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Characters who don‘t develop, change or growth


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Honestly all of them? It's frustrating to think that there's been a world war going on for five years and they all go home and don't do any of the things they said they'd do until after the credits. Their personality is the same as before the time skip. They just express it more confidently. Dimitri is a totally different person - twice from start to finish, but he had better be since the whole narrative is about him and battling survivor's guilt schizophrenia in a world that hasn't discovered the concept of mental illness.

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Fire Emblem in general isn't very good at showing character development for anyone outside of the main characters. Storytelling through support conversations and paralogues, all of which are skippable, means that the most we can have is a character who changes briefly and then immediately changes back. So if we're looking for characters who don't grow much, then pretty much everyone.

If we're looking at characters who are one-note, then significantly fewer. Almost all of the characters who you mention have some amount of depth to them. I take issue with how some of them are portrayed, I don't particularly like some of them, but I think that most of them have at leasta few different facets to their characterisation. The worst of the ones you mention, in that regard, is probably Gilbert, but that's not really surprising. He's only really around for half the game, only has 9 supports, and only 3 of them go above a B. He just doesn't have enough screen-time to really fit as much in as other characters. And obviously, the overall least developed playable character is Anna.

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1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Honestly all of them? It's frustrating to think that there's been a world war going on for five years and they all go home and don't do any of the things they said they'd do until after the credits. Their personality is the same as before the time skip. They just express it more confidently. Dimitri is a totally different person - twice from start to finish, but he had better be since the whole narrative is about him and battling survivor's guilt schizophrenia in a world that hasn't discovered the concept of mental illness.

Dorothea for example is the only BE member who doesn‘t change at all. She is 1:1 the same as before the timeskip. The other members only changed slightly

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2 hours ago, lenticular said:

Fire Emblem in general isn't very good at showing character development for anyone outside of the main characters. Storytelling through support conversations and paralogues, all of which are skippable, means that the most we can have is a character who changes briefly and then immediately changes back. So if we're looking for characters who don't grow much, then pretty much everyone.

If we're looking at characters who are one-note, then significantly fewer. Almost all of the characters who you mention have some amount of depth to them. I take issue with how some of them are portrayed, I don't particularly like some of them, but I think that most of them have at leasta few different facets to their characterisation. The worst of the ones you mention, in that regard, is probably Gilbert, but that's not really surprising. He's only really around for half the game, only has 9 supports, and only 3 of them go above a B. He just doesn't have enough screen-time to really fit as much in as other characters. And obviously, the overall least developed playable character is Anna.

Of course Gilbert is the worst. With Anna

Edited by GronderWarrior
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3 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Honestly all of them? It's frustrating to think that there's been a world war going on for five years and they all go home and don't do any of the things they said they'd do until after the credits

Presumably, if your students "changed too much" during the timeskip, then they wouldn't be able to use the same dialogue for Monastery events, like eating together. Or have them retain access to C- and B-rank support conversations. 

Not that I agree with it from a narrative perspective. The fact that they spent five years simply maintaining the status quo is... a disappointment. It's up to the all-important Teach to decide for them, and direct their agency.

Anyway, I would add Raphael to the pile. He goes from "hungry happy himbo" to... "hungry happy himbo". He never seems to get serious, beyond just "listening to Teach and helping his little sister". Even when it comes to CF. Not that he has to, of course.

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5 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Honestly all of them? It's frustrating to think that there's been a world war going on for five years and they all go home and don't do any of the things they said they'd do until after the credits. Their personality is the same as before the time skip. They just express it more confidently. Dimitri is a totally different person - twice from start to finish, but he had better be since the whole narrative is about him and battling survivor's guilt schizophrenia in a world that hasn't discovered the concept of mental illness.

To be fair, they've pretty much been sucked into a 24/7 job (fighting a war) for 5 years, which is a job that in some capacity they also worked pre-timeskip. They haven't had an abundance of free time to work on developing or changing themselves. It's telling that the one guy who has changed did nothing but sit amidst lonely ruins and mumble to himself for 5 years.

