Somehow forgot this initially but thanks to Ryn for proofreading the script for me, this video would've been a lot worse off without it. And thanks to Cyan for editing/thumbnail of course, you're a machine.
Mekkah 1: I feel he is a half baked character. He is Better then Corrin but Worse Robin.. because even though Robin in semi bad game with bad writing but still had a unique personality.. Yes Robin is Avatar but has his Own personality. 2: The game could have easily done a better job with the professor Coming into terms with his Growing Emotions. the only meaniful Bond he had was With His Father. 3: Realistically speaking he should pick up some personality quirks from his father and because he is Still growing emotionally he will be Influenced by The Class he teaches and Bonds. 4:The Lore and plot of the game stated the Professor to be Experienced and Powerful mercenary. It was even established that he has reputation among Mercnaries. Despite all of that he has the stats of a level 1 character. which is inconsistent in Fire Emblem because usually the Chracter Intial is indicator of How Strong and Skilled they are in the Plot... For Example Seth From Sacred Stones established to Powerful Knight and Will Normally Hold his Own in most Situiations in Gameplay. Ike Was Level 1 in Path of Radiance because he Started to Become a mercenary... thank exclusion of Koreans he is strong enough surpass a crippled Greil(His Father) Keep in mind Griel Was More then Match for Petrine who was One Ashnards Most Powerful General.. the only exception is Volke because he Holds Back his Strength in path of radiance. As he Confident enough to kill in path of Radiance if goes berserk from touching the Medallian.. like I point out sometimes there exceptions with Using Level to determine How strong a Chracter is. 5: his proficiencies are too low. Someone like the Professor it starts off with low proficiency that it is Hard to level up his proficiencies.. his father is established to be the strongest Knight of foldlan and That Same Former Knight Trained him. Look Below: Sword: B+ Brawling: B Authority: C+ Bow: C Axe: C Riding: C Faith: E(Budding talent) Immense potential. Flying: E Reason: E Now keep in mind he has no weakness when it comes to learning proficiencies now imagine him understanding concepts and Learning from other professors so he could be equipped on teaching on the certain subject. The reason why I give him these proficient ranks because he was trained by his father so he should at least understand the basics and be proficient of most of them... with him only lacking in magic and How to Handle Flying Creatures.
To be honest, I can't agree with you on this, Mekkah. I wanted to write a long comment as to why, but basically, it boils down to one factor - Byleth is designed in a similar manner to Persona protagonists. Silent, but characterised discregely (although Persona does a much better job at this); integrated via plot importance (something 3H does very well with Rhea and such); focus on learning via bonding with others... Persona has shown that this formula can work both commercially and critically. And though Byleth has a somewhat barebones personality, his involvement in the plot makes much more sense and also a fascinating character as to his role in the overarching narrative. Again, Persona has a better track record overall with these kinds of characters, but I would not go as far as to call Byleth a bad character.
Marianne in her A support: "the truth is Professor, before I met you I prayed for the goddess to kill me. You helped me find my self-confidence, and continue to go on." Byleth: (just fucking nods)
They probably couldn't give Dedue too much to do since he can die in AM if you don't do his paralogue. Still I wonder why they even decided to make it possible for Dedue to die instead of just letting miss a few chapters, but only IS knows that
I think his role is great for every route except his own. Especially in crimson flower. Seeing him willingly transform into a demonic beast blew my mind. I had to see more of the kingdom cast so my second run I chose blue lions just to see that Dedue plays almost no role in it.
One thing I like that they did in Three Houses is instead of trying to give a personality to a “silent protagonist” (who just kinda don’t have personalities) they literally wrote a whole story around the fact that they don’t have a personality
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 he is not charismatic but they mention that byleth is a good listener and understands the other People arround him and that the people like Him fot this reason
Imo that just makes it worse. For a game like this, I feel like the whole point of a silent protagonist is the fact the player gives a personality to the protagonist. And no personality is still a personality. You've been told that you're stoic and were always angry before going to the monastery, that you rarely genuinely smile, are a good listener, etc. If they are going to push a personality on you, even a "no personality", then there's no point to why Byleth is silent. They should've just used Byleths voices for the entire game.
Kain Tugwell-Fisher I like to think that the Crest of Flames gives Byleth their natural leadership and charisma. It comes directly from Sothis, a Nabatean who's now revered as a goddess. We also see Edelgard and Nemesis use it- Edelgard being the emperor who managed to get back her the powers taken from the Emperor after the Insurrection of the Seven and rallied the entire empire's nobility, as well as half the Alliance nobles and a good proportion of the Kingdom after the coup, behind her cause of abolishing the nobility. It would be like somehow convincing the Forbes 100 to back a communist revolution. Nemesis began life as a mere bandit, but after gaining the Crest of Flames managed to gain renown as the King of Liberation, lead a huge army, conquer most of Fodlan and commit a genocide, and the entire war is decided by Byleth's leadership. We already know that Crests grant superhuman abilities outside of just game mechanics, like Dimitri snapping necks with a single hand or shattering weapons in trainings, so it makes sense that the crest of the goddess gives you superhuman charisma and leadership skills.
Blue Lions Gilbert: "Do you wanna go to Enbarr or Fhirdiad?" Byleth: (gets two options) Gilbert when picking Fhirdiad - "Ok" Gilbert when picking Enbarr - "No, screw your choice, let's go to Fhirdiad"
I thought that was there for you to see if you payed attention to the story or not. I appreciated it, since I realised that I was awarded for paying attention.
They actually did intend a route split at that moment, if you followed dimitri's suicidal charge into enbarr felix and annette would leave the party because of their emotional state towards fhirdiad, but i believe they ran out of time. So instead it was just made it into a, are you a rational person who thinks of those who that are suffering under tyranny in one's own country should be rescued, or do you think that following another person's vengeance will make things right
@@daosxion776 while we dont technically know that for sure, i was also going to bring that up. things like the cut route split in the data that leads to the blue lions splitting up always has made me wonder if there was originally meant to be more impact in a lot of your little decisions. as good as three houses definitely is, things like this and the short length of crimson flower make me feel like the team could have used just a little more time
No shade at you, but I hate when people bring up this supposed choice. It's not asking that. It's saying hey Byleth, WOULD you have liked to go to Fhirdiad? And Byleth obviously would. But Dimitri overruled you and thus Gilbert will follow the leader so to speak. It's essentially saying hey player, Dimitri isn't in his right mind atm. He's prioritizing the dead/revenge over the living/future. And it's showing that his team is helpless to resist in a way. If they had opposed him better than maybe he wouldn't have blinded run into danger at Gronder. At least that's how I take it. Byleth and the others understand the right course but cannot convince Dimitri otherwise, and they won't challenge him and force him to change his mind.
@@l.n.3372 I agree for the most part, however I think everyone goes with Dimitri less because he strong arms them, but more that they're worried for his safety. We see in the golden deer and silver snow route Dimitri ignores everything and chases Edelgard only to die unceremoniously.
@Nill Null yeah I'm not denying that I hate self insert characters I wish we got one with it's own personality or you could choose your personality at the start of the game which would affect dialogue and make him an actual emotional character
Envy ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ theres no need to hate self insterts, they can be cool. Byleth just sucks as a self insert and as a character being integrated into the story. I think id be just fine with a silent protagonist learning the ropes as a teacher nit bogged down by the whole science experiment part.
That's what I did with Robin, since I never actually felt like I WAS Robin. And I was fine with that because they just felt like a customizable unit with their own personality. It's hard to do that with Byleth since they never talk vocally outside of battle, which is a shame because if Byleth were their own character, I feel like way more could've been done with them.
Still gotta love Robin. Robin did kinda just get put in charge of battlefield strategy out of nowhere, but Chrom was still in charge. Robin, unlike Corrin or Byleth, is not given the main lord treatment. Chrom is written as the main character with Robin simply aiding and supporting him (like how Sherlock Holmes is the MC of Sherlock Holmes despite Wattson being the viewpoint character). Robin didn't get a personal weapon, which I think was a really good move on IntSys' part, because that encourages player to be whatever class they want to be. You don't get the feeling that the world would stop turning without Robin's precense. Robin's strategies were a large boon for the Shepherds, but they were still accomplished warriors and would probably have managed somewhat well without Robin, at least until the war against Valm, in which a series of key strategic moves from Robin highly elevated the Shepherds' efforts. Robin being an essential part of the villain's plans really did add a lot to Robin's Arc.
Same i just thought Robin was a really cool dude that the shepherds were lucky to run into hea wasnt thr main lord but he was still respected for his genius. And yeah the no personal was great you could be what you wanted
They decided to balance out these decent parts of Robin’s character by making the whole game a massive power fantasy and Robin the most overpowered character in the series.
@@Edgeperor Making Awakening a power fantasy? Robin being overpowered? Uh, no. You make it sound like you've never even heard of Awakening, let alone played it. The only way Robin would get overpowered, is if you continuously feed them kills in battles, like a solo run or something. Yes, Robin can get powerful, but will also be outclassed by other characters, like Lon'qu, or for a more consistent example, Donnel. Donnel is, undoubtedly, one of the most powerful units you can get in Awakening. Now, if you pair him with Female Robin, and pass his Aptitude onto Morgan with a Galeforce from Robin, and Morgan becomes the most powerful unit in Awakening.
I find it interesting that the retainers DO try to fill the emotional void for their lord in Byleth's absence, but they just fail. Dedue blindly follows Dimitri, Wookie-Life-Debt-Style, and therefore only encourages Dimitri. Hilda actually isn't super lazy, everyone that says that ignored her supports, but she definitely isn't a grand source of confidence or stability for Claude. At best, she helps him play the Alliance lords against eachother to keep the false neutrality alive--her endings do talk about her managerial skills, and it suits her. But it doesn't help Claude make headway against Adrestia. Hubert is Edelgards supporter, even to the extent of doing morally bankrupt things behind her back to her own benefit--even against her wishes if he deems it so. He is NOT a paragon of moral restraint or emotional guidance. Looking at what happens in the absence of Byleth through that lens adds a lot of depth and is fairly reasonable to do IMO. The only big flaw with this being Dimitri's childhood trio, but Sylvain and Felix are caught up defending their lands in the wake of the Coup, and Ingrid is...somewhere. Presumably doing the same. Not hard to see them getting caught up in revenge with their friend, or being simply too scared to fight against him. That's weaker though, narratively. Also, the lords don't just stand around and do nothing while Byleth is away. The Kingdom is split and in rebellious deadlock, the Alliance is present a facade of neutrality while dealing with infighting to prevent an actual new war front, and Adrestia has hit a road block because of the Kingdom issue. Byleth gives Edel the confidence to open the eastern front of the war against the Alliance. S/He gives Claude the confidence and Religious authority to gain Church support and begin gurellia activities that lead into a full offensive. Byleth helps restore Dimitri to sanity by being the one person that Dimitri both respects, and feels he cannot outright bully, which lets him save Faerghus and win the war. These things do happen. But that all said, Byleth is still a less-than-superb character. They'd be better if they were just their own character, not a self insert. Good video Mekkah, good discussion.
I think Byleth support other characters or impacts the plot is not the problem. Question: But *how* do Byleth give Edel confidence? Well, he's a teacher, strong, beacon of morality. BUT HOW? He's a mercenary for all his life, he is emotionally stunted but have no problems with it at all. He is only a good listener because he literally can't talk. His voice has no consistence in his options. Stoic, ironic, flirty. All of them. They smile. Their eyebrows waggle. That's it. They never struggle with expression. Why does he support Edelgarde, she's his student. What experience in the mercenary life cause him to believe in her cause? Well, *everything* can be his cause because they just allude to "support" "teacher" "justice" Dimitri's quest is personal, Edelgarde's quest is personal, Claude quest is personal. Byleth just stands around and follows people, and somehow that gets them to be appointed pope at the end and the ruler of the continent in Claude's route.
@@cyncynshop well~ thats kinda because he followed people around and got a goddess worshipped by the church inside him. And then proceeded to follow the pope. even in the battle of the timeskip in claude's route. .-.
cyncynshop Him being a mercenary all his live is probably a factor in it. One trait of byleth character is that he’s an extremely skilled military commander. Edelgards confidence would stem from him repeatedly defeating the death knight, killing kronya and Solon, and leading the Black Eagle Strike Force at Garreg Mach. In terms of just the pure war effort byleth making edelgard more confident makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is him stopping her from being completely absorbed into her ideals like in all the other routes.
@cyncynshop It's just love. She's crushing on Byleth really hard and was in despair over them vanishing, and now that they're alive and by her side again she's got her groove back.
i think one thing with byleth specific that gets me is he's meant to be "you" but you literally can't customize anything about him like you could robin or corrin. at the point they decided all physical features, voice, and boons/banes would be the same for every byleth, they should have just written byleth to be an actual character rather than a self-insert.
Yeah. One or the other works, blurring the line can even work if the game is trying to poke around at the relationship between player and character, but as written, 3 Houses is just schizophrenic at times. One scene, Byleth is voicing opinions that you very well might not, then the next they are doing whatever blank slate thing the game needs to stuff your own ideas in there. If it did one or the other, it'd be fine, at least, but it seems like they either tried to have their cake and eat it too, or else there were writers who weren't talking to eachother.
While you couldn't really customize much about Mark in Blazing Blade, Mark still feels more like "you" than Byleth because of his lack of importance. Mark couldn't talk at all, was no godly/special being and the story events that were happening involved the 3 lords, not you/Mark/the player directly. You just happened to be a tactician who met these 3 lords and decided to help them, mainly to improve your own skills and also because you became friends with Lyn early in the game. Nothing more. It was so simple, yet very satisfying. You are no special person irl, so it feels more natural to be just another guy in a video game. The whole worship thing about self insert MCs on the other hand is a bit irritating to me. It shouldn't be a necessity to sell a game. Imo, the support cast (not Byleth or the main lords) carried Three Houses. They were much more interesting and complex.
...but Blyeth wasn't really a self insert. He may have appeared as such, but he had his own personality & backstory. He was a emotionless being who never smiled, laughed, or cried until much later in the game. He was a mind bending god that caused those around him to act abnormally. (As several of the characters mention.) That said, I wasn't particularly fond of his character.
@@simplysolus8916 imo the back story of being a blank slate mercenary with no memories of his past, no idea how old he is, and who knows nearly nothing about his only family is not a personality. thats just an explanation for why you the player get this empty shell to project onto. also the fact that even when there is only one dialogue option you still have to click a and confirm you the player want byleth to say that line makes me feel like you are definitely supposed to see yourself as byleth. like, realistically, tell me what byleth's personality is outside of being unfeeling in the beginning. is he dry witted, is he sarcastic, is he always serious? is he respectful or does he always say whats on his mind? does he value hardwork or does he not care what others do? there is no one right answer to those questions, because you are the one who got to decide what byleth's personality was and every single one of those answers is potentially correct. i also really don't agree with the idea he gets emotions "Much later in the game" either. off the top of my head, you can start to give him a competitive or excited way of seeing things as early as the mach battle shortly after flayn joins. some dialogue options depending on route are very clearly emotional due to the reaction you get from your house leader and i wouldnt call that moment very far in the game.
@@simplysolus8916 When I started the game, I also thought that. Since you couldn't customize much about Byleth, I thought IS walked away from their mistake called Corrin and went back to a protagonist with more personality like Alm, Celica, Ike, Micaiah, Eliwood, Lyn or Hector. You can clearly tell what these protagonists feel, how they act based on their personality and goals and each of them overall has a "presence" in their games that is way greater than their supporting characters. You even had a few decisions to make while playing Ike and Micaiah, but they were perfectly in line with their personality and didn't overlay their motivations. Now look at Byleth. He has no presence at all aside from everyone saying "he is very special and important". Someone who barely speaks = the main character = has almost no emotions = very charismatic & good at teaching = incredibly popular, just doesn't make much sense. If he were not a self-insert character, he would be the poorest written main character in a Fire Emblem game so far. Have you played Path of Radiance yet? If not, I would really recommend it. Ike and Byleth basically have the same background. Not remembering their childhood very well, being raised in a mercenary group and their fathers are leaders and teachers for them. Very similar at first glance, but complete opposites once you make it through the first few levels. 3H had a much better supporting cast than PoR, but PoR had a better protagonist and a more realistic dread or war feeling. Both games are extremely good, don't get me wrong. But please give PoR a try if you find the chance to do so, even if it's just to see how Byleth as a main character is compared to a better written MC.
I find myself agreeing with a lot of the points in this video, and I believe that Byleth could have benefited from a voice (both literally and thematically) to drive the character in the narrative. I forget exactly which video it was, but I remember someone suggesting that Byleth should have the choice between short, simple, and stoic dialogue options and expressive, personal, and empathetic responses. As the game continued, these choices would become much more human, showing Byleth's progression from the near-silent mercenary we start as to a qualified and well-spoken teacher/general. It would be an interesting contrast to have Byleth's emotional growth mirroring the physical growth of their students, showing not only how the students benefit from Byleth's presence, but how Byleth would benefit from simple social interaction.
I’d like to add two more things to the gripes about Byleth - He fails at being a self insert. There is nothing to self insert into him besides picking your gender, name, house, and partner at the end. The dialogue choices don’t reflect what I would say most of the time, the personality is not me, the character design isn’t me. I understand its a huge undertaking to get this kind of thing right, but it doesn’t feel like a self insert, it just feels like a hollow shell of a character they think I want to be. Its what bothers me so much about rpgs with silent protagonists, I’ll take an actual character with their own voice and arcs over a hollow shell. And even the in universe reasons for them being quiet don’t feel great and similar stuff has been done and played with before. - Certain aspects about him feel contradictory towards the setting. Somehow he’s a mercenary who’s traveled all Fodlan yet doesn’t know a thing about the Church or other basic aspects about the world is unbelievable. Even Corrin had an inkling of the tensions between Nohr and Hoshido and they grew up completely isolated from the world in a tower. Somehow he can sleep for five years undisturbed during a war, especially strange in CF where the Monastery nearby isn’t left unoccupied. He has in universe time rewind powers, but its completely forgotten in situations where it would make sense to use them because it’s inconvenient for the plot.
