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henarten · 1 year

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A “Brief” “““Summary”““ of Kingdom Heart’s Story, in Greentext Form (SPOILERS (IF YOU CARE))

Im gonna be honest, I wrote this in 2020 as a joke, thought it’d be funny to post it here becasue theres no char limit. Spoilers of course, this is kinda dumb

> All the worlds are connected > Civil War orchestrated by some guy who can see the future through wielders of his sword > The worlds are no longer connected > Younger Xehanort plays chess with a soon-to-be light nazi > Xehanort travels back in time to make his past self evil or some shit >Xehanort has time powers > Old Xehanort rips a kid's (Ventus) heart in half, using the other (dark) half to create Vanitas™️ > A newborn Sora is like "hey, youre hurt, wanna merge hearts??? > Ok.jpg > Vanitas now looks like older Sora, but edgy > 5 years later > Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep: > Aqua is cool > Terra is easily influenced by the Darkness™️ > Aqua becomes a keyblade master, Terra does not > TerraSad.mp3 > Xehanort influences Terra to go on an adventure to stop the NotHeartless™️ > Light Nazi tells Aqua to go after Terra > Ventus gets lonely as his evil fraternal twin tells him to get laid > Disney™️ > Everyone meets Young Sora and Riku > Terra accidentally gives Riku the ability to wield a Keyblade > The source of the NotHeartless™️ was Vanitas after all > Apparently having a heart of pure light merge with one of pure darkness gives you a key to the universe > Ventus gets figuratively laid, turns evil, then goes into an 11 year coma > Terra gets possessed by old guy, becomes hotter > Aqua gets stuck in the land of Darkness™️ > Kingdom Hearts 1: > Terra-Xehanort purposely turns himself and like 8 others into Heartless™️, their discarded bodies turning into Nobodies™️, with the latter creating the beginnings of Organization XIII > Sora, Riku and MainLoveInterest™️ want to escape their island home > Riku purposely sells his soul to Xehanort's Heartless (Ansem II) > The Heartless™️ eat Sora's world > MainLoveInterest's heart gets merged with Sora's (Heart Count:3) > Sora gets sent to an interdimensional nexus/world in the form of a small town > The Keyblade is a magic sword that the heartless are actively trying to kill a 13 year old boy for or some shit > Donald and Goofy are trying to find Mickey Mouse > TeamUp.png > Disney™️ > Riku becomes more of a dick and allies himself with Disney villains > Gets possessed by Ansem II > Kairi_is_inside_me?.ogg > Sora kills himself (but not really) > Main love interest revives Sora with the power of being some magical princess apparently > Kingdom Hearts is the portal to the land of Darkness™️ but also light apparently > Ansem II dies (but not really) > Mickey (Aqua) and Riku are there for some reason > KH is sealed and Sora is now on an adventure to find his buddies, who are trapped in the land of Darkness™️ > Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories > Castle Oblivion (Ventus is still asleep) > Sora forgets literally everything > Organization XIII tries to make Sora their puppet, makes a fake Riku > Namine is a Nobody with power over Sora's memories and Sora related memories > Sora kills 3 Org XIII members, including the final boss > Riku is in the basement > Riku does not lose his memories > Riku kills 3 Org XIII members and Ansem II (for real this time) > Sora goes into a one year coma > Riku accepts the Darkness™️ inside him (but not really) [17:27] > Kingdom Hearts : 358/2 days > Sora's discarded husk from when he killed himself becomes a Nobody™️ > RoxasIsBorn.gif > Roxas has no memories whatsoever > Roxas becomes friends with Org XIII member Axel a week after being recruited > Roxas slowly becomes the best character in the entire series > Org XIII member #14, Xion now exists > Roxas gets forced to go on missions with her > Xion_can_wield_a_Keyblade?!.wav > Roxas is having nightmares about some wierd spiky haired kid > Roxas goes into a coma > Xion leaves a seashell by his bedside every day he's asleep > Roxas wakes up > WhyIsThereAPileOfSeashellsHere.midi > Xion gets confronted by Riku about being a puppet > Xion falls into a coma a month later > Missions are loney > Xion wakes up, runs off > Axel is instructed to kill Xion > everyone is angry can we please just talk this out > Roxas gets angry and leaves the Organization > Axel is sad > Xion is apparently a being made of some of Sora's memories, and Sora cannot wake up while she exists > Xion is literally turning into Sora > XionHasSora'sFace.tif > Roxas kills Xion > Everyone forgets Xion exists (but not really) > Riku submits himself to the Darkness™️ in his heart to beat Roxas > Roxas is kidnapped > Kingdom Hearts II (finally) > Roxas wakes up thinking he's a normal kid > Nobodies™️ attack > Axel attacks > WhyDon'tYouRememberMe?!.txt > Roxas remembers everything > Oh fuck oh shit > Roxas becomes one with Sora, Sora wakes up (Heart Count: 2.5) > Sora lost all his powers and needs to reunite the worlds or some shit and stop Org XIII from making another Kingdom Hearts > Everyone in Org XIII keeps deadnaming Sora > MainLoveInterest is kidnapped > Disney™️ > Goofy dies (but not really) > Sora commits genocide > Goofy wakes up from his nap > Sora kills every other Org XIII member (with some help from Riku) > Riku's back! > MainLoveInterest is rescued > Riku now has a Keyblade > MainLoveInterest now has a Keyblade > Riku and Sora fight Xehanort's Heartless (Xemnas) 4 times > Xemnas dies > Sora and Riku gets stuck in the realm of Darkness™️ (but not really) > Aqua is still in the realm of Darkness™️ > Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded > A new entry appear's in Jiminy Cricket's journal of the first game (which was rendered blank when Sora's memories were fucked with) > A complex machine is created to explore the memories inside the journal > There'sAGlitchInTheJournal!.java > Data-Sora > KH1 retread: the third (but computer themed) > Data-Sora gains a heart and then loses all his memories about the adventure > Chain of Memories retread > Namine had to remind people that Terra, Aqua, and Ventus are still alive and should have been rescued a while ago, with a vague entry in Jiminy's Journal > Mickey tells Sora that he has to rescue more people > Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance (funny 3D pun for the 3DS game haha) > Despite saving the universe twice, Sora is not a Keyblade Master™️ > Apparently 7 worlds never woke up from being eaten by the Heartless:tm > Sora and Riku pass out to save the sleeping worlds > As a result they become the ages they were when the worlds were eaten while dreaming (KH1 Sora time) > WhyDoIHaveANewOutfit.rar > Disney™️ > Sora accidently gets indoctrinated into Org XIII again > Riku saves him and battles Sora's inner Darkness™️ > They both nearly die and Axel (now Lea again, for some reason) saves them (with the help of Mickey's time stopping powers) > Sora is still not a Keyblade Master™️ > Riku is though > Sweet > Kingdom Hearts III > Disney™️ > Xehanort is basically Voldemort but uses people instead of objects > "True" Org XIII now exists > Everyone dies (but not really) > Everyone comes back to life > Xehanort dies 4 more times > MainLoveInterest won't come back to life for some reason > Sora kills himself again > KairiIsBack.mpeg > Kingdom Hearts III: DLC > I honestly don't fucking know, I didn't buy it > Something about Dylan Sprouse I think > Whatever one played Zack in Suite Life

