Fire Emblem Heroes

Ah, the great offscreen knights.

I had completely forgotten that they existed. Seriously, the Order of Heroes does 99% of the heavy lifting rather than Gustav's nameless, faceless knights, so I don't see why Gustav's grousing about it. I guess they swoop in for the rescue during the invasion, but...eh, offscreen stuff is offscreen. The Order of Heroes has got proven results, and without them, Askr would be kinda royally screwed.

Gustav being worried for Alfonse's safety makes more sense, at least, because if Alfonse kicks it before he does (and it's a sure thing), then no heir and chaos. Plus his cryptic "I may have much less time left than you think" from before makes sense. I get wanting to know that his son is up to leadership, but this whole "aloof, critical and distant" stuff seems to do more harm than good in a lot of cases...Poor Alfonse seems like he's permanently apologizing to his father for everything he does. The boy has enough pressure already, jeez.

But that only makes me wonder. Given this death curse affecting the Askr royal line, wouldn't it be more common knowledge among them? Do they just hide it from the princes until the king suddenly dies, then tell them, "Oh, yeah, there's this curse...and you're gonna die to it too because Hel is unkillable." No one has tried in the past to break the curse? Is it just there to make them all stoic?

Waaaait. Ragnarok. Stoic acceptance of inevitable death. Norse mythology. It all clicks all of a sudden. But everybody in the realm knew that Ragnarok was happening, rather than this secret that is apparently kept by the king after he sees his dad die. I can get not wanting to worry him, but...idk, I feel like nobody wants sudden revelation of death curse and incoming dad death when he could have been working to at least try to find a solution. Comes off as kind of a dick move keeping your son in the dark there, Gustav.

Pour one out for the unsung, offscreen Gameplay and Story Segregation trio that is apparently involved in each battle even if they aren't.

I think the implication was the specific curse placed on Alfonzo was that someone in his family would die in 9 days; Hel wanted it to be Alfie but Gustav died instead, and because Hel is bad at this curse thing that counted as fulfilling it.

Didn't Gustav say something about a death curse that afflicts their entire family line? Gustav said his own dad died of it iirc.

I assumed he said that because his whole being like Alfonse caused his own dad to need to jump in front of the scythe. I feel like the story set this up so deliberately that it's trying to say that Askran kingship involves an endless cycle of the son recklessly taking the field and then his father getting gibbed to save him.

I've decided that Hel is boring. She is literally Surtr but with DEATH! instead of BURNING!

they even have the same 'oooo i'm invincible you can't kill me ooooo' thing going on

Who needs Askr's elite legion of knights when you have the dragon child brigade.

x2 Surtr in the original mythology was a cosmic apocalypse entity with limited characterization, so him being a "burn everything" evil villain with not much else outside of that at least makes sense.

Hel wasn't even a villain originally and was pretty much the definition of True Neutral. She instead took care of the dead that didn't die in battle, but she's associated with death, and as we all know, every death god gotta have a villain upgrade because death is automatically evil. rolls eyes

Still don't know what role Eir is supposed to play in all this. She...hasn't really done anything yet that would warrant her being given to Askr. Now that the death curse has happened...like, what, is she gonna do? I guess the token "Wait I actually have secret knowledge on how to defeat Hel after all?" in the next few chapters?

x3 Yeah, I guess I didn't think about the curse being more of a self-fulfilling deal. It would explain some of Gustav's chronic uptightness about Alfonse taking risks and putting himself in danger. Though more than ever, why wouldn't the "don't take risks" philosophy be drilled into the princes of Askr unless they're alright with their kings being offed each time due to their sons' recklessness? This has apparently been going on for at least a few generations. Plenty of time for them to wise up. I guess they just shrug their shoulders and run with it. Cosmic destiny I guess. Dammit, Askrans. You don't have to go full Norse and just run with it for so long. At least Alfonse is gonna be done with everyone's shit and take Hel down for good.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Feb 20th 2019 at 11:49:21 AM

You can add more to a god whose sole prpose is to destroy everything. Plenty of Destroyer Deity exist like that, such as Shiva. But all Surtr added to his take of the myth is a Fetish for burned Flesh.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Feb 20th 2019 at 1:36:49 AM

People didn't dislike Surtr because he was a force of destruction. People dislike Surtr because he's a Flat Character and for a huge portion of the story was a Boring Invincible Villain. Just have us kill him the first time we corner him with the thing that specifically counters his immortality and don't make him fucking resurrect himself.

