Jugdral cast survey

[Pou]

As a survey that needs no ticking, page turning but has me at the doorstep what out of ten would you score différent characters in the Fire emblem four and five cast?

Fighting ability: (In game growths yes but also wider military decisions i.e. Cuan riding bunch of armed horses through a desert with his children)

Diplomacy: Not much dialogue in this game but some characters can obviously get what they want through personality. Manga adaptations count

Money handling: Who in FE4/5 looks like they actually made a forture while on the road.

Intrigue: Who hid their real goals, made trickery, ignored good and bad moral choices... i.e Silph and probably Leif should get 1/10.

Tallies will be kept on the first page.

FIGHTING/ DIPLOMATE/MONEY HANDLING/INTRIGUE

Sigurd: 8.5 / 5 / 7.5 / 2.5

Cuan: 8 8 / 5 / 4

Oufaye: 8 / 6 / 5 / 7

Finn: 8 / 6 / 5 / 8

Leif: 6 / 8 / 8 / 5

Celice: 8 / 8 / 8 / 2

Shannan: 9 / 9 / 9 / 5

Alvis: 9 / 10 / 10 / 10

Julius: 6 / 7 / 4 / 9

Eltshan: 9 / 8 / 5 / 2

Aless: 8 / 5 / 5 / 3

Reptor: 8 / 8 / 8 / 7

Langobalt: 8 / 8 / 8 / 7

Johan & Johalva: 6 / 5 / 8 / 4

Aideen: 0 / 6 / 6 / 3

Andre: 7 / 5 / 8 / 8

Scorpio: 6 / 5 / 8 / 6

Blume: 9 / 9 / 10 / 6

Jamka: 6 / 9 / 8 / 2

Paty: 1 / 7 / 10 / 4

Faval: 6 / 3 / 10 / 4

Sylvia: 0 / 9 / 7 / 4

Levin: 7 / 7.5 / 6 / 6.5

Sety: 9 / 9 / 6 / 6

Claude: 0 / 9 / 5 / 7

Beowulf: 8 / 6 / 9 / 9

Travant: 9 / 6 / 5 / 9

Areone: 9 / 6 / 6 / 7

Malfoy 6 / 4 / 6 / 10

Edited October 12, 2014 by Pou

[Shin]

This is too long really to do in a single post, and a lot of the categories are incredibly vague or arbitrary. Perhaps Johalva was a master accountant and we never knew?

[Pou]

This is too long really to do in a single post, and a lot of the categories are incredibly vague or arbitrary. Perhaps Johalva was a master accountant and we never knew?

It is all spéculative.

[Rapier]

I'll try. There are spoilers.

Fighting ability:

Sigurd deserves a 8/10 for stopping Verdane's attempt of invasion while his father was away with most of his troops. His other victories (from Chapter 1 to Chapter 4) were backed up by Cuan and Grandbell (offscreen), which makes them not as significative as the Prologue imo, but he managed to save Silesia from civil war with his own army and even got close to confronting Alvis in Barhara. If not for his stupidity in the end, I'm inclined to believe his crusade would've been successful.

Celice does the same thing that Sigurd did, instead leading a bunch of militarly untrained misfits whereas Sigurd had Cuan and a bunch of militarly trained soldiers fighting for him, which makes it even more impressive. He'd be lost without Oufaye or Levin, though. 8/10

Cuan is considered a good commander offscreen and his prowess in the battlefield is remarkable, even though onscreen he brought his own wife and daughter to the desert and apparently forgot to take measures against an ambush. 8/10

Eltshan suffers from the same syndrome of the aforementioned characters. It seems that holding the Stupid Ball is a thing in FE4 (and arguably FE5 too, which I haven't played). Differently from Cuan though, his military strategies were good. 9/10

Alvis is strong stat-wise and it is implied that his military knowledge led him to subdue the whole continent to his will. 10/10

Julius is individually strong but very little is shown about his military skills, as he leaves everything up to his subordinates. I believe his tactics can be considered reasonable, if not good, though. 6/10

Leptor and Langobalt are around average. 6/10

Blume held Lenster with a hard grip and succeeded on crushing Leif's rebel army until Celice came. Trabant never had a chance against him, whereas Thracia always posed a threat before Blume took control. He should've been more cautious before giving Mjolnir away, but this is the only mistake that I can remember. 8/10

Travant is so pragmatic and methodical, he deserves at least a 8/10 even if he failed to unify Thracia and Lenster because Grandbell was too much of an opponent to take on directly.

