#WHERE IS ELIWOOD AND LITTLE ROY?!?!?!?!

[felikatze]

roy is my boy. my beautiful boy who is so bad at combat which is also A DELIBERATE CHARACTERIZATION DECISION.

it's his support with lance, i believe, which questions why roy is at the front lines at all. and roy acknowledges that he sucks. he's weak compared to everyone else, he knows this, but he fights on the frontlines anyways because it's about respect. he doesn't want to be the commander giving orders from up high - he wants to fight together with his men, remain connected with the people he leads. he never wants to lose sight of them.

and it's a thing about self-confidence, too, and how little he has of it - this lad has some massive imposter syndrome. again, he knows all his faults intimately. his combat performance is poor, he's studied the art of war but lacks any actual experience, and he considers himself, well, a loser, overall. but people love him anyway, because he still gives it his all, and it's in his lance support, too - roy's charismatic. not in the bold way, but in his demure nature. he's a steady presence to draw people together, with an earnestness that inspires others to help him succeed. they can tell he just wants to make things better for everybody, and they want to be better for him, too.

also, he's not just a soldier on the battlefied. he's the tactician. you don't see mark sweeping maps, right? roy is canonically the tactical mind behind the entire campaign, and he's damn good at it, too. i forgot whether it's lalum or elffin route, but in one of the two, it's said that it was roy's decision to rebrand to the etrurian army. that name change alone shows keen political awareness. being the lycian army when you're just a hodgepodge of lycians is fine, but when a etrurian general starts backing you, and you've now got the the whole of the continent's biggest nation behind you, well - the snooty bastards from up high aren't gonna let tiny little lycia hog all the glory. roy's conceeding recognition of the war effort to etruria to appease the new etrurian soldiers under his watch who'd balk at being lead by a pheraen nobody. (they probably dont even know where pherae is).

roy's a scholar, not a warrior. he wasn't present when bandits attacked pherae's castle cuz he was on his way home from summer break at college. he's good at this shit cuz he studied it. he has elffin and cecilia as advisors later on, but the early game is all him.

and he still doesn't recognize that cuz it's not physical. he's not in the action. to him, he is just leading people to their deaths. it's his duty to prevent it. it's the inherent guilt of leadership. and how inferior he feels compared to his father and hector - both great warriors in their own right (even if eliwood's combat performance in fe7 is equally poor). this is the only way to prove himself to himself. agrh.

roy is also just so deeply deeply kind. he will give anyone the chance to change, but he's not softhearted. if he must kill, he will. still, though, he has to try. he's always searching for that silver lining, always searching for a way to spill less blood on all sides.

if there is one thing he believes in, it is the goodness of the heart. he's optimistic, but not naive. he knows the world is rotten. the history of the scouring proves that well enough. but the world is made of its people, and if people choose to improve, the world will, too. just as roy tries, anyone can try. anyone should be able to try. humans, dragons, he doesn't care. if you do good, you are good. i just. i know i'm talking vague but it's such a hard thing to pin down.

i really think fe6 is let down by it's lack of emotive portraits here. if you wanna get emotion out of the story you really need to read into it yourself and let your imagination do the work just because there's no portraits or voice acting to sell it for you.

i love my boy. if you mischaracterize him as "hehe dragon racist" ever again i'll kill you.

[toshikihikari]

kiss, sender kisses receiver.

(ninian and eliwood 💕 because what other option is there really lol)

A lack of sleep had become a common occurrence in Eliwood’s life as of late. At best, there would be pockets of time in which the gentle cries of an infant next door would cease for a few hours, allowing him and his wife to rest until their son woke them again. At worst, Roy was near inconsolable and restless, leaving both Eliwood and Ninian without sleep by the time the sun rose in the morning. The past few days had been the latter, and by the shade of dark circles that had begun to form under Ninian’s eyes, the constant fussing had started to take its toll on her.

Any time she seemed more tired than usual, or more stressed, or unwell, Eliwood was concerned. He knew her time with him was limited, and he was fearful of anything that could hasten the process and take her from him far too soon. As Ninian was propping herself up to get out of bed for what seemed like the hundredth time that night, he gently put a hand on her shoulder. “Stay here,” he whispered, giving her a small smile, “I’ve got him tonight. Please, sleep.”

Before he could hear Ninian utter even a word of protest, he promptly jumped out of bed and headed to the nursery, where their son was making his protests known that something in his little life was not how he wanted it. Upon reaching Roy’s crib, Eliwood very gently lifted him up and into his arms. “Shh, Roy, shh...it’s going to be alright. You were fed a couple hours ago, so it can’t be that, so…did you go to the bathroom? Or did you just need a bit of comfort?”

At the sound of his father’s voice, Roy’s cries started to fade into whimpers, and Eliwood gave him a smile before kissing his head. “I see…so you were just wanting a bit of company, huh? Well, Daddy’s here. And I’ll be here for as long as you need.” He paced around the room for a few minutes, gently bouncing Roy in his arms, thanking St. Elimine that his presence was enough to calm his son down. He would have felt terrible if it was Ninian who he wanted after telling her to go back to sleep.

Roy let out a very soft yawn and curled into Eliwood, his eyes slowly closing. Eliwood pressed one last kiss to his head and sat down in the chair near his crib. While he was successful in soothing Roy, his slumber was quite fragile—the last thing Eliwood wanted to do was risk putting him down and waking him yet again. He leaned back into the chair and gently changed Roy’s position so he was sleeping fully on his chest, and closed his eyes. “Goodnight, Roy. I love you.”

***

Eliwood must have fallen asleep, because he awoke to a pair of lips pressing gently against his. As the silhouette of his wife came into focus, so did the soft hues of an early sunrise. His eyes immediately widened, and he looked down at Roy, who was still soundly asleep in his arms. “Ninian…I’m so sorry. I meant to return to bed, but I suppose I was more tired than I thought…and I didn’t want to disturb him, so…” he brought a hand up to cradle Roy’s head as he scooted forward in the chair. “Were you able to get some rest?”

[crabknight]

ELIWOOD FOR THE CHARACTER ASK GAME. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW/lh

my little boy...

Favorite thing: definitly his design, just overall a great look. That includes animations. I do also however like his compassionate and calm demeanor

Least favorite thing: How he's kind of bad gameplay wise... oh well, at least he's no roy

Favorite line: idk nothing really comes to mind but I skimmed through his supports and I like when he calls Hector bad at maths in their c support

brOTP: Well it would be a crime to not pick Hector for this role, their dynamic is just too great. I do however also like his friendship with Lyn

OTP: I am a firm member of the EliwoodxNinian club and I will never back down on that. Partly because I really like their interactions and dynamic, but also just because of how much time they get to develop it in a game where screen time for side characters/side stories is somewhat hard to come by

nOTP: idk to be honest, nothing I really feel that strong about, but I suppose Hector and Lyn, they're friends, not lovers

Random headcannon: He would be a killer wife guy if given the chance

Unpopular opinion: he really does not look that much like roy, like red hair and blue clothes and that's it but I guess that's just enough for some people isn't it

song i associate with him: Well this one is the easy answer because I don't really associate him with any non game song so the midgame map theme (companions for eliwood mode and distant travels for hector mode)

favorite picture of him: It just gotta be the apple tall lord and his mushroom guardians

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Fire Emblem Binding Blade Playthrough

Fighter: Roy.

Game: Fire Emblem The Binding Blade, Game Boy Advance. First Released on March 29th 2002.

ENTRY WARNING: This post will contain spoilers for Fire Emblem 6, I do my best to avoid spoiling plot elements of Fire Emblem 7 but it is possible to infer things from the details I give since that game is a prequel to 6. I will also use read-more as most of the screenshots for this game are from the late-game so more spoilery than the usual pictures I use.

Fighter Bio.

In the continent of Elibe, Roy was born to the Marquess of Pherae, Eliwood in the Lycian League. Roy knew little of his Mother who died shortly after his birth, he was brought up alongside Wolt who is considered his ‘milk-brother’. At the age of Ten he travelled with his Father to meet Eliwood’s best friend Hector the marquess of Ostia, the most powerful state of the Lycian League where Roy met and became close friends with Hector’s daughter Lilina. Five years later Roy was studying in Ostia when he was summoned home following news that Eliwood had fallen ill. Lilina was visiting Pherea at the time but soon found she had to barricade herself and Eliwood in the castle following a siege by a large bandit mob. Roy returned home and with his small band of knights that had accompanied him fought off the bandits. Meeting with his Father he was asked to lead the forces of Pherea to join the armies of the rest of the Lycian League as Eliwood was too sick to fight and another country, Bern was preparing for war. Eliwood also asked Lilina to return to Ostia so she could take command there whilst her father Hector was rallying the Lycian League’s forces. On his journey to Araphen where the leaders of each part of the Lycian League planned to band together their armies, Roy is asked by a priest called Elen to save her Mistress who is being held hostage by some Bern forces. After saving the noblewoman she reveals herself to be Guinivere the Princess of Bern and younger sister of its King Zephiel. Guinivere sought to negotiate peace with the Lycian League to avoid a bloody war from breaking out and asked Roy to help her meet with the leaders in Araphen which he agreed to.

