The Legend of Heroes: Sen no Kiseki - Northern War Episode 5 Discussion

Secret333 said:
Ok, I'd loved for the plot of this episode to be alittle bit longer. Have them spend more time together to make the reveal hit harder for the main cast, but I guess this works.

We just skipped Ymir and Legram like that huh. I guess there's nothing to learn about Rean in his own hometown... sure.

And this episode, more than any other, made me hate Lavi. Not even a little bit of thanks to the guy that saved you, and just act rude to him  until he saves you again? And then at the end she's like  "Is this the end of my journey?" Like, what? what journey? You came here to learn more about Rean so you could report back to your country. It has something to do with how she views "Heroes" but we don't know much yet. Alll I do know is that I never got the impression she was in Erebonia for any other reason than her mission, so I have no idea what she means by that line. And about the mission, are they done? They're just going to go home after learning his name and what he looks like? Can't you learn much more now that you know those? They have no reason to believe their cover was blown, so can't they just send a message home and keep investigating him now? They took a couple of photos of Valimar and mission accomplished? And I like how Lavi just wants to drag him out when she doesn't even know how he got in. And what's next after killing him? You still can't win against the Erebonian army and you'd only give them more reason to invade because you killed their hero.
So yeah. Rude, stupid, reckless, and overall lacking any common sense. We're still not halfway through the show so obviously she has time to develop and grow. I just don't like her currently

I thought Aurelia and the rest of the noble armies held out in Juno Naval Fortress for quite some time before the Imperial government offered them the option of annexing Norht Ambria as a deal. But in this episode we have Rufus, in crossbell, telling them about the reperations and the possibilty that they'd invade and use Rean? It feels like the timeline is a bit confused unless several months have passed between episode 1 and now. Lavi's group toured Erebonia, and supposedly they stayed at each city/town for several days at least gathering information (With unbelievibely zero results) so maybe so much time has passed?

The dialogue at the beginnig felt disconnected at one point. Rufus starts telling them about the reperations, and that things are up to Glark, once a reknowned hero, now a mere puppet of the government. Then Aurelia tells him not to underestemate someone who went through so much, especialy the North Ambrian disaster, and all the riots that happened afterwards. In response to that, Rufus says: "History can't be rewritten. There will be no more nobles or commoners in the future. I hope you two dedicate yourselves to the future of the empire" Like, how does that connect to what came before it?

That whole scene doesn't have the weight of the political conflicts we see in game, and serves only to confuse the timeline, as well as having weird dialogue. And Lechter is there just to tell us who these people are. 

And let's not forget that our party just happened to run into Rean, when they had no clues as to where he is, as he's doing a mission in this massive fucking empire. Talk about lucky. And of course the Noble on the train being cartoonishly obnoxious and doing an instant 180.
It's funny that many people dislike Rean, yet he's the most sensible part of this show, because of how stupid evertything else is.

Sonson7 said:


Most of your complaints I can see stem mostly from the anime not really roghtout spilling the beans and spoon feed the underlying machinations of the infiltration aspect of this story.
Its either they will fully show it later or we just need to read in between the lines.
The Northern Jaeger gang as we can see is not really that outspoken to what they feel inside. In episode 4 we are given a taste of how world changing it is for Iseria to seeing things that are possible in Erebonia that is hardly imaginable for her to picture in their own hometown. Lavi is a much more not outspoken person and her saying is this a "journey" for her is enough to tell us she relates to how Iseria sees this Mission as a once in a life time travel experience. The Ed is pretty much a visual representation of this journey "the photos shot by Iseria and Lavi keeping them in her room"

As for your complaints about the infiltration side. We have the character Rogan and his team being the legit "Recon" squad only being able to take home a shitty picture of Valimar as proof to the existence of the Hero is a proof of the difficulty of the mission.
As seen in Lavi's team(which is definitely just a rag tag team unfit for such mission)  getting the info is really possible but as we see in episode 3, Altina already is on to them just in day 1. So the problem here is more of "will the Erebonian Intelligence team let the Northern Jaeger take home the info".

If they Let the Lavi gang go home untouched after this then, definitely the Erebonia side is also cooking something to now allow a "leak" of info or the Erebonia side is in cahoots with the ones who pull the strings to send Lavi team to Erebonia in the first place.

Sending the Lavi team in the first place is already fishy.
Also its like they all the political weight in the making of Class VII or its political significance is full on explained early on or even in the middle of cold steel 1. Since Cold steel has  a habit of explaining things when the actual characters who are pulling the strings will show their hand themselves rather than a secondhand explaination.
You complain about "Is that it from their few dialogues". Like don't just rely on what they blatantly say if you are that thirsty for a more deeper lore. Not everyone is not nice as Rean to let the Audience know "Yeah I knew she was a Jaeger or something),. Cause most of the characters you are eying to say somethinh important will probably keep it to themselves and will only make the reveal when the time is right.

