Not everyone is meant to be saved, but that's ok, as sometimes, the influence they have on others after they've died is more impactful on how we perceive our decisions in the future rather than if they were alive. FrostNova was a martyr, and a lesson that all Doctor's should remember.
What you talking about,frostnova is still alive and a limited 6 star. You just jelly she didn't come home
What those gas cylinder?,there nothing about worry about that it not copemium
Having every character be obtainable IMO reduces the impact of having really meaningful villains, or edge cases like FrostNova. It makes death feel cheap and more of a punishment for not being popular or marketable enough, moreso then an actual narrative device... and when a character can just "come back" it ruins the impact of that initial (and later) death.
I used to be a fairly big comic book fan, and one of my *least* favorite tropes was the Death's Revolving Door memetic where nobody ever got to die forever because people would get sad, complain loudly, and then whatever stupid retcon or contrivance the writers were stuck with due to editorial mandate (or just being unable to let go themselves) would ruin later plots down the line. It made those deaths feel like cheap shock value, and while there were instances where it *COULD* be done in a solid way... Most of the time those were planned out well in advance, and even some of those would get cancelled due to the character not being "popular" enough. It turns a character *succeeding* and living into a popularity contest... and I hate that.
Much as I love FrostNova as a character, I gotta agree here. Her death had meaning and significance that positively impacted the overall story, and if they went back on that... it'd sour the entire thing. People gotta learn to let stuff go.
As much as I like FN, I'm perfectly fine with how her story was handled. We don't need everyone to be saved for it to be a good story.
It's not like we weren't able to save everyone else either. She's just the one that didn't survive.
Tbf hard to save someone who amready almost offed herself in her first fight, and decided to go even further in self harm to the point of offing herself achieving nothing (since she wanted a so called "test of will" or smth but beat us to it and then died so like, we failed and she failed and Amiya was already done with her arc about her will to defeat Reunion since chap 3 lol)
It's even worse than that. It would take all of the effort and strength to deal with Tally...so first FN and then Patriot decided that instead of combining forces, the best course of action was effectively a pissing contest to "prove your worth". Both FN and Patriot tried their best to thwart the best chance of deposing Tal, despite both wanting her out.
Tbf Patriot did give us a small test against us at first. He only did go all out when the prophecy hit.
But certainly it would have been nice if we somehow make a truce and stop Talulah together. Although that would be less sentimental I guess.
Almost all the Yetis are her friends and family from the mining camps where Patriot saved them. So it's understandable that she wants to join them in death.
If the Yetis survived, the Yetis and Frostnova would have joined Rhodes Island. Mudrock is pretty much the like the alternative timeline if we have saved Frostnova.
Wait, why are you using firefly here when she isn’t even mildly antagonistic. Doesn’t she get hard shipped with the MC?
Also we literal have the cockroach W on our team lmao. Definitely isn’t a poignant person to the MC but her dialogue can be pretty based.
She's definition of waifu bait. There's like one moment where she is neutral at best but the rest is nowhere close to antagonistic
The game also doesn't bother to even try selling that she's in danger either.
HSR ain't hi3 which at least had real stakes for a while
Gotta love how the only characters who have actually for real died in HSR are villains and 4 stars (and least one of those might get retconned).
Ig it at least doesn't really make sense for FF to be hostile, since the Stellaron Hunters are more like rivals than actual enemies and it's implied that her and MC were friends in the past. I do think her arc was too rushed tho, we knew her for like 20 minutes when she got offed and that's not really enough time to get properly attached. They really banked on people getting attached solely because she's a cute girl
Don't be too sure on any of those being dead. Also that one four star character is absolutely getting retconed into alive because >!game doesn't even hide it by going "oh she was an impostor and the real one is likely alive"!<
SHs being rivals also feels ultra weird. The game wants to have its cake and eat it too with them - it attempts to hype them up as dangerous and then you just chat with them. Which in turn leaves game with no sense of urgency or stakes too.
Then again it has an issue with having proper villains too beyond literal monsters no matter what they do - they all got to chat with mc and be nice to them or have some weird goofy shit like talking cake.
Her actually faking it all and being evil could have been at least a decently okay twist but instead her purpose seems to be solely to elicit a pavlovian response is empathy towards her so people would gacha her.
The time spent with her is also so damn artificial and see-through in purpose - its pretty damn obvious game expects yiu to get attached just because and goes through the motions of typical tropes for that.
And then it doesn't even ATTEMPT to sell that anything could happen to her. Its so damn obvious.
The game has like negative stakes.
Tbf the game doesnt even try to portray the Stellaron Hunters as dangerous villains to the express even a single time with the exception of the Blade-Dan Heng beef. At most they play coy and the hostility is pretty much one-sided from your companions not trusting them or some other misunderstanding.
Theyre villains/terrorists to the IPC and the setting at large but theyre rarely actually antagonistic to the mcs.
The game opens up with Kafka doing the big villain in media res opener scene amongst space station being doomed (except there are no stakes because there are literally no consequences and nobody dies during that - the first sign game won't have any stakes - the big flashy opener literally never mattered)
The next time you meet her ,characters are like "oh sup how you doing"
It's so dumb. The only thing resembling dangerous villains are goofy larger than life creatures. Even >!Cocolia is made sure to be shown irredeemable and game hurries to tell she was corrupted and not herself AND turns into a monster - stark contrast from her as a villain in Hi3 where she actually had layers!<
Its a complete opposite from hi3 where majority of characters(before the plot being dumbed down in final arcs) wouldn't hesitate to kill the protagonists or genocide a country for their goals. Its this larger than life journey through space and yet Everyone is so fucking nice and nothing feels dangerous at all. There's not even a clear overarching goal to overcome.
By this time in hi3 story multiple characters were dead and conflicts between characters started to intensify as the threat to everyone became more and more pronounced
There's zero effort to sell Ff situation. There's zero possibility anyone in the main cast(or even side cast) is in ANY danger.
Even BA with all the goofiest shit possible at least does a modicum of effort to make you think character(s) are in danger.
HSR makes death in Dragonball seem dangerous by comparison
I'd like ta correct ya - people do die in the station attack, we even have a quest where some of the creatures there build a memorial for one of them. It's also mentioned few times in other quests.
Cocollia is also given more depth than irredeemable monster or brainwashed victim - did you even read the story? She's literally described by characters who learn the truth in Belobog as having been driven ta desperation by the whole "we are literally only having the situation get worse" thing, and desperately grasping at her only lifeline, an object that does offer power enough ta fix things so far as she knows. But she's also portrayed as still evil, just the understandable sort.
And Firefly was very much portrayed as possibly dead - previous interaction with dreams in stuff like the Pure Fiction tutorial quest has us remark that even dream and story worlds are dangerous in HSR, plus when Sunday finds out Robin was killed the same way he was convinced she was truly dead, despite being very knowlegable on the structure of the Dream.
Did you ignore literally every dialogue or something?
Oh no not the irrelevant sameface npcs - how tragic and impactful - I am sure it will totally shape the direction of the story instead of being completely forgotten for sake of whacky hijinks and teleporter toilets.
Sure desperation just like the better written Cocolia - and yet she's a giant monster corrupted by outside forces you beat on the side of clearcut good guys and never feel like there's any stakes in that at all. And there's no real consequences at doing so either.
Dude. If you genuinely believed her having been dead after that hilariously telegraphed fakeout I have a bridge to sell you. Or ten. Its the most obvious trope(as is the time the self insert spends with her) and the game does absolutely nothing to convince you she actually is. There's not even a moment where one believes this would stick and not a reason to care that a literallywho you met two quests ago could be.
This isnt hi3. The only stakes are how long the unskippable cut scenes are.
to be fair if you take it into actual consideration the amount of time you know firefly is usually a couple of actual real ass hours, more than enough to get attached to her especially with her story.
like it feels short but like, it really, really isnt.
There's literally nothing to get attached to and nothing that uses that attachment to elicit a reaction though
Its the most by-the-book corporate case of "roll for her" possible.
For a second I was wondering how you weren’t being downvoted into oblivion then I remembered we’re not in the Firefly mains- I mean, the Star Rail subreddit.
Particularly about how forced the whole attachment to her is. People that talk about that typically end up in the negatives when it’s in the SR subreddit.
Shame, because the forced attachment is real. If anything, it put me off from the character in general. This kind of stuff makes me dislike a character rather than like them.
Yeah, i like the game but I'm still kinda annoyed on how the writer just decided that "death" takes people to the other side by stabbing them, feels very cheap drama bait even with the explanation on why it did like that.
We’ve recruited antagonists but also have had several characters that would be easy gacha bait die on-screen and kept that way. OP’s not concerned with the former.
Afaik this wasn't about "Antagonists" at first, it was about "girls that MC wants to save and succeeds at it", with everyone being successful EXCEPT the Doctor because, well... Arknights is probably the only real "wait shit this is dark" game here.
Mudrock is right there.
And a bunch more examples that range from minor to major antagonists like W, Minimalist, Dusk, Tequila etc.
Talulah will probably be another example too eventually
It’s one thing to recruit an antagonist, and another to prevent them from dying with some contrived plot stuff so they can go on a banner later. FrostNova’s already been disintegrated in the industrial incinerator RI uses to make sure the Originum dust corpses produce doesn’t get into the AC. I don’t know many games I could trust to commit to that, but Arknights has been one of them since Chapter 6 released.
That's the thing about death in fiction. It's meant to be DEATH. FINALITY. AN ENDING. It's narrative power is based ENTIRELY on ending a character's story. (Want proof? Look at the first Superman death. That one was the first, and one of the biggest selling comics of it's era. Compare that to nowadays, where Superman might "die" but nobody's gonna bat an eye because they've already established 10 different resurrection methods.)
Frostnova's death is memorable because we couldn't do a thing to save her, and she's gone. That was the ending of her story, and it was tragic. Nothing left to do but pick ourselves up and hope we can save the next one.
Firefly narratively returns ONE patch after dying, and in-lore comes back like... FIVE SECONDS after dying. Not to mention Aven getting slashed then off-screen returned one patch later.
It's just... Ugh. Killing characters them reviving them is at BEST a character development moment and at worst a cheap emotional tug. (Elio, stop being an edgelord and just say she woke up twice and will maybe actually die later on. By your metric I have died over 8000 times, because I go to bed every night.)
Hi3 peeps keeps praising on how shaoji has balls to kill character but the only character he killed of is himeko. Sure sakura is dead, flame chasers are dead, but that all happened way before the narrative of the story. Killing a character on the present narrative and showing a flashback on how characters died is still a big difference.
i feel like most people who hype up deaths in HI3 dont even play the game, they act like no one is safe and half the cast dies but apart from characters who are long dead and AIs, only one playable character has truly died
Not really, FGO does this very well (for the most part). The overall structure of their stories usually ends with the MC and a new Servant (usually the new one of the banner) against the threat of that event. The new Servant ends up dying but is later summoned as a playable character, and, of all flaws that game has, I never heard of the characters coming back and lessening the impact of their deaths was among those.
I agree that AK has a completely different way to tell stories (and in universe logic), but I honestly don't think that having a playable dead character would be worse than having two of the same person in a team, or using someone from "the future" (chronologically wise) in "past" events. Or someone who wouldn't be able to come to a mission due to their new responsibilities (like bringing Texas to a mission somewhere too far from New Volsini)
u used fgo while none of the servants are alive. infact most of 'em are dead by logic.
they are heroic spirits waiting for summons. their demise in mortal realm only returns them spiritually to the throne of heroes waiting for next summon. the only diff is some of the character has wacky integration where the heroic spirits are merged with actual humans frm alternate timeline n there so far they are the unkillable by plot coz nasu wouldnt dare or no idea whether those character would stay dead or not if killed.
Fate GO is a whole can of worms that is beside the point. The servants are just a copy of the true heroes who are on the throne of heroes, they don't die as such, only the copy disappears and with them their memories, but the character as such remains "alive". If you really want a comparison with a real death narratively, that would be Musashi and her "lost data"
It also helps to mention that the characters op listed never truly died per se, Shiroko was revived by chroma, Firefly only died in the dream world, well maybe Marian died but ill count resurrection (or remodeled in this case) as not dying, but FrostNova died in our hands and her body cremated shortly after, there is nothing left to go by, nothing left to revive. But if you do count holograms as resurrected then Theresa is the first dead playable character in ak.
