General RPG Lists: Fire Emblem 16 Romances

Heeeeeyyyyyy.  Remember that time I made a list of the best, worst, and most missed romances in Fire Emblem 14, in large part because I had to do something to make me feel like spending those hours upon hours reading through over 200 romantic conversation chains was justified?  Well guess who just finished spending even more time watching the Supports for Fire Emblem 16?

What the hell is even wrong with me

So anyway, here are the best romances of Fire Emblem: Three Houses.  I’ve decided to go with 8 this time, because 16 is too goddamn many stupid slots for this, so half should suffice.  That’s not to say there aren’t that many decent romances in the game (thankfully); FE16 has some pretty good ones that didn’t make it here, like Dedue and Shamir, Leonie and Seteth, and Dorothea and Petra.  I like the way, for example, Byleth’s romance with Hilda advances Hilda as a person to rise up and meet Byleth’s expectations and become a more complete, collaborative person as a result, but it, like the other examples I mentioned, just weren’t the very best that the game had to offer.

Now, lemme just explain some criteria here real quick: generally speaking, this is about romances that are actually in the game, not just ships I or others might like.  Yes, Dimitri x Felix and Hilda x Marianne fans, I know you’re angry, and so numerous, but tough tanukis.  HOWEVER, that is within some reason--if the ending bit talks about them specifically living together, very happily, like well within the range of being reasonable to infer that they did so as lovers, then that does count--so Annette and Mercedes, for example, were eligible for the list, due to the way they end up at the end (which I personally thought was rather nice and sweet).  Similarly, if 2 characters’ final conversation makes statements that imply love in a similarly concrete manner and the ending passage coordinates to some degree with this, they count--so although Shamir’s suggestion of marriage to Catherine is implied to be tongue-in-cheek, the fact that Catherine’s reaction is clearly that of taking the offer in earnest, that neither one actually denies it or says “jk bro its just a prank” about it, and that the the epilogue text implies that they stayed together and very close, are all enough that they qualify.  Finally, if the ending for the character pair vaguely alludes to them living together “like family,” or being closer than family, or something along those lines, that also is fair game: A, Because in the traditional sense, you and your committed romantic partner do count as “family,” and B, because this is Fire Emblem--being family members raises the chances of 2 characters wanting to boink.

Oh yeah, last prelude, I swear: these are judged strictly in terms of their merits as romantic couples.  There are some conversation chains in FE16 that are actually quite good as arcs and studies of characters in a general sense, but not particularly good as love stories, such as that between Dorothea and Linhardt.  Overall quality on those terms is obviously a desirable icing, but the romance itself is the cake.  And even though it’s the exact opposite for me in real life, metaphorically you can’t eat icing and no cake.

Alright, enough jawing, let’s get this done.  The best 8 romances out of Fire Emblem 16’s...jeez, I don’t even know.  Well over 100, I would estimate.



The Best Romances of Fire Emblem 16


8. Byleth and Claude

Although Byleth as a character is something akin to a pile of slightly expired applesauce, Claude’s got a screen presence and a knack for 1-sided conversation that largely compensates for what Byleth lacks, and his decent sequence of conversations with Byleth work in conjunction with the bond they form of friendship, support, and partnership during the game’s main story.  A guy who’s willing to put his main goals in life completely on hold so he can watch your back through a whole war and make sure you uncover as much of the truth about yourself as possible is a keeper, I think.  At any rate, even if he’s doing all the heavy lifting in selling this romance, Claude makes it believable on both sides that he and Byleth love one another, and the result is nice.


7. Byleth and Dorothea

Of course, if Claude can single-handedly sell a romance with Byleth with some help from the main plot, Dorothea can do it with nothing more than the Support conversations alone.  Dorothea brings her genuine and unashamed readiness to love to a set of scenes with Byleth that have the advantage of already being about the subjects of romance and of Byleth and Dorothea knowing one another past pretenses, and the S rank conversation and ending blurb are both very sweet.


