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?

Comments

[penandpaper71.livejournal.com]

Well, possibly, but I'd also note that Book 2 has a number of those types of situations that don't get overwritten in FE12 with the most glaring being Abel's fate. His wife leaves him after the war and then he vanishes while going after her (losing everything else), never to be heard from again. That can either be read as his version of cosmic "justice served" or a "very sad thing," but no matter which way it's read, he receives no reprieve at the end. I can't imagine any version of Marth that would have actually banished Abel for his crime and FE3 doesn't appear to indicate that Marth had any say in that. If it's a punishment, then it's coming from another source and if it's not and IS is just rewriting the wrongs of FE3, then why doesn't Abel's fate get softened any? Even his recruitment could have been altered to either erase or ease the actions that FE3 considers so unforgivable and his ending didn't have to happen as it does. It, too, could have been a "sad thing that never should have happened," but Abel's fate is crappy as it always was. Why does Abel's sad fate not rank a rewrite if Michalis' does?

Even if Michalis's fate is a matter of "sad events," the question still comes up as to why he's the only character with a crappy fate that got a reprieve from it? What makes him so special that he is not made to hold to his fate when push comes to shove because there are many, many characters that deserved better fates the they got in FE3 (More then just Abel as there are even characters who end poorly even in cases where they appear to have done nothing to deserve it).

And that is my two cents, for whatever it's worth. Unless... I misunderstood you.

[mark-asphodel.livejournal.com]

The question still comes up as to why he's the only character with a crappy fate that got a reprieve from it?

Presumably because someone on the developer team had the hots for him.

Seriously-- I am not attempting to justify what they did here. I'm with FE3!Gotoh-- as far as I'm concerned, Michalis crossed a forbidden line and earned his damnation, and was fortunate to just get redemption-by-death in the end. But it looked earlier like Michalis Lives! is a case of the FE12 team smoking crack and thinking up stuff to be funny, and given how the whole issue was so soft-pedaled in FE11, it's possible that they planned this change from the get-go. [Because I seriously do not believe they intended an FE1 remake without a corresponding FE3-Book-II remake. Once production began on the one, the other was guaranteed IMO.]

They changed a LOT with an eye toward making Michalis more sympathetic. A shame that, like Minerva, they weren't so hot on the follow-through.