[FE Switch Discussion] The Avatar

[AlexArtsHere]

So obviously we've got the Fire Emblem Direct coming in about 32 hours and, while anecdotal evidence suggests there's not much of an expectation that FE15 will show up beyond a teaser (if that), we nonetheless wait to see what Fire Emblem has in store for us next.  And if Fire Emblem does start coming out in two to three year gaps, then it can't be long before we see the latest instalment and what it has to offer us. Personally, I'm hoping for the return of the Avatar. Say what you will about how they've been handled in the story, but I find customising and using the Avatar in battle to be a lot of fun. However, I'm disappointed at the limitations of the character creation feature. Sure, we can't have too many options or the artists would have much more to draw, but I think the implementation of skin tones/colours is important (both for political reasons and to bring some diversity to a series whose character designs are often white or Asian), and I don't think eye colours would be too much of a stretch.

So here is my wishlist for the next iteration of character creation in Fire Emblem (keep in mind these are wants, not expectations):

1. More races: Corrin is definitely a controversial character; he's the first Avatar in the series to be a Lord, the story revolves completely around him and he suffers from more than his fair share of flawed writing. But I think one thing that makes him stand out from other Lords is the fact that he can transform, both partially and fully, into a dragon. Heck, the Mashpotato Samurai even made that his whole gimmick in Smash. What I would like to see with the next character creator is the ability to select from a breadth of races such as in Dragon Quest X or Dragon Ball Xenoverse. This would allow for many more unique individuals when the Avatar can be anything from Human to Manakete to Wolfskin to Laguz. Of all my wishes, this is definitely the least likely to happen since the amount of work going into drawing portraits alone would be enormous, but I can dream.
2. Custom armour colours: For a character who is already fairly customisable, it's quite a shame that anything but their canonical outfits are coloured only in Generic Blue. Several characters in Awakening and Fates, such as Anna, Gangrel, Selena, Effie and Benny have all have their own palettes, so why not the Avatar? IS could even make a whole feature out of letting players colour their outfit for each individual class the Avatar has access to!
3. Have the Avatar take a back seat in the story: I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that I want the Avatar to be a part of the world, not the centre of it. New Mystery of the Emblem drew ire for having Chris retcon basically everything Marth achieved to become his own feats, and Fates made Corrin a bland, pure, all loving hero who was basically lauded as the Messiah by most everyone around him in the story who was also a walking MacGuffin. On the other hand, I feel Awakening handled Robin very well. While not an immediately flawed character with regards to personality, she obviously had an area of expertise in tactics and this shown off at several points in the story. Furthermore, until the final arc, the conflict in the game wasn't immediately hers; it was Chrom's, a prince fighting for his country, while Robin fought alongside him as his friend/lover (depending on who you paired). She had a reason to fight, but it was nearly as significant as Chrom's. And that's what I want FE15 to go back to; a character who, while involved in the story, isn't the most important part of it.

So that's what I want from Fire Emblem's next Avatar, and now I hand the torch to the forums. What do you want to see in the Avatar? Do you even want to see the Avatar at all? I would love to hear your opinions on this, guys.

Edited January 19, 2017 by InfinityAlex

[Magical Glace]

My ultimate wish is no avatar, gone, poof, no more.

But I suppose the next best thing is just make them of no importance to the plot and just another member of the army, exclude them from cutscenes after they first join and such like 95% of the army.  Or make it optional, so they may be ignored.

[BlueBloodEmblazer]

How I want avatar to be implemented.

We start out with the creation, and choose looks, Asset/boon, Flaw/bane, talent, etc.

Then the avatar's backstory shouldn't be too deep, but it doesn't leave a plothole. Example: Avatar is leaving a house and saying bye to someone (we assume it's their fam), they then meet the lord, join the lord's party (maybe as a knight), and gets promoted to tactition. They can support every character, but are just there for the other character to wall climb them. What I mean by that is the avatar has little character growth, but we get a lot of character development for the other character. Overall very little involvement in the story, and a character that I can insert myself into his blank slate. Gameplay-wise: Corrin in a different class.

