Choose Your Legends Round 6 Discussion Thread!

[Mercakete]

@Fire Emblem Fan

Y'know, I can't help but feel a bit of kinship with you. Let's stay the course for all our votes this year too! You for Brom, and me for Elena!

[Othin]

Oh wow, that's quite a set of results. Finally got me to vote for a non-FE5 character - I wasn't sure whether Sigurd or Seliph would have the better shot, if either of them, but with Seliph in second place I've gotta back him now.

Tiki is higher than I'd expected, but I guess that's how wildcards work. And apparently Seliph is a bit of a wildcard by now as well. Chrom/Byleth/Felix/Bernie as the rest of the top 3 are expected. I don't care as much about CYL alts for the regular 3H students, so I'm hoping the current top 2s stay there.

Touma is notable for being the only missing character here, although Felix and Dorothea are seasonal-only and Anna is still missing her Trickster form. Felix and Yuri are the only ones in the top 8 with only one version so far. Caeda and Tsubasa being adjacent is funny.

[Hilda]

Time to vore for Alfonse i guess!

[Etrurian emperor]

Huh. That's more of an interesting lineup than I thought. I never dreamed to see adult Tiki so high up, or to see Soren so close to the top.

[Magenta Fantasies]

On 1/22/2022 at 1:35 PM, Kori said:

Joker is a cool name in animeland, though (see Persona 5 or Black Butler, for example). I'm sure that was the intention with him, considering his design. The localisation is kind of a downgrade on that level.

I’m not very familiar with the Persona series, but Joker of Black Butler is a circus performer and it is his stage name. Kaitou Joker (a terribly underrated anime, IMO) also comes to mind, with Joker being his phantom thief name. Also, his allies have playing card and number-themed names. I don’t think the name Joker fits Jakob at all.

On 1/22/2022 at 11:12 AM, Jotari said:

In what way was Iago a good change? Macbeth is already a very recognizble name in English, I dare say even more so than Iago. They just randomly changed it from one Shakespeare villain to another (I was about to clarify that Macbeth still is a villain, just one we follow, but, coming to think of it, Iago is actually kind of the protagonist of Othello in its first half. Though I could also sort of say that for Lady Macbeth in Macbeth).

One change I have to praise though is Anankos. Hydra would have worked for English in terms of pronunciation, but where as it'd probably be exotic for Japanese, it's a bit plain for English (and obviously not enough heads). Anankos apparently comes form a Greek word which means divine will, need and inflicting pain. Which is so ridiculously appropriate. And it also keeps the Greek naming scheme the other Valla characters have (except the random exception of Mikoto because they obviously didn't have this all planned from the start). That was a really well thought out change by someone who was really paying attention.

They actually did keep the fabric theming in Awakening. Panne is just  away more obscure term than Velvet, so much so my spell checker doesn't even recognize it when writing right now. And Yarne is kind of obvious. So I reckon they did want to keep it, but much like how I said Hyrda would be a bit boring for European audiences while it'd be exotic for Japanese, they wanted to make it less obvious.Though I think Velvet still would have absolutely worked. In either case it's not like they just didn't notice or disagreed. They went to some extra effort to (somewhat pointlessly) change it in Awakening, but change it to something that's a different form of the same thing, and then just abandoned it in Fates despite the theming continuing in Japanese. Well actually that's not entirely true either, the two child shifters in Fates continue the patterns. Veloura is velour (which I cannot think of without associating it with Futurama) and Selkie is silk, though, and I actually think they straight up did this by mistake, Selkie is also the name for an Irish wereseal and probably was the more obvious (if incorrect) meaning to a lot of people given Song of the Sea was released around the same time. Maybe Kaden and Keaton (also those names sound too similar to me) are fabric references too and they're just too obscure.

That could very well be true, but in pop culture I think most people (with a surface knowledge of Shakespeare like myself) more readily think of Iago as a villain than Macbeth.

I didn’t know Anankos is called Hydra in the Japanese version. I prefer Anankos for some of the reasons you mentioned. I think they were going for a water theme (since Azura is Aqua in the Japanese version.)

And as some other people have chimed in, I’m quite aware that the localizations tried to pick fabric-related names for the beast stone users (some are more successful at that theme than others), but I greatly prefer the more overt fabric names like Velvet and Flannel. Generally I like noun names.

4 hours ago, Some Jerk said:

Curses, foiled again!

