Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The sixteenth entry in the Fire Emblem series of Strategy RPGs, and the first entry of the series to be released on the Nintendo Switch. Fire Emblem: Three Houses takes place in the land of Fódlan, a continent broken up into three distinct countries: the Adrestian Empire, the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, and the Leicester Alliance. One fateful night, the young heirs of these countries are suddenly attacked by a marauding gang of bandits, leading them to cross paths with Byleth, a stoic blue-haired mercenary who helps them drive off the bandits. Shortly after the battle, knights working for Fódlan's Church of Seiros arrive on the scene, and recognize his/her father Jeralt, who used to be one of their number. At the knights' insistence, Jeralt and Byleth accompany them to Garreg Mach Monastery, where the mysterious archbishop Rhea puts Byleth to work as a professor at the monastery's Officer's Academy, where commoners and nobility alike pursue higher education related to combat and military tactics.

While a somewhat controversial decision, Byleth takes to teaching like a duck to water and is assigned to supervise one of the Academy's three houses, with each corresponding with one of Fódlan's three countries: the Black Eagles led by Adrestia's future emperor Edelgard, the Blue Lions led by Faerghus' future king Dimitri, and the Golden Deer led by Leicester's future grand duke Claude. No matter the house, Byleth gets pulled into a complex web of political intrigue involving powerful ancient weapons, a shadowy organization sowing the seeds of chaos around Fódlan, and the mysteries surrounding their birth, as well as the mysterious girl living in their mind who can turn back time...

Proving to be one of the franchise's most popular games, Three Houses would receive a DLC campaign titled "Cinder Shadows", a sidestory where Byleth and all three house lords are thrust into a plot involving the seedy underground of Garreg Mach and the people living within it. It would also receive a Dynasty Warriors-styled spinoff by the name of Fire Emblem: Three Hopes, which released on June 24, 2022. While not canon to Three Houses, it tells a new story featuring many of the same characters and sheds new light on the world they live in.

Directed by Toshiyuki Kusakihara and Genki Yokota. Developed by Intelligent Systems and Kou Shibusawa, a division of Koei Tecmo. Published by Nintendo.

Tropes used in Fire Emblem: Three Houses include:
  • Abusive Parents: While not quite as bad a problem as some fans would have you believe, quite a few characters come from lousy upbringings.
    • Count Varley. Dear god Count Varley. While not quite the worst, he's the most infamous due to his abhorrent treatment of Bernadetta. Years of emotional and likely physical abuse left her a perpetually nervous wreck who can't go a scene without having a panic attack, all in the name of molding her into the perfect housewife.
    • Mercedes' stepfather Baron Bartels came dangerously close to becoming sexually abusive towards her, due to hoping to use her as his personal breeding sow he could legally rape despite being a child at the time. Thankfully, Emile/Jeritza put a stop to that and gutted the man before he could even try.
    • Count Gloucester doesn't seem too bad on the surface, but it's clear that he's very cold towards his son Lorenz. Lorenz is legitimately afraid of being disowned by him should he lose a dance competition, and in the non-Verdant Wind routes, he's willing to have Lorenz potentially die by forcing him to defend the Bridge of Myrddin in his place.
  • Abusive Precursors: The Agarthans, though unlike most examples they're still around to torment humanity, who they nearly wiped out completely millenia ago.
  • Acceptable Breaks From Reality: Shambhala may be a technologically advanced remnant of a lost age, but its metal sliding doors can be lockpicked just as easily as any normal door.
  • Adult Fear: Emperor Ionius was forced to watch ten of his eleven children die horrific deaths at the hands of Those Who Slither in the Dark, who performed inhumane experiments on them. Edelgard, the sole survivor, was still experimented on extensively and came close to dying herself. And one of the men responsible for this living nightmare happens to be his brother in law... or rather, a stranger wearing his face. YMMV on which is worse.
    • Jeralt lost his wife, who died during childbirth. His baby had no heartbeat and couldn't feel emotions, never even crying. And Rhea, the woman he trusted with his life and viewed as a mother figure is acting suspicious about the whole thing and refuses to explain herself to him. While Rhea's revealed to not be guilty of any wrongdoing, you still can't blame Jeralt for being scared enough to fake his own death and run away with Byleth in tow.
    • Rodrigue's son Glenn died during the Tragedy of Duscur, and in the Crimson Flower route, he'll be forced to fight his other son, Felix, to the death should you recruit him. Depending on how the fight goes, he's either cut down by his own son or kills him, with no option to spare the poor man.
  • Aerith and Bob: This dynamic exists all over the place. The students you can potentially teach have names ranging from mundane ones like Raphael Kirsten and Annette Dominic, to truly extravagant ones like Lorenz Hellman Gloucester. We also have members of the Church of Seiros having names like Catherine and Cyril working in tandem with people named Seteth and Flayn.
