Minor Character Appreciation Thread

[Saint Rubenio]

12 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I thought he was talking about Valter. 

You know, maybe my mistake was not mentioning the wife.

12 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

On that topic I've always had a soft spot for Caelach. Clearly the least plot important member of the evil trio but I think that kinda enhanches him. He's a very human antagonist from very humble origins. He doesn't serve dark gods, doesn't want to destroy the world, isn't insane but just wants a throne and a fat paycheck. 

Yeah, Caellach is a really good villain. Ambition personified. And then he dies in the same sandy cesspool he loathed so. I don't know who got the most beautiful death - him with this bit of irony, or Valter spending the entire game talking the big talk and then dying with a simple terrified shriek.

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

Thanks, I hate this wording.

I aim to please.

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

Wait, isn't he inadvertently responsible for Eirika's reunion with her brother? Orson traps her in the castle, shortly before Ephraim arrives via a different entrance point. Had the bridge not been blown out, she might've fled immediately, and the siblings would just miss each other.

Also, is four appearances really so few? That seems roughly on-par with what most of the "Sacred Stones of Grado" received. Two or three backstory appearances, then the one time you fight them. Two, in Riev's case. Selena disappears off the face of the earth for Eirika, while Glen does the same for Ephraim. Orson might actually be more important than some of them.

You do make fair points. I'll admit when I was writing that I kind of considered saying "except Glen maybe lol." All things considered, screentime be damned he has a much more tightly written role than a few of the generals. I would've liked a couple more appearances in between (Ephraim talking about him right before chapter 16 felt clunky) but still, good stuff.

Then again, when I said he's a minor villain I didn't mean it as a knock on him. He is my second favorite villain in the FE game with my favorite villains, beat only by Lyon.

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

If it helps, I figured out you were talking about Orson right away.

Thank you!

7 hours ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

When I first played Awakening and recruited Gregor, I took a liking to him almost immediately. The way he spoke instantly made him stand out, and that made me want to dive into his supports. And when I did, I was happy with what I found. Gregor is a great, well-rounded character, and his "gimmick" isn't nearly as played out for laughs or pushed into your face or anything like some of the other character gimmicks in Awakening. He simply had good chemistry with pretty much everyone, gave both himself and some others some good backstory, and was a good and endearing dude. He's one of my favorite characters in Awakening. Sometimes I think he's my absolute favorite in Awakening.

Gregor is my favorite character in Awakening. He's the only character from that game for whom I read all his supports. He's such a ray of sunshine.

[Jotari]

21 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

You do make fair points. I'll admit when I was writing that I kind of considered saying "except Glen maybe lol." All things considered, screentime be damned he has a much more tightly written role than a few of the generals. I would've liked a couple more appearances in between (Ephraim talking about him right before chapter 16 felt clunky) but still, good stuff.

No. I don't feel like another appearance of Orson would have helped him. Part of his appeal is just how far gone he is when we do see him again. He has another portrait with sunken eyes and we're given the impression he's done basically nothing but necrophilia since we last saw him. Forcing in another appearance there would take away from that abrupt contrast. That said, I feel he could have been mentioned a few more times. Like, correct me if I'm wrong, but do we hear anything about him ruling Rausten and how bad his regime until the actual chapter itself? I don't feel like we do. He effectively vanishes from the plot until that moment.

One of my first attempts at GBA modding was trying to make a "both routes" version of Sacred Stones where you play both Eirika and Ephraim route. Which necessitated making more playable characters for the game (mostly to fill out Ephraim route). One of the ones I invented was a son for Orson (using the same portrait because I'm lazy), who joins Ephraim to try and redeem his family's name. It's a decent enough idea that would bring Orson's role on the story more to the forefront without interfering with anything I said above.

[Saint Rubenio]

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

He has another portrait with sunken eyes and we're given the impression he's done basically nothing but necrophilia since we last saw him.

Actually, his portrait already changes when he meets Eirika in Renvall. Still, the dialogue between his two guards, and later the report from Seth does very much imply he's done nothing but sit in his room with his "wife" since the last time he was seen. In fact, it's even implied he would've probably died on his own if the twins had taken longer to reach Renais, as the guy's straight up not taking meals.

...You know, this is kind of a tangent, but I take issue with Ephraim going "Orson was mad, but I think he was happy" at the end. Guy was wallowing in a despair so fierce it drove him to throw away everything, including his own life (again, he stopped eating), just to be reunited with his loved one, which in truth was only a rotting corpse repeating the word "darling" over and over. That's not happiness, Ephy, that's a suffering greater than anything you ever went through lol

5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

That said, I feel he could have been mentioned a few more times. Like, correct me if I'm wrong, but do we hear anything about him ruling Rausten and how bad his regime until the actual chapter itself? I don't feel like we do. He effectively vanishes from the plot until that moment.

Yeah, exactly. That's the clunky part I mentioned - when they are right at the doorstep of Renais Ephraim starts going "gee all things considered Orson was acting pretty weirdly wasn't he." I feel like that's a conversation they should've had earlier. A couple more mentions in the interim would've been nice just to keep the guy in the player's mind, even if he's not seen again. And, all things considered, what would he have done if he made another physical appearance? All he does at that point, as you say, is sit in Renais being insane. But he probably should've been brought up a couple times.

