What makes a good avatar?

[Ottservia]

so avatars have been in FE for a while now and seen I've varying opinions on them and if they should return. However I've noticed quite a bit of criticism towards the avatar espesially in themore recent titles and was wondering how can IS implement the avatar character correctly? More so from a writing standpoint but gameplay is an issue with the avatars as well. 

[Guest Dreamyboi]

By having them have as little story relevance as possible. Just have them be a tactician like Mark from Blazing Sword and leave it at that.

Corrin's entire character was bland, plot convenient and everyone kissed the ground they walked on because they were a self insert mary sue.

Robin wasn't a bad character but still suffers from being an avatar because now you can't give him much depth.

Kris is easily the worst of the three, instead of ranting about that though I'll just show this: 

Because of their self insert nature they're forbidden from being given anything that can make them anything more than boring. They need to be able to relate to everyone playing the game and thus are given very basic, cookie cutter personalities and little development if any at all. Because of the empowerment fantasy aspect of self insert Avatars they're glorified and loved by everyone with a redeeming quality.

They're a liability to storytelling and having an actual, distinct protagonist would be far better.

This is just my two cents though, I know a lot of people like Avatars and that's fine and all but I'm sick of them like I'm sick of the Awakening formula entirely.

[Shoblongoo]

They have to walk the line between being relevant and over-centralizing.

...not being such a core focus of everyone and everything else in the game that it crowds out the rest of the story and turns the game into an avatar circle-jerk. (i.e. Corrin)

But not so off-in-the-background saying and doing nothing that its almost like they aren't there at all. (i.e. Mark)

Robin did it best. 

[Armagon]

Make them actually an avatar and not pre-established characters. All of the avatars in FE aren't actually avatars. They're just customizable characters.

[Will Bill]

Not being the center of a whole war *cough* Corrin *cough*

you want to have a balance of story relevance, and a personality that is widely relatable, like don’t trust every single person you meet, even though they’re obviously evil *Anthony*

it’s REALLY hard to make an avatar worse then Dragoon boi Corn

[Kazuya]

For FE, a good avatar doesn't exist. Mark isn't even relevant and doesn't need to exist. 

Kris is trash 

Robin is pretty meh 

and Kamui is the worst lord in the series 

[omegaxis1]

27 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Make them actually an avatar and not pre-established characters. All of the avatars in FE aren't actually avatars. They're just customizable characters.

To be honest, I don't like Avatars that are purely a blank state. This is after playing Persona 3 and 4 where we have the character be a blank state, and this just doesn't sit that well with me. 

---

For me, Robin remains as the best Avatar in the series, having a set personality, but enough chances to define his personality even more by the player in moments when you can make a choice. You can choose to sacrifice Emmeryn, accept Lucina's judgment, or let Chrom seal Grima. Aside from the last choice, the other two don't affect the story much, but it actually can affect how Robin's personality is and how the others interpret it as.

It goes further with how in the DLC where you speak with the Einherjar, Robin can make choices in various scenarios, which further defines Robin's own personality. 

[Etrurian emperor]

Personality wise Robin was easily the best Avatar. He had a personality but it was so low key that everyone could identify with him. Robin was also a straight man to a wacky cast which is similar how the player would feel. We are all fairly normal people witnessing very exaggerated characters after all. 

Corrin failed for a lot of reasons but the reason he failed as an avatar in particular was because at the end of the day he wasn't an Avatar. As opposed to the low key personality of Robin Corrin had a very pronounced personality throughout the story. There isn't a single bit of ambiguity in Corrin's words or deeds. He's a soft, dorky, peace loving and naive doormat and he makes this clear in everything he says and every decision he makes. He doesn't represent the player when he blindly follows the obviously evil Anthony on his own because there isn't a Fates player out there who didn't see through Anthony the very second he appeared on screen. 

And now were on the subject of Corrin I think the best thing the writers can do with the next Avatar is going out of their way not to cuddle the player character so much. It was an incredibly detrimental focus of Fates writing that Corrin always had to be pure and in the right.

[Guest Dreamyboi]

1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Personality wise Robin was easily the best Avatar. He had a personality but it was so low key that everyone could identify with him. Robin was also a straight man to a wacky cast which is similar how the player would feel. We are all fairly normal people witnessing very exaggerated characters after all. 

