LGBT+ Representation in Fire Emblem

[GrandeRampel]

I mostly agree that FE has gotten better at LGBT+ representation in recent years, but it is nowhere near perfect. We could certainly use more strictly gay characters who are not bisexual/pansexual and also characters who aren't avatarsexual.

A good step forward on that front is Dorothea who is proudly Bi/Pan no matter if you choose to romance her or not.

But I seriously don't know what you guys are talking about when you call Leon and Heather one-note stereotypes. Heather isn't more one-note than any other character who is only in RD and Leon is a cool character with lots of personality.

 

Anyway, while it's cool to have characters like Limstella who is agender (even in the japanese only card game) and Kyza who is a type of non-binary (we don't know how they identify themself at the moment), we could use some binary trans representation.

But there is a problem with that, which is the same problem with asexual rep in FE.

There is a character in Heroes named Plumeria who is clearly intended to be read as a sex-repulsed Ace who's also bi-romantic. This is because she can't go two seconds without reminding us that sex is disgusting and lewd things should be banned forever, but at the same time she longs for some kind of deep connection with... SOMEONE/ANYONE even the avatar character because she feels lonely and unloved.

Everything about her characterization screams ASEXUAL but she doesn't count, apparently, because she never calls herself asexual.

But the thing is... no character in the history of Fire Emblem has ever said the words Gay, Lesbian, Homosexual, Bisexual, Heterosexual or anything of the sort. They don't use modern terminology, we know they are gay simply because they have romantic feelings towards characters of the same gender. We only know some characters are non-binary because they use they/them.

There is actually no evidence whatsoever in many Fire Emblem games that characters are cisgender. In games like Genealogy, Awakening and Fates, yeah almost everyone is confirmed cis because they have children with partners of the opposite sex. But in a game like Three Houses that has many characters whos paired endings don't mention having children?

Who knows? How could we know? That's a fun thing to theorycraft. How do you confirm that a character is trans in a Fire Emblem game? Have a villain/abusive relative deadname them? Show a flashback like the one in 3H except kid Dimitri uses she/her pronouns in the flashback?

And how do you confirm that a character is ace in Fire Emblem? Because apparently what they did with Ike and Plumeria isn't enough. Do you simply make them the only character without an S-support with the avatar? Which only works if they are Aro-Ace?

It's an interesting topic to discusss for sure.

 

Anyway for those that are keeping count of things, since noody has mentioned her yet I will say that Nifl from Heroes is canonically a lesbian and of course Plumeria is Ace as said above.

Also I will say that some character that you COULD read as LGBT+ in their home games have been made more explicit in Heroes.

Such as Ursula who you could read as a lesbian in FE7 since the only character she even cared about was Sonia, a woman, and then comes Heroes who makes it explicit that she wishes to "know her in a biblical sense".

[SnowFire]

My one slight contribution is that I'd definitely suggest distinguishing characters who are definitely bisexual regardless of what the player does or thinks (Yuri, Niles, Dorothea), and ones that are more just in a flexible fictional reality.  This is probably the clearest with avatar characters: if an avatar character has possible relations with multiple genders, that in and of itself doesn't mean that they're bisexual.  It means you the player can pick whether they always were straight / gay / bi / other, and the game adapts to make that choice make sense.  (Smarter indie games with soap operas will just makes this explicit and ask at the start what sort of gender the player wants the main character to be into.)  It's not just avatar characters, though.  For example, Ferdinand & Hubert (not even listed in the list at the start) have a pretty romantic paired ending, but they also both have paired hetero endings too.  I think it's more that these character are and always were gay if the player pushes things that way, and aren't if the player doesn't.  Which is fine.  It's more like parallel universes, but for games designed to be replayable soap operas, I don't see an issue with that - let people imagine their own favored pairings regardless of gender.

My one mild complaint - people have complained about "avatarsexual" characters before, but I wish that Awakening / Fates hadn't been so tied to ensuring absolutely everyone was avatar-romanceable.  Despite saying go ahead and have parallel universes above, I meant largely as far as characters who already have a bunch of supports.  If the script only has limited supports, you're not getting a customizable soap opera anyway, so why not embrace this restriction and actually pick one orientation?  Plus, the eugenics side where there was a mechanical reason to favor straight pairings isn't as much of an issue there.  Why not make Say'ri asexual, or a lesbian, or just Not In A Healthy State For Romance Right Now?  Same with Yukimura / Reina / CQ Gunter / Flora / etc.  It could have been a chance for some more explicit representation, but alas.

[Interdimensional Observer]

5 hours ago, GrandeRampel said:

But the thing is... no character in the history of Fire Emblem has ever said the words Gay, Lesbian, Homosexual, Bisexual, Heterosexual or anything of the sort. They don't use modern terminology, we know they are gay simply because they have romantic feelings towards characters of the same gender. We only know some characters are non-binary because they use they/them.