Roy arrived at Araphen however to find the armies of Lycia had been decimated and most of the leaders killed by an army of dragon riders. Hector met Roy and in his last moments warned him that Bern was in control of powerful dragons as well as entrusting him with the leadership of the remaining Lycian forces in his stead. Roy travelled next to Ostia which had been taken over by traitors who sought an alliance with Bern and had taken over Castle Ostia with Lilina held hostage. Roy lead the first ever successful siege of the castle in Ostia’s history and saved the forces trapped within as well as Lilina. Lilina in return joined with Roy and revealed to him Durandal, a sword once wielded by Eliwood and one of the eight Legendary weapons said to have defeated the Dragons during the war between humans and dragons known as the Scouring over a thousand years earlier. Following this battle Roy faces many more hardships and gradually gains more allies in his fight against Bern and its allies, discovering the other Legendary weapons as he goes as well as the Binding Blade, a sword said to be stronger than any of the Legendary weapons possessing mysterious powers based upon the wielder such as reacting to their desires, healing them and having fire elemental properties. Roy is the only one who has been deemed worthy to wield the blade since it was used in the Scouring a thousand years earlier. Roy also finds himself in command of the army of Etruria, a country that had almost fallen to a traitorous rebellion of those who sought to ally themselves with Bern until Roy’s forces managed to take them down.

Roy learnt from Guinivere how Zephiel’s childhood where his Father had attempted to murder him had led to him losing all faith in humanity and seeking to awaken the Dark Dragon sealed away in the Scouring as well as plunging the continent into a war that would allow Dragonkind to return and wipe humanity away to become the dominant species. With this new knowledge Roy invaded Bern Palace and attempted to reason with Zephiel but could not convince him to change course, leading to Roy having to defeat the King once and for all. Following his defeat, Zephiel’s greatsword Eckesachs reacted to the other Legendary weapons Roy had gathered and revealed to him the way to the Dragon Sanctuary, which contained the final remains of Bern’s army as well as the Dark Dragon Idunn. During his earlier travels Roy had found and helped protect a hidden village in the desert of Nabata called Arcadia. This hidden village was home to the few surviving descendants of the dragons that did not take part in the Scouring war and lived peacefully with humans. Fae, the only pure dragon remaining in Arcadia is a young manakete who eventually joins Eliwoods forces. She along with the rest of Roy’s forces meets Jahn, the only remaining natural dragon in Elibe at Dragon Sanctuary. Jahn informs the group of how the Dark Dragon Idunn was originally a Divine Dragon similar to Fae who was captured by the Dragons warring with humans during the Scouring. They were finding it hard to replenish their forces due to low birth rates in their species and came up with a plan, they turned Idunn into a Demon Dragon in order for her to produce War Dragons, Dragons created only for War that know nothing other than bloodshed. Even after this Idunn refused to do so and ultimately it took her heart being completely destroyed turning her into a mindless husk for the Dragons to finally begin their plan. It was too late by then however and when Hartmut the Champion who wielded the Binding Blade during the Scouring confronted Idunn and learnt of her history he took pity on her, through this the Binding Blade instead of killing her in their confrontation merely put her to sleep and sealed her away for a thousand years, until she was unsealed by King Zephiel.

Having heard all of this, Fae feared she could end up sharing the same fate as Idunn and become a monster too. Roy reassures Fae that he believes both she and Idunn can avoid that fate and realises he cannot kill Idunn but instead wishes to save her soul. With his will and the power of the Binding Blade he fights through Jahn’s War Dragons as well as Jahn himself before facing Idunn. Defeating her Roy manages to restore her soul with the power of the Binding Blade and helps her along with Fae to disappear to Arcadia where she can begin a new life with Fae’s help and friendship. Eventually Fae makes her laugh for the first time in thousands of years suggesting she is finally beginning to regain her true self. Following the war, Roy first attends the crowning of Guinivere as the new Queen of Bern before he returns home and eventually becomes the new Marquess of Pherae. Lilina also returns to Ostia and manages to unite all of Lycia becoming its Queen. Roy marries Lilina becoming the King Consort with the continent finding peace.

Despite his young age of 15 Roy is a capable leader who manages to build a large loyal army during his journey. His youth does make him often doubt himself and whether he should be in the position he is but his sense of duty and commitment to his allies and loved ones results in him not backing down. It is also this occasional lack of confidence that gives him the compassion and ability to hear his enemies out that helps him save possible allies as well as some of his enemies. He can be fairly cunning, managing to see through a couple of characters who are allies or enemies in their attempts to trick him. Roy is very loyal to his friends not caring about their social standing, he also is not particularly good at dealing with romantic feelings others have for him, for example not picking up on Lilina’s obvious fondness for him until after his journey has ended. Roy begins as a lord with the ability to use Rapiers exclusive to him, this means he has an advantage against cavalry and armoured units. In the early game this is fairly effective however later in the game many cavalry and armoured enemies have lances which are strong against swords in the weapons triangle which results in Roy having a disadvantage with him being unable to use any other weapon but swords. Roy also struggles as he is unable to promote until very late in the game, due to this he falls behind other units in his army being essentially a weaker Hero unit with low movement and only able to use swords, as well as maxing his stats fairly early since he cannot promote until a set point in the game, meaning he will not gain anything from defeating enemies and is really just stealing exp other units could use. Being a lord Roy is also required to seize thrones on the maps to achieve victory, which means he must go with the rest of the group across the map and therefore be escorted by stronger units. Following him gaining the Binding Blade Roy is able to promote into a Great Lord and becomes a lot stronger. The Binding Blade allows Roy to attack with fire and from two spaces away as well as being strong against dragons. Roy still in his promoted form isn’t as strong as other units who are able to wield the other Legendary weapons and therefore also are good against Dragons, but he is definitely more capable than he was earlier in the game. Roy also benefits from having high supports with other characters that give him some stat boosts that help make him stronger.

Friends: Roy has a loyal following who join his army during his fight against Bern, Wolt and Lilina are close friends from his childhood and he also is close with Cecilia who was his teacher in the past as well as Marcus who is an old knight in service of Pherae and Merlinus, a vassal of Eliwoods who serves as an advisor to Roy. Roy relies on both Merlinus and Marcus’s experience when approaching the situations he faces and trusts them both in their judgement. Roy takes care of Fae as he realises not letting her join his army will likely result in her being captured or worse by enemies and therefore he allows her to help fight, Roy also reassures Fae when she voices her fears of one day becoming an enemy of humanity. Roy helps Princess Guinivere and shares her belief in peace which makes him loyal to her and trust her despite being the Princess of Bern, the enemy nation he is fighting against. Also since I feel it is an important addition that Shadow Dragon did not have in the series and relates to relationships, I’d like to add this game is the first on my list that has the support system. With this system certain characters who spend a lot of time close to each other on the battlefield build up affinity and when able to can have support conversations where they build their bonds with each other. Roy is able to support with the joint most characters in the game alongside Lilina. There are various female characters who depending on how high a level of support Roy builds with him can marry him in the ending of the game with them being Lilina, Cecilia, Sue, Sophia, Shanna and Larum or alternately he can end the game not marrying any of them. It is generally accepted Lilina is the closest to a canon partner for Roy which is why in his bio I put the ending involving him marrying her.

Enemies/Rivals: Roy is willing to have compassion and try to understand his enemies, but he is also strong in his ideals and willing to fight against those who can be stopped no other way as well as those who hurt innocent people. When it comes to enemies Roy has there are not many who have directly wronged him, his Father is sick but alive and his Mother died of natural causes when he was young, some bandits attempt to attack Pherae early on but are stopped before they harm Eliwood or Lilina. Roy deals with many traitors to Lycia with one of the most notable being Leygance who takes control of Ostia castle and attempts to kill Lilina, however the main instigator of the war and therefore Roy’s main enemy is the country of Bern. The majority of Bern’s highest generals such as Murdock, Brunnya and Galle are all more loyal to their King and country rather than sadistic or evil, Roy still battles them however as he understands the alternative would lead to the destruction of Lycia and as he eventually learns all of humanity. Narcian is probably the worst of the high level generals of Bern but Roy although he definitely has to deal with Narcian’s traps and attacks doesn’t interact with him much. Zephiel is the closest Roy has to an arch-enemy in his quest, Roy learns of Zephiel’s past and attempts to reason with him, however when Zephiel will not accept this claiming all of humanity to be evil, Roy strongly rebukes him with his belief that ultimately mankind is good and calls Zephiel out on losing his faith in not just humanity but by extension himself, fighting and eventually killing the King. Roy’s final enemies are the dragons in the Dragon Sanctuary, the War Dragons are just mindless beasts created for war that Roy takes down, he tries to talk sense to Jahn the Fire Dragon telling him of Arcadia where dragons and humans live in peace. Jahn is surprised by this but ultimately rejects the idea that Dragons and Humans can ever live in peace which results in Roy having to slay him before taking on Idunn. Idunn despite being the ultimate Dark Dragon Roy realises is not his enemy, finding out she was once a Divine Dragon who was twisted until she was left heartless as simply a weapon for other dragons. Roy uses his compassion with the power of the Binding Blade to save Idunn rather than killing her and brings an end to the war.

