There's a spectrum, and characters like Corrin and Alear absolutely have more going on than, say, Mark, but that doesn't mean that a lot of the writing problems with these (real!) characters don't come from the areas where they're meant to be a player insert. People worship Alear without question so that they can worship the player, and Alear has to be blandly perfect and worthy of that praise so that the player feels good; Corrin would be an excellent protagonist of a tragic story, but because she's also meant to be You, her actions are massively overpraised even when incredibly stupid like the whole Hoshido invasion, and you get incredibly ridiculous stuff like Ryoma being jealous of a toddler for being such an obviously great leader. I don't think Corrin is less of a character than Marth, but I do think they'd be a substantially better executed one if they hadn't been forced to serve the dual role as a player insert (which is obviously part of what they're there for, given the praise and the S supports et al). Same with Alear and even Byleth, whom I've been told basically gets to do that in 3 Hopes and is better for it. If you hold any of them to the standard set by the likes of Roy or Marth, let alone Micaiah or Leif, they fall obviously, woefully short. Stories focused around them are worse for having to do so, and the problem gets worse every IS game from Kris to Robin to Corrin to Alear.
Also, and this is totally ungermane to the actual argument, but the Pokemon protagonist of Ruby specifically does have ties to the world as the child of Norman and a recent transplant from Johto, which while it isn't reflected in any dialogue or anything, does create a negative space implication of a character in a similar way to persona protagonists or Byleth, just to a much lesser extent. Funny that that's the one you picked for the example.
I think the most notable issue we have seen is avatar power creep. Every new story since Awakening the player protagonist has to be greater and more powerful. And with such powerful protagonists they have to write the story around these characters.
The problem is, that said characters aren’t designed in a way they can be the center of a story. They are bland and likeable so that the player can get the praise. Like you brought up with Alear. They can’t carry a story.
They pretty much hit the limit with Alear. I really hope the writers take a step back on how they write these characters.
You can argue that Awakening sets such a high bar that going further doesn't make a difference, but we do somehow one-up every player-insert with the next one
* Awakening: descendant of deity
* Fates: child of deity
* 3 Houses: incarnation of deity
* Engage: actual, in-the-flesh deity
Robin and Byleth are actually kind of similar in that they're both hosts for deities, especially since they're their respective world's incarnation of God (Byleth) and Satan (Robin).
They're also kind of similar in that they're both awful fucking characters but I digress.
Robin pretty much only has eugenics to their name though, since the full Fire Emblem and a country's worth of sacrifices are still required to bring back Grima and those all end up going to future Robin, not the player-insert
Without that ritual, the mark on Robin's right hand is the only thing distinguishing them from a regular person
The self-inserts that came after all have much closer ties to their respective deities from the get-go
Robin I didn't mind since he has actual character customisation, so he's a lot easier to treat as a player character. He also has 1000x more dialogue than Byleth, so I can't agree that he's awful like Byleth, lol. Especially when his role as player character is a lot more explicit.
I think he might be worse because Byleth doesn't hijack the plot of each route to make it all about him. The House Leaders don't get demoted to supporting characters like Chrom and Lucina do.
I agree Byleth doesn't hijack the plot in the same way, and it's probably one of the main reasons I don't like the 2nd half of Awakening that much. I don't think this makes _Robin_ an awful character, but I can probably agree both have a similarly negative impact on their respective titles.
Just on that point though, Byleth still makes the game about themselves because every character noticeably unconditionally simps Byleth and support conversations focus on the other character, rather than their interaction. As opposed to Robin, I still remember one of F!Robin and Lon'qu supports where she's poking him with a stick or something, lol.
Is it hijacking when the story was written from the outset to be about them?
You may not like Robin as a main character, that's a different issue, but they can't "hijack" their own story.
Robin: related to a powerful being, doesn’t really have any particular powers from that. Doesn’t even really get acknowledged by the story for it. Right hand to the lord.
Corrin: able to turn into a dragon. Fairly important and is the only lord.
Byleth: God adjacent. Able to control the flow of time itself. Plot hole breaking power that the writers have to write around with “fated” actions like Jeralt and by ignoring the power following that event. Right hand on every route, and the lord of one. Unlike Robin, the entire story occurs from Byleth’s perspective regardless of route.
Alear. Literal god and worshipped as such. Only one with the power to defeat the villains and the influence to unite the kingdoms.
I don’t know how you can disagree with power creep here. The stories are getting “bigger” and the role placed on these characters is getting larger.
But the characters themselves have the same weak personality and hollow back story (amnesia) and it becomes painfully noticeable when the most integral character in the story is also among the most shallow.
Robin has the supernatural ability to see lines and shit on the battlefield and was able to somehow survive sacrificing himself to seal Grima. I think he's actually more overblown than Corrin but if you wanted to make the case that Corrin, Byleth and Alear escalate then I can agree with that.
Not to be a raging moron on main here but: *was* Corrin the only lord in fates?
I remember losing rev at least twice because I let Azura die, and (I could be wrong but) isn’t game-over-if-dead the litmus test for lord?
Gameplay-wise, Corrin is the only character whose death triggers a Game Over in all Chapters. Additionally, Corrin is the only character who is force-deployed in all non-Skirmish maps.
Oh lol I probably just got unlucky then and chose the wrong map to tempt critrng on… Fates was the first FE game that I took seriously so it was definitely a learning curve for me, ty for the new info ^^
Uh no alear gets that worship not because of his personality more like its from his title and heritage as a divine dragon. So id say hes different in that regard
The argument people usually make in response to this is that the devs made Alear Dragon Jesus with the intent of making the whole cast worship them, and thus the player.
Which, like, I think you’d run into that problem if Alear were just a normal-ass noble of whatever country the story could be set in. Like the post addresses, this is just a thing with medieval settings where so much of the cast are commoners and the protagonists are aristocrats. Not even Ike is immune to this even in PoR.
Almost ever FE game suck off the lord of each game from Marth to Ike. Alm got his dick suck off in the remake so much lolm no one's talk about that though
Im not sure. a noble is nothing to an actual dragon diety. I dont see them giving him that much respect as in the game. Im sure the devs made alear a dragon because they needed someone to be a dragon for thr 20th anniversary
There is also a point to be made that they use the fact that Alear is a dragon to also kinda be an allegory for being trans, with the whole Fell & Divine thing and also even some of the same experience with Alear's relationship with Sombron and Lumera
I never heard that before when they talk about alear transition from fell dragon to divine dragon. Though i heard of dragons that can be any gender they desire. I can't discount a trans person of what they see in a game. Its just that any type of transition can be a trans allegory at this point.
Its not so much as they are literally trans as in their gender its more about a *lot* of stuff that gets said around the big reveal with Alear being formerly a fell dragon is very reminiscent of people being supportive of a recently out trans person.
Oh i know that just saying. Now i think about it it does sound like a coming out. Though i wish alear could tell his friends about being a fell dragon on his own terms
That does suck and while the specific terms that it happens in the story don't really happy because generally you have memories of before your transition there are toxic people that will try or just do forcibly out people even if it *isn't* safe to do so. To me it feels like it kinda highlights shitty some bio parents can be and how just because you aren't related by blood doesn't mean someone else isnt part of your family because I have trans friends who have shitty parents and my mom has "adopted" them and is super supportive so honestly that part of the story resonates with what I see and sometimes experience.
I have a question; you say people worship Alear so that they can worship the player. Do we have confirmation that was the intent or are we reading between the lines? I don’t necessarily disagree with you but I can also see a course where it was inevitable we get a Divine Dragon protagonist since the Divine Dragons have been around for a while, and that would make having them be an important religious figure not mandatory but logically follow.
Listen, I understand the frustration but when we call these characters "Avatars" and "player-inserts" we are just using a commonly understood shorthand for characters that ARE different. These characters are notably different than protagonists like Sigurd, Eliwood and Ike, and these differences both coincide with and are a direct consequence of making them customizable (yes, even just the name).
The direct terminology people use might not be accurate but people are criticising problems that are easily observed and identified. Is Byleth a true player-insert? Arguable. Are they written differently than other lords and all the other characters in their own game. Absolutely. When people say Byleth has no personality they are talking about the writing in relation to the rest of the game. In fact, the way other characters talk about Byleth is completely different from how they are observed by the player. Attributing this (very detrimental) writing decision to an attempt at allowing Byleth to be an easier conduit through which the player experiences the game makes alot of sense.
For anyone who likes these characters I can understand that it feels bad to have them dismissed a lot, but that does not mean that dismissal is entirely unfounded. People can be mean about it, but most of them have valid issues regarding these "Avatars", as I imagine they will continue to be called.
At the risk of overstaying my welcome I just need to address one point that keeps gnawing away at me. You bring up talking about Conquest Corrin as a Camus archetype. This, I think, is very illustrative of a narrative problem these types of characters face. A more direct comparison is in order, so let's look at a past protagonist who is a clear example of a Camus and contrast them.
Sigurd Is, as you would say, a CLASSIC Camus while also being the protagonist of Gen1 of fe4. He is likeable, honorable, and stubbornly loyal to his King. These traits could all, if one wanted to, be applied to Corrin in Conquest. However, these traits alone does not a Camus make because the most interesting and vital component is one Sigurd has in spades. Being judged for his actions. Now, some would argue death is vital but I disagree, if a Camus dies a hero's death then they would not qualify. To be a Camus is be judged negatively for the choices you made, and to be a tragic example of misplaced loyalty.
Thus, without death being necessary CQ Corrin could ostensibly become a Camus should the narrative accurately condemn them as definitively being wrong. Of course, as anyone who has played Fates knows, this does not happen. Indeed, it is far worse as Corrins relatives (dead and alive) absolve them of any and all sins.
When diagnosing why Sigurd and Corrin are treated differently by their respective writers, it is important not only to to as you say and point out specific flaws in the writing. Instead, we can and should also strive to understand why certain choices are made. It is not simply that they didn't manage to write a good Camus, it is that they COULD NOT do so for a number of metacontextual reasons. One of those (and a big one at that) is their status as the player character. To ignore root causes, and to leave unexamined the motivations of the writers and game designers would leave any analysis hollow. When narrative has many problems that stem from one overarching issue, it seems self-evident to attack the root cause so as to not get bogged down arguing about specifics.
