What is your opinion of Nowi in terms of personality and characterization?

[Erureido]

The most common discussions I see about Nowi these days is about her design, and thus I rarely find any discussions regarding how she is character and personality-wise. I want to change that. I am interested in hearing what do people here on SerenesForest think of Nowi character-wise (so disregard what you think of her unit and design-wise and instead focus more on how she is characterized in her supports). Do you like/dislike her, or is she someone you feel indifferent toward? I'm curious to hear what people think of her when it comes to her personality and characterization.

[Slumber]

No. I don't like her character.

Her "I'm not a kid, I'm actually hundreds of years old and I'll eat you!" thing gets old pretty quick. Outside of that she's just kind of annoying. Her general character and the way she's portrayed is also REALLY at odds with how we've seen young dragons in the franchise before. Tiki, Fae, and Myrrh were all treated purely as kids who could morph into dangerous killing machines. Then here comes Nowi, who still acts like a kid, but we're not supposed to treat as a kid? Like the other young dragons? And her weird romantic advances and threats she makes to people who reject her are supposed to be taken seriously, even though no other kid dragon has acted this way? It's all very weird, and feels tone-deaf compared to the rest of the games in the franchise.

The sole positive contribution her character makes is telling the audience that Bantu is still out and about, being a cool old dragon man.

Edited January 1, 2018 by Slumber

[eclipse]

Her surface lines are annoying as hell.

Her supports make her a more interesting character.  Not my favorite by a long shot, but bearable.

Exact same situation as Tharja, IMO.

[Integrity]

i don't dislike nowi as much as i think i should and it's really surprising

 

i've never put my finger on why i don't

[saisymbolic]

I like her in several supports where, despite having her childish grasp of things, she is a lot more perceptive than she initially appears. The main issue is that her basic dialogue, the way the game generally exaggerates her "main" trait and a majority of her supports has her acting like a huge child despite "being older than everyone" negate her actions in other supports - which is honestly an issue with all the characters in the latest games. Plus, her naivety during some supports makes it uncomfortable pairing her with some characters for some people, which is understandable, and I think this could have been (sort of) alleviated had her playfulness had been more of a facade of sorts that hid a more developed, matured mind - almost like a subversion or deconstruction or something.

As of now, Nowi just sort of flip-flops, in my opinion, and, outside of unit usefulness and a handful of supports, I can't feel anything more than slight amusement which eventually tapers into indifference.

[Punished Dayni]

Yeesh, her personality is pretty grating. On the surface she's pretty awful. But the supports actually do help a bit, as well as additional material like her and Tiki's harvest festival conversation.

I'd say the characterisation is better than expected, but the surface personality is pretty bad. Still > Tharja imo.

[Armagon]

I like her. I never found her personality to be bad and she has a lot of nice supports. Overall, i find her to be a fun character and is one of my favorite characters in Awakening.

[Tryhard]

Nope.

[NinjaMonkey]

She's fine, I like it when she makes Lon'qu play house with her in their supports.

[Etrurian emperor]

I neither like nor dislike Nowi as a character. She's just there for me. Aside from getting Nah I never saw a reason to take her off the bench but I didn't purposely avoid her either.

But I do find her gimmick to be very awkward. Nowi's insistence on being an adult actually hinders the few pairings left for her. If Nowi is an adult then pairing her with Ricken or Donny would be seriously wrong but since she looks like a kid they are the only natural partners available for her. Actually it gets more awkward because it highlights how Nowi will never grow up. Even if its not creepy to pair a thousand year old woman with a kid like Ricken then eventually Ricken will be an adult and Nowi will still remain a kid. If Nowi will always remain a kid then any pairing is going to be uncomfortable no matter the age of her partner. 

