How Not to Unify Thracia
Jun. 7th, 2012 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mark_asphodelShe's right.
So. Thracia 776, the odd duck of Fire Emblem.
Not because it’s a midquel, or because it bombed commercially, but because the stakes are so drastically different from any other game. This isn’t a potential “end of the world” scenario in which our hero is the one thing standing between human civilization and savagery or between life on earth and total annihilation. It’s a straight-up political tiff over who gets to rule Thracia, and how much of it. And that makes the moral nuances of the game a bit... different.
Who’re the good guys?
Our hero, Leaf Faris Claus, is the only surviving[*] heir of the bloodline of Crusader Nova, who ruled the kingdom of Lenster. Leaf got kicked out of Lenster when he was a toddler and he rather wants it back, plus his parents got killed horribly at the hands of dragon knights from Thracia and he needs to avenge them, and his grandfather was betrayed by allies and died in battle and also needs to be avenged, and while Leaf’s at it he really needs to fulfill his father Cuan’s dream of uniting all of Thracia. And since Leaf’s so nice and squishy he gets roped into every other hard-luck cause that comes around.
Leaf is assisted in this by a pair of tacticians-- August, the skeezy former priest of Bragi, and Dorias, an old-guard Lenster noble who is kind of a dick. August is better at this whole advisor gig than Dorias, no doubt because he was installed in the role by Levin, the tactician to Leaf’s illustrious cousin Celice. This illustrates Leaf’s basic dilemma-- he’s a nobody outside of Thracia-specific business. He’s not the major-blood carrier for Nova and can’t use the family weapon. He’s got no resources. His tactician is the tool of his cousin’s tactician, and he’s second fiddle to Celice on everything.
He hasn’t got much of an army, either-- just a handful of knights from his native Lenster. Finn is the one closest to Leaf personally, and Glade is the one with the most political clout after Dorias, and "everyone else" is Glade’s wife, a bunch of kids, and some old guy who’s hard to recruit. So Leaf assembles a rag-tag mix of thieves, mercenaries, random people from Silesia, villagers, people he meets in prison, and recruitable enemies... and throws all this into his uphill battle for control of all Thracia.
* Except his sister. See below.
Why does Leaf want to unite Thracia?
He was brought up that way. The script makes it clear he was dreaming of it at age 10-12, and frankly there are better fantasies a boy that age could have. Like screwing off and being a carefree mercenary. Becoming a pirate. Settling down in a little village and never being heard of again.
No, really? Why?
‘Cause Leaf’s father Cuan wanted to unite all Thracia and failed spectacularly at it.
OK. Who’re the bad guys?
Interesting question. Good and bad gets kind of sticky in this game, so let’s just refer to all these people and groups as “obstacles.” In terms of Leaf’s campaign to dominate Thracia, that’s pretty much what all of ‘em are.
Northern Thracia
Lenster: Leaf’s home kingdom and the place he has by birthright if not in reality. See above.
Heirs at present: Male-- 1, Female-- 1*
Manster: This was the first of the four kingdoms of the Manster District to be attacked; it was besieged during the same campaign in which Conote betrayed Lenster and killed Leaf’s grandfather. Apparently its ruling family was exterminated.
Heirs at present: 0
Conote: The last known king of Conote, Carl, was a young man at the time of the destruction of Manster and Lenster; he was very much under the thumb of his general Reidrick and presumably didn’t last too long. There may, however, be an unacknowledged heir to this kingdom. The line of Conote may have minor holy blood from one Crusader or another.
Heirs at present: Male-- 1*, Female-- 0
Alster: the last surviving kingdom of the four, Alster gave refuge to the nobles and knights of Lenster, including Leaf, but was overwhelmed by the empire within a few years... apparently after the Lenster crew launched a failed assassination attempt on some guy name Blume (see below). The king and queen died and their young daughter Miranda was locked up in a convent.
Heirs at present: Male-- 0, Female-- 1.
Tahra, aka Retcon City. Tahra doesn’t quite belong to the Manster District, but it’s governed by a branch of the bloodline of Saint Heim that we never heard about in FE4 because reasons. It got trashed after giving shelter to Leaf, but just as in Alster, one daughter of the family survived.
Heirs at present: Male-- 0, Female-- 1.
In summary: That’s a large number of people in the way of Cuan’s unification-under-me dream, especially when you take into account that there would’ve been more of these minor royals about before all the betrayals and massacres. Manster could’ve had five healthy male heirs for all we know. Now, Cuan’s major-line descent from Nova seems to have been his justification for pulling rank, but honestly this plan just doesn’t look very good. And wasn’t very good. Especially because Cuan doesn’t seem to have respected his allies, and that disrespect filtered down to Count Dorias and the rest of the loyalists.
Southern Thracia:
Intact kingdom ruled by the bloodline of Crusader Dain, which at present consists of King Trabant and his two adult children, Arion and Altenna. Technically speaking Altenna is Leaf’s kidnapped and re-educated sister, but people don’t seem to be aware of this fact even though Trabant didn’t even bother re-naming her. Trabant is the official #1 obstacle to Cuan’s unification plans; his bloodline is as prestigious as Cuan’s own and he’s not going to roll over and let the descendants of Nova take the lead or take his land. In fact, given that Thracia is a mountainous place that’s hard as hell to farm, Trabant would rather like some of that nice northern farmland for himself.