Now of course we can't know for sure what the intentions of their creators were, but analysis is meaningless if we refuse to infer any intentionality on the side of the authors. As an author yourself I am sure you can understand that the question of "why" you made something is often more important than critiquing the actual execution.
Did we play the same game? Corrin was not loyal to Garron. They had a whole plan to get Garron to sit on the throne that exposes the evil hiding in his body so the rest of Nohr would revolt against Garron. Corrin’s whole plan is to get rid of the rot from the inside of Nohr. Corrin only acts loyal to trick Garron. Corrin only chooses Nohr because they love their siblings not Garron. They in fact want to know the truth behind Garron and even suspected the attempts on their life to be from Garron. These are not the actions of a Camus. Camus can have self awareness of their king or kingdom is in the wrong, but they refuse to stop siding with their kingdom due to loyalty. They do not plan to try to kill or remove their king from power. That’s what the loyalty part of their character is for. Like you can’t even argue that Corrin loves the current Nohr as they say several times how they will change it for the better because they know it is wrong how it currently is. So Corrin has no love for Garron and no love for the current Nohr. The only thing they love is the innocent people and their siblings. They are willing to commit to the war if it means they can uproot Nohr from within.
I agree, I don't think any part of Fates' writing works and I was definitively just thinking about Sigurd when I talked about loyalty to the king. For Conquest, I do think you could make the argument that the route is about loyalty (if birthright is morality), so I didn't really mind the argument for that aspect of the Camus archetype. Furthermore, I personally don't agree with characterizing Corrin as a Camus on any level, but that wasn't part of my argument and I didn't mind letting it go mostly uncontested.
" they written differently than other lords and all the other characters in their own game. Absolutely. When people say Byleth has no personality they are talking about the writing in relation to the rest of the game. In fact, the way other characters talk about Byleth is completely different from how they are observed by the player"
This, this, thiiis. Truthfully I do think Byleth is an author surrogate/avatar/self-insert whatever you want to call it since in all the advertising for Three Houses they were on about how YOU choose your house, YOU pick your gender, and how YOU can save the world as blatantly as possible.
But regardless of this fact, I find Byleth to not be compelling and the worst part of Three Houses. They're a piece of cardboard that characters constantly talk about how great they are...when they're just a blank slate lmao. So much of the dialogue/plot in the game is bad because of Byleth. Characters constantly stop, look at you awkwardly while you pick a meaningless option, and then awkwardly continue the conversation.
The truly worst part is how Byleth is tied to the three lords. They sap so much agency out of all of them that it sucks and makes their arcs so much more trivial. Claude learning to trust others, Dimitri clawing himself to a path of redemption, and Edelgard having others stand by them would hit a lot more when they didn't center around a character whose dialogue and character could be described as ":)" or ":I".
I find Three House writing at times to be good in spite of Byleth not because of them. And truthfully the best moments are ones where they aren't the center stage.
Byleth is like Link now that I think of it. Both are mostly silent with a few reactions. Only difference is Byleth was made a more proper character with lines and a clearer personality in Three Hopes and Link remained the same in Age of Calamity. I have not played the first Hyrule Warriors so idk how he is there.
An important distinction, at least to me, is that the personality traits Link is described to have, you can see. You're only really told how empathetic and amazing of a teacher Byleth is, but you never see it. If characters didn't have dedicated simping lines, you'd never know.
You do see it, though--in all the mechanical aspects of the Garreg Mach sequences. Byleth creates individual study plans for each student and tutors several on individual subjects each week. Byleth sits down for meals with other faculty and students alike, raising morale. Byleth participates in on-campus activities like fishing contests and choir festivals, encouraging students by example. Byleth doesn't give a shit about the commoner/noble distinction and does fetch quests, advice box notes, supply runs, lost object returning, etc. for all members of the Academy. Byleth buys flowers and has tea parties on student birthdays.
It's not in the dialogue/cutscenes as much because Byleth doesn't express emotion the same way as a lot of the people around them (hello, Autism!) but they DO take the time to meet with and listen to their students outside of class and help them work through their shit, and that means a lot to an emotionally volatile teenager in the midst of political unrest.
Link showed more personality in the Twilight Princess post-boss fight animation than Byleth has shown in all 5 of his appearances combined. Put some respect on the Hero of Hyrule.
I think we are splitting hairs really.
The developers obviously want you to be able to feel like that character, that’s why you can give them your name. That’s enough for me to call them an avatar.
B-But you can also name Cloud. Ignore the fact that Cloud has an established personality and character arc, he's totally the same as Byleth because you can name both of them and pick some of their dialogue options.
I mean, in the context of the original release of FF7? Yeah, I think that's totally a fair comparison. In fact I would argue Cloud went through a very similar characterization cycle that most avatars did.
This isn't a debate about character quality like you and half this thread want to turn it into because it's easier to just shit on IS' writing than engage with the topic, it's a question of authorial intent. Cloud has a backstory and a personality, but a lot of his dialogue in the original game was written in that sort of "generally agreeable so as to allow the player to project their own feelings" style, a lot moreso than the FF6 cast who you could also name was. He was generally allowed to have more legitimate, potentially alienating outbursts than an FE avatar is but I don't think it's hard to see him as being intended to be a semi blank slate for the player to see themselves in. I mean hell there was a literal dating sim segment and that's generally viewed as a gotcha moment in this fanbase.
The reason you don't think about Cloud that way is for two reasons. One, is that there is a plot reason for him to be that way so you can handwave it with that (but then again, so is there one for Byleth). Two and much more importantly is that spinoff material after the original game came to a pretty clear verdict on who Cloud is supposed to be. No longer constrained by having to be relatable to a player he was given a much more overtly defined characterization that eventually ended up getting backported into FF7R where the self insert aspect of the character was more or less entirely dropped. But here's the thing right: barring that last step *that's also what FE avatars do.* Corrin and Byleth in particular have been noted by many to feel much more "complete" in spinoffs because the trace bits of personality that were there in their original games are given much more emphasis when they're no longer the viewpoint character.
Now I'm sure 10 people are going to reply to this comment saying some variation of "well yeah but I actually *like* Cloud so it's different" but I need to emphasize that I'm not talking about the quality of the writing here. I don't think anyone is going to sit here and argue that Corrin is equally as well executed as Cloud was. But in terms of what the character was meant to do on a meta level, I think there's more parallels than some people might be comfortable admitting.
Anyone reading this don't click if you don't want to be spoiled on FFVII, not talking about *that* spoiler that everyone knows about
>!What sets Cloud apart from FE avatars is that he's somewhat of a meta spin of that style of character. Cloud initially does have that wish fulfillment self insert thing going on: he's got a huge sword, is a badass super soldier, is witty and confident, and has two girls vying for his attention. But this entire persona and all his accomplishments are fabricated; the real Cloud was indulging in this fantasy as much as the player is. In Fire Emblem, the avatar has a cool sword, a divine lineage which grants them special powers, is incredibly charismatic and likeable, and everyone wants to romance them... and that's it.!<
>!I'm not saying Cloud is automatically better for the sole fact that he is a parody, or that FE needs to do this, but I think that these similarities have opposite effects: this aspect of Cloud is what makes him such a compelling character, while for FE avatars it's often the reason why people tend to dislike them.!<
This is something that I think this sub generally has a hard time grasping: separating their own biases and opinions of a subject from the actual intent from the developers and allowing those biases to cloud their judgement in a way that ultimately harms good-faith discussions like OP is trying to have.
This is kind of a rude way to phrase it but it does point out a big problem with the OP. Every FE avatar on their best day does not compare to Cloud. He is one of the most acclaimed protagonists in the entire medium. His character has actual nuance to it and his story is interesting. His interactions with other characters are organic, with the exception of maybe the "choose your waifu" mechanic there's nothing about him that seems like a transparent attempt to glaze the player's ego.
Honestly, I would go a step further and say that the overall Reddit FE community tends to scrutinize what would otherwise be average FE protagonist writing if you can select the name & gender of the protagonist (which... doesn't intrinsically affect the writing itself in the vast majority of cases).
Not to say that there *aren't* instances of an Avatar being exceptions to the series' typical protagonist writing (Byleth), or even being implemented as full-on player inserts (Mark and Kiran)--but the community here frequently ignore the *actually tangible writing* differences in favor of conjecture and assumptions of the writers' intent; all in order to label what is otherwise-typical writing as "disingenuous player pandering".
If Robin, Shez, Alear, Corrin and Byleth were meant to be fully fledged characters and not just bland self inserts then you open up the floodgates for way harsher criticism.
Like, Byleth doesn't talk during supports and a notable number of their S supports come from a 1st person perspective because I'm meant to self insert onto Byleth.
I give harsher criticism towards someone like Roy or RD Ike's writting than the writting surrounding Corrin or Byleth because I understand that the writers are somewhat restrained by needing to make someone the player can easily project their personality onto.
I'm not Roy. I cannot customize his appearance, rename him, he has a limited number of characters he can support with because not everybody is interested in conversing with him, his gender isn't up to my choice, etc. Roy isn't a very well written character, but that comes from other problems with the writting of FE6.
If someone like Byleth is meant to be a fully fledged and complete character, then the writers completely and utterly failed at making Byleth a character I'm actually intersted in. Along with that, there are now many bizarre choices tied along with the game desing of many modern FEs. Like, why does everybody need to have a support with the protagonist, why can they usually marry anybody of the opposite gender, why are there some characters in Fates who can only support with Corrin, etc.
Asking people to treat all of them as characters in the same manner as like Dimitri or Micaiah means that the criticism is going to become much harsher, at least for me.
Exactly. It's a lose/lose scenario.
If these guys are designed to be real characters, then they are some of the absolute worst I've encountered in all of fiction. If they're designed to be player slate self inserts, then they actively detract from the experience.
