Fire Emblem - Television Tropes & Idioms

Turn Based Strategy series developed in-house by Nintendo's Intelligent Systems. The series innovated strategic role-playing games, later popularized in the west by games such as Final Fantasy Tactics. The series has spanned eleven games so far on six systems.

The series was originally released only in Japan until two characters from the series, Marth and Roy, appeared as unlockable fighters in Super Smash Bros. Melee, introducing the series as a whole to western gamers. They proved to be very popular fighters, and subsequent games in the series have been released worldwide. (Incidentally, they were originally only supposed to be in the Japanese version, included to promote the upcoming release of The Sword of Seals, but the localization team at Nintendo of America liked them and decided to leave them in; this is why the original Japanese voice actors are used.)

The series' appeal comes from its unique flavoring of the typical grid-based strategy game with Final Fantasy-esque RPG Elements. The games emphasize Character Development and story in addition to strategy and unit building — even relatively minor characters, included mostly just to flesh out the player's army, receive lots of Backstory and interaction with the other characters. Fans of the series spend just as much time admiring the depth of the characters and setting as they do debating the Character Tiers.

The series is semi-linear, as each verse will feature one to three interrelated games before moving on to a new universe.

Fire Emblem: The Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light is the first game in the series, released for the Family Computer in 1990. Prince Marth of Altea (who would appear in Super Smash Bros Melee and Super Smash Bros Brawl before the remake of the first game was released internationally) flees invasion from the neighboring kingdom ~~Dolua~~ Dolhr. With the help of his various allies, he searches for the legendary sword Falchion that will allow him to strike down the evil dragon Medeus.
Fire Emblem Gaiden was released for the Family Computer in 1992. It takes place in the same world as the first game, but on a different continent, and its plot has no bearing on the first game. It's the odd duck of the series, featuring a lot of unique gameplay elements that haven't been seen since. Fan Translation as of November 2009.
Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem was the first game in the series released for the Super Famicom, in 1993. It is both, a retelling of the original game and a sequel, giving players the option to skip to the sequel if they're already familiar with the original game. It was the subject of a two-part OVA series in Japan. Fan Translation as of March 2008.
BS Fire Emblem: Akaneia War Chronicles is a set of four maps that was released for the Satellaview and uses the previous game's engine. It was released in 1994 and was the last game set in Marth's universe. Fan numbering of the games (no games are officially numbered) generally do not count this one.

At this point, the series moved to a new world... (Recently noticed Word Of God places it in the same world, chronologically first)

Fire Emblem: Genealogy of Holy War, released for the Super Famicom in 1996, is a game that spans decades — after several chapters with one party, the game continues with the children of the original characters. The game contains a lot of unusual elements for the series, but it has many fans and is argued by many as the best game in the series as a result of its engrossing plot and deep character development system.
Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 has its fans as well. The last game released for the Super Famicom in 1999, it takes place in between the two halves of Genealogy of the Holy War. It uses the same gameplay system as the previous game, with the addition of Fog Of War — now a series staple — and a fatigue meter. This game is also notoriously NintendoHard.

With the Super Famicom in its last throes, the series was retired for three years, making the N64 the only Nintendo console not to see a Fire Emblem release, though one had been announced (different accounts have this as either becoming The Sword of Seals, Path of Radiance, or a completely-abandoned fourth game in the Akaneia saga). The series reemerged in a new world and in portable form, on the Game Boy Advance.

Fire Emblem: The Sword of Seals (also translated as The Binding Blade) stars Roy, Fire Emblem's other representative in Super Smash Bros Melee, as he attempts to repel the invading forces of Bern. The game received a mixed reception among fans, as it was forced to drop (due to technological constraints) many of the complexities the series had picked up on consoles, and the characters lacked depth in the opinion of some players. It did, however, introduce the super-popular "Support" feature, which allows characters to build their relationships by spending a lot of time together in battle and remains a big draw for the series.
Fire Emblem, known as Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword (also translated as The Sword of Flame) in Japan, was the first Fire Emblem game to see release outside Japan; thus, it was simply called Fire Emblem internationally. A prequel to Sword of Seals, it stars Roy's father, Eliwood, as he investigates the actions of the Black Fang brotherhood of assassins with his friends Hector and Lyn. This game remains the favorite of many western gamers because it features the longest quest and most replay value by far of the English-language games.
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones took place on a new world, Magvel, and starred the vaguely incestuous twins Eirika and Ephraim as they tried to stop the resurrection of the Demon King. While by no means bad, the game is derided by fans because the story mode is comparatively short and rather easy, especially due to the ease of Level Grinding.

The series made its long-awaited return to consoles in 2005 with the release of...

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, for the GameCube. Switching universes again, this installment stars mercenary Ike, the first non-noble main character of the series (and who replaces Roy as a Fire Emblem representative in Super Smash Bros. Brawl), as he aids Princess Elincia in reclaiming her kingdom of Crimea from the militaristic nation of Daein. Introduced in this universe are the Laguz, a human-like race with the abilities to shapeshift into animals. The series brought back many of the gameplay elements from the Super Famicom games that had to be dropped from the GBA ones, such as the skill system and hit-and-run tactics.
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is the tenth title in the series, released in 2007 for the Wii. Taking place three years after the conclusion of Path of Radiance, the title features many characters of the previous game and is divided into four plot arcs with each part having a different main character. The game starts with a new character, Micaiah, the leader of the Dawn Brigade, and her friend Sothe, who was a minor character in Path of Radiance. Their goal is to liberate the country of Daein (the enemy nation in the previous title), from the Begnion Empire (who aided Ike in the previous title). Following arcs feature Elincia, now queen of Crimea, dealing with rebellious nobles, and Ike and his mercenaries aiding the Laguz Kingdoms against an apparently corrupt Begnion, with the final arc bringing all the characters together in order to avert the destruction of their world.
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, is a Nintendo DS remake of the original Fire Emblem. It is the first game in the series to have a half decent multiplayer, complete with online play, and has a new feature that lets the player switch the classes of their units. With the release of Shadow Dragon, Marth is now the record holder for "longest delayed solo debut after a debut in another series".
