Would You Consider Leif More Important Than Other FE Lords?

[Anacybele]

I would say Ike is the most important in both lore and to Fire Emblem as a whole. Story wise he united 2 nations and a bunch of misfits into an army to take down the kind that was bent upon conquest. After that he yet again helps in united people, fights against a deity and her minions including multiple powerful spell casters, a dragon that is extremely old and powerful, the Black Knight, and Ashera herself, and wins the fight. Story wise he may even be the most powerful lord out of all of them.

Outside of the story, Ike is one of the most recognizable FE characters to the gaming community. He isn't like your normal JRPG protagonist that looks 15 years old and like he hasnt eaten in about a week, so he really stands out from the rest. He also has Smash to help him with being well known, and its kind of hard not to bring that up as its really what gave Fire Emblem a shot overseas. Without it, Fire Emblem would be either a dead game right now, or a Japan only release.

These are good points, but I feel that Marth being the first ever FE main protagonist, just as recognizable, and being in Melee which helped bring FE overseas just kinda trumps all that. And this is coming from possibly the biggest Ike fangirl on this site. :P Srsly, I really love Ike. <3 And he's number 2 on the importance list because of what you've said here! :)

And fun fact: he actually is the most powerful lord story-wise, if Old Hubba's quotes are anything to go by. He literally says that Ike is the mightiest hero of them all!

Edited March 22, 2016 by Anacybele

[MCProductions]

These are good points, but I feel that Marth being the first ever FE main protagonist, just as recognizable, and being in Melee which helped bring FE overseas just kinda trumps all that. And this is coming from possibly the biggest Ike fangirl on this site. :P Srsly, I really love Ike. <3 And he's number 2 on the importance list because of what you've said here! :)

Here's the list of most important FE characters imo

1.Marth: Face of the franchise for crying out loud

2.Ike: Tolvir's points

3.Tiki: Major role in all 6 games she's in, and apparently the deuteragonist of TMS#FE

4.Roy: There's a reason the meme is "Are Marth and Roy in this game"

5.Lucina: While this is interchangeable with Chrom, I gave it to her because of Smash as well as being a main character of the game that quite literally saved the franchise from death.

[Anacybele]

Okay list, I guess. I'd say that Robin is interchangeable with Lucina and Chrom as well though. He/she's also in Smash and the Avatar of the game that saved the franchise.

I personally don't consider Lucina a main character of Awakening, though. Only a major supporting character, like Soren is to Ike in PoR. Lucina may have the Lord class, but she has a lot of relevance only until she's recruited (she only appears in a few scenes after that, I think), and her falling in battle doesn't cause a game over and she isn't a forced unit or anything. Chrom and Robin are the only true main characters of the game to me.

[Randoman]

Setting aside the definition of "more important", I'm afraid this argument now holds less water with Fates.

Owain, Inigo and Severa are all back for that game, not as Einherjar or amiibo either.

See below:

doesn't apply since we're sticking to lord comparisons only.

Yeah, I want this thread to stick with discussing importance among other FE lords only. Otherwise, we'll have things like Akanean characters, Tellius characters, Bartre, Karel, and others being considered more important than Sigurd and Eirika by that logic, which was never my intention.

Still, I can't help but feel that Leif being a lead character in an FE game and canonically playable in another FE game somehow puts him above quite a few FE lords, even if Smash Bros. and all other FE related advertising and such seems to shaft him. I guess it's just me, then.

[Rethel34]

Using your logic: Eliwood and Hector are also massively important to the whole series simply because they appeared in both FE6 & 7. Roy did the same. This doesn't make them important to the franchise, or even important to the tale of FE in it's entirety.

Marth is important to the franchise because he's the face that started it all. He's important to the story because he killed Medeus--twice--stopped Hardin's insane tirade, is a major wielder of the sacred Falchion, and is an ancestor to another prominent member of Fire Emblem history: Chrom (and by extension Lucina). Though not directly a "Lord" class (he was never featured as a unit in any game, but has lordlike qualities), the Hero Anri, one of Marth's ancestors, is also prominent to the FE storyline because he was the first recorded wielder of Falchion and the first person to vanquish Medeus.

Ike defeated a goddess with A WEAPON SHE MADE. Does anything more need to be said about him?

