moltz23 - Tumblr blog

moltz23 · 5 months

Note

Help me out here: Why is there so much Ian Flynn hate going around lately? I thought everyone loved that he was contributing to the games. Now suddenly they aren't. I guess that's par for the course for this series but I don't get it. He isn't perfect but I like what he's done. Am I a weirdo?

Ian Flynn has always had a lot of fans, but any creator putting their work out there is going to have detractors as well. That's just the nature of being an artist. To some extent, it's no big deal. He's not a perfect writer. Nobody is! I consider myself a fan of his work, but I've criticized plenty of individual writing decisions from him on here.

But Ian doesn't just have critics. He has his own obsessive hatedom. And the specific nature of Ian's hatedom is... interesting.

A decade ago, Ian was only the guy writing for Archie Sonic, meaning any debates over his work were quarantined within that tiny niche of the larger Sonic fandom. Only people who kept up with the comics month to month had any real reason to have an opinion on the guy, which means we're talking about merely thousands of fans as opposed to millions.

Within that group, he had some haters. You had the people who were mad about story changes made during his run, particularly things like ancillary characters getting killed off (although over the years we've learned that most of those were editorial mandates from Mike Pellerito). You had the people mad that Ian didn't push their favorite ship, with feuding SonAmy and Sonally fans claiming that he was CLEARLY biased towards one or the other. You had the people who just really, really liked one of the previous writers way more - usually Penders, as hard as that may be to believe today. That sort of thing. Pretty normal comic fandom type stuff. Again, it comes with the territory.

Unfortunately, many of those haters only got worse over time, morphing into reactionaries who constantly try to incite Comicsgate type culture war bullshit.

There are people still mad at Ian for making Sally bi and pairing her with Nicole instead of Sonic in the later Archie comics. There have been elaborate MS Paint red string conspiracy boards explaining how people like Ian and Jon Gray have apparently been destroying the franchise from the inside for years by Making Sonic Woke. (Jon gets dragged into this because people are still mad about him drawing The Slap 20 years later. Yes, really!!) There was an unhinged change.org petition trying to get Ian fired, specifically from people who were mad that the Freedom Fighters aren't in the IDW comics. There was even a very sad little fan campaign from these people trying to get Sega to move the Sonic comic license away from IDW and over to Udon, because they thought Udon would bring Sally and Bunnie back and also make them sexy again. There's a lot of this.

(Unfortunately, Penders has also exacerbated this by gossiping about Ian on Twitter and giving these fans ammo, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)

The thing is, for years, people who only played the games or watched the cartoons had no reason to pay attention to any of this. Now, though, Ian isn't just writing for some weird spinoff comics that only the super nerds read. Now he's writing comics that are canon to the games, and ALSO some of the games themselves, and ALSO consulting on other tie-in media like Sonic Prime, and ALSO writing the official Sonic encyclopedia, and ALSO serving as part of the new Sonic Lore Team at Sega. And on top of all this, he's got an increasingly popular podcast where he fields questions about his work on all of these things, which serves as one of the fandom's main windows into creative decisions being made behind the scenes.

As a fan of Ian's work, it's been really cool to see him rise in prominence. But the dark side of this is that his obsessive haters from the Archie days now have WAY more of a potential audience of their own. Now, every Sonic fan has to have an opinion on Ian. What this frequently means is that you'll have the Comicsgate types taking things Ian writes or says out of context, attempting to get more of the general fandom to yell at the guy.

Unfortunately, there are a wide variety of Sonic fans who take the bait:

You've got hardcore fans who disliked basically any recent piece of Sonic media and are looking for someone to blame.

You've got the people who are concerned about the sanctity of Sonic's canon, who shoot the messenger any time Ian mentions a new retcon from Sonic Team on the podcast - or any time he even mentions the THOUGHT of changing anything about the canon, as we saw recently with the Sol Dimension nonsense.

You've got people who romanticize some sort of mythical artistic vision that Sega of Japan supposedly has (or had) for the franchise. To many of these fans, American contributors like Ian just don't "get" the heart of the series and are trying to turn Sonic into something different. (This "heart of the series" tends to be some mix of Japanese instruction manual lore, the cinematics from Sonic CD, the OVA, and/or the games written by Shiro Maekawa, depending on what Sonic media the fan in question grew up with.)