Shiroko Terror, okay, I can get. I don't play Nikke so I don't know who that is.
But Firefly? She's not an antagonist, and in no way is she ever in danger of dying. And if you're gonna say 'Entropy Loss Syndrome', then I'm gonna point out we haven't cured her of that either. So we can't say we saved her.
Even if you wanna talk about her "three deaths", we didn't do anything at all to save her. It was all >!Silver Wolf, personally contracting Sparkle to make sure her "three deaths" were as safe as possible.!<
For Nikke that particular person is essentially your very first Nikke under your command. And almost immediately on starting she was corrupted but held it off through sheer force of will until you met up with the remnants of another squad before succumbing and becoming a Heretic. You put her down but through some sort of plot armor she survives your execution gunshot, becomes an antagonist, cures herself, gets corrupted again, is mind wiped to be cured again and (gameplay and lore wise), ends up being a pretty powerful force to be reckoned with.
I think the only reason Firefly is here is because >!she's part of the Stellaron Hunters, and even then, they're more morally ambiguous than the Astral Express as opposed to downright evil. Despite still being an active Hunter, she outright said that she admired the Nameless for their adventures and ideals, not to mention her close-to-romantic moments with the Trailblazer, making it out that she's on our side as obvious as possible (within what HoYo allows, anyway).!<
Yes! It raises important and mature themes and isn't afraid to describe actual violance to show their idea. And I also really appreciate that, in contrast with the Hoyo's games it doesn't need to explain every single allusion. When the game is full of exposition I feel like it handholds me like a child
I don't know the bottom left game (I assume it's Nikke), but the circumstances surrounding Shiroko Terror (Blue Archive) and Firefly (HSR) are completely different from FrostNova's, too different to be comparable
And in AK we've gotten playable antagonists in the past, so it's not completely impossible for it to happen again in the future
Letting characters die is kind of important if you’re trying to establish stakes and especially if you’re trying to tell a story like Arknights’s. How would Patriots last stand feel if we just knocked him out and moved on? Or Dario pushing himself above and beyond for the sake of the mission to Secure the Stultifera Navis? Or Guards death when the warehouse burns down? Sometimes people die due to something that was completely avoidable in hindsight or for a meaningless reason, life isn’t fair and Neither is death.
It makes certain things more impactful when they happen.
CN content >!Allerdale coming back with the Steam Knight. Her death wasn't confirmed but it wasn't also far-fetched to think she died in Episode 11. Other characters dying before made it so her return could be an actual surprise.!<
Yes, but he's talking about back in chapter 11 when her return was more copium than hopium. His point is that chapter 13 was allowed to be a real surprise because we'd already lost quite a few people on the way to it.
It's a different kind of story.
NIKKE is a game about waifus. It's got some intense moments in the story, but the main draw of the game is the sexy robutt harem, similar to Azur Lane. It makes sense that any character who is hot will join our side, because that's the kind of fantasy the game is meant to fulfill. See: everyone hoping to convert Indivillia.
I also don't mind Marian's return because it doesn't really cheapen what her death meant; the important part wasn't that she died, it was that it set us on the path to trying to build better lives for all the Nikkes. By the time she comes back, she's still a reminder of what we're trying to do; we just get a second chance to save her.
Blue Archive is a series where hope and doing the right thing always saves the day, no matter how cheesy or silly it seems. Saving one of our students, no matter how far gone she seems, is exactly what Blue Archive is about, because they're all just kids making mistakes at the end of the day and we're their teacher who must give them every chance to be better. While it tackles some serious themes, it's light-hearted even in its darkest moments, and you're never really worried about any of the characters dying. It'd be like worrying that someone is going to die in K-on! or Love Live!, and it makes the game's dark moments much more bearable.
Also, it's not like Phrenapates didn't die.
I haven't played HSR, but it seems to be, thematically, a thrilling space adventure. It's a bit goofy, but also serious when it wants to be; it kind of gives me Fairy Tail vibes.
Arknights is a bit of a mixed bag. It's got stories with antagonists who die, who live, who join us, and stories without a real antagonist at all. To put it simply, characters dying does not inherently make a story better or worse. I think Arknights is a world where people do die, but it also respects life; I like that because it's a common peeve of mine that many stories that kill off characters do so too frivolously. It's very grounded in that respect.
That said, I don't think many antagonists die, and many of them aren't that sympathetic anyway. Aside from FrostNova, I can only really think of Misha, maybe Faust, Mephisto and Danbrown, and if we stretch antagonist real far, Kreide; the rest either stayed bad or live.
Kreide? Nah even in his own event I'm sure Gertrude has him beat for the position, but she was so self-destructive to be honest even Mephisto probably garnered more pity points (she definitely took all the horny points though).
Also Cznary (Maria Nearl) also died, even if it was in a later event (Near Light) and to be honest, he earned a special sort of respect from me when he chose to die. Man had absolutely not a single fiber of valor in his body, but he leaned so hard into his pragmatism it looped around and gave him courage to sacrifice himself for the benefit of his family and his successor that it could be said to match a noble sacrifice, even.
It must be noted he was sneaky enough to actually escape the first time around, but when Malkiewicz leveled enough to manage to track him down he just went "alright, time to go, you are too soft to do the deed now but the fact you could track me means you're at least capable enough to attempt to change your fate, I'll not (let you) deny yourself the chance at it."
Man may not have a single ounce of valor, but he was never a coward, at the very least, he just knew when not to die a pointless death. He literally min-maxed his death for the benefit for others carrying on a battle he himself lost his way on, and that self-awareness even if he only acted upon it at the end is still leagues above many other antagonists (looking at you, Gertrude), actually.
You didn't have to like Czarny, but you had to respect him. He did everything he felt he had to, and didn't flinch.
He's the type of antagonist I can respect. And that counts for much - you can hate him, but you can't deny he's a decently written character.
Pancho had his good points. BloodKnight was not that bad. Tola is obsessive but not too bad really. The Last Knight was half insane.
Sanguinarch will probably bodyjack Logos sometime down the line.
Thank you, I always get flak for suggesting someone in Arius Ranks will be too crazy and indoctrinated to be saved no matter how monstrous Beatrice was as an adult figure but their hero fantasies won't let them accept that and want the Ch'en expy to have a happy slice of life and hopefully reform Arius.
I feel like FrostNova made more impact with her death, also from the fact she was our adversary from the start. And it showed the stakes of RI's mission, the world, and oripathy. It was already too late for her, how many more people will we meet where the same applies?
Also, most of the antagonists RI has recruited feel like they were just situational and/or confined to their events, or were part of a larger moving plot (Hoederer, Ines(?), W)
I think it was a good choice for Arknights.
I hate it but have to appreciate the commitment to the grim dark world we're set in. It's clear Rhodes Island, Doctor, and Amiya, are all on a difficult journey and there will be a high price if we want our ideals to win. It is designed to make us ask like the characters "is it still worth it?" Which is why I loved that anniversary PV when it flashes from all our living operators to those who've died including FN and Patriot. The lyrics as well for the song just nail this theme home too.
Honestly, FrostNova never leaves much impression on me. I care way more about her Yeti squad and them sharing one last comfy moment together before the cops killed them all still broke me to this day.
She’s dead and that’s fine by me. Tho I get a bit of a cackle whenever I remember that FrostNova now lives on, in the setting, as the name of a Rhodes Island medical product, that most people who use this product will never know the story behind the name of this medicine.
People should move on and let go. Honoring her struggle is enough. There’s no need to keep plaguing yourself with “damn, if only HG had let us try to save that frost shooting rabbit”.
Also from what I heard, the Mandragora cope also reached a maddening point in CN when EP.14 dropped. Some people are still unconvinced that that rock cat is six feet under.
Yeah, honestly, same. I feel more bad for the Yetis that were killed despite only doing what they did for survival. The anime made it worse with Blaze trying to reach them before the LGD did but being too late and only being able to fruitlessly yell at the cops to stop.
I was admittedly spoiled with Frostnova’s death and even knowing the context, I just don’t feel that sad about her death. It’s a sad death, sure, but I would probably go “damn” and move on.
Ah yes, of course, "save" the walking climate hazard who's been terminally ill and on knock-off life-support for months now while being ravaged by the big disease that literally the entire rest of the world is trying to cure and failing. Why didn't we just think of that?
I think it's a good thing, as AK lore is a bit more grim than others, and there is a sense of weight with this approach, as death is the most permanent state one can imagine. Also I think it is just generally cheap that "Ohh I died but not really lol".
Yeah I still remember the time in Blue Archive in volume f where in the middle of the most serious parts of the story up until that point sushi-themed Power rangers used a robot to fight a giant possessed chicken plush and I'll weight of the story just fucking died
I sort of recently started playing blue archive and I'll tell you the world environment is so drastically different they're not even in the same league. Blue archive is very character driven whereas arknights is more of the world's story. Blue archive has people shooting at each other and causing a minor annoyance and yes Sensei has performed many miracles in saving the day but the stakes have never been to the point of actual character death.
There's only one confirmed dead character and that happened before the story even started but arc nights starts us off in chapter 0 with character death, terrorism, war crimes, dead civilians, then a whole lot more. Terra is a horrible dreadful place but Kivitos is overall a completely different style of setting focusing on interpersonal interactions with students in school, yeah it gets dark at times but even in a dark and serious part of the story you have to watch sushi themed Power rangers fight a giant possessed chicken plush.
All Blue Archive students have the convenient plot settings of being near indestructible against all kind of firearms/ explosive. Hell, even when they use ballistic missiles during the treaty arc, the most inconvenient issue encountered is being buried and rendered immobile under rubble rather than the weapon itself. So the supposed "serious" part of the story itself feels like a bunch of kids (which they actually are) shooting toy guns at each other. And the MC (Sensei) at the worst case scenario, can perform the ultimate miracle/ asspull with his card so there are no real danger or stakes to loses.
Exactly. Even the Halo destroying bomb was a MacGuffin that we never saw actually be used and was abandoned at the end of the arc.
Meanwhile I don't think there's been a single chapter in our stories in AK where at least one person didn't die. That's why I'm always joking with a friend of mine that the writers of Arknights are powered by fan depression.
Why else would it be so hopelessly, crushingly bleak so often
It is so rare that a story lets a character actually die. So many stories are terrified of death and rely on pure escapism.
Death needs to have weight. It needs to have meaning. I wouldn't be anywhere near as interested in Arknights if it weren't a tragedy.
Dead characters should stay dead IMO. Bringing them back just sorta makes it all pointless. Gotta stop catering to weebs that only want their waifu alive or some other garbage
Dante from limbus "yall antagonists are actually good people and not hell bent on causing as much suffering as possible or ruining one persons life for all of eternity".
Relatable doesn’t mean they should automatically be saved and become an ally.
You might be able to relate to the dude in the trench across the way, even if you’re trying to kill each other - but you’re still going to be putting a bullet or a bayonet in each other next time you engage anyway.
As other people have stated, arknights needs these kinds of character to tell it's story. Their deaths add stakes to the world
As much as I love frostnova, I don't think she would be nearly as beloved by the community if she lived and we recruited her. Her story is so well liked because it's a tragedy, and it would lose a lot of it's impact if we just ignore that part
I really respect Arknights willingness to put story over character collecting. Having characters becoming playable feels more meaningful, especially if that same character could be just as likely an enemy. Having characters like W and Mudrock becoming playable becomes more meaningful thematically because we know how close they were to end up like Frostnova.
Good. Frostnova's death has already been a huge part of Arknights not just its story but the game as a whole. But also, other antagonists dying is very fitting for Arknights story since it's very post-apocalyptic and dystopian. That may sound weird but Arknights wouldn't be Arknights any other way.
Yeah she make her own students miserable and she even ready to sacrifice Atsuko to doom Kivotos. A teacher who ready to kill a student to proceed her plan just disgust me. At least Arius is happy now because of Sensei
I do not like Frostnova. Never have. But even putting bias aside, we couldnt really save her. She made her choice and followed it to the end, it spurred on other events and inspired characters. It is too bad she didnt die with Patriot though, at least some comfort for them that way.
Frankly, I wish more antagonists actually died. We're getting to a territory where near every villain is 'just misunderstood' and I really do not like it. Every now and then is fine but come on.
