(no subject)

[kradeelav]

copy-pasting this 2am mini fire emblem: radiant dawn essay from tumblr because what else is the internet for :P 

 

possibly unpopular opinion but w/e

one of the most interesting things about zihark's radiant dawn arc to me

is that there's the whole possibility of him staying with daein (and fighting against the laguz alliance) the entire time as shit goes down. and depending on how underleveled the dawn brigade is, the gameplay encourages you to have him stay, despite the half-secret nudges to turn traitor otherwise.

but they're just that: nudges. not mandatory.

i might be unfairly biased against newer games/fandom but i feel like in a newer take, zihark's whole persona would become flattened to be the kinda.... gimmicky in the always-fight-for-the-laguz character because it makes for a much "easier" simplistic moralistic story to swallow. i do see this tendency a lot as-is.

but in base game, if you read his battle lines he actually does put a hell of a lot of emotional weight in daein-as-a-rebuilt-home, certinally at least equal weight to when he does turn traitor for the laguz which is pretty fascinating and significant when you know how heavy his reasoning is for that direction. (it's strongly implied he doesn't even know what the blood pact is the entire time too; so you can't even say 'hey hard to say no to blood pact killing yourself and everyone' as an ""easier" moral out.)

basically what i'm getting it is the game's saying if there's even a more moral choice in a messy fucking conflict, the moral/right choice is really, really not obvious to make in the heat of screaming overall wrongness and possibly won't even look "right" until hindsight.

and idk i think that subtlety is. really important to have, actually.

Comments

[karel]

Honestly something I've really been enjoying about the tellius games in general is these really difficult choices that are being presented, like, what IS the right choice to make, here? I love seeing that in games...

Really excited to get into RD and have my own thoughts of this type... Zihark is really such an interesting character. He's just not on that straightforward of a path, idk that anyone really is, but his meanderings and motives are fascinating

[kradeelav]

meanderings is such a perfect word there :D karel and volke feel like they're both quite sure-footed in retrospect which is fascinating, and interesting to compare when i feel like zihark's slightly more ideologically motivated by either one of them.

but absolutely, RD really saw a golden opportunity to say some nuanced things about messy conflicts when everyone has reason to care about both sides and it knocked it out of the park.

[karel]

I think it makes sense - ideals are... difficult to pin down. Wanting to do "what's right" and the like is a far more complicate question than "follow the money" or "become the strongest" (at least... on their face), so, it makes sense he'd have more to consider, more questions to ask of himself :3c complicated guy