Top Eleven Fire Emblem Characters (7)
Feb. 2nd, 2012 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mark_asphodelI said I wasn't bringing headcanon into this.
That doesn't mean that some characters didn't take a fair amount of consideration before getting on this list. A little thought, a little reflection, a bit of compare/contrast with others of their "type."
Case in point, #7: Eliwood.
I liked him initially in the hands of certain writers. Wasn't much into him otherwise, until I started digging around. When I did get into him, I flirted with the "Eliwood as screwball" interpretation that was briefly gaining speed on FFNet. Then I kind of looked at the actual source material again.
The picture of Eliwood that emerged was decidedly different than what I expected to find. Yes, he's naive. He makes a terrible mistake that will likely haunt him for a good long time. He breaks down at least once in front of his peers and vassals. He does the whole not-eating thing after the afore-mentioned mistake. And after the war, his wife died and and then he gets sick and his best friend dies and his little boy goes off to war. Angst angst angst.
Guess what? Counterbalance that with everything else we get about him. Counter his "innocence" with his wry sense of humor. Counter the dead-wife-angst with the fact that they were happy beforehand, counter the angst with the fact that this is a young Lord who can up and tell his bride that he loves her. No beating around the bush, backhanded compliments, or proactive attempts to send her packing. Counter the fact that he cries with the fact that it's the protagonists who don't or can't who seem to have some Issues of their own. Counter the trauma he endures in FE7 with the fact that he went into the war with a stable and apparently happy home life, and came out of it able to raise an upstanding future hero.
This isn't headcanon. It's all right there in the scripts and supports.
It irks me when FE7 is held up as the norm of a Fire Emblem game, because in many senses it's an aberration from the form. Likewise, in spite of the criticism lobbed at Eliwood, he's not really a "generic" example of a Fire Emblem Lord. He's off doing his own thing, graciously, and in his own distinct way.
And I like it. Love it. It just took a bit of thinking over to get me there.
And, as far as we know, he's the only father of a Fire Emblem protagonist to make it through the game alive. Give the man some credit. :/
That doesn't mean that some characters didn't take a fair amount of consideration before getting on this list. A little thought, a little reflection, a bit of compare/contrast with others of their "type."
Case in point, #7: Eliwood.
I liked him initially in the hands of certain writers. Wasn't much into him otherwise, until I started digging around. When I did get into him, I flirted with the "Eliwood as screwball" interpretation that was briefly gaining speed on FFNet. Then I kind of looked at the actual source material again.
The picture of Eliwood that emerged was decidedly different than what I expected to find. Yes, he's naive. He makes a terrible mistake that will likely haunt him for a good long time. He breaks down at least once in front of his peers and vassals. He does the whole not-eating thing after the afore-mentioned mistake. And after the war, his wife died and and then he gets sick and his best friend dies and his little boy goes off to war. Angst angst angst.
Guess what? Counterbalance that with everything else we get about him. Counter his "innocence" with his wry sense of humor. Counter the dead-wife-angst with the fact that they were happy beforehand, counter the angst with the fact that this is a young Lord who can up and tell his bride that he loves her. No beating around the bush, backhanded compliments, or proactive attempts to send her packing. Counter the fact that he cries with the fact that it's the protagonists who don't or can't who seem to have some Issues of their own. Counter the trauma he endures in FE7 with the fact that he went into the war with a stable and apparently happy home life, and came out of it able to raise an upstanding future hero.
This isn't headcanon. It's all right there in the scripts and supports.
It irks me when FE7 is held up as the norm of a Fire Emblem game, because in many senses it's an aberration from the form. Likewise, in spite of the criticism lobbed at Eliwood, he's not really a "generic" example of a Fire Emblem Lord. He's off doing his own thing, graciously, and in his own distinct way.
And I like it. Love it. It just took a bit of thinking over to get me there.
And, as far as we know, he's the only father of a Fire Emblem protagonist to make it through the game alive. Give the man some credit. :/
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 05:37 am (UTC)Regarding his "terrible mistake", though... doesn't the game say that Durandal moved on its own? Granted, the magical properties of the Divine Weapons are never explained very well, so I don't know if we could say for sure how much of it was the sword. Although now that I think about it, the Sword of Seals effectively deals damage based on the feelings of the wielder, so if Durandal was "programmed" to work the same way... hmm.
And, as far as we know, he's the only father of a Fire Emblem protagonist to make it through the game alive.
And JRPGs in general, really. The protagonist's father isn't even alive in Pokemon, so to survive in a game series built on the concept of Dead is Dead? All the props, and I don't regret one bit having a headcanon where Eliwood gets better and returns to paladin-ing as needed.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 05:46 am (UTC)This is part of why I don't actually care much about it. Compared with Eirika giving Lyon the Sacred Stone, or something that Leaf does in FE5... it's nothing, IMO.
Now, on a higher level, it is irksome to have heroes make "mistakes" that they can't be blamed for, or that they're excused from in some way (which does NOT happen with Leaf the way that screw-ups on the parts of, say, Marth or Eirika get waved away). So, in a sense the whole Ninian-killing is a way to pile some angst on poor innocent Eliwood. But... eh.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 09:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-03 10:57 am (UTC)At the same time, I do agree that the game pushing the Durandal angle kind of robbed it of some dramatic weight. And when they'd already offed one apparent love interest (Leila) in the story to drive the heroes forward, it did seem kind of like motivation that wasn't needed.
*loves Eliwood anyway*
no subject
Date: 2012-02-04 12:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-04 01:24 am (UTC)I would say Leaf gives Eliwood a serious run for his money in that department, but I guess the correct term in that case would be "kid" instead of "guy." Leaf may be a prince with the "my country" sort of prince-angst that Eliwood doesn't have, but in between his... unconventional upbringing and his lack of sparkling holy super-genes, he's not cast in the same mold as, say, Celice (bleh).
(Leaf narrowly missed getting on this list.)
Sigurd was kind of a decent regular guy, too. Being decent got him killed, really. But I don't really care much about him.