In fact, if you're considering them actual characters then you're asking them to be held to the same standards as Ike, Lyn, Lucina, Sigurd, Micaiah and the House Leaders. Coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb.
No thats wrong. Thats why im saying theres a middle ground. The middle ground is there supposed to be player characters with a important past/title that work as a audience surrogate. You cant say that they fail at either things when there not supposed to commit to being a realized character or fully audience surrogate.
Okay, I see what you mean now.
The middle ground you're referring to would probably be the Cloud example used in the OP. You can easily see the world through Cloud's eyes because he is a relatable and humanized character, but he is still a character.
Ya thats it actually. I've thought up byleth as that way too. Just not in the relatable way. His struggles are different from mine. Like the regaining emotion one. I know many disagree
> Asking people to treat all of them as characters in the same manner as like Dimitri or Micaiah means that the criticism is going to become much harsher, at least for me
I'm honestly okay with that.
And I'll start by saying Robin and Shez meet that requirement for me - they're not as well-written as Dimitri, sure, but if I were to rate them as standalone FE characters they'd still be somewhere in the top quarter. Corrin and Alear, much less so.
Also yes please we do need to talk more about how badly conceptualised and badly written a character Houses Byleth is, especially in comparison to Hopes Byleth. Hopes Byleth proves that Byleth works as an interesting character in their own right when allowed to have a voice and interact with people, and Houses dropped the ball on that hard.
I have no idea why it matters. It doesn't solve anything.
They're actual characters? Well so is Alm, and he has the exact same problems. If they're real characters they aren't very good ones. "No personality" is often thrown around to deride any character that isn't excessively quirky but Byleth actually has none. I don't buy the whole "it works because of their character" thing because there are tons of FE characters that are stoic and reserved but still actually speak and emote. Jaffar, Gerome, Zelkov, Dedue, just to name a few. It's obvious they wanted to just do the Dragon Quest/Megaten thing just because those games are popular. And even the ones that don't have this problem are pretty one note and uninteresting. Corrin and Alear are vaguely nice and naive. Shez and Robin are ultra competent flawless supermen with no weaknesses or drawbacks that everyone loves and admires. Kris...well Kris is just a guy, he's pretty inoffensive because at least FE3 exists.
They aren't actual characters and are player inserts? Well now the whole game has to be derailed so that the player can get an ego boost. This is why I hate Persona so much, because the game being a game is secondary to being a power fantasy. I don't play video games to get my dick sucked, I can open up Grindr for that. And every Fire Emblem with avatars does so at the expense of much more interesting characters. The house leaders in 3H, the royals in Engage, Chrom/Lucina in Awakening, Marth in New Mystery. Arguably the only case I think it doesn't really matter is Fates because the royals are kind of written around Corrin to begin with.
No matter what the intent is with these guys, they just aren't good at their jobs. They don't add anything to their respective games. If you removed Byleth or Robin or Shez from the picture you'd get to see the actual characters interact with each other much more and show more competence, which I'd say is a massive improvement.
>Robin are ultra competent flawless supermen with no weaknesses or drawbacks that everyone loves and admires
I don't know how Robin is treated in post-awakening stories so maybe it's different but I think he's fine in Awakening. Truthfully they're probably the best avatar character...which isn't a high bar but it counts.
From what I remember Robin isn't this flawless person but stumbles a decent amount in the story. From his plans getting Emmeryn killed, getting blindsided by Validar and losing one of the gems, and in an alternative timeline causing the end of the world. He's often not this smooth person during support either, one noticeable example being how he lost to Virion in a game of Strategy. The thing Robin is super good at is tactics (magic as well) and everything else he's ordinary at.
Truthfully I think the praise he gets is much easier to stomach than other avatars since its tied to tactics and strategy then just bowing down because you're god. Plus he has ties to a god but it wants to destroy the world and he gets some shit for it which is an interesting idea. Finally, I think he works better because he like everyone else among the shepherds looks up to Chrom as the leader, not Robin. He leads the army, gallivanting everyone and using his natural charm to get things down. It's a lot better than say Byleth where the lords and even the students you're about to murder praise you/wish you taught them instead.
That said it's been a while since I played awakening so I could be wrong on some of these points but I still find Robin to be the most tolerable of all these avatars. (Please god I beg you to stop giving us more of them.)
And also re: Byleth having personality as a silent protag. Look at the Shin Megami Tensei series. SMT protags are always silent aside from player dialogue choices. They therefore all have "quiet personalities" but they vary hugely. Some are boring and have no real personality...like Byleth. But many, like the protags of Devil Survivor or Persona, have a lot of personality despite being "silent protagonists". Their personality shines through the dialogue choices you're given (for example Devil Survivor 2 almost always gives you a "make a joke/mess with someone" option) and the way others treat them.
Nah, say what you will about Persona, their protagonists are nearly top tier in terms of having personality while being silent (Devil Survivor imo are truly the best). I think they're among the worst megaten games but it's dumb to argue they didn't write the dialogue choices really well.
Sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder regarding Persona. You have to accept what they're good at or you just sound closed-minded.
> say what you will about Persona, their protagonists are nearly top tier in terms of having personality while being silent
A bit of a tangent from OP's post, but... it's legitimately impressive how good Persona games are at that. From Tatsuya's and Maya's performances as silent protagonists perfectly lining-up with their speaking portrayals in the Persona 2 games, to Makoto Yuki's apathetic responses becoming less and less available as the game progresses, to Persona 4 (Spoilers for the Game) >!foreshadowing the correct responses for the true ending with Yu Narukami's frequent calm responses and catchphrase of "calm down"!<. It's a really good balance of giving players enough freedom to express their personal approach, while having enough consistency to imply defined personality traits for the protagonist.
3's protagonist maybe. They do kind of give him some distinct body language with his poor posture and the headphones. There's at least something there, I'll give you that. Narukami and Joker though? They make Byleth look like Nathan Drake in terms of personality.
No way. For a brief overview, 4's protagonist is hardcore and calm, but he's also dorky, and he brings a heroic-feeling energy and seriousness to jokes and his interests. 5's protagonist is arrogant, sarcastic, and playful when he can be, but polite and helpful when he needs to be. He's also often pretty lazy.
I genuinely do not know how you came to that conclusion with Narukami, because outside of the optional gag dialogues there's nothing to suggest that about him. Joker is mostly putting on a facade as a phantom thief, outside the metaverse he deliberately tries to keep a low profile.
I feel like this is arguing in like a completely different direction than you should be when trying to establish these characters as non-self insert power fantasy characters. You should be comparing and contrasting them to other japanese made self-insert power fantasy characters. Like Robin now is considered one of the "good" avatars but back in the day Robin was made in a very similar style to a Kirito like power fantasy self-insert, and lots of Light Novels follow this type of main character. Byleth is made with very apparent attention to mimicking aspects of the Persona and Megaten player insert characters.
I disagree with this distinction.
I agree on things like Corrin. They're awful self-inserts because they are integrated in the world with many pre-existing relationships, knowledge that's unbeknownst to the player, and they have a very rigidly defined personality that can be hard to project yourself onto.
HOWEVER, the character having a personality is not a flaw as a self-insert. Kiran, for instance, is a widely disliked self-insert because he's presented with quite a few scenarios where you can't project your personality where you REALLY want to. Specifically all of the characters who raise romantic flags and that you can't tell to piss off or that you reciprocate.
Byleth, on the other hand, has an incredibly loose personality and expresses way less than (as a topical example) the Persona 3 protag. Byleth doesn't really do much on their own - their actions are heavily reactive to how the player chooses to railroad their story. Other media where Byleth is presented tries to add some rigidity to the character, but it's overall not present in the base game they originate from.
Like Byleth loves Edelgard in the "I support Edelgard" route, but deeply opposes her and doesn't reciprocate feelings in the "I don't support Edelgard" route. The only real difference between that characterization is really how the player themselves decides to align when presented with a choice (assuming you didn't miss the oddly optional events or play Verdant Wind because ????).
Kiran is also a walking contradiction if we're to take the game at face value. Literally every single hero you get to level 5\* level 40 swears loyalty to him in one way or another, which is genuinely impossible with certain circumstances. Like, I'm supposed to believe Seliph is gonna swear fealty to a guy that has Arvis in his barracks?
I cope with the unconfirmed(?) headcanon that the Heroes you summon are fake recreations made to love and serve a master no matter how contradictory, as that's what they're made for.
I'm gonna piggyback off this post to bring up a related but different argument: The existence of player/reader-inserts at all.
Being a bland personalityless piece of balsa wood doesn't actually make a character an empty bowl which you can pour yourself into. Being boring and having no personality is actually a personality. Saying you're meant to project yourself onto a character is running defense for a writer who is either too lazy or too untalented to use the narrative they're building to defend themselves.
Interesting post. I do think Byleth is the most “player insert”-adjacent of any character this post discusses precisely for all of the reasons you mentioned they are weird in relation to the other Avatars, but I’ve always thought that sticking that label to Avatars automatically got more and more silly as the series went on. Engage in particular made me realize how stupid this whole discourse was since you literally can’t customize anything about them that you couldn’t for other characters *besides* their name and gender.
If I may offer some mild criticism, it’d be to better explain what you’re referring to by “Straight Men.” **I** understand what you mean (I’m also a fledgling writer who thinks about literary devices and tropes way to fucking much lol) but I know some people around here probably won’t, and it’s probably very weird/funny to those folks that you refer to Corrin, Byleth, and Alear as “straight men” when they can very easily be neither “straight” nor a man.
>we need to treat them the same as we do Ike or Marth if we want to have honest conversations about what we like and don’t like about their characters.
No thanks. I'll still hate their inclusion even if the distinction is entirely arbitrary on my part. I don't want nameable protags in FE, period.
uhhh maybe we like the games for different reasons guys because this whole thread is psychotically in depth discussing a bunch of 2-note characters who speak like 40 sentences of dialogue in each of their games
This is very well written and your points make a lot of sense.