- Incidentally, it also means that poor Lucas is now the only Japan-only playable character in Super Smash Bros Brawl.

In addition, as noted above, Fire Emblem is one of the featured series in Super Smash Bros. Melee had Marth and Roy, Brawl has Marth and Ike, Lyn (Fire Emblem) as an Assist Trophy, and the Castle Siege stage that features some of the typical locales encountered in the games.

This series provides examples of:

A Child Shall Lead Them (Sanaki, the 10-year-old empress of Begnion in Path of Radiance, who was 13 in Radiant Dawn)
Aerith And Bob (One one hand you have names like Guy, Joshua, Mia and Edward on the other you have names that are rarly used modernly like Kieran and on yet another mythological references like Oguma and Roland and THEN you have biblical names that are rarely used (for good reasons, most of them were smote) like Nabal (or however you translate it).
- When you have have Loads And Loads Of Characters and One Steve Limit in effect you need every name you can get.
- Still, Dorcas?
  - Oh, it's a real name.
  - For a female, that is.
  - Maybe his parents wanted a girl.
  - Micaiah is also a boy's name. It's from the Old Testament.
Aliens Made Them Do It (Manfroy brainwashs two half-siblings into breeding as part of his plan in Genealogy of Holy War)
All There In The Manual (A crapload of info about Fire Emblem 4's universe and background story is only revealed and / or told with more details in author's notes and guidebooks such as the Treasure book and the now-closed blog of Shouzou Kaga (the creator of the series). The same applies to Fire Emblem 1, 3, and Gaiden with notably the Fire Emblem : The Complete book, and Drama C Ds).
And Now For Someone Completely Different (done in many of the games)
Animorphism (Various titles in the series feature characters that can shapeshift into dragons, with Path of Radiance adding different species of felines and birds, and the Radiant Dawn adding wolves).
Anti Climax Boss (Quite a few. The Sacred Stones give you a bunch of weapons super effective against the final boss. A decent mage takes no damage from the Dragon (figurative, not literal in Shadow Dragon, and you merely need a special spell to bypass his damage immunity; depending on how much you've used Marth, the final boss himself is either easy or stupidly easy - the good Falchion can often take him out down in two hits. (If Marth's not doing so well, Tiki or Nagi, as well as someone using Parthia or Gradivus, will work wonders.) Then there's The Sword of Seals, where you have nine weapons that are super-effective against every enemy in the final two levels.)
Anvilicious (Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn's "racism is bad, mmkay?" Aesop can be pretty annoying especially since nothing new is really done with it)
Anyone Can Die (With how they treat death, the game was apparently designed with that thought in mind. The player can avert this, but it becomes irritatingly difficult.)
Arbitrary Headcount Limit (Both used and averted depending on the game)
Art Evolution (The series used semi-realistic sprites for battle until the GBA era, where it switched to a more cartoony, expressive style. As of Path of Radiance they've switched back to realistic models, although Radiant Dawn uses more vibrant colors to make the models stand out)
Authority Equals Asskicking (Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn: Elincia, first Princess and later Queen, is a phenomenally useful and powerful unit; the Laguz Royals seem to follow this as well, although in the case of the Beast and Bird Tribes it is stated to be more Asskicking Equals Authority)
Awesome But Impractical (Triangle attacks)
- They're extremely useful for things with insane amounts of HP, like cyclops(es?). Add the triangle attack with the pegasus knights' supports and you've got at least two guaranteed critical attacks, which naturally means "DEAD CYCLOPS IN TEN SECONDS."
Badass Adorable (Several, but Amelia from Fire Emblem 8: The Sacred Stones stands out)
Badass Normal (Again, several, but Nephenee is a BEAST)
Badass Longcoat (Raven's Hero outfit, Lloyd the Swordmaster, Soren and Sothe's 3rd tier outfits, etc.)
Big Damn Heroes (At the end of Act 2 of Radiant Dawn, Lucia is about to be executed by rebel Crimean forces with Queen Elincia looking on helplessly. Just as Lucia is about to be hung, the Greil Mercenaries show up out of nowhere to rescue her in such a heroic fashion that it really counts as Crowning Momentof Awesome as well.)
- Also, in Chapter 1 of Genealogy of the Holy War, Eltshan and the Cross Knights massacre Elliot's soldiers when they attempt to capture Evans.
Big Lipped Alligator Moment ("Battle Preparations" in The Blazing Sword. You've just decided to assault the Very Definitely Final Dungeon, the fate of the world hangs in the balance, Hector has just learned that his brother has died... and then without warning, an unexpected lesson in economics and trade. "[...] as Marquess Ostia, he gave a scathing indictment of the peer system."—What?)
Black Knight: Camus from Shadow Dragon, Ares / Aless from Genealogy of the Holy War, and the Black Knight of Tellius.
Black Screen Of Death
Boisterous Bruiser (Fargus and Dart in Fire Emblem. Vaida might be a female version of this trope. And Ross from The Sacred Stones seems to be a Boisterous Bruiser-in-training of sorts; just give him time.)
- Hector, of course!
Bow And Sword In Accord: Lyn, after her promotion.
Bowdlerise: Not as bad as other examples. Nintendo holds nothing back when it comes to death and the consequences of war (some dialogue can pretty descriptively violent for E-rated games). But other things such as drinking and swearing can be omitted. Best example is probably Lucia/Janaff's (PoR) support, in which any mention of drinking is instead replaced with "a night on the town" or something similar. In the same vein, some of the more explicit, unsavory messages are also ignored completely.
Breakable Weapons
Broken Record (This is a message from Lord Nergal. "I await you on the Dread Isle". Denning is one of the more popular characters because of it.)
Brother Sister Incest (Disturbingly enough, a recurring theme in the series. Toned down in the localizations [presumably to give Nintendo plausible deniability], but still noticeable.)
- In fact, part of Manfroy's plot in Genealogy of the Holy War is to use his mind control powers to have half-siblings Alvis and Diadora breed to create a vessel for their ancestor, a dark god. AND IT WORKS.
