Favorite Fire Emblem Villain?

[Dr. G]

So I was thinking, what could make a fun forum post? And I decided how about a forum post about your favorite villain of the series. Just choose who your favorite villain is and give a little description as to why they are your favorite villain. I will be honest, I need to think about a little myself. In my opinion, good villains can be few and far between in this series, but there are some that I like. Hope everyone enjoys this post.

[De Geso]

Narcian's my favorite. He's just a bundle of fun, especially in Heroes. I like the cut of his jib.

I just like characters with a lot of misplaced pride, they're a lot of fun to watch. Narcian fits that perfectly. His lines are also gold.

[Anacybele]

Black Knight! He's awesome and has surprising depth and development. And I don't agree with people that say RD ruined him. RD improved him imo. I thought he was a bit flat in PoR, but RD fixed that entirely and expanded on his motivations/intentions. Also gave us his identity.

Also, his design is freaking cool.

[Lau]

I have such a soft spot for Berkut it's not even funny. Great design, amazing voice, plus he deserved better. His and Rinea's memory prism gave him that small dose of adorableness. I know a lot of people don't like him, but I'm a sucker for this type of villain.

Gangrel is another that I like, though it's mainly due to what he says. "I can break through their ranks as easily as I break wind" "Indeed, I will weep salty tears into my pillow for your dead villagers". And then what he says to Chrom if they fight in chapter 11, hoo boy.

Michalis is great too, but I feel like he needs a bit more to build him up a tad.

[Dandy Druid]

Alvis is one of my favorite's. He's a good example of someone who's fallen on the wrong side of the story, but he wasn't truly evil. His intentions weren't evil, but his methods can be considered so.

I also like Brenya, because she's hot.

The Black Knight is in my Top 3 as well, mainly because I feel hyped to fight him. He is formidable, and his appearance is iconic.

Berkut and Michalis had a lot of potential I don't think was fully realized. They're both enjoyable villains for different reasons though.

[Fala]

Arvis, The Black Fang as a whole (take out Sonia, Ursula and Nino). Trabant and Ashnard.

[Thane]

Definitely Lyon. You know where he comes from, who he was before and after the possession, and he ties in well with the protagonists. We need more villains like that.

[Skyla]

Black knight! <3 arguably the most interesting Villain in Fe as a whole.

Ashnard, Michalis, Lyon, Lehran, Jarod and Dheginsea are also my favourites.

[Hero_Lucina]

Anthony (Missed Potential in it's truest form)

Berkut (Amazing VA and I love him in heroes.)

Arvis (Used him in Apotheosis and he pulled his weight. Sorcerers were op in awakening)

 

[Princess Deirdre]

Arvis is my personal favorite. He is an example of gray morality, which I'm a huge sucker for in villains- while, yes, he does evil actions, I don't think he was truly evil. The ends may not justify the means, but he really did just want an ideal land.

[Strullemia]

Arvis is my favorite.

He's willing to do so much to accomplish his goal including some rather evil things but when everything is said and done in FE4 Gen 2 

Spoiler

He still orders that bishop to bring Tyrfing to Seliph so he can save Julia and thus save everyone from the Lopto cult.

 

[NekoKnight]

Lyon: He has heroic intentions but his lack of emotional strength leads to his eventual possession. The game leaves it ambiguous just how much of his actions and words are his own, and he has an interesting relationship with the two protagonists. He's a truly tragic figure; perhaps the only character death in the series that really hit me hard.

[ChattySpy27172]

Lyon is my favorite, tragic villains with good intentions are always my favorites

[Slumber]

Arvis.

I also like Sephiran. His whole "I have tried to be a good guy for thousands of years. Now I just want God to pass her judgement be wipe the slate" shtick is a nice change of pace. 

Edited December 29, 2017 by Slumber

[edgelordweeaboo]

arvis, travant, and ishtar are for sure my favorites. i also kind of enjoy some of the villains who are just super shitty that you just want to kill too like hilda, blume, and julius for example

[Shadow Mir]

I say Sephiran, for reasons already mentioned. I also felt that he was a better example of a tragic villain than a certain somebody whose name shall not be mentioned... I also like Berkut and BK.

