begnion, even if no one from that land gives a fuck about her, save for the evil Senator who tried to kill her!

2019 : 12 years later, we have a princess who is the, well, princess/next in line for her throne!

Sure, she had several siblings who died and no one conveniently suggests* they all died at the same time which left her, somehow, the only heir when she had no chance in hell had that "convenient illness" not happened to inherit her dad's throne, nope!

So yeah, Hubert and Ferdie never name-dropping Supreme Leader's older brother/sister who was child number 1 and the heir born to Ionius and his Empress is ridiculous, considering how they both tied their identity to her as the Empire's heir when she only became the heir at 12-13 and they're as old if not a bit older than her...

But after the pure mess that is Miccy's writing?

Her supreme siblings feel like less of a retcon than Miccy's existence in FE10 and that's saying something.

Dementia is truly a frightening thing to witness so I can't even imagine how the person suffering from it must feel, but imo, Anankos' story is supposed to be a tragedy because of the inevitable draconic degeneration thing -

Which is why I wasn't super fond of the Archanea verse painting it as inevitable, even if Naga'n'pals discovered dragon stones later - but forgot to send a carrier pigeon to Duma'n'Mila to tell them of those new recent developments otherwise we wouldn't have FE15 - but still I guess it was more or less necessary to explain how and why humans and lizards could "coexist" together or why it would now be impossible (bcs, in Archanea's story, humans turned against dragons as soon as they were weakened enough to be manaketes!).

FE13's Chrom at least had some sort of forced progression arc after the death of his sister - he kills Gangrel with extreme prejudice and iirc Mustafa's men because he focuses on revenge - which is shown in his lines against Walmart.

Then the plot is hijacked by Grimleal stuff, but there's this thing even if I agree, FE13's writing is a bit everywhere and tbh, I prefer FEH!Chrom as his "bow chrom" alt, or even his pony alt, than the various "Robin's bestie" alts we get from now.

As for Grima, well, I'm glad FEH inspired you to write about him and fill holes in his initial presentation!

TBH the Grimleal since FE13 really puzzled me because, uh, contrary to Loptyr who apparently had an Empire going on where a select few could abuse and kick people down, whatever Grima "offered" to his followers was a big question mark. Why did they even follow him? Did he manipulate them? How come he needs a host to be revived, he isn't stuck in a book or a shiny rock, right?

The canon around him is such a mess that yeah, you're better off headcanoning and writing fics about him than try to understand and piece together what the successive writers wanted him to be because, at this point, nothing makes sense.

It's kind of sad IS depicted F!Grima as Grimass and went down the "evil is sexy (for men!!)" trope for her, because F!Robin's initial presentation was as gender neutral as possible, sure, she loses pants in her grandmaster's class but compared to the later avatars who came, she was the least offensive as in, you could really believe the devs might have thought about making a female avatar just in case women would like to play the game without designing her for a predominantly male gaze.

I'm all in for FEH giving more lore crumbs and all - and gods know I'm disserting about nabatean nonsense thanks to FEH lol - but it really felt like some "can i copy your homework" to upgrade what was already there. Like, can you imagine Panne and Yarne, who are also as unexplained to Ylisse as Grima is, suddenly rip off Ena's backstory? Or Nailah?

FE13 Grima, afair, never lost his memory or never thought humans were doodoo because they shunned him after he helped them - all of those traits are completely incoherent with what FE13 brought, to the point of M!F!Grima being, at this point, a FEH OC!

Add to the injury how Anankos was only added 5 years later, after multiple Grima copies!

Echoes dabbing in "science experiment that went wrong feels less of a retcon - since we could see, in FE13 proper, during battle, how Grima had some sort of human face thing... but again, too little, too late. What does this "knowledge" brings to FE13's Grima? What does it explain? And, again, to add to the injury, this retcon doesn't bring anything to FE13, but damages FE15's already bipolar telling : Part 3 and 4 have kusakihara Alm parrot some gods bad humanity good, and then, Act 5 is all about finishing, or trying to finish, what Duma started by getting rid of the eldritch abomination humans created in their kitchen? Does Alm even reflects on his previous words? No, of course not.

It's just here like a Marvel post credit scene - a teaser to what happens in the future, aka, in FE13.

Which is, even more frustrating given how kusakihara the game wanted to hammer the continuity between Valentia - Rigel - and Valm, but apparently, Walmart never got the memo about the eldritch abomination that is Grima and instead parrots the same "religion BaD humanity > Gods" spiel Part 3-4 Alm had!