6. Mercedes and Sylvain

The quality of this one came as a shock to me, because honestly, I wouldn’t have even considered the idea of these characters together to begin with, let alone that they might actually work.  But this one’s solid, no 2 ways about it.  We have here an engaging story of Sylvain finding a woman who can form a natural, meaningful connection with him over how Crests have negatively affected their lives, cutting straight to the heart of the issues that truly matter to Sylvain, and who has a decent chemistry with him, enough that she can roll with his surface-level antics, but also move straight past them to allow her and him to earnestly come to know each other.  Understanding, commiserating, and accepting, but without being cloyingly sweet and passive, Mercedes turns out to be just the person that Sylvain needs, and you can earnestly believe that his flirtatious overtures to her quickly become quite sincere.  I also appreciate that the ending text for them, in addition to being decently romantic, makes it clear that Sylvain makes major strides in his lifetime toward moving society past its lives-ruining preoccupation with Crests.  I wouldn’t want to pair him up with anyone if it meant his not accomplishing what he does in his solo ending, but thankfully, some of his romances also end with his working towards a Crest-free society, and of them, I think it’s his ending with Mercedes, in which his house is passed to his son without a Crest, that best embodies what Sylvain wants.  Sylvain and Mercedes work great together.


5. Dimitri and Marianne

I really like this love story, because it manages to perfectly use the defining trait of both these characters (survivor’s guilt) to form a fast and strong connection between them that naturally leads to deeper feelings, and yet it avoids the pitfalls of that trait that plagues them in most other conversation chains.  Neither gets, as they usually do, irretrievably edgy or gloomy, respectively, and instead utilize what they share to help one another deal with the past and keep moving forward, without being pushy about it.  Marianne usually bores me and Dimitri annoys the living crap out of me in most cases, but I actually really enjoyed them both in this little story.  They’re good for each other, they have solid chemistry, and the ending blurb for them is very tender.  Good stuff.


4. Dedue and Dimitri

I have to say that it’s a little frustrating that 2 of the best romances in FE16 are devoted to 1 of the worst examples of Silent Protagonists I’ve ever seen, and another 2 are devoted to possibly the most exaggerated and tiresome edgelord character created in the past decade, but what can ya do?  Much like Byleth and Claude, this is a relationship helped substantially by the main plot, which establishes Dedue’s unending respect and devotion for Dimitri, and Dimitri’s different but similarly powerful devotion to Dedue’s well-being and dignity.  The conversation chain is a good showing of their connection, and I really like the way that Dimitri desires for a more meaningful connection between them, and Dedue’s quiet hope that a day might come when that can be true.  Finally, the ending text for them is really nice; it has a kind of classically romantic feel of devotion and loving companionship.

It’s weird--gun to my head, I’d have to admit that Dimitri and Marianne’s love story seems better on paper, a coming together of two people who coalesce perfectly, but I can’t help but rate this one more highly.  I guess it’s that a powerful and unshakable connection is present between Dedue and Dimitri from the start, that a complete trust and devotion between them is always the definition of who they are to each other.  Maybe it can be argued that Marianne is a slightly better match altogether, but it seems obvious who Dimitri himself would choose were the decision his and not the player’s.


3. Dorothea and Ferdinand

I have nothing but love for Dorothea and I have little but exasperation and disdain for Ferdinand, so that they can be paired up at all is annoyance to me, and that I have to objectively acknowledge that this romance is so good is nothing short of agony.  But facts are facts: this is the third best romance in this damn game.  Ferdinand’s at his best with Dorothea through it all, and though most of their conversations are just buildup for the final interaction, that final interaction is amazing.  You can feel Dorothea’s heart, soul, and pain in the A Support, and Ferdinand’s turning out to be not only the opposite of what she had disdained him for, but actually someone for whom meeting her was a pivotal moment in life...it’s really romantic; feels almost like this is a love that was destined.  I feel like FE16 captures, in Ferdinand’s simple description of the first time he saw Dorothea, exactly the awestruck, monumentally moved sensation of love that Lunar 1 was going for with that cutscene of Luna singing on the boat.  Except that where Lunar 1’s FMV sequence carries its subpar song on way too long and ends with Alex wearing the expression of someone comparing floor tile samples, Ferdinand succeeds in convincing the player that this was the day when he learned what true beauty was as he gazed at Dorothea and heard her sing.

