Defense Against the Dark Criticisms Part 1: Ike And Micaiah

Criticism: Ike hijacked the story from Micaiah 
Marmotte: This would be true had this been intended to be Micaiah’s story, or Ike’s story, however it is not. Radiant Dawn is Tellius’ story. It’s a story about how all the different world powers came to go at war and, later, how they came to unite under the same banner to defeat a common foe. The story puts the focus on a few characters, it is true, but that’s in order to give all the proper angles as necessary. We wouldn’t be switching between Micaiah’s and Ike’s points of views otherwise.

Grant: In order for this criticism to be true we have to accept the premise that Radiant Dawn was meant to be only Micaiah’s story. I do not accept this premise at all. There’s no evidence to support the idea that Radiant Dawn was meant to be only one character’s story. . I would argue that there are 3 protagonists: Micaiah, Ike, and Elincia. The major arcs in the game revolve around them and their struggles. Radiant Dawn is set up so that we bounce between different points of view. Another element that bothers me about this criticism is that when Part 1 ends we don’t jump immediately to Ike’s story, we follow Elincia. Why is Ike criticized for “hijacking” the story when Elincia and Yune are just as much to blame for the “hijacking”? If you’re going to criticize something then at least be consistent in your criticism. Nitpicks aside Radiant Dawn, like other Fire Emblem games, clearly has multiple protagonists who play an important role in the story. None of these characters “hijack” the story from each other. The story is supposed to be about multiple people.

Braden: Like Marmotte said, RD is not Micaiah’s story. It takes the world established by PoR and tells a tale on a wider scale using it. Though the Tellius characters are revered as some of the best in the series, in RD they are but vehicles through which we both see plot events unfold and ideological positions face off. By the beginning of Part 4, where those who make this argument would likely say Ike has “fully hijacked the story”, the parties all join as one, with Ike as the figurehead. 

I’ve also legitimately seen people argue that Micaiah being on the game’s cover art establishes her as the main character, which Ike then robs her of. To make that claim is a fault of the biases and presuppositions of the person making it, not of the game itself. Radiant Dawn in the game itself doesn’t establish Micaiah as being anything but of equal importance to Ike.

Alan: The thing about Radiant Dawn is that it’s a world oriented narrative rather than a character oriented narrative - with a focus on what goes on in the world of Tellius rather than the individual story of a hero searching for his father or trying to reclaim his birthright or some such. With a much grander and less personal focus than many Fire Emblem games that we’re accustomed to, it’s impossible to directly nail down any one character as the main protagonist, since that mantle gets shared by all of the major playable characters that get to be the heads of any particular part of the story. Honestly, you could argue that Ike gets some of his part hijacked by Micaiah and the Crimeans since they take up chapters during Part 3 were there merit to this type of argument for this kind of narrative.

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Criticism: Radiant Dawn “demonizes” Micaiah for disagreeing with Ike

Grant: Claiming that Ike and Micaiah “disagreed” with each other is a gross misrepresentation of what actually happened in the game. An example of a disagreement is me saying that Holy War is the best Fire Emblem game and Braden saying that Radiant Dawn is the best Fire Emblem game. Radiant Dawn didn’t portray anything like that. Ike and Micaiah fought on opposite sides of a war. They led armies who tried to kill each other! That’s above and beyond disagreement. More importantly, Radiant Dawn goes out of it’s way to keep Micaiah and the Dawn Brigade sympathetic even as they’re fighting against Ike and co. The whole reason why Micaiah’s fighting Ike is because Daein was forced into the conflict. If Micaiah doesn’t fight, then innocent Daein people die. When it comes to motivations it doesn’t get any more sympathetic than that. Plus do we ever see Micaiah do something genuinely evil? I can’t think of a single point in the story where this is the case. It’s true that Daein is on the wrong side of the war but that has nothing to do with Ike. The reason why Daein (and therefore Micaiah) is on the wrong side of the war is because they’re fighting on the same side as Begnion. In stories with black and white moralities fighting along with the bad guys generally makes you a bad guy. This isn’t the case with Micaiah or Daein who the story makes it clear are being forced to fight.

Marmotte: I’d go so far as to argue the opposite; Micaiah is portrayed as a type of martyr, in a sense, and she is idolized as an angel. I’d go so far as to say Messiah. Which is not exactly inaccurate, either, seeing she is Yune’s messenger and possesses the skill sacrifice. The theme of sacrifice is important to Micaiah’s side of the story: She is resolved to make the necessary sacrifices to lead her nation to victory, but she never gives up on her humanity. She won’t let Izuka use poison, for instance. She is protective of Sothe . Twice, she heads directly into a trap so her allies don’t have to; once in the swamp chapter and the other when she is tracked down in the night by Jarrod. What is true, however, is that she *is* presented as a legitimate threat to the “good guys”. Her actions are erratic and make little sense on a macro-political scale to her opponents. Her tactics manage to claim the lives and, most importantly, the time of the allied Laguz armies. She did come close to losing that “pure” aspect of hers after the traps she laid for Sanaki’s escort, but ultimately she isn’t able to cast aside Sothe and go through with it. Micaiah’s first part in the story is to show the consequences of the “good guys’” actions. They’re the ones who forced her into this situation in the first place, in a way.

