Rate the FE lords!

[Azz]

9 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Marth: Good

Marth is fine. He has a clearly defined personality and has a nice little arc. Marth is very well presented as someone who takes his duties as a ruler very seriously and that he's willing to make self sacrificed in that regard, the whole ''I'm a prince before I am a brother'' thing. However Marth really suffers from Archenea leaving him with almost no one to talk to. In cutscenes Marth is either stuck with the boring adviser or princess Killjoy. He would have benefited from more scenes with Ceada and Hardin

Alm: lovable

I don't inherently disagree with the criticism about Alm but I just don't care. Alm is a joy to have on screen. He's always very lovable, charming and amusing. He acts like a nice guy to everyone and has some very solid interactions and can be very silly when he things no one is looking. While not objectively the best he is one of my favorite lords

Celica: Good enough

I really can't stop gushing about Celica's design. Its so good! She manages to be very attractive without relying on fanservice. Like with Alm I don't disagree with the criticism but Celica does enough to make me want to give her a pass. She takes a bit of a dip in the last act but she's still a presence in the rest of the story too. I enjoyed her little pilgrimage and that it portrayed Celica as kind, selfless and a little naive but definitely not soft, as the pile of dead bandits can attest to. And to Celica's defence Jedah wasn't exactly coming off as unreasonable before he started cackling. Like with Alm I enjoyed Celica's character interaction with her and her starting mages appearing particularly close to each other. 

Sigurd: Meh

I don't dislike Sigurd but as a character he never really impressed me. Sigurd works as a tragic hero but it are the tragic events of the first gen that define him rather than his own personality. 

Seliph: Needs improvement

Seliph suffers from the second gen not being particularly well defined. As a Lord I think Seliph's implied shyness and insecurity as well as his extremely kiddy and girly looks make him stand out among the other lords. The problem with that is that Heroes decided to distance itself from that portrayal and just present him as just another Marth, and I worry a remake will follow suit and turn Seliph into an extremely boring lord. They even took away his epic hair!

Roy: Has potential

I really like what they try to do with Roy. Binding Blade presents a brains over brawn's lord and a boy who seems to resist having to become a man to some degree. If a remake expands on Roy's strategic nature, his insecurities and his struggles with his new role then he might just be the best lord out there. Roy's problem is that he is held back by his game. It was obvious that FE6 was the first attempt at writing supports which leaves something to be desired in Roy's support conversations, and he has the same problem as Marth in that cutscenes force him to spend time with boring advisers and princesses while keeping him away from anyone he could have an interesting conversation with. 

Eliwood: good

Eliwood: Eliwood hits all the right notes as a lord but that's also his problem. Eliwood is too much a member of the Marth archtype and does too little to give the archtype his own flair. This leads him to get overshadowed by Lyn and Hector who have more original personality traits 

Hector: Fantastic

For a series that relies so much on archtypes Hector manages to really stand on his own, even if he would go on to establish his very own Lord archtype for later lords to ape. Hector is unique in many aspects. He's the sole axe lord in the series(till tree houses at least) and he's allowed to have some very negative traits like a vengeful nature and ease to resort to violence. But his reputation is an especially big contrast. Most lords in Fire Emblem are praised a bit more than they deserve but Hector stands out for being criticized much more than he really deserves. Hector and the rest of Elibe thinks he's just some senseless lout but this just isn't shown to be the case. Hector is smart enough to spot ambushes, knows what it takes to be a noble and he's the one giving all the exposition about politics. 

Ephraim: Bad

I don't like Ephraim. I consider him to be incredibly dull and far too perfect at everything he does. Everything he does is a smashing success and he never has to struggle. He bores me. He shares a lot of Alm's flaws like being too perfect and negatively affecting his co lord, but without even the tiniest bit of Alm's charm. 

Eirika: Decent

The sweet and naive princess being willing to fight for what's right isn't particularly original but it works for her. She's much more enjoyable to watch than her brother. Eirika has some decent character interactions too thanks to her close friendship with Tana and her confusion about L'arachel. 

Ike: Great

He's easily the lord who grows the most on his journey and being the only lord who's not a noble helps make him stand out. Ike is also helped by Tellius as a whole being so good. The Greil mercenaries being so well defined makes Ike bond with them matter much more than Marth and the Altean Knights or Sigurd and Oifey. At times Ike can be a  jerk though but I guess that's part of the charm. They could tone down his mister perfect depiction in RD though. 

Michy: Great

Michy was the correct choice to succeed Ike because she contrast him in so many areas. Ike is a physical fighter, an ordinary fellow and surprisingly warm despite being rude and rough around the edges. Michy is magically orientated and definitely not a fighter, extremely special and can be surprisingly stubborn, snarky and even ruthless despite her usual warm and serene behavior. Michy's logic and morals becoming increasingly questionable is frequently criticized which is refreshing. Her main flaw is that she's so obviously inferior to Ike in abilities, stature and morals, but that's more a complaint against the increasingly perfect Ike than against her. 