5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

One of my first attempts at GBA modding was trying to make a "both routes" version of Sacred Stones where you play both Eirika and Ephraim route. Which necessitated making more playable characters for the game (mostly to fill out Ephraim route). One of the ones I invented was a son for Orson (using the same portrait because I'm lazy), who joins Ephraim to try and redeem his family's name. It's a decent enough idea that would bring Orson's role on the story more to the forefront without interfering with anything I said above.

That's pretty good, actually. Would've made for a killer battle convo and the character would've been a nice vehicle to get more insights on Orson's past.

[Jotari]

12 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Actually, his portrait already changes when he meets Eirika in Renvall.

Oh really? That's kind of a dissapointment. I guess they did that to tip off the player that Orson was now the bad guys because he has "eeeevil eyes" even though he'd probably be less haggard than any of the heroes since he's probably been living in Renvall decently well compared to Eirika and Ephraim fighting on the run. Turning evil make you have evil eyes though, but not only turning evil, but being evil and only just about to reveal yourself as evil. What a missed opportunity. Bleh.

[Saint Rubenio]

30 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Oh really? That's kind of a dissapointment. I guess they did that to tip off the player that Orson was now the bad guys because he has "eeeevil eyes" even though he'd probably be less haggard than any of the heroes since he's probably been living in Renvall decently well compared to Eirika and Ephraim fighting on the run. Turning evil make you have evil eyes though, but not only turning evil, but being evil and only just about to reveal yourself as evil. What a missed opportunity. Bleh.

He probably had already begun to starve himself in the time between Ephraim's battle at Renvall and Eirika's arrival. Some time definitely passes, he probably had a good couple of weeks to sit in a room with Monica.

I agree that the portrait change should've happened after Renvall, though. Would've been more impactful to see him fall so low after all that time.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

He probably had already begun to starve himself in the time between Ephraim's battle at Renvall and Eirika's arrival. Some time definitely passes, he probably had a good couple of weeks to sit in a room with Monica.

I agree that the portrait change should've happened after Renvall, though. Would've been more impactful to see him fall so low after all that time.

You think they'd already given him Monica at that point? Before his betrayal had really been complete? Nah, he didn't get Monica until he went back to occupied Rausten. He just started starving himself because he really believed he'd get Monica back and was embarrassed by his (actually perfectly healthy) BMI, so he started trying to cut down his weight so he could look handsome for her. That's right, Orson is bulimic. Fire Emblem is so good at tackling such relevant issues. Bulimia and necrophilia, I mean, who can't related to at least one of those things? What a PC and inclusive character our Orson is XD

[X-Naut]

He's no favorite of mine, but I saw the Castor debate and want to throw my lamb-eared hoodie into the ring... I'm about 50/50 leaning more towards Jotari's stance on him. I can believe the tragedy in his past including the supplemental backstory, but it doesn't excuse him for parasitizing off his own allies and I do think he's lying in the second story. IMO it's more of an "I've been through this crap enough, I want enough money to make sure it never happens again!" line of thought that motivates him. He's still a skeevy swindler though, and I have a hard time liking characters whose default mood is sad sack. If he dropped the wussy mask more often and characters actually confronted him on his behavior I'd like him way more.

 

Now I don't leave this topic empty-handed so I'll talk about an archer from those games I do like. Gordin has a really compelling story for a rank-and-file starting knight: as a newly-minted knight or not even a full-fledged knight yet, he gets separated from peers and family in humiliating circumstances and through sheer chance gets brought into exile with his prince. As the only archer ang being several years their junior, he's all alone save for that red-headed volunteer girl, and he has to look outside their circle for support. When he returns home, he's a lot more capable but he's still stuck in that awkward spot between the other senior knights and his juniors; and to his chagrin people associate him more with the latter. This leads to him growing distant and eventually joining his mentor in Archanea when the second war is all said and done.

Overall, he feels like the best-developed Altean knight, and while it's subtle you get a sense he's grown between games. In the War of Heroes he's taught his brother Ryan to follow in his footsteps, and he inadvertently teaches his own teacher a new trick. Which, humorously in a meta sense, is basically Hunter's freaking Volley. It's a shame his unit design does a poor job at reflecting this, but personally I headcanon he's just not at 100% at that time. He's so busy getting everything in order behind the scenes so Altea isn't at a loss for archery talent when he leaves, that it bites into his fighting ability... yeah, that sounds like something he would do. Overdo it trying to prove he's not some hapless greenhorn anymore.

 

Also gonna shout-out Fiora as a multi-faceted tragic character I really like. You have her backstory with Pent and her mission, and then there's her strained relationship with Farina over an incident that jeopardized another mission, her goofier interactions with Kent and Sain, and her general motherly attitude despite all she's been through. I think she exemplifies the Ilian pegasus knights rather well. Also my favorite as a unit, she has the right balance between decent starting stats and availability.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Replies.

Spoiler

On 4/11/2024 at 8:33 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Now I don't want to anyone mentioning any character you could even pretend to consider a main character or even major in this thread, this for all those Brom, Vander, and Matthis lovers to gush about their favorites minor characters that no one else seems to appreciate.

I adore minor characters, though I would contend that Vander is not one. He doesn't do much import (very few FE characters actually do from a narrative perspective) but he does show up consistently in cutscenes throughout Engage. He's one of the first dudes you talk to and he doesn't go away after that.