We know we’re supposed to jeer at Trabant ‘cause he rides a dragon, thinks highly of himself, and doesn’t have proper diction or grammar. That said, the script goes out of its way to make Trabant a sympathetic character, even turning “what we know” on its head repeatedly. He’s a monster, an animal! No, wait, he cares so passionately for Thracia that he’s willing to suffer personal “damnation” to save it. He brutally murdered Leaf’s father Cuan after Cuan had surrendered his weapon, and killed Leaf’s mother in the bargain! No, wait, he didn’t do that of his own volition; the real responsibility lies elsewhere, with the Lopto Church (see below) and Trabant was basically framed for the assassinations. Thracia 776 goes to such lengths to mitigate Trabant and his actions that Leaf’s vengeance upon Trabant in FE4 looks a little... iffy.
Also, Prince Arion-- currently engaged to Linoan the heiress of Tahra-- seems quite the honorable young man.
In summary: Beyond problematic. There’s not really a moral justification for invading their country and taking their land.
Outside influences:
The Empire: The Freege dynasty represents the Grandbell Empire’s reach into Thracia. King Blume, his children, and his generals and knights are (mostly) honorable people doing some very dirty business for the Empire and for the Church. They control most of the territory that is “supposed” to be Leaf’s.
The Lopto Church: Bad people whose agenda includes kidnapping tens of thousands of children between the ages of 7 and 13 and doing unspeakable things to them in the Imperial Capital. Other activities include turning people to stone and using them as shrine decorations and warping humans into Dark Warlords. The Freege dynasty provides the support for said activities, but the Loptos peeps are happy to have Leaf & Co eliminate the Freeges, and to have Northern and Southern Thracia pitted against one another. These are the genuine “bad guys” of the game.
Assorted Scum: Reidrick, the treacherous general of Conote who has been awarded Manster for his services to the empire. He kidnaps kids too, but it’s more like nabbing and threatening young girls for lulz and to get back at Leaf and their parents. Plus thieves, pirates, and the usual FE exp fodder.
In summary: Leaf and his allies are basically given carte blanche to wipe out all of these people. Or, at the least, rough them up, steal their weapons, and possibly hand them over to citizens for “justice” aka a lynch mob. All of these factors have to be expelled from Thracia, period.
So what happens?
As things stand at the end of Thracia 776 (in the year 777), Leaf has control of Lenster and Manster. He’s also the only surviving male heir to any of the four kingdoms of the Manster District, and since we don’t like teh ladies that much in FE, all the skittles of Northern Thracia should belong to him. Now, the narrator doesn’t state that Leaf’s the last man standing out of the families of Lenster, Alster, Manster, and Conote. Finn says it when re-affirming to Leaf that The Most Important Thing Ever is for Leaf to unite Thracia, and there’s a chance the statement may not be entirely correct.
Meanwhile, Southern Thracia is still Trabant-land. And Celice’s army marched in and liberated Conote easy-peasy while Leaf was busy in Manster... and saved Alster too. So the north is a clean sweep, which is why the people there allegedly can’t wait for Leaf to step in and lead them.
And then what?
Well, it would make sense for Leaf to marry Miranda at this juncture. Miranda’s advisors certainly think so. But no1curr what Alster’s people think, so Miranda gets left behind to “wait” for Leaf while he hangs out with Celice and plans his own future with his true love Nanna. So the legitimate peaceful fusion of Alster and Lenster never happens. Another thing that doesn’t happen, at least not that we know of, is the marriage of Southern Thracia’s prince Arion to his “sister” Altenna, which would rather neatly unite the two halves of the peninsula under one super-Crusader dynasty. And no, Arion doesn’t marry Linoan, either. These people do NOT do the easy thing, ever.
And then there’s that last loose end, the question mark on the Conote family tree. It seems there are a lot of rumors going around about one young Free Knight who joined up with Leaf in Manster. Roguish, charming Fergus, he of the blond ponytail, is allegedly the Prince of Conote. O RLY? Who thinks this? How many people? Have they got any evidence? How cool are they with Leaf taking over Conote, then?
There’s another even more plausible rumor going around about Fergus-- that he’s Beowulf’s illegitimate son. By a Princess of Conote, one presumes. We know Fergus can use both the Beo Sword and the holy-blood-required Bragi sword, so both these rumors are possibly-- hell, almost certainly-- true. Well, well. Funny, isn’t it? That darn Beowulf gets into everything somehow, and here’s (another!) one of his kids spoiling Leaf’s otherwise perfect claim to the entire north of Thracia. Again, how many people believe these claims of sekrit heritage?
“The rumors and speculations about him never ceased, and now the truth has been shrouded in mystery,” says our narrator. Sounds like rather a lot of people then. Sounds like these rumors would be difficult to ignore... or avoid. Sounds like a potential focal point for trouble. Fergus doesn’t capitalize on the rumors, though; after the war, he “disappears like the wind” in true FE style. He may be hanging out in a bar in Silesia somewhere, joking with his pal Karin and tossing back whatever they drink up there.
But I’ll just point out that the person who claims that there aren’t any male heirs other than Leaf knows damn well what Beowulf looked like. And what Beowulf-offspring look like. And has a pretty sound track record of identifying improbable lost heirs of this and that. And has more invested in Leaf's dominance of Thracia than anyone else still alive. Funny, that.
In summary:
We’re glad the Lopto sect got expelled, glad the riff-raff were eliminated, mostly glad about the Freeges being destroyed except for the nice people who were harmed in the process, and the ultimate fates of both Trabant’s clan and the other dynasties of Northern Thracia really is kind of a WTF. When the stakes are so very political, without the High Holy mumbo-jumbo coming into play... not to mention the suggestion from August that Leaf was “created” as a hero for reasons August won’t reveal... the morality of this one feels pretty shaded and a little bit dodgy in places. Go, Team Leaf! We’re shitty to our allies and have no business mucking around in the south, but go to it anyway, boy. It’s destiny. Maybe.