There is actually no evidence whatsoever in many Fire Emblem games that characters are cisgender. In games like Genealogy, Awakening and Fates, yeah almost everyone is confirmed cis because they have children with partners of the opposite sex. But in a game like Three Houses that has many characters whos paired endings don't mention having children?

Who knows? How could we know? That's a fun thing to theorycraft. How do you confirm that a character is trans in a Fire Emblem game? Have a villain/abusive relative deadname them? Show a flashback like the one in 3H except kid Dimitri uses she/her pronouns in the flashback?

And how do you confirm that a character is ace in Fire Emblem? Because apparently what they did with Ike and Plumeria isn't enough. Do you simply make them the only character without an S-support with the avatar? Which only works if they are Aro-Ace?

It's an interesting topic to discusss for sure.

I recall using the same logic with Soren a few years ago. Since he is very socially awkward, and Ike you know kinda saved his life, which is something that you might be incredibly thankful of another person for, particularly if you consider it the very first act of kindness in your entire life up to that point. Have we ever seen Soren's thoughts, has he ever dreamed of a hug from Big Blue, or something more risqué? He hasn't said it, and we haven't gotten a look into his mind.

...I'm not so inclined to use such skepticism with Soren now though. Rigorously doubting someone so much is not something I want to do of a fictional character right now, in situations where there is enough evidence sufficiently contrary to the doubting of them.

 

4 hours ago, SnowFire said:

My one mild complaint - people have complained about "avatarsexual" characters before, but I wish that Awakening / Fates hadn't been so tied to ensuring absolutely everyone was avatar-romanceable.  Despite saying go ahead and have parallel universes above, I meant largely as far as characters who already have a bunch of supports.  If the script only has limited supports, you're not getting a customizable soap opera anyway, so why not embrace this restriction and actually pick one orientation?  Plus, the eugenics side where there was a mechanical reason to favor straight pairings isn't as much of an issue there.  Why not make Say'ri asexual, or a lesbian, or just Not In A Healthy State For Romance Right Now? 

There are a few dating sims out there on the indie scene I'v read of offhand whose dateable characters can either turn down your attempt to pursue them, or simply not want kisses and or carnality. (And you sound like you have a better read of the indie scene than me.) It takes gonads to turn down the desires of players' gonads though, and I don't think I see major game developers doing that.

Although it sounds like 3H kinda made implied queer love happen despite supports, I think they're a problem. If we put a total embargo on shipping -that activity which can lead fans to drink the blood of fellow fans from the very skulls which once housed their circulatory fluid- it could hypothetically be better for queer representation. This isn't going to happen though, supports with shipping are here to stay, and have been here since FE6, just not as pronounced as it is now.

[Shoblongoo]

My take in on it is that representation is done tastefully and respectfully when a fleshed-out character is just incidentally LGBT without that being their ENTIRE character.

And bad-taste fanservice when its their entire character and all that ever comes up whenever they have screentime.

Consider Dorothea and Soliel. 

Dorothea being an example of a fully fleshed-out character who has a backstory as a street orphan turned opera star. Motivations of wanting to marry someone with $$$ because she's afraid that once her youth and beauty fades and her diva career is over, she'll be broke and living in the streets again.  Character traits of being witty, sassy, and observant. Insecurities about other people thinking she only got into the Officers Academy because she slept with the right nobles + doesn't deserve to be there. 

And then Incidentally to everything else about her--shes also bisexual.

Soliel being an example of bad-taste fanservice whose entire character is: "I'm a cute girl who also likes cute girls. I'm SO gay for cute girls." And I literally couldn't tell you anything else about her.   

 

Edited June 16 by Shoblongoo

[Samz707]

The only time Hubert does his S-rank romamtic blush outside of Byleth is with Ferdinand so I think it's safe to say its romantic.

[Jotari]

On 6/16/2022 at 4:54 AM, Alistair said:

 

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Dagdar and Marty (Thracia): They're two men in a relationship according to Marty's ending. 

 

I don't think so.

Marty - Dagdar's Beloved Man
Returning to Mount Violdrake, Marty reunited with his old friends, and set about restoring the barren land. While somewhat dim-witted, his absentmindedness gave way to a sort of rugged honesty and innocence. His straightforward and uncomplicated nature won him many friends, and he was especially beloved among children.

Nothing about that says they're in a relationship. I'm guessing the presumption is based on the ending title being Dagdra's Beloved Man, but that's like, his description, not his fate. He's Dagdar's Man not in a sexual romantic sense, but in an employment sense. He's Dagdar's main man. Pretty evident in that he still has this same ending title even if Dagdar's dead. And, in fact, this exchange suggest Dagdar's simping for Eyvel.

"Eyvel, you're really somebody.  A man like me is nowhere near where you are."