On 4/12/2024 at 9:21 AM, Etrurian emperor said:

Its a bit strange to imagine him as ''minor'' due to how iconic he is, and how much he's playable compared to everyone else but Haar counts. He's not a main character after all or even particularly close to any of the main characters. His closest bond is with another minor character. 

And yet for some reason the funny sleepy guy with little plot relevance gets boss conversation with about any enemy imaginable, and practically none go for the low hanging sleep gimmick. Its nice how an unimportant gimmick character can ''trick'' you like this. 

Piggy-backing off this (very good) post, I feel like characters have reputations outside their in-game appearance which diminish their possible meme status. Brom and Matthis are certainly minor in their own games but enjoy relatively high meme status. Haar has an iconic position within the fandom. With Heroes adding swathes of playable characters and the recent popularity of the series, I feel like the number of meaningfully obscure characters (where other people simply forget they exist) is constrained. It's even hard to have minor villains when the series has mostly abandoned them for recurring ones. Part of this may be recency bias, but is the Reinhardt really obscure anymore? I feel like obscure characters may be mostly limited to FE4 substitutes, fodder from Thracia and Archanea, and old bosses.

Maybe I'm just too familiar with the series. My pick is Ilios, by the way. The guy's so obscure, I don't even think the wiki mentions he has a sister.

On 4/12/2024 at 11:41 AM, Saint Rubenio said:

On the villainous side, there's FE8's finest minor villain in a cast full of great minor and major villains. It's funny because the way people talk about him it feels like he's a major villain, but he only appears three times and has a total of four scenes in the game, one of which he does basically nothing in. And yet, the concept with him is so disturbing and at the same time, so pitiable, and so well-executed. He stays with you and makes you think he's a bigger villain than he was, because what little time he had, he used better than villains with four times his screentime in the series.

FE8 was a wonderful cast of villains. I don't think there's any of them I don't like (outside the typically unremarkable early bad guys).

7 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Yeah, Caellach is a really good villain. Ambition personified. And then he dies in the same sandy cesspool he loathed so. I don't know who got the most beautiful death - him with this bit of irony, or Valter spending the entire game talking the big talk and then dying with a simple terrified shriek.

Caellach in my favorite of them, but I never picked up on the simple irony here. Wonderful. Truly the best written FE game.

22 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Also, why the secrecy of hiding his name?

22 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Ehh. Just felt like being a little dramatic, is all. I really thought it was obvious lol

Show, don't tell. It emphasizes his quality and definition as a character when you can recognize him without a name and face.

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

I'd say a bad person who successful fools all of the heroes because he's good at acting and has a sympathetic face is quite a bit more interesting and unique than another character who does bad things because of a tragic backstory.

Is it really, though? I respect the young tabletop gamer who plays a thief to steal from his party, I love Caellach and Saul, so it's not like I oppose shady characters. However, I think Castor works much better as an "unironic" character.

I don't know about any of this dead sister stuff- I mean, I do now. I read the good wiki article to make sure I wasn't missing anything. That does seem exaggerated, but it also seems to be from developer commentary and not Castor himself. The fact that it doesn't appear in-game makes it canonically ambiguous, and as far as I'm aware none of the in-game dialogue (or even Heroes dialogue) mentions a sister at all. His endings (which typically says if something is unknown or ambiguous and dialogue Castor could be lying in) talks about his sick mother and her medicine explicitly, so I'm inclined to think that this is the actual story.

Wanting to take care of your mother is an enjoyably mundane motivation, I wouldn't even call it a tragic backstory (though again, you might be talking about Leen or whoever it was). I think it makes him very sympathetic, and even as a swindler, having a sympathetic reason to go down a shady path is more interesting to me than doing so without motivation.

7 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Gregor is my favorite character in Awakening. He's the only character from that game for whom I read all his supports. He's such a ray of sunshine.

Raining sunshine in cloudy day, yes?

As mentioned in the replies, my pick is Ilios. I think his delusions of grandeur while lacking any of the talents to merit it make for a fun character, nothing overly deep but endearing to me. He's also genuinely obscure compared to a lot of other characters, but I guess I've have to change my pick if he gets into Heroes. Kinda shocked Batta hasn't.

The Sable Knights are very stylish, and I think Belf has my favorite drip out of them all. I'm also a big supporter of Samuel/Samto/whatever he's called now, the original impersonator. I think the guy just oozes personality even at a conceptual level. Caesar, honestly? He just looks cool, and I like to imagine him and Radd are bros despite having very little affection for Radd. Behold what I found on the internet:

On 4/12/2024 at 1:16 AM, Jotari said:

I also love Coulter. Not because of his personality or role in the story or anything, just because they had the care to make him appear in both Thracia and Genealogy, but they didn't have to care to make sure he even looks remotely similar to the design they previously gave him.

When do we get the "Coulter is Xane" theory video? If they remake FE4 and FE5, should he have a third and fourth unique design to go with those games?

[Acacia Sgt]

2 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

 

  Hide contents

Show, don't tell. It emphasizes his quality and definition as a character when you can recognize him without a name and face.

Exactly. Show us the character, don't just tell us about it.

[Saint Rubenio]

It feels a bit weird to bring up a character from the latest FE game into this discussion. You'd think by default they'd all be at least somewhat well known. But considering like half of Engage's playerbase didn't even realize he was playable, I'd say Lindon fits the spirit of the thread. Seriously, he's the most obvious recruitable enemy in the history of the world and an insane amount of people still missed him. It blows my mind.