  • After the End: Near the end of the Verdant Wind route, it's revealed that the game takes place countless years after a war between Sothis and the advanced Agarthan civilization led to the destruction of Fódlan and death of most of its inhabitants.
  • Age-Inappropriate Dress: Sothis looks like a little girl, but wears a very skimpy dress with a prominent belly window. This seems to be a side effect of... whatever led to her manifesting as a child after being killed by Nemesis, since she looked like a fully-grown woman in life.
  • Ambiguously Evil: Count Gloucester is suggested to have some sort of connection to the Agarthans, and may have been using their Demonic Beasts to attack merchants in his territory as well as kill Claude's uncle Godfrey. However, his true culpability is left unclear due to there being no real follow up to Ignatz and Raphael's paralogue. Complicating matters is Three Hopes revealing that at least in that game, he's a red herring for an unseen member of House Gloucester that was ordering attacks on Godfrey and the merchants. But the jury's out on if that exonerates him here, or if it's a case of Hopes!Count Gloucester being subject to Adaptational Heroism.
    • Pre-timeskip, Rhea is presented as a benevolent religious leader who also comes off as extremely creepy and untrustworthy in a lot of her scenes. She has a tendency to declare her enemies as heretics that must be struck down with extreme force, puts a gag order on any news about Miklan's transformation into a Black Beast, and did something to Byleth that left them with no heartbeat or emotions. However, Rhea turns out to be genuinely benevolent woman, but with a tendency to make questionable decisions for the greater good as well as a trauma-induced Berserk Button that causes her to react poorly and violently towards betrayal. In Crimson Flower however, she does become evil as a result of Byleth and Edelgard's actions.
  • Anti-Villain: As per Fire Emblem tradition, you run into plenty of sympathetic villains here and there.
    • Lord Lonato, the Arc Villain of Chapter 3 may be leading a violent peasant uprising against Rhea, but he's also a grieving father trying to avenge his son, whose execution she supervised (albeit not without reason). Ashe and Catherine's paralogue also reveals that he was being manipulated by the bishop of the corrupt Western Church into taking up arms, who took advantage of his grief for his own selfish ends.
    • The mysterious collaborator of Those Who Slither in the Dark, the Flame Emperor, doesn't seem to be a sadistic genocidal maniac like his brothers-in-arms and openly holds their overly cruel methods in disdain. He legitimately wants Byleth to join his cause so they can destroy what ails Fódlan, which includes Those Who Slither. Once "he" is revealed to be Edelgard, an even more tragic light is shed on the emperor. While she genuinely wants to usher in an era where commoners and nobility alike can be equal in status and Crests don't matter, she's willing to commit horrible crimes and hurt innocent people in order to do so, and won't back down.
    • The rest of the Black Eagles, save for Hubert, are barely even villainous should they side with Edelgard. None of them are happy about the war, but genuinely believe that Edelgard has the right of it and want to help usher in her dream of a Crestless society. Even Hubert isn't impossible to sympathize with, since he was conditioned at a young age to be unfailingly loyal to Edelgard, no matter what.
    • While unhinged and merciless enough to burn down an entire city just to kill her enemies, Rhea in Crimson Flower is ultimately a victim of trauma reliving Nemesis' butchering of her kin, and losing whatever sanity she had left in the process.
  • Ax Crazy: Interestingly, this game's most mentally disturbed characters are some of the good guys, who completely lose their mind when pushed far enough. The most notable is Dimitri, who becomes little more than a feral animal after learning that Edelgard is the Flame Emperor, lashing out at friend and foe alike while taking genuine delight out of killing Imperial troops in the most horrific ways possible. There's also Rhea in the game's Crimson Flower route, who undergoes a major case of Sanity Slippage should Byleth side with Edelgard in the Holy Tomb, culminating in her setting an entire village on fire in a mad attempt at killing Byleth, Edelgard, and friends.
    • That being said, there are still terrifying psychos on the villains' side. Noteworthy examples are the Death Knight/Jeritza von Hrym, a sadistic, bloodthirsty maniac suffering from a split personality, as well as Kronya, a psychotic Monster Clown obsessed with killing and hurting people.
  • Badass Grandpa: Gilbert is getting up there in years, but he's a hard-hitting Fortress Knight by default and won't hesitate to put bandits or Imperial troops in their place. Hanneman is roughly as old as him, and is still a very effective spellcaster in spite of his advanced age. Then there's Solon and Thales, whose ages might be up in the thousands. Doesn't stop them from being terrifying evil sorcerers in their own right.
  • Badass Long Hair: Post-timeskip, Ferdinand has impressively long Fabio hair to coincide with his status as one of the best fighters in the game.