- And here is the 4th games family tree◊, and that's just that is absolute going by fixed/Thracia 776.
- How has no one mentioned Raven and Priscilla? She tries to get him to follow through with a childhood promise to marry her, in addition to caring for her big brother just a little too much and actually trying to scare off his friend, Lucius.
  - Klein and Clarine in that same universe. What is it with troubadours and their older brothers?
- Ephraim and Eirika, anyone? Technically qualifies as "twincest", but it sure is heavily implied in their support talks and ending.
Call A Rabbit A Smeerp (In Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, normal humans are referred to as "beorc," though beorc usually refer to themselves as humans, while laguz (the game world's other humanoid race), who dislike beorc, use the word "human" as an insult.)
Call Forward (Plenty of them exist in Shadow Dragon and Blazing Sword, neither of them make sense to non-japan players, as they never got released outside of Japan
Cap (Typically, characters can level up to level 20 in a base class before promoting to a higher class and again going to level 20. In Genealogy of Holy War, however, promotion occurred at level 20 and the character then went on to 30. In addition, each class has stat caps that play a large part in determining Character Tiers)
- And in Radiant Dawn, laguz go up to 40, while beorc go to 20, promote, go to 20, promote again, and then cap at 20.
- And in Shadow Dragon, Marth, ballista users and thieves can go up level 30 to make up for not promoting - funnily enough, units with a level 20 cap but can promote are always (barring certain exceptions) superior since they get more stats, total.
Captain Obvious (In Blazing Sword, you can pay a fortune teller to give you mission-specific advice. It's almost always along the lines of "Bring lots of lances. Swords and axes are good, too. You want magic and healing, so bring casters. You know what? Just bring everything you can. Use the forest for cover. Talk to green units and visit villages and stuff. Don't die.")
- However, occasionally the fortune-teller will mention a particular unit—this means you need that unit to recruit another unit.
Character Development (One of the reasons why the series is such a hit)
Character Level
Character Tiers (Debates over this encompass a big part of the fandom)
The Computer Is A Cheating Bastard (Enemies in Sword of Seals will almost always hurt you, even if their Hit is fifty or even thirty. Your own units can miss twice in a row even if they have an 80)
Crippling Overspecialization (Archers are helpless in a melee unless they're Rangers/Nomadic Troopers, and some classes like Clerics and Priests have no combat skills whatsoever.)
- Radiant Dawn attempted to balance this more by giving Crossbows to Archers and allowing staves to be used as weapons should a staff-user be attacked (though "No damage!" is a common reaction to getting hit with a staff). That being said, Healers should still never be attacked, and the Marksman class is almost a Game Breaker.
Crystal Dragon Jesus (The churches in most of the games are vaguely Roman Catholic in organization, but they usually worship "saints" — i.e., legendary heroes.)
Deadly Fireworks Display: Let's start with the fact that Ashnard is the only final boss in this series that doesn't fall victim to this trope and go from there...
Demonic Spider (The Dark Magi with their "reduce to 1 HP" spell in the Genealogy of Holy War. Despite the low accuracy, it still seems to hit you very often for some reason.)
Doomed Hometown (Most of the games begin with the heroes' entire country being invaded.)
Do Well But Not Perfect (All but the last of Shadow Dragon's Gaiden Chapters require that you keep your army at 15 or fewer units to unlock them - and the last one exists to give you another chance if you're missing both Tiki and Falchion, your best bets at beating the final boss.)
Dragon Rider
Dropped A Bridge On Him (Ephidel from Blazing Sword. For the first half of Eliwood/Hector's story, he fits quite nicely into the role of Enigmatic Dragon to Nergal...only for him to abruptly die when Nergal fails his first attempt at summoning a dragon.
Dropped A Bridget On Him (Lucius...Just, Lucius. [1]◊)
- Lampshaded:
Serra: But...to be a monk, don't you have to... be a... Well...a guy?
Lucius: Yes. Yes, you do.
- The support immediately following this is 90% Female Gaze from Serra. I'm not sure if that makes it Les Yay or what.
- No, no, it's more like, "omg, there's a guy that pretty?"
Drought Level Of Doom
Dual Wielding (Assassins and Pirates in the GBA games, purely aesthetic)
Dynamic Difficulty
Elemental Crafting (Typical order is Iron < Steel < Silver in terms of damage output and the reverse for durability, so weapon selection is not as straightfoward as in some other games. Legendary or unique weapons typically have high damage and decent durability. In Genealogy of the Holy War, all weapons had a flat 50 uses, so there was no reason not to switch to silver weapons when available except maybe the cost of keeping them in good repair.)
Elemental Rock Paper Scissors (The weapon and spell triangles.)
Ensemble Darkhorse (Gheb especially, but Batta The Beast and Glass also qualify)
- Denning qualifies to.
Estrogen Brigade Bait(You've got the Bishonens, manly muscular men, Pedobait, and Hot Grandpas.
Escort Mission (Sort of; some missions have you defending NPCs, but the NPCs in question are either irrelevant to your success, powerful fighters in their own right, or very easy to defend, so it's not really all that frustrating.)
- One notable exception: The chapter in Burning Sword where you have to cross the map covered in darkness and fight your way through a significant number of enemies to rescue the Prince, who has poor combat skills and one defender. Thankfully, his defender is an awesome Assassin, but he's only got so much durability on that sword. And if the Prince dies, you lose.
  - Did I mention the boss has a spell that hits you from 1/3 of the map away?
  - The game throws you a bone though - you can get a staff from a chest on the same level that teleports him nearby your staff user, making him much easier to defend.
  - You also recruit a Lethal Joke Character on that mission. This Troper finds she is harder to defend than the Prince.
Everyone Is Related - Especially in Genealogy of the Holy War, where it's a game mechanic.
Everythings Better With Spinning (Many, many critical hit animations in some way)
Evil Overlooker
Evil Old Folks(The villains always have a couple of old men on their side. They'll usually be a Sinister Minister or Mighty Glacier.)
Exclusive Enemy Equipment (Lots of 'em. You can tell whether or not you can obtain an item from an enemy if the name is flashing in its menu.)
