#thracia bias

[emblemxeno]

Feh Channel Thoughts

-Uh, cool start, I guess? Ratatoskr is neat, I like squirrels.

-Veronica can't catch a fucking break lmaooooo why did they do that to her in the trailer

-Henriette on a wanted poster oooooh 👀

-HUMINA HUMINA WHOO WHOO AWOOOOGA WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!? 🥵🥵🥵

-Thracia bros I sincerely hope you get your moment sooner than later down the line cuz damn it looks like A!Ced and Sara being a backpack is the only things you're getting this year 😭

-Vaike/Teach bros I'm so fucking sorry that this bum-ass game has snubbed you like this again 😭

-Laurent is voiced by Chris Smith now? Wasn't he Patrick Seitz before? No complaints cuz he sounds great, but I wonder what the reason behind that is.

-Nice to see Severa and Inigo, but it seems like they're allergic to giving Inigo a prf

-THEY FINALLY REMEMBERED THIS FUCKER EXISTS AND HE GOT SICK ART DAMN

-Ma'am your coochie's about to fall out

-That sure is a new mode. I won't turn down stuff that I'll basically get for free, but if it's gonna be an auto-only mode, why even make a new thing to do in the first place?

-Cheap ass owl, couldn't even give us 8 orbs and still had the audacity to say "Oh look how many 8's there are in the rewards!"

Overall, not terrible but pretty whelming. Most interesting thing about the new story is Henriette being involved and whoever that new beefcake hunk with the huge manly arms is. I might pull for Lucina cuz of bias, but I might just wait until I see what the Christmas banner looks like before I do anything crazy.

[markoftheasphodel]

Heirs of Light Forging Bonds:

Alfonse and Ced do a pleasant but predictable thing that basically recaps Ced’s arc from FE4.

Shannan had the chance for some wacked-out bonding with Owain but instead didn’t even raise an eyebrow at ‘Missiletain’ and went off to suck up to Ryoma. :/

Larcei got recruited to the Annoying Sword Girls + Fir club when she should’ve just bonded with Fir, who was Larcei 2.0 to start with. Larcei remains a poorly-written character.

And Altena got an actual developmental arc which built on the base of FE4 canon instead of just recapping it. Ending was predictable but at least Ethlyn was there and all the major players in the LeonsterFam/ThraciaFam drama got mentioned. Yay?

[runespoor7]

demoiselledefortune

replied to your

post

:

demoiselledefortune replied to your video ...

let’s be honest, it wouldn’t even be good for him. Double Rally and a speed boosting A isn’t something that Travant wants

*sigh* yeah, alas Quan of Leonster isn’t even good for that.

Quan’s most valuable contribution to the world was always his daughter. ...Did I say his? I meant, Travant’s daughter.

[deetvar-moved]

Since Kaga’s HC is that Thracia is Spain, I am legally allowed to associate Spanish Bombs when writing about Thracia. 

[of-invisible-ties]

Amount of muses for each game

In case anyone was curious: I did an official headcount of all of my muses. The results may surprise you ....

Shadow Dragon + New Mystery: 12

Gaiden/Echoes: 15

Genealogy of the Holy War: 6

Thracia 776: 1 

Binding Blade: 7

Blazing Sword: 10

Sacred Stones: 10

Path of Radiance + Radiant Dawn: 20

Awakening: 13

Fates: 15

Three Houses: 6

Heroes: 5

OCs: 3

Non-Fire Emblem games: 19

Total: 142

[sealer-of-wenkamui]

2 castles captured with relative ease, though Julius and Ishtar are here to make my life difficult now (+ sleep staves, I hate sleep staves....)

Hilda... you’ve killed children like it was nothing...... while Seliph was questioning how they have to kill good people at that time....

I liked that conversation between Seliph and Oifey a lot...how people can easily idolize someone like Seliph (and I mean it makes sense given the state of Jugdral) but he’s still human like everyone else, and is terrified at the thought that he’s being revered as a god

And wow... Arvis... Emperor of all of Jugdral, who had grand dreams of creating a just world, now little more than a puppet emperor who has no choice but to bend to his own son’s will (who’s not exactly his son anymore either).... Things got out of his control, and now the world is nothing like how he wished, he can’t even stop the child hunts.