Crossovers with other Smash characters: Elibe was the first location in the Fire Emblem series to be set on an entirely new unconnected world to the previous Fire Emblem games, due to this despite later crossovers Roy’s story did not intersect or connect with the other characters from the series who appear in Smash Bros. Roy has appeared in spinoff crossovers however appearing as an Einherjar in the land of Ylisse which are cards that form into spirits, these are not the actual characters however so this does not mean Roy himself experienced these events, however the real Chrom, Lucina and Robin met with and fought alongside the Einherjar version of Roy. This also meant that Roy appeared alongside the other Einherjar such as Marth and Ike who similarly weren’t the actual characters. Roy also appeared alongside Marth, Lucina, Robin and Ike as illusions in Fire Emblem Echoes Shadows of Valentia where they would fight alongside Alm and Celica the Lords of that game. Roy also appeared alongside Marth, Ike, Lucina, Robin, Chrom, Corrin and Byleth as an Emblem, spirits contained within special rings that lend their power to those who wear them. These Emblems are explicitly not the original characters but essentially echoes of them with their personalities and memories, this does bring together every Fire Emblem character who has appeared as a fighter in Smash Bros however. Finally there’s Fire Emblem Heroes which has versions of the vast majority of Fire Emblem characters from throughout the series including every Lord from the series. These all are recreations once again rather than the actual canon characters being similar to Einherjars and summoned by the Summoner and other characters.

Why this game?

It’s once again a very simple case of this is the only game with Roy in it. Given how this game is not freely available in English however I would definitely have gone for a remake version if it was available and if one does come out one day I will return to it to do another playthrough and possibly write a second post up based on that specifically.

My past with this game.

I went over the story in my entry for Marth but as I said there, Fire Emblem was a series that was first introduced to me through Super Smash Bros. When the first Fire Emblem game left Japan as I said before I believed that Eliwood was Roy with simply a different name and I did not play far enough into the game at the time to see Roy’s actual appearance towards the end of that game. Due to this for a long time I didn’t realise that Roy’s game was actually one that hadn’t left Japan until years later, however when I learnt this I became really interested in the game because I really liked the characters in Eliwood’s game (released here as simply Fire Emblem but in regards to the series referred to as ‘The Blazing Blade’ often) and learning that that game was actually a prequel to Roy’s game made me really interested in seeing what this future version of Elibe would be like. I believe around the time I learnt about this the concept of prequels was something new to me which I had mostly heard of due to the Star Wars prequels, so I was interested in seeing what happened to Hector, Lyn and Eliwood in Binding Blade. I did remember reading Roy's trophy entry in Melee however unlike Marths it didn't stand out particularly to me.

I would spoil myself later down the line on what did happen and I realised it wasn’t really nice with Lyn not being directly mentioned (and the implication she’d died between games), Hector dying and Eliwood spending the game too ill to fight. I think when I finally got my head around it all however, I found this all really interesting, I had heard that Binding Blade was considered essentially a copy of Marth’s games to the point I’d seen lots of pictures floating around online which point out all the similar characters like how Wolt the archer is essentially Gordin from Shadow Dragon, Marcus is the Jagen and many other similarities. I also remembered hearing a lot about how Roy was possibly the weakest Lord in the series. I did find it cool however in that they took what was in the original game some fairly minor characters with Hector and Eliwood, whose role in the game was just as the sick Father (which was honestly a rarity in a series where Father figures rarely live beyond the prologue) and made them into the main heroes of the next game, not to mention with this being the first game to come outside of Japan they became fairly fondly remembered by fans in the West (Eliwood probably the least out of the three but he’s my personal favourite Lord in the series). I waited a long time similarly to other games such as Mother 3 for an official release, but sadly to this day we still haven’t seen one, with the closest being that on the Switch online if you download the Japanese GBA Online you can play the game in Japanese.

Of course, due to this eventually I decided to try an alternative just to play the game for myself. Admittedly despite this however I did not get far into the game I think reaching Chapter 4 before I ended up playing other games. I think probably the thing that interested me the most with this game was something a bit ridiculous, but having scoured the Fire Emblem wikis as well as sites like Serenes Forest a lot and looking at all the units, classes and characters, honestly the most interesting thing for me in the game was Zephiel, specifically because his class is a King. Due to the whole basic description for someone really unfamiliar with videogames of saying Strategy RPGs are like Chess, I found it interesting in the whole series there was only ever one character whose class was just King with said class being like the third final promotion of a General. Add to that the unique sprites and animations for the King class which didn’t appear in the other GBA games and how I loved the sprites and animations for the Knight and General classes already before and I wanted to play through the game just to see it for myself (even if I’d seen it long before playing myself through youtube videos and things.) Beyond this, it’s hard to really say much more relating to my past with this game without simply talking about its prequel which I plan on going over in a later post, so that’s all I have to say really on this part.

My Smash Playthrough.

For this playthrough as stated earlier I had to use a translation hack in order to play. I only do this when I have no other choice in order to play the game and luckily in recent years a lot of other games I have been able to play officially which back when I started this were not available. I believe sadly as this game is definitely not one of the most fondly remembered ones in the series it will likely be a while before it gets an official release outside of Japan which is a shame, especially given Roy being part of the reason Fire Emblem was first introduced to the West. (It’s been said a few times before on various sites as trivia but Roy technically first appeared in Super Smash Bros Melee before his game released so in a sense that was his ‘original game’.) The version I played was using a pretty old translation by Dark Twilkitri in 2005 going by the notes I have. Given just how long ago now I found this game and how little I tend to take part in the scene I want to make it clear I would have no idea where to look if you wish to play the game yourself, you’ll have to look for yourselves into the matter if you wish to play it, the Fire Emblem Wiki does seem to have a fair bit of information from what I’ve seen so I’d suggest checking there first.

Now, onto the actual playthrough, I’m lucky sometimes that I’ve talked to friends over Discord often about my progress in the various games I played for my list so I’m able to check some of the stuff I said at the time to remind myself. Given this playthrough was in 2017 (which feels like a whole other age at this point) I was glad to be able to remind myself of some things I said back then, starting with how because there was an optional tutorial you could play through, the game just drops you in with little explanation of things. The tutorial is interesting in itself as it involves Roy battling against some friendly soldiers including Bors who is part of your group in the main game whilst being taught the basics by Cecilia. Honestly I wish this sort of thing was done more often with games, I do understand with the sequel as it was the first game released outside of Japan them having the tutorial be part of the story, but I think having tutorials be essentially an optional view into the characters during peaceful times can be a nice little thing to help build up the characters slightly, and helps it being optional in making future playthroughs feel less of a drag at the start. I also commented when playing through about how little damage your units seem to be able to do to the bosses of the first few chapters with me having to hope I’d get a hit with a 20% accuracy hammer just to take the boss down to lower health and gang up with my whole group on them. Again a lot of this is going off of my memory of something around 7 years ago so I can’t remember specifics, but I believe the hit rates in this game are considered somewhat infamously low.

I also realise looking back I went straight from playing Shadow Dragon to this game, that might be why I found it quite a jump in how that game took a lot of the more modern additions to the series compared to Binding Blade which at the time was a lot more simplified in its features compared to FE1-5 being a soft reboot of the series as well as the first handheld game. Similarly to my playthrough of Shadow Dragon and something I have carried on in future Fire Emblem games, when deciding on who to use for my team, I decided to base the team off of the Spotpass characters who appear in Fire Emblem Awakening to represent the game, trying to keep their equipment close to what they had there. For this playthrough I focused on Roy, Lilina, Wolt, Shanna the Pegasus Knight, Lugh the Mage, Raigh the Dark Mage, Celicia a Valkyrie, Sophia a Sorceror and Perceval a Paladin. Of them all Sophia was easily the most difficult character to train up and use on my team, she joins in what I remember being one of the most irritating chapters in the game with really low stats, the chapter requires being completed in a set number of turns with her still alive in order to progress to the gaiden chapter (side chapters which often have the Legendary weapons in them required to get the best ending) and I read this was the best place to level her up which required her getting the final hit on most enemies encountered. Add to that this map being a desert (Which hugely limits most units movement) fog of war which makes it impossible to see much of the map and where enemies are as well as many enemy wyvern riders who can move much faster and further than you and it was an absolute nightmare that I somehow managed to overcome.

My favourite chapter as you can likely guess based on what I said earlier about my interest in the game mostly revolving around Zephiel was the chapter where you storm Bern Castle taking on Zephiel’s forces before battling the King himself. There were some irritating parts such as various mages who will cast beserk on your army causing them to start attacking your other units, however with the right equipment you can overcome this. This chapter also involves Roy having the Binding Blade (called in the translation I used the Sealed Sword) which is his ultimate weapon, so it’s fun finally getting to have Roy use this sword on all the enemy troops and eventually use it in his final battle against Zephiel’s Eckesachs sword. The chapters following this that can only be played if you got all the Legendary weapons are still fun but this chapter was probably the highlight for me personally. Idunn (called Idoun in the translation I used) is often cited as one of the easiest (if not the easiest) final bosses in the series, I can’t honestly remember the battle with her, but given how difficult I’ve remembered others being that might be telling of how easy it was, I did still enjoy it from what I remember though. Honestly as a final boss I’ve grown to quite like Idunn as a concept being essentially a corrupted Divine Dragon in contrast to the other (at this point in the series) final boss Dragons being often Dark Dragons that went against the Light Dragon. Zephiel similar to Garnef in a way was definitely the main driving force of the story overall with Idunn being more a victim than anything which is why I like the final battle involves Roy not trying to kill her but save her from what was done to her.