Selkie's Res is dumb

Since I gave her Fortress Def/Res and Res Fortress Seal she hits 52 Res at +3 and Summoner Support

Opposing units literally need 36 Res to not give Selkie +8 to all stats LMAO.

It's hella overkill and I think I'm gonna stick def ploy over fortress res in the end, but it's still funny.

Edited by EpicBleye on Feb 20th 2019 at 4:52:10 AM

My double-ploy Leanne is hitting 42 res unmerged; some beasts just get silly and ridiculous.

52 Res is a good start if you want to try to avoid being focus fired to death in upper Aether Raids tiers.

Oh yeah. Velouria's support pulse stacks by the way.

Hmmmm. Aether Raids offense: Velouria x2 supported with someone like Eliwood, then deploying three copies of him. Did someone say Galeforce?

And he's just the cheap option.

Also, Glacies Sonya anyone?

Shiva's a much more complex character and deity in the first place than Surtr though. Shiva's one of his tradition's major deities and has stories and importance tied to him. Surtr isn't. Surtr's role in mythology is literally to be a cosmic entity of destruction with no real characterization.^note Norse myths in general didn't have the most developed characters outside of the main Aesir, but then again, the Norse didn't write them down. People way later on (mostly Christians) did, so there's probably a lot omitted/forgotten/changed.

Oh I'm not arguing against him being a Flat Character and such or that people dislike him based on him being a force of destruction. I'm saying his portrayal at least makes sense pulling from the mythology around him.

He wasn't exactly the most developed character in the myths. He's literally "destroys the world in fire" and that's pretty much it. They definitely could have done more with him and should have, but...as it is, makes sense that they didn't just based on the inspiration.

Hel...not so much. She's Mythological Villain Upgrade in the flesh.

Infantry Pulse always made that possible for her, though with a bit more effort. This is a pulse that can make stupidly powerful cavalry even more stupidly powerful. Or armours, I guess, though they've got Bold Fighter for dumb shenanigans like that.

Imagine 3x Velouria supporting 2x insta-Dragon-Fang Gronnblade+ Cecilias or Blarblade+ L'Arachels. The comp would even let the Velourias run full Tactics for the blade tomers (though the Velourias wouldn't buffs themselves).

Ah but Norse myth, like Hinduism, is a story of cycles and Eternal Recurrence. Even Surtr serves a purpose in the cosmos by burning it to ash.

This is why Fate Grand Order did a better version of Surtr who also wanted to destroy the world. Hell even Bahamut in any Cygames product is a force of destruction who destroys the world to make it anew, and is Top God for that reason. Even when hes a mindless force of destruction in several.

Without being the actual figure, Surtr is just a Pyromaniac with delusions of grandeur.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Feb 20th 2019 at 4:09:05 AM

I got Velouria which is the first time I've gotten a character I wanted in months.

x2 That's fair. I guess he's a pretty surface level interpretation of the character and the mythological roots.

Regarding the new banner though, I actually got pretty lucky when I finally did try to pull. In just about 100 orbs:

• -HP, +Spd Velouria
• +Atk, -Def Selkie
• +Def, -Spd F!Kana

I find it appropriate that Kana is still transformation-themed despite not being a beast.

Plus my regular Soren is now +10 and regular Chrom is now +8 (this game is obsessed with giving me Soren for some reason), so not too terrible. Also got first 4* Legault, so that's cool too.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Feb 20th 2019 at 4:39:02 AM

It seems for all my luck on Valentines fate has curesed me to not geta single Wolf or Fox.

Is Eliwood the only MC's dad to make it to the end of an FE game alive?

Edited by asterism on Feb 20th 2019 at 2:18:17 PM

...I got a Surtr?

No beasts though. At least there's some freebie tickets.

Yep. Technically Chrom too, but our Lucina was born to a different Chrom who dies so he doesn't really count.

Edited by IniuriaTalis on Feb 20th 2019 at 9:22:20 AM

Robin's dad almost survived to the end of the game, but then he got rather cheaply killed off by Robin and Chrom. :/