YMMV / Fire Emblem: Awakening

A

• Adorkable:
  • Chrom is a brave and charismatic warrior prince, but as seen in his supports with a female Avatar and Olivia, he has his share of dorky moments.
  • Sumia is so clumsy, yet tries so hard...
  • Believe it or not, Tharja has her moments. Her S support with Libra is a good example, when he manages to completely catch her off guard with his "confession".
  • Stahl's awkward cuteness is very apparent in his romantic supports.
  • Easily seen with Lon'qu when he's on an event tile with his family or a female character, where he loses most of his usual composure. His confession scene is this incarnate.
  • Henry is a very creepy example, but adorable nonetheless. His sincere effort in helping Lissa sleep with 'Super Sleepy-Time Curse, the nonlethal version'^*Even if it involves fresh sacrifice every time, sincerely wanting to help a wounded puppy instead of Mercy Killing it, as Olivia originally thought, the list goes on. Especially that face he makes whenever he's nervous. And given this is Henry we're talking about here, making him nervous in the first place is no mean feat.
  • Donnel's admiration of soldiers, need to feel useful, and exaggerated humbleness define Donnel.
  • Who knew that a massive badass like Priam could be as cute as a blushing school boy when he tells a female Avatar that he likes her?
  "HUZZAH!!!"
  • Inigo's repeated — and sometimes desperate — attempts at winning over women are very endearing.
  • Despite being very intelligent, Morgan can get carried away sometimes. For example, they believe the best way to regain their memories is to repeatedly hit themself in the head with something large and heavy.
  • Yarne's exclamations like "My foot is good luck!" can be very cute.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • The relationship and child mechanics in the game, and how "Stop Having Fun" Guys abuse them, has resulted in the Avatar often being played as a psychotic control freak who wholeheartedly subscribes to eugenics. As one such person put it, "Fire Emblem isn't about romance! It's about breeding an army of super-soldiers!", which considering the Avatar's own origins, becomes rather Hilarious in Hindsight.
  • Some fans also commonly portray the Avatar as a master of sarcasm and snark (sometimes eclipsing Severa), with some quip at the ready and constantly making good-humored jabs at others. This itself has not shown up in the game (but they do have their moments), but it crops up frequently in fan works. In keeping with the minor differences in the game, fans portray the male avatar as mellower, snarkier, and more deadpan than the female avatar, who's slightly more aggressive. This is even supported by their children: A Female Avatar will give birth to a male Morgan, who is portrayed as a prodigy like his mother, but incredibly dense towards his targets of affection. The Male Avatar will instead have a female Morgan who is just as much of a genius as her father, but is insanely peppy, energetic, and hilariously amorous towards her love interests.
  • Since the Avatar can marry any other character of the opposite sex (besides Morgan, obviously) and gets plenty of Ho Yay / Les Yay on top of that, some fans also interpret them as a Harem-Seeking Casanova to put even Inigo to shame.
  • The Grimleal. All bad guys in it are doing it for the power or people blindly following tradition. Gangrel's words about tough times forcing the citizens of Plegia to join the Grimleal, the only religion available, as well as that Validar's direct paternal ancestors were all failed Grima vessels lends some support to the latter.
  • Walhart. Either he's a badass Tsundere who needs a lot of time to warm up to people and stray from his old Conqueror ways to truly create world peace, or he is an unrepentant hard ass who's responsible for many people's deaths and is quite possibly a worse parent than even Tharja (in the English Localization).
  • Emmeryn. Either she's a sweet lady who is completely undeserving of what Gangrel put her through back in Chapter 9 and is a genuinely kind person, or she needs to get a reality check and whose sacrifice in Chapter 9 rendered the deaths of many people utterly pointless, such as Mustafa (which makes no sense, as his death was very much not a consequence of hers by any stretch of logic, and in fact only had the gravity it did because it came immediately after her sacrifice). Or she might even be a prospect Guile Heroine whose Heroic Suicide in Chapter 9, regardless of one's stance on its nature, was actually a Thanatos Gambit to give Chrom the best shot to not just become a new Exalt, but to grow into the prospect leader of the continent — no matter what sacrifices took.
  • Yen'fay: This applies to both the present and the future versions of him. The present counterpart is either noble for doing what he did to keep his sister from getting killed, even if it got him killed in the process, or he is reprehensible for siding with Walhart and causing the deaths of many Valmese people all to protect his one sister and an idiot for thinking that Excellus of all people was a credible threat to her and didn't bail out the moment he knew she was safe from him. The future counterpart is either a deeply troubled swordsman who is justifiably unwilling to establish any relations to people after losing Say'ri in the future and feels that he can't protect anything anymore, or he is a wangsting emo who needs to get over his problems to fight for the greater good and to stop avoiding his present-day sister and comfort her after losing her present-day brother.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: It was never used in battle (and certainly wasn't intended to), but the impractical-looking hoop skirt Lissa wears (and by extension, anyone else you choose to make into a cleric or a war cleric) really exists. It's called a crinoline.
• Americans Hate Tingle:
  • Nowi is much less popular out of Japan, mostly because of the connotations associated with a prepubescent-looking and -acting girl as a potential bride.
  • Olivia's Japanese voice. Most Westerners find Rei Matsuzaki's performance to be overly high-pitched and annoying, while Japanese players find it cute.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: The sales of the franchise had been in a downward spiral for years, so Intelligent Systems thought there was a fair chance that this would be the last Fire Emblem game ever. The result was the most successful game in the entire franchise (at the time), both critically and financially.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Validar has the EXACT SAME stats as he had in the Premonition during Chapter 23's first half. It's all part of the plan. When said plan fails, he fights you for real, with proper stats and skills for the Chapter.
• Angst? What Angst?: In Chapter 7, The Hierarch, said to be a close friend of the royal family, betrays the party and lures them to a Plegian ambush. Not only is this event never mentioned again, but no one comments when it happens.
• Ass Pull:
  • The events of (and the ones pertaining to) Chapter 23 are this, oh so much. So, Robin killed Chrom and nothing changed, right? Nope! Basilio comes back and pulls a Big Damn Heroes, and reveals that Robin foresaw everything in a dream. Validar taunts him, only for Basilio to state the further revelation that he replaced the gemstones with fakes. Then cut to the end of the chapter; Grima warps in out of nowhere and revives himself with the life force of all the surrounded Grimleal. Shortly after that, when the group is beginning to despair, Robin reveals that they took the Fire Emblem off of Validar's body, and shows it to them, aglow from all five real gemstones set in it. So, Robin had the real gemstones and they weren't in the Emblem; therefore, Grima can't be resurrected. ...Except he just brought himself back using the life force of the surrounding Grimleal. This completely defeats the reason for Plegia to even still want the Emblem, since Future Grima is here and can just revive himself.
  • Grima reviving Validar in Chapter 6. Not only is this never explained, mentioned, or used again, but it could've been done by having Validar play dead and slip away when everyone goes to check on Emm, or having Validar be mentioned as being on the verge of death.
• Award Snub: Almost universally praised by critics, manages to Win Back the Crowd for a series that was on the brink of being abandoned, and one of the main reasons why the 3DS started to improve its sales. Too bad that it had to be released in Western territories the same year as The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, thus becoming unable to win any "(3DS) Game of the Year" awards.
• Awesome Music: A staple of the series.