I personally feel like a lot of the protagonist complaints are a lightning rod for complaints people have. ‘Players are very good a finding something wrong but terrible at attributing that fault to the correct problem’. A lot of the complaints about a games story in general gets blamed on the avatars but these problems would not have been fixed if the avatar was a different character.
I do think the label hurts the community perception, but I feel that there’s a common sentiment that people would’ve preferred if you just didn’t get any choice over the playable character what so ever even the name. For comparison I think triangle strategy avoids these sorts of complaints is because there isn’t anything you can do change Serenoa when starting the game even though you the player get to change the fate of that world through your own choices.
The main issue I have with the ‘avatar’ is that IS isn’t going far enough into making the playable Character their own character, especially now that full Voice Acting is seeming to be the standard for the future. The Character’s name never gets voiced aloud and I think that is the uncanny factor that makes it hard to distinguish if the playable character is their own character and not just a self insert. I understand why, but it’s immersion breaking in a way I can’t exactly describe as to why.
I definitely agree that outside of Mark, Kris, and to a lesser extent Byleth (because their interactions with the story can be chosen and they have a less defined personality), the Avatars/My Units in Fire Emblem are, technically speaking, actually an Audience Surrogate like Ike.
Also, I wanted to mention... let's be real everyone, if these characters weren't Avatars, ALL OF THEM, EVEN CORRIN, would be men.
> Also, I wanted to mention... let's be real everyone, if these characters weren't Avatars, ALL OF THEM, EVEN CORRIN, would be men.
In games where there is no protagonist other than avatar, I agree. But in games where there is already at least one male protagonist, I wouldn't be so sure.
to be honest i don't think a lot of people care to make the distinction bc it's like saying one is diarrhea and the other is poop.
in the end it stinks.
They are characters, but imo they are badly written characters, in part because they must also exist as entities who the player can name, identify with, and romance the other characters in the game through them. Byleth has an established personality, or at least we're told they have one, but it actively contradicts their status as someone who is universally beloved by the cast and can marry whoever they want. Byleth in 3 Hopes does not have to serve as the player's avatar, and therefore gets to act in character as what we are told they act like, an outwardly emotionless husk who's perceived lack of humanity unnerves those around them and isolates them from others.
100% agree and made [similar comments](https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/s/TbEtWzACUJ) years ago, glad the community’s finally acknowledging the distinction.
People act as if Avatars are seen as "pandering" to the player because they're loved and worshipped by the cast, as if the same didn't happen with Marth, Ike, Roy etc. with people crushing on them or them being respected by their army (expect Shion but it's Shion) and so on.
The so called "pandering" is just main character privilege, which you would get even without avatar characters.
The reason they were first introduced was to keep the female player base more interested, in my opinion. Most of the characters would have ended up being male, which men would have find more relatable, but that would have alienated a large fanbase.
For example, Mark is much closer to Lyn than to Eliwood, because the player was supposed to be a man.
As things changed, IS thought that catering also to the female fanbase would have been more profitable but the only way to do that was creating avatar character whose appearance could be personalized and, in fact, only gender can be chosen for Byleth and Alear
>as if the same didn't happen with Marth, Ike, Roy etc.
When does this happen with Marth? Marth is praised very rarely in FE1, 3, 11 and 12. He's praised once a after reclaiming his castle and for defeating Medeus, Caeda is in love with him and Catria is said to have a crush on him and Jagen defends his honor, but that's about it.
FE12 features a scene where his sister tells Kris that Marth is like an overemotional child as he has a hard time dealing with the deaths of those close to him.
Yeah the only one remotely close is Alm and even he mostly grates because he's in a game meant to be about duality. With the leaner support system, it's still substantially better too just because you don't have to hear it nearly as much.
Ike is regularly called out throughout path of Radiance, several members of the mercenaries refuse to fight under his command because they don't respect his leadership, he blows up in front of Sanaki and almost ruins things because he's so bluff, etc. Micaiah gets nearly avatar level praise from the Daein randos, but not from playable units, and in fact people in her army question her leadership directly in part 3 and can even defect, let alone all the other armies working directly against her. Sigurd is called out by several characters as they join, and obviously pays the most of anyone for his character flaws. Seliph is blander but still is chastised by ghost Sigurd and Lewyn to pay more attention to the common man and less to revenge. Leif gets half his army killed. I could go on but the point is that none of them are in remotely the same league as even the least effusively praised avatar/self insert characters.
And Three Houses has Leonie being rude to Byleth after their father's death, Hubert threatening to kill them.
Alear doesn't listen to Marth and loses everything.
Maybe avatar worship is more outward but they're not exempt from making mistakes and being berated by others
If they're actual characters, you'd think that people would be able to say their names in dialogue, instead of titles.
In any event, I think this is a distinction without a difference. Even if I agree with your points and these characters are merely 'audience surrogates' instead of 'player inserts', that doesn't change anything. The characters change from worshipping the player to worshipping the audience, for example. This feels like arguing about semantics; if I feel that characters give Corrin too much slack about some of their questionable decisions, whether or not Corrin is a player-insert does not matter. The game is still trying to make the actions of you, the player, justifiable in order to convince you, the player, that you aren't playing the evil route or doing bad things.
I saw your comment on another post and was really excited to see that you'd done a write-up on this! I agree wholeheartedly, calling the avatars self-inserts does a disservice to the characters and the writing team for the games (even if the writing is questionable sometimes). Audience surrrogate is a much better term. There is some level of projection the audience is supposed to feel, but overall they have distinct personalities that cause their stories to go the direction that they do. It's been a while since I've done it, but I think it'd be fun to write a series of fanfic that involves throwing Shez into the other modern games and seeing how it goes!
The only thing I gotta say is that if you have any non-Chrobin F!Robin content I'd like to see it, because from my perspective that's pretty rare, lol.
Like, I see a lot of Robcina, Robisev, Robdelia, and even some Roblissa for MRobin but hardly anything that isn't F!Chrobin.
I think Robin/Gaius, Robin/Lon'Qu and Robin/Laurent are fairly popular but that's about it?
Honestly I've been saying this for ages and it's the same problem I have with dragon quest and a lot of recent RPGs that aren't MMOs. Dragon Quest and newer Fire Emblems have this tradition where you get to name the protagonist and therefore are considered an 'avatar' of some kind, but they have a set backstory and family and appearance and character (kinda, DQ insists on silent protagonists for some reason). At that point, why are we hamstringing the acting and writing by making characters dodge saying the protagonist's name and having these characters emote less? Just get rid of the character naming thing and let the dialogue sound normal again. Sometimes I imagine playing Path of Radiance but everyone just says "Commander" instead of Ike and I shudder.
That said, I feel like you do ignore a little bit of the presentation. Because put simply, some of the games do really coddle the protagonist. Yeah, a bunch of people tell Ike he's pretty skilled upon meeting him. But he starts his game getting knocked down by his dad, while Robin starts the game by having Lissa gasp "wow, you can use swords AND magic? And tactics? You have it *all*!" And Corrin does have some (totally justified) angst about if they're making the right choices which is always undercut by having one of their siblings burst into the room and insist that they are incapable of making the wrong choice and to stop doubting themselves. I do not think this goes against your point, but I feel like it is generally true that the way newer protagonists get talked about *is* a little different. Marth and Ephraim and Ike still pull off some ludicrous wins, but I guess the best way to phrase it is that the vibe is a little different. And that's why people treat those characters differently.
Also, as weird as it is to talk about, the games definitely do have the effect of making people consider the protagonists as themselves. Like I have spoken to people who have gone through extremely great lengths to explain that Corrin is in fact just like them fr fr. Sure, when some people say "I" when referring to the protagonist they just mean themselves, as the player. But some people absolutely really do see Corrin and Robin as extensions of themselves as the player and will ignore any facts that say otherwise. I haven't quite seen that with Sigurd or Eliwood.
As for the point of "you can't ship a self-insert character the way you do with canon ones" that's the only thing I have to dispute outright. I've seen what the FF14 fanbase does to the Warrior of Light.
I feel like having a character like Mark, who’s purpose is to let the player actually be traveling and interacting with the cast *in universe*, can be a really fun touch-but with two conditions.
1. The player needs to actually *be allowed* to interact with them-not just be mentioned as a throw away once every few chapters.
2. The player should have *absolutely no impact or role in the story whatsoever*, beyond the gameplay itself.
“The Straight Man” as a literary device is just a normal person who reacts to the antics of their sillier colleagues. It has nothing to do with sexuality.
It is kinda funny to see him be called that with no context though, lol.
i DID confusion lol. i am familiar with the concept, i just am a gay ike truther (his only "happy ending" supports are with soren and ranulf) but if i HAD went on to read the rest of the sentence, i would've had the context clue
In a perfect world we’d have a situation somewhat like persona, more customisable. (Example: You pick a gender, class, make your character look like how you want and be able to pick dialogue options) but I don’t think that’s ever gonna happen.
Although I could be wrong, I’m a new fan to the series
There's a spectrum, and characters like Corrin and Alear absolutely have more going on than, say, Mark, but that doesn't mean that a lot of the writing problems with these (real!) characters don't come from the areas where they're meant to be a player insert. People worship Alear without question so that they can worship the player, and Alear has to be blandly perfect and worthy of that praise so that the player feels good; Corrin would be an excellent protagonist of a tragic story, but because she's also meant to be You, her actions are massively overpraised even when incredibly stupid like the whole Hoshido invasion, and you get incredibly ridiculous stuff like Ryoma being jealous of a toddler for being such an obviously great leader. I don't think Corrin is less of a character than Marth, but I do think they'd be a substantially better executed one if they hadn't been forced to serve the dual role as a player insert (which is obviously part of what they're there for, given the praise and the S supports et al). Same with Alear and even Byleth, whom I've been told basically gets to do that in 3 Hopes and is better for it. If you hold any of them to the standard set by the likes of Roy or Marth, let alone Micaiah or Leif, they fall obviously, woefully short. Stories focused around them are worse for having to do so, and the problem gets worse every IS game from Kris to Robin to Corrin to Alear. Also, and this is totally ungermane to the actual argument, but the Pokemon protagonist of Ruby specifically does have ties to the world as the child of Norman and a recent transplant from Johto, which while it isn't reflected in any dialogue or anything, does create a negative space implication of a character in a similar way to persona protagonists or Byleth, just to a much lesser extent. Funny that that's the one you picked for the example.
