FE4 and the Politics of Vengeance
May. 28th, 2012 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mark_asphodelOne surface weakness of FE4 (Seisen no Keifu) is that it appears to promote a black-and-white morality. We have young and beautiful people fighting against a pack of ugly, obscenely corrupt nobles and generals. We have heroes whose specialness manifests in truly "special" ways, making them demigods among men. We have an Antichrist figure in Julius and a Savior in his counterpart, Celice the Child of Light. It looks kind of ham-fisted in places even compared to other early FE games... and especially compared with its shades-of-gray successor Thracia 776.
Well, that's kind of true... especially the parade of ugly nobles who need to be offed. But there's a fair amount going on under the surface in FE4 in terms of morality, especially when the themes of family and vengeance come into play. Which is, after all, most of the time.
You have to be careful when placing labels on good and evil, Celice. Never waste your anger on individuals. Always focus it on the evil within all of us. (Levin, Ch 7)
This is one of my favorite quotes in the entire FE series, and I do find it a significant one. How many games end with a promise from the Big Bad that it's the evil that lurks in the hearts of ordinary men that fuel these periodic outbreaks of Big Badness... and will inevitably fuel the next cicada-like outbreak of Earth Dragons or sinister cultists? FE3 and FE2, just for starters. Calamity doesn't happen out of the blue in Kaga's world-- there's always a means of tracing evil back to its true sources: greed, hatred, pettiness, stupid-stupid mistakes, and man's general inhumanity to man as well as to non-humans. Levin here appears to be grounding Celice's mission in one of the most important lessons an FE hero has to learn.
"Celice, this is war!" he says later in that chapter. "It's not just about hatred or resentment." People who might be good-hearted individuals-- even young and attractive people like Ishtore and Liza-- gotta die if they're propping up tyrannical regimes. A worthy leader takes care of his subjects (this comes up with everyone from Johalva's complaints to his brother Brian to the Thracia arc to the endgame). There's something bigger at stake than the sentiments of a pack of orphaned teenagers with god-blood in their veins and whoever else is along for the ride.
"Get to know the people's sorrow," Celice is told by a ghostly apparition in Chapter 10. If Celice can't, then the entire multi-generational bloodbath is for nothing, no matter what small scores are settled along the way.
But damn, if Gen 2 isn't all about settling scores. Some of them get deflected, of course. Aless doesn't get to hold Celice responsible for Sigurd's betrayal of Eltoshan, because the "murder" didn't happen quite that way and Aless is SOL on the vengeance front. But at every other turn-- Arthur fighting his Freege relatives, the Jungby kids facing down Scorpius, the Neir Axe Bro of the player's choice taking on brother Brian-- we're finishing off the business Gen 1 left unfinished, or sometimes just re-enacting it without leaving any survivors on the opposing side to keep the circle o'vengeance running.
What was that about not getting personal? Celice may be getting instructions from Levin on how to conduct himself, but everywhere else in the army, it's aaaaaaaall personal.
Now, much of this does tie into another of Kaga's ground rules-- the bond between parent and child is just about sacrosanct. Someone who commits patricide, even well-intentioned patricide (hello, Michalis) is pretty much damned. Making war on blood relatives to avenge your mother, or your father, or both... well, that's pretty much expected. Goodbye, Uncle Blume-- this one's for mom. So Andrey kills his father and gets justly taken out by his sisters, then Andrey's dying wish is for his son to avenge him, which means the Jungby cousins get to smack it out with Scorpius when the time comes. And all is then right with the world, I guess... as long as Scorpius didn't have time to breed.
"Levin, I know I should be happy now that my father's death has been avenged, but I still don't feel right somehow." (Celice, Ch 10)
Unless you're Celice, in which case Something More is at stake. It basically appears that Celice is being held to a higher standard than the rest of his crew, though... given that we spend 2+ chapters on one particular revenge mission that carries on into the next game, with retconning.
"I'll do whatever is necessary to end King Blume's reign. Even if takes my life..." (Leaf, Ch 8)
Leaf isn't getting advice from Levin. He's getting it from Finn, and Finn's objection to this statement stems not from the "killing Blume" part of the plan but rather from the "Leaf possibly dying" part. Leaf owes it to his people to not die stupidly... or at all, really. But at this point, the Leaf subplot of the game doesn't seem to run against what Levin is preaching to Celice. Blume's the same tyrant whose existence dictates that decent people like Ishtore and Liza have to be wasted.
