![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mark_asphodel Glade. Or Grade, if you prefer.
He generally referred to as "Finn's best friend." Which he is. Only close friend, really. Maybe a "special" friend, depending on what you want to read into Selphina's little rant in Chapter Nine. But this isn't about that.
Nope, this is about why Glade even exists.
I mean, for one he and his wife Selphina fit neatly into a standard FE "archetype," the Happily Married Couple (or power couple, as I call it, because some examples thereof aren't technically married). They're usually older than your adolescent cast, usually pre-promotes, and have a definite edge in gameverse authority and privilege. Think Midia and Astram, Clive and Matilda, Cuan and Ethlin, Zealot and Juno, Pent and Louise. I could even argue for Lucia and Bastian in the Tellius saga based on their paired ending. In many cases this happy couple comes with an accessory-- a little apprentice (think Erk) or a third-wheel adult (think Jeorge). So there's that.
(Glade and Selphina fit the third-wheel model, obviously.)
Gameplay-wise, Glade is a mid-game promoted dude on a horse with a leadership star, so if Finn got RNG screwed or you somehow managed to get him killed, you've got a leadership star on a horse. Even mounted units get fatigue, so somewhere along the line he's going to be useful for the star alone.
In terms of storyline he's Finn's BFF, the guy who got to hold onto Leonster's flag for safe-keeping at the same time Finn escaped with ickle prince Leif. The short story that formed the setting of FE5 establishes Glade as the more gregarious and "enthusiastic" of the pair, with Finn being "perceptive" but quiet and mopey and honestly kind of weird. OK, great. Finn never had any friends before, so why does he get one photoshopped into the picture now? Well, Glade and Selphina and the characters around them-- like Selphina's father, Count Dorias the doomed tactician-- give us a look into the kind of place Leonster was. We never get that clear of a picture of Altea or Chalphy or even Isaac, so we don't entirely know what sort of places Marth and Sigurd or Seliph came from, what made them who they are or what they're trying to get back. We might get told, but we don't see it. FE5 finally gives us a small-scale and intimate picture of the Lord's homeland-- both the good and the bad. Leif's Thracia isn't just about nobles and high-ranking generals and the handful of knights closest to the throne, it's about bureaucrats and social climbers and knights who punch the clock and don't angst about being the Very Best. And we see people joke and bicker and fly off the handle and behave more like flawed people and less like storybook characters; some FE5 characters have squat in the way of characterization, but overall it's a big step forward from the previous games. So, through these characters we finally have a sense of the little kingdom that got wiped off the map and an idea of what it may be once Leif puts it back onto the map.
So, let's take stock of Glade the Man. Here's this dude in his mid-30s. He has a hot younger wife who adores him. By marrying her, he's gotten into what's left of the aristocracy. He has a position of respect and responsibility and he and his wife between them have been shepherding a new generation of knights and civil servants. He's an absolute A-lister in Leonster society and he's basically earned it. He doesn't have an easy life, but all the pieces of a really good and fulfilling life are there in place.
As opposed to his buddy Finn, who has an MIA love interest (or something) who was some homeless foreign chick to start with, a strained relationship with his daughter, and a very loose network of sketchy allies scattered around the map. And Leif. Oh, and fame, for whatever good that does besides making his daughter a target for kidnapping. When Leif says that Finn gave up "everything" to raise Leif, he means it; Glade is basically the walking example of everything Finn didn't get in life because he got entrusted with the kid instead of a scrap of fabric or something less precious. Hell, Glade's even been holed up in a mansion instead of in some poverty-stricken backwater.
(You can argue Finn, being the introverted dork of their dyad, wouldn't have gone so far socially anyway, but as it is he wasn't afforded the chance and everyone involved knows it.)