  • Bare-Fisted Monk: Gauntlets are a new weapon type, and with them comes several Classes dedicated to melee combat: Brawlers, Grapplers, and War Masters. Their damage output is a bit weaker compared to other physical fighters, but they make up for it by being able to attack multiple times in one turn, up to four under the right circumstances.
  • Beard of Evil: Arundel, Edelgard's Evil Uncle has a sinister goatee of evil. Or at least, that's how it appears: the real Arundel was a kind-hearted man in life and is being impersonated by an evil Agarthan. Said Agarthan, Thales, does count as this trope due to boasting a scraggly beard of his own.
    • As shown by the opening cutscene, bloodthirsty Fallen Hero (or so we're led to believe) Nemesis had a wild beard befitting a barbarian warrior king like him.
    • Starter Villain Kostas also has some wild, unkempt chin scruff.
  • Big Bad: Edelgard is this in the Azure Moon route, while Rhea is this in Crimson Flower. Those Who Slither in the Dark are technically this to the game as a whole, but only serve as the final threat in Verdant Wind and Silver Snow.
  • The Big Guy: Every house has at least one designated axe/gauntlet-favoring physical powerhouse among their ranks.
    • The Blue Lions have Dedue, an intimidating Gentle Giant who doubles as The Lancer to Dimitri.
    • The Black Eagles have Caspar, who makes up for his short stature with his brash, hot-headed nature and surprising strength.
    • The Golden Deer have Raphael, a hulking Book Dumb lug of a man who is obsessed with eating and training so he can become even bigger and stronger.
  • Big No: If you kill Flayn before Seteth in Crimson Flower, you're treated to a truly heartbreaking example of this trope, made worse with Mark Whitten sounding as if he's actually watching his own daughter die in front of him.

"Flayn! Please, no! NO!"

  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Practically the calling card of Those Who Slither in the Dark. Several seemingly friendly and goodhearted characters like Tomas and Monica are revealed to be cruel, sadistic, genocidal molemen in disguise.
  • Bi the Way: Dorothea is explicitly flirtatious towards men and women alike, and Edelgard, Mercedes, Linhardt, Yuri, Rhea, Sothis, and Jeritza can be romanced regardless of gender. This means that male and female Byleth are bisexual by association, as is Petra due to having an unambiguously romantic paired ending with Dorothea. Also, Catherine and Shamir's ending shows that their relationship goes a whole lot further than mere Les Yay.
  • Bodyguard Crush: Catherine is all but said to be in love with Rhea, who she valiantly defends as a Knight of Seiros. The same goes with Hubert, though he's far more blatant about his feelings for Edelgard.
  • Cain and Abel: Sylvain of the Blue Lions has this kind of relationship with his brother Miklan. Miklan is the Cain, being a spiteful, sociopathic brute of a man obsessed with murdering his little brother over losing his inheritance to him. Meanwhile, Sylvain is the Abel due to being a good-hearted young man who won his father's favor due to being born with the family Crest.
  • Christmas Cake: Manuela, who's 36 before the timeskip and 41 after it, and obsessed with finding a nice man to settle down with while lamenting her "old" age and inability to keep a boyfriend past the first date. However, Manuela's horrible luck with men isn't due to them finding her repulsive because of her age; they're turned off by her slovenly behavior and "woe is me" attitude, something that Cyril calls her out on during their Support conversations.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Acheron of the Leicester Alliance is infamous for being an opportunistic shitheel whose loyalties shift with the wind. House Rowe of Faerghus is just as bad, having betrayed the Empire for the then newly-established kingdom, only for the current Count Rowe to sell out his homeland to the empire since they seem to be the favorite to win the continent-spanning war after the timeskip.
  • Corrupt Church: Edelgard claims that the church is corrupt and supportive of Crested nobles oppressing their subjects, and Claude is similarly put off by official doctrine that encourages xenophobia and racism. Then, you've got Rhea herself creeping a lot of characters out for ordering the deaths of people who oppose her with overzealous fervor. However, the truth of the Church's nature is a lot more complicated than it seems.
    • For all the talk about the Church encouraging Crest-based oppression, official doctrine discourages it and even cites it as the reason why the Goddess stopped directly interacting with humanity (Which, while not the truth behind her disappearance, does show that Edelgard is willfully ignorant or lying). And while there does seem to be xenophobic doctrine in religious texts, none of it is actually enforced since foreigners from outside of Fódlan are accepted as students and faculty at Garreg Mach. And while Rhea does act genuinely creepy about killing those who oppose her, said opposition brings it upon themselves by trying to murder her and her students and faculty.