And the fact that it’s fairly obvious that he’s in love with her, and she’s going to give him the chance to win her heart as well, doesn’t hurt.  A huge problem FE16 has with its romantic angle is that the majority of these Support chains end with a scene that doesn’t really even hint at the characters having feelings for each other, let alone expressing them, and then the ending blurb comes in out of nowhere and talks about how they got married.  I can only assume that this is largely related to most characters only getting 3 conversations together, without the classic S Support interaction, but whatever the reason, FE16’s “hook anyone up with anyone” approach suffers a lot for it.  It wasn’t all that hard to make this list, even with it being so much smaller than the one I made for FE14, just for the fact that so many of the ending marriages kind of come out of nowhere.  So while the A rank talk for Ferdinand and Dorothea is wonderfully romantic in its own right, and represents some of the finest emotive acting that Allegra Clark performs in FE16 as well as a compelling moment of humanity for both Dorothea and Ferdinand, it’s also fairly significant that there isn’t any ambiguity about the romantic natures of their feelings.


2. Catherine and Shamir

Is there any single scene between Catherine and Shamir which has the romantic power and majesty as Dorothea and Ferdinand’s A conversation?  Admittedly not.  And yet, the quality and focus of the interactions between these unlikely partners is consistently great and compelling, and whereas most of Dorothea and Ferdinand’s time is spent building up to their excellent culminating interaction, all 4 of the conversations between Catherine and Shamir are dedicated to both warriors acknowledging, arguing about, and puzzling out who they are to each other, why they work so well together as partners and friends when they’re so different, and yet also finding that in the midst of their differences they’re actually quite the same...it’s great from start to finish.  They understand each other already, even as they seek to deepen that understanding, they argue about matters fundamentally important to each of them, yet know when to let a disagreement rest and not get past what they can handle together, and they never let the fact that they have very different views in life get in the way of their connection, even when those differing views make it hard to maintain that bond--and they’re open about their feelings every step of the way.  

You’re not watching 2 people get close enough to fall in love, you’re watching 2 people who are in love only coming to realize it long after the fact because it’s so natural a facet of their partnership.  It’s the kind of simple, penetrating trust, understanding, and devotion that you hope to see between people who have been together for a long time.  This is a great shared journey of development as Catherine and Shamir’s different values and priorities are discussed and ultimately set aside as not being stronger than their connection to one another.  It’s all nicely reinforced by their interactions during the game’s regular course, too, with their banter around the Monastery and during group tasks--like Dedue and Dimitri, or Byleth and Claude, this is a connection that extends into and benefits from the game’s main content.  I particularly love the moment when Catherine realizes that she would die for Shamir; it’s such a simple, understated moment of realization of just how important Shamir is to her.  Like I said, that’s what this all is, really: two people who are in love, poking and prodding each other’s heart until they themselves are aware of it.


1. Dorothea and Manuela

This is my favorite, hands-down.  And I don’t just mean in Fire Emblem 16.  I mean this is easily the best romance I’ve seen in Fire Emblem, altogether.  From start to finish, the Support conversations between Dorothea and Manuela flawlessly extol to the viewer the perfect chemistry between them, as peers, friends, and so much more.  In the 2 of them we see a combination of women who inspire and better each other just by being themselves, without resorting to viewing one another as greater than each truly is--as much as they are about having such profound and overwhelming respect and affection that they’re each a role model for the other, Dorothea and Manuela’s interactions are also about acknowledging one another’s shortcomings and loving her no less for them.  Their sequence of conversations tells a heartwarming story of Dorothea chasing after the woman she loves and has always been inspired by, the one she wanted to stand alongside, and a moving and touching story of Manuela finding someone, finally finding someone, who loves her (and always has) for what’s good and great and important about Manuela, regardless of the small shortcomings that come with that.

It’s a wonderful, warm joining of 2 people made for each other, each seeking the exact kind of love that the other can give, and who hold onto one another as a source of personal inspiration to better themselves.  And the A Support is just beautiful, 1 of my favorite scenes of tender love in all of RPGs.  Whoever wrote Dorothea and Manuela’s relationship, I hope you got a damn raise, because you raised the bar and gave me happy butterflies in my tummy.


