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FEH and Representation

I dunno if any of you feel the same, but I'm actually not that concerned about Kagero's new over-sexualized outfit.

A long time ago, back when FEH (and even further back with Fates) first was released, I was concerned with the sexualized representation of a good number of female characters in the game (looking at you, Camilla). However, with the release of sexualized male characters, such as Valentine Hector, Bunny Alfonse, and couple of others, I really think we've finally reached an equal balance of fanservice for the 2 genders that doesn't have the ridiculously degrading imbalance that most harem anime have. There's even been a good chunk of LGBT characters included in the game now, such as Soleil.

HOWEVER, THIS IS MY MAIN ISSUE WITH REPRESENTATION IN FEH:

POC inclusion. There are NO characters of color in Fire Emblem Heroes, unless you want to count Laegjarn, Laevatein, or Niles, but they seem more tan-ish than anything, and they the first two aren't even playable characters! Athena could also be considered POC, but her representation is very much 1-dimensional and boderline racist in my opinion. I've written essays in college regarding the importance of LGBT and minority inclusion in video games, but I'll spare you the 7+ paragraphs, as I've likely already written too much at this point for any of you to care to continue reading. If I really somehow need to spell it out for you though, I will say this: representation in video games is important. It helps normalize minorities through a common, widespread medium. It also helps recognition of a groups identity. Our identity is partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often by the mis-recognition of others, and so a person or group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them a confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves.

There are a good amount of POC characters in the series, such as Flavia and Basilio, both of whom are from Fire Emblem Awakening, which I wouldn't be surprised if that contributed to the many reasons as to why that game saved the franchise. However, in recent years, POC has been EXTREMELY scarce in Fire Emblem. That needs to change. I'm sure there are many African American, Latino, and other minority races that play Fire Emblem Heroes, and I'd hate to see them suffer when they can't ever find a character they can actually relate to.

Thank you for reading this long rant, if you have any comments you'd like to make on this issue, please let me know! And if you'd like, tell me your favorite POC character in Fire Emblem! I'd love to hear it!!

Asked by vegasouji9 months 1 week ago

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Answers

As a Person of Color, I too wish there were more POC FE characters. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this. They really need to branch out. and it sucks that I only have like 5 characters that I can comfortable cosplay as without getting stares -.-

The one thing I hate most are the tropes that IS tend to use, especially the newest one in FE Heroes where you have evil brown fire people vs. pure and angelic ice people. It just rubs me the wrong way.

I do feel that Laegjarn, Laevateinn are black though, not simply tan. Their skin has that cool undertone to it.

~~all I want one day is for an FE game to be set in an area inspired by Mughal India...it would be my dream come true as I'm Bengali~~

As for favorite PoC FE characters, I don't have one since there are so few and I haven't played fates or awakening. I really like Laegjarn, as she and Laevateinn remind me of me and my little sister.

I'm not a POC myself, but I totally understand and respect that sentiment. Personally, it's bugged me for a good while that the series can justify multiple random hair colors but has barely crossed into the different races territory. As the series expands and globalizes, it's time for it.

I thought there was a little attempt with Flavia and Basillio in Awakening, but I'm still waiting for that next step. I want every player that enjoys this series to feel represented and included; not for all of the heroes to look lily white like my Irish-American arse.

So I agree with you both. Hopefully we'll see more of that soon.

That is an EXTREMELY good point, I never thought of that! Wow, thats REALLY problematic. Honestly fictional storytelling has been like that since Disney first rolled around in the 20's, with the dark characters being evil and the light characters being good.

I mean, it can even be argued in Awakening that was the case. Xenologues expanded the characters, but the 1st two Plegians we meet are Aversa and Gangrel, who tend to stand as a stark contrast to the white cast of Ylisse. The Plegians we see joining the "good guys?" Tharja and Henry. Both white in a country that should presumably at least lend to tan characters.

That always bugged me.

Well, also remember that the two of them didn’t exactly go out and about as much as other Plegians, probably. Especially Tharja.

And Henry is always covered in crows, soooo... XD

And we’ll see more, i’m sure. Of POC. They did take that first step. And Flavia is MY GURL. I loved her so much, and Basilio was great. :)

Good ole' Nick Fury. Listening to my girl Lucy and pulling a fast one on everyone. Back from the dead like a boss!

I agree, I wish there were more playable PoC characters, and I find it very very shady that a mostly-white playable cast is fighting against a mostly PoC cast of enemies.. it really makes you go "hmmmmm...." (thinking emoji)

Boey and Gray are in FEH

Booey, Gray, Athena. The only 3 playable brown characters. 3 out of like 250 characters. That's not a whole lot.