One final notable thing in the game is there’s a point where you have two different paths you can take, one will result in you fighting in the icy land of Ilia, home to many of the Pegasus Knights in the Elibe games and the other will take place in Sacae, grasslands home to many tribes and in the prequel Lyn. I decided to go with the Ilia route, I’m not really sure why now but I know because I have the exclusive character from that path on my team, I don’t remember there being any real reason for my playthrough however that I picked that route over the Sacae one as I don’t think there’s any additional item or weapon I needed there. The music for the game is pretty nice, probably my favourite tracks are Beyond Distant Skies, Battle for whose sake, Shaman in the Dark and Far from Arcadia, there’s some pretty nice fan remixes as well as official remixes of some of these tracks in later games that are worth listening to. Probably my absolute favourite thing in these games are the battle sprites. It feels a bit hard to talk about them regarding this game specifically as by the time I played it I had already seen them in Blazing Blade and Sacred Stones which was the final GBA Fire Emblem and had even more new sprites leaving this game feeling lacking, however I still have to give credit to Binding Blade as it was the first game to introduce these sprites with all the awesome animations I love. I said before Zephiel’s sprites are unique to this game however and are a highlight along with Roy’s animations which definitely are best when he’s finally wielding the Binding Blade with the fire effects. Honestly probably the only regret I have when it comes to this game getting a remake is it’ll likely be in 3D and therefore lacking this great sprite-work.

Specific aspects about the game relating to Roy in Smash.

Similar to Marth, this was probably the easiest aspect of the game for me because it’s not possible to finish the game without Roy having the Binding Blade and it’s foolish to use anything else with him once he has it (I believe, there may be some well known tactic I’m unaware of like a Light Brand being somehow superior to it, still for me a casual player the Binding Blade was great to have Roy use). It’s irritating that the sword has a limited number of uses, but luckily because you get it so late in the game that likely won’t be an issue, still it is best to not waste it on particularly weak enemies. Roy’s class promotes into a Great Lord when he gets the Binding Blade, but the only difference really is the battle sprite he uses and in that case it’s not very easy to see the difference, his armour is mostly a bit better defined from what I can tell, the main difference being he has unique animations when using the Binding Blade which often involves it using fire elements in the attacks Roy uses.

Credits.

For information on this game including dates of releases I must give credit to the Fire Emblem Wiki and Serenes Forest for additional information such as Spotpass Teams in Awakening, for the translation used I would like to thank Dark Twilkitri for their work.

[nammyfanficsblog]

you know, Feh always comes up with good news on my busiest days....but I feel really excited and like her anyway lolololol

let’s start with my reaction shall we?, 

- WHAT IS THAT FARMING MINIGAME ON AETHER RESORT????? definately fire emblem heroes is just a pokemon game lololol but I LOVE IT <3 <3 <3 <3 (I may not look like a farming game lover but actually I am lololool) other than normal crop we can grow DRAGON FLOWER??? ok, i’m really interested right now!

- DINNING HALL FOR FEEDING YOUR HEROES?!?!?!?! (why they don’t just be like poke amie....lololololol) I don’t really know what is the good point of it (maybe support rank up or just feeding for fun??? oh wait, it’s feeding for hero feather reward..... ) but I really looking forward to this function as well <3 <3 <3 (I will feed Hrid , Eliwood , Ephraim and Roy <3 <3 <3 then, )

- NEW HALLOWEEN HEROES ALREADY!??!?!?!  but i’m just ran out of orbs just now ; w ; 

Mad scientist L’archel??? and Frankenstien Dozla??? wow!! I’m just start playing FEsacred stones just now and they come up!! (kinda wish for Halloween Ephraim or Lyon or Knoll but....anyway....)

Vampire lady Llyana and ghost gordin.....I mean Rolf????? (don’t know them but I kinda sure that Rolf must be related to Oscar right? and we gonna get him as F2P so ok I guess,) 

WHAT IS THAT HECTOR AND LITTLE LILINA????? A DUO HEROES?!?!?!?! ok, they are only one who got my interest lolololol First of all, THEY ARE TOO CUTE!!!! >w< I WANT THEM ALREADY!!!! AND THEY EVEN HAVE SPECIAL VOICE QUOTE????? ASDFGHJKLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (but with 0 orbs I think I’ll have to pass T^T ToT ) I kinda wish Hector would use magic on this but..... ; w ; 

- Bonus map and BHB revival is another chance for orbs then....oh Feh’s quiz too...ok I’m going to collect more orbs and mark my calendar for them now.

- The last one ---> HALL OF FORMS??? with testing...I mean Forma unit.....hmmm, a new game with fix heroes that I haven’t get yet for free but no skill slot on them???? hmmm......as long as it gives orbs....I will try it then, (not to mention how poor skill of tactics I am...; w ; but I’ll try.....)

PS. good luck to you all ^w^ me, I just wish that I would get Hector.......

[sukimas]

broadly i think a problem of most of the fire emblem games with avatars is that despite being the main character the avatar isn't allowed to do anything when they are one.

they're not allowed to have ideas that drive the plot; other characters have to suggest them to them. they're not allowed to have ambitions, or to lose things that are important to them besides single people; they only care tangentially, because the people they care about have actual hope and despair in their lives. they're generally not allowed to make decisions (even when we make decisions for them.)

i think a good example of a character who does not fall into this trap (and the character i consider the best-written avatar; their game's story does them few favors, but allowed to be in a plot that's not full of holes, they'd shine) is robin. robin is consistently allowed to make decisions. they make tactical choices. they come into situations and choose how the situation's gonna go; they're gonna set a navy on fire (or they're gonna come up with a plan to thwart their evil father) all on their own, whether we would've come up with the plan or not. they get to do things and be things, despite the fact that they're an amnesiac with no real reason to be with the main army, because they are allowed to take actions.

of the avatars that aren't allowed to do things, there are two types. the first is the understandable ones: kris and shez. kris and shez are just kind of Guys Who Are Being Paid To Be Here. though they can sometimes come up with suggestions, they're never shown to be anything but emotional support for the real protagonists (as much or as little emotional support as those protagonists might need) and they generally get tossed around wherever the winds of fate take them because that's the kind of life they lead.

on the other hand, we come to the problem children.

byleth and corrin have absolutely no agency in their stories, and both of them are written (far more than any of the others) as the true main characters. though the three country lords in three houses do drive much of the plot, they are not the characters we see the internality of- not our marth/roy/ike. we don't get their perspective. we do, for comparison, get chrom's; this is what makes awakening weird in that it actually has deuteragonists.

so, our two true main character avatars. they do not get to make decisions. sure, you get to choose what house you teach/what kingdom you side with. but this is ultimately an uninformed decision in both cases; either way it's just your (and their) gut judgment (unless you've been spoiled online already as to what happens on each route). after the routes begin, you do make interpersonal decisions (do you want to spare or kill xyz character?); but all the decisions actually relevant to the events of the plot are left to other characters (generally azura or whichever lord you picked. in silver snow it ends up being seteth.) this is especially glaring with byleth, where you can make dialogue choices that do not actually alter any characters' dialogue that follows whatsoever. (ironically this is fixed in three hopes. go shez!)

anyway, i am hoping that because alear is not immediately joined by people who are clearly in positions of authority above them/know lots more than them (veyle doesn't seem to be that present, and the guardians are very clearly their subordinates) they will get to make Decisions sometimes, even if those decisions are primarily motivated by information they get from others. i believe that the main problem of fire emblem avatars is not that the plot revolves around them or that they're not very fleshed out characters- certainly they're no more poorly fleshed out than for example eliwood or seliph, as a whole- but that they don't actually do anything in the plots of their games. i think that given alear doesn't have someone who can clearly tell them what to do and will thus have to sometimes make a choice once in a while, that it's possible that they break the cycle and get to pull a robin again.

(maybe with a more coherent plot this time? i can hope.)

[teneguine]

Attention, all gift-givers,

Names have been picked, and asks are being sent to everyone’s inboxes! If you don’t get yours within the next few hours, please message one of the three event hosts and we’ll look into it. Now begins the period of gift-giving, where Secret Santas are to anonymously deliver their presents via asks. Before you do, however, please read the reiteration of how this process works:

Do not respond to the asks from Owain, Lucina, and Kent. Once the event ends and the jig is up, we’ll allow you to do whatever you wish with these, but for now all Secret Santas are to remain a mystery

When sending asks, remember to tick the little box to send them anonymously

Be as creative as you’d like with these! Remember that the questionnaire answers being shared are just there to give you something to work with in case you get stuck, and are not meant to be hard guidelines

The deadline for these is December 26th, 11:59 PM EST

When responding, you are allowed to have your muse try to guess who got them their gift and approach anyone participating to ask if it was them. Just keep in mind that if you do this via a separate ask or thread, that like the response to your gift ask, it should be tagged with #toawinterwonder

So as not to bother anyone not participating, the list of potential candidates is under the readmore link

Patty, Michalis, Deirdre, Ethlyn, Ninian, Linhardt, Colm, Valter, Shigure, Julius, Chrom, Laslow, Azama, Sakura, Farina, Hilda, Luke, Soren, Roy, Eliwood, Hector, Forsyth, Leanne, Phina, Elincia, Julia, Rhea, Ophelia, Python, Maria, Midori

Happy gifting, and as always, feel free to come to us for any questions!