And Julius even killed Deirdre, and its a miracle Julia is alive for now.... ah, so that’s why she was found by Lewyn....

[crystalelemental]

I wasn't expecting a thing and I still ended up disappointed.

Duo Leif and Seliph, really? Then what the next harmonic heroes they're going to pull Bartre and Fir?? I have a personal bias against F!Lewyn, so seeing Julia share a similar-ish outfit sucks so much. I hate it.

And again, Larcei with another regnal!Astra, bcs fuck Fe5 and fuck Mareeta, I guess.

At least Nanna on a pegasi is cute, but tfw the only Fe5 peeps are... Persons who appear in Fe4.

They already did something like this with Altina and Sanaki. They are more than willing to do it again, and personally I don't mind it so much. I like the idea of fun interactions between characters from different games who didn't get much between them. Any Harmonic with Bartre and his family would be an instant sell for me, anyway.

I am also pissed about Lewyn. Just generally, but also with the outfit choice. Julia looks fine, but I'm not a huge fan of it, and her kit is just bad, so I guess this is a safe skip. I do think Larcei kinda deserved this one though. Mareeta has two alts, while Larcei only had base form, so I'm not mad at Larcei really. I just...really had my hopes up on this being a Thracia banner, you know? The datamine showed Thracia was going to be the Harmonic focused game, and for a brief moment I expected Thracia alts. But it's all Genealogy. Even the Thracia units are Genealogy. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. They gave Thracia a whole New Heroes banner, and an entire seasonal alt that was free. They're spent for the year, they need a break to make more Three Houses alts.

Also my personal gripe with Nanna? These characters are supposed to be dressing up in honor of their ancestors, and Nanna's is the swordsman. And she has a staff. It sure is a shame that Nanna doesn't have any iconic sword tied to her character that could've been used for this alt. Not like we have a really limited pool of sword fliers too, so she'd still be really good in that class. No, just a generic staff that's just Eir's C-skill I guess. *sigh*

[gascon-en-exil]

seems like you're into the idea of lachesis sleeping around despite your bias against the finn theory. never change.

There’s a difference between my own headcanons and what I acknowledge to be a possibility based on canon evidence. My headcanon is that Beowolf fathered both of Lachesis’s children and that Finn is gay and that played a role in his alleged inadequacy as a partner/co-parent during the years on the run in Thracia. This does not preclude the reality of both Jugdral games floating alternative possibilities for the paternity of Diarmuid and Nanna, or even for Lachesis to have had multiple sexual partners other than those two men. I’m not even ruling out the possibility that Finn could indeed be the biological father of Lachesis’s kids, as is possible in FE4.

I simply think that a teenage girl who loses in quick succession her brother (and the object of her affections) and her homeland and is then forced to spend the rest of her life that we know of fleeing from the armies that conquered the continent is not in the kind of situation - physically, emotionally, or psychologically - that lends itself to lasting romantic relationships. That’s not a judgment against her at all either, certainly not coming from someone as openly non-monogamous as I am.

[randomnameless]

What do you think about morally grey in three houses?

Hmm…

There has been several posts recently discussing this particular topic, which boiled down to “what is morally grey” and, well, this is an interesting question!

I’d say “grey” is when someone isn’t completely black or white, but has elements of both alignments. 

The obvious having been stated, it makes me think about several other tropes, like the “pet the dog” trope or “morality pet”.

Does having good intentions but shit execution means you’re grey? It depends! What is the “shit execution”? Eating babies? Forgeting to put the lid on your pan full of boiling water because you were super busy to, idk, bring pregnant wife to the hospital, so when your old mom tried to add pasta to the pan she burnt herself and died?

I’d say it depends on what are your limits and what you deem acceptable or not and uh, apparently, killing people in prevention they might do something wrong isn’t black enough to dilute the pool into “too black you will need to add 5 liters of bleach to get a clearer result”…

I’ve said it before, but the purple giant deciding to snap his fingers to get rid of half of the population to save the world isn’t, to my tastes, morally grey. It’s still 50% of people dying because someone decided and they weren’t consulted.

If those 50% agreed to it though? It’s immediatly more complicated, not for them, but for the guy/woman holding the trigger - they want to die to save the world, but will you really kill them? (i think this had been adressed in Tales of the Abyss at one point).