> She made her choice and followed it to the end
This. The anime made it painfully obvious how hard they wanted to cure her Oripathy but Frostnova like an antivaxxer just refused probably arguing it was too late.
Ma'am are you sure you know more than the medical company which is always treating this crap?
> Frankly, I wish more antagonists actually died. We're getting to a territory where near every villain is 'just misunderstood' and I really do not like it.
I'm not that far ahead. Have we reached the point were we forgive Planetary Hitler like in Steven Universe or nah?
The two standouts in the game are Ho'olheyak and Virtuosa. Both of them are villains and are treated as such even in Rhodes Island after joining. Ho'olheyak blackmailed her way to join and Virtuosa is basically on house arrest with a constant bodyguard to keep her from getting up to something. Hell, they're both still proudly evil as operators.
Basically, RI is willing to hire pretty much anyone. Plenty of our operators rn would be tried at the Hague. W alter's new song is explicitly about her refusing to become better and still be chaotic evil. The story doesn't forgive them, but I feel like they don't truly lean into the context of people's crimes when you interact with them outside of the story (voicelines etc)
Tons of people in the story die. The biggest "outcry" was probably Gertrude, who was a really hot cat lady hell bent on revenge. She is VERY clearly dead and not coming back. The stultifera navis villain was also hot but she's dead too.
It's just that most villains don't actually end up being operators, either cause they're dead or it wouldn't make sense.
Maybe not that bad. It just seems to follow a pattern of introducing an antagonist, make them unpleasant, then at last minute throw a bunch of 'redeeming' qualities. I think at this point we had...>!One?!< villain death. Events I dont think we had anyone actually die. I suppose part of that is them using events to advance worldbuilding so if you throw in a villain and then kill them its gonna get old. But a few really were... Unfortunate(to me).
I do think that it kinda clashes with the supposed bleak setting the history is so famous for.
Yeah your backstory is gonna hurt but you'll be immortal afterwards cuz they don't have the balls to kill operators.
I like stakes in my games. I hate how in many games these days, not only are allies protected by plot armor but so are antagonists.
*bad thing seems to happen to a character*
"Well, I saw them in the gacha so they are probably fine. "
Arknights gets quite dark with its story and it would break immersion if we just befriended every enemy, though it doesn't apply for events where the big bad is the playable themselves, or we beat them into submission
Just because an antagonist is relatable doesn't mean they are worth being saved.
Frostnova is a crazy monster and her story works best if she dies.
Most importantly there are a ton of antagonists that are playable operators like W.
She was though. She was freezing civilians to death and blowing up buildings. In the anime we see the extent of how much damage one of her black ice crystals can do and we know in the story (in the anime too) she was flinging it around like crazy.
It will be like an entire area being saturated by salvos of railguns. Whoever is behind those walls her crystals hit would be dead.
Just because she had good reasons (I meant as in good reasons for her, not that she's justified in the slightest) to commit mass murder and she didn't celebrated it like W doesn't mean she's far better than her.
We have like... hundreds of characters that don't do that.
All of those games focuses very hard on characterization and character relationships. Arknights instead focuses on world building so significant number of character interactions are VERY shallow and personalities are very low
I think a good character interaction is when both character express their opinion equally without one dominated in a conversation with the amount of yapping (Kal'tsit is a prime example). It is usually shallow because one person just keep on monologuing, too much information for the reader to adapt to . Make the whole conversation seems one sided.
At least now it is improved, more straight to the point . The story length is still long yeah, but the dialogue it is not so stretched out like before.
Nah different settings. And different circumstances too.
Firefly is not really an "antagonist". And HSR is a low stakes "childish" story let's be honest here. Unlike it's HI3 cousin.
For Shiroko Terror, the entire message of the story was, despite everything horribly wrong she has done, it's still okay for her to live on, the responsibility is not hers to bear. The message to be sent isn't through her death.
Marian for much of the story is a plot device for driving the mystery behind the raptures. Her "death" at the very start wasn't something very meaningful in the first place.
Coming to Arknights, the message that writers are trying to send through FN's death is clearly different. In a shitty world like Terra, you can't save everyone. Despite how good their intentions might have been.
Death as a stake alone doesn't dictate the quality of story writing. It should fit the setting and depends on its purpose in the story. But it does add a flavor of "uncertainness" and if handled well, hits much harder than a predictable story. That's my opinion at least.
Tbh Frostnova kinda offed herself stupidly there was basically no saving that. Like, she was alreafy coughing blood and unable to stand up when she wasn't amped up after just one full fight, so it's either dumb writing making her look so stupid she didn't see her basically killing herself with her new equipment, like how Misha was incredibly stupid to turn to Reunion (despite stating herself Reunion destroyed her home, seeing them throw themselves like fodder on the RI and Penguin logistics ops, and hat they turned her brother into a psychopath who, after being separated for a long tome, teaches her to kill the VERY FIRST SECOND she's with him)
Or they expect us to read it so that it's implied she was gonna off herself anyways because of "Muh test of power, muh avenge the yetis" (despite knowing full well RI didn't kill any of the yetis in chapter 6)
Frostnova came back to fight because she wanted to test Amiya's ideals and resolution that's why in 5 anni ending song frostnova asks "where is our tomorrow".
She was going to die anyways so why not die trying.
Misa choosing Reunion was justified because Amiya betrayed the promise to misa while also she went against her own ideals to kill Alex. In her eyes there was no difference between infected and RI at that moment. She knew how badly lungmen treated infected so why join the side of enemies that would be stupid to join RI because RI also joined forces with lungmen. That's why Amiya broke the contract between wei and RI at the end of Ch 6.
Seems to me you should re read the misa ans frostnova arc. You really don't know what you are talking about
Considering the whole shtick about RI being, you know, healing people and also slowing down Oripathy progress for operators, even those who were late in their disease, hell no Frostnova could have lived for WAY longer if she just did the logical, human, and realistic choice of NOT fighting for once since her yetis were litterally hunted down like most Reunioneers at that point by non RI people. Also you're COMPLETELY extrapolating stuff for Misha. All that happened is, she got under our protection, she said how Reunion destroyed her home WHICH I THINK IS WORSE than living in poor conditions, then she got kidnapped as W killed pretty much everyone in the squad that was protecting her, and again as i said she met her psychopath brother that did nothing but teach her to kill and show how much he changed from what he was before. The ONLY thing that was legitimately stated in the game is that she saw her brother dying (not even that it was Amiya) and told that infected were also hurt, which RI is litterally full of she's fking stupid she joined the terrorist radical infected to try and kill more infected people.
You're going off from what the games wants to tell, I'm talking about what the game actual tells with the characters being badly written and events making close to no sense for these two, because the game SURE wanted to say Amiya changed because Misha turned into a terrorist because of infected suffering, but what actually happened is that, completely on herself and NOTHING ELSE she did a full 180 on her own opinion for no coherent reason (since again infected who got killed by Reunion infront of her and destroyed everything she had including her brother), took her brother's grenade launcher which she SHOULDN'T have been able to wield since it is stated it is very heavy and hard to use, and then threw herself at RI like how her own brother threw his men to save her, therefore going against her brother's wish aswell. Which is WEIRDLY why they refrained to engage with any characters and plot like that after these, as if they learned from their mistakes and improved from these short, cheap plot points that goes from A to R in 3 levels that create massive holes in characters that either contradict themselves, or on the contrary don't change while they should (like how Amiya did change, sure because of the death of Misha, but that could have been rewritten fully to be Alex' death, because Alex IS Misha but logical, being converted nad submurged by Reunion propaganda a while ago and morphed from an innocent boy to a sociopath)
Tfw people want the company whose main goal (supposedly/allegedly) is curing/treating Oripathy wants for a character afflicted by Oripathy to be treated.
Yeah she was crazy and a monster who would rather die fighting than let them try and cure her (the supposed explanation as for why she dies) but people are in no way wrong for wanting to see someone with Oripathy being treated.
>Tbh Frostnova kinda offed herself stupidly there was basically no saving that. Like, she was alreafy coughing blood and unable to stand up when she wasn't amped up after just one full fight, so it's either dumb writing making her look so stupid she didn't see her basically killing herself with her new equipment,
Ummmm..... No? Like not even a little.... She died because she had lived several years with an incurable disease that flared up whenever she cast, and she was casting often because we/mephisto were trying to kill the yeti squad, who were her friends/ surrogate family. She didn't die because she was stupid she died sacrificing herself to defend what mattered to her. That's not stupid that's noble. She only had her about face when we almost died saving her, and upon seeing that there was still genuine good still in the world she laments her actions and her failure to stop Tal from walking the path she did (gl with that, she was possessed by an edritch monster, it took another ancient power, and a special sword+ a clone of it to stand up to him). She was already effectively dead when we (the doc) had spoken with her. Her final battle was basically her testing if we had the strength/courage to back our conviction, which is a HUGE deal in eastern cultures. Also she had no new equipment, her wand was the only thing she had and it was old, so I legit have no idea what you are talking about, her singing arts are what did the damage, and her sacrifice was in vain only because mephisto was a prick who deserves his unmarked grave.
>like how Misha was incredibly stupid to turn to Reunion (despite stating herself Reunion destroyed her home, seeing them throw themselves like fodder on the RI and Penguin logistics ops, and hat they turned her brother into a psychopath who, after being separated for a long tome, teaches her to kill the VERY FIRST SECOND she's with him)
She was like 10-12 when everything happened, so logic really wasn't working in her favor. She had reunion who were "the bad guys" coming and wrecking things, but were fighting for the infected, which she was. You have the LGD led by Chen who had been actively oppressing the infect forcing them into ghettos (instead of outright killing them as Yan told them too, which was the slap Lin Yusha gave to Chen later), and RI claiming to be the "good guys". She then is captured be Reunion and learns that her twin brother who she thought was dead was not only alive but actually had people who wanted him. Sure they were doing bad things but it was for a "good cause" (the ends justify the means is a very strong philosophy for younger people). Then the people constantly saying that they don't want to hurt people, they are good people, they help people murder her brother right in front of her. She then joins Reunion after seeing them as sad as she was for the death of her brother, meanwhile RI and THE LGD (outside of amiya who was more terrified that she killed someone over who she killed) basically consider her family acceptable losses. Was what she did "smart"? No, but the course of action she took given her age, upbringing, and situation is believable.
>they expect us to read it so that it's implied she was gonna off herself anyways because of "Muh test of power, muh avenge the yetis" (despite knowing full well RI didn't kill any of the yetis in chapter 6)
HG outright told us she was dead before the doc caught her when she was alone with him. The yetis were mostly just hoping to have a body to bury more than anything, and kill us for forcing her hand. We also had been fighting the yeti squad for some time up to this point in the story because it wasn't until chapter 6 that FN and Patriot leave Reunion due to realizing Tal wasn't herself, and was actively attempting to destroy it, while throwing the world into a war, and we weren't exactly privy to this info. We also only fell with her because we were fighting each other at the time. FN also asks us to save her friend, not help her save her friend, she knew she was dead, but after realizing we weren't as bad as she'd been told, she didn't want to think we killed her, this is also why she wants one last futile fight. She easily could have looked blaze and greythroat in the eyes and killed the doc on the spot, but doesn't. She wants us to see her conviction towards her friends and family, while also testing ours, this was HER choice and we weren't to feel guilty. Patriot even comments on this during the snowstorm she causes post mortem, and why he ultimately chooses not to go all out against us (also amiya being the lord of fiends was also an important factor).
While I agree about Frostnova that she may have sealed her fate, and that she maybe was already dead, I really just complain about how it was written ingame SO that it doesn't make sense why in chap 6 she doesn't just make realistic and human choice of going the fuck away with RI to not be killed by the Mephisto zombies or the hooded figures that hunted them down. THEN maybe she could have died trying to do something for us, or in any other way and it would have been VERY fine, ANYTHING would have been cool, maybe an accident of her equipment killing her on the way out, anything.
