I Hate Zephiel - Fire Emblem Binding Blade

I'm unhinged. This dude makes me want to slam my face into a wall. Get me out.
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Clips Used:
Blazeplays: / @blazeplays9678
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Music Used:
Fire Emblem Fates - A Dark Fall
Fire Emblem Binding Blade - Battle For Who's Sake

[@sorkoh]

Is this some kind of twisted joke

[@MattDustyParker]

Based

[@marcoasturias8520]

Zephiel is IS's first shot at writing a compelling big bad that it's not mind controlled in any capacity and if Thracia taught me something is that first timers in FE end up stupidly bad!

[@Kryptnyt]

The whole game was a first shot at making a handheld FE game, and it was only mostly very bad, and not stupidly bad

[@voltron77]

Nah zephiel is an amazing villain.

[@ThePokeShapeshifter]

Unfortunately, it is kinda true that he isn't exactly the best written character, not to even mention the fact that his character arc spanned two games that weren't in chronological order with the one that showed his dissent to madness not exactly being known for it's character development. On the other hand, his weapon is the single most badass weapon concept for a greatsword that i've ever heard of and i feel it is a shame that such an idea is never again touched upon. I mean, a lighting imbued greatsword that's too damn big and too cool for a sheath so it turns itself into a scepter until it is needed in battle. Absolutely amazing idea.

[@maltheopia]

Zephiel's motivation should be changed so that he views loyalty and obedience with disgust in of itself. If Zephiel's attitude towards the world was because he viewed them as loyal little toads willing to do anything for the good of the state or their leader, that would make his motivations have a lot more sense. Just have it so that Desmond didn't hate Zephiel, quite the contrary, but had Zephiel's brothers and sisters from a previous marriage assassinated so that he would be the heir. Zephiel, rather than being grateful, was driven to madness by losing his family for the good of the state and hates his father for viewing Bern more important than the family. He wants Bern to fall and views the dragons as a convenient reason to destroy his own government while pretending to support it. Why did Zephiel go about his war in such a way? Because he didn't want to kill humanity, he just wanted to destroy the governments. Which required a careful balancing act between making the dragons too powerful. He isn't too concerned about losing the legendary weapons, since they're supposed to be insurance against extermination after the rise of the dragons. Why didn't he replace Narcian? Because Zephiel actually hates Narcian less than he does Brunnya, Murdock, and Gale -- he's just eventually forced to replace him because he's too incompetent. Why didn't he do anything about Etruria or Sacae/Ilia being freed? Because Roy actually looks like he will have a chance to destroy Bern and put (in his eyes) a hated and incompetent sister in charge of reconstruction. And that's all Zephiel wanted: the destruction of Bern and its vice of loyal dullards, not the extinction of humans.

[@davidalejandrogomezfernand2730]

damm, this give a new form of saw zephiel

[@absoul112]

I can't stop laughing at 'Beroc'. Also you basically summed up every problem I have with him.

[@BushyFro]

If this is your definition ranting and unhinged, you're more collected than most. As a first time viewer I look forward to more content. I'm a Zephiel fan and everything you said couldn't be more true. He does fall flat in many, many areas and makes very little sense but I'm going to throw my two cents. 1. Binding Blade is a sequel in the time line that was released before it's prequel. So for the frame of time it existed, Zephiel is missing a great deal of subtext to his story. 2. While all still valid, it's unfair to compare him to Berkut and to a lesser extent, Sephiran because Berkut is exclusive to SoV and completely absent from Gaiden. A remake of the very second FE game ever for NES, a bygone time where Rudolph as a character had next to no story telling. Fast forward to now a character like Berkut can exist because modern titles allowed for more fleshed out writing altogether. Sephrian is better than Zephiel on all fronts from your points alone, but that's because he has the same advantages in writing as Berkut. Zephiel hails from an era where handhelds didn't have the kind of capacity for immersive story telling on scale with your other two examples. 3. I enjoy Zephiel because he is unlike everyone you've mentioned in the sense they're not possessed by a relic (Ashnard), not under a sacred duty to a deity (Sephiran), he's not corrupted by a demon/dragon (Berkut). He was just nuts. In a franchise where most plots end up being a result of "It was Dragons/Gods pulling the strings the whole time", one man single handedly threw a continent into chaos and sought to commit genocide on a whim just because he actually thought it was a good idea. He wasn't corrupted or controlled. He made that choice, without a sound mind of course. By default, that's better than most villains in FE in my book. The only one who trounces with him in well-intended extremism and virtue is Rudolph who did something similar without any of the tragedy. Between his music, his effortless conquest, his sprite-work, and cutscene/gameplay display of power on Cecilia, I can't help but respect Zephiel. The only thing worse than a character who has lost their mind is one who was never allowed to make up their own to begin with. It's arbitrary and overdone and it feels like plastic. Zephiel isn't much different but I personally value him more. We need a remake of Binding Blade with the fleshed out SoV treatment. New characters, new perspectives, more writing, same plot. Then and only then can you and I begin to see eye to eye on this unyielding, deranged, empty shell of a man who I have come to admire.