You've got fans of specific characters or ships who pin the blame for how their faves are depicted entirely on Ian - most vocally fans of Shadow, even though the root problem is that Sonic Team hasn't known what to do with Shadow since 2006. At best this stops at regular old criticism, but at its worst this devolves into claims that Ian has an agenda against certain characters.

You've got fans annoyed by a perceived over-emphasis on comic-original characters in the IDW comics, ignoring the obvious facts that these characters exist because the game cast is so tightly controlled by Sega, and also, you know, that people just like the IDW characters and want more stories about them.

You've got a LOT of discourse over IDW's Sonic being a hero who tries to give his enemies second chances, as if half of Sonic's closest friends aren't already former villains and rivals. Honestly this is very transparently just reheated Steven Universe discourse lmao

You'll also see people who just think they could do Ian's job better. They can't believe that THIS GUY is the American fan working on all these Sonic projects, when clearly THEY understand the characters and lore and themes SO much better than this charlatan.

All it takes is for someone in one of these categories to be unhappy about some recent piece of Sonic media, and for them to come across an out of context quote or comic panel that rubs them the wrong way, and suddenly the leftist Zoomer Sonic fans will join the latest dogpile on Ian alongside the reactionary Comicsgate types who are mad at him for Making Sonic Woke.

In general, when fandoms get upset, they tend to want a scapegoat. A person or two to point a finger at and go "THAT's who ruined the thing I love!" This tends to be based less on reality and more on which contributors are the most visible online. You'll sometimes see teenage and adult fans of children's cartoons single out a storyboarder who's particularly vocal on Twitter, blame them for every story decision they don't like, and harass them off the platform out of a sense of retribution for their favorite ship or whatever. Failing that, fans might choose to blame every nitpick, down to individual lines of dialogue and frames of animation, on a showrunner, just because that's the name they associate with the show. And unfortunately, when it comes to Sonic, Ian is now arguably the most prolific and outspoken contributor on the English speaking internet, and therefore a common scapegoat.

Some of the things I've seen Ian blamed for are truly wild. A lot of people have claimed for YEARS that he's just lying about the existence of creative guidelines and restrictions from Sega - or, as fans call them, The Mandates - even though they're just an inherent aspect of working on a licensed property. Others claim that The Mandates are real, but somehow Ian's fault. A vocal minority of fans have convinced themselves that Ian is the sole reason the Freedom Fighters don't exist in the IDW comics, even though Ian says he's been pushing to bring them back since day one.

Sometimes you'll see people say he ruined shit he didn't even work on. A few weeks ago on Twitter I saw someone claim that Ian had written a rejected script for Sonic Forces in which Tails died. I could not find a source for this for the life of me. As far as I can tell, the rumor seems to have been born from an alleged leaked script for Forces with margin notes from Aaron Webber that criticized the way Tails was written, and also an old tweet where Aaron joked that Tails would die in an upcoming episode of Sonic Mania Adventures. These merged into "Aaron Webber criticized a draft of the Forces script in which Tails died." How'd Ian get dragged into this? Who fucking knows!

It's all just a big game of telephone. All it takes is some asshole to make something up about Ian on Twitter or YouTube or a DeviantArt journal or some forum, and at least a couple people will believe it, and then it gets repeated as fact. Again, this used to be contained by the niche nature of the Archie Sonic fandom, but now there are WAY more people who are receptive to this shit.

It's just sad to me that Ian tries to be so open and honest about his work, to try to explain the rationale for certain things, to keep fans looped in on the direction the franchise is headed, and this just gives the Flynnspiracy types more quotes to take out of context and try to paint him as the devil. If it sounds like I'm being overly defensive and dismissing his critics, man... some of the things I've seen people say directly to him are just unbelievable. People will send paragraphs-long angry screeds in to his podcast that completely tear him apart, and he has to sit there and be like "Well, that's your opinion, and you're entitled to it." People literally pay for special guest interview episodes where they just rapid fire complaints about his writing at him directly to his face. I don't know how he does it. I would snap.

All of this over Sonic the fucking Hedgehog of all things.

I don't know how to wrap this up. Engaging with fandoms online is very tiring, which is why I tend not to do it. Things like this are too common. I guess, just... remember that making art collaboratively is a complicated thing. The people involved are generally trying their best given the circumstances, but they're only human. They make mistakes. But please treat them like humans. Criticism and dogpiling are not the same thing.

