On Micaiah and her haters
Mar. 14th, 2011 12:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
professor_tammiI realize I miiight be a few years late to post this, but I've always wanted to say something about it. I tend to lurk on forums, which leads to a lot of opinions I never get to actually share with anybody, but whenever someone came into a thread in order to bash Micaiah for "being a Mary-Sue", there was always one particular issue I never really saw anyone address. And it still bugs me. So, umm.
I don't particularly care if someone dislikes Micaiah or considers her a Mary Sue. I've kind of become desensitized to it, I suppose, and opinions are always nice to read about. But a lot of people would claim that she had done horrible things without it having any repercussions for her and, more importantly, without anybody reacting to it.
Nnnope. They're wrong. Proof:
While the repercussions are certainly less severe than one might expect, I'd say that Part IV forcing everyone to consider other issues than the war (like, say, saving the world and such!) is one of the reasons for this. Another one is obviously the fact that most Daeins fanatically follow her - no questions asked - which is, of course, also directly stated in the game. But I would hardly say that everyone completely ignores her decision.
Personally, I think this is one of the more interesting moments in the game. I don't believe any other FE lord ever has to make a decision like this, so imo, it makes Micaiah rather unique in that regard - she's most definitely not just your average goody-two-shoes. She's generally kind-hearted, but very devoted (to the point of fanaticism, actually) to certain things, most notably Daein. I realize a lot of people wouldn't think of this as an endearing character trait, but it's important nevertheless. And, honestly, I just find it interesting! I can't really recall any other lord ever facing a moral dilemma like that. I'm actually glad to see something like this in an FE game.
There are plenty of other things people bring up when attempting to prove to others that Micaiah is a Mary Sue, but this is the only one I wanted to address (um, and hopefully I managed to do that? ... maybe?). I've seen great counter-arguments against almost everything else, so I didn't want to retread old ground. Though Iprobably most definitely did it anyway. Whoops.
(I was wondering about whether I should have a separate fandom and hatedom tag, but most people seem to use the terms interchangeably... huh. That's kind of curious. I'm sticking with just a fandom tag, anyway.)
I don't particularly care if someone dislikes Micaiah or considers her a Mary Sue. I've kind of become desensitized to it, I suppose, and opinions are always nice to read about. But a lot of people would claim that she had done horrible things without it having any repercussions for her and, more importantly, without anybody reacting to it.
Nnnope. They're wrong. Proof:
Micaiah: [looks to the cliff] All forces, get in position! Our target is the(Hopefully that should be enough proof? :) )
apostle. We will attack her while General Ike is distracted. If we let her
through, her army will cross into Begnion. That will surely anger the
senate, and the senate will move to destroy Daein. We must fight with
everything we have so that Daein may live on!
Sothe: But, Micaiah... Is this really necessary? Can't we avoid all of this
fighting and somehow pretend to obey the senate?
Tauroneo: Micaiah, it was you more than anyone else who used to hate plans
like this... ~~ Ranulf: Micaiah, are you insane? Look around! Every single person in your army
will die! Do you care that little about them?
~~
Ike: General Tauroneo, I'll ask you one last time: talk some sense into that
girl, all right? She's losing it.
~~ Sanaki: Confusion is exactly what Lekain wants. Daein is merely a pawn in his
scheme. But there is one thing I do not understand. Why use such horrible
tactics? Oil and fire? What is that girl Micaiah thinking?
While the repercussions are certainly less severe than one might expect, I'd say that Part IV forcing everyone to consider other issues than the war (like, say, saving the world and such!) is one of the reasons for this. Another one is obviously the fact that most Daeins fanatically follow her - no questions asked - which is, of course, also directly stated in the game. But I would hardly say that everyone completely ignores her decision.
Personally, I think this is one of the more interesting moments in the game. I don't believe any other FE lord ever has to make a decision like this, so imo, it makes Micaiah rather unique in that regard - she's most definitely not just your average goody-two-shoes. She's generally kind-hearted, but very devoted (to the point of fanaticism, actually) to certain things, most notably Daein. I realize a lot of people wouldn't think of this as an endearing character trait, but it's important nevertheless. And, honestly, I just find it interesting! I can't really recall any other lord ever facing a moral dilemma like that. I'm actually glad to see something like this in an FE game.
There are plenty of other things people bring up when attempting to prove to others that Micaiah is a Mary Sue, but this is the only one I wanted to address (um, and hopefully I managed to do that? ... maybe?). I've seen great counter-arguments against almost everything else, so I didn't want to retread old ground. Though I
(I was wondering about whether I should have a separate fandom and hatedom tag, but most people seem to use the terms interchangeably... huh. That's kind of curious. I'm sticking with just a fandom tag, anyway.)