Does anything Lief has done hold a candle to these two? Do his actions warrant being put on the same tier of importance, or even relatively close? No. He defeated a relatively minor villain of a relatively minor plot point that was there to fill in the lesser details and create a gaiden plot for Genealogy.

Edited March 24, 2016 by Rethel34

[secondworld]

Ike defeated a goddess with A WEAPON SHE MADE. Does anything more need to be said about him?

Seeing how that has nothing to do with Ike's importance to the series, probably.

[Randoman]

Using your logic: Eliwood and Hector are also massively important to the whole series simply because they appeared in both FE6 & 7. Roy did the same. This doesn't make them important to the franchise, or even important to the tale of FE in it's entirety.

Marth is important to the franchise because he's the face that started it all. He's important to the story because he killed Medeus--twice--stopped Hardin's insane tirade, is a major wielder of the sacred Falchion, and is an ancestor to another prominent member of Fire Emblem history: Chrom (and by extension Lucina). Though not directly a "Lord" class (he was never featured as a unit in any game, but has lordlike qualities), the Hero Anri, one of Marth's ancestors, is also prominent to the FE storyline because he was the first recorded wielder of Falchion and the first person to vanquish Medeus.

Ike defeated a goddess with A WEAPON SHE MADE. Does anything more need to be said about him?

Does anything Lief has done hold a candle to these two? Do his actions warrant being put on the same tier of importance, or even relatively close? No. He defeated a relatively minor villain of a relatively minor plot point that was there to fill in the lesser details and create a gaiden plot for Genealogy.

Not really, since Eliwood, Hector, and Roy aren't canonically playable in more than one Fire Emblem game, while Leif is.

I will concede the points about Leif not being as major due to simply defeating a relatively minor Jugdral villain and Seliph being the bigger hero in the overall Jugdral war.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Eh, not really. If I were to rank each Lord by importance, it'd probably go like this:

1. Marth. I don't really need to explain this, do I?

2. Ike. I probably don't need to explain this one, either.

3. Roy. He's always been very well-regarded in Japan. Even outside of Smash Bros. he's popular! He's also the star of the first GBA game, and the first handheld game in the series overall. Since then, the handheld titles have been the main platform of the series. You could point to Awakening and say that game is the reason handhelds are the main platform of the series (I've seen this many times), but I'd say it goes all the way back to Roy and his game.

4. Lyn. Discounting Super Smash Bros. (as you say), she was the very first Fire Emblem character the rest of the world got to see. She (and her game) was specifically designed to introduce the rest of the world to the series, and if that doesn't make her important then I don't know what does!

5. Lucina. She's one of the characters that literally saved the series. She's immensely popular, being the main character promoted by Nintendo, the one to get a figma, the one to appear in Project X Zone 2 (alongside Chrom)...she's important to the series whether you like it or not.

6. Chrom. You could argue that he and Lucina are interchangeable, but I would disagree. Who gets all the promotions? The figma? The popularity? Lucina. Chrom helped save the series, which is why he's placed where he is, but Lucina is ultimately more important.

7./8. Eliwood/Hector. They were the other two Lords to introduce the rest of the world to FE. However, Lyn is the one used in the vast majority of promotions, cameo appearances, and everything else. And they're both overshadowed by their children (Roy and Lilina, respectively), Lyn, and the other characters I've placed above them. Helping to introduce the rest of the world to FE (and fathering Roy, in Eliwood's case) is the main reason they get this spot.

9. Eirika. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I have a good reason to rank her here, but when I think of her...she just seems more important than the Lords I've ranked her above.

10. Ephraim. I didn't tie him with Eirika for some of the same reasons I didn't tie Eliwood and Hector with Lyn. Eirika is the more popular twin, she overshadows Ephraim. And for the first several chapters of their game, who's the main character? Eirika. When you get to switch to Ephraim, it's only for a few chapters, and then you meet back up with Eirika. Eirika is more popular, gets more time on the screen, and overshadows her sibling.

11. Micaiah. In her game, she's undoubtedly very important. She's the host of Yune, after all! However, she gets her spotlight taken away, and it's taken away for the majority of the game. She's also overshadowed by Ike in terms of popularity. She does have her dedicated fans, but looking at the majority of fans...she isn't really liked all that much. As a unit, she's generally considered pretty bad (as far as Lords go), and as a character she just gets overshadowed and her spotlight stolen. Plus, the game she co-stars in...didn't sell well.

