Did you spot any Classic Fire Emblem tropes in Three Houses?

[KelluPato]

Which characters were inspired by classic Fire Emblem character or unit tropes?  Personally, Mercedes, Ingrid, and Annette of the Blue Lion House remind me of the dynamic of the Whitewing sisters.  I’ve also seen parallels between Felix and the Navarre archetype, even though he doesn’t fit some criteria.  There’s also Sylvain and literally every womanizer character ever in Fire Emblem...but I’m glad Intelligent Systems put a spin on that trope to make Sylvain unique.

[Boomhauer007]

It's not a fire emblem game until one or both of your parents die.

[StormyAngel]

Naturally,

Spoiler

the protagonist is secretly the reincarnation of an ancient divine dragon.

And of course the aggressor in the war is always

Spoiler

the vast Empire.

 

[SigurdVII]

The entire game is basically a beautiful love letter to Genealogy of the Holy War. Can't get much better than that.

[NinjaMonkey]

55 minutes ago, SigurdVII said:

The entire game is basically a beautiful love letter to Genealogy of the Holy War. Can't get much better than that.

So where's the giant barbeque and the two generations in Three Houses, then? Also, the crests are nothing like the Holy Blood of FE4.

Edited September 19, 2019 by NinjaMonkey

[Cysx]

I like seeing Lorenz and Ferdinand's genuine bromance as a nod to the christmas knights of old considering they're both canonically Cavaliers, even though the colors themselves aren't here.

[Ertrick36]

Shamir and Catherine are basically the Christmas knights - Abel and Cain.  It's not the most readily apparent thing, but if you reclass them you'll find that Shamir's primary outfit color is green and Catherine's color schemes usually contain red in some form.  Shamir's the cool, reserved one while Catherine's the hot-headed, talkative one.

Felix is pretty much your typical anti-social swordfighter who cares only about fighting.  Except deep down he's actually a softie who cares too much about all of his friends, but became jaded when he saw one of his closest friends kill his enemies without remorse.

There are no Jeigans, but instead two characters who start off generally more powerful than the others - the protagonist and the character who brought them along on the journey.  That is a trait shared by Gaiden/Shadows of Valentia, a la Alm and Lukas, and somewhat by Genealogy through Sigurd.

There is an obviously evil organization that works under the shadows that is responsible for basically every terrible thing that happened, including the ancient first conflict.

From more recent games, you have that "aptitude villager" character in the form of villager, who has continued that tradition of waning power.  Strangely, this waning phenomenon has also resulted in their join times being easier to deal with.  Donnel is probably the most potentially powerful villager, but it's so difficult for him to level even once in his paralogue that I figure a number of people failed to do so and thus failed to recruit him.  Mozu is likely middle ground, not being particularly overpowering but being able to fulfill a desired niche as one of the only potential archers with great growths all around, and her recruitment's a bit of a pain to deal with, but not as much.  Cyril is the most underwhelming of the trio, but he's easily the most usable right at start because he auto-levels based on your progress and has no requirements to join apart from your protagonist having a certain number of levels.

There is a trio of female characters who specialize in flying and, as female characters, can acquire the Triangle Attack.  They are: Petra, Ingrid, and Marianne.  Admittedly only Ingrid is the one that truly specializes in becoming a pegasus knight, but Marianne has the makings to become one and Petra is easily enough trained to become one as well.

There is so much Genealogy in this game, I don't think I want to go down the list of ways this game is similar to that one.

There are dragons in this game.  Also

Spoiler

the big deity worshipped by the masses is represented by one of the characters, and that character is you.  By extension this means your protagonist is similar to both Tiki and Marth, as the former is basically Naga reincarnate while the latter represents the will of Naga via his bearing of Falchion and the Shield of Flames.

Oh, and how could anyone forget this, but there is a Fire Emblem in this game.  It's

Spoiler

literally attached to the protagonist's heart, and basically gives them all their great powers, including the power of deus ex machina-ing their way out of a practically unbeatable situation.

 

3 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

So where's the giant barbeque and the two generations in Three Houses, then?

Spoiler

The start of the war, instigated by the most Alvis-like character in the game.

Admittedly a less... life-taking BBQ, but it still kicks off the main conflict for the next segment of the game.