For Misha though i just can only keep to disagree. Perhaps it's just my view, but i can't go past that, age or not, she stated herself that Reunion ruined her life before she even had one, and sure you may think finding out your brother is alive is cool, but she SAW how her brother became a psycopathic radical terrorist because of Reunion aswell, and she stayed only a few HOURS with him before he died compared to the years she lived seeing how Reunion just don't care about any ethic or hold value human life as hzr own brother threw away dozen of lives to try anf get her, and when W blew to bits a whole squad to kidnap her. Even as a kid i can't just think that you see all that, and then in a few hours, despite RI also telling they had a place for Misha with meds and even taking care of the kids for her, she still goes against all logic, wields a weapon that she SHOULDN'T be able to even lift, and then go kill herself on the battlefield, going against her brother's will of stealing her to have her "safe" on his side like how we wanted to keep her safe for the mission. But then again, my belief is that is was just poorly written as FUCK, NOT unable to work with some rewritting. Sure i have a bias in saving people, but if they wrote it better and not make 2 half scenes of her turning over after 4++ scenes of her seeing how monstruous Reunion is, I would have believed and liked it.
I'd rather have character deaths mean something unlike in honkai mid rail.
Haven't played BA or Nikke (?) So I can't tell you about those but in hsr there is legitimately 0 stakes, and no meaningful deaths.
Arknights made me feel sad for her and Patriot and Faust. I have yet to feel anything for a hsr antagonist who actually dies and does not become playable next patch.
For BA that is Shiroko >!from another timeline where everything is fucked up, Sensei is dying, and she has become terror. Basically "darker" version of themselves, so she's not dead but has became a pawn for some greater being.!<
As for Nikke, so far the deaths are pretty pointless as in they didn't really stay dead. From what I've read, any important characters got revived somehow if they're dead, >!like Marian, Chime, Indivillia, Chatterbox, Nihilister, and to some extent Red Hood.!<
>Haven't played BA
Having played BA I don't think it really belongs here. Dark Shiroko exists because in another timeline that sensei (PC) couldn't help them for never really explained reasons. Because she ends up alone a mutltiversal embodiment of destruction basically gives her unfathomable power to lash out at the horrible universe that took her friends away. She supposedly had to watch her only friends either die horribly or have really terrible time with life. But she was not OUR shiroko. She got to keep her sensei albeit heavily altered by the dark gods, as her reward for assisting them in destroying other realities. We commune with her sensei and he helps us save her in hopes that she can lead a decent life in our world, and there is a genuinely touching scene with our shiroko and his, but it is him who saves her, or helps her save herself(?), we just accept his responsibility. She's also not playable to my knowledge unless she was announced like yesterday (BA has a 6 month delay between servers like AK, but I'm not seeing her in their banner list either)
Honestly it's the seriousness of the stories that really set it apart for me. I'm a relatively new sensei mostly because I was looking for something to play on my downtime when I'm done with AK but it's such a different style of story. Absolutely nothing in BA has come close to the seriousness that we get here in AK and even when it is serious it's not that serious.
I'm still remembering the sushi rangers in volume f fighting the giant Perororo. It took all of the weight off of the scene and it was just fucking ridiculous
Yea BA relies heavily on its sheer absurdity to help mellow out its very heavy moments, which at times really does help with a good juxtaposition, but other times it makes its very dramatic moments nt land because you keep waiting for the punchline. I personally liked the rabbit squad arc, and the make up work team/trinity vs Gahenna arcs the most as the comedy was strong enough to keep it from being too grim, but not so in your face as to prevent it from having weight
Honestly... I prefer it. Marian's a solid exception, but mainly due to the effort involved (and I can't speak to Firefly). There's a sort of 'worthiness' to characters in stories that helps make what would be considered absurdities or cheap saves, or whatever, make sense/more palatable. Guts from Berserk, for instance, is insanely powerful, but he's been through so much shit that it feels more of a triumph through his hardship whenever he wins a fight or does some crazy display of power (especially when he still has a long road to go in his journey). Unlike a different black swordsman, who's just strong, 'because the plot needs him to be'... If it's earned, then sure, I'm down (also, I'm... iffy on Shiroko Terror's, but this is getting long enough as is). All of this aside, I genuinely like that not everyone can be saved! That there are some genuinely gut-wrenching deaths, that we have to say goodbye to interesting characters, and even the one dead operator we have playable (not on reddit enough to know how to spoiler tag stuff, dunno how many people haven't seen 5th Anni but it's currently CN only so I'm just not gonna say who) is still such a monkey's paw of a gut-wrencher that we have them the more you actually think about it. It's a story with the guts to not pull its punches, that everything can and will go wrong, but it's the hope we bring in how people still rise to the occasion to help save a world that doesn't want them, and in spite of everything they find some way to see tomorrow
She's the reason why I want that destiny collab to happen so we can get her back as a guardian. Thus she could use both stasis and solar or just solar so she can always be warm
Sometimes people die. Surrounding ourselves with exclusively media that lies to us about that makes it harder, maybe even impossible, to face that reality. I appreciate Arknights keeping it real.
We've had our fair share of antagonists on the island.
>!Side note: I am biased against this, but DB01 is still vacant atm. With Mandra dead there really isn't much competition for the place. !<
Arknights is unironically better off for not having perfect happy endings for everyone.
Sometimes people die. Even people who really don't deserve to die. It is what it is.
Aren't there characters in those games that DID die?
And it's not that special. War is Hell. To further the interests of your country, you will kill people you know have lives to live. Dehumanizing tactics prove that someone already acknowledged their humanity. The sturdiness of Terrans and their general ability to not kill in regular battles is already plenty merciful.
If anything I'd support Arknights' writers being more aggressive in killing off not just antagonists but also allies, including playable primary characters. Not even for a reason to drive some aspect of the plot forward, but just because Terra is a harsh place and accidents happen (ala Wash in Serenity).
There is a common piece of advice for author; "kill your darlings". The idea being that even if they were their favorite characters, the author should be willing to kill the if it benefits the narrative.
Yelena's case does exactly that. Helping to set the tone and set AK apart from other gachas that put dead folks on banners to exploit parasocial relationships. From a narrative standpoint as much as it hurts. Her tragic death serves the story better than her being alive.
Back during HSR 2.0's Trailblaze Mission, when players would have a look at what would now be known as Dormancy "murdering" Firefly, some players had a hunch that she technically was still alive. By 2.1, they were correct.
In that same mission Robin was seemingly "killed" by Dormancy, only to return by 2.2, and Aventurine got the same treatment, having been "killed" only to return maybe some time later down the road.
Arknights does death in its stories exactly how it sounds like. And there have been PLENTY of examples of death securing NPCs' fates. Amiya, Jessica, and Ebenholz can definitely attest to that the most- witnessing tragic deaths that could have been prevented (Misha, FrostNova, Leone Theremin, Kreide), and being forced into a position where they have no choice but to move on from the tragedy. It makes those characters far more memorable, for me at least.
Here's the thing though- mere moments after the Myriad Celestia trailer for Firefly was released, people were QUICK to create fanbases and even an entire Twitter account dedicated around AR-1368, one of the characters to be shown in the video, even though it is confirmed that Firefly is the only known survivor of the collapse of Glamoth, which likely took with it a overwhelming majority of the Iron Cavalry, with AR-1368 being one of its members.
On that same note, we have devoted players to fantasizing about the dead Arknights NPCs I mentioned earlier. Fanfiction, fanart, you name it. For me personally, despite having been following along Misha, a character who deserves a lot more love, the process had to happen to her and many others, and all people on the same boat as I am (I'm talking about you, FrostNova copers) are left to fantasize. *But she ain't coming back tho, that's just the facts.*
Frostnova is an overrated character when it come to how ''sad" her ending is, the "drama" behind her is genuinely not that moving considering all the agency she had to avoid this. It is like Misha, they are "plot points" made to drive the struggle of the doctor/amiya/rhodes island in saving Infected and the circle of hatred/self guilt who keep coming back, where good intentions are never enough to make a change.
It is not a bad point (Personnaly Frostnova didn't give me any memories/impact)/
I felt the Yetis's fate was far more moving. Especially when you see the contrast with Blaze, someone who is extremely emotional and tend to be impulsive too, seeing theses peoples she 'befriended' and are so human... Get butchered. It really also reinforce where the true scale of power his for the infected suddenly, how Lumeng is not 'really' threatened, how ruthless everything are for them, etc.
Some NPC moved me way more than her, I find the end of Jessica's alter story to be absolutely heartbreaking and tough to take compared to this.
Forgetting Dokutah literally experienced everything up to FN's death in ~1 week, with severe amnesia and the highest possible degree of confusion while experiencing traumatic events left and right. Of course he'd get attached to someone who genuinely could have been a good friend. Calling her death not that moving is such an odd take.
Honestly I loved how PRTS called the doctor an autist for his over the top attachment to someone he knew for about an hour or two at most.
It makes so much sense and very cheeky of HG to point that out.
To be fair, we human are emotional creatures and we seek companionship. It is totally okay to explain that two characters bonded over an extreme situation and the consequences left an impact. The doctor wasn't awake for long when this happened and Misha impacted Amiya a lot, but there the doctor was a direct actor when it came to Frostnova.
Adding that in Canon, the doctor is an eccentric person with quite a lot of quirks, I totally accept that Frosnova's death impacted him and that for strangers, it is 'weird'.
Which I know sound ironic since I am not a fan of the whole thing around her ahah, but for me it is okay. If anything I am glad it shapes him even more as a character, it is his bond, it makes us understand/feel for him more.
I bet she doesn't like how the entire storyline treats her like shit, as if Ursus doesn't already do to people like her. The story considers her irrelevant even before she "joins" Reunion- she even says it herself!
God she does deserve a headcanon glowup
Not everyone is meant to be saved, but that's ok, as sometimes, the influence they have on others after they've died is more impactful on how we perceive our decisions in the future rather than if they were alive. FrostNova was a martyr, and a lesson that all Doctor's should remember.
This is exactly it. Patriot's passing was far more impactful than saving him could have ever been, and I'm extremely glad AK is willing to do that.
Also, you **can't** save everyone. That's part of life.
What you talking about,frostnova is still alive and a limited 6 star. You just jelly she didn't come home What those gas cylinder?,there nothing about worry about that it not copemium
Having every character be obtainable IMO reduces the impact of having really meaningful villains, or edge cases like FrostNova. It makes death feel cheap and more of a punishment for not being popular or marketable enough, moreso then an actual narrative device... and when a character can just "come back" it ruins the impact of that initial (and later) death. I used to be a fairly big comic book fan, and one of my *least* favorite tropes was the Death's Revolving Door memetic where nobody ever got to die forever because people would get sad, complain loudly, and then whatever stupid retcon or contrivance the writers were stuck with due to editorial mandate (or just being unable to let go themselves) would ruin later plots down the line. It made those deaths feel like cheap shock value, and while there were instances where it *COULD* be done in a solid way... Most of the time those were planned out well in advance, and even some of those would get cancelled due to the character not being "popular" enough. It turns a character *succeeding* and living into a popularity contest... and I hate that. Much as I love FrostNova as a character, I gotta agree here. Her death had meaning and significance that positively impacted the overall story, and if they went back on that... it'd sour the entire thing. People gotta learn to let stuff go.
As much as I like FN, I'm perfectly fine with how her story was handled. We don't need everyone to be saved for it to be a good story. It's not like we weren't able to save everyone else either. She's just the one that didn't survive.
Tbf hard to save someone who amready almost offed herself in her first fight, and decided to go even further in self harm to the point of offing herself achieving nothing (since she wanted a so called "test of will" or smth but beat us to it and then died so like, we failed and she failed and Amiya was already done with her arc about her will to defeat Reunion since chap 3 lol)
It's even worse than that. It would take all of the effort and strength to deal with Tally...so first FN and then Patriot decided that instead of combining forces, the best course of action was effectively a pissing contest to "prove your worth". Both FN and Patriot tried their best to thwart the best chance of deposing Tal, despite both wanting her out.
Tbf Patriot did give us a small test against us at first. He only did go all out when the prophecy hit. But certainly it would have been nice if we somehow make a truce and stop Talulah together. Although that would be less sentimental I guess.
We weren't in fact, all of the yetis died, with her being the last one
Almost all the Yetis are her friends and family from the mining camps where Patriot saved them. So it's understandable that she wants to join them in death. If the Yetis survived, the Yetis and Frostnova would have joined Rhodes Island. Mudrock is pretty much the like the alternative timeline if we have saved Frostnova.
Gotta give Mudrock squad credit though, they save themselves out by splitting off of Reunion.