#kingdom hearts #greentext #text #long reads

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sealofreconciliation · 2 years

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Posting these here first just in case Reddit doesn't let me post it there. I've only gotten up to his analysis of Conquest 21, but i'll post the rest here when i'm done with them. I don't know how to quote someone via Tumblr, so i apologize for these looking like greentexts, but if anyone can help me with that, i'd appreciate it.

Shoutout to @emblemxeno btw; they're the ones who provided sources for the jp script of Fates, and i probably wouldn't have even made these in the first place if it wasn't for them. They're an excellent blog, and i highly reccomend that anyone reading this check them out.

Fates: was the story as bad as people say?: a response (Part 1: opening statements, introduction and prologue).

Link to the original post here.

Hello everyone.

You might be wondering why i'm making this it's own post instead of just leaving a comment on the posts themselves.

It's relatively simple: these posts wouldn't get any attention if i just went to the months old analysis threads and posted them there, and i don't feel like spending so much time writing all these posts just to get ignored and/or have no one but u/Odovakar (herein reffered to as Odo) to call me out if i make bad arguments.

For the record, i will be using the original japanese script when talking about the plot, due to the localization taking massive liberties with certain aspects of Fates's story and characters, creating problems that weren't there originally, including problems claimed by these very posts. My sources whenever i claim differences between versions can be found at fateswartable here (fan-translated versions of the scripts made before the game was localized; was unfortunately mostly abandoned after Fates made it to the west, making it so the last 2 chapters of BR and over half of Rev remain unfinished) and at Linkmstr's channel here (playthroughs with a patch retranslating the game to be more faithful to the original script). I double-checked to see if there were any differences between the two, and aside from the english patch making extremely minor and irrelevant changes to the dialogue in order to make it read less stiffly than the fan-translated scripts, they seem to be practically identical to each other (most of the time), leading me to trust them as sources.

With that out of the way, let's get on to the post itself, starting with the introduction.

I'm mostly fine with Odo's introduction, except for this weird paragraph:

>Fates often gets defended by sweeping generalizations. "It's not that bad, people exaggerate", "people miss the point/the themes", "people can't read", "it's a story for teenagers so it's okay for it to be bad", "Fire Emblem isn't known for its stories anyway", etc. I think these kinds of excuses are improper in any serious discussion, and by making an analysis like this I want to detail why Fates is so often singled out as the worst written game in the franchise and show that it's not some kind of conspiracy or people being upset over unmet expectations.

I'm.... gonna need some more context for some of those arguments, chief.

Like, yeah, the last two are pretty terrible arguments, the fourth because it implies having a target demographic excuses bad writing and the fifth because, even if the entire series had terrible stories, it wouldn't and doesn't matter when discussing Fates's story on it's own merits.