[Magical Glace]

Lyon, for the reasons already stated in the thread pretty much.  

He's almost the entire reason why FE8 is my favorite FE storywise.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Sephiran! Who else could it be?

Sephiran isn't really anything special, just someone in the cliche where they go insane because they can't take the suffering in the world anymore. But within FE, he's one of the few if only villains to go down this path.

Plus he constitutes the evil sorcerer of Tellius, but isn't "muhahaha!" and openly ugly, evil and clad in darkness. He's subtle, handsome, unpretentious, and holy. Very much an inversion for FE.

 

Dheginsea, if not exactly a villain, is very well written too for a whatever he is. In a series that has done Medeus, SoV Duma, Loptyr, Jahn/Idunn, Grima, and Anankos for many godly dragon villains, Dheg obliterates them all by an immeasurable amount. Dheg is a very human character, helped by the lowering of the mythical pedestal dragonkind stands on in Tellius (they're still elevated, but not as remote as they are in other games), and heavily benefits from this.

 

Gangrel wasn't bad in Awakening, for the crude, cynical, self-centered king he was, he was good. Not wholly likable, but he isn't supposed to be that way and he never detracts from things being that way.

 

I want to like Arvis (heck I once thought of giving him his own opera), but I haven't actually played FE4 yet. So it'd be wrong for me to say so.

[Icelerate]

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Sephiran! Who else could it be?

Sephiran isn't really anything special, just someone in the cliche where they go insane because they can't take the suffering in the world anymore. But within FE, he's one of the few if only villains to go down this path.

Plus he constitutes the evil sorcerer of Tellius, but isn't "muhahaha!" and openly ugly, evil and clad in darkness. He's subtle, handsome, unpretentious, and holy. Very much an inversion for FE.

Speaking of Sephiran, do you prefer sparing him or letting him die? I'd rather just let him die because there are other villains more deserving to live who die. Also, don't you think he takes away from Ashnard and Lekain due to manipulating them? 

[Interdimensional Observer]

13 hours ago, Icelerate said:

Speaking of Sephiran, do you prefer sparing him or letting him die? I'd rather just let him die because there are other villains more deserving to live who die. Also, don't you think he takes away from Ashnard and Lekain due to manipulating them?

Letting Sephiran live I'm pretty sure is the canonical choice (of course Awakening makes it so all possibilities happen). And because he's a playable character with nothing lost in gameplay if I don't get him, and something lost if you do (a minor something, but a something nonetheless) I always make sure to recruit him.

Ignoring this and focusing on whether I personally think he should have lived or died, well part of the issue here is that Sephiran is partially suicidal. He does want to die to end his sorrow, but at the same time he doesn't want the heroes to kill him b/c that'd mean they have a chance of killing Ashera and ruining his overall plan. So to kill him is partly to do as he wishes, and if you want him to suffer, sparing him would possibly torment him more. Only in the very short term though really, since his agony is healed beyond that moment. So killing him would be the worse thing to do if you disliked him/felt he needed the most severe punishment possible.

I tend to biased towards Sephiran because I like him, but standing back from a distance, IRL he would need some form of punishment for what he did- which is to say foster conflict to bring forth world genocide. It's absolutely a crime that doesn't deserve to go unpunished. Life imprisonment won't work since he's immortal of age, and solitary confinement in particular would only worsen his psychosis. It doesn't help that unlike Nergal to name a villain beyond the point of mental restoration and a chance at becoming a productive member of society, Sephiran, who is very talented, has real potential to be rehabilitated. Society certainly doesn't need Sephiran, but it'd be a loss however small if he did die, not that his ending suggests he went on to do much. Except possibly after Ashunera's return when he has his job of "Highest Servant of the Goddess of Dawn" again, which is quite important, albeit Ashunera could always hire someone new.

A plus for killing him is that it keeps the end of the game from being overly happy. While randomly killing off people is bad, being too generous in who gets spared is just as much a flaw. Letting Sephiran live makes things a bit too happy I must admit. Letting Pelleas live is kinda similar, except him living isn't so bad since he is by comparison a small figure and nearly sinless.