Expy (The Archetypes)
- Ike was also at least partially based on Hector (http://www.nintendo.co.jp/nom/0505/1_3/index.html )
Eyepatch Of Power (~~Lawrence~~ Lorenz, Sevr, Haar, Zephiel)
Faceless Goons (You can easily tell whether a character is a nameless mook or a main character by whether their eyes are visible. Soldiers will always be shown with their helmets obscuring their eyes; in the Tellius games, Laguz soldiers' eyes are obscured by their hair.)
Fake Difficulty (Radiant Dawn, where Hard Mode disables the ability to check the enemy's movement and attack range. You have to count them yourself.)
Fantastic Racism (The various shapeshifting Laguz tribes are called "sub-humans" by many beorc/humans. This is not limited to your enemies; some between chapter dialogue has your own characters referencing your own laguz characters as sub-humans. And it goes both ways, too... a laguz calling a beorc 'human' is the same as a beorc calling a laguz 'sub-human', and it happens more than once.)
- Most characters get better though except Shinon who is a Jerkass and never learns the lesson, not even by the end Radiant Dawn)
  - While Lethe learns to treat beorc better, she still makes sweeping generalizations about them, implies they are inferior in their customs, and the word "human" escapes her lips sometimes. It's why Shinon/Lethe is this troper's favorite Crack Pairing. RACISTS IN LUV!
- There's also the Sacaens in The Blazing Sword, which are referred to as "nomadic mongrels" and such by the villains
Fan Translation (Given that all the Fire Emblem games from The Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light to The Sword of Seals were never released outside of Japan...)
Final Death (Everyone, if you're careless enough to lose them.)
- Though important non-Lord characters just get a major injury so they can still participate in the plot.
- Or so they can return in the Prequel.
  - You've got that backwards; it's because it is the prequel that they're not dying, because they've already been confirmed to live. Except some characters avert this for no apparent reason.
- In Genealogy of the Holy War, one of the characters in the first party has a staff that can bring a character back to life. It only has one use, though.
- Such a staff exists in Shadow Dragon as well.
Fog Of War (Some stages are covered in fog. Be sure to bring Torches, a Staff Chick with a Torch staff and/or Thieves and Rogues. You'll NEED them.)
Forced Tutorial (Blazing Sword)
Fragile Speedster (Myrmidons, Pegasus Knights, Thieves)
Gaiden Game (Fire Emblem Gaiden and Thracia 776; the former actually has the word Gaiden on its title)
Game Breaker (Certain units can become this with the right development.)
- Sety is a good example, you actually have to be careful not to get his stats too high, or the enemies won't attack them, meaning he will only kill 1 a turn.
- Many times it's just an item. Roy is usually pretty mediocre, but once he gets the Sword of Seals, he can pretty much kill anything in the game single-handedly, including the final boss. The Luna tome in Fire Emblem 7 may be even worse, as it enables Canas to destroy essentially any enemy or boss, even those that are at a much higher level than him (the company adjusted the stats of the Luna tome in subsequent games, not surprisingly).
- Ike in "Radiant Dawn", after going to his max level with a certain sword, basically becomes a ridiculously powerful Battle God. The funny thing is that by the time you reach the final boss, that's pretty much what it takes to win.
  - Ike was more of a Game Breaker in Path of Radiance. The game in general is easier, Ike has absurd growths for a non-prepromote beorc character, his affinity is regarded as being the best in the game (YMMV of course), and Aether is just silly broken. It's important for the Black Knight and final boss fights, but aside from those two dudes he laughs in the face of most maps, even on hard mode.
Gameplay And Story Segregation (Those who are implied powerful in the story tend to be the Jeigan Characters, except for that final character you get that can kill everything. Also, the defining characteristic of the two different types of fans of the games.)
Geo Effects
Give Me A Sword
Global Currency (Some nations are implied to use different coinage, but the merchants there take your money just the same.)
Goddamned Bats (Enemy magic users with Sleep or Berserk staves. Especially in Genealogy of the Holy War, where enemy-exclusive Sleep staves had near-perfect accuracy and unlimited uses.)
Good Bad Bugs (Radiant Dawn's "fix" of the bonus XP system from Path of Radiance actually made the system more broken. While Path of Radiance was merely Save Scumable, Radiant Dawn guarantees 3 stats gains a level up, even if all the stats most likely to grow are maxed, meaning they gain otherwise unlikely to grow stats.)
Gonk (Many bosses will be this. There will always be at least one on the side of the good.)
Good Scars Evil Scars (Legault has good scars. Nergal has evil scars.)
- Dieck also has good scars. Garret too, kinda.
- Vaida...well, she can be made to do a Heel Face Turn, but she still doesn't look so good. Well Intentioned Extremist Scars?
- Brendan Reed and Fargus also have good-ish scars all over the place. Same with Uther's across-the-nose and forehead scars.
- Oguma's X-shaped scar on his cheek.
- Gerik's got a HUGE slash across his face.
Goshdang It To Heck (Variation, characters use archaic slurs like "Craven cur!" "Blackheart!" and "dastard!" (the root of dastardly))
- It seems Nintendo was slipping in Radiant Dawn, however.
  - Then again, a Soldier does say "Moldey Onions".
- "What in the blazes?" is also pretty common
Heel Face Turn (If one of your enemies has a name and a face, either they are a boss or they will join your party if you fulfill certain conditions (usually just talking to them with a certain character in your party). Occasionally both.)
He Knows About Timed Hits (The Blazing Sword, the first game in the series released outside Japan, contained "Lyn's Tale", an unskippable ten-chapter prologue to the main quest that explained the game's mechanics in excruciating detail, complete with forced moves and luck manipulation. Japanese veterans of the series were none too pleased with it, and American players who had read the manual routinely curse it as well. Later games made the tutorials optional, and replaying Lyn's quest in "Hard Mode" allows the player to ignore the tutorials.)
- This isn't He Knows About Timed Hits, it's just Forced Tutorial. The characters tell you what to do, but an impersonal voice explains how to use the game interface to perform those actions. And it's not skippable the first time.
