#and i'm glad that the sylvans were able to start again

[iturbide]

Unrelated to FE, what did you think of the recent dragalia event with Luca and Isaac?

LOOK. I LOVE MY BOY. I WAS SO HYPED THAT HE GOT TO STAR IN A SIDE EVENT.

BUT OH, MY BOY FUCKED UP BAD.

I know he wasn't being malicious, but he made a huge error while he was trying to help, and there were major consequences for it. The fact that he had to grapple with this was really engaging, and I liked that the core conflict that the siblings ended up on opposite sides of was a grey one, rather than there being an obvious 'right' and 'wrong' take: there's clear value in what exists here and now, but there's equal value in old traditions that keep us connected to our individual cultures and heritage. I kind of wish we'd gotten to see more of the actual practices and traditions from that Sylvan village, but there's only so much hard worldbuilding they could do, and I respect that.

But probably my favorite thing about it was that my boy managed to kick a hardline traditionalist into recognizing that he was thinking about everything wrong. Frankly? Luca was right: tradition isn't dead until every last practitioner is, so Isaac's immediate defeatism when Yggdrasil withered, as though the root of Sylvans' entire culture had died with it, didn't make any kind of sense. The fact that Yggdrasil comes back just adds to this, especially since Isaac made it so clear that the dragon was so sensitive to the feelings of its people: it seems entirely possible to me that Yggdrasil's widespread withering might have been partly the fault of the traditionalists, who gave into despair as they rigidly clinging to the notion that change is cultural death; and its rebirth came only after they let go of that mindset and embraced the notion that they were the heart of their tradition and could endure with the support of Sylvans from outside the village who share in that bond of kinship and cultural heritage.

Overall I loved the event, I loved that Luca had a chance to shine and show off what makes him so great, and I loved that it ended on a hopeful note even though things changed. Luca might not have been the main focus, since Sarisse was the character we spent most of our time following in the story, but he was still a key part of that satisfying resolution because it was his perspective that opened Isaac's eyes. It was so much more nuanced as a story than I usually expect from a mobile game and I just found it well-handled on the whole.