But the first two just sound like normal arguments. I don't see the issue with them as long as the defendant provides evidence for those claims, even if it's gonna be harder than accusing a specific person of doing so due to the increased burden of proof that comes with claiming a lot of people do something than just one.

The third one sounds bad, but i've gotten into pointless arguments with internet randos before. Most times, when someone pulls that line, it's just shorthand for “a lot of people often misinterpret what happened in x piece of media in order to make it look worse/better than it really is”.

Which is a hell of a claim to try and prove, granted, but not much more so than the first two, so i still don't see what's so bad about it that makes it “improper in any serious discussion”.

Moving on from that, we head to the analysis itself.

For the record, a lot of this is just restating what happens in the plot, so i'm only going to go over parts where i actually have something to say.

Starting this off weak by nitpicking a nitpick:

>It's never explained how Corrin could mistake a fish-dragon for a bird, even as a child,

Idk man, young children are pretty stupid.

Assuming Corrin was like, 4 or 5 years old, I can buy them just assuming Lilith was some sort of weird bird they'd never heard of or seen before.

Onto some actually interesting points:

>Once back in the real world, the protagonist gets bonked on the head and kidnapped to Hoshido. The one doing the bonking is Rinkah, one of the prisoners whom Corrin saved last chapter - it's never explained how she found them or why she lingered in that exact spot Corrin would teleport back to after all the Nohrians had left following the earlier attack on the fort, but it's lucky that the protagonist gets attacked by someone who owes them one - Rinkah even let's Corrin keep their evil sword!

Rinkah's dialogue heavily implies she found Corrin by accident:

>Kamui: It seems like i'm back.

>Marx and everyone else are no longer around...

>??? (Rinkah obviously): ...A Nohr soldier?

>Kamui: !?

The fact that she's surprised at finding what she thinks is a Nohrian soldier there implies she just went there to check out the place, not expecting to find anyone (no idea why tho, you got me there).

Which is incredibly convenient, no doubt about that, but hey, i've never claimed nor ever will claim that Fates is above doing some contrived shit in order to move the plot forward.

>It's now becoming clear that the prologue is struggling to contain itself. So much happens in a single chapter now that neither Corrin nor the player has any time to react to what is going on. Corrin doesn't question their transformation nor their sword almost murdering them. Gunter, who has been one of the few people in their sheltered life, was murdered in front of them and yet is not mentioned again in the prologue once Hans runs away. Maybe Corrin cried in their tree cabin in their fish-dragon-maid's pocket dimension, but if they did, the game didn't show us that.

This is the first of many times throughout this post where Odo criticizes the prologue's break-neck pacing, mostly in regards to it not lingering long enough on scenes or plot points, and i actually agree with him here. Even if there's nothing to imply those scenes couldn't have just happened off-screen, that doesn't do much to alleviate how little time the audience has to process any of what just happened in the story, or that it would have been nice to see said scenes.

>Corrin tries to protest and says the Nohrian siblings are their real family, and Ryoma says something which I think is indicative of the worldbuilding of Fates as a whole: he does not recognize the Nohrian royals' names outside of Garon. Perhaps this is meant to imply that the Hoshidans don't know or care about the world outside of their borders, as they seem to live in a paradise, but even then that is extreme, especially since a war has been going on and Ryoma is an active fighter; he would want to know the name of the highest ranking members of the enemy. We know he was on his way to the fort Corrin attacked where all four Nohrian royals were present, too. At the very least he should know who Xander is, being the crown prince, the queen's son and a leader of Nohr's military.

Doesn't happen in jp:

>Mikoto: you see, Kamui, you are a Princess of Hoshido...

>When you were young... you were kidnapped, and taken to the Kingdom of Nohr.

>I am your mother, Mikoto.

>We are your family.

>Kamui: That can't be...

>You are my real mother?

>You're lying...

>I cannot believe such a thing.

>Ryouma: Yes, you would think so.

>But this... it's the truth.

>I am Ryouma. Your older brother.

>Kamui: ...My older brother...?

This is the entire conversation between Corrin, Ryoma and Mikoto before Ryoma tells them about Sumeragi, Corrin tries and fails to remember what happened, and then they leave to rescue Hinoka and Sakura from the Faceless.

Moving ahead a bit, i know, but another piece of evidence to support that this detail was made up by the localization is that, at the start of the route split, Ryoma recognizes Xander as a Nohrian prince immediately:

>Marx: You're alright, Kamui...!

>To think you were alive, and came back for us...!

>Kamui: Big Brother Marx!

>What's with this war!?

>Marx: Come on...Let's go. You can also participate in the battle, Kamui.

>With you here for us, the war will be over soon. We'll be able to conquer Hoshido without any needless sacrifices.

>Kamui: Big Brother Marx... I...

>Ryouma: Watch out, Kamui. That man is a Prince of Nohr.

Ryoma knowing that Xander is a Nohrian prince at that point means he either knows enough about Xander to recognize him just from appearance or knows his name and overheard Corrin calling to Xander at the start of their convo, and recognized him through that.