  - It also forces you to use an item to promote someone eight levels early, even if you know that's a horrible idea in the long run. It can be avoided with a glitch, but who is going to find that out the first time?
He Knows Too Much (in Seisen no Keifu, this is certainly Alvis's excuse for killing Sigurd at the end of Chapter 5)
Heroic Bastard (Guinivere in Fuuin no Tsurugi is a female version of this trope; Soren and Stefan in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn are also both heroic and illegitimate.)
Heroic Lineage (Every lord except Ike, Genealogy of Holy War has this as a game mechanic)
- Even Ike has a somewhat heroic lineage, as his father was one of Daein's best generals, and one of Tellius' best swordsmen.
Hero Of Another Story Fire Emblem 4 is particularly susceptible to this, given the epic nature of the storyline and cast. Examples include Eltshan and Leaf (who actually gets to BE the hero of his "other story" in Fire Emblem 5.)
Heterosexual Life Partners (A surprisingly large number of characters in the games are like this. Lucius and Raven are the obvious example, but the red and green knights are almost always Heterosexual Life Partners, as are the best friends of any lord)
Hidden Elf Village (Arcadia)
Hide Your Lesbians (Strangely enough Heather has a line about "joining because of all the pretty girls" removed in the localizations, but her homosexuality is still kept obvious)
- Also, Florina's horrific androphobia, in addition to the way that she flat-out says "I love you!" to Lyn at the end of Lyn's Mode...
Hit Points
Ho Yay (Every game...every game)
- In Radiant Dawn, Micaiah lampshades it: "general Ike: Leader of the Greil mercenaries, "Hero"" of the Crimean liberation, and father of Sothe's children..."
  - Did we also mention Ike and Soren's special ending?
  - You mean where Ike goes to discover potentially dangerous lands and Soren goes with him to help him? Yeah, I do
I Let You Win (the Black Knight in Path of Radiance, according to a Woolseyism)
Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy (You can miss with a tornado. And a meteor.)
Infallible Babble
Interchangeable Antimatter Keys
Insufferable Genius (Lute from The Sacred Stones comes off like this)
Item Crafting (Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, and Shadow Dragon )
Jeigan Character (The Trope Namer, with examples in every title)
Justified Tutorial (Lyn's story)
Just Think Of The Potential (Lyon and the sacred stone of Grado)
Large Ham (Sain, full stop.)
- Kieran from Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn as well.
- Oliver from Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn in a more literal sense on top of the actual trope's meaning.
Left Justified Fantasy Map (Elibe and Tellius. Archanea, Jugdral, and Magvel avert this, though.)
Les Yay (Just as common as the Ho Yay).
Level Five Onix
Level Grinding (Arena Abusing, though Sacred Stones also had the Tower of Valni and various Revenant skirmishes to use between chapters)
- If you have a healer and attacker with several spare staves and weapons, you can trade hits with a (not overpowering) boss and gain experience for participating in combat and healing your attacker. Lots of conditions, though.
Light Is Not Good (Radiant Dawn and to a lesser extent Sword of Seals)
- Also Kenneth, who says that he delights in the suffering of man, then proceeds to pull out some holy spells on you.
- Riev, an evil bishop of Grado.
Lightning Bruiser (Social Knights, or Cavaliers as they are called this side of the Pacific)
Loads And Loads Of Characters (thus invoking Character Magnetic Team and Hitchhiker Heroes)
Luck Based Mission (In Battle Before Dawn, there's no physical way to reach Jaffar in time to guarantee that he will live on Hector's Hard Mode. If he dies, you don't get a side chapter)
- Also Ike's fight with the Black Knight in Path of Radiance. Ike at caped strength does 9 damage, you have 10 blows (if you rasied Mist and Ike doesn't have to waste a turn on an elixir), the Black Knight has 60 HP and recovers 6 HP every turn for 5 turns. It involves no skill whatsoever and hinges entirely on whether he activates his Aether skill at least once (or whether he hits the Black Knight on every single attack). If he does, you win. If he doesn't, you don't. Simple as that. The odds are a bit better (but still random) if you use the Wrath/Adept combo instead of Aether, but the opinions for giving that to Ike are mixed.
  - And if you want to unlock Lehran in the sequel, you need Ike to have at least 27 speed if you want to survive an encounter with him again. This is easy enough if you're using a PoR save file, but if not your Ike will have only 23 speed initially, meaning you need to Save Scum in order to make sure he gains speed with every level or you're screwed.
  - Lehran nothing! If you want the super-special Soren/Ike convo during the Endgame, you have to have him defeat Pelleas! There is no way in hell you're going to get over there fast enough, so your only chance is to have a mounted unit ferry him nearby, hope that Soren can dodge at least ten consecutive attacks (one of which might be a character you've leveled up during Micaiah's chapters), then Meteor him. And maybe have to wait another turn and survive another barrage if the first Meteor didn't work!
- In Blazing Sword chapter 14, you have to run halfway across the map to talk to Erk to recruit him back. Unfortunately, he's immediately beset by two horsemen that will kill him if he doesn't dodge at least one. If you don't reach him by the time he kills both (probably rather quickly if he got many levels in the prologue), he'll run off and provoke the boss.
Luck Stat (Vaguely described, it increases accuracy and evasion while lowering the enemy's chance of landing a critical hit.)
Mad Lib Fantasy Title (Try typing "The Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light" with a straight face. It's not easy.)
- Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light is much easier, but still an example.
Magnificent Seven (the mercenary group in Path of Radiance)
Marth Debuted In Smash Bros (The other side of the Trope Namer, of course; two Smash games, and it still look Marth eight years from the the release of Melee and nineteen years from his original Famicom debut to finally jump the Pacific solo!)
- Quit forgetting that OVA!
Meaningful Name (Roy has origins in words meaning both red (hair) and king, Ayra/Ira, while not the names real life origin (where it is short for Irene), is wrath in Latin. These may be coincidental though.)
- Marth is a weird example, early translations gave his name as Mars (you know, after the god of war?) but now Marth seems to be the primary translation
- Most of the common names have meaning, too. Hector was named for Hector of Troy, Leila was named for a harem girl in a poem, Raven was named for the titular raven from Edgar Allen Poe's poem, etc.