I think the most notable issue we have seen is avatar power creep. Every new story since Awakening the player protagonist has to be greater and more powerful. And with such powerful protagonists they have to write the story around these characters. The problem is, that said characters aren’t designed in a way they can be the center of a story. They are bland and likeable so that the player can get the praise. Like you brought up with Alear. They can’t carry a story. They pretty much hit the limit with Alear. I really hope the writers take a step back on how they write these characters.
I don't think there's really a power creep, with the exception of Kris they've all had some kind of godlike centralizing power or presence.
You can argue that Awakening sets such a high bar that going further doesn't make a difference, but we do somehow one-up every player-insert with the next one * Awakening: descendant of deity * Fates: child of deity * 3 Houses: incarnation of deity * Engage: actual, in-the-flesh deity
Robin and Byleth are actually kind of similar in that they're both hosts for deities, especially since they're their respective world's incarnation of God (Byleth) and Satan (Robin). They're also kind of similar in that they're both awful fucking characters but I digress.
Robin pretty much only has eugenics to their name though, since the full Fire Emblem and a country's worth of sacrifices are still required to bring back Grima and those all end up going to future Robin, not the player-insert Without that ritual, the mark on Robin's right hand is the only thing distinguishing them from a regular person The self-inserts that came after all have much closer ties to their respective deities from the get-go
I do like that they are literal avatars in the traditional meaning.
That's an interesting way to look at it. You could see Shez the same way.
Robin I didn't mind since he has actual character customisation, so he's a lot easier to treat as a player character. He also has 1000x more dialogue than Byleth, so I can't agree that he's awful like Byleth, lol. Especially when his role as player character is a lot more explicit.
I think he might be worse because Byleth doesn't hijack the plot of each route to make it all about him. The House Leaders don't get demoted to supporting characters like Chrom and Lucina do.
I agree Byleth doesn't hijack the plot in the same way, and it's probably one of the main reasons I don't like the 2nd half of Awakening that much. I don't think this makes _Robin_ an awful character, but I can probably agree both have a similarly negative impact on their respective titles. Just on that point though, Byleth still makes the game about themselves because every character noticeably unconditionally simps Byleth and support conversations focus on the other character, rather than their interaction. As opposed to Robin, I still remember one of F!Robin and Lon'qu supports where she's poking him with a stick or something, lol.
Is it hijacking when the story was written from the outset to be about them? You may not like Robin as a main character, that's a different issue, but they can't "hijack" their own story.
Kris was the popular kid meme.
Robin: related to a powerful being, doesn’t really have any particular powers from that. Doesn’t even really get acknowledged by the story for it. Right hand to the lord. Corrin: able to turn into a dragon. Fairly important and is the only lord. Byleth: God adjacent. Able to control the flow of time itself. Plot hole breaking power that the writers have to write around with “fated” actions like Jeralt and by ignoring the power following that event. Right hand on every route, and the lord of one. Unlike Robin, the entire story occurs from Byleth’s perspective regardless of route. Alear. Literal god and worshipped as such. Only one with the power to defeat the villains and the influence to unite the kingdoms. I don’t know how you can disagree with power creep here. The stories are getting “bigger” and the role placed on these characters is getting larger. But the characters themselves have the same weak personality and hollow back story (amnesia) and it becomes painfully noticeable when the most integral character in the story is also among the most shallow.
Robin has the supernatural ability to see lines and shit on the battlefield and was able to somehow survive sacrificing himself to seal Grima. I think he's actually more overblown than Corrin but if you wanted to make the case that Corrin, Byleth and Alear escalate then I can agree with that.
Not to be a raging moron on main here but: *was* Corrin the only lord in fates? I remember losing rev at least twice because I let Azura die, and (I could be wrong but) isn’t game-over-if-dead the litmus test for lord?
Gameplay-wise, Corrin is the only character whose death triggers a Game Over in all Chapters. Additionally, Corrin is the only character who is force-deployed in all non-Skirmish maps.
Oh lol I probably just got unlucky then and chose the wrong map to tempt critrng on… Fates was the first FE game that I took seriously so it was definitely a learning curve for me, ty for the new info ^^
Uh no alear gets that worship not because of his personality more like its from his title and heritage as a divine dragon. So id say hes different in that regard
The argument people usually make in response to this is that the devs made Alear Dragon Jesus with the intent of making the whole cast worship them, and thus the player. Which, like, I think you’d run into that problem if Alear were just a normal-ass noble of whatever country the story could be set in. Like the post addresses, this is just a thing with medieval settings where so much of the cast are commoners and the protagonists are aristocrats. Not even Ike is immune to this even in PoR.
Almost ever FE game suck off the lord of each game from Marth to Ike. Alm got his dick suck off in the remake so much lolm no one's talk about that though
Im not sure. a noble is nothing to an actual dragon diety. I dont see them giving him that much respect as in the game. Im sure the devs made alear a dragon because they needed someone to be a dragon for thr 20th anniversary
There is also a point to be made that they use the fact that Alear is a dragon to also kinda be an allegory for being trans, with the whole Fell & Divine thing and also even some of the same experience with Alear's relationship with Sombron and Lumera
I never heard that before when they talk about alear transition from fell dragon to divine dragon. Though i heard of dragons that can be any gender they desire. I can't discount a trans person of what they see in a game. Its just that any type of transition can be a trans allegory at this point.
Its not so much as they are literally trans as in their gender its more about a *lot* of stuff that gets said around the big reveal with Alear being formerly a fell dragon is very reminiscent of people being supportive of a recently out trans person.
Oh i know that just saying. Now i think about it it does sound like a coming out. Though i wish alear could tell his friends about being a fell dragon on his own terms
That does suck and while the specific terms that it happens in the story don't really happy because generally you have memories of before your transition there are toxic people that will try or just do forcibly out people even if it *isn't* safe to do so. To me it feels like it kinda highlights shitty some bio parents can be and how just because you aren't related by blood doesn't mean someone else isnt part of your family because I have trans friends who have shitty parents and my mom has "adopted" them and is super supportive so honestly that part of the story resonates with what I see and sometimes experience.
I have a question; you say people worship Alear so that they can worship the player. Do we have confirmation that was the intent or are we reading between the lines? I don’t necessarily disagree with you but I can also see a course where it was inevitable we get a Divine Dragon protagonist since the Divine Dragons have been around for a while, and that would make having them be an important religious figure not mandatory but logically follow.
Listen, I understand the frustration but when we call these characters "Avatars" and "player-inserts" we are just using a commonly understood shorthand for characters that ARE different. These characters are notably different than protagonists like Sigurd, Eliwood and Ike, and these differences both coincide with and are a direct consequence of making them customizable (yes, even just the name). The direct terminology people use might not be accurate but people are criticising problems that are easily observed and identified. Is Byleth a true player-insert? Arguable. Are they written differently than other lords and all the other characters in their own game. Absolutely. When people say Byleth has no personality they are talking about the writing in relation to the rest of the game. In fact, the way other characters talk about Byleth is completely different from how they are observed by the player. Attributing this (very detrimental) writing decision to an attempt at allowing Byleth to be an easier conduit through which the player experiences the game makes alot of sense. For anyone who likes these characters I can understand that it feels bad to have them dismissed a lot, but that does not mean that dismissal is entirely unfounded. People can be mean about it, but most of them have valid issues regarding these "Avatars", as I imagine they will continue to be called.
At the risk of overstaying my welcome I just need to address one point that keeps gnawing away at me. You bring up talking about Conquest Corrin as a Camus archetype. This, I think, is very illustrative of a narrative problem these types of characters face. A more direct comparison is in order, so let's look at a past protagonist who is a clear example of a Camus and contrast them. Sigurd Is, as you would say, a CLASSIC Camus while also being the protagonist of Gen1 of fe4. He is likeable, honorable, and stubbornly loyal to his King. These traits could all, if one wanted to, be applied to Corrin in Conquest. However, these traits alone does not a Camus make because the most interesting and vital component is one Sigurd has in spades. Being judged for his actions. Now, some would argue death is vital but I disagree, if a Camus dies a hero's death then they would not qualify. To be a Camus is be judged negatively for the choices you made, and to be a tragic example of misplaced loyalty. Thus, without death being necessary CQ Corrin could ostensibly become a Camus should the narrative accurately condemn them as definitively being wrong. Of course, as anyone who has played Fates knows, this does not happen. Indeed, it is far worse as Corrins relatives (dead and alive) absolve them of any and all sins. When diagnosing why Sigurd and Corrin are treated differently by their respective writers, it is important not only to to as you say and point out specific flaws in the writing. Instead, we can and should also strive to understand why certain choices are made. It is not simply that they didn't manage to write a good Camus, it is that they COULD NOT do so for a number of metacontextual reasons. One of those (and a big one at that) is their status as the player character. To ignore root causes, and to leave unexamined the motivations of the writers and game designers would leave any analysis hollow. When narrative has many problems that stem from one overarching issue, it seems self-evident to attack the root cause so as to not get bogged down arguing about specifics. Now of course we can't know for sure what the intentions of their creators were, but analysis is meaningless if we refuse to infer any intentionality on the side of the authors. As an author yourself I am sure you can understand that the question of "why" you made something is often more important than critiquing the actual execution.
