Bethany Plays: PoR Chapter 7: A Knight clad in ebony

I have to wonder what this title's referring to. There's certainly a breadth of evildoers in this chapter, though.

We've been outta luck looking for Greil.

Soren reasons that it's better to cut their losses and finish the mission. Perhaps we should've asked the Gallians for help scouring the place for Greil.

Titania has one last location to search.

Well then. Not the greatest moment.

"Ike, why did you back us into a corner?"

"Hanshin strategy, or something. Soren taught me about it."

"You're not taking tactics classes with Soren again."

This is the only guy with a droppable weapon to start the map off. No boss right now, though.

Finally, a woman other than Titania!

And she comes right into our party, too! Mia will make a beeline to Ike, but can be attacked by Daein soldiers until then. She spawns right next to Ike, though, so that's just one guy mostly.

The Crimean Army is getting less and less useful by the minute.

Daein just has a giant list of war crimes and generally unpleasant things and is trying to make sure it uses all of them, doesn't it? At least it's not gender-segregated.

Mia got busted out by Greil, which puts him close by. One thing I have to wonder, though, is why this exchange is happening in Gallia. Are the Daiens so bold that they've got prison camps and stuff in Gallia already?

Mia is a bit of an adrenaline junkie. More of a comic relief character, but one that toes the line.

Multiple times, people volunteer to join Ike's side for some reason or another. Usually, Ike's response is "you know we can't pay you much". I forget how often they do this, but the other case I do know is also with a woman. Maybe it's a flirting joke.

"What's next, boss man?". Mia might be comic relief, but she's definitely good at her job.

Mia is a Myrmidon, level 6 unpromoted. As a result, she might actually lose fights she picks- as a Myrmidon, more than usual. The snoozefest stops now. Myrmidons can only use Swords and have high Skill and Speed, but low Strength and Defence. We'll need Mia to get some Strength and Defence for Chapter 8.

Also, Mia has the Skill Vantage. In PoR, Vantage always activates unconditionally. Well, OK, it requires that Mia can actually counterattack (if someone throws a Javelin at her, she won't counter it with Vantage), but it does come in handy a few times on this map. Mia in particular is not the greatest user of it.

I need Titania using the Hammer for some armours. They mess up people without armour just fine too.

One thing Vantage does for Mia is when a low HP enemy attacks her in melee, she'll finish it off before having to dodge the counterattack.

Only Chapter 7 and we're already ignoring the weapon triangle. It'll still be a few chapters before it might as well not exist.

A thief! Thieves will head for chests and loot their contents before escaping the map. By killing the Thief, you can steal back a single item. So kill them before they steal two!

These two up here look ripe for the taking. That's why Titania is killing things over here.

There's a reason I wanted the Iron Blade. At least we're not worried about survival in here, though.

...I just noticed the Hand Axe guy did 0 damage, literally what are they paying you?

The Steel Sword can help us one-round this guy. It's worth mentioning that Steel Swords and especially Iron Blades are heavy, and Mia can't lift them effortlessly. I actually think Titania is being slightly weighed down by her axes, too.

Speaking of Titania, here she is ruining this armour's day.

"Being weighed down" also lowers your Avoid, so Mia switching to a heavier sword makes this guy more likely to hit.

While we ponder solutions, we get more problems. Petrine is here to ruin our day.

I gathered.

As hilarious as it would be for Ike to have said this umprompted, Soren does recognise the name first.

The flame lance is an actual magic-based lance that Petrine has. Magic swords are not unknown to Fire Emblem, but this was the first magic lance in the series. I wonder how this sort of "she is said to have this terrible arcane lance" as a rumour goes. How scared should I be, in-universe?

Petrine seems concerned about Elincia's safety, but she also implies she's as good to Ashnard dead as alive. Still not entirely sure what Ashnard wants done with Elincia.

Petrine is gobsmacked we snuck Elincia out of range.

Look, game, we've seen Greil regularly so far, not sure who you're hiding this from.

Greil is still awesome. His companions are not holding weapons, though.

Ike runs out of position to talk to Greil. Greil is displeased.

Also, that's how it plays out mechanically, too.

I can see the facepalm.

Petrine feels insulted that she's not part of this conversation.

And then Petrine starts talking about taking Greil for herself. She also says this before this, which is even skeevier:

"Ha ha. You know, I think I’ll keep you!"