  - Hector has a double-meaning; since he has a brother named Uther (you know, like the biological father of King Arthur), he might also be named after Ector, Arthur's foster father.
- And most characters in Seisen no Keifu are named for someone suitably obscure in Celtic mythology. You'll never read The Fate Of The Sons Of Usnach quite the same way again...
- Soren (Senerio in Japanese) is an interesting case of having two different names, and both of them being meaningful. In Japanese, it's a play on the word "scenario" (Soren being the Tactician), but his English name, Soren, comes from the Italian name Severino, which means a short, grouchy guy.
- Does Sanaki dropping giant fireballs of Shakespeare count?
- Nearly every place-name in the series is either cribbed from or suspiciously similar to the old name for European territories; Crimea, Gallia, Ostia... there's also the world of the Ike games, Tellius, based on Tellus, the Roman name for the mother earth goddess. It's best not to think too hard about these names, as most of them seem to be totally random.
Medieval European Fantasy
Memetic Mutation (Is Marth or Roy in this game?)
Mercy Rewarded (in particular, the Capture feature of Thracia 776)
- In Path of Radiance, sparing the Laguz bandits in chapter 15 and the priests in chapter 22 also rewards you with bonus experience and one of the best staffs in the game, respectively.
Mighty Glacier (Knights. Clad in full plate armor, wielding heavy spears. Very hard to kill without magic, powerful enough to one shot many other classes, but slow as molasses.)
Misanthrope Supreme (Zephiel in The Sword of Seals)
The Mistress
Monster Arena
Moral Event Horizon (Torabant, it sure is brave of you to use a 3-year-old girl's life in blackmailing an already heavily disadvantaged army into surrendering its only hope of surviving the massacre you're trying to deal to it)
Multiple Endings (Usually determined by specific character supports)
- Mystery of the Emblem and The Sword of Seals both end early if you didn't get all of the items you need.
Musical Nod (The Arena themes are the battle music from previous games, and that is just one of the smaller examples.)
My Country Right Or Wrong (Pretty much every single game)
Nice Job Breaking It Hero (In Blazing Sword, if you get the best Tactician rating, the game says (and I quote) that you "changed the course of history" and that "Bern and Etruria (the countries fighting in Sword of Seals) so desired this skilled mind that they went to war". Granted, they still go to war if you do poorly, but...)
Nintendo Hard - (Especially the ones released only in Japan (before The Blazing Sword)
- Even amongst them, Thracia 776 should be the winner of Nintendo Hard for its "unique" flavor of difficulty. Seriously.
- Radiant Dawn. Oh, gosh, RADIANT DAWN.
No Casualties Run (thanks to Final Death)
No Export For You (The entire series until, you know...)
Non Entity General
Non Linear Sequel
No One Could Survive That (the Black Knight is buried under Nados Castle when it collapses. He survives.)
Nostalgia Level (Chapter 14, with 1-10 being a tutorial, of the 7th game is in the same place and identical to chapter 4 of the 6th with the same character as the boss. Hector chapter 25 of the 7th game has an objective, capture every castle, mirroring the objective of every chapter from the 4th game)
The Obi Wrong (Titania in Path of Radiance. While never actually demoted, her subordinate and student Ike gets promoted to leadership. Unlike most examples, this was actually a source of conflict and everyone there had to choose whether to follow him or not. Some of them don't. Titania does.)
One Steve Limit (A few exceptions exist, like Aran from Radiant Dawn and Arran from Shadow Dragon, but the first was named Brad in the Japanese version. A legitimate exception is Lynn from Genealogy of Holy War and Lyn from The Blazing Sword as well as Linde/Linda from Akaneia and Linda from Genealogy of the Holy War (recurring NPC Jake will comment on her familiarity.)
- Though Lyn from the Blazing Sword/Rekka no Ken was actually named Lyndis.
- Radiant Dawn has Amy and Aimee in the same game. This is another example of a name change clash, the 2nd originally (she keeps this original name in Shadow Dragon) being Larabel
Optional Party Member (If you didn't steal soldiers from the opposing side, you'd almost never make it through the game.)
Our Dragons Are Different (And not even consistent across the various games.)
Our Wights Are Different (One of the enemy units in The Sacred Stones.)
Overly Long Fighting Animation (Some of the stronger spells in each game. Luckily, you can turn off battle animations.)
- It doesn't help that the animations for everything but Genealogy of the Holy War and Radiant Dawn are all so stiff, making every animation overly long.
Overrated And Underleveled (Too many examples to name, although there are several notable exceptions too, like Sety, Percival, Lord Pent, etc.)
Panty Shot (a few characters in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, Ilyana is very prone to them in Path of Radiance)
- One of Eirika's support conversations questions the practicality of wearing a miniskirt on a battle field, this leads to her flashing Forde.
Perfect Run Final Boss (Sword of Seals: defeating Zephiel with all legendary weapons intact unlocks a few extra chapters, including the real final boss fight)
- This troper thinks that this also constitutes an instance of Anticlimax Boss. Those legendary weapons make Idoun a pushover compared to Zephiel.
Personality Blood Types (The Japanese version of The Blazing Sword allows you to choose' the blood type of Mark, the player character. To absolutely no effect.)
Plotline Death ( Lawrence in Mystery of The Emblem's Book 2, Sigurd and almost all of his army halfway through Genealogy of Holy War; Hector near the beginning of Sword of Seals, Ninian towards the end of Blazing Sword; Greil and Rajaion in Path of Radiance; Pelleas in Radiant Dawn under most circumstances; your decoy in Shadow Dragon.)
- Leila is killed by Jaffar halfway through Blazing Sword
Power Up Let Down: Kieran's Gamble. Not so much if you take it off of him and give it to someone with a high accuracy.
- Snipers in The Sacred Stones have a skill that randomly activates, ensuring a hit... but the game is so easy and Snipers typically have a very high Skill stat that they almost always have 100% accuracy anyway.