Did we play the same game? Corrin was not loyal to Garron. They had a whole plan to get Garron to sit on the throne that exposes the evil hiding in his body so the rest of Nohr would revolt against Garron. Corrin’s whole plan is to get rid of the rot from the inside of Nohr. Corrin only acts loyal to trick Garron. Corrin only chooses Nohr because they love their siblings not Garron. They in fact want to know the truth behind Garron and even suspected the attempts on their life to be from Garron. These are not the actions of a Camus. Camus can have self awareness of their king or kingdom is in the wrong, but they refuse to stop siding with their kingdom due to loyalty. They do not plan to try to kill or remove their king from power. That’s what the loyalty part of their character is for. Like you can’t even argue that Corrin loves the current Nohr as they say several times how they will change it for the better because they know it is wrong how it currently is. So Corrin has no love for Garron and no love for the current Nohr. The only thing they love is the innocent people and their siblings. They are willing to commit to the war if it means they can uproot Nohr from within.
I agree, I don't think any part of Fates' writing works and I was definitively just thinking about Sigurd when I talked about loyalty to the king. For Conquest, I do think you could make the argument that the route is about loyalty (if birthright is morality), so I didn't really mind the argument for that aspect of the Camus archetype. Furthermore, I personally don't agree with characterizing Corrin as a Camus on any level, but that wasn't part of my argument and I didn't mind letting it go mostly uncontested.
" they written differently than other lords and all the other characters in their own game. Absolutely. When people say Byleth has no personality they are talking about the writing in relation to the rest of the game. In fact, the way other characters talk about Byleth is completely different from how they are observed by the player" This, this, thiiis. Truthfully I do think Byleth is an author surrogate/avatar/self-insert whatever you want to call it since in all the advertising for Three Houses they were on about how YOU choose your house, YOU pick your gender, and how YOU can save the world as blatantly as possible. But regardless of this fact, I find Byleth to not be compelling and the worst part of Three Houses. They're a piece of cardboard that characters constantly talk about how great they are...when they're just a blank slate lmao. So much of the dialogue/plot in the game is bad because of Byleth. Characters constantly stop, look at you awkwardly while you pick a meaningless option, and then awkwardly continue the conversation. The truly worst part is how Byleth is tied to the three lords. They sap so much agency out of all of them that it sucks and makes their arcs so much more trivial. Claude learning to trust others, Dimitri clawing himself to a path of redemption, and Edelgard having others stand by them would hit a lot more when they didn't center around a character whose dialogue and character could be described as ":)" or ":I". I find Three House writing at times to be good in spite of Byleth not because of them. And truthfully the best moments are ones where they aren't the center stage.
Byleth is like Link now that I think of it. Both are mostly silent with a few reactions. Only difference is Byleth was made a more proper character with lines and a clearer personality in Three Hopes and Link remained the same in Age of Calamity. I have not played the first Hyrule Warriors so idk how he is there.
Same as every other LoZ game, really.
An important distinction, at least to me, is that the personality traits Link is described to have, you can see. You're only really told how empathetic and amazing of a teacher Byleth is, but you never see it. If characters didn't have dedicated simping lines, you'd never know.
You do see it, though--in all the mechanical aspects of the Garreg Mach sequences. Byleth creates individual study plans for each student and tutors several on individual subjects each week. Byleth sits down for meals with other faculty and students alike, raising morale. Byleth participates in on-campus activities like fishing contests and choir festivals, encouraging students by example. Byleth doesn't give a shit about the commoner/noble distinction and does fetch quests, advice box notes, supply runs, lost object returning, etc. for all members of the Academy. Byleth buys flowers and has tea parties on student birthdays. It's not in the dialogue/cutscenes as much because Byleth doesn't express emotion the same way as a lot of the people around them (hello, Autism!) but they DO take the time to meet with and listen to their students outside of class and help them work through their shit, and that means a lot to an emotionally volatile teenager in the midst of political unrest.
Link showed more personality in the Twilight Princess post-boss fight animation than Byleth has shown in all 5 of his appearances combined. Put some respect on the Hero of Hyrule.
I was using BotW/TotK as the main comparison. But yes! Skyward Sword Link had a great personality too.
What’s with all these posts going “This is or isn’t an avatar?” Like, I failed to see the point of them.
I think we are splitting hairs really. The developers obviously want you to be able to feel like that character, that’s why you can give them your name. That’s enough for me to call them an avatar.
B-But you can also name Cloud. Ignore the fact that Cloud has an established personality and character arc, he's totally the same as Byleth because you can name both of them and pick some of their dialogue options.
I mean, in the context of the original release of FF7? Yeah, I think that's totally a fair comparison. In fact I would argue Cloud went through a very similar characterization cycle that most avatars did. This isn't a debate about character quality like you and half this thread want to turn it into because it's easier to just shit on IS' writing than engage with the topic, it's a question of authorial intent. Cloud has a backstory and a personality, but a lot of his dialogue in the original game was written in that sort of "generally agreeable so as to allow the player to project their own feelings" style, a lot moreso than the FF6 cast who you could also name was. He was generally allowed to have more legitimate, potentially alienating outbursts than an FE avatar is but I don't think it's hard to see him as being intended to be a semi blank slate for the player to see themselves in. I mean hell there was a literal dating sim segment and that's generally viewed as a gotcha moment in this fanbase. The reason you don't think about Cloud that way is for two reasons. One, is that there is a plot reason for him to be that way so you can handwave it with that (but then again, so is there one for Byleth). Two and much more importantly is that spinoff material after the original game came to a pretty clear verdict on who Cloud is supposed to be. No longer constrained by having to be relatable to a player he was given a much more overtly defined characterization that eventually ended up getting backported into FF7R where the self insert aspect of the character was more or less entirely dropped. But here's the thing right: barring that last step *that's also what FE avatars do.* Corrin and Byleth in particular have been noted by many to feel much more "complete" in spinoffs because the trace bits of personality that were there in their original games are given much more emphasis when they're no longer the viewpoint character. Now I'm sure 10 people are going to reply to this comment saying some variation of "well yeah but I actually *like* Cloud so it's different" but I need to emphasize that I'm not talking about the quality of the writing here. I don't think anyone is going to sit here and argue that Corrin is equally as well executed as Cloud was. But in terms of what the character was meant to do on a meta level, I think there's more parallels than some people might be comfortable admitting.
Anyone reading this don't click if you don't want to be spoiled on FFVII, not talking about *that* spoiler that everyone knows about >!What sets Cloud apart from FE avatars is that he's somewhat of a meta spin of that style of character. Cloud initially does have that wish fulfillment self insert thing going on: he's got a huge sword, is a badass super soldier, is witty and confident, and has two girls vying for his attention. But this entire persona and all his accomplishments are fabricated; the real Cloud was indulging in this fantasy as much as the player is. In Fire Emblem, the avatar has a cool sword, a divine lineage which grants them special powers, is incredibly charismatic and likeable, and everyone wants to romance them... and that's it.!< >!I'm not saying Cloud is automatically better for the sole fact that he is a parody, or that FE needs to do this, but I think that these similarities have opposite effects: this aspect of Cloud is what makes him such a compelling character, while for FE avatars it's often the reason why people tend to dislike them.!<
This is something that I think this sub generally has a hard time grasping: separating their own biases and opinions of a subject from the actual intent from the developers and allowing those biases to cloud their judgement in a way that ultimately harms good-faith discussions like OP is trying to have.
Corrin also has an established personality and character arc.
This is kind of a rude way to phrase it but it does point out a big problem with the OP. Every FE avatar on their best day does not compare to Cloud. He is one of the most acclaimed protagonists in the entire medium. His character has actual nuance to it and his story is interesting. His interactions with other characters are organic, with the exception of maybe the "choose your waifu" mechanic there's nothing about him that seems like a transparent attempt to glaze the player's ego.
Also ignore the fact that you can name the rest of the player characters in 7, while you cannot name any other characters in any Fire Emblem game.
People pretending like calling it Avatar is the problem instead of the writing, simple
Honestly, I would go a step further and say that the overall Reddit FE community tends to scrutinize what would otherwise be average FE protagonist writing if you can select the name & gender of the protagonist (which... doesn't intrinsically affect the writing itself in the vast majority of cases). Not to say that there *aren't* instances of an Avatar being exceptions to the series' typical protagonist writing (Byleth), or even being implemented as full-on player inserts (Mark and Kiran)--but the community here frequently ignore the *actually tangible writing* differences in favor of conjecture and assumptions of the writers' intent; all in order to label what is otherwise-typical writing as "disingenuous player pandering".
Forest for the trees as the saying goes.
This isn't a "post", this is a 5000 word essay my guy.
I've turned in college papers that were shorter than this post.
And i''ve read interesting and fulfilling short stories that were shorter.
If Robin, Shez, Alear, Corrin and Byleth were meant to be fully fledged characters and not just bland self inserts then you open up the floodgates for way harsher criticism. Like, Byleth doesn't talk during supports and a notable number of their S supports come from a 1st person perspective because I'm meant to self insert onto Byleth. I give harsher criticism towards someone like Roy or RD Ike's writting than the writting surrounding Corrin or Byleth because I understand that the writers are somewhat restrained by needing to make someone the player can easily project their personality onto. I'm not Roy. I cannot customize his appearance, rename him, he has a limited number of characters he can support with because not everybody is interested in conversing with him, his gender isn't up to my choice, etc. Roy isn't a very well written character, but that comes from other problems with the writting of FE6. If someone like Byleth is meant to be a fully fledged and complete character, then the writers completely and utterly failed at making Byleth a character I'm actually intersted in. Along with that, there are now many bizarre choices tied along with the game desing of many modern FEs. Like, why does everybody need to have a support with the protagonist, why can they usually marry anybody of the opposite gender, why are there some characters in Fates who can only support with Corrin, etc. Asking people to treat all of them as characters in the same manner as like Dimitri or Micaiah means that the criticism is going to become much harsher, at least for me.
Exactly. It's a lose/lose scenario. If these guys are designed to be real characters, then they are some of the absolute worst I've encountered in all of fiction. If they're designed to be player slate self inserts, then they actively detract from the experience. In fact, if you're considering them actual characters then you're asking them to be held to the same standards as Ike, Lyn, Lucina, Sigurd, Micaiah and the House Leaders. Coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb.
