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On Fathers
Aug. 18th, 2011 09:48 amAs I said earlier, suggesting that Vigarde abused Lyon as a means of explaining Lyon’s actions doesn’t sit well with me for a number of reasons. After reading a recently posted FE8 'fic, I have a little more clarity on why I feel this way, beyond the reason I already gave.
Lyon used the Demon King’s power to manipulate his father’s dead body. This is macabre, but there’s more to it than that. Souls exist in Magvel, and we don’t know if Vigarde’s soul was still inside his shell of a body, or whether he was outside of it. Either way, it’s entirely possible that Vigarde knew what was going on— both his son’s actions, and his own alleged actions. That’s not just macabre, it’s horrifying.
It’s not impossible that Vigarde was abusive to Lyon. At the very least, he might well have been neglectful. But what we actually see, in canon, is Lyon’s abuse of Vigarde—of his physical form, of his legacy, of his reputation, of his kingship, and possibly of his soul/will. Even if Vigarde were a terrible man (see: Jiol, Lang) or a very… complicated one (Trabant, Alvis, Desmond), what Lyon does is a transgression on a shocking number of levels—and that’s just one specific crime out of Lyon’s list of offenses. And as we don’t have solid evidence that Vigarde belongs in either of those categories, well, that just makes it all the more awful.
Vigarde is ultimately one of his son’s victims, and to assume that he had it coming, or bore the responsibility for it, seems like an overreach. And I think the simple fact that you can’t save Lyon says that we’re intended to see Lyon, not his father, as the one at fault for this disaster.
-x-
Mind you, I do agree that just because Vigarde’s generals are loyal to him and distressed by the “change” in him doesn’t mean he was necessarily a model of kingship and parenthood. Parental figures in Fire Emblem often have a bit of shading to them—I’m in the camp that thinks that Elbert wasn’t a squeaky-clean character. Politics is politics, man. Uther (a substitute parent of sorts) definitely wasn’t squeaky-clean, and Hector may not have been either by the time that FE6 rolled around. Nyna’s father seems to have been a pretty repellent character, all told (providing refuge to disgruntled ex-slaveholders?), and I suspect that loyalty to Nyna’s father was, at the bare minimum, why Cornelius wasn’t spared in the clean sweep that took out every elder head of state across Archanea besides the kings of Aurelis and Talys. Either Cornelius was too naïve to realize that his suzerain was bringing disaster on them (entirely possible, given THAT family), he had an understanding of the situation but acted only within the narrow parameters of defending his lord (maybe he was more similar to Camus than we thought…), or he was actually okay with the things Nyna’s father was doing. Any way you slice it, we have some possibilities for why the divine forces that pull the strings in Archanea didn’t want him as their designated hero, and we don’t even have to bring child abuse into it.
That’s what anime adaptations are for. :P
Lyon used the Demon King’s power to manipulate his father’s dead body. This is macabre, but there’s more to it than that. Souls exist in Magvel, and we don’t know if Vigarde’s soul was still inside his shell of a body, or whether he was outside of it. Either way, it’s entirely possible that Vigarde knew what was going on— both his son’s actions, and his own alleged actions. That’s not just macabre, it’s horrifying.
It’s not impossible that Vigarde was abusive to Lyon. At the very least, he might well have been neglectful. But what we actually see, in canon, is Lyon’s abuse of Vigarde—of his physical form, of his legacy, of his reputation, of his kingship, and possibly of his soul/will. Even if Vigarde were a terrible man (see: Jiol, Lang) or a very… complicated one (Trabant, Alvis, Desmond), what Lyon does is a transgression on a shocking number of levels—and that’s just one specific crime out of Lyon’s list of offenses. And as we don’t have solid evidence that Vigarde belongs in either of those categories, well, that just makes it all the more awful.
Vigarde is ultimately one of his son’s victims, and to assume that he had it coming, or bore the responsibility for it, seems like an overreach. And I think the simple fact that you can’t save Lyon says that we’re intended to see Lyon, not his father, as the one at fault for this disaster.
-x-
Mind you, I do agree that just because Vigarde’s generals are loyal to him and distressed by the “change” in him doesn’t mean he was necessarily a model of kingship and parenthood. Parental figures in Fire Emblem often have a bit of shading to them—I’m in the camp that thinks that Elbert wasn’t a squeaky-clean character. Politics is politics, man. Uther (a substitute parent of sorts) definitely wasn’t squeaky-clean, and Hector may not have been either by the time that FE6 rolled around. Nyna’s father seems to have been a pretty repellent character, all told (providing refuge to disgruntled ex-slaveholders?), and I suspect that loyalty to Nyna’s father was, at the bare minimum, why Cornelius wasn’t spared in the clean sweep that took out every elder head of state across Archanea besides the kings of Aurelis and Talys. Either Cornelius was too naïve to realize that his suzerain was bringing disaster on them (entirely possible, given THAT family), he had an understanding of the situation but acted only within the narrow parameters of defending his lord (maybe he was more similar to Camus than we thought…), or he was actually okay with the things Nyna’s father was doing. Any way you slice it, we have some possibilities for why the divine forces that pull the strings in Archanea didn’t want him as their designated hero, and we don’t even have to bring child abuse into it.
That’s what anime adaptations are for. :P