  - In the Radiance games Snipers are given "Deadeye" instead, a skill which puts enemies to sleep. Would be useful if Rolf and Shinon were even halfway capable of not one-shotting anything they touch.
Psycho Serum (The drugs used by Daein on the laguz)
Precursor Heroes (Ahem)
Purely Aesthetic Gender (Aside from very minor stat cap variations, gender is irrelevant.)
- Gender comes into play when comparing to characters of the same class. If you notice, the female characters often have lower constitution (Wendy,Lilina) than their male counterparts.
- Though given the number of characters, even a minor variation can bump someone up a rank.
Rage Quit: Game mechanic ensuring your allies stay Deader Than Dead when they hit 0 HP conflicts with those who don't want to see their allies die.
Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits (The player usually starts with a small core of professionals that know each other, but by the end will have recruited and used a a whole bunch of miscellaneous weirdoes.)
- In The Blazing Sword, the player is given both the magic general of all of Etruria (the most magically proficient country in the world) and an illiterate fourteen-year-old girl you recruit from the bad guys. The girl has the potential to be one of the best magic users in the game (It is debatable if she has enough time to reach it).
Random Number God (In addition to the usual complaints about misses and critical hits, the levelling/stats system used in many of the games can, at the whim of the RNG, turn a character into an unstoppable monster or a useless waste of space. Characters with 'average' stat growths (around 30%) are particularly prone to this.)
Red Baron: (Nearly everyone has a nickname, from Karel "The Sword Demon" to most of the bosses you face (any Black Fang worth his/her salt has a nickname, from Jaffar, "Angel of Death" to Lloyd the "White Wolf". Even the weaker members get their own nicknames, like Teodor the Shrike, that that they prefer to go by rather than their real names.)
- This troper recalls the Shrike being Kenneth's nickname though.
  - Thanks to a translation error, they were both given the same nickname. So much for "unique" names, huh?
Red Eyes Take Warning (Averted: red-eyed characters are not necessarily evil. On the other hand, they do tend to be dragons, or at least related to dragons.)
Reincarnation Romance: (Julius and Ishtar is essentially Azel and Tiltyu's romance reincarnated, one born from an bastard child and the other forced to continue the bitter legacy.)
The Red Mage
Redemption Earns Life (For all the mooks who perform a Heel Face Turn.)
Relationship Values (The support conversations)
The Remnant ("The Ghosts of Bern" in The Sword of Seals. Also, the remaining forces of Grado in The Sacred Stones are actually called The Remnant)
Restored My Faith In Humanity (Gotoh's lost his belief in humans because they used the magic he gave them for fighting wars. Marth restores his faith by... fighting a war (for a virtuous cause but...).)
- Ike can also restore Lehran's faith in humanity in Radiant Dawn, albeit only on the second playthrough, and after fulfilling an insane amount of requirements besides.
RPG Elements
Save Scumming ("Start-of-turn-save" in Genealogy of Holy War, "Battle Save" in Radiant Dawn, and to a lesser extent, the save points in Shadow Dragon at least make Save Scumming possible. Path of Radiance let's you reset if bonus XP doesn't result in enough level ups. On the other hand, the trope is averted in all other games.)
Saving The World
Say My Name (In Radiant Dawn, Tormod yells "SOOOOOOOOOTHE", leading up to a conversation making this editor absolutely love Tormod's character)
- Also, in The Blazing Sword, a good half of the dialogue between Eliwood and Ninian consists of them saying each other's name
Sealed Evil In A Can (The titular Fire Emblem in three games!)
Sealed Good In A Can (...Except that one time the titular object wasn't what we thought it was)
Shaggy Dog Story (At the end of Thracia 776, Leaf successfully led a rebellion and triumphantly reclaimed Lenster. Cut to the opening of the sixth chapter of Holy Wars, and Lenster's defenders are down to just Leaf, Nanna, and Fin.
She Is All Grown Up (Many characters between the various direct sequels. Mia is flat chested in Path of Radiance, but has memetic boob size in Radiant Dawn)
Ship To Ship Combat (Every single game. Example: In The Blazing Sword, the Lyn x Hector vs Eliwood vs Kent vs Rath vs Florina + whatever else comes to mind. And please, for the love of peace on the internet, do not bring up Roy's heritage...)
- Roy is Eliwood's son.
  - Roy's mother has bluish-green hair.
- If she's supported with Sain, Serra lampshades this at Lyn's expense.
Shotacon (Look◊ where Micaiah has her Healing Hands)
Shoot The Medic First (This would be a straighter example if the enemy has more and effective healers on their side; alas, they usually don't. Rest assured, put your own Clerics in harm's way, and the enemy will go right after them.)
Slap Slap Kiss (Lyn and Hector, Farina and Dart, Serra and Erk/Matthew, L'Arachel and Innes/Rennac/Ephraim, Clarine and Rutger...)
- Rebecca and Wil even has her kick him in the stomach
Sorting Algorithm Of Weapon Effectiveness
Spanner In The Works (Kishuna in the first chapter he appears in Blazing Sword. The boss (who, incidentally, comes off as a chessmaster-type character, what with remarks like "battle is an equation") of that chapter has long-range magic that will do some nasty damage to your non-magic party members...had the aforementioned Magic Seal not made his conveniently-timed unexpected appearance.)
Spell My Name With An S (Except for Shadow Dragon, a Nintendo DS remake of the Famicom game The Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light, none of the titles before Fire Emblem have official English releases. Due to the vagaries of Japanese transliteration of foreign names (usually of legendary weapons), this troper has seen the Gae Bolg referred to as the Gay Borg in more than one FAQ for Genealogy of the Holy War. For that matter, Nintendo themselves seem to have trouble, turning Turpin into Durban and Almace into Armads. Admittedly, once Archbishop Turpin from the Song of Roland became an axewielding berserker, all bets were off.)
- ~~Nabal~~ ~~Nabarl~~ ~~Nabaaru~~ ~~Navahl~~ ~~Navarre~~ The guy with the killing edge in chapter 3 of the original game that you can recruit, takes the cake. He doesn't even have the same translation in the American and European releases of Shadow Dragon.