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Alright, I gotta write down some more ideas for this AU, but the first one is that since the cults are presumably hunting down Robin, Deirdre, Arvis, and Celica respectively, the Agarthans should sabatoge their internet search efforts somehow. Also, one of the cults has a website right out of the 90s.

Two questions, then-- relative to the Tellius and Fodlan college students, how old is everyone approximately? And are the Elibeans here?

I want the Grimleal website to be just the most ancient piece of shit website to ever have existed, that hasn't been updated since before Robin was born, and which heavily contrasts with like, Gangrel's political website which incredibly sleek and professional-looking, except it's even more ass to navigate than the Grimleal site. "Looks better in the app" kinda bullshit.

I like to think that Validar at least does in fact sort of know where Robin is, but Robin's mom has a restraining order and no fear of prison, so Validar's left just like. sending emails that basically look like spam to Robin in attempts to get her to join the Grimleal. Robin sort of maintains contact with Validar because sometimes she or her friends need info about what the Grimleal/other cults are up to and Robin can get this info from Validar by feigning interest in being Grima's vessel for a week while she asks him other questions and then she ghosts him again for another two years or something once she's done.

For ages, I tend to think...

the Shepherds are also in college (Robin is a grad student, I headcanon her as a few years older than Chrom/the bulk of the Shepherds), so roughly comparable ages to the frat houses and much of the Tellius gang (who would all be around Radiant Dawn ages here);

Sigurd and co. are out of college and have established careers and are starting to have kids, and Shannan and Oifey are in high school;

the older royal siblings from Fates are out of school and have jobs while Leo and Takumi are still at uni and Sakura and Elise just graduated high school, and Corrin was supposed to be finally starting uni (a few years after her little brother) when the whole "she finds out she's adopted and her dad's evil" thing happens. On the average, most of the gang there is same age/younger than the average age of Jugdral gang, but on average a little older than Fodlan gang.

Alm and Celica are in their final years of high school; apparently everyone from Valentia has canonized ages somewhere in the game code that never got used, and those all seem reasonable to me so I'm just slapping them in directly at those ages

I hope that sort of made sense.

And I haven't played Blazing/Binding Blade yet, so I don't know enough about those guys to drop them in! But since there's two generations of characters there, Eliwood/Hector/Lyn/etc would probably be around Sigurd's age, and Roy and Seliph would probably be roughly the same age. (Lucina's younger than them.)

[archer3-13]

just a thought experiment for fun, but lets run down the list of how other fe protagonists would likely interact with edelgard:

marth - he'd have sympathy for her personal plight, that is the experiments done on her in her youth, but that wouldn't stop him from fighting her if need be. Probably have a similar reaction to her as he does to michalis, where he would be saddened by her talent and skill as a ruler being used for evil ends instead of positive ones.

alm - likely to be distaste to outright loathing, regarding her as another rudolf or lima iv in terms of her status as an emperor and general attitude. id argue alm is also a character written whos easily blinded by personal connections and fondness, and considering edelgard would likely have people important to him in her crosshairs, theyd likely end up being enemies.

celica - honestly i feel celica would see in edelgard all her own worse impulses, feelings, bad days and the worse aspects of her personal history since they share a degree of overlap in certain key areas [such as being the kids of royal concubines]. as such i actually kinda feel their relation would have a unique interesting tension to it, being mirror images of the other to an extent with celica devoting time to trying to save edelgard before finally grappling and accepting both edelgard being her own person and that celicas own demons have to be conquered in other ways.

sigurd - in the unique position of likely having a good first impression of edelgard, but being especially hurt by her true motives. less because of a shared ideological basis, and more because sigurd is a character thats easily fooled by nature and doesnt take these things kindly.

seliph - considering hes fighting a continent wide war against an invading authoritarian empire as part of a rebel force, seliph probably wouldn't take kindly to edelgard. evne if hed still be kinda sad about it as well.

leif - same as seliph really, only likely even more hostile given his nature as a character, and his own rage towards say travant.

roy - a character that by his nature overworks himself and thinks the best in people. I think hed want to give edelgard the benefit of the doubt, but once that trust was broken hed be willing to do what needed to be done due to a strong moral compass.

lyn - freespirited but decidedly vicious if she feels slighted, considering edelgards ingrained biases snobbery about adrestian culture i woud imagine the two would be easy enemies, even outside of lyn disagreeing with edelgards actual principles.

eliwood - a soft boy guided by a strong sense of morality, hed tried to talk it out to the end but ultimately would probably end up against her because he deemed it the right thing to do.

hector - hectors tendencies towards brash and abrasive behavior would probably turn edelgard against him honestly, which would lead hector to be against her. either way, like eliwood hed likely side against her on principle but unlike eliwood would be less hesitant about the ordeal. though perhaps questioning of his own qualities as a leader through the shadow of her own principles.

eirika - honestly its a little tedious to reiterate similar points at this point, so well eirika is a character with her own distinctions shed probably fall in a similar camp as eliwood

ephraim - unlike his sister ephraim would probably fall more on the hector side of the equation. though i'd imagine hed be even more competitive about it.

ike - ike has historically not gotten along well with nobles, the only ones he generally seems to like being the select few hes helped out in the past. point being, hed probably dislike edelgard and regard her as something of a sterotypical noble on first impression, and a ashnard 2.0 once her intents were revealed.

elincia - if celica is the mirror verse edelgard, then i would posist elincia as the anti edelgard from the reverse dimension. they're opposed on pretty much every point, and considering elincias own experiences with ashnard and ludveck she'd be wary to say the least.

micaiah - another case of 'from personal experience, reservations would be had to say the least'. ontop of that edelgards biases and prejudice to non human/non pure human forms of life would probably extend to micaiahs branded nature and direct phone line to an actual god, which would grate on micaiah especially considering her protectiveness of those aspects of herself.

chrom - chroms got that hothead and impulsive streak of sigurd in him, but with a degree more scrutiny attached albeit not by much. considering his own opposition to walhart though, its likely even when he did get the jist of edelgards whishes he wouldn't be impressed.

corrin - well their are differences between the three routes corrins, theyd all likely fall into the same pattern of distrust and opposition. ranked in terms of whod fall out with her quicker, i'd say it would go birthright -> conquest -> revelations corrins in terms of level of trust given in the initial impression.

[randomnameless]

25, any headcanons?

Pff

25 headcanons for the meme then

Mareeta eventually meets Larcei in the post FE4/FE5 world and beats her soundly because Major Blood makes people OP, it's unfair but that's Jugdral

Velthomer robes have always been black and red, even for the people associated with the Velthomer court, but Saias wears inverted colors to make sure no one knows he's secretly a Velthomer himself. It's a foolproof plan.

Roy is Ninian's son, and him being part dragon is what enables him to use the Sword of Seals ; Harmut came to believe in a future where dragons and humans could live together, Roy's the living proof of this (and Sophia cannot uses swords!).

Everyone expects Leanne's Raven Boy to be a little terror and make Uncle Reyson get grey hair, but it's actually the Heron Girl who has a lot of fun messing with everyone. Naesala is a proud dad.

After the base convo with Ike, Rafiel tried to eat meat. That's the reason why he couldn't join everyone in the Goddess's Tower.

Grandma Eleanora taught Roy how to dance

Rhea and Macuil always insisted on sleeping in Cichol's bed when they were younger with their big bro - Cichol used to think it was uncomfortable because each of them had beds and they were cramped in his, but after Zanado he misses it.

Finn taught everyone in Fiana how to ride a horse - it doesn't mean everyone can fight horse back, but they at least can ride one.

The first shipment for trade between the two nations of United Archanea and United Valentia involved flour and oranges. Legend says Marth enjoyed oranges so much he wanted to give orange juice to everyone in his realm.

Nyna, Tatiana and Zeke are living happily in Rigel with their 6 children.

Eliwood really wanted to grow a mustache like his father, but when he saw Hector's beard he gave up.

Sanaki and Miccy try to be on amiable terms, but the "you tried to fry me remember" and "remember when our ancestor talked to you and ignored me, and wanted to destroy the world because he forgot I existed while playing with you?" are hard to get over with. They are on good terms as rulers of different nations, but they are not on good terms as sisters.

Every ruler from FE10 went to visit at least once Goldoa, and Rajaion's son. Ena was overjoyed, even if she didn't know what to do with the 52 plushies.

When Citrus told Rhea she wanted to marry Jerry, Rhea wondered what she did wrong, Jerry has a rat tail ! Maybe by constructing Citrus she forgot to program the "what is pretty from what is not pretty" software?

Hilda is Arvis's half sister and one of Victor's bastards

Ephraim using so much of Renais's funds to rebuild Grado is very unpopular post FE8, some people of Renais think Grado deserved it because their Prince consorted with demons - something Ephraim actively refutes whenever he can, as a result his reign is not a very popular one

After Mila'n'Duma went asleep, Valentia mages cannot use magic without staves/tomes

During his journey, Nergal learnt his wife died, but unable to accept this fact + the promise he made to the children to bring her back pushed to dwelve deeper and deeper to the Dark Artes, and we know what happened.

Julia's major Naga son will start a new conflict in Jugdral against Seliph's children

After the events of FE4/FE5, Silesse decided to base their hereditary monarchy on Queen Erinys's heirs, regardless if they have a Sety brand or not (given how both father and son ditched the country during various wars).