12. Seliph. The most important character in his saga and one of the most popular! I'd really like to put him higher on the list, but...his game is a "black sheep" of sorts. When people talk about Fire Emblem, Genealogy isn't the one usually brought up. It's Awakening, or the GBA trilogy, or Marth's saga, or the Tellius games...his game did achieve popularity, but as the series went on it became a black sheep. And despite the popularity he himself has, it doesn't reach the heights of Marth, or Roy, or Ike, or Lucina, or...you get the idea.

13./14. Sigurd/Leif. Both Sigurd and Leif are overshadowed by Seliph. Among fans, Leif is generally regarded very well, however he's still not as well-known or as important as the other Lords ranked before him. His game is probably one of the most inaccessible games in the series (along with Gaiden). In addition to that, it's a side-story. The main story is the more popular Genealogy, with the more popular and more important Seliph.

15./16. Alm/Celica. I probably don't need to explain this, right?

[Ema Skye]

Also, for this question, let's disregard all Smash Bros. related influences and points that use Smash Bros. to support arguments/claims. (such as a character "being more important" due to being playable in Smash, etc.)

This kind of stipulation requires one to ignore a giant pool of evidence with, frankly, backwards logic.

Characters don't become important by being in Smash Bros, which is what you're suggesting. They get into Smash Bros. because they're important. You've also got PxZ2 and Monster Hunter further cementing their importance. Not to mention amiibo too.

Regarding Leif, I'd honestly wager to say that he's the least important Lord alongside Celica.

[Rethel34]

Seeing how that has nothing to do with Ike's importance to the series, probably.

Ok, how about the fact that in the games' timeline, this particular feat earned him great renown on faraway continents? Yeah, it has everything to do with it. And if I need to go further and give an out-of-universe example: He was the first (and until Awakening, only) FE "Lord" to be involved in a form of 3D FE game.

Point is, Lief has done nothing worthy of renown. Whether in-universe or out of it. His game was not nearly as popular as Genealogy and really did very little to further the franchise, and he defeated no great baddies, as opposed to Seliph who proved himself greater than the heir of Loputo. Really and truly, other than the number of installments in the series, I feel like Fire Emblem would not be much, if any, different if Thracia hadn't been included in the series. Maybe we wouldn't have two characters in Fates with a capture skill. Maybe. But it's two chars. Not the entire cast. Wouldn't make that much difference to me, honestly. So all things considered, I fail to see how the Lord of said game could be so important to the series if the title he is a Lord in itself is so expendable.

[Randoman]

This kind of stipulation requires one to ignore a giant pool of evidence with, frankly, backwards logic.

Characters don't become important by being in Smash Bros, which is what you're suggesting. They get into Smash Bros. because they're important. You've also got PxZ2 and Monster Hunter further cementing their importance. Not to mention amiibo too.

There are quite a few characters in Smash that most would argue against that point I bolded. Jigglypuff, Dark Pit, and Ice Climbers are characters most would agree aren't heavily important to Nintendo's overall history.

Also, a lot of newcomer Pokemon and FE reps in Smash Bros. were included to coincide with the most recent game being released (or being developed) at the time. Sakurai himself even admitted in past articles that he was considering using Leif as Marth's clone (the most recent FE lead at the time, in terms of FE games that were out) in Melee until IS showed him FE6's development and Roy. So many people online don't even consider Roy all that important to FE outside of Smash Bros., so that's another strike against your argument of importance (with most arguments against Roy's importance being he didn't star in multiple games like Marth or Ike and he wasn't one of the leads in the first internationally released Fire Emblem). And Sakurai even asked The Pokemon Company to show him some of the newest Gen 6 Pokemon to pick a playable rep among them, even before Pokemon X and Y came out. And before you use Ike as an exception for Brawl in regards to not being the newest lord, remember that Radiant Dawn still features him as one of the lords.

As for amiibo, that doesn't prove anything further than Smash Bros. "importance" does, especially in regards to FE leads. As I said before, most FE leads chosen for Smash are chosen because they're the most current, and seeing how Nintendo literally gave every SSB4 character an amiibo, using amiibo as proof of "importance" while also mentioning Smash importance is redundant. They only have amiibo because they're playable in Smash 4, nothing more. If FE had its own amiibo series that included characters outside of the playable FE Smash cast, then that argument would hold merit.

