I never denied he was iconic, but he's not the icon, and being iconic is not reason enough to be in the starting roster.
Okay, so which character would you say is the one most likely to be associated with the franchise? Because I'm having a hard time believing that'd be anyone other than Marth.
Come on now... dude, being a starter is not like some ultra priviledged club charaters are fighting to be into. He can be unlockable, it won't detract from his "iconity".
I suppose using the word "deserving" was a bit misleading, so I apologize for that. I'm not arguing that if Marth is unlockable, that'll somehow be an affront to him. I simply feel that, as the most iconic character, it only makes sense for him to be a starter. I could be a bit more understanding of (but still not agree with) your stance that Marth should be unlockable if Ike nor any other FE character weren't ever revealed as being playable (as that could mean that FE would, once again, be exclusively represented by secret characters), but as Ike is going to be a starter, it just makes no sense for Marth to remain a secret character.
Yes, I acknowledge that Marth can be a secret character. It's not as if Sakurai absolutely *must* make Marth a default character just because Ike's one; I'm saying that'd be the most sensible decision, though.
As I said, it won't detract from his iconity. It actually makes sense to have him unlockable.
But
why should he be unlockable? Because of "the fact that he's the first lord," an argument that, honestly, doesn't hold much water? It's not as if people (at least, those with common sense) are not expecting Marth to return, so unlocking him in Brawl more than likely wouldn't draw more than an, "Oh, cool, I was wondering when I'd get him"-like response from most players.
it's something that can be INFERED, I mean, Donkey Kong was revealed BEFORE Diddy Kong, right?
Yes... and Pit, Fox, and Pokemon Trainer had their special moves revealed before their FS attacks. I guess you can infer that this is a rule that will apply to all characters, right? Hmm... didn't Mario, Link, and Samus have their FS attacks revealed prior to their special moves? Wait a minute... Samus hasn't even had her special moves revealed yet (that is, in an official announcement; we've seen her using them, though)! I guess we can infer that Samus doesn't have special moves, then. After all, they would've been revealed before her FS attacks... but Mario and Link had their special moves revealed after their FS attacks. Gah, I guess this "rule" isn't really one after all. Likewise, this "rule" that franchise icons *must*, for absolutely no reason at all, be revealed before other characters from their franchise is a pretty pointless one for the simple fact that Sakurai really doesn't not follow any sort of logic with his updates.
Sure, he's not always logical, but it's not like he's pulling the updates out of a hat, some updates have actually made sense, yeah, he's hard to predict, but it's not like he's sitting at the computer saying "OMG I revealed Ike before Marth, even when they're both starters! I'm so random, I'll get the nobel prize for randomness!!"
Yes, some of the updates have made sense... you yourself acknowledge that this doesn't apply to every single update. Introducing ZSS the day after revealing Samus' FS (which culminates with her transforming into ZSS) makes sense; revealing Pit's stage the day after introducing Yoshi... not so much, however, which only supports my assertion that Sakurai doesn't follow any particular logic when updating.
No. I'm a firm believer of the "once a starter, always a starter" and by that, I'm assuming Ness won't return. If he were, he would've have been revealed after Lucas.
Ness would've been revealed after Lucas? Doesn't that contradict your whole rule, which makes it mandatory for franchise icons to be revealed prior to any other character from their series? And if you try to argue that Ness would've been revealed immediately after (i.e., the day after) Lucas, then we're just stepping into, "Well, I can make exceptions for my rule to make my argument seem more credible"-territory.
Yes, but the Ice Climbers don't have a modern counterpart. Ike is Marth's current counterpart, while Marth is retro. The Ice Climbers are retro AND from a retro series, just like Pit. And yes, being unlockable in a previous game doesn't mean you will, look at Captain Falcon and Ness, then again, look at Luigi and Jigglypuff. It's really hard to stablish a pattern from SSB to SSBM, but it has happened before. Marth has reason enough to be unlockable.
Yep, you're right. The Ice Climbers don't have a modern-day representative from their series; neither does Mr. G&W, yet Sakurai chose to make him a secret character. You can argue that he included G&W because of his significance to Nintendo's history, but he could've done that by making him a default character. He chose to make him unlockable probably because of the surprise factor that G&W has... something that Marth will be lacking if he returns (which, incidentally, is also why I feel that G&W and Jigglypuff should be default characters in Brawl, but that's a completely different topic).
As I said, CF and Ness were the sole (and main) representatives of their franchises in both SSB and SSBM; they made the transition from secret to default in Melee likely because of this fact. Luigi and Jigglypuff's franchises already had default character representation in SSB (Mario and Pikachu, respectively) and the two are obviously not the star characters of their franchises, so it's not like there was any real incentive to change their status, other than to give their unlockable spots to one or two of the default newcomers.
Marth is expected to return by most people - there goes the surprise aspect argument.
He's widely regarded as the face of FE and his franchise is receiving a default character - there goes the "FE will be exclusively represented by secret characters" argument.
Is there really any reason left to keep him as a secret character?
Yes, because it's not about "worthiness" and actually, many cool, iconic characters are unlockable.
Yeah, "worthy" was the wrong word to use here, my bad. Yes, many iconic characters have been unlockable in the past; those characters almost never tend to be *the* most iconic (i.e., the character who's most likely going to be thought of first when asking someone about a franchise). In the rare occasion that a franchise icon ("a franchise icon" meaning *any* of the most iconic characters, not any iconic character from a specific franchise) is unlockable, it's because the series they represent lacks a default character representative. That was the case for FE in SSBM; however, that's changing in SSBB with the inclusion of Ike, which is why Marth should make the jump.