Edited by Hrothgar777
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1 hour ago, Hrothgar777 said:

To be fair, they've pretty much been sucked into a 24/7 job (fighting a war) for 5 years, which is a job that in some capacity they also worked pre-timeskip. They haven't had an abundance of free time to work on developing or changing themselves. It's telling that the one guy who has changed did nothing but sit amidst lonely ruins and mumble to himself for 5 years.

I hear being in the trenches changes people.

something something shell shocked 

 

 

 

Anyway Catherine, no? She starts with Rhea and ends with Rhea.

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1 hour ago, Hrothgar777 said:

To be fair, they've pretty much been sucked into a 24/7 job (fighting a war) for 5 years, which is a job that in some capacity they also worked pre-timeskip. They haven't had an abundance of free time to work on developing or changing themselves. It's telling that the one guy who has changed did nothing but sit amidst lonely ruins and mumble to himself for 5 years.

If war is going to do anything to a person, it's going to change them. Not that I really expect a Fire Emblem story to take a realistic look at how daily killing effects the psyche of a person (though to the games...discredit(?) it does open itself to that criticism by specifically focusing on that in chapter 2). Though even within the Fire Emblem frame work, it is definitely possible to make a side character grow and develop. Even though I wouldn't class her as a character I particularly love, I always go back to Jill as the example of a side character who very evidently grows and changes over the course of the game.

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4 hours ago, Hrothgar777 said:

To be fair, they've pretty much been sucked into a 24/7 job (fighting a war) for 5 years, which is a job that in some capacity they also worked pre-timeskip. They haven't had an abundance of free time to work on developing or changing themselves. 

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

If war is going to do anything to a person, it's going to change them.

Yeah being in the military isn't exactly a job being a Wal Mart greeter. And it's not a job exclusively about learning to fight either.

 

4 hours ago, Hrothgar777 said:

 It's telling that the one guy who has changed did nothing but sit amidst lonely ruins and mumble to himself for 5 years.

I'm guessing you haven't played his route, but even if you're basing this theory on that one cutscene where you find him, you'll notice the corpses of imperial troops littering the place. Dimitri escaped his execution and has been indiscriminately killing imperials who have invaded the Kingdom - and doing it efficiently enough that not a single survivor manages to report back his existence. The Monastery is just his latest haunt.

But the truth is, few characters are actually fighting during the time skip, which is what I take issue with. The Knights of Seiros do not fight with the Empire, they merely search for Rhea. Most students just go home to be with their family if you read their updated bio. Some of the details change if you recruited them to the other side, like Petra and Caspar throwing in against the Empire, but in general the bios are "returns home and helps with family affairs".

Also, regarding Gilbert, he actually does develop. While his interactions with Annette are really frustrating, he goes from self-exiled Knight back to fighting for his liege. That's something.

Edited by Zapp Branniglenn
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Most characters don't go through a significant change in their personality, but that doesn't mean there isn't growth or that they're a bad character. Dorothea and Gilbert absolutely have some degree of growth, to say otherwise is honestly a bit silly. Marianne is another character that has some growth, as well as Ferdinand.

As for the characters that have the least amount of growth or change, if any at all, we have the likes of Raphael, Catherine, and Hubert.

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5 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I'd say Dorothea is one of the characters who develops. She's clearly one of the student who's hit hardest by the war and all the fighting. 

It seems the topic creator has a pretty big bug up their butt about Dorothea. Not sure if they're trolling, or just really dislike the character and want all of us to know it while trying to coach it in neutral terms.

Evidence:

Spoiler

image.thumb.png.bd0b8ba65de466ff0c7a0baf0f85f57c.png

 

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39 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

It seems the topic creator has a pretty big bug up their butt about Dorothea. Not sure if they're trolling, or just really dislike the character and want all of us to know it while trying to coach it in neutral terms.

Evidence:

 Nah, that's normal for the web. The writing in this game isn't exactly great; but it's kind of hard to ignore how Dorothea went from being an bit of an gold digger to regularly complaining about the war.