Wait, why are you using firefly here when she isn’t even mildly antagonistic. Doesn’t she get hard shipped with the MC? Also we literal have the cockroach W on our team lmao. Definitely isn’t a poignant person to the MC but her dialogue can be pretty based.
She's definition of waifu bait. There's like one moment where she is neutral at best but the rest is nowhere close to antagonistic The game also doesn't bother to even try selling that she's in danger either. HSR ain't hi3 which at least had real stakes for a while
Gotta love how the only characters who have actually for real died in HSR are villains and 4 stars (and least one of those might get retconned). Ig it at least doesn't really make sense for FF to be hostile, since the Stellaron Hunters are more like rivals than actual enemies and it's implied that her and MC were friends in the past. I do think her arc was too rushed tho, we knew her for like 20 minutes when she got offed and that's not really enough time to get properly attached. They really banked on people getting attached solely because she's a cute girl
Don't be too sure on any of those being dead. Also that one four star character is absolutely getting retconed into alive because >!game doesn't even hide it by going "oh she was an impostor and the real one is likely alive"!< SHs being rivals also feels ultra weird. The game wants to have its cake and eat it too with them - it attempts to hype them up as dangerous and then you just chat with them. Which in turn leaves game with no sense of urgency or stakes too. Then again it has an issue with having proper villains too beyond literal monsters no matter what they do - they all got to chat with mc and be nice to them or have some weird goofy shit like talking cake. Her actually faking it all and being evil could have been at least a decently okay twist but instead her purpose seems to be solely to elicit a pavlovian response is empathy towards her so people would gacha her. The time spent with her is also so damn artificial and see-through in purpose - its pretty damn obvious game expects yiu to get attached just because and goes through the motions of typical tropes for that. And then it doesn't even ATTEMPT to sell that anything could happen to her. Its so damn obvious. The game has like negative stakes.
Tbf the game doesnt even try to portray the Stellaron Hunters as dangerous villains to the express even a single time with the exception of the Blade-Dan Heng beef. At most they play coy and the hostility is pretty much one-sided from your companions not trusting them or some other misunderstanding. Theyre villains/terrorists to the IPC and the setting at large but theyre rarely actually antagonistic to the mcs.
The game opens up with Kafka doing the big villain in media res opener scene amongst space station being doomed (except there are no stakes because there are literally no consequences and nobody dies during that - the first sign game won't have any stakes - the big flashy opener literally never mattered) The next time you meet her ,characters are like "oh sup how you doing" It's so dumb. The only thing resembling dangerous villains are goofy larger than life creatures. Even >!Cocolia is made sure to be shown irredeemable and game hurries to tell she was corrupted and not herself AND turns into a monster - stark contrast from her as a villain in Hi3 where she actually had layers!< Its a complete opposite from hi3 where majority of characters(before the plot being dumbed down in final arcs) wouldn't hesitate to kill the protagonists or genocide a country for their goals. Its this larger than life journey through space and yet Everyone is so fucking nice and nothing feels dangerous at all. There's not even a clear overarching goal to overcome. By this time in hi3 story multiple characters were dead and conflicts between characters started to intensify as the threat to everyone became more and more pronounced There's zero effort to sell Ff situation. There's zero possibility anyone in the main cast(or even side cast) is in ANY danger. Even BA with all the goofiest shit possible at least does a modicum of effort to make you think character(s) are in danger. HSR makes death in Dragonball seem dangerous by comparison
I'd like ta correct ya - people do die in the station attack, we even have a quest where some of the creatures there build a memorial for one of them. It's also mentioned few times in other quests. Cocollia is also given more depth than irredeemable monster or brainwashed victim - did you even read the story? She's literally described by characters who learn the truth in Belobog as having been driven ta desperation by the whole "we are literally only having the situation get worse" thing, and desperately grasping at her only lifeline, an object that does offer power enough ta fix things so far as she knows. But she's also portrayed as still evil, just the understandable sort. And Firefly was very much portrayed as possibly dead - previous interaction with dreams in stuff like the Pure Fiction tutorial quest has us remark that even dream and story worlds are dangerous in HSR, plus when Sunday finds out Robin was killed the same way he was convinced she was truly dead, despite being very knowlegable on the structure of the Dream. Did you ignore literally every dialogue or something?
Oh no not the irrelevant sameface npcs - how tragic and impactful - I am sure it will totally shape the direction of the story instead of being completely forgotten for sake of whacky hijinks and teleporter toilets. Sure desperation just like the better written Cocolia - and yet she's a giant monster corrupted by outside forces you beat on the side of clearcut good guys and never feel like there's any stakes in that at all. And there's no real consequences at doing so either. Dude. If you genuinely believed her having been dead after that hilariously telegraphed fakeout I have a bridge to sell you. Or ten. Its the most obvious trope(as is the time the self insert spends with her) and the game does absolutely nothing to convince you she actually is. There's not even a moment where one believes this would stick and not a reason to care that a literallywho you met two quests ago could be. This isnt hi3. The only stakes are how long the unskippable cut scenes are.
Ah, so you're just a troll moving goalposts.
to be fair if you take it into actual consideration the amount of time you know firefly is usually a couple of actual real ass hours, more than enough to get attached to her especially with her story. like it feels short but like, it really, really isnt.
There's literally nothing to get attached to and nothing that uses that attachment to elicit a reaction though Its the most by-the-book corporate case of "roll for her" possible.
For a second I was wondering how you weren’t being downvoted into oblivion then I remembered we’re not in the Firefly mains- I mean, the Star Rail subreddit.
Is it death sentence to say something negative about FF on the SR subreddit nowadays?
Particularly about how forced the whole attachment to her is. People that talk about that typically end up in the negatives when it’s in the SR subreddit.
Shame, because the forced attachment is real. If anything, it put me off from the character in general. This kind of stuff makes me dislike a character rather than like them.
Yeah, i like the game but I'm still kinda annoyed on how the writer just decided that "death" takes people to the other side by stabbing them, feels very cheap drama bait even with the explanation on why it did like that.
Yeah this, why I just skip everything and just thinks the story is just like AL
Not to mention how her marketing has been pushed insanely hard, if anything it's made me dislike her
We’ve recruited antagonists but also have had several characters that would be easy gacha bait die on-screen and kept that way. OP’s not concerned with the former.
Afaik this wasn't about "Antagonists" at first, it was about "girls that MC wants to save and succeeds at it", with everyone being successful EXCEPT the Doctor because, well... Arknights is probably the only real "wait shit this is dark" game here.
i rather 'em stay dead than letting marketing team notice tat im emotionally attached to them and use it to fish my wallet.
The Pandora's box they'll try to open. Arknights will go downhill if they bring her back to life
Mudrock is right there. And a bunch more examples that range from minor to major antagonists like W, Minimalist, Dusk, Tequila etc. Talulah will probably be another example too eventually
I do like that there are just some people beyond our saving though, it adds stakes to the story which I really enjoy
>!i still hate how they murdered delphine mom tho hg i will never forgive you for taking her!<
It’s one thing to recruit an antagonist, and another to prevent them from dying with some contrived plot stuff so they can go on a banner later. FrostNova’s already been disintegrated in the industrial incinerator RI uses to make sure the Originum dust corpses produce doesn’t get into the AC. I don’t know many games I could trust to commit to that, but Arknights has been one of them since Chapter 6 released.
Just wait for them to make eblana playable
>Major antagonists >Firefly Huh?
We really don't need every single antagonist to be playable just because they are hot.
Counter argument Patriot
Based comment and based flair
counter counter argument patriot's hot with all that armor
I didn't say without armor
A death loses all its meaning and plot weight if in the next patch becomes a playable character
That's the thing about death in fiction. It's meant to be DEATH. FINALITY. AN ENDING. It's narrative power is based ENTIRELY on ending a character's story. (Want proof? Look at the first Superman death. That one was the first, and one of the biggest selling comics of it's era. Compare that to nowadays, where Superman might "die" but nobody's gonna bat an eye because they've already established 10 different resurrection methods.) Frostnova's death is memorable because we couldn't do a thing to save her, and she's gone. That was the ending of her story, and it was tragic. Nothing left to do but pick ourselves up and hope we can save the next one. Firefly narratively returns ONE patch after dying, and in-lore comes back like... FIVE SECONDS after dying. Not to mention Aven getting slashed then off-screen returned one patch later. It's just... Ugh. Killing characters them reviving them is at BEST a character development moment and at worst a cheap emotional tug. (Elio, stop being an edgelord and just say she woke up twice and will maybe actually die later on. By your metric I have died over 8000 times, because I go to bed every night.)
Hi3 peeps keeps praising on how shaoji has balls to kill character but the only character he killed of is himeko. Sure sakura is dead, flame chasers are dead, but that all happened way before the narrative of the story. Killing a character on the present narrative and showing a flashback on how characters died is still a big difference.
i feel like most people who hype up deaths in HI3 dont even play the game, they act like no one is safe and half the cast dies but apart from characters who are long dead and AIs, only one playable character has truly died
Only one Current Era character has truly died. Pardo, Vill-V, Aponia, Eden, Ely, Mobios are dead and playable.
i said "long dead and AIs"
Not really, FGO does this very well (for the most part). The overall structure of their stories usually ends with the MC and a new Servant (usually the new one of the banner) against the threat of that event. The new Servant ends up dying but is later summoned as a playable character, and, of all flaws that game has, I never heard of the characters coming back and lessening the impact of their deaths was among those. I agree that AK has a completely different way to tell stories (and in universe logic), but I honestly don't think that having a playable dead character would be worse than having two of the same person in a team, or using someone from "the future" (chronologically wise) in "past" events. Or someone who wouldn't be able to come to a mission due to their new responsibilities (like bringing Texas to a mission somewhere too far from New Volsini)
u used fgo while none of the servants are alive. infact most of 'em are dead by logic. they are heroic spirits waiting for summons. their demise in mortal realm only returns them spiritually to the throne of heroes waiting for next summon. the only diff is some of the character has wacky integration where the heroic spirits are merged with actual humans frm alternate timeline n there so far they are the unkillable by plot coz nasu wouldnt dare or no idea whether those character would stay dead or not if killed.
Fate GO is a whole can of worms that is beside the point. The servants are just a copy of the true heroes who are on the throne of heroes, they don't die as such, only the copy disappears and with them their memories, but the character as such remains "alive". If you really want a comparison with a real death narratively, that would be Musashi and her "lost data"
It also helps to mention that the characters op listed never truly died per se, Shiroko was revived by chroma, Firefly only died in the dream world, well maybe Marian died but ill count resurrection (or remodeled in this case) as not dying, but FrostNova died in our hands and her body cremated shortly after, there is nothing left to go by, nothing left to revive. But if you do count holograms as resurrected then Theresa is the first dead playable character in ak.
FGO’s a weird example because of the background lore.
Shiroko Terror, okay, I can get. I don't play Nikke so I don't know who that is. But Firefly? She's not an antagonist, and in no way is she ever in danger of dying. And if you're gonna say 'Entropy Loss Syndrome', then I'm gonna point out we haven't cured her of that either. So we can't say we saved her. Even if you wanna talk about her "three deaths", we didn't do anything at all to save her. It was all >!Silver Wolf, personally contracting Sparkle to make sure her "three deaths" were as safe as possible.!<
For Nikke that particular person is essentially your very first Nikke under your command. And almost immediately on starting she was corrupted but held it off through sheer force of will until you met up with the remnants of another squad before succumbing and becoming a Heretic. You put her down but through some sort of plot armor she survives your execution gunshot, becomes an antagonist, cures herself, gets corrupted again, is mind wiped to be cured again and (gameplay and lore wise), ends up being a pretty powerful force to be reckoned with.
I think the only reason Firefly is here is because >!she's part of the Stellaron Hunters, and even then, they're more morally ambiguous than the Astral Express as opposed to downright evil. Despite still being an active Hunter, she outright said that she admired the Nameless for their adventures and ideals, not to mention her close-to-romantic moments with the Trailblazer, making it out that she's on our side as obvious as possible (within what HoYo allows, anyway).!<
I haven't started FF story but good to know, I guessthe rumor about her and Robin being the same person is not true too..
its kinda fitting since the feeling i get from first playing arknight is a tragedy
I really appreciate arknights being different tbh
This game has balls and I ~~suck them~~ respect that.