From his design (generic old guy priest in a sea of hyper anime fantasy designs) to his introductory and recruitment dialogue, he seems like your average wise old magic man that acts as a mentor figure to others. And he is that, he has a few supports where he acts mentorly and wise to be sure, but he's also a man full of sorrow over losing his beloved wife, growing distant from his grandchildren and the burden of his past as a soldier of a country constantly at war with its neighbor. A lot of his supports do a good job of showing a person at the twilight of his life who sometimes just can't see why he still goes on.

He copes with all this by keeping his inner child alive and feeding his curiosity. IE he's a mad scientist. A really funny one, too. Dude wants to invent popcorn by having another guy throw corn into the air so he can blast it with thoron. When the guy refuses, he tries to guilt trip him into helping using his dead wife. That's just, incredible. Also, he explodes the avatar multiple times. His supports juggle tragedy and humor in really interesting ways. In particular, his support with Saphir (another super good character that's pretty underrated by the way) is by far the best in the game, as far as I'm concerned. You wouldn't expect Engage's writing to get so dead serious as it does in that support chain. Great stuff.

...And then on top of all that, he's also a really fun unit. Most personal skills in Engage are crap, and reclassing and emblems leads to units blending together sometimes. However, Lindon has one of the most impactful personals in the game - if his enemy's weapon is a higher rank than his (and when he joins most enemies are using silvers), he gains 20 crit. This turns him into a magical berserker that can easily reach ridiculous critrates. Not the best unit in the game, certainly, but I'd call him one of the most fun.

He also gets to be the only sage that can be a sage without wearing the worst sage outfit known to the series

1 minute ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

FE8 was a wonderful cast of villains. I don't think there's any of them I don't like (outside the typically unremarkable early bad guys).

And even then. Even then. Novala, for instance, can leave somewhat of an impression with his sheer glee at committing war crimes, not to mention the war crime itself is quite memorable. I mean, who the heck feeds children to a giant spider?

Aside from him, Tirado has multiple appearances and an interesting little implication of being duplicitous towards his superiors, and Bazba has the interesting distinction of being the one brigand boss that actually feels like a brigand boss. While most brigand bosses are just "obligatory bad guy with a face in the earlygame bandit map", Bazba shows up, sends his henchmen to perform a raid for him and... retires to his hideout. Which he defends from you when you get there with even more henchmen. It's a tiny little "arc" that makes him stand out a bit despite being just a generic brigand boss man, I hope I explained myself properly.

...And Bone is called Bone. C'mon.

2 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Caellach in my favorite of them, but I never picked up on the simple irony here. Wonderful. Truly the best written FE game.

To be fair, I kind of just realized it just then lol. I've also been writing about this gang of characters for over two months now so I've become rather familiar with their subtleties haha.

3 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Show, don't tell. It emphasizes his quality and definition as a character when you can recognize him without a name and face.

Well, considering half the thread didn't realize who I was talking about, maybe that fell a little flat.

...I really should've mentioned the wife. Then there would've been zero room for doubt.

4 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Raining sunshine in cloudy day, yes?

Is like, how you say, flatulence?

Laughed for a solid three minutes the first time I read that. What a wonderful guy.

[Jotari]

16 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Replies.

  Hide contents

I adore minor characters, though I would contend that Vander is not one. He doesn't do much import (very few FE characters actually do from a narrative perspective) but he does show up consistently in cutscenes throughout Engage. He's one of the first dudes you talk to and he doesn't go away after that.

Piggy-backing off this (very good) post, I feel like characters have reputations outside their in-game appearance which diminish their possible meme status. Brom and Matthis are certainly minor in their own games but enjoy relatively high meme status. Haar has an iconic position within the fandom. With Heroes adding swathes of playable characters and the recent popularity of the series, I feel like the number of meaningfully obscure characters (where other people simply forget they exist) is constrained. It's even hard to have minor villains when the series has mostly abandoned them for recurring ones. Part of this may be recency bias, but is the Reinhardt really obscure anymore? I feel like obscure characters may be mostly limited to FE4 substitutes, fodder from Thracia and Archanea, and old bosses.

Maybe I'm just too familiar with the series. My pick is Ilios, by the way. The guy's so obscure, I don't even think the wiki mentions he has a sister.

FE8 was a wonderful cast of villains. I don't think there's any of them I don't like (outside the typically unremarkable early bad guys).

Caellach in my favorite of them, but I never picked up on the simple irony here. Wonderful. Truly the best written FE game.

Show, don't tell. It emphasizes his quality and definition as a character when you can recognize him without a name and face.

Is it really, though? I respect the young tabletop gamer who plays a thief to steal from his party, I love Caellach and Saul, so it's not like I oppose shady characters. However, I think Castor works much better as an "unironic" character.

I don't know about any of this dead sister stuff- I mean, I do now. I read the good wiki article to make sure I wasn't missing anything. That does seem exaggerated, but it also seems to be from developer commentary and not Castor himself. The fact that it doesn't appear in-game makes it canonically ambiguous, and as far as I'm aware none of the in-game dialogue (or even Heroes dialogue) mentions a sister at all. His endings (which typically says if something is unknown or ambiguous and dialogue Castor could be lying in) talks about his sick mother and her medicine explicitly, so I'm inclined to think that this is the actual story.