B

• Badass Decay: Story-wise, Gangrel gets this, as he's a broken man when he and Chrom cross paths in Paralogue 18.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Nowi. Some fans hate her for the (pseudo) paedophile implications as well as contradicting Tiki's Last of Her Kind status, but some fans don't care about that, and are just happy Manaketes are useful the whole game through and think her backstory is really sad.
  • Tharja. While initially one of the most popular characters after her release, she's become incredibly polarizing as time has gone on. For some, Tharja is one of the best characters in the game, due to her attraction to the Avatar, being a good unit, and being a Creepy Good character with Hidden Depths. Her Hot Witch design also makes her popular for fanservice reasons. On the other hand, some find her stalker like crush on the Avatar to be creepy, her personality not very interesting, or that her Creepy Good role is greatly hurt by her being an Abusive Parent to Noire, something the game seems to somewhat tip-toe around. Her status as the games Ms. Fanservice also leads to some fans disliking her because of the fact that she seems to now be used just for that. The fact that Tharja would go on to become the basis for a new recurring character type, and also would go on to be one of the most recurring characters in spinoffs like Fire Emblem Heroes (where as of 2022 she has more alts than many more important characters), usually being used for her Hot Witch appeal over any over personality traits, further made the divide worse since it means she's either overexposed in popularity, or is just getting what her popularity would "naturally" entail.
  • Lucina. While incredibly popular and initially seen as one of the best characters in the game, has begun to become a polarizing character thanks to her popularity and exposure in other media like Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and Fire Emblem Heroes. Some like that Lucina, a major character in the game, gets to stand out as something of a representative for Awakening and/or the series as a whole, on top being a well written character with a tragic past but still being relatively upbeat about it, while others feel her overexposure hurts her character, and/or that, while a good character, she isn't that complex or unique enough to warrant the popularity she gets. The fact she is arguably the most popular romance option for a male Avatar makes the split worse, since some find it to be one of the best romances in the game, while others see it as just waifu bait.
  • Severa. Despite being near the top of the Japanese character polls, Severa is very polarizing among Western fans. In the localization, she comes off as more of a Jerkass in some of her supports, whereas her abrasiveness is mostly a façade to hide her affectionate side in the original version. This, on top of her being a Tsundere has divided the fandom heavily, with some liking her for being complex and having some understandable issues, while others dislike her for seeming like an asshole to her mother and other characters.
  • The Avatar. While such characters are usually pretty contentious to the fandom, the one in this game is especially so, as they have a solid following of fans who believe that they blend into the plot much better than Kris, Corrin and Byleth do. The debate seems to mostly come down to whether they're a "true" self insert or not.
• Breather Level: While most of the Paralogues for the second generation units are a Difficulty Spike over Chapter 13 if you do them at the first opportunity, Laurent's Paralogue isn't especially difficult. While the boss does have Counter, the rest of the army is relatively easy, and the main challenge is doing the sidequest for the Goddess Staff.
• Broken Base:
  • The game itself is very contentious among Fire Emblem fans. Although it was for the most part highly praised by the general public, the Fire Emblem fandom got more split than ever before, specially after it became the most successful game in the franchise up to that point by a landslide. On the broad strokes, some will say that Awakening is a great game and a great starting point for Fire Emblem, some will call it a flawed game that is nonetheless pretty good fun, and others will outright call it one of the worst games in the series.
  • Whether or not Awakening succeeded due to its changes to the formula, or being released with good advertising at a time when people wanted a game for the 3DS is a frequent point of discussion.
  • On a similar trend, there are people who are grateful for Awakening since it saved the franchise due to good sales overseas (FE usually received poor sales overseas beforehand), and celebrate that this game turned the series into one of Nintendo's the better known series now, both in and out of Japan. Detractors, however, are resentful towards it, arguing that the game helped the franchise overseas, yes, but also "dumbed it down", simplified the plotlines, and used copious amounts of Fanservice, arguing this change has made it lose the core of what made it great in the first place, and even that its success had absolutely nothing to do with quality, but just good timing and marketing. Some detractors have even preferred the franchise to die honorably with the direction only the more dedicated fans came to appreciate, instead of surviving by aiming at a direction they don't deem ideal.
  • Casual Mode, which made its international debut here. On one side, there's a base that is happy for a means for new people to get into the game without all the frustration, and that the series' Permadeath mechanic in practice turns into "save scum the chapter until nobody dies" anyway. On the other, some long-time fans dislike the idea of others "turning off" one of the long-term defining elements of the series or having the consequences of sub-par tactics reduced.
  • The paid DLC alone is being met with both a warm reception and some resistance, with this being the first Nintendo game to ever utilize it, as well as people assuming that the DLC will just be style aesthetic junk or content that was intended to be in the final version. As it turns out, one of the packs is full of excellent grinding opportunities and choice loot, and is advertised as such.
  • The Bride class. Some fans despise it as sexist and unimaginative/lame compared to the male-exclusive Dread Fighter class (which for comparison is an incredibly badass and powerful ninja/mageknight hybrid with a history in the series), while others love it for its high support utility between its weapon selection, pair-up bonuses and skills. And there are plenty of female fans who actually love how girly it is.
  • The love confessions with the Avatar in English. They are either sweet, amusing, or they sound like a mixture of cheesiness and sound nothing like a "real" love confession, like the ones in the Japanese version. A glaring example is Laurent's:
    English: "You've been an object of fascination since I first saw you, one I would gladly spend my life investigating."
    Japanese: "I have always been looking at you. Right now, I love you, and even now I will continue to love you, okay?"
  • Chapter 10, although at first was widely beloved, with time a split started to appear. The divide towards this stage depends practically entirely on one specific element: Emmeryn's death in the previous chapter. Fans consider it not only the best chapter in the entire game, but also one of the most heartbreaking moments in the entire series, both because of how it affects the main characters and because, to make things worse, the enemy is presented in a very sympathetic way, making you feel bad for every single thing happening in the chapter. Detractors however, consider that Emmeryn was way too one-dimensional and underdeveloped as a character, so they find impossible to care about her death in the slightest, thus making the whole chapter fall completely flat on its face. Some go as far as to argue that fans were only tricked into caring by the outstanding "Don't Speak Her Name".
  • The entire second story arc set in Valm. A series of cool battles against memorable opponents that climaxes in epic fashion, or a Plot Tumor that serves only to clutter and draw out the broader narrative while proving largely irrelevant to it? In essence, while stopping Walhart from conquering the continent was probably a good thing, it also ensures he is unable to dismantle the Grimleal, and Validar and the rest of his cabal running Plegia finance the Ylissean counter-attack to kill two birds with one stone. Basilio also was able to fake his death, which came in handy later, and it allowed the party to get two of the Fire Emblem gems. Otherwise, Walhart's invasion and the alliance's counter-invasion are mostly unrelated to the Grima/time travel plot.

C

• Cargo Ship: Chrom/Fish sticks, which originates from the Crack Fic The Hot Topic Krew. In the story, Chrom has an unhealthy and even romantic obsession with fish sticks. This has led to memes about Chrom’s love of them.
• Cliché Storm: While the characters themselves mostly avert this (although you need to see many Supports to notice it), the main story can easily fall into this in places where its overall Black-and-White Morality really comes out.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Many guides for the game written by hardcore fans of the game leave certain impressions about how they play the game, particularly on higher difficulties. They include:
  • There are Character Tiers for Chrom's potential brides. Female Avatar and Sumia are the most recommended due to the class options they pass down and the contention that Morgan and Cynthia work well as Lucina's siblings. Olivia is mid-tier due to her more mixed inheritance options, but Inigo as Chrom's son is still considered a solid choice. Sully and Maribelle, however, are little recommended, although this is more to do with the contention that Chrom is at most a passable father for Lucina's prospective siblings Kjelle and Brady. The Village Maiden, however, has no supporters as she leaves Lucina a Master of None, and the general contention is that gamers avoid her like the plague — not that that's hard, since it takes far more effort to get her than the other way around.
  • Certain skills, particularly Galeforce, are at times touted as the only ones worth having, or at least far superior. Indeed, many guides insist that you must, simply must, exploit the inheritance system to ensure you have as many units of both genders with Galeforce as possible. Sol and Luna are in a similar position.
• Complete Monster:
  • Validar, the leader of the Grimleal cult and the Archnemesis Dad of Robin, desires nothing less than to bring his draconian master, Grima the Fell Dragon, into existence. Eugenically breeding his child to be an ideal vessel for the evil god, Validar's plots were initially foiled by his wife, who spirited the baby away, causing him to decide to lie low for more than a decade. He takes over the country of Plegia following the apparent demise of its ruler, King Gangrel, and promises aid to Ylisse, Plegia's traditional enemy in whose army the now-grown Robin serves, against The Empire of Valm; secretly, Validar only does this to corrupt Robin and eliminate Valm's threat to himself. Once Valm is defeated, Validar betrays Ylisse and steals its holy relic, the Fire Emblem, to use to unseal Grima. Validar takes over the minds of the majority of his country's population, forcing them to march on foot toward a Grimleal holy site and then tries to make them commit a mass suicide to offer their souls to the Fell Dragon. Throughout the game, the one human he appears to be close to is his right-hand woman Aversa, but it is eventually revealed that when she was a young girl, he massacred her family and then edited her memories to cause her to believe he had saved her life after their murders.
  • Grima himself is the self-proclaimed Fell Dragon. Attempting to destroy humanity with his human proxy, Grima is stopped by Naga and the First Exalt. Before his sealing, Grima created the Grimleal, a cult of madmen that worships Grima as a god — despite Grima faking being a god — and dedicates itself to eugenically creating another vessel for Grima to possess. After a thousand years, the cult eventually produced a successful vessel, Robin, but they escaped. In an alternate timeline, Grima possessed Robin, keeping his spirit conscious, so must watch Grima kill all his friends and exterminate humanity. Grima taunts survivors about killing their parents, and mocks Robin's loved ones about stealing their body. When Lucina escapes to an alternate past, Grima follows her back, taking control of the Grimleal. Grima takes control of many Plegians to make them commit a mass sacrifice to revive his past self, intending to kill the past Robin after refusing to be the vessel for the Past Grima. Omnicidal, sadistic, and uncaring about even his closest followers, Grima lives up to his title.
  • Death's Embrace DLC: While the main Algol is just an ineffectual Grimleal, this Outrealm version is far more monstrous. Part of an evil cult, he is in the business of assassination. He grew tired of normal humans constantly failing him thanks to their inherent weaknesses, leaving him with a desire to create the perfect assassins. To that end, Algol dabbled in necromancy, finding the dead to be more much efficient and subservient. He's had his undead assassins massacre villages, the actual number long left his memory, including the one Chrom and the Shepherds find at the start of the DLC. While the rest die away, Algol kidnaps the ones who fought the hardest and, before he converts them into Risen, he manipulates them in their dying moments to convert them to his side from beyond the grave. His victims retain a semblance of their humanity even afterwards but can do nothing but kill in service of Algol. His masterpiece, a Risen Chief, suffered a similar fate but is in a more crudely abominated state. In the ensuing fight, Algol's base of operation is lined with powerful spikes that badly hurt both the Shepherds and his "children." Though he fully intends to leave, Algol sticks around long enough to see the Shepherds suffer. A Card-Carrying Villain with boundless sadism and working off bloodlust, the alternate Algol is a surprisingly dark villain for someone so minor in the grand scheme of things.
• Contested Sequel: Is this for Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem due to the high amount of liberties taken with the plots of past games. This was mentioned in a Famitsu issue with the team.
• Continuity Lockout: Some of the conversations with DLC characters might leave the uninformed scratching their heads. (Marth's referral to "a member of my royal guard who became one of my closest friends", for example. That's alluding to the previous game with Avatar creation, which was never released overseas.)
• Creepy Awesome: Henry, at least in the English version. He's an unhinged maniac who hangs out with Creepy Crows, casually brushes off the deaths of his enemies, fantasizes about his own gruesome demise, and terrifies everyone who interacts with him (including his own possible children), but he's just so utterly hilarious and good-natured in everything he does that it's almost impossible not to laugh.
• Critical Dissonance: Awakening is by far the most popular Fire Emblem game worldwide, and received universal critical acclaim — even meeting The Other Wiki's strict criteria for its list of games considered the best ever, and being one of the most frequent choices for "best Fire Emblem game of all time" by mainstream outlets along with Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword. Fans, however, are more divided (if not as much as with its Follow the Leader successor Fire Emblem Fates), due to many changes in the formula and writing as well as less coherent map and mission design than many of its predecessors and successors.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Walhart’s conquest and destruction of Chon’sin (including the murder of both of Say’ri’s parents), is every bit as serious as one might expect. But since Walhart can be recruited in Paralogue 19, you can take him to Paralogue 21, have him Pair Up with the very woman whose life he ruined, and have him butcher the Risen corpses of the Chon’sinian warriors who founded the country one after another!
  • Really, pairing up any of the bonus characters with the people whose lives have previously been made miserable via their actions definitely qualifies. Some examples are the aformentioned Walhart and Say’ri, Aversa and Maribelle, and of course, Gangrel and Emmeryn. Don’t expect any Supports between them, though.
  • Almost everything dub Henry says. It's hard to pick favorites without listing every line of dialogue he has, but the crowning example is probably his cracking two bad puns and a "[X] walks into a bar" joke after the Avatar has just sacrificed themself.
  Henry: (If married) Oh, I made this trinket out of dead animal parts. You want it? It'd look good on you.
  • And Gregor isn't far behind him. At times he comes across practically like the Fire Emblem-verse equivalent of Jayne Cobb or Drax the Destroyer. His broken English and Blunt Metaphors Trauma makes it funnier.
  (during his recruitment) "True, Gregor just finish killing former employers, but still very reliable!"
  "Many brave men will testify to Gregor's skill with blade. Is too bad all are being dead! Ho ho ho! Oh, Gregor love that joke."

