Minor character unappreciation thread

[Etrurian emperor]

The reverse side of that other topic. What minor character do you have a noteworthy negative reaction towards despite their lack of importance. I suppose what character is minor or not is subjective so feel free to name anyone you think fits, whether it be playable characters without much presence in cutscenes or minor bosses and minor or relatively major villains. 

For me the most noteworthy candidate for such unappreciation is Kotaro because I think he's about the worst written character in fates. If you betray everyone without rhyme or reason then you're not a schemer nor an opportunist, you're just a buffoon instead. Kotaro had no reason to go pick a fight over a single prisoner, and trying to exterminate the royal family of the country he was trying to ally with over such a squabble is just dumb. Even Iago has more logic to his actions.

Speaking of poorly written we have Yukimura who is very chill about you trying to take over his kingdom but turns around and deems you an unforgivable monster if you just want to stay neutral. 

For the Leicester Alliance its Acheron and Judith. There were many good ways of showing us an example of an opportunistic small fry noble of the alliance but making him a gigantic loser who only ever picks the losing side surely isn't one of them. Judith meanwhile seems to be there solely to give us an NPC Alliance ally who's not Holst which seems a waste. 

Radiant Dawn's Levail exist solely to highlight an aspect of the Black Knight that drags down his character and which I think is a failure. As such I think Levail fails as well. No levail, a man who murders someone just to see if he can is not the last true knight on Tellius. It might have worked if we see the Zelgius fanboy slowly get corrupted into someone who behaves as the Black Knight, but they missed that chance by pretending there isn't any difference between Zelgius and the Black Knight. 

 

[Jotari]

Oh boy, oh boy do I have a rant incoming for you. I was even planning on making this a thread myself entitled "My least favourite Fire Embelm character(s)." Because I absolutely hate the existence of Georg and Kaim. To which your reaction is probably "Who?" Well, it's these guys.

Spoiler

Not a bad design, huh? Well, why do I dislike them so much? Ya see, I'm a pretty tolerant guy when it comes to fictional characters. Even if a character is poorly written or a bad person in themselves, or even if the narrative is contriving itself to make something work, I can appreciate what the writers are trying to do. But none of that tolerance applies to Georg or Kaim, because they are actively making the story worse with their existence. So who are they? Well you probably recognize them if you open the spoiler tab, these are the bosses of the chapters Valours Roland and The Berserker from Blazing Blade, wherein Eliwood and Hector go looking for the sacred weapons a meet the ghosts of Roland and Durban. Georg and Kaim are also Ghosts, summoned by the spirits of Roland or Durban to fight the heroes. And that's it. That's all they are. Their battle quotes say nothing of value about them and their info screen has nothing of  interest about them. You know who they should have been? Actually Roland and Durban themself! It would have been way more memorable to fight the two legendary Heroes. Instead we meet them without fighting them and fight these nobodies instead. But, okay, okay, let's give them some grace. Maybe Roland and Durban are just too epic to have stats and be fought. Sure Athos is another legend who we outright get as a playable, but he's old. Ghosts are, uh, properly stronger than old guys? I don't buy that, but I'll pretend I do to give the idea some credit. Roland and Durban can't be fought because it gives them an air of mystique. Fine. But that doesn't mean We deserve freaking Georg and Kaim. It's take a generic hero and berserker over Georg and Kaim. Because they are less than nothing. They ruin the potential of fighting Durban and Roland, and they ruin the potential of fighting an interesting replacement too. And that's because the two guys look and act identically, which is in a way that exhibits no personality at all. Even the Thracia 776 bosses who have no dialogue and are never alluded to in the story are better than these guys, because at least for them we can extrapolate from context why they're fighting in the battle and where they're from. But these two guys don't even get that. They're just warriors from long ago. If it were one character, then that would be an idea I can get behind. If we only hat Georg or Kaim, fought regardless of which route you take, then it'd be this specific hero from the Scouring. A ninth member of the legends if you will, who never got a Divine Weapon and the recognition of the others, but nonetheless fought alongside them and was so meaningful his soul persisted beyond death in service to them. That's fine. That's cool....but the fact that there's two of them with an identical palette swapped design ruins that for me. And it's not a bad design, but it's one that exudes zero charisma. It's not some specific guy. It's two indistinguishable guys with the same nothing personality. The only way they can possibly salavaged as characters is if they give us a game set during the scouring and these two are revealed to basically be Dolph and Macellan.