Wanting to take care of your mother is an enjoyably mundane motivation, I wouldn't even call it a tragic backstory (though again, you might be talking about Leen or whoever it was). I think it makes him very sympathetic, and even as a swindler, having a sympathetic reason to go down a shady path is more interesting to me than doing so without motivation.

Raining sunshine in cloudy day, yes?

As mentioned in the replies, my pick is Ilios. I think his delusions of grandeur while lacking any of the talents to merit it make for a fun character, nothing overly deep but endearing to me. He's also genuinely obscure compared to a lot of other characters, but I guess I've have to change my pick if he gets into Heroes. Kinda shocked Batta hasn't.

 

 

What's this? Ilios has a sister? Details!

16 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

The Sable Knights are very stylish, and I think Belf has my favorite drip out of them all. I'm also a big supporter of Samuel/Samto/whatever he's called now, the original impersonator. I think the guy just oozes personality even at a conceptual level. Caesar, honestly? He just looks cool, and I like to imagine him and Radd are bros despite having very little affection for Radd. Behold what I found on the internet:

When do we get the "Coulter is Xane" theory video? If they remake FE4 and FE5, should he have a third and fourth unique design to go with those games?

Boy oh boy, if you like Caesar then do I have a fangame to recommend to you. Maybe you might have heard of it? A guy with similarly anonymous speed even added characters to it.

 

3 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

It feels a bit weird to bring up a character from the latest FE game into this discussion. You'd think by default they'd all be at least somewhat well known. But considering like half of Engage's playerbase didn't even realize he was playable, I'd say Lindon fits the spirit of the thread. Seriously, he's the most obvious recruitable enemy in the history of the world and an insane amount of people still missed him. It blows my mind.

From his design (generic old guy priest in a sea of hyper anime fantasy designs) to his introductory and recruitment dialogue, he seems like your average wise old magic man that acts as a mentor figure to others. And he is that, he has a few supports where he acts mentorly and wise to be sure, but he's also a man full of sorrow over losing his beloved wife, growing distant from his grandchildren and the burden of his past as a soldier of a country constantly at war with its neighbor. A lot of his supports do a good job of showing a person at the twilight of his life who sometimes just can't see why he still goes on.

He copes with all this by keeping his inner child alive and feeding his curiosity. IE he's a mad scientist. A really funny one, too. Dude wants to invent popcorn by having another guy throw corn into the air so he can blast it with thoron. When the guy refuses, he tries to guilt trip him into helping using his dead wife. That's just, incredible. Also, he explodes the avatar multiple times. His supports juggle tragedy and humor in really interesting ways. In particular, his support with Saphir (another super good character that's pretty underrated by the way) is by far the best in the game, as far as I'm concerned. You wouldn't expect Engage's writing to get so dead serious as it does in that support chain. Great stuff.

What you're basically saying is that you love him because he's Frost.

[Acacia Sgt]

Lindon is certainly a fun character. Good for brainstorming fanfic ideas when you have MAD SCIENTIST, YO.

[Saint Rubenio]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

What's this? Ilios has a sister? Details!

Say, now that you bring this up... My current endeavor has gotten me to look into Sacred Stones's most obscure background characters. While we talked about Hayden's wife in the other thread and discussed why she doesn't count, I can't help but notice you're also missing three other background characters - or, at least, they don't show up when I ctrl+F in the first sheet of the file. They are as follows:

- Saaga, Rausten's court troubadour. Mentioned once at the end of Hamill Canyon. They (I'm inclined to believe "she" because troubadours are female in GBAFE) are established to be the cause of L'Arachel's journey, as their words "inflamed" her. I always liked to interpret this as the court troubadour antagonizing her in some way and provoking her into going on a "journey of righteousness" to prove herself. It's the kind of tantrum that L'Arachel would throw lol

- Melina, Amelia's mother. Mentioned in her support with Duessel. She was kidnapped by bandits and then saved by Duessel, but her memories had been lost from the trauma. She managed to recall having had a daughter shortly before the game's events. Duessel looked for her before realizing he'd ran into her by chance in the Frelian army during their support, and sees them reunited in their paired ending.

- Zabba, old friend of Gerik. Mentioned in his support with Saleh. Saleh killed him during a job, but later he saved Gerik's life and they became good friends in spite of the incident.

6 minutes ago, Jotari said:

What you're basically saying is that you love him because he's Frost.

......

Shit I didn't even realize...

(I mean honestly I'd call Lindon the better character, and the similarities are honestly kind of superficial but still, that's such a funny thing)

[BrightBow]

I think The Hierarch deserves more love.
But maybe he is just considered to be too important to be a "minor character".

Edited April 13 by BrightBow

[X-Naut]

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

As mentioned in the replies, my pick is Ilios. I think his delusions of grandeur while lacking any of the talents to merit it make for a fun character, nothing overly deep but endearing to me. He's also genuinely obscure compared to a lot of other characters, but I guess I've have to change my pick if he gets into Heroes. Kinda shocked Batta hasn't.

Ilios is humorous in that he's quite capable in some respects (as a Mage Knight) but still very inept in others (flopping HARD as a noble), ironically in the ways he valued more. Kinda reminds me of how Abel excelled as a knight but proved totally unprepared for the life he sought afterwards.