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This is getting a tad off-topic, but while the narrative insists a little too hard that Byleth is such a powerful mover & shaker that things really change in the war by their will (still not as strongly as Fates, at least!), I get it from a gameplay perspective.  Nobody wants to do a timeskip and then find out 5 years worth of plot that happened off-camera afterward (unless, *maybe*, you're doing a mystery on the side, but that's really not the case here).  Players want to be around for the big events and character development, so that either means not doing a timeskip at all (which would be too bad, I like having the older characters), making some of the intervening 5 years playable but not controlling Byleth during them (which weakens the "you are Byleth" perspective of the game), or else having *mostly* not much happen during the timeskip with the exception of major things the plot wants to talk about: Dimitri in AM.  So I get it.  Luckily, it's still easy to show growth in the way of attitude changes (Dorothea notably), but difficult to do so with plot points with the minor exception of some characters who have post-timeskip paralogues (e.g. Marianne, maybe).

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To be fair, the support system was probably the only viable method in characterization in an anyone-can-die game series for a long time. But, yeah, I'd like to see it evolve to better reflect character development, when Casual mode is now a thing (and we'll probably save scum anyway).

Do you think more characters should interact in the main story instead? I can at least see this should absolutely happen with remakes where the story is already done. Earlier games like all of the (S)NES games that don't have any support conversations should all have more characters speak in the main story. I'd love to see Roy, Lilina, and Marcus discuss war throughout the chapters in a New Binding Blade situation. Or Elphin and Percy/Doug. Maybe some combinations could have story-based events as the conditions for support levels. Three Houses was at least a step in the right direction in this regard with at least in-house members speaking more often in-story.

Others, I'd like to see more flexibility with the script, and maybe some more flags with how certain scripts are triggered. Persona seems to do this with some of the Social Links, (for example certain extra characters not appearing after/before a certain date). Maybe in 3H's case, Bernie won't freak out as much in her C-supports if there are at least 2-3 B supports done with her male partners. Or Takumi/Oboro in Fates are more cordial towards their Nohrian support partners (maybe not Niles...cause he's...Niles) in their C-support after, say, Revelations Chapter 19.

Edited by henrymidfields
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5 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

Three Houses was at least a step in the right direction in this regard with at least in-house members speaking more often in-story.

Was it though? Like, I don't exactly want to be a downer, but most dialogue from the side characters were pretty ancillary. Like it's nice but is it really adding anything other than just reasserting that Bernadetta is a hikikomori and other super basic personality traits for the umpteenth time? It makes them present, but not really in a meaningful capacity (most of the time). For a more extreme version of this idea, look at Golden Age Dark Dawn where it insists on every playable character having some kind of reaction in major cut scenes and they mostly boil down to seeing seven characters go "huh" and "no way"  every time something vaguely important happens. I think more so than just having characters present, we need them present in more meaningful terms. I think in this regard Three Hopes managed to be a rather large improvement over Three Houses with characters like Lorenz really shining by actually having weighty things to say in the plot.

Much more than just having characters stand around and "be there" in cutscenes, I think Three Houses' approach to Paralogues is the real advantage it gave to side characters. There is definitely something to be said for giving every playable character a dedicated chapter focused on them. Sure, some characters were just randomly assigned to other paralogues because they don't have one of their own, but for the most part it was handled pretty well.

Edited by Jotari
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45 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Was it though? Like, I don't exactly want to be a downer, but most dialogue from the side characters were pretty ancillary.

Compared to when most FE games I remember before that didn't even have any additional dialogue aside from supports, during recruitment, and maybe just before the final battle? (And sometimes not even that for stuff like the DS remake for Shadow Dragon.) Yes, I believe it is going towards the right direction. Of course, as you pointed out, we want something meaningful. I haven't played 3 Hopes yet so I'll have to take your word on that one.

Edited by henrymidfields
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8 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

Do you think more characters should interact in the main story instead? I can at least see this should absolutely happen with remakes where the story is already done. Earlier games like all of the (S)NES games that don't have any support conversations should all have more characters speak in the main story. I'd love to see Roy, Lilina, and Marcus discuss war throughout the chapters in a New Binding Blade situation. Or Elphin and Percy/Doug. Maybe some combinations could have story-based events as the conditions for support levels. Three Houses was at least a step in the right direction in this regard with at least in-house members speaking more often in-story.