I think there's a good deal more it than just giving us an illustration of how crappy Finn's life actually is. For one, the way Glade's set up, he actually takes the role that Finn was implied to have in FE4. Remember how Quan gave Finn half an army to play with, or how Seliph entrusts the welfare of Thracia to Finn (and Hannibal) if Leif and Altena both kick it? Finn seemed fairly important in an overall political sense, and he doesn't in FE5. The whole basic infrastructure of a functional kingdom was being rebuilt by Dorias, Glade, and others while Finn was off in the hinterland. Dorias and friends had a kind of shadow government all ready to go, waiting for the moment when Leif showed up to claim his rights. Finn kept Leif alive long enough for the magic moment to come, but other than that, he was completely cut out of the action. The young knights may know OF him, but they sure don't know him, and they're loyal to Dorias, Selphina, and Glade-- the people who trained them and watched over them. Hell, some of the Leonster kids, like Carion, are more loyal to Hannibal. Basically, he's gone from being Quan's trusted protege to Quan's "favorite servant," which just doesn't carry the same impact. Glade leads fresh-faced young knights-- to their deaths, as often as not, but he's a leader. Finn doesn't lead. He doesn't really try. All through FE5, he either lets someone else run the show or he strikes off on his own like he does in Chapter Seven.
(If Quan really gave Finn half the Lanzaritter and put him in charge of Leonster's defense, in light of FE5 it would seem the kind of oddball move credited to the more degenerate sort of Roman Emperor-- the "You made your WHAT a senator?" sort of move. I bet that older and wiser heads reversed that one the second they got word of Quan's demise.)
And then comes the end of the war. Glade becomes the Great General and rebuilds Thracia into a mighty war machine, while Selphina takes on the role of "Mother of Thracia" and seems about as well-respected as the queen. Hannibal appears to be relegated to a modest post in Meath. And as for Finn... well, he just up and disappears. And comes back. And after that we just don't know. But that's all by design, and you can see it in the the respective epithets for Glade and Finn in their character endings. They're both referred to as Lance Knights even though Glade joins as a a pre-promote, and the key difference is in the adjective. Glade is "The Dutiful." Now, wait a minute... what was Finn ever in his life other than dutiful? Well, this time around his epithet is "The Legendary."
Emphasis on "legend," as in the kind of tale from Celtic myth in which people go missing for three years at a time because Reasons. The kind of tale from which Kaga mined so many names of people and places and weapons. Glade seems to have been conjured out of whole cloth not just to be Finn's Best Friend and foil, but do the exact stuff that FE4 implied Finn would do post-game while Finn himself rides off into a hazy sunset of vague implications. And I don't think I'm reading too much into this. Asamielleon 's pointed out, IS basically did the same thing with Ike and Boyd, making Boyd the shadow/surrogate of Ike who marries Ike's sister and takes over the mercs when Ike goes off doing mysterious hero stuff far, far away. Boyd does the stuff Ike would've done by default if Ike hadn't been become the most specialest person in Tellius. (Except for marrying Mist but YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN and anyway she's a Valkyrie and we all know how mounted staff chicks are *cough*.)
I've no idea why all this changed to the extent that it did, why going through FE5 leads to a repeated sense of "Remember that thing you saw in FE4? DIDN'T HAPPEN!!!" But it most certainly changed, and I can only assume the designers had their grand design.
He generally referred to as "Finn's best friend." Which he is. Only close friend, really. Maybe a "special" friend, depending on what you want to read into Selphina's little rant in Chapter Nine. But this isn't about that.
Nope, this is about why Glade even exists.
I mean, for one he and his wife Selphina fit neatly into a standard FE "archetype," the Happily Married Couple (or power couple, as I call it, because some examples thereof aren't technically married). They're usually older than your adolescent cast, usually pre-promotes, and have a definite edge in gameverse authority and privilege. Think Midia and Astram, Clive and Matilda, Cuan and Ethlin, Zealot and Juno, Pent and Louise. I could even argue for Lucia and Bastian in the Tellius saga based on their paired ending. In many cases this happy couple comes with an accessory-- a little apprentice (think Erk) or a third-wheel adult (think Jeorge). So there's that.
