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dimiclaudeblaigan · 1 year ago

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Do you think some of the backlash Engage got came from Edelstans who were salty that the game didn't adhere to their narrative of "FE is all about all dragons bad, humanity good"?

I wasn't aware Engage got backlash tbh. I know it wasn't particularly well loved and that players moved on from it pretty fast (I similarly moved on pretty fast and didn't even bother finishing the DLC because it felt pointless to do so. It was too difficult too early on, but if I finished it late game when it'd be easier, I'd have the DLC units for so short a time in that run it would be pointless), but I didn't see it get any specific backlash.

If it did then yeah, I can only figure it came from Those Stans. Anyone who has played FE for longer than Three Houses (most people either started at FE7, FE9/10, FE13 or FE14 prior to Houses) doesn't give a shit about that stuff that because we all know that's not the narrative of the franchise. In fact, usually it's an internal conflict between dragons.

For anyone less aware of the dragons' story in previous titles:

Basically you've got Naga in one continuity (FE1-5 and the remakes) who made a call that a group of dragons didn't agree with and they turned against her, refusing to forgo their pride as dragons (i.e. they could stay as dragons and eventually go insane because of the decline at the time (something not present in FE4-5 which happens before FE1-3's timeline), or they could switch to a human form and live as humans and stay sane). It ended up in a long running feud between them.

Some of those dragons were bad apples and those are your endgame villains. Since the timeline starts with the Jugdral games, you get Loptous first who doesn't vibe with Naga (who at this time doesn't interfere with humans and doesn't believe in dragons doing so) and they're enemies. Loptous is the big baddie because he wants to conquer the continent, so his motivation is basically just dragon!Edelgard (nice irony at least), and he surrounds himself with people who are loyal to him and kills the rest (Edelgard lol).

During this time you're in gen 2, and during gen 2 the protagonist is led by a human loving dragon who never even announces his identity as a dragon and assists the human in surviving against the big bad dragon. Since the big bad dragon wants to kill the bloodlined people and enslave the rest as part of his conquest, you could say it technically falls right into his war with Naga. Conquer a continent, get a bunch of mooks to fight for you and have the power of a whole ass continent behind you. It would help him in fighting the dragons who sided with Naga. Thankfully we have mister human loving dragon who won't let that happen.

Later in the timeline is FE1, where we have big bad Medeus who is in a similar boat (except this is like 1000 years post Jugdral). Doesn't agree with Naga and wants to fight her. Starts conquering a continent with his little human mooks. By this point Naga has realized that isolated the dragons from humans was a mistake and enlists Marth's help. Medeus is defeated but comes back for FE3.

FE2 was about dragons among humans and the pros and cons of it. Happened between FE1 and FE3. There was no mention of All Dragons Bad because each dragon was seen as a god to the humans and they respected them (similarly to Jugdral's part in the timeline, where all the characters' gods are actually dragons).

Come FE6, that timeline is ditched entirely until FE13. FE6 and FE7 are about dragons and humans living in peace, and how a war broke out between them because humans got too fucking greedy and started killing them (so the dragons retaliated, got defeated and went into hiding behind a sealed door so the humans would leave them the fuck alone). The general idea behind these two games is, similarly to other other titles, about human greed.

Jugdral expresses this by Naga shutting out humanity because she saw how greedy they were after saving them once, seeing humans fighting each other again and again and again - especially the ones who got greedy because they had the power to conquer, which was given to them by the dragons. Basically the dragons in their goodwill gave humans losing a war the power to survive the war/fight back again, and then years later humans used that power to start more wars. Naga decided nope and stopped interacting with them. Mind you, in no part of these games does Naga personally ever try to help humans. She stuck to her guns regarding no helping humans and in background info from the creator apparently made it law not to interact with them.

FE8 ditches the concept of dragons almost entirely, having a manakete character who is pretty much completely irrelevant to the main plot.

FE9/10 don't focus on dragons as the Big Picture and are instead equally incorporate into the story with everything else. The racial issues aren't between humans and dragons, but instead just humans (referred to in these games as beorc, with "human" being used as an insult similar to a slur due to sub-human being used for laguz) and laguz. Dragons are a sub species of laguz and are generally neutral in conflict, with only some individuals acting with motivation.

So that all said, older fans with awareness of all this (especially prior to playing Houses, i.e. Houses wasn't their first game) don't look at Engage through Houses tinted lenses. We look at it as any other entry and base it accordingly. Nobody who has played the older titles prior to Houses seems to have any backlash against it. Most seem to find it mediocre as best as a game, but overall have no issues with the story and just mainly see it as much more lighthearted than most FE stories.

That said, yeah, the only people I can imagine giving outright backlash are people who are angry that the formula didn't follow its roots because in their ignorance, all they know being pixel waifu, goes against their beloved Agarthan/humanity/Agarthan-brainwashed-Edelgard narrative.

Engage follows the story of good and bad dragons, and the good dragons being friends with humanity while the bad dragons get fought by the good dragons and their human friends. It didn't continue CF's narrative because CF was the outlier in Houses in the first place, literally intended to be the villain route, and surprise surprise, the villain route is when dragons are the enemy.