On a more serious note though, and bare in mind this is totally a matter of opinion: the Byleths really don't do it for me. I can't comprehend the fanbase's desire for avatar characters, especially the ones with the least personality. The blandest avatar is the most viable for self-inserting, but everyone's going to have a different idea about their own self-insert, so a Brave Byleth is only going to hit the right notes for a handful of people and leave the vast majority disappointed. It just feels like the fans are throwing their votes into a sinkhole.

I don’t like Byleth for the same reasons. I’ve never liked the “blank slate that the audience projects themselves onto” trope nor has it worked for me the way it’s supposed to.

 

Now onto the midterm results! Female Corrin may not be in the top 3, but she’s just shy of it, so I’ll break my Shura and Rickard combination and send a vote her way today. I’d be so upset if Corrin won and I never voted for her.

Chrom is in first as suspected, and Adult Tiki is a pleasant surprise. I never would’ve expected her to oust Female Byleth. But Seliph is in 2nd?! I’m neutral as can be about him, but I’m stunned that a character from a game that the majority of the fandom (probably even in Japan, who also saw a huge influx of fans after Awakening) hasn’t played could rise above Male Byleth. Is there some meme about him I’m not aware of?

[Yexin]

49 minutes ago, Magenta Fantasies said:

But Seliph is in 2nd?! I’m neutral as can be about him, but I’m stunned that a character from a game that the majority of the fandom (probably even in Japan, who also saw a huge influx of fans after Awakening) hasn’t played could rise above Male Byleth. Is there some meme about him I’m not aware of?

it would seem as though it doesn't matter how obscure your game is, as long as you have a faithful group of fans

also iirc Genealogy was the 2nd best selling japan-only FE game, only surpassed by Mystery of the Emblem, so no, i wouldn't say Seliph is just as unknown in japan as he is in the west

[Kori]

1 hour ago, Magenta Fantasies said:

I’m not very familiar with the Persona series, but Joker of Black Butler is a circus performer and it is his stage name. Kaitou Joker (a terribly underrated anime, IMO) also comes to mind, with Joker being his phantom thief name. Also, his allies have playing card and number-themed names. I don’t think the name Joker fits Jakob at all.

Can't argue against personal taste 🤷‍♀️ But these characters are designed to be perceived as cool by the audience, and, in the first two cases, as attractive, and the names we know them by are part of that design. Japan thinks it's a cool name that would fit a classy-looking battle butler, that's all I'm saying.

Anyway, go Soren and A!Tiki! I'd planned to go for Shiharam, Elena, and Soren again for my three remaining votes, but now I'm tempted to go all in for these two...

Edited January 24, 2022 by Kori

[DefyingFates]

5 hours ago, LoneStar said:

I think part of it is that since the Lords (Claude, Dimitri, Edelgard) already won, people move on to the self insert.

A number of people (including here) also want to reunite their ships (Dimileth or Edeleth) so that's a contributing factor too.

On topic, I'm not exactly thrilled about yet another 3H rep, but at least she isn't in 1st place (unless A!Tiki fans become complacent). I guess this means we'll have at least one 3H winner each year until the next FE game though, be it a remake or new one. As for my personal votes, I'm so happy that Nino and Lyon are both here! The latter is especially surprising, I had no idea he'd come up so far! Maybe he'll even win a few years down the line!

[Fire Emblem Fan]

@Mercakete

I'm definitely using my remaining votes for Brom, that's for sure!

5 hours ago, Some Jerk said:

Adult Tiki is on the rebound, bitches!
Femleth though, get that predictable garbage out of here. I'm changing my votes to Bernie out of spite. (And because my choice didn't even make Top 20, as expected, so I choose to cause problems on purpose.)

Chrom is completely expected.
Seliph is completely unexpected, holy shit??? He kicked Manleth down really far!

Chrom in first, Female Byleth in the Top 2, and Seliph, Felix, and Bernadetta all ranking very high is about what I expected this year. What really surprises me is Awakening Tiki being in first in the female division! Wow, people really rallied behind her. I'm also surprised to see Soren being in fourth place for the men. I expected him to be Top 20, maybe even 10, but not 5. I hope Chrom and Seliph keep their placements.

I'm very happy to see Lilina, Elincia, Nino, Caeda, and Lyon all ranking in the Top 20.

[Othin]

If Seliph can make it in, hopefully it'll open the door for Sigurd in the future. He's a ways lower right now, but proving that Jugdral characters can succeed and narrowing the pool of lords should help allow support to gather around the remaining ones.

[Use the Falchion]

14 hours ago, Othin said:

In previous events, midterm results have only shown ranking order, not how close any of the characters are to each other.