    • There is, however, the matter of the church suppressing technological advances such as telescopes, autopsies, and other such things as revealed in the Cindered Shadows DLC. Though on the other hand we do see autopsies at work if you talk to Manuela after the death of Jeralt, showing that Rhea isn't putting a flat ban on them so much as she is slowing their development. Once you learn the truth behind Rhea, the Goddess, and the Church, it becomes clear that this doesn't stem from malevolence so much as it does fear of humans abusing their technology like the Agarthans did.
    • How they handled the execution of Christophe, Lord Lonato's son, is definitely shady as hell. They framed him for being one of the ringleaders of the Tragedy of Duscur, which he wasn't responsible for. However, he did try to murder Rhea, which warranted his execution anyway. While the lie was a well-intentioned one meant to help keep the peace, it still led to a grieving father going on the warpath in retribution for his son's name being dragged through the mud. Whether it was justified or not ultimately depends on how you feel about the whole thing.
    • With that being said, while the Central Church is far from a straight example of this trope, its western branch is. The Western Church is a prominent villainous faction before the timeskip and tries to have Rhea overthrown and murdered. They're also noteworthy for being horribly xenophobic and racist, basically Fódlan's equivalent to the KKK.
  • Create Your Own Villain: Edelgard is convinced that Rhea is a selfish, sociopathic monster who cares nothing for humanity and wants to crush it under her foot. In the Crimson Flower route, she's proven right... after driving Rhea completely insane by trying to loot the corpses of her fallen brethren, helping the ones responsible for the genocide of her race commit all manner of atrocities during the school year, trying to finish what Nemesis started by slaughtering the few Nabateans that are left, and turning Byleth, who carries the soul of her mother, against her. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy!
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Dark magic may be scary and destructive, but its wielders are just as likely to be good as they are evil.
  • Darth Vader Clone: A few are present. Fittingly, they're all associated with an evil emperor.
    • Funnily enough, the Flame Emperor himself or rather, herself is basically Darth Vader in a medieval setting. While his manipulative warmongering and social status bring Palpatine to mind, he's got the imposing armor, mechanically-filtered voice, Bad Boss tendencies, and tragic backstory most would associate with Vader, and even offers Byleth a genuine offer to team up and eliminate the shadowy Sith-like Agarthans that he answers to. And if you choose to side with Edelgard during a Black Eagles playthrough, you can take the Emperor up on that offer.
      • And the similarities go even further after the Emperor's identity is revealed. Edelgard was traumatized at a young age due to the loss of many of her loving family members, and she herself was subjected to horrific experiments that gifted her with immense strength. She's also secretly the half-sister of her fair-haired Arch-Enemy Dimitri, and in a Silver Snow playthrough is an antagonistic former pupil of Byleth's firmly on the side of evil.
    • The Death Knight is an even better example of this trope, being a terrifying warrior clad in skeletal black armor with a hellishly deep voice filtered through his helmet. He's an obscenely powerful combatant that you shouldn't even think of fighting early in the game, and serves as the muscle of the Flame Emperor's army. He's also related to one of the heroes: Mercedes of the Blue Lions. More specifically, he's her handsome and mentally troubled younger brother Jeritza/Emile, who became a twisted serial killer after suffering from a psychotic break in the aftermath of killing his abusive family. If her paralogue is completed, she'll try to coax a shaken Death Knight back to the light, but he ultimately dies in her arms, emotionally moved by her kindness but unwilling (or perhaps unable) to divert from the bloody path he walks.
    • Should you choose to side with Edelgard during a Black Eagles playthrough, Byleth becomes an example of this trope. Male Byleth has a slight edge over his female counterpart due to being a handsome young man who wears intimidating black armor, but both versions become the chief enforcer of the emperor's will, were born under unusual circumstances, and wield a glowing Cool Sword in battle. They even mirror Anakin's Face Heel Turn by refusing to kill a defeated Edelgard at the behest of Rhea, and shortly afterwards lead an armed assault on a holy temple housing their students and colleagues (though you don't kill them until later in the game). Since Rhea was hoping to train up Byleth as her successor, they even count as as a wayward pupil that turned to villainy and eventually kill her... though with the twist that Rhea herself goes insane and crosses the Moral Event Horizon due to her hatred for them.
  • Depraved Bisexual: Crimson Flower reveals that the Death Knight/Jeritza is this due to developing something of an odd obsessive crush on Byleth, who he can romance no matter their gender.
  • Disposable Bandits: This game fulfills the time-honored tradition of having thuggish bandits serve as a Fire Emblem game's unremarkable Starter Villains. Funnily enough though, Nemesis turns this trope on his head: he's the guy responsible for just about everything going wrong, and he was a mere bandit himself!