Then we get deeper into Thracia...
"I've had enough, Arion. It's me they're after anyway." (Trabant, Ch 9)
Boy, is it ever. To hell with that stuff about not focusing on individuals. The liberation of Thracia is in large part about hunting down King Trabant like a rabid dog. Why? Well, he killed Leaf's mommy and daddy, which is enough of a reason (see above). He didn't kill Leaf's sis, though, and on realizing this Leaf thinks for one tiny second that Trabant maybe isn't such a horrible guy... until Finn gets him back on track with an "is so," because taking an uncomprehending child and raising them to be a piece in a strategy game on account of their holy-blood heritage is morally wrong, or something. What, what?
...
Anyway, once ol' Trabant has finally been cornered, Leaf has this to say about it:
"I've waited so long for this day to arrive... I've dreamed of killing you with my bare hands, and I've lived to carry it out!"
No, really. That's what cute, fluffy-haired, white-armored Leaf says to Trabant. I've said before his FE4 lines are memorable. This "not-wasting anger on individuals" business clearly has not trickled down to Celice's key allies. And we spent so long mucking around in Thracia that the game script started asking questions like "Is there any justice to be found in this battle? And for whom are we fighting?" The argument was plainly not entirely about the poor starved people of Thracia... seeing as the boss dialogues leaves no doubt that, for Leaf and Finn, this is 110% about revenge.Oh, and then we find out come Thracia 776 that Trabant technically wasn't responsible for the deaths of Leaf's parents, either. Well, shit.
I was talking to Ammie a little bit about it, and the phrase "having his cake and eating it too" came up, and that may be exactly what's going on here. Kaga had these noble moral and philosophical goals he wanted to put across in his games... but he also liked his little Greek dramas with the parricide and vengeance and familial cycles of violence. So we have Levin saying one thing-- saying wonderful things!-- while the characters in the army he's guiding are doing something else altogether. And Gen 3, had it come into existence, sounds dire on that front-- parents and children reunite, but anyone who wasn't part of Team Sigurd gets "subjugated." Niiiice. In any event, the morality of FE4 is indeed more complex than "kill those evil nobles and while you're at it, take care of the Dark Lord." It's a conflicted morality, one that doesn't offer easy answers to many of life's tricky questions. And the good guys-- notably Levin himself, with regard to his own kids-- seem at times as cold and heartless as the notoriously heartless dudes on the Celice Army's hit list. (Common refrain of the NPCs-- King So-and-So is a coldhearted piece of work, but at least his two kids turned out OK! They mean Blume and Trabant, but the same applies to Levin to an amusing extent.)
With Trabant in particular, Kaga wanted it both ways-- he showcases Trabbers as a preening, spitting, sonofabitch who holds kids hostage and strikes down a defenseless opponent... but he plainly also wanted Trabant to be a genuinely tragic hero, a man who should've been great, and would've been great, had he just not been born in godforsaken Thracia. And he retcons Trabbers so much in Thracia 776 that at certain points, it's awfully easy to start asking those pesky questions about justice and what the hell all of this is for. But I guess that's an essay for another day.
Well, that's kind of true... especially the parade of ugly nobles who need to be offed. But there's a fair amount going on under the surface in FE4 in terms of morality, especially when the themes of family and vengeance come into play. Which is, after all, most of the time.
You have to be careful when placing labels on good and evil, Celice. Never waste your anger on individuals. Always focus it on the evil within all of us. (Levin, Ch 7)
This is one of my favorite quotes in the entire FE series, and I do find it a significant one. How many games end with a promise from the Big Bad that it's the evil that lurks in the hearts of ordinary men that fuel these periodic outbreaks of Big Badness... and will inevitably fuel the next cicada-like outbreak of Earth Dragons or sinister cultists? FE3 and FE2, just for starters. Calamity doesn't happen out of the blue in Kaga's world-- there's always a means of tracing evil back to its true sources: greed, hatred, pettiness, stupid-stupid mistakes, and man's general inhumanity to man as well as to non-humans. Levin here appears to be grounding Celice's mission in one of the most important lessons an FE hero has to learn.