771 notes · View notes

moltz23 · 5 months

Text

Top: Super Mario Bros. Wonder features an enemy common to underwater areas, appearing as a purple nudibranch-like creature that emerges from pipes. It does not have an official name as no in-game text or official Nintendo material mentions it directly, but internally, it is called a Chin Anago (a romanization of the Japanese word for "spotted garden eel", despite this creature not resembling an eel at all, and instead looking like a gastropod or sea cucumber).

Bottom: extracting the model for the Chin Anago from the game's files provides a surprising insight into its anatomy, as a consequence of all characters' body parts in the code being labeled. It turns out that despite it looking like an armless creature covered in spikes, the six spikes on its front are actually arms, while only the ones on the sides are simple spikes. In addition, its feelers are called "tactiles".

This results in a highly anatomically confusing creature that: -looks like a gastropod or sea cucumber, -is named after a fish, -has six limbs like an insect.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source

3K notes · View notes

moltz23 · 5 months

Text

Did a Potential Overhaul in the Post-Timeskip Cutscenes mess up with 3H's Development? - Development Mystery/Theory

Back in 2021, Nintendo released a video called Fire Emblem : Vol 1 to celebrate the franchise's 30th anniversary. And around 30:35, the video shows the 3H Movie "Rematch", used for Chapter 17 of the Azure Moon and Verdant Wind routes.

With a catch.

It's not the same one that ended up on the final game:

A glimpse into an alternate reality?

People went wild back when they noticed Edelgard and Claude in this version are using the outfits of their Emperor & Barbsrossa classes rather than the Armored Lord and Wyvern Master ones seen in the game we got, leading to much speculation surrounding what this meant for Three Houses. And it goes without saying that, while unseen, fans suspect that Dimitri uses his Great Lord outfit rather than the High Lord's in this version. So... The heck is up with this movie???

Well, as uncovered by VincentASM from sereneforest.net, it's highly likely this take of the movie shown in the promotional Nintendo/FE video is from an early build of the game. A build so early, that Edelgard skin and eyes were more saturated, and characters still didn't use unique palettes when using generic classes (which was incidentally used in February's JP Nintendo Direct of 2019).

Your call as for which version looks better.

It doesn't just end there though; if Three Houses' datamine is anything to go by - namely, the internal order the classes have in the code - we can find evidence that can answer why the endgame lord classes were used in this variation rather than the "middle ones" early on: simply put, Armored Lord, High Lord, and Wyvern Master did not exist during most of 3H' development. In turn, this explains why the Flame Emperor Class - Edelgard's enemy-only class for Part 1 - is internally, a model swap of her Emperor class rather than Armored Lord's: the latter didn't exist during development of Part 1, so Emperor was used as a base instead.

With this evidence uncovered and the answer giving resolution to the promotional footage shown, hopes waned down for the future of 3H, and everyone moved on.

This raises two questions I haven’t seen anyone point out before, though.

How much (if any) did this change mess up the post-timeskip movies? Is it the reason why the Silver Snow Theorem happened?

To explain these inquiries further, I'll go into greater detail about each one:

1. Two Types of Animated Movies.

Corporate needs you to find the differences between these two pictures.

Three Houses uses 2 types of animated movies for important scenes. The first one (see the one on the left), was done in-house by KT through pre-rendering shenanigans with the 3H engine. Meanwhile, the second one (on the right) was outsourced to SANZIGEN.

The distinction between both is relevant because the movie showcased in the FE Castle Conversations video - as well its final version - belong to the former category. Meaning that, should the character designs get tweaked during development, in the best case scenario, as far IS & KT were concerned, swapping models should be enough to keep things up to date, which might as well be what happened with the "Rematch" movie once the House Leader's main post-timeskip designs were swapped.

But what about tweaking the other type of movies, though? The ones commissioned to the animation studio? I can't imagine the whole process being cheap in their case, more so given that 8 out of the 11 movies commissioned to SANZIGEN feature the 3H lords post-timeskip:

What's important here is that ☆ = Doesn't feature any 3H lord in any capacity.

Granted, the smartest course of action in this instance would've been to simply commission the post-timeskip movies near the end of development to avoid consistency/revision issues, for which there is a plausible chance that’s the case. After all, in the E3 2018 trailer for the game - which was the first instance we ever saw footage of it - the only animated movie outsourced seen was the one from the intro.