  • Disappeared Dad: Neither Dorothea or Annette's fathers are in their lives anymore. Dorothea's dad threw her and her mother out on the street since she wasn't born with a Crest, and in Annette's case he left his family due to him exiling himself as a self-induced punishment for failing to protect his king during the Tragedy of Duscur. Thankfully, Gilbert and Annette's relationship can be fixed in the Blue Lions/Azure Moon route.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: An in-universe example is Miklan, as seen through Edelgard's eyes. The Black Eagles' version of Chapter 5 has her lament his death and blame Fódlan's Crest-based society for pushing a promising young nobleman and born leader into a life of banditry. However, Edelgard's tendency to project her worldview onto others blinds her to the ugly truth about Miklan, which is made perfectly apparent in the other routes and even the DLC campaign. While he was disinherited due to not having a Crest, he still could have enjoyed the cushy life of a nobleman and was fully disowned due to repeatedly trying to murder his Crest-bearing brother Sylvain out of spiteful envy, something he willfully turns a blind eye to.
  • Draconic Divinity: Dragons that happen to be divine beings are a staple in Fire Emblem games, this one included. A major figure in the Church of Seiros' mythos is the Immaculate One, an enormous white dragon who showed up to aid Saint Seiros in her time of need. It turns out that Seiros/Rhea is the Immaculate One, and she isn't the only one of her kind: the Goddess Sothis and her children are all shape-shifting dragons of incredible might, with Sothis herself boasting the power to turn back time.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him If one of your units "dies" in battle before the timeskip, they don't properly die until after Edelgard's assault on Garreg Mach, as revealed by the ending slides. Common fates involve getting killed in unrelated skirmishes or succumbing to disease, but the linking thread between them is how sudden and jarring they are.
    • This ends up being Dimitri's fate in Verdant Wind and Silver Snow, where he gets so caught up in his bloodlust and hatred for Edelgard that he recklessly rushes a group of Imperial soldiers in the former and succumbs to the chaos at Gronder Field in the latter. Very jarring, considering that he's one of the game's main lords.
  • Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Surprisingly, the series' weapon-based version of this trope is completely absent. With that being said, many Classes still have obvious strengths and weaknesses: Pegasus Knights resist magic but are eaten alive by archers, Fortress Knights shrug off most physical attacks like they're nothing but get torn apart by spellcasters, etc.
  • Elite Mooks: In traditional Fire Emblem fashion, many endgame Mooks have access to high-level classes like Assassin, Swordmaster, Wyvern Knight, and War Master. They're much tougher to take out than your typical Myrmidons and Brigands as a result.
    • Beasts and Golems/Titanus are in a class of their own, boasting multiple health bars and Herd-Hitting Attacks with massive range as well as horrifying stat boosts every time they lose a health bar.
  • Evil Redhead: Miklan's got a head of long red hair, and he's one of the game's most vile villains. Kronya, Duke Aegir, and "Cornelia" are similarly vile and have hair colors ranging from orange to pink. Ferdinand also counts in Crimson Flower as well as any non-Silver Snow routes where he isn't recruited, though he's far more sympathetic than the other four to the point that his villainy merely consists of backing the wrong horse.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: The Death Knight speaks in a hellish, mechanical baritone that makes Darth Vader sound downright prepubescent in comparison. Even when he's unmasked, his voice as Jeritza is deep.
  • Expy: The Flame Emperor is the latest in a long line of Expies based off of Rudolf from Fire Emblem Gaiden, being an evil emperor heavily associated with the color red with a Well-Intentioned Extremist mindest like Rudolf himself, Arvis, and Walhart. He's also got a lot in common with Ashard due to being a murderous, imperialistic Social Darwinist who wants to reform society into one based on merit, though he's much more sympathetic than him.
  • Fantastic Racism: The people of Duscur are victims of a near-genocide at the hands of the Kingdom of Faerghus, and many Faerghus natives have nothing but abhorrent things to say about them, Ingrid included. Almyrans are similarly looked down on by many Fódlan natives due to Almyra's history of launching unprovoked invasions For the Evulz. Then there's Those Who Slither in the Dark and their hatred for humanity, who they view as little more than savage beasts.
  • Fat Bastard: Duke Aegir, the corrupt prime minister of Adrestia and the man who authorized the invasive experiments that traumatized Edelgard and killed her siblings.
  • Final Boss: Each route has one of its own.
    • Azure Moon: Edelgard, twisted into a monstrous form called the Hegemon Husk out of a last desperate attempt to win against Dimitri and Byleth's forces.
    • Crimson Flower: Rhea, or rather Seiros, in her Immaculate One form.
    • Verdant Wind: A resurrected Nemesis and his Ten Elites.
    • Silver Snow: The Immaculate One again, but feral and animalistic as opposed to knowingly evil, and backed up by a flock of draconian White Beasts.
  • Forgotten First Meeting: Dimitri and Edelgard actually met each other as kids, and had their first dance together before the Tragedy of Duscur and Edelgard's Crest experiments happened. While Dimitri remembers her, she, sadly doesn't remember him.