I'm not sure where he got this from, but yeah, this is... a thing.

Ashnard practices the highest order of social darwinism, bringing men all over the continent, finding out the hard way which ones are the strongest fighters, and only hiring those. Surprisingly enough, Ashnard isn't even the first Fire Emblem villain to throw people into deathpits and hire the survivors as nobles. That would be Loptyr from Jugdral.

Well, we're getting Shinon and Gatrie back. Greil, on the other hand, is going to keep Petrine off our backs.

You see, the thing about Daeins is-

Petrine: “You’ll not escape me. Not you or your little friends. You’re far too tasty a treat to pass up.”

Greil: “You said your name was Petrine, is that right? Listen up. This place is nowhere near big enough. There’s not enough room for a true contest between the two of us. I’m going elsewhere. You coming?”

Petrine: “Do you actually think I’m going to fall for such a simple ruse?”

Greil: “You and I, we’ve got more power than the average person. We don’t come across a chance like this too often. I’d like to flex my muscles without any distractions getting in the way. You?”

Petrine: “Ha ha…You really do know how to sweet talk a girl, don’t you? All right, I’m coming.”

Greil: “Over here.”

We still have to deal with the rest of these guys.

This is what the map is looking like now. There's a boss up north where Petrine came in from. And also I need another safe spot for the boys.

Mia gets her first level, and Strength and Luck are good things to find in it. Luck also factors into Avoid and Mia's goal long term is to have a high Avoid, so Luck gains will help her out with that.

This mage down here drops his Fire. If you're using Soren, he might be running out of Wind casts and this will be your refill. I feel like the droppable Fire and Steel Lance in this map change positions sometimes, so be careful.

Another Titania level. Thieves give a lot of EXP, so she wound up taking it. She seems to have taken on the thief's experience in combat. The thief had stolen the Ward staff in one of the left chests.

Ike opens this other chest for the armour-killing sword. Not the greatest weapon, but Mia will neeed it in Chapter 8.

I find great humour in the fact that Titania chose to crit this Armourslayer user as soon as I got one of my own. This guy is over near where Gatrie spawns, but he's not much of a threat to him.

The other chest contains a Miracle scroll, so we can teach the Miracle skill to a unit of our choice later. Miracle isn't the greatest skill and once we've chosen a user, we're stuck with it. So we're probably not going to wind up using this.

Here's the boss. That magic stat ought to hurt a little more. Still suffers from being a magic user that can't move.

This Iron Axe only has one use left- I'm going to feed Balmer to Mia.

I never got the skull and bone aesthetic, personally. I'm also not sure bones can roast.

The other benefit to using a stronger weapon is to make sure they die in one hit if they'd kill you otherwise. Stronger weapons are also typically less accurate, so the "sure" part is subjective.

More Strength for Mia. Defence could use a little work, though...

See above. (Mia's higher EXP gain than Titania making itself apparent already.)

Whoa, motion blur. Literally what animation led to this?

Greil gave Petrine a run for her money. That's our pops!

Petrine pulls the smart card. That is a lot of Daein soldiers running around Gallia.

...A lot of soldiers.

I am legit not sure what the strat would be to do this mechanically. Especially not since all the boys need babysitting here.

Greil has a plan, though.

But I guess it won't be needed.

Too late, ma'am.

There are the beasts. The one at the front is transforming.

Here's Ranulf. Mechanically, Petrine has an advantage on beast tribe laguz, but I think this rescue works out.

Petrine values her honour over her life, like some kind of Faerghan. Or probably she's scared of what kind of punishments they can give in Daein.

...Well he's bad news. Say hello to the villain of the Tellius games.

Petrine is terrified and believes him when he says he has this power. She leaves on the spot.

Not want you want to see out of a villain like this.

Ranulf looks at this guy and goes "Bring it".

That's not a "I can't do this" walk cycle. That's a "I have better things to do with my time" walk cycle.

And we're out of there with our lives. Elincia and Mist are here, too.

See, she actually asked for the Gallians to lend us a hand. So the beasts didn't come out of nowhere!

...This is what happens when you let Shinon and Soren exposit about the laguz, Titania.

When you put it like that, Ranulf, the slur "sub-human" seems weird. When I first played the Tellius games, I never quite got what the beorc even have over the laguz anyway- being able to shapeshift into a panther seems better than not, after all. I believe the beorc are better than the laguz when it comes to long-term planning and grace under pressure, which is a boring but practical advantage.

