Holsety Ex Machina (On Sety)

[mark_asphodel]

I was going to write about Sigurd and his fanbase, because it perplexes me when it doesn't confound me (I don't mean the stat peeps, I mean fans who think he's smart and competent), but then I realized I had this in the can and Dumbass Sigurd can wait. Because Sety's fans confound me in a different way.

 

 

Sety. I was hearing about how awesome Sety was even before I knew what game(s) he was in. And first I was kind of confused, given there’s playable-character Sety and Crusader Sety and Holsety the spellbook and Holsety the god-dragon.

Male Villager:

The liberation army has yet to cross the river. What in the world are we to do?

 

Sety:

You take everybody and head for Conote. I'll hold off the enemy for as long as I can.

 

Female Villager:

Sety, please be reasonable! You'll perish out here all alone!

 

Sety:

It's alright. I've been prepared for this all along. Besides, I won't go down without a fight!

Look, there's no time to waste... Now get going!

(FE4, Ch8)

 

Levin!Sety has the only opportunity of any Generation 2 boy to get the chance to confront his parental unit, and it turns out to be one of the better scenes in that half of the game.

Levin:

Hey Sety, you found me out. How've you been?

 

Sety:

Father, you've got some nerve! You have no idea how long I've been looking for you!

Do you have any idea how many years have past since you left Silesia!?

 

Levin:

Hmm... good question. Hey, how's Fury doing?

 

Sety:

H, how dare you! Mother is dead!!

Et cetera. I would've liked to see Levin!Arthur get an equivalent scene, but the game designers clearly don't like me.

Sety has a good and non-creepy relationship with his sister. As for romance, he has one and only one predestined lover-- Tinny the mage. You could say that their lover conversation shows a different side of Sety than the facade he presents to the villagers that depend on him for protection.

Sety:

You're beautiful, Tinny. You know that? You mean the world to me.

 

Tinny:

Sety, quit it! You're embarrassing me...

 

Sety:

Hahaha... Sorry, I just had to say it while I had the chance.

You could also call this more unconvincing FE4 relationship BS. Frankly, the canon doesn't appear to favor Sety as Tinny's suitor any more than it favors Seliph (two stat-boost conversations) or Leif (one stat-boost conversation). It's a very popular pairing in fanart and such, probably because it is Sety's only "canon" pairing and also because footsoldier mages go well together.

So that's FE4!Sety. How about FE5!Sety?

Well, like most of the FE4 characters that show up in FE5, he comes across in a somewhat different light (Leif changes the most, IMO, and even Delmud, with his handful of lines, is skewed.). FE4!Sety may be "Sety the Hero," but there doesn't seem to be a vast gulf of experience between him and the other kiddies. Sety gets mad, gets flustered, and gets gushy over Tinny. He's another teenager in a pack of super-powered teenagers-- more composed and together than most of his peers, as befits his prepromote latecomer status, but not excessively so. He's not one of the adults.

But in FE5, Sety fits into the Gotoh archetype, that of the hyperpowered wise man (or woman) who lurks around the margins and finally deigns to join you come endgame. To this end, Sety kind of turns into Leif's Sagey Godfather, providing him with troops, with a personally-trained sidekick, with various dollops of advice and encouragement.

Asvel:

"What are you going to do, Lord Sety?"

 

Sety:

"I'm going to stay here a little longer. The remaining civilians must be

helped as well."

 

Asvel:

"I'm sorry... You've taught me so much, but I can't be of any help to you..."

 

Sety:

"Don't worry about it. The only thing I ever taught you was that Grafcalibur

spell. You can use it to protect Prince Leaf from now on."

 

Asvel:

"...Lord Sety, we'll meet again, won't we?"

 

Sety:

"If Prince Leaf is truly our hero, then Thracia will eventually be liberated.

...We'll see each other again, right here in Manster."

