#also I was originally just doing Holy cuz I’ve done a meteor one for a prev year

[loxli]

Soriku Week 2023: Day 1

Holy | Meteor

[emblemxeno]

Thoughts on Emblem Paralogues #1

Doing this again with the base game paralogues cuz as a longtime FE fan it’s cool to see how a celebration game shows its love. I’m not really doing them in the order they unlocked, so this is mostly a random assortment. 

For starters I like how for the most part, the throwback maps have pretty much the exact same enemy composition. Very wonderful and nostalgic.

Lucina, The Exalt: This one’s good. It makes for a good start to the overall reference paralogues, cuz of it’s simplicity. Wish I had more to say, but it really is that cut and dry lol. I guess I wish there was more reference to the fact that Lucina traveled back in time to prevent the bad future, but I guess that’s what bond conversations are for.

Lyn, The Lady of the Plains: I had lots of fun with this one haha, though I guess it’s cuz I was a tad overleveled when I did it. I heard the OG map in FE6 was very hated, or at least the Sacae route was disliked a lot in comparison to the Ilia one. I read that the original version had fake-out thrones that spawned reinforcements, so I would think that’d piss first time players off. The one thing that I’m kind of iffy on though is just the decision of using this map for Lyn. I know FE7 doesn’t have notable Sacae maps to choose from (I think the first 3 chapters of Lyn’s mode are the only ones, which would suck as throwbacks lol), and that her association with Mulagir thanks to FEH means it’s appropriate to choose this map in particular, but I think chapter 10 or 15 from FE7 could’ve served as good rep maps for her. It’d let her discuss her mixed heritage and connection to Eliwood and Hector, I feel. Oh well, not too fussed about it, since I do love when Lyn talks about Sacae.

Ike, The Radiant Hero: This one’s great. Ike destroying the entire castle was fucking hilarious, and I think it’s a perfect choice for his paralogue given it’s when he first took leadership of the Greil Mercs and had to establish himself as a fighter and protector who can hold out against terrible odds. Though a complaint on that front is that I wish there was some kind of defense-like objective, even though like I said, Ike one shotting a whole castle is funny. Shout-out to the mage in the same place as Ilyana and drops Elthunder, neat reference.

Byleth, The Instructor: Very much liked this one, aside from one aspect: healers with warp aspects (lol plot teleporting in 3H). Byleth’s dancing I can handle, but damn my OCD ridden brain hated beating the map without protecting all the crystals. Though I think I got the best reward anyway, it’s very lenient. Liked the House Leader stand-ins, but surprise surprise, there’s nobody representing Rhea, Seteth, or Flayn despite this being the tomb of their brethren :/ It’s also again indicative of how averse the devs are of associating Byleth with anything beyond being a teacher, cuz one could argue that chapter 10 could’ve been a better choice and still had the “power depends on the heart of its wielder” aesop cuz it dealt with Jeralt’s death and Byleth being granted Sothis’ power in the first place. But whatever, details, details.

Sigurd, The Holy Knight: My favorite of the ones I’ve done so far. I think it’s a great way to represent Sigurd through a Gen 2 map and it gave a fair challenge. The Arvis stand-in with Meteor is hilarious. I really, really regret not getting the goddess icon from the tile that references Seliph’s talk with ghost Sigurd and Deirdre, that little easter egg is so fucking cute 😭 Sigurd’s talk about revenge and there being more than one truth shows just how great of a character he is (and his significance in Engage kind of points to more evidence that FE4 is probs getting remade soon). But the coolest part of the map are the Julius and Ishtar stand-ins. It took all of my brain power to take them out without anyone dying, but I did it! Using the Tiki bracelet came in clutch, cuz even if an attack like Ice Breath misses, it still damages adjacent enemies for the calculated damage. Widdling away at Julius was very satisfying.

I’ll do the rest of the paralogues some time, trust lol.

[partyrockin]

So, my English class is going to be studying Hamlet in a couple of weeks, which so happens to be my favourite Shakespearean tragedy. Hence, as expected of Homestuck trash such as myself, I came to contemplate the characteristics of the play’s titular hero, and the similarities he shares with Dave Strider.

And shit, did I find some similarities.

I don’t know if anyone else has done this before, but nevertheless here’s my evaluation of these characters and how their similarities relate to their overarching character plot.

Be warned, this is gonna be quite a long post, so if you’re up with following amateur character analysis then read on.

Character Comparative Analysis - Dave Strider and Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Aside from their tendency to speak in exaggerated metaphors and unintentionally spewing Freudian slips left and right at unsuspecting victims, Dave and Hamlet are extremely similar in their struggle with the conflicts that make up their character arcs.

Let’s start off with Dave. 

Dave Strider is an interesting character, to say the very least. A self-proclaimed cool kid who dabbles in the Stygian realm of irony- a liking he adopts from Bro, who has heavily influenced Dave’s mindset for the first thirteen or so years of his life. Initially portrayed as cool and detached, we slowly begin to unravel his intricate façade as the story progresses, only to find the shattered remnants of Dave’s sense of identity and mental stability- having already succumbed to Bro’s destructive influence.

Dave, too, is initially unaware of his guardian’s debilitating impact on his psychological development. However, three years on a dark meteor propelling through the dark expanse of Paradox Space- with nothing better to do- would get even the most attention-deficit of people to start thinking about things.

Not only does Dave come to understand himself more through his contemplation, we do too. Though, we only learn about his character after the meteor journey in the Post-Retcon Timeline; primarily through his conversations with John and Dirk.

Despite this, through his interactions with the aforementioned characters, we begin to discover his internalised character conflict, and later understand the source of this conflict.