I actually said something about that on YouTube a while back. It's so bizarre! I think Gray is pox, too, Yea? Also Athena, to me, in heroes, comes off as French, which would arguably be tan? I dunno.

But I totally agree.

Can you please send a link to your YouTube commentary? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Alright for for those that commenting here about the inclusion issue let me ask a few questions regarding this game.

Do you realize what region this game was developed in? You do realize the demographic of that region correct? Think about most Nintendo games. If you consider the character cast for those games i think you'll find most of them have the same issue as this one.

Then there's the issue in other regions of localization. In Fates the Sloeil dialog which had a suggestive theme to it was changed (at least for western regions).

Ultimately what all this comes down to is one word. Money. Nintendo is going to take whatever they think is the safest route to avoid offending the fewest number of people so as to not hurt their bottom line.

Adding more brown characters would not offend people...are people offended at Gray and Booey? No.

I'm just saying, it wouldn't hurt to think outside the same old box for once. Yeah, they're in Japan, but do they really not care about the rest of the world?

I'm not not saying people should be be offended by characters like Gray or Boey at all (at least i would hope not). But in short. No. They really don't care about the rest of the world it's all about profits and they will do whatever they have to do to maximize them sadly.

*sighs* I see your point.

But then look at the beautiful new Arslan Senki...I believe they have it in them to get there.

Oh i agree they are very capable of taking this a lot further and doing some good things with this. If they want to.

Aren't most areas in fire emblem games based off of either Asian or European background? There is Jaffar and Boey but, but Jaffar at least seems Middle Eastern in design. But in general, they don't have too many dark skinned characters, I guess because of their basis.

Jaffar is a hot Arabian dude in my perspective :)

Yeah, I'd say most FE games are based off an European setting, tho some have deserts. I guess Fates is the only one you could argue that has a setting based off of Asia. Also Awakening with that place - Chon'sin I think?

I'm with you 100% on the PoC thing; I really wish that a lot of the OC characters were PoCs instead (and not just the villains) because historically, FE has very fer PoCs to work with. I mean, PoR/RD was a huge commentary on racism and even then it was pretty white-washed. I would have loved for them to seize the opportunity to try to balance the scales (EVEN A LITTLE) with the OCs. =T

But while I hate to say it, we do have to remember (and consider) that these games originate in Japan and Japan's not exactly a... color-diverse nation; at least not at the scale we're used to in the US (which is where I'm assuming most people here set their frame of reference by). Plus a lot of the core series games are really old, and PoC characters were even rarer in traditional media then.

What I would really love to see is more of the artists taking liberties with some of the characters that could easily be skewed more towards PoC status (even if that wasn't really the original creator's intention), for example, Guy and Rath; I kinda feel like it would be a hard sell to change a character like Lyn's coloring (though she's Sacae like Guy/Rath and it would totally suit her), but damnit there are TONS of opportunities the artist's could seize to bump up the representation. =T

Like, damn son, it's a pretty white cast.

I totally agree. The Tellius series are two of my most favorite games in the series, and the amazing connections to racism in real life is SO apparent and relevant its scary. Its part of the reason why they are my favorites (that, and Ike is just a flat-out amazing character, he's my favorite fictional character of all time.).

I'm actually playing through PoR for the first time, and I must admit...it does feel a bit ironic that it's a commentary on racism, but it doesn't explicitly touch on the racism which is very real historically and even today for a lot of the real world's population.

and YES I wish the Japanese artists had it in them to take those up a notch

As a POC, I wholeheartedly agree. I am from Sri Lanka, and I have never seen a single character in anything from my country or race. While I realize that my country is pretty small, it would still be pretty cool to have some representation.

That being said, people of color don't really fit into FE. Most of it has a European or Japanese setting, and people of color don't really fit into the theme. While I think diversity is great, there also has to be a reason for it.
Heroes does have some reps, Jaffar, Boey, Gray, etc.

here's a southasian high five from me ✋

Ayyyy right back at you ✋

I mean, the argument that inclusion is unsafe for marketing or would possibly hurt sales is so outdated at this point. Marvel includes scenes in China or South Korea to draw in overseas audiences for their movies. Many companies are realizing that global marketing and sales are as important as domestic ones.

Nintendo is.....old-fashioned at points, but they know marketing. It's not a stretch for a Japanese company to include POC characters in positive positions or heroic or lead roles. If anime can do it or if even the series can include a few characters like Flavia, Boey or Benny as they have, then there shouldn't be too much of a leap to expand the roles. Imagine how many new fans we'd be able to share this series with if there was more inclusion, or a new lord was Black, Latin(o/a), Middle Eastern, or Indian. : D

I will agree with this.