[@SuperSonic3557]

I agree with every aspect.

[@marcoasturias8520]

I lost all fear of Zephiel the moment I saw Cecilia's stats!

[@Yuni-is-Schrodingers-Fox]

Cecilia is actually kinda good. One of the better staff bots in the game.

[@maltheopia]

@@Yuni-is-Schrodingers-Fox Everything to do with her ranks and her class (Canto/Rescue-Drop is OMG busted in FE6), not her stats. If you're having Cecilia fight anything other than fliers with Excalibur or 360 Noscope with Bolting, you're already screwing up.

[@Yuni-is-Schrodingers-Fox]

@@maltheopia hence why I say she's a good staff bot, and mounted units are inherently useful thanks to canto as you mentioned. I never mentioned once that she was a good combat unit lol.

[@maltheopia]

@@Yuni-is-Schrodingers-Fox Fair enough. I just reflexively get into that mode when people talk about Cecilia. You don't NEED for your staff bot to be able to fight, it's a nice surprise when it does, but people see Cecilia's stats and go 'lol bad unit' so I get defensive.

[@abc2390986]

@@Yuni-is-Schrodingers-Fox She is a decent staffbot only if the player doesn’t train Clarine. She is good as a mounted unit with great mobilities and rescues but still since her strength base and growths are poor, she won’t have great range and hit ratios when using staves. For a lot of cases She isn’t in safe spots when healing allies with max range Physics. Giving her energy rings will immediately solve the problem but I am sure a lot of people prefer giving energy rings to attack units, while Cecilia kind of needs that energy ring just to survive. I kind of deploy her for a few chapters but as soon as Niime joins I dropped her completely. Niime is just some of the best staff user when she has capped strength and she can enhance it furthermore with the S rank dark tome that I forgot what it called. Plus she can keep herself alive by countering enemies with Nosferaru.

[@captiouscritic]

You underestimate the power of a father’s influence, my good man. Also a near death experience isn’t something to scoff at, in fact he had all that time to think about what his father had just done to him. And if you didn’t think that was a big enough influence on Zephiel’s thought process look around you man! People can be cruel and vindictive. Murder, assault, and torture esc. are crimes committed everyday by your average joy that just thought “oh, she looks nice” or “I don’t like you anymore” (if you don’t think I’m telling the truth check out Mr Ballens videos here on KZbin) and if you think it is any different in fantasy I’ve got news for you bud people are people no matter what world thy at in!

[@maltheopia]

8:10 - Berdo/Reydrick are also badly written villains, for much the same reasons Zephiel are bad, but at least FE5 makes it clear that despite being the main villains they're mostly just sideshows to the larger plot of Thracia so they don't drag down the story as much as Zephiel does. Leif's biggest threats aren't an evil dragon god or even the lieutenant of a lieutenant of said god, but the wave after wave of anonymous field officers who thinks they can get a promotion by kidnapping children or taking over a town. Which works for Thracia because Thracia is less about the broad, sweeping heroics of FE4 and more about regular people coming together to save a small portion of the world. FE6 structures its plots and themes to be this grand, sweeping story in the vein of FE3/FE4 but the characters just don't deliver. Partially because I don't think FE1/FE3 book 1 was written all that well in the first place, so a game that tries to ape its plot structure is not going to have the benefit of nostalgia. But partially because the characters just don't have enough presence to make it feel like a grand tale of good v. evil.

[@MattDustyParker]

Zephiel definitely could have benefited from more opportunities to show off like against Cecilia.