Corrin failed for a lot of reasons but the reason he failed as an avatar in particular was because at the end of the day he wasn't an Avatar. As opposed to the low key personality of Robin Corrin had a very pronounced personality throughout the story. There isn't a single bit of ambiguity in Corrin's words or deeds. He's a soft, dorky, peace loving and naive doormat and he makes this clear in everything he says and every decision he makes. He doesn't represent the player when he blindly follows the obviously evil Anthony on his own because there isn't a Fates player out there who didn't see through Anthony the very second he appeared on screen. 

And now were on the subject of Corrin I think the best thing the writers can do with the next Avatar is going out of their way not to cuddle the player character so much. It was an incredibly detrimental focus of Fates writing that Corrin always had to be pure and in the right.

It's also one of several reasons why he's one of my least favorite characters in the franchise so far. There are also moments in the plot where he behaves out of character for the sake of attempting to make the player sympathize with him. For example you see him repeatedly demonstrate the ability to order his army of soldiers all wielding lethal weaponry to somehow not kill anyone attacking them in the heat of battle yet when the kitsune attack him he says something along the lines of "They didn't have to die" and you can choose to have Shura killed when you capture him.

The plot of Fates has many, MANY issues but unlike most of them that are caused by everything involving the third path Revelation, Corrin's issue is that since he's a self insert avatar but also the main character with a personality the game needs to try to challenge him WHILE doing what it typicaly would with an Avatar. What we end up with is a flat main character that's always right and everyone loves him but then irrelevant people die and he's all "NO WHY *sniff* WHY?!" to try to get the audience to cry too, the legendary blade Yato no kami literally fucking flies into his hands and chooses him.

Having a self insert as the main character was doomed to fail from the beginning.

Edited March 12, 2018 by Dreamyboi

[Armagon]

3 hours ago, omegaxis1 said:

To be honest, I don't like Avatars that are purely a blank state. This is after playing Persona 3 and 4 where we have the character be a blank state, and this just doesn't sit that well with me. 

Well, i've never played Persona 3 or 4 (or any Persona/SMT game) so i can't really make any judgments on how their avatars were handled. However, i do think having an avatar be a blank state is for the best in most cases. Ok, maybe not like, a completely blank state but enough so where it feels that i'm playing as myself and not someone else. A good example of a blank state avatar is Cross from Xenoblade X. Almost everything about him is customizable. Hair color (go crazy with this if you want), hair styles, voice, height, skin color (you can go real crazy with this as well by giving yourself blue skin if you want), and if you're playing as a female and it's the Japanese version, bust size. And that's not counting the various outfits you can obtain as you play the game and all the classes you can choose and all of this fits perfectly with what Xenoblade Chronicles X is about: exploring a vast planet with almost no limits. 

Of course, i suppose it helps that the story isn't all that important in Xenoblade X whereas it's probably more important in Persona and, of course, Fire Emblem.

Side note: I haven't played Xenoblade X either but i'm decently familiar with it which explains why i can make some judgments about it but not Persona.

Edited March 13, 2018 by Armagon

[Sasori]

Kris was an awful awful character whose canon class should have been thief, but I do think he has an idea worth expanding upon. Kris was the only avatar who's backstory you could(sort of) decide on and him not having an unique class also helped him be more customizable. I'd say go all out with that next time the avatar makes an appearance. Have backstory/class decide on what characters the avatar can support and increase the ways in how you can customize your character with different outfits and such.

My main wish for avatars is to greatly tone down their story importance and just focus on having your own character interact with the cast. Have your backstory/class effect how other characters view your Avatar and maybe create some personality templates that influence supports to some degree.

[Lau]

Don't shoehorn them into a remake.

Don't make them the main character.

Don't make everyone swoon and worship the ground they walk on.

Robin did it best. Like others have said, he has a set personality. But also, his amnesia makes him a blank slate memory wise, so the player can create their own back story for him before he lost his memories. He also has a really great design and voice but that's just my personal opinion.

The best way to make an avatar, is to use a concept like Kris. ...I can't believe I just typed that. But seriously, hear me out. Kris had a great concept. He was just a soldier in a large army, and became a member of his liege's Royal guard. That would be ideal. The avatar has an excuse to interact with the Lord.