 

You'd think Sety and Asvel have a couple of years in age difference between them at least, but nope. Asvel's fifteen to Sety’s sixteen. Keep in mind that this also makes Sety no more than a year older than Leif, who’s also fifteen. In terms of FE4 mechanics, it's unlikely that Sety's more than a a few months older (Levin and Fury have their insta-love conversation well into Chapter 4, Leif is stated to be a newborn in Chapter 5). But he's given dialogue like this:

Sety:

"...What are you saying? What do you think a Holy Warrior is? Is it simply

one who inherits a Holy Weapon? No, of course not! For hundreds of years,

Jugdral was under the control of an evil Empire worshipping the dark god,

Loptous. The Holy Warriors were the heroes who freed the people from the

Empire's grasp. And you, Lord Leaf, have been fighting that same battle for

over a year now. You have pushed through perilous battles to save your people

from tyranny. I don't think Lord Celice or I am any nobler than you. Not

only did you, the youngest among us, grow up in the most painful

circumstances, but you've also been fighting the longest. If that isn't what

you would call a Holy Warrior, then what is? Believe in yourself! You most

certainly are a Holy Warrior of Nova!"

 

Leaf:

"Lord Sety...thank you. I must have been overwhelmed after I saw how much you

and Lord Celice have done. ...Perhaps I still am a child."

 

Sety:

"Well then, that would mean I've been rescued by a child."

 

Leaf:

"Oh... That's not what I meant..."

 

And here I thought Tinny had the most horrible childhood. But we'll get back to that plothole in a few. The point here is that Sety essentially "blesses" Leif and his quest, removing the stigma of Loser that Leif's been carrying through this entire game. He's got a kind of moral authority here that outstrips anyone else in the game; as a holy warrior himself, his advice is coming from a different plane that that of Leif's tacticians. So it's perfectly relevant to Sety's in-game role that FE5 makes him officially the son of Levin and the heir to Holsety, instead of Fury's kid by... anyone. Levin may be carrying out Holsety's mission on Jugdral, but Sety is clearly working the Holsety mojo himself. Holsety!Sety comes across as an amplified version of his Sety the Hero presentation-- charismatic enough to attract followers, so dedicated to helping others in need that it almost becomes a fault (but the script excuses it), humble enough to apologize that his heroic acts weren't heroic enough. Not to mention capable of negotiating one-on-one with somebody like Cyas. Seliph may pop into the game to remind everyone he's the continental hero and all, but Sety's the one who radiates... something. He's not on the level of Normal People, but whereas Seliph is a hazily presented Perfect Guy, Sety falls into a more easily categorized "type" of anime/manga/game hero, IMO. And I think it's a type that chicks tend to dig... a lot.

Back to the Tinny plothole. FE5 completely rewrites the FE4 account of what's going on in Alster. Instead of meeting with Tinny and Arthur, or with Ethnia's kids Linda and Amid, we meet Princess Miranda, the daughter of Alster's unnamed king and his queen Ethnia... who apparently isn't Ethnia of Freege. Or something. It appears Arthur was originally supposed to show up in FE5, as he has an unused portrait in the game data, but it's anyone's guess what he would've been doing. Besides, the indications are that early versions of FE5 intended to use subkiddies-- Hawk instead of Sety, Janne instead if Nanna, and so on. Was this originally supposed to be a complete Alternate Continuity?

Anyway, when Sety meets Karin, the Silesian peg rider who's been searching for him all this time, they have the following dialogue:

Karin:
"..Yes... I would just be in the way, wouldn't I... All right, I shall go

back home. Please promise me that you'll come back as well, Lord Sety."

 

Sety:

"Yes, I swear to you that I'll return. Here, I'll give you this as a symbol of

our promise."

 

Karin:

"What is this? A rag?"

 

Sety:

"That's a national treasure of Ciledia. It's an old scroll left by the holy

warrior Sety, and it has magical powers. I'm really supposed to give it to my

bride, but I'll give it to you for now."

 

Karin:

"I-I can't accept such a valuable item!"

 

Sety:

"Karin... I'm sorry about my mother. I'm also grateful that you took care of

Fee for me. This is a symbol of my gratitude. Please take it."