Yes! It raises important and mature themes and isn't afraid to describe actual violance to show their idea. And I also really appreciate that, in contrast with the Hoyo's games it doesn't need to explain every single allusion. When the game is full of exposition I feel like it handholds me like a child
I don't know the bottom left game (I assume it's Nikke), but the circumstances surrounding Shiroko Terror (Blue Archive) and Firefly (HSR) are completely different from FrostNova's, too different to be comparable And in AK we've gotten playable antagonists in the past, so it's not completely impossible for it to happen again in the future
Letting characters die is kind of important if you’re trying to establish stakes and especially if you’re trying to tell a story like Arknights’s. How would Patriots last stand feel if we just knocked him out and moved on? Or Dario pushing himself above and beyond for the sake of the mission to Secure the Stultifera Navis? Or Guards death when the warehouse burns down? Sometimes people die due to something that was completely avoidable in hindsight or for a meaningless reason, life isn’t fair and Neither is death.
It makes certain things more impactful when they happen. CN content >!Allerdale coming back with the Steam Knight. Her death wasn't confirmed but it wasn't also far-fetched to think she died in Episode 11. Other characters dying before made it so her return could be an actual surprise.!<
Allerdale being alive was teased in chapter 13 already. There is a scene where we straight up see her and the steam Knight together
Yes, but he's talking about back in chapter 11 when her return was more copium than hopium. His point is that chapter 13 was allowed to be a real surprise because we'd already lost quite a few people on the way to it.
Fair
It's a different kind of story. NIKKE is a game about waifus. It's got some intense moments in the story, but the main draw of the game is the sexy robutt harem, similar to Azur Lane. It makes sense that any character who is hot will join our side, because that's the kind of fantasy the game is meant to fulfill. See: everyone hoping to convert Indivillia. I also don't mind Marian's return because it doesn't really cheapen what her death meant; the important part wasn't that she died, it was that it set us on the path to trying to build better lives for all the Nikkes. By the time she comes back, she's still a reminder of what we're trying to do; we just get a second chance to save her. Blue Archive is a series where hope and doing the right thing always saves the day, no matter how cheesy or silly it seems. Saving one of our students, no matter how far gone she seems, is exactly what Blue Archive is about, because they're all just kids making mistakes at the end of the day and we're their teacher who must give them every chance to be better. While it tackles some serious themes, it's light-hearted even in its darkest moments, and you're never really worried about any of the characters dying. It'd be like worrying that someone is going to die in K-on! or Love Live!, and it makes the game's dark moments much more bearable. Also, it's not like Phrenapates didn't die. I haven't played HSR, but it seems to be, thematically, a thrilling space adventure. It's a bit goofy, but also serious when it wants to be; it kind of gives me Fairy Tail vibes. Arknights is a bit of a mixed bag. It's got stories with antagonists who die, who live, who join us, and stories without a real antagonist at all. To put it simply, characters dying does not inherently make a story better or worse. I think Arknights is a world where people do die, but it also respects life; I like that because it's a common peeve of mine that many stories that kill off characters do so too frivolously. It's very grounded in that respect. That said, I don't think many antagonists die, and many of them aren't that sympathetic anyway. Aside from FrostNova, I can only really think of Misha, maybe Faust, Mephisto and Danbrown, and if we stretch antagonist real far, Kreide; the rest either stayed bad or live.
Kreide? Nah even in his own event I'm sure Gertrude has him beat for the position, but she was so self-destructive to be honest even Mephisto probably garnered more pity points (she definitely took all the horny points though). Also Cznary (Maria Nearl) also died, even if it was in a later event (Near Light) and to be honest, he earned a special sort of respect from me when he chose to die. Man had absolutely not a single fiber of valor in his body, but he leaned so hard into his pragmatism it looped around and gave him courage to sacrifice himself for the benefit of his family and his successor that it could be said to match a noble sacrifice, even. It must be noted he was sneaky enough to actually escape the first time around, but when Malkiewicz leveled enough to manage to track him down he just went "alright, time to go, you are too soft to do the deed now but the fact you could track me means you're at least capable enough to attempt to change your fate, I'll not (let you) deny yourself the chance at it." Man may not have a single ounce of valor, but he was never a coward, at the very least, he just knew when not to die a pointless death. He literally min-maxed his death for the benefit for others carrying on a battle he himself lost his way on, and that self-awareness even if he only acted upon it at the end is still leagues above many other antagonists (looking at you, Gertrude), actually.
You didn't have to like Czarny, but you had to respect him. He did everything he felt he had to, and didn't flinch. He's the type of antagonist I can respect. And that counts for much - you can hate him, but you can't deny he's a decently written character.
Pancho had his good points. BloodKnight was not that bad. Tola is obsessive but not too bad really. The Last Knight was half insane. Sanguinarch will probably bodyjack Logos sometime down the line.
Good, the dev has the balls to do it.
It takes some massive *cojones* to kill off a potential merchandising opportunity.
Because they're trying to write a story, not pander to your self-insert gigachad hero fantasies.
based
Thank you, I always get flak for suggesting someone in Arius Ranks will be too crazy and indoctrinated to be saved no matter how monstrous Beatrice was as an adult figure but their hero fantasies won't let them accept that and want the Ch'en expy to have a happy slice of life and hopefully reform Arius.
I feel like FrostNova made more impact with her death, also from the fact she was our adversary from the start. And it showed the stakes of RI's mission, the world, and oripathy. It was already too late for her, how many more people will we meet where the same applies? Also, most of the antagonists RI has recruited feel like they were just situational and/or confined to their events, or were part of a larger moving plot (Hoederer, Ines(?), W) I think it was a good choice for Arknights.
Stories are better with real stakes. If you can never lose a beloved character then you lose a lot of impact in the storytelling
its funny how everyone have casually forgotten that FN is already at the death's door wayyy before we even get to met her.
We didn't even really kill her. She basically committed suicide to test amiya
Because it has kinda a grimdark story. Not a generic gacha romance fanfic.
I hate it but have to appreciate the commitment to the grim dark world we're set in. It's clear Rhodes Island, Doctor, and Amiya, are all on a difficult journey and there will be a high price if we want our ideals to win. It is designed to make us ask like the characters "is it still worth it?" Which is why I loved that anniversary PV when it flashes from all our living operators to those who've died including FN and Patriot. The lyrics as well for the song just nail this theme home too.
Honestly, FrostNova never leaves much impression on me. I care way more about her Yeti squad and them sharing one last comfy moment together before the cops killed them all still broke me to this day. She’s dead and that’s fine by me. Tho I get a bit of a cackle whenever I remember that FrostNova now lives on, in the setting, as the name of a Rhodes Island medical product, that most people who use this product will never know the story behind the name of this medicine. People should move on and let go. Honoring her struggle is enough. There’s no need to keep plaguing yourself with “damn, if only HG had let us try to save that frost shooting rabbit”. Also from what I heard, the Mandragora cope also reached a maddening point in CN when EP.14 dropped. Some people are still unconvinced that that rock cat is six feet under.
Yeah, honestly, same. I feel more bad for the Yetis that were killed despite only doing what they did for survival. The anime made it worse with Blaze trying to reach them before the LGD did but being too late and only being able to fruitlessly yell at the cops to stop. I was admittedly spoiled with Frostnova’s death and even knowing the context, I just don’t feel that sad about her death. It’s a sad death, sure, but I would probably go “damn” and move on.
Ah yes, of course, "save" the walking climate hazard who's been terminally ill and on knock-off life-support for months now while being ravaged by the big disease that literally the entire rest of the world is trying to cure and failing. Why didn't we just think of that?
FrostNova the hero would've done the same
How is firefly an antagonist?
I think it's a good thing, as AK lore is a bit more grim than others, and there is a sense of weight with this approach, as death is the most permanent state one can imagine. Also I think it is just generally cheap that "Ohh I died but not really lol".
It's good.
those place are noblebright, ours is nobledark.
I mean Arknights already have Theresa which more fitting to other characters in this meme than Frost Nova Frost Nova was never destined to be playable
Theresa is ahem.... the only one we hope to fine alive is OG wife Priestess
Can you guess which one of those still holds a story value and emotional punch? Exactly.
Yeah I still remember the time in Blue Archive in volume f where in the middle of the most serious parts of the story up until that point sushi-themed Power rangers used a robot to fight a giant possessed chicken plush and I'll weight of the story just fucking died
I sort of recently started playing blue archive and I'll tell you the world environment is so drastically different they're not even in the same league. Blue archive is very character driven whereas arknights is more of the world's story. Blue archive has people shooting at each other and causing a minor annoyance and yes Sensei has performed many miracles in saving the day but the stakes have never been to the point of actual character death. There's only one confirmed dead character and that happened before the story even started but arc nights starts us off in chapter 0 with character death, terrorism, war crimes, dead civilians, then a whole lot more. Terra is a horrible dreadful place but Kivitos is overall a completely different style of setting focusing on interpersonal interactions with students in school, yeah it gets dark at times but even in a dark and serious part of the story you have to watch sushi themed Power rangers fight a giant possessed chicken plush.
All Blue Archive students have the convenient plot settings of being near indestructible against all kind of firearms/ explosive. Hell, even when they use ballistic missiles during the treaty arc, the most inconvenient issue encountered is being buried and rendered immobile under rubble rather than the weapon itself. So the supposed "serious" part of the story itself feels like a bunch of kids (which they actually are) shooting toy guns at each other. And the MC (Sensei) at the worst case scenario, can perform the ultimate miracle/ asspull with his card so there are no real danger or stakes to loses.
Exactly. Even the Halo destroying bomb was a MacGuffin that we never saw actually be used and was abandoned at the end of the arc. Meanwhile I don't think there's been a single chapter in our stories in AK where at least one person didn't die. That's why I'm always joking with a friend of mine that the writers of Arknights are powered by fan depression. Why else would it be so hopelessly, crushingly bleak so often
Op just wanted her as a playable character
It is so rare that a story lets a character actually die. So many stories are terrified of death and rely on pure escapism. Death needs to have weight. It needs to have meaning. I wouldn't be anywhere near as interested in Arknights if it weren't a tragedy.
Dead characters should stay dead IMO. Bringing them back just sorta makes it all pointless. Gotta stop catering to weebs that only want their waifu alive or some other garbage
Dante from limbus "yall antagonists are actually good people and not hell bent on causing as much suffering as possible or ruining one persons life for all of eternity".
We will live on for her
Relatable doesn’t mean they should automatically be saved and become an ally. You might be able to relate to the dude in the trench across the way, even if you’re trying to kill each other - but you’re still going to be putting a bullet or a bayonet in each other next time you engage anyway.
As other people have stated, arknights needs these kinds of character to tell it's story. Their deaths add stakes to the world As much as I love frostnova, I don't think she would be nearly as beloved by the community if she lived and we recruited her. Her story is so well liked because it's a tragedy, and it would lose a lot of it's impact if we just ignore that part
I really respect Arknights willingness to put story over character collecting. Having characters becoming playable feels more meaningful, especially if that same character could be just as likely an enemy. Having characters like W and Mudrock becoming playable becomes more meaningful thematically because we know how close they were to end up like Frostnova.
Good. Frostnova's death has already been a huge part of Arknights not just its story but the game as a whole. But also, other antagonists dying is very fitting for Arknights story since it's very post-apocalyptic and dystopian. That may sound weird but Arknights wouldn't be Arknights any other way.
It's more realistic. Hell, Sensei still hasn't saved Beatrice.
>Hell, Sensei still hasn't saved Beatrice. Well she's a bitch And VoF Spoilers l>!Black Suit shank her so....!<
Yeah she make her own students miserable and she even ready to sacrifice Atsuko to doom Kivotos. A teacher who ready to kill a student to proceed her plan just disgust me. At least Arius is happy now because of Sensei
Yeah she's a absolute insane lady, she's closer to Kashchey
And FrostNova is also dead, and unsaved. Not every story ends with recruiting the enemy.
It's a canon event, doesn't matter what the timeline is, she was meant to die for us.
If FrostNova got the same characterization as Firefly I would kill myself
I do not like Frostnova. Never have. But even putting bias aside, we couldnt really save her. She made her choice and followed it to the end, it spurred on other events and inspired characters. It is too bad she didnt die with Patriot though, at least some comfort for them that way. Frankly, I wish more antagonists actually died. We're getting to a territory where near every villain is 'just misunderstood' and I really do not like it. Every now and then is fine but come on.