 

[CyberNinja]

49 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

Spoiler

Admittedly a less... life-taking BBQ, but it still kicks off the main conflict for the next segment of the game.

 

Eh, all deaths (if players didn't just reset/divine pulse) don't actually happen when the unit dies, they canonically die a horrific death when Edelgard storms the monastery. So play Silver Snow, recruit all the Blue Lions, church troops, and Golden Deer, then have them all killed before the chapter "To War." They'll still be around in the Monastery and they'll show up in the Epilogue having died a horrific death to the Flame Emperor.

[dragontamer]

1 hour ago, Ertrick36 said:

From more recent games, you have that "aptitude villager" character in the form of villager, who has continued that tradition of waning power.  Strangely, this waning phenomenon has also resulted in their join times being easier to deal with.  Donnel is probably the most potentially powerful villager, but it's so difficult for him to level even once in his paralogue that I figure a number of people failed to do so and thus failed to recruit him.  Mozu is likely middle ground, not being particularly overpowering but being able to fulfill a desired niche as one of the only potential archers with great growths all around, and her recruitment's a bit of a pain to deal with, but not as much.  Cyril is the most underwhelming of the trio, but he's easily the most usable right at start because he auto-levels based on your progress and has no requirements to join apart from your protagonist having a certain number of levels.

 

Fire Emblem almost always has a "trainee", a young member of the cast (almost always an orphan) who joins late with low level, but has above-average growths.

 

FE7 is the earliest that I've played... so we've got...

 

FE7: Nino

FE8: Ross / Amelia / Ewan -- The original trainee three. The only characters in the game with 2-promotions. Everyone else only promoted once.

FE9: Sothe ("Blossom" is effectively Aptitude). Can't class-up however.

FE10: ... Sothe still has Blossom ... but he's the Jeigan. Kinda funny. Arguably the Dawn Brigade are all trainees, having 2x promotions (while Ike's Mercenaries only 1x promote). But Sothe is the only one with Blossom and (theoretically) a bonus to stats.

FE11: I skipped

Donnel, Mozu, and now Cyril joins the party.

Edited September 19, 2019 by dragontamer

[Dandy Druid]

4 minutes ago, dragontamer said:

 

Fire Emblem almost always has a "trainee", a young member of the cast (almost always an orphan) who joins late with low level, but has above-average growths.

 

FE7 is the earliest that I've played... so we've got...

 

FE7: Nino

FE8: Ross / Amelia / Ewan

FE9: Sothe (Aptitude), but can't class up for some reason.

FE10: ... Sothe ... but he's the Jeigan. Kinda funny.

FE11: I skipped

Donnel, Mozu, and now Cyril joins the party.

The archetype you're thinking of is the "Est". I'll add to your list:

FE1/3/11/12: Est

FE2/15: Atlas & Est

FE4 Gen 1: Tailtiu

FE4 Gen 2: Coirpre (Coirpre is the true Est of the game though)

FE5: Miranda & Sara

FE6: Zeiss (Sophia is listed as an Est also, but her growths aren't good enough to be considered an Est, imo.)

FE10: It's actually Pelleas. He's a bit of a weird Est because he's only available on a New Game + IIRC

 

[dragontamer]

Thanks for the info on Est.

 

2 minutes ago, Dandy Druid said:

FE10: It's actually Pelleas. He's a bit of a weird Est because he's only available on a New Game + IIRC

 

 

Actually, now that I think of it, Kurthnaga joins really late at a relatively low level. Could Kurthnaga be considered an Est? Laguz kind of sucked in that game, but Kurthnaga does become Noble / King status and ignores the transformation rules by endgame.

[Ertrick36]

17 minutes ago, dragontamer said:

Fire Emblem almost always has a "trainee", a young member of the cast (almost always an orphan) who joins late with low level, but has above-average growths.

Nah, I specifically mentioned those three because the other characters you listed (aside from the FE8 ones) all show up quite a bit later.

In my mind, the three I listed aren't of the same category because join time makes up a substantial difference.  Those that join late at low levels are "Ests".  The reason it's a substantial difference is that those like Donnel or Mozu don't need nearly as much investment to be good - they, at worst, just need to be fed a few kills.  With Ests, you need to either feed them nearly impossible kills or grind, either in the arena or on a boss.