Having the in-house members speak out when something happens was a step in the right direction on paper, yes, but it did end up sounding somewhat generic in practice. The examples you propose for a Binding Blade remake would work, imo, precisely because they're a select choice of a small group of relevant characters, instead of 8 people of which half feels like they don't really have more relevance than "I'm in this class" (or at least that relevance isn't well used). Echoes, who tried its hand at making your party feel like a group too, chose a few characters to focus on even in your starting party, and that's part of why it works. (Could it have made the effort to at least include your entire starting party of 3/4 people plus the lord? Probably, and I wish it had, even if they had to drop some later and go from "Gray&Tobin&Kliff&Faye" to "Gray&Tobin and Clive&Lukas", for example, but I get why it didn't try to handle all of these at once.)

Personally, I'd like to see more done with base conversations, they did a great job for Jill.

8 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

Others, I'd like to see more flexibility with the script, and maybe some more flags with how certain scripts are triggered. Persona seems to do this with some of the Social Links, (for example certain extra characters not appearing after/before a certain date). Maybe in 3H's case, Bernie won't freak out as much in her C-supports if there are at least 2-3 B supports done with her male partners. Or Takumi/Oboro in Fates are more cordial towards their Nohrian support partners (maybe not Niles...cause he's...Niles) in their C-support after, say, Revelations Chapter 19.

This, though, would be good. I've read 3H did it for some supports, but I would love to see it have more of this kind of effect.

 

Anyway, people who insist on hating on Dorothea are the real ones who don't develop or change or grow (she does change), get better soon.

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On 10/6/2022 at 9:54 PM, henrymidfields said:

Three Houses was at least a step in the right direction in this regard with at least in-house members speaking more often in-story.

Others, I'd like to see more flexibility with the script,

This is actually one of my biggest criticism with Dimtri's routes its way too much about him and not really about the group as a whole.  It kind of feels like the others dont really get to voice there opnions in a meaningful way to me.

Sure all routes focus heavily on the house leader but Dimtri's in particular I personally feel is the most aggressive in this regard. It kind of feels like everyone exists to serve his story and not like a group of people working together for a common goal like the other routes do at least for me personally (church route is its own mess if issues). 

Edited by vikingsfan92
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On 10/5/2022 at 2:48 AM, GronderWarrior said:

Characters who are one-note.

Being one-note and not developing/changing/growing are two separate things IMO. You can be complex and far from one-note and not change. You can change and still be seen as one-note. (Maybe the tune has changed, maybe the change is small.) Look at Lorenz and Ferdinand. To most they'd both be pretty one-note, and their changes/growth are pretty minor, but that doesn't mean that they don't have nuance or that the change isn't impressionable. Finally, change isn't needed to make a good character.

 

On 10/5/2022 at 2:48 AM, GronderWarrior said:

Leonie

Leonie is a perfectly fine character who doesn't need to grow much. She's happy and complete as she is, and outside of some fangirling about Jeralt and one very poorly-timed support unlock, she's a solid addition. Shamir doesn't change a single bit in Three Houses, but she's still very popular, well-liked, and a pretty well-rounded character all things considered. 

 

On 10/5/2022 at 2:48 AM, GronderWarrior said:

Dorothea

Dorothea is anything but one-note if you ask me. She's the type of character who wants to present as one-note because said note helps them achieve their goals. Sylvain is similar to the point that they recognize it in each other. (Hilda is similar as well.) Dorothea is seen as the flirty songstress because she's weaponizing that persona to find someone who can bring her happiness and love. (And money, but that is actually secondary.) She loves singing and stories. But by the time Part 2 rolls around, she's completely jaded on singing, to the point that several of her endings have her give up singing completely. Compare "every rose has its thorns" to "only thorns left on this rose." There is clearly some change going on here. But you're allowed to dislike who you want, so keep on doing so if you feel like it. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Do all characters development? of course, a sizable amount of the cast should have development, but as long as the characterisation is good, what's the problem? Speaking as someone who likes Rapheal.

That aside, I think each character's general arc is covered in their supports with Byleth, and then expanded in other supports, the exception being, of course, the

Also, Three Hopes helps the characters a lot, but that just makes the problem more apparent in Three Houses.

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