(Glade and Selphina fit the third-wheel model, obviously.)
Gameplay-wise, Glade is a mid-game promoted dude on a horse with a leadership star, so if Finn got RNG screwed or you somehow managed to get him killed, you've got a leadership star on a horse. Even mounted units get fatigue, so somewhere along the line he's going to be useful for the star alone.
In terms of storyline he's Finn's BFF, the guy who got to hold onto Leonster's flag for safe-keeping at the same time Finn escaped with ickle prince Leif. The short story that formed the setting of FE5 establishes Glade as the more gregarious and "enthusiastic" of the pair, with Finn being "perceptive" but quiet and mopey and honestly kind of weird. OK, great. Finn never had any friends before, so why does he get one photoshopped into the picture now? Well, Glade and Selphina and the characters around them-- like Selphina's father, Count Dorias the doomed tactician-- give us a look into the kind of place Leonster was. We never get that clear of a picture of Altea or Chalphy or even Isaac, so we don't entirely know what sort of places Marth and Sigurd or Seliph came from, what made them who they are or what they're trying to get back. We might get told, but we don't see it. FE5 finally gives us a small-scale and intimate picture of the Lord's homeland-- both the good and the bad. Leif's Thracia isn't just about nobles and high-ranking generals and the handful of knights closest to the throne, it's about bureaucrats and social climbers and knights who punch the clock and don't angst about being the Very Best. And we see people joke and bicker and fly off the handle and behave more like flawed people and less like storybook characters; some FE5 characters have squat in the way of characterization, but overall it's a big step forward from the previous games. So, through these characters we finally have a sense of the little kingdom that got wiped off the map and an idea of what it may be once Leif puts it back onto the map.
So, let's take stock of Glade the Man. Here's this dude in his mid-30s. He has a hot younger wife who adores him. By marrying her, he's gotten into what's left of the aristocracy. He has a position of respect and responsibility and he and his wife between them have been shepherding a new generation of knights and civil servants. He's an absolute A-lister in Leonster society and he's basically earned it. He doesn't have an easy life, but all the pieces of a really good and fulfilling life are there in place.
As opposed to his buddy Finn, who has an MIA love interest (or something) who was some homeless foreign chick to start with, a strained relationship with his daughter, and a very loose network of sketchy allies scattered around the map. And Leif. Oh, and fame, for whatever good that does besides making his daughter a target for kidnapping. When Leif says that Finn gave up "everything" to raise Leif, he means it; Glade is basically the walking example of everything Finn didn't get in life because he got entrusted with the kid instead of a scrap of fabric or something less precious. Hell, Glade's even been holed up in a mansion instead of in some poverty-stricken backwater.
(You can argue Finn, being the introverted dork of their dyad, wouldn't have gone so far socially anyway, but as it is he wasn't afforded the chance and everyone involved knows it.)
I think there's a good deal more it than just giving us an illustration of how crappy Finn's life actually is. For one, the way Glade's set up, he actually takes the role that Finn was implied to have in FE4. Remember how Quan gave Finn half an army to play with, or how Seliph entrusts the welfare of Thracia to Finn (and Hannibal) if Leif and Altena both kick it? Finn seemed fairly important in an overall political sense, and he doesn't in FE5. The whole basic infrastructure of a functional kingdom was being rebuilt by Dorias, Glade, and others while Finn was off in the hinterland. Dorias and friends had a kind of shadow government all ready to go, waiting for the moment when Leif showed up to claim his rights. Finn kept Leif alive long enough for the magic moment to come, but other than that, he was completely cut out of the action. The young knights may know OF him, but they sure don't know him, and they're loyal to Dorias, Selphina, and Glade-- the people who trained them and watched over them. Hell, some of the Leonster kids, like Carion, are more loyal to Hannibal. Basically, he's gone from being Quan's trusted protege to Quan's "favorite servant," which just doesn't carry the same impact. Glade leads fresh-faced young knights-- to their deaths, as often as not, but he's a leader. Finn doesn't lead. He doesn't really try. All through FE5, he either lets someone else run the show or he strikes off on his own like he does in Chapter Seven.
