30 Days of FE, Day 16: Least Favorite Character
I, uh... I actually don't have many characters I really hate, most of the time. Sure, there are several I'm indifferent towards, and some I dislike, but outright hate? - nope.
But do I have a least favorite character in the FE series? Yes. Roy. It's a rather mild dislike, really, but I still don't like him.
Perhaps the main reason is his personality, or lack thereof. I don't know if the translation patch is making his dialogue seem more wooden than it's really supposed to be (I'm very glad that such a patch exists at all, of course, but I definitely don't believe the "localization" portion of it was perfect), but to me, Roy never felt like a proper character. I just can't find any words with which I'd describe him; I could certainly describe his actions as, well, mostly just and befitting a hero, but his personality? No. It's just not there, imo. Which makes it even more bizarre when half 7 of the game's girls can potentially fall for him in no time flat. What do they even see in him? This kind of reeks of typical harem anime-lead syndrome, to me. The women all fall in love with the main guy for no real reason at all. Welp.
This is a bit of a tangent, but... the above makes me feel really annoyed when I see people talking about SSBM!Roy as if he did, indeed, have a personality. The almost shockingly common characterization of him as a hotblooded, reckless young boy I've seen in the SSB fandom (which, to be perfectly honest, is pretty unavoidable - if you spend a lot of time reading about games on the 'net, you're bound to come across SSB fanwork eventually) is just plain wrong when compared to his self in Sword of Seals. But on the other hand, do I really want people to fawn over what I see as a rather boring character instead? I guess I can't really fault others for making up their own personality for him. Especially when, no matter how clichéd said personality is, it's... still better than his canon one, because at least it's something.
Toning down the criticism of Roy for a minute, though, I have to say that his supports with Wolt are actually quite cute. He seems to share a common trait with many other FE lords, that trait being his ability to only truly open up around his closest friend. As most FE players probably know, the lords usually have some kind of childhood friend (of the same gender) they're very attached to; Roy is no exception in this regard, but in those particular supports I always felt that the slight hint of an actual personality was starting to shine through. Which makes sense, given that childhood friends should probably feel at ease around each other.
I've always found FE lords rather fascinating, in the sense that so many of them have very subtle personalities in spite of being surrounded by incredibly colorful casts - which I've mentioned before, but I think it bears repeating. There are some obvious exceptions to this, such as Lyn and Hector, but the vast majority are rather subdued - the Renais twins, Eliwood, and occasionally Micaiah all have this in common - and to really understand them, you might have to dig around a bit, giving special attention to certain scenes and supports in particular (for example, compare the way Eirika acts with Forde to the way she acts with, say, Seth; there's quite a difference). Then you get lords like Roy or Sigurd, who, as I said previously, just don't feel like true "characters" to me. (And then there's Ike, who I feel is a bit of a blend of the colorful and subtle types, though I've seen plenty of people call even him personality-less, so... meh. I guess I'll just have to disagree.)
I guess what I'm trying to say is... I usually expect very little from lords. I go into most FE games assuming they won't be particularly interesting characters. I usually try my hardest to find anything that could possibly prove these expectations wrong, and many times, I do. But when I don't, I have the same dilemma as with Roy - an incredibly bland main character surrounded by lots of colorful secondary characters who, more often than not, constantly sing his praise. It feels wrong to me. In these cases, the lord just feels out of place.
(... ugh I'm probably not making any sense I only slept 4 hours last night, please forgive me orz
It seems like I always go kind of meta-y when trying to answer rather simplistic meme questions? Umm. I think I'm just weird like that. And then I still end up failing to get my point across
I just tried looking up the definition of meta-discussion, by the way. These explanations are giving me a headache.)
But do I have a least favorite character in the FE series? Yes. Roy. It's a rather mild dislike, really, but I still don't like him.
Perhaps the main reason is his personality, or lack thereof. I don't know if the translation patch is making his dialogue seem more wooden than it's really supposed to be (I'm very glad that such a patch exists at all, of course, but I definitely don't believe the "localization" portion of it was perfect), but to me, Roy never felt like a proper character. I just can't find any words with which I'd describe him; I could certainly describe his actions as, well, mostly just and befitting a hero, but his personality? No. It's just not there, imo. Which makes it even more bizarre when half 7 of the game's girls can potentially fall for him in no time flat. What do they even see in him? This kind of reeks of typical harem anime-lead syndrome, to me. The women all fall in love with the main guy for no real reason at all. Welp.
This is a bit of a tangent, but... the above makes me feel really annoyed when I see people talking about SSBM!Roy as if he did, indeed, have a personality. The almost shockingly common characterization of him as a hotblooded, reckless young boy I've seen in the SSB fandom (which, to be perfectly honest, is pretty unavoidable - if you spend a lot of time reading about games on the 'net, you're bound to come across SSB fanwork eventually) is just plain wrong when compared to his self in Sword of Seals. But on the other hand, do I really want people to fawn over what I see as a rather boring character instead? I guess I can't really fault others for making up their own personality for him. Especially when, no matter how clichéd said personality is, it's... still better than his canon one, because at least it's something.
Toning down the criticism of Roy for a minute, though, I have to say that his supports with Wolt are actually quite cute. He seems to share a common trait with many other FE lords, that trait being his ability to only truly open up around his closest friend. As most FE players probably know, the lords usually have some kind of childhood friend (of the same gender) they're very attached to; Roy is no exception in this regard, but in those particular supports I always felt that the slight hint of an actual personality was starting to shine through. Which makes sense, given that childhood friends should probably feel at ease around each other.
I've always found FE lords rather fascinating, in the sense that so many of them have very subtle personalities in spite of being surrounded by incredibly colorful casts - which I've mentioned before, but I think it bears repeating. There are some obvious exceptions to this, such as Lyn and Hector, but the vast majority are rather subdued - the Renais twins, Eliwood, and occasionally Micaiah all have this in common - and to really understand them, you might have to dig around a bit, giving special attention to certain scenes and supports in particular (for example, compare the way Eirika acts with Forde to the way she acts with, say, Seth; there's quite a difference). Then you get lords like Roy or Sigurd, who, as I said previously, just don't feel like true "characters" to me. (And then there's Ike, who I feel is a bit of a blend of the colorful and subtle types, though I've seen plenty of people call even him personality-less, so... meh. I guess I'll just have to disagree.)
I guess what I'm trying to say is... I usually expect very little from lords. I go into most FE games assuming they won't be particularly interesting characters. I usually try my hardest to find anything that could possibly prove these expectations wrong, and many times, I do. But when I don't, I have the same dilemma as with Roy - an incredibly bland main character surrounded by lots of colorful secondary characters who, more often than not, constantly sing his praise. It feels wrong to me. In these cases, the lord just feels out of place.
(... ugh I'm probably not making any sense I only slept 4 hours last night, please forgive me orz
It seems like I always go kind of meta-y when trying to answer rather simplistic meme questions? Umm. I think I'm just weird like that. And then I still end up failing to get my point across
I just tried looking up the definition of meta-discussion, by the way. These explanations are giving me a headache.)