Favorite Characters (a discussion, just for fun)

[GlitchWarrior]

It's exactly what it says on the tin. Everyone who posts on this topic, I'd like to ask to talk about their favorite Fire Emblem characters, and why you love them so much.

I'll start us off. My favorite character in Fire Emblem is Tobin from Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, particularly because of how human he feels. Tobin is the "straight" man of the core Deliverance team of Gray, Clive, Alm and Lukas, trying to keep them from getting themselves killed in increasingly insane ways, while hiding it behind seemingly only wanting to make money for his family. While he joins the Deliverance for kind of selfish reasons, something you don't see as often in Fire Emblem with plot-recurring characters, he's a fairly wholesome guy, even if he has his sharp tongue from time to time, and although the love triangle between him, Gray and Clair seems to threaten their friendship for a moment, they eventually put it aside, and Tobin graciously lets his childhood friend have the girl he loves. He's honestly more of a person than most people I meet in real life.

Stat-wise, Tobin is a bit of an interesting unit, due to his class of Villager (shared with only 3/4 other units) allowing him a selection of five different playstyles - Soldier, Cavalier, Archer, Mage and Mercenary- and affecting his growths in different ways. For the most part, it's been agreed that of all the classes for him, the "worst" are the lance-using Soldier and Cavalier classlines, due to the fact that his movement as a Soldier is trash and the Deliverance army already has four cav units over the course of the game in the forms of Clive, Mathilda, Zeke and eventually Mycen, not to mention any of the other villagers can become a Cavalier. However, he has good reasons to be put into any of the other classes. Becoming a Mercenary grants him a base-speed and base-skill boost, which are helpful to any unit in Echoes. If made a Mage, he learns Excalibur faster than Kliff does, or any other mage with it in their learnset, that doesn't spawn with it. This gives him a very powerful and light-weight attack with a high crit rate early in the game, whose only limit is his HP- something that can easily be restored with rings, food, Clerics, et cetera- and post-promotion to Sage, he learns Physic, a spell that I don't even have to explain why it's good. Finally, as an Archer he has a really good Skill growth, something that archers in this game kind of lack. Having a unit with on average an attack range of 1-5 squares and a good hit rate... I don't need to tell you how powerful that is either.
Even as a Soldier or Cavalier he can perform well- he's not really outclassed in these regards. The main reason I think archer and mercenary are the classes he slots into easiest is that these are classes are kind of lacking in the Deliverance - you only get one other archer in the route in Python, whose skill growth is significantly lacking, and there are no mercenaries by default. Even Mage is an option due to the fact that making one of your villagers into one is almost mandatory - Luthier and Delthea, who don't join until act 3, are too late for them to deal with some of the bulkier, lower-res enemies, like the Mercenary on 1-3. In the Cavalier and Soldier lines, he's STILL not bad, with the only reason they're subpar recommendations being that you get those classes much earlier than mages. You can't go wrong with Tobin in my opinion.
Compared to the other villagers, he's middle-of-the-road, but middle of the road is great in Echoes. Compared to Gray he has lower bases, but those are kind of irrelevant because of how promotion works in these games, and his growth rates are better as well. Kliff has a much higher base speed growth, but that adds to Tobin's versatility, because since he's neither too fast to be made a Mercenary and have it not seem redundant like Kliff is, OR too slow to be put into any other class like Gray is, he actually has all 5 promotion options being viable. You also can't really compare him to Faye, since she lacks four of his five top-tier classes- the only one they share is Gold Knight, so she's functionally much different than the other three villagers. You could hypothetically build Tobin however you want and he'd still be at minimum one of your most reliable units- even with a 2-point Skill base, his innate 50% skill growth means that he'll level it basically every other level-up, which will slowly but surely boost his hit rate- and his critical rate to a lesser extent- to great levels.

In conclusion... I guess I just love Tobin because he's an all-around easy-going guy, but still sticks his neck out for others even when it doesn't benefit him. He's a sellsword with a heart, and one that seems to be very reliable even in a game with as shaky hit rates as Echoes. His versatility and ability to be anything you need as long as it's not a Falcoknight or a Cleric is very impressive, and it adds to his charm in that Tobin can turn out totally different each run- but still end up hitting the foes your other units might struggle to be able to even pin down.
Some time ago I used the Fire Emblem Character Sorter program, which, to be fair, is... a little inaccurate. I somehow ended up with Brom from Path of Radiance as my favorite then, but Tobin was my second. Fast forward to the start of this month, where I used it again, and Brom wasn't even in the top 50. Tobin, however... well, he didn't move from being in front of everyone else like Brom did. To this day he's still my favorite character, and it just goes to show that, even when I'm not in a particularly Valentian mood, I should never count Tobin out.