Edited April 13 by X-Naut

[Etrurian emperor]

 

In Engage it would be Morion and Seforia, to the point I'd probably have preferred them over their kids. Morion's weird contrast between being a warmonger while at the same time a really chummy guy is interesting, and its actually quite sweet how the ultimate macho man is so loving towards Alcryst who's anything but. I think he deserved better then become a moron and die. 

Seforia meanwhile is a character that just seems a ton of fun which we didn't get to see much of since she stays in the castle all the game.

4 hours ago, X-Naut said:

Now I don't leave this topic empty-handed so I'll talk about an archer from those games I do like. Gordin has a really compelling story for a rank-and-file starting knight: as a newly-minted knight or not even a full-fledged knight yet, he gets separated from peers and family in humiliating circumstances and through sheer chance gets brought into exile with his prince. As the only archer ang being several years their junior, he's all alone save for that red-headed volunteer girl, and he has to look outside their circle for support. When he returns home, he's a lot more capable but he's still stuck in that awkward spot between the other senior knights and his juniors; and to his chagrin people associate him more with the latter. This leads to him growing distant and eventually joining his mentor in Archanea when the second war is all said and done.

I like him too. I appreciated there was some nuance to his status as the rookie of the group since when he speaks with Ryan he comes off as a very caring older brother who's clearly successful in mentoring Ryan. 

Edited April 13 by Etrurian emperor

[Saint Rubenio]

1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

In Engage it would be Morion and Seforia, to the point I'd probably have preferred them over their kids. Morion's weird contrast between being a warmonger while at the same time a really chummy guy is interesting, and its actually quite sweet how the ultimate macho man is so loving towards Alcryst who's anything but. I think he deserved better then become a moron and die. 

Seforia meanwhile is a character that just seems a ton of fun which we didn't get to see much of since she stays in the castle all the game.

Preach.

Preach.

Like before with Frost, I could go over all the reasons I think Seforia should've been playable, but I already did it a while back so I might as well just link that lol

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I'll also throw in Melady from Binding Blade, and Cormag from Sacred Stones.

Melady is clearly inspired by Shadow Dragon's Minerva (who is also awesome), but I feel Melady is more overlooked. Her loyalty to Guinivere and her relationship with Galle both add some layers to her character, and I like her supports with both Yoder and Lugh a lot. She's yet another solid character in Binding Blade that feels like she isn't really given her dues.

For Cormag, I love how they actually gave him a minor story role in Eirika's route. He remains minor and doesn't overshadow anything with the twins and Lyon, but it serves his character really well. The stuff with Valter is elevated, and his battle quotes against Valter are freaking great. His supports with Duessel and Tana and, well, pretty much everyone else are enhanced in Eirika's route, it feels like it adds an additional naunce to the conversations going on. I feel Cormag is very similar to Nino (another favorite), a minor character that was given a little mini-story within the game, and just like Nino I feel like Cormag's mini-story was handled very well. Nino is way, way, way more popular than him, though, lol.

8 hours ago, X-Naut said:

He's no favorite of mine, but I saw the Castor debate and want to throw my lamb-eared hoodie into the ring... I'm about 50/50 leaning more towards Jotari's stance on him. I can believe the tragedy in his past including the supplemental backstory, but it doesn't excuse him for parasitizing off his own allies and I do think he's lying in the second story. IMO it's more of an "I've been through this crap enough, I want enough money to make sure it never happens again!" line of thought that motivates him. He's still a skeevy swindler though, and I have a hard time liking characters whose default mood is sad sack. If he dropped the wussy mask more often and characters actually confronted him on his behavior I'd like him way more.

Eh, I don't think there's a lie in the second story. His sister died after the first story and right before the second. What happened before the first story is his dad up and left without a word, his mom got sick after birthing her ninth kid, and he was forced to go out and try to find ways to make a bunch of money to support the family and get medicine for his mother. Enter Shadow Dragon, recruitment by Caeda, gets money, gets some medicine, returns home only to find his sister sold herself to make some cash, goes to find her, finds her on the brink of death and can do nothing as she dies. Mystery of the Emblem and needing money again enters aftert hat. He's absolutely swindling some people and working off the goodwill of others, but in this case, I really can't blame the guy one little bit.

8 hours ago, X-Naut said:

Also gonna shout-out Fiora as a multi-faceted tragic character I really like. You have her backstory with Pent and her mission, and then there's her strained relationship with Farina over an incident that jeopardized another mission, her goofier interactions with Kent and Sain, and her general motherly attitude despite all she's been through. I think she exemplifies the Ilian pegasus knights rather well. Also my favorite as a unit, she has the right balance between decent starting stats and availability.

I'll second this one, too! Fiora is awesome and one of my favorite characters in Blazing Blade. Such a great multi-faceted character.

[Jotari]

9 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Say, now that you bring this up... My current endeavor has gotten me to look into Sacred Stones's most obscure background characters. While we talked about Hayden's wife in the other thread and discussed why she doesn't count, I can't help but notice you're also missing three other background characters - or, at least, they don't show up when I ctrl+F in the first sheet of the file. They are as follows:

- Saaga, Rausten's court troubadour. Mentioned once at the end of Hamill Canyon. They (I'm inclined to believe "she" because troubadours are female in GBAFE) are established to be the cause of L'Arachel's journey, as their words "inflamed" her. I always liked to interpret this as the court troubadour antagonizing her in some way and provoking her into going on a "journey of righteousness" to prove herself. It's the kind of tantrum that L'Arachel would throw lol

- Melina, Amelia's mother. Mentioned in her support with Duessel. She was kidnapped by bandits and then saved by Duessel, but her memories had been lost from the trauma. She managed to recall having had a daughter shortly before the game's events. Duessel looked for her before realizing he'd ran into her by chance in the Frelian army during their support, and sees them reunited in their paired ending.