I think canonically, he cant use the pulse that often. though its odd he rarely uses it but i guess it would be annoying if every cutscene where something bad happened byleth just pulsed and either fixed it or something else bad happened like the jeralt cutscene
I was seriously taken out of the game by your first point during my Golden Deer play-through, where at one point all the game wanted me to talk about was Rhea... And I'm sitting here thinking, why the hell would I care about Rhea right now? And honestly... I forgot that his time rewind powers weren't just video game logic and were actually used in early cut-scenes.... Even if he could only go back a few seconds like in those scenes, that power certainly would've been useful more than once as the game progresses
@ Summer / Planetarial i know this comment is old but i still wanted to say something i think byleth as a character is kind of misunderstood by a lot of players i never thought of byleth as a self insert because he has a backstory, a personallity (even if it isn't strong but people like that exist) and has reasons why he is the way he is as other people have said already byleth is a good listener and can understand why someone would feel and/or react a certain way even if they themselfs don't ''feel'' it he is a mercenary that has traveled but as we know the reason why byleth doesn't really know about the church and other things is because jeralt never told them about it i am very sure that if byleth ever heard something about it and asked jeralt about it he would probably just say that it's nothing importand or that it doesn't matter since it has nothing to do with them and since byleth lacks emotion it's understandable why they wouldn't be curious about it they probably thouht if jeralt says it's not importand then i guess it isn't in corrins case they were told a few times that there is some type of conflict and that their siblings are fighting in a war while byleth wasn't told about it the being asleep for 5 years is because who in their right mind would go look for someone that fals down a giant ass cliff literally everyone basically thought that they are dead and yes the lords say they had a feeling that byleth may not be dead but would you rather search for them and find them literally in pieces (since that's why they slept for so long since it just took that long to regenerate their injuries) or just hope that they might return someday and in regards to the time rewind i don't think it would have been a nice thing to see byleth rewind multiple times just to continuesly fail since they can only rewind by a few minutes and often times the outcome of a scenario was basically unavoidible
I really feel Byleth should’ve just been called Byleth (so the characters could actually call him/her Byleth) and he should’ve just been a regular character who speaks- and I feel they could’ve made that better
You know what's funny? All these avatar characters are getting into Smash, meaning they end up having a "real" name in the end. It was fine for the students to call Byleth "professor". For everyone else, it was stupid. Other professors reffering to the newest one as...professor? What?
It's funny regarding this part about "Some choices don't matter, like in real life" because that was basically Awakening's gimmick; it didn't have TONS but it had _some_ choices (like the Emmeryn one) that you would only realize were hopeless if you were to go back or play it again. But I think that was one of the story themes: *you cannot change fate.* Only the final choice seemed to have some impact, which was appropriate (if it could've been done better or not is a different matter). I never see anyone give Awakening credit on that department, it's all just "Oh meaningless choices, meh". But here in Three Houses it has nothing to do with the theme so why is it even there lol
I loved the idea of Byleth being an emotionless character that slowly learned to feel and care for others. My problem with him is the unconditional trust everyone puts in him, so much so that others will betray everything to stick near him after the timeskip. If he had to work to earn the trust of everyone in the church, instead of becoming a god that everyone was expected to look up too and follow without question.
It maybe was done so recruiting, customizing and grinding your units wouldnt be more difficult that what already is. then again, I never recruited more than 2 students from outside my house, and the personnel at garreg mach is mostly neutral. but damn Hubert, he's not only Impossible to recruit outside of BE, but also hard to get rid of.
Totally agree. A lot of devs do this for “immersion” but nothing’s more immersion breaking than pretending I’m a guy with lime green hair who doesn’t have a personality. I’d love to have the option of growing a highly customizable character who was just part of the team, not the center of the universe.
Man that intro was smooth. In all seriousness, I'm surprised there's no mentions about Silver Snow. Byleth literally becomes the god emperor of Fodlan in the end by process of elimination and everyone's ok with it and I honestly find that quite weird. I still think Byleth is better than Corrin tho (though in hindsight that isn't saying much).
Based on character's endings, while officially Byleth is the only big boss... there are other people involved: Rhea, Seteth, Ferdinand etc... Similar thing with the other route endings... Byleth is never all alone in charge of Fòdlan.
while i did like byleth more then robin and corrin, i really do wish we'd get rid of either the player avatar thing, or have them be like Commander Sheppard in Mass Effect where you can actually craft a personality for the character, even if Mass Effect ended up being a linear experience in the end. who's feeling me here?
Well 3houses story owns awakening story, thus giving byleth free-points simply for beeing part of a bether story, but otherwise robin has more personality
@@hiddensanchez9876 here me out, Robin i feel like suffers from having knowledge and doing things outside of what a first time player would know of, like the boat chapter's plan, or the entirity of the plan involing big warrior man(his name escapes me) faking his death and replacing the stones in the fire emblem with fake stones. these are plans that are meant to be plot twists, but the player is unaware of them, and if robin is suppose to be a self insert like he's designed to be, its poor form for the self insert to be more knowledgeable then the player, Robin is better as his own character-but in that case he should've never been an avatar in the first place. i know i might be overthinking my stance on that abit much, but its how i view it.
I just want to quickly defend the point that the students dont do anything inbetween the skips. - In CF the Black Eagles are naturally setting the wars current scenario, taking over Faergus and Reaching the bridge of Myrddin. - in BL they are defending the remaining regions loyal to the old kingdom (Fraldarius and Galatea), as well as searching for Dimitri due to Gilberts knowledge. - In GD the commoners went home with their families. Claude kept the other Alliance lords in deadlock so Leicester was relatively peaceful. However theres no reason for what the BE crew was doing in silver snow. But that route sucks anyway.
I always viewed SS to be a carbon copy of GD, which is why I don’t like GD as much. It doesn’t feel unique compared to CF and BL, especially because almost everything about SS is just GD but with Seteth instead of Claude. I know this is an irrelevant remark to your overall point, but I just wanted to state my opinion.
In SS they were just very confused because neither Edelgard nor Byleth was around so they just stood around the place looking at each other for 5 years.
@@katowoozy3664 Believe it or not, it's actually the other way around. GD is the copy of SS. Some of the cutscenes they share straight up don't make sense in GD because they were very obviously made for SS.
Byleth teeters on the scale between silent protagonist and normal character on which he gets impaled on. A true silent protagonist should be completely blank. Byleth on the other hand has enough traits to flesh him out. He enjoys his role as a teacher, confident in his fighting ability, loves his students and his father. So then turning him into a self insert comes back to bite him in the butt
you know he/she is literally a walking corpse animated by sothis crest stone, right? them having even a small hint of a personality is an achievement in an on itself.
@@kiwikarp9509 doesnt really matter if people like him/her or not at this point, avatars/self inserts are still popular in japan, and I guess they'll continue to use them until they come up with something more interesting or the trend dies out.
@@kiwikarp9509 Im not defending him/her, cuz I dont care what people think of him/her, I enjoyed both the game and the characters and thats the extend of my concern. (as said earlier, I only reply to see if the replies are interesting)
My personal biggest gripe with Byleth is their inconsistency, especially early-game. They're supposed to be poor at emoting, but can crack jokes within a few minutes of the game. To a goddess. That isn't happy with them. After almost dying. Talks about "Yikes" for characterizing your character as stoic. That's probably the most egregious example in my mind, but the writing is pretty consistently at that "level" for Byleth. They may not actually smile for in-game months, but their dialogue options reflect a completely different character that already has a full-range of emotions. Especially goofy ones.
I think many people believe that rather than Byleth not having emotions at all, it’s more like they aren’t good at expressing them physically. Byleth can still feel emotion, but not necessarily as strongly as others and isn’t very good at displaying it, staying rather stone-faced. A popular headcanon is that Byleth is actually extremely sarcastic and an expert at delivering dry humor due to their unchanging face. Another popular headcanon is that Byleth has very slight emotional tells that only Jeralt can pick up on.
@@ShinyKyu Plus Sothis herself states that she may be at fault for his/her Condition. So I'm thinking Byleth can joke easier to her since they share a Soul. And with Sothis gradually learning her past again it may give them the personality there supposed to have in the first place. But that's my take on it.
TBH I took those to be byleth either attempting to lie or dry humour, not exactly cracking jokes. also remember that he doesnt know shes a goddess and shes always been with him, i think they just couldnt communicate outside of byleth seeing her sleeping whenever he slept
Byleth could’ve been SUCH a good character, and they have so many interesting things about them that the devs just forgot to fill out before the deadline. Projection is also not a good excuse, bc that just means that a select few get to feel good ab themselves for nothing while the game suffers for their sake. Also, Byleth is a defined character with a history and set design, so they shouldn’t have ever been “an avatar” to begin with.
@@dhisufiroafrozenseraphimdragon Avatar's are very popular to use in RPG's like Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter. So it makes sense for Intelligent Systems to due the same. Remember Fire Emblem was on the verge of dying, and the fact Awakening sold well, maybe by sheer luck. So it feels like all Intelligent Systems cares about is how to make Fire Emblem Marketable.
@@orangeslash1667 i would say good timing and proper marketing. early fire emblem is infamous for its atrocious release dates and misleading/nonexistent marketing ('winner' would likely go to thracia 776, which was seemingly marketed to kids despite its ridiculous learning curve, and was released on the super famicom in year 2000, long after the N64 made it obsolete). awakening actually bothered to let you know it existed and made it clear what it was about, and it came out around the peak of the 3DS era. you could also give some credit to awakening being more beginner friendly than most of the previous games
@@Underworlder5 Shouzou Kaga the creator of Fire Emblem said that the reason he left Intelligent Systems, is because he hated the idea of Fire Emblem in 3d. When I look at the graphics of Radiant Dawn and Three Houses, he may have a point😥😥. Thankfully there are plenty of RPG's to chose from on the Switch.
I really agreed they did Dedue dirty. Imagine how much better the story would be if the reason Dimitri unhinged was because of Dedue's sacrifice for him and his return is what snapped him out of his frenzy. Makes so much more sense. -spoiler- (Although they do kind of imply that in Black Eagles route when Dimitri was never imprisoned and was always w Dedue)
How does that make much more sense when Dimitri was like that deep down because of tragedy of duscar. His Edgelord self isn’t just going to go away because dedue survived and returned to him.
@@rayzas4885 if that was true then he wouldnt have been relatively normal in edelgard route. Im not saying to make it the only thing, but using dedue as a reason for him to live and to fight for himself instead of a contrived death from rodrigue would at least be somewhat better imo. Either way its an issue of resolution with his character, but i think his S support does a little with addressing his trauma from duscur
I see Byleth as a victim of the presentation. I find him to be very interesting overall, especially the relations to Sothis and Rhea, and the very large amount of decisions that he makes outside of the player's input, but understandably no one gives him a chance due to how he is presented. Should have just been another Robin, cos he basically is already in relation to the lords, just needs to talk. Thanks at least for pointing out the development Byleth gets as his own character though. One certain person keep trying to convince me it doesn't exist *cough*. ;p
Exactly. I actually really like Byleth but he was just handled wrong. If Nintendo made a Three Houses anime they could give Byleth the character development that he deserves. He has such an interesting concept and I'd hate to see it go to waste. I guess that's a big "If" though.
Robin was so much better implimented than most of the other player inserts. Oh and the tactician was pretty cool too in that they were literally only there to provide an excuse for the player to observe and feel involved. Yes, praise for FE7, it did one thing good, lol
@@dhisufiroafrozenseraphimdragon Avatar's are very popular to use in RPG's like Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter. So it makes sense for Intelligent Systems to due the same. Remember Fire Emblem was on the verge of dying, and the fact Awakening sold well, maybe by sheer luck. So it feels like all Intelligent Systems cares about is how to make Fire Emblem Marketable.
One of the most upsetting parts of this is that Dimitri was such a good character but could have been even better if he didn't worship the avatar. As Mekkah said, many other characters like Dedue or Rodrigue could have been his shoulder to cry on, and in my opinion they would have made his arc better. Him becoming close to another person (as opposed to the soulless husk that is Byleth) would have held so much weight and could have also served to flesh out Dedue even more and SPOILERS BELOW Rodrigue's death would have held much more weight
"Editing by CyanYoh" that's fitting, considering he pretty shares your sentiment. Byleth = weakest part of 3H. I wouldn't put myself as a detractor of Byleth per se, but with strong, interesting characters like Edelgard, Dimitri, etc. it's understandable Byleth would just not be as compelling. Yes they're not like Corrin, but I'm definitely on the side of saying that doesn't matter. X being better than Y doesn't remove the flaws of X, as the addage goes. You once made a video poking fun at the choices Byleth can make. They're for flair purposes, perhaps to give Byleth some fun answers but the IRONY is sometimes the choice is outside the idea that he/she are emotionally stunted for [plot reasons]. would the same byleth that jeralt lamented seemed virtually dead as a infant really be making a joke at the beginning that he/she is a bandit or something? I REALLY like the trope of the emotionally lost individual becoming more invested, more true, more emotional - Idunn from FE6 is probably a very small example. Perhaps if the game was more rooted in being that, would byleth have a different trajectory? But in a lot of instances the story is more equipped to support Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude. Byleth is standing around, supporting them, but it's not like they themselves have a personal goal to sync with the lord goals. Anyways, all of this is to say.....while Byleth is at least something different from the past MUs (in the sense of role and more quiet demeanor), it's a consequence of IntSys still stuck to the tradition at using avatar characters.
Good thing Three Houses gives you 3 of them? Fates honestly was worse with Corrin as the Main character, Awakening at least only put Robin in the spotlight for the final arc
I mean if you're not even going to let us customize their appearance or give them a boon/bane like before, it's not even a true avatar. Which really just begs the question why they even chose to make Byleth of all avatars a silent protagonist. A character can be a surrogate for the player but still have a personally, dialogue, and voice acting. I think Ike is a pretty good surrogate for the player to identify as despite him being his own character. They almost had something really good this time, but chose the worst game to take this risk with. If you took Byleth's premise and made them a proper character rather than the silent protagonist, his role in the story would still make it really easy to identify with him. And again, it's not like you can customize his appearance anyway, so why even treat him like an avatar at all? I just feel like they went 50/50 here and while an improvement over Corrin perhaps, fell a little flat. I don't think Three Houses would be what it is without Byleth. I absolutely think Byleth needed to be there. If you just chose a House leader at the start of the game with no neutral player character, then there's nothing to catalyze the House you chose to be the one to win the war over the others. Byleth was a necessary character. He just very much needed to not be a silent protagonist.
There's actually a lot of things I don't like about 3hs moreso than Byleth. Everything about the monastery from quests to fishing is just filler garbage that I don't want to do, when it could have been interesting stuff instead. They could have just borrowed some Animal Crossing developers for all of that stuff. There's no cool unit recruitments. For example, recruiting Dedue near the end of Silver Snow? Impossible. Side battles are uninteresting garbage. A lot of unit classes don't feel like classes because you can use whatever weapons you want in them. A lot of personal unit skills are recycled from Fates, which kind of lessens the characterization flavor that they are supposed to grant to the characters. Supports happen automatically between characters and you get like 60 of them after each battle, encouraging you to skip all of them instead of watch them because you want to play the damn game and get the stats from the supports, but they are too long to sit through if you at all consider your time a resource. I don't care for Byleth but it doesn't ruin the game for me as much as these things do.
idk, even if Corrin ended up as "center of the universe" like Byleth, Corrin was a political pawn that was used to start a war. So their importance seems a lot more justifiable than random merc with no personality that somehow beats out thousands of people in the role of sole emotional support and leader. It was also easier to see that Corrin is like infinitely more charismatic and sociable than Byleth which makes a leader position less weird on that front, lol. Only point about Byleth themself I'm not totally on-board about is the voice acting part, though. I prefer to read than listen, so I ended up skipping the voice acting 90% of the time. So, I generally feel the reverse where I'm getting sucked out of the experience because everyone won't shut up.
I'd like to see you do a video on Robin. I feel like he was the most well executed avatar so far, mostly thanks to the fact he was an actual character.
@@chickenbacon5197 wow, you're just being an ass for the way you said that. Yes, what you're saying is true, but you're missing the point that it's in the back drop most of the time, not the main focus. Robin worked really well as a supporting character and only okay as the main focus. This isn't like Fates where he dragged the entire story down by his actions, but more so felt like whiplash from how fast they forced it upon us. Awakening was just rushed in general and pushed too much in a small space. If given more time, the ending with Robin could've been amazing. And I'll give Awakening a pass because it was interned to be the end, so many didn't really think it would matter that much. Fates on the other hand, doesn't get that.
@@chickenbacon5197 and unlike Corrin, Robin EARNED his right to do all the stuff he does as he showed he was a valuable asset and even failed with stuff like saving Emmeryn. He actually has flaws that affect the story in a good way. And him being a smart tactician only proved he was decently written for the story. Miss me with that dumb shit.
Byleth seemed a very bland character where even tho he was supposed to be a self insert for the player, he felt like his own character and that still was bad. Robin imo actually felt more realistic. He was his own character. With his own personality. He is an amnesiac so you go along with him as you learn more about him and he isn't being put on a pedestal like corrin or byleth. He earbs his way into the sheperds as he demonstrated his tactical mind on the battlefield. You can argue that he has a harem like every other protag but that's the game mechanics your witnessing, not the main story. Byleth on the other hand, the whole story is how everybody wants to date or be your best friend despite you being a husk of a man.
8:40 Also, Byleth's roles throughout the story are kinda interesting, or I mean, they COULD'VE been. Like, he goes from being a mercenary his whole life, no doubt he's experienced in battle and his cold head makes him good at coming up with strategy. When he is sort of forcefully made a teacher he might not be the most capable, but his expertise and knowledge allows him to adapt (sort of wished him to be an Oifey), then the bond with his students mellow him out. Well at least that'd be the sweet story if he was not Mr blank face, but I think the game _expects_ you to see it go like that. So it feels VERY weird when he becomes the head of the Church of Seiros, he looks like the most atheist mf in the yard. But a Byleth with actual characterization would have learned a lot from Rhea's teachings, the struggles of his students, the suffering of the people... AND HAVING THE GODDAMN GODDESS IN HIS HEAD. So when they put the weird Enlightened One clothes on him you could be like "yeah I guess he's the pope now" instead of "what the hell is he wearing". This and post time skip crit quotes like "Here's something to believe in!" make me believe he was meant to go from "mercenary kid who fights bandits" all the way to "head of the church who leads Fodlan to prosperity". But when you scrap all characterization to make him Me, it just... makes no sense.
This. This right here is my problem with Byleth. It feels like there's a whole character arc that's supposed to be there, but isn't because Byleth never talks. There should more conversations that go in-depth with Byleth's character, but because they can't talk, they all just become one-sided monologues. Which is such a shame, because "emotionless, initially creepy/confused mercenary who, with the help of a weakened Goddess and their students & peers, discovers their own emotions and goes on to help those same people go through theirs" is actually a REALLY interesting angle they could've gone with. But, because they never talk, when I hear Edelgard or Dimitri say they would've never gone so far without Byleth, all I'm thinking is "What did this piece of cardboard do to help you exactly, other than leading your army?" It's the same problem I have with Persona 5's Joker. Tons of personality that he could show off, but just by the nature of a silent MC, it's all completely stunted. I'm not saying you can't have silent MC's (Dragon Age Origins is one of my favorite games of all time), but I just don't think they work with FE (& Persona, but that's for another time).
@@zachataxxii7126 "emotionless, initially creepy/confused mercenary who, with the help of a weakened Goddess and their students & peers, discovers their own emotions and goes on to help those same people go through theirs" This right here what I'm talking about, shit sounds like such a good, incredible saga, but here it's nothing but a mere phantom of what it could've been.