[Benice]

If we count mainline FE... Hm... I think it'd have to be Aran or Laura. Neither of 'em have much dialogue at all, but what they do have was really enjoyable for me. Most of all, they both ended up really good in my RD playthrough, so I am eternally indebted to them.

Counting KagaSaga, my favorite character is undoubtedly Esteban, from Berwick Saga. He's introduced as an absolute Johnny and I quite hated him at first. However, his character arc is extremely good IMO, and he's a very fun unit to use. He's apparently considered to be the worst bow-user in the game, but I don't quite see it- Great skill growths, decent dagger combat, decent skill-set, and he gets the absurd Pursuit at level 20, at which point he is unstoppable. Well, at least he was for me. He also gets a strong prf later on, further improving him for me. In addition to gameplay, I really enjoy him as a character, and over time, I found I quite related to his struggles and loved seeing him grow and change over the course of the game.

Special mentions to Nealuchi, Lot, Fir, Noah, Dew, Lifis, Duessel, Eirika and Cyril. I quite enjoy all of these, even if they come from games whose casts I find underwhelming. (Well, aside from FE8 and 10, I have a real soft spot for those crews.)

Edited January 13, 2022 by Benice

[AnonymousSpeed]

Saul, who is the greatest of all Fire Emblem characters, perhaps of video game characters as a whole. He is very clearly a flawed figure, but aside from being comically horny, Saul is also very earnest in his faith.

[Saint Rubenio]

Arran from New Mystery of the Emblem would be my choice. New Mystery, specifically. I find him to be the most interesting take on the "loyal knight" type of character in the series. Allow me to go into detail a bit.

In Arran's supports with Kris in FE12 (which is, by the way, the best support chain in the game and one of the best in the series period, in my humble opinion), the young squire asks him, as a veteran knight, what it means to be a knight. Arran initially claims that, as one who has served two masters, he is not fit to answer that question. As the chain progresses, Kris realizes that Arran is ill. Not just ill, terminally ill. Arran himself claims he will most likely not see the end of the war. Despite this, he refuses to leave Marth's service and spend his last days in peace. In fact, his one true wish is to die in battle.

In the A support, Arran reveals the reason for this. Long before the events of either Archanea game, Arran served an unnamed lord. His loyalty to this lord was absolute, much like every other loyal type in the series. However, this lord was no FE protagonist. He ordered Arran to do a terrible thing. Arran followed the order, because at the time, he thought loyalty entailed unconditional obedience to one's master. Wracked with guilt, he left the realm and aimlessly wandered the continent trying to find a purpose, until he met Marth in Shadow Dragon. Serving Marth, Arran discovered for himself what true loyalty is.

"A knight isn't a puppet that blindly follows orders. That is not loyalty. To fight for a cause I believe in, under a liege I believe in. That is what it means to be a knight." To this day, one of my favorite lines in all of FE. Arran was basically a Camus who didn't get to die a tragic death and be mourned even by his foes. Instead, he was forced to live with the knowledge that he did awful things for an awful man, all in the name of meaningless "loyalty." But he learned from his mistakes, and came out of it a better person. IntSys, please, give us more characters like Arran and less Camuses.

The second part of why I love Arran is his sickness and how it affects the gameplay. It is a really original justification for his Jeiganess - of course his growths are low, he's dying. Not only that, the sickness makes Arran one of the very few characters in the series for whom dying during the campaign is a fine ending to his character arc. I'd go as far as to say that it was probably intended, seeing how, if you deploy Arran and Kris in every map, the A support is reached just in time as Arran begins to struggle to keep up.

Arran believes that he can atone for his sins by giving his life for the master and cause that he truly believes in. Having him continue to fight with all he has, even as he stands less and less of a chance against the enemies, until eventually his wish is granted and he dies without regrets, is a compelling ending for him. Or, you can have him survive until the end, so he may get a glimpse of the peaceful world that he helped to create, before he succumbs to his illness soon after the war. It's an interesting dilemma, and to this day I still have trouble deciding what to do.

Also, I really like his design, and he's one of the most fun, yet balanced Jeigans in the series. That helps, too.

 

...Whew, that got long. Sorry, I tend to get carried away when I talk about this man. But well, you did ask.

[AnonymousSpeed]

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

...Whew, that got long. Sorry, I tend to get carried away when I talk about this man. But well, you did ask.

I am thoroughly convinced.

[GlitchWarrior]

It's fine, that's what this thread is for. Your analysis of him is great.

It just occurred to me I put this in the wrong category. That one is on me.

Edited January 15, 2022 by GlitchWarrior

[drattakbowser]

Ike in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn.

[Original Alear]

Maybe Jeralt. I thought it was interesting how he and Byleth seemed to have a certain distance between them over the course of the game. Most Jeigans I tend to like a lot - Gunther was also a favorite of mine. Good voice actor too (Wesker from Resident Evil, who was kind of an evil Jeigan himself!).