Now, where Kris went wrong, is that he took a lot of spotlight away from Marth. We need an avatar who is no different from any other soldier, who doesn't speak in every scene. Don't make the avatar special, give them dialogue options that truly affect scenes. Let the avatar do something wrong, ffs, roast me, game.

Or, y'know, just make the avatar a villager that is rescued mid-game by the Lord. Idk.

[NoirCore]

I think making a custom character an optional unit with no set personality/not much personality and no plot relevance is the way to go.

[Marty]

The only way to make an avatar work is having them be a normal unit in the army that you aren't even forced to make/use.

 i haven't played new mystery so I can't speak for Kris ane everyone dislikes Corn dragon, but I don't think Robin worked either.

 First of all, they are NOT low profile and I don't see how anyone could think as such. There are various moments in the story where they step over Chrom as the main character- in Valm Chrom is less relevant than Flavia and Basilio. 

 I'd go as far as to say the reason Chrom is such an underdeveloped protagonist is because Robin is a thing.

 Then there's also how everyone worships absolutely everything Robin does, even more than Corrin (at least Corrin had the royalty to back him up, Robin wins one little fight against villagers and might just be the next coming of jesus).

 Also the S supports. Everyone is weak for the Avatars regardless of your gender because of their avatar status and you can't do anything with them unless they are the opposite gender (besides two ppl in Fates). The worst offender is Chrobin: the speeches Chrom and Robin give to each other were so intense that not being able to pair them up was almost boring.

 I'd just rather have no avatar at all next time.

[Etrurian emperor]

12 minutes ago, Marty said:

Then there's also how everyone worships absolutely everything Robin does, even more than Corrin (at least Corrin had the royalty to back him up, Robin wins one little fight against villagers and might just be the next coming of jesus).

I think there's one big difference between the two when it comes to player worship. Robin actually does things that are worthy of praise. He's the one crafting all the battleplans.

Not so with Corrin. Rather then carrying the team like Robin does he relies on the team to carry him. Corrin makes a lot of mistakes due to his trusty nature and him being worshiped despite this gathers more ire then Robin being worshipped for doing a solid job. 

[Refa]

On 3/12/2018 at 1:58 PM, omegaxis1 said:

For me, Robin remains as the best Avatar in the series, having a set personality, but enough chances to define his personality even more by the player in moments when you can make a choice. You can choose to sacrifice Emmeryn, accept Lucina's judgment, or let Chrom seal Grima. Aside from the last choice, the other two don't affect the story much, but it actually can affect how Robin's personality is and how the others interpret it as.

These don't actually define his personality at all lol.  When your choices don't have consequences, Robin's dialogue doesn't reflect those choices afterwards, and everyone reacts to Robin in fundamentally the same way, what's the point?

[Marty]

16 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I think there's one big difference between the two when it comes to player worship. Robin actually does things that are worthy of praise. He's the one crafting all the battleplans.

Not so with Corrin. Rather then carrying the team like Robin does he relies on the team to carry him. Corrin makes a lot of mistakes due to his trusty nature and him being worshiped despite this gathers more ire then Robin being worshipped for doing a solid job. 

The thing is, we don't see that. The only moments in the story where we see Robin make an actual plan are the warship one, the ambush in Valm and when they fool Validar. 

 And they get their ass kissed a lot before those.

 Every other one can be assumed to just be what you do in the normal gameplay, which also applies to Corrin. 

[Refa]

1 minute ago, Marty said:

The thing is, we don't see that. The only moments in the story where we see Robin make an actual plan are the warship one, the ambush in Valm and when they fool Validar. 

 And they get their ass kissed a lot before those.

 Every other one can be assumed to just be what you do in the normal gameplay, which also applies to Corrin. 

Did they ever imply that Corrin was making all of the battle strategies during normal gameplay?  Genuine question, because a lot of Robin's supports imply that and like none of Corrin's that I remember (...which isn't much) do.

[Moblin Major General]

Okay, so it seems people don't play enough games to know when there is a good self insert. Bioware has made plenty of good self insert characters. While a lot of them have set backstories, they can act however the player wishes. If any avatar in Fire Emblem were created to make half of the choices a Bioware protagonist makes, they would be better than any of the 4 avatars that exist, and their choices would have actual consequences. We don't need that level of freedom, but we do need a lot more choices than just their appearance.