[Jave]

While I was a bit bothered by her design and concept when I started playing the game, after reading her supports she kinda grew on me. I get the impression she acts the way she does do to her being stuck for ages with a child's body, but she's actually a bit more mature than she shows, which I feel adds an extra layer to her character. She's probably my favorite Manakete girl, not that that's saying much given there's not that many of them, but I still like her enough.

Nowi x Tharja is also one of my favorite Supports in the series. Very emotional.

[edgelordweeaboo]

she's one of the most annoying characters in the franchise, every time she's on screen it makes me want to blow my brains out. i hate her pedobait design too. i hate lolis in general also.

Edited January 1, 2018 by edgelordweeaboo

[Julius Nepos]

I like Nowi. After getting through some of her supports, I wonder to what degree she really is childish and to what degree she just acts childish to bring joy to the ones around her. I like that much.
I'm not going to go into the whole "technically an adult" thing or human-dragon breeding, because I blame that more on IS being unable to come up with a sensible biology than on Nowi's character.

[Dandy Druid]

I don't dislike her personality, but in comparison to other characters in Awakening, she definitely fails to grab my attention. Maybe I was unlucky, but all of the supports I've gotten with her all revolve around finding a playmate for "house", but then it gets creepy when the game becomes real. It feels morally wrong (because she looks and acts like a child) and it's just too darn rushed/forced. Some of her supports aren't bad at all, and she does gain a deeper understanding of how that person thinks. But you would think, with someone as much of a backstory as hers (slavery and all), she'd show more maturity at times.

I can't help but feel her whole characterization (and her design), are made to appeal to a certain demographic, and quite frankly, it doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. Her characterization is ok; it's not poorly done, but I don't find/see her appeal. The romance mechanic in Awakening hinders her character, IMO. She needs friends, not a husband.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

She's my least favorite FE character in terms of design. A half naked manakete in the multiple thousands is just gross to me. Even worse than Tharja's and Camilla's design.

As for her character she seems be joyful, but I can't say much about her supports.

 

[Azure Sen]

While she's far from being a candidate for my least favorite character in the series, I don't like Nowi. What few glimpses of maturity or depth she gets are drowned out in a flood of childish behavior, and honestly even those rare moments aren't that great outside of her support with Tharja, not helped by the writing around her being inconsistent as to how childish and naive she actually is on a support-to-support basis.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I like her a lot better than the other little girl manaketes in the series, because the game actually acknowledges that she's older and more experienced (even including references to her having romantic interests in the past), instead of being in this weird space where she's 1000 years old and acts 6 like the others. She has some pretty solid supports.

That said I still don't like the character concept of the centuries-old child character; it's kinda awkward at best and I'm not terribly comfortable getting her S supports even though objectively there's nothing wrong with them and they aren't actually exploitative. It's the optics of it.

So she's better than I expected but still not a favourite.

[Tactical Canadian]

I don't really hate or like Nowi, but I she's more of a positive than a negative more me in terms of character. Her childishness is grating at times, but then we have supports with her where she shows that she's much more mature than she lets on and that makes me like her more.  For me that adds another layer to her character. That her behaviour is actually just her trying to enjoy her life with her human friends as best as possible knowing full well they'll all die long before she does. 

Also I really enjoy her interactions with Tiki and Tharja. Her ability to change Tiki's outlook on living longer than her friends and her probably being one of the few characters that actually befriends Tharja are adorable.

All that said, it's ultimately her design that puts me off. The only possible reason I can think of for her choice in clothes is simply that she's naively unaware or she just doesn't care because she'll out live people so there's no reason to change. 

[DragonFlames]

I really like Nowi. She's hands down my favourite character in the franchise (next to Mia).
Weird outfit aside (I honest to whatever deity you believe in didn't even notice she was half naked until I saw her official art), I think her character is deeper than we are sometimes willing to give her credit for. She is childish, yes, but she uses that childishness to get closer to people, as evidenced by her prancing around camp getting people to play with her, since she's afraid of being alone or being left alone (as seen in her supports with Vaike) due to living for what may be an eternity. Other supports and other conversations show her as being quite mature and aware of how the world works (see her conversation with Tiki in Harvest Scramble or her support with Nah).
This is just my two cents and based on pure speculation from a guy who thinks he knows something about human psychology (but most likely doesn't), but I think she uses that childishness as some kind of coping mechanism to deal with the fact that her friends / loved ones will leave her sooner rather than later, like a mask in order to get rid of an otherwise unbearable pain.