Cyril sees Shamir as his teacher and Catherine as some sort of annoying older sibling who gives him noogies even if he told her he dosn't like it

Seteth named his wyverns after his dead companions

Ismaire offered Joshua his trademark hat when he told her he was leaving to "discover the world". It's the only thing Joshua will never bet on.

Hugh becomes the first Elibian mage to master Light and Anima magic, but he dies before Niime, who could never told him how proud she is of him, even if he doesn't use dark magic.

Scatach eventually learns how to use an axe after asking his cousin Iuchar(ba?)

[fantasyinvader]

Beat Binding Blade tonight

So, right off the bat I'm going to admit. I abused the arena and save states. This is a really, really hard game. And while I enjoyed it, I'm going to give three things I didn't like about it.

1)Enemy reinforcements arrive at the end of the player phase, and can attack during the enemy phase. That is unfair, especially when I assume that parking a unit on the spawn point will prevent them (It doesn't) or my healer just happens to be in the area. I like difficult games, but when I fail at something in those I want to feel like it's my fault for doing so. When I die in Bloodborne or lose a unit in Fates Conquest, I'm willing to accept it because I felt it was fair (plus I'll just restart the chapter in Conquest anyway). I could have not died if I had played a little better. This game was not fair when it did that.

2)The supports. A lot of the stuff about the characters is locked away in their supports, since this is one of the old Fire Emblems where it throws units your way because it's assuming you didn't reset the game when one died. They don't get cutscenes to be important, and with only five supports per character (barring if one dies, then any unit that had supports with gets those supports back). And even then, getting an A rank doesn't pair up any units except for Roy. So you don't get to play love doctor here, it's only really there for the stat boosts. But in the case of my boy, he needs those supports in order for his character to fully come through.

3)I can take 8 units into the final battle, and they're the only ones who get full ending cards. Everyone else just gets a single line. Kinda weak if I use someone like Fir for most of the game, but bench her at the end to give Rutget Durandal.

Even with my cheating, I still enjoyed this game. Mostly for the story. When Fire Emblem first appeared in Smash Brothers Melee, as a kid it instantly caught my attention. Roy and Marth just looked so cool with their swords and armor (true fact: My favorite design for Link is the Skyward Sword design, simply because it has chainmail under the tunic. I get it, the tunic is iconic but SS's Link just looks practical), and I preferred Roy because I though his fully-charged shield breaker hurting him was cool. I even keep a Cipher card of his in my wallet for good luck. I wanted to know what Fire Emblem was, what kind of game it was. My friend showed me a screenshot of the upcoming GBA game in Nintendo power, which I got for the following Christmas (sadly, I didn't get Sacred Stones as I got a PS2 the following year). I loved that game, but the idea that I was playing as Roy's father always was a bit of a sour point for me. It's because of that game when I got a 2DS a decade later, because I wanted to game but kept getting pulled away from my console, I eventually went back to Fire Emblem.

And, I'm going to admit, Binding Blade hurt me because I played Blazing Blade first. It really did. I mean, Hector dies early on, Lyn is presumably dead hell a lot of my old comrades probably died in this war, Eliwood's wife dies shortly after they are married while Eliwood is more useless than ever, the kid I saved in Bern becomes a genocidal maniac, and the fact that the characters of Blazing Blade kinda caused this to happen by releasing the seals on the Legendary Weapons in their own quest... It kinda bugs me that the Legendary Weapons I used in Blazing Blade are in their trap filled storage places. Like, who returned them there? And if I have characters from that game returning in Binding, I find it strange they don't comment on needing them again. But this is a case of the game trying to be a prequel to a story that wasn't written with it in mind.

But at the end of the day, one thing just kept popping up in my mind. Binding Blade is the antithesis of the Crimson Flower route from Three Houses. I know they said Genealogy of the Holy War was an inspiration, but I can't help it. I've seen so many people try to praise that said route as some sort of denouncement of the rest of the franchise. That it's about putting power in the hands of the people (it's not) instead of having some Lord be the good king. Granted, the Mandate of Heaven seems like it's a running theme of the series, so without understanding what that is I can understand why people don't grasp what that part of the message. But Binding Blade, it just hit so many things on the nose that I needed to say something.

So without further adieu, I'm just going to bring up a few points.

With Regards to Humanity

It's interesting how both Zephiel and Edelgard come at this from different angles. Sure, they both lead wars of conquest across the entire continent, and I'm guessing Zeph didn't tell his troops what he was planning on doing once he won so there's likely a level of deception going on there as well. He really doesn't care for his fellow man, and the game goes out of it's way to show us why. Hatred, greed, or even selling out your people in the name of self-preservation. The game doesn't shy away from showing us any of this, saying that it's wrong and thus why Roy has to kick some guy's arse. Zephiel knows this, but in Edelgard's case? She's out there fighting for absolute power, destroying anyone who won't bend the knee to her while those who do out of self-preservation like House Gloucester are rewarded for it.

In essence, Edelgard is everything Zephiel saw wrong with the human race, she is why he felt we needed to go extinct. The very things he condemns humanity for are the things she reward. Zephiel would have actually handed over power to those he felt deserved it if he had won, whereas Edelgard is demonstrably shown to hold onto power until near the end of her life. One wants humanity dead, the other wants all the dragons. They even oppose each other in their classes. Edelgard is based on the red emperor archetype, she wears red, her class is the heavily-armored Emperor and her weapon of choice is an axe. Zephiel is a king, armoed but wearing purple and he uses a sword in battle.

Even if they both have screwed up history with their family's due to their father's inability to keep it in his pants, they're both presented as villains despite being ideologically opposed which goes to show with Fire Emblem the method IS the message.

Ancient Wars, Super Powered Weapons and Lies.

War of Heroes vs. The Scouring. The former is an event where the full details are shrouded in mystery, up to the player to piece together the clues and figure out the truth for themselves...or in Crimson Flower's case, ignore the truth and act out in your ignorance.With Binding Blade though, when the truth starts coming out, it hits hard. I mean, right from the beginning of the game we're told man was the one who broke the peace by attacking the dragons, but then we learn that those legendary weapons messed up the environment, resulting in dragons needing to use human forms only to be slaughtered by man. Dragons were blamed for the environment, the people who used those weapons were revered as heroes. We don't know why mankind launched their attack, but we do know that they weren't able to slay the Demon Dragon, one who had her soul destroyed in order to control her, because the Heroes felt sorry for her. It's making dragons out to be the victims here, much like the dragons in Three Houses. But Crimson Flower only serves to demonize them, acting like they can't understand humanity when the dragons in that game are a lot closer to humans emotionally than the ancient dragons in Elibe.

The Elites in comparison weren't heroes, and that lie has been confirmed as Rhea trying to make peace.

The good ending for Binding Blade is being able to save the dragon whose soul was destroyed, whereas Crimson Flower ends with slaying a dragon after you've spent the entire game triggering her (and is the ending that leads to oppressive rule under Edelgard, in addition to the only ending without sunlight. What? You thought you'd get the good ending when her final boss theme was playing on the last stage?). Also, you need all the Legendary weapons in order to unlock the final stages, which all play into the big mystery. Crimson Flower requires the player to not understand that the world-building was done to support fighting against Edelgard instead.

Merits of a leader

Let's not beat around the bush here, Roy will not carry you through Binding Blade. His bases are low, and while he has good growths he is unable to promote until the very end of the game. Even then, you need to save the Binding Blade's usage to ensure you get the good ending. Roy is also very unsure of himself, thrust into a position of leadership despite his young age. But look at what happens when he succeeds, he manages to overcome the odds and take down the mightiest army on the continent. At the end of the game, he's shown himself as more than capable of leading. Not to mention, he also believes that humans and dragons can live together, even seeing this in Acadia (and if Ninian was his mother, he's unknowingly proof of this as he is 1/4 dragon himself. May explain his poor bases). If he marries Liliana, he even becomes a King for likely much of the same reason Byleth does in SS/VW (most leaders are dead following the war, plus combining his territory with Ostia which had already taken over Lyn's land after she abdicated/married Hector). Roy learns the truth as already established.

Compare this to Crimson Flower Byleth. Byleth leads the Black Eagle Strike Force, but credit for it goes to Edelgard. Byleth never gets any recognition for this, no position of authority despite proving themselves, instead that goes to Caspar Jenkins of all people, and ends the war continuing to fight TWSITD from the shadows to support Edelgard's regime. And if you read between the lines, Edelgard is NOT a good leader, resorting to bribes, threats, cronyism, secret police, propaganda, and even TWSITD's support and later stolen tech in order to maintain her rule. Byleth lost whatever emotional development they got from White Clouds during this route, once again becoming the Ashen Demon, and is even willing to let themselves die if they can't keep their “humanity” in check showing a distaste for their own draconic heritage (showing humans and dragons can't live together in this timeline). They didn't grow into being a leader, they devolved into being Edelgard's unthinking muscle. Byleth never learns the truth in this route, falling for Edelgard's manipulations resulting in them losing Enlightened One/Nirvana status.

Not to mention, Heroes Relics have really low weapon levels. In theory, they can be used by anyone but only safely by those with Crests and most fully with a matching Crest. Legendary Weapons, on the other hand, can be used by anyone with an S rank in their type. Your characters have to EARN the right to use those things and you'll need them to deal with all the Manaketes during the final level, whereas Relics aren't exactly that level of broken.