Either way, it means Ryoma, at the very least, knows the name of the top general of the country he's at war with, and i presume that line was added in by the localization to try and set up Hoshido's isolationism problems earlier on, regardless of whether it made sense or not.

And a small nitpick: we don't know how long the Nohrian siblings stayed at the Bottomless Canyon for; for all we know, they retreated long before Ryoma got there.

Next nitpick:

>Monsters known as the Faceless are attacking villages, and Sakura and Hinoka, two Hoshidan princesses and Corrin's real sisters, are there. It's never explained why Hinoka doesn't fly away with Sakura to safety,

They do explain it.

>Hoshido Soldier: Yes.

>Princess Hinoka and Princess Sakura stayed in the village to help evacuate the villagers!

There's more evidence for that in Hinoka's inroduction, but i'm saving that for a point Odo makes later on in this post.

>One could assume Corrin inherited the gift of foreseeing the future from Mikoto, since they've both now predicted the future to an extent, but neither the dream nor Mikoto predicting her own death are ever acknowledged, get forgotten, and the future sight ability never comes into play again (outside of three very specific S supports. We'll get there).

Mikoto is dead, so yeah, the fact that she had one prophetic dream when she was alive, which she only confided to Yukimura, and no other dreams that we know of, isn't going to be a particularly interesting talking point to anyone.

It's safe to assume it's been a really long time since Corrin's birth, and it's heavily implied by their dialogue that this was their first time having a dream like that; i would take MORE issue with the future sight if it showed up again despite taking so long to manifest for Corrin the first time around, unless they changed the game so someone like Orochi had plot armor like the siblings and couldn't die in battle, conveniently knew about the future sight and how it worked, and helped train Corrin to hone that ability better throughout BR and Rev, but that would take way too much effort just to further explore a throwaway ability that already has a built-in reason for not appearing again.

It's fine to want more out of the future sight, but on an objective sense, there's nothing wrong with it disappearing from the story like it does given how rarely it seems to trigger.

>I suppose we're not meant to question how Mikoto could predict her death, but why would she only tell Yukimura? And why weren't any steps taken to prevent this and prepare Hoshido and her children?

Let's look at what Yukimura has to say about Mikoto foreseeing her own death:

>Yukimura: Lady Mikoto had a premonition of her own death. Her fate was inevitable...

>Therefore, this was not your fault, Lady Kamui.

>It was all King Garon's...

>No, more like that terrible demon's work. That is what Lady Mikoto said.

It's pretty weird to assume that Yukimura saying Mikoto “predicted her own death” and “she told me it'd be Garon, no, a demon's fault” translates to “she foresaw her death down to the time, method and location, and didn't do anything to stop it or prepare the kingdom for when it happened for unexplained reasons”.

Not only can i just as easily make the argument that Mikoto only foresaw that she'd die in general, and had no idea when, why, how or where it'd happen, only having the vauge suspicion Anankos would have something to do with it, i actually have evidence to back up said claim aside from just it making more sense for the story: Corrin's dream was very innacurate.

Corrin's dream correctly guessed the location in which the route split battle would take place in and that the Hoshidan sibs would try to use their supposed blood relation to turn them to their side. It also incorrectly guessed who would be fighting there (all the retainers are there instead of just the royal siblings), what exactly they were going to say to each other, how the fight would go down, and possibly even which side, if any, Corrin would choose depending on the route (the dream always portrays Corrin as having picked BR IIRC), so that's 3 (maybe 4) for 2 on the innacurarcy-to-accuracy ratio for the prophetic dreams.

Assuming Corrin and Mikoto's dreams are the same ability, it only follows that her prophecies would be flawed too, even if in vagueness instead of inaccuracy.

It also explains why she didn't tell anyone else; telling everyone in Hoshido “btw i'm going to die someday, don't know how or when but i think it'll be because of Garon or something” is likely to just cause mass panic and worry in the kingdom over something she doesn't even know the date of, including wasting resources on defenses for an invasion that could be years, if not decades away.

>As it stands, this line seems to only be here to excuse any involvement Corrin may have had in Mikoto's death. Absolving any moral responsibility will be a recurring element in Fates. This is just the first taste of it.

I find it strange to claim Corrin had any moral responsibility for Mikoto's death in the first place.

The only thing they did wrong was bringing Ganglari with them to Hoshido, and even then, as far as they knew, the Ganglari was just some edgy-looking sword who tried throwing them off a cliff once and accidentaly led to Corrin getting their own pocket dimension; it would be ludicrous for them to assume it was also an undercover bomb and throw away a perfectly fine weapon, especially since it never misbehaved before or since the canyon.

>The speed at which Nohr can mobilize its forces is astounding. Considering mere minutes have passed, the Nohrians must've known exactly what would happen and when. But how? That is never addressed,

Firstly, Garon's little more than Anankos's meat puppet at this point, and Anankos is almost certainly the one who sent the invisible soldiers to kill Mikoto in the first place; it'd be stupid of him not to have Garon mobilize the Nohrian army in preparation for the barrier going down when he's the one who decided exactly when it was going to happen.

