Honestly, I've ended up defending Fates a lot more since Three Houses dropped.
Here's the thing with Three Houses. Going from the interview, the devs were excited about the exploration mechanic and wanted players to immerse themselves in the world. And that immersion would serve to undermine what Edelgard was saying without the game outright spelling it out. However the main route they focused on (Byleth's/Silver Snow) was based on the idea of the player feeling bad having to fight their wayward former student. Meanwhile, Edelgard tries to sway the player over to her side with how she presents Fodlan, excuses for the events of the first half of the game, and unloading a sob backstory.
In short, it's up to the player to figure out she's lying to them in the route which the devs said most will pick first because Edelgard is a girl. The other two routes are meant to suppliment the player with more information about what kind of leader Edelgard actually is. Meanwhile, choosing to join Edelgard hints that you're the bad guy here. During exploration NPCs will express worry over what they are doing, how you shouldn't believe everything Edelgard says, be worried about what she's keeping from you, and notice the contradictions. There's a bunch of little lines to be found that points to Edelgard not being dissimilar to her counterparts on other routes. And the endings? If you look over all the route-exclusive ones, they contradict each other or the epilogue in addition to having some dark implications.
Naturally, most of her fans didn't pick up on this and instead take her at face value.
As for Fates, it did this a lot better pushing the player to start off on the easy route as the "good guys." There the player commits a few acts that would be considered war crimes irl, consequences of your actions are never shown while they blame things on the bad guys. The protagonist is ready to kill the older brother they used to look up to. Playing as the "bad guys" shows the protagonist trying to be more moral, shows the unseen consequences of joining the other side, tries to keep the body count low and accepts responsibility for their actions. Neither route is meant to be the right choice, and it's instead choosing neither side in the war does the player get to the bottom of everything. Meanwhile, characters are more tied to their loyalties while the supports only serve to flesh out what's already in the main story rather than as a means to influence the player's decision.
And I didn't mention either of those, since I felt it would push the conversation into "this can't be real" territory.
Fire Emblem Three Houses suffers like a lot of stories do because they assume their audience will understand what they are trying to get across through implications instead of outright stating it.
In fire emblem they don't really go into villains' motivations that much other then a few scenes here and there on occasion, which means that rarely do the heroes have to confront those motivation and give reason why they oppose them beyond just platitudes.
So as far as I know, by default all fire emblems have a Evil Bad Guy -often an emperor or magic user- who doing bad stuff for seemly no reason other then being evil (their true motivation often being told only in side material or after their death) then its reveal they were control by an evil dragon who motivation are often even less explain other then they are insane because they are ancient. While the Heroes just go on and on about friendship, honor, and how they just love everyone.
In Awakening you only learn their motivation after they join your party, and the Dragon side games. Already mentioned the other one. Don't know enough about the others.
In the case of Three Houses its funny that they wanted to one where you reject her and join the church to be the main story route. From what I've seen people treat The Red Bird as the main route (despite it clearly being the villainous route), Blue Wolf as the second (or the first if female) route, Yellow Deer as the third option route, and going with the church as an optional path they made if the played simply wanted a choice to reject Edelgard. Also, add in people generally may only play-through a game once and will try playing the 'true story' means they just played Edelgard's route. Which means they are only listening to Edelgard. Don't even bother mentioning subtext or implication it went over their heads.
Which also leads into another point if the villain is making speeches then the Hero needs to be able to counter them with more than just platitudes, and if they don't counter then it because the villain has a point that the Hero must learn from and it is made clear to the audience that they have learnt it.
From what I seen people dismiss protagonist stances far quicker then they do the villains. This is often because they have heard what the hero has gone on about hundreds of times before they were out of elementary. While the villain they want to understand their side of the story, they are "oppressed", something something shades of gray, we're not the hero of our own story we are all chaotic neutral, and they often have the end justify the means that younger people especially on the internet seem to love.
What was that recent game...Last of Us 2. From what I understand the director of that game killed the beloved main character of the previous game. Had the daughter of the main character hunt down the killer, and then before they got to them decided you needed to play hours going through the killer's life to understand her. Then when the daughter got to the killer she didn't get justice/revenge because vengeance is empty. The game is facing immense backlash because how poorly the story was constructed. They killed of the beloved main character in a brutal way Then forced the player to spend time with the killer to empathizes and sympathizes with her, but it was so obvious and heavy handed (as well as poorly done) people realized it and rejected it; not help that the events during that part apparently made her more unlikable. Also the fact that it was to convince the player that sparing her was a good thing, but spent no time doing so while you are playing the daughter making the decision to spare her unconvincing.
Wait, that was a bit off topic now that I think about it...Wait. Wait. I got it. It shows the west obsession with siding and forgiving the villain to an insane degree.
Anyways onto Naruto in order to try to tie to the general topic. Fans ignore the theme of hard-work among others in Naruto that kishi tried to get across due their desire for it to fit what they wanted it to be. For nH fans Naruto was getting back at oppressors, payback, and entitled to was rightly owed do to said oppression.
As for making sure the protagonist can counter what the antagonist or at least learn from it.
First comes to mind is the final battle with Sasuke. Where Sasuke was allowed to have a goal, a plan, and reasoning behind the plan because Kishimoto actually given thought to his growth during the war arc; not that he had a plan but when writing he tried to come up with justification to make Sasuke make some sense. Naruto because he didn't get the thought Kishi gave to Sasuke just got to ramble on about bonds for a few chapter. Which led people believing Sasuke plan was better than Naruto's; mainly because he actually had a plan no matter how insane it was.
Or the Biggest most important moment in all of Naruto in the west where all discussion of the series philosophy begins and ends; Naruto's fight with Neji. Neji has this nice speech about fate how there are predetermined winners and losers that are set that are set at birth, can never be changed, and that its pointless to try. Naruto counters that working hard can change fate just like how he made his worst technique cloning into his signature move. Because this was so early in the anime and during the time the American audience actually watch Naruto this became the most important part of Naruto to them and how the story was judge was how good Naruto was defying fate. Then we quickly learn -if it wasn't already obvious- he was the son of the Fourth Hokage, also he has a powerful demon inside of him from the beginning, later on he from a powerful ancient clan, and he was a child of prophecy destine to bring peace to the world...need I say more?
Edited by Bail o' Lies, 06 July 2020 - 10:15 AM.
So they are not even suppose to be friends at this point, therefore I don't even know what the kitten these attempts are at protraying them as "closer than family."