Still, it's good to know who's in what position. But thanks for the correction!

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Magenta Fantasies said:

That could very well be true, but in pop culture I think most people (with a surface knowledge of Shakespeare like myself) more readily think of Iago as a villain than Macbeth.

Even just taking aside whether or not one can comfortably call Macbeth a villain, Iago doesn't suit Fire Emblem's Iago any more than Macbeth would. Fire Emblem's Iago is a powerless and quite pitiful loser, while Shakespeare's Iago is The Magnificence Bastard. They weren't trying to emulate Iago with Iago, they weren't trying to emulate Macbeth either, so there was no real impetus to change it. It's just changing it for the sake of changing it because the localizer figured they were smarter than the original creators.  It's just Iago is a villain and Macubetto (what I assume he's called in Japanese) is a villain too, so I'll change him to Iago because they're both villains, without actually looking at what they might share. If Iago resembles any Shakesperian villain it'd probably be Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. BUt there probably wasn't even any Shakespeare connection intended in the first place, they were probably just using Macbeth unironically as a name and the Shakespeare connection only cam along when someone decided to change his name to Iago.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Jotari

[Naoshi]

I pray and hope Felix gets in. I have strong feeling this his last chance to win. Since Lords are always gonna be an option, new game announcement probably this year which might be fe4 remake and that will give both Sigurd and Seliph even more chances :x

Happy to see Adult Tiki winning on the other side though.

[Morgan--Grandmaster]

I do find it interesting that of all the Three Houses characters, only Byleth (female) is in her Academy Arc appearance. Just a note. I'm happy to see that my previous Top 20 picks are still there this time around. Maybe someday...

[FailWood]

6 hours ago, Some Jerk said:

Adult Tiki is on the rebound, bitches!
Femleth though, get that predictable garbage out of here. I'm changing my votes to Bernie out of spite. (And because my choice didn't even make Top 20, as expected, so I choose to cause problems on purpose.)

Chrom is completely expected.
Seliph is completely unexpected, holy shit??? He kicked Manleth down really far!

It'd be great if Adult Tiki and F!Byleth won the female division, so I hope they both stay in the top 2 spots!  Adult Tiki hasn't gotten an alt since the 1st year of Heroes, and F!Byleth could use better art after her Legendary.  She's also better then that spaz Bernadetta.

As for the male division, was hoping M!Robin would be doing better, but Chrom is fine too, and I can be happy for fans of FE4 with Seliph doing good even though I know nothing about his character aside from family relations.

[Etrurian emperor]

I suspect we'll be seeing Brave Felix soon. His fans aren't likely to let this final chance pass for him. The same goes for Soren fans but Felix fans likely outnumber him by quite a bit and the ''anti Three Houses vote'' would be split between Soren and Seliph. 

[Tybrosion]

Yo, A!Tiki in 1st is amazing.

Midterms last year vs. this year (NR = not ranked)

1. Marth, Eirika -> Chrom (up 2), A!Tiki (up 17)
2. Gatekeeper, F!Byleth -> Seliph (up 6), F!Byleth (-)
3. Chrom, Marianne -> Felix (up 2), Bernadetta (up 1)
4. M!Byleth, Bernadetta -> Soren (up 7), F!Corrin (up 1)
5. Felix, F!Corrin -> M!Robin (up 1), Hilda [TH] (up 1)
6. M!Robin, Hilda [TH] -> M!Byleth (down 2), Azura (up 2)
7. Yuri, F!Robin -> Yuri (-), F!Robin (-)
8. Seliph, Azura -> Sigurd (up 5), Dorothea (up 1)
9. Dedue, Dorothea -> Sylvain (up 3), Anna [A] (NR)
10. Ashe, Tharja -> Alfonse (up 4), Tharja (-)
11. Soren, Henriette -> Ashe (down 1), Lilina (NR)
12. Sylvain, Rhea -> Black Knight (up 5), Freyja (NR)
13. Sigurd, Plumeria -> Itsuki & Chrom (up 5), Elincia (NR)
14. Alfonse, Sothis -> Takumi (up 2), Nino (up 3)
15. Linhardt, Seiros -> M!Corrin (NR), Mia (up 5)
16. Takumi, Constance -> Reinhardt (up 3), Ingrid (up 3)
17. Black Knight, Nino -> Lyon (NR), Caeda (NR)
18. Itsuki & Chrom, A!Tiki -> Leo (NR), Tsubasa & Caeda (NR)
19. Reinhardt, Ingrid -> Xander (NR), Petra (NR)
20. Caspar, Mia -> Touma & Cain (NR), Annette (NR)

Dropped Out of the Top 20
Dedue (9th male)
Henriette (11th female)
Rhea (12th female)
Plumeria (13th female)
Sothis (14th female)
Linhardt (15th male)
Seiros (15th female)
Constance (16th female)
Caspar (20th male)

Outside of the Byleths, Sothis and her bloodline aren't having a good time this round while Freyja essentially took her subordinate's spot. The rest of the dropouts were expected (especially Henriette) since they all got added into the game since last year.

