As it pertains to post-view discussion, all spoilers are unmarked.
Not every character debuting in Fire Emblem Heroes gets their time in the spotlight that many fans feel they deserve. Due to the short length of each Book and the way Intelligent Systems treats certain characters, some characters will inevitably end up getting the short end of the stick.
Book III
Book III is notoriously guilty of this, as only Alfonse and his Alternate Self Líf are given any real importance, leaving the rest of the Book III characters in the dust. For specifics:- Thrasir. She is an alternate version of Veronica, but older and under Hel's rule. With that, you'd think there'd be some interesting interactions between her and Veronica as well as the rest of the Order when they learn this and see how different she is from her younger counterpart and whether or not she's still affected by Embla's Curse. However, unlike Líf who has several chapters focused on him, Thrasir has only one chapter dedicated to her and even then, not much is learned about her before she's unceremoniously killed off.
- Hel. In comparison to her fellow Book villains, after traveling to the alternate Askr, Hel ended up getting sidelined like the above Book III characters, as the rest of the story focused on Alfonse and Líf, only appearing to remind Eir of her mission to betray the Order of heroes. It wouldn't be until the very last chapter after Líf is dead that she came back to face the Order again, but by then, it was far too late and she was immediately disposed off, leaving less of an impact than her fellow Book villians.
Book VI
While Book VI tried to wrap up the plot threads established in the first book, several characters end up getting the short end of the stick. Similarly to Book III, only Veronica, Letizia, and Embla feel like they are given importance, while the rest are barely given anything to do. For specifics:- Ash, despite being billed as the deuteragonist of the book like Fjorm, Eir, and other new characters, has very little to do in the story, sometimes not even appearing in chapters at all. Her ability to undo Embla's sealing magic at the cost of her limbs is only brought up once, and her relationship with Askr is not mentioned until his death. She has no real stakes in the story aside from being Askr's messenger essentially, and even though she later is given a degree of importance when Askr dies, the story focuses almost entirely on Veronica over Ash. Even the developers seem to be somewhat aware of this, as she was replaced by Veronica on the game's icon after the book VI midpoint update.
- Elm receives no characterization or backstory outside of brief mentions of his Undying Loyalty to Embla despite being a major antagonist since the start of the book. He comes across as a noticeable Flat Character in a game that is noted for giving its villains, especially those serving the Big Bad, strong characterization. Worse, as soon as Letizia is beaten, he immediately helps get Embla into the story, giving himself no time to really do anything aside from attacking the heroes on occasion.
- On a more minor note, the sudden appearance of Fallen Gustav in Chapter 7. There are a lot of possible interesting interactions with him in the story of Book VI since he was mentioned in a previous chapter, including his interactions with his children in the Order of Heroes, the fact that he has to fight again as a zombie and has to ask Alfonse to take him down again, how he was under the control of Letizia and the possibility that she could learn the ins and outs of Askr culture and its royalty through him and that Alfonse killed him in Book III, as mentioned in Book VI Chapter 5. Instead, he just delivers a single line in his introduction Chapter part and fights just like another mook on a later one. What's more jarring is that they chose to play Hel's theme for his line.
Book VII
The essence of Time Travel and having 6 characters from different time periods to juggle with proved to be much too difficult to handle, as only Gullveig and Seiðr were given any real time in the spotlight, whereas everyone else felt more like an afterthought. For specifics:- Heiðr, despite the fact that everyone knew she was destined to die due to being a sibling character like many others before her. She's the step-sister of Seiðr who also turns out to be the child of Gullveig and the Summoner after they made a rite together to create a child, as a part of Njörðr's plans to create the Golden Seer herself. Unfortunately, she barely gets any screentime before she turns into a monster and is promptly killed. This would have been fine, if it also wasn't for the fact that her death gets swept under the rug almost immediately afterwards, which is especially jarring due to how Seiðr took her death very hard when it happened. In the end, Heiðr's death turned out to be in vain, leaving many others to wonder as to why she was even included as a character in the first place. It doesn't help that there were multiple signs at first of her having some kind of greater connection to Gullveig, even implications she was the past version of her, only to not do anything with her.
- Kvasir. She's the past version of Gullveig and Seiðr, having experienced the grief that both Gullveig and Seiðr experienced after being betrayed by Njörðr to become the Golden Seer and end the world. She nurses the Summoner back to health in the past and even grows attached to them for the 100 days they're in the past, and afterwards she reveals she is Gullveig. The problem is that Kvasir doesn't do anything besides simply completing her role in the cycle by approaching Njörðr to let him know of Gullveig's existence and completing a ritual to turn into Seiðr. Even compared to Heiðr, where her role was that she was destined to die from the Golden Curse, Kvasir felt like she was included without any real idea what her role was supposed to be, which became notable due to how she barely felt important in the story until near the very end: During Chapter 12 when Gullveig brings Kvasir to the present and she dies unceremoniously at the hands of Alfonse and Seiðr without providing much to the story beyond her debut in Book VII, Chapter 2.
- Nerþuz is the aunt of Freyr and Freyja, and the younger sister of Njörðr. Despite this, her role in the story turned out to be very minimalist, being relegated as a glorified plot device who existed only to give the main heroes the MacGuffin needed to kill the villain. Despite the writers having the chance to expand more on her as a character and her relationship with everyone, it's all explained very briefly before being quickly forgotten about. While she was initially loved for her motherly personality and her voluptuous design, many fans were sorely disappointed to find out that Nerþuz's role in the story didn't really amount to anything meaningful.
- Njörðr suffered this fate the hardest out of everyone else. Throughout the story, Njörðr sought to help the Order of Heroes in their quest to stop Gullveig, but there were hints of something afoot due to his questionable orders and actions during it. Eventually, it was revealed that Njörðr was the one who wanted to turn Seiðr into Gullveig, by using his light to turn Heiðr into a monster and force Seiðr to put her own, thus allowing Njörðr to transfer the curse to Seiðr so that she would become Gullveig. After the twist was well-received, many people had high hopes for Njörðr as the main Book VII villain, only for the whole set-up to ultimately amount to nothing as not only is Njörðr‘s reasoning being a generic hatred of humanity, Gullveig immediately kills him off once he summons her at the end of Book VII, Chapter 10, and without any boss fight against him, to add salt to the wound. The fact that he was revealed to be evil only to die immediately after made many fans question why they made him evil at all, or killed him off anticlimactically.