Eyvel:
"Dagda, I truly am grateful to you.  Being able to protect Fiana, and even
 living up to this day...  I could never have done it without you.  Thank you,
 Dagda..."

Dagda:
"Wh...What are you talking about...  I-I was just..."

(If Tanya is alive)

Tanya:
"Dad, stop blushing!  Come on, get a hold of yourself!"

On 6/16/2022 at 4:54 AM, Alistair said:

Since we're in the middle of Pride month (and with Limstella making their debut in Heroes, coincidentally) I thought it could be worthwhile to talk about LGBT+ rep in Fire Emblem. I've made a list of characters who are, to my knowledge, explicitly LGBT+ characters in the games so far

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Limstella (Blazing Sword): Non-binary in both Cipher and Heroes, though presented as female in the original game.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about any of these or have forgotten someone; I haven't played all the games in question. In general, Fire Emblem's rep is bisexual, with some gay and non-binary characters, and both of the non-binary characters were made so in Heroes. Additionally, the number of LGBT characters increased dramatically between Fates and Three Houses. Additionally, Fates locked certain characters behind different routes that you had to pay for, and Soleil is unable to S-Support any women despite preferring women over men. Three Houses, meanwhile, has Gilbert and Alois who are S-Supportable for both Byleths but non-romantic. Overall, Fire Emblem doesn't have the best LGBT representation in all of video games, but it's a made a lot of progress, especially between Fates' initial release and now. 

Well, not Limstella alone. All the morphs are non binary, with the probable exception of Sonia.

[Jotari]

Hooray for Serenes refusing to let me edit comments.

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Anyway, while it's great that we've been seeing a ton of bisexual characters from IS - and a few non-binary ones - there's a weird reluctance to represent strictly homosexual characters. And I don't think we've gotten a single binary trans person yet. Not saying these are "must-do" moves for future games, but I think those kinds of characters would be cool to see.

On 6/16/2022 at 5:56 AM, Etrurian emperor said:

A non traditional love inclination even fits rather well with Edelgard's strive for reform.

That's actually why I think it would have been better if Edelgard was just straight up gay. I either made a dedicated thread about that once or brought it up in a thread I made about how Avatar S supports guarantee bisexuality will always supplement homosexuality and that's not really a good thing.

On 6/16/2022 at 6:40 AM, eclipse said:

Where does that leave Priam, though?  Would that make Mist x Boyd canon?

Priam is clearly just a poser. Sword doesn't even shoot laser beams >.>

On 6/16/2022 at 6:42 AM, Alistair said:

I guess? The official Heroes site uses he/him pronouns even post-dark magic but Athos does use gender-neutral pronouns in FE7, so I think it may be up to interpretation. And in any case you could argue that Bramimond being genderless wouldn't be the best rep since it frames the loss of cisgender-ness as a negative consequence of using dark magic rather than an inherent part of the character. 

Bramimond didn't lose cisgenderedness as a consequence of using dark magic, he lost everything. I wouldn't even say non binary covers Bramimond's case, as non binary people are still human. Bramimond gave up his entire sense of self. Calling Bramimond non binary would be like calling a rock non binary. He's not just divorced from conventional gender norms, he's divorced from the very concept of human id entirely. I also wouldn't really say the game frames it in either a negative or positive light. It's pretty neutral in it's depiction, but if I were forced to choose one I'd say it's more positive as it gave him the ability to persist in the world and do good by helping the heroes.

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Guess those factors would exclude those two from romantic same-sex S-Supports, provided polyamory isn't an option. But I think the bigger question is why they were written to be such in the first place, rather than the in-universe justification. For example, there's nothing that mandates Alois be a character with a wife (especially as IIRC we don't see her in person in the game) but the developers still made the decision to write them as platonic S-Supports when every other S-Support in the game is explicitly romantic.   

Because Byleth must be able to S support with everyone, but it's a tad silly that the army is made up entirely of only single people. Personally I rather like the notion of Platonic S supports. Claude's kind of comes across as this too.

On 6/16/2022 at 7:39 AM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Forrest could definitely be considered gender-nonconforming, although whether that falls into the "alphabet family" is rather unclear. He uses male pronouns, but he also faces prejudice akin to transfeminine people so... I dunno.

I think the game makes it very clear, at least in English, that no, nothing about Forest is actually gender based. He just literally has a female fashion sense. In fact, I actually get a lot of male energy off of Forest and have considered making a thread in the past about how masculine people find him.

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We don't know that Priam is descended from Ike, only that he thinks he's descended from Ike. Maybe he is, maybe he's not. At the very least, I doubt his "Ragnell" is the one Ike used. Ike would've almost certainly returned Ragnell to Sanaki and the Begnion Empire after the war (as he did after the Mad King's War). It was their holy weapon, not his.

For what it's worth, the final shot of Radiant Dawn after the credits monologues about Ike and how amazing he is, with an image of Ike in the background with Ettard. Though it also looks more like Path of Radiance Ike, so it's probably just some reused artwork.