Secondly, where did you get that math from?

There's no way of gauging how long it's been since the barrier went down; no one says anything to give a point of reference as to how long it's been since the explosion, and fights in Fire Emblem have always been scaled down from what it's probably like in-universe for the sake of gameplay, including time.

>and it's also not addressed how the Hoshidans didn't see them coming before they were right at the border. If there's one thing we know of the Hoshidan military it's that they've got spies and ninja.

Who's to say they didn't?

We don't know where they deployed from, how far away said deployment was from the Hoshidan border, what Hoshidan strongholds or patrols they had in the way of the army, or how long it took for the message to reach the capital. There's nothing to imply they were only seen when they were near the border already.

>Come to think of it, how on earth did Kaze know the Nohrians were right outside the Hoshidan border? In Corrin's own words, only an hour has passed since the plaza was full of life, and Kaze fought with us against the mysterious assailaints, so how come Kaze is the one making this report?

This post should have really used the jp script:

>Kamui: .......!

>That's right, everyone in town...?

>...No...The town...!!

I assume that's the line Odo's talking about, but even if it's not, i searched both the fateswartable script and the patched playthrough for the line where Corrin states it's been an hour and it was nowhere to be found in either version, leading me to assume this was another example of poor localization.

Also, like.... how is Kaze making it to the border and back in the time it took for Corrin and the Hoshidan siblings to have that conversation an issue, at all?

That's genuinely just a speed feat for Kaze that puts him as being able to move to and from the Hoshidan capital and border quickly.

Lastly, carrier pigeons exist in Nohrshido, and Takumi even uses those in BR while he's possessed to tattle on his party to Iago; it's not a stretch to assume Kaze got the report through one of those if there aren't any soldiers nearby and if we assume he wasn't fast enough to go to the border and back.

>Here is an interesting question I've not seen brought up before: if the invisible people attacking Hoshido could use Corrin's evil sword and cause an explosion well within the Mikoto's barrier...why did they need Corrin to bring it to Hoshido? Garon summoned it effortlessly at the start of the game, and the specters demonstrate clearly that they're able to kill a lot of people despite being within the barrier, so why? Did they need Corrin to get close to Mikoto? The game shows they're capable of teleporting and/or turn invisible, so that seems unlikely. Mikoto could've been assassinated and Hoshido invaded long before this.

The only specter in that cutscene who might have teleported is the head honcho, who's implied to somehow be of a higher caliber than the rank-and-file Vallite soldiers thanks to him being the boss of this chapter, though even then it's somewhat ambiguous whether that was teleportation or just him dodging Ryoma's attack then hiding himself with his invisibility.

And the soldiers's invisibility is flawed btw. During battles, you can see it's not true invisibility; it's them turning themselves opaque, so it's difficult to see them, but anyone can still see them if they squint hard enough, and that's not even mentioning how much of a dead giveaway the purple flames that surround them whenever they turn invisible are.

Given all that, assuming the boss specter didn't teleport, i do indeed find it hard to believe they'd have made it that close to Mikoto, especially since we don't even know how often she leaves the castle. And if Corrin, Ryoma, Kaze and Azura were enough to push them back, i don't fancy their chances against the entire royal guard if they tried fighting their way to the throne room.

And even assuming they could have done it themselves... why would Hoshido blame Nohr for that, at all?

The barrier would still have been up, so it couldn't have been a Nohrian that did it, and no one there knows about the invisible soldiers; wouldn't they assume it was either some disgruntled Hoshidan kamikazing himself or an accident, and just stayed defending themselves from Nohr's advances?

Like, the only way Hoshido could possibly blame Nohr is if they assumed Nohr had made some miraculous advancement in Faceless technology very quickly, and had gone from creating dumb muscle that didn't have a will of it's own and had to be set free on camps to attack anything it saw, including their own soldiers if they stayed there, to making perfect copies of humans, that still didn't have wills of their own, could turn opaque, summon swords, and were smart enough to blend in with crowds and use subterfuge.

That'd be an insane assumption to make about Nohr's R&D division, instead of just chalking it up to an accident or betrayal.

The next two paragraphs are criticizing the pacing again, which i agree with, except for Ganglari but i already gave my counter to that earlier, and then we get to this:

>Why did Azura have a Dragonstone at the ready?

She likely got it from Valla and, as such, would have made up some bs excuse even if Corrin had asked her more about it, so it would have been an irrelevant scene for the worldbuilding; plus, that's disregarding how out-of-character it would have been for Corrin to choose to stay and demand that Azura explain to them where she got that dragonstone instead of heading out to help in the fighting, given how she only gives them the dragonstone after getting the report that Nohr was invading.

>Why did Garon have Gunter assassinated (and was Corrin the real target)?

Corrin has no reason to trust Hans, the bloodthirsty psychopath who kills for fun, at his word, and has no one to ask it to who could give them a satisfactory answer, given that none of them have any personal experience with Garon or know whether he'd order such a thing or why.

>To make one thing very clear: the problem isn't that we don't get answers immediately. The problem is that next to no questions are asked or mulled over.