 

EDIT: Awakening's Robin would be fine with just a little less plot involvement, and no Robin/Grima arc, Grima could have been an evil Lucina or something.

Edited January 17, 2017 by BlueBloodEmblazer

[Ryo]

If the Avatar returns, I want them to play a story-teller kind of role and the story doesn't revolve around them, that way I can actually immerse myself into the story (although ideally, I don't want an Avatar character tbh). Also as little player pandering and/or worship as possible, though obviously this is just wishful thinking. And no Avatar-sexual please, that would just hammer those characters' potential and make them even less appealing.

[Tolvir]

 

10 minutes ago, Ryo said:

If the Avatar returns, I want them to play a story-teller kind of role and the story doesn't revolve around them, that way I can actually immerse myself into the story (although ideally, I don't want an Avatar character tbh). Also as little player pandering and/or worship as possible, though obviously this is just wishful thinking. And no Avatar-sexual please, that would just hammer those characters' potential and make them even less appealing.

I like your idea of the Avatar taking a narrator type of role, that would probably be the best idea for the avatar from now on.

 

I am completely fine with the Avatar returning as long as it isnt the main protagonist. Unless IS is willing to go all in like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, or Skyrim levels of avatar characters, then they need to be more along the lines of Robin in the beginning of Awakening. or like Ryo said a narrator type role.

I like the idea of further customization, I am unsure what races you could really do, but the idea of more body types and extra customization is nice. I couldnt get fully into the avatar of Fates because I really didnt like the customization. I usually customize most of my characters to be more around their mid 20s type look, so like Ryoma or Xander, but Fates I was stuck looking like the typical young anime protagonist. So beards, more hair options, more scars, eyepatch, tattoo options,maybe some kind of jewelery.

 

I also like your idea of armor customization, that would be a great idea to allow our own color palletes for the class we choose as a talent.

 

Things I want to see changed. I want to start out as the talent class for now on, without any special weapons. I dont like the idea of the avatar having their own personal class, and I especially didnt like the Yato situation with Corrin. It made you feel obligated to play a sword wielding class. I want the avatar to have personality choices. Make 2-3 options in customization that choose how they act and respond in supports and in the story. This could also choose who you can and cannot S Support, to prevent the whole support full cast thing again.  More voice options would also be nice, but not a must. 

 

I would also like to see an option for what personal skill you start with. Make around 5 of them and allow the player to choose what one they go with.

I dont exactly want to see the avatar gone, as I do really enjoy having my own character to play around with in game and make my own, I just dont want to be the main protagonist unless they are willing to go all in and do response options, personality choice, backstory choices, etc.

Edited January 17, 2017 by Tolvir

[Radiant head]

robin I think was fine in the early game, i.e. as an onlooker immersing in the world and not taking over the story.  ideally I'd go further to diminish avatar pandering, but this would be sufficient 

i did like how fates did the class sets though, building supports for classes instead of just having all of them

the main appeal of the avatar for me is just being able to creatively design characters for the logbook, which is the only reason I would keep it.  though it's probably safe to say avatar is a staple of the series now 

 

 

[Michelaar]

The reason why I really like avatars in fire emblem, is because they are your character, which you can customize completely to your own will, which is really fun to me. I want an avatar to not be the main character though. I liked how Robin was handled. He was one of the main characters, but the main character was definitly Chrom. Also, there were others who were focused on more than just robin. Armor customization is definitly a great suggestion.

[Folt]

I like the Avatar feature, and I want it around for new FEs.

[C. Turtle]

For the most part, I did enjoy how the Avatar was handled in Awakening and Fates, and certainly wouldn't mind seeing it return. That said, more customisation options would certainly be nice.