18 hours ago, GrandeRampel said:

I mostly agree that FE has gotten better at LGBT+ representation in recent years, but it is nowhere near perfect. We could certainly use more strictly gay characters who are not bisexual/pansexual and also characters who aren't avatarsexual.

Can we just clarify that Avatarsexuals are characters like Sayri and Reina. Ie, characters who can only be paired with the Avatar (as if Corrin/Robin etc is the only their sexuality). That is a tangible thing in the series that it's good to have a name for. Yet it seems the name is getting conflated with Thraja archtypes or people who are obsessed with the Avatar, which, yes is also a thing (unfortunately), but can't we just call them Thrajas...or just stalkers? Because being able to quick hand talk about characters who by gameplay design are limited to the avatar as virtually their only support chain is a useful thing to have.

18 hours ago, GrandeRampel said:

Such as Ursula who you could read as a lesbian in FE7 since the only character she even cared about was Sonia, a woman, and then comes Heroes who makes it explicit that she wishes to "know her in a biblical sense".

Oh shit, Ursula is gay? Guess I need to readjust my head canon that she was off banging some guy during chapter 7x to her off banging some girl.

Edited June 17 by Jotari

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Bramimond didn't lose cisgenderedness as a consequence of using dark magic, he lost everything. I wouldn't even say non binary covers Bramimond's case, as non binary people are still human. Bramimond gave up his entire sense of self. Calling Bramimond non binary would be like calling a rock non binary. He's not just divorced from conventional gender norms, he's divorced from the very concept of human id entirely. I also wouldn't really say the game frames it in either a negative or positive light. It's pretty neutral in it's depiction, but if I were forced to choose one I'd say it's more positive as it gave him the ability to persist in the world and do good by helping the heroes.

Well, control over his personality. His memories obviously endure, as does his free will. He remembers Athos, he can hold a conversation and refuse to remove the seals on the divine weapons when asked.

Bramimond I wouldn't ever consider for a gender and sexuality discussion. He is more like an ascetic, having renounced the world and worldly things in favor of enlightenment, attained in the form of perfect mastery over the power of darkness. And then he funneled that enlightenment towards dragon slaying and afterwards making sure people don't mess with his and his friends' climate-changing mementos. -A celibate ascetic could have gender and have it matter for them, but Bramimond is renunciation beyond that.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Well, not Limstella alone. All the morphs are non binary, with the probable exception of Sonia.

Are you about Ephidel? Sure he probably has no organs because he wasn't made to sleep with Darin, but he does get referred to ingame as male -albeit by people who don't understand he is a construct. (And Kishuna does cover his groin in a flashback CG -although Kishuna has practically no personality and is just a bizarre character all around when you think about it.)

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Yet it seems the name is getting conflated with Thraja archtypes or people who are obsessed with the Avatar, which, yes is also a thing (unfortunately), but can't we just call them Thrajas...or just stalkers?

Yandere is the anime/manga term for it. That is the archetype Tharja belongs to. I don't read/watch/play enough stuff to know many more examples of the trope, however.

[Jotari]

45 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Are you about Ephidel? Sure he probably has no organs because he wasn't made to sleep with Darin, but he does get referred to ingame as male -albeit by people who don't understand he is a construct. (And Kishuna does cover his groin in a flashback CG -although Kishuna has practically no personality and is just a bizarre character all around when you think about it.)

Well obviously people refer to Ephidel (and Denning) as male as he has a male form. And people refer to Limstella as female because she has a female form. But the game makes a point that all the morphs have no gender (and as far as I remember, all the Morphs are genderless in Cipher). Limstella isn't special in that regard apart from the fact that Nergal considers her his most perfect creation (for some reason, not sure why he thinks she's so great compared to the others, unless it's just purely her magic stat). They're basically like robots from a scifi story. Artificial constructs with no means to reproduce and no basic need to have a perception of gender, but still some kind of outward appearance of humanity because they need to interact with humans (Morphs are Terminators!). Sonia is the exception because she actually thinks she's human and her whole function is to seduce Brandon Reed which requires some level of feminine wiles. But even then she's less an actual biological or spiritual woman and more like an agendered being that's been gaslighted into believing she's a human woman.

[GrandeRampel]

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

Well obviously people refer to Ephidel (and Denning) as male as he has a male form. And people refer to Limstella as female because she has a female form. But the game makes a point that all the morphs have no gender (and as far as I remember, all the Morphs are genderless in Cipher). Limstella isn't special in that regard apart from the fact that Nergal considers her his most perfect creation (for some reason, not sure why he thinks she's so great compared to the others, unless it's just purely her magic stat). They're basically like robots from a scifi story. Artificial constructs with no means to reproduce and no basic need to have a perception of gender, but still some kind of outward appearance of humanity because they need to interact with humans (Morphs are Terminators!). Sonia is the exception because she actually thinks she's human and her whole function is to seduce Brandon Reed which requires some level of feminine wiles. But even then she's less an actual biological or spiritual woman and more like an agendered being that's been gaslighted into believing she's a human woman.