Honorable Mention: Byleth and Sothis

Poor Sothis really got a shit deal out of all this.  By all accounts, she devotes her life’s work to being a benevolent goddess to a bunch of self-important primates, and for her troubles, 1 of them brutally murders her and nearly her entire family, and rips out her spine to make a sword with it.  She’s given a second chance at life thanks to her daughter’s efforts, but that life is an amnestic state of constant drowsiness, trapped in another person’s body with no control over what they do (which is particularly annoying when that person’s greatest talent seems to be stumbling into lethal situations).  And then, when Sothis finally fully remembers who she is, before she can have a chance to consciously reunite with her few remaining children, including the daughter who reshaped and guided an entire continent’s civilization single-handedly all so she could bring Sothis back, Sothis has to relinquish all she is to Byleth in order to save her/him from the trap that she/he stumbled into and couldn’t be bothered to remember to rewind-time out of before it was too late.  Brutally murdered along with her family, trapped within another’s body in a drugged-like stupor, and then forced by circumstance and morality to give herself up to death once more.  That’s Sothis’s existence in Fire Emblem 16.

So you know what?  I don’t care that this romance is only so-so, and I don’t care that you can only call it so-so by generously accepting/ignoring the fact that Byleth is hooking up with her own great-grandmother’s loli ghost.  If that’s what it takes to give Sothis a chance to live, with some relative happiness, then it’s got my seal of approval.



So there you are, the best romances that Fire Emblem 16 has to offer.  But of course, we’re not done yet.  We still have to talk about the other side of the coin: the relationship-building that went terribly, horribly wrong.  And this time, 8 slots isn’t gonna be nearly enough for the task, because for all the decent romances that Fire Emblem: 3 Houses possesses, it’s got a whole hell of a load MORE romances that suuuuuuuuuuccccckkkkkkkk.  16 is still too much, but 8’s too few, so let’s split it down the middle, shall we?  I present to you the 12 worst romances of Fire Emblem 16.

Sort of.  Look, I’m gonna cheat with a couple of them.  I can’t deny it.  But there’s just so much trash in FE16’s romantic scene, guys.



The Worst Romances of Fire Emblem 16


12. Ashe and Mercedes

Fire Emblem, do you think it might be possible for you to go a single goddamn game without having 10 - 20% of the Support conversations be based entirely around whether or not a woman is competent at cooking?  Do you think that might someday be something that you can develop far enough as an art form to accomplish?  Maybe?

What puts this couple in particular onto this list over its kitchen-shackled peers is that Mercedes is outright dismayed when she thinks that Ashe has romantic feelings for her, and in fact says it’s a relief when she finds out that he hadn’t been saying that, so, y’know, not the most moving portrayal of adoration I’ve seen.


11. Annette and Claude; Annette and Felix

Look, it’s basically the same thing for each, so they have to count as a single slot here.  While not as stupid and pointless as being pickle pals with FE14’s Hisame, Claude and Annette inexplicably falling in love after swapping improv nursery rhymes that Claude gives too much thought to is utterly baffling.  Equally baffling is Felix spending 4 supports--this is 1 of the lucky few couples to get an extra conversation!?--just listening to Annette being embarrassed about her little singing habit and him taking an out-of-character interest in the matter, somehow concluding in them hooking up after the war.

This is love story?  I have seen love story.  This is not that.


10. Annette and Byleth

I mean, there’s nothing too terribly wrong about this, aside from it not having a whole lot of basis (but then, how many FE16 romances do?) on their interactions prior to the point of getting together.  But the whole purpose and moral of Annette and Byleth’s story is, “It’s okay to overwork yourself to the point of exhaustion and inability to function.”  Yeah, sorry, if the takeaway message of your love story is lifted word-for-word from the management strategem of Electronic Arts, you done fucked up.

As a side note, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m cut out for not doing my best” may be the most Japanese sentence ever said in human history.


9. Ingrid and Raphael

Yeah, so, Raphael’s marriage proposal basically boils down to, “Hey, I’m too much of an idiot not to be a complete slob, so how would you like to spend the rest of your life being maritally obligated to clean up after me?”  Totally love the part where he’s too hungry and/or stupid to emotionally support her when she’s distraught over her family’s future, too.  Really sells me on this whole thing.