Heck, even in FE8, the only early-comer "trainee" is Ross.  Amelia comes after the path split - by which point you'd probably have fully formed the team you wish to use - and Ewan comes just before the paths' joining point, which by that point is just outright ridiculous.

[KelluPato]

4 hours ago, NinjaMonkey said:

So where's the giant barbeque and the two generations in Three Houses, then? Also, the crests are nothing like the Holy Blood of FE4.

The giant barbecue could be the battle of Gronder part 2 ngl

[Timlugia]

8 hours ago, StormyAngel said:

Naturally,

  Hide contents

the protagonist is secretly the reincarnation of an ancient divine dragon.

 

 

Are there any other Fire Emblem using this plot? Corrin was probably the closest but not as reincarnation 

[Ertrick36]

7 minutes ago, Timlugia said:

Are there any other Fire Emblem using this plot? Corrin was probably the closest but not as reincarnation 

Well... kinda.

Tiki and Nagi are reincarnations of Naga.  Not protagonists, but still.

Aside from that, there are no proper reincarnations of dragons, but there are sort of reincarnations of old heroes and stories.  Most notably there's Marth, who is basically Anri reincarnated, both through his journey along what would become known as Anri's Way and through his defeating of Medeus.

Spoiler

As far as I know, Byleth is the first of their kind.  I'd say Corrin probably is the closest to what Byleth is, and that's only because both humans and dragons were involved with their conceptions.

 

[dragontamer]

41 minutes ago, Timlugia said:

Are there any other Fire Emblem using this plot? Corrin was probably the closest but not as reincarnation 

Awakening. Evil-Robin is crafted to be the avatar of an evil dragon-god / Grima. Good Robin manages to hold on to his/her own sanity, but evil-Robin is definitely dragon-touched.

[StormyAngel]

2 hours ago, Timlugia said:

Are there any other Fire Emblem using this plot? Corrin was probably the closest but not as reincarnation 

Basically,

1 hour ago, dragontamer said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Awakening. Evil-Robin is crafted to be the avatar of an evil dragon-god / Grima. Good Robin manages to hold on to his/her own sanity, but evil-Robin is definitely dragon-touched.

 

This. If you exclude Echoes for being a remake, then the last 3 Fire Emblem games have all involved the protagonist secretly

Spoiler

being some kind of dragon.

Yes it's a different kind each time, but at this point I felt like an idiot for not expecting it.

[Garlyle]

You mean like how much Jeralt reminds us of Greil? You know, your father who's a leader of a mercenary gang kind of thing...

There's also Kostas, who's clearly the earliest boss brigand unit, that existed in every Fire Emblem game I believe.

Flayn is like one of those healers who also got kidnapped and had to be rescued - hmmm, where does it sound familiar?

Raphael and Ignatz to me is like Draug and Gordin back in the days.

Petra is the female myrmidon archetype, like Ayra/Mareeta/Fir/Lyn/Marisa/Mia/you name it! I think her personal skill also supports that.

And of course we all thought Hilda is like Serra, although she wouldn't be a good mage unit.

[KelluPato]

6 hours ago, Garlyle said:

You mean like how much Jeralt reminds us of Greil? You know, your father who's a leader of a mercenary gang kind of thing...

There's also Kostas, who's clearly the earliest boss brigand unit, that existed in every Fire Emblem game I believe.

Flayn is like one of those healers who also got kidnapped and had to be rescued - hmmm, where does it sound familiar?

Raphael and Ignatz to me is like Draug and Gordin back in the days.

Petra is the female myrmidon archetype, like Ayra/Mareeta/Fir/Lyn/Marisa/Mia/you name it! I think her personal skill also supports that.

And of course we all thought Hilda is like Serra, although she wouldn't be a good mage unit.

Also she’s a younger sister character... sounds like the Maria of this game to me

[Dark Kain]

19 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

Shamir and Catherine are basically the Christmas knights - Abel and Cain.  It's not the most readily apparent thing, but if you reclass them you'll find that Shamir's primary outfit color is green and Catherine's color schemes usually contain red in some form.  Shamir's the cool, reserved one while Catherine's the hot-headed, talkative one.

[...]

There are no Jeigans, but instead two characters who start off generally more powerful than the others - the protagonist and the character who brought them along on the journey.  That is a trait shared by Gaiden/Shadows of Valentia, a la Alm and Lukas, and somewhat by Genealogy through Sigurd.