I get that, i really do, but you picked a terrible point in the story to criticize Corrin for not asking more questions; they've just been informed that Nohr is about to invade, are still feeling guilty over Mikoto's death, and are very likely conflicted as to which side to join, if any. They're not just going to stop and ask Yukimura for a history lesson as to why the Yato was inside a statue instead of heading out to the frontlines.

The only way Corrin asking these questions at this point in the story could possibly make sense would be to make up some version of Fates where Nohr takes longer to start invading after Mikoto's death.

Which is fine to want, but i'm not interested in discussing what the game could have been; i'm interested in discussing what it is, and in the version of the game that we got, Corrin refusing to join the fighting in order to ask irrelevant questions would have been hardcore character assassination.

>There is also something to be said about the cast being very Corrin-centric. As the protagonist, it makes sense Corrin would be the most important character, obviously, but characters are frequently very clear over their devotion to Corrin. Lilith says her life can't be empty with Corrin in it,

The closest Lilith ever comes to saying something of that intensity in the og script are these dialogues:

>Lilith: You gently cared for me....

>Because of that time, i dedicated my life to you.

>By making use of that undeserved power, never again can i return to being human.

>But it's okay... even though very soon forgiveness, too, will not be possible.

>Even so...If Lady Kamui is alive...Then...

And even then, it's thoroughly justified in-universe as to why Lilith likes Corrin so much; they saved her life and treated her well, and she's extremely grateful to them for doing that.

It's no different than any other character in any of the games, or even in fiction, being deeply grateful to another character for saving their life and feeling like they owe them a debt they can never repay, so i don't see the issue with Lilith liking Corrin.

>Camilla and Elise frequently fuss over Corrin,

They barely get to visit Corrin in the Nothern Fortress and know they only have five other people to keep them company when they're not there; i don't think it's unreasonable to infer that they're trying to make up for lost time when they do get to visit.

Still, i would have preferred it if Camilla's reasoning for caring so much about Corrin was given in the story rather than supports, i'll give you that.

>and on the Hoshidan side only Takumi shows mistrust towards the person raised in enemy territory waltzing into the castle, carrying the blade that eventually killed Mikoto.

After they wept over her death, turned into a mindless dragon that attacked anyone it saw out of sheer grief, killed a bunch of the enemy soldiers instead of helping said soldiers take down the rest of the royal family, or at the very least running away to safety, nearly killed, and had to be pacified by, Azura while in that state of blind rage, offered to go into self-imposed exile out of guilt, and was chosen by the Yato as someone who would save the world, all against the one piece of incriminating evidence that they didn't throw away a sword.

Accusing Corrin of detonating Ganglari intentionally doesn't make any sense given all those events, unless the Hoshidan family is just supposed to distrust Corrin so heavily that they think they're trying to do some 4d chess maneuvers; they'd have to assume Corrin's sadness at Mikoto's death was just some really convincing acting chops; that they were in complete control of their transformation all along and were just feigning the blind rage; that staying and helping them kill the enemy soldiers was just to gain the family's trust; that attacking Azura was an unexpected curveball they did just to really sell the “gone mad with grief” angle, and somehow knew she had a dragon stone that they could use as an excuse for why they'd calmed down and why they could control themselves fine every time they transformed afterwards; that they knew for a fact that the family would just refuse to accept their offer to go into self-imposed exile and it was just done to make the act even more convincing; and lastly, that they either managed to find a work-around to the whole “the Yato decides who's worthy to be it's wielder” thing and somehow got it to only show up when they felt like it should, in order to give themselves some more credibility, or that intentionally causing all this destruction to a peaceful nation was a step towards saving the world.

I don't blame Takumi for being angry at Corrin, for the record; he was always the most emotional of the four siblings, and seeing his mother die in front of him cannot have been good for his mental state.

Him accusing Corrin of having done so intentionally IS juts him lashing out at whoever he can get away with blaming for this, though; not only due to all the reasons listed above, but because he also tries to blame Azura for it with no evidence:

>Takumi: Shut up, Aqua! You're her accomplice!

So, yeah. Corrin unironically did nothing to deserve suspicion from the Hoshidan sibs.

>Hell, all of the Nohrian siblings defied Garon's orders almost immediately so that they could bail Corrin out despite not knowing whether or not they'd actually be in any danger.

They were paired up with a convicted criminal who used his promotion to soldier-dom as an excuse to commit murder and theft legally, and were ordered to take a fort with only him and Gunter for backup; i think it's fair to be concerned about their safety in that situation.

>To make a short list of the characters "tied" to Corrin, we've got: three maids, one butler, one combat instructor, four Nohrian siblings, four Hoshidan siblings, Azura whose life mirrors the protagonist's, one adoptive father, and one biological mother, and the list will just grow longer from here.

Sounds like an incredibly generous definition of what makes a character “tied” to the protagonist. They have 5 people who work for them/their adoptive father, 4 adoptive siblings, 4 “real siblings”, some rando who parallels them, an adoptive dad, and a mom.