Byleth came off as a snarky loner mercenary kid with definite problems with their self expression issues at first. But of course we don't see much development in Byleth because Insert self character. Byleth could've been a second main character give an extra six months this game clearly needed in some areas like the fact GD and SS are so similar, developing BL cast more that don't require Byleth, add in more chapters for CF and the other paths could uses about 3 more they all felt short, expand the lore in the library, and every character should have at least one paralogue to themselves.
The only avatar I've like so far is Robin, and I still believe that Awakening would have been better if he wasn't an avatar but is own character. I feel like avatar are damaging to Fire Emblem stories.
The best thing about Robin is that he has his own personality. You create what he looks like and decide what class he goes through, but other than that he is a character in the story that isn't that much different from most of the cast.
I still stand that avatars can work in FE games if they take a secondary role, someone that's the tactician of the main lord's group, helping them both in combat and outside. Robin was the best implementation of this, you saw the story through his eyes and most events would be through his vision, he had his own character that you could costumize the look and didn't really affected the story in a heavy way like other avatars.... Until Chapter 13 where all that is thrown down the drain and he becomes super important. I can't blame people that don't want avatars, but I do think they can be a fun gameplay element and if done correctly, it could be a interesting way to tell a story, through his vision and what he/she sees, they can easily take a secondary role that just have them follow the main character, Kris came close to it but his character sucks and he took a lot of other people's line (though I still think he's overhated but at the same time, I can't blame people for hating him, fun unit but if New Mistery ever get a western rereleashe, I really want them to rework on him, still like his assasin's side story). Sadly they will put avatars in most of the newer games because there's a lot of people that like to play FE as if it was dating sim because said people don't want to play a dating sim, but if they are going to do so, I do wish it worked like a weird mix of the good things of Kris and Robin, they have their own little side story, they play a role in the story, but the world doesnt surrond them, they are just there to help the main character who takes the main spotlight.
I think you perfectly captured my own thoughts on the situation. I don't want to be the main character in this world, I just want a normal guy that I can make feel a bit more like me, and progress through the lord's story as an aid, just like any other unit. This is one of my main issues with Byleth: he doesn't feel like my own unit. You can't apply any form of customization, be it appearance, or their strengths and weaknesses. It raises the question of why we even have an avatar in 3H, when Byleth could just be their own character that actually justifies whatever high position they have in the story.
I definitely agree that Robin was the best implemented avatar in the series, though I still feel he’s a bit too central to the plot. If he was just the Shepards’ tactician with none of the Grima stuff I’d like him a lot more. His personality is pretty basic and inoffensive besides being a bookworm, but he’s a godamn tactician so you’d have to have some book smarts. just want to basically create another average joe character, someone who just gets a few recruitment lines and a handful of support convos. Someone like Soren who comes up a lot in the story and has stakes in the story due to their past and relationships would also work, just none of the doombringer or hero prophecy stuff. Though the one thing that Robin dies that I hate that no other avatar has done is explain in universe the UI. Just godammit I don’t need a lore explanation for how I can see damage numbers and accuracy. I’m basically certain the next game in the series will be a FE4 remake, and although I doubt they’ll retcon avatars into remakes (I know FE13 exists but echoes stayed so close to Gaiden.) I think having someone who you can customise their name and appearance with “personality types” that determine which characters your unit can support with. All together, these supports would seem like the character was all over the place, but if you could only support with x if you picked personality y it would create a consistent character that most people could relate to, as they would be able to pick a vague category of their personality. This would also mean this character would actually have strong chemistry with their support partners due to their personality, instead of the stuff with Corrin like being able to become friends with/marry someone who hates you or goes completely against your ideals due to somehow both characters falling in love randomly in their S support, despite literally just ending on a sour note in their A support. For instance, Chris was a failure because his personality was “loyal dedicated to training person” and most people can’t relate to that. Allowing for 5-10 different personality options would allow most people to at least somewhat relate to this character. At the end of the day, I think an avatar done well could really have a positive impact on a FE game/story but it’s so tough to do that I honestly don’t think they should bother. This isn’t Mass Effect or something, Fire Emblem thrives on premade, well developed characters, not a bunch of blank slates for the player to customise. Just let people make their own head canon OCs instead of forcing them into the game, people have no trouble liking characters and having waifus in the games without avatars, so people really don’t need any help to connect. I’d like to think the kind of people FE attracts enjoy stories enough to be able to create their own headcanons and such without the help of the developers.
@@CosmicToad5000 I actually... think the Grima subplot in awakening was done well. It got you questioning your avatar's origins as you slowly found put more. you are the tactician. Of not just any group, but a group of people who are quite close together from the start. Who are tasked with protecting the people. You slowly get accepted into this group as you show your ability as a tactician. The grima subplot merges with the main story in the second half. where chrom's and his sister's main character arc are for the most part completed in the first. it COULD have ended there. (remove for a second robins interactions with the plegian dark priest guy and the time travel shiz. see? its its own story. and it would still be really good. albiet short.) but that isn't the end. the second part, immediately starts exploring robins origins (where they go to plegia for ships) The second part is about robin and grima. You have to stop an invasion, while the subplot is put back on the backburner. Slowly revealing more once again until the last few chapters. at that point the avatar is his own character. who has been accepted by everyone in the group. So, as his best friend, and partially by obligation, chrom helps him save the world. personally, I think it was well done. not too fast nor too slow.Having that in there really helped awakening I think. Adding a layer of intrigue through the story, while giving robin more depth in his character arc. more so than 'tactician accepted by the shepherds and the kings best friend'
Ice Neko not only that but some of your decisions actually made a difference in the storytelling, albeit small. If you s ranked chrom or lucina the realization that Lucina has changes to a degree and can really make it more emotional. Robin was easily the most well written avatar because he wasn’t just the fill in for you: he was willing to play along with jokes, but had the maturity(and to better fit his role) to see a larger picture and knew for the most part when to stop joking around. His supports actually gave him personality instead of just letting you talk to the students. And more importantly, what he lacked in character was made up for by the characters around him. I just finished another playthrough of 3H and just restarted playing awakening yesterday and I feel like the entire cast is just more involved socially. 3H made a large part of its dynamic based on your relation with the house leader where I feel like awakening made more of a focus on the dynamic between characters. Like I love plenty of 3H moments, but I feel like the opening with frederick, lissa, and chrom just has so much more life to it than when you meet the house you’re teaching for.
I wish if they wanted to go about the silent avatar route they committed to the ashen demon idea. I’d prefer a story of a person finding their humanity through his / her students and slowly becoming a charismatic leader they claim. Don’t tell us show us. That’s basic storytelling
I love dragon quest but never really liked the silent hero I would rather have an actual character. I think robin was the only avatar that worked in fire emblem.
I still remember watching the trailers, then playing the game and seeing that I could name the protag and thinking, "Fuck, another self insert?" I was seriously hoping Byleth was gonna be a great, deep and well written character, not another fucking Corrin. I still like Byleth, but thinking about what he could've been really is upsetting.
Another big problem with Byleth is that, since they're the reason the characters you recruited join whatever faction you pick, they come across as a Mary Sue. Petra, for example, often talks about how much she likes Edleguard and that she hopes to build up a good relationship with the Empire as a result of that friendship. Yet, she'll throw all of that away if you don't side with Edleguard, all because she likes a teacher she just met.
My main beef with the choices isn't that they don't each spawn an entirely new branching storyline with different chapters and characters and whatever else. Rather, it's that the dialogue LITERALLY doesn't change. There are so many choices like "What is A?" or "What is B?" and no matter what you choose you get the same response explaining what A and B are anyways. Even just subtle differences in the order of the explanations given or the reactions of the other characters would be enough to feel like I actually should have been making a choice there. As it stands, it feels like they're just dumping exposition at me and sometimes I have to press A.
@@CyanYoh "Undeserved" I really disagree with this notion that a fighter could be "undeserving" of their slot. Who determines if a character should claim a spot in Smash?
Raptor980 fire emblem does have one of the biggest rosters in smash while simultaneously having said characters play extremely similar. Heck we have three Marth clones ( Roy was a semi clone of Marth in melee lucina is a Marth clone and chrom is a clone of a clone) maybe they should of put another final fantasy character instead of adding a character from a over represented franchise compared to its popularity. Granted fire emblem is way more popular in Japan but besides japan it is a niche game series with a relatively low fanbase. Overall final fantasy probably has more fans so I think it would be fair to say a second final fantasy character deserves the spot more then another fire emblem character. Heck I think it would be fair if they got rid of lucina and chrom ( only need one clone of Marth and Roy is the og ) and replaced them with idk final fantasy x is on the switch so let’s say tidus ( with a mixture of overall average sword based attacks And blitzball abilities for ranged pressure and even ko power ( for example jecht shot as a neutral b that launches the ball if it hits you can angle the stick to aim the ball when it comes back the second hit has as much power as a charged shot but you have to combo the first hit into the second hit to secure kos)and a down b buff in haste that boost his frame data on his normals so his average sword based attacks become very great combo tools and another character from an under represented franchise not another one from an over represented franchise. Granted byleth does actually play relatively unique for a fire emblem ( basically ganon with massive range) but another fire emblem character so I say they would be fine to stay.
Gonna disagree with the avatar worship point a bit, specifically the “Lords need Byleth around, but anyone else could’ve filled the role” Since Byleth is literally a teacher, guide, and strategist, I kinda think they ARE the best character for said roles.
Alexander Baldwin Yes, the game is shoving it in your face that Byleth is the “perfect teacher”. However, it’s up to the player’s interpretation of how well Byleth is written. \o/ The developers literally designed Byleth to be the one that “fixes” the Lord of each specific route. But that’s the key-this was designed. It’s not like Byleth is an actual human in the real world. Did this role realllyyy have to exist? The developers came up with and enforced this rule that “none of the Lords is allowed to develop if Byleth specifically by their side.” And because of this, literally all the other side characters become extremely incompetent, incapable of helping their respective Lords. I mean, I appreciate that this gives the side characters very obvious flaws, which makes them more human. But it’s just very frustrating to see how incredibly, uniformly incompetent all the side characters are. It honestly makes the whole world feel mucccch more hopeless. Don’t get me wrong, Fodlan is explicitly designed to be a dark and depressing subversion of some FE tropes, but this comes at the cost of taking away agency from characters. I agree with Mekkah that the side characters in this game don’t get as much of a role in the main story as they should. At most there’ll be a “oh hey X member of our house is relevant to the upcoming level, here you can say a few pithy comments and you’ll get a special quote when fighting the boss.” Or “alright everyone gather up in a circle, it’s time for each member to say one line and then not speak until the next chapter.” The story would be much more powerful if a more diverse array of characters was allowed to directly participate in the main story and catalyze the development of their Lord. As it is right now, it does sometimes feel like “ok the lord and Byleth (and maybe a mentor character) decide everything, everyone else is just along for the ride.”
I agree Mekkah, great video. At least with Awakening even though Robin was an avatar, he had enogh character that you could play as if he wasn't, but with Byleth it's super inmersion breaking.
Byleth is more of a tool than a character, he’s designed to have the branching campaigns male sense within the framework of the game. Everyone knows the real main character of this game is my boi Claude
To expand on your second point: Characters speak for minutes at a time, then Byleth throws out a random one liner with no real impact to the conversation and people actually feel like that's self-insertion? Do these people that feel like that's actual self-insertion even talk to other humans? These conversations with Byleth are downright creepy and unnatural. It's weird to have a game from Japan having such dialogue, considering the japanese are much more into back-and-forth dialogue, and positive listener reinforcment, than the western world generally is.
I think they should have treated Byleth more like Rean in Trails of Cold Steel...an avatar character with a personality who you can pair with whoever. Romance options can remain the same if they want but have VOICED support dialogue. I'm fine with un-voiced lines in the main story. Persona 5 kinda did the same thing as 3H but idk...there, it doesn't seem as bad... except for one section that I won't get into.
Y'know, sometimes you get more invested in a set character than a self-insert. I get very invested in Leif's struggle; a character can be pre-defined and you can still get invested. I think the Souls games do self-inserts well though. Please don't add avatars to remakes... Damn, I really need to finish the other routes.
I honestly consider Byleth less of an Avatar and more of an POV-Character with a bit too much emphasis on him. I never projected myself on Byleth, because he had basically no customisation and his character was just a but too strongly defined for him to be blank slade. Additionally, I could never project myself on anyone that unironically picks Edelgards route because he agrees with her ideals, so all my suspension of disbelief died right there
While I could see Blue lions and Golden deer working without Byleth, simply having Dimitri and Claude as the main character. Black eagle would be weird, ignoring church route, you would be playing half of the game with your main character (Edelgard) having a big secret and there would be no one to interact with the flame emperor I guess?
My problem with Byleth, is that some people think it's pretty genius to have him be silent as a personality. But that's like saying Kris wanting to train a lot is a personality. Don't get me wrong there are some interesting moments, but in terms of being engaged in the plot, Byleth pretty much disappears in BL, CF, and GD as a leading character since the lord takes over. I'm not saying that's a bad thing since to be honest, but while Awakening had a relatively poor plot, at least Robin's past and mystery was (kind of?) interwoven throughout the whole game. Most of the routes in 3H felt like Byleth was spectating the sport. So what I'm trying to say is, NOAH FOR CYL!
I think that's why they say it's good, that Byleth is pretty hands off and watching the plot unfold. But you're right Byleth ends up being a back and forth of "you're very important" and spectator. It's not terrible or bad by any means, but you can feel the inconsistency.
Kris wanting to train a lot isn't a personality, no. That's also kind of ignoring context, though. Kris doesn't just train for the sake of training, he trains to be an ideal soldier specifically to protect Marth, sacrificing his social life out of utter devotion to his lord. While Kris has an original subplot revolving around the assassins, he is ultimately a side character to the main plot who asks expository questions so Marth doesn't have to look like he doesn't know anything about stuff he should *really* know about. *cough FE3 cough*
@@Duothimir I agree that Kris is overall overhated and dies serve as a nice character to dump expodition on, but some moments like Jagen being regretful of his past decisions definetely belong to Marth instead of Kris. Kris isn't a bad avatar for FE standards, but he could use some more work
“Byleth isn’t, You are; yet Byleth still is.” Byleth is your self insert but also their own character. Both cannot be done simultaneously, so Byleth breaks. They are someone, yet no-one. They are you, yet they are not. They are a hole to be filled, yet already full. Thus is the paradox of Byleth, the puppet with half its strings.
Byleth is sometimes treated as a silent protagonist like Mark, and Byleth is sometimes treated as the center of the universe like Corrin, but in the end, Byleth is always Byleth because (s)he's Byleth.
I can appreciate Byleth as a silent protagonist because it means they were playing it safe and avoiding another fates, but if I were to make him a silent protagonist I'd try to make him more like Link from the legend of Zelda
Playing older games like FE4 and FE5 definitely made me realize how far this game has come from the one sided story dialogues and battle events to roleplaying / choices that arent really choices character simulator. Not saying the story in 3H was bad or anything, it had some really good moments but also moments where it just felt awkward having Byleth there watching the whole event.
I've only played Golden Deer route and was weirded out when at the end I wanted Claude to fix everything but Byleth ends up being ruler of fodlan or whatever. I was like "Really? I kinda don't feel like ruling."
Tbh there is almost never such a thing as a good self-insert character especially not in a Japanese game. That plot device always was and always will be about pandering, escapism and wish fulfilment and depending on the type of game it either adds to the experience of playing the game (pure dating sims) or detracts from it (any other type of game that tries to take itself seriously most of the time). But an avatar character and a silent protagonist should not be confused as being one and the same. Link from TLoZ is a silent protagonist, not an avatar, Persona 4 MC is a silent protagonist that also happens to be an avatar for the player and a well executed one at that, perhaps even the best of those I've seen in a Japanese game. A good avatar can be done but it demands a lot more effort and finesse from writers. Much more than IntSys was ever able to deliver. In my view, to work well, a good stand-in for the player requires either a morality system or just in general A LOT of dialogue options with meaningful outcomes. In Star Wars KOTOR the main character is both an avatar and a silent protagonist that works extremely well because the choices are numerous and most of them have a big impact in every single case. IntSys is never going to reach that level of quality in writing so I wish they'd stop trying altogether instead of making something that only works half the time, if at all. Fire Emblem was fine without the avatar.
@The Omen ok I'll bite. Plz elaborate. Actually nah, maybe you shouldn't. I literally gave all the examples I could think of at the time, so idk what else is there to talk about. I may be mildly curious still but tbh I've looked at some of your latest comments on these FE topics and I think I have a general grasp on what sort of person I'm dealing with. And let me tell you, I'm almost positive that no meaningful discussion can be had with a person of your general FE tastes and opinions even though I'm usually pretty open minded about things. Sounds to me like you just need to finally make peace with the fact that all of us have different standards for all things in life including how fictional characters in a silly little video game should be handled. And all of us have equal right to express our disdain/enjoyment of these things so that our voices reaching the developers give them an idea of what we want/don't want to see in future installments.
@The Omen Eh I'd agree with that sentiment but the recent track record of IntSys trying out this avatar thing leaves a lot to be desired. I think they've already had enough chances to fix what didn't feel right and failed at it consistently. I'd prefer a well written MC who is his own person and isn't defined by the need to express the player's own personality through extremely shallow options. All I've been saying is that they don't seem up to the task, at least not now and not in the foreseeable future. And FE is totally fine without that.
@@DarkSol13 the fact that they had been using the concept for the last 3 games shows that theyre far from removing the avatar concept, especially since its been pretty popular with japanese audiences, but doesnt mean games with more classic storytelling and characters cant be made through remakes like shadow dragon or shadows of valentia.
You make a lot of very valid points. I haven't put the same amount of thoughts about Byleth as you did, but after watching this video I mostly agree on everything. Mainly, the timeskip stuff where everyone just stays there for 5 years because Byleth isn't here any more shocked me too during my playthroughs. I think I really liked Byleth BEFORE they fused with Sothis, I mainly enjoyed the interactions they had with Sothis where she speaks in their head, teases them, etc. After the fusion, Byleth is really seen as a God, a Savior, by everyone. And this transformation kinda broke the "self-insert" thing for me, and also made me distance myself from the character. I was less invested in Byleth's adventures, and I missed Sothis too. The more the story goes, the more every other main characters (Rhea and the Lords) just rely so much on Byleth ; and the fact that Byleth just doesn't talk any more is particularly odd, because it happens at the very moment the story begins to become really serious. And on the topic of the silent protagonist, I think one of the reasons I enjoyed Sothis the most was just the fact that she speaks, and the fact that we hear her voice. Byleth without Sothis is just silent ; but Byleth with Sothis, because of the fact that Sothis speaks, seems to interact way more with their surroundings and with other people around them. After the fusion and the timeskip, being in Byleth's head seems wrong to me, because they're so silent, I wasn't accostumed to that.