[@airtempest8945]

I still find it comical that the only thing that he's supposed to look cool in, he gets outdone by Sophia of all people because she just meme heals Cecilia out of nowhere so he didn't even kill Cecilia, the one thing he actively does.

[@Jack-qe5qm]

Zephiel is the best imo. He's crazy yet he's not wrong. Like Zamasu from DBS.

[@maltheopia]

He is wrong, though. Dragons are driven by their emotions just as much as humans are. I can forgive Zephiel for not knowing about Fa/Sophia/Ninian/Nils, but unless he was just not paying attention to Yahn he should've known that dragons at least have the vices of selfishness, denialism, and valuing of materialism and survival more than abstract principles. Also, at least the humans around Zephiel's orbit are not driven by greed and selfishness. He's surrounded by people willing to suffer and die for him for no other reason than loyalty to him and Bern. Yes, there are people like Narcian, but there's also Murdock/Brunnya/Gale/Miledy/Guinevere.

[@_cephas_]

how was Zamasu not wrong

[@fuckingking6796]

@@_cephas_ mortals to him are most disgusting thing ever live

[@maltheopia]

9:04 - Also, along those lines Binding Blade's decision with Arcard and Roartz was completely baffling. They're, like Narcian, treated like joke villains who get their just deserts but judging by their actions and not their aesthetics they're also some of the most vile and threatening antagonists in the Fire Emblem series. It's just jaw-dropping how they treat child murderers and slavers as low-tier filler villains you're supposed to laugh at. Especially because they're otherwise the strongest arguments Zephiel has for his anti-human misanthropy. But even when Zephiel has his one conversation with Roy, what was wrong with them is that they were corrupt and manipulative and backstabbing, not that they were some of the most evil people in history. Also, the game leans way too fucking hard on Narcian's stupidity to make Roy look good. But how badly Roy is written is a rant for another day.

[@StrawberryDreemurr]

I really dig your vids. Hopefully you can get some more exposure to the fire emblem fanbase.

[@icelerate8141]

Why do you like his backstory if it doesn't do a good job in explaining his motives? If anything, it also sucks especially considering how polite and kind he is to his father despite his father being so bad to him and the fact everyone else loves him. I do agree that Zephiel isn't a very good villain. I used to think he is however I encountered a lot of compelling arguments that he's poorly written so I would agree with you at this point. Binding Blade is very meh when it comes to characters and plot. The lack of good villains means that Roy isn't properly challenged leading to a boring protagonist as well. Also, Zephiel had no reason to start a war. Just sit back and allow Idunn to create more and more dragons instead of prematurely launching a war when his dragon army wasn't strong enough to do genocide of the entire world. He also doesn't make an attempt at preventing Roy from getting all the legendary weapons unlike in SS where the main villain does an excellent job in destroying the sacred stones, even manipulating the Renais twins.

[@maltheopia]

I wrote this somewhere else, but it's more appropriate here. Zephiel, considering his screentime and importance, is the worst-written villain in the series. Yes, worse than Nergal and Garon. Sure, there are villains that are written worse than him. Like Chagall. But Chagall was gone after two chapters. "What did garon even do tho?" Yes, even just in Conquest, where he is written at his worst, at least Garon forces moral dilemmas and conflicts on the characters through his interactions with them. Again: in any serious story that would be peanuts and he is incredibly badly written, but still better written than Zephiel. "He has a motivation" Zephiel's motivation doesn't make any fucking sense. He's a misanthrope who wants to destroy the human world with his justification being 'humans are corrupt and insane' -- even though he's surrounded by people willing to suffer and die for him for no other reason than loyalty. He should be the last Fire Emblem villain with that motivation. It just makes him look like he's projecting daddy issues, which is an inappropriately small beer motivation for someone in his position. "his actions actually make some amount of sense" Zephiel's casus belli makes zero sense. Zephiel wants to conquer the world and hand it over to the dragons, but he goes about it in a really stupid way. For one, we don't know why he launched the war when he did. Did he need more resources to make war dragons and that's why he conquered Sacae/Illia and accepted a short-term stalemate with Etruria? If so, what were these resources? If Zephiel didn't need additional resources for war dragons (which makes sense, since war dragons were able to quickly turn about a war the dragons were losing a thousand years ago), apparently all Zephiel needed was time for more war dragons -- so why didn't he wait a few years and build the army in secret? Hell, why didn't he gather intel about Arcadia and the legendary weapons before launching his war? The legendary weapons are treated as an afterthought, rather than something that can derail his whole campaign if the war drags on for too long. "he has no moments of uncharactaristic stupidity" - What are you talking about? Not doing anything about Roy retaking Etruria besides going 'lol, Narcian is getting what he deserves' is one of the biggest moments of stupidity in the history of Fire Emblem.