I’ll be brutally honest: I’m not a POC, hell I am best described as a fat pasty white guy. But diversity is an issue this game seems to have. The only character who I know of off the top of my head that is summonable and not the same white complexion as almost every FEH available character is Athena. And the fact that Laevatein and Laegjarn are the only others in-game of a darker skin tone is kind of weird.

I guess I don’t think too much about these issues, but they are real issues.

Why does it matter what skin colour these characters have? Representation is such a non-issue I don´t understand why people are complaining about there not being enough "People of Color" in a japanese game based of europe in the middle ages. Focusing on the skin-tone of a character exclusivly is pretty racist don´t you think. I also don´t think that being a "POC" yourself makes your argument stronger to anyone who started their comment with saying "As a Person of Color". There are very few characters that look the way I do (Brown skin, Super curly hair, glasses, 6,5 ft) and do I care? No. Because it doesn´t really matter. Can someone who cares tell me why they do?

because I want to be able to cosplay as a main lord without getting weird stares for being brown

also FE is growing. Not every game is going to be the same old formula. We just would like some change, something new.

edit: also growing up being told that I'm not beautiful and being treated differently because of my skin has left somewhat of a shadow upon my mind...it makes me feel like I don't really belong.

So the whole formula is gonna change cause they added a few characters you can cosplay as. That doesn´t make much sense to me. Also you are going to get stares if you cosplay anyway. That´s the point of cosplaying in public. You want people to see you.

There are some people in the community almost religiously devout to the characters, and I have seen people be called out before for not being the "right" skin color or body type to cosplay the character on social media.

These people sound like complete assholes. I never cosplayed myself but the effort cosplayers go through has to at least be apreciated by the people who like the same character. It doesn´t make sense to me.

There are a lot of complete assholes in life, even this site has some that could be classified as such.

If people were generally more tolerant, maybe there would be 0 need for a discussion like this. I would probably get looks if I tried to cosplay as someone like Ike or Zelgius because I am considered obese. Or if I tried to cosplay as someone dark skinned, I would be called out because I am white.

It’s both sides of the equation here. Tolerance is the real problem.

it's not just because of the cosplay. In fact, that is one of the smaller things.

It's just that in a fantasy world where any hair color is possible, they choose to only use the same skin color? Seriously? It's not even that big of an issue, it's just one that lies under the surface and rubs me the wrong way.

also there are some pretty racist people out there at conventions and stuff...they are not fun to deal with.

Hey, just do it. I remember the last convention I went to, this black guy had a SPOT ON cosplay of PoR Ike, and I still have his picture on my phone. I literally squealed and loved his cosplay, and was so glad to have seen him. :) he didn’t care about the barriers, he just cosplayed and I was like “YEAH, BOIIII.”

Also, I found him outside on a walking bridge and legit made him stop to make him pose and take that pic. XD

thanks :) perhaps I will do a Lyn cosplay one day!

Please do! Bring her to life in your own way!

thank you! It is funny, because her style of dress is similar to the kameez that we wear...but I guess her clothing is more Mongolian style. Id need to get creative XD and I must wear pants, unlike our dear Lyn lol

If ever I see you, I would probably kiss you. And i’m not gay. XD I just love Lyn, and I never see any cosplay of her.

Only Lucy’s... ;-;

Nice to see I'm not the only girl on this site! Please tell me your friend code. I would like to add you.

Honestly, i’m not the only girl on this site. I know there are other girls (whose usernames are slipping my young Alzheimer’s mind). But there’s my friend code! I think I need to banish a friend first.. >.> it may be full. Idr.

But yeah, definitely don’t be afraid to cosplay a character you love.

If I had the skill to make the outfit, I would SO cosplay Flavia (i’m white, btw XD)

I just see cosplayers as fellow fans, and I love all my peeps. :3 no matter what you look like. Your interests and personality are all that matter to me.

thank you! I will add you in like half an hr, since my phone's dead rn. My in game name is the same as this one.

Hope you don’t mind Steffy, I’m going to add you as well.

I added you also.

Is it ok that I sent you a request as well?

Which version though? I still like normal Lyn the most.

Lol I'd do Normal Lyn. She's the easiest, and she looks so cool with her sword. :) She's also my favorite character and the first one that I met.

although I have much more experience in archery...making her bow would be kinda tough.

How would you like a Fell Reincarnation Robin with an Afro?

Yeah, boi! Let’s do it!!

Now I can’t get this image out of my head. XD it’s too fantastic.

I´ll do it at the Gamescom when I get enough money to 1. Go there. 2. Make the costume. I have no idea how the hell that´s gonna work out at all.

Patience, and a LOT of dark purple fabric. And gold trim. XD

Good luck! I really hope to see it!!!