—

D-G

• Die for Our Ship: Has its own section in the Fire Emblem page.
• Difficulty Spike:
  • Beginning with Chapter 12. It's not the first time you faced promoted enemies but it is the first time you faced promoted enemies mixed in with squads of four or five enemies who move as one, mixed with large amounts of cavalry and infantry. (Whereas before, a huge number of your enemies were on foot.) Oh, even despite the game giving you a unit equipped with anti-infantry weaponry, you better keep her out of range of the bow knights. In addition, you also get confronted with bottlenecks, forcing you to either let them come to you or hope your units are strong enough to survive the onslaught of the squad on the other side of the map. The fact that Master Seals become available in the shop pretty much shows that if you haven't already promoted some of your units, you should do so soon. (And it's not like you'll be short on money if you've been fighting the optional maps that give bullion like candy.) Chapter 13 is even worse, as you're surrounded right from the start, with ranged troops hammering you from cliffs on either side. It also features more reinforcements than ever before, including one particularly nasty group of promoted reinforcements that spawn all at once and will gladly pile in on anyone weak in range. And the chapter after is the first one to feature reinforcements you're not warned of in advance. It's safe to say all bets are off in the Valm arc, which delights in handing you Asshole Reinforcements in nearly every single chapter.
  • Chapter 17 officially marks the point that NOTHING you face is unpromoted anymore, save for a select few Paralogues and the odd Thief or two.
  • Some of the side missions can be this as well, forcing you to farm random Risen groups to complete several story missions before your characters are remotely strong enough.
  • The transition from Hard Mode to Lunatic Mode.
• Disappointing Last Level: The two chapters leading up to the finale have very little story or character to them, contrasting with the dramatic and climactic chapters beforehand, as they amount to very little but "Heroes go from A to B, have to fight off Risen and Grimleal on the way." The finale itself is a flat map without any interesting features on it even though it takes place on Grima's back. If you know what you're doing, it can easily be finished within the first turn.
• Discredited Meme: The "Kellam? Who's that?" meme has fast become this. Mostly due to overuse and people missing the point about Kellam's quirk.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Owain, Lissa's son, has probably the most major unexpected fanbase. He also placed the highest of the children characters in the popularity poll after Lucina, due to being hammier than the heavens. His Fountain of Memes status definitely helped.
  • Fans totally ate up Henry like he was going out of style, thanks in no part to the Black Comedy he oozes during his supports. Hell, he even has his own page on this very wiki.
  • Out of all the minor antagonists in this game, Mustafa, Cervantes and Excellus seem to be the most memorable.
    • The sheer amount of people who wish that Mustafa would be a SpotPass unit (or playable at all) is notable, especially considering that he's a minor character, but it's extremely easy to see why. Indeed, with very few lines, he establishes himself as A Father to His Men who reluctantly goes up against Chrom, in spite of having been moved by Emmeryn's sacrifice, because Gangrel uses his family as a bargaining chip. All of this in contrast with his brutish-looking appearance. (Fans would get their wish when he was added to Heroes as a playable character, and a mod in development called ''Project Thabes'' has the possibility to recruit him among its key features.)
    • Cervantes (and his mustache) is loved for being deliciously hammy, and having some of the most absurd (and hilarious) lines.
    • Excellus is frequently grouped with Gheb and Oliver due to his hideous looks, and mockingly treated as an overly attractive man just like them. Love to Hate is also pretty much at work here
  • Maribelle, the frequently hilarious Lovable Alpha Bitch Ojou.
  • Olivia became this for her personality and her hilarious Apologetic Attacker tendencies when she is deployed in combat. Up and using Astra and/or Lethality while doing it. In fact, she has two variants in Fire Emblem Heroes and is a DLC character for Fire Emblem Warriors.
  • Children characters in general are extremely popular, thanks to their sympathetic backstory, and superb writing in general. It's pretty notable that most of the children characters are well liked even by some parts of the playerbase that considered Awakening's writing to be underwhelming. Notable examples are Brady for his hilarious speech pattern that creates some hilarious dialogue with Maribelle, Noire for her Split Personality and her "BLOOD AND THUNDER!" mantra, and Inigo for having considerable depth compared to past Chivalrous Perverts in Fire Emblem.
  • The three of the four most popular adults were Cordelia, Gaius and Tharja, as seen in Summer Scramble where they all got swimsuits alongside Chrom. Among the kids, Owain, Inigo, and Severa got the yukata treatment in the follow-up, Hot Spring Scramble alongside Lucina. As for the kids, aside from Lucina, it has the effect of Owain, Inigo and Severa being featured in Fire Emblem Fates with new identities: Odin, Laslow and Selena.
  • Lon'qu, the badass, woman-fearing swordsman, is very popular too, only just being beaten out by Chrom and Gaius for the swimsuit DLC.
  • Donnel's caused some to restart the game just for him, let that sink in.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
  • Saying the characters are nothing but "one-note anime stereotypes". Some players who rush through the game without paying attention, or downright ignoring support conversations tend to give that criticism. Which is a fool-proof way to piss fans off and make them scold you for not knowing their Hidden Depths. The fact that there are some characters like Severa, who give a very strong first impression in that regard, definitely doesn't help matters.
  • Don't demean the characters as just "waifus" and "husbandos". In the case of Lucina, she's been accused of this particularly often, especially after the boost in popularity she's gotten thanks to her appearance in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS & Wii U.
  • Around fans of the older games, don't say this game invented the Avatar and Casual Mode. Those actually debuted in New Mystery of the Emblem, which was Japan-only.
  • Similarly, Archanea fans don't like it when fans claim Grima, the Taguel, and the First Exalt debuted in Shadow Dragon and Mystery.
• Fan Nickname: So many it got its own page.
• Fanon:
  • It is sometimes believed that all Plegians worship Grima when it's explained within game that most Plegians don't and live in fear of Grima's worshippers as early as Chapter 8.
  • The theory about female and male Morgan being Half-Identical Twins is very popular.
  • Children inheriting traits from their fathers (or in the case of Lucina and female Morgan, mothers) such as Stahl's Messy Hair and clumsiness, Sumia's love for flowers, Gaius's Sweet Tooth, etc. Became Ascended Fanon in the next game where a Japanese DLC level did the same.
  • The idea that the Avatar's tactician coat originally belonged to their unseen, unnamed mother is popular among fanartists and writers. Especially if they interpret her as being deceased before the game starts.
    • Said mother being named Morgan or a variant of Morgan is likewise not uncommon. Once again, especially if she's deceased.
• Fanon Discontinuity: There are some fans who apply this to the SpotPass chapters, for cheaply bringing back characters who should by all rights be dead, not helped by the fact that some likeable or popular characters who deserve it just as much if not more — like Phila, Mustafa, Cervantes, and Pheros — are not recruitable/savable, just because they are less plot-significant. It’s even simple to do in-game; as the SpotPass chapters are bonus content that have no bearing on the plot.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Since there is no definite canon regarding any of the possible pairings in the game, this is more a case of popular pairings that are not possible in-game and are more popular than their possible hook-ups:
  • Pairing Basilio and Flavia together is much more popular than their only possible in-game pairings with the Female and Male Avatar respectively. Their Like an Old Married Couple interactions throughout the entire game made everyone who played the games scratch their heads when they saw their supports can only go up to the A Rank.
  • Maribelle/Lissa and Severa/Noire are the most popular ships for each other on AO3 due to having a very solid relationship in their Supports and in-story scenes, even though you cannot pair them up.
  • In the West, Gerome is Inigo's most popular pairing in this game due to their humorous dynamic together and Inigo's jealousy at him being easily interpreted as something else.
• Fountain of Memes: Owain. The heroes' blood in his veins is BOILING, his sword hand twitches, and he can't control it whenever he confesses his love to one of the women. He also hones his psyche so he can grapple with nefarious beasts of the night (or at least with something according to Inigo) and he's an all around walking fountain of Mythology Gags.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Sully tends to rank toward the bottom half of character polls in Japan. If the Internet is any indication at all, in America she is far more popular.
  • Aversa is one of the lowest ranking characters in Japan, but is much more appreciated in America due to her powerful magic, unique design, and biting sarcasm.
  • Gregor ranked pretty low in popularity in Japan as well, with his character being a rather standard Oyaji sellsword in their version. In America, however, his character received a Woolseying into a jolly Expy of the Heavy (or possibly Minsc), making him one of the most loved and oft-quoted characters in the American fanbase.
  • Henry is another good example, as in the Japanese version, he was mostly just a Stepford Smiler, and a bit on the angsty side. He's far more popular in the English release because he was rewritten into a Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant and given some of the funniest lines in the game.
• Genius Bonus: Panne's violent tendencies along with her insinuation that the taguel are a proud warrior race seem strange for a person who turns into a giant rabbit until you realize how rabbits were portrayed in medieval art (No. 2 on the list).