12:00 I HAVE ANOTHER COMMENT HERE I MENTIONED IN OTHER PLACES For some ungodly strange reason, the game can't decide how Byleth's character is portrayed. Like you said, we are expected to believe he is, actually, quite charming. He only /looks/ like a blank slate because he's the avatar, right? In universe he speaks fluently and is charismatic, yeah? Well damn, I could believe that if him being a plank was an explicit trait of him as a result of Sothis and the Crest of Flames influence within him. And the lord points out how he looked so uncaring at first, but now at least smiles a bit. So That Was a Lie. Which one is it, game. WHICH ONE IS FUC-
I honestly think Byleth (and Three Houses as a whole) would be far better if Byleth wasn't an avatar and was just a regular character like everyone else. On another note, at least characters opening up to Kris, Robin, and Corrin felt more natural than Byleth since they can actually hold proper conversations with their support partners
I can see that, but if you take a game like Fable, for example. Fable one and two the main character had minimal voice acting, like Byleth does in three houses, just a rare line here or there. Those games, from my knowledge did really well with reviews and have very few flaws. Then in Fable Three, they added voice acting to the main character, and while that didn't fully destroy the game, it did significantly worse than it's predecessor from what I remember and a big factor of it was the voiced main character. This reminds me of that but idk
Byleth is the second coming of the (literal) Goddess, able to get almost any character to abandon their principles and home and follow the along into another country's conflict, often completely contradictory to their core ideals because Byleth is Just That Awesome. Byleth also is able to choose the fate of the world just by being present. Byleth /sucks/.
@@AdumbroDeus Mark lowkey made Lyn into Dora the Explorer with how many times she just turned to the screen and went “wow look how great u are” yk? Mark really doesn’t have a reason to exist so when you’re playing thru FE7 it just feels weird and forced when Lyn or any other character does that shit imo Robin > Byleth > Mark >> Kris >>> Corrin
If they keep doing the self insert, I just hope they take us back to a Robin-style self insert. Not the main character, a deuteragonist at best, and the lords are given more room to interact with other characters. I think the "vassal" system is probably the worst thing to inherit from Fates. They barely used it there for one, but also it inherently limits who a character is defined by. The Black Eagles is a very diverse and interesting cast, but it's instead defined entirely by Hubert and Edelgard, which is your stereotypical conniving villainous duo outside of BE. Ferdinand, Petra, Linhardt, and Dorothea all have an incredibly interesting relationship with Edelgard that would have been great to explore in the storry, but it just isn't.
@@ftheestablishment In FE archetype terms, the protagonist IS the "lord", regardless of their standing or other relevant characters. While all house leaders are relevant in several ways, the formalities in which the stories are told does not make them "lords". A prime example of this would be PoR, where Ike is undisputably the "lord" of the game, even though Elincia is also introduced early on and follows other traits that are usually assigned to a "lord". That means, the "lord" is the character the story is told through, and that is Byleth, not the house leaders.
The problem of the option 3 is in fact how Byleth resolve thing. Each house / path he join make him the god of it. Edelgard or Rhea are very good person with Byleth on side, and absolute garbage people with no redemption quality while he is away. It's a little too much and reinforce your point. For a game based on Perspective and tragedy, that just dont work for me neither.
The thing that irritated me the most about Byleth was that his name was customizable, only to NEVER BE USED since the game was completely voice acted. Instead, all the characters keep calling him "Professor" (or "Teach") even after the time skip. Took me out of the game every single time that happened.
Games that create a minor TTS engine so at least one or two characters can butcher your name need to be things. Why aren't they things? Or at least go Fallout 4 and have a guy record like, 100 random names, and if your name is or just is close to one, you get that instead of "Hey, you"
Honestly, I kind of wished people in the game treated Byleth as some quiet, goofy weirdo. It would've actually been interesting. People following this man because of his extreme ability in the face of how strange he is sounds like a fun dynamic.
Byleth is basically in the wrong type of game, if you placed him in a game like Zelda Breath of the Wild or Pokemon, he'd work fine because those games aren't as story driven as Fire Emblem is. I think what makes this so annoying is they got it right with Robin. They wrote him in a way where he mattered but wasn't central. And yes, he did have a personality, but it was done in a way that still made him feel like an avatar like being able to customize his appearance and choose who he can marry. It's actually ironic that so many people hate Byleth being put in Smash because ironically, he actually fits better there than in his own game.
I strongly agree with this - I felt that even the Tactician in FE7 was super cringe, and having all these highly accomplished characters constantly sing my praises just felt very pandery. At least in FE7 the Tactician character was optional when replaying the game, and Robin was actually a somewhat decent character in Awakening, but Byleth just fell into almost all the Avatar pitfalls I can think of. There are two things I will give Byleth credit for tho. First off, the character is actually willing to get his/her hands dirty in a way that I almost never see protagonists do in Nintendo games, whether he's (mercy) killing a POW, taking the life of a murderous teenage girl or executing a defeated foe mid-sentence. That's pretty hardcore actually. Second, Female Byleth's S-Support with Dimitri is really beautiful, even though this is 90% due to Dimitri.
Man you summarized my feelings on Byleth pretty succinctly. In a game where everyone has total voice acting, having the SI/MC go from having dialogue to being a silent protagonist felt all the more jarring and awkward. We never really learn much about Byleth because of this, and have to be told about their character or even their character development (with characters remarking that they are actually emoting more for example.) which is a shame since the rare few times we actually got to see Byleth react to things, such as a well timed emote or them crying over Jeralt dying were actually pretty nice, and the idea of our emotionally stunted MC growing through their students is an interesting plot idea, but we are only ever told about it. Similarly, much like Corrin, Byleth just gets showered with powerups and goodies to make themselves the best thing ever which I really didn't like, as Byleth is already important to the lords/students by being their proverbial emotional support blanket, so taking Byleth's uber powers wouldn't reduce their role in the story or anything, and I believe it would make their relationship all the more impactful by emphasizing how it was Byleth's teaching/emotional support that allowed the Lord they taught to succeed rather than muddying it because Byleth is a massive Goddess empowered destroyer of worlds. For as ridiculiously Self Inserty Robin could be at times, they honestly felt like they just did Byleth's shtick a lot better. Similar to Byleth they start off as basically a blank slate, but with them having dialogue it felt like there was more actual back and forth between them and the other characters and ESPECIALLY between Robin and Chrom whose Bro/Romance was definitely one of the high points of that game story/plot wise imho. And while Robin is very important to the plot because of dragonbullshit.jpg like Byleth/Corrin, its the fact that it is a constant liability that drives the plot rather than something that gives Byleth/Corrin a cool sword and awesome powers, and it makes the bonds between Robin and Chrom/the others feel all the more impactful when they stick by Robin despite the fact that Robin being alive is a constant danger due to them being the container from Grima, rather than Byleth who we get told has strong bonds with these people AND is the super badass container for Sothis that gives him a cool sword. While 3H definitely had a better plot than Awakening, it was inspite of Byleth rather than because of him. TL:DR: Byleth needed to be fully voice acted and not get super speshul powers and Robin was a better Byleth two whole games ago.
To me the silent protagonist who is suposed to be a badass is a trope that is so overused that unless you do something unique with it. Then it won't work. Silent protagonsts can work if they emote more. Just look at mr bean. Throughout his entire movie series he utters only two words. 1: bean 2: pen Yet we all know what kind of man he is. The best people have for Byleth as a character is a self insert. Because he/she has less emotion than the rest of the cast. Is it possible to discover what kind of personality Byleth has without any projecting of yourself in there? Maybe but you would need a vaatividya level of loredigging to do so.
In a game with characters that hold nuanced world views based on their upbringing, Byleth has no upgriging, no personality, no opinions and is literally the center of the universe. Byleth is 100% tell do not show, I literally believe the sothis connection in him makes everyone love him uncontrollably and only Rhea is self aware of this. I do agree though that they bit off more than they could chew.
You should watch the Persona franchise as a whole, they make an amazing job with silent protagonists because the dialogue options are so hilarious and charming , also you can bond with them a lot because they start as a no one, a loser in a way (with the exception of persona 4). Sorry of my english, I am latin American.
You need to have a little more imagination to enjoy avatars at their fullest anyway, I was never that invested in feeling like I was Byleth, (moreso in my first run with the blue lions, since I picked Female Byleth to balance the gender ratio), but invested enough to care about the students from her perspective.
This is quite interesting, I've never seen myself as the Avatar or in their place. It was just someone to play that wasn't the main 3 Lords imo yknow, a different set of eyes to play through.
I largely agree with you on Byleth, and I have a hard time caring about her as much as I do the "real" characters in the game. That being said, I think Byleth works best as a character in Crimson Flower and Verdant Wind; in those two routes, she serves as a subversion of the super special Mary Sue avatar kind of character in a way that she doesn't in the other routes. A very important point with what makes Byleth so extremely relevant is that it has very little to do with Byleth as a person; Byleth wasn't qualified to be a teacher, she's qualified to be a Knight of Seiros. The church characters state as much and Seteth is absolutely right to question Rhea's motivations because the decision has nothing to do with Byleth being qualified. What Rhea did to Byleth without her knowledge or consent is the reason why you're so important. Crimson Flower is the only route where Byleth makes a real choice, and my god is it an important one. The decision to side with Edelgard is a unilateral rejection of godhood and the secret dragon government that controls Fodlan. In this route, Byleth actively decides *not* to be the Mary Sue Rhea specifically molded her to become, and it culminates in Byleth's mortality and humanity being restored in the final act. Verdant Wind also subverts the archetype, but in the complete opposite way. I think this is the route for "dumb silent protagonist" Byleth; all of the meaningful decisions are made by Claude, and Byleth is reduced to a symbol. Claude is unique as the only one of the lords who lacks a crippling character flaw. His need for Byleth is not as a friend, but as propaganda. In the end Byleth is propped up as sole leader of all Fodlan, despite having zero political experience, for little reason other than her connection to Rhea. Fortunately she has a close relationship with the leader of Almyra, who would be more than happy to provide her advice on leadership. While their friendship isn't false, what Claude really needs and what he gets from Byleth is a useful tool to achieve world domination through diplomacy. Verdant Wind would have played out exactly the same if Byleth had been replaced with a sexy lamp that can wield the sword of the creator, and I think that's beautiful, especially when compared to Crimson Flower. Azure Moon and Silver Snow both try to make Byleth more important without actually getting past the point of being a wall for more developed characters to talk to which is part of why I think they're kinda bad. Won't get into past that
Having not played Silver Snow due to the knowledge of its spoilers and that it has the same maps as Verdant Wind, I think Azure Moon provides a substantial setting for you as the player rather than you as Byleth. Though Edelgard is in a similar situation, she has the mental capacity to control her fate without you as the player at her side. She was still able to successfully cripple the church and hold two powerful factions at gun point for half a decade without you on her side. Dimitri is, I think, clearly the most damaged lord. He’s reduced to nothing in Verdant Wind and wasn’t even granted a cutscene in Crimson Flower, simply serving as a pre-cursor to the showdown with Rhea. Without you specifically picking Dimitri, he is nothing. Claude and Edelgard are both strong enough to keep afloat without you for some time, making Azure Moon the only route I felt like I as a person truly saved the lord I chose. I know technically you do so with Edelgard as well, but it just isn’t the same for me. I feel like that, coupled with Azure Moon’s lack of focus on your status as a deity in favor of a complete focus on the war, separated me from thinking I was playing as Byleth. I felt like that was actually just me helping Dimitri become human again, being there for him because he needed me more than any character in the game does. That’s kinda what I got from Azure Moon, anyways. And yeah I picked Dimitri first so obviously biased but I do agree that Byleth as a character isn’t as dynamic in Azure Moon, but I also think there’s a reason for that. Excellent comment though, you helped me see Verdant Wind in a new light.
I mean while it's true that Claude uses Byleth politicaly he still calls Byleth a true friend and you can even marry him and it's not like he's pretending to get more politival power, he's truly sincere about how much Byleth means to him. And it's also unclear how much power Byleth has in WV, but I think that the devs never wanted to suggest that Byleth was super incompetent and that instead Claude makes all the important decisions, that seems more like just headcannon to me. Also in CF Byleth doesn't really reject Rhea, but instead just chooses Edelgard and her path instead. If the gamr had done more things to imply that Byleth is uncomfortable with the church his rejection of Rhea would be cool, but instead it'very akward since you side with your student who just tried to kill you. Also El somehow losses all her competence in CF and can only win because of Byleth, so I don't see how Byleth stops being a Mary Sue in that route either Really everytime Byleth is supposed to be unimportant in a route it seems like it was unintentional and only happens because of the fact that Byleth has no personality
@@spliting I wouldn't really say "Dimitri wasn't granted a cutscene in CF", is CF being unfair over Dimitri, when CF only has one cutscene at the end, even though it has parts, that desperately need one, (looking at you Chapter 12). I'm sure, if there were more Cutscenes, the Battle of the Tailtean Plains would be a likely candidate for those.
I would’ve liked Byleth having their answers voiced. Like they even replaced Male Byleth. Something interesting is Byleth’s lack of customization. I was surprised they didn’t include any but it does keep Byleth from going full on self insert, least in my opinion. Now whether that helps Byleth isn’t something I can quite decide on. Now that I think more I think Byleth is why I didn’t like Crimson Flower. Like Edelgard conquers a chunk of the continent before Byleth returns but when they do it’s suddenly all “omg teach time to turn the tides.” This works for the other routes (somewhat) but that one route was just not good. It sucks seeing interesting characters be forced to praise, respect and need Byleth to do anything.
My least favorite thing about Byleth is that it feels like half of his purpose is to be so incompetent as to both balance out and justify the rewind mechanic in-story. Something like half of his cutscenes involve him failing at something it would be near impossible to fail at in gameplay, like falling off a cliff when he can rewind time, or getting banished to the shadow realm when he can rewind time, or failing to react in time to a bandit's screaming charge attack with a 7 second windup. This guy needed _literal divine intervention_ to survive his damned prologue, due to failing at doing something that Lucina did _effortlessly._
I actually do not even know why and how byleth failed against the bandit. reactiontime is always easier on the second try, but they could at least havetried to semiblock the attack. not to mention how that one hit appearently somehow got byleth close enough to death for sothis to jump out and say "lol,u succ". that has to be one roided up axe to deal that much damage
I find it interesting when people say Byleth is uninteresting because I personal find him/her to be a good character for the prescribed role. Think this mostly stems from Byleth being pretty similar to myself as far as lacking in expressiveness around others and mostly being very logical when responding to them. I feel a lot is unsaid about what Byleth is going through and how he/she works through a dilemma and the stiff in-game animations can't really show it properly so it's more implied and might not get picked up on by the player. Of course it's fine if you find that boring but for me it adds a subtlety that isn't often seen in a lot of games.
I think his point is the game wants the player to roleplay Byleth so when they suck up to Byleth they're sucking up to the player. And its annoying to see time and effort wasted on telling the player's avatar how amazing they are, even moreso if you don't relate in anyway because you see straight through the bs
A thing that bugged me but isn't really relevant to the point of the video is that most people don't roleplay as themselves, but as a character they craft in their head, like in DnD.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 88 | คู่เอก "ป้อมเพชร vs อัสลามจอน"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1ZqTVVbMgbo/mqdefault.jpg)
Somehow forgot this initially but thanks to Ryn for proofreading the script for me, this video would've been a lot worse off without it. And thanks to Cyan for editing/thumbnail of course, you're a machine.
I agree with you
now I wonder about the reaction if Geralt of rivia appeared in a three houses dlc wave with a side mission and interactions with a few cast members.
Mekkah 1: I feel he is a half baked character. He is Better then Corrin but Worse Robin.. because even though Robin in semi bad game with bad writing but still had a unique personality.. Yes Robin is Avatar but has his Own personality.
2: The game could have easily done a better job with the professor Coming into terms with his Growing Emotions. the only meaniful Bond he had was With His Father.
3: Realistically speaking he should pick up some personality quirks from his father and because he is Still growing emotionally he will be Influenced by The Class he teaches and Bonds.
4:The Lore and plot of the game stated the Professor to be Experienced and Powerful mercenary. It was even established that he has reputation among Mercnaries. Despite all of that he has the stats of a level 1 character. which is inconsistent in Fire Emblem because usually the Chracter Intial is indicator of How Strong and Skilled they are in the Plot... For Example Seth From Sacred Stones established to Powerful Knight and Will Normally Hold his Own in most Situiations in Gameplay. Ike Was Level 1 in Path of Radiance because he Started to Become a mercenary... thank exclusion of Koreans he is strong enough surpass a crippled Greil(His Father) Keep in mind Griel Was More then Match for Petrine who was One Ashnards Most Powerful General.. the only exception is Volke because he Holds Back his Strength in path of radiance. As he Confident enough to kill in path of Radiance if goes berserk from touching the Medallian.. like I point out sometimes there exceptions with Using Level to determine How strong a Chracter is.
5: his proficiencies are too low. Someone like the Professor it starts off with low proficiency that it is Hard to level up his proficiencies.. his father is established to be the strongest Knight of foldlan and That Same Former Knight Trained him. Look Below:
Sword: B+
Brawling: B
Authority: C+
Bow: C
Axe: C
Riding: C
Faith: E(Budding talent) Immense potential.
Flying: E
Reason: E
Now keep in mind he has no weakness when it comes to learning proficiencies now imagine him understanding concepts and Learning from other professors so he could be equipped on teaching on the certain subject.
The reason why I give him these proficient ranks because he was trained by his father so he should at least understand the basics and be proficient of most of them... with him only lacking in magic and How to Handle Flying Creatures.
To be honest, I can't agree with you on this, Mekkah. I wanted to write a long comment as to why, but basically, it boils down to one factor - Byleth is designed in a similar manner to Persona protagonists.
Silent, but characterised discregely (although Persona does a much better job at this); integrated via plot importance (something 3H does very well with Rhea and such); focus on learning via bonding with others...
Persona has shown that this formula can work both commercially and critically. And though Byleth has a somewhat barebones personality, his involvement in the plot makes much more sense and also a fascinating character as to his role in the overarching narrative. Again, Persona has a better track record overall with these kinds of characters, but I would not go as far as to call Byleth a bad character.
@@sanchez6194 his personality is still poorly executed though
Marianne in her A support: "the truth is Professor, before I met you I prayed for the goddess to kill me. You helped me find my self-confidence, and continue to go on."
Byleth: (just fucking nods)
Byleth: I know, the goddess told me about it.
Relatable honestly. I be givin' hecka advice and then being like "ye" when people thank me.
Dedue really needed a bigger part in this game, he's wonderful
Dedue is a real one, he needed more than what was given to him in the story
They probably couldn't give Dedue too much to do since he can die in AM if you don't do his paralogue. Still I wonder why they even decided to make it possible for Dedue to die instead of just letting miss a few chapters, but only IS knows that
instead, the FATHER of the year, gilbert, took his place. rip...
@@maibignutt6434 Dedue has some choice words for the "father of the year"
I think his role is great for every route except his own. Especially in crimson flower. Seeing him willingly transform into a demonic beast blew my mind. I had to see more of the kingdom cast so my second run I chose blue lions just to see that Dedue plays almost no role in it.
One thing I like that they did in Three Houses is instead of trying to give a personality to a “silent protagonist” (who just kinda don’t have personalities) they literally wrote a whole story around the fact that they don’t have a personality
Well, kinda.