 

No, okay this is were I have to stop you my friend. I feel like this is the perfect moment to make absolutely sure that we make the difference between Sex and Gender absolutely crystal clear.

Your biological sex is one thing, a thing that has to do with the type of body you have, such as which kind of genitals you have. Obviously a construct would have a non-binary sex.

But your gender has nothing do do with your body and everything to do with how you see yourself. If Sonia sees herself as female, she is female.

Instead of "gaslighted into believing she's a human woman" I would just say "gaslighted into believing she's a human" because it would be more accurate. The lie was that she was human, while in reality she is another kind of being entirely. The fact that she is a woman is no lie.

In fact I would add that we have no way to know Ephidel's gender at the moment. It is possible that when they are added to hero they will use they/them pronouns, but it's also possible that she will use she/her pronouns, or he will use he/him pronouns.

Simply being a morph offers us no clue for the character's gender. 

 

For characters that are robots, or dolls, or something there is no easy way to tell from a glance. See all the Transformers that choose to be male, female, or neither.

[Shoblongoo]

I get what @Jotari is saying though. 

Sex and gender as descriptors of human biology and behavior start to lose meaning and applicability when you get into the territory of transhumanism. 

Like obviously we can still apply them to many of the non-human characters; Laguz and Manakete and Gods/Goddesses throughout the series clearly have sexes and gender concepts. 

But The Morphs do seem to be a special case where the parameters of their identity and freewill are entirely defined by Nergal. 

Such that unless Nergal specifically goes out of his way to give them sexuality and gender identity (like he did with Sonia)--they don't have any. (Sonia being a special case where Nergal went out of his way to give her sexuality and gender identity, because it was required for her intended purpose) 

Edited June 17 by Shoblongoo

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, GrandeRampel said:

 

No, okay this is were I have to stop you my friend. I feel like this is the perfect moment to make absolutely sure that we make the difference between Sex and Gender absolutely crystal clear.

Your biological sex is one thing, a thing that has to do with the type of body you have, such as which kind of genitals you have. Obviously a construct would have a non-binary sex.

But your gender has nothing do do with your body and everything to do with how you see yourself. If Sonia sees herself as female, she is female.

Instead of "gaslighted into believing she's a human woman" I would just say "gaslighted into believing she's a human" because it would be more accurate. The lie was that she was human, while in reality she is another kind of being entirely. The fact that she is a woman is no lie.

In fact I would add that we have no way to know Ephidel's gender at the moment. It is possible that when they are added to hero they will use they/them pronouns, but it's also possible that she will use she/her pronouns, or he will use he/him pronouns.

Simply being a morph offers us no clue for the character's gender. 

 

For characters that are robots, or dolls, or something there is no easy way to tell from a glance. See all the Transformers that choose to be male, female, or neither.

Well by the same logic couldn't you say she's human because she believes she's human? I think it's a bit more complicated than that. A trans person is trans even before they realize they're trans.

Edited June 17 by Jotari

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

I think the game makes it very clear, at least in English, that no, nothing about Forest is actually gender based. He just literally has a female fashion sense. In fact, I actually get a lot of male energy off of Forest and have considered making a thread in the past about how masculine people find him.

That's why I said gender non-conforming. All evidence points to his gender identity being male, but his gender expression is traditionally feminine. That's why I think his "LGBTQ-ness" (gods, that's clumsy) is unclear and debatable.

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

For what it's worth, the final shot of Radiant Dawn after the credits monologues about Ike and how amazing he is, with an image of Ike in the background with Ettard. Though it also looks more like Path of Radiance Ike, so it's probably just some reused artwork.

I remember the image, but never caught that he was holding Ettard. Makes sense, though. I could also see him traveling with Urvan in tow.

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

Oh shit, Ursula is gay? Guess I need to readjust my head canon that she was off banging some guy during chapter 7x to her off banging some girl.

Loving the headcanon that Ursula's "more important business" during 7x was a booty call. If not for one inopportune sexcapade, Nergal would've plunged all of Elibe into war prematurely. 

4 hours ago, GrandeRampel said:

Your biological sex is one thing, a thing that has to do with the type of body you have, such as which kind of genitals you have. Obviously a construct would have a non-binary sex.

Is this ever made explicit, or is it merely speculative? Certainly, morphs could've been constructed with anatomies that conform to male and female sexual modes. Of course, this doesn't offer a clear thru line to what gender identity (if any) they possess.

[Eltosian Kadath]

18 hours ago, Jotari said:

I don't think so.