Diplomacy:

I could argue that Sigurd fails miserably, but the set-up on Grandbell was done while he was too busy subduing Agustria and Verdane on Grandbell's orders, he had no chance to defend himself or even react against the conspiracy before Leptor and Langobalt attempted to arrest him with a huge army. I don't think anyone would've had a chance, in his shoes. His naivety on dealing with others weighs on me enough to give him a 5/10.

Cuan managed to hold a lot of prestige and influence even after his fall. Ayra even recognizes his position in a conversation during Chapter 1. I suppose he was well renowned diplomatically. 8/10

Eltshan is well liked but otherwise as dumb as Sigurd. 5/10

Alvis is Alvis. 10/10

Celice is well seen not because of his diplomacy skills, but because he's the son of Sigurd and Alvis' rule has taken quite a toll on the continent. The circumstances around him help his case more than his individual ability, so this is hard to say. I suppose he is less naive than Sigurd, so... 6/10.

Langobalt and Leptor are decent, I suppose, even if everyone and their mothers knew they were scheming bastards. 6/10.

Blume's influence extended beyond Lenster since Ishtor holds the southern half of the Yield desert while Ishtar has high chances of becoming a princess and a queen, which will bring prestige upon his house. 8/10.

---

Uh, this is too lenghty in this format, so:

Fighting ability, diplomacy, money making and intrigue, respectively:

Sigurd: 8 / 5 / 8 / 2

Cuan: 8 / 8 / 5 / 4

Oufaye: 8 / 6 / 5 / 7

Finn: 8 / 6 / 5 / 8

Leif: 6 / 8 / 8 / 5

Celice: 8 / 8 / 8 / 2

Shannan: 9 / 9 / 9 / 5

Alvis: 9 / 10 / 10 / 10

Julius: 6 / 7 / 4 / 9

Eltshan: 9 / 8 / 5 / 2

Aless: 8 / 5 / 5 / 3

Reptor: 8 / 8 / 8 / 7

Langobalt: 8 / 8 / 8 / 7

Johan & Johalva: 6 / 5 / 8 / 4

Aideen: what / 6 / 6 / 3

Andre: 7 / 5 / 8 / 8

Scorpio: 6 / 5 / 8 / 6

Blume: 9 / 9 / 10 / 6

Jamka: 6 / 9 / 8 / 2

Paty: 1 / 7 / 10 / 4

Faval: 6 / 3 / 10 / 4

Sylvia: what / 9 / 7 / 4

Levin: 7 / 8 / 8 / 6

Sety: 9 / 9 / 6 / 6

Claude: what / 9 / 5 / 7

Beowulf: 8 / 6 / 9 / 9

Travant: 9 / 6 / 5 / 9

Areone: 9 / 6 / 6 / 7

This is too lenghty and time consuming, sorry.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Rapier

[Rehab]

Spent way too much time on these, it's only 3 dudes but if I don't post them now I probably never will

[spoiler=Manfloy: 6? command / 4? diplomacy / 6? stewardship / 10 (or, 8-10) intrigue]On intrigue: He couldn't get Deirdre out of the Spirit Forest on his own, but he and his subordinates (his supervision of which may be remarkable by itself) were able to de facto manipulate the continent into their hands, and as far as I remember outside of Arvis nobody in power even knew for absolute sure who they were at the time (or if they did, they didn't care) until it was too late. Notably, I think, he manipulated other people into manipulating: Arvis was actually suspicious of him and flat-out said "I'm not handing you an empire," and pretty much thought he was the one in control. But Manfloy outmaneuvered him through his own kid and got what he wanted anyway (for that same reason, I would put Arvis as at least one notch below Manfloy in that area, whatever I'd give him. hail to the king, jerk).