But... What if that’s not the case?

Call me paranoid if you want, but I raise this worry for a reason-

2. "The Theorem of What?????"

Love this banner so much.

A few months ago I did a breakdown on how 3H distributes it's movies across routes, and if there's anything that stood up a ton besides the predictable stuff, is that the game followed a clear pattern which determined which routes would get the most movies, versus which ones would get screwed instead. In my breakdown, I coined this pattern "The Silver Snow Theorem" which proposes the following:

"The amount of movies and fullscreen CGs present in a route’s main story by Part 2, is directly and inversely proportional respectively, to how much the narrative follows Silver Snow’s story beats."

And as a refresher, Silver Snow matters to the development of Three Houses because: A. That's the first route the developers worked on; and B. was used as the basis for the other 3:

Which route specifically did you create in the beginning to establish the world-building? Kusakihara: It was one of the two paths in the Empire route—the one fans refer to as the “church route”: “Silver Snow” [...] afterwards, we had Koei Tecmo’s scripting team start work on the nitty-gritty of the other house leaders and the story of their respective routes.

While Silver Snow having this much influence over the Part 2 movies is noticeable in hindsight, truth be told, I did initially brush it off as just a side effect of being used as a template for development. Looking back now though, a part of me now wonders if the Part 2 movies were first commissioned once Silver Snow was late into development and AM and VW had been already decided to borrow a ton from the route’s first half. Because if that’s the case, then there might have been cutscenes outsourced to SANZIGEN that did feature Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude with their second post-timeskip lord classes rather than one ones fans are most familiar with.

But then, it was decided during development that the house leaders would rather use different outfits instead. And this might have caused problems with budget since changing those outsourced cutscenes ain’t an easy task compared to the ones KT made in-house.

Like, seriously.

Goes without saying that all this is merely conjecture. But I feel it’s worth making the question because, to reiterate, the Silver Snow Theorem highlights that the more a route follows Silver Snow’s story beats to a tee, the more animated cutscenes (and less CGs) it gets. And given evidence points out the lord’s main post-timeskip classes fans are familiar with were a late addition… I guess y’all know where I’m going by now.

I usually don’t make threads focusing on fan theories and stuff, but this has been in my mind for a long while so I wanted to see what you guys think about it. Do you think more movies with the lord’s 2nd classes got made before the outfit swap was made? Or perhaps the issue the devs ran with that caused the Silver Snow Threorem might be due to something else entirely…? Also, what's y'all's opinion on SANZIGEN's movies compared to the ones done by KT?

#fire emblem #fe3h #fire emblem 3 houses #fire emblem: three houses #theory #fan theory #development #trivia #crimson flower #azure moon #verdant wind #silver snow #edelgard von hresvelg #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #claude von riegan #khalid

23 notes · View notes

moltz23 · 6 months

Text

I don’t think I ever posted the timeskip!Selene chucking Pyukumuku comic here

2K notes · View notes

moltz23 · 6 months

Text

Development files for Yoshi's Island contain an early version of the Raphael the Raven boss battle, which appears to be drawn in a simplistic style with a limited, NES-like palette. It is unknown if the original intent was for the battle to have a simplistic style, or whether this is simply due to the drawing being a sketch or work in progress.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: twitter.com user "vervalkon"

653 notes · View notes

moltz23 · 6 months

Text

When the Darkness gets Miscasted - An Essay about Three Houses' "those who slither in the dark"

As someone that joined the FE fandom with Sacred Stones, I gotta say, “Those who slither in the dark” are an interesting experiment as far as antagonistic factions go. In spite of being the most alien-like group featured in the franchise (as of Engage), regardless of the 3H story branch picked, TWSITD in the long-term serves as an villainous third wheel of sorts, going from being very active late into Part 1, to vanishing almost entirely by Part 2, not even getting an proper send-off in half of the routes. So what happened?

Well, after pondering about it for a while, I believe the reason TWSITD fell into this situation is because their unique traits don’t mesh well with the broader purpose the story gave them. In other words, I’m saying “those who slither in the dark” were miscasted.

To explain what exactly I mean by this, a brief recap of the group is in order:

Part 1: The Nitty-Gritty of the Slitherers.

This concept art of Shambhala is so cool.