Marty - Dagdar's Beloved Man
Returning to Mount Violdrake, Marty reunited with his old friends, and set about restoring the barren land. While somewhat dim-witted, his absentmindedness gave way to a sort of rugged honesty and innocence. His straightforward and uncomplicated nature won him many friends, and he was especially beloved among children.

Nothing about that says they're in a relationship. I'm guessing the presumption is based on the ending title being Dagdra's Beloved Man, but that's like, his description, not his fate. He's Dagdar's Man not in a sexual romantic sense, but in an employment sense. He's Dagdar's main man. Pretty evident in that he still has this same ending title even if Dagdar's dead. And, in fact, this exchange suggest Dagdar's simping for Eyvel.

To be fair, the old translation for that title was

Marty - The Man Whom Dagdar Loved.

 

16 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Kishuna has practically no personality and is just a bizarre character all around when you think about it.)

I think you are giving Kishuna less credit than he deserves, as he clearly has a personality, he is just non-vocal. We see the kinda person he is from what he remembers of his life, and what emotions he projects out into the world (as his aura evoking different emotions in people is one of the big ways he reveals his presence to the main characters).

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I think you are giving Kishuna less credit than he deserves, as he clearly has a personality, he is just non-vocal. We see the kinda person he is from what he remembers of his life, and what emotions he projects out into the world (as his aura evoking different emotions in people is one of the big ways he reveals his presence to the main characters).

Which in a way fits him, a living "Magic Seal". What is the status in FE that prevents magic use called? Silence. I'll walk back the first half of my statement.😅

What I meant more is why did Blazing Blade write Kishuna in and give him three special optional chapters? Why do other morphs even obey him when Nergal has cast aside Kishuna as a failure? What does Kishuna contribute, other than a pinch of Nergal backstory and being important for joins-when-the-game-is-nearly-over Renault? If they wanted to include bonus chapters, they could've written a lot of other narrative possibilities, so why Kishuna?

[Jotari]

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

That's why I said gender non-conforming. All evidence points to his gender identity being male, but his gender expression is traditionally feminine. That's why I think his "LGBTQ-ness" (gods, that's clumsy) is unclear and debatable.

But only because the gender expression as it's called is social based. People cana argue about wether gender is a construct, but what is men's and woman's clothes is completely and verifiable social conscripts. Because we have countless examples of different societies with different clothing standards. A typical Arab thobe looks like a dress. High heels used to be worn by men. Toplessness was a standard for ancient Minoan women. Hell even in our modern western societies parity has been reached between clothing for women making it virtually impossible for a woman to crossdress, we do not consider a woman wearing a pair of pants as gender expressing as a man (anymore). So the question is whether Forest's fashion choice is just something he likes divorced from societal norms (so he'd wear that specific type of clothing even if all men did and it wouldn't be seen as odd), or if it's liked it specifically because it's counter to societal norms (ie he wants to actually express himself as a woman, so if women wore burkas in his society then that's what he'd wear to express that). I think it's the former. That just the impression I get from him (I don't know the character well enough to have any quotes off the top of my head). And if I were to go deeper and give Fates more credit then the writers probably thought of, I'd even attribute it to Forest growing up with very limited exposure to a society as a whole giving him a less biased view if clothing.

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I remember the image, but never caught that he was holding Ettard. Makes sense, though. I could also see him traveling with Urvan in tow.

Thinking on it it might be the Regal Blade (or Regal Sword or Royal Blade or whatever his rapier is called with its unfitting name that's too similar to Alm and Lloyd's sword) as it really does look like Ranger Ike.

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Loving the headcanon that Ursula's "more important business" during 7x was a booty call. If not for one inopportune sexcapade, Nergal would've plunged all of Elibe into war prematurely. 

Capturing Nils and Ninian is Nergal's highest priority at that moment in time. He needs them under his power to open the gate. So there's no reasonable business she could be attending to that is of higher importance to her faction. Therefore she is attending to a personal matter that Nergal doesn't know of and would not approve of. Other possible things she could have been doing include settling a gambling death some guy owed her, taking part in her clandesitned fishing hobby, or looking for her old friend Glass whom she received a message from informing her he was going through a rough time and considering doing something crazy. But I find the booty call to be the occums razor solution (yes, this is far more thought than the writers put into this. They obviously just wanted Ursula to make an early cameo but couldn't actually have the player fight her so early, being the era before you could fight the same boss six times in one game)

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

To be fair, the old translation for that title was

Marty - The Man Whom Dagdar Loved.

I don't know what nuances the original Japanse title has, but I don't see anything from the game to suggest there is any romantic or sexual connection between them and indeed there is evidence that Dagdar is attracted to Eyvel. It seems clear to me that the intention is that Dagdar values Marty highly as a reliable friend/minion/co-worker and not as a step dad for Tanya. It would certainly be an extremely odd way of writing Dagda's character just throw in a "btw he's gay/bi" into another character's ending.

