GreyJedi

Minor, but spoiler tag just in case. For me, Lysithea is pretty clearly the third best unit in my army, after Byleth and Claude, with her ability to one shot just about anything from a safe distance. I am still pre-time skip, however. I made Hilda my dancer but I’m going to have to agree with everyone saying that wyvern lord is best for her.

I think you make a lot of good points. Sorry, I don't have time to respond to all of them, but I wanted to say a few things. 1) I’m a fellow Raphael fan and he deserves more respect and love. I’m sorry you’re not getting what you want for him, though. 2) As a result reading the thread you linked, I am now aware that Janaff is male. My mind is blown. I thought he was an old woman this entire time (I only played RD, not PoR, so this so my confusion is a little justified. I think.) 3) I stand by my sentiment about giving IS the benefit of the doubt; but the male options don’t make sense to me any more than anyone else. I can go round and round speculating why they chose how they did, but I don’t think it’s useful. I'm interested to see what will be in the support conversations, however. 4) Here in the US, we have the LGBT rights movement going strong and even have a married homosexual man running for president, yet we still have people (even well-intended) who don’t get it. How do we expect people from a country where everything LGBT related is mostly an underground thing to understand so easily? In any sort of social issue, people tend not to understand problems that aren’t their own until they stop and force themselves to really look at the issue; and ask themselves, ‘What am I missing here that these people are so passionate about? Is it really that unfair?’ It’s unfortunate, but most don’t ask themselves that question. Usually we only ask ourselves that when we’ve been been the subject of unfairness ourselves; and even then sometimes we don’t. Thank-you, and yes, I blame the gayming article for most of the drama around Claude in particular (admittedly, I still haven't actually read said article, but I don’t think I need to at this point). Thank-you. It was probably your post I was referring too. I wanted to quote individual people at first, but I didn't want to comb through ten pages a second time. My spoon and fork are ready (to eat my words)... but I need to ask: is the flirting something that can happen with every character, regardless as to which gender you choose? That's what I was presuming, considering the whole tea party thing.

I want to make a joke about it being too much effort for Hilda to bother switching, but it actually seems it should be fairly easy to recruit her. Byleth: Hey, wanna join the Black Eagles? We know how hard the Golden Deer are making you work. Here, join us, you deserve a little break. Hilda: I’m in! My condolences to anyone who wanted to recruit Hilda from GD. On the other hand, you have my permission to take Lorenz. Take him. At first I wasn’t certain if I would like Hilda, as she was supposedly spoiled. But if really all she is lazy highly efficient at conserving energy, then something tells me I’m going to enjoy all of her hilarious antics to avoid work.

First of all, I called this, back in February. Though, it seems I underestimated. Second, I’m trans. Well, kind of… it’s complicated. I just don’t want to come across as some random person telling gay people how they should feel. I’m invested in this myself, just in a slightly different way. Third: I have a basic understanding of Japanese culture, and so that informs my perspective on this; but I’m still liable to get some stuff wrong. My take on everything: IS is trying. They don’t quite get it, though. 1) they’re mostly straight males. 2) they’re Japanese. They don’t understand what the west’s take is. All they know is people got mad at them for not having LGBT representation. So now we have what we got. As some people have pointed out, it feels like these characters are what white males think gay people should be like. That’s because the game was made by white straight males. (okay Asian straight males… who have have light skin) Others have said that it seems like this is more so to please the yuri and yaoi fan base. I going to have to say that’s because yuri and yaoi fan base is probably where Japanese get most of their ideas as to what LGBT people are like, and what LGBT people want. I’m not telling anyone not to be angry. In fact, you should be. People getting angry is probably why we have better LGBT representation than we got in Fates. But, I think we should be a little understanding to IS. It’s ignorance, not lack of willingness, which is why the options are underwhelming. On Claude: I’m planning on playing as female and getting an S support with him, so I’m not as disappointed as a lot of you are about this, but I still get it. I expected him to be one of the bisexual options, and am surprised that he isn’t. BUT, there’s one thing I keep in mind: IS never said he was gay. IS never saw him as gay. We did. It’s okay to be disappointed, but I think it’s unfair to blame IS for baiting us or something like that… something which they were never trying to do. Sure, reviewers may have, but that’s not IS’s fault. What we saw, as one poster said, ‘as gay encoded DNA’ was never what IS envisioned for him. Insisting that Claude seemed gay isn’t much different than insisting on a stereotype. I think it’s unfair and unfortunate that we don’t have some young bishounen gay option, but I think it’s just as unfair to compare Claude to Soleil (if there a support convo where he blatantly starts calling the male avatar cute or something like that, I’ll eat my words). On trans rep: Other trans people can totally disagree with me, but I feel Forest was decent representation. The other feminine male characters, like Libra, always just looked like dudes with long hair to me. Forest is different, though. Everything about him is feminine. He even has traditionally female-only class. Despite this, he still identifies as male. That entire inner tug-a-war with gender identity and roles is something that resonates with me. I suppose it might not be a bad thing to have more trans rep, but I’m happy just to be able to pick which ever gender I want my avatar to be. I’m more concerned with (and this is coming from a white person) there being options to have darker skinned avatars, and having more darker skinned characters in the games.

