Fire Emblem

Magic is magic is magic. They are, by definition, magic. Even according to the games themselves. That isn't to mention non-tomes that are magic like manakete or beast transformations, dragon veins, etc.

Just because other examples are wrong doesn't mean that it's suddenly right. For that matter, many of the other works still contain many other elements of Low Fantasy that Fire Emblem doesn't have, like the scope, shades of gray (being Gray-and-Gray Morality or Gray-and-Black Morality, not just the existence of gray morality), or their heroes not being legendary chosen ones a la Fire Emblem.

That doesn't make them cynical. It makes them have cynical elements. Not at all the same as Gray-and-Gray Morality or Gray-and-Black Morality. In the end the games are all still on the idealism side of things.

I pulled "my definition" from the page itself. I literally just copy + pasted from the page. If 3/4ths of the things don't follow the definition of the page then 3/4ths of the "examples" need to be removed since they don't follow the trope.

Edited by EpicBleye on Dec 4th 2018 at 1:35:56 PM

"There's not a girl alive who wouldn't be happy being called cute." ~Tamamo-no-Mae

Neither of the Jugdral games have manaketes or beastmen afaik.

They do have god dragons as integral parts of the setting though.

It does seem like it might be a good idea to put Low Fantasy through Trope Repair, especially since quite a few of those examples don't really fit and I'm seeing quite a bit of weasel words in some of the entries.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Dec 4th 2018 at 11:21:13 AM

Yeah but that's it. There's appearance of Loptyr and Forseti (and even then only through possessing Julius and Lewyn), and then there's the story of a well intentioned mook falling in love at first sight with a beautiful and mysterious woman who ends up almost entirely responsible for the rise of the worst empire in the history of the continent, leaving his children responsible for cleaning up his mess, and his wife who would have benefited the entire world if she could have just stayed in her forest.

Edited by RodimusMinor on Dec 4th 2018 at 2:25:04 PM

Which, again, the magic dragons are an integral part of the story. As in the story couldn't happen without the magic dragons. At all.

Just because the magic dragons don't physically appear as magic dragons doesn't mean it's low fantasy.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Dec 4th 2018 at 11:25:58 AM

I feel like Arvis and Deirdre's hellspawn child is pretty inseparable from the game's fantasy setting. Manfroy's plan only makes sense if there's magical dragon blood.

Without that he's just a weird matchmaker with an incest fetish.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!

They're background material. The actual meat of the story is the political machinations of nobles taking advantage of Sigurd's blind trust in his superiors until Arvis backstabs his way to the throne of Grannvale. Also there's like three wizards in your party who can chuck fire balls. How does the existence of fantasy elements prevent a story from being a type of fantasy? What kind of magic is allowed in a Low Fantasy setting before it stops being Low Fantasy, and who came up with those rules?

We're clearly not going to change each other's minds on this.

Edited by RodimusMinor on Dec 4th 2018 at 2:31:24 PM

Background material is still part of the setting. The story mainly being about political machinations does not make it low fantasy, especially when the setting has magic aplenty and magic dragons that are integral to the setting.

Generally none. As I understand it, it has to be either extremely rare or completely non-existent.

Edited by LordVatek on Dec 4th 2018 at 2:42:42 PM

This song needs more love.

That's pretty incorrect about Fire Emblem plots as a whole. The right hand of the true end boss might have those motivations, but let's look at the stakes here:

• To my understanding, Medeus will enslave/kill all of humanity.
• Duma is worthshipped as a god and has power akin to it. Without he and Mila, they're screwed. Alm technically doesn't even bring a decisive end to Duma. Duma yields after having manipulated humanity into this the whole way.
• Zephiel wants to wipe out humanity and give the world to the dragons. Full stop.
• Nergal wants power at any cost, including a method that could easily spiral out of control and end in at least the continent being reduced to ash. If he had succeeded, you then have an insane, super-powered dude just going around killing anything and everything on the continent that he pleases.
• Demon King is Demon King. World-ending threat.
• Ashnard wants to unleash the dark god upon Tellius, which would result in the destruction of the only remaining continent.
• Ashera wants to turn the whole world to stone for not falling in line with her idea of order. The only reason the party even has a chance of defeating her is because another goddess gives them the power to do so.
• Grima wants to destroy the world. Lucina's bad future shows that it's not an idle threat.
• Anankos wants to destroy the remaining worlds. He's so powerful that he can't even be truly fought in two of the routes. And in the DLC route, he's been so successful that he's destroyed multiple worlds.

Edited by KuroiTsubasaTenshi on Dec 4th 2018 at 2:18:47 PM

FE: New Mystery Fresh Cart Lunatic 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Expert Unicorn Overlord 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi

I think Rodimus and Monsund are confusing Low Fantasy with Dark Fantasy.

Low and High Fantasy aren't discrete categories, they're ends of a spectrum. The Lord of the Rings is high fantasy. The Wheel of Time is also high fantasy, but a little lower than Lord of the Rings. A Song of Ice and Fire is low fantasy. Mount & Blade is the lowest fantasy I know, to the point that many mods and spinoffs are outright historical; however, the fact that Mount and Blade is lower than ASOIAF doesn't mean ASOIAF isn't low fantasy.