Edited June 18 by Jotari

[Lemmy]

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

Capturing Nils and Ninian is Nergal's highest priority at that moment in time. He needs them under his power to open the gate. So there's no reasonable business she could be attending to that is of higher importance to her faction. Therefore she is attending to a personal matter that Nergal doesn't know of and would not approve of. Other possible things she could have been doing include settling a gambling death some guy owed her, taking part in her clandesitned fishing hobby, or looking for her old friend Glass whom she received a message from informing her he was going through a rough time and considering doing something crazy. But I find the booty call to be the occums razor solution (yes, this is far more thought than the writers put into this. They obviously just wanted Ursula to make an early cameo but couldn't actually have the player fight her so early, being the era before you could fight the same boss six times in one game)

Isn't her faction only loosely associated with Nergal as a client?

I'll admit my memory of that game is bad, as is my memory in general.

[Jotari]

22 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Which in a way fits him, a living "Magic Seal". What is the status in FE that prevents magic use called? Silence. I'll walk back the first half of my statement.😅

What I meant more is why did Blazing Blade write Kishuna in and give him three special optional chapters? Why do other morphs even obey him when Nergal has cast aside Kishuna as a failure? What does Kishuna contribute, other than a pinch of Nergal backstory and being important for joins-when-the-game-is-nearly-over Renault? If they wanted to include bonus chapters, they could've written a lot of other narrative possibilities, so why Kishuna?

Honestly, I reckon it was purely for the magic seal gimmick.

[DaveCozy]

On 6/15/2022 at 3:54 PM, Alistair said:

the number of LGBT characters increased dramatically between Fates and Three Houses

yeah makes sense given the world's timeline. I think they could still do better, but it is good to celebrate its wins and see the series progress.

In addition I think Fire Emblem could also do better with representing different races. I might be wrong about this, but I nevertheless picked Claude's house in Three Houses first because it's the first time I saw a non-white character as a lead in a Fire Emblem game. Series could use more of that.

They could also make a better effort with hiring voice actors of color too. The more diversity brought to the table, the more authentic you can make writing about different experiences, and the better the performance will be. It's nice to see Fire Emblem evolving to broaden representation, could still be better and I'm curious to see where the series goes.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, DaveCozy said:

They could also make a better effort with hiring voice actors of color too. The more diversity brought to the table, the more authentic you can make writing about different experiences, and the better the performance will be. It's nice to see Fire Emblem evolving to broaden representation, could still be better and I'm curious to see where the series goes.

Why? It's not like the voice actors are the ones writing the characters. Voice acting, of all arts, should be the one where race is absolutely irrelevant as the actor isn't seen at all. What matters is if they sound fitting, not if they look fitting.

Edited July 6 by Jotari

[Vicious Sal]

11 hours ago, DaveCozy said:

yeah makes sense given the world's timeline. I think they could still do better, but it is good to celebrate its wins and see the series progress.

In addition I think Fire Emblem could also do better with representing different races. I might be wrong about this, but I nevertheless picked Claude's house in Three Houses first because it's the first time I saw a non-white character as a lead in a Fire Emblem game. Series could use more of that.

They could also make a better effort with hiring voice actors of color too. The more diversity brought to the table, the more authentic you can make writing about different experiences, and the better the performance will be. It's nice to see Fire Emblem evolving to broaden representation, could still be better and I'm curious to see where the series goes.

I agree with Jotari here. Kratos from GoW sounds absolutely stunning fr example, his "Read it Boy" line from the game awards is incredibly memorable. But it's not authentic in the way you would describe. Darth Vader is one of them most iconic voices of all time, even though it's the most unauthentic voice out there. So much so that the actor was quite pissed that his voice wasn't the one used in the end product.
Diversity is great, but contraining the voices of characters to voice actors that are similar to the character isn't the way to go. It can be a good match, but shouldn't be a rule. Voice actors have such a range often that they can do many different characters. That's why VA's like mat mercer are so prolific and widespread in the VA world. their range is amazing. Restricting that to just american(?) white dudes as roles goes against what VA's are supposed to be able to do.

[DaveCozy]

17 hours ago, Jotari said:

Why? It's not like the voice actors are the ones writing the characters. Voice acting, of all arts, should be the one where race is absolutely irrelevant as the actor isn't seen at all. What matters is if they sound fitting, not if they look fitting.

By having more diversity in actors you can write about more experiences and deliver them in different ways. True that it is ultimately up to the writers (I should've also said that diversity in the writing team would be welcome) but it's also the actors who deliver the lines.

Diversity is important to get more ideas as a collective group. If those at the top surround themselves by only hiring or promoting people of a similar social identity, it limits the influence to a particular group of people within that collective. That's what leads to stagnation, since it becomes difficult for anyone outside that specific group to have any influence on the writing or characters.