Look at Quanism - it has both good and bad aspects.

Quan will cross a desert twice (even if the second time he kind of failed) to save and help his best friend Sigurd, because he might need help and will even accompany him during his various journeys in foreign states. Quan will defend his country (mmh) and his people against Thracian invasions. Quan’s people have Leonster’s best interests at heart.

Quan will also shit on Thracia, put outrageous prices on food exported there, act as the High King of what seems to be a federation of several sovereign kingdoms and often call Verdane people barbarians.

Was Quan a bad guy, or a good guy?

Ultimately, in FE5, Leif refuses Quanism. Given a crapton of circumstances, he finds his own doctrine (well the peninsula is united under his rule, like Quan would have wanted, but Thracians aren’t exiled or relegated to shit like Quan might have done if he had been in his son’s shiny boots).

The Hero ™ isn’t grey, or tries his hardest not to be. Sometimes he manages to do that by disgusting asspulls, sometimes he succeeds by thinking out of the box, sometimes he doesn’t and falls in the grey spectrum - where we can still ask ourselves, is he still the hero, or how does the fact that falling in the grey spectrum impacts him?

FE9 Naesala, and arguably in FE10, refuses to be called a good king or a good leader. He will prioritise his kingdom and his people first, but is perfectly aware that he is not The Hero ™ Tibarn represents. Naesala has good intentions at heart, shit execution and refuses to be called or even thought as heroic. It is heavily implied that he “atones” for the rest of his life, and is willing to be used as a punching ball by Tibarn because of what happened in Phoenicis.

Arvis might have had the best intention, he completely crossed the line. I personally don’t think he knew Manfroy and co would hunt children and go on a murder spree in the 1st gen, but, and this is what is truly fightening, I don’t know if Arvis would have stopped his association with Manfroy if he knew (maybe he would have tried to backstab him to prevent such a thing from happening, but it’s the same dilemna we had with Lyon in FE8, are you really going to work with evil forces to do something because you think you can control them? If you do, then what does that make you?)

Ultimately Arvis tries to redeem himself, by asspulling saving all children and dying by Seliph’s hands - does that make him grey if associating with Manfroy and conquering the continent turned his color spectrum to black? Or was Arvis “morally black” since the beginning?

On the other end of the spectrum, Sigurd’s invasion of Augstria (and Verdane but no one cares about barbarians) feels wrong (at least I felt so). Sigurd is even called on it by Eldingan, and FE4′s biased narrator says that during the occupation, Sigurd’s occupying forces did some shit. 

Is his incompetence/reluctance/ignorance that his troops were “doing some shit” in Augstria dark enough to change his color spectrum? Can we hold the fact that he is a knight so he cannot disobey/doesn’t think about disobeying orders even if they are about subjugating a country and removing its king against him? Sigurd grows in Silesse, but then he dies :’(

But still, is Sigurd morally grey? I don’t think so. Maybe after his death he would have been, or he would have retained his knightly values, we will never know. Faced with Lewyn’s dilemna - continuing the fight that will kill many, or going home and letting many die - Sigurd doesn’t know how to answer. But this is a good thing, he might have turned into the Hero ™ who solves problems by thinking out of the box. Or he would have tried to, idk.

Sigurd isn’t loyal good, nope, he goes against orders to protect Shannan. I’d say chaotic good, but it ultimately doesn’t matter, imo, Sigurd’s pretty “morally white”.

This isn’t really on topic though, your question, and by extension the concept of morally grey is actually asking if said character is “moral” or “amoral” by your own standards!

On FE16 :

Boar!Dimitri is an interesting case. Boar!Dimitri wants and will, if Billy isn’t with him, fight until his last breath in a desperate attempt to kill Edelgard. In AM, where we see Boar!Dimitri and interact with him, it’s implied that Boar!Dimitri wants to be a boar and fight against Edel, but he will not force his former friends to join him in his quest. He tries to tell everyone off, saying “they’re too weak” or some liability, but we ultimately see it with Dedue and Rodrigue that despite his tuskers, Boar!Dimitri doesn’t want people to die for him.