[SynthGreen]

Looking at Twitter, Seliph went from 4th place to first 

while Chrom went from first to a distance second, with Felix climbing. 
 

i can’t say anything until we can look At first hour votes but as it stands, Chrom could end up being the first person to ever go from 1-3

[GrandeRampel]

I will keep voting for Bernie but I wouldn't mind if the final results stayed the same as midterm. All solid picks and some of them even surprising.

[NSSKG151]

Interesting top 20 for midterms this year. I was expecting Tiki to be top 5 at best but I didn't think she would currently be sitting in the number 1 spot alongside Chrom. Would be a great start to Awakening's 10th anniversary if both are still number 1 at the end. Male Byleth doesn't seem to be doing as well as people were expecting but I am kind of glad since seeing both Byleths winning would be kind of boring. I would be fine with either Felix (since he is one of my favorites from Three Houses) or Seliph (so Jugdral finally gets a Brave rep) getting second. Not really a fan of Female Byleth or Bernadetta but if I had to choose one I would prefer seeing Byleth winning here. Though what would really be amazing is if Corrin somehow snuck past both of them for that top 2 spot so we get two dragon winners here but that is not likely to happen.

As for the rest Anna back in the top 10 surprised me since I'm not really voting for her this year. Makes me kind of think there would have been a bigger push for her if her name was mentioned in the top 8 back on the first day's tweet. Happy to see Ingrid, Annette and Petra in the top 20. Caeda in the top 20 is also kind of surprising but expected since I figured some of Marth's voters would probably go for her next. All of the male Fates royals sans Ryoma being the top 20 is also kind of funny. Well, I think the rest of my votes will go to Felix and Tiki though maybe I will spare one more for Anna since I was waiting for midterms before casting today's vote.

 

6 hours ago, Some Jerk said:

...Oh bollocks, I was thinking of @NSSKG151. Never mind!

Yeah, I haven't done an Anna clear in months since I was kind of tired of using substitutes in the fourth slot (though I also kind of stopped using Anna in favor of other units as of late).

[Xenomata]

Awakening Tiki is a legit surprise. I thought people just forgot Tiki was an adult now with how many TinyTiki alts we have compared to BigTiki alts, especially since her one alt isn't even a dragonstone user. 

Seliph, if he wins a slot, will be an interesting alt to see. To this day I don't know a lot about Jugdral, so I have no idea where they could possibly pull an alt outfit from.

Chrom exists. I know he's pretty popular overall, and that's okay.

...oh... so does Byleth... um yep she certainly indeed does exist... um... yep. They wouldn't try to pull that dancer crap with us again, would they...?

So... yeah about the only issue I have here is Byleth. Hey, I know she's a wet blanket of an Avatar, but Corrin still has more personality than the paper bag with a smily face drawn on that Byleth is! Plus we still only have one version of the Yato...

[Heir of Dragons and Beasts]

I'm glad to see my girl Tiki winning, I'll definitely be throwing my last two votes her way (mainly because I'm sure they're going to do the her becoming Naga thing for her Brave Alt)

Nino's day in the spotlight will come soon I'm sure of it. (So will Ninian's hopefully... 😭)

[NegativeExponents-]

Woah, I'm really amazed by these results. A!Tiki in first and Soren in fourth!? These are pretty interesting results. Fans of them really rallied hard this year.

I'm gonna jump all in on Soren. Hoping he'll be able to usurp one of the top 2. As for the girls, I really hope A!Tiki keeps her ri̶g̶h̶t̶f̶u̶l̶ place and as far as 2nd place... ideally either Hilda or Dorothea get a big push up there but as long Burnie stays out I'm not too bothered by it.

[Zelgius]

I'm quite impressed by Black Knight's 12th placing. It would be nice to see him go further.

[Sunwoo]

Well, shit. If Seliph is that high up, I gotta throw some support behind him.

Guess I'll throw him a vote or two.