Braden: I assume this idea is referring specifically to Part 3, where Micaiah ends up being forced to take a side she herself doesn’t believe in the ideals of. I wouldn’t label this as demonization at all, as Micaiah has it far harder than Ike does. Ike gets to choose what and who he fights for, and that lets him confidently take the risks he takes in order to do so. Micaiah has no such luxury, and has to fight for an ideal she doesn’t believe in or lose everything she holds dear. This situation is completely intentional, alongside its contrast with Ike’s. Both Ike and Micaiah hold the same ideals and would fight for the same thing given the opportunity, but Micaiah is weighed down by too much order (in the form of the blood pact). RD posits that fighting for your beliefs is sometimes necessary, that conflict is not intrinsically evil, but a necessary part of how humanity grows. What’s important though, is the nature of this conflict. It must be for the sake of genuinely held beliefs, and not without conviction.

This complaint could also refer to Micaiah and Ike’s conversation in Part 4 Endgame, to which I would say that her telling him Sothe was right about him doesn’t indicate that she was on some “wrong” side all along when it comes to Ike, but it just refers to how she’d originally thought of him. In Part 1, she was a bit annoyed by Sothe’s praise of him because she saw him as being indirectly responsible for Daein’s plight. It wasn’t in the sense that she directly blamed him; she isn’t that naive. When people are hurt, they always try and look for a cause, for a reason, even when sometimes there isn’t a clear one. Having that reason helps to cope with the situation they find themselves in, and that’s what it was like for Micaiah. The conversation in Part 4 with Ike is just her acknowledging that her mild indirect blame for Ike was just that: a need for something to blame. She understands now that they are more similar than she’d even thought possible.

Alan: Just because Ike and his allies look at the things that Micaiah does and act horrified and confused due to her choice of tactics and the zeal of her homeland defense does not mean that the game intends for us to adopt the viewpoint of Micaiah as a demon. Ike, being a character who can only see things through his own perspective, may be appalled and unable to determine why she’s acting the way she is, but WE the omniscient third party observer have the ability to see the reasoning behind Micaiah’s actions. She’s a cornered animal, desperately trying to help Pelleas, and therefore Daein, escape their forced servitude to Begnion’s senate while being forced to lash out at Ike in desperation due to her situation. We can sympathize with her plight and justify cruel tactics because of how brutally effective they would be because we can see everything that’s pinning her and her countrymen down.

TLDR: Even though Ike sees Micaiah as unreasonable, we aren’t pigeonholed into Ike’s perspective on Micaiah

Criticism: Micaiah is a Mary Sue / Ike is a Gary Stu

DRP: This point goes so well with the one above about how the endlessly beloved Mary Sue character is demonized for not respecting Ike outright. Something something cake, something something eat it too.

Please actually read fan fictions before slinging out this term willy-nilly. Being of few words and powerful is not the same. He has limits, he relies solely on Soren for strategy, and political leaders for politics. So really, he’s just the best blade on the continent with strong leadership skills. But hell let’s bitch about it anyway.

Marm: This is a comment against both the Mary Sue and Gary Stu arguments. Basically, the trope is defined by the characters being “too perfect” or idealized, power fantasy projections of the author. Ike and Micaiah are neither of these things; as pointed out earlier by the others, Ike makes few mistakes, but that’s because he’s learned to rely on the right people for the right things. Basically, he’s grown wise enough to give and take, and he’s not nearly as brash as he was in the early chapters of PoR. He’s genuinely experienced now. He still has a number of personal flaws and shortcomings: he’s unapproachable and severe-looking, his word choice is sometimes fairly poor, etc. 

As for Micaiah, she lets people push their agendas on her, every other action she does, every other decision she makes  is desperate. She’s emotionally and mentally exhausted for half the game-- and she fails. So does Ike’s army, for that matter. For gameplay and story integration purposes, we’re only ever given the side of the winning army, but it’s important to remember that canonically, both sides have their own wins and losses. 