  • Gainaxing: Not present during gameplay, but in the cutscene introducing the staff and students of Garreg Mach, Manuela is introduced with the camera fixated on her jiggling boobs.
  • Generic Doomsday Villain: We are given very little insight as to what Nemesis was truly like as a person. He was a brutal conquering bandit who nearly drove the Nabatean race to extinction for the hell of it... and that's it. Even when the Agarthans revive him in the Verdant Wind route, he doesn't have much of a personality beyond "vicious screaming madman".
  • Glass Cannon: Mages, Archers, and many of their upgraded forms are capable of nuking plenty of enemy units from afar, but if said enemy units can get up close and personal with them, chances are they're toast. Lysithea takes this to the extreme: she's one of very few units capable of one-shotting the Death Knight, but if she misses her attack her fate is most certainly sealed.
    • The same goes with classes such as the Thief and Assassin, but they're fairly evasive in order to balance things out. You can thank their overlap with Fragile Speedster for that.
  • The Good King: King Lambert, Dimitri's father, was by all accounts a nice guy and fair ruler who was hellbent on forging an everlasting peace with Duscur. Dimitri follows in his footsteps, though he unfortunately loses himself to madness in Azure Moon, Verdant Wind, and Silver Snow. Luckily, he gets better in Azure Moon and proves himself to be Lambert's equal.
  • Hate Sink: Plenty. The most (in)famous example would be Count Varley, Bernadetta's abusive jackass of a father. While we never see him onscreen, Bernadetta's support conversations paint a very clear picture of the man being a cruel, greedy bully whose awful parenting molded his daughter into a paranoid recluse. He was also involved in the Insurrection of the Seven to some extent, which resulted in the torturous experiments that killed most of the Imperial royal family and traumatized Edelgard. And unlike Duke Gerth, Hubert's father, and possibly the fathers of Linhardt and Caspar, it's very likely that he participated solely to steal some of the Emperor's power for himself as opposed to benevolent reasons like them.
    • Fellow Imperial abusive parent Baron Bartels is similarly morally bankrupt, due to being a pedophile who was willing to use his child-aged daughter as a breeding sow since her mother was past the age where she could bear him children. What little we know about him points towards him being entirely selfish and cruel, and him traumatizing Jeritza and indirectly creating his murderous Death Knight persona doesn't win him any likability points, either.
    • "Those Who Slither in the Dark"/the Agarthans are a faction of Hate Sinks. While fans of the game's lords will argue endlessly about which one was "right" and which ones were irredeemably evil, just about everyone agrees that the cruel, genocidal Nazi molemen are a blight upon Fódlan and its people, and every last member is an absolute monster who commits horrible atrocities for the fun of it.
    • Miklan Gautier, Sylvain's monstrously abusive older brother is revealed to have made his life hell growing up, often attacking him and trying to kill him out of jealousy for losing his inheritance to him before getting disowned completely by their father, which he responded to by becoming a raping, pillaging bandit. While Edelgard and even Dimitri spare him pity for their own reasons, Miklan's spiteful Psychopathic Manchild attitude and refusal to take accountability for his actions won't win him any sympathy from the player... at least, in theory.
    • Acheron is an obnoxious Smug Snake and Dirty Coward extraordinaire, and has no redeeming qualities to his name beyond being satisfying to kill. He exists solely for someone that all sides of the game's main conflict can hate, no matter who they think is ultimately in the right.
  • The Heavy: While she's only the Big Bad in Azure Moon, Edelgard is still a major threat in Verdant Wind and Silver Snow, serving as the primary villain until the Slithers take the reins back at the very end.
  • Hero Antagonist: Dimitri and Rhea in Crimson Flower, where they're the ones being menaced by Villain Protagonist Edelgard. Rhea, however, turns into a genuine villain at the very end of the route and crosses the Moral Event Horizon.
  • Heroic Mime: Byleth does talk, at least through dialogue options and they have voiced level up quotes, but they're otherwise silent during most of the game. They do avert this in a few scenes, though, such as female Byleth being so shocked that she speaks during her S-Support conversation with Dedue.
  • Hidden Buxom: Marianne of all characters is very busty, with certain Class outfits revealing that she's got big boobs on par with Manuela, Dorothea, Hilda, and female Byleth. Her default outfits are incredibly conservative and don't really draw attention to her bust, making it hard to tell at a glance. Fire Emblem Heroes would lean into this, turning her into a bonafide Ms. Fanservice with her summer skin, which puts her in a skimpy bikini with prominent cleavage.