I also don't mind their involvement in the story, and while I feel Robin was handled better, my gripes with Corrin mainly stem from him as a character and Fates' story itself, rather than him being the main character. I think it would be possible to have an Avatar as the main character and actually do it well, but I also think IS doesn't really know how, so it's probably better to have the Lord as an actual character, with the Avatar being there supporting them.

That said, if Avatars do stick around, avatarsexuals need to stop being a thing. Please.

[AlexArtsHere]

Yeah, definitely in agreement against avatar sexuals, especially when there is multiple per game. There is no reason for them to be a thing, especially if children are gone in the next game (fingers crossed!). I also don't want any characters whose defining characteristic is that they lust after another character, or that they are flirtatious/get around a lot. In the former case, it's especially egregious when they cannot marry said character and all other S-Ranks make note of this. In the latter, it breaks immersion and ruins character development when a character who has sworn their "undying love" to their fiance then starts flirting with other people. It's especially annoying with Virion, as he's a character I want to like, but can't because this has the unfortunate side-effect of making him seem like an insincere arse.

[Anacybele]

I'm okay with an Avatar so long as it's done well. So far, I've only liked Birthright Corrin much at all and that isn't saying a whole lot. IS has some work to do to make a really really good one.

[Thane]

My spontaneous answer to how I'd like to want to change the avatar should they stay, which I'm confident they will, is that I want them to be more rooted in the world if they're going to keep their importance to the plot.

What I mean by that is that Corrin, for all their relationships and ties to other countries, was a blank slate without a personality. This was obviously a deliberate move on Intelligent Systems part, as they want just about everyone to be able to "identify" with Corrin, though I personally think the strategy is incredibly flawed. Corrin's relationships were never explored, nor were their ties to other countries, somehow making the most important character in the plot feeling like they existed in a vacuum surrounded only by prop to tell the story. 

My favorite avatar character is the Exile from Knights of the Old Republic II. You play as someone who participated in a war 10 years ago and was exiled for having done so, returning to a vastly changed galaxy when you decide to come back. The reason why this works is because you're always given the option to reflect upon your actions during the war, how they affected you, how you now view those you knew before you left and what you should do now - Corrin has nothing like that, and remains virtually the same person throughout all three paths with other characters actively preventing them from growing like when they tell them it's a good thing they're naïve in Revelation.

If Corrin had been allowed to react to things, to reply differently to their siblings during confrontations instead of always being portrayed as being in the right, and if Corrin had been allowed to react to important information like finding out about their true heritage, they would've been a character actually grounded in what was happening, and it would've given the player more freedom of actually expressing themselves rather than being told that a dry potato is their representation in the game.

I think fewer people would've been so upset with Corrin or avatars in general had they been more personal, were treated like any other character and had a proper past, clear relationships and other more customizable things. 

That's just somehing I wrote just now without putting much thought into it, so I may be completely wrong here or not make any sense at all.

[AlexArtsHere]

Actually, I completely agree with you. People can't relate to a person when that person has nothing to relate to in the first place, and while I doubt there will ever be such in-depth options as you've described in terms of dialogue, I feel like it's important that the Avatar is rooted into the world. Like I said; be a part of it, not the centre of it. The Corrin is not defined by the world in Fates. Rather, the world is defined by Corrin, and I think you just helped me hit the nail on the head as to why I like Awakening's world more than Fates world, despite me thinking that Fates is the better game: While nowhere near as deep as previous games in the series, the world in Awakening had some politics to it. Much more than Fates, Awakening had world-building laced into its dialogue. A great example of this is Robin and Gangrel's supports, where he tells her about his reign of Plegia and relation to Grima, with the Grimleal being a state religion, not to mention the snippet of dialogue explaining the Feroxi tournament, showing that leaders in Ferox are appointed in trial by combat, as opposed to Ylisse where there is a royal family.