 

As for villains more deserving to live who die in RD, Levail and the BK, and Hetzel are the only ones that come to mind. Levail is really mostly innocent in the scheme of things, only blindly following orders from Zelgius whom he admires, who happens to be blindly following orders from Sephiran due to insecurity, beyond a little fatally excessive lust over Greil's swordsmanship. Hetzel is Sephiran-lite in some ways, since he ultimately did nothing to stop the corruption of the Senate despite having the power to do so, and he too isn't beyond rehabilitation either. Dheginsea obviously deserved to be spared as well, but its questionable whether he is a villain at all, even if you fight him. Lekain, Valtome, Numida, Ludveck, and Jarod all deserve a hanging, drawing, and quartering, or multiple life sentences, depending on the way the hypothetical judge leans on the death penalty. 

 

Sephiran doesn't take away much from Lekain, since all Sephiran did was let Lekain's corruption flourish unimpeded, though he did make some moves that clearly upset Lekain. Perhaps Sephiran actually held some hope for his reform plans, despite leaning towards wanting corruption to bring forth Ashera's judgement, he's a reluctant villain to the end after all. Lekain still engineered the Serenes Massacre, still bound Daein to the Senate (Sephiran apparently spoke with Izuka, but we don't know how much the BP of Daein and the false prince was his idea), and overthrew Sanaki and led Begnion into war with the Laguz. If Sephiran didn't exist as Prime Minister/Chancellor, well Lekain would gain only insofar as the new Senate head allowed him to/was unable to stop him. If Sephiran remained Prime Minister/Chancellor but acted appropriately, he could have quashed Lekain in five seconds with all his cunning, and thus Lekain would be just more incompetent that he currently is/isn't.

 

Ashnard's relationship to Sephiran is more complicated. What Sephiran did for him was tell him about Lehran's Medallion, give him the Medallion and Lillia (almost wrote Lilina), is implied possibly to be the old man who made the Blood Pact with Ashnard's father thus putting Ashy on the throne of Daein, and then later giving Ashy the BK and a suit of blessed armor. The armor doesn't really amount to much, and he soon lost the Medallion to Elena and Lillia died. The BK on the other hand is kinda major since he was one of Ashy's top generals, albeit Ashnard's ultimate failure and a lack of a long-lasting effect from the BK following Ashnard's orders undermines this. Telling Ashnard about the Medallion is indisputably of paramount importance, since its what Ashnard funnels his life's drive into after he learns of it. Ashnard could have learned of the Medallion some other way real easy, since its existence is basic knowledge to anyone who knows the myths of Tellius. Presumably nothing would have been like having the Medallion thrusted upon you in person and Sephiran with all his intimate relationship with the Medallion tempting you with it however. Likewise, Sephiran arranging for Ashnard's ascendency to the Daein throne is incredibly important. Without Sephiran but with the BP, it becomes Ashnard recruiting a random old man for the BP, which is weird and not well done. To drop both Sephiran and the BP, Ashnard ascends only having murdered his father while a wholly natural plague took most of the rest of the potential heirs, with Ashy possibly claiming the heads of a few others.

Importantly, Ashnard did not know of what Sephiran was using him for (breaking the Medallion for world genocide). Nor was Ashnard a lapdog of Sephiran the way the BK was. Ashnard did what he did because he wanted to do it for himself and nobody else. Sephiran pointed Ashnard in the perfect direction for funneling his chaotic desires, threw him one great general (who was inasmuch there to observe as per Sephiran's wants I would think), and helped place him on Daein's throne with as little difficulty as possible. But, there can be little doubt that Ashnard would inherently want kingship and did not have to be goaded into wanting it. And once king, all his actions were his own, with the BK sending no meaningful tactical advice from Sephiran to Ashy.

Removing Sephiran means Ashnard: randomly recruited the BK who was serving Ashy for different reasons, found out about Lehran's Medallion and stole it and Lillia independently, and was little more dependent on luck or perhaps resilience (it depends on how you want to interpret things) getting Daein's throne. He was also in no way at all anyone's pawn. But as is, I don't think Sephiran detracts from Ashnard in a terrible way, since Ashnard is much his own agent, even if receiving moments of crucial guidance and backing from an enigmatic Sephiran with ulterior motives.