"Celice, this is war!" he says later in that chapter. "It's not just about hatred or resentment." People who might be good-hearted individuals-- even young and attractive people like Ishtore and Liza-- gotta die if they're propping up tyrannical regimes. A worthy leader takes care of his subjects (this comes up with everyone from Johalva's complaints to his brother Brian to the Thracia arc to the endgame). There's something bigger at stake than the sentiments of a pack of orphaned teenagers with god-blood in their veins and whoever else is along for the ride.
"Get to know the people's sorrow," Celice is told by a ghostly apparition in Chapter 10. If Celice can't, then the entire multi-generational bloodbath is for nothing, no matter what small scores are settled along the way.
But damn, if Gen 2 isn't all about settling scores. Some of them get deflected, of course. Aless doesn't get to hold Celice responsible for Sigurd's betrayal of Eltoshan, because the "murder" didn't happen quite that way and Aless is SOL on the vengeance front. But at every other turn-- Arthur fighting his Freege relatives, the Jungby kids facing down Scorpius, the Neir Axe Bro of the player's choice taking on brother Brian-- we're finishing off the business Gen 1 left unfinished, or sometimes just re-enacting it without leaving any survivors on the opposing side to keep the circle o'vengeance running.
What was that about not getting personal? Celice may be getting instructions from Levin on how to conduct himself, but everywhere else in the army, it's aaaaaaaall personal.
Now, much of this does tie into another of Kaga's ground rules-- the bond between parent and child is just about sacrosanct. Someone who commits patricide, even well-intentioned patricide (hello, Michalis) is pretty much damned. Making war on blood relatives to avenge your mother, or your father, or both... well, that's pretty much expected. Goodbye, Uncle Blume-- this one's for mom. So Andrey kills his father and gets justly taken out by his sisters, then Andrey's dying wish is for his son to avenge him, which means the Jungby cousins get to smack it out with Scorpius when the time comes. And all is then right with the world, I guess... as long as Scorpius didn't have time to breed.
"Levin, I know I should be happy now that my father's death has been avenged, but I still don't feel right somehow." (Celice, Ch 10)
Unless you're Celice, in which case Something More is at stake. It basically appears that Celice is being held to a higher standard than the rest of his crew, though... given that we spend 2+ chapters on one particular revenge mission that carries on into the next game, with retconning.
"I'll do whatever is necessary to end King Blume's reign. Even if takes my life..." (Leaf, Ch 8)
Leaf isn't getting advice from Levin. He's getting it from Finn, and Finn's objection to this statement stems not from the "killing Blume" part of the plan but rather from the "Leaf possibly dying" part. Leaf owes it to his people to not die stupidly... or at all, really. But at this point, the Leaf subplot of the game doesn't seem to run against what Levin is preaching to Celice. Blume's the same tyrant whose existence dictates that decent people like Ishtore and Liza have to be wasted.
Then we get deeper into Thracia...
"I've had enough, Arion. It's me they're after anyway." (Trabant, Ch 9)
Boy, is it ever. To hell with that stuff about not focusing on individuals. The liberation of Thracia is in large part about hunting down King Trabant like a rabid dog. Why? Well, he killed Leaf's mommy and daddy, which is enough of a reason (see above). He didn't kill Leaf's sis, though, and on realizing this Leaf thinks for one tiny second that Trabant maybe isn't such a horrible guy... until Finn gets him back on track with an "is so," because taking an uncomprehending child and raising them to be a piece in a strategy game on account of their holy-blood heritage is morally wrong, or something. What, what?
...
Anyway, once ol' Trabant has finally been cornered, Leaf has this to say about it:
"I've waited so long for this day to arrive... I've dreamed of killing you with my bare hands, and I've lived to carry it out!"
No, really. That's what cute, fluffy-haired, white-armored Leaf says to Trabant. I've said before his FE4 lines are memorable. This "not-wasting anger on individuals" business clearly has not trickled down to Celice's key allies. And we spent so long mucking around in Thracia that the game script started asking questions like "Is there any justice to be found in this battle? And for whom are we fighting?" The argument was plainly not entirely about the poor starved people of Thracia... seeing as the boss dialogues leaves no doubt that, for Leaf and Finn, this is 110% about revenge.
