Fire Emblem Fate (IF) thread (spoiler warning)

They're both bad routes IK made this clear already. Gotta shill that DLC.

Effie X Hana Supports

B

A

edited 21st Aug '15 1:43:10 AM by rmctagg09

Keep dreaming. Hoshido and Nohr are good enough.

Never mind my personal opinion that all 3 routes are awful from both a gameplay and story perspective. IK sells itself on the premise that Nohr and Hoshido are the 'bad' routes (or at least 'incomplete' routes) and the true path is IK. That's what I was responding to: that Hoshido is the bad route.

It's like you didn't even bother to read the context.

edited 21st Aug '15 9:55:52 AM by RangerJackWalker

What has bothered you from a gameplay perspective?

Why can't they just do the Persona thing and make each game it's own verse with mentions about past games. Sure... Persona 4 can sort of be in Persona 3's world, but they only make that happen in the spin-offs.

But you visit Gekkoukan High in Persona 4.

Also, references are made to past characters on the TV in 3.

Final Fantasy would probably be a better example of tha sort of thing.

Even then, Final Fantasy has Gilgamesh for dimension hopping.

Well, Fire Emblem has that too now, and even before then, Anna often cameoed.

I believe those are Woolseyisms, and the original Japanese either referenced the mainline SMT games or something completely different. Much like Naoto's reference to the Kuzunoha family.

edited 21st Aug '15 11:06:57 PM by AlleyOop

No that's from the Japanese version too. They even have Featherman which started in 2.

4 did have references to stuff most Westerners wouldn't know removed and replaced with SMT references.

The sodas in both games for example.

I didn't notice this earlier, but Kagerou actually has the highest STR growth of any character before adding in class growths. Higher than Charlotte, STR asset Kamui, Flannel, and Effie yet absolutely nothing about Kagerou's character hints at her strength.

The only different happenings of the routes is which kingdom you side with (and the units you get by proxy) and how much you uncover of the real villain's machinations: All routes ultimately end with Anankos in a position where his end goal of destroying both Hoshido and Nohr (because he's gone stark-raving mad) is impossible, whether it's because "Garon" dies, robbing Anankos of his main pawn and also likely some of his power, as well as foiling Anankos's attempt at making Takumi into a potential vessel or another "Garon" in case the former happens, whether by throwing a spanner in the works (Hoshido), or by killing him outright (Nohr), or because Anankos is found out and put down (Invisible Kingdom).

Technically his power is fine as long as he stays in IK and there's bound to be someone who falls in there at some point beyond Hoshido. On Nohr at least killing his vessel while he's possessing likely does him in as on Invisible Kingdom he explicitly escapes Gunters body the moment he tries to kill himself because he'd die with him.

edited 22nd Aug '15 7:44:58 AM by OmegaRadiance

No, the first two routes only end with Anankos suffering a mere set back. He's still there. Just like he was able to get to Takumi, he can still get to other people in the future. And with Aqua dead...

It's actually highly likely that Anankos used "Garon" in a similiar way to using Gunther and Takumi on the Hoshido route, because Garon can do many feats suggesting extremely powerful magic on that route and Takumi's possession failing thanks to Aqua means that Anankos only had Garon as a supposedly-alive pawn so he might have inhabited his body in the end to give Garon the power to take dragon form and kill the Avatar once and for all.

Meanwhile, on the Nohr route, Anankos succeeds in possessing Takumi and since the Avatar aids Nohr on that route, Anankos doesn't need to rely only on Garon and his influence to achieve his goals. Instead, he waits until Avatar does all the job in conquering Hoshido, tries to kill Avatar with the now-exposed Garon, and lies in wait as Takumi in order to kill the rest afterwards.

So, if I take what says, it's actually kind of likely that Anankos bites the dust in all routes.

By Hoshido being the "bad route" I meant was the likely outcome for Lazwald, Luna, and Odin.

Now that I can agree with.

Giving power to his minions is simple for Hydra and not bothersome at all. This is the guy whose heart was able to terraform the entire future of an Alternate Timeline for Awakening using Dragon's Vein while existing in the past and bestow eternal life like its free candy. Giving Garon some power is pretty easy.

Hell he gave the mindless faceless Rontao sentience.