They also wrote the story around Byleth being super charismatic and inspiring despite having no personality.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 he is not charismatic but they mention that byleth is a good listener and understands the other People arround him and that the people like Him fot this reason
Imo that just makes it worse. For a game like this, I feel like the whole point of a silent protagonist is the fact the player gives a personality to the protagonist. And no personality is still a personality. You've been told that you're stoic and were always angry before going to the monastery, that you rarely genuinely smile, are a good listener, etc. If they are going to push a personality on you, even a "no personality", then there's no point to why Byleth is silent. They should've just used Byleths voices for the entire game.
Kain Tugwell-Fisher I like to think that the Crest of Flames gives Byleth their natural leadership and charisma. It comes directly from Sothis, a Nabatean who's now revered as a goddess. We also see Edelgard and Nemesis use it- Edelgard being the emperor who managed to get back her the powers taken from the Emperor after the Insurrection of the Seven and rallied the entire empire's nobility, as well as half the Alliance nobles and a good proportion of the Kingdom after the coup, behind her cause of abolishing the nobility. It would be like somehow convincing the Forbes 100 to back a communist revolution.
Nemesis began life as a mere bandit, but after gaining the Crest of Flames managed to gain renown as the King of Liberation, lead a huge army, conquer most of Fodlan and commit a genocide, and the entire war is decided by Byleth's leadership. We already know that Crests grant superhuman abilities outside of just game mechanics, like Dimitri snapping necks with a single hand or shattering weapons in trainings, so it makes sense that the crest of the goddess gives you superhuman charisma and leadership skills.
Yea thats nice unlike Corrin who cant shutup and is super annoying
Blue Lions
Gilbert: "Do you wanna go to Enbarr or Fhirdiad?"
Byleth: (gets two options)
Gilbert when picking Fhirdiad - "Ok"
Gilbert when picking Enbarr - "No, screw your choice, let's go to Fhirdiad"
I thought that was there for you to see if you payed attention to the story or not. I appreciated it, since I realised that I was awarded for paying attention.
They actually did intend a route split at that moment, if you followed dimitri's suicidal charge into enbarr felix and annette would leave the party because of their emotional state towards fhirdiad, but i believe they ran out of time. So instead it was just made it into a, are you a rational person who thinks of those who that are suffering under tyranny in one's own country should be rescued, or do you think that following another person's vengeance will make things right
@@daosxion776 while we dont technically know that for sure, i was also going to bring that up. things like the cut route split in the data that leads to the blue lions splitting up always has made me wonder if there was originally meant to be more impact in a lot of your little decisions. as good as three houses definitely is, things like this and the short length of crimson flower make me feel like the team could have used just a little more time
No shade at you, but I hate when people bring up this supposed choice. It's not asking that. It's saying hey Byleth, WOULD you have liked to go to Fhirdiad? And Byleth obviously would. But Dimitri overruled you and thus Gilbert will follow the leader so to speak. It's essentially saying hey player, Dimitri isn't in his right mind atm. He's prioritizing the dead/revenge over the living/future. And it's showing that his team is helpless to resist in a way. If they had opposed him better than maybe he wouldn't have blinded run into danger at Gronder. At least that's how I take it. Byleth and the others understand the right course but cannot convince Dimitri otherwise, and they won't challenge him and force him to change his mind.
@@l.n.3372 I agree for the most part, however I think everyone goes with Dimitri less because he strong arms them, but more that they're worried for his safety. We see in the golden deer and silver snow route Dimitri ignores everything and chases Edelgard only to die unceremoniously.
Is it me or does anyone else just treat the self insert as an actual character and not an self insert?
@Nill Null yeah I'm not denying that I hate self insert characters I wish we got one with it's own personality or you could choose your personality at the start of the game which would affect dialogue and make him an actual emotional character
Envy ʕ•̫͡•ʕ•̫͡•ʔ theres no need to hate self insterts, they can be cool. Byleth just sucks as a self insert and as a character being integrated into the story. I think id be just fine with a silent protagonist learning the ropes as a teacher nit bogged down by the whole science experiment part.
That's what I did with Robin, since I never actually felt like I WAS Robin. And I was fine with that because they just felt like a customizable unit with their own personality.
It's hard to do that with Byleth since they never talk vocally outside of battle, which is a shame because if Byleth were their own character, I feel like way more could've been done with them.
I kind of could in Robin's case, but I have a harder time with Byleth because of his muteness. Wish he wasn't an avatar.
Same and I like him.
Still gotta love Robin.
Robin did kinda just get put in charge of battlefield strategy out of nowhere, but Chrom was still in charge.
Robin, unlike Corrin or Byleth, is not given the main lord treatment. Chrom is written as the main character with Robin simply aiding and supporting him (like how Sherlock Holmes is the MC of Sherlock Holmes despite Wattson being the viewpoint character).
Robin didn't get a personal weapon, which I think was a really good move on IntSys' part, because that encourages player to be whatever class they want to be.
You don't get the feeling that the world would stop turning without Robin's precense. Robin's strategies were a large boon for the Shepherds, but they were still accomplished warriors and would probably have managed somewhat well without Robin, at least until the war against Valm, in which a series of key strategic moves from Robin highly elevated the Shepherds' efforts.
Robin being an essential part of the villain's plans really did add a lot to Robin's Arc.
Same i just thought Robin was a really cool dude that the shepherds were lucky to run into hea wasnt thr main lord but he was still respected for his genius. And yeah the no personal was great you could be what you wanted
My favorite part about them was just how much character they had compared to Byleth. They were genuinely interesting at times.
They decided to balance out these decent parts of Robin’s character by making the whole game a massive power fantasy and Robin the most overpowered character in the series.
Awakening is still my favorite "Modern" FE game. I still gotta play the other ones, working on Shadow Dragon ATM.
@@Edgeperor
Making Awakening a power fantasy? Robin being overpowered? Uh, no. You make it sound like you've never even heard of Awakening, let alone played it. The only way Robin would get overpowered, is if you continuously feed them kills in battles, like a solo run or something. Yes, Robin can get powerful, but will also be outclassed by other characters, like Lon'qu, or for a more consistent example, Donnel. Donnel is, undoubtedly, one of the most powerful units you can get in Awakening. Now, if you pair him with Female Robin, and pass his Aptitude onto Morgan with a Galeforce from Robin, and Morgan becomes the most powerful unit in Awakening.
I find it interesting that the retainers DO try to fill the emotional void for their lord in Byleth's absence, but they just fail. Dedue blindly follows Dimitri, Wookie-Life-Debt-Style, and therefore only encourages Dimitri. Hilda actually isn't super lazy, everyone that says that ignored her supports, but she definitely isn't a grand source of confidence or stability for Claude. At best, she helps him play the Alliance lords against eachother to keep the false neutrality alive--her endings do talk about her managerial skills, and it suits her. But it doesn't help Claude make headway against Adrestia. Hubert is Edelgards supporter, even to the extent of doing morally bankrupt things behind her back to her own benefit--even against her wishes if he deems it so. He is NOT a paragon of moral restraint or emotional guidance.
Looking at what happens in the absence of Byleth through that lens adds a lot of depth and is fairly reasonable to do IMO. The only big flaw with this being Dimitri's childhood trio, but Sylvain and Felix are caught up defending their lands in the wake of the Coup, and Ingrid is...somewhere. Presumably doing the same. Not hard to see them getting caught up in revenge with their friend, or being simply too scared to fight against him. That's weaker though, narratively.
Also, the lords don't just stand around and do nothing while Byleth is away. The Kingdom is split and in rebellious deadlock, the Alliance is present a facade of neutrality while dealing with infighting to prevent an actual new war front, and Adrestia has hit a road block because of the Kingdom issue. Byleth gives Edel the confidence to open the eastern front of the war against the Alliance. S/He gives Claude the confidence and Religious authority to gain Church support and begin gurellia activities that lead into a full offensive. Byleth helps restore Dimitri to sanity by being the one person that Dimitri both respects, and feels he cannot outright bully, which lets him save Faerghus and win the war. These things do happen.
But that all said, Byleth is still a less-than-superb character. They'd be better if they were just their own character, not a self insert. Good video Mekkah, good discussion.
I think Byleth support other characters or impacts the plot is not the problem.
Question: But *how* do Byleth give Edel confidence? Well, he's a teacher, strong, beacon of morality. BUT HOW? He's a mercenary for all his life, he is emotionally stunted but have no problems with it at all. He is only a good listener because he literally can't talk. His voice has no consistence in his options. Stoic, ironic, flirty. All of them. They smile. Their eyebrows waggle. That's it.
They never struggle with expression.
Why does he support Edelgarde, she's his student. What experience in the mercenary life cause him to believe in her cause? Well, *everything* can be his cause because they just allude to "support" "teacher" "justice"
Dimitri's quest is personal, Edelgarde's quest is personal, Claude quest is personal. Byleth just stands around and follows people, and somehow that gets them to be appointed pope at the end and the ruler of the continent in Claude's route.
@@cyncynshop well~ thats kinda because he followed people around and got a goddess worshipped by the church inside him. And then proceeded to follow the pope. even in the battle of the timeskip in claude's route. .-.
cyncynshop Him being a mercenary all his live is probably a factor in it. One trait of byleth character is that he’s an extremely skilled military commander. Edelgards confidence would stem from him repeatedly defeating the death knight, killing kronya and Solon, and leading the Black Eagle Strike Force at Garreg Mach. In terms of just the pure war effort byleth making edelgard more confident makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is him stopping her from being completely absorbed into her ideals like in all the other routes.
cyncynshop Well Byleth canonically has God-like powers and Edelgard even mentions that Byleth provides enough power to conquer the Alliance.
@cyncynshop It's just love. She's crushing on Byleth really hard and was in despair over them vanishing, and now that they're alive and by her side again she's got her groove back.
i think one thing with byleth specific that gets me is he's meant to be "you" but you literally can't customize anything about him like you could robin or corrin. at the point they decided all physical features, voice, and boons/banes would be the same for every byleth, they should have just written byleth to be an actual character rather than a self-insert.
Yeah.
One or the other works, blurring the line can even work if the game is trying to poke around at the relationship between player and character, but as written, 3 Houses is just schizophrenic at times.
One scene, Byleth is voicing opinions that you very well might not, then the next they are doing whatever blank slate thing the game needs to stuff your own ideas in there.
If it did one or the other, it'd be fine, at least, but it seems like they either tried to have their cake and eat it too, or else there were writers who weren't talking to eachother.
While you couldn't really customize much about Mark in Blazing Blade, Mark still feels more like "you" than Byleth because of his lack of importance. Mark couldn't talk at all, was no godly/special being and the story events that were happening involved the 3 lords, not you/Mark/the player directly. You just happened to be a tactician who met these 3 lords and decided to help them, mainly to improve your own skills and also because you became friends with Lyn early in the game. Nothing more. It was so simple, yet very satisfying. You are no special person irl, so it feels more natural to be just another guy in a video game. The whole worship thing about self insert MCs on the other hand is a bit irritating to me. It shouldn't be a necessity to sell a game. Imo, the support cast (not Byleth or the main lords) carried Three Houses. They were much more interesting and complex.
...but Blyeth wasn't really a self insert.
He may have appeared as such, but he had his own personality & backstory. He was a emotionless being who never smiled, laughed, or cried until much later in the game. He was a mind bending god that caused those around him to act abnormally. (As several of the characters mention.)
That said, I wasn't particularly fond of his character.
@@simplysolus8916 imo the back story of being a blank slate mercenary with no memories of his past, no idea how old he is, and who knows nearly nothing about his only family is not a personality. thats just an explanation for why you the player get this empty shell to project onto.
also the fact that even when there is only one dialogue option you still have to click a and confirm you the player want byleth to say that line makes me feel like you are definitely supposed to see yourself as byleth.
like, realistically, tell me what byleth's personality is outside of being unfeeling in the beginning. is he dry witted, is he sarcastic, is he always serious? is he respectful or does he always say whats on his mind? does he value hardwork or does he not care what others do?
there is no one right answer to those questions, because you are the one who got to decide what byleth's personality was and every single one of those answers is potentially correct.
i also really don't agree with the idea he gets emotions "Much later in the game" either. off the top of my head, you can start to give him a competitive or excited way of seeing things as early as the mach battle shortly after flayn joins. some dialogue options depending on route are very clearly emotional due to the reaction you get from your house leader and i wouldnt call that moment very far in the game.
@@simplysolus8916 When I started the game, I also thought that. Since you couldn't customize much about Byleth, I thought IS walked away from their mistake called Corrin and went back to a protagonist with more personality like Alm, Celica, Ike, Micaiah, Eliwood, Lyn or Hector. You can clearly tell what these protagonists feel, how they act based on their personality and goals and each of them overall has a "presence" in their games that is way greater than their supporting characters. You even had a few decisions to make while playing Ike and Micaiah, but they were perfectly in line with their personality and didn't overlay their motivations.
Now look at Byleth. He has no presence at all aside from everyone saying "he is very special and important". Someone who barely speaks = the main character = has almost no emotions = very charismatic & good at teaching = incredibly popular, just doesn't make much sense. If he were not a self-insert character, he would be the poorest written main character in a Fire Emblem game so far.
Have you played Path of Radiance yet? If not, I would really recommend it. Ike and Byleth basically have the same background. Not remembering their childhood very well, being raised in a mercenary group and their fathers are leaders and teachers for them. Very similar at first glance, but complete opposites once you make it through the first few levels. 3H had a much better supporting cast than PoR, but PoR had a better protagonist and a more realistic dread or war feeling. Both games are extremely good, don't get me wrong. But please give PoR a try if you find the chance to do so, even if it's just to see how Byleth as a main character is compared to a better written MC.
I didn’t know Mekkah was a Smash fan.
Nice burn!
If he was a Smash fan he would be calling Byleth only by a girl
got to be a dick about it
Nah bro. Smash fans refer to Byleth as a female while COMPLETELY ignoring the male
@@ichangedidk9097 its kinda stupid
Maybe the real avatar were the pitfalls we made along the way.
Nah it was the worst thing since my son.
I think this one works better the other way around (at least from IS perspective)
I find myself agreeing with a lot of the points in this video, and I believe that Byleth could have benefited from a voice (both literally and thematically) to drive the character in the narrative.
I forget exactly which video it was, but I remember someone suggesting that Byleth should have the choice between short, simple, and stoic dialogue options and expressive, personal, and empathetic responses. As the game continued, these choices would become much more human, showing Byleth's progression from the near-silent mercenary we start as to a qualified and well-spoken teacher/general. It would be an interesting contrast to have Byleth's emotional growth mirroring the physical growth of their students, showing not only how the students benefit from Byleth's presence, but how Byleth would benefit from simple social interaction.
I believe you're referring to BOOFIRE191's video, which was another good take on Byleth.
Nintendo Nerd too be fair his heart doesn’t beat either
@@Lanoman123 simeone pointed out along here that you can hear a heartbeat with story-changing decisions. ;3
Its subtle but clever
Persona has done this in 4 and 5 it worked so much better than this
I’d like to add two more things to the gripes about Byleth
- He fails at being a self insert. There is nothing to self insert into him besides picking your gender, name, house, and partner at the end. The dialogue choices don’t reflect what I would say most of the time, the personality is not me, the character design isn’t me. I understand its a huge undertaking to get this kind of thing right, but it doesn’t feel like a self insert, it just feels like a hollow shell of a character they think I want to be. Its what bothers me so much about rpgs with silent protagonists, I’ll take an actual character with their own voice and arcs over a hollow shell. And even the in universe reasons for them being quiet don’t feel great and similar stuff has been done and played with before.
- Certain aspects about him feel contradictory towards the setting. Somehow he’s a mercenary who’s traveled all Fodlan yet doesn’t know a thing about the Church or other basic aspects about the world is unbelievable. Even Corrin had an inkling of the tensions between Nohr and Hoshido and they grew up completely isolated from the world in a tower. Somehow he can sleep for five years undisturbed during a war, especially strange in CF where the Monastery nearby isn’t left unoccupied. He has in universe time rewind powers, but its completely forgotten in situations where it would make sense to use them because it’s inconvenient for the plot.
I think canonically, he cant use the pulse that often. though its odd he rarely uses it but i guess it would be annoying if every cutscene where something bad happened byleth just pulsed and either fixed it or something else bad happened like the jeralt cutscene
I was seriously taken out of the game by your first point during my Golden Deer play-through, where at one point all the game wanted me to talk about was Rhea... And I'm sitting here thinking, why the hell would I care about Rhea right now?
And honestly... I forgot that his time rewind powers weren't just video game logic and were actually used in early cut-scenes.... Even if he could only go back a few seconds like in those scenes, that power certainly would've been useful more than once as the game progresses
True u right 👍
@ Summer / Planetarial
i know this comment is old but i still wanted to say something
i think byleth as a character is kind of misunderstood by a lot of players
i never thought of byleth as a self insert because he has a backstory, a personallity (even if it isn't strong but people like that exist) and has reasons why he is the way he is
as other people have said already byleth is a good listener and can understand why someone would feel and/or react a certain way even if they themselfs don't ''feel'' it
he is a mercenary that has traveled but as we know the reason why byleth doesn't really know about the church and other things is because jeralt never told them about it
i am very sure that if byleth ever heard something about it and asked jeralt about it he would probably just say that it's nothing importand or that it doesn't matter since it has nothing to do with them and since byleth lacks emotion it's understandable why they wouldn't be curious about it they probably thouht if jeralt says it's not importand then i guess it isn't
in corrins case they were told a few times that there is some type of conflict and that their siblings are fighting in a war while byleth wasn't told about it
the being asleep for 5 years is because who in their right mind would go look for someone that fals down a giant ass cliff
literally everyone basically thought that they are dead and yes the lords say they had a feeling that byleth may not be dead but would you rather search for them and find them literally in pieces (since that's why they slept for so long since it just took that long to regenerate their injuries) or just hope that they might return someday
and in regards to the time rewind i don't think it would have been a nice thing to see byleth rewind multiple times just to continuesly fail since they can only rewind by a few minutes and often times the outcome of a scenario was basically unavoidible
@@DeiManThe1 the house leaders are more protaganists.
I really feel Byleth should’ve just been called Byleth (so the characters could actually call him/her Byleth) and he should’ve just been a regular character who speaks- and I feel they could’ve made that better
You know what's funny? All these avatar characters are getting into Smash, meaning they end up having a "real" name in the end.
It was fine for the students to call Byleth "professor". For everyone else, it was stupid. Other professors reffering to the newest one as...professor? What?
@@gabrielmaravalhas8876 In japanese it makes sense, professors call each other 'sensei', but in the rest of the world is weird
@@sftsmilee It's still weird when an enemy calls Byleth "professor" like Rhea does in the Crimson Flower route
They definitely make Byleth a professor just to make it easy on the character writers lol
@@gabrielmaravalhas8876 Not Jeralt. He goes, "Hey K I D."
