IAmMetaKnight
The Strongest Warrior in the Galaxy
LOL most of it is just people complaining over nothing. People didn't like Roy because his gimmick is that he's basically perfect. He never had to make any hard decisions, and seems to automatically know the answer to every problem. Corrin is the polar opposite; he seems to never know the right answer to any problem and consistently makes crappy decisions that show an inconsistent character development arch. The fact that the same people tend to complain about both as major problems is just proof that the internet can't make up its mind about what a well-written character is.
I don't think Corrin is a poorly-written character at all. Rather, I think the reason he comes off as complete garbage is because Fates' script is complete garbage. The only characters that were relatable via the main story (for the most part) were Takumi and Leo because they're the only ones who respond in a realistic fashion to the problems they're confronted with. Luckily, other characters are given the opportunity to shine through amazing supports. Corrin doesn't have amazing supports, however, and is therefore held down by the games cruddy writing.
As for said "cruddy writing," I found that Fates' story was great, easily better than Awakening's. I did, however, have a hard time appreciating it for the same reason I believe most people don't appreciate it at all: the dialogue and the script does a very poor job at doing the characters or the plot justice. If one were to just write out Fates' story in plot summary form, I guarantee it would seem like it had potential to be a great story to any experienced writer. One can't say the same for Awakening's story, though. It's so garbled and messy, with a very vague and unclear progression. Half the events don't even relate to one another. I'm not saying Awakening is too episodic; episodic story telling is fine. Rather, the story is just messy and rushed. The reason people loved Awakening's story so much despite all its major flaws is because the writing was so characterful and well-formed; it all flowed so well and felt so alive. Because of its amazing writing, Awakening's world and characters seemed a whole lot more endearing. One can't say the same thing about Fates. While there were a lot of dumb decision with the story's overall progression (especially Conquest's), Fates' story is much better than Awakening's. The execution of the plot is its only real flaw. Corrin makes so many bad decisions, which wouldn't be a problem except he later decides the aforemade decision is pointless without even informing us of this revelation. In other word, he's constantly contradicting himself through his own actions. The best example is in Conquest, where in the first half Corrin goes out of his way to avoid killing anyone at all costs and then later decides that proving to his siblings that their obviously evil father is evil BY CONQUERING ANOTHER COUNTRY is more important than sparing human life. That is inconsistent writing at its best. Birthright Corrin is just plain boring. Revelation Corrin learned later in the game that its okay to not trust someone, but that bit of character development (the only legit development he had) was overshadowed by Revelation's meh story. Corrin is a perfect reflection of Fates' story: it was ambitious and had potential to be amazing, but ended up falling flat on its face.
The reason I call Fates' story ambitious is that it aspires to explore a realistic, heavy theme: the morality behind the choices we make and the unavoidable consequences of each decision. That's a much more philosophically deep tone than any other Fire Emblem game. My greatest grievance in this world is that it didn't quite turn out right.
While I understand why people don't like him, I found that, speaking in terms of what he was originally intended to be, Corrin is the best-written Lord in the series. I think his ideals (the consistent ones, anyway) are more admirable than those of any other Lord.
I feel obligated to post this same rant wherever I hear people dissin' on Corrin.
As for said "cruddy writing," I found that Fates' story was great, easily better than Awakening's. I did, however, have a hard time appreciating it for the same reason I believe most people don't appreciate it at all: the dialogue and the script does a very poor job at doing the characters or the plot justice. If one were to just write out Fates' story in plot summary form, I guarantee it would seem like it had potential to be a great story to any experienced writer. One can't say the same for Awakening's story, though. It's so garbled and messy, with a very vague and unclear progression. Half the events don't even relate to one another. I'm not saying Awakening is too episodic; episodic story telling is fine. Rather, the story is just messy and rushed. The reason people loved Awakening's story so much despite all its major flaws is because the writing was so characterful and well-formed; it all flowed so well and felt so alive. Because of its amazing writing, Awakening's world and characters seemed a whole lot more endearing. One can't say the same thing about Fates. While there were a lot of dumb decision with the story's overall progression (especially Conquest's), Fates' story is much better than Awakening's. The execution of the plot is its only real flaw. Corrin makes so many bad decisions, which wouldn't be a problem except he later decides the aforemade decision is pointless without even informing us of this revelation. In other word, he's constantly contradicting himself through his own actions. The best example is in Conquest, where in the first half Corrin goes out of his way to avoid killing anyone at all costs and then later decides that proving to his siblings that their obviously evil father is evil BY CONQUERING ANOTHER COUNTRY is more important than sparing human life. That is inconsistent writing at its best. Birthright Corrin is just plain boring. Revelation Corrin learned later in the game that its okay to not trust someone, but that bit of character development (the only legit development he had) was overshadowed by Revelation's meh story. Corrin is a perfect reflection of Fates' story: it was ambitious and had potential to be amazing, but ended up falling flat on its face.
The reason I call Fates' story ambitious is that it aspires to explore a realistic, heavy theme: the morality behind the choices we make and the unavoidable consequences of each decision. That's a much more philosophically deep tone than any other Fire Emblem game. My greatest grievance in this world is that it didn't quite turn out right.
While I understand why people don't like him, I found that, speaking in terms of what he was originally intended to be, Corrin is the best-written Lord in the series. I think his ideals (the consistent ones, anyway) are more admirable than those of any other Lord.
I feel obligated to post this same rant wherever I hear people dissin' on Corrin.
I could also post a rant about why I think Roy is also appreciable as a character, but I've done that so many times on Smashboards, I don't know if it's worth the trouble.
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(Plus Selena. They were paired up.) Later in the endgame, when all of those self-destruct Faceless came charging at my team, my forces were slowly killed off as I struggled to keep up with their shear number. It was impossible - I even gave Effie a Brave Lance and Odin Excalibur, using dual strikes to squeeze as much damage out of those two as possible, then trading them off and going on the defensive. The only reason Corrin lasted so long was because he kept triggering Dragon Fang and one-rounding all the Faceless. Plus he had Lifetaker. Whenever he had taken a bit of damage from the final boss, I would just go kill some Faceless and heal myself. Using this method, he lasted three turns longer than anyone else did, and manged to take the final boss down.