I think that Shamir and Catherine are also supposed to fit in the Jeigan archetype.
While they are definitely late recruit by this game standard, they are advanced class characters (paladin-tier) that became recuitable around the time your other characters should promote to intermediate class (cavalier-tier).

They also start with Jeigans' trademark A-level weapon skill in their own speciality granting them the ability to equip silver weapons before anybody else, and you also obtain an early silver weapon for one of the two with their own monastery quest shortly after you could recruit both (given the amount of FE4 homages, seems a play on Sigurd not starting with a silver weapon, but getting it from Arvis).

Edited September 20, 2019 by Dark Kain

[Ertrick36]

11 hours ago, dragontamer said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Awakening. Evil-Robin is crafted to be the avatar of an evil dragon-god / Grima. Good Robin manages to hold on to his/her own sanity, but evil-Robin is definitely dragon-touched.

 

Spoiler

They did say divine dragon.

Makes Robin's role in the world a little different from Byleth.  Byleth doesn't feel oddly compelled to deliberately help the villains, nor do they ever become a dragon that tries to destroy the world.  The realization of what Byleth is also doesn't cause anyone to confront them in the way Lucina confronted Robin.

At best, I'd say Byleth is the "divine" version of Robin, but I feel like that misrepresents what the deal actually is with Byleth and Sothis.

 

24 minutes ago, KelluPato said:

Also she’s a younger sister character... sounds like the Maria of this game to me

Character wise, of the little sister archetypes in the series she reminds me more of Est.

If there's anyone who reminds me of Maria, it's Flayn.  Which makes sense, since Seteth is a wyvern rider.

Spoiler

Yes, I know they're actually father and daughter, but there's still that guardian watching over a delicate maiden aspect.

 

2 minutes ago, Dark Kain said:

I think that Shamir and Catherine are also supposed to fit in the Jeigan archetype.
While they are definitely late recruit by this game standard, they are advanced class characters (paladin-tier) that became recuitable around the time your other characters should promote to intermediate class (cavalier-tier).

They also start with Jeigan trademarks A-level weapon skill in their own speciality granting them the ability to equip silver weapons before anybody else, and you also obtain an early silver weapon for one of the two with their own monastery quest just a month after you could recruit both (given the amount of FE4 homages, seems a play on Sigurd not starting with a silver weapon, but getting it from Arvis).

The reason I sometimes dislike these discussions is because every archetype has different interpretations for what they're supposed to actually be, and they serve to remind me of just how antiquated and useless these labels actually are.

To me, a "Jeigan" is a strong character you get at the start (or pretty damn near the beginning) that is meant to serve as a crutch for your weaker unit.  I don't think anyone considers Sirius to be a Jeigan, for instance, and unit-wise that's probably the character they're actually closest to - a character that joins a bit later on, but is super strong throughout the story.

The problem I find with this notion that they're Jeigans is I feel it's just made because they're pre-promoted units, and it seems to also assume that your party at the time of their joining is weak when in reality by the time you reach level 15 you likely have a pretty solid team (only in Maddening would you probably be struggling unless you're just not quite that good at the game yet).

The closest thing to a Jeigan in this game is Byleth, and maybe whichever house leader you roll with.  And I already said how I think they're more similar to Alm and Lukas.

[Dark Kain]

4 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

The reason I sometimes dislike these discussions is because every archetype has different interpretations for what they're supposed to actually be, and they serve to remind me of just how antiquated and useless these labels actually are.

To me, a "Jeigan" is a strong character you get at the start (or pretty damn near the beginning) that is meant to serve as a crutch for your weaker unit.  I don't think anyone considers Sirius to be a Jeigan, for instance, and unit-wise that's probably the character they're actually closest to - a character that joins a bit later on, but is super strong throughout the story.

The problem I find with this notion that they're Jeigans is I feel it's just made because they're pre-promoted units, and it seems to also assume that your party at the time of their joining is weak when in reality by the time you reach level 15 you likely have a pretty solid team (only in Maddening would you probably be struggling unless you're just not quite that good at the game yet).

The closest thing to a Jeigan in this game is Byleth, and maybe whichever house leader you roll with.  And I already said how I think they're more similar to Alm and Lukas.