Edited April 15 by Jotari

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Ah, yes, let's see. Peri sucks, Keaton sucks, Henry sucks, Tharja sucks, Rhajat sucks, Nah sucks, Severa/Selena sucks, Kjelle sucks, Rosado sucks, Nagi sucks, Ilyana sucks, Niles sucks, Nina sucks, Soleil sucks, Azama sucks...

I do not like any of those characters one little bit. Some of them are the kind of people I'd seriously want to punch in real life (Severa, Kjelle, Azama), some of them are literal murderous psychopaths who shouldn't be in your army in the first place (Peri, Keaton, Henry), some of them are plain obnoxious (Rosado), some of them have simply zero character (Nagi), some of them are extremely manipulative or abusive (Nah, Tharja, Rhajat), some of them take certain sexual things way way way way way too far (Soleil, Niles, Nina), or they are a combination of some/all of those (various of who I've mentioned).

Edited April 17 by Fire Emblem Fan

[Magenta Fantasies]

I forget who Nagi is and what game it is from, and I have a great memory for characters and lore, so that probably says something.

As for minor/obscure characters I dislike, Geitz from the Blazing Blade immediately comes to mind. For such an obscure, minor, difficult to recruit character, he is so deeply obnoxious and unlikeable. He’s by far my least favorite Blazing Blade character.

While less obscure, they are completely optional characters and can be missed whether by accident or on purpose, so I’ll count Dwyer and Yarne. I hate their personalities and attitudes, and hate even more the fact that they’re the sons of two of my top five favorite Fire Emblem characters.

[BrightBow]

Definitely Arthur. It's ridiculously condescending of him to lie to his family because he decided that he is the only one who can bear the "horrible" truth that his father who everyone believed to be dead is actually still alive.
And what, you think your mom doesn't on some level recognize when you lie in her face so brazenly? That's gonna turn into gaslighting very quickly, you know?
Seriously, get your head out of your ass, Arthur. It's not good for your back.

[Vicious Sal]

Frederick should have drowned in his armour during the fleet crash action from Robin. Remove the Jeigan from the game. Waste of space character.

[Samz707]

I found Mustafa's whole thing to fall incredibly flat to the point where he actually came off as less sympathetic.

He basically causes his own death with his stupidity at worst and at best is a coward who'd rather see the Shepherds captured and executed because he doesn't want to kill them himself but still too much of a coward to attempt letting them go, essentially coming off as incredibly slimy or incredibly stupid to me. 

I am genuinely baffled anyone felt bad for killing him.  

I honestly respect outright villains like Narcian more than him. 

[ping]

I'm going to say Sylvia. It's not that she's a promiscuous character, but I really don't need a promiscuous character whose childishness and immaturity is dialed up to 11 in virtually every scene she is in. And even if those traits were removed, it also bothers me that Sylvia's behaviour needed to be given a justification in the form of daddy issues, while characters like Sain or Saul are allowed to be man-sluts just because.

[Etrurian emperor]

1 hour ago, ping said:

I'm going to say Sylvia. It's not that she's a promiscuous character, but I really don't need a promiscuous character whose childishness and immaturity is dialed up to 11 in virtually every scene she is in. And even if those traits were removed, it also bothers me that Sylvia's behaviour needed to be given a justification in the form of daddy issues, while characters like Sain or Saul are allowed to be man-sluts just because.

Now that I think about it that seems to be a running theme for female flirts. Dorothea and Charlotte both have reasons and goals attached to their hunt for a man, while the boys are just allowed to be horny for horny's sake. The exception being Sylvain who's a flirt because he's the worst. 

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Soleil is a lady who gets to be horny just because, but I suppose she's just supposed to take after her dad.

[AnonymousSpeed]

>when the internet cannot handle that men are hornier than women

11 hours ago, Samz707 said:

I found Mustafa's whole thing to fall incredibly flat to the point where he actually came off as less sympathetic.

He basically causes his own death with his stupidity at worst and at best is a coward who'd rather see the Shepherds captured and executed because he doesn't want to kill them himself but still too much of a coward to attempt letting them go, essentially coming off as incredibly slimy or incredibly stupid to me. 