8. Byleth and Seteth

This subpar conversation chain, which builds no rapport beyond “we’re family yo,” culminates in Seteth proposing to a woman who is functionally his grandniece and spiritually his mother, in which he is outright talking about continuing the bloodline.  Now you can say what you will about hooking Byleth up with the ghost of her great-grandmother Sothis, or her mother-figure/biological grandmother/spiritual daughter Rhea, or his spiritual granddaughter and biological-something-generational-cousin-I-can’t-even-keep-track-of-this-shit Flayn.  But at least Female Byleth isn’t gonna be making divine dragon incest babies with Sothis, nor (presumably) with Rhea, and at the absolute very least Male Byleth’s relationships with Rhea and Flayn don’t outright boast about popping deformed reptilian troglodytes out of their wombs.  And at least when Flayn’s hooking up with her gran-gran’s new male bod, she goes to the trouble of trying to determine just how much of Byleth is Sothis and how much he’s himself.

You’ve been slowly, quietly, subtly chipping away at my socially standard bias against incest for years now, Fire Emblem--don’t think I haven’t noticed you doing it!--but we’re still at least 3 or 4 more games away from my being at a point where Seteth outright talking about producing heirs with his own family won’t gross my shit right out.

Also, while far from the worst part of all this, I have to say, the fact that Seteth’s speaking outright of marrying someone and yet not once has there been any mention of his former wife whatsoever, whose memory is shown in other events during the game’s course to still be strongly with him, is some pretty bad writing.


7. Claude and Flayn

The entirety of their interactions are spent with Claude being equally relentless and tacky in trying to uncover Flayn’s secret, up until the last second, when suddenly they start batting around the idea of marriage.  Oh, yeah, naturally.  Because if there’s 1 person I want to spend the rest of my life with, it’s definitely gonna be the guy who has proven in every single interaction he’s had with me that he’s utterly incapable of respecting my personal boundaries.  And it ain’t great from Claude’s side, either; he’s gonna be marrying someone that he knows isn’t who she pretends to be and who absolutely will not tell him the truth.  Be still, my fucking heart.


6. Byleth and Felix; Felix and Dorothea; Felix and Ingrid; Felix and Mercedes

Oh my Sothis, Felix is such a fucking pill.

You gotta love the S Support between him and Byleth in particular.  His grand romantic proposal for marriage is essentially “durr well i dun want mah sparring pardnur 2 far away hurr hurr,” and Byleth has to basically drag the words “I love you” out of the jackass, with him promising that he’s never going to say them again--and this occurs as he does a scumbag lean-in while Byleth’s up against the wall.  It takes a high mental constitution to be able to watch this scene, and yet still resist the conclusion that love is dead.


5. Lorenz and Mercedes

This whole thing is about Mercedes (justly) looking down on Lorenz because of how rigidly he defines his life by the status of nobility, with particular focus on whom he can pursue romantically...and yet that premise is immediately thrown away, unresolved, when Lorenz suddenly takes a romantic interest in Mercedes only after he finds out that she could be considered a noble.  The fact that she doesn’t seem to have any great interest in him even then is appropriate, but doesn’t give this terrible anti-love story any extra points.


4. Flayn and Linhardt

“Yo babe, how would you like to get knocked up and pop out some kids as part of a science experiment?”

Even the game seems reluctant to pretend that this shit is legitimate, as Flayn is, quite naturally, left confused and highly dismayed by Linhardt’s proposal.  What the fuck, Nintendo, for real.


3. Claude and Ingrid

I legitimately can’t believe that there’s worse than Flayn and Linhardt, but here we are.  This relationship basically progresses as such: Ingrid mercilessly and needlessly nags Claude, while Claude keeps telling Ingrid how pretty she’d be if she just smiled more often, gorgeous.  This leads to them trying and failing to change themselves for the other’s benefit, and finally agreeing that trying to get along with each other with even a basic modicum of civility and human respect is pointless anyway, so they may as well just keep doing what they’re doing.  At no point is there any expression of actual romantic interest whatsoever to explain why, in the ending blurb, they get married.  This is the fucking Fire Emblem poster child for what a dysfunctional, mutually-at-fault harmful relationship looks like.