Is Boar!Dimitri morally grey? He is driven by his revenge and yet, he will not do “everything” to get Edel’s head. He will not sacrifice his friends for Edel’s death (then of course comes the question “but they’re following him so if pulls a Leeroy Jenkins they will follow” which is right). Still, the fact that he prioritises his revenge and Edel over his people is pretty meh in my book especially since Rodrigue told him that they’re starving etc. Then there’s his useless cruelty dealing with Randolf which sucks. Everything taken into consideration I’d say that, imo, Dimitri’s a light shade of “morally grey”.

Claude isn’t morally grey at all. He desperatly wants to be, but imo, he reads more like Virion (and/or Innes, I totally forgot about him).

Given the dev’s interview and all, Claude will not sacrifice his friends, and puts survival as his top priority. He wants to look like a heartless schemer, ready to do anything to achieve his goals, but just like Virion, in a real life situation? Nope. Claude will escape, and find a way/lament if his friends fell because they weren’t supposed to. With the Innes comparison, I’d say Hilda might be his Gerik - he told/ordered her to get away and escape, she says fig it and stays until the end.

Claude might have been the Hero ™ who thinks out of the box, but there are no boxes in FE16… 

Claude’s morally white, he has his ambitions but won’t cross his own thresholds to achieve them. Of course there’s the “it’d be nice if Rhea disappeared” at the end of VW, but, because the plot asked for it or not, Rhea dies at the end of VW. Claude doesn’t have to get rid of her, and even if she didn’t, would he truly do it or wasn’t it a Virion-boast? Would Claude kill the person who sacrificed herself twice to save them, or have her killed? I don’t know. I don’t think so.

Also, given from his Flayn’s supports and the scenes where he loses his calm, while he really wants to find answers to his questions and about the true history of Fodlan, Claude will not try to force them out of someone who’s reluctant to tell them. Yes he lost his shit with Rhea, and yet, he didn’t force her to reveal the truth, and even let her go to catch some much needed rest acknowledging she only told him a half-truth, or avoided his question.

Edel? I confess I had a very serious case of bias towards Arvis when I joined the Jugdral fandom and the “for the greater good” motto. 

Allying with Thales and pals though, wait, i know I’ve said above that it wouldn’t have changed a thing about Arvis if he knew Manfroy’d hunt children - it wouldn’t have for the greater plot, but to me, Arvis would have fallen into the “morally black” pit way faster than he did. I like my Tumblr username, I like my mooks, I don’t like using them as war assets or the idea of even using them. FFS we’re using feral laguz randoms here, and even Miccy in her “i will do everything to protect Daien” didn’t use them.

She might have started a war, but shows regret for the bloodshed going as far as to lament at Dimitri’s death in CF despite the irony of that map - she knows that what she is doing is wrong, but thinks it needs to be done to build a better future. However, the “starting a war” + “Kostas in the prologue” look like Arvis in his best moments - and he is morally black - but “using beasts as backup” + “giving Emile hunting grounds” and everything about lizards and eradication sets her in the “morally black” spectrum.

Edel knows what are her limits between the “acceptable” and “not acceptable”, but for the sake of her goals, she will cross all of them. But she is no sociopath, or cruel person, she doesn’t enjoy crossing those lines and yet she feels it is compulsory to reach her goals.

i’d like to see an Arvis/Edel support convo

Rhea? I’d say grey, on the grounds of creating someone with the intent for it to be used as vessel is really creepy, but then, transmutation/alchemy/creating artificial sentient lives is creepy in itself and raises a ton of bioethical issues i’m not ready to deal with in this post because it’s already long as fuck and this is crossing beyond fandom discussion. Rhea knows that her experiments are questionable, and she’s ashamed of them but felt they were a necessity - pretty much like someone crossing their moral line and turning “morally black”. 

This point is neutralised in game though, because Rhea succeeded and the side Sothis choose ultimately won the war - so yes, Fodlan needed Sothis and Rhea’s homonculi were ultimately key to bring peace/prosperity to Fodlan... IMO, it’s still questionable, even if the game rewards it.

Rhea will not cross all of her lines though, she said the church will go against anyone who targets the students and the monastery, and she means it going as far as to blow her cover twice turning into a dragon to protect the students/Billy and his pals in part 2.