I am genuinely baffled anyone felt bad for killing him.  

I honestly respect outright villains like Narcian more than him. 

Excellent post, 100/10, very cool and good. I fully endorse this condemnation of faux depth and shallow audience manipulation. Narcian once again is the most strong, smart, and beautiful.

[Samz707]

6 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

>when the internet cannot handle that men are hornier than women

Excellent post, 100/10, very cool and good. I fully endorse this condemnation of faux depth and shallow audience manipulation. Narcian once again is the most strong, smart, and beautiful.

Indeed Narcian is the best, FE6 remake having voiced Narcian would make it the objectively best Fire Emblem game and officially give Heroes no reason to exist anymore outside of breadcrumbing me more SOV. 

(It always bugs me how people and the game act like Mustafa is an complete innocent when his entire goal is to essentially get the shepherds executed without a fight so his conscience is clean despite the fact he'd still be responsible for their deaths.)

 

[Etrurian emperor]

Asugi is a big one for me and he brings down Gaius by association. 

The big reason I hold Asugi in contempt is because I don't think Gaius deserved his own clone. Tharja and Cordelia were at least a phenomenon during Awakening so them being cloned made sense. But who ever talked about Gaius? I know he ranked high in one poll where the western fans weren't even consulted but more should be required. 

[Jotari]

8 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Asugi is a big one for me and he brings down Gaius by association. 

The big reason I hold Asugi in contempt is because I don't think Gaius deserved his own clone. Tharja and Cordelia were at least a phenomenon during Awakening so them being cloned made sense. But who ever talked about Gaius? I know he ranked high in one poll where the western fans weren't even consulted but more should be required. 

I guess we can presume from that one poll, which let's not forget was significant enough to influence the game, that he was a bit of a phenomenon in the Japanese fandom. Though he certainly hasn't had much staying power. In the first CYL poll he was below Nowi, Lon'Qu and Donnel, among the more widely viewed popular Awakening characters. What's also a shame is that Asugi is a fine character all by himself. At least from what I remember. He has hang ups about his family legacy and a distaste for Saizo that doesn't rely on the Gaius character gimmick at all.

[lenticular]

One of the nice things about Fire Emblem is that it's pretty easy to just ignore the characters that I don't like. Unless I hate the main protagonist or something, then I probably just have to grit my teeth and sit through a chapter or two, and then the annoying character will either be permanently benched (if they're a minor player character) or dead (if they're a minor villain). So while there are characters who I dislike (Oliver, Virion, Framme, etc.), it's generally difficult to muster up too much conempt for them.

[Metal Flash]

Gilbert from Three Houses. Him staying close enough for Annette to notice him, only to pull away the second she tries to talk to him aggravates me to no end. Either talk to your daughter (and wife) and ease her worries or leave and never see her again. 

Edited April 17 by Metal Flash

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 4/17/2024 at 1:13 PM, Metal Flash said:

Gilbert from Three Houses. Him staying close enough for Annette to notice him, only to pull away the second she tries to talk to him aggravates me to no end. Either talk to your daughter (and wife) and ease her worries or leave and never see her again. 

Iunno. I hate to derail the thread (natural occurrence) but I feel like hanging around, while inferior to being there for your kid, indicates a conscience which isn't totally seared.

[Jotari]

15 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Iunno. I hate to derail the thread (natural occurrence) but I feel like hanging around, while inferior to being there for your kid, indicates a conscience which isn't totally seared.

He pretended to be her uncle or something, didn't he? She was only pissed when she found out the truth during the generation skip. I think. And by then he was already pretty damn committed to the whole continent spanning war thing that was going on.

[AnonymousSpeed]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

He pretended to be her uncle or something, didn't he? She was only pissed when she found out the truth during the generation skip. I think. And by then he was already pretty damn committed to the whole continent spanning war thing that was going on.

dude i played 80 hours of three houses and i still do not remember any of it

[Metal Flash]

4 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Iunno. I hate to derail the thread (natural occurrence) but I feel like hanging around, while inferior to being there for your kid, indicates a conscience which isn't totally seared.

Not enough of one to talk to his family evidently.

[Eltosian Kadath]

On 4/16/2024 at 8:11 AM, Etrurian emperor said:

The exception being Sylvain who's a flirt because he's the worst. 