I was talking to Ammie a little bit about it, and the phrase "having his cake and eating it too" came up, and that may be exactly what's going on here. Kaga had these noble moral and philosophical goals he wanted to put across in his games... but he also liked his little Greek dramas with the parricide and vengeance and familial cycles of violence. So we have Levin saying one thing-- saying wonderful things!-- while the characters in the army he's guiding are doing something else altogether. And Gen 3, had it come into existence, sounds dire on that front-- parents and children reunite, but anyone who wasn't part of Team Sigurd gets "subjugated." Niiiice. In any event, the morality of FE4 is indeed more complex than "kill those evil nobles and while you're at it, take care of the Dark Lord." It's a conflicted morality, one that doesn't offer easy answers to many of life's tricky questions. And the good guys-- notably Levin himself, with regard to his own kids-- seem at times as cold and heartless as the notoriously heartless dudes on the Celice Army's hit list. (Common refrain of the NPCs-- King So-and-So is a coldhearted piece of work, but at least his two kids turned out OK! They mean Blume and Trabant, but the same applies to Levin to an amusing extent.)
With Trabant in particular, Kaga wanted it both ways-- he showcases Trabbers as a preening, spitting, sonofabitch who holds kids hostage and strikes down a defenseless opponent... but he plainly also wanted Trabant to be a genuinely tragic hero, a man who should've been great, and would've been great, had he just not been born in godforsaken Thracia. And he retcons Trabbers so much in Thracia 776 that at certain points, it's awfully easy to start asking those pesky questions about justice and what the hell all of this is for. But I guess that's an essay for another day.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-29 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-29 09:41 pm (UTC)Well, as troubling as Marth can be... Leaf gives him a run for his money in FE4 (but not in Leaf's own game, go figure). I think Gen 2 was pretty fortunate in that Sigurd got framed for Eltoshan's death and not Cuan's. Aless was kind of a pissy pushover Camus-type, but if Leaf had been reared with a burning hatred for Celice... well, Celice would still win, but I think serious shit would be wrecked along the way.
There's some hack out there wherein Leaf does betray Celice; I need to track it down some time.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-29 11:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-29 09:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-29 04:13 pm (UTC)Coming to think of it, Tellius is pretty ironic in that it asks its goddess to put up with men for being so fallible. The classic Kaga scenario with a weirdly optimistic twist.
Someone who commits patricide, even well-intentioned patricide (hello, Michalis) is pretty much damned.
It's a recurring motif post-Kaga, too. Zephiel and Ashnard say hi. (And IMO Zephiel's patricide is possibly one of the most understandable murders in the series. "Um, he's been trying to kill me for years.")
(Common refrain of the NPCs-- King So-and-So is a coldhearted piece of work, but at least his two kids turned out OK! They mean Blume and Trabant, but the same applies to Levin to an amusing extent.)
ROFL. Maybe it's for the best that Levin wasn't around to influence his kids.
That said, FE4 strikes me as having the "bad kind" of moral complexity -- the kind where it's because it's internally consistent and the writer doesn't quite know what he's doing. I find it a little hard to give it credit for complexity because of that.
oops misfire
Date: 2012-05-29 08:40 pm (UTC)Which makes it kind of awkward-funny that Magvel kind of. . . reverses it. :B
In a way, actually, doesn't Zelgius hit on that too? Over and above his duplicity and siding with the goddess and all, the game keeps coming back with yeah, but he killed Greil, who was kind of enough of a father figure to count, I think.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-29 09:55 pm (UTC)Far, far more justifiable than Michalis, yeah. Poor Zephiel. And Michalis gets redeemed via retcon. Go figure.
I find it a little hard to give it credit for complexity because of that.
I won't argue with that. I would say it's just over-ambitious and somewhat incoherent, except that some of the most troubling parts[*] (the whole Thracia ball of wax) get explored in-depth in FE5 and the supplementary stuff, leading me to wonder if it was all supposed to be troubling. But the morality of FE3 and its take on legitimacy satisfied me a bit more than FE4.
* In the abstract sense. The Neir family and the Jungbys are plently troubling in a visceral sense.