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Why do people hate flirty characters?


Corrobin
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It feels like everyone has been down on the flirty characters in FE for a while. Yeah, people have been praising Sylvain for being well-written and having understandable motives and breaking the mold, but it felt like everyone hated Virion, Inigo/Laslow, Sain, and even Saul at times. And while Sylvain may have been praised for being great, much less praise has been leveled at Lorenz (the Three Houses one, not the Archenea one). The only flirts who have gotten praise besides Sylvain was Gatrie (for being effective comedic relief and a good 'wise guy' to Shinon's 'straight man'), Jesse (for having the flirtiness be ancillary to his other roles), and arguably Leon (at least for having an interesting twist in that he flirts with Kamui primarily to troll him and is dead set on Valbar even as he realizes that Val isn't going to recognize him, as well as having a partner before him).

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It's a case by case thing but I'd say the main issue with the archetype is respecting people's boundaries and not being a creep. Look at the interactions between Soleil and Ophelia if you want to see how bad that can be. Flirty-ness can be an amusing character trait if it's not all encompassing of their personality and it doesn't lead to them causing discomfort for others.

Edited by NekoKnight
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I didn't like Inigo because his charcater of acting like a flirt to raise peoples spirits and help him get through the times when Grima was ruling the world before the time portals, is baffling and doesn't make any sense to me. Why would flirting with others and acting nonchalantly raise their spirits?...it would most likely just annoy them when in a war or an apocalypse, as while positivity would be appreciated, there's otherways to go about this than flirting with people and trying too hard to seem "cool".

He just was really annoying imo and I have no idea why so many people liked him...ah well, at least he's gone now and we have sylvain who's character is a bit more interesting due to his whole hatred of crests, his past with felix, ingrid and dimitri, etc...

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I'm not sure this is an entirely correct assumption, as Fire Emblem Fan poined out.

However, I personally can't stand Sain, Gatrie or Soleil because their flirty behavior is all-encompassing; they're hardly people and have nothing outside of that one trait. Sain physically lunges at women, Gatrie chants to himself that someone "will be his", and Soleil sends Ophelia crying due to consistent stalker behavior. They're creepy people and uninteresting characters.

On the other hand, I quite like someone trying to flirt a bit if they've got a personality outside of it. A bunch of people in their low to mid twenties living and fighting together and they all look like super models? I'm pretty sure there'd be some tension there.

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i generally love flirty characters (except virion), especially when they actually succeed in what they do: if they don't, they tend to be mere comic reliefs, or walking stereotypes, instead of actual characters

i think it just comes down to personal interpretation or feeling after all

Edited by Yexin
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6 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

It's a case by case thing but I'd say the main issue with the archetype is respecting people's boundaries and not being a creep. Look at the interactions between Soleil and Ophelia if you want to see how bad that can be. Flirty-ness can be an amusing character trait if it's not all encompassing of their personality and it doesn't lead to them causing discomfort for others.

This. 

Also, the flirty-ness is usually played for laughs, but I find that flirty-ness jokes can get stale very quickly (and sometimes even be very tone-deaf) and wear out their welcome. For example, I really disliked Virion's introduction in Awakening because it basically amounted to him flirting with Sully a lot during what was essentially a zombie attack, and he just wouldn't stop. I understand the attempt at levity, but it was very tone-deaf and it got grating. There's a reason that Gatrie's flirting is only a part of his story dialogue, and that it's normally saved for less high-stakes moments. 

Similarly, while some jokes about Sylvain's behaviour can be funny (namely Ingrid publicly revealing his more ridiculous antics in their c-support), when you actually think about a lot of it, it's not funny. For instance, in that very same support conversation, Sylvain tries to defend flirting with Ingrid's grandmother by saying he was just eight years old at the time. He was eight years old, and already womanizing. That is unsettling behaviour for someone of that age, and strongly suggests that even back then he really needed therapy. In another case, he talks about how one of his girlfriends understandably got mad at him for cheating on her, and his defense is that she wasn't mad about it when she didn't know about it. I laugh at the leap in logic, but I cringe at his behaviour. 

As a redhead, it upsets me that, of the only two redheads in Three Houses, one of them is a misogynistic pig, and the other is actually a sadistic creep in a disguise. Are they saying something about redheads? Eh; maybe I'm reading too much into it. 

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5 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

As a redhead, it upsets me that, of the only two redheads in Three Houses, one of them is a misogynistic pig, and the other is actually a sadistic creep in a disguise. Are they saying something about redheads? Eh; maybe I'm reading too much into it. 

To be fair, we have Ferdinand Von Aegir and Leonie to represent us and they're more natural "redheads".

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7 hours ago, Dinar87 said:

 

I didn't like Inigo because his charcater of acting like a flirt to raise peoples spirits and help him get through the times when Grima was ruling the world before the time portals, is baffling and doesn't make any sense to me. Why would flirting with others and acting nonchalantly raise their spirits?...it would most likely just annoy them when in a war or an apocalypse, as while positivity would be appreciated, there's otherways to go about this than flirting with people and trying too hard to seem "cool".

 

You seem to somewhat misunderstanding his character. Inigo’s flirtatious attitude is not a way to cope with tragedy no the way he copes with tragedy is to always wear a smile even in the darkest of times. His flirting on the other hand is more a coping mechanism for his crippling shyness. Do these two traits intersect at times? Yeah certainly but they’re not interchangeable with each other.

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16 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

To be fair, we have Ferdinand Von Aegir and Leonie to represent us and they're more natural "redheads".

 Oh yeah; true. But then you'll find a lot of people say, "That's not really red hair though; that's orange". Then again, people have actually said that about my hair, and it got annoying after they still did it even after I corrected them. 

Anyway; what did you think of my other points?

Edited by vanguard333
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6 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

 Oh yeah; true. But then you'll find a lot of people say, "That's not really red hair though; that's orange". Then again, people have actually said that about my hair, and it got annoying after they still did it even after I corrected them. 

Anyway; what did you think of my other points?

Are you trying to be offended now? 🤔 Regardless I agree that I don't actually have that high of an opinion of Stlvain because of his backstory and greater character depth. He's much better written no doubt but he's also the sort of person I really don't care for, especially the self pitying and victimization aspect when he himself acts as a predator on people far below him in power.

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23 minutes ago, CyberNinja said:

Are you trying to be offended now? 🤔 Regardless I agree that I don't actually have that high of an opinion of Stlvain because of his backstory and greater character depth. He's much better written no doubt but he's also the sort of person I really don't care for, especially the self pitying and victimization aspect when he himself acts as a predator on people far below him in power.

No; I was just bringing up something funny that happened to me years ago. In retrospect, I realize I didn't phrase the story very well. 

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