I'm pretty sure if we're going by that definition, most protagonists in the series have only slightly less characters tied to them at the start of the game than Corrin. Most of them start with people they're friends with, and if we're including something as vague as “works for them” as a valid reason to be “tied” to the protagonist, nearly all of the FE protags skyrocket past the 16 people listed here by the start of their mid-games/end of their early-games.

>Yes, these are characters in their own right, but throughout the prologue and beyond a key aspect of their character is their relationship to Corrin. Thus far into the game they have also been introduced and defined primarily through their connection to the protagonist. To give an example, Hinoka is introduced crying over finally having Corrin back, and then Ryoma explains she became a warrior for their sake, after which Hinoka has almost no lines for the remainder of the prologue.

Literally false.

Here's Hinoka's ACTUAL introduction:

>Hinoka: It's alright.

>Your hard work to protect those people was very noble.

>The villagers are still in the middle of evacuating...

>We must fight until none remain.

>Even if our situation is unfavorable, we'll show them how princesses of Hoshido fight until the bitter end.

When Corrin talks to them for the first time:

>Kamui: Are you alright?

>Hinoka: I'm fine. This is nothing for me.

>You are one of Big Brother's reinforcements...?

>Sorry, but your help isn't neccessary.

>On my pride as a Princess of Hoshido, i will fight to the end even if i am alone.

>Kamui: I understand, but please don't overdo it. We will do something about the enemy.

>Hinoka: Hey, wait.

>Kamui: Yeah?

>Hinoka: For the time being...I am grateful for your assistance. Thanks.

>You can take this medicine. Your wounds should heal if you use it.

>Don't worry about me. I’m still going good.

This introduces and defines Hinoka as someone who cares about the safety of the innocent people of the village, is willing to die fighting in order to protect them, is so prideful as to refuse help at first and tries to downplay how bad her situation really was, before softening up after Corrin shows genuine concern for her, gives them some medicine, and reassures them that she's fine, showing she does care after all.

She never mentions Corrin once in any of those dialogues, unless you count being surprised at being told Corrin's name at the end of that last dialogue and repeating it in shock.

THEN she breaks down crying after finding out her sibling she thought was either gone forever or dead was alive and had returned to them, Ryoma mentions that she trained hard to get them back from Nohr, and then she calls all of Nohr evil for sending the Faceless to Hoshido and kidnapping a child, promising to make them pay for what they did to Corrin, all of which pales in comparison to what her previous dialogues estabilish about her personality.

And lastly, i don't see why the first point is a bad thing as long as it's justified in-universe. All the people listed have very good reasons to care so much about Corrin, so i don't see the issue with them being introduced and defined, mostly just at first btw, by their relationship to them.

Odo repeats the exact same complaint about the future sight being underutilized, this time with an unnecessary Awakening comparison, and gets to a section i have a lot to say about:

> Corrin's established character up until this point makes returning to Nohr a very unlikely option.

This is not solely a subjective opinion, but rather an idea the game has gone out of its way to reinforce. Let's take a look at what the player knows of Corrin and the conflict thus far:

>1) Corrin hates violence and killing and is ready to go against Garon in order to defend people. The Nohrians are unambiguously the aggressors in this conflict.

I don't think it matters too much who started this war; picking either side means Corrin spends months engaging in violence and killing innocent people, and they know that.

They know that the rank-and-file soldiers are likely just following orders, that Felicia, Flora, and Jakob are still in Nohr, as far as they know, and that they'll probably have to fight and kill them if they side with Hoshido, and most importantly, that the Nohrian siblings won't take this blatant betrayal standing and will try to fight them. They're not going to be eager to side with Hoshido and more likely than not be forced to fight and kill their own siblings, who they know are good people, along with their own friends on the Nothern Fortress AND a shitload of likely-conscripted soldiers just for a shot at killing the people actually responsible for this, even if it's the better choice morally.

>2) Corrin knows Garon murdered Sumeragi, their real father, and kidnapped them as a child.

>3) Garon has been sending monsters into Hoshido to cause as much destruction and suffering as possible.

Both of those just sound like good tactics to me. Kill the leader of the country you're currently at war with in an ambush, take the young child with him as your own to both deprive the rest of the Hoshidan royal family of manpower and increase your own, and destabilize the opposing country by hassling them.

It isn't nice to do any of those things, granted, but this is a war. Not only can Garon easily justify all of those with pragmatism rather than him being evil, the Hoshidans also attempt to do the first and third ones multiple times throughout the different routes, and Corrin even siding with Hoshido in the first place means they're dedicated to killing Garon by any means neccessary, including ambushing him while he's enjoying a show, so i don't see why they'd take that much issue with that.

>4) Garon gave Corrin a magical sword which exploded, killing Mikoto, and before that almost killed Corrin themselves. It also came close to killing Corrin at the Bottomless Canyon.

They have no proof Garon intended for any of that to happen, other than the fact that it's incredibly convenient for Nohr that the barrier around Hoshido went down as a result of Ganglari exploding, which is not evidence.