2. Byleth and Hubert

So, 3 conversations of Hubert weighing the pros and cons of killing Byleth, and then suddenly Discount Jafar is confessing his love?  Yeah no.  And it ain’t helped by the actual confession itself: “I once thought killing you would be a real challenge, but...the real difficulty was declaring my love.”  That’s not me exaggerating, I’m directly quoting the game!  Are you fucking kidding me?

Nintendo, I shouldn’t have to tell you this.  I shouldn’t have to actually write this out.  But I do have to.  Because you’re filled with fucking idiots.  So lemme just make this real clear to you: if the majority of the real estate you take up in someone’s head is focused on calm, cold calculations on whether or not you’ll be more useful dead, and how killing you would best be accomplished, they're just not that into you.


1. Byleth and Jeritza

Jesus Christ, and I thought Hubert was bad.  GET A FUCKING HOBBY, JERITZA, HOLY FUCK.


Dishonorable Mention: Ignatz and Petra

Look, generally this couple is fine, and all, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s founded entirely upon a ProZD sketch.



By heavens, that was difficult.  There’s a LOT of shitty romances in FE16 that I really wanted to be there that couldn’t quite make it; I can’t believe I didn’t get a chance to talk in detail about how uncomfortable Balthus and Constance make me, or to take to task people who would pair up Bernadetta with Hubert.  Hasn’t poor Bernie-Bear suffered enough, dammit?

But we’re not done yet.  Yes, even in a game with over at least 100 different romantic pairs to potentially be made, there are still some opportunities that were missed.  But not that many, so let’s go with a sweet, simple 5 this time.



The Romances That Should Have Been in Fire Emblem 16


5. Byleth and Gilbert

Look, Nintendo, you invented the S Support for 1 specific purpose.  S Support = Confession of Love.  Gilbert may be a sad sack of shit of a human being in general, and the idea of marrying him makes me feel a little nauseous, but if you’re gonna make it possible to S Support a guy, then he better goddamn be putting a ring on it.  I’ll give Alois a reluctant pass on this matter, since he’s pretty happily married, but there’s no excuse for Gilbert--regardless of what the game tells us about Gilbert still loving his wife, all it’s shown us is a craven little half-man who values his wife and daughter less than an exaggerated, groundless concept of honor.  As such, officializing his separation from Mrs. Backed The Wrong Marital Horse by marrying Byleth would be well within his character.  Hell, it would twice over, because he could combine his marriage to Byleth with his duty to protect him/her--in fact, I’m relatively sure that marrying the guy/girl he’s sworn to protect is the only way that this idiot could possibly be a happy and proper spouse.

I wouldn’t normally pull for it (and if this were any other character than Gilbert, I’d have ranked this higher), but Nintendo set up the expectation of being able to romance Gilbert by giving him an S Rank scene, so they should’ve followed it through.


4. Dorothea and Ingrid

Their Support doesn’t particularly lend itself to a romance between them, but Dorothea is at her absolute flirtiest during their Paralogue adventure.  Dorothea doesn’t have any problem showing a romantic interest in others to begin with, particularly not the ladies, but even she’s rarely as forward as she is with Ingrid in the Paralogue’s aftermath.  And I’ll grant you that Ingrid doesn’t show an interest in women, so this is almost more shipping than anything (I’d have ranked this at 5 had Gilbert been literally any other character in the entire cast, yes even Hubert and Edelgard), but still, personality-wise, they would’ve really worked well, and you’ve certainly got 1 side of the romantic equation chomping at the bit to ride off into the sunset on a pegasus.


3. Raphael and Most of his Female Supports

Weirdly, several of the girls Raphael can reach A support with have no indication of romance with him, even in the epilogue (specifically, Flayn, Lysithia, and Marianne), and even with Hilda and Shamir, the game leaves the burden of assuming romantic implications on you more than making an effort itself.  What’s wrong with poor Raphael?  He’s not the greatest character ever, and he’s kind of dumb, sure, but not to any degree that should prevent him from being with others.  He’s sure as hell not as fucking stupid as Dimitri and Edelgard in the ways that actually matter.  What’s the deal?


2. Ferdinand and Hubert

Look, have you seen their A Support?  There’s more romance in their final conversation than in those of most of the WINNERS of the Best list above.  To be frank, I really think this should count as an official potential romance for them, but I objectively have to admit that even by my lax standards, the ending text just doesn’t make any statement reasonably alluding to a romantic relationship.