In addition to this, I feel a little irked by the fact that, like Robin, Corrin is an amnesiac in Fates. While both are justified within the context of the story, Corrin's amnesia just feels like IS is trying to ape Robin, whose amnesia was an integral part of her character and factored into the grander plot, allowing there to be some degree of suspense kept in terms of Robin's true heritage. Corrin's amnesia feels like an afterthought. It serves very limited purpose in the plot and, once it's origin is resolved, it's barely brought up again in any of the paths of Fates. And I'm certainly with you on Corrin's heritage. In Awakening, it was a shock to Robin to find out what she really was, and was something she had to contend with and overcome mentally, which added character to her. Corrin's heritage has no real weight other than to justify their ability to transform and adds absolutely nothing to his personality.

To me, the Avatar is something of an escape. I'm not exactly someone who is holed up in his room at all hours, and my social life is fairly average, but Fire Emblem Awakening was the first title in the series I played to completion, and the immersion in its fantastical world made me feel something magic that I just didn't find in Fates (though that's not to say I don't find the game fun; quite the opposite). Before I get down off my soap box, I want to stress that don't think Robin is perfect as a protagonist either; Her amnesia, while justified and used to great, is something of a cliché in media by now, and I don't feel that she shows as much nuance in her personality as I would like her to, but compared to her predecessor and successor, she is a very strong character in her own right, and I feel that her position in the story is something FE15 should return to with regards to the avatar.

[Rezzy]

Avatars are probably here to stay, since they won't want to tinker with the formula too much, since the most recent games sold so well.

I'm fine with the concept of having an avatar, but I want better world building.  Fates and to a lesser extent Awakening fell pretty flat when it came to making a deep world.  We don't even know what Fates' continent is called.  Awakening at least had the advantage of taking place in the world of FE1-3.

I don't want children units to return, unless it's done like FE4 with a Generational skip, which I don't see happening.  Awakening's justification was okay, since it fit into the story.  Fates' justification was downright stupid and offensive.

I want Dark and Light Magic back as actual weapon types.

[Time the Crestfallen]

I'm perfectly fine with the Avatar staying, but I definitely think they need a tweak. Either they need a significant drop in importance or they need to have more player choices, so that we can actually have some input on their personality as opposed to a constant blank slate. I think that being a royal retainer a.la Saizo/Kagero/etc would work best. Gives them a reason to be in the plot without being the hottest shit on the block.

Children need to go. Shoehorning them in is detrimental to both the plot and the characterisation.

[Sentinel07]

Honestly, in regards to the Avatar, my personal feeling is that they should go the Atlus route and make the character silent with dialogue choices.

To me, that's really the only way to make the character more accessible and give the player at least some level of control. If Intelligent Systems really wants us to think we are these characters, then they need to look at how other companies have already done a far better job at it.

[Omegaprism]

I'll echo the sentiment that we don't need a special snowflake class for the avatar. Being able to customize our own class set and to a lesser extent our growths and bases would be superb. While the tactician line was pretty sweet in Awakening, it overlapped with or outright made obsolete other class options, except as maybe detours for skills. The Prince(ss) from Fates was soooooo much wasted potential. Your totally unique, oh-my-god-you-are-the-most-special weapon type got nerfed into oblivion, and you got a legendary sword. Just like every lord before you (except Micaiah). I could go on about all the cool things they could have done with your choice between Nohr, Hoshido, and Valla affecting your dragonstone instead of your promotion, or the Yato being able to change its shape into things other than a sword, but that is for another topic.

The customization options for appearance were hilariously terrible. For each gender you had two body types: Short and thin or slightly above-average height and thin. Your chin is always pointy and your range of facial expression is roughly on par with someone on a prescription for Lithium. I'm a fat, broad-shouldered, bearded, dark-haired man in his 30's. None of the pale, skinny, immaculate options they presented were even close to representing a half-remembered notion of how I would choose to represent myself! I'm not asking for a flab-slider or anything (though, let's be honest, that would be groundbreaking) but come on! At least let me put a mustache or some stubble or something on that face, or a scar that doesn't look like it was drawn on with a marker!

