Valkyria Chronicles/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

** [[The Worf Effect]]. They only exist so that they can die to prove what a bad situation we're in. And because they're overseen by General Damon, who is irresponsible, elitist, and basically evil.

** To make you look better.

** Seconded. What the plot does to the army infuriates me. No one in the main party cares about all the people who live because of Faldio's decision. No one seems to care much that the majority of those people probably also died at Ghirlandaio, either. Army or militia, these are still all people who signed up knowing that they might have to risk their lives to save their country from foreign invasion. Surely they had families who mourn for them? And surely there must have been ''some'' people who survived Ghirlandaio. Squads that were reassigned once Selvaria was defeated and her army routed? People so injured that they were sent off to whatever facilities Gallia has for dealing with its war-wounded? Hell, Squad Seven itself? Isn't there anyone in Squad Seven who is in the slightest glad that Gallia had its own Valkyria that saved them? We don't get to hear about these possibilities, though, because the writers wanted to get across a bunch of Aesops about how terrible war is and didn't take the time to make sure that the game's messages were ''consistent'' throughout. The people in the Imperial army are humans too? Well, one story about that is fine; we don't need to distinguish their designs any. Gallia's military has inept and arrogant leadership? Lets vaporize the whole body; after all, no ''decent'' human being would ''choose'' to be in such a horrible, violent profession, right? (You can tell this is true by the way most everyone in the militia either retires as soon as possible or gets into training or tech development positions rather than remaining in any positions that would directly see battle.) Anyway, the army's probably mostly Gallian nobility, and surely you can see how ''awful'' and ''bad'' the nobility are by looking at General Damon and Prime Minister Borg, two examples that I'm ''sure'' are fair representatives of an entire class of people. (I'd like to hope that the second game will treat this with any more subtlety--it would damn well be hard to treat it with less--but so far I haven't heard anything that makes me give it the benefit of the doubt.)

** The Manga at least had the decency to give the impression that the main personality of the Army was that they were cocky assholes who considers any non-army victory a battle that probably wasn't that hard anyway. Not that is an excuse or anything, of course, but in the game we have just General Damon being General Damon and one soldier striking a surrendered, unarmed prisoner (You know who I'm talking about).

*** The whole "one soldier striking a surrendered, unarmed prisoner is meant to show they're bad guys" thing is definitely a symptom of the problem the game has with the Gallian military and the really screwed up [[Protagonist-Centered Morality]] the game has as a whole. Selvaria was responsible for wiping out ''countless'' Gallian soldiers with no remorse, and just because she had her hands in the air, they had no reason to think she didn't have another ace up her sleeve or that it wasn't a [[Wounded Gazelle Gambit]], ''which, as it turned out, it was''. Especially considering the hugely Karmic deaths the rest of the Imperial generals got, a pistol-whipping and a few minutes of being stuck in a room with a gloating General Damon is really the ''least'' of the comeuppance she deserved (although, being trapped in a room with General Damon could probably be considered a war crime in and of itself. He looks like he smells like corn chips and I bet he spits when he talks.)

 

** It happens all the time with famous "cameos", better to stuff them in a fridge then put them on a bus apparently.

 

* Why do some people insist that the Darcsens are stand-ins for the Japanese? If a Japanese company wants to make a stand-in race for Japan, they'll make it more obvious. I feel like the reason they created Shin Hyuga was to drive the point home that the Darcsens are not meant to represent the Japanese.

** They did, but that was in response to all the negative criticism about that particular interpretation, which (at least as of the first game) is totally valid: they're a homogenized race of people with a distinctly different culture from the rest of Europa, two, they're characterized by dark (usually pin-straight) hair and eyes (though eye color gets less focus than hair color) and the art style lends them to look noticeably Asian (Nadine even has almond-shaped eyes and is probably the most easily-cited example), three, their most prominent member (in the first game, anyway) is a [[Yamato Nadeshiko]], who dies because she's [[Too Good for This Sinful Earth]], and four they make "good luck dolls" in the shape of girls to give as gifts (basically a hina doll, only given to the person they're for instead of being enshrined), on top of the fact that all of Europa is apparently animist (the Feast of All Spirits) and not monotheistic.

** In response to the above two statements, I have several problems:

*** "they're a homogenized race of people with a distinctly different culture from the rest of Europa." So, like real-life Europe?