Kris: Who? 

Who is this Kris everyone keeps talking about? Such a character never existed. And what a good thing too! It would be silly if Marth got to share his achievements with some  blank slate that steals the achievements of other characters. As far as I'm concerned the story in New Mystery never featured such a character. 

Chrom: Boring

People often accuse poor Lucina of being bland but I think that goes much more for her dad. Chrom is just the straight man to a wacky cast and not much more. He's got a nice little arc regarding his sister but aside from that he just fails to impress me on any level. The members of the Shepherds are much more charming, Robin is more of a main character and it seems Lucina is more iconic than he is. This kinda leaves Chrom with nothing. 

Corrin: Yikes. 

I kinda like Corrin as a guy/gall. He's eternally friendly and can be amusingly dorky. Its just that he's a terrible, terrible terrible Lord. No one is allowed to say anything bad about Corrin despite him constantly making bad decisions due to being so naive. Corrin growing out of this and becoming capable of taking care of himself rather than having his siblings babysit him would be great....but the plot directly opposes this change by having the siblings urge Corrin not to change. 

Alfonse and Sharena: Decent

The Heroes siblings suffer from being the main characters of a mobile game but I like them well enough. They are lovable enough with Sharena being cute and Alfonse being both a competent straight man while still being able to rely on being a nerd for his own amusing situations. Still given their origins I don't think its fair to actually rank them alongside the other lords

Yeah I pretty much agree with this, though I do rank Marth a bit higher but that's just my own bias. I also completely agree with Alm and Celica and I honestly I was struggling to put it into words. I get the complaints and I understand them but they are both so likeable that they still tend to be high in my ranking.

As for the other lords you didn't mention.

Leif is great from what I've seen tbh. I don't know Thracia too well since I've only played through it 1 and a half times but from what I have seen, he's pretty good (though sometime she suffers too much that it seems unrealistic).

Lyn is okay. I think beyond her part she fades into the background, but I think she had a decent role in her part that I sympathised with her and in general, like her.

Lucina is okay too. I think she really shines thanks to outside FEA content like the Future Past DLC and Warriors. Overall I think she's a good character and I would honestly play a game with her as the main lord.

Finally Robin. By far the best avatar between the three. The only complaint is him taking over come act 3 of FEA when IMO it should have been Lucina and Chrom as the leading roles, though FEA's story brings down the cast in it self. Like Lucina, outside content like Warrior really brings up Robin's likeability since they make him more of his own character than a shoddy attempt at an avatar.

[NekoKnight]

5 hours ago, Rose482 said:

Robin: Great, My favorite avatar in the series, I feel like....he mostly get hate because he's an avatar character, so he right away gets dragged into that hate train with Kris and Corrin, which makes me sad, Robin really doesn't deserve that ;____; I love his story, I know some people hate it, but I found it very interesting, and I was SOOO into it the first time I played FE13.

I find a lot of people's attitudes towards Robin to be confusing. He's often accused of stealing the spotlight from Chrom but for the life of me, I don't understand why. The game hammers into you that Chrom and Robin are the two protagonists of the story. They're together in the future vision, they're together since the start of the game and the game says several times they are like two halves of the same person. But people have decided that because he's an avatar, he shouldn't be given as much story focus as Chrom. Unlike Kris who poaches the good traits of other characters or Corrin who is eternally praised despite making terrible decisions, Robin's praise feels in line with his accomplishments.

[Icelerate]

13 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Michy was the correct choice to succeed Ike because she contrast him in so many areas. Ike is a physical fighter, an ordinary fellow and surprisingly warm despite being rude and rough around the edges. Michy is magically orientated and definitely not a fighter, extremely special and can be surprisingly stubborn, snarky and even ruthless despite her usual warm and serene behavior. Michy's logic and morals becoming increasingly questionable is frequently criticized which is refreshing. Her main flaw is that she's so obviously inferior to Ike in abilities, stature and morals, but that's more a complaint against the increasingly perfect Ike than against her. 

 

Do you think one of the reasons Ike got such massive muscles in RD is to emphasize how different he is from Micaiah? After all, you might as well show the difference through physique as well. Also, it's to emphasize Ike is now much stronger than he was in PoR. 

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So with this in mind I think my ranking would be: Hector>Alm>Michy>Celica >Ike>Roy>Marth>Eliwood> Eirika>Seliph>Sigurd>Chrom>Ephraim. 

Is this how well-written you find them because I was sure Alm was your favourite lord, with Hector being second favourite?