 

Also, I realized Zephiel is another case of casting judgement on the world. However, Zephiel makes his call that humanity is irrevocably wretched entirely on his awful father and little else. While Sephiran had a much sounder basis in hundreds of years of watching Laguz and Beorc, and then seeing his many greats granddaughter assassinated and native race eradicated in three-four nights.

[Etrurian emperor]

36 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Also, I realized Zephiel is another case of casting judgement on the world. However, Zephiel makes his call that humanity is irrevocably wretched entirely on his awful father and little else. While Sephiran had a much sounder basis in hundreds of years of watching Laguz and Beorc, and then seeing his many greats granddaughter assassinated and native race eradicated in three-four nights.

That tends to be my view about why Lehran works and Zephiel really doesn't. With Zephiel its just one bad person which makes him write off humanity while Lehran has centuries of human misbehavior to form his opinion. What also strengthens his case is that there really wasn't a reason for the mob to lynch his entire race. Nasir pointed out that deep down those people knew the rumors were false and that Herons weren't even able to kill but that they just didn't care. 

[Etrurian emperor]

He's not my absolute favorite but I really like Lekain and think he deserves a mention. What sets Lekain apart is that he's a really human villain. He's not out to destroy the world, exterminate humanity, revive some dark god or even rule the world. Lekain is just your average corrupt politician with the average goal of corrupt politicians. He's such an important villain not because he has those grand schemes but because he merely happens to be a really powerful player in the strongest nation. 

His character is also nicely balanced. He has the same snootiness that makes the other senators more like joke characters but he tones it down to just an amusing level of arrogance and he does get portrayed as a cunning and threatening opponent.  Even when his prominence falls he's still the most important enemy of a lot of mayor characters, like Sanaki and her crew, the bird tribe and even Sephiran himself. 

I tend to like Nergal more then most. He's a very personal foe for the heroes and while inconsistent his powers do portray him as a threatening opponent. 

Arvis is probably my favorite villain for all the reasons people already stated. He's a really grey character before those really became a thing in gaming. He's got both really, really evil traits in him but also a lot of good and the game nicely shows both sides of him rather then either insisting he's good while showing him as overwhelmingly evil or letting his evil actions completely overshadow his positive traits. 

 

Edited January 2, 2018 by Etrurian emperor

[Water Mage]

Lyon and Arvis.

Like it was said before, Lyon is a very well written character. He embodies “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”, because, while he motivated by things like lack of self confidence and jealousy, a large part of his motivation were mostly altruistic. Lyon is a genuinely good person, that what makes him so tragic. He also shows that the “rebel against the norm” idea isn’t always right. Lyon, in a way, wanted to rebel against norm, but using things that are forbidden and deemed evil like Dark Magic and the Sacred Stone of Grado, and use them for good, but he ended up biting more than he could chew . Sometimes, instead of rebelling, the young should listen to their elders.

Arvis is interesting, because deep down, he’s not an evil person. I’m pretty sure that if he believed he could, he wouldn’t have done things like killing Sigurd. I’m pretty sure that young Arvis believed that he had no choice in order to pursue his ideals. And it’s interesting, because it feels like older Arvis realized that that was wrong, and probably regrets acting rashly in his younger days.

[darkblade2814]

Victor, Arvis' father, most of FE 4 plot is all his fault

 

19 hours ago, Water Mage said:

Lyon and Arvis.

Like it was said before, Lyon is a very well written character. He embodies “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”, because, while he motivated by things like lack of self confidence and jealousy, a large part of his motivation were mostly altruistic. Lyon is a genuinely good person, that what makes him so tragic. He also shows that the “rebel against the norm” idea isn’t always right. Lyon, in a way, wanted to rebel against norm, but using things that are forbidden and deemed evil like Dark Magic and the Sacred Stone of Grado, and use them for good, but he ended up biting more than he could chew . Sometimes, instead of rebelling, the young should listen to their elders.

Arvis is interesting, because deep down, he’s not an evil person. I’m pretty sure that if he believed he could, he wouldn’t have done things like killing Sigurd. I’m pretty sure that young Arvis believed that he had no choice in order to pursue his ideals. And it’s interesting, because it feels like older Arvis realized that that was wrong, and probably regrets acting rashly in his younger days.