>5) Garon was behind the assassination of Gunter, orchestrated by Iago and carried out by Hans. Gunter meant a lot to Corrin and was one of the few constants in their life.

Corrin literally has no evidence for that claim whatsoever other than a beaten, retreating Hans telling them as much, which could just as easily be an excuse he made up on the spot to try and stop Corrin from killing him.

>Now, obviously, the argument is that Corrin cannot abandon the family they grew up with, but Corrin themselves even said that they wouldn't regret dying if they died kind. Assisting in the invasion of an innocent nation with the knowledge of everything mentioned above is shaky at best and most certainly not kind.

Fighting and killing their way through a nation they know is filled with innocent people just to take down the three guys responsible for fucking everything up isn't kind either, if still moreso than choosing Nohr.

The only choice Corrin can make at this point that doesn't involve throwing away at least part of the kindness they displayed at the start of the game for the sake of joining a war is picking neither side, but we'll get there later.

And besides, this is assuming humans are always perfectly consistent with their stated morality, which is evidently untrue. People can and do betray previously stated beliefs for multiple reasons, including emotion, and i don't see why Corrin would, or even should, be exempt from that, especially since picking Hoshido doesn't mean just themselves dying for the sake of saving the lives of defenseless P.O.Ws; it means betraying and very likely killing the only family they know, along with their friends and a bunch of random soldiers, for the sake of killing three evil people. Those are two very different consequences for a moral choice.

>Corrin has been consistently portrayed as too kind for their own good and ready to stand up for their beliefs, even against their family members; Xander won't win them over by saying "if we kill them all here, they'll be demoralized and we can conquer Hoshido more easily!"

From a pragmatic sense, it could appeal to Corrin. Nohr is so much stronger than Hoshido that any chances Hoshido has of winning this war are slim to none, and prolonging a war they know they can't win will do nothing but cause further casualties. Assuming Corrin already agrees that Nohr winning is a foregone conclusion (which is weird of Xander to do, admittedly, but maybe that's just some good old-fashioned patriotism seeping through), then yeah, that IS a pretty good argument for Corrin joining them.

>Furthermore, and this is important: returning to Nohr is effectively suicide. As listed above, as far as Corrin knows Garon wants them dead. Garon ordered Xander to kill Corrin if they stood in his way after the fight with the prisoners of war, the sword given to Corrin by Garon flung them down the Bottomless Canyon, and when it exploded in chapter five it's possible Corrin would've died if not for Mikoto.

I've already given my counterarguments for the last two points before, but even assuming, for the sake of the argument, that Corrin does believe Garon intended for the last two things to happen, i find it odd to list Garon threatening to have Xander kill Corrin for openly disobeying a direct order as one of the reasons for their distrust. It isn't nice to try and have them killed because they wouldn't commit a war crime, but that isn't in any way evidence that he'll try to kill them at the first available opportunity.

>We know that Garon commands absolute obedience and is a tyrannical psychopath who even indulges in the occasional maniacal laughter. Going back to Nohr isn't, or shouldn't, be as easy as just waltzing over to the Nohrian side of the conflict.

And given the only things Corrin knows for certain, Garon has literally only threatened to do something bad to them when they disobeyed an order, and by all accounts, they went above and beyond in their mission: instead of just taking over some random fort, they helped kill the leader of the opposing country and gave Nohr a chance to invade Hoshido, even if by accident. Corrin has zero reason to believe that anything bad would happen to them if they went back to Nohr.

>Having to pay for multiple paths

>Of course, if you only bought Conquest, you've got no choice but to go down that route anyway! That is another major flaw with the way Fates is structured: you're stuck with the version you bought, so if the prologue convinced you to want to experience one side rather than the other, you need to fork up more money. Needless to say, while not directly related to the quality of the writing, it is not conducive to the players' immersion.

>More than that, you barely know these characters you're meant to fight for after only a few chapters. If you bought only one version physically you're locked into your choice and likely selected that path either for the marketed gameplay difficulty or because you liked the design of the Pokémon anime characters on one side more than the other - a very common joke in the days leading up to Fates' release. The choice, as it's presented, was likely already determined before you reached this point.

This is honestly the weirdest part of this entire post. What does the completely out-of-universe criticism of “it was greedy of IS to make you pay for the different routes”, which i agree with for the record, have anything to do with the writing in Fates? Doesn't this contradict your earlier statement of “I will only be discussing the writing, plot, characters, etc., unless there is a rare instance where I need to comment on gameplay elements which directly tie into the plot.”?

And that was the branch of fate section of this analysis.

Overall, i'd say there's a few good points here, like the pacing and unasked questions, that are, unfortunately, overwhelmed by a sea of easily-debunked nitpicks, bad faith interpretations of developer intention, characterizations and plot points, and multiple arguments criticizing dialogues or plot points that only happen in the localization, not the plot as it was actually written.

Unfortunately for everyone, this is far from the last time these flaws will pop up in this analysis series.

See y'all next part.

#fire emblem #fire emblem fates #corrin fire emblem #ryoma fire emblem #xander fire emblem #reddit #story analysis

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