Of course archetype characters are always a matter of definition, but variations on the classic theme are possible.
For example we are pretty much accepting the fact that The Cain and the Abel of the game aren't always cavaliers.

I agree that it's definitely unusual for a Jeigan character being an optional recruit and not join at the very beginning of the game, but that said they hit the other checkboxes.
They are the earliest Prepromotes in paladin-tier class, Manuela and Hanneman joins later and are one promotion tier lower than them.
They do work as crutch characters, after all you have them as early as the "rescue Flayn" chapter, they have plenty of value at that point.
They have the earliest and easiest acces to A rank weapon skill and the game incidentally toss you a free silver weapon of those weapon types.
They check even the military officier/mentor role for the rest of the cast, though this is pretty much true for most of the church characters.

[Chaotix]

I don't think this game has a Jeigan archetype.

If anyone was going to be the Jeigan, it's Jeralt, but he's not playable. He is, however, present in the first chapter to make things easier, and he is a Paladin. If Jeralt was ever planned to be playable, he was the Jeigan.

The red and green cavaliers are something I had been trying to figure out for a while but couldn't come to a conclusion on. On the surface, Sylvain seems to fit the Cain archetype well. But that leaves as his potential 'Abel'... Felix or Ingrid? Ingrid could work in terms of personality, but her "canon" class being Pegasus Knight kind of hurts the theory.

I think the nature of the game requiring three sets of characters, with each group capable of being a self-contained cast, meant they had to abandon most of the archetypes common in previous games. And I'm okay with that!

[Timlugia]

On 9/19/2019 at 12:35 PM, CyberNinja said:

Eh, all deaths (if players didn't just reset/divine pulse) don't actually happen when the unit dies, they canonically die a horrific death when Edelgard storms the monastery. So play Silver Snow, recruit all the Blue Lions, church troops, and Golden Deer, then have them all killed before the chapter "To War." They'll still be around in the Monastery and they'll show up in the Epilogue having died a horrific death to the Flame Emperor.

That reminds me there should be a section on FEwiki character ending for death text

Many previous games only had "X died in chapter 12", but this game actually have story text for each fallen student. I have seen Catherine one was captured by empire during 5 year skip and executed.

 

Flayn also shared some Tiki troupe: 1000+ years old loli dragon who spent many years in sleeping, her worst fear being losing her mortal friends after she went to sleep again.

And hopefully not offending anyone, but

Spoiler

Fire Emblem isn't Fire Emblem without at least one incest ending and this game has Greek mythology level of of such ending😉

 

Edited September 20, 2019 by Timlugia

[FoxyGrandpa]

I feel stupid for not realizing that Flayn and Seteth are the Maria and Minerva of this game, but everything checks out. Flayn is the younger, yet cheery healer while Seteth is the older and more stern Wyvern Rider.

Pre-timeskip, I think Solon is the Gharnef archetype since he manipulated several events during part 1. In part 2 the Gharnef archetype is definitely Thales. 

Cornelia seems fairly similar to a few past FE characters, but its hard to say who she's truly like. She reminds me of Excellus and Nuibaba, but I think she's the most similar to Desaix since she sold out her own kingdom for power and killed Rufus. 

Gilbert seems like the Jagen Archetype in part two since he serves as an advisor for Dimitri and is a veteran knight in service to the Kingdom like Jagen. 

Lysithea is definitely part of the Linde Archetype since she's a powerful and young mage who is exceptionally talented at magic. Annette seems more like the Merric Archetype since she excels in wind Magic and is a very dilligent learner.

Hubert reminds me of Astram, Edligan, and Xander since he chases you in a few chapters in part 2 and is dedicated to fulfilling his lieges orders. I'm not sure if he is exactly part of the Camus archetype however. Death Knight also reminds me of Astram since he does the same in part 1.

Rhea seems to be the Nyna archetype. In part 1, she's the one giving you most of the orders like Nyna did in FE1. In part 2, she is out of commission and captured by the Empire, like Nyna in FE3.

I think Dimitri is the traditional Marth archetype while Claude is more like Alm and Lyn. Dimitri grew up as royalty while Claude grows up in a lower class environment and lived most of his life not knowing that he was noble.

Edited September 20, 2019 by FoxyGrandpa