Fire Emblem is in the higher end. It's lower than The Legend of Zelda, but is still high; as Bleye points out, the games are heroic fantasy through and through.

Ukrainian Red Cross

I thought ASOIAF's deal was that it was a High Fantasy that used to be Low Fantasy.

This song needs more love.

RE: Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

Medeus wants to conquer humanity, not kill them all. We're shown, he's perfectly willing to reward humans that are useful to him.

No mention of Jugdral, ok.

Artificial animalistic dragons that are manufactured, yes. Jahn also makes it a point that humans and dragons are Not So Different when it comes to motivations.

RE: Vampire Buddha

More like different people define Low Fantasy differently. Even the page on this site is extremely inconsistent as has been mentioned.

As for Dark Fantasy, reading the page it sounds a little too magical for most FE games.

Personally though, I'd classify most FE games as Mid Fantasy with Jugdral being closest to low and Awakening and Fates being High Fantasy.

Medeus is losing his sanity, though, so how long will that really last?

No mention of Jugdral because I can only speak of it secondhand and everyone else seemed to be making more informed arguments for why it isn't Low Fantasy. I did already state my opinion before, though: someone manipulating the nations to create the anti-Christ really doesn't strike me as a Low Fantasy thing.

Jahn saying that doesn't change the fact that dragons are very powerful, to the point that humanity essentially needed god-slaying weaponry to deal with them in the past. Maybe the ones in Binding Blade are comparatively imperfect, but I'm not really sure Zephiel cares. He's still attempting genocide on their behalf.

FE: New Mystery Fresh Cart Lunatic 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Expert Unicorn Overlord 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi

someone help im about to spend 100 bucks on a copy of path of radiance

No game is worth that much.

This song needs more love.

It's the cheapest I've ever seen it. Thankfully it's all but guaranteed someone swipes it if I leave it, plus I'd have to stay up to 4AM if I was going to actually bid on it.

I'd argue that's not true, though those that are worth it are rare. I'd be hesitant to say Path of Radiance falls into that category. It's a fun game, but unless you're particularly wealthy, I'd say don't spend more than $70 for it.

EDIT: Wait, what? Is this on eBay? Because there you can just set an auto-bid limit so that you don't have to stay up.

Edited by KuroiTsubasaTenshi on Dec 4th 2018 at 3:29:04 AM

FE: New Mystery Fresh Cart Lunatic 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Expert Unicorn Overlord 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi

I know it's taking awhile, but the Radiant duo will be rereleased eventually.

Your preferences are not everyone else's preferences.

RE: Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

Medeus is not losing sanity at all, he's a Manakete.

Rodimus was referring to the frist half, which consisted of Sigurd being manipulated to conquer various nations, then being framed as part of a royal conspiracy to take control of the Kingdom.

According to Jahn's story, humanity was on the verge of winning the war against dragons before the holy weapons, also before Dragons became manaketes. It took capturing Idenn and mass producing artificial soldiers to turn the tide, then humanity created the legendary weapons and started winning again.

The guidebook for Binding Blade reveals even Jahn secretly feels Zephiel's plan to have war dragons replace humanity is doomed to failure.

Edited by Monsund on Dec 4th 2018 at 2:13:42 AM

Yep, ebay. Also thanks for telling me that because you've doomed me into purchasing it. Dooooomed.

Knowing my luck it'll be announced as soon as I buy it.

I believe all Fire Emblem installments, whether each individual installment is grounded or not, are high-fantasy. The presence of supernatural beings (dragons, goddesses, etc.), fantasy folks (manaketes, beast units, laguz, etc.), magic spells, and magical swords and shields throughout the series make me hesitant to call Fire Emblem low fantasy.

IMO, though Genealogy appears to be low fantasy, especially with the political intrigue and gambits that occur in the first half, much of its plot is still driven by a supernatural being traditionally associated with a high fantasy setting (Loptous), whether directly (Julius) or indirectly (Manfroy and the cult, who offered support for Arvis). Thracia, whose plot intertwines with the events of Genealogy, also has the same supernatural being driving the plot both directly and indirectly.

George RR Martin deconstructs the high fantasy setting with "A Song of Ice And Fire" and "Game Of Thrones", but that does not mean the works are now low fantasy works. You can have realistic characters, political intrigue, grey morality, etc., but if there are beings in the setting that are associated with high fantasy (especially if they become story-critical), it is not low-fantasy. If anything, the work feel mores like a grounded high-fantasy story to me.

Edited by BZL8 on Dec 4th 2018 at 5:24:37 AM

I'm slightly surprised there isn't a Mid Fantasy page.

Wait, what? Wasn't his disagreement with the others over sealing their power what led to him becoming a villain?

He noted that split later in the conversation, yes. However, there was still some disagreement going on.

Hmmm, I guess my perspective might be a bit skewed by my first encounter with the dragons being the Fire Dragon that can offhandedly two-shot any given unit at up to three range and would be a huge threat if the AI wasn't programmed to sit there picking its nose.

That's an interesting tidbit, but Zephiel's crazy fantastical genocide attempt is still just that.

FE: New Mystery Fresh Cart Lunatic 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Expert Unicorn Overlord 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi

It was Mankinds treatmemt of Manaketes after they took those forms to survive. He was the only one of his tribe who listened to Naga.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Dec 4th 2018 at 3:47:11 AM

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.