I didn't mean to imply that Dimtri would become a villain, and I agree with your view of him becoming an anti-hero. But I still suspect he'll end up doing something morally questionable, even if he has some justification for it. Being forced to do something morally questionable for the greater good is something of a recurring Fire Emblem theme, isn't it?

But I did that first... I decided I wanted to do this again, now that (seemingly) we know all of the students, and know a little bit what the time skip does to them. My opinion mostly haven't changed from the first time, but there were a few that dropped and rose. I'm only giving my reasons for a few. S tier Claude Lysithea Petra- I'll be stealing Petra for the cause of the Golden Deer, thank-you. A tier Marianne Dedue- I'll also being stealing Dedue, if we're allowed to. It doesn't make sense considering a massive part of his character is his loyalty to Dimtri, but in my head I imagine a dramatic moment post-time skip where Dedue says something to Dimtri like, 'You are no longer the man I swore an oath to,' and then switches sides. Probably won't happen, but I can hope. Hubert Ingrid B tier Raphael Bernadetta- hiding under a book during a house meeting. Okay, you're adorable. Annette Leonie Felix Dorothea C tier Dimitri Hilda Linhardt Ignatz Ashe Mercedes D tier Edelgard- ...I need to explain this one. I'm supper sensitive to when a game gives us a choice, but then marketing pushes us to one option (in other words, I choice bulbasaur, and can't stand the favoritism shown to charmander). I'm tried of seeing Edelgard getting twice as much marketing as Claude and Dimitri. And supposedly the Black Eagles have two routes, while the others have one? It just annoys me. Caspar Ferdinand Sylvain F tier Lorenz- it will take more than a new fancy set of armor to make me like you.

“Yet we have the strength to scale the walls between us, to reach out our hands in friendship so we can open our true hearts to one another. That's how we win!” Any doubts I had about joining the Golden Deer disappeared with that quote right there.

Well, in real life it can be a guessing game for why animals have certain features. Some things are obvious (take a guess why polar bears are white). But other things… not so much. Take the fact that male birds tend to be more colorful than females. We know that female birds (depending on species) like colorful males, but scientists are still trying to figure out how that actually benefits the species as a whole. Why be colorful if it makes you more likely to get eaten? I don’t think the people of Folan would have any inherent idea why certain wyverns have mammalian hair. The creators may or may not have a deeper reason why other than the rule of cool, but the characters wouldn’t have a clue until an in-world researcher studies it. Therefore, us speculating for reasons puts us in the same place as the characters. Now I’m imagining a scene where we have some famous bar where all of Fodlan’s intellectuals like to go to hang out and discuss all the recent new theories as to why wyverns have facial hair. All this to say that I’ll be fine without any given explanation on this. Gives us more opportunities to come up with and discuss our own ideas rather than being spoon-fed information.