So we probably need to have the scene focus in characters like Lechter, Campanella, or Jadya? The North Ambrian white haired woman or Rogan or Glark to get a more wholer scope of things.

Arsteel16 said:
This girl, feels like she overestimates her ability too much, needs to get reality check sometime soon or she won't grow.  

Also too bad for them, when it comes to the fall of NA they're worrying about the wrong person

Secret333 said:
Please don't reference Iseria's conversation from episode 4 as if it's a good thing. She's the exact same character since the beginning and being in the empire didn't change her in any meaningful way. And if you think Lavi relates to that and that's what that means by "her journey" then their journey is just being tourists. If you read my post I speculated on what Lavi means by that. It probably has something to do with her idea of "heroes" or "heroism". She was reminded of her grandfather when she listened to Rean, and every time she hears the word "hero" she repeats it, you can't get more overt. But we don't know anything beyond that and that's why the "My journey" line feels like it comes out of nowhere. Both her and Iseria in episode 4 are handeled like that. It's not subtlety, it's lack of any buildup.

And my complaint about "their mission" isn't about the Erebonian side, it's about them. They now know their target's name, how he looks like, and maybe a little bit about his fighting style. But that's not anything that you can't relay on phone or however they've been recieving their orders up until now. They don't know that their cover was blown, so you'd think they'd relay the information they have before recieving their next order, but they instantly say "Let's go home". And they didn't even get a picture of Rean, they took a couple of Valimar. They are closer than ever to being able to learn more yet now they'll pack up and go home?
This anime has not been subtle about anything, and I'm not relying only on them telling me things or "spoon feeding". We know as much about the infiltration mission as Lavi and her team so my questions are about how they're behaving, not related to anything they don't know.
And don't say "Most of your complaints" when you've barely answered 2 of my points when I had like 6 of them. One of them is your headconnon of how Lavi feels, and the other is not even answering my point about the mission. 

Sonson7 said:

Not really headcanon, as I said it is reading between the lines, it may end up incorrect but I surmised the idea incontext to the ed, and Lavi actually getting ehat Iseria meant at episode four, regardless of whether she feels the same. We can say its probably a notion a common North Ambrian can get when they are shown normal necessities in Erebonia that are luxuries by North Ambrian standard.
Its an easy to make sense social notion of people in 3rd world countries viewing what is common necessity in 1st world countries.
If Erebonia has the Noble - Commoner thing going on, this is the stuff for North Ambria like of because many times they mention North Ambria is experiencing problematic levels of poverty.
Like this stuff is about as easy to assume as how in North Ambria Northern Jaegers are seen like heroes or respected as a millitary band in Erebonia as seen in the games, they are more portrayed as hired goons who has no problem playing dirty as long as there is money in it (which is an aspect probably roited again to poverty)
As per the Mission thing I guess the dude above answered it better than me so read that.

Secret333 said:
Oh, ok. It's your reading of what she means and it could be wrong. My reading is that it has something to do with her past and whatever she thinks of "Heroes". I guess we'll see whenever we get more information.

@UTMAN As for how they relay information, Jayna says in the last episode that she'll have Martin's team (Which is our main cast) head to Legram. Now, this could mean that she steered them into going to Legram without them knowing that as an order, but I doubt that. One would think they'd have channels and liasons to relay information across to their superiors. Remember that their first mission in the empire was to attend a party in episode 3. Whatever happened there would've been reported to Jayna, as she seems like she knows what they've been up to.
Again, I could be wrong and she actually just has people spying on them and sending them on goose chases across the empire, but I think having channels for your spys to relay information is a better assumption.

Sonson7 said:

You're probably right about Lavi's struggle with the concept heroes which is making her apprehensive to the idea of Ashen chevalier due her ambigous relationship with her grandfather kinda allude to that.
But my reading on Lavi's feeling is not about that. It is directed to her "saying is this the end of my Journey" line. Which implies she do think this mission in Erebonia made an emotional impact to herin a sense that she acknowledges this a a kind of journey and if she is expecting more from it  but thinks she should be able to go on for more thus she questions "is this the end?"

Secret333 said:
@UTMAN

"A lot of pictures" isn't what I'd call a couple of pictures of Valimar's backside, which is what we see them take.
I should also consider that maybe "Going back home" is Martin's idea of what they'll do once they relay the information (if they do that before going back) and they'll recieve orders to stay in the empire.
Because I somehow doubt we're done with the empire, so now I'm just wondering what reason they'll have to stay there/return there after they're done  reporting the information they gathered, however they decide to do that.

And while their mission was to know who the Ashen chevalier is, you still need other information. I expected them to try and find out more about his background, his family, at least where he lives so you could send assassins his way. Maybe other teams from NA will do that, maybe our main characters will be given that mission next. Either way I don't think NA has enough information about him yet. His name is just the start.

 Yeah, maybe she does have more expectations of her trip in Erebonia. I don't see that conveyed much from her,  but the show could still go that route. Fingers crossed we get more on that next episode.