H

• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Reclassing Lissa into a Sage becomes a bit unsettling after Chapter 9. The outfit for her Sage class is Emmeryn's exact costume. She rather resembles her dead sister that way.
  • Henry's attitude towards death and a lot of his dialogue^note “I know the darkness is warm and delicious...But too much of a good thing is just bad!” becomes this should you get his solo ending, which heavily implies that he committed suicide. His death quote in Classic mode^note "Argh, this is the end for me... So dark... So quiet... So beautiful..." invokes this to a lesser extent as well.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: The whole theme of Awakening is about changing fate. This game was initially meant to be the last game in the franchise, but it proved to be such a success that Fire Emblem continued on. This game literally changed the doomed fate of its own franchise!
• High-Tier Scrappy: The second generation units, while popular as characters, tend to be seen as so powerful that it makes the game unbalanced, and makes the first gen units almost completely inferior as a result. Each kid inherits stats, growths, skills, and classes from their parents, giving them more versatility, power, and starting strength than either parent, and they quickly outperform their parents with ease. Even kids that aren't viewed as “top tier” like Laurent are still going to be stronger than than their parents, making some dislike using them, since they end up so powerful that they make using other units like their parents useless.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In Yarne's recruitment chapter, you are faced with two armies that have bad blood against each other. You can join one army, join the other, or refuse to join a side and fight them both. This dilemma became much more amusing after the release of Fire Emblem Fates, whose entire plot is built around the exact same idea.
  • In mid-2016, a new memetic outfit came from Japan. Dubbed the "virgin-killer sweater", it is a sweater that exposes the cleavage and upper thighs of the wearer, while also being a Sexy Backless Outfit. Now, doesn't that sound like what Cherche has been wearing since April 19 of 2012, over four years prior? And of course, someone eventually drew Cherche in said sweater◊.
  • Celica's DLC art◊ in this game was drawn by then-guest artist Masatsugu Saito, who would later go on to do more work for Nintendo as the lead character designer for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Due to the breakout success of those games and Celica having a different artist and design in the Echoes remake, Saito's Celica design in hindsight looks a lot more like a prototype or crossover of Pyra, the lead heroine of 2, than the character it's supposed to be.
• Ho Yay:
  • Lissa and Maribelle. The latter constantly calls the former "darling" and "my treasure" and frets over her to the point of (claiming to) grow grey hair over her...
  • Chrom and Male Avatar can especially come off this way. Their Supports have Male MU fulfilling the role of "nagging wife." It's not helped by how in The Future Past, the dialogue in which Grima!Avatar says "the one in this body loved Chrom" to taunt Lucina does not change if the Avatar is a man. The Drama CDs just add fuel to the fire.
  • Henry and Ricken. Ricken seems to be the only male friend Henry makes that is around his own age, they train in magic together, and Henry issues a rather passionate Declaration of Protection to Ricken in their A support.
  • It's subtle, but Lucina and Tiki have grounds for this, as well. Tiki constantly remarks on how much Lucina reminds her of Marth in their supports (which given their resemblence, is quite understandable). In Tiki's supports with a male Avatar, she states that the reason she's fallen for the Avatar is because he reminds her of Marth, as well.
  • Say'ri and Tiki. They're canonically Heterosexual Life-Partners, but their A support does seem very romantic, almost like a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship, but they are a bit past the general age for that.
• Hype Backlash:
  • Considering the insane amount of praise the game was receiving, this was unavoidable. Quite a lot of people, specially pre-Awakening Fire Emblem fans, didn't consider the game to be neither as complex nor as compelling as the rest did in any way. Some see the story as a Cliché Storm with one-dimensional villains, others consider the characters utterly one-noted and devoid of Character Development, and some complain of a brokenly unbalanced gameplay with bland level design.
  • The Galeforce skill. The many claims of it being one of the most overpowered and useful skills in the game has led some to argue that it isn't. The most common grounds being most combat in the game takes place during the Enemy Phase, where the skill doesn't work.
  • Lucina. Some fans view her as an overhyped and overmarketed character who attracts a very vocal sector of "waifu" fans, which isn't helped by the fact that she tends to be a Moveset Clone in most of her crossover appearances.

I

• I Knew It!:
  • When Male Morgan was confirmed as the boss of the first Future Past DLC Chapter, some fans theorized that Female Morgan would be the boss of the second chapter. They were right. Even less people were surprised that the third and final Future Past DLC Chapter's boss turned out to be Grima.
  • There were also a surprisingly large number of people who guessed, before the game was released, that "Marth" (or rather, Lucina) was actually a girl.
  • Many also called the Avatar being connected to Grima.
  • With regards to localizations, just about everyone called "Thor Hammer" becoming "Mjölnir".
• Inferred Holocaust: There's speculation that various nations which have become deserts, and the disappearance of the Manakete tribes is due to some sort of world disaster or genocide.
• Iron Woobie:
  • Cordelia. Not only was she forced to escape a brutal ambush while the rest of her squad stayed behind and were slaughtered (and she says she can still hear their screams,) but the game makes it impossible to pair her with the man she loves! And yet she still remains calm and stoic in spite of all this, and does her best not to bring up her romantic and/or non-romantic woes.
  • Say'ri. Her kingdom was conquered by Valm, she was basically fighting the Valmese forces on her own for a while, her brother fought against her, and many of the soldiers who fought with her ended up joining the Valmese when they saw a benefit to doing so. Despite all this, she never lets it show how hard any of this is on her, and the one time she does come close to breaking down, when her brother is killed, she pulls herself together and still keeps moving on.
• It Was His Sled: Due to the game having such a long time between the releases in each region, many of the games' main twists had been spoiled ahead of time. Part of the reason they were so quick to propagate them was out of doubt that they would be released outside of Japan considering what happened to Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem. Even worse, some English trailers close to release (and even some reviews post-release) went the Trailers Always Spoil route.
  • The main plot device that is commonly known is the identity of "Marth" and, on a related note, the children mechanic. Lucina's presence in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and constant Wolverine Publicity in spin-off titles isn't helping matters.
  • The Avatar is actually Validar's offspring and serves as the unwitting vessel for Grima. This one is also not helped by spin-offs, as two Grima-Robin variants, male and female, were added into Heroes.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: A very common complaint against the game's regular difficulties, mainly due to the plethora of level-grinding spots and hilariously broken mechanics. On the other side, the hardest modes are guilty of "It's Hard, so It Sucks" due to high concentration levels of Fake Difficulty and Luck-Based Mission. Mainly thanks to the trollish, frustating skills the enemies have at random.
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: Many veteran Fire Emblem fans are unhappy with the title overshadowing the rest of the series. Awakening also receives disproportionate focus in merchandising, cross-over games (like Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and Project X Zone 2), and it has influenced its immediate successor(s), to the point that a few characters from Awakening appear in Fates. The generally-lowered difficulty level is a common point of attack. Things got even worse with Fire Emblem Warriors, since the game disproportionately favors the newer games to the detriment of the older ones, and fans accuse Awakening as the main culprit for being the game that popularized the series in the mainstream. This had since started to wear off after Fire Emblem: Three Houses was released, as Awakening was beginning to show its age, causing its popularity to be on a slow decline at the dawn of The New '20s, yet its impact on the franchise remained a heated topic of debate.

