Was it ever explained why Claude fake smiles?

[Sooks]

So I was thinking about how, on my opinion, the handling of Claude’s character was fairly bad, and then I remembered his set up description at the very beginning of the game, “His easy smile is striking... but that smile doesn’t reach his eyes...” and tHeN I remembered that Hilda says that Claude rarely genuinely smiles in their A support. But why? Was an answer ever given to this, or was this just something the writers never did anything with?

[Anathaco]

It’s just part of his character- he doesn’t trust anybody so he keeps his guard up constantly, never being genuine in order to hide his true self. Hilda’s comment that Byleth is the only person he genuinely smiles around is because Byleth is the one person whom he truly trusts. The rest of them, it takes a while for him to open up to because it takes him so long for him to learn that trust is a natural precedent to the world he wants to build, and actually give a little of it in return.

(this is how I interpreted it, anyway, but yeah tl;dr Claude has trust issues so hides himself behind a mask)

[Sooks]

1 hour ago, Anathaco said:

(this is how I interpreted it, anyway, but yeah tl;dr Claude has trust issues so hides himself behind a mask)

But this is just guessing? They really never did anything with that?

[Dark Holy Elf]

Claude is rather sneaky and untrusting, and he's incredibly charming, the fake smile is part of that. I'd argue they actually do a fair bit with this; in VW, he manages to paint himself as this nice guy coming in to save Fodlan from war but if you actually think about what he does (bring in a foreign army to put someone friendly to him on the throne of Fodlan with the goal of uniting it with Almyra) it can come across as rather sinister, so a good face helps! See how he also recruits the Knights of Seiros to his cause despite having a secret dislike of their religion.

Claude is at least mildly sociopathic, and I find that very interesting and unusual for a lord character in these games. I don't think I'd want to be friends with him myself, but he's a great character.

[Jotari]

It's because he's a complete fake, in the sort of fake ass bitch way. He's smiling nice and being friendly in a political way instead of an earnest way.

[Crysta]

If they explained every character trait in great, explicit detail it kind of defeats the purpose of character development (or... revelation?). I think we can deduce why most people fake smile and apply the same explanation to why Claude does it.

Edited November 2, 2020 by Crysta

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Not every man will look at you the way Lorenz does. Because not all men are Lorenz.

[DriftingWaterBottle]

I agree with previous commenters that the fake smile is to show that Claude is always putting up a friendly facade. Because of his biracial background, he's mistrusted in both sides of the mountain, which makes him feel very lonely despite the lack of physical isolation. In return he also doesn't trust anyone at the beginning of the game, since he'd never experienced being trusted himself.

A friendly exterior helps with his self-preservation and later to manipulate others to advance his own ambition. As a result, he's also very conscious of the importance of one's image, which is reflected in his strategic thinking, like rallying around Byleth and the Church instead of himself and Leicester, bringing Almyran forces as a reinforcement to improve their reputation, or capitalising on Edelgard's war to boost his own influence in Fodlan despite him understanding that they share a similar goal. 

As for why his fake smile is noted in the prologue, I think it's to remind players of his friendly mask, as well as to foreshadow his arc of gradually placing his trust first on Byleth then on others. Kind of similar with Edelgard's "constantly evaluating" Byleth to foreshadow her later opening up to Byleth with her secrets/ambitions and reaching out to them as an ally, as well as Dimitri's "something dark underneath" for his descent in madness in the story.

As for why Hilda noted it in their support, I think it's because Hilda is one of the most emotionally astute characters in the game, so she can look through his pretence. This can also be contrasted with the absence of other characters noticing his fake smile, to show that he's really good at his party guy persona and most people would genuinely think he's friendly, unless they have specific reasons to suspect his motive like Lorenz. 

Edited November 3, 2020 by DriftingWaterBottle