In Three Houses (and Three Hopes by proxy), “Those who slither in the dark” is an organization that causes strife in Fódlan anonymously:

“In the long history of the Church of Seiros... No, long before even that… There have been an endless number of threats to the peace of Fódlan. Yet, those who oppose us still operate in the shadows, their identities a mystery.” - Rhea in Report: Red Wolf Moon

Their origins can be traced back to remnants of Agartha: an ancient human civilization of Fódlan once that waged war against Sothis and her kids - trying to seize control of the continent from them -, but got themselves wiped out when Sothis retaliated. The remaining survivors then retreated underground, bowing revenge against Sothis, her spawn, and those spared by her wrath. And from then on, this remnant cut contact with the outside world for over a millenia, thus becoming - as far as everyone else is concerned - “those who slither in the dark”.

The ones who call themselves Agarthans want mainly 2 things: Payback against Sothis’ surviving kin ie. Rhea, Seteth, Flayn and Byleth (once they know they’re Sothis reborn); and

obtain what Sothis denied Agartha: dominion over the surface.

“Let no crisis go to waste” is the group’s core motto, as whenever something bad happens in Fodlan, they will likely be there to reap the benefits, usually by:

Acting as benefactors, providing resources (or the means/knowledge) others would normally be never able to gain normally.

Doing Crests experiments once the avenue is open.

And body-snatching, letting them act in the open without giving themselves away, all while opening a new pool of resources and connections to draw from.

As for their Modus Operandi, their general plan is to get involved in a major conflict where they gain something by their chosen side coming out on top (which is known as a proxy war). Given their track record, their MO looks like this:

Find a pawn who could gain enough followers (or already has them) to kickstart a large-scale conflict, and offer your services.

Once the fighting starts, provide support to show your pawn how much of an asset you are to their cause.

If your pawn gets killed or the conflict ends with the opposition alive, then retreat underground, and let the years pass by.

Go back to step 1.

The group’s identity - as in, what differentiates them from other villainous groups - is comprised by the following:

Design-wise, save for one exception, all non-disguised Agarthans have ghastly white skin and dress in black.

Resource-wise, they have access to giant automatons, electric turrets, kinetic orbital missiles (called “javelins of light”), demonic beasts, and more.

Character-wise, regardless of each member’s individual personality, every one of them always showcases hubris and xenophobia. In a related note, every member is also portrayed unsympathetically.

Soundtrack-wise, the group’s heavily associated with dubstep.

Finally, when it comes to TWSITD’s narrative purpose in the main stories:

Their general objective is to serve as the puppeteers behind the scenes, trying to manipulate events behind the scenes and their pawn of choice (ie. the Empire/Edelgard) to achieve their ends.

Meanwhile, as far specific objectives go, they:

Kill Jeralt, and thus, force Byleth to fuse with Sothis before Rhea can have them sit on Sothis’ throne, thus unintentionally foiling the Archbishop’s agenda.

Give Edelgard the means to remove Rhea from the story at the end of Part 1 (used only outside CF) through their Demonic Beasts.

Set up the Final Boss of Part 2 of Verdant Wind and Silver Snow by the story having Byleth’s party reach Shambhala, their HQ.

Help Azure Moon’s story explore the Tragedy of Duscur subplot.

Help Crimson Flower’s story explore the TWSITD alliance subplot.

Part 2: Those Who Experiment In The Dark.

As alluded early, the Slitherers stand out from other major villainous factions in FE due to being the very definition of experimental. I use this term because no major villainous faction in Fire Emblem prior to them has had to contend with the following factors:

1. Access to Modern/Sci-Fi Technology:

While everyone else in the setting - including the Agarthans to an extent - use medieval western-inspired resources, only they get exclusive access to modern/sci-fi weapons like giant robots, turrets, and orbital missiles.

2. Deal with Multiple Handicaps:

I previously covered this in a past-article (that can be found here), but for those unaware: the manner the plot in Three Houses is written ensures the Slitherers' path towards their goal isn’t a straight one:

In spite of initially having Edelgard be just a puppet in someone else’s plans, they end up working for her thanks to some deals both parties make behind the scenes, thus leading TWSITD to backstab their former collaborator once Edelgard makes her move and becomes Emperor. Once that happens-

They take a backseat from the plot midway through the story, relinquishing their spotlight to Edelgard while she drives the story onwards. Meaning-

They rely on Edelgard winning to get anywhere, which would normally not be an issue if it wasn’t for how-

Edelgard plans to get rid of them once they’re no longer needed. Not only that, but she also screws the group over in every route in some form.