Also, national bias at play, but rewritting history not to alienate thousands of supporters of the side who lost the war is pretty grey in itself. Slowing technological progress? We know the reasons, if the book in the DLC, despite Linhardt’s warnings has to be believed, since the devs said so. Is it something that would count as morally “black”? Idk, maybe? Or maybe i’ve read/watched too much sci-fi stuff where one of the most common plot point is “humanity isn’t advanced enough to know how to use this technology”. It is grey, but Rhea doesn’t fall in the “morally black” spectrum, she’s a darker shade of grey than Boar!Dimitri, for sure, but she’s still, IMO, grey.

This is not to say that Edel’s evil and Claude’s good/whatever the contrary adjective of evil is! Or to say X/Y/Z is a better character than A/B/C! 

I love Arvis and Hilda (FE4!Hilda) to death, and I prefer them to Siggy and Eldie. But I also know that they’re not supposed to be liked because they were right or because what they did was the right thing, nope.

Tl;dr : Morally grey, black or white depends on who you’re talking to, and if FE16 brought us something new, it’s that not everyone thinks that doing a certain thing is evil, or, on the contrary, a good thing. 

There’s no consensus on what is “good” or “wrong” which can be interpretated in all kinds of worrying (?) ways.

[sireneia]

@companaich​ sent:  🎰     //  rng ships / interactions.

1. Fiora & Clive

I think at the very least, the two of them would be able to do their jobs very well in-tandem. However, even thinking about how they both take their work as military leaders very seriously, I’m not sure how true my first sentence really is.

Fiora is criticized by Farina for being too idealistic and even naive with how she abandoned her post to go save Farina from death. Clive himself goes through an arc unsure how to balance his personal desires with what he believes he must do as a knight, and without Alm’s intervening, Clive likely would not have gone to rescue his loved ones despite wanting to. That’s the difference between Fiora and Clive; Fiora doesn’t hesitate, meanwhile Clive ruminates heavily on feeling guilty at the idea of being selfish and shirking responsibility. He would be extremely impressed by Fiora, much like how he is by Alm, and that could be a point to perhaps nudge him to think on growing and that maybe it is the right thing to be a little more selfish, especially if compassion is the root of such selfishness to begin with.

Another area where they don’t quite agree is the amount of affection is acceptable between comrades in an army. I’m pretty sure you have a hc post about this but I can’t quite easily find it, but regardless, where Fiora thinks it can be a detriment or distraction to one’s work, Clive embraces it and is. well. very PDA with his own beloved. That could be the thing that Clive teaches in return then, to be more comfortable and accepting of that affection. 

2. Erinys & Percy

hahaha I can only imagine Erinys being exasperated with Percy truth-be-told. I think light-hearted threads like that can be good though! With two fliers, there’s always the potential of their steeds being what connects them, though there is the potential issue of Percy being a wyvern rider and I’m sure wyvern riders don’t have the best connotation in Jugdral considering the general in-universe opinion of Thracia.

I can also see Percy somewhat having some similarities with Fee if we went with a ghost version of Erinys in Askr! Both are somewhat in-over-their-head, are upbeat and seem to march to the beat of their own drum, cares immensely for their mounts, and have underlying issues in relation to their fathers, neglect/isolation, and even jealousy to an extent -- though that last part is me working off my own Fee hcs admittedly aksgkhrgkh

I also by default go by Azura!Percy, so the angle of him being a rambunctious prince could ring some bad bells unfortunately haha but Erinys being a pegasus knight could be a topic Percy might bring up considering his older brother being one and even his own mother having a connection to pegasi.

3. Annath & Wolt

You’ll need to tell me more about Annath for this but also maybe leave it for after I finish RD (soon... once my semester ENDS) since it seems like your bio for her brings that up. OO:

But I think both her and Wolt seem to be pretty focused on the idea of training, though their types of training are different, and that can always be a potential area for them to bond over! I can’t say too much more than that without knowing more about her but know I’m open to listening once I’m done Tellius >_0b

4. Igrene & Deimne

Archer duo!! I think they both can relate to the way they care about protecting others, Igrene with her charges and Deimne with his sister, and I don’t think their personalities would clash too much? Maybe a comparison of lifestyles could be in order, and while Igrene’s situation is very unique, she’s not unapproachable in Deimne’s eyes. He’d be curious to know how Nabata sustains itself in particular.

