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oddrhythm · 7 years

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I was wondering why I was kinda stuck on Niles when there are plenty of Fates characters I’m not really feeling but I think it’s largely because of a few things.

Before the game came out I avoided story and character details (probably a mistake in hindsight) but somehow I gradually heard a lot of stuff about Niles. Stuff like support specifics, the “policy” thing and the nonsensical reason he got his job were pretty much the main things I didn’t hear I think (For comparison, I thought Beruka was a little boy all the way up until I recruited her ingame). Some of the Niles details seemed like they were misinformation though. I heard Niles was a troll, but a non-evil troll generally is more lighthearted than guy who genuinely wants people to be hurt and upset because he’s bitter that he had a rough childhood, right? Or is my definition flawed? But without going into a million details, he was just a disappointment instead of me just not caring for him. Of course, this is entirely my fault but it does kinda suck.

The overall policy thing is pretty lame too. I get the bitter and jealous part and thought that depending on how far he went with it could be a really interesting flaw (though it isn’t treated like a flaw at all) but “if you haven’t done anything for me or don’t have a Sad Backstory to trade I’m gonna sexually harass you (and sometimes assault)!” is pretty dumb. Even dumber that no one really seems to care much or at all. Like Charlotte flirting gets her in trouble, but guy who harasses everyone is perfectly fine? Leo has so little restriction on Niles that even Leo’s sisters are targets (though he does eventually go a more subtle route for Elise so that was interesting compared to his usual). I think the only people that cared but don’t just get over it are Effie and Oboro, but those supports play the foul-mouthed thing for laughs and it's just a funny habit of his instead of how it’s actually calculated and intended to be malicious. Actually, the Effie one might not have been on the up and up either. Effie was happy that Niles said he wasn't teaching Elise dirty words on purpose... but he was still talking dirty to the princess, which she didn't want.

I guess he’s kinda stagnant too. Not trying to do the “if a character doesn’t develop they’re bad” argument because I’d never believe that, but he has a lot of room and reason to develop and improve so it's another disappointment. Shit, even Peri gets some here and there and she’s basically a joke character, even with her Sad Backstory that only comes up once. And when it comes up, Laslow sympathized but still told her to work on improving her behavior and she agrees to try. For a dude who’s entire character is being bitter and lashing out because of his past, you’d think Niles’ supports that actually go into his past would be important. Beruka somehow knows where his mom’s grave is and it just goes the Lissa/Virion route. You find out nothing else about it unless you S rank them and then it’s only about asking the parent’s blessing to get married. Arthur’s support has him able to confront the gang he says abandoned him and again nothing (unrelated but I think the localization changed what he said to them too idr). It’s kind of the typical misunderstanding support and Niles is suddenly a great guy for doing pretty much nothing.

Even the supports where he breaks his policy don’t do anything. He embarrasses himself and has to apologize to Camilla, Nyx and Felicia for breaking his policy by harassing them (or trying, in Felicia’s case) completely on the assumption that they didn’t have Sad Backstories. Even Nyx, the "kid" who they found out in the wilderness. There’s no “maybe everyone has problems (especially people who live in this hellhole called Nohr where zombies and bandits roam the streets even in the capital)” or “maybe making assumptions about people’s entire lives isn’t that reliable” or even just “maybe I should be less of a dick”. Nothing.

He breaks his policy with Mozu, Setsuna(?) and Peri too. He knows Mozu has the mandatory Sad Backstory but he still goes off on her because he’s suddenly extremely sensitive to his backstory being brought up at all for this one particular support. The A rank is more than likely just his apology for breaking his policy again (and it seemed pretty contrived). With Setsuna, he just... didn’t hate her for some reason? Even though she literally had no hardships or something? idr tbh. And with Peri, he hadn’t been bothering her because she basically comes up and asks him to. Corrin might count too actually. But still, nothing comes from all of these.

Even Nina doesn’t doesn’t bring anything new to the table iirc. She fits his policy since she got abandoned by her parents so hard she had to live in another dimension so there’s her Sad Backstory. And Niles didn’t like the thieves’ life anyway, so not wanting her to do it is what one would expect from the start.

He makes me think of those stories where there’s a bully with a bad home life. The thing is though, those bullies in these stories don’t usually consciously decide to bother/terrorize people just because they’re unhappy right? It usually just happens. Niles is 100% aware of what he’s doing and that hurts the sympathy angle for me.

But I think probably the worst part about it for me is he really seems to have that whole “Sad Backstory as an excuse instead of just the reason” thing going on. His Nyx support is the most blatant example. “He treats people like trash because he had it rough growing up” is one thing but “it’s ok for him to treat people like trash because he had it rough growing up” is stupid. Especially with how he does it and how he apparently can’t even get his targets right. Along with actually being a danger to his allies. It's not even about him being bad, it just feels like his actions are supposed to be completely justified and that's pretty cheap.

#overthinkin fictional characters again ignore me

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