And that’s not even going into the other two problems they have to deal with:

A. Their orbital/kinetic missiles being impractical: I also did an analysis on those things, but long story short: two routes imply they can’t abuse the weapon at their leisure; their most desired target (Garreg Mach) is protected by a jamming spell/device; and if we go by the evidence at hand, not only the missiles were crafted back when Agartha was still a thing 1000 years before the main plot, we have no evidence they have the means to replenish their stock due to the javelins being orbital missiles (aka dropped from space).

B. Nemesis being unreliable: So, here an interesting fact about Nemesis: dude never died in the introductory movie (perhaps he just went into sleep, not unlike how most Nabateans & Byleth do when wounded enough?), and had to be sealed because, to indirectly quote Rhea’s words in Verdant Wind, no one really knows how the Crest of Flames works.

The known credit the Slitherers get with Nemesis’ return in Verdant Wind is that they were definitely prepared in case he woke up. After Shambhala has been destroyed, the story shows that not only they held him in a coffin somewhere in their catacombs, multiple flavor texts allude they are the reason Nemesis has the reanimated corpses of his old allies for Verdant Wind’s final battle. Beyond that, no one really knows why Nemesis returns at the very end only in Claude’s route, and how much TWSITD may be behind it. He just… returns.

3. They Lose Their Original Purpose (in 2/4 of the Post-Timeskip).

Quick development trivia for y’all: Silver Snow was the story branch of Three Houses that started it all, laying the foundation of every other route that came after. And in it, plus Verdant Wind - for sharing similar story beats - “those who slither in the dark” fulfill a specific purpose in Part 2’s story: setting up the scenario for the final battle to happen though having the player’s party going to Shambhala (their HQ), whether it’s by: wounding Rhea lethally, thus playing a part in her sudden dragon degeneration (Silver Snow); or by having an army prepared for Nemesis once he wakes up in Shambhala after their defeat (Verdant Wind).

But then, Crimson Flower and Azure Moon changed everything. Because both stories deviate from Silver Snow by using Chapter 11 to set up their own Final Boss in advance (Rhea in CF, Edelgard in AM), the writing team behind those routes was forced to solve the following issue:

“What happens when the story doesn’t need to go to Shambhala? As in, when the story has no need for the Slitherers to set up the final battle?”

The solution found was simple: TWSITD would blend-in with the Empire, and be forced to stick with Edelgard to reach the end of the road they crave. In turn, each path would show how well that situation ends for them.

(As a quick tangent: 3H’s The Cutting Room Floor page having unused unit data for a playable Edelgard and Dimitri in the Shambhala map - and nothing else - does very little to corroborate the idea that both CF and AM ever intended to visit the place in the stories beyond the planning stages).

No major antagonistic group in the series before the Agarthans has been ever given such a mixed bag to work with. And I believe it’s no coincidence either, as it very much appears most of these handicaps were placed to ensure TWSITD doesn’t have enough control of the plot to allow a “Golden Ending” to happen just by defeating them early. Still, this doesn’t change their unique situation as it causes unfortunate problems for them, and it’s precisely this what I want to address to finally explain why this group of antagonists were miscasted in the stories 3H tells.

Part 3: The Bad, Good, and Nasty side of the Agarthan.

Let’s get the bad out of the way first: even though their general objective in the story is to act as the puppeteers behind the scenes, in a twist of irony, the Agarthans are at their weakest when trying to manipulate their way into victory. The reasons are twofold:

A. Their handicaps limit their level of threat and control imposed. And…

B. Due to their anonymity shtick, they straight up don’t appear unless the plot calls for it.

These two details explain why they fall out of relevance by the time the timeskip takes place (and for the Three Hopes spinoff, this too goes for Azure Gleam’s second timeskip), and when they finally reappear, their performance ultimately falls flat despite all the spectacle provided. For all their efforts, the Slitherers unfortunately have a lot going against them that stops them from accomplishing the main objective the writers set out for them (and worse of all, this is by design).

Incidentally, another problem that quickly springs up for TWSITD is that, once they are forced to fight outside the darkness and can no longer count on their surprise/shock factor, they’re

taken care of in a pretty swift fashion (see AM Chapter 19 and VW/SS Chapter 21/20). And this is because, at the end of the day, they are just an organization of people that has historically relied on other nations’ armies to put up a fight vs the Church after the fall of Agartha. As trying to foolishly fight regardless, just exposes them for what they all are, warts included.