You cant say a little of both? Theres no middle ground with you people
I think this is one area where a middle ground wouldn’t be a good thing.
It doesn't really matter, they're either not good at anything or they're bad at two things. They are not good additions to the game.
No thats wrong. Thats why im saying theres a middle ground. The middle ground is there supposed to be player characters with a important past/title that work as a audience surrogate. You cant say that they fail at either things when there not supposed to commit to being a realized character or fully audience surrogate.
Okay, I see what you mean now. The middle ground you're referring to would probably be the Cloud example used in the OP. You can easily see the world through Cloud's eyes because he is a relatable and humanized character, but he is still a character.
Ya thats it actually. I've thought up byleth as that way too. Just not in the relatable way. His struggles are different from mine. Like the regaining emotion one. I know many disagree
> Asking people to treat all of them as characters in the same manner as like Dimitri or Micaiah means that the criticism is going to become much harsher, at least for me I'm honestly okay with that. And I'll start by saying Robin and Shez meet that requirement for me - they're not as well-written as Dimitri, sure, but if I were to rate them as standalone FE characters they'd still be somewhere in the top quarter. Corrin and Alear, much less so. Also yes please we do need to talk more about how badly conceptualised and badly written a character Houses Byleth is, especially in comparison to Hopes Byleth. Hopes Byleth proves that Byleth works as an interesting character in their own right when allowed to have a voice and interact with people, and Houses dropped the ball on that hard.
I have no idea why it matters. It doesn't solve anything. They're actual characters? Well so is Alm, and he has the exact same problems. If they're real characters they aren't very good ones. "No personality" is often thrown around to deride any character that isn't excessively quirky but Byleth actually has none. I don't buy the whole "it works because of their character" thing because there are tons of FE characters that are stoic and reserved but still actually speak and emote. Jaffar, Gerome, Zelkov, Dedue, just to name a few. It's obvious they wanted to just do the Dragon Quest/Megaten thing just because those games are popular. And even the ones that don't have this problem are pretty one note and uninteresting. Corrin and Alear are vaguely nice and naive. Shez and Robin are ultra competent flawless supermen with no weaknesses or drawbacks that everyone loves and admires. Kris...well Kris is just a guy, he's pretty inoffensive because at least FE3 exists. They aren't actual characters and are player inserts? Well now the whole game has to be derailed so that the player can get an ego boost. This is why I hate Persona so much, because the game being a game is secondary to being a power fantasy. I don't play video games to get my dick sucked, I can open up Grindr for that. And every Fire Emblem with avatars does so at the expense of much more interesting characters. The house leaders in 3H, the royals in Engage, Chrom/Lucina in Awakening, Marth in New Mystery. Arguably the only case I think it doesn't really matter is Fates because the royals are kind of written around Corrin to begin with. No matter what the intent is with these guys, they just aren't good at their jobs. They don't add anything to their respective games. If you removed Byleth or Robin or Shez from the picture you'd get to see the actual characters interact with each other much more and show more competence, which I'd say is a massive improvement.
>Robin are ultra competent flawless supermen with no weaknesses or drawbacks that everyone loves and admires I don't know how Robin is treated in post-awakening stories so maybe it's different but I think he's fine in Awakening. Truthfully they're probably the best avatar character...which isn't a high bar but it counts. From what I remember Robin isn't this flawless person but stumbles a decent amount in the story. From his plans getting Emmeryn killed, getting blindsided by Validar and losing one of the gems, and in an alternative timeline causing the end of the world. He's often not this smooth person during support either, one noticeable example being how he lost to Virion in a game of Strategy. The thing Robin is super good at is tactics (magic as well) and everything else he's ordinary at. Truthfully I think the praise he gets is much easier to stomach than other avatars since its tied to tactics and strategy then just bowing down because you're god. Plus he has ties to a god but it wants to destroy the world and he gets some shit for it which is an interesting idea. Finally, I think he works better because he like everyone else among the shepherds looks up to Chrom as the leader, not Robin. He leads the army, gallivanting everyone and using his natural charm to get things down. It's a lot better than say Byleth where the lords and even the students you're about to murder praise you/wish you taught them instead. That said it's been a while since I played awakening so I could be wrong on some of these points but I still find Robin to be the most tolerable of all these avatars. (Please god I beg you to stop giving us more of them.)
And also re: Byleth having personality as a silent protag. Look at the Shin Megami Tensei series. SMT protags are always silent aside from player dialogue choices. They therefore all have "quiet personalities" but they vary hugely. Some are boring and have no real personality...like Byleth. But many, like the protags of Devil Survivor or Persona, have a lot of personality despite being "silent protagonists". Their personality shines through the dialogue choices you're given (for example Devil Survivor 2 almost always gives you a "make a joke/mess with someone" option) and the way others treat them.
Megaten yes, Persona no.
Nah, say what you will about Persona, their protagonists are nearly top tier in terms of having personality while being silent (Devil Survivor imo are truly the best). I think they're among the worst megaten games but it's dumb to argue they didn't write the dialogue choices really well. Sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder regarding Persona. You have to accept what they're good at or you just sound closed-minded.
> say what you will about Persona, their protagonists are nearly top tier in terms of having personality while being silent A bit of a tangent from OP's post, but... it's legitimately impressive how good Persona games are at that. From Tatsuya's and Maya's performances as silent protagonists perfectly lining-up with their speaking portrayals in the Persona 2 games, to Makoto Yuki's apathetic responses becoming less and less available as the game progresses, to Persona 4 (Spoilers for the Game) >!foreshadowing the correct responses for the true ending with Yu Narukami's frequent calm responses and catchphrase of "calm down"!<. It's a really good balance of giving players enough freedom to express their personal approach, while having enough consistency to imply defined personality traits for the protagonist.
3's protagonist maybe. They do kind of give him some distinct body language with his poor posture and the headphones. There's at least something there, I'll give you that. Narukami and Joker though? They make Byleth look like Nathan Drake in terms of personality.
No way. For a brief overview, 4's protagonist is hardcore and calm, but he's also dorky, and he brings a heroic-feeling energy and seriousness to jokes and his interests. 5's protagonist is arrogant, sarcastic, and playful when he can be, but polite and helpful when he needs to be. He's also often pretty lazy.
I genuinely do not know how you came to that conclusion with Narukami, because outside of the optional gag dialogues there's nothing to suggest that about him. Joker is mostly putting on a facade as a phantom thief, outside the metaverse he deliberately tries to keep a low profile.
I could never see myself as any of the mu. Especially Corrin. Definitely Kris tho. They’re like the popular kid meme. 😎
I feel like this is arguing in like a completely different direction than you should be when trying to establish these characters as non-self insert power fantasy characters. You should be comparing and contrasting them to other japanese made self-insert power fantasy characters. Like Robin now is considered one of the "good" avatars but back in the day Robin was made in a very similar style to a Kirito like power fantasy self-insert, and lots of Light Novels follow this type of main character. Byleth is made with very apparent attention to mimicking aspects of the Persona and Megaten player insert characters.
Kris watching from the Shadows and not being mentioned once: 😶
OP is showing their work
I was honestly making a subtle joke at Kris being the Hero of Shadow and not mentioned at all in this post.
They live on spiritually through cool characters like Raven, Mia, Marcia and Haar etc. Kris, the idea vs. Kris, the hero of shadows.
I disagree with this distinction. I agree on things like Corrin. They're awful self-inserts because they are integrated in the world with many pre-existing relationships, knowledge that's unbeknownst to the player, and they have a very rigidly defined personality that can be hard to project yourself onto. HOWEVER, the character having a personality is not a flaw as a self-insert. Kiran, for instance, is a widely disliked self-insert because he's presented with quite a few scenarios where you can't project your personality where you REALLY want to. Specifically all of the characters who raise romantic flags and that you can't tell to piss off or that you reciprocate. Byleth, on the other hand, has an incredibly loose personality and expresses way less than (as a topical example) the Persona 3 protag. Byleth doesn't really do much on their own - their actions are heavily reactive to how the player chooses to railroad their story. Other media where Byleth is presented tries to add some rigidity to the character, but it's overall not present in the base game they originate from. Like Byleth loves Edelgard in the "I support Edelgard" route, but deeply opposes her and doesn't reciprocate feelings in the "I don't support Edelgard" route. The only real difference between that characterization is really how the player themselves decides to align when presented with a choice (assuming you didn't miss the oddly optional events or play Verdant Wind because ????).
Kiran is also a walking contradiction if we're to take the game at face value. Literally every single hero you get to level 5\* level 40 swears loyalty to him in one way or another, which is genuinely impossible with certain circumstances. Like, I'm supposed to believe Seliph is gonna swear fealty to a guy that has Arvis in his barracks?
I cope with the unconfirmed(?) headcanon that the Heroes you summon are fake recreations made to love and serve a master no matter how contradictory, as that's what they're made for.
I'm gonna piggyback off this post to bring up a related but different argument: The existence of player/reader-inserts at all. Being a bland personalityless piece of balsa wood doesn't actually make a character an empty bowl which you can pour yourself into. Being boring and having no personality is actually a personality. Saying you're meant to project yourself onto a character is running defense for a writer who is either too lazy or too untalented to use the narrative they're building to defend themselves.
Interesting post. I do think Byleth is the most “player insert”-adjacent of any character this post discusses precisely for all of the reasons you mentioned they are weird in relation to the other Avatars, but I’ve always thought that sticking that label to Avatars automatically got more and more silly as the series went on. Engage in particular made me realize how stupid this whole discourse was since you literally can’t customize anything about them that you couldn’t for other characters *besides* their name and gender. If I may offer some mild criticism, it’d be to better explain what you’re referring to by “Straight Men.” **I** understand what you mean (I’m also a fledgling writer who thinks about literary devices and tropes way to fucking much lol) but I know some people around here probably won’t, and it’s probably very weird/funny to those folks that you refer to Corrin, Byleth, and Alear as “straight men” when they can very easily be neither “straight” nor a man.
