Michalis Reconsidered

[mark_asphodel]

I was looking over FE11's script to see if I've missed something glaring all this time, and something regarding Michalis leaped out at me.  It was something I've known and remembered, but this time around I looked at it in a new light.
 

The intention was to spare Michalis the whole time.  At least, that was Marth's intention the entire time.  Dolhr, Grust, Gra and their leaders were all at the top of Marth's hit list, but there's no indication that Michalis was ever scheduled for a comeuppance.  By the time the League actually gets to Macedon, Marth is so willing to overlook Michalis's prior deeds that he sends him a message that apparently asks Michalis just to let the League pass through and settle the whole Gharnef/Medeus end of things.  Michalis doesn't respond, and then Minerva pops up talking about how she's going to settle things with her brother once and for all (yeah right).  And Marth isn't too thrilled with that, either, as he's been acting on the assumption that Minerva would want to forgive her brother.

Michalis, for his part, decides to make the whole conflict that he's provoked some kind of cosmic test of the legitimacy of his kingship.  And he loses... apparently.  And you can argue that this sort of move on Mikey's part is exactly the kind of hubris that warrants a cosmic smackdown.  But nobody was gunning for him or aimed to bring him to justice other than his sister, who of course couldn't force herself to handle the follow-through.  If Michalis had said, "OK, kid.  Finish your stupid treasure hunt, kill that damned dragon and get off my land," he'd have been sitting pretty on the throne of Macedon after the war-- without reconciliation, without begging for or being offered forgiveness.  All he had to do was turn a blind eye to the League passing through his kingdom.

Really, the whole set-up has a theatrical quality to it.  The siblings are given three chances to step back from the brink-- the unanswered letter, Marth's conversation with Minerva, and Gotoh's talk with Michalis, which is FAR less hostile than the corresponding scene in FE3-- and therefore invites some compassion for Michalis.  Oh, yes-- and after the battle Marth offers an impromptu eulogy that treats Michalis as a victim of war, not an instigator.  Hmm.


I'd always taken that scene simply as an indication of how tired Marth is of the entire war at that point-- "OK, we don't support you, but you're not really relevant to anything now, so just leave us alone."  (Marth seems both subdued and regretful in the Macedon chapters.)  But given the changes between FE3 Book 1 and FE11, I wonder if IS was laying the groundwork for some of the plot twists in FE12.   We've been looking at the Michalis thing as a reversal of FE3 and have been lamenting that Pretty Boy Mikey isn't held accountable for anything anymore.  But what if it's just follow-through from FE11, which treats his "death" not as justice served, but as a Very Sad Thing that never should have happened?