Characters with facial hair.

[FailWood]

After how underrepresented they've been across the series, I'd say Three Houses made a step in the right direction with Hanneman, Alois, and Post Timeskip Claude.  But do you think characters with facial hair should be playable more commonly in the future?

[Armchair General]

But why, though?

 

Granted, Hanneman's mustache suits him.

[Etrurian emperor]

Yes. They should be more commonly included into the cast. Every age group should get proper representation.

That the 3ds era focused almost exclusively on very young adults, teenagers and children was to its detriment because it automatically leaves less room certain roles. It becomes much harder to include grizzled veterans or power couples. And for the younger characters I think it would be a welcome sign of variety if young adults get facial hair like Claude did. 

[FailWood]

58 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

But why, though?

Why not, man?

This topic is coming from the perspective of a man nearing 27 years of age, whose had a mustache/beard combo for about 6 years now.  I think more variety would be nice, that's all.

[ciphertul]

I'm still waiting on a marriable Milf/Widow but more mustachioed men are always welcome

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

How about a character with mutton chops? I don't think that's something we've seen yet. But yeah, I'd be game for more characters with formidable facial hair. Give us playable Cervantes, dammit!

6 hours ago, ciphertul said:

I'm still waiting on a marriable Milf/Widow but more mustachioed men are always welcome

There are remarkably few playable mothers in the series*. There's Niime, Eyvel (I think?), Calill, and I guess some of Genealogy's Gen I counts because they become moms. I can't really think of any more. The big * is the 3DS characters who can become mothers. I don't really count them, because they aren't "mom-aged", and their relationships with their kids are messed up by timeline/deeprealm shenanigans. 

[Acacia Sgt]

3 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

There are remarkably few playable mothers in the series*. There's Niime, Eyvel (I think?), Calill, and I guess some of Genealogy's Gen I counts because they become moms. I can't really think of any more. The big * is the 3DS characters who can become mothers. I don't really count them, because they aren't "mom-aged", and their relationships with their kids are messed up by timeline/deeprealm shenanigans. 

Eyvel counts both ways. By adoption via Mareeta, and biologically since she's actually Briggid, thus mother of Fevail and Patty.

There's also Juno, even if she just recently became one during Binding Blade's events. But definitely one by the time we recruit her.

[ciphertul]

5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

There are remarkably few playable mothers in the series*. There's Niime, Eyvel (I think?), Calill, and I guess some of Genealogy's Gen I counts because they become moms. I can't really think of any more. The big * is the 3DS characters who can become mothers. I don't really count them, because they aren't "mom-aged", and their relationships with their kids are messed up by timeline/deeprealm shenanigans. 

But none of them fall into that category, I don’t mean women who become mothers. The closest thing would be if RD remake has a Avatar and Almedha was romancable.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

7 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Eyvel counts both ways. By adoption via Mareeta, and biologically since she's actually Briggid, thus mother of Fevail and Patty.

Good catch. I wasn't sure if Patty and Faval being born was canon to Thracia 776. Since, in Genealogy, it's possible to make it through Gen I without her being paired up.

2 hours ago, ciphertul said:

But none of them fall into that category, I don’t mean women who become mothers. The closest thing would be if RD remake has a Avatar and Almedha was romancable.

I was gonna say "Calill should count too", until I remembered that Largo exists. The game is already so cruel to him, I don't want it to take his wife as well.

[ciphertul]

3 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I was gonna say "Calill should count too", until I remembered that Largo exists. The game is already so cruel to him, I don't want it to take his wife as well.

That is the catch, every living Mother character is either unplayable, or their husbands are still alive. There are more men with facial hair then playable widows/milfs. again not counting the technical mothers of the ds games

[FailWood]

How did this topic become more about mom characters?

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

7 minutes ago, FailWood said:

How did this topic become more about mom characters?

Good point - let's get back on track.

More playable moms with facial hair. If we're getting a female Gotoh, she'd better have a glorious beard. And why should Oifey be the only Jeigan with a mustache? Why not Titania?

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

8 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

The big * is the 3DS characters who can become mothers. I don't really count them, because they aren't "mom-aged", and their relationships with their kids are messed up by timeline/deeprealm shenanigans.