 

Beautiful. Nice stuff. Now that I think on Sacred Stones supports, Duessel mentions a legendary smith that made his and Valter's lance, by name. If you have any more random support named characters do mention them.

Funny that Troubadour thing, because, yes, Troubadour is a female class in Fire Emblem, but it feels like in that reference they might have been more literal with the term and be referencing an actual singer. So who knows what gender the writer had in mind (I wonder if it's Troubadour as in the class name in Japanese too).

9 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

- Zabba, old friend of Gerik. Mentioned in his support with Saleh. Saleh killed him during a job, but later he saved Gerik's life and they became good friends in spite of the incident.

 

Oh wow, I actually played a fan game with that guy in it, a Sacred Stones prequel focused on Gerik. I didn't know that was actually based off of a real reference. Saleh did seem a bit random as an executioner during the story, now I know why the author went that route. At the time I thought it was just to organize all the characters present in the CG with Gerick and his mercenaries.

8 hours ago, BrightBow said:

I think The Hierarch deserves more love.
But maybe he is just considered to be too important to be a "minor character".

Oh the Hierarch is absolutely a minor character. What makes him hilarious is that in the two lines we get with him it's established he's actually really important to Chrom and his siblings in universe...and then he's promptly killed and never mentioned again.

Speaking of fun minor characters, the boss that killed the Hierarch along with one or two other minor bosses are mentioned as friends of Henry in his support with Rickken where he humanizes them by saying how they volunteered and build bird houses and stuff. Which is hilarious.

Edited April 14 by Jotari

[buttmuncher.ops]

On 4/11/2024 at 5:33 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Lets start with one that I am probably the only person that has ever cared about them, the minor villain from Genealogy of the Holy War's chapter 4, the mercenary leader Lamia. The vicious leader of an all female mercenary band (the game even brings out all the obscure female enemy sprites just for her little band), famed for their ruthlessness, and being one of the few minor bosses with a unique face sprite (although it is speculated that it might have originally been planned as a face used for a younger Queen Hilda...). She is just plain cool for such a minor villain.

Moving onto generation 2, I have a soft spot for the substitute unit Asaello, the hitman of Connacht. With such a title, one may think I am fawning over minor villains again, but this hitman takes such an ignoble path to help feed the orphans that he grew up with, and has always had a soft spot for children. As someone who also has a soft spot for children, I can kinda relate to the guy. It is a down right a shame that he was cut from Thracia 776, as he would have fit in there perfectly, but they didn't want to imply too much about Thracia 776's continuity by including the replacements...

Next comes a hero from Thracia 776 with Miranda, and with her being the princess of Alster with a noticeable impact on the plot it might seem like a bit of a cheat, but she is not only exclusive to the least popular route of Thracia 776, but also generally considered a difficult to use unit, and much as it pains me to say it, she is. Really she shouldn't be an optional character, as she makes Leif's disastrous attack on Alster make so much more sense. She has a lot of fun spunk to go with her fiery magic, although it is really tough to get her off the ground.

Another Thracia unit, its time to talk about the oft overshadowed Eda. Poor girl had to come with her top tier prepromoted brother Dean, so no one looks at this young dragon rider, but she is still a flier, and a cool little dragon rider, and I have trained her enough to see her become a powerhouse on her own. I kind of pity her really, she gets unfairly overshadowed by units Thracia showers with gifts, and she is constantly putting the feeling of other above her own, following her brother into exile, and in her ending sacrificing her joy to help Altena.

I am going to cheat a little here, as I would be remiss not to mention my love of the Triangle Attack of Ostia, the three great generals Bors, Barthe, and Gwendolyn. This poor trio always gets trash talked, with the dutiful Wendy oft called one of the worst units in Binding Blade, but they can combine their powers into the automatic hit and crit of a deadly Triangle attack. That isn't to dismiss the over protective big brother she looks up to so much, or that loyalist of knights Barthe. What can I say, its fun to setup the right positioning to maximize my number of triangle attacks, and the more restrictive movements of an armored knight just makes it all the more satisfying when you can setup multiple in a turn due to the extra planning needed.

In a very similar vein, I love New Mystery's Axey boy trio as well, with their silly names, and the jokes about people not being able to distinguish Cord and Bord, with ol' Barst as a bit of an outlier. There the lack of the rescue command adds a whole new layer of difficulty to the setup for them to make thing all the more fun, and they hit some impressive benchamarks with the triangle attack as well.

Time for another trio, as I like all the units you recruit in Blazing Blade's Kinship's Bond. I rather like dragon riders, and that split haired Heath was the first one I ever got the chance to use. As for Rath, the quite horse archer that defies discrimination is an interesting mix that appeals to me. Finally a quick word on Isadora, but it always felt a bit funny that she felt more like a friend of Eliwood's mom than him, and discovering her fiance latter in the game was an interesting detail to stumble upon. I know I am rushing a bit here, but I have been rambling on way too long already.