With that in mind, we can go and assess the characterisation of Hamlet. A Prince, evidently smart and calculative, who is first presented to the audience in a state of emotional disarray. His father is dead; his uncle Claudius is made King of Denmark and has married Hamlet’s mother, Queen Gertrude. Life sucks for Hamlet, BUT HANG ON A MINUTE CUZ IT’S ABOUT TO SUCK A LOT MORE.

Hamlet comes across the apparition of his late father (who’s also named Hamlet just to be clear), who pleas for his son to kill King Claudius as revenge for his murder. Hamlet is initially weary of the call to action, thinking the ghost to be from the Devil, and spends FOREVER trying to deduce whether his uncle had actually killed the late King Hamlet.

Four hundred year old spoiler ahead: he did.

This leaves Hamlet seated on a ceaseless pendulum that oscillates between action and inaction; Heaven and purgatory; revenge and awaiting Divine retribution. You know, all that fun stuff, and lucky us, we get to sit through all seven (!!!!!!!) soliloquies.

In short, the tragedy basically forces us, the audience, to embark on a journey overwhelmed with nothing but Hamlet’s incessant bitching and moaning for, like, THREE FUCKING ACTS before anything even remotely action-related happens. (IMO I actually really like this about the play but I’m pretty sure that 99.9% of people won’t agree with me. I can see where y’all come from, tho.)

Anyway, like Hamlet, Dave struggles with compromising between his conflicting values. The source of Dave’s character conflict is, in fact, Dirk. Dave initially considered Dirk’s pre-Scratch counterpart a hero, and attempted to appeal to his totally-heroic Bro through his interests, complacency with engaging in strifes and his Bro’s other sadistic antics.

However, after having contemplated and assessed his life pre-Sburb, Dave was able to deduce that Bro was actually a manipulative, callous dickhead, and duplicitous in the sense that he made himself appear to be a good role model. That he was a hero, and actually got Dave to believe that his (Bro’s) methods of preparing his ‘younger brother’ for the game were perfectly okay. 

But honestly, I personally don’t think Bro really would have cared whether Dave idolised him or not. It would have been favourable, of course, as he could manipulate Dave into doing what he wanted. However, he could almost just as easily puppeteer Dave into doing the same even if the latter despised him.

Likewise, throughout Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the protagonist encounters a similar struggle; one that forces him into dealing with his tragic flaw: his introspectiveness. He endlessly ponders and analyses the consequences of exacting revenge on Claudius for the death of his father, oscillating between taking action and further contemplation.

He hold various beliefs, such as his religious and moral values, which conflict with one another for most of the play. He takes careful consideration of what ramification may ensue if he goes through with killing Claudius, on both a spiritual and personal level. However, despite his thoughtfulness being a redeeming quality, it is this very same quality that leads to his death as well as the deaths of innocents. 

Ironic, yes, but that is essentially what makes the play a tragedy.

Dave, too, attempts strenuously to come to terms with his own preconceived beliefs, which were heavily influenced by Pre-Scratch Dirk. He finds that his previously-held beliefs conflict with his newly-formulated opinions of Bro, heroism, masculinity, sexuality, and even his own time powers.

Dave doesn’t use his time powers because he doesn’t want to be the cause of the death of his alternate selves, and essentially dooming the timeline they originate from. He doesn’t want to be that destructive influence, just because those Daves weren’t fortunate enough to be from the Alpha Timeline.

Okay, I’ve gone a bit off-tangent, but yeah, you can see that these two wonderful characters share quite a bit in common.

In addition, both are infamous for their soliloquies, both despise their father figures, and for you Freud enthusiasts, both characters have been shown to possess characteristics which are borderline Oedipal.

(Though I would disagree because Sigmund Freud was a nutcase and fuck him, but just gonna put that out there anyway.)

So yeah, these characters are eerily similar, which is among the reasons why I love them.

I could go on and on about these characters, and their similarities and shit, but there’s so much stuff to go through, and this is quite long already. Also, I’m evidently not the best at explaining things.

So, TL;DR: Dave and Hamlet both struggle with appealing and upholding their contradicting values, which in turn make them question their own sense of self. Hamlet struggles between upholding his religious beliefs, his morals, and desire for revenge. Dave struggles with upholding the values his Bro had engrained into his mindset, and dealing with the rise of new values and opinions derived from his retrospectivity.

For the next two paragraphs I’ll be talking about the painting above. If you want to read it go ahead.

Painting

So here I wanted to depict Dave’s attempt to come to terms with both himself and Dirk- though Dirk himself had nothing to do with Dave’s struggle with his identity and beliefs. The painting alludes to Hamlet’s soliloquy as he carries Yorick’s skull; with Yorick having made a small, but memorable impact on Hamlet’s past life. Though Yorick is not the source of Hamlet’s dilemma, I wanted to retain the aspect of the Danish court’s former jester having an impact on Hamlet in general.

Likewise, Bro had a tremendous impact on Dave’s core beliefs, and as evident within this conversation, Dave reveals that he can’t help but feel a certain distaste for Dirk because of his Pre-Scratch‘s impact on Dave’s upbringing. Dave is obviously trying to separate Bro and Dirk, to perceive them as two separate entities, but I feel that he cannot truly do that without coming to terms with himself. In doing that, he can bring himself to, in a sense, forgive Dirk, and hence completing the divide between the two alternate selves.

(Holy shit, I wrote a character analysis essay in nearly 1400 words. A fucking essay. I’m on holiday, far from the grasp of my crippling education system, and I write A FUCKING ESSAY. If ever there needed to be proof of my HS trashiness and Shakespeare nerdiness, here it is.)