I think an interesting point of comparison between the two is how Igrene has given up on faith but Deimne most likely sticks to it -- or at least he sticks to believing in the holy blood system to the point it becomes a major flaw for him and how he can’t move on from it, how he lets it rule his life and determine his own self-worth. Igrene meanwhile gives up on faith, but in her supports can learn to respect people who do (so long as it’s like how Saul does) but I don’t think the way Deimne clings to it is something she herself would be able to respect. He gains nothing from it, but yet he still takes it as truth.

5. Mist & Hayato

I continue to advocate Hayato interacting with healers on the basis that he canonically does apothecary work and thus they can probably spend time on tending to people’s wounds and such while in a shared army. Hell, if Mist likes foraging for herbs and such, that could also work! 

I think from what I’ve seen of Mist’s supports and dialogue, she can hold her own in conversations and has the potential for a decent banter for Hayato. I think they could be cute friends from there, maybe something more idk i know you have your jill bias which is still very good for the record, and perhaps a somewhat surpising duo in Askr consequently!

[witchspurred]

2, 5, 12! bruh

Mun’s Tastes (bruh) | Accepting! | @fatedcomrades

2.  Are there any tropes that pull you in or that you realise are reoccuring in your muses?

I guess I have quite a few personality/character tropes I stick to as well as general in-game reasons. Usually I prefer to keep to stern or stubborn characters who usually keep to themselves or are just very hard to open. Until spending a lot of time with another, they’re unlikely to pour out their life stories or feelings to another. As for gameplay, I like sword or mage girls. Yeah. (Also they usually seem to be older than the rest of the cast…:thonk:)

5.  Who is / was your favourite muse of all time to play?

It might just be current-muse bias, but Sonya has been a blast to use. Her own story is understandable at a base level yet is open enough to be built on in so many interesting directions. Combine that with being from my favorite FE continent, Valentia, and you’re golden. Her personality is also unique and it’s fun to think of how she’d bounce of other Valentians or even just other FE characters, AUs or Heroes.

12.  What’s the weirdest thing that has ever inspired you to make or pick up a muse?

I have accidentally picked up so many muses before my multimuse exploded, so I guess I have a bit of muses I look back at and just wonder what I was thinking. One of those would probably be Nanna. It was around the time I first finished reading the Genealogy (Note: NOT THRACIA) script and thought “Wow, this girl seems pretty cool.” Of course, I never did anything with her since I was never able to look further into her, but it’s still something I want to try out in the near future.

[certified-mechonis-trash]

Mage Knight Olwen custom sprite!

[markoftheasphodel]

ROFL. The Jugdral content we both needed and deserved.

[annathetrickster]

I think the thracia banner in a couple days is the most I’ve been excited for a banner since probably the genealogy banner. Maybe I have a jugdral bias but still. It’s nice to be excited for something in this game again.

its nice to see heroes catering to veteran fans for a change. it also gives newer fans who don’t really care about the older games a break because they definitely need one with all the fates/awakening banners we get.

glad to hear you’re hyped about it, hopefully they’re good stats wise as well.

[crystalelemental]

So the next revival banner options are:

Mirabilis and More (Mira, Say’ri, Mustafa, Apotheosis Anna)

Tellius (Shitnon, Jill, Gatrie, Ilyana)

Church Banner (Catherine, Shamir, Flayn, Seteth)

Binding Blade (Guinivere, Melady, Dick, Merlinus)

I’ll give you three guesses who’s winning. Go on, guess. You’ll never get it right. …don’t be a smartass, of course Three Houses is winning.

Surprisingly to no one, Tellius is close behind, due to a combination of some really popular choices being on that banner, and that being the sole source of Deadeye fodder. Which is why I voted for it. My reserves are running low. But yes, Three Houses bias clutched it out again.

What hurts me is that Guinivere is losing. To Mirabilis. I get that she’s a useful Mythic but really? Why do people do this? The sparked merge won’t change your placement because she’s 90% of the playerbase’s pick if she wins. Not to mention, just like Peony, she’s going to drop off because the rest of the banner wasn’t well received. It’s just delaying the inevitable. I dunno, I loved the Binding Blade banner, I think it has the better value overall, but the people have spoken.