[@captiouscritic]

@@maltheopia You underestimate the power of a father’s influence, my good man. Also a near death experience isn’t something to scoff at, in fact he had all that time to think about what his father had just done to him. And if you didn’t think that was a big enough influence on Zephiel’s thought process look around you man! People can be cruel and vindictive. Murder, assault, and torture esc. are crimes committed everyday by your average joy that just thought “oh, she looks nice” or “I don’t like you anymore” (if you don’t think I’m telling the truth check out Mr Ballens videos here on KZbin) and if you think it is any different in fantasy I’ve got news for you bud people are people no matter what world they are in! Ps. Maybe he is a poorly written character, but a little more brushing up on the basic concepts would go a long way to making his story make sense.

[@ajtriforcegamerofhyrule8538]

If they remake binding blade they should really fix Zephiels storyline

[@TheZeroSbr]

YES. This must happen. FE6 is one of my favorites, but I cannot deny the flaws.

[@VanguardJohnson]

I never heard of someone pronounce Beorc like that

[@7OnAtuesday]

Take that any way that you will!

[@timothyloayza6789]

I have to agree with you even though i love Zephiel originality and to teach us about misanthropy and nihilism but the issue is explained throughout this video. It should showcase through the game with his past and why he dove further in misanthropy and if he had more screentime and more discussions and his presence more frequent he would at least be more intriguing and even his plans and build more of his "threatening" villain status. Also perhaps have soliloquy of his misanthropy and psychologically horrify our protagonists and Roy about his thoughts on humans and for his thoughts on dragons perhaps he sees them as gods so makes them above humans in his jaded and underdeveloped motive and view. He is the main antagonist next to Idunn so he should be more present through the story Elibean Nights had the perfect explanation and story telling about his extreme misanthropy. Heck a video game i am developing has a zephiel type of villain but with more depth, presence, interaction as one of the main villains and with more "justified" and horrifying endurance to the life they had. Thanks for your video

[@holygreedo5699]

I wish I didn't watch thus because I kind of agree now

[@DrewPicklesTheDark]

While I think your father trying to kill you twice is a little more than "daddy issues", I otherwise agree.

[@lyricalmage]

Always thought he was terrible, he wishes to commit genocide because people are evil, greedy and blah blah blah, yet he has Narshen amongst his henchmen, a manifestation of all those things he is supposedly so disdainful about, if that by itself wouldn't suffice when the aforementioned asks Zephiel if the ravage murder they are going perform in a village includes Women and children, Zephiel replies "of course" (insert evil generic Smirk here). Zephiel is a trash of a person and a whiny hypocrite, also a cartoony villain with no depth whatsoever. He sucks.

[@2tehnik]

Narcian is a pretty central villain for more than half the game yeah. I'd also say Arcardo is pretty important for a good chunk of the game. Especially since they both are supposed to exemplify the corrupt nature of humans that Zephiel hates so much.

[@metroid7299]

They should have made Zephiel recruitable in FE7. And have the excuse that his father's okay with it since he wants his son dead. Also the supports could build his character.

[@timothyloayza6789]

That's clever, in a sense with dry sarcasm from his father to permit and to get his "approval" with a front hoping he gets slain on the battlefield in time so no blood isn't om his hands and some random brigand or monster would eliminate him and it would take care of his problem. But their should be 2 outcomes in the game just in case. Like the true ending if he lived and the "bad" ending at his death where they were given the news The King would celebrate at his son's demise

[@tahamohammad8842]