Moving on, you can typically choose between 2 and 5 nearly identical voices for each gender, which have no meaningful impact on any dialogue or effect on character interactions whatsoever. What if instead of choosing, "Voice 1," you chose, "Heroic," or some other appropriate name for "generic?" And the other voices determined your personality? Each choice opens certain support options and closes off the rest, and might even change what kind of faces your little self-insert would make in different situations. I would love it if My Unit could make a trollface like Charlotte, or look super-condescending like Jakob. If IS felt particularly ambitious it could also lead to alternate stages, kind alike in Blazing Sword when you had to level up certain units or keep certain units under a total to get different chapters. A reckless avatar would not have the same tactical options that, say, a calculating one did, or a timid type. You don't need, like, twenty different options either. Four or five different voices would be plenty.

Adding to this, I am among the multitudes here that think everyone kissing your ass is really annoying. I know that there's a strong trend in Japan right now of media patting its young people on the shoulders and saying, "Guess what? You're special and unique, just like everybody else! Doesn't it feel great being so great?" But it's not unheard of for a protagonist to be good at what they do and still have to earn the respect and admiration of their peers. When friggin' Takumi gets lauded as a well-rounded character in comparison to his castmates, your writing department has a serious problem, says I.

Finally, please give the childbirth mechanics a bloody rest. I would gladly have traded in 60% of all the useless, terrible support chains that were tacked on just so the one-dimensional pretty young people could bone and push out babies if that meant that Shura, Izana, Scarlet, and the other Corrinsexuals could have interactions with, y'know, anyone else. This relates to the avatar in that they could have support chains that are something other than, "Sooooo... wanna bone?" There are fulfilling relationships other than wanting to bump pelvises together. You can't tell me that your baby sister being DTF is the most logical conclusion to that relationship. Have some sense of realistic human interactions, please.

[saisymbolic]

I don't particularly mind Avatar characters. As a matter of fact, I quite like customizable characters. The main problem seems to stem from IS being unable to find an agreeable balance to how much spotlight the Avatar should get. Give the Avatar too little spotlight, and you wonder what was the point of having them in the game at all (Mark)—give them too much spotlight, and you end up with a Corrin or Kris (and Robin to a lesser extent) situation.

I personally like the narrator angle. A side character that is important and close enough to the main story line in order to give a recount of their experiences, but not so close that they eclipse the main character in order to stay relevant the whole way. Again, it brings up the point I made before, and it would depend on IS being competent enough to get the balance right—which is admittedly somewhat difficult when it comes to Avatar characters.

Then, there's the whole debacle with the "children" mechanic, "marriage" and "Avatarsexuals."

I would prefer there to not be children, though I wouldn't dislike an "apprentice" system that would work similarly. I would elaborate on how such a system would work, but I only have a very vague idea of how it would function.

Marriage . . . is something of a grey area to me, and the problems I have with it mainly come from the supports, to be honest. The way they are structured and their fickle quality stretch the suspension of disbelief incredibly thin when it comes to romance. I think it would help somewhat if they made it like earlier games and allowed only one A-rank per character; or, they expand the A+ rank into a proper support conversation in order to essentially do the same, allowing the chance to have several A-rank supports obtainable. Paired endings would be back, and characters (either through the inclusion of base conversations or a feature like My Castle) would casually comment about any given two units' relationship "growing closer." Hints and acknowledgement of a relationship would really help in establishing it and making it a fraction more believable, while opening a path for the romantic or platonic ending.

For certain, Avatarsexuals need to go, though. I was skeptical about them in Awakening, but Fates pushed it over the line. While a rant for another day, it literally makes no sense for there to even be Avatarsexuals in the game when most—if not all—of them have connections to characters that have a full roster of supports.