But it sure as hell should have.


1. Female Byleth and More Women; Male Byleth and More Men

Look, I appreciate that Nintendo took several steps forward this time towards proper inclusion of non-heterosexual romances, compared to the shamefully wanting showing they made with FE14.  There’re 5 different women that a female Byleth can romance (and most of them are even decent romances with characters you’d actually like to hook up with), and male Byleths have...just 2.  Assuming you buy the subpar DLC.  That is still twice as many as last time, though!  And a couple of the female characters can actually get together with each other, and Dedue and Dimitri can, too.  So a definite few steps forward in general from Fire Emblem Fates’s miserable attempts.

Still, it’s neither realistic nor enough, on either side.  First of all, I think that Manuela, Petra, Shamir and Catherine should all have been possible love interests for a female Byleth.  Catherine and Petra are both capable of falling in love with a woman (Petra with Dorothea, and Catherine clearly romantically adores Rhea, to say nothing of how she feels about Shamir), so the fact that they’re romanceable as a male Byleth means there’s really no reason they wouldn’t also be equally romanceable for a female Byleth.  And while I could normally be convinced that Manuela is the type that would never have thought about love with a woman until someone as special to her as Dorothea suggested it, the fact is that most of Manuela’s behavior toward Byleth, which is pretty unambiguously forward, doesn’t change regardless of Byleth’s gender.  It’s like Camilla all over again.  Finally, the fact that Shamir says that Byleth, male or female, reminds her strongly of a man she once loved during their A Support, which directly ties to the S Support confession of love for male Byleth, makes it clear to me that, as Shamir’s capable of feeling that way toward a woman as seen with Catherine, she should also be an option for a female Byleth to marry.

And it’s just so much worse for male x male romances.  Linhardt and Yuri and that’s it!  And again, that’s even cut in half for anyone with enough sense not to purchase the Ashen Wolves DLC.  For fuck’s sake, Nintendo, you couldn’t have provided male Byleth anything else?  At least make the playing field even; Fire Emblem still needs a couple more lesbian love stories to strike a decent and realistic balance, but even they outnumber the gay male romances by several times!  Come ON, Nintendo.  You couldn’t have thrown players a bone(r)* and made Claude a male Byleth love interest?  Felix is one of those annoying characters who care about literally nothing besides how good they are at combat; would it really have been that unrealistic for his (terrible) romance with Byleth to have given as little a damn about Byleth’s gender as everything else?  What about Sylvain?  It might actually be an interesting angle to pursue if Sylvain’s disgust and exasperation with the Crest system and how it makes the opposite sex act towards nobles actually made him more open to the idea of being with another man, as a way of giving the finger to the system’s hereditary focus.  Heck, a gay version of Seteth’s romance with Byleth would have been a massive improvement, as it would have taken the “Great-uncle’s gonna breeeeeeeeeed you, baby” discomfort right on out of the whole affair.

Ugh.  Just...be fair, Nintendo, and be reasonable.  If an individual’s bisexual, and can be romanced by 1 gender version of a character, they ought to be able to be romanced by the other gender version of that same character unless there’s specific personality reasons otherwise (as could have been (but wasn’t) the case of Manuela).  And if there’s more than 3 gay female love stories in the game, there ought to be more than 3 gay male love stories.  Sheesh.  I appreciate the steps forward, honestly I do, some of those steps were the best romantic options in the entire game, but you should be taking those steps with both feet, and you’ve still got a bit to go before you hit the destination.


Dishonorable Mention: Jeritza and Manuela

Would this be a good romance?  Oh FUCK no.  I’m entirely certain that this would be in, possibly even at the forefront of, the Worst list.  But let’s face it: Manuela is just that much of a hot mess that she’d give the Death Knight she wants revenge upon a romantic go.



And there you go, the best, the worst, and the should’ve been, of Fire Emblem 16.  I hope you had as much reading this as I had researching it and writing it up!  Actually, sorry that’s a terrible thing to say to you all.  I hope you had substantially more fun reading it than that.

Paradoxically, the thing that is both most tempting and most repelling to me about finally playing Fire Emblem 13 is the thought of making another of these things for it.















* I’m goddamn hilarious, I know.