Honestly, seeing the ending of Binding Blade and Idunn recovering put at least one tear in my eye. Crimson Flower's just made me feel like the game was calling me an idiot (which considering the Nirvana/Enlightenment thing, it kinda was). I would love if Binding Blade got the Echoes treatment, or even if they just did a GBA collection for the Switch. But after all these years, one thing is as certain now as it was when I was a kid.

In this house, ROY'S OUR BOY!

[four-loose-screws]

An Interview with Mr. Toshiyuki Toyonaga about Fire Emblem (Claude‘s Japanese VA), Pg. 9

Asking More About Previous Titles

Have you played Thracia 776?

Toyonaga     I have. It is another game my aunt had downloaded on her Nintendo Power cart.※

For her to go that far, she must really, really know a lot about games!

Toyonaga    The story takes place in the middle of Genealogy's timeline, and when I heard that Leif is the main character, I thought, ‘Oh, wow, the main character is Leif!?’ I was happy to see Finn in the game. I used Orsin a lot.

It’s known as being one of the most difficult games in the series, so did you get all the way to the end?

Toyonaga     I did. ...No, wait, did I? I remember there being an excruciatingly difficult map towards the very end of the game. Laughs. Thracia is the one where one of its basic mechanics is being able to steal from the enemies to advance, right? You can steal their weapons, and such. So I remember feeling really lost about when to use silver and special weapons. I think I remember feeling that I always wanted to immediately see if there were any enemies wielding Killing Edges, so I could steal them. I kept stealing and stealing as I continued on… So even though Leif’s army said “We will defeat all of the bandits!”, as I played the game, I was left with the impression that they were the ones more like bandits. Laughs.

After that, the next game was on a handheld system, so you had your own Game Boy Advance to play The Binding Blade, correct?

Toyonaga     I did! The first one released was the purple one, right? I had that one.

Yes, it was called “violet.” And that’s when you finally owned your own Fire Emblem game.

Toyonaga     That’s right. I’ve owned the Fire Emblem games myself since then.

We talked about how you were moved by the improvements to the UI in the GBA games, but could you tell us some specifics about that?

Toyonaga     I remember that the combat forecast box, where you can see whether or not your character can attack twice, has been in the games since “The Binding Blade.” I thought as I played that the way it was laid out, and how easy it was to understand, was a really kind gesture!

Before then, you had to look at your character’s and the enemy’s stats, and confirm each one’s speed yourself, huh.

Toyonaga     We did, we did! So I thought it was really kind of the developers! Other than that, the combat screen graphics and animations really felt like those fit for a handheld. The characters didn’t fight within a scene, but in a space that popped out and looked like the game’s tiles. It was really easy on the eyes. I thought, “Wow, this is so cool! Is this handheld game graphics, or a scene from a play?” It left a huge impression on me.

(above) An example of the stunning graphics unfolding on a battle screen in “The Blazing Blade.”

The battle screens looked just like the work of a stagehand, didn’t they?

Toyonaga    They really did! When I played the games when they first came out, my initial reaction was that the features were really kind of the developers, but as I grew up, I came to feel that the comfort of being able to play a level and think it is a bit kind Is really impressive. I think the game developers are really amazing.

Can we ask you about which characters you liked?

Toyonaga    When Roy’s father, Eliwood, made his appearance in The Blazing Blade,* I was very surprised, and thought something along the lines of “Oh, so these two games are connected!” Flips through the character illustration book. I didn’t remember until I looked through this, but I really used Florina a lot. It’s part of my standard play style to use flying units a lot, because they are helpful in so many different situations. After that...Sue! That’s right, SUE!! ...I’m sorry, that was a bit loud.

Laughs.

Toyonaga    I remember now, I used Sue all the time, too. That’s right, this is when the nomadic archers of the Sacae Plains first appeared in the series, who could use longer and shorter range bows. Depending on which exact weapon they had, they could attack from two or three spaces away. I thought, “Three spaces away is really dangerous!” And they’re on horseback! I remember creating strategies based around Sue’s mobility and Chad’s abilities.

(right) Sue, a nomad of the Sacae Plains who appears in The Binding Blade

Then, I believe you said you weren’t able to play Path of Radiance or Radiant Dawn, and you weren’t able to thoroughly play Awakening or Fates, either... 

Toyonaga    That’s right. My workload increased as I got older, and I think those games came out around the time that I devoted myself to my work and didn’t have much time to immerse myself in games any more. Still, I did get to play Awakening…

So then Awakening was the first FE game you did voice work for, correct?

Toyonaga    Yes, it was.

How did doing voice work for a series you like feel?

Toyonaga     Hmm, how did I feel… It’s hard to put it into words, but to be honest, it was really complicated. This is due to the nature of my work, but as an actor, when I voice a character, I listen to the voice acting much more as a “play” than becoming engrossed in that world, and end up analyzing it however I found myself doing so. Asking myself, ‘If it were me, what kind of play would I make?’ and similar questions. I have a tendency to look at it like that. Of course, to just a normal player, I think the inclusion of voice acting probably increases the immersion for them, but I was very worried that I would wind up seeing the “play” as I played the game.

That’s probably normal for all voice actors. So you’re probably thankful for games with an on/off option for the voices, huh?

Toyonaga     Personally, I’m very thankful! Especially recently. I’ve been hearing all the voices as my work friend’s voices. When you hear the voice of someone you know, you can’t help but think of them.

It is a point to worry about as someone who likes games. Laughs. You also talked about how some of Echoes: Shadows of Valentia' features, like the 3D dungeons, left you with a lot of memories, right?

(above) Echoes featured 3D dungeons the player could freely run around in and explore, a first in the FE series. Whenever the main character collides with an enemy, the game enters a battle map.

Toyonaga     Echoes, being a remake of Gaiden, also made me feel nostalgic at many points as I played it. The villager’s class change loop feature was still there, so the game was really fun for me. Echoes’ unique feature is the introduction of multiple 3D dungeons. Moving around a dungeon and entering a battle whenever you touch an enemy is a standard system for an RPG, but in Echoes, the moment you touch an enemy, you enter a simulation map instead. I think that’s really, really revolutionary. I felt that such battle scenes would worry some people that it would break the immersion in the FE experience, but instead, the battles feel like the battle maps that we’ve always played in FE until now. I think it’s really amazing that the change to the formula happens without it feeling out of place at all!

That’s very much the perspective that someone who plays games a lot would have!

Toyonaga     Only around three or four units can deploy in one battle, but those numbers strike a balance between difficulty and skill. ‘This makes me want to level up all my units!’ I thought as I played. And when I pushed the A button to attack and started battles, I felt that this progress of battle would put me at a little bit more of an advantage, and things like that. Starting very far in the back and having to come up close and attack was also a very fun system.

Do you like to level up your characters in general?

Toyonaga     I do! I’m the kind of person who likes to gradually and untiringly max out all of my units.

※Nintendo Power cartridge: A service where one could use a terminal set-up in Lawson locations to download games. Thracia 776 was first released as a download only title.

* T/N: This is the game that was released as simply “Fire Emblem” in the West.

[hyruviandoctor]

Alright, considering Hyrule Warriors is getting a pseudo-sequel, I figure it’s fairly likely that Fire Emblem Warriors could as well - especially considering how popular the franchise has become in recent years (like with Three Houses). I figured that I’d put together a wishlist/prediction list of games/characters that would be in another entry. There will likely be OCs again, but this is what I assume will be rep from mainline games.

Three Houses

This one is pretty obvious considering how insanely popular it is, and at least some of the selected characters are pretty obvious too.

Byleth (male/female both)

Edelgard

Dimitri

Claude

Rhea

Seteth

Flayn

I would expect some of the students as well, particularly the retainers for each Lord and maybe the knights of Seiros, but I really couldn’t say for sure who I’d expect.

Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn

Another likely one because of its fan popularity (see: Fire Emblem Heroes polls lol). This one is a little harder to pin down a large number of characters, but I would expect some of them to be almost necessary inclusions.

Ike

Soren

Titania

Mist

The Black Knight (possibly just an enemy commander)

Mordecai/Lethe/Ranulf (probably only one, with others as npcs)

Elincia

Sothe

Micaiah

There’s a really big pool of popular characters that might make it in, and have an even greater chance of being DLC (like other Laguz, Ilyanna, Jill, and Nephenee), but it’s hard for me to say

Shadows of Valentia

I don’t really expect many characters from this one to happen, but there are a few who are likely

Alm

Celica

I honestly don’t know much about this game since I haven’t played it, but I don’t think there are a huge number of popular characters. There may be one or two more from this one to round out representation, but I doubt there’d be any more than that.

Binding Blade/Blazing Blade

These two have some of the all-time fan favorites, and KT/Intsys threw us a bone with Lyn last time. I expect at least some of the characters from those games to appear.

Lyn

Eliwood

Hector

Roy

Lilina

Lyn, Hector, and Eliwood may get costumes where they look the way they did in 6 (since 7 is a prequel to it), and there may be a few other characters that appear (Dorcas maybe?) but I don’t expect a huge amount of representation from these two games outside of the main Lord cast.

Sacred Stones

Much like FE6 and FE7, I don’t anticipate a large number of reps from 8, but I do think we could (read: should) see a few.

Ephraim

Eirika

Seth

L’Arachel (maybe?)

There aren’t many popular characters outside of the twin Lords, but Seth/L’Arachel may round out the cast for reps (assuming there are at least 4 per game)

Shadow Dragon/Fates/Awakening

Considering how popular these games are, I expect at least SOME of the characters in them will (re)appear.