Edited January 18, 2017 by saisymbolic
grammar and elaboration

[Rezzy]

I hope they focus on have fewer, more developed supports.  Having everybody support with everybody leads to a lot of shallow one note supports.  Fates was bad in that it had tons of shallow supports, yet missing certain supports that seemed like no-brainers, like Jakob Flora and Ryoma-Scarlet.

[General Banzai]

All that needs be done is FE8/FE9 caliber story emphasis on the part of Intelligent Systems, but those games didn't sell so

[Dark Holy Elf]

I don't really love avatar characters in general and find them rarely good for an overall plot. At worst I get embarrassed at the way writing tends to gush over and pander to these characters.

If they're gonna come back, though, I'll echo others: make them more of an observer instead of a main character. I'm not a big fan of Robin but I think the game did a pretty good job of not having him/her overshadow the other major characters, whereas Corrin obviously is the Most Important.

I also think that FE badly lacks customisation options for the main. Corrin was kinda locked into a certain age, sadly, but yeah generally there should be more body shapes, face types, hairstyles, etc., than they have.

Also please please please don't let the avatar be able to hook up with anyone (or anyone the opposite gender). That is not how relationships work. Some people don't want to be with you that way, and designing a game otherwise sends a bad message, and ties into the pandering I mentioned above.

 

3 hours ago, Sentinel07 said:

Honestly, in regards to the Avatar, my personal feeling is that they should go the Atlus route and make the character silent with dialogue choices.

To me, that's really the only way to make the character more accessible and give the player at least some level of control. If Intelligent Systems really wants us to think we are these characters, then they need to look at how other companies have already done a far better job at it.

 

Ugh please no silent mains, they almost invariably feel terribly awkward and bring down all the characters around them since they're pretty much talking to a wall. They can work in games which are light on dialog, or when the main isn't very important, but that doesn't sound like it would fit FE (unless the main has Mark-level relevance). For companies actually doing a better job with this style of character, I'd point more at something like Mass Effect (though I still think there's room for improvement with that model); you get choices, but your character still has a voice (either literally or figuratively, depending on if the game has voice acting) which other characters can bounce off of, and interactions feel much more natural.

[NekoKnight]

A well done Avatar is really dependent on the competency and goals of the writers. Kamui was a world absorbing Marry Sue but that's not a consequence of him being the main character; it was a deliberate and tasteless decision by the writers. You could very well have the main character be an Avatar and have every other quality of a good Non-Avatar character. What makes an avatar unique is choice, so what choices should we have? 

First, for the Avatar and all characters, they should have limited support pools to strengthen characterization. If they allowed us to choose one of several personalities, we could determine what support pool we want as well as what personality we more closely identify with. This solves the problem of making generic, every-man personalities that are unoffensive but also uninteresting.

Second, let the player make choices in the game that affect certain outcomes. It could be as simple as getting an extra item, a character dying or even a route split. This point is more optional because a lack of story-changing choices isn't always a bad thing, but it can be extra fun to customize where your adventure goes.

Now, there are two ways they take an FE15 Avatar, and they are equally valid assuming the writing is good. One option is to do as others suggested and make the Avatar a minor character with no greater influence on the story. The second option would be to make them the main character and have your choices in game make a significant difference to how the plot unfolds. One idea I had was to keep in marriage but only for the Avatar (at least as far as gameplay is concerned). Depending on who you marry (or the choice not to marry), there would be different outcomes on the story and gameplay. I find it surprising that for a game following the stories of lords, none of them are married for political purposes. Choosing to marry for love or alliances could have interesting consequences.

I don't trust IS not to make another Mary Sue Avatar but there are untapped opportunities there.

Edited January 18, 2017 by NekoKnight

[Booton]

I'd really like to see the next game not implement an avatar, but if it really must... It would be cool to see an improvement to Mark, where the character mostly engages in dialog with the main characters and isn't actually a combat unit; after all, the player is the tactician and I feel like this is a nice way to create that link in some form. Allow the avatar to function as the group's tactician and make important decisions while never being able to actually see combat. I suppose this would make him kind of similar to Gen 1 Oifey in a way.