  • Historical Hero Upgrade: Verdant Wind reveals that the Church of Seiros has been invoking this trope with Nemesis and the Ten Elites. In order to keep herself and her few remaining relatives alive so their bodies wouldn't be harvested for weapons/superpowered blood, Rhea, then Seiros, created a false history where instead of being bloodthirsty conquering bandits, Nemesis and his followers were heroes that went insane due to being corrupted by the Hero's Relics they wielded. Unfortunately, this does have the side effect making Edelgard wrongly believe that Nemesis was a hero who was unfairly killed for wanting to free humanity from the "tyranny" of dragonkind.
  • Hot Mom: While we don't see her for ourselves, Balthus claims that Claude's mother Tiana is a babe and reminisces over how he and his best friend Holst were both in love with her as kids. Many female characters do have the potential to become this in certain paired endings, such as Petra in her ending with Hubert, and Shamir in her ending with male Byleth.
  • Incompatible Orientation: Dorothea is openly flirtatious towards Ingrid, who makes it clear that she isn't interested in girls.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: The calling card of Alois, who will never pass up the opportunity to engage in truly groan-inducing wordplay when talking to people. He tutors Petra in the art of dad jokes during their Support conversations, and Hilarity Ensues when she starts cracking a few of her own.
  • Interface Spoiler: If you can't interact with an important character in the monastery beyond talking to them, chances are they're either secretly evil, or are going to die. Sure enough, Tomas and Monica are evil Agarthans in disguise, while Jeralt and Rodrigue bite it later in the story.
  • Interspecies Romance: Sothis, Rhea, Seteth, and Flayn are all dragons that disguise themselves as humans, and are potential romance options for Byleth (Flayn for male Byleth, Seteth for female Byleth, Rhea and Sothis for both. Seteth and Flayn can also be romanced by several other human characters, and Rhea and Catherine's paired ending has plenty of romantic undertones to it.
  • It's All About Me: One of the Leicester Alliance's greatest weaknesses is that the great lords in charge of it are all ultimately looking out for Number One, meaning that it's hard to get anything done thanks to all the self-centered bickering going on during roundtable meetings. Due to technically being the head of the Alliance after the timeskip and being forced to step up to the plate during a war, Claude isn't amused.
    • This is ultimately the crux of Edelgard's motivation: she and she alone knows the "true" nature of Fódlan and will stop at nothing to tear down its Crest based society and replace it with a system focused on merit. Too bad she doesn't particularly care what its inhabitants have to say about the continent-spanning war she starts, nor can she readily accept that not everyone shares her narrow-minded world view. To quote Caspar in their C-Support, "(she) always has to make everything about (herself)".
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Felix is for the most part a complete asshole who doesn't mince words with anyone, but he often makes valid points. For example, Dimitri does have a merciless, unhinged side to him that most people turn a blind eye to until "the Boar Prince" comes out in full force after Edelgard's revealed to be the Flame Emperor.
  • Knight Templar: The Western Church is far more militant than the Central and Eastern branches, and its leadership is hellbent on killing Lady Rhea and anyone who gets in their way for being "heretics" and "false prophets".
  • Knight Templar Big Brother: Seteth is very protective of his younger sister Flayn, and will chase away any boys that so much as talk to her (much to her annoyance). It turns out however that this actually an example of Seteth being an Overprotective Dad, once the truth about his and Flayn's relationship comes to light.
  • La Resistance: Post-timeskip the Church of Seiros leads the resistance against Edelgard and can ally with the Kingdom or the Alliance in order to fight back against her tyranny.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Most mounted units are this, boasting excellent attacking speed, just as much attacking power, and a ton of movement range. They can also take their fair share of hits, as long as their Achilles' Heel isn't being hit.
  • Lovable Coward: Bernadetta is a very anxious young lady who has panic attacks at the drop of a hat, and will do everything in her power to stay in her room so she doesn't have to go on missions with her class. She's no Dirty Coward, though, just an Adorkable victim of trauma inflicted by her abusive dickhead of a father.
    • Almyran military commander Nader goes by the sobriquet of "The Undefeated" not because of his military prowess, but because of his tendency to book it the second he starts to come up short in a fight. What separates him from this game's unlikeable Dirty Coward villains is the fact that he's a big, goofy, loveable teddy bear of a man who can buckle down and put his life on the line when it really counts. It also helps that his frequent retreats are due to their strategic value, and don't stem from him being a bully who can dish it out but can't take it.
  • Mauve Shirt: Ladislava, Metodey, and Randolph have unique designs and have stronger characterizations than your average Imperial commander, but for the most part they're glorified faceless, generic boss units.
  • Mechanical Abomination: Downplayed with Shambhala, home of Those Who Slither in the Dark. While it's a standard high-tech enemy base to us, to the inhabitants of Fódlan it's an ominous, mind-breaking technological nightmare far more advanced than anything they've ever seen before, possessing weapons that can level cities and wipe out entire armies in the blink of an eye. Hell, even to us, the existence of a Tron Line-laden enemy base full of autonomously operating turrets, nigh-unstoppable killer robots, and missiles in an otherwise fully medieval setting just feels wrong.