Experience in hiring is definitely key though, I'm not saying they should just pick anybody. I did not imply funny PS1 Resident Evil dialogue to be the goal 😛 And I am not saying they should only do characters of their skin color either... I mean, that last part goes both ways too, typecasting is just going the opposite of where I wanted to go with my post. I didn't ever mean or imply either of those, and am just stating it now to make sure that fact is clear.

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, DaveCozy said:

By having more diversity in actors you can write about more experiences and deliver them in different ways. True that it is ultimately up to the writers (I should've also said that diversity in the writing team would be welcome) but it's also the actors who deliver the lines.

Diversity is important to get more ideas as a collective group. If those at the top surround themselves by only hiring or promoting people of a similar social identity, it limits the influence to a particular group of people within that collective. That's what leads to stagnation, since it becomes difficult for anyone outside that specific group to have any influence on the writing or characters.

Experience in hiring is definitely key though, I'm not saying they should just pick anybody. I did not imply funny PS1 Resident Evil dialogue to be the goal 😛 And I am not saying they should only do characters of their skin color either... I mean, that last part goes both ways too, typecasting is just going the opposite of where I wanted to go with my post. I didn't ever mean or imply either of those, and am just stating it now to make sure that fact is clear.

Life experience is not a requirement for a voice actor. James Earl Jones has, to my knowledge, no experience of being an intergalactic authoritarian. If a professional voice actor isn't capturing the experience of the character then that's on the director, not the actor. Or to some extent the casting director if the voice actor literally can't make the required sounds which is something that would usually be based on gender lines, not racial (course it's not like women don't ever voice male characters, they actually do it a lot, particularly for child characters). The closest would be if, and this is a super rare scenario, you had a character that was from one of those African tribes with the really obscure phonemes in their language that most people simply can't make because they're so strange, but that's like probably something that hasn't happened ever. Let's also take a step to acknowledge that these games are made in Japan by Japanese people and the first casts hired to voice them will be Japanese people. It's not only unnecessary, it'd be down right impossible to get a sufficient diversity of races to voice a full cast given Japan is one of the most homogenous countries in the world.

15 hours ago, Vicious Sal said:

I agree with Jotari here. Kratos from GoW sounds absolutely stunning fr example, his "Read it Boy" line from the game awards is incredibly memorable. But it's not authentic in the way you would describe. Darth Vader is one of them most iconic voices of all time, even though it's the most unauthentic voice out there. So much so that the actor was quite pissed that his voice wasn't the one used in the end product.
Diversity is great, but contraining the voices of characters to voice actors that are similar to the character isn't the way to go. It can be a good match, but shouldn't be a rule. Voice actors have such a range often that they can do many different characters. That's why VA's like mat mercer are so prolific and widespread in the VA world. their range is amazing. Restricting that to just american(?) white dudes as roles goes against what VA's are supposed to be able to do.

To add to some of those examples, a White guy, a Chinese guy and a Filipino are all part of the same Japanese inspired family in Avatar and they all slay their roles.

[DaveCozy]

On 7/6/2022 at 8:43 PM, Jotari said:

Life experience is not a requirement for a voice actor. James Earl Jones has, to my knowledge, no experience of being an intergalactic authoritarian.

This isn't my point though. What I specifically said was that different experiences provide different points of views and different perspectives. That can affect how someone approaches a certain role, not that they need prior experience to deliver said role.

On 7/6/2022 at 8:43 PM, Jotari said:

The closest would be if, and this is a super rare scenario, you had a character that was from one of those African tribes with the really obscure phonemes in their language that most people simply can't make because they're so strange, but that's like probably something that hasn't happened ever.

To be clear again, I wasn't advocating typecasting. Going with that would just defeat the purpose of diversity and put the actors in boxes due to their identities. That's again not what I'm advocating for at all. Just like it was argued earlier to not put white male actors in just white dude roles (which I agree with), same idea goes if you look at it the other way. And it goes beyond skin color too; gender identity and preference too. It'd be very restrictive and unfair to anyone if they were only cast due to any of those.

Different experiences =/= putting them in a box. Just to reiterate, I'm not advocating for that.

No comment on Japanese VAs, I am not knowledgable enough to discuss that. I had English VAs and performances in mind anyways, just to be clear on that too; that's where I thought of diversity primarily.

On 7/6/2022 at 8:43 PM, Jotari said:

To add to some of those examples, a White guy, a Chinese guy and a Filipino are all part of the same Japanese inspired family in Avatar and they all slay their roles.

This is a good example and is actually what I've been trying to say in relation to diversity when casting 😛

Edited July 11 by DaveCozy

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, DaveCozy said:

This is a good example and is actually what I've been trying to say in relation to diversity when casting 😛

Yeah but my point was that their backgrounds are irrelevant to how they portrayed those roles, because they're just generally good voice actors. In this specific example, the Chinese guy died during the filming of the second season and was replaced by a white guy, and I dobt many if any in the target audience noticed the difference without first being told.