[Cornguy]

You start off in military academy/whatever for main Lord's country/territory. Those are your 1-3 tutorial chapters. You drop out to take care of your sickly single-parent/guardian, they die(Living parents? In a JRPG?).

Time progresses. You wander, find main Lord in some conflict, you help them out. Main Lord asks for your help as a tactician, Jeigan is skeptical. Now you're part of their adventure, and thus ends your importance to the plot. Maybe dialogue can depend on how good or bad you did the tutorial.

From then on, your character is more or less the camera you view the story with.

No more confession supports please. Some supports can end in confession, but it shouldn't be the natural progression of every support. Sure, the avatar should be able to support anyone, but not in every playthrough. With the hopefully reduced amount of dialogue from said avatar, it should be reasonable to give us three personalities to choose from, each with different support lists.

If we have children again, don't try and work them into the plot. Give them their own small clump of chapters, you could make a reasonable rom hack with the paralouges from Awakening or Fates. It can be lighthearted or serious.

Gameplay wise, I think you should be able to choose as many boons as banes, as well as choose between major and minor boons and banes.

Keep the avatar out of cutscenes, not soley for plot, but so we can choose skin and wardrobe color without CG immersion being a factor.

Post game perks, let us fill an entire army with avatars.

I strongly doubt any of this will happen, but it'd make me happy.

EDIT: NekoKnight also had some decent ideas, I didn't see the post as I was slowly typing.

Edited January 18, 2017 by Cornguy

[AlexArtsHere]

It's been interesting seeing the amount of people suggesting the Avatar not take part in combat, and I'm going to disagree.

To me, the appeal and point of having player characters is to use them in the gameplay. I know Mark was supposed to be something of a player character in Blazing Sword, but really he was just a generic hooded figure who you could give a name to. He was more of his own character to me than he was a player character. With New Mystery, Awakening and Fates, the Avatar is customisable as a character, from their name to their appearance to their strengths and weakness in gameplay. And I think that by removing the Avatar from gameplay, the gulf between the visual novel and strategy RPG elements of Fire Emblem is widened.

That said, I can see why people don't want a tactician to be on the battlefield, and I have a simple solution. Don't make the Avatar a tactician. This seems kind of strange at first, since the player is the one who is performing the actual strategy in Fire Emblem, why wouldn't the character who serves as a narrative and gameplay vehicle for the play be the one doing the tactics? But I think this can be done without ruining the idea of the Avatar being that vehicle. The tactician/strategist can be their own established character within the story who watches and guides the movement of the army as a whole (ie, all those generic soldiers as well as the player and their forces). However, the Avatar could be the leader of their unit, which would lend context to the gameplay itself. This isn't a strategy you're formulating beforehand; you're commanding your troops as you battle. In my view, this also makes the story more personal. While you focus on the adventures of the Avatar, there is in fact a big army around you fighting the same war, rather than feeling like you're just playing as a ragtag band of misfits.

Also interesting is the idea of an Avatar personality affecting your supports. I'm mixed about the idea, but in practice, I'm not sure how well it would be received. I think that the idea itself is great, but I'm not sure people would be thrilled about forcing the Avatar to be a certain person in order to allow him/her to marry certain people, especially if the game doesn't tell you which (and I highly doubt it would). I think some measure of mitigating this would be to compromise. Have the majority of the cast be locked to certain personalities, but allow Paralogue and DLC characters such as Anna, Gangrel, Tiki and Mozu to marry the Avatar regardless of the personality choice the player made. I don't think this would completely solve the problem, but I think it would be a good compromise between the two, and I'm certainly more in favour of being able to choose a personality for the avatar that allows them to play off of other characters in different ways in supports.