Nice video. Here’s how I’d fix zepheil and by no means am I a writing expert. I’m just a fool giving suggestions to fix a villan(warning long comment) I think his backstory and goals are the main issue with zephiel are the major issue as they have very little to do with each other. I think we should make zephiel’s backstory center around betrayal, how he was essentially betrayed by everyone, only being born for the sake of political power. The poisoning by his father will be the last straw that leads zepheil down his path, as he realizes that humans are filthy creatures that will betray each other if it leads to personal benefit. Even people who should care about others like kings(as in zepheils dad) will betray others as long as they gain benefits from with complete disregard for others. Zephiel believes that humans can not be trusted and that they need a higher power to control them. This is why he begins attacking and conquering other territories as he believes that no one is trustworthy so he needs to control everyone. This also changes his goal from eliminate humanity to controlling humanity under his iron fist, no matter the cost. I think this would work better as his backstory would explain why he thinks humans are dis trustworthy and it would explain why he’s attacking other countries without using a ridiculous lapse in judgement like “Eliminate all humans” would. As I said earlier I am by no means I writing expert, I just wanted to voice my thoughts onto how I’d improve zephiel. Edit: if we still want to incorporate the use of dragons in zephiel’s plan let’s make it as an act of desperation. He initially starts the war successfully conquering the different countries without much resistance however as Roy gets closer to winning the war zephiel becomes more desperate. As a last resort to win the war he uses the dragons as soldiers as some powerful forces to hopefully defeat Roy.

[@VanguardJohnson]

Isn't possessed by some demon or dragon god. OOF shade all of FE.

[@scoffeex1740]

He's not as bad as Nergal

[@hylianfelldragon1308]

I'm not say Nergal is a good villain but at least he was constantly challenging Eliwoods ideals tho. Zephiel does next to nothing in the game aside from body slamming Cecil and sitting on his throne while Roy's army was at Ilia/ Sacae.

[@maltheopia]

@@hylianfelldragon1308 Nergal is an incredibly poorly written villain from start to finish. His motivations make no sense in the context of his actions, he does things without rhyme or reason, and doesn't have a personality beyond being a cackling megalomaniac. That said, I think Zephiel is still a worse villain because he has all of the things that make Nergal shitty (letting heroes live for no reason, a nonsensical casus belli and villainous plan, no personality beyond being a megalomaniac misanthrope) but at least Nergal has a small element of genuine pathos in his backstory. Zephiel doesn't even have that, his backstory arouses contempt and laughter, not pity.

[@patientnr.0409]

To be fair Nergal isn't a villain, it's simply a fact that it's not called dark magic, it's elder magic and it's a valid school of sorcery with no downsides whatsoever.

[@scoffeex1740]

@@patientnr.0409 you lost me half way through this comment Please elaborate

[@patientnr.0409]

@@scoffeex1740 It's a joke on how FE technically has no evil sorcerers only victims. Basically evereyone who uses dark magic will suffer some sort of curse that will either ruin their lives and that of those they love, drive them mad (Nergal is one of those), destroy ther identity and sense of self or just fucking kill them. Also just learning the stuff means selling your soul to an infinite void and the demons that dwell in it so even after your death you're screwed for all eternity.

[@mercenarybdu]

More or less ya have to have played FE7 to know all of Zephiel's motives. I know he could have been written better, but I can sympathize with him for why he would do what he does. If your family did awful things to you at a young age, you'd do what he did. Even after you have done your all to do what was right for the betterment of everyone else. Zephiel is more or less someone who had enough of how the world was and went about doing what people who had enough do at the upper levels of power.

[@timothyloayza6789]

Yup unfortunately he took the Ted Bundy/Adolph Hitler route instead of the Tony Robbins route

[@Tatsukoi.muffin]

2:33 You said it very well why is the reason I don't like this sociopath piece of garbage of villain. His phylosophy should've been on hating monarchies because all the awful things nobles (or monarchs and queens) do for the sake of themselves instead of value their children as persons. Instead, Zephiel decides to trust the future on dragons because r e a s o n s. He should've been a character similar to Edelgard (not exactly the same, ofc), but instead he's like... Catherine?, but evil. Sorry my grammar is not perfect but I appreciate this video a lot.

[@victorgrisel838]

Morality we should let Ursula kil Zephiel

[@JWStreeter]

I don't particularly care for Zephiel as a villain either, though thats probably due to my dislike of FE6 as a whole. One theory for why he changed so much was that his assassination attempts lead to brain damage that changed his sense of morality, in particular the poisoning.