J-M

• Jerkass Woobie: Though Inigo can be a pompous jerk and does not know when to quit when trying to hit on women, a lot of his attitude is a facade he constructed to keep the people around him from giving into despair back in the dark future, a facade he's had extreme difficulty throwing off now that he's in the past, he went through hell just as much as the other future children, and almost everyone, even those who can't stand his personality, agrees that he does not deserve what happens to him in his S support with Nah.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Walhart The Conqueror was born in the small country of Valm. Through sheer determination, single-minded will, and his own natural power, Walhart cultivated the fealty of people after people under his cause of uniting the world through force. Seen as a god among men because of his charisma, Walhart spent the timeskip gathering his army and resources. He makes his first appearance singlehandedly decimating the northern forces of the alliance against the Valmese Empire before seemingly killing Khan Basilio. When confronted by Chrom and the Shepherds, Walhart shows no desire to listen to lesser men and readily attempts to have them squashed. Yet, in defeat, he congratulates Chrom. Later revealed to have survived and leading an army of Risen in "Irreconcilable Paths", he is once again defeated by Chrom, but his strength impresses the conqueror enough to ultimately join Chrom for the final battle against Grima, and after all is said and done, begins to look for new places to conquer, and reputedly found a continent to subjugate and rule.
  • Yen'fay, the Dynast of Chon'sin, was a former swordsman who after his defeat made the ultimate sacrifice to protect his kingdom and sister. The past king of Chon'sin, Yen'fay fought valiantly against Walhart, but after his kingdom fell, and Excellus blackmailed him with Say'ri's life, Yen'fay was forced into Walhart's army, becoming one of his generals. Scheming against his captors, Yen'fay set-up a plan, adding his people to his army, and waiting for a force who can take him down. Seeing the Ylisse army's effort, Yen'fay saw them capable of defeating Walhart, and as such has himself killed in a battle against them to keep his deal with Excellus to protect Say'ri, before unleashing his trap by using his death to influence the Chon'sin soldiers to defect during a critical battle, striking a major blow and giving Ylisse the chance to take down Walhart and Excellus beyond the grave.
• Memetic Badass: Frederick, thanks to his excellent tanking abilities in the early game. Brawl in the Family had a field day with this and had two comics where it humorously depicted Frederick as Nigh-Invulnerable, even earning his own spot on the weapon triangle where axes, swords, and lances all lose to Frederick.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Chrom, thanks to Lucina and Robin's character reveal trailer in Super Smash Bros. has him spending 90% of the time lying down on the ground after getting beaten up by Captain Falcon. This has died down now that Chrom is revealed to be a playable character for Ultimate.
  • Female Avatar is this in some circles due to how her male counterpart appears far more than her in other media, where he is often either the primary or even only form of Robin, prompting fans to say with varying degrees of seriousness that she's the "non-canon" version. Also does not help that while she is far from disliked she is currently the only female Avatar in Fire Emblem to rank lower than her male version in popularity polls.
  • With the then-impending closure of online play in the Nintendo 3DS/Wii U on April 8th, 2024, Priam was hit with this status due to the fact that he's the only spotpass-exclusive playable character that never appears in the main story. This made many people, especially those who have a hatred against him, to consider him either as a walking piece of lost media, retconned out of Fire Emblem canon, or joke that Nintendo had enough with him. He does appear in Heroes, but his appearance there didn't do much to alleviate it.
• Memetic Molester: Male Avatar. His romance options can range from Chrom's future daughter, Chrom's younger sister, Chrom's older amnesiac sister, and a woman who's pining for Chrom, there's countless jokes of the Avatar violating The Bro Code. There's also jokes about him going after Chrom himself because of their relationship in the story and how surprisingly romantic their supports are in comparison to some of his potential love interests, including the female Avatar.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Donny's pot-hat is quite popular among photoshoppers.
  • NUNSWITHAXES, referring to the War Cleric class, which is an axe-wielding priestess.
  • Some variation of "Where did the characters' feet go?!" This odd character model design choice is surely annoying some fans (and reviewers).
  • "Lucina is the best and most courageous," referring to Lucina's status as both an Iron Woobie and fan favorite for pairing with a Male Avatar.
  • Mentioning Olivia's son's localized name on any forum is bound to result in The Princess Bride references throughout the remainder of the topic.
  • Referring to Panne or Yarne as Killer Rabbits.
  • "Pie-re Emblem A-Bake-ening." The prevalence of pies in the English Support conversations has not gone unnoticed in the fandom.
  • "Marth is in this game?" "Which Marth?" This question is brought up by fans when comparing them to the original Marth or Lucina. There's also the variative interpretation of DLC and SpotPass Marth Pr. or King Titles.
  • Kellam? Who's that?^note The game makes a Running Gag out of the fact that Kellam hardly ever gets noticed by the other characters, despite being The Big Guy of the Shepherds. Fans likewise pretend not to know him whenever his name is brought up.
    • Related: Kellam is a ninja. (To explain why he's capable of such insane cases of Stealth Hi/Bye despite wearing full armor, and due to him having the Thief line as a reclass option and doing well on it.)
  • SUMIA IS YANDERE! after a glitch was discovered where the image of Sumia appears if you pair Chrom/Maribelle.
  • FIRE-BREATHING BUNNIES (or something similar). A common, popular fan theory of what Yarne and Nah's kids would be like.
  • Darth Validar says: "Avatar, I am your FAUDER!" ^{Explanation (spoilers)}Both Validar's Japanese and English names just beg for Star Wars references, considering a certain reveal...
  • Patricide!^{Explanation:(spoilers)}It's highly possible (and easy) to make Robin fight and kill Validar... who is their father. Thus? The player is encouraged to commit patricide which is seen as quite taboo in a lot of cultures - making some people find this hilarious in a way that Crosses the Line Twice.
  • The Summer Scramble Battle Theme was already memetic when it came out... and then fan remixes started showing up using other characters' Voice Grunting. It's only a matter of time before there's a version of it for everyone...
    • The Hot-Spring Scramble Battle Theme is not exempted.
    • There are now fan-remixes for characters who aren't even in Awakening.
    • ... And characters not even from Fire Emblem.
  • Emmeryn and any kind of word that synonymous with "falling" such as "Emmeryn is a pretty lady, I would fall head over heels for her" has been a running joke on message boards.
  • Walhart for best Father of the Year Award. ^{Explanation (spoilers)}Should a female avatar marry Walhart, Morgan's father-child supports with him is either all kinds of hilarious or simply disturbing.
  • 420 Lucina. ^{Explanation (spoilers)}Lucina's birthday is stated to be April 20. Jokes soon ran wild about how her birthday coincides with the 420 meme about smoking weed, resulting in gags like her getting into Chrom's stash. (In actuality, her birthday is a reference to the release date of the first game in the series.)
  • NTR'd/cucked by Chrom ^ExplanationJust before the halfway point, Chrom will be forced into a marriage in order to continue the story, something the game doesn't foreshadow or warn you about. Depending on how you build Chrom's supports with the eligible women and if you're intending to romance one of said eligible women, it's entirely possible to suddenly get your intended partner for your avatar stolen away.
  • Robin f*cked Chrom's daughter!^note This is a parody with a scene from 22 Jump Street where Captain Dickson confronts Schmidt after knowing he is hanging out with his daughter. Often happens to first time players deliberately as a direct result of the above cucking meme.
  • Because of the Peppa Pig fanon wiki stating Lucina is the villain in that series, Lucina is what comes up in Google when "Peppa Pig antagonist" is searched. The internet had a field day with this.
  • Classic Only .^ExplanationIn 2013 (when the game released outside of Japan), the use of "Casual' when applied to games was seen as somewhat of a swear word - and thus people who played on "Casual" mode were oft derided, while others who wanted one of the most requested Anti-Frustration Features sometimes saw locking it to a mode labeled "casual" as insulting. 10 years later, people find this mentality utterly annoying - to the point in which when Fire Emblem Engage came out, people mocked this mentality.
• Memetic Troll:
  • Miriel, mainly due to her For Science! behaviour and some of her Supports, especially Lon'qu's and Stahl's.
  • Chrom, due to his tendency to NTR your Love Interest if he so much as gets to C rank with her.^note Unless you pair him with another woman so that it doesn't happen.
• Moe:
  • Olivia, which is greatly helped by her Shrinking Violet personality.
  • Nowi, who looks (and acts) like a playful child.
  • Lucina, in an understated way. Many fans can't help but find her adorable due to her social awkwardness, her affection towards her father Chrom and the rest of her family, and her pleasant voice.
  • The vast majority of the female characters in the game, with a few exceptions such as Sully, have some sort of "cute"/"endearing" trait that places them squarely within this trope. Examples include the above three, as well as Sumia's and Cynthia's clumsiness and Severa's archetypical Tsundere nature.
• Moral Event Horizon: Gangrel executing Emmeryn is such a cruel and petty act that his own army begins deserting en masse in the aftermath.
• More Interesting as a Villain: Aversa's popularity fell massively once it was revealed that her backstory of being Recruited from the Gutter by the Religion of Evil, the Grimleal, and their head, Validar was a fabrication magically put in her mind and Aversa was really just a mind controlled victim that was forced to work for them. Aversa's original backstory was thought to add a bit of moral nuance to into an otherwise [Black and White story in addition to making Aversa a good foil to both Robin and Chrom. Her backstory following another controversial case of Females Are More Innocent of New Mystery of the Emblem'' with Eremiya is another reason fans preferred her original stated backstory.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • Every character's critical quotes. ^note There's a total of 50 playable Awakening-verse characters, each of them equipped with four Pre Asskicking One Liners, with the exception of one who only has two.
  • Each character's marriage confession scene is accompanied by one line of fully voiced dialogue. It's the perfect conclusion to your Avatar's romance.
  • The sound of a Paired unit jumping in to guard against an enemy's attack or Dual Strike at the enemy. Especially if they get a critical.