Reina?

9 minutes ago, FailWood said:

How did this topic become more about mom characters?

What about the old men of the FE´s? Gotoh, Lorenz, I think in chapter 13 you get... is he called Boah? Also Frey, if you do Easy mode. Xane, if you copy a beardy guy lmao. Gangrel and Basilio have Beards too, no? Also the old lads from Echoes and Saber?

[FailWood]

29 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

More playable moms with facial hair. If we're getting a female Gotoh, she'd better have a glorious beard. And why should Oifey be the only Jeigan with a mustache? Why not Titania?

I had a feeling this topic would devolve into this, as much as I'd rather it not.

[Eltosian Kadath]

I think the original poster has been focusing far too much on the 3ds era, as there are quite a few playable characters with facial hair throughout the series history, as such I will go through the playable casts (ignoring trial map and creature campaign only characters) of every game looking for facial hair.

 

Looking back at the first game Jagen, Hardin, and Boah are all sporting 'staches; Lorenz and Gotoh both have full beards w/ mustaches.

 

Gaiden only has two, with Mycen rocking his mustache, and Nomah having the full beard and 'stache combo.

 

Mystery is a bad time for facial hair, as Jagen got shaved, and Gotoh becomes an NPC, and all of the facial hair army is culled from Book 2. At least in Book 1 Hardin, and Boah have staches, while Lorenz has a beard and mustache.

 

Genealogy continues the terrible trend of Mystery with facial hair only existing in one of the generations, as Oifeye is the only with just the 'stache, and Hannibal the only one with full beard and 'stache.

 

Thracia has both Dagdar and Xavier in the full beard and mustache, with Conomore as the resident mustache only unit.

 

The end of Kaga bring us a change by adding the first playable beard only character in Marcus. As for the old just mustache and mustache-beard combo, Merlinus, Bartre, and Dayan have just mustaches, while Douglas is the only combo

 

The first game to reach the west had one facial hair PC in each of the categories, with Marcus still a beard only man, Merlinus the only one in the 'stache only club, and Athos with the combination.

 

Sacred Stones had the stones to field a lot of facial hair, with Gilliam, Garcia, and Gerrick (plus Orson) all sporting some kind of beards, Moulder rocking a dashing 'stache, and both Dozla and Duessel killing it with differing combination beard and mustache looks.

 

Path of Radiance goes heavy on the beards, with Mordecai, Devdan, Ulki, and Largo all having differing styles of beards, but only Tauroneo goes with the 'stache solo, and finally Bastian, and the last minute Giffca as the only combo wielders.

 

Radiant Dawn expands the cast and facial hair power with it as Nolan, Bastian, Giffca, and Renning all have beards and mustaches; Tauroneo, and Oliver manage to rule the stache ; while the beard only corp grows to Nealuchi, Mordecai, Danved, Ulki, Skrimir, and Caineghis.

 

Returning to Archanea with the remake Shadow Dragon we unfortunately have the shaved Jagen of FE3, but the new units balance it out with a beard (possibly two if Ymir is supposed to have a soul patch, instead of all those marks being facial tattoos). To reiterate we have Hardin, and Boah are with 'staches; Frey with just a beard; plus Lorenz and Gotoh with full beards w/ mustaches.

 

New Mystery adding in the FEBS characters saved the cast from being clean shaven (plus Frey I guess). Dice managed to be the only mustache holder in the game, while Frey and Frost are sporting beards (with Ymir still in the maybe category), but no one had the boldness to combine the look in this game.

 

Awakening is where the facial hair really seems to vanish, although it may be for game balance reason, as the play would simply be too powerful with Cervantes's mustache at their side. Of the main cast Basilio has the only facial hair by sporting a beard, although with the spotpass paralogue characters added in Gangrel can add one to the beard count (although Walhart and Yen'fay both have armor covering where a beard might hide...)

 

Fates is the clean shaven game, as the only way playable characters with facial hair exist is if you count the capturable bosses with unique portraits, in which case there are but two beards, on Kumagera and Nichol. Admittedly its not impossible that Saizo and Ryoma are hiding facial hair under their canon accessories...