That's just a blinking frame out of Ranulf, but it's appropriate.

Ranulf is a bit of an odd duck of a character. I honestly kinda feel like he's a bit of a writer's favourite, because he's very beorc-positive and gets to do a lot of cool stuff. Also he's heterochromic.

One thing I found out after the fact is that this exchange is different in JP, and a little more logical, to boot.

I like to call this my citation. Basically, what's going on is that Ike is more hesitant to call Ranulf a sub-human (or, as it it known in JP, 半獣- "half-beast"), and only realises "laguz" is the correct term when Ranulf uses it. Back in Chapter 6, Soren's version of the exposition does not use the word for laguz, which is what the problem is.

This is about the mercenaries.

See, they have Elincia. And the Gallians weren't ready for that one. Not ready, but very welcoming.

Yeah, Renning's gone. We never officially found that out, but it was fairly clear.

Thanks, Elincia. Couldn't have done it without you.

Elincia is going to Gallia's capital to introduce herself to the King. For diplomacy reasons, we're not invited.

Looks at Shinon and Soren Good call.

Greil hasn't been paying attention to this conversation. Something about that fight must've set him on edge.

He does know which castle Ranulf was planning on quartering us in, as well as how to get there. This saves Ranulf the trouble of sending an escort for us.

Ranulf is a good host. The mercenaries haven't been eating well, so this is welcome news.

Smiles nervously.

---

That night, Ike waks up to find his father hasn't been sleeping.

Ike hasn't either, which is still kinda worrying. You two OK, boys?

Ike has a bit of petulance. Probably a good time for it.

Greil asks how Ike's been doing as a mercenary.

Being a mercenary commander is strange to Ike. Not in the "I'm struggling with it" sense, but in the "why are you doing this?" sense.

This is a bit of a dismissive response from Greil. Someone really wants the boy in charge.

Good question.

I am not skipping any dialogue here. Greil legitimately dodges into this question. Ike reacts appropriately.

All Ike can remember is that his mother was kind. This answer intrigues Greil.

And now the conversation is over. I feel like I have more questions than answers.

Ike complies.

Greil makes sure he does. He just stands there, watching Ike as he slowly walks up to the castle.

Before going off on his own.

Yeah, good call, Ike.

This is a cutscene you really should watch. It's a lot of action that doesn't translate to screenshots and a lot of dialogue that's more foreshadowing than plot reveals.

Let this summarise it in case you can't watch it now. The plot stuff comes in the Event afterwards.

The Black Knight has bested Greil in combat. Probably lethally.

The Black Knight's theme starts playing here, not in the castle. The Black Knight will rarely be without this ominous little tune in the future.

Now, for the plot business: The Black Knight has come to retrieve an item from Greil. Greil is in no rush to hand it over.

The Black Knight is not up for these shenanigans. Greil knows exactly what the Knight wants.

Stone cold. If there's one thing the Black Knight fails in, it's establishing a consistent level of villainy. Later on, the Black Knight is very much an honourable sort, noble if staunchly opposing Ike. This gambit is almost out-of-character for him.

This one certainly isn't helping. This quote is original to the localised version. It also appears to introduce a bit of a plot hole- Mist wasn't actually in the castle with us. However, Radiant Dawn does have a moment that confirms the Black Knight knows Greil has a daughter at this point in the story.

Still, though, stone cold.

This portrait of Ike's only appears here, to my recollection. This is the only thing he says. I'm fairly sure that body position is completely new: the shoulders aren't right for his normal pose.

Ike takes a swing at the Black Knight. The Black Knight takes a better swing.

Ike has the courage, but unfortunately, not the power.

He really wants that item.

Ike tried to get into a fight again. The Black Knight is distracted by a booming off-screen roar. Although he got the better of Greil, apparently the Lion King is beyond him.

Time and a place, son. Time and a place.

Appropriate reaction.

Yeah... that sounds about right.

The Black Knight hears the roar of the Lion King again, and decides he would rather keep his own head than finish Ike off.

And teleports away. Because the last thing we needed to know the Black Knight could do was teleport.

I'm getting a very "Obi-Wan trained Darth Vader" vibe from this quote. Not because of the cliche, but because of the words used. I wouldn't really describe the Black Knight in the future as "willful and arrogant", though.