Also, he made half-siblings produce basically-the-Antichrist. You just gotta give it up to a guy who does that and conquers the world, that's some magnum opus right there. The dude gave us a master class on dastardly.

8 is really lowballing it IMO, and being harsh on him for: lucking into Sigurd inadvertently exposing Deirdre, not having perfect control of the child hunts (Ishtar's, Arvis', and possibly the Joha_ brother's subversion of them taken into account), and for how what he did with Julia went so wrong. 10 feels like it miiight be overlooking those a bit hard, but then again even the best have their problems, get both boosts and blows from fate, and struggle for absolute control. A ten reflects not quite perfection, IMO, but just that- how he was indeed the best.

On command: I'm having trouble remembering any occasion where he actually had a cult member get an order to kill or personally fight somebody, especially a battle, and not have it fuck up somehow, though. I think it's all the more to his credit that he very rarely came out the total loser thanks to his use of intrigue, or that at least he always managed to roll with it, and then again he did have the whole continent to watch for over a decade and presumably he was helping suppress it all that time, and maybe the Deadlords should count for something there too, but it's hard for me to ignore that every time in the game he or his dudes actually have to command a fight, dark mages get owned.

I sorta just put him down as "one below Lewyn." Could easily see him lower or higher.

For diplomacy, Manfroy gets other people to do what he wants, but that's of course either because he's intimidating them (particularly when he's their boss) or because he makes them think that's what they want to do. On one hand I think he deserves props just for not getting thrown out of every royal house he steps into and then burned at the stake, given he's Loptyrian, but then again that just gets him in the door- he usually gets what he wants through a mix of manipulation and "if you want it done right, do it yourself."

The arrangement falls apart in the end, though, and it's probably as much his fault it did (for being an evil unlikable fuck who made the world unpleasant for everybody else) as it was to his credit that it got put together. I think he does a bit better with stewardship (once again keeping in mind he suppressed a bunch of mostly-unwilling participants for over a decade), but again can't give him that much because it wasn't sustainable.

[spoiler=Sigurd: 9 command / 5~ diplomacy / 7 stewardship* / 3 intrigue]I actually seem to remember him being relatively well-liked even in his life; he of course had friends in Agustria and Leonster, the former of which once fought his countrymen to save Sigurd's bacon and probably did more stuff behind the scenes that accounted for more, and even disobeyed his own liege to avoid fighting (after being persuaded). And the latter of course risked dying for him many times (though that might be partially attributable to Quan having a better Com score than his Dip score if you get my meaning, but anyway). I seem to remember that any evaluations that we got from the people subject to his governance had him as being pretty cool, sometimes even better than their old rulers- they just didn't care enough for being occupied by a foreign country. (On reflection I guess that might be as much or more a sign of good stewardship than good diplomacy, though.) And he was received by the royal family in Silesia despite being a fugitive, branded as a traitor to his home. In part that might've been because they thought the allegations were bunk, and then again that pissed the dukes there off, but I also seem to remember the queen saying he seemed like a good guy (and Levin liked him, of course).

Also, I seem to remember that part of the reason people were eager to warm to Seliph went beyond "anybody looked better than Arvis/Julius at that point and those guys hated Sigurd so why not," it was also because "Hey, wasn't that guy's dad decidedly -not- an asshole to his subjects? He might be worth a shot."

People liked this guy.

On the other hand, people also -didn't like- this guy. He accidentally'd a country 2.5 times over his friends being put in danger (understandable emotionally, but not the behavior of any great statesman), which made foreign rivals. And while it's not quite like he had no idea there was likely a game being played behind his back at least as early as the Agustrian occupation, the closest he came to actually playing it was "sending multiple sternly-worded letters." He also failed either to notice or to heed the conflicts of interest of some players who weren't immediately in front of him, essentially gambled on their mercy, and of course lost for it.

To me this doesn't quite make him woefully bad beyond reason at diplomacy, I think it makes him kind of just an average dude at it. He needed to be a great statesman to overcome what he had to deal with, and he wasn't. He was just a good man. But to me what he did counts for something over 4, at least. I'm tempted to give him a 6, but that's probably bias- 6 feels like "sufficient," whereas 5 feels like "average." For his good points I really want to say he'd be "sufficient" at any other time, but then again "sufficient" probably keeps the number of times one accidentally's a country to a minimum.