“[those who slither in the dark] are looking down on us. They think we cannot touch them. But the closer we get to them, the less true that becomes.” - Hubert, in Darkness Beneath the Water.

But enough negativity! Let's get to what the Slitherers are truly good at. My reasoning behind why TWSITD were miscasted, given a role they would never be able to fill its shoes comfortably, is because Three Houses’s stories not only show them at their worst, but also at their best. And what is what they excel at, you might wonder?

It is Terrorism. Just, flat out terrorism at its finest.

In execution, by the Agarthans using their anonymity shtick as a strength, they are allowed to:

A. Appear out of nowhere to cause havoc and quickly vanish once the job’s done. And-

B. Confuse and worry the hell out of the enemy.

Arguably the stand out examples of this is Part 1 of White Clouds, and Part 2 of Three Hopes’ Scarlet Blaze route. Whether it is to test out and perfect their “experimental assets” intended to be used by the Empire once Edelgard declares war on Garreg Mach in the former’s case, or by providing the perfect stage for Ferdinand’s father, Duke Aegir, to attempt a coup against Edelgard’s Empire in the latter, TWSITD’s surprise appearance completely disrupts the direction the plot was going for, and forces the characters to handle them directly in the hopes of - somehow - foiling their end goal, just for the group to vanish soon after, leaving everyone with a sense of unease, worry, and fear, upon witnessing they are not dealing with just some random group of villains anymore.

Simply put, “those who slither in the dark” are at the top of the game when they are causing terrorism and exploiting their enigmatic aura of theirs. So it’s a shame that Three Houses still ultimately decided to have the organization stick to their “puppeteers” shtick no matter what, even if it is for the sake of deconstructing the idea or in an attempt to try to make them work somehow.

Finally, while I feel the point this article’s been trying to make has already been made, I still wanna wrap things up by addressing the nasty side of TWSITD: their one-dimensional malice.

While Fire Emblem as a franchise is no stranger to cartoonishly evil antagonists, never before the Agarthans have we gotten an entire major faction with not even a trace of nuance. In a series where major villainous factions have done stuff like human sacrifices and child hunts, there has been always someone that either: can display basic decency; can be recruited and allowed work off their bad karma; or had long since defected the group, and might try to help the playable characters in some way. Heck, archetypes like the Camus exist because people have noticed some conventions are used a lot for the sake of giving the enemy-side some nuance, with varying degrees of success and reception.

The Slitherers by comparison, get none of that. And in spite of it… I feel it may be on purpose.

Let me remind everyone for one last time, what the Slitherers' backstory and shared character traits are:

Their background can be summed up as a “millennial legacy of hate which willingly isolates from society as a whole”. Also-

Displaying hubris and xenophobic tendencies appears to be an unwritten rule for every one of its members.

Considering these two facets, I just can’t help but wonder if the 3H writers drew the line with the TWSITD as far as nuance goes simply because, as far they themselves were concerned, those who hurt others due to a sense of entitlement, superiority, and hate, are beyond saving. And I say this because ever since last year, this exchange from Azure Gleam has been in my mind a lot as of late:

Cornelia: As for your loyal knight and the former Duke Fraldarius… They're certainly giving it all they have, but a paltry force that size will hardly buy them any time. And once we've wrung the life from them, you'll be next. How tragic it'll be, facing your beloved citizens for the final time with a noose around your neck. Dimitri: You know, I almost appreciate seeing such bold-faced sadism. There's not a hint of nuance to it. Cornelia: Is that a compliment I hear? You'll make a lady blush if you're not careful. - Event: Behind the Mask

I’ve been figuring out how to complete this whole thing for over a month now and oh man I am so glad I can finally move on from it. Now the only thing that remains is to thank y’all who checked and read this huge wall of text to the end.

To finally close things off, I have a few last questions for everyone: What are your honest thoughts on “those who slither in the dark”? What did you expect of them? Did they surprise you? And would you improve on them if given the chance (and how)?

#fe3h #fire emblem #fire emblem: three houses #crimson flower #azure moon #silver snow #verdant wind #those who slither in the dark #slitherers #twsitd #three hopes #scarlet blaze #fire emblem warriors: three hopes #agarthans

16 notes · View notes