N-S

• Narm Charm: Gaius's confession contains the line, "Baby, you're a river of chocolate in an ocean of cream. I'm gonna steal your heart on a daily basis", which out to be unbelievably cheesy, but damn if Gideon Emery's smooth delivery doesn't make it sound amazing.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Sumia is known for two things: baking pies for Chrom and tripping over her own feet, though more charitable fans might add on that one time she casually punched Chrom in the face.
  • Fans forget that Cordelia's massive issues go beyond her unrequited love for Chrom. This is especially the case for those who oppose Sumia's (who's only known to them as the one who took what they believe to be Cordelia's rightful place by baking the above-mentioned pies) status (in this game only) as Chrom's closest thing to a canonical wife via game mechanics and cutscenes.
  • Inigo is remembered only for his skirt-chasing and "manhandled" quotes in his talks with Gerome, ignoring the much deeper aspects of his character like his "extroversion vs. introversion" issues, his Heroic Self-Deprecation and how he hates how he can't feel anything anymore when he kills people.
  • Nowi is forever dismissed because of her Stripperific clothing combined with her childish demeanor and physical body, with fans completely ignoring her backstory and personality and the actual depth of her character beyond her appearance.
  • Yarne has a reputation as the scared little bunny boy who runs away all the time. Which, granted, he does, but he has reasons for doing so.
  • Frederick's naked poster of Chrom, anal-retentiveness, and his love of starting fires. Especially the naked poster.
  • Kellam's "lack" of presence. To the point where they joke that nobody among the Shepherds even knows about him or that he's a fellow Shepherd, when that's clearly not true.
  • Tharja's swimsuit's Scenery Censor in the American version of Summer Scramble, to the point where it's caused the entire Fire Emblem fandom to be extremely paranoid about censorship in future games.
  • On the subject of Tharja, while she is the Avatar's Stalker with a Crush and the biggest Ms. Fanservice in the army, public memory tends to instead portray her character as revolving exclusively around the Avatar and being a Shameless Fanservice Girl. This ignores the fact that the doting Yandere she acts like toward the Avatar (and even then only sometimes) is actually a huge exception from the shy, gloomy loner she is normally, and also the fact that she's shown several times to be either annoyed or horrified by the idea of recieving sexual attention from anyone she isn't in a relationship with, to the point that even in her character portrait, she's covering herself with her tome. Unfortunately, most of her appearances after Awakening also tend to ignore her character's other traits. Strangely, even some of her detractors seem to forget that she constantly abused her husband and daughter to the point where the latter is a constant nervous wreck.
• Newer Than They Think:
  • Anna being greedy, and having a Money Fetish was introduced in Awakening. As was the idea of multiple Annas existing at the same time; previous games implied it was always the same character.
  • Grima is not the Shadow Dragon, and has never appeared in any past game. Similarly Grima's Archenemy, The First Exalt, is not Marth, despite possessing a similar history.
  • While the idea of Animal Shapeshifters was visited before with the Laguz in Tellius, the Taguel are new to Awakening, and are the first animal shapeshifters to rely on stones.
• Older Than They Think:
  • This game was intended as a Mythology Gag-filled love letter to long-time fans of the series. It ended up being a Newbie Boom instead. As a result, this trope occurs a lot.
  • The traversable world map and skirmishes to facilitate Level Grinding come from Fire Emblem Gaiden and Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. Entombed also originate from those games.
  • Although S-Supports are new, marriage was present to an extent in earlier games. Marth marries Shiida/Caeda at the end of Mystery of the Emblem, all Lords can marry certain characters in the epilogues of the GBA games if they have an A Support with them, and the Tactician themself having a spouse comes from New Mystery of the Emblem.
  • Characters getting married during the story and having children who inherit stats from them originally appeared in Genealogy of the Holy War, and in fact Awakening's use of the system is a direct Call-Back to said game.
  • Casual Mode, Lunatic Mode, and the Avatar creation system all debuted in the previous game: New Mystery of the Emblem. Justified for Western fans, since that game was never released outside Japan.
  • Many fans of Awakening express confusion that Cordelia isn't able to marry Chrom, not realising her unrequited love is a Mythology Gag to Catria from Marth's games.
  • The practice of mounted characters naming their mounts after deceased mounted characters from history didn't actually start in this game. Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War ('96) had Fee name her mount Annand, after her aunt who fell in battle during the events of Chapter 4.
• One-Scene Wonder: Mustafa, who only appears in one chapter, is one of the most popular antagonists. His popularity earned him a spot in Heroes as a playable character.
• Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: Chrom and the Avatar, if they don't end up together. Many of their interactions in the latter half of the game seem way closer than just friends, regardless of the Avatar's gender. In particular, Chrom's dialogue defending the Avatar in the Lucina's Judgement scene describes the two of them as having a special bond, and being "two halves of the same whole", which is something most people probably wouldn't say about anybody besides their spouse.
• Play-Along Meme: The character Kellam, despite being a Knight in noisy, bulky armor, is basically treated in-universe as if he's invisible. Naturally, whenever he shows up in official or fan content, fans often pretend to not see him. Alternatively, fans may claim a picture where Kellam really isn't present actually does depict him, or make "fan art" or mock up screenshots of Kellam consisting of blank or even broken images.
• Replacement Scrappy: The First Exalt is frequently criticized due to having a history almost exactly like Marth, including having a charismatic, wing Spear wielding Pegasus Knight as a wife, while being a separate character.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The Villager class would seem to go under this as an entirely useless class is not considered needed just to hold one good skill. Possibly crossing over into Replacement Scrappy territory for being playable over Soldier.
  • Nobody likes the supreme lack of Supports the special SpotPass characters get especially considering how Emmeryn and Yen'fay are related to other characters but can only Support Robin. Many also wish Chrom had more female options like Panne, Miriel or Tharja considering, unlike Olivia, they join earlier and wouldn't suffer the red-string strangling she did. Similarly a lot of people were confused about why Sumia can only support Chrom, Male!Avatar, Gaius, Frederick and Henry, but not any of the other Shepherds, Stahl in particular.
  • While the eugenics system is generally agreed to be neat and allows for plenty of unit customization, how the eugenics system was introduced was received with less fanfare — Chrom abruptly marrying one of his S-Support options if he doesn't have an S-Support already. Chrom's wife is determined at the end of Chapter 11 by which girl he has the highest Support rank with, or by "Support points" (an invisible value) if ranks are tied, or at random if Support points are also tied. This effectively places Sumia, Sully, Maribelle, Olivia, and a Female Avatar on a time limit to get a man not named Chrom, and it was an unpleasant surprise to first-time players who were aiming for specific couples involving them. And even if you know it's coming before hand, the game doesn't appreciate trying to subvert it:
    • If you're playing a Male Avatar and haven't yet S-Supported your waifu of choice and said waifu is among Chrom's marriage options, it's possible for Chrom to steal her from under your nose — this is especially problematic if the waifu is Olivia, who you can't S-Support before Chapter 12. If you're playing a Female Avatar aiming for a husbando, it's possible for Chrom to steal you.
    • Speaking of Olivia, she's easily the biggest example of this problem in practice: as stated before, no S-Support before Chapter 12. If all other options are taken, then the only way to prevent Chrom from marrying Olivia is to kill her off. This might seem appealing if you're trying to invoke Die for Our Ship, but you might change your tune when you recall that Olivia is this game's dancer.
    • If you somehow managed to marry off all possible candidates and let Olivia die, Chrom ends up marrying a random villager girl instead. This villager is as generic as they come, down to having no combat experience — which means no skills from the mother's side to give to Lucina.
  • Very few players appreciate how reinforcements can act the turn they spawn on any difficulty above Normal. Most consider it a supreme case of Fake Difficulty and Trial-and-Error Gameplay.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Being a Fire Emblem game, there's no limit to the ways that you can challenge yourself. The classic ones are "No restarting chapters in Classic if you lose units" or "No grinding EXP in random encounters" or "Only use certain units/types of units" but these are far from the only kinds that exist. For extra fun, try these on Lunatic or Lunatic+ mode!
• Sequel Displacement: Because Awakening brought Fire Emblem to a new level of worldwide popularity and prestige, many players are unaware of the more obscure games that came before it. Fire Emblem Heroes is rectifying this somewhat with its Massive Multiplayer Crossover element, motivating many of the Newbie Boom players to check out the older games.
• Ships That Pass in the Night:
  • Sumia’s limited pairings have had people yearning for what could’ve been in regards to how she would’ve gotten together with the other men in the game. By far the most common suggestion is Stahl, as Stahl and Sumia are both absolute sweethearts, and Stahl’s appetite and comforting kindness could’ve complemented Sumia’s baking skills and horrible insecurities.
  • The pairing of Lissa/Tharja has caught on in later years owing to their Light Feminine and Dark Feminine contrast, in spite of the two not actually having any Supports or scripted conversations at all in Awakening.
• Ship Mates: Chrom x Sumia and Robin x Cordelia shippers seem to go hand-in-hand often, likely since Chrom/male Robin and Sumia/Cordelia are Heterosexual Life-Partners.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: With matchmaking being a central game mechanic, this was inevitable. Take a pair, any pair, and you're bound to find a group of people who will engage with you and anyone who agrees with you in endless Flame War. Bonus points if it's a pair involving any of the three main characters.
• Spiritual Successor: Awakening is this to the Jugdral times in several ways, including a few plot details (though not nearly as grimdark), the Jugdral legendary weapons are one of the few of which the full set is provided (unlike, say, Elibe's or Magvel's holy weapons), and there are a few similar gameplay mechanics too, including the emphasis on skills and a children/inheritance system. Also, the Tactician and Dark Knight classes are basically Mage Fighter and Mage Knight under a different name.
• Squick:
  • Nowi's design has been subject to controversy, due to the fact that she is a Really 700 Years Old manakete who, despite taking the form of a child, is wearing a Stripperific outfit that can gross out mostly anyone in the fanbase. As a result, this led to many fanartists giving her outfits that are way less revealing. Her dragon form has managed to escaped this fate, though.
  • However, her design isn't helped by the fact that she's also a romance option for several characters in the game, all of whom look and act older than her.
• Stoic Woobie: Gerome and Laurent, especially Laurent. The poor man got sent back in time a few years too early, forced himself to grow up too fast for it and later admits to his father that the loneliness nearly killed him sometimes.
• Strangled by the Red String:
  • With so many pairing possibilities, the quality of the writing in the Support conversations that can end in marriage has ups and downs. The downs come across as this.
  • Chrom must have a wife after Chapter 11, because Chapter 12 is when his daughter Lucina - and thus the eugenics system - is introduced. If Chrom has not S-Supported any of his marriage options by then^note Sumia, Sully, Maribelle, Olivia, Female Avatar, then he'll forcibly shack up with whichever his highest Support rank is, completely skipping all previous Support conversations — and with them any context for their relationship. This can get a little maddening in cases like late arrival Olivia, a Male Avatar aiming for one of Chrom's options, or a Female Avatar being one of Chrom's options.
• Superlative Dubbing: Similar to Kid Icarus: Uprising, Nintendo opted to use more well known voice actors for the English version. Naturally, this is getting high praise.