I agree

[Icelerate]

22 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Letting Sephiran live I'm pretty sure is the canonical choice (of course Awakening makes it so all possibilities happen). And because he's a playable character with nothing lost in gameplay if I don't get him, and something lost if you do (a minor something, but a something nonetheless) I always make sure to recruit him.

Ignoring this and focusing on whether I personally think he should have lived or died, well part of the issue here is that Sephiran is partially suicidal. He does want to die to end his sorrow, but at the same time he doesn't want the heroes to kill him b/c that'd mean they have a chance of killing Ashera and ruining his overall plan. So to kill him is partly to do as he wishes, and if you want him to suffer, sparing him would possibly torment him more. Only in the very short term though really, since his agony is healed beyond that moment. So killing him would be the worse thing to do if you disliked him/felt he needed the most severe punishment possible.

I tend to biased towards Sephiran because I like him, but standing back from a distance, IRL he would need some form of punishment for what he did- which is to say foster conflict to bring forth world genocide. It's absolutely a crime that doesn't deserve to go unpunished. Life imprisonment won't work since he's immortal of age, and solitary confinement in particular would only worsen his psychosis. It doesn't help that unlike Nergal to name a villain beyond the point of mental restoration and a chance at becoming a productive member of society, Sephiran, who is very talented, has real potential to be rehabilitated. Society certainly doesn't need Sephiran, but it'd be a loss however small if he did die, not that his ending suggests he went on to do much. Except possibly after Ashunera's return when he has his job of "Highest Servant of the Goddess of Dawn" again, which is quite important, albeit Ashunera could always hire someone new.

A plus for killing him is that it keeps the end of the game from being overly happy. While randomly killing off people is bad, being too generous in who gets spared is just as much a flaw. Letting Sephiran live makes things a bit too happy I must admit. Letting Pelleas live is kinda similar, except him living isn't so bad since he is by comparison a small figure and nearly sinless.

 

As for villains more deserving to live who die in RD, Levail and the BK, and Hetzel are the only ones that come to mind. Levail is really mostly innocent in the scheme of things, only blindly following orders from Zelgius whom he admires, who happens to be blindly following orders from Sephiran due to insecurity, beyond a little fatally excessive lust over Greil's swordsmanship. Hetzel is Sephiran-lite in some ways, since he ultimately did nothing to stop the corruption of the Senate despite having the power to do so, and he too isn't beyond rehabilitation either. Dheginsea obviously deserved to be spared as well, but its questionable whether he is a villain at all, even if you fight him. Lekain, Valtome, Numida, Ludveck, and Jarod all deserve a hanging, drawing, and quartering, or multiple life sentences, depending on the way the hypothetical judge leans on the death penalty. 

 

Sephiran doesn't take away much from Lekain, since all Sephiran did was let Lekain's corruption flourish unimpeded, though he did make some moves that clearly upset Lekain. Perhaps Sephiran actually held some hope for his reform plans, despite leaning towards wanting corruption to bring forth Ashera's judgement, he's a reluctant villain to the end after all. Lekain still engineered the Serenes Massacre, still bound Daein to the Senate (Sephiran apparently spoke with Izuka, but we don't know how much the BP of Daein and the false prince was his idea), and overthrew Sanaki and led Begnion into war with the Laguz. If Sephiran didn't exist as Prime Minister/Chancellor, well Lekain would gain only insofar as the new Senate head allowed him to/was unable to stop him. If Sephiran remained Prime Minister/Chancellor but acted appropriately, he could have quashed Lekain in five seconds with all his cunning, and thus Lekain would be just more incompetent that he currently is/isn't.