So next month, Mira and Tellius move on, with Reginn and Thracia being added. So Tellius wins outright, and Thracia definitely drops because no one played Thracia. Which leads to the next cluster where we get Mira, Reginn, Genealogy banner that was kinda limited, and the fucking Marianne drop. So gee I wonder who’ll win that one. Anyway see you all in November when the outcome isn’t pre-determined. Oho wait, silly me. Next would be adding Blazing Blade and the Fallen! So we know that one too!

This voting system is stupid.

[gascon-en-exil]

Joining the Game Late: S4E5 “First of His Name”

Synopsis

Tommen is crowned and Cersei and Margaery continue to be catty near-in-laws. Dany’s plotting her conquest, but she’s losing control of Slaver’s Bay and also her not-boyfriend. Update on the Eyrie: Robin still creepy, Lysa also still creepy and now horny as well. The Lannister mines have all run dry, and nobody but Tywin knew about this. Arya’s to-kill list gets longer, but the Hound gives her a crucial lesson in armor penetration (or: why myrmidons suck against armors). Brienne and Podrick get up to wacky knight/squire hijinks. Cersei still remembers her daughter, and Oberyn remembers all eight of his. Jojen sees the mounting body count as Bran skips out on a Stark reunion and removes a budding minor antagonist in two minutes - that’s got to be screwing up Hodor though. Jon takes on the mutineers at Craster’s and wins, then the wives have them burn the place down.

Commentary

Daenerys’s single scene in this episode gave me so many opportunities for confirmation bias and FE references, between Jorah and Barristan’s separate positions on siege prospects mirroring Thracia 776′s two advisor figures and Dany’s Edelgard-esque trust issues rearing up again as the cities she conquered are now rebelling because she didn’t think this through beyond “take all the cities, kill all the slavers and make everyone love me.” This also neatly ties into the question Talisa posed to Robb back when they first met and that Robb never got to answer because he fell into a romance plot and then died. Hooray for dropped thematic threads.

Enough about the one-scene wonder though. Lysa Arryn’s back and her corner of the story is as demented as ever, now featuring screaming orgasms and domestic abuse because she really doesn’t like that the object of her affections/obsession likes to sleep around (or does he? Littlefinger may own a bunch of brothels and is perving on Sansa because she looks like her mother, but he’s never had a sex scene and before this hour doesn’t seem to have ever had sex on the show. Has he slept with anyone other than Lysa?). I have to say that the big reveal that she and Littlefinger are responsible for instigating the conflict that kicked off the entire show came off a bit stilted, as though the writers couldn’t think of a better way to work that into the story so they just had Lysa blurt out that she’d poisoned her husband and framed the Lannisters for it - and then Littlefinger gently tells her to shut up about it, to let us know that everyone involved gets that it’s awkward dialogue and is only somewhat defensible because Lysa has never been a model of sanity. At least her son finally seems to have stopped breastfeeding.

I haven’t got much to say about the big action climax or the near-meeting between Jon and Bran, except that it was a good fakeout by the show to build up Locke as an ongoing threat after what he did with Jaime only to have him killed off with little fanfare or consequence except that Hodor might be (even more) traumatized now. Craster’s keep and the depravity it symbolizes burn to the  ground and his wives resolve to make their own way after one of them retaliated against the leader of the mutineers at just the right time for Jon to kill him. It would all be very empowering if they weren’t surrounded by wilderness and hadn’t just rejected shelter in the only semi-fortified stronghold for a very long way. Oh well. *shrugs*

Cersei, though, now she had some good bits this time. Not so much her scene with Tywin which is just setting up the Lannisters’ newfound(?) money problems and the Iron Bank of Braavos, but the two scenes where she reflects on her feelings for her children to characters she emphatically does not like or trust are both more of Cersei at her best. It’s particularly interesting as I expected her to be more threatening to both Margaery and Oberyn, but instead she has a rare moment of candor with each wherein she admits that Joffrey was a nightmare and that she still misses and fears for her daughter in Dorne. She’s also more resigned to the fact that Margaery will inevitably end up betrothed to her other son now, less so because she likes the Tyrells any more than she did before and more because now she knows that they’re going to be essential in managing the royal debt. Playing nice with people you hate for financial reasons is a game I know very well, so turning the Lannisters into (secret, somehow) impoverished aristocrats is a great way to make them more sympathetic in my eyes as well as destabilize their firm grip on the continent as the story wears on.