It's funny regarding this part about "Some choices don't matter, like in real life" because that was basically Awakening's gimmick; it didn't have TONS but it had _some_ choices (like the Emmeryn one) that you would only realize were hopeless if you were to go back or play it again. But I think that was one of the story themes: *you cannot change fate.* Only the final choice seemed to have some impact, which was appropriate (if it could've been done better or not is a different matter). I never see anyone give Awakening credit on that department, it's all just "Oh meaningless choices, meh".
But here in Three Houses it has nothing to do with the theme so why is it even there lol
And ironically, in FE *Fates* , you had no real choice impact. And it's not really a plot point either!
I loved the idea of Byleth being an emotionless character that slowly learned to feel and care for others. My problem with him is the unconditional trust everyone puts in him, so much so that others will betray everything to stick near him after the timeskip. If he had to work to earn the trust of everyone in the church, instead of becoming a god that everyone was expected to look up too and follow without question.
It maybe was done so recruiting, customizing and grinding your units wouldnt be more difficult that what already is. then again, I never recruited more than 2 students from outside my house, and the personnel at garreg mach is mostly neutral. but damn Hubert, he's not only Impossible to recruit outside of BE, but also hard to get rid of.
Totally agree. A lot of devs do this for “immersion” but nothing’s more immersion breaking than pretending I’m a guy with lime green hair who doesn’t have a personality.
I’d love to have the option of growing a highly customizable character who was just part of the team, not the center of the universe.
Man that intro was smooth.
In all seriousness, I'm surprised there's no mentions about Silver Snow. Byleth literally becomes the god emperor of Fodlan in the end by process of elimination and everyone's ok with it and I honestly find that quite weird.
I still think Byleth is better than Corrin tho (though in hindsight that isn't saying much).
Same happens in VW.
@@nachohangover5104 Yeah but at least Claude comes back to help later. Meanwhile it's SS it's just them or Rhea/Seteth helping a bit too.
I'm not surprised people don't mind since no one else is around and the story made Byleth a god.
Based on character's endings, while officially Byleth is the only big boss... there are other people involved: Rhea, Seteth, Ferdinand etc...
Similar thing with the other route endings... Byleth is never all alone in charge of Fòdlan.
Godspeed You! Byleth Emperor
while i did like byleth more then robin and corrin, i really do wish we'd get rid of either the player avatar thing, or have them be like Commander Sheppard in Mass Effect where you can actually craft a personality for the character, even if Mass Effect ended up being a linear experience in the end. who's feeling me here?
I feel you. (I think I'm using that term right...)
idk how u can like byleth more than robin, corrin 100% though
Well 3houses story owns awakening story, thus giving byleth free-points simply for beeing part of a bether story, but otherwise robin has more personality
@@hiddensanchez9876 here me out, Robin i feel like suffers from having knowledge and doing things outside of what a first time player would know of, like the boat chapter's plan, or the entirity of the plan involing big warrior man(his name escapes me) faking his death and replacing the stones in the fire emblem with fake stones.
these are plans that are meant to be plot twists, but the player is unaware of them, and if robin is suppose to be a self insert like he's designed to be, its poor form for the self insert to be more knowledgeable then the player, Robin is better as his own character-but in that case he should've never been an avatar in the first place.
i know i might be overthinking my stance on that abit much, but its how i view it.
@@hadoukenfighter I agree.
I just want to quickly defend the point that the students dont do anything inbetween the skips.
- In CF the Black Eagles are naturally setting the wars current scenario, taking over Faergus and Reaching the bridge of Myrddin.
- in BL they are defending the remaining regions loyal to the old kingdom (Fraldarius and Galatea), as well as searching for Dimitri due to Gilberts knowledge.
- In GD the commoners went home with their families. Claude kept the other Alliance lords in deadlock so Leicester was relatively peaceful.
However theres no reason for what the BE crew was doing in silver snow. But that route sucks anyway.
I always viewed SS to be a carbon copy of GD, which is why I don’t like GD as much. It doesn’t feel unique compared to CF and BL, especially because almost everything about SS is just GD but with Seteth instead of Claude. I know this is an irrelevant remark to your overall point, but I just wanted to state my opinion.
In SS they were just very confused because neither Edelgard nor Byleth was around so they just stood around the place looking at each other for 5 years.
Haven't played SS, but don't the students lose most of their influence in that route? It's not like they could just fight Edelgard by themselves.
@@fubu72 after timeskip the students profiles update and say wjat they did during the 5 years. It's very very barebones but it's better than nothing
@@katowoozy3664 Believe it or not, it's actually the other way around. GD is the copy of SS.
Some of the cutscenes they share straight up don't make sense in GD because they were very obviously made for SS.
Byleth teeters on the scale between silent protagonist and normal character on which he gets impaled on. A true silent protagonist should be completely blank. Byleth on the other hand has enough traits to flesh him out. He enjoys his role as a teacher, confident in his fighting ability, loves his students and his father. So then turning him into a self insert comes back to bite him in the butt
you know he/she is literally a walking corpse animated by sothis crest stone, right? them having even a small hint of a personality is an achievement in an on itself.
@@ayar2 Having a reason for a bad decision doesn't make the decision better. Bad writing is bad no matter what justification something comes up with.
@@kiwikarp9509 doesnt really matter if people like him/her or not at this point, avatars/self inserts are still popular in japan, and I guess they'll continue to use them until they come up with something more interesting or the trend dies out.
@@ayar2 That also does nothing to the quality of Byleth's "character", they suck regardless of this.
@@kiwikarp9509 Im not defending him/her, cuz I dont care what people think of him/her, I enjoyed both the game and the characters and thats the extend of my concern. (as said earlier, I only reply to see if the replies are interesting)
My personal biggest gripe with Byleth is their inconsistency, especially early-game. They're supposed to be poor at emoting, but can crack jokes within a few minutes of the game. To a goddess. That isn't happy with them. After almost dying. Talks about "Yikes" for characterizing your character as stoic.
That's probably the most egregious example in my mind, but the writing is pretty consistently at that "level" for Byleth. They may not actually smile for in-game months, but their dialogue options reflect a completely different character that already has a full-range of emotions. Especially goofy ones.
I think many people believe that rather than Byleth not having emotions at all, it’s more like they aren’t good at expressing them physically. Byleth can still feel emotion, but not necessarily as strongly as others and isn’t very good at displaying it, staying rather stone-faced. A popular headcanon is that Byleth is actually extremely sarcastic and an expert at delivering dry humor due to their unchanging face. Another popular headcanon is that Byleth has very slight emotional tells that only Jeralt can pick up on.
@@ShinyKyu Plus Sothis herself states that she may be at fault for his/her Condition.
So I'm thinking Byleth can joke easier to her since they share a Soul. And with Sothis gradually learning her past again it may give them the personality there supposed to have in the first place.
But that's my take on it.
TBH I took those to be byleth either attempting to lie or dry humour, not exactly cracking jokes. also remember that he doesnt know shes a goddess and shes always been with him, i think they just couldnt communicate outside of byleth seeing her sleeping whenever he slept
"I'm a bandit"
The phrase you're looking for around 9 minutes in is "wish fulfillment"
Byleth could’ve been SUCH a good character, and they have so many interesting things about them that the devs just forgot to fill out before the deadline.
Projection is also not a good excuse, bc that just means that a select few get to feel good ab themselves for nothing while the game suffers for their sake.
Also, Byleth is a defined character with a history and set design, so they shouldn’t have ever been “an avatar” to begin with.
My thoughts exactly.
@@dhisufiroafrozenseraphimdragon Avatar's are very popular to use in RPG's like Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter. So it makes sense for Intelligent Systems to due the same. Remember Fire Emblem was on the verge of dying, and the fact Awakening sold well, maybe by sheer luck. So it feels like all Intelligent Systems cares about is how to make Fire Emblem Marketable.
@@orangeslash1667 i would say good timing and proper marketing. early fire emblem is infamous for its atrocious release dates and misleading/nonexistent marketing ('winner' would likely go to thracia 776, which was seemingly marketed to kids despite its ridiculous learning curve, and was released on the super famicom in year 2000, long after the N64 made it obsolete). awakening actually bothered to let you know it existed and made it clear what it was about, and it came out around the peak of the 3DS era. you could also give some credit to awakening being more beginner friendly than most of the previous games
@@Underworlder5 Shouzou Kaga the creator of Fire Emblem said that the reason he left Intelligent Systems, is because he hated the idea of Fire Emblem in 3d. When I look at the graphics of Radiant Dawn and Three Houses, he may have a point😥😥. Thankfully there are plenty of RPG's to chose from on the Switch.
I really agreed they did Dedue dirty. Imagine how much better the story would be if the reason Dimitri unhinged was because of Dedue's sacrifice for him and his return is what snapped him out of his frenzy. Makes so much more sense.
-spoiler-
(Although they do kind of imply that in Black Eagles route when Dimitri was never imprisoned and was always w Dedue)
How would that work if Dudue doesnt come back? If you dont do his paralogue he is actually dead.
How does that make much more sense when Dimitri was like that deep down because of tragedy of duscar. His Edgelord self isn’t just going to go away because dedue survived and returned to him.
@@rayzas4885 if that was true then he wouldnt have been relatively normal in edelgard route. Im not saying to make it the only thing, but using dedue as a reason for him to live and to fight for himself instead of a contrived death from rodrigue would at least be somewhat better imo. Either way its an issue of resolution with his character, but i think his S support does a little with addressing his trauma from duscur
I see Byleth as a victim of the presentation. I find him to be very interesting overall, especially the relations to Sothis and Rhea, and the very large amount of decisions that he makes outside of the player's input, but understandably no one gives him a chance due to how he is presented. Should have just been another Robin, cos he basically is already in relation to the lords, just needs to talk.
Thanks at least for pointing out the development Byleth gets as his own character though. One certain person keep trying to convince me it doesn't exist *cough*. ;p
Exactly. I actually really like Byleth but he was just handled wrong. If Nintendo made a Three Houses anime they could give Byleth the character development that he deserves. He has such an interesting concept and I'd hate to see it go to waste. I guess that's a big "If" though.
@TooLateToTheStory True.
@TooLateToTheStory i agree
Robin was so much better implimented than most of the other player inserts.
Oh and the tactician was pretty cool too in that they were literally only there to provide an excuse for the player to observe and feel involved. Yes, praise for FE7, it did one thing good, lol
@@dhisufiroafrozenseraphimdragon Avatar's are very popular to use in RPG's like Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter. So it makes sense for Intelligent Systems to due the same. Remember Fire Emblem was on the verge of dying, and the fact Awakening sold well, maybe by sheer luck. So it feels like all Intelligent Systems cares about is how to make Fire Emblem Marketable.
One of the most upsetting parts of this is that Dimitri was such a good character but could have been even better if he didn't worship the avatar. As Mekkah said, many other characters like Dedue or Rodrigue could have been his shoulder to cry on, and in my opinion they would have made his arc better. Him becoming close to another person (as opposed to the soulless husk that is Byleth) would have held so much weight and could have also served to flesh out Dedue even more and SPOILERS BELOW
Rodrigue's death would have held much more weight
"Editing by CyanYoh"
that's fitting, considering he pretty shares your sentiment. Byleth = weakest part of 3H.
I wouldn't put myself as a detractor of Byleth per se, but with strong, interesting characters like Edelgard, Dimitri, etc. it's understandable Byleth would just not be as compelling. Yes they're not like Corrin, but I'm definitely on the side of saying that doesn't matter. X being better than Y doesn't remove the flaws of X, as the addage goes.
You once made a video poking fun at the choices Byleth can make. They're for flair purposes, perhaps to give Byleth some fun answers but the IRONY is sometimes the choice is outside the idea that he/she are emotionally stunted for [plot reasons]. would the same byleth that jeralt lamented seemed virtually dead as a infant really be making a joke at the beginning that he/she is a bandit or something?
I REALLY like the trope of the emotionally lost individual becoming more invested, more true, more emotional - Idunn from FE6 is probably a very small example. Perhaps if the game was more rooted in being that, would byleth have a different trajectory?
But in a lot of instances the story is more equipped to support Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude. Byleth is standing around, supporting them, but it's not like they themselves have a personal goal to sync with the lord goals.
Anyways, all of this is to say.....while Byleth is at least something different from the past MUs (in the sense of role and more quiet demeanor), it's a consequence of IntSys still stuck to the tradition at using avatar characters.
Why didn't we get Claude?
Man, I miss actually having lords who were their own character rather than avatar characters
Good thing Three Houses gives you 3 of them? Fates honestly was worse with Corrin as the Main character, Awakening at least only put Robin in the spotlight for the final arc
I mean if you're not even going to let us customize their appearance or give them a boon/bane like before, it's not even a true avatar. Which really just begs the question why they even chose to make Byleth of all avatars a silent protagonist. A character can be a surrogate for the player but still have a personally, dialogue, and voice acting. I think Ike is a pretty good surrogate for the player to identify as despite him being his own character. They almost had something really good this time, but chose the worst game to take this risk with. If you took Byleth's premise and made them a proper character rather than the silent protagonist, his role in the story would still make it really easy to identify with him. And again, it's not like you can customize his appearance anyway, so why even treat him like an avatar at all? I just feel like they went 50/50 here and while an improvement over Corrin perhaps, fell a little flat. I don't think Three Houses would be what it is without Byleth. I absolutely think Byleth needed to be there. If you just chose a House leader at the start of the game with no neutral player character, then there's nothing to catalyze the House you chose to be the one to win the war over the others. Byleth was a necessary character. He just very much needed to not be a silent protagonist.
There's actually a lot of things I don't like about 3hs moreso than Byleth. Everything about the monastery from quests to fishing is just filler garbage that I don't want to do, when it could have been interesting stuff instead. They could have just borrowed some Animal Crossing developers for all of that stuff. There's no cool unit recruitments. For example, recruiting Dedue near the end of Silver Snow? Impossible. Side battles are uninteresting garbage. A lot of unit classes don't feel like classes because you can use whatever weapons you want in them. A lot of personal unit skills are recycled from Fates, which kind of lessens the characterization flavor that they are supposed to grant to the characters. Supports happen automatically between characters and you get like 60 of them after each battle, encouraging you to skip all of them instead of watch them because you want to play the damn game and get the stats from the supports, but they are too long to sit through if you at all consider your time a resource. I don't care for Byleth but it doesn't ruin the game for me as much as these things do.
idk, even if Corrin ended up as "center of the universe" like Byleth, Corrin was a political pawn that was used to start a war. So their importance seems a lot more justifiable than random merc with no personality that somehow beats out thousands of people in the role of sole emotional support and leader.
It was also easier to see that Corrin is like infinitely more charismatic and sociable than Byleth which makes a leader position less weird on that front, lol.
Only point about Byleth themself I'm not totally on-board about is the voice acting part, though. I prefer to read than listen, so I ended up skipping the voice acting 90% of the time. So, I generally feel the reverse where I'm getting sucked out of the experience because everyone won't shut up.
6:29 did somebody say 5 POINTS
I'd like to see you do a video on Robin. I feel like he was the most well executed avatar so far, mostly thanks to the fact he was an actual character.
And the entire story wasn't revolved around him. Only the ending was. I liked that, even if the ending was rushed.
Mekkkah dislikes Robin as well
@@chickenbacon5197 wow, you're just being an ass for the way you said that. Yes, what you're saying is true, but you're missing the point that it's in the back drop most of the time, not the main focus. Robin worked really well as a supporting character and only okay as the main focus. This isn't like Fates where he dragged the entire story down by his actions, but more so felt like whiplash from how fast they forced it upon us. Awakening was just rushed in general and pushed too much in a small space. If given more time, the ending with Robin could've been amazing.
And I'll give Awakening a pass because it was interned to be the end, so many didn't really think it would matter that much. Fates on the other hand, doesn't get that.
@@chickenbacon5197 and unlike Corrin, Robin EARNED his right to do all the stuff he does as he showed he was a valuable asset and even failed with stuff like saving Emmeryn. He actually has flaws that affect the story in a good way. And him being a smart tactician only proved he was decently written for the story. Miss me with that dumb shit.
Byleth seemed a very bland character where even tho he was supposed to be a self insert for the player, he felt like his own character and that still was bad. Robin imo actually felt more realistic. He was his own character. With his own personality. He is an amnesiac so you go along with him as you learn more about him and he isn't being put on a pedestal like corrin or byleth. He earbs his way into the sheperds as he demonstrated his tactical mind on the battlefield. You can argue that he has a harem like every other protag but that's the game mechanics your witnessing, not the main story. Byleth on the other hand, the whole story is how everybody wants to date or be your best friend despite you being a husk of a man.
8:40 Also, Byleth's roles throughout the story are kinda interesting, or I mean, they COULD'VE been. Like, he goes from being a mercenary his whole life, no doubt he's experienced in battle and his cold head makes him good at coming up with strategy. When he is sort of forcefully made a teacher he might not be the most capable, but his expertise and knowledge allows him to adapt (sort of wished him to be an Oifey), then the bond with his students mellow him out.
Well at least that'd be the sweet story if he was not Mr blank face, but I think the game _expects_ you to see it go like that.
So it feels VERY weird when he becomes the head of the Church of Seiros, he looks like the most atheist mf in the yard. But a Byleth with actual characterization would have learned a lot from Rhea's teachings, the struggles of his students, the suffering of the people... AND HAVING THE GODDAMN GODDESS IN HIS HEAD. So when they put the weird Enlightened One clothes on him you could be like "yeah I guess he's the pope now" instead of "what the hell is he wearing".
This and post time skip crit quotes like "Here's something to believe in!" make me believe he was meant to go from "mercenary kid who fights bandits" all the way to "head of the church who leads Fodlan to prosperity". But when you scrap all characterization to make him Me, it just... makes no sense.
This. This right here is my problem with Byleth. It feels like there's a whole character arc that's supposed to be there, but isn't because Byleth never talks. There should more conversations that go in-depth with Byleth's character, but because they can't talk, they all just become one-sided monologues.
Which is such a shame, because "emotionless, initially creepy/confused mercenary who, with the help of a weakened Goddess and their students & peers, discovers their own emotions and goes on to help those same people go through theirs" is actually a REALLY interesting angle they could've gone with. But, because they never talk, when I hear Edelgard or Dimitri say they would've never gone so far without Byleth, all I'm thinking is "What did this piece of cardboard do to help you exactly, other than leading your army?"
It's the same problem I have with Persona 5's Joker. Tons of personality that he could show off, but just by the nature of a silent MC, it's all completely stunted. I'm not saying you can't have silent MC's (Dragon Age Origins is one of my favorite games of all time), but I just don't think they work with FE (& Persona, but that's for another time).
@@zachataxxii7126 "emotionless, initially creepy/confused mercenary who, with the help of a weakened Goddess and their students & peers, discovers their own emotions and goes on to help those same people go through theirs"
This right here what I'm talking about, shit sounds like such a good, incredible saga, but here it's nothing but a mere phantom of what it could've been.