Ooh… this looks fun. S Tier Lysithea- It’s hard to describe why I like this character. She’s a prodigy, but not conceited? Awesome. Petra- A character we know almost nothing about, but what I’ve seen of her, I love. Claude- Whimsical, but serious? Awesome. A Tier Hubert- Goodness, use some conditioner, Severus! But I like the idea of a quiet, calculating character who still values honor. Dedue- I like what we know so far. Dorothea- I’m actually fully prepared to end up being disappointed in this character. But at this point, all you need is a pageboy cap to get my attention. Raphael- I’m in the minority on this one, aren’t I? He reminds me a bit of Benny, who was one of my favorites in Fates. Also of Brom… who I wasn’t as huge a fan of, but that’s still not a bad thing. Bernadetta- I’m not a huge fan of shrinking violets, but she’s been growing on me. Felix- Basically a kuudere… I think? (sorry for the anime speak) I look forward to finding out what secrets he’s hiding. B Tier Edelgard- At first, she seemed to me to be the main female character whose only purpose in the story is to serve as the main female character. I felt that I was expected to like her for no particular reason other than the fact that she’s the lone female lord. And… I still think that. But, she’s supposedly also a cunning thinker who might even have a ruthless side, which is definitely intriguing. Dimtri- Comes across as straight-laced and stiff, which isn’t very interesting, though we have reason to expect there’s more, which is good. Really I think how much I like him will depend on how charismatic he is. In other words, right now I see him as Cyclops, but I can imagine him turning out to be Captain America… if that makes sense. Ashe- this poor guy actually dropped in my rankings. I like him, but then I realized that he’s basically (for now, at least) just a hardworking everyman without much to distinguish him. C Tier (neutral) Caspar- I want to like the guy, and I like that he apparently has a strong sense of justice; I’m just waiting for more info on him. Hilda- I also want to like her, but I don’t know how the ‘spoiled’ part of her character is going to work for me. Mercedes- So she’s the ‘the nice girl,’ which is great, but I’m waiting for there to be a little more about her. D Tier Sylvain- I know nothing of this dude except his hair. I do not like his hair. Ferdinand- I’m expecting him to be more annoying than anything else. F Tier Lorenz- I’m not a fan of snobby, constantly chasing women archetype. The fact that most my my comments refer to hair and hats shows how little we really know at this point. Deciding to color-code by house after I finished ranking them just to see how it would turn out… pretty evenly, though Blue Lions are clearly behind. Two of my favorites are in Golden Deer, but so is by least favorite… huh. Good thing we can bench people. Or I guess I could purposely kill him in battle, but I don’t hate Lorenz that much. I didn’t even include him because of how little we know about him. But I can really imagine him being Ricken 2.0, who I wasn’t a fan of to begin with. But I am hoping he’ll be a little more unique. I can also see him ended up as the ‘reasonable smart guy who nobody listens to.’ Probably not, but I can hope. And this fear right here is why I put Caspar in my neutral tier. I want him to be better than that, but I think he’s going to end up just like you’re describing.

I’m probably going with Golden Deer, which is weird, because Claude was my least favorite at first… I thought he was going to be this sort of non-serious arrogant kind of character, but now that we know he apparently has a serious side, he’s become the most interesting. I also like Leicester for not having a king. But it’s a tie for units with Black Eagles for me. In my head it looks something like this: Golden Deer: Raphael +5 Lysithea +5 Lorenz -5 Black Eagles: Bernadetta +5 Petra +5 Dorothea +5 Dorothea’s hat +10 Dorothea looses hat upon promotion -15 So probably Golden Deer, but I still might change my mind with more information.

I was looking for someone else who pointed that out, couldn't find anyone, so I took a blurry picture with my phone, doodled on it, got ready to post... and then found this thread. I'm still posting my blurry picture just because I can. Betting it's going to be plot relevant in someway, and having it be church territory was my first guess. The question now is, is it the location of an actual church? Or maybe a fort that the church used to instill peace in that area some years ago.

Right, newbie here jumping right into controversy. Great. If I remember correctly, we got homosexual characters in Fates because of fan outcry. If that’s the case, then IS/Nintendo DEFINITELY heard the outcry about Soleil. So, I’m guessing that we’ll both get marriage supports and 2-4 bisexual characters that will won’t quite be as unfortunate as Soleil. The problem is, most characters in FE tend to have one gimmick which comes up in almost every support conversation (Robin has their tactics and studying; Cordelia has her feelings for Chrom and how perfect she is; Kellam, how he’s invisible; Felicia, how clumsy she is; and so on). So, when we get a character that’s LGBT? That becomes their ‘thing,’ which gets brought up every time. On the whole teacher dating student controversy: The principal at the high school I graduated from used to be a teacher at the same high school first. The thing is, his wife used to be a student. I believe they started dating her senior year, while he was teaching. But they did it completely legitimately, as right as they could. They even got a written and signed document between themselves, her parents, and the district before they started dating. At some point, they eventually got married, and some twenty years later, their son just graduated from the same high school. And that son as me. jk. He was a freshman while I was a senior. But the principal was good; never did anything weird or wrong that I heard of. I think most people are having a normal knee jerk reaction to something that they’ve never seen before, and therefore, they find weird. When most people think about a teacher dating a student, their mind immediately jumps to every news report they’ve ever heard about a teacher sexually abusing their students. But that isn’t the case here, and that’s not what this game is going for. On power imbalances: No doubt, there’s been too many cases where someone in power (stereotypically a man, but not always) uses they power to force their subordinate into a relationship with them. That’s morally despicable. But it’s a jump to then claim that every relationship between two people of differing social/financial/whatever status happened because the person with less power was forced into the relationship. I highly doubt the game is going to have Byleth black mailing their students about grades to force people into having relationships with them. That being said, I DO like you guy's idea about marrying after the students graduate. But judging from the trailer, I'm thinking the school is basally going to replace the 'My Castle' feature, and will last the whole game.