I think I will jump ahead a few games before getting to New Mystery of the Emblem, with another edge case here, of my little prince, Yubello. A bit of a cheat again as he would be royalty if emperor Marth didn't take all the crowns for himself at the end of New Mystery. He is just my little boy, who can be the best mage he wants to be, and I care about my little boy far too much not to mention him a fair bit here.

 

i see we have similar "generational" FE tastes..it must be the fates. jk i havent played that one

 

regardless, lamia, i do not recall the name specifically but i

1. remember that squad (and udderly destroying them)

2. respect that you started with a woman from FE4, as the emphasis is on.."generational conflict" and "optimal pairings"

because i would have started with Ayra (Aira?) as she and Eyvel (also insinuated to be Briggid) are in my opinion: "single mothers tryna make it." they are introduced as protectors, as opposed to the foil of "damsel in distress" Deirdre(s) and Lachesis(es) that occur throughout FE. it started with Navarre and the Dancer trope, played in reverse

 

which brings me to the characters in the next installment: Miranda + Eda. i agree with both because i fielded both as part of "playing for the season" benching and unbenching within same class. but in terms of minor charactual impact i like Lara the most from 776. dancer turned thief turned dancer and no one appreciates her enough for it except maybe a King of thieves we like to call a Pahn. this is where i shut up and pay IS more money for feeding my Sword Skill Satisfaction Rating; thank you for yet ANOTHER Navarre and the Dancer, played in triple 777 (in a game where im playing for the season, we won the championship in a halfstep of overtime. 1 step, 2 step, dance)

 

regarding the Blade installments i had a switch up to riders on the ground. respected the loyalty of Lance (a throwback to Fin?) throughout his support conversations and resonated with the sussy bakaness of Sain through his ability to Deep Six like a Navy SEAL and make it out alive (and flirt while doing it.) however, i have to note that i compared both to Camus & Eltoshan, two major characters in the same vein, although from different generations. it would be difficult, however, in my opinion, to find worthy comparisons to "the most able man on the continent" and the wielder of the darkest, demonic holy weapon

 

for riders in the sky, i have a soft spot for Est as i actually trained her against all advice. really needed to know what the triangle combo was about on my first playthrough of my first FE. in addition, i remember that either her or her sisters having some drama with Abel & Cain. by comparison, the royal family of Minerva & Michalis was Always Sunny, I'm Sure

 

as far as favourite minor character of all FE goes though, mentioned here a few times, it is in fact: Navarre. the name itself holds special meaning for me and everytime we find him, he's doing the vigilante thing. he just cant stop, won't stop

Edited April 14 by buttmuncher.ops

[Saint Rubenio]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

Duessel mentions a legendary smith that made his and Valter's lance, by name

Ahh, true! I almost forgot Gavaleus. Did you have him on the list already?

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

Funny that Troubadour thing, because, yes, Troubadour is a female class in Fire Emblem, but it feels like in that reference they might have been more literal with the term and be referencing an actual singer. So who knows what gender the writer had in mind (I wonder if it's Troubadour as in the class name in Japanese too).

Yeah, I figured this as well, but I needed girls and had no troubadours to work with, so Saaga was pretty convenient in that way.

[Jotari]

29 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Ahh, true! I almost forgot Gavaleus. Did you have him on the list already?

Not until you put my mind thinking about Sacred Stones supports.

Edited April 14 by Jotari

[ping]

I'd like to bring up a very minor Genealogy villain in Clement, one of the squabbling nobles in Agustria. The guy has a total of four lines, but still manages to stand out as an enemy that isn't exactly devious, nor this noble Camüh whose loyalty forces him to fight against our hero. He's just an unfortunate guy at the wrong place at the wrong time: He observes a brewing fight between Heirhein (Elliot and his father Marsaille Bordeaux) and Nordion (Eldigan) and prudently decides to see who will have the upper hand before deciding who to support. The problem: Sigurd is present and he won't go until he has seized every castle in a 100-mile radius. Clement thinks there is just a squabble between two neighboring noble families... and the next thing he sees is a foreign invasion literally at his doorstep, he feels forced to defend against it (I mean, understandable), and five minutes later, he has a Silver Sword in his gut. Poor guy. I just think that, in a series full of dastardly curs and noble Camühses, it's beautiful to see a guy who just takes the worst possible moment to be smart and cautious about something.

[Etrurian emperor]

I'd say Lang scores a lot of points. He's an overly evil douchebag, but in a role and position where he's exactly what he's supposed to be. Lang's meant to be so evil that it shows how far Hardin has fallen, and be powerful enough to be an early game antagonist. In both aspects he succeeds. I think the key aspect to his success is that unlike many villains who hold this role Lang is never depicted as incompetent, allowing him to be a serious threat. 

[buttmuncher.ops]

18 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I'd say Lang scores a lot of points. He's an overly evil douchebag, but in a role and position where he's exactly what he's supposed to be. Lang's meant to be so evil that it shows how far Hardin has fallen, and be powerful enough to be an early game antagonist. In both aspects he succeeds. I think the key aspect to his success is that unlike many villains who hold this role Lang is never depicted as incompetent, allowing him to be a serious threat. 

Hardin's betrayal itself was truly heartwrenching. on squad names, timings of cavalier reinforcements and story: his entrance & subsequent backing really made that arc of Book 1 go smoothly iirc

a comparison between OP's Lamia example and the "Coyote" or "Wolf" ? squadron comes to mind