I'm still just upset that even though they get to be the Pope, Byleth never gets to wear the 72 oz. hat.
Byleth came off as a snarky loner mercenary kid with definite problems with their self expression issues at first. But of course we don't see much development in Byleth because Insert self character. Byleth could've been a second main character give an extra six months this game clearly needed in some areas like the fact GD and SS are so similar, developing BL cast more that don't require Byleth, add in more chapters for CF and the other paths could uses about 3 more they all felt short, expand the lore in the library, and every character should have at least one paralogue to themselves.
Ah, I figured it out: the reason you don't like self-inserts is because none of them are Devdan. Isn't that a bit of an unrealistic standard?
The only avatar I've like so far is Robin, and I still believe that Awakening would have been better if he wasn't an avatar but is own character. I feel like avatar are damaging to Fire Emblem stories.
the Tactician was well done too.
In that they fulfilled their purpose and didn't get in the way.
The best thing about Robin is that he has his own personality. You create what he looks like and decide what class he goes through, but other than that he is a character in the story that isn't that much different from most of the cast.
@@AdumbroDeus Also you can play through the game without them
I still stand that avatars can work in FE games if they take a secondary role, someone that's the tactician of the main lord's group, helping them both in combat and outside. Robin was the best implementation of this, you saw the story through his eyes and most events would be through his vision, he had his own character that you could costumize the look and didn't really affected the story in a heavy way like other avatars.... Until Chapter 13 where all that is thrown down the drain and he becomes super important.
I can't blame people that don't want avatars, but I do think they can be a fun gameplay element and if done correctly, it could be a interesting way to tell a story, through his vision and what he/she sees, they can easily take a secondary role that just have them follow the main character, Kris came close to it but his character sucks and he took a lot of other people's line (though I still think he's overhated but at the same time, I can't blame people for hating him, fun unit but if New Mistery ever get a western rereleashe, I really want them to rework on him, still like his assasin's side story).
Sadly they will put avatars in most of the newer games because there's a lot of people that like to play FE as if it was dating sim because said people don't want to play a dating sim, but if they are going to do so, I do wish it worked like a weird mix of the good things of Kris and Robin, they have their own little side story, they play a role in the story, but the world doesnt surrond them, they are just there to help the main character who takes the main spotlight.
I think you perfectly captured my own thoughts on the situation. I don't want to be the main character in this world, I just want a normal guy that I can make feel a bit more like me, and progress through the lord's story as an aid, just like any other unit.
This is one of my main issues with Byleth: he doesn't feel like my own unit. You can't apply any form of customization, be it appearance, or their strengths and weaknesses. It raises the question of why we even have an avatar in 3H, when Byleth could just be their own character that actually justifies whatever high position they have in the story.
I definitely agree that Robin was the best implemented avatar in the series, though I still feel he’s a bit too central to the plot. If he was just the Shepards’ tactician with none of the Grima stuff I’d like him a lot more. His personality is pretty basic and inoffensive besides being a bookworm, but he’s a godamn tactician so you’d have to have some book smarts. just want to basically create another average joe character, someone who just gets a few recruitment lines and a handful of support convos. Someone like Soren who comes up a lot in the story and has stakes in the story due to their past and relationships would also work, just none of the doombringer or hero prophecy stuff. Though the one thing that Robin dies that I hate that no other avatar has done is explain in universe the UI. Just godammit I don’t need a lore explanation for how I can see damage numbers and accuracy.
I’m basically certain the next game in the series will be a FE4 remake, and although I doubt they’ll retcon avatars into remakes (I know FE13 exists but echoes stayed so close to Gaiden.) I think having someone who you can customise their name and appearance with “personality types” that determine which characters your unit can support with. All together, these supports would seem like the character was all over the place, but if you could only support with x if you picked personality y it would create a consistent character that most people could relate to, as they would be able to pick a vague category of their personality. This would also mean this character would actually have strong chemistry with their support partners due to their personality, instead of the stuff with Corrin like being able to become friends with/marry someone who hates you or goes completely against your ideals due to somehow both characters falling in love randomly in their S support, despite literally just ending on a sour note in their A support.
For instance, Chris was a failure because his personality was “loyal dedicated to training person” and most people can’t relate to that. Allowing for 5-10 different personality options would allow most people to at least somewhat relate to this character.
At the end of the day, I think an avatar done well could really have a positive impact on a FE game/story but it’s so tough to do that I honestly don’t think they should bother. This isn’t Mass Effect or something, Fire Emblem thrives on premade, well developed characters, not a bunch of blank slates for the player to customise. Just let people make their own head canon OCs instead of forcing them into the game, people have no trouble liking characters and having waifus in the games without avatars, so people really don’t need any help to connect. I’d like to think the kind of people FE attracts enjoy stories enough to be able to create their own headcanons and such without the help of the developers.
I 100% agree with this opinion.
@@CosmicToad5000 I actually... think the Grima subplot in awakening was done well. It got you questioning your avatar's origins as you slowly found put more.
you are the tactician. Of not just any group, but a group of people who are quite close together from the start. Who are tasked with protecting the people. You slowly get accepted into this group as you show your ability as a tactician.
The grima subplot merges with the main story in the second half. where chrom's and his sister's main character arc are for the most part completed in the first.
it COULD have ended there. (remove for a second robins interactions with the plegian dark priest guy and the time travel shiz. see? its its own story. and it would still be really good. albiet short.) but that isn't the end.
the second part, immediately starts exploring robins origins (where they go to plegia for ships) The second part is about robin and grima.
You have to stop an invasion, while the subplot is put back on the backburner. Slowly revealing more once again until the last few chapters.
at that point the avatar is his own character. who has been accepted by everyone in the group. So, as his best friend, and partially by obligation, chrom helps him save the world.
personally, I think it was well done. not too fast nor too slow.Having that in there really helped awakening I think. Adding a layer of intrigue through the story, while giving robin more depth in his character arc. more so than 'tactician accepted by the shepherds and the kings best friend'
Ice Neko not only that but some of your decisions actually made a difference in the storytelling, albeit small. If you s ranked chrom or lucina the realization that Lucina has changes to a degree and can really make it more emotional. Robin was easily the most well written avatar because he wasn’t just the fill in for you: he was willing to play along with jokes, but had the maturity(and to better fit his role) to see a larger picture and knew for the most part when to stop joking around. His supports actually gave him personality instead of just letting you talk to the students. And more importantly, what he lacked in character was made up for by the characters around him. I just finished another playthrough of 3H and just restarted playing awakening yesterday and I feel like the entire cast is just more involved socially. 3H made a large part of its dynamic based on your relation with the house leader where I feel like awakening made more of a focus on the dynamic between characters. Like I love plenty of 3H moments, but I feel like the opening with frederick, lissa, and chrom just has so much more life to it than when you meet the house you’re teaching for.
I feel like Byleth could've been made 3h work if he was an actual character, something like Ike. He could've undergone a really good arc imo
I wish if they wanted to go about the silent avatar route they committed to the ashen demon idea. I’d prefer a story of a person finding their humanity through his / her students and slowly becoming a charismatic leader they claim. Don’t tell us show us. That’s basic storytelling
I love dragon quest but never really liked the silent hero I would rather have an actual character. I think robin was the only avatar that worked in fire emblem.
I still remember watching the trailers, then playing the game and seeing that I could name the protag and thinking,
"Fuck, another self insert?"
I was seriously hoping Byleth was gonna be a great, deep and well written character, not another fucking Corrin. I still like Byleth, but thinking about what he could've been really is upsetting.
I appreciate the short but sweet intro, feels like a lot of people have one that goes on for too long
Figured Mekkah kinda needed one, but I hate intros that last more than 3 seconds.
When even a professional teacher can't relate to Byleth, you know mistakes were made.
For anyone interested, the two characters at 7:52 are 最高, which translates to "the best" in Japanese or "highest" or "supreme" in Chinese.
or japanese since Mekkkah (and prolly 90% of the people here) are weebs
in japanese it's "the best " (Saikou)
@@mrbilter83 weeb.
I'm an Apache attack helicopter.
@@mrbilter83
Funny because I just read that line as "Byleth is the best" without even noticing.
My weeb powers awaken.
It was meant as the JP Kanji for Saikou.
Another big problem with Byleth is that, since they're the reason the characters you recruited join whatever faction you pick, they come across as a Mary Sue. Petra, for example, often talks about how much she likes Edleguard and that she hopes to build up a good relationship with the Empire as a result of that friendship. Yet, she'll throw all of that away if you don't side with Edleguard, all because she likes a teacher she just met.
My main beef with the choices isn't that they don't each spawn an entirely new branching storyline with different chapters and characters and whatever else. Rather, it's that the dialogue LITERALLY doesn't change. There are so many choices like "What is A?" or "What is B?" and no matter what you choose you get the same response explaining what A and B are anyways. Even just subtle differences in the order of the explanations given or the reactions of the other characters would be enough to feel like I actually should have been making a choice there. As it stands, it feels like they're just dumping exposition at me and sometimes I have to press A.
"He has done some amazing shit."
*Byleth joining Smash*
Alright, whose idea was this?
Hey now, getting an undeserved spot in the biggest fighting game of all time is impressive, in a way.
@@CyanYoh "Undeserved"
I really disagree with this notion that a fighter could be "undeserving" of their slot. Who determines if a character should claim a spot in Smash?
Raptor980 fire emblem does have one of the biggest rosters in smash while simultaneously having said characters play extremely similar. Heck we have three Marth clones ( Roy was a semi clone of Marth in melee lucina is a Marth clone and chrom is a clone of a clone) maybe they should of put another final fantasy character instead of adding a character from a over represented franchise compared to its popularity. Granted fire emblem is way more popular in Japan but besides japan it is a niche game series with a relatively low fanbase. Overall final fantasy probably has more fans so I think it would be fair to say a second final fantasy character deserves the spot more then another fire emblem character. Heck I think it would be fair if they got rid of lucina and chrom ( only need one clone of Marth and Roy is the og ) and replaced them with idk final fantasy x is on the switch so let’s say tidus ( with a mixture of overall average sword based attacks And blitzball abilities for ranged pressure and even ko power ( for example jecht shot as a neutral b that launches the ball if it hits you can angle the stick to aim the ball when it comes back the second hit has as much power as a charged shot but you have to combo the first hit into the second hit to secure kos)and a down b buff in haste that boost his frame data on his normals so his average sword based attacks become very great combo tools and another character from an under represented franchise not another one from an over represented franchise. Granted byleth does actually play relatively unique for a fire emblem ( basically ganon with massive range) but another fire emblem character so I say they would be fine to stay.
Gonna disagree with the avatar worship point a bit, specifically the “Lords need Byleth around, but anyone else could’ve filled the role”
Since Byleth is literally a teacher, guide, and strategist, I kinda think they ARE the best character for said roles.
Alexander Baldwin Yes, the game is shoving it in your face that Byleth is the “perfect teacher”. However, it’s up to the player’s interpretation of how well Byleth is written. \o/
The developers literally designed Byleth to be the one that “fixes” the Lord of each specific route. But that’s the key-this was designed. It’s not like Byleth is an actual human in the real world. Did this role realllyyy have to exist? The developers came up with and enforced this rule that “none of the Lords is allowed to develop if Byleth specifically by their side.” And because of this, literally all the other side characters become extremely incompetent, incapable of helping their respective Lords.
I mean, I appreciate that this gives the side characters very obvious flaws, which makes them more human. But it’s just very frustrating to see how incredibly, uniformly incompetent all the side characters are. It honestly makes the whole world feel mucccch more hopeless. Don’t get me wrong, Fodlan is explicitly designed to be a dark and depressing subversion of some FE tropes, but this comes at the cost of taking away agency from characters.
I agree with Mekkah that the side characters in this game don’t get as much of a role in the main story as they should. At most there’ll be a “oh hey X member of our house is relevant to the upcoming level, here you can say a few pithy comments and you’ll get a special quote when fighting the boss.” Or “alright everyone gather up in a circle, it’s time for each member to say one line and then not speak until the next chapter.” The story would be much more powerful if a more diverse array of characters was allowed to directly participate in the main story and catalyze the development of their Lord. As it is right now, it does sometimes feel like “ok the lord and Byleth (and maybe a mentor character) decide everything, everyone else is just along for the ride.”
I agree Mekkah, great video.
At least with Awakening even though Robin was an avatar, he had enogh character that you could play as if he wasn't, but with Byleth it's super inmersion breaking.
Byleth is more of a tool than a character, he’s designed to have the branching campaigns male sense within the framework of the game. Everyone knows the real main character of this game is my boi Claude
To expand on your second point:
Characters speak for minutes at a time, then Byleth throws out a random one liner with no real impact to the conversation and people actually feel like that's self-insertion?
Do these people that feel like that's actual self-insertion even talk to other humans?
These conversations with Byleth are downright creepy and unnatural. It's weird to have a game from Japan having such dialogue, considering the japanese are much more into back-and-forth dialogue, and positive listener reinforcment, than the western world generally is.
CyanYoh is so good at editing.
Hey thanks
@@CyanYoh
You are the true MVP
I think they should have treated Byleth more like Rean in Trails of Cold Steel...an avatar character with a personality who you can pair with whoever. Romance options can remain the same if they want but have VOICED support dialogue. I'm fine with un-voiced lines in the main story.
Persona 5 kinda did the same thing as 3H but idk...there, it doesn't seem as bad... except for one section that I won't get into.
If fire emblem keeps having avatars I just hope I can finally be brown in one of them so I can actually feel like I’m that avatar
This. Also long hair for dudes.
keep working on that imagination until that happens, then.
His voice sounded really cool as well. I would have liked hearing more of it.
Y'know, sometimes you get more invested in a set character than a self-insert. I get very invested in Leif's struggle; a character can be pre-defined and you can still get invested. I think the Souls games do self-inserts well though.
Please don't add avatars to remakes...
Damn, I really need to finish the other routes.
I honestly consider Byleth less of an Avatar and more of an POV-Character with a bit too much emphasis on him. I never projected myself on Byleth, because he had basically no customisation and his character was just a but too strongly defined for him to be blank slade. Additionally, I could never project myself on anyone that unironically picks Edelgards route because he agrees with her ideals, so all my suspension of disbelief died right there
Felix would be absolutely perfect for the Dimitri role, with all the events in the story
While I could see Blue lions and Golden deer working without Byleth, simply having Dimitri and Claude as the main character. Black eagle would be weird, ignoring church route, you would be playing half of the game with your main character (Edelgard) having a big secret and there would be no one to interact with the flame emperor I guess?
My problem with Byleth, is that some people think it's pretty genius to have him be silent as a personality. But that's like saying Kris wanting to train a lot is a personality. Don't get me wrong there are some interesting moments, but in terms of being engaged in the plot, Byleth pretty much disappears in BL, CF, and GD as a leading character since the lord takes over. I'm not saying that's a bad thing since to be honest, but while Awakening had a relatively poor plot, at least Robin's past and mystery was (kind of?) interwoven throughout the whole game. Most of the routes in 3H felt like Byleth was spectating the sport.
So what I'm trying to say is,
NOAH FOR CYL!
I think that's why they say it's good, that Byleth is pretty hands off and watching the plot unfold. But you're right Byleth ends up being a back and forth of "you're very important" and spectator. It's not terrible or bad by any means, but you can feel the inconsistency.
Yeah, at least Robin had a proper personality and dialogue.
I disagree, Roshea for cyl instead.
Kris wanting to train a lot isn't a personality, no. That's also kind of ignoring context, though. Kris doesn't just train for the sake of training, he trains to be an ideal soldier specifically to protect Marth, sacrificing his social life out of utter devotion to his lord. While Kris has an original subplot revolving around the assassins, he is ultimately a side character to the main plot who asks expository questions so Marth doesn't have to look like he doesn't know anything about stuff he should *really* know about. *cough FE3 cough*
@@Duothimir I agree that Kris is overall overhated and dies serve as a nice character to dump expodition on, but some moments like Jagen being regretful of his past decisions definetely belong to Marth instead of Kris. Kris isn't a bad avatar for FE standards, but he could use some more work
“This game is one step away from saying “hey player you are god”” ………uhhhhhhh
“Byleth isn’t, You are; yet Byleth still is.”
Byleth is your self insert but also their own character. Both cannot be done simultaneously, so Byleth breaks.
They are someone, yet no-one. They are you, yet they are not. They are a hole to be filled, yet already full.
Thus is the paradox of Byleth, the puppet with half its strings.
Byleth is sometimes treated as a silent protagonist like Mark, and Byleth is sometimes treated as the center of the universe like Corrin, but in the end, Byleth is always Byleth because (s)he's Byleth.
I can appreciate Byleth as a silent protagonist because it means they were playing it safe and avoiding another fates, but if I were to make him a silent protagonist I'd try to make him more like Link from the legend of Zelda
Playing older games like FE4 and FE5 definitely made me realize how far this game has come from the one sided story dialogues and battle events to roleplaying / choices that arent really choices character simulator. Not saying the story in 3H was bad or anything, it had some really good moments but also moments where it just felt awkward having Byleth there watching the whole event.
I've only played Golden Deer route and was weirded out when at the end I wanted Claude to fix everything but Byleth ends up being ruler of fodlan or whatever. I was like "Really? I kinda don't feel like ruling."
Tbh there is almost never such a thing as a good self-insert character especially not in a Japanese game. That plot device always was and always will be about pandering, escapism and wish fulfilment and depending on the type of game it either adds to the experience of playing the game (pure dating sims) or detracts from it (any other type of game that tries to take itself seriously most of the time). But an avatar character and a silent protagonist should not be confused as being one and the same. Link from TLoZ is a silent protagonist, not an avatar, Persona 4 MC is a silent protagonist that also happens to be an avatar for the player and a well executed one at that, perhaps even the best of those I've seen in a Japanese game. A good avatar can be done but it demands a lot more effort and finesse from writers. Much more than IntSys was ever able to deliver. In my view, to work well, a good stand-in for the player requires either a morality system or just in general A LOT of dialogue options with meaningful outcomes. In Star Wars KOTOR the main character is both an avatar and a silent protagonist that works extremely well because the choices are numerous and most of them have a big impact in every single case. IntSys is never going to reach that level of quality in writing so I wish they'd stop trying altogether instead of making something that only works half the time, if at all. Fire Emblem was fine without the avatar.
Amen
A self insert character CAN work but only if he's irrelevant or at least not important to the grand scheme of things
@The Omen ok I'll bite. Plz elaborate. Actually nah, maybe you shouldn't. I literally gave all the examples I could think of at the time, so idk what else is there to talk about.
I may be mildly curious still but tbh I've looked at some of your latest comments on these FE topics and I think I have a general grasp on what sort of person I'm dealing with. And let me tell you, I'm almost positive that no meaningful discussion can be had with a person of your general FE tastes and opinions even though I'm usually pretty open minded about things. Sounds to me like you just need to finally make peace with the fact that all of us have different standards for all things in life including how fictional characters in a silly little video game should be handled. And all of us have equal right to express our disdain/enjoyment of these things so that our voices reaching the developers give them an idea of what we want/don't want to see in future installments.