 

Echoes managed to add a beard thanks to Saber's redesign, so Mycen has the stache, Saber has the Beard, and Nomah dual wields.

 

Last but not least Three Houses, which ends up being fairly normal entry all things considered. We have Hanneman with both stache and beard (fun fact, they had to patch his beard back into his S rank illustration in 1.02), Alois has what I think I will call a mustache, and finally Seteth and post-time skip Claude have beards.

 

[FailWood]

7 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I think the original poster has been focusing far too much on the 3ds era

Mainly because I've only played the western released games (other then NES Shadow Dragon and Path of Radiance), and that my memory fails me at times.  And to be fair, the 3ds era was the most recent thing before Three Houses for me to think there was some kind of drought.

[Eden Agleam]

I do think it's weird at the lack of facial hair characters overall in the series. I don't feel like facial hair is something primarily older men can have. Claude was a nice change, but there could be more in both 3Hs and series-wide. 

[Topaz Light]

I mean, sure, I'd be down for more characters having facial hair. Fire Emblem has very large casts of playable characters alone; pretty much all avenues for potential aesthetic differentiation between characters should be considered open, in my opinion.

That said, I don't really want Fire Emblem characters to just start looking like regular real-life people or anything, but that's not really the question, haha

[Jotari]

They should give us Arab Emblem already, and make every male character in the cast bearded.

On 6/28/2021 at 9:19 PM, Etrurian emperor said:

Yes. They should be more commonly included into the cast. Every age group should get proper representation.

That the 3ds era focused almost exclusively on very young adults, teenagers and children was to its detriment because it automatically leaves less room certain roles. It becomes much harder to include grizzled veterans or power couples. And for the younger characters I think it would be a welcome sign of variety if young adults get facial hair like Claude did. 

To Awakening's credit, they compensated that hard by focusing all their facial energy into one singular character.

 

Edited July 1, 2021 by Jotari

[AnonymousSpeed]

I know I'm late to the party here, but recently I have begun leaving the hair that grows on my face on my face. With this came the realization that I am, in fact, a facial-hair haver, and this has left me feeling relatively isolated from the Fire Emblem cast in a way I previously was not. Very few characters still seem relatable to my and my sense of self when such a prominent lifestyle choice is so critically underrepresented. I think they should make an Awakening mod which adds (sub-Cervantes-tier) facial hair to many of the characters.

On 6/29/2021 at 8:11 AM, FailWood said:

I had a feeling this topic would devolve into this, as much as I'd rather it not.

Devolve? I think you mean evolve.

On 7/1/2021 at 11:13 AM, Jotari said:

They should give us Arab Emblem already, and make every male character in the cast bearded.

It is a recommendation under Islamic jurisprudence for men to have beards. I hear that Muslims have a deep beard culture.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

12 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I know I'm late to the party here, but recently I have begun leaving the hair that grows on my face on my face. With this came the realization that I am, in fact, a facial-hair haver, and this has left me feeling relatively isolated from the Fire Emblem cast in a way I previously was not. Very few characters still seem relatable to my and my sense of self when such a prominent lifestyle choice is so critically underrepresented. I think they should make an Awakening mod which adds (sub-Cervantes-tier) facial hair to many of the characters.

You jest, but I'd totally be down to clown with a game mod that gives every character a goofy mustache.

12 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

It is a recommendation under Islamic jurisprudence for men to have beards. I hear that Muslims have a deep beard culture.

There's an interesting mix of takes on this, among schools and sects of Islam - some "all men must have beards" hardliners, to the Shia "keep a beard, but not too long", to the more modern/liberal "a beard is fine, but so is shaving."

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 7/20/2021 at 1:46 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

There's an interesting mix of takes on this, among schools and sects of Islam - some "all men must have beards" hardliners, to the Shia "keep a beard, but not too long", to the more modern/liberal "a beard is fine, but so is shaving."

Yeah, sure, but the modern liberal sect of any religion is always the lamest and least interesting, so I tend to disregard what they say.

[Jotari]

27 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Yeah, sure, but the modern liberal sect of any religion is always the lamest and least interesting, so I tend to disregard what they say.

There's some joke floating around there about moderate Scientologists being the best because they're actually willing to tell you about all the silly secret stuff of Scientologist canon.