Note that Anankos eats Garon to take back his power, and implicitly wants to eat Kamui to get even more of his power back. That in itself implies that he gets weakened when his blood resides in another person.

Slime Garon already had Hydras blood in it since its using Garon's corpse.

I don't take it to mean that at all. I simply assume that he lost it at some point and that eating people with his blood is the fastest way to restore himself. I don't believe it actually weakens him when he passes on Dragon's Vein.

edited 22nd Aug '15 10:01:10 AM by OmegaRadiance

And a tiny amount of Anankos's blood is only able to give Dragon's Vein for a couple years, but gifts children with the ability to inherit Dragon's Vein for a couple decades because Hydra's blood passes down to them.

It's sort of implied that Garon shouldn't have been able to use Dragon's Vein for so long, let alone doing all those magical feats that he is capable of doing with it like resurrecting a dragon corpse or taking a dragon form, both stuff that he only does in Birthright, not to mention that all other brainwashed pawns display none of the power that "Garon" displays, with the exception of Takumi on the Conquest path (the light wave field attack and the Takumi clone). And then there's Garon's true nature as a slime creature (and how it resembles his dragon form) which implies that it's not simply his own inherited dragon blood that's the cause of his magic feats.

Ergo, Anankos is using Garon's corpse as a means to destroy both Hoshido and Nohr. To increase the chances of this happening, Anankos gives Garon more of his power by donating blood to him and turning him into a familiar of Anankos in order to increase the chances of his goal being fulfilled.

On Hoshido, this means Anankos basically gives Garon as much of his blood as he can because the Avatar defects to Hoshido and thus represents a threat to his plans. He attempts to possess Takumi in order to have a failsafe, but Azura throws a monkey wrench into that plan so he has no choice to rely on Garon. To that end, he turns Garon as powerful as he can be and most likely takes residence in his corpse as a source of power and to ensure that Garon has the best possible chance to fullfill his goals. When the Avatar and friends "kill" Garon, Anankos intervenes personally and the Avatar's new sword isn't powerful enough, which leads to Garon "killing" the Avatar. However, against all of his predictions, the Avatar comes back, and this time his sword is able to stand up against him and eventually kill him.

On the Nohr path however, Anankos doesn't need to make Garon as powerful as he is in Hoshido, as the Avatar against all odds side with Nohr, and his gradual possession of Takumi succeeds so that he's ready to kill off the Avatar in case something goes awry, and something eventually does go awry: Garon fails (and his true nature is discovered) and dies which deprives Anankos of some of his blood and subsequent power, so he uses Takumi in a desperate attempt to kill the party, maybe cover it up, and possibly try to start a new war, this time using Hoshido as the aggressor. Anankos!Takumi subsequently manages to "kill" the Avatar like how Dragon!Garon did on the Birthright route. But again, like in the Birthright route, the Avatar comes back along with his sword (which had shattered) against his predictions, and thus he makes a last stand and is killed.

On the Invisible Kingdom route however, the Avatar actually is initiated into the Invisible Kingdom, and thus Anankos needs to keep tabs on him/her and fast. Luckily for him, Gunther who fell into the Invisible Kingdom earlier is a workable vessel since Takumi is unavailable. He is found out, but escapes in time to his own corpse (having left it to possess peeps in the first place) to become alive again and to fight the assembled army, as well as to devour the Avatar and get his blood (and thus, some of his power) back. Unfortunately for him, the Avatar gets Fire Emblem at that exact moment which lets him/her and his/her teammates actually beat him back, so he summons Garon so that he can devour him and get what power he gave to him back; all to ensure he has the best possible chance against the Avatar and the Fire Emblem.

Actually looking back at the dialogue it was the Songstresses and the Kings of Touma who sealed away Hydra's power in Dragonstones but no matter how many stones it was sealed he was just too powerful and the urges would return. So eating those with his blood is his way to restore that lost power.

Rereading the dialogue, it only says that a fragment of a dragonstone is used as an intermediary for the song to weaken Anankos's power. His power wasn't sealed into dragonstones as much as a dragonstone was being used as a component to suppress his power (and subsequently his destructive urges). He remained a dragon to the end (though his last remnants of sanity let him cut his heart and his sane self from his powerhungry dragon self so that the vestiges of his sanity could do what it could to set up his own downfall).

edited 22nd Aug '15 11:31:04 AM by Folt