[Jedi]

On 3/12/2018 at 1:14 PM, Will Bill said:

it’s REALLY hard to make an avatar worse then Dragoon boi Corn

They did already, their name is Kris. Who not only undermines Marths original growth, steals lines from both him and Jagen but also unnaturally changes events in Mystery of the Emblem, it's a bastardization of FE3. (Still solid gameplay wise but Kris's existence and actions piss me off a helluva lot more than Robin or Corrin).

[Marty]

5 minutes ago, Refa said:

Did they ever imply that Corrin was making all of the battle strategies during normal gameplay?  Genuine question, because a lot of Robin's supports imply that and like none of Corrin's that I remember (...which isn't much) do.

 I believe so. I'm playing through Birthright right now and it seems Corrin makes all the strategys since they are in control of the army, after all.

2 minutes ago, Hylian Air Force said:

Okay, so it seems people don't play enough games to know when there is a good self insert. Bioware has made plenty of good self insert characters. While a lot of them have set backstories, they can act however the player wishes. If any avatar in Fire Emblem were created to make half of the choices a Bioware protagonist makes, they would be better than any of the 4 avatars that exist, and their choices would have actual consequences. We don't need that level of freedom, but we do need a lot more choices than just their appearance.

 The thing is: Fe is held back a lot by permadeath and how it affects everyone in your army besided you. There's also how gameplay is priorized over the story. I'm not saying it's impossible to implement those effectively on my units , but I personaly would much rather have no avatar and have those choices befall upon the other characters.

[omegaxis1]

13 minutes ago, Refa said:

These don't actually define his personality at all lol.  When your choices don't have consequences, Robin's dialogue doesn't reflect those choices afterwards, and everyone reacts to Robin in fundamentally the same way, what's the point?

It does in fact. Yeah, nothing changes, but it makes ALL the difference.

Let Emmeryn Die: 

- You are choosing to sacrifice Emmeryn for the greater good. It's the most rational choice. However, in exchange, you are willing to let the sister of your best friend die, and you can tell that Chrom adores Emmeryn. Furthermore, you also left Ylisse without an Exalt and even though Chrom can take the throne, this will not entirely fix it, as many people needed Emmeryn as their leader.

Give up the Emblem: 

- You are choosing to save Emmeryn, which is likely a more morally kind choice out of consideration for Chrom and for the sake of the people of Ylisse. However, you may in fact have just chosen to give a weapon of untold power to a manman who can potentially use it to slaughter many innocent people.

Accept Lucina's Judgment: 

- You know that you pose a danger to Chrom. Lucina reveals that you will kill Chrom and the future will end up happening where Grima will destroy the world. If you die, fate can be changed and Chrom may in fact survive and continue to lead and Grima can be stopped. So sacrificing yourself is a noble choice. But you also have to die, and there's no telling that dying will fix everything. 

Deny Lucina's Judgment:

- You choose to reject this and thus you believe that you can do more good alive than dying. Perhaps you can change fate and save everyone. However, you may also have doomed everyone for that choice as well. 

The results may not have changed, but the choice that is made can define a lot about the character that makes such choices. 

[Refa]

11 minutes ago, Marty said:

 I believe so. I'm playing through Birthright right now and it seems Corrin makes all the strategys since they are in control of the army, after all.

 The thing is: Fe is held back a lot by permadeath and how it affects everyone in your army besided you. There's also how gameplay is priorized over the story. I'm not saying it's impossible to implement those effectively on my units , but I personaly would much rather have no avatar and have those choices befall upon the other characters.

Whoops, my mistake then.  Shows how long it's been since I've played FE14.

FE could stand to make better use of permadeath than it has been doing recently, that's for sure.

8 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

It does in fact. Yeah, nothing changes, but it makes ALL the difference.

Let Emmeryn Die: 

- You are choosing to sacrifice Emmeryn for the greater good. It's the most rational choice. However, in exchange, you are willing to let the sister of your best friend die, and you can tell that Chrom adores Emmeryn. Furthermore, you also left Ylisse without an Exalt and even though Chrom can take the throne, this will not entirely fix it, as many people needed Emmeryn as their leader.