  - Neither does Shiida/Caeda. Sigh.
  - Which possibly clears up the proper pronunciation of Caelin...or is that Ciaran?
  - The character in the Book of Samuel is generally accepted as Nabal, but Navarre is also a location in Spain, so going by meaningful names does not really help.
- ~~Kyza~~ ~~Kysha~~ Ranulf's asskissing subordinate in Radiant Dawn was definitely the precursor to our Shadow Dragon woes.
- This troper was rather horrified to see the original name of Gerik (Sacred Stones): Xyst. There are few ways of pronouncing that without making it sound like cancer.
Spikes Of Villainy (Ashnard, subverted by Harken, Echidna, Jeigan...)
Spiritual Successor - (Tear Ring Saga for the PlayStation, which was designed by Fire Emblem creator Shozo Kaga. In fact, Nintendo sued Enterbrain, the publisher of the game, for copyrights infringement, but lost the case.)
Squishy Wizard (Most magic users have terrible defense. Some try to compensate with crazy dodging skills.)
Stone Wall (Armor Knights—although their attack power is average at worst, they have the mobility of a whale)
Stupid Sexy Flanders (Lucius)
- Also Soren to a degree.
- And Legault
Subtext (Florina and Lyn from Fire Emblem certainly seem to share a Xena/Gabrielle dynamic early on in the game. Well, mostly Florina, a Shrinking Violet who admits to being afraid of men. She eventually matures and recovers from it, but the subtext is still clearly there, so much that she and Lyn have an ending. Heather from Radiant Dawn joins because "of all the pretty girls" and refers to every female she has a conversation with (and one she doesn't) as cute or lovely. For dudes, look no further than Raven and Lucius, or Legault mock-flirting with Heath.)
- How could anyone leave out the (admittedly dulled down) subtext between Ike and Soren in Radiant Dawn? Along with Ike's nearly painful discomfort with the various women who express interest in him (and Soren's uncharacteristically explosive reactions), if their support level is high enough, the pair have a special ending that gives a serious "more than just friends" vibe. Besides, they just fit so comfortably into the Yaoi archetype…
  - The only woman who makes Ike uncomfortable is Aimee; he gets along well enough with Elincia and Mia, for example. Then again, Aimee is the only one who really tries to seduce Ike.
Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome (Inverted, many of the characters from 7, a prequel, are explained as not appearing in 6 by dieing. Canas ~~is killed by continuity errors~~ dies in a blizzard in his ending. Shin's recruitment has Sue express concern about her grandfather, but not her father (her mother can be explained as being sent away with the woman and children like she was). Nino vanishes so her children can be left orphans. Hector started as a character who's main purpose was to die. Eliwood is ill and close to death.)
Tactical Rock Paper Scissors (The weapon and magic triangles)
Tear Jerker: (Just one too many...)
- To this troper, the death phrase of Lute in Sacred Stones is a big one.
The Dragon: One per game, the most notable being the Black Knight, who acts as The Dragon for Ashnard and later, Micaiah and Sephiran.
Tier Induced Scrappy - Low to bottom Tier characters are treated as trash by the fanbase regardless of their backstory. High to God tier characters however are worshipped.
The Strategist - (The player character in The Blazing Sword.)
- Soren in Path of Radiance and Malledus in Shadow Dragon
- August and Dorias in Thracia 776 and Elphin in Sword of Seals as well.
Those Two Guys (Every game has two cavaliers, one red and one green, who fit this trope. They usually come as a pair. Oscar and Kieran, Kyle and Forde, Sain and Kent...)
Throwing Your Sword Always Works (Ike's Aether, Mercenary and Hero critical hits)
- Oddly enough however, swords are the only weapon type that doesn't have a common throwable version. The rare sword types that do have a ranged option are usually magical.
Timed Mission (In terms of turns, not actual passing time.)
Too Awesome To Use (Legendary weapons, Hammerne staff, Mines, and more)
- Radiant Dawn averts this by giving a selected weapon for each character unlimited uses for the last 3 chapters.
- Manaketes seem to fall under this category too (once the Dragonstone runs out, they're useless). However, give one an endgame chapter and no doubt they'll near his/her level cap by the end with several charges to spare.
Translation Style Choices (The various localizations offer different angles on characterization. It makes for a lot of Squee amongst fanfiction writers)
Unexpected Successor (Ashnard in Path of Radiance)
Unusual Euphemism (Marcia from Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn swears with food items. "Oh, crackers, I don't have time for this!")
Vapor Wear (Ilyana's 3rd tier outfit in Radiant Dawn, and in one drawing in the idle mode for Shadow Dragon, Sheeda)
Videogame Caring Potential
We Cannot Go On Without You (The death of your Lord character means an automatic game over.)
- Also applies during a lot of missions where you don't have to rout the enemy, just defeat the boss.
What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic (A lot of characters are named after mythological figures, and while there are a few examples where they make sense, there's clearly some thrown in just for the hell of it. Please don't dig too deeply into why a guy would name his wyvern after the Greek God of Sun.)
Where Are They Now Epilogue
Why Wont You Die (Nergal, to Elbert)
The Wise Prince (Sigurd in Genealogy of Holy War, Eliwood in The Blazing Sword, Elincia in Path of Radiance, and Pelleas in Radiant Dawn)
You ALL Look Familiar (All generic enemies look the same. Justified -- sort of — that nine times out of ten, you're fighting an opposing army and your enemies are uniformed soldiers. However, if there's an enemy unit that both has a name and isn't a boss, there's a very good chance they can be convinced to defect.)
- Indeed, it is almost Color Coded For Your Convenience, with the change that rather than being 'white' and 'black' it is 'dead sexy' and 'generic or hideous'.
You ALL Share My Story
You Gotta Have Blue Hair
Your Milage May Vary The fan opinion of Marth's DS remake and art style change. This also doubles as They Changed It Now It Sucks . You either love it or hate it, there is no middle ground.
Zettai Ryouiki (Pegasus knights, most cavalry/aerie, and the occasional sage and swordmaster)
- Get over here, Nephenee!