@The Omen Eh I'd agree with that sentiment but the recent track record of IntSys trying out this avatar thing leaves a lot to be desired. I think they've already had enough chances to fix what didn't feel right and failed at it consistently. I'd prefer a well written MC who is his own person and isn't defined by the need to express the player's own personality through extremely shallow options. All I've been saying is that they don't seem up to the task, at least not now and not in the foreseeable future. And FE is totally fine without that.
@@DarkSol13 the fact that they had been using the concept for the last 3 games shows that theyre far from removing the avatar concept, especially since its been pretty popular with japanese audiences, but doesnt mean games with more classic storytelling and characters cant be made through remakes like shadow dragon or shadows of valentia.
One of my biggest pet peeves in games is choices that don't matter at all. It was an issue that immediately stood out to me in Three Houses as well.
You make a lot of very valid points. I haven't put the same amount of thoughts about Byleth as you did, but after watching this video I mostly agree on everything. Mainly, the timeskip stuff where everyone just stays there for 5 years because Byleth isn't here any more shocked me too during my playthroughs.
I think I really liked Byleth BEFORE they fused with Sothis, I mainly enjoyed the interactions they had with Sothis where she speaks in their head, teases them, etc. After the fusion, Byleth is really seen as a God, a Savior, by everyone. And this transformation kinda broke the "self-insert" thing for me, and also made me distance myself from the character. I was less invested in Byleth's adventures, and I missed Sothis too. The more the story goes, the more every other main characters (Rhea and the Lords) just rely so much on Byleth ; and the fact that Byleth just doesn't talk any more is particularly odd, because it happens at the very moment the story begins to become really serious.
And on the topic of the silent protagonist, I think one of the reasons I enjoyed Sothis the most was just the fact that she speaks, and the fact that we hear her voice. Byleth without Sothis is just silent ; but Byleth with Sothis, because of the fact that Sothis speaks, seems to interact way more with their surroundings and with other people around them. After the fusion and the timeskip, being in Byleth's head seems wrong to me, because they're so silent, I wasn't accostumed to that.
mekkah being a series of unfortunate events fan was a very welcome surprise!!
Byleth Bad in Smash Bros.? But the DLC is coming out tomo--- oh wait
12:00 I HAVE ANOTHER COMMENT HERE I MENTIONED IN OTHER PLACES
For some ungodly strange reason, the game can't decide how Byleth's character is portrayed. Like you said, we are expected to believe he is, actually, quite charming. He only /looks/ like a blank slate because he's the avatar, right? In universe he speaks fluently and is charismatic, yeah?
Well damn, I could believe that if him being a plank was an explicit trait of him as a result of Sothis and the Crest of Flames influence within him. And the lord points out how he looked so uncaring at first, but now at least smiles a bit. So That Was a Lie.
Which one is it, game. WHICH ONE IS FUC-
I honestly think Byleth (and Three Houses as a whole) would be far better if Byleth wasn't an avatar and was just a regular character like everyone else.
On another note, at least characters opening up to Kris, Robin, and Corrin felt more natural than Byleth since they can actually hold proper conversations with their support partners
I can see that, but if you take a game like Fable, for example.
Fable one and two the main character had minimal voice acting, like Byleth does in three houses, just a rare line here or there. Those games, from my knowledge did really well with reviews and have very few flaws.
Then in Fable Three, they added voice acting to the main character, and while that didn't fully destroy the game, it did significantly worse than it's predecessor from what I remember and a big factor of it was the voiced main character.
This reminds me of that but idk
Byleth is the second coming of the (literal) Goddess, able to get almost any character to abandon their principles and home and follow the along into another country's conflict, often completely contradictory to their core ideals because Byleth is Just That Awesome.
Byleth also is able to choose the fate of the world just by being present.
Byleth /sucks/.
While I love the game, I¨m totally with you with this video. Still feel Robin is the one that has been implemented the best
FE7 Tactician was the best.
One of the few things FE7 did really well.
@@AdumbroDeus fe7 tactician was the best because they barely did anything.
@@techinalmachine exactly! wasn't a distraction.
@@AdumbroDeus Mark lowkey made Lyn into Dora the Explorer with how many times she just turned to the screen and went “wow look how great u are” yk? Mark really doesn’t have a reason to exist so when you’re playing thru FE7 it just feels weird and forced when Lyn or any other character does that shit
imo Robin > Byleth > Mark >> Kris >>> Corrin
If they keep doing the self insert, I just hope they take us back to a Robin-style self insert. Not the main character, a deuteragonist at best, and the lords are given more room to interact with other characters. I think the "vassal" system is probably the worst thing to inherit from Fates. They barely used it there for one, but also it inherently limits who a character is defined by. The Black Eagles is a very diverse and interesting cast, but it's instead defined entirely by Hubert and Edelgard, which is your stereotypical conniving villainous duo outside of BE. Ferdinand, Petra, Linhardt, and Dorothea all have an incredibly interesting relationship with Edelgard that would have been great to explore in the storry, but it just isn't.
Ok but what if the house leaders were the lords?
That would have been nuts
They are. At least Dimitri is - since his unique classes are High Lord and Great Lord
@@xHeyItsCami the other two's classes also have Lord in it in other languages.
They are? I don't understand how this isn't at the forefront of every discussion. Byleth is the consistent protagonist but not the 'lord'.
@@ftheestablishment In FE archetype terms, the protagonist IS the "lord", regardless of their standing or other relevant characters. While all house leaders are relevant in several ways, the formalities in which the stories are told does not make them "lords".
A prime example of this would be PoR, where Ike is undisputably the "lord" of the game, even though Elincia is also introduced early on and follows other traits that are usually assigned to a "lord".
That means, the "lord" is the character the story is told through, and that is Byleth, not the house leaders.
@@thatonepersonnoonecaresabo3163 whut Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude are lords though.
“The Harry Potter series”
*Shows the LEGO Game*
I love you Mekkah.
Cyan made that decision in editing. Clever boi.
The problem of the option 3 is in fact how Byleth resolve thing. Each house / path he join make him the god of it. Edelgard or Rhea are very good person with Byleth on side, and absolute garbage people with no redemption quality while he is away. It's a little too much and reinforce your point. For a game based on Perspective and tragedy, that just dont work for me neither.
The thing that irritated me the most about Byleth was that his name was customizable, only to NEVER BE USED since the game was completely voice acted. Instead, all the characters keep calling him "Professor" (or "Teach") even after the time skip. Took me out of the game every single time that happened.
Games that create a minor TTS engine so at least one or two characters can butcher your name need to be things.
Why aren't they things?
Or at least go Fallout 4 and have a guy record like, 100 random names, and if your name is or just is close to one, you get that instead of "Hey, you"
Honestly, I kind of wished people in the game treated Byleth as some quiet, goofy weirdo. It would've actually been interesting. People following this man because of his extreme ability in the face of how strange he is sounds like a fun dynamic.
Byleth is basically in the wrong type of game, if you placed him in a game like Zelda Breath of the Wild or Pokemon, he'd work fine because those games aren't as story driven as Fire Emblem is.
I think what makes this so annoying is they got it right with Robin. They wrote him in a way where he mattered but wasn't central. And yes, he did have a personality, but it was done in a way that still made him feel like an avatar like being able to customize his appearance and choose who he can marry.
It's actually ironic that so many people hate Byleth being put in Smash because ironically, he actually fits better there than in his own game.
Pretty good timing on this video
Ike is one of my favorite lords by far. He's his own character, earns all his development, and ends up being a total badass that's not royalty.
I strongly agree with this - I felt that even the Tactician in FE7 was super cringe, and having all these highly accomplished characters constantly sing my praises just felt very pandery. At least in FE7 the Tactician character was optional when replaying the game, and Robin was actually a somewhat decent character in Awakening, but Byleth just fell into almost all the Avatar pitfalls I can think of.
There are two things I will give Byleth credit for tho. First off, the character is actually willing to get his/her hands dirty in a way that I almost never see protagonists do in Nintendo games, whether he's (mercy) killing a POW, taking the life of a murderous teenage girl or executing a defeated foe mid-sentence. That's pretty hardcore actually. Second, Female Byleth's S-Support with Dimitri is really beautiful, even though this is 90% due to Dimitri.
Man you summarized my feelings on Byleth pretty succinctly. In a game where everyone has total voice acting, having the SI/MC go from having dialogue to being a silent protagonist felt all the more jarring and awkward. We never really learn much about Byleth because of this, and have to be told about their character or even their character development (with characters remarking that they are actually emoting more for example.) which is a shame since the rare few times we actually got to see Byleth react to things, such as a well timed emote or them crying over Jeralt dying were actually pretty nice, and the idea of our emotionally stunted MC growing through their students is an interesting plot idea, but we are only ever told about it.
Similarly, much like Corrin, Byleth just gets showered with powerups and goodies to make themselves the best thing ever which I really didn't like, as Byleth is already important to the lords/students by being their proverbial emotional support blanket, so taking Byleth's uber powers wouldn't reduce their role in the story or anything, and I believe it would make their relationship all the more impactful by emphasizing how it was Byleth's teaching/emotional support that allowed the Lord they taught to succeed rather than muddying it because Byleth is a massive Goddess empowered destroyer of worlds.
For as ridiculiously Self Inserty Robin could be at times, they honestly felt like they just did Byleth's shtick a lot better. Similar to Byleth they start off as basically a blank slate, but with them having dialogue it felt like there was more actual back and forth between them and the other characters and ESPECIALLY between Robin and Chrom whose Bro/Romance was definitely one of the high points of that game story/plot wise imho. And while Robin is very important to the plot because of dragonbullshit.jpg like Byleth/Corrin, its the fact that it is a constant liability that drives the plot rather than something that gives Byleth/Corrin a cool sword and awesome powers, and it makes the bonds between Robin and Chrom/the others feel all the more impactful when they stick by Robin despite the fact that Robin being alive is a constant danger due to them being the container from Grima, rather than Byleth who we get told has strong bonds with these people AND is the super badass container for Sothis that gives him a cool sword. While 3H definitely had a better plot than Awakening, it was inspite of Byleth rather than because of him.
TL:DR: Byleth needed to be fully voice acted and not get super speshul powers and Robin was a better Byleth two whole games ago.
"Anyone can bond or even marry him" That's the idea, yet I'm seeing a bunch of max A supports
This videos is super well edited and scripted video, fantastic.
To me the silent protagonist who is suposed to be a badass is a trope that is so overused that unless you do something unique with it. Then it won't work.
Silent protagonsts can work if they emote more. Just look at mr bean.
Throughout his entire movie series he utters only two words. 1: bean
2: pen
Yet we all know what kind of man he is.
The best people have for Byleth as a character is a self insert. Because he/she has less emotion than the rest of the cast.
Is it possible to discover what kind of personality Byleth has without any projecting of yourself in there?
Maybe but you would need a vaatividya level of loredigging to do so.
replace byleth with mr bean
In a game with characters that hold nuanced world views based on their upbringing, Byleth has no upgriging, no personality, no opinions and is literally the center of the universe. Byleth is 100% tell do not show, I literally believe the sothis connection in him makes everyone love him uncontrollably and only Rhea is self aware of this.
I do agree though that they bit off more than they could chew.
You should watch the Persona franchise as a whole, they make an amazing job with silent protagonists because the dialogue options are so hilarious and charming , also you can bond with them a lot because they start as a no one, a loser in a way (with the exception of persona 4).
Sorry of my english, I am latin American.
He is just there to be there pretty much. Byleth never bothered me because I never saw him as a character. At least he has the best FE Avatar design.
You need to have a little more imagination to enjoy avatars at their fullest anyway, I was never that invested in feeling like I was Byleth, (moreso in my first run with the blue lions, since I picked Female Byleth to balance the gender ratio), but invested enough to care about the students from her perspective.
This is quite interesting, I've never seen myself as the Avatar or in their place. It was just someone to play that wasn't the main 3 Lords imo yknow, a different set of eyes to play through.
Joker from Persona 5 does the perfect semi silent protagonist in my opinion.
I largely agree with you on Byleth, and I have a hard time caring about her as much as I do the "real" characters in the game. That being said, I think Byleth works best as a character in Crimson Flower and Verdant Wind; in those two routes, she serves as a subversion of the super special Mary Sue avatar kind of character in a way that she doesn't in the other routes. A very important point with what makes Byleth so extremely relevant is that it has very little to do with Byleth as a person; Byleth wasn't qualified to be a teacher, she's qualified to be a Knight of Seiros. The church characters state as much and Seteth is absolutely right to question Rhea's motivations because the decision has nothing to do with Byleth being qualified. What Rhea did to Byleth without her knowledge or consent is the reason why you're so important.
Crimson Flower is the only route where Byleth makes a real choice, and my god is it an important one. The decision to side with Edelgard is a unilateral rejection of godhood and the secret dragon government that controls Fodlan. In this route, Byleth actively decides *not* to be the Mary Sue Rhea specifically molded her to become, and it culminates in Byleth's mortality and humanity being restored in the final act.
Verdant Wind also subverts the archetype, but in the complete opposite way. I think this is the route for "dumb silent protagonist" Byleth; all of the meaningful decisions are made by Claude, and Byleth is reduced to a symbol. Claude is unique as the only one of the lords who lacks a crippling character flaw. His need for Byleth is not as a friend, but as propaganda. In the end Byleth is propped up as sole leader of all Fodlan, despite having zero political experience, for little reason other than her connection to Rhea. Fortunately she has a close relationship with the leader of Almyra, who would be more than happy to provide her advice on leadership. While their friendship isn't false, what Claude really needs and what he gets from Byleth is a useful tool to achieve world domination through diplomacy. Verdant Wind would have played out exactly the same if Byleth had been replaced with a sexy lamp that can wield the sword of the creator, and I think that's beautiful, especially when compared to Crimson Flower.
Azure Moon and Silver Snow both try to make Byleth more important without actually getting past the point of being a wall for more developed characters to talk to which is part of why I think they're kinda bad. Won't get into past that
Having not played Silver Snow due to the knowledge of its spoilers and that it has the same maps as Verdant Wind, I think Azure Moon provides a substantial setting for you as the player rather than you as Byleth. Though Edelgard is in a similar situation, she has the mental capacity to control her fate without you as the player at her side. She was still able to successfully cripple the church and hold two powerful factions at gun point for half a decade without you on her side.
Dimitri is, I think, clearly the most damaged lord. He’s reduced to nothing in Verdant Wind and wasn’t even granted a cutscene in Crimson Flower, simply serving as a pre-cursor to the showdown with Rhea. Without you specifically picking Dimitri, he is nothing. Claude and Edelgard are both strong enough to keep afloat without you for some time, making Azure Moon the only route I felt like I as a person truly saved the lord I chose. I know technically you do so with Edelgard as well, but it just isn’t the same for me.
I feel like that, coupled with Azure Moon’s lack of focus on your status as a deity in favor of a complete focus on the war, separated me from thinking I was playing as Byleth. I felt like that was actually just me helping Dimitri become human again, being there for him because he needed me more than any character in the game does. That’s kinda what I got from Azure Moon, anyways.
And yeah I picked Dimitri first so obviously biased but I do agree that Byleth as a character isn’t as dynamic in Azure Moon, but I also think there’s a reason for that. Excellent comment though, you helped me see Verdant Wind in a new light.
I mean while it's true that Claude uses Byleth politicaly he still calls Byleth a true friend and you can even marry him and it's not like he's pretending to get more politival power, he's truly sincere about how much Byleth means to him. And it's also unclear how much power Byleth has in WV, but I think that the devs never wanted to suggest that Byleth was super incompetent and that instead Claude makes all the important decisions, that seems more like just headcannon to me.
Also in CF Byleth doesn't really reject Rhea, but instead just chooses Edelgard and her path instead. If the gamr had done more things to imply that Byleth is uncomfortable with the church his rejection of Rhea would be cool, but instead it'very akward since you side with your student who just tried to kill you. Also El somehow losses all her competence in CF and can only win because of Byleth, so I don't see how Byleth stops being a Mary Sue in that route either
Really everytime Byleth is supposed to be unimportant in a route it seems like it was unintentional and only happens because of the fact that Byleth has no personality
@@spliting I wouldn't really say "Dimitri wasn't granted a cutscene in CF", is CF being unfair over Dimitri, when CF only has one cutscene at the end, even though it has parts, that desperately need one, (looking at you Chapter 12). I'm sure, if there were more Cutscenes, the Battle of the Tailtean Plains would be a likely candidate for those.
The thing I hate the most is the oversized bust of the female avatar, it just seems needlessly sexualized for no reason
I would’ve liked Byleth having their answers voiced. Like they even replaced Male Byleth. Something interesting is Byleth’s lack of customization. I was surprised they didn’t include any but it does keep Byleth from going full on self insert, least in my opinion. Now whether that helps Byleth isn’t something I can quite decide on.
Now that I think more I think Byleth is why I didn’t like Crimson Flower. Like Edelgard conquers a chunk of the continent before Byleth returns but when they do it’s suddenly all “omg teach time to turn the tides.” This works for the other routes (somewhat) but that one route was just not good. It sucks seeing interesting characters be forced to praise, respect and need Byleth to do anything.
My least favorite thing about Byleth is that it feels like half of his purpose is to be so incompetent as to both balance out and justify the rewind mechanic in-story. Something like half of his cutscenes involve him failing at something it would be near impossible to fail at in gameplay, like falling off a cliff when he can rewind time, or getting banished to the shadow realm when he can rewind time, or failing to react in time to a bandit's screaming charge attack with a 7 second windup.
This guy needed _literal divine intervention_ to survive his damned prologue, due to failing at doing something that Lucina did _effortlessly._
I actually do not even know why and how byleth failed against the bandit. reactiontime is always easier on the second try, but they could at least havetried to semiblock the attack. not to mention how that one hit appearently somehow got byleth close enough to death for sothis to jump out and say "lol,u succ". that has to be one roided up axe to deal that much damage
LOVING the new intro
I find it interesting when people say Byleth is uninteresting because I personal find him/her to be a good character for the prescribed role. Think this mostly stems from Byleth being pretty similar to myself as far as lacking in expressiveness around others and mostly being very logical when responding to them. I feel a lot is unsaid about what Byleth is going through and how he/she works through a dilemma and the stiff in-game animations can't really show it properly so it's more implied and might not get picked up on by the player. Of course it's fine if you find that boring but for me it adds a subtlety that isn't often seen in a lot of games.
Mekkah: I don't see myself as Byleth.
Also Mekkah: It feels like the game is sucking up to me.
Entotrte
Mangs’ self contradiction is rubbing off on him.
I think his point is the game wants the player to roleplay Byleth so when they suck up to Byleth they're sucking up to the player. And its annoying to see time and effort wasted on telling the player's avatar how amazing they are, even moreso if you don't relate in anyway because you see straight through the bs
A thing that bugged me but isn't really relevant to the point of the video is that most people don't roleplay as themselves, but as a character they craft in their head, like in DnD.