T

• That One Level:
  • Lunatic Chapter 2. Absurd amount of enemy density, with no one on your team besides Frederick and an over-leveled Avatar being capable of surviving more than 2 attacks with Pair Up. Frederick himself can only survive 5 shots, and this gets worse in Lunatic+.
  • Chapter 19 can be quite difficult on Classic, since there are many mounted units spread across the map (including Bow Knights, who can target your fliers), and at the start, all of your units will be in range of at least one enemy unit. This, combined with the reinforcements, means you'll lose your squishy units if you make mistakes.
  • Paralogue 10. Unlike most second generation units, Severa doesn't join when you talk to her, but must reach an NPC named Holland to persuade him to return home. Since Severa charges ahead heedless of the danger, and can be sniped by units on the other side of the walls, this turns the first half of the map into an Escort Mission.
  • Paralogue 16. Progress through the map involves walls that magically break down and reform at random intervals, adding tedium. There are also Sorcerers with Mire, a dark magic that allows them to attack you from ten spaces away (but it's at least inaccurate).
  • Depending on how well-built all of your characters are, the SpotPass level Paralogue 22: The Wellspring of Truth can be Nintendo Hard. It pits your team of fifteen against... itself. Your only real advantage is the fact that your copies can't use the Pair Up option, but if you have trained up everyone and given them the best possible abilities, it is brutally difficult to win. The level is a rude awakening for players who have been powering through the game with their level-grinded teams. Don't try to be clever and only go with one or two tough characters, either — the game compensates by making fifteen copies of those characters. Your best option is to pick two powerhouses and fill the rest of your ranks with characters you haven't trained fully, Pair Up the powerhouses, and go to town. And that's not even getting into trying to keep Aversa alive when she seems bound and determined to get herself killed. Mostly averted if you bring in a team of unpromoted units at level 10 or higher with a Master Seal in each of their inventories. After the mission begins, your team proceeds to promote on turn 1, leaving the enemy team stuck as their far weaker counterparts. This does not stop Aversa's glorious charge, but with a team of fully promoted units against a team of rookies, you can spare a Rescue staff babysitter and still proceed with your doppelganger massacre without skipping a beat.
• Theiss Titillation Theory: Some have remarked that the censorship given to Tharja's Summer Scramble Fanservice actually makes it look sexier than it was originally, since the curtain gives the impression she is about to pull off her panties.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The localisation changes the story Olivia tells in her Supports with Donnel from a direct Mythology Gag to Naesala and Leanne to a generic swan princess story. Many fans were not happy with this, especially seeing the game is meant to be gigantic Continuity Porn.
  • Micaiah's new artwork caused a lot of outrage. Unsurprising, considering it's based off of the controversial equal-opportunity fanservice Dark Mage designs, a fate which befell many light magic users returning via SpotPass (including Oliver). (Of special note is that all of the Einherjar's portraits are drawn to resemble their starting classes, like Leif having the Trickster shirt pattern and Roy having the Mercenary shield).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The beginning of the game mentions a crusade being waged against the Grimleal indicating there may be some tragedy to the Religion of Evil. However not only is this never mentioned again, but the entire rest of the game shows all Grimleal, with no exceptions, are villains by default and people like Validar have zero motivation other than For the Evulz.
  • Aversa's original backstory was that she grew up as a penniless orphan with no parents and Validar took her into the Grimleal to work as his servant, letting her survive. Due to this, Aversa views Validar and the Grimleal like family, despite their professional relationship and her not sharing their religious beliefs. This could add moral nuance and add to the theme that everyone has people they love, even people, the protagonists hate. This could've led to interesting characterDevelopment for Aversa, where she could've ultimately decided that Validar's death doesn't mean she should just let the burn, but instead all of Aversa's prior characterization is tossed and its revealed out of nowhere that Aversa was under mindcontrol all along and she had no agency.
  • Many fans feel this way about the inability of the SpotPass characters to Support with anyone but the Avatar, most notably Emmeryn's inability to Support with her siblings and Say'ri's inability to Support with Yen'fay, but also the fact that Gangrel and Aversa, who in their chapters had a The Atoner vibe to them, seem back to normal in their regular conversations, which is why it would have been interesting to see Gangrel/Chrom or Gangrel/Emmeryn, for instance. Similarly, Eleventh Hour Rangers Basilio and Flavia are both heavily lacking in supports, only having eachother and the Avatar. Basilio in particular, has some rather obvious potential supports, with Lon'qu, Gregor, Olivia, and Walhart all having some in-story connection to him.
  • During two of the game's most iconic scenes, namely Emmeryn's Sacrifice and Lucina's judgement, the player is given a choice on how to proceed. However, regardless of which option you choose, the following events play out exactly the same way, with Emmeryn commiting suicide during the former and Lucina ultimately not killing Robin during the latter. Many fans have wondered why the developers even put in these choices, even framing them as narratively significant, when their only impact is some alternate fluff dialogue.
  • Picking the Sacrifice option in the final level always results in the Golden Ending where the Avatar survives their Heroic Sacrifice, making the "Put Grima To Sleep" ending entirely pointless. This despite Naga saying that the Avatar will most likely die, but might survive if their bonds to people are strong enough. It would have been easy to add a check for the Avatar's total Supports with their companions, offering a chance for Earn Your Happy Ending, while also making the other ending more viable to those who didn't Support much but wanted their Avatar to survive.
  • The history of Valentia and Fire Emblem Gaiden is barely touched upon, with Valm's culture essentially being identical to Ylisse's culture with little references to Duma and Mila. Some of Rosanne’s culture gets some expansion in Cherche and Stahl’s supports, but none of it refers to Gaiden. To make matters worse, while the Mila shrine, Mila Tree, and Duma's remains were all included, Duma's remains were changed to the Demon's Ingle in the localization (despite references to Mila being kept), thus reducing the few references to Gaiden even further.
  • The subject of the Taguel genocide is brought on Panne's recruitment, then essentially dropped and not talked about it for the rest of the game. Exactly when this happened, who the perpetrators were, and what the motives were is never revealed.
  • The Hierarch's introduction, betrayal and subsequent death in Chapter 7 come off as random and is never mentioned again. It's even unclear if the party even finds out about it. Many think it would have been far more interesting if the traitor was introduced earlier and if his motivation as well as Chrom and Emmeryn's reaction to the betrayal of one of their closest acquaintances were explored.