In FE7's case in particular, there are only good dragons and they fight the big bad human who is obsessed with dragons because of their power. The final boss is a dragon who came out of the gate because Nergal tricked three dragons out basically, and in seeing humans the dragons reacted violently (which like, can you blame them? After everything humans put them through for pure greed?). Ninian had to kill them to stop them from rampaging, but she said it "wasn't their fault" (it wasn't), and she was only strong enough at the time to take two of them down, so you're left to fight the last one.

In FE8, the only dragon you get isn't bad and is just from a place got attacked and destroyed, so she's the only survivor who Ephraim helped, so she joins your army.

In other wordssss... every single FE has had the same general theme for each story. CF is intentionally the only outlier and while yes the devs 100 percent fully intended to make Edelgard lovable and were they themselves obsessed with her, it doesn't change the fact that it was made to specifically be the route where you sided with the bad guys. They do acknowledge her as the villain, they're just so obsessed with her that it comes across as her not being a villain. They also can't seem to handle becoming attached to a villain they wrote because then they don't want them to be a villain and suddenly can't commit to the route properly anymore. Wah wah.

I wrote about that stuff recently more than once so I won't do it again beyond that, but... yeah, anyone who knows the standard FE formula knows Engage is the same as all the others. Nobody who understands that is gonna complain about the overall story or be mad that it's not some humanity-is-best fantasy (when even irl most people are aware that it's not and that humans are literally destroying the planet lmao...).

Honestly, seeing how detached from reality those stans are is utterly baffling but also disgusting. That is, of course, assuming they're not all imperialists irl and yadda yadda, which I'm sure some are even if not all (as an American I can say that tends to be the average American straight white man mindset, and like Edelgard considers Fodlan "the world" in both games, said Americans also tend to view America as the world itself and conveniently forget other places exist). Most are probably just so detached from the reality of what they're defending so intensely and taking so seriously that they don't see or realize how horrific it all sounds.

Again though, being that detached and obsessive is just... insanely unhealthy to points those words alone can't describe. Also, to play a totally unrelated-to-another-timeline-in-the-franchise game and yet still judge it based on less than a fourth of the content in a previous timeline-isolated entry is pretty deranged (and I say less than a fourth because CF is several chapters shorter than all the other routes, so it's not even a fourth of a game with four routes).

If people are genuinely going to judge all other FE titles based on their imperialist pixel waifu, I'd prefer them to just not play the franchise at all. FE as a franchise is not CF The Franchise.

Also, that fictional/dragon race hating mindset feels like something that's the beginning of something much worse, i.e. actually being racist toward real people because it gets you thinking a certain way that may stick with you, you know?

These people are why the FE fandom has such a horrible reputation nowadays. They're also the reason why Edelgard as a character is as controversial as she is. Many people who hate her hate her because her stans have shoved their bullshit down their throat when people weren't even talking about her or were peacefully on their own space of the internet (i.e. their own Tumblr, Twitter etc). I've seen several people actually admit to this - that they didn't originally hate her but the stans made them actually hate her.

Stans have literally tried to go at me for posting things that I didn't even tag outside of my standard DCB Comments tag. The second they find something from the For You section (or back when Tumblr search for some reason showed posts based on the content in it and not based on the tags (which iirc they fixed?)), they can't hold themselves back and continue scrolling and ignore it. They can see it's not tagged and interact anyway, ridiculing and attacking people for posting "hate" (read: usually just literary criticism) that isn't even posted in any variation of Edelgard's tags.

See, here's the thing. I love Dimitri and Claude and I've seen plenty of shit takes about them that I loathe with my very being. But like, I know people with opinions that strong already are not going to agree with me. Ever. I'm not gonna bother wasting my time trying to change their mind or argue with them because it's just going to be an irritating back and forth. I see a bad take on them and I keep scrolling and ignore it, because interacting with them/the posts gets nobody anywhere at all. Unfortunately stans don't have this mindset and feel they have to attack anyone they can find. Funny really, how much like their imperialist waifu they really are.

So tl;dr as an answer to your question: yes, I do think any backlash for the game was from Edelgard stans, because anyone else playing this franchise has more than zero brain cells and can figure out that Engage is a very standard and normal addition to the franchise. Many people don't really care for it, but there wasn't any outright backlash from anyone else that I've seen.

#DCB Ask #the worse they behave the stronger my words for them get honestly #they went from annoying to just outright dangerous and disgusting #I've seen the whole thing going around about a totally unrelated to social media author getting harassed for their fic #it's honestly extremely tiring to have to be careful what you post that isn't even fucking tagged #and I've reached this line of like... I've stopped caring and post what I want but also being paranoid abt it #evidently even if you don't get directly attacked by them they DO share shit with each other and bitch abt you #and make up shit about the kind if person you are without even knowing you and just #basing you entirely and completely off a single post they found #like you can't be in this fandom without by extension being one of their potential targets at any given millisecond #even if you're not involved with them or even if you don't even know they exist! even if you're just #innocently existing! they WILL come after you if they decide you don't like Edelgard ''correctly''#like I said. funny. they act exactly like her so no surprise they're madly in love with her/the idea of her iron fist ruling a continent #one that mind you she refers to as ''the world'' -gags-

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