I think his real grievous failing was intrigue. He wasn't a great statesman, but at least he was engaged in trying for a diplomatic solution at almost every step of the way, which is part of why I want to give him a 6 and call it "an average guy who's trying really hard." With intrigue though, I got the feeling he was kinda hoping his actions would speak for themselves. (And of course they didn't. Holy shit did they ever not.) Again I feel like (though he often? had somebody around to clue him in) he wasn't so dumb he didn't know he was being played (better than a 2 I think) and he wasn't quite putty in somebody's hands (definitely better than a 1 I think, Cough King of Verdane Cough), I think a 4 would signify something like "is bad at it but at least puts up a fight." Sigurd just mailed some letters.

On combat: that might be a bit much to give him "in-universe," and Arvis did kinda fuckin own him hard, but he cut a bloody swath through 3 foreign countries, each with at least 2 or 3 armies a piece, and then part of his own, each time against forces with superior numbers and in the actual game, it's quite possible for him to do the better part of it literally by himself. And that was without a holy weapon, until he got to his own place, where he beat up 2 holy weapon users admittedly old men, one of whom he had WTA against, but shut up.Nobody else really does shit like that except Seliph. I could see him being docked down to 8 for not actually taking on that many holy weapon users, but he's a freak of nature regardless.

(I feel like I can remember a bunch of times where somebody had sent an army against Sigurd, and then he showed up on their doorstep and they were like "What the fuck?!" in a "this actually should not have happened what even is he" kind of way) (but then again that may just be a villain thing)

[spoiler=Lewyn: 7? command / 7? diplomacy / 4 money, stewardship / 7? intrigue]Levin in Gen1 came off to me kinda like "a guy who could play the game, but doesn't wanna." In the first half, he's resoundingly better than Sigurd at it, but he sorta demonstrates that you can be better than Sigurd at intrigue by just getting the hell out the way- he doesn't actually do that much other than keep his head down until he can't (does that pretty well, though). Not sure if that's worth more than 6. I want to give him more than just "squeaks by okay" for Gen2, though, because he's pretty much constantly telling Seliph what's up. But then again how much he actually does is arguable.

And there's also the Holsety thing, but personally I'm taking the "they're basically inseparable at that point so who cares" road here.

It's kinda similar for command, I think- though of course he's tearing it up with Holsety in Gen1, he doesn't actually talk that much about tactics other than "I hope you play it smart, guy." But then in Gen2 he's giving Seliph the business again.

I guess I want to give him a lot of 7's because I think he comes close enough to proving he can grasp basically all those things, maybe even that he has some kind of training in them, but until Gen2 they don't interest him. I kinda think it makes sense to give him more of a weakness than that, but I'm also not sure the script would support it?

Except money/stewardship. By what he says he at least knows it's hard, and he has concern for the people, but A) he of course completely skips out on doing it himself in Gen1 though it's obviously gonna bite him in the ass, and B) he's a hobo penniless vagrant when you meet him. "Prince" to "vagrant," okay, but I refuse to believe he could've gotten from "prince" to "poor vagrant" without some "God damn it, Lewyn" moments.

*(if you take that to include just and good governance. if you just mean money, uh. is he in charge of the army's (or rather, in this game, each individual soldier's) money or is that Oifaye? or just everybody? if it's Sigurd, then in-game pretty much every character gets continually richer until they die, so maybe pretty okay actually, like a 6)

Edited December 23, 2014 by Rehab

[Pou]

Fighting ability, diplomacy, money making and intrigue, respectively:

Sigurd: 8 / 5 / 8 / 2

Cuan: 8 / 8 / 5 / 4

Oufaye: 8 / 6 / 5 / 7

Finn: 8 / 6 / 5 / 8

Leif: 6 / 8 / 8 / 5

Celice: 8 / 8 / 8 / 2

Shannan: 9 / 9 / 9 / 5

Alvis: 9 / 10 / 10 / 10

Julius: 6 / 7 / 4 / 9

Eltshan: 9 / 8 / 5 / 2

Aless: 8 / 5 / 5 / 3

Reptor: 8 / 8 / 8 / 7

Langobalt: 8 / 8 / 8 / 7

Johan & Johalva: 6 / 5 / 8 / 4

Aideen: what / 6 / 6 / 3

Andre: 7 / 5 / 8 / 8

Scorpio: 6 / 5 / 8 / 6

Blume: 9 / 9 / 10 / 6

Jamka: 6 / 9 / 8 / 2

Paty: 1 / 7 / 10 / 4

Faval: 6 / 3 / 10 / 4

Sylvia: what / 9 / 7 / 4

Levin: 7 / 8 / 8 / 6

Sety: 9 / 9 / 6 / 6

Claude: what / 9 / 5 / 7

Beowulf: 8 / 6 / 9 / 9

Travant: 9 / 6 / 5 / 9

Areone: 9 / 6 / 6 / 7

This is too lenghty and time consuming, sorry.

No. No. Not at all. I would be hard pressed to disagree with anything. From in game moments I was thinking to myself Aless: extra dumb for running off to join Celice but from your desc remembered that Eltshan is just about as clueless.

On one hand I think he deserves props just for not getting thrown out of every royal house he steps into and then burned at the stake, given he's Loptyrian, but then again that just gets him in the door- he usually gets what he wants through a mix of manipulation and "if you want it done right, do it yourself."

...

[spoiler=Sigurd: 9 command/5~ diplomacy/7 stewardship*/3 intrigue]

Also, I seem to remember that part of the reason people were eager to warm to Seliph went beyond "anybody looked better than Arvis/Julius at that point and those guys hated Sigurd so why not," it was also because "Hey, wasn't that guy's dad decidedly -not- an asshole to his subjects? He might be worth a shot."

People liked this guy.

On the other hand, people also -didn't like- this guy. He accidentally'd a country 2.5 times over his friends being put in danger (understandable emotionally, but not the behavior of any great statesman), which made foreign rivals. And while it's not quite like he had no idea there was likely a game being played behind his back at least as early as the Agustrian occupation, the closest he came to actually playing it was "sending multiple sternly-worded letters." He also failed either to notice or to heed the conflicts of interest of some players who weren't immediately in front of him, essentially gambled on their mercy, and of course lost for it.

To me this doesn't quite make him woefully bad beyond reason at diplomacy, I think it makes him kind of just an average dude at it. He needed to be a great statesman to overcome what he had to deal with, and he wasn't. He was just a good man. But to me what he did counts for something over 4, at least. I'm tempted to give him a 6, but that's probably bias- 6 feels like "sufficient," whereas 5 feels like "average." For his good points I really want to say he'd be "sufficient" at any other time, but then again "sufficient" probably keeps the number of times one accidentally's a country to a minimum.

I think his real grievous failing was intrigue. He wasn't a great statesman, but at least he was engaged in trying for a diplomatic solution at almost every step of the way, which is part of why I want to give him a 6 and call it "an average guy who's trying really hard." With intrigue though, I got the feeling he was kinda hoping his actions would speak for themselves. (And of course they didn't. Holy shit did they ever not.) Again I feel like (though he often? had somebody around to clue him in) he wasn't so dumb he didn't know he was being played (better than a 2 I think) and he wasn't quite putty in somebody's hands (definitely better than a 1 I think, Cough King of Verdane Cough), I think a 4 would signify something like "is bad at it but at least puts up a fight." Sigurd just mailed some letters.

On combat: that might be a bit much to give him "in-universe," and Arvis did kinda fuckin own him hard, but he cut a bloody swath through 3 foreign countries, each with at least 2 or 3 armies a piece, and then part of his own, each time against forces with superior numbers and in the actual game, it's quite possible for him to do the better part of it literally by himself. And that was without a holy weapon, until he got to his own place, where he beat up 2 holy weapon users admittedly old men, one of whom he had WTA against, but shut up.Nobody else really does shit like that except Seliph. I could see him being docked down to 8 for not actually taking on that many holy weapon users, but he's a freak of nature regardless.