As for you claiming the Project X Zone and Monster Hunter cameos of Chrom and Lucina show that they're important, that's very likely done for advertising the most recent FE that's out internationally, if anything. I mean, would putting Marth and Ike cameos in those games help Nintendo out as much as putting in Chrom and Lucina? Sure, Marth and Ike have been FE mascots for longer and have been leads in more games than any of the other lords, but they wouldn't sell Awakening as well or get people interested in buying it.

Anyways, I've gone way more off topic than I should've. If you're really that insistent on continuing this particular topic, feel free to make a separate thread for it.

[Hardin]

I agree that Smash isn't a good metric for determining importance, at least some of the time. Without question Roy and Ike became important by riding the coattails of Smash, but the others had achieved success without Smash. Marth was both the original lord and hero of the best selling FE game, Robin & Lucina were from the most successful game in the modern era, and then Corrin even one upped them by heading the second best selling game in franchise history and one of Nintendo's best sellers of 2015.

[The Geek]

Not really, since Eliwood, Hector, and Roy aren't canonically playable in more than one Fire Emblem game, while Leif is.

I will concede the points about Leif not being as major due to simply defeating a relatively minor Jugdral villain and Seliph being the bigger hero in the overall Jugdral war.

Eliwood and Hector are playable in FE6's Trial Maps.

So if we're going by the metric that Importance to the FE Series=Number of FE games they've been playable in, then importance would be ranked as:

Marth(6)>Ike(4)>Leif(3)>Alm=Celica=Seliph=Roy=Eliwood=Hector=Lyn=Eirika=Ephraim=Micaiah=Robin(2)=Lucina>Sigurd=Chrom=Corrin(1)

[NinjaMonkey]

Marth was both the original lord and hero of the best selling FE game

That can't be true as Awakening was the first FE game to sell over one million copies.

Edited March 26, 2016 by NinjaMonkey

[Hardin]

I'm talking domestic sales Ninja, in Japan FE3 is still king by a wide margin with Fates and FE4 in second and third respectively.

[Randoman]

Eliwood and Hector are playable in FE6's Trial Maps.

Not really, since Eliwood, Hector, and Roy aren't canonically playable in more than one Fire Emblem game

Eliwood and Hector are only playable in FE6 through Trial Maps, and aren't playable in the main story. Trial Maps aren't canon to FE stories.

[Tamanoir]

Number of games =/= importance.

In fact Leif isn't all that important at all, which is kinda the point really. Part of his character is that he's not the one who will rise against the empire and save Jugdral, he's not the main hero.

The fact that Thracia 776 is so obscure and generally overshadowed by Genealogy is actually kinda fitting in a meta way.

That actually always was my favourite aspect of Leif (and FE5).

Leif is great because he's not important in the grand scheme of things. Thracia is barely a note in history book, since Leif spent most of the game fleeing against impossible odds. The importance of it overall is only slightly more significant than Lyn Mode.

Every other lords had far more influence in their world than Leif had (often saving the world against all kind of super beings.). Maybe even Sigurd (he at least birthed Seliph, and his actions had some serious consequences.)

And that's why his story is so compelling.

[KFrosty]

Even though it goes against my boy Roy, I would have to agree that an appearance in Smash isn't necessarily proof of importance in FE. Corrin, for example, was being developed for smash even before Fates got a release. BUT it does affect notoriety and public opinion of the character. I had no interest in Leif, Alm, or Seliph in Awakening due to me not knowing the characters at the time. But that doesn't mean they are not important to FE at all. If anything, Fire Emblem Cipher is probably a better indication for FE importance than Smash

[Etrurian emperor]

What I think truly holds Leif back from being an important lord is that he really isn't facing substantial villains. Not only are they merely the lackey's of another games lackey but they also aren't entirely related to Leif's prime achievements.

Lore wise Leif is important for liberating the Manster district with Seliph and for uniting the Tracian peninsula. Achieving these ends requires not the defeat of low tier villains like Veld or Riedrich but the removal of Blume and Trabant from their thrones...and Leif actually doesn't do that. Sure, he can kill them personally if the player wants it but even so, he does it under the command of Seliph and their defeat is a part of Seliph's tale rather then his own.

[Levin's Scarf]

I wouldn't exactly say that he's the most important lord in the series, but I think he's among the most interesting lords.