(If Quan really gave Finn half the Lanzaritter and put him in charge of Leonster's defense, in light of FE5 it would seem the kind of oddball move credited to the more degenerate sort of Roman Emperor-- the "You made your WHAT a senator?" sort of move. I bet that older and wiser heads reversed that one the second they got word of Quan's demise.)
And then comes the end of the war. Glade becomes the Great General and rebuilds Thracia into a mighty war machine, while Selphina takes on the role of "Mother of Thracia" and seems about as well-respected as the queen. Hannibal appears to be relegated to a modest post in Meath. And as for Finn... well, he just up and disappears. And comes back. And after that we just don't know. But that's all by design, and you can see it in the the respective epithets for Glade and Finn in their character endings. They're both referred to as Lance Knights even though Glade joins as a a pre-promote, and the key difference is in the adjective. Glade is "The Dutiful." Now, wait a minute... what was Finn ever in his life other than dutiful? Well, this time around his epithet is "The Legendary."
Emphasis on "legend," as in the kind of tale from Celtic myth in which people go missing for three years at a time because Reasons. The kind of tale from which Kaga mined so many names of people and places and weapons. Glade seems to have been conjured out of whole cloth not just to be Finn's Best Friend and foil, but do the exact stuff that FE4 implied Finn would do post-game while Finn himself rides off into a hazy sunset of vague implications. And I don't think I'm reading too much into this. As
amielleon 's pointed out, IS basically did the same thing with Ike and Boyd, making Boyd the shadow/surrogate of Ike who marries Ike's sister and takes over the mercs when Ike goes off doing mysterious hero stuff far, far away. Boyd does the stuff Ike would've done by default if Ike hadn't been become the most specialest person in Tellius. (Except for marrying Mist but YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN and anyway she's a Valkyrie and we all know how mounted staff chicks are *cough*.)I've no idea why all this changed to the extent that it did, why going through FE5 leads to a repeated sense of "Remember that thing you saw in FE4? DIDN'T HAPPEN!!!" But it most certainly changed, and I can only assume the designers had their grand design.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-18 11:32 pm (UTC)Glade: "And what will you be doing, pray tell?"
Finn: "LOLOLOLOL!"
no subject
Date: 2013-04-19 12:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-19 12:41 am (UTC)The Irony of FE5, i just can't deny the fact that Dorias does a damn good job at setting up the throne for Leif*, something that August definitely can't do.
*cough tragicheroQuanandEthlyncough
Although one of Glade's line in FE5 is pretty interesting
"Hm... What about Prince Shanan? If he is a direct descendant of the Sword Saint Ordo, he must have power far greater than ours. Why does he refuse to help?"
That line basically screams "Quan sucks" depending on how you look at it
He's a pretty interesting character even with his few lines....
no subject
Date: 2013-04-19 11:23 pm (UTC)Not sure about that. I think the "Shanan" he's talking about, the one who only has time to play with women, is actually Shanam.
He's a pretty interesting character even with his few lines....
Yeah, I like his attitude. He's already been hyped a LOT as a character before he appears, and the jab at "Shanan" when we finally see Glade helps him not seem cardboard.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-19 01:36 am (UTC)This. Just this. For all of it's flaws, FE5's story, dialogue and subtle characterization is one of my favorite in the series. Honestly, the ending for one of the stock, lineless units you get that states he ended up becoming a famous bureaucrat is one of my favorite. Seriously, it seems like every other ending talks about how awesome a knight people ending up being or awesome at fighting they were, but there's more to running a country than being able to kick ass!