 

Karin:

"...Very well. But I'm only taking it for the time being. I'll be sure to

give it back once you return to Ciledia!"

Tinny who?

This is a large part of why I find Sety/Tinny so damned unconvincing. FE5 offered the perfect opportunity to "canonize" Sety/Tinny the way that Leif/Nanna and Levin/Fury became canon, but instead we have Tinny's role in the plot replaced by other characters plus Sety acting like brideshopping ain't on his list of priorities. Tinny's mentioned once-- as leading her mages against Seliph's army. The romance isn't not ruled out necessarily, but eh... like I said, it could've been canon here and it ain't.

And that's Sety of the Rabid Fanbase. I can't complain about the fans who adore him because of Holsety (yeah, he's great) or have Sety/Tinny or Sety/Leen as their OTP (however much I don't like those relationships) but the number of people over on SF and elsewhere who gloss over the inconsistency in how he's written or outright think he actually doesn't change between the games does puzzle me. Just because it's not as in-your-face as how Leif was rewritten doesn't mean the dissonance isn't there, IMO.

Comments

[amielleon]

A minor point, but now that you mention it, unless it's FE2 or 13, I can't think of a single female Gotoh. Gotoh, sorta-Julia, Sety/Cyas, Karel(?), Athos, Tibarn/Giffca/Naesala, Everyone Plus the Spoilery Guy.

Well, I guess Nailah and Elincia technically count in that "everyone" but not nearly as neatly.as Spoilery Guy.

[mark_asphodel]

Karel counts... enough.

I have seen an argument made for Niime in FE6 too, though. That means FE6 is lousy with Gotohs.

FE11 gives you Nagi as a female Gotoh if you pissed off actual Gotoh.

[amielleon]

Oh, right, I forget she outright replaces Gotoh.

[mark_asphodel]

Actually, don't the four priestesses from FE3/12 kind of count? You get them when they're too damn late to be useful, and they're all prepromotes packing scary things IIRC.

[amielleon]

Uh...

Name/Class/Level/Hp/Str/Mag/Skl/Spd/Luck/Def/Res/Mov/Weapon
Lena Bishop 3 27 1 8 8 13 10 6 11 6 Tome D, Staff B
Maria Bishop 1 24 1 5 5 5 8 3 9 6 Tome E, Staff C
Nyna Bishop 7 25 1 6 6 10 18 4 9 6 Tome C, Staff A
Elice Bishop 5 26 1 7 7 7 7 5 10 6 Tome C, Staff A

... Not really?

EDIT: They do have nice treats in their inventories though, I guess.

[raphiael]

I feel like Sety does it for me just because he hits a lot of things I like in general. Loner mage guy with family issues? Yes please. But I don't really feel passionate about any of his pairings or anything, and I doubt playing through the games rather than just reading them would help with that, because I don't care about the gameplay advantages. Can't keep track, to be honest. But acting like there isn't a difference between games? What even.

Though I guess a lot of Jugdral fandom baffles me in general. The whole "greatest FE ever" business and all, I just don't see it.

[mark_asphodel]

Yeah. This statement wasn't made by a cretin, either: "Sety is the exact same in both games he's in. Ultra heroic and ultra broken."

It's like people put on Jugdral Goggles that make everything go funny.

[zyriex]

Ohh boy, yeah when playing through FE5 I was always kinda disconcerted by how much older and more glorified Sety appeared as compared to everyone else especially his own age group. I personally like Sety/Tinny for the "eh, give the poor girl a nice bf" and "THEIR CHILDREN WILL NUKE THE EARTH" factors.

Though out of curiosity, what other sites are you getting dissenting opinions from? Mainly Serenes or some foreign fandoms?

[mark_asphodel]

Though out of curiosity, what other sites are you getting dissenting opinions from? Mainly Serenes or some foreign fandoms?

Mostly message boards/fora-- GameFaqs, SerenesForest, and some older defunct ones. There's not a lot of actual FE fansites in English that I've found.