(I feel like I can remember a bunch of times where somebody had sent an army against Sigurd, and then he showed up on their doorstep and they were like "What the fuck?!" in a "this actually should not have happened what even is he" kind of way) (but then again that may just be a villain thing)

[spoiler=Lewyn: 7? command/7? diplomacy/4 money, stewardship/7? intrigue]Levin in Gen1 came off to me kinda like "a guy who could play the game, but doesn't wanna." In the first half, he's resoundingly better than Sigurd at it, but he sorta demonstrates that you can be better than Sigurd at intrigue by just getting the hell out the way- he doesn't actually do that much other than keep his head down until he can't (does that pretty well, though). Not sure if that's worth more than 6. I want to give him more than just "squeaks by okay" for Gen2, though, because he's pretty much constantly telling Seliph what's up. But then again how much he actually does is arguable.

And there's also the Holsety thing, but personally I'm taking the "they're basically inseparable at that point so who cares" road here.

It's kinda similar for command, I think- though of course he's tearing it up with Holsety in Gen1, he doesn't actually talk that much about tactics other than "I hope you play it smart, guy." But then in Gen2 he's giving Seliph the business again.

I guess I want to give him a lot of 7's because I think he comes close enough to proving he can grasp basically all those things, maybe even that he has some kind of training in them, but until Gen2 they don't interest him. I kinda think it makes sense to give him more of a weakness than that, but I'm also not sure the script would support it?

Except money/stewardship. By what he says he at least knows it's hard, and he has concern for the people, but A) he of course completely skips out on doing it himself in Gen1 though it's obviously gonna bite him in the ass, and B) he's a hobo penniless vagrant when you meet him. "Prince" to "vagrant," okay, but I refuse to believe he could've gotten from "prince" to "poor vagrant" without some "God damn it, Lewyn" moments.

*(if you take that to include just and good governance. if you just mean money, uh. is he in charge of the army's (or rather, in this game, each individual soldier's) money or is that Oifaye? or just everybody? if it's Sigurd, then in-game pretty much every character gets continually richer until they die, so maybe pretty okay actually, like a 6)

1. lol so true

2. He is one of the most popular FE characters for a reason but guy was seriously failing to convince Agusty they weren't annexing "yeah ten minutes" imo. This is not Shakespeare but he could've kept Agusty and Verdane in his pocket off-screen and that COULD hav led to his downfall - I also wonder if the king was multiplating him "here have a silver sword, do groundwork in Agusty even if unstable". Then again everything was mediated by Alvis. He is wildly great and wildly rubbish.

3. Levin is too hippy sometimes to take seriously I'll just award him loads of his conflicted traits. The rightful heir to the throne who is romping around with young filles and doesn't want to be found - then we *hem* he finds Sigmund. That is sheer luck right? Or successful pretender tactics? Naaaaaa :). Then he lucked out again (wow lucky guy) when Holtsey used his body just like when Loptyr used Julius.

sorry for making such a spoiler-riffic thread. If a mod could change my title to include a *SPOILERS* it would be good.

Edited October 12, 2014 by Pou

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

I'll try. There are spoilers.

Blume held Lenster with a hard grip and succeeded on crushing Leif's rebel army until Celice came. Trabant never had a chance against him, whereas Thracia always posed a threat before Blume took control. He should've been more cautious before giving Mjolnir away, but this is the only mistake that I can remember. 8/10

All this thoughtful consideration of Blume warms my heart. Not that I like the guy, exactly, but he's a pretty interesting character that doesn't often come up in Jugdral discussion. (Though technically he did lose Leonster to Leif's crew and then successfully penned them up until Seliph arrived.)

This is an interesting set of questions but this really is a cumbersome way to do a survey, and even on characters where we have something to go on, it's kind of arbitrary. I'll use Finn as an example because I like him a lot and have thought about him way too much.

Spoilers because this whole thread is full of spoilers for old games and art books. I am not taking the manga into account.