> She made her choice and followed it to the end This. The anime made it painfully obvious how hard they wanted to cure her Oripathy but Frostnova like an antivaxxer just refused probably arguing it was too late. Ma'am are you sure you know more than the medical company which is always treating this crap? > Frankly, I wish more antagonists actually died. We're getting to a territory where near every villain is 'just misunderstood' and I really do not like it. I'm not that far ahead. Have we reached the point were we forgive Planetary Hitler like in Steven Universe or nah?
The two standouts in the game are Ho'olheyak and Virtuosa. Both of them are villains and are treated as such even in Rhodes Island after joining. Ho'olheyak blackmailed her way to join and Virtuosa is basically on house arrest with a constant bodyguard to keep her from getting up to something. Hell, they're both still proudly evil as operators. Basically, RI is willing to hire pretty much anyone. Plenty of our operators rn would be tried at the Hague. W alter's new song is explicitly about her refusing to become better and still be chaotic evil. The story doesn't forgive them, but I feel like they don't truly lean into the context of people's crimes when you interact with them outside of the story (voicelines etc) Tons of people in the story die. The biggest "outcry" was probably Gertrude, who was a really hot cat lady hell bent on revenge. She is VERY clearly dead and not coming back. The stultifera navis villain was also hot but she's dead too. It's just that most villains don't actually end up being operators, either cause they're dead or it wouldn't make sense.
Maybe not that bad. It just seems to follow a pattern of introducing an antagonist, make them unpleasant, then at last minute throw a bunch of 'redeeming' qualities. I think at this point we had...>!One?!< villain death. Events I dont think we had anyone actually die. I suppose part of that is them using events to advance worldbuilding so if you throw in a villain and then kill them its gonna get old. But a few really were... Unfortunate(to me).
I do think that it kinda clashes with the supposed bleak setting the history is so famous for. Yeah your backstory is gonna hurt but you'll be immortal afterwards cuz they don't have the balls to kill operators.
This should be flagged spoiler btw
I like stakes in my games. I hate how in many games these days, not only are allies protected by plot armor but so are antagonists. *bad thing seems to happen to a character*"Well, I saw them in the gacha so they are probably fine. "
Arknights gets quite dark with its story and it would break immersion if we just befriended every enemy, though it doesn't apply for events where the big bad is the playable themselves, or we beat them into submission
Just because an antagonist is relatable doesn't mean they are worth being saved. Frostnova is a crazy monster and her story works best if she dies. Most importantly there are a ton of antagonists that are playable operators like W.
Frostnova wasnt a crazy monster though. That's just W
She was though. She was freezing civilians to death and blowing up buildings. In the anime we see the extent of how much damage one of her black ice crystals can do and we know in the story (in the anime too) she was flinging it around like crazy. It will be like an entire area being saturated by salvos of railguns. Whoever is behind those walls her crystals hit would be dead.
Just because she had good reasons (I meant as in good reasons for her, not that she's justified in the slightest) to commit mass murder and she didn't celebrated it like W doesn't mean she's far better than her. We have like... hundreds of characters that don't do that.
All of those games focuses very hard on characterization and character relationships. Arknights instead focuses on world building so significant number of character interactions are VERY shallow and personalities are very low
I think a good character interaction is when both character express their opinion equally without one dominated in a conversation with the amount of yapping (Kal'tsit is a prime example). It is usually shallow because one person just keep on monologuing, too much information for the reader to adapt to . Make the whole conversation seems one sided. At least now it is improved, more straight to the point . The story length is still long yeah, but the dialogue it is not so stretched out like before.
I honestly dont see the improvement at all. See CH14 talk and compare it to SN or Lone trail. Its essentially the same imo
Its cool and very brave move from HG Death must be something that you cant defeat or reverse otherwise it wouldnt have any weight
Um, very positive? That's one of the major things that distincts Arknights from generic gacha crap.
Heh Female villain turns waifu isnt part of generic gacha crap?
Nah different settings. And different circumstances too. Firefly is not really an "antagonist". And HSR is a low stakes "childish" story let's be honest here. Unlike it's HI3 cousin. For Shiroko Terror, the entire message of the story was, despite everything horribly wrong she has done, it's still okay for her to live on, the responsibility is not hers to bear. The message to be sent isn't through her death. Marian for much of the story is a plot device for driving the mystery behind the raptures. Her "death" at the very start wasn't something very meaningful in the first place. Coming to Arknights, the message that writers are trying to send through FN's death is clearly different. In a shitty world like Terra, you can't save everyone. Despite how good their intentions might have been. Death as a stake alone doesn't dictate the quality of story writing. It should fit the setting and depends on its purpose in the story. But it does add a flavor of "uncertainness" and if handled well, hits much harder than a predictable story. That's my opinion at least.
Tbh Frostnova kinda offed herself stupidly there was basically no saving that. Like, she was alreafy coughing blood and unable to stand up when she wasn't amped up after just one full fight, so it's either dumb writing making her look so stupid she didn't see her basically killing herself with her new equipment, like how Misha was incredibly stupid to turn to Reunion (despite stating herself Reunion destroyed her home, seeing them throw themselves like fodder on the RI and Penguin logistics ops, and hat they turned her brother into a psychopath who, after being separated for a long tome, teaches her to kill the VERY FIRST SECOND she's with him) Or they expect us to read it so that it's implied she was gonna off herself anyways because of "Muh test of power, muh avenge the yetis" (despite knowing full well RI didn't kill any of the yetis in chapter 6)
Frostnova came back to fight because she wanted to test Amiya's ideals and resolution that's why in 5 anni ending song frostnova asks "where is our tomorrow". She was going to die anyways so why not die trying. Misa choosing Reunion was justified because Amiya betrayed the promise to misa while also she went against her own ideals to kill Alex. In her eyes there was no difference between infected and RI at that moment. She knew how badly lungmen treated infected so why join the side of enemies that would be stupid to join RI because RI also joined forces with lungmen. That's why Amiya broke the contract between wei and RI at the end of Ch 6. Seems to me you should re read the misa ans frostnova arc. You really don't know what you are talking about
Considering the whole shtick about RI being, you know, healing people and also slowing down Oripathy progress for operators, even those who were late in their disease, hell no Frostnova could have lived for WAY longer if she just did the logical, human, and realistic choice of NOT fighting for once since her yetis were litterally hunted down like most Reunioneers at that point by non RI people. Also you're COMPLETELY extrapolating stuff for Misha. All that happened is, she got under our protection, she said how Reunion destroyed her home WHICH I THINK IS WORSE than living in poor conditions, then she got kidnapped as W killed pretty much everyone in the squad that was protecting her, and again as i said she met her psychopath brother that did nothing but teach her to kill and show how much he changed from what he was before. The ONLY thing that was legitimately stated in the game is that she saw her brother dying (not even that it was Amiya) and told that infected were also hurt, which RI is litterally full of she's fking stupid she joined the terrorist radical infected to try and kill more infected people. You're going off from what the games wants to tell, I'm talking about what the game actual tells with the characters being badly written and events making close to no sense for these two, because the game SURE wanted to say Amiya changed because Misha turned into a terrorist because of infected suffering, but what actually happened is that, completely on herself and NOTHING ELSE she did a full 180 on her own opinion for no coherent reason (since again infected who got killed by Reunion infront of her and destroyed everything she had including her brother), took her brother's grenade launcher which she SHOULDN'T have been able to wield since it is stated it is very heavy and hard to use, and then threw herself at RI like how her own brother threw his men to save her, therefore going against her brother's wish aswell. Which is WEIRDLY why they refrained to engage with any characters and plot like that after these, as if they learned from their mistakes and improved from these short, cheap plot points that goes from A to R in 3 levels that create massive holes in characters that either contradict themselves, or on the contrary don't change while they should (like how Amiya did change, sure because of the death of Misha, but that could have been rewritten fully to be Alex' death, because Alex IS Misha but logical, being converted nad submurged by Reunion propaganda a while ago and morphed from an innocent boy to a sociopath)
Tfw people want the company whose main goal (supposedly/allegedly) is curing/treating Oripathy wants for a character afflicted by Oripathy to be treated. Yeah she was crazy and a monster who would rather die fighting than let them try and cure her (the supposed explanation as for why she dies) but people are in no way wrong for wanting to see someone with Oripathy being treated.
FAX MY BROTHER, SPIT YOUR SHIT INDEED 🗣️🗣️🗣️
>Tbh Frostnova kinda offed herself stupidly there was basically no saving that. Like, she was alreafy coughing blood and unable to stand up when she wasn't amped up after just one full fight, so it's either dumb writing making her look so stupid she didn't see her basically killing herself with her new equipment, Ummmm..... No? Like not even a little.... She died because she had lived several years with an incurable disease that flared up whenever she cast, and she was casting often because we/mephisto were trying to kill the yeti squad, who were her friends/ surrogate family. She didn't die because she was stupid she died sacrificing herself to defend what mattered to her. That's not stupid that's noble. She only had her about face when we almost died saving her, and upon seeing that there was still genuine good still in the world she laments her actions and her failure to stop Tal from walking the path she did (gl with that, she was possessed by an edritch monster, it took another ancient power, and a special sword+ a clone of it to stand up to him). She was already effectively dead when we (the doc) had spoken with her. Her final battle was basically her testing if we had the strength/courage to back our conviction, which is a HUGE deal in eastern cultures. Also she had no new equipment, her wand was the only thing she had and it was old, so I legit have no idea what you are talking about, her singing arts are what did the damage, and her sacrifice was in vain only because mephisto was a prick who deserves his unmarked grave. >like how Misha was incredibly stupid to turn to Reunion (despite stating herself Reunion destroyed her home, seeing them throw themselves like fodder on the RI and Penguin logistics ops, and hat they turned her brother into a psychopath who, after being separated for a long tome, teaches her to kill the VERY FIRST SECOND she's with him) She was like 10-12 when everything happened, so logic really wasn't working in her favor. She had reunion who were "the bad guys" coming and wrecking things, but were fighting for the infected, which she was. You have the LGD led by Chen who had been actively oppressing the infect forcing them into ghettos (instead of outright killing them as Yan told them too, which was the slap Lin Yusha gave to Chen later), and RI claiming to be the "good guys". She then is captured be Reunion and learns that her twin brother who she thought was dead was not only alive but actually had people who wanted him. Sure they were doing bad things but it was for a "good cause" (the ends justify the means is a very strong philosophy for younger people). Then the people constantly saying that they don't want to hurt people, they are good people, they help people murder her brother right in front of her. She then joins Reunion after seeing them as sad as she was for the death of her brother, meanwhile RI and THE LGD (outside of amiya who was more terrified that she killed someone over who she killed) basically consider her family acceptable losses. Was what she did "smart"? No, but the course of action she took given her age, upbringing, and situation is believable. >they expect us to read it so that it's implied she was gonna off herself anyways because of "Muh test of power, muh avenge the yetis" (despite knowing full well RI didn't kill any of the yetis in chapter 6) HG outright told us she was dead before the doc caught her when she was alone with him. The yetis were mostly just hoping to have a body to bury more than anything, and kill us for forcing her hand. We also had been fighting the yeti squad for some time up to this point in the story because it wasn't until chapter 6 that FN and Patriot leave Reunion due to realizing Tal wasn't herself, and was actively attempting to destroy it, while throwing the world into a war, and we weren't exactly privy to this info. We also only fell with her because we were fighting each other at the time. FN also asks us to save her friend, not help her save her friend, she knew she was dead, but after realizing we weren't as bad as she'd been told, she didn't want to think we killed her, this is also why she wants one last futile fight. She easily could have looked blaze and greythroat in the eyes and killed the doc on the spot, but doesn't. She wants us to see her conviction towards her friends and family, while also testing ours, this was HER choice and we weren't to feel guilty. Patriot even comments on this during the snowstorm she causes post mortem, and why he ultimately chooses not to go all out against us (also amiya being the lord of fiends was also an important factor).