Chrom

Lucina

Corrin

Takumi

Camilla

Marth

Tiki (maybe from Awakening this time though)

Caeda?

Tharja?

There’s always a chance that ALL previous characters may appear, but I doubt it.

Obviously I could be totally wrong, but there are a few I feel are all but guaranteed. Hopefully we get another Fire Emblem Warriors that has wider representation from the series as a whole (especially considering the backlash they got from fans about the lack of reps in the game we have now), but there’s an unfortunately high likelihood that at least half of the games on this list won’t appear. They may appear as DLC, but it’s really hard to tell.

Anyway thanks for reading my stupidly long post about a hypothetical sequel to a game I’m playing right now lmao

[crystalelemental]

I remember when you said that Eliwood is good but Marth is meh when for me both are the vanilla lord with different topping. It doesn't help that both of them are voiced by the same English VA (Kudos to Yuri for at least giving them different pitch tho). Both are bland, goodie 2 shoes that lost family and ended up hurting a loved one even if they didn't want to. That Eli's canon wife (Ninian) ended up being a damsell in distress doesn't help either, at least Marth's wife can defend herself.

And I stand by that statement, for what it's worth.  I do understand your disagreement, and the general stance that Eliwood isn't that different from Marth.  Realistically, none of the lords are all that different.  Marth is Eliwood is Seliph is Eirika is Roy etc.  They're all pretty easy to argue are just goodie goodies, who are mild-mannered etc.  That's kinda just the lord template they start with.  Or, well...one of the two.  The other being more the dingus meathead who's good at fighting but is a huge bro.  Point being, board sense, of course they're all similar.  Smaller differences are the key to distinguishing things, and setting up differences of personality, and those are the reason I like Eliwood more than Marth.

Yes, Eliwood and Marth are similar levels of bland nice boy.  Yes, Ninian is way more damsel in distress while Caeda at least fights.  But the way the plot handles the two of them work heavily in their favor.

There are a lot of smaller themes running through Blazing Blade, but a bigger one is the question of whether dragons and humans can co-exist.  Knowing the ancient conflict that occurred, and that dragons are no longer a part of Elibe, is it possible to heal from that conflict in a way that invites dragons back in?  It doesn’t take a broad, systematic approach to this question, though.  Instead it looks at the ground level; the people and dragons interacting.

Ninian and Nils stand out.  They have strange powers, don’t seem to have much of an identifiable history, and suggest they’re outcasts anywhere they go.  They don’t fit in with typical humans.  Yet there are a ton of scenes in this game devoted almost exclusively to them interacting with the protagonists, or expressing their feelings about the current state of their journey.  And those interactions are always very sweet and very human.  We get scenes that exist just to establish these dynamics.  And of course, support conversations exist.  I think those tend to help Ninian a bit more, though.  Eliwood doesn’t change much, his interactions remain sweet, but Ninian gets a lot of interesting backstory with the Florina support, showing where she was born and who her mom was and what her attachments to Elibe were.  It creates a more dynamic character.

And that’s the kind of thing that makes Eliwood and Ninian strong characters to me.  At their most basic, no, they’re not all that different from other leads.  Eliwood is Marth is Seliph is Roy, etc.  They all come from that same template.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing.  But Eliwood has actual dynamics with the other two lords, and with Ninian and Nils, that make him more established than the others by a mile in my mind.  What do the others ever get?  Roy has Guinivere, and occasional interactions with Lilina and Cecilia who don’t last in the story beyond the short time they’re relevant.  Seliph’s life is entirely Lewyn expositing at him, and giving him one (1) interesting lesson that’s never applied in the narrative.  Marth barely gets anything at all.  For most of the others, they’re simply driven forward by plot demands for the grant epic of their tale of heroism.  Eliwood’s story is personal, and it makes him stand out.  Ninian’s the same.  Yes, she’s a damsel in distress most of the plot, but her entire personal history is attached to that central theme of humans and dragons interacting, and that shared sense of compassion and belonging.  Comparatively, that’s more than most.  I mean really, what did Julia ever get?  Brainwashed and turned into a gun against her brother, an event that she has very few feelings about despite the fact that her brother was corrupted and consumed by an evil god through the machinations of an evil cult that manipulated her father into having this occur.

It’s the little tidbits that make characters stand out as more than just a placeholder, and Blazing Blade, as a side story, has a lot more opportunity for such things.  Sure, we have Nergal and that good vs evil confrontation.  But it’s less about some grand epic of overcoming the ultimate evil or the biggest threat to the world.  The story’s center, the heart of the narrative, is the people in it and the emotional bonds they develop and share.  More than overcoming Nergal, you just want good things for the characters, because the game does so well getting you invested in who are they are and what they’re doing.  Which is a lot more interesting to me than what most games in the series provide.

[iturbide]

I literally just realised, but- Edelgard’s in heroes. So is Sothis. It’s a recipe for disaster (or a lecture from Sothis, because let’s face it, she wouldn’t hesitate to give one). [Also, I would be interested to hear some more Eliwood, Roy or Arvis’s interactions with Edelgard, if that’s something you want to talk more anout.]

You know Edelgard might think at first that this is some kind of joke.  This...little floating imp that follows her teacher around -- that’s the Goddess of the Church of Seiros?  And really Sothis would take more offense at being called an imp than anything else (the part about being a goddess would just bewilder her, especially in the context of the Church since she never really understood that even before arriving in Askr), but she would certainly give Edelgard an earful from where she hangs off Byleth’s shoulder (and Byleth is still so perplexed that other people can see Sothis here that’s still so novel to them).  Edelgard doesn’t see why she should take that from a child and then the whole ‘I’m not a child!’ argument starts up again in earnest and Byleth regrets being party to this in any way shape or form.

Also I will never turn down an opportunity to talk about Eliwood, Roy, or Arvis so:

Eliwood always speaks very fondly of Ninian, and rarely discusses the terrible incident with Durandal.  Given the historic war between humans and dragons in Elibe, Edelgard is puzzled by Eliwood’s faith and trust in her, especially since she was herself involved with opening the Dragon’s Gate and renewing the threat on Elibe -- but Eliwood is quick to point out that she was an unwilling participant in most all of the events relating to the gate, and she never bore any ill will toward humans despite any historic conflicts between their two peoples.  She didn’t even hold a grudge against Eliwood for literally taking her life.  If that doesn’t say anything about her character, he doesn’t know what else would convince someone.

Edelgard still finds it hard to believe that there wasn’t a greater plot by dragons inherent in Ninian’s arrival and actions.  But even she finds it strange that Ninian would choose to stay behind in Elibe rather than returning through the gate, despite knowing that it will radically reduce her lifespan.  She can’t think of a plot worth that.

Roy is very uncomfortable around Edelgard after that whole conversation about how he made the “right choice” siding against dragons.  One of his best friends is a dragon (Fae) and he made the conscious, purposeful decision to spare Idunn in the hopes of helping her recover herself.  He wasn’t thinking about dragons or humans in his choice, he was thinking that Zephiel was causing harm to everyone, and he likes to think that he’d have sided against humans if the situation had been different.

He spends a lot of time hanging around the creche after, in part to reassure himself and in part to avoid Edelgard.  He also volunteers more often to go out with them so that they’re not alone and have someone to either act as a distraction or a line of defense in case they need to make a quick getaway from one of the more worrisome denizens of the castle.

Arvis has no idea if he’s getting through to her.  He’s trying his best, but she’s hard to read, and he can’t be sure if she’s really hearing the warnings or just the advice.  But he’s not going to give up, either, because this is important for any aspiring ruler to keep in mind.  He wished he’d have known this sooner, himself -- and all he hopes now is that he can put it into practice and avoid all the strife to come when he finally does return to his world.

[gascon-en-exil]

Most anti-dragon units in FEH comes with a weapon specifically made to slay dragons, like the Falchion, which really has nothing to do with the wielders stance on dragons or non-humans. L!Edelgards weapon isn't effective against dragons though, its her personal B-skill that lets her hit any dragon or beast unit twice. I don't see how anyone can deny that she hates non-humans at this point, but most of the stans just seems to fall back on "she only hates Rhea, she has nothing against the (1/3)

other Nabateans", despite Seteth and Flayn being forced into social exclusion for not being human is the best possible outcome for them on CF. Also somewhat notable is that when L!Roy came out with his personal skill "Human Virtue", where he buffs any human next to him at the start of his turn, people were throwing a round a lot of (mostly good faith) "Roy is racist" jokes, saying that Ninian would be ashamed, and the same thing happened when B!Eliwood was released with a (2/3)

dragon/beast effective lance. But when L!Edelgard is released with a skill that gives her guaranteed follow-ups against any non-humans there were no such jokes, probably because most people knew that any attempt at a "Racist Edelgard" joke would just end up creating a huge shitstorm and no one wanted to deal with that. (3/3)

Heroes' player. L!Marth has a skill that prevents counterattacks/follow-ups from dragons, but as you said, Falchion was a willing gift, and when beast units were added, that skill was not updated to include beasts. L!Edelgard auto-doubles if her foe is a beast or dragon, and the Relics had less-than-consentual origins. I think we can safely say Edelgard's just a little bit racist.

Grouping these Heroes-related anons together. Thanks for the clarification.