U-W

• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • The in-game character models have had their feet shrunken down to almost-stilts, similar to The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker except that the rest of the models are still somewhat realistic. This was apparently done to save on polygons for performance reasons, as the developers were worried that proper feet would tax the 3DS' processing power. More than one reviewer was acutely bothered by this, and Fire Emblem Fates later showed that they actually had more than enough power after all, but what's done is done.
  • While all of them are based on the appearance of their starting class in this game^note Except Eldigan, some of the DLC einherjars suffer from this:
    • Ike◊, drawn by Binding Blade's artist Eiji Kaneda, is infamous for the incredibly odd perspective of his arm that led to cyborg jokes. It's not helping that his build is slimmer than he was in Path of Radiance, and his head sticks out way too much from the rest of his body, looking as if it's been tacked on. It also doesn't help that the Official Art of Binding Blade (Which is recycled for some of the returning characters for this game) fell victim to the valley as well.
    • Fanservice aside, the aforementioned Micaiah artwork◊, drawn by Arco Wada, has a head that looks way too off, to the point that it just looks like it was photoshopped onto Tharja's body, as well as having dull massive eyes that can easily startle many people.
    • Though Lyn's art◊, drawn by Miwa Shirou, was widely praised, her legs are weirdly elongated that makes them look more like stilts, not helped by the fact that her feet are very tiny. Everything else is, for the most part, fine, but it's the legs that makes the art itself feel off.
• Unexpected Character:
  • The six units that were added to the game through the SpotPass feature caught many fans by surprise. They include four of the game's major antagonists^note Gangrel, Walhart, Yen'fay and Aversa, a character whose apparent death is a major plot point^note  Emmeryn and a descendant of Ike, the protagonist of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance.
  • The first chapter of The Future Past DLC features Male Morgan as its boss! And the second chapter of The Future Past DLC has Female Morgan as the boss!
• Unfortunate Character Design:
  • Many have noted that the neck portion of the Cavalier class's armor◊ looks like a toilet bowl, which more noticeable with Sully and Stahl. It can be taken as a Stealth Pun due to the localized names of Sully and Stahl.
  • The generic Wyvern Riders' face guards are supposed to mimic dragon jaws, but the way it is shaped make them resemble ducks instead.
  • The Revenant's and Entombed's hoods look awfully familiar...
  • On Sumia's breastplate the swirling designs create a circle right where her nipples should be. Oops?
  • It didn't start with Awakening, but most of the female classes have exposed thighs, including those who ride on horses, pegasi, or especially wyverns. Let's just say there's a good reason why real-life horseback riders usually have more padding in that area, not less.
• Values Dissonance:
  • The game's translation is pretty faithful, for the most part... except for Nowi's character being radically changed. The implications of someone who looks and acts like a child being a romantic option (despite being Really 700 Years Old) are much more unfortunate in America than in Japan.
  • Tharja's swimsuit scene in Summer Scramble was not censored in the European version (which came out after the US one), as their skimpy outfits and Fanservice are generally not considered grounds to rate a game higher than the equivalent of T.
  • Some of the male Avatar's marrying options, which varies from minor examples to ones as notorious as Lucina (his best friend's daughter) and Emmeryn, his best friend’s sister, in a severe amnesiac and severely injured state.
  • In the Japanese version, Excellus is a Gay Villain who is treated as a freak and ultimately killed. Similarly, Hubba makes disgusted comments when same sex results happened in the Hubba tester. For obvious reasons, this was removed in the non-Japanese versions.
  • Lucina, Chrom's canon daughter, can marry Owain, Lissa's canon son. The North American version attempts to hide this by labeling them "Companions" in the "Husband/Wife" slot on the stat screen and removing talk of marriage from their S Support, but they give each other the same love-quotes in Events together as they do any of their other possible spouses...
  • And so can a Cynthia or Kjelle if they are Chrom's daughters, for that matter. Similarly, Morgan can end up marrying her uncle (Brady or Inigo if either of them is Lucina's brother) or his aunt (Lucina herself if either of the previous is Morgan's father). Lastly, if Lissa marries the male Avatar, Morgan and Inigo or Brady (if either of them are Chrom's son) will end up Kissing Cousins if you pair them.
• Vanilla Protagonist: Compared to the rest of the supporting cast, some of which have rather quirky gimmicks, the Avatar's main personality gimmick is a fairly mundane fascination with strategy.
• Vindicated by History: When Awakening first came out it was seen by many as a Contested Sequel that had mostly sold on overused Anime tropes seeing the game as rather shallow with an Excuse Plot and one-note characters. In recent years however, with many having played the other games like Fire Emblem Fates, Fire Emblem Echoes, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses, many have begun looking back at Awakening, seeing it as a fairly solid game. Many citing the interesting ways to break it, generally enjoyable moments with the characters, and a plot with many little Call Backs to the previous games.
• Win Back the Crowd: The game saved the series from cancellation after declining sales from earlier Fire Emblem titles.
• The Woobie: Being such a character-driven game, it's not at all surprising there's so many.
  • Kellam's inability to be seen by people quickly goes from funny to mildly depressing. It culminates in his potential endings. With a wife, his name is lost to history, and in his solo ending, he leaves the Shepherds to travel the world - and it's years before his friends ever notice. The only ending for him that can be considered good is if he is married to the female Avatar.
    • Noire, Tharja's future daughter is usually someone you want to give a hug to, since she was abused by Tharja from the Bad Future by being her guinea pig for hexes.
    • Yarne, Panne's son, has the responsibilities of being the last of his kind weigh far heavier on him and has some serious courage issues. Having grown up in a Bad Future and having your father break his promise of returning from battle will do that to you.
    • Morgan probably has it better than the other children, due to their origins being such a mystery, but it's still saddening that they don't remember their non-Avatar parent. In their A support with said parent, Morgan breaks down crying when they can't remember their parent. According to their ending, they never even recover their memories, though it's said Morgan doesn't particularly mind.
  • Virion. We are first introduced to him as a womazining braggart that most characters treat with contempt. Not only do his supports reveal he is one of the nicest guys there is, if only a braggart, but he also was forced to surrender his land of Rosanne to Walhart's conquest because his people were ready to fight Walhart for him but he knew that doing so would send them to certain death, leaving him with the choice of surrendering and running away to live for another day and rally up allies to stop Walhart, or stand his ground and watch his people die. After that reveal, it's hard to not feel for the guy, especially with the harsh comments people can make about him in early supports.
• Woolseyism: The Western localizations are full of them.
  • Chrom's army's name goes from simply "Chrom's Vigilantes" to "The Shepherds", lending a metaphorical connotation to an otherwise generically-named faction. (As Frederick mentions in the prologue, they guard the "sheep", i.e. the defenseless citizens threatened by war.)
  • Marth (the DLC character, not the story one) has the class "Star Lord" in the Japanese version of the game. Sounds cool, but it doesn't have any actual meaning. The English release changes his class name to Lodestar, sidestepping a potential Dub Induced Plothole with Shadow Dragon at the same time. It also helps that the Lodestar is the North Star, which sailors used to use to find their path and sounds very similar to "Lord Star", basically the Japanese name of the class but with the first two words reversed. Like the Lodestar, Marth is constantly looked up to by everyone as a hero, and Lucina even takes on his name and perceived personality.
  • The thief's name went from the feminine Gaia to the more masculine-sounding Gaius.
  • Nowi's original name was Nono, which sounds silly to American and British ears for being a repetitive syllable name and "no" is a very common English word. Also, her dialogue was changed to make her sound more mature, and her English voice is a little more teen-sounding. This helps tone down the taboo on romancing her in the Japanese version and also, they significantly lessened her Third-Person Person dialogue as well.
  • There is a similar approach for Ricken, as his voice acting is also more teen-sounding to avoid the same taboo and Double Standard when romancing him. ^note And the fact that they hired Yuri Lowenthal, who's best known for Kid Hero characters, help make Ricken a bit more appealing. Similarly, Nah's Supports with her father go from calling him out for being a paedophile to wondering if he was forced to marry her mother because he got her... Many find this to be much funnier. Then it becomes hilarious if Henry's her father. ^note  In the Nowi/Henry Supports, Nowi is lonely and wants other Manakete friends to play with, and Henry tries to help. The S Support is basically Henry giving the 'idea' of getting her pregnant so she can have Manakete children and not be alone anymore...
  • It was inevitable with Nn, obviously, whose name was changed to Nah. This allowed the localization team to have a bit of fun when she introduces herself, as Nowi mistakes her name for a refusal, which comes across as more fitting.
  • Marc's name was changed to Morgan in the West. As this character can be either gender, changing their name to the gender-neutral Morgan certainly works. This also applies to the default Avatar name, Robin.
  • With regards to legacy weapons, Swanchika becoming Helswath has been very well-received by most of the fandom, fitting the threatening bloodline the axe is associated with in Genealogy. Helswath is an example of every language localization getting it right in their own way: German and Spanish names are Hels Zorn and Phuria, both really good-sounding names for it.
  • The translation took out a LOT of Old Hubba's homophobia and otherwise toned down some of his more uncomfortable dialogue.
  • The English version managed to fit a Title Drop into the name of a late-game chapter. (The chapter was just called "The Holy Ruler's Successor" in the Japanese version)
  • Chapter 18 also takes place in a volcano that's named "Doma's Remains". Given that Fire Emblem Gaiden wasn't actually released outside of Japan, it'd make most Western gamers think "...Huh?". They actually bypassed this Continuity Lockout by naming it the Demon's Ingle. This actually works—and since its significance isn't actually important apart from a small Call-Back to Gaiden, it still works. Of course, they still have a temple of Mila and the Mila tree untouched in the Western version, but they don't actually show any significance apart from just simple theme naming.
  • Henry's Dub Personality Change (going from a fairly standard JRPG Stepford Smiler to a genuinely cheerful unhinged maniac with no apparent understanding of the concepts of right and wrong) was enthusiastically embraced by the Western fans, and is widely considered to be far more entertaining than his original counterpart.
  • Allegedly, the "pies" were bento boxes in the Japanese script. While making sense to Japan, not everyone really knows of bento boxes outside of Japan... nor does it make sense in a Medieval European setting like Fire Emblem. However, pies, on the other hand are not only a well-known food object in the West, but also were indeed consumed throughout history. On top of that, there's a type of pie called...a Shepherd's Pie. Quite the pun when you think of it.
  • In one of the more significant character changes, Gregor went from being a typical Cool Old Guy mercenary to a loud boisterous Foreigner who "makes with many humorous japing." To say it was well-received would be an understatement.
  • The relationship between Owain and Lucina (as well as Cynthia and Kjelle if Chrom marries either Sumia or Sully, respectively) is labeled "Companions" instead of "Wife/Husband" to avoid the cousin incest taboo as mentioned in Values Dissonance.
  • The Non-English localizations also had a good amount of Woolseyism on their own. Here are some examples from the Spanish version:
    • The term "Shepherds" (which in Spanish would be "pastores") for "Custodios" ("custodians"), which make it sound more epic.
    • On a similar note, the title "Exalt" (which direct translation doesn't make much sense in Spanish as a title) was changed to "Venerable."
    • Donnel's (written) accent in Spanish, which is like a mix of several countryside Spaniard accents.
    • Virion's speech is very reminiscent of the Spanish from the sixteenth century (basically, the era when the Dashing Hispanic trope was codified), albeit in an Affectionate Parody fashion, which fits his personality to a T.
  • The twelve dead warriors from Jugdral fame, brought back in Awakening, were changed from the slightly generic "Dark Warlords" to the more menacing "Deadlords", and their names were changed from German numbers to Latin names of the animals in the Eastern Zodiac. The group are also called by the similarly menacing "Seigneurs des Ombres" (the Lords of Shadow) in France, the "Todesfürsten" (the Lords of Death) in Germany, and the "Resurgidos" (the Arisen) in Spain.
  • Lon'qu's name change to "Lon'zu" in the non-English translations was particularly convenient for French: phonetically, Lon'qu sounds the same in French as "long cul" (which translates roughly to long ass).
  • Morgan's name was changed to "Linfan", a changed that benefited the French translation more than the other languages. First, because the feminine name for Morgan in French takes an extra "e" in the end. Second, "Linfan" sounds very similar to "L'enfant", the French word for "the child".
• WTH, Costuming Department?: While some fans find the increased fanservice for some of the female characters a bit off-putting (though not to the level of Fates), no design gets more flack than Nowi's. Not only does it border on Age-Inappropriate Dress (and depending on one's point of view on Manaketes' Proportional Aging, it could fully qualify for such), it doesn't match her innocent personality nor does the story give any reason for such garb. For contrast with other fanservice-heavy characters, Tharja and Aversa have seductive personalities that match their designs, while Olivia's outfit is justified as she is a dancer.