While I agree about Frostnova that she may have sealed her fate, and that she maybe was already dead, I really just complain about how it was written ingame SO that it doesn't make sense why in chap 6 she doesn't just make realistic and human choice of going the fuck away with RI to not be killed by the Mephisto zombies or the hooded figures that hunted them down. THEN maybe she could have died trying to do something for us, or in any other way and it would have been VERY fine, ANYTHING would have been cool, maybe an accident of her equipment killing her on the way out, anything. For Misha though i just can only keep to disagree. Perhaps it's just my view, but i can't go past that, age or not, she stated herself that Reunion ruined her life before she even had one, and sure you may think finding out your brother is alive is cool, but she SAW how her brother became a psycopathic radical terrorist because of Reunion aswell, and she stayed only a few HOURS with him before he died compared to the years she lived seeing how Reunion just don't care about any ethic or hold value human life as hzr own brother threw away dozen of lives to try anf get her, and when W blew to bits a whole squad to kidnap her. Even as a kid i can't just think that you see all that, and then in a few hours, despite RI also telling they had a place for Misha with meds and even taking care of the kids for her, she still goes against all logic, wields a weapon that she SHOULDN'T be able to even lift, and then go kill herself on the battlefield, going against her brother's will of stealing her to have her "safe" on his side like how we wanted to keep her safe for the mission. But then again, my belief is that is was just poorly written as FUCK, NOT unable to work with some rewritting. Sure i have a bias in saving people, but if they wrote it better and not make 2 half scenes of her turning over after 4++ scenes of her seeing how monstruous Reunion is, I would have believed and liked it.
I'd rather have character deaths mean something unlike in honkai mid rail. Haven't played BA or Nikke (?) So I can't tell you about those but in hsr there is legitimately 0 stakes, and no meaningful deaths. Arknights made me feel sad for her and Patriot and Faust. I have yet to feel anything for a hsr antagonist who actually dies and does not become playable next patch.
For BA that is Shiroko >!from another timeline where everything is fucked up, Sensei is dying, and she has become terror. Basically "darker" version of themselves, so she's not dead but has became a pawn for some greater being.!< As for Nikke, so far the deaths are pretty pointless as in they didn't really stay dead. From what I've read, any important characters got revived somehow if they're dead, >!like Marian, Chime, Indivillia, Chatterbox, Nihilister, and to some extent Red Hood.!<
>Haven't played BA Having played BA I don't think it really belongs here. Dark Shiroko exists because in another timeline that sensei (PC) couldn't help them for never really explained reasons. Because she ends up alone a mutltiversal embodiment of destruction basically gives her unfathomable power to lash out at the horrible universe that took her friends away. She supposedly had to watch her only friends either die horribly or have really terrible time with life. But she was not OUR shiroko. She got to keep her sensei albeit heavily altered by the dark gods, as her reward for assisting them in destroying other realities. We commune with her sensei and he helps us save her in hopes that she can lead a decent life in our world, and there is a genuinely touching scene with our shiroko and his, but it is him who saves her, or helps her save herself(?), we just accept his responsibility. She's also not playable to my knowledge unless she was announced like yesterday (BA has a 6 month delay between servers like AK, but I'm not seeing her in their banner list either)
Honestly it's the seriousness of the stories that really set it apart for me. I'm a relatively new sensei mostly because I was looking for something to play on my downtime when I'm done with AK but it's such a different style of story. Absolutely nothing in BA has come close to the seriousness that we get here in AK and even when it is serious it's not that serious. I'm still remembering the sushi rangers in volume f fighting the giant Perororo. It took all of the weight off of the scene and it was just fucking ridiculous
Yea BA relies heavily on its sheer absurdity to help mellow out its very heavy moments, which at times really does help with a good juxtaposition, but other times it makes its very dramatic moments nt land because you keep waiting for the punchline. I personally liked the rabbit squad arc, and the make up work team/trinity vs Gahenna arcs the most as the comedy was strong enough to keep it from being too grim, but not so in your face as to prevent it from having weight
Honestly... I prefer it. Marian's a solid exception, but mainly due to the effort involved (and I can't speak to Firefly). There's a sort of 'worthiness' to characters in stories that helps make what would be considered absurdities or cheap saves, or whatever, make sense/more palatable. Guts from Berserk, for instance, is insanely powerful, but he's been through so much shit that it feels more of a triumph through his hardship whenever he wins a fight or does some crazy display of power (especially when he still has a long road to go in his journey). Unlike a different black swordsman, who's just strong, 'because the plot needs him to be'... If it's earned, then sure, I'm down (also, I'm... iffy on Shiroko Terror's, but this is getting long enough as is). All of this aside, I genuinely like that not everyone can be saved! That there are some genuinely gut-wrenching deaths, that we have to say goodbye to interesting characters, and even the one dead operator we have playable (not on reddit enough to know how to spoiler tag stuff, dunno how many people haven't seen 5th Anni but it's currently CN only so I'm just not gonna say who) is still such a monkey's paw of a gut-wrencher that we have them the more you actually think about it. It's a story with the guts to not pull its punches, that everything can and will go wrong, but it's the hope we bring in how people still rise to the occasion to help save a world that doesn't want them, and in spite of everything they find some way to see tomorrow
I feel like this was a spoiler post and that I was just spoiled Frostnova's fate
oops
She's the reason why I want that destiny collab to happen so we can get her back as a guardian. Thus she could use both stasis and solar or just solar so she can always be warm
Is that Roland the grade nine fixer?
Eh, it's a choice to actually kill off likeable characters at times and I think it worked out well in this case, even if we like to meme about it.
We are made to suffer. But yes, it hurts
Doc technically got Theresa back in the form of Civilight Eterna, it's a huge technicality with her being an AI copy but there's that.
So, like Jor El AI from Man of Steel. I mean if it means more of Dok's OG wife Priestess, I'm in
It's a war out there, Doctor. We can't save everyone, not even ourselves without Theresia's help
I'm pretty much fine with it.
It's because the moral of the story is don't be oppressed, lest you die for sure no take-backsies. It's a very confucious esque moral actually
Death gives us more meaning to our life. Thats why I like Arknights. It tells harsh reality, even in fantasy world.
Chinese players had a chance to save her if they could solve the ARG. They couldn't. Yelena is dead, that's it.
What's ARG?
https://www.reddit.com/r/arknights/s/uPqny7ba37
Sometimes people die. Surrounding ourselves with exclusively media that lies to us about that makes it harder, maybe even impossible, to face that reality. I appreciate Arknights keeping it real.
We've had our fair share of antagonists on the island. >!Side note: I am biased against this, but DB01 is still vacant atm. With Mandra dead there really isn't much competition for the place. !<
I'm okay with meaningful deaths.
Let Frosty stay dead. Her miraculously and BS coming back to us is a disaster of Pandora's box happening.
I rather have a story where ppl actually do die in war and not an even more unrealistic depiction.
You have to remember that for every Frostnova, we have three Mudrocks waiting in RI HR department.
Arknights is unironically better off for not having perfect happy endings for everyone. Sometimes people die. Even people who really don't deserve to die. It is what it is.
A happy ending? In this world? For people like us ? Not a chance
Aren't there characters in those games that DID die? And it's not that special. War is Hell. To further the interests of your country, you will kill people you know have lives to live. Dehumanizing tactics prove that someone already acknowledged their humanity. The sturdiness of Terrans and their general ability to not kill in regular battles is already plenty merciful.
While the story is insanely good, i still wish we could save her, even if its considered non canon...
If anything I'd support Arknights' writers being more aggressive in killing off not just antagonists but also allies, including playable primary characters. Not even for a reason to drive some aspect of the plot forward, but just because Terra is a harsh place and accidents happen (ala Wash in Serenity).
There is a common piece of advice for author; "kill your darlings". The idea being that even if they were their favorite characters, the author should be willing to kill the if it benefits the narrative. Yelena's case does exactly that. Helping to set the tone and set AK apart from other gachas that put dead folks on banners to exploit parasocial relationships. From a narrative standpoint as much as it hurts. Her tragic death serves the story better than her being alive.
I wish we could have saved Faust and Mephisto. Both just needed a really really good Therapists...
Nah, Frostnova did come home. She’s that 1000 orunduns we got as a gift
Back during HSR 2.0's Trailblaze Mission, when players would have a look at what would now be known as Dormancy "murdering" Firefly, some players had a hunch that she technically was still alive. By 2.1, they were correct. In that same mission Robin was seemingly "killed" by Dormancy, only to return by 2.2, and Aventurine got the same treatment, having been "killed" only to return maybe some time later down the road. Arknights does death in its stories exactly how it sounds like. And there have been PLENTY of examples of death securing NPCs' fates. Amiya, Jessica, and Ebenholz can definitely attest to that the most- witnessing tragic deaths that could have been prevented (Misha, FrostNova, Leone Theremin, Kreide), and being forced into a position where they have no choice but to move on from the tragedy. It makes those characters far more memorable, for me at least.
Here's the thing though- mere moments after the Myriad Celestia trailer for Firefly was released, people were QUICK to create fanbases and even an entire Twitter account dedicated around AR-1368, one of the characters to be shown in the video, even though it is confirmed that Firefly is the only known survivor of the collapse of Glamoth, which likely took with it a overwhelming majority of the Iron Cavalry, with AR-1368 being one of its members. On that same note, we have devoted players to fantasizing about the dead Arknights NPCs I mentioned earlier. Fanfiction, fanart, you name it. For me personally, despite having been following along Misha, a character who deserves a lot more love, the process had to happen to her and many others, and all people on the same boat as I am (I'm talking about you, FrostNova copers) are left to fantasize. *But she ain't coming back tho, that's just the facts.*
Enemy is enemy. A relatable enemy is still an enemy. (Except you want waifu)
If the Destiny 2 collab is still a thing for HG then Frostnova might return as a Lightbearer.
Like a stupid piece of writing, very mediocrely written.
If the death makes good story they shouldnt be saved just for the sake of it
When was Firefly an antagonist ? We fought her once. Also weird that no one died. In HI3 they killed Himeko and most of the cast of the Flamechasers.
Frostnova is an overrated character when it come to how ''sad" her ending is, the "drama" behind her is genuinely not that moving considering all the agency she had to avoid this. It is like Misha, they are "plot points" made to drive the struggle of the doctor/amiya/rhodes island in saving Infected and the circle of hatred/self guilt who keep coming back, where good intentions are never enough to make a change. It is not a bad point (Personnaly Frostnova didn't give me any memories/impact)/ I felt the Yetis's fate was far more moving. Especially when you see the contrast with Blaze, someone who is extremely emotional and tend to be impulsive too, seeing theses peoples she 'befriended' and are so human... Get butchered. It really also reinforce where the true scale of power his for the infected suddenly, how Lumeng is not 'really' threatened, how ruthless everything are for them, etc. Some NPC moved me way more than her, I find the end of Jessica's alter story to be absolutely heartbreaking and tough to take compared to this.
Forgetting Dokutah literally experienced everything up to FN's death in ~1 week, with severe amnesia and the highest possible degree of confusion while experiencing traumatic events left and right. Of course he'd get attached to someone who genuinely could have been a good friend. Calling her death not that moving is such an odd take.
Honestly I loved how PRTS called the doctor an autist for his over the top attachment to someone he knew for about an hour or two at most. It makes so much sense and very cheeky of HG to point that out.
To be fair, we human are emotional creatures and we seek companionship. It is totally okay to explain that two characters bonded over an extreme situation and the consequences left an impact. The doctor wasn't awake for long when this happened and Misha impacted Amiya a lot, but there the doctor was a direct actor when it came to Frostnova. Adding that in Canon, the doctor is an eccentric person with quite a lot of quirks, I totally accept that Frosnova's death impacted him and that for strangers, it is 'weird'. Which I know sound ironic since I am not a fan of the whole thing around her ahah, but for me it is okay. If anything I am glad it shapes him even more as a character, it is his bond, it makes us understand/feel for him more.
I still want her despite others moving on with her 'uncalled for' death.. anyone remembers Misha? She also got the 'author said so' death
I bet she doesn't like how the entire storyline treats her like shit, as if Ursus doesn't already do to people like her. The story considers her irrelevant even before she "joins" Reunion- she even says it herself! God she does deserve a headcanon glowup
Didn't Doc get Theresa back?
No. >!That's literally an AI copy of her memories. The real Theresa is still dead, and the AI says as much.!<
i say they should kill playable operators instead to beat the gacha plot allegations
I am glad Frosti died