Characters / Fire Emblem: Three Houses – Golden Deer

Fire Emblem: Three Houses characters index
Main Characters: Byleth | Edelgard | Dimitri | Claude | Rhea | Other Main Characters
Houses: The Black Eagles (Part One, Part Two) | The Blue Lions (Part One, Part Two) | The Golden Deer (Part One, Part Two)
Garreg Mach Factions: The Ashen Wolves | The Church of Seiros | Officers Academy Instructors and Staff
The Three Nations of Fódlan: The Adrestian Empire | The Holy Kingdom of Faerghus | The Leicester Alliance
Other: Historical Figures | The Flame Emperor Army | Those who slither in the dark | Other Characters

The Golden Deer are the house of students from the Leicester Alliance; their house leader is Claude von Riegan, grandson of the Alliance's current leader. Leicester is known for its archery, which is reflected in the Deer having two bow-oriented characters instead of just one. This is the only house with characters from merchant backgrounds, and also the one with the greatest proportion of commoners (while they have the same number of characters with the Commoner class as the Blue Lions, two of the Lions' commoners have direct ties to the nobility, which is not the case for any of the Deer).

In both Three Houses and Three Hopes, all members of the house join Byleth/Shez's party should they choose the Golden Deer at the start of the game. Do note this is the only way in which Claude (and Hilda in Three Hopes) can be recruited.

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In General

Golden Deer's Banner

"You, me, Golden Deer? We could be great together."