AlsoshewasmyfirstwifeinAwakeningsothatmakesherautomaticallyandobjectivelythebestandallwhodon'tlikeherarewrongandstuff *throws tantrum*
^the above, crossed out line is a joke in case that wasn't clear

Edited January 3, 2018 by DragonFlames

[TheSilentChloey]

Tbvh...

 

Nowi is kind of good in some supports and then kind of bad in others.  Her support with Ricken is as far as I know half decent but could be better and Gregor's support conversation with her is one of her best I believe.  It was a surprise when I supported her with Tharja to get one of the best Nowi and Thraja supports (although it might have been better without Robin being mentioned).  I have of course yet to complete Nowi's support log so I will need more criteria to work with.  So she's kind yeah but kind of nah...(there is a pun I could use but I won't)

[Shoblongoo]

Love her as a character. Its just so over-the-top how much they oversexualized her design to appeal to the Otaku market.

You can't help but compare her art to Myrrh and Fae and the original Tiki and be like--really???

Her S-Support with Vaike is one of my favorite supports in the entire game and puts the Vaike/Nowi pairing solidly at the top of my head-canon. Quality writing there.
I love it because it actually addresses the fact that in the blink-of-an-eye to a Manakete--whatever relationship they can ever-so-briefly have--Vaike  is going to grow old and die.

...Vaike, in his time, will live to a ripe old age and live out the entirety of his life with a loving wife.

...Nowi, on the other hand, is going to watch the man she loves go from being a vibrant youth to a feeble old man and then bury him in what to her is going to feel like the length of a summer fling. Then live for thousands of years with the loss. Appreciating this and the sadness it will bring, she still chooses to take him as her husband.

And Vaike-bless his heart--he makes a promise they both know with 100% certainty he can never keep. She accepts it knowing that its meaningless (hes is going to leave her and she will be alone; he can't grow old with her. He's a human. He's going to die.)  Because it comes from him.

 The way they approach that whole subject-matter is so impressive. (and I don't think its approached that way in any of her other pairings--which makes those pairings feel hollow by comparison, because you know that's going to be an issue with everyone of them. But Vaike is the only one where that knowledge of how its inevitably going to end moves her to tears)

And it really does merit to both of them as developed characters. 

Edited January 18, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Simon the Digger]

I'm not a psychologist, nor do I deeply analyze characters.

But..I liked her, I thought she was an interesting manakete. Although, I do like Myrrh more..

[Jotari]

I must confess I find her pretty endearing. Though I do have a bit of a bias for all things dragon (her scramble convo with Tiki should have been a support! It's fantastic). Then again, I probably do find her more interesting than Fae or Myrrh (although those two fit into the story just a bit better than Nowi. Her role in the world, which should be important, is basically nonexistent).

Edited May 2, 2018 by Jotari

[Soleater]

Honestly?  I may be just reading too hard into things, but if it's there, I love the subtly of Nowi's character as a whole - acts like a child, acts ignorant, but seems to understand the gravity of her situation - she's going to outlive everyone in the army.  Her family is dead, and she's probably going to end up all alone someday, but she tries to keep a happy, blissful visage because she values the happiness of those around her more than her own.  She's just MMMMMMMMMMMM really good

Edited May 1, 2018 by Soleater

[Eurydice]

She's a cute character but her outfit is just.....no. She's dressed quite sexual for somebody who looks and acts like a child. Apart from that, she's fine.

Edited May 2, 2018 by Eurydice