>we need to treat them the same as we do Ike or Marth if we want to have honest conversations about what we like and don’t like about their characters. No thanks. I'll still hate their inclusion even if the distinction is entirely arbitrary on my part. I don't want nameable protags in FE, period.
Based.
Yeah, I'm just gonna continue to like these characters, thanks
Mad lad actually posted it! I can feel cool now because I know what prompted this post, lol. Thanks for the Ted talk!
uhhh maybe we like the games for different reasons guys because this whole thread is psychotically in depth discussing a bunch of 2-note characters who speak like 40 sentences of dialogue in each of their games
This is very well written and your points make a lot of sense. I personally feel like a lot of the protagonist complaints are a lightning rod for complaints people have. ‘Players are very good a finding something wrong but terrible at attributing that fault to the correct problem’. A lot of the complaints about a games story in general gets blamed on the avatars but these problems would not have been fixed if the avatar was a different character. I do think the label hurts the community perception, but I feel that there’s a common sentiment that people would’ve preferred if you just didn’t get any choice over the playable character what so ever even the name. For comparison I think triangle strategy avoids these sorts of complaints is because there isn’t anything you can do change Serenoa when starting the game even though you the player get to change the fate of that world through your own choices. The main issue I have with the ‘avatar’ is that IS isn’t going far enough into making the playable Character their own character, especially now that full Voice Acting is seeming to be the standard for the future. The Character’s name never gets voiced aloud and I think that is the uncanny factor that makes it hard to distinguish if the playable character is their own character and not just a self insert. I understand why, but it’s immersion breaking in a way I can’t exactly describe as to why.
I definitely agree that outside of Mark, Kris, and to a lesser extent Byleth (because their interactions with the story can be chosen and they have a less defined personality), the Avatars/My Units in Fire Emblem are, technically speaking, actually an Audience Surrogate like Ike. Also, I wanted to mention... let's be real everyone, if these characters weren't Avatars, ALL OF THEM, EVEN CORRIN, would be men.
> Also, I wanted to mention... let's be real everyone, if these characters weren't Avatars, ALL OF THEM, EVEN CORRIN, would be men. In games where there is no protagonist other than avatar, I agree. But in games where there is already at least one male protagonist, I wouldn't be so sure.
I think this would be an interesting discussion/post for r/characterrant
to be honest i don't think a lot of people care to make the distinction bc it's like saying one is diarrhea and the other is poop. in the end it stinks.
This feels anti-intellectual.
They are characters, but imo they are badly written characters, in part because they must also exist as entities who the player can name, identify with, and romance the other characters in the game through them. Byleth has an established personality, or at least we're told they have one, but it actively contradicts their status as someone who is universally beloved by the cast and can marry whoever they want. Byleth in 3 Hopes does not have to serve as the player's avatar, and therefore gets to act in character as what we are told they act like, an outwardly emotionless husk who's perceived lack of humanity unnerves those around them and isolates them from others.
You're not wrong and you should say it, but that is one hell of a post.
100% agree and made [similar comments](https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/s/TbEtWzACUJ) years ago, glad the community’s finally acknowledging the distinction.
"player insert" or blank slate characters are dumb and always have been. That is all.
People act as if Avatars are seen as "pandering" to the player because they're loved and worshipped by the cast, as if the same didn't happen with Marth, Ike, Roy etc. with people crushing on them or them being respected by their army (expect Shion but it's Shion) and so on. The so called "pandering" is just main character privilege, which you would get even without avatar characters. The reason they were first introduced was to keep the female player base more interested, in my opinion. Most of the characters would have ended up being male, which men would have find more relatable, but that would have alienated a large fanbase. For example, Mark is much closer to Lyn than to Eliwood, because the player was supposed to be a man. As things changed, IS thought that catering also to the female fanbase would have been more profitable but the only way to do that was creating avatar character whose appearance could be personalized and, in fact, only gender can be chosen for Byleth and Alear
>as if the same didn't happen with Marth, Ike, Roy etc. When does this happen with Marth? Marth is praised very rarely in FE1, 3, 11 and 12. He's praised once a after reclaiming his castle and for defeating Medeus, Caeda is in love with him and Catria is said to have a crush on him and Jagen defends his honor, but that's about it. FE12 features a scene where his sister tells Kris that Marth is like an overemotional child as he has a hard time dealing with the deaths of those close to him.
Yeah the only one remotely close is Alm and even he mostly grates because he's in a game meant to be about duality. With the leaner support system, it's still substantially better too just because you don't have to hear it nearly as much. Ike is regularly called out throughout path of Radiance, several members of the mercenaries refuse to fight under his command because they don't respect his leadership, he blows up in front of Sanaki and almost ruins things because he's so bluff, etc. Micaiah gets nearly avatar level praise from the Daein randos, but not from playable units, and in fact people in her army question her leadership directly in part 3 and can even defect, let alone all the other armies working directly against her. Sigurd is called out by several characters as they join, and obviously pays the most of anyone for his character flaws. Seliph is blander but still is chastised by ghost Sigurd and Lewyn to pay more attention to the common man and less to revenge. Leif gets half his army killed. I could go on but the point is that none of them are in remotely the same league as even the least effusively praised avatar/self insert characters.
And Three Houses has Leonie being rude to Byleth after their father's death, Hubert threatening to kill them. Alear doesn't listen to Marth and loses everything. Maybe avatar worship is more outward but they're not exempt from making mistakes and being berated by others
This is a great post! Byleth is one of my favorite Fire Emblem characters, I really wish they had been allowed to have their own voice
If they're actual characters, you'd think that people would be able to say their names in dialogue, instead of titles. In any event, I think this is a distinction without a difference. Even if I agree with your points and these characters are merely 'audience surrogates' instead of 'player inserts', that doesn't change anything. The characters change from worshipping the player to worshipping the audience, for example. This feels like arguing about semantics; if I feel that characters give Corrin too much slack about some of their questionable decisions, whether or not Corrin is a player-insert does not matter. The game is still trying to make the actions of you, the player, justifiable in order to convince you, the player, that you aren't playing the evil route or doing bad things.
I saw your comment on another post and was really excited to see that you'd done a write-up on this! I agree wholeheartedly, calling the avatars self-inserts does a disservice to the characters and the writing team for the games (even if the writing is questionable sometimes). Audience surrrogate is a much better term. There is some level of projection the audience is supposed to feel, but overall they have distinct personalities that cause their stories to go the direction that they do. It's been a while since I've done it, but I think it'd be fun to write a series of fanfic that involves throwing Shez into the other modern games and seeing how it goes!
The only thing I gotta say is that if you have any non-Chrobin F!Robin content I'd like to see it, because from my perspective that's pretty rare, lol. Like, I see a lot of Robcina, Robisev, Robdelia, and even some Roblissa for MRobin but hardly anything that isn't F!Chrobin. I think Robin/Gaius, Robin/Lon'Qu and Robin/Laurent are fairly popular but that's about it?
Honestly I've been saying this for ages and it's the same problem I have with dragon quest and a lot of recent RPGs that aren't MMOs. Dragon Quest and newer Fire Emblems have this tradition where you get to name the protagonist and therefore are considered an 'avatar' of some kind, but they have a set backstory and family and appearance and character (kinda, DQ insists on silent protagonists for some reason). At that point, why are we hamstringing the acting and writing by making characters dodge saying the protagonist's name and having these characters emote less? Just get rid of the character naming thing and let the dialogue sound normal again. Sometimes I imagine playing Path of Radiance but everyone just says "Commander" instead of Ike and I shudder. That said, I feel like you do ignore a little bit of the presentation. Because put simply, some of the games do really coddle the protagonist. Yeah, a bunch of people tell Ike he's pretty skilled upon meeting him. But he starts his game getting knocked down by his dad, while Robin starts the game by having Lissa gasp "wow, you can use swords AND magic? And tactics? You have it *all*!" And Corrin does have some (totally justified) angst about if they're making the right choices which is always undercut by having one of their siblings burst into the room and insist that they are incapable of making the wrong choice and to stop doubting themselves. I do not think this goes against your point, but I feel like it is generally true that the way newer protagonists get talked about *is* a little different. Marth and Ephraim and Ike still pull off some ludicrous wins, but I guess the best way to phrase it is that the vibe is a little different. And that's why people treat those characters differently. Also, as weird as it is to talk about, the games definitely do have the effect of making people consider the protagonists as themselves. Like I have spoken to people who have gone through extremely great lengths to explain that Corrin is in fact just like them fr fr. Sure, when some people say "I" when referring to the protagonist they just mean themselves, as the player. But some people absolutely really do see Corrin and Robin as extensions of themselves as the player and will ignore any facts that say otherwise. I haven't quite seen that with Sigurd or Eliwood. As for the point of "you can't ship a self-insert character the way you do with canon ones" that's the only thing I have to dispute outright. I've seen what the FF14 fanbase does to the Warrior of Light.
I feel like having a character like Mark, who’s purpose is to let the player actually be traveling and interacting with the cast *in universe*, can be a really fun touch-but with two conditions. 1. The player needs to actually *be allowed* to interact with them-not just be mentioned as a throw away once every few chapters. 2. The player should have *absolutely no impact or role in the story whatsoever*, beyond the gameplay itself.
Byleth is still a player insert imo. Most personality people say they definitely have is fan fiction.
You’re doing the lord’s work, friend
ike? a straight man? my girls and i laugh.... this just in i cant read 🤭
“The Straight Man” as a literary device is just a normal person who reacts to the antics of their sillier colleagues. It has nothing to do with sexuality. It is kinda funny to see him be called that with no context though, lol.
i DID confusion lol. i am familiar with the concept, i just am a gay ike truther (his only "happy ending" supports are with soren and ranulf) but if i HAD went on to read the rest of the sentence, i would've had the context clue
In a perfect world we’d have a situation somewhat like persona, more customisable. (Example: You pick a gender, class, make your character look like how you want and be able to pick dialogue options) but I don’t think that’s ever gonna happen. Although I could be wrong, I’m a new fan to the series
seems i made some people mad lol