I'm not saying FE13!Grima was peak or anything, and I'm old so I guess if "explanations about wtf he is" had to happen, I would have prefered it happened in an interview or in an official book (like Jugdral ones or the Tellius recollection!) rather than be sprinkled in other games like it is now : in Heroes he's Anankos lite with a side dose of uwu because in its first (or second?) year Heroes didn't want to write one-note villains or if they did they quickly forgot them (rip Valter's alts), and in Echoes, he's a man made creation... in a game that praises mankind and blames dragonkin for everything wrong with mankind.

We will have to disagree regarding the other final bosses from the FE series though , Loptyr's reasons for meddling and ruining human lives is more or less explained as him refusing to become a Manakete and he waged war against Naga, but instead of being sealed like his kin and watched over by Medeus, some loser asked to borrow his power, and he did it with the purpose of wrecking havoc and ruining humanity. That's it. And that's only if you read the dev interviews!

Loptyr doesn't do a thing in his game - it's Manfroy who does everything, and even if the game plays a bit coy about who is in control of if "Julius" isn't influenced, bar hunting rebels, destroying bed flowers or parading Ishtar as a trophy, it's nothing compared to what Manfroy does, in his name.

Fomortiis' reasons for being, uh, evil are just "why not" and if we follow Engage's designation of "final bosses", Fodlan's Nemesis was a dude who wanted to be the strongest, that's all.

Good for you if you like Grima as what he's supposed to be now anon!

Hell, FE15 also retconned Grima from the same FE13 by making it an eldritch man-made abomination that acquired powers to rival lizard gods, destroyed the world because WHY NOT* and ultimately, needed retroactive lizard godly intervention to save the world.

Twilight of the Gods : but please, make sure my garden is watered before leaving, and return in 1k years to save my ass from some freakish science lab pet project I made during my free time in the kitchen, thx!

All jokes aside, the retcon to make Duma/Mila dragons completely makes the message of the game wonky, and I know Gaiden also had that song, and the main boss was also to put Duma and Mila to rest as they returned to "slumber", but Part 4-5 Alm is the main vector through which the game embraced some silly Squenix goal, when Gaiden had never been interested in telling a story about "gods man humans free if gods gone".

Alm: Oh, come on! What’s wrong with personal feelings?! All of you fought this far because you hold some kind of hope for the world. It’s man’s individual hopes and fears that shape the world. That drive it**. And that’s how it SHOULD be. I truly believe that. Should we let the world crumble on a god’s whim? Or his absence?

(...)

Alm: I will dedicate my life as emperor to ensuring such a thing doesn’t happen. And yes, I know as well as anyone that there will be losses along the way. I think I’ve learned that much by now… But when I think of the next thousand years***, I don’t want this. I want to leave behind a world where we shape our lives by our own hands. Where we make our own mistakes and fix them—as many times as necessary. That’s a world worthy of a future.

Alm: It’s over, Duma! Berkut, Fernand, Mila… Even my father. They and countless others, lost to us— tainted by your precious power. But that chain of tragedies ends here.

How the hell are we supposed to reconcile Kusakihara's Squenix direction/writing (?) with Gaiden's core : "For whatever madness lay in the hearts of gods… a darkness deeper still beats wild in the hearts of man…" ???

That being said, from what I can see online, he wasn't involved at all in Engage, which might explain why there's no "let's liberate humans from evil pointy ears tyrants!" bias, but, Engage was its own thing.

So, imo, Fodlan 3's plot will be heavily dependant on whether Kusakihara is directing again, or not.

Given how Engage and Heroes try to elude the most Squenix aspects of the writing - remember Fallen Supreme Leader's FB ? Or Supreme FB's in general - I have faith IS, or whoever is in charge of the current best selling FE game to date knows borrowing speeches and themes from other franchises to slap them to a franchise that has said the inverse for the past 30 years isn't going to make the cut, and yet...

Houses is still widely popular, so what if, even without KT, the devs believe it was the "Squenix rip-off" that drew people in and ultimately give him the keys of the car to do something similar?

At the end of the day, I'm still not going to buy Fodlan 3 before checking a LP or else about the plot, because damn if fighting on ostriches sounds fun, but if it's to get another "why didn't Tomas/Emile knife Rhea while she was handing gold to students who won the mock battle" tier of writing, I'm not going to jump.

*I confess I miss red capslock Grima : at least it was more campy and, in a way, more interesting than the Temu version of Anankos FEH tried to sell for the first fallen heroes banner, or the Frankenstein creature rip-off FE15 cooked.

**Remember, if Desaix killed Lima, if Rudy waged a war, if Jerome wanted to befried Tati or if Berkut roasted his fiancée, it's because of Duma, not because of their own hopes and fears!! It's Duma's lust for power (???) that made, uh, Berkut want... power? Duma offered?? So Duma wasn't lusting after it???