Grant: It’s hard to take either of these criticisms seriously when we live in a post My Unit franchise. The only characters that I’d consider “Mary Sues” in Fire Emblem are the My Units. Before digging any deeper let’s define what a Mary Sue is. Mary Sue is a term that referred to fan fiction characters who were usually self-insert characters that were treated as either perfect or unintentionally flawed characters. Generally speaking a Mary Sue is also characterized by warping the logic of the story to fit around them. Someone I follow on a Q & A website called quora.com recently gave examples of the Mary Sue that demonstrate my point:

“Malfoy will go the whole story without saying the word “mudblood” or acting snotty, mostly due to the fact that he’s constantly infatuated with the Sue;

Spock will speak in florid prose instead of plain and sterile vernacular, especially when referring to the Sue;

McCoy will call Kirk by his title instead of calling him “Jim,” which has nothing to do with the Sue, but that’s why the author gets it wrong;

He and Spock will agree with each other frequently, especially when referring to the Sue;

Jill Valentine will suddenly acquire hobbies, and they’ll coincidentally be exactly the same as the author’s and the Sue’s;

Nemesis will retain a personality beyond saying the word “STARS,” and will turn into a good guy, all because of the Sue;” 

Source: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-term-Mary-Sue-so-overused-and-misunderstood-recently/answer/Mike-Prinke

So do Ike or Micaiah fit the definition? In my opinion no. DRP and Marm have already pointed out that both of them have lost battles and failed at different things. Ike has had to learn that it’s not a good idea to be brash in Path of Radiance and has had to rely on Soren and Titania.

 Furthermore, the narrative doesn’t treat them the way that the My Units are treated in their games. 

Neither Ike nor Micaiah can bang the entire cast. Micaiah only gets one ending with Sothe in terms of romance options. Despite the crazy amount of Ike x Soren shipping there’s no evidence to suggest that it’s canon. Ike has never really had any kind of romantic inclinations at all for anybody.

 You can disagree with them and not be vilified. Look at how Conquest treats Takumi’s dislike of Corrin. It’s portrayed as wrong and over-the-top, even though Corrin’s invading Takumi’s homeland and there’s no valid reason for Takumi to trust Corrin. We’ve already answered the criticism of Radiant Dawn “demonizing” Micaiah too so using that as a response to this point doesn’t work. 

Having magical abilities and being good at things that matter (like swordplay) does not make someone a Mary Sue. 

Braden: I don’t really have much more to say on this that the others haven’t already mentioned, but I’ll put it simply. Micaiah is an inversion of what a Mary Sue is: she has unexplained gifts and powers, and despite them is still rendered powerless. In the end all her powers are explained and given story relevance. As for Ike, he is the logical conclusion of his growth in PoR. Some of his flaws as a static character is not necessarily a bad character, or a Gary Stu. Some people prefer dynamic main characters, but Ike didn’t really have any more growth to undertake. Instead, his purpose was as a central pillar for many other cast members and plot points to develop around; a steady ground in a torrent of Tellius’ ever changing world throughout RD.

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Criticism: RD Ike is a flat character



DRP: Not as detailed as his PoR story line, for sure, but I would argue more Static than Flat. And he was already a mostly-static character even in PoR, as we proved. RD really just shows the outcome Sephiran references at PoR’s conclusion. I will grant that I wish he had been tested more at least emotionally, like when he duels Zelgius again and reflects on Gawain.

Marm: Ike isn’t flat, he’s just not in focus. Basically, this is Ike post PoR development. He’s become the man and leader we knew he would become, he has gained the experience he lacked, and he’s grown more confident. He has one remaining drive: Trying to live up to his father’s legacy. Everything else about him is still the same layered character we learned to love in PoR: A genuinely good and caring person, who doesn’t let discrimination go without speaking up, serious in looks and demeanor. We just don’t see him lose himself to anger or make rash decisions anymore. He’s grown past that. 

Alan: Have you seen those muscles? Nothing flat about those. For real, though, Ike finished Path of Radiance as a badass with a legacy behind him and a much cooler head than before. It makes sense that we wouldn’t see him develop more when he’s already a developed character.

Braden: Like I said before about calling him a Gary Stu: “His purpose was as a central pillar for many other cast members and plot points to develop around; a steady ground in a torrent of Tellius’ ever changing world throughout RD.”

Grant: Being static is not the same as being flat. As everyone else pointed out he’s already gone through his character development and his purpose in the plot this time around is different than in Path of Radiance.

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Criticism: Micaiah's Blind Patriotism

DRP: Nationalism is a thing in medieval times and beyond. See: Actual history

Marm: Besides, Micaiah isn’t exactly motivated by patriotism. Case in point, she was ready to abandon Daein after helping her get back on her feet. She never intended to stay as the general, gain ranks, or even to lead the country. She’s not even Daein herself. She’s motivated to move against injustice. She made Daein’s plight her own.

Braden: It’s not blind patriotism at all, it’s a devotion to the people of Daein who treated her like a person and made her feel like family, in a world so hostile to the Branded. In their time of weakness after the Mad King’s War, everyone had to stick together to survive. It was that kind of compassion and caring for their fellow human that made her so attached to them.