— Claude introducing the Golden Deer

Tropes Associated with the Golden Deer

• Blue Blood: There are five nobles in the Golden Deer House, and what's more, all five of them — Claude, Hilda, Lorenz, Lysithea, and Marianne — are all children of the Houses that serve on the Alliance's Roundtable. Apart from Hilda, who has an older brother, all of them are the heirs/heiresses to their Houses to boot.
• Color-Coded Characters: Each character wears a specific color in different classes, which carries over to their default outfits after the timeskip:
  • Hilda: Pale Pink
  • Raphael: Yellow
  • Leonie: Orange
  • Ignatz: Olive Green
  • Lysithea: White
  • Marianne: Dark Blue
  • Lorenz: Gray/Indigo
• Dysfunction Junction: Averted. While there are students that had their past troubling them and affect some of their interactions with others (Lysithea being a Sole Survivor of the crest experimentation among the group of children when the empire occupied Ordelia territory, Claude keeping his Almyran heritage secret, Marianne having a horrible self-esteem and depressed due to her crest, and Ignatz feeling guilty over the incident that killed Raphael's parents; Claude's uncle had intended to hire Ignatz's parents to evaluate some artwork Lorenz's father was selling, but were busy so Raphael's were contracted instead and were subsequently killed by monsters; Death Toll implies this wasn't an accident, though Unsettling Truths in Three Hopes reveals that it was) and being the least-unified house, the students here are relatively well-adjusted with them and the other half of the class did not suffer under a Dark and Troubled Past. Claude lampshades this when you talk to him at the start of the game, stating that the Golden Deer aren't as difficult as the other two houses.
• Fatal Flaw: Their lack of unity. They are the least unified for various reasons, such as people distrusting Claude. If Byleth doesn't choose their house, they continue to remain divided, even after the time skip. Instead of fighting for one common cause like the Black Eagles and the Blue Lions, the Golden Deer each fight for their own goals and may even defect to the Empire like Lorenz. Only when Byleth chooses their house do they learn to unite and fight as one group.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The Thief. They are well known for their archery skills and their allowing of commoners more then the others establish their pragmatic mindset often associated with the Thief. In game they have the most highly-skilled archers of any house (Claude, Leonie, and Ignatz), and many of their members have slightly lower growths but make up for it with being more specialized than the other houses.
• First-Name Basis: All of them call Claude by name, without any titles. By comparison, Petra, Bernadetta and Hubert call Edelgard "Lady Edelgard" (and Hubert sometimes uses "Your/Her Highness/Majesty"), and everyone in the Blue Lions besides Mercedes and Felix^note if he uses a title at all when he talks to Dimitri, it's "boar prince" or a variant thereof calls Dimitri "Your/His Highness/Majesty."
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: Four ladies (Hilda, Marianne, Leonie, Lysithea) and four males (Claude, Lorenz, Raphael, Ignatz).
• Hazy-Feel Turn: If the player defects to the Empire, which opposes the Alliance in war post-timeskip, this trope is caused due to the Grey-and-Gray Morality of the game. Claude and Hilda are the only exceptions, since they cannot fight on the same side as Edelgard.
• Hufflepuff House: Only in comparison with the other factions. The Adrestian Empire, Kingdom of Faerghus and the Church of Seiros are deeply connected to the history of Fódlan, and have very personal stakes in the coming conflict. The Leicester Alliance meanwhile is the equivalent of a non-aligned movement with much less personal motivation in the conflict.
• Irony: Despite being the least-unified house at the start, they are the only house guaranteed to stay fully intact if chosen by Byleth, as Dedue can be killed offscreen on the Azure Moon route if his paralogue was not completed and if the player chooses (or gets railroaded onto) the Silver Snow route instead of the Crimson Flower route, Edelgard and Hubert will leave. By contrast, the Golden Deer will always be fully intact on the Verdant Wind route.
• Meaningful Name: The five whose names are directly lifted from King Lear also took some of their namesakes' character traits.
• Only Sane Man: In a meta sense. They are the only house that is willing to peacefully surrender as antagonists rather than fight to the death. Additionally, they are overall the most well-adjusted house mentally.
• Out of Focus: Compared to the other houses and factions, they don't factor too heavily into the story except for their own route. In most routes they get taken out relatively early, or are unable to unite fully and end up losing to the Empire. Notably, a few of them just flat-out don't appear on some routes if not recruited, such as Marianne and Raphael not appearing in the Crimson Flower route at all if not recruited.
• Penny Among Diamonds: The Golden Deer have more commoners than the other houses. Dorothea is the only true commoner in the Black Eagles house, and while Petra's status is that of a commoner in the Empire, she's the granddaughter of the king of Brigid. The Blue Lions' only true commoner is Dedue, as Mercedes was originally born to an Adrestian noble family, while Ashe was adopted by Lord Lonato.
• Put on a Bus: With the exception of Lorenz, none of the Golden Deer will make a physical appearance in the Silver Snow route if they're left unrecruited. Due to the Battle of Gronder Field taking place off screen and it being noted as seeing heavy casualties on all sides, it's implied that they likely died in the battle.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: As a group in the pre-timeskip phase, the Golden Deer house has this dynamic as it consists of enigmatic house leader Claude, Brilliant, but Lazy Hilda, pompous Lorenz, Boisterous Bruiser Raphael, Shy Blue-Haired Girl Marianne, Adorably Precocious Child Lysithea, humble Ignatz, and hard-working Leonie who has a rivalry with Byleth. That said, the commoners all have respectable upbringings and they grow to be much more united over the course of the Verdant Wind route.
• Rainbow Motif: Their part II uniforms are far more colorful compared to the other classes and invoke the trope. Chromatically, Hilda is red^note Pink is considered to be a tint of red, as the color is obtained by mixing it with white, Leonie is orange, Raphael yellow, Ignatz green, Marianne blue, Lysithea indigo^note While most of her class uniforms are red and white, her default gown is indigo, and her Brave rendition in Heroes wears an indigo version of the Gremory dress, and Lorenz violet. Claude rounds them out by wearing golds with splashes of green per his class and route name. The motif is further enhanced by the fact that the majority of the class has matching hair and eyes, bar Ignatz and Marianne, who both have brown eyes, and Claude, who has brown hair and green eyes.^note Lysithea also appears to be an exception, but it's unknown what her hair color was before her experiments and the lowlights of her hair are a similar shade of pink as her eyes.
• The Reveal: Multiple times, as this is one of the two routes where the protagonist characters aren't Locked Out of the Loop. Most of the route involves Claude trying to figure out what the hell is going on, where Dimitri is too focused on finding and killing the Flame Emperor to care and Edelgard is too focused on her own dream and believes that she knows the whole story already. About the only major reveal that isn't spelled out on this route is the specifics of Byleth's origins (Rhea states that she put Sothis' Crest Stone in Byleth, but doesn't go into further detail about their mother or Jeralt or the circumstances).
• Route Boss: In Three Hopes, the entire class with the exception of Leonie are exclusively fought on the Scarlet Blaze path. On Azure Gleam, Dimitri focuses more on the fighting against the Empire as he has no reason to engage with the Alliance and in part II, the Kingdom and Alliance teams up to take down the Empire.
• Shout-Out to Shakespeare: Most of their surnames are derived from characters from Shakespeare's King Lear.
• Spanner in the Works: In their route, they very much become this to those who slither in the dark. Whereas the Empire and the Kingdom are major components of their plans to plunge Fódlan into war and ultimately take over, the Alliance was largely overlooked, and is the only one of the three nations to have no infiltrators in it. Yet, the Golden Deer end up being one of only two routes where they are directly confronted and defeated. Also worth noting is that while they are defeated in Silver Snow as well, Verdant Wind is the only route to actually explain the history and motivations of the group.
• Theme Naming: The great houses are named after characters from King Lear.
• The Unfought: In Three Hopes, none of them are fought on the Azure Gleam route due to the Alliance siding with the Kingdom in Part II.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Just like the Leicester Alliance at large, the Golden Deer house is the least united at the start, and the students are prone to constant bickering. They eventually learn to trust each other and work together over the course of the Verdant Wind route.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • On the Silver Snow route, if not recruited, most of them make no appearances post-timeskip and their final fates are left ambiguous. The only exception is Lorenz (joins House Gloucester in subservience to the Empire and either dies or is re-recruited at Myrddin).
  • With the exception of Hilda (who has Plot Armor) and Lorenz (who is either killed or re-recruited at Myrddin), if they are left unrecruited on the Azure Moon route but survive the Battle of Gronder Field, what happens to them after is left unknown.
  • Marianne doesn't show up if not recruited in any route aside from Verdant Wind.

Pages:

• Part One
• Part Two

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