Give up the Emblem: 

- You are choosing to save Emmeryn, which is likely a more morally kind choice out of consideration for Chrom and for the sake of the people of Ylisse. However, you may in fact have just chosen to give a weapon of untold power to a manman who can potentially use it to slaughter many innocent people.

Accept Lucina's Judgment: 

- You know that you pose a danger to Chrom. Lucina reveals that you will kill Chrom and the future will end up happening where Grima will destroy the world. If you die, fate can be changed and Chrom may in fact survive and continue to lead and Grima can be stopped. So sacrificing yourself is a noble choice. But you also have to die, and there's no telling that dying will fix everything. 

Deny Lucina's Judgment:

- You choose to reject this and thus you believe that you can do more good alive than dying. Perhaps you can change fate and save everyone. However, you may also have doomed everyone for that choice as well. 

The results may not have changed, but the choice that is made can define a lot about the character that makes such choices. 

The problem isn't just that the results don't change, but nothing about the character changes as well.  Robin still reacts the same to everything no matter what choices he makes, and everyone else reacts the same to Robin.  I have to question: What's the point?  What are these choices in service of?  Your interpretation of the character?  Interpretation is subjective, so at best it's just a lazy way for them to have these choices without actually having to think about them (why think when the audience will think for us????).  Actions that don't have consequences or any visible effects on the characters are meaningless.

EDIT If any of these choices were as impactful as you say they are, don't you think it'd change Robin's character in SOME way or other peoples' perception of him, at least in the main story (I can understand changing all of Robin's supports would take too long).

Also the Fire Emblem in Archanea is not a weapon by any means lol, nor has it ever been portrayed as one.

Edited March 15, 2018 by Refa

[Marty]

3 minutes ago, Refa said:

Whoops, my mistake then.  Shows how long it's been since I've played FE14.

FE could stand to make better use of permadeath than it has been doing recently, that's for sure.

The problem isn't just that the results don't change, but nothing about the character changes as well.  Robin still reacts the same to everything no matter what choices he makes, and everyone else reacts the same to Robin.  I have to question: What's the point?  What are these choices in service of?  Your interpretation of the character?  Interpretation is subjective, so at best it's just a lazy way for them to have these choices without actually having to think about them (why think when the audience will think for us????).  Actions that don't have consequences or any visible effects on the characters are meaningless.

Also the Fire Emblem in Archanea is not a weapon by any means lol, nor has it ever been portrayed as one.

 The fire emblem is portrayed as a possible weapon in Awakening as its said to be able to change the coursw of the war and has the power to free Grima.

I'm pretty sure there's at least one mention of it being able to grant a wish or something in the early game??  

 I agree with you otherwise though, the choices are as relevant as me saying Robin liked to sunbathe in Plegia. It's never shown so it's only a headcanon.

[omegaxis1]

2 minutes ago, Refa said:

The problem isn't just that the results don't change, but nothing about the character changes as well.  Robin still reacts the same to everything no matter what choices he makes, and everyone else reacts the same to Robin.  I have to question: What's the point?  What are these choices in service of?  Your interpretation of the character?  Interpretation is subjective, so at best it's just a lazy way for them to have these choices without actually having to think about them (why think when the audience will think for us????).  Actions that don't have consequences or any visible effects on the characters are meaningless.

Also the Fire Emblem in Archanea is not a weapon by any means lol, nor has it ever been portrayed as one.

That's arguable, but even then, given that Awakening is meant to be a major reference game that was intended to be a send off for Fire Emblem, I really don't see much reason to be so overly critical regarding it. 

Also, though the Emblem is not intended to be meant for a weapon, the power itself that it has is what can make it into a weapon. Already each Gemstone contains incredible power as we have seen. Combine all that into the Fire Emblem, which can draw out the Gemstones full power, can grant the user will essentially become a demi-god. And if you also include how the item can be used to seal power entities away, that's even more powerful. And it is a known fact that the Gemstones can be used to create magic tomes, as Imhullu was made from the Darksphere, and Starlight was made from the Light and Starsphere. 

Who knows what magic can be created through harnessing the power of the completed Fire Emblem. 

So yes, the Fire Emblem can be a weapon of mass destruction.