 

Ashnard's relationship to Sephiran is more complicated. What Sephiran did for him was tell him about Lehran's Medallion, give him the Medallion and Lillia (almost wrote Lilina), is implied possibly to be the old man who made the Blood Pact with Ashnard's father thus putting Ashy on the throne of Daein, and then later giving Ashy the BK and a suit of blessed armor. The armor doesn't really amount to much, and he soon lost the Medallion to Elena and Lillia died. The BK on the other hand is kinda major since he was one of Ashy's top generals, albeit Ashnard's ultimate failure and a lack of a long-lasting effect from the BK following Ashnard's orders undermines this. Telling Ashnard about the Medallion is indisputably of paramount importance, since its what Ashnard funnels his life's drive into after he learns of it. Ashnard could have learned of the Medallion some other way real easy, since its existence is basic knowledge to anyone who knows the myths of Tellius. Presumably nothing would have been like having the Medallion thrusted upon you in person and Sephiran with all his intimate relationship with the Medallion tempting you with it however. Likewise, Sephiran arranging for Ashnard's ascendency to the Daein throne is incredibly important. Without Sephiran but with the BP, it becomes Ashnard recruiting a random old man for the BP, which is weird and not well done. To drop both Sephiran and the BP, Ashnard ascends only having murdered his father while a wholly natural plague took most of the rest of the potential heirs, with Ashy possibly claiming the heads of a few others.

Importantly, Ashnard did not know of what Sephiran was using him for (breaking the Medallion for world genocide). Nor was Ashnard a lapdog of Sephiran the way the BK was. Ashnard did what he did because he wanted to do it for himself and nobody else. Sephiran pointed Ashnard in the perfect direction for funneling his chaotic desires, threw him one great general (who was inasmuch there to observe as per Sephiran's wants I would think), and helped place him on Daein's throne with as little difficulty as possible. But, there can be little doubt that Ashnard would inherently want kingship and did not have to be goaded into wanting it. And once king, all his actions were his own, with the BK sending no meaningful tactical advice from Sephiran to Ashy.

Removing Sephiran means Ashnard: randomly recruited the BK who was serving Ashy for different reasons, found out about Lehran's Medallion and stole it and Lillia independently, and was little more dependent on luck or perhaps resilience (it depends on how you want to interpret things) getting Daein's throne. He was also in no way at all anyone's pawn. But as is, I don't think Sephiran detracts from Ashnard in a terrible way, since Ashnard is much his own agent, even if receiving moments of crucial guidance and backing from an enigmatic Sephiran with ulterior motives.

 

Also, I realized Zephiel is another case of casting judgement on the world. However, Zephiel makes his call that humanity is irrevocably wretched entirely on his awful father and little else. While Sephiran had a much sounder basis in hundreds of years of watching Laguz and Beorc, and then seeing his many greats granddaughter assassinated and native race eradicated in three-four nights.

What does Awakening have to do with Radiant Dawn or Sephiran in particular? If I had to choose one, I think Sephiran dying is canon because that's the only option on a first play through. I also prefer him dying because I think RD's ending as a whole is too happy for what is one of the darker games in the series. That's not very fitting when the evil mastermind ends up repenting, becoming a good guy and living a happy life for many years. 

I do agree he's a well-written villain overall, certainly more believable than Zephiel. 

21 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

He's not my absolute favorite but I really like Lekain and think he deserves a mention. What sets Lekain apart is that he's a really human villain. He's not out to destroy the world, exterminate humanity, revive some dark god or even rule the world. Lekain is just your average corrupt politician with the average goal of corrupt politicians. He's such an important villain not because he has those grand schemes but because he merely happens to be a really powerful player in the strongest nation. 

His character is also nicely balanced. He has the same snootiness that makes the other senators more like joke characters but he tones it down to just an amusing level of arrogance and he does get portrayed as a cunning and threatening opponent.  Even when his prominence falls he's still the most important enemy of a lot of mayor characters, like Sanaki and her crew, the bird tribe and even Sephiran himself. 

Exactly. I think Lekain gets way too little credit for being a good villain. Not all villains should be morally grey or sympathetic. Unlikeable guys like Lekain are there so that you have someone to vent out your anger on. Lekain's plans and manipulative nature is very deep and his racist and arrogant worldview is believable considering how religions can change as time goes on and according to Begnion's religious beliefs, he can do no wrong. I'm thinking people don't think he's a great villain due to him pulling out the blood pact out of his ass but he's certainly the type of person to use such methods so it doesn't make him badly written.