In an odd way this exemplifies why I find this topic far less interesting. I was trying to remember who this character was as a character that I might mention in this thread, but it is a character I dislike enough that I literally could not even remember which game they were from, let alone what they were named without someone else mentioning them...

[Magenta Fantasies]

On 4/17/2024 at 9:06 AM, lenticular said:

One of the nice things about Fire Emblem is that it's pretty easy to just ignore the characters that I don't like. Unless I hate the main protagonist or something, then I probably just have to grit my teeth and sit through a chapter or two, and then the annoying character will either be permanently benched (if they're a minor player character) or dead (if they're a minor villain). So while there are characters who I dislike (Oliver, Virion, Framme, etc.), it's generally difficult to muster up too much conempt for them.

It is true that it’s pretty easy to ignore most Fire Emblem characters you don’t like. That is probably why I don’t dislike that many Fire Emblem characters. I’d struggle to name 20 I actively dislike.

On 4/17/2024 at 6:35 AM, Etrurian emperor said:

Asugi is a big one for me and he brings down Gaius by association. 

The big reason I hold Asugi in contempt is because I don't think Gaius deserved his own clone. Tharja and Cordelia were at least a phenomenon during Awakening so them being cloned made sense. But who ever talked about Gaius? I know he ranked high in one poll where the western fans weren't even consulted but more should be required. 

While I agree that Gaius is less popular (but also less polarizing or disliked) than Tharja or Cordelia, he’s probably the most popular male Awakening character after Chrom and Robin and maybe Owain and Inigo. Robin and Chrom aside, Gaius is by far the most popular first-generation male.

Personally, I prefer this topic to the “minor character appreciation” thread. It’s more interesting for me to think about which minor or obscure characters I dislike than about which ones I like.

 

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Magenta Fantasies said:

 

It is true that it’s pretty easy to ignore most Fire Emblem characters you don’t like. That is probably why I don’t dislike that many Fire Emblem characters. I’d struggle to name 20 I actively dislike.

While I agree that Gaius is less popular (but also less polarizing or disliked) than Tharja or Cordelia, he’s probably the most popular male Awakening character after Chrom and Robin and maybe Owain and Inigo. Robin and Chrom aside, Gaius is by far the most popular first-generation male.

 

At the time of Awakening's release, yeah. But, as I said earlier, that popularity did not last. Donnel and Lon'Qu got better than him in the first CYL poll. And I think even at the time of release Henry's popularity rivaled if not surpassed Gaius's. And his popularity further plummeted after the first CYL. In the most recent on he got less than 400 votes.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Another character I'm not fond of is Hapi. The only thing I think I like is her support, chemistry, and ending with Dimitri. Other than that, she's a character that doesn't really work. Her "sigh to summon monsters" gimmick is incredibly stupid and does not work in any way, shape, or form, in my opinion, and most of her supports are just plain not great. I'm more annoyed by her than anything.

[Magenta Fantasies]

On 4/20/2024 at 10:50 PM, Jotari said:

At the time of Awakening's release, yeah. But, as I said earlier, that popularity did not last. Donnel and Lon'Qu got better than him in the first CYL poll. And I think even at the time of release Henry's popularity rivaled if not surpassed Gaius's. And his popularity further plummeted after the first CYL. In the most recent on he got less than 400 votes.

Choose Your Legends isn’t a good metric for popularity. There are all sorts of reasons why some characters can place higher than others. Maybe people thought Gaius was a shoo-in for being added to Heroes, but Lon’qu and Donnell’s futures were less certain, so they voted more for the latter two. Henry is almost certainly more popular than Lon’qu or Donnell, but he’s also much more polarizing than them or Gaius. Lots of people like Henry, but I’ve met plenty of people who dislike him, myself included. As far as fan art, fan fiction, general observations in the fandom/just generally being talked about, etc. Gaius is definitely more popular than Lon’qu or Donnell, although those aren’t perfect metrics, either.

In fact, there are several characters who have placed weirdly high in CYL, such as Dorcas. Outside of the occasional poisoned mutton meme mention, does anyone talk about him? Even in 2017, that meme was fairly obscure and I don’t think the ad it originated from ever aired in Japan. I never saw this meme until a year or two ago, and I’ve been a Fire Emblem fan since 2009.