Command: Without holy blood he'll never be the best of the best as a fighter but "the legendary lance knight" does well enough there. You might think he's some kind of command prodigy based on the thing where Quan puts him in charge of Leonster in FE4, and he has that leadership star in FE5, but then you actually see him do stuff like leave the Fiana boys sitting in jail when he goes looking for Leif in Chapter 7. It may be telling that Glade ends up the top military man in Leif's Thracia. I guess I'm comfortable with giving him an 8 the same as others above but no way does he rate any higher IMO.

Diplomacy: Well, he's always super-polite... I suppose it speaks well of his skills that he's able to find Leif sanctuary in Alster, Frest, Tahra, and Fiana even though the penalty for harboring Leif is consistently DEATH. He appears to have a fine working relationship with Eyvel. We don't see him slighting his allies the way Dorias does even though as a fellow member of Leonster's noble class he's technically a part of the whole scene August keeps indicting as greedy, corrupt, etc. So, while not blessed with much charisma on his own account he really did manage to get stuff done so I'll give him sufficient credit for a better-than-average 7.

Money-making: Hey man, my Finn always has 50K by the end of Ch3 in FE4! Seriously, though... he managed to feed and clothe two kids under very harsh circumstances when he wasn't exactly free to look for a legit job... anywhere. He's either very good at getting by on very little or excellent at convincing someone else to kick in for the cause... or both. And FE5 game mechanics say he's not averse to raising money through unorthodox means (hello, Capture'n'fleece). The terms of this survey require "making a fortune on the road" for a high rating, and I doubt he did that, but there's just no indication that this was ever one of his priorities, y'know? His priority was keeping Leif alive long enough to get a rebellion going. 6.

Intrigue: My gut feeling was tempted to go super-low here because it's not like his goals were ever in doubt: Unify Thracia per Quan's dying wish, install Leif as king, everyone else can suck it. But he does get major points for presumably being involved in that assassination plot against Blume because it's not like the good guys of FE try their hand at outright murder plots often-- I don't even care that it failed. Of course it failed. Props for trying. He's awfully good at keeping secrets-- like, he didn't even try to convince Eyvel that she was Eyvel's Secret Identity until he heard that she had no memory of her childhood-- but he doesn't really use all this critical information he's got in any tricksy sort of way. He keeps it to himself until he thinks it needs to be revealed. He's not an honest-to-a-fault kind of knight, but if we see him outright lying he's lying to Leif (like in Leonster Falls) because hey, adults lie to kids or at least keep the whole truth from them. [Manga digression: in Light Inheritors he told Leif a phony backstory about Quan and Ethlyn dying of illness because he realized Leif was a reckless little dolt who'd run off for REVENGE and ruin everything if he knew about the Yied Massacre.] And apparently there's some secret involving Raquesis but eh whatever, we'll never know. I'll agree to give him an 8 like those above but only because of my headcanon that he recognized Fergus as the secret heir of Conote and thus a barrier to Leif's claim to all Thracia but (as usual) said nothing and let Fergus run off to Silesse or wherever he went.

Yeah, I don't know if this is more or less difficult when we're rating a character with a lot of screen time as opposed to, like, Scorpio (5/0/0/0 because FE4 didn't care about him enough to give us anything but a re-used portrait).

Edited October 13, 2014 by Cymbalina's Revenge

[Rapier]

No. No. Not at all. I would be hard pressed to disagree with anything. From in game moments I was thinking to myself Aless: extra dumb for running off to join Celice but from your desc remembered that Eltshan is just about as clueless.

Uh, this is why I gave them a low Intrigue rating. Both Aless and Eltshan are beasts on the battlefield, both as commanders and as soldiers. Eltshan is also well liked and inspiring to his subordinates, even though most of the Agustrian nobles envy him (I think?); Aless is the sole Mystletain user left so I suppose this earns him some prestige, even though he's a jerk.

From my standards, 1-4 is bad, 5 or 6 is average, 6-8 is good and 8-10 is god tier.

Edited October 13, 2014 by Rapier

[Cymbalina's Revenge]

From my standards, 1-4 is bad, 5 or 6 is average, 6-8 is good and 8-10 is god tier.

Yeah, I guess agreeing on what the numbers mean is an issue too. I figured 5-6 was the tipping point between mediocre and decent.