no subject
Date: 2013-04-19 03:09 am (UTC)Yeah, that pretty much justified his existence. I don't even remember if that was Kein or Alva, heh. Then you have Karin going back to Silesse and being not-extraordinary and you have Eyrios messing up his job so much they pack him off to some post where he can't cause any harm. Lots of great little tidbits there. Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-20 10:37 am (UTC)Also, Eyrios's ending is one of my favourites. And to think that an optional, very minor character has a whole paragraph detailing his fate whereas some characters *coughRadiantDawncough* just get a short sentence.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-19 02:30 am (UTC)In FE5, there's more of a focus on the roles of each individual - of expanding the character, not just the story. But in order to do that properly, the developers had to create new faces, from those younger knights serving under Selphina and Glade all the way up to "important" members of the aristocracy - like Linoan. And to make the more story-important characters actually relevant, they had to go into more detail than FE4 had... which led to a lot of inconsistencies. Things that were previously just skimmed over had to be rethought - like Quan relegating those troops to Finn. I mean, was King Calf not in Leonster at the time? Wouldn't military things fall to him, or someone who was actually a general (Dorias?) instead of just an everyday knight/servant? In FE4, it made sense, because the details were left open for interpretation - it wasn't important to the overall story.
It seems to me that Finn's character from FE4 got split in half as a result of FE5's story needing those other characters. Sure, Finn could have protected Leif AND played a part in the preservation of Leonster's government or whatever. Maybe relied on others to raise him there in Hannibal's mansion, so that they wouldn't have to traipse about the land in fear of their lives. But Finn distanced himself from all of that because he believed it would keep Leif safe, even though FE4 (by lack of mention) seems to imply that he was of grander political importance. So, basically, when they finally decided just what they wanted to do with Finn as a character on a smaller scale, they realized that he was all over the place, and had to find the line to cut - and from there, Glade was created.
(Which is why he and Finn are the best of bros - they're like, one person cut in half. TWO HALVES OF A WHOLE. Where are your bonds now, FE13?)
no subject
Date: 2013-04-19 02:53 am (UTC)I'm not sure I'm on-board with that. Right from when Cuan & Co turn up and we learn three units equals three people... no, I think Sigurd really only had a handful of peeps. Most of them were semi-divine, though. I mean, Sigurd might actually be the equal of twenty ordinary men. -_-
I mean, was King Calf not in Leonster at the time?
They actually covered their asses on that one by claiming he was ill and (IIRC) bedridden. He apparently recovered in time to die from other things, like treachery and murder. Still no excuse to place an eighteen-year-old in charge unless he's a military genius (doesn't look that way) or the rest of your army really sucks (well...).
So, basically, when they finally decided just what they wanted to do with Finn as a character on a smaller scale, they realized that he was all over the place, and had to find the line to cut - and from there, Glade was created.
I think you're right and that's exactly what happened. Because the way things turned out feels an awful lot like things I remember doing in originalfic with precisely that problem. Actually, they split his role into more fractions than that, because August/Dorias pop up to be Leif's advisor team when Finn was playing that role for Leif in FE4.
Maybe relied on others to raise him there in Hannibal's mansion, so that they wouldn't have to traipse about the land in fear of their lives.
Yeah, FE4 has Leif claiming they just hid out in a village. As in, one village. Clearly the entire Alster-Frest-Tahra-Fiana peregrination was a retcon-- a series of retcons, really, with the Frest stage only popping up by the time the artbook was made, just the way Raquie's departure was shoved back five years for the artbook timeline.
Where are your bonds now, FE13?
LOL. Perfect. :D
no subject
Date: 2013-04-19 06:28 am (UTC)Then again, the second gen is still said to be a huge army, so the scale thing still applies, IMO. (Also all of first gen being packed into 5 chapters, skimming over major events that could easily have been told in much more detail... doesn't help.)
Now we sit back and count how many times I failed to use new!spellings for things.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-19 10:24 am (UTC)At the hot springs and the beach.no subject
Date: 2013-04-19 01:00 pm (UTC)Burned Ship Barbeque of Bondsno subject
Date: 2013-04-19 08:04 pm (UTC)delicious