  • Medieval Stasis: The opening cutscene showing Seiros' battle with Nemesis looks like it could take place in the era the game takes place in, despite it happening over a thousand years ago. The Cindered Shadows DLC reveals that there's a reason for this: Rhea's been holding back, or at the very least slowing down humanity's technological advancements out of fear of it being abused like the Agarthans did with their own.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: A humorous example happens at the end of Petra and Alois' support chain, where Alois feels ashamed to have taught Petra so many of his jokes and Incredibly Lame Puns. Part of it comes from having to explain every single one in great detail to her, but it also comes from being responsible for her confusing and annoying people with poorly-thought out puns of her own.
    • If you want a not-so-funny example of this trope, then recruit Felix during a Crimson Flower playthrough. After joining forces with the conqueror whose war results in the deaths of his father and best friends (who he can kill himself) purely out of spite towards Dimitri, he realizes that he's every bit the monster he accused his former friend of being and is haunted by his evil actions.
  • My Master, Right or Wrong:
    • If Edelgard asks Hubert to jump, he'd ask how high. If she told him to walk off a cliff, he'd practically run off it. So when she throws in her lot with Those Who Slither in the Dark and attempts to conquer Fódlan, he's downright giddy at the prospect of killing all who would oppose her.
    • Dedue and Catherine, while far more heroic than Hubert, are also prone to outsourcing their morality to Dimitri and Rhea, the ones they're loyal to. Not necessarily a bad thing since both are kind-hearted and morally sound. But when they go off the deep end, Catherine and Dedue are prepared to commit heinous crimes the second they're ordered to do so.
  • Napoleon Complex: Lysithea is the youngest member of the Golden Deer and is incredibly short. She's very self-conscious about her immature tendencies and height, and will fly off the handle at anyone who treats her like a child, intentionally or not.
  • A Nazi by Any Other Name: "Those Who Slither in the Dark" are a cult of racial purists obsessed with wiping out those they deem inferior to them, and are fond of horrific human experimentation. Less sympathetic readings of Edelgard's character also paint her as an example of this thanks to her treatment of the Nabateans and assistance in the Slithers' atrocities. Her Social Darwinist leanings and red/black motif certainly don't help.
  • Nerd Glasses: Ignatz is a very brainy, artistic young man, and has a pair of big round glasses to spare. Petra gets to wear them during one of her support conversations with Ignatz, and she really pulls off the Nerds Are Sexy look.
  • Nightmare Face: Both Metodey and "Cornelia" pull off some seriously disturbing facial expressions when they're about to move in for the kill.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Hilda's brother Holst is practically a walking, talking Offscreen Moment of Awesome incarnate. He's a huge badass who regularly fights off Almyran invasions, establishes a lasting peace with Almyran general Nader and lets him help turn the tide against Edelgard, and even goes toe to toe with the newly resurrected Nemesis and lives to tell the tale. Unfortunately, all of this happens offscreen and Holst himself never actually appears.
  • Parents as People: Many of the main cast's parents are good people who want to do right by their children, but make mistakes along the way.
    • Rodrigue is a kind and honorable man, but his relationship with his son Felix is strained due to him being Innocently Insensitive about the death of his other son Glenn. While he was undoubtedly heartbroken over his son's brutal murder during the Tragedy of Duscur, young Felix did not need to hear that his brother "died like a true knight" as young as he did.
    • While people are quick to label Margrave Gautier an abusive father for disinheriting Miklan for not being born with a Crest, his actions are understandable given the circumstances. Without the Crest of Gautier, Miklan can't wield the powerful Lance of Ruin and use it to protect their land from Sreng's invasions. Because Sylvain had the family Crest, the inheritance goes to him because he'll be key to thwarting future invasions. At worst Margrave Gautier was neglectful of Miklan's needs and focused too much on Sylvain, but everything points to him otherwise being a decent parent.
    • Byleth grew up living a very sheltered life, and possesses almost no knowledge of the outside world whatsoever due to being born and raised a mercenary by Jeralt their father. While far from an ideal upbringing, Jeralt very clearly loves his child and was acting out of fear over the strange circumstances surrounding Byleth's birth, namely their lack of a heartbeat and emotions, as well as Lady Rhea's suspicious refusal to explain anything to him.
  • Politically Incorrect Hero: Ingrid has a very low opinion of Duscur and its people, and doesn't hesitate to tell Dedue that to his face. Bigotry aside, she's still a good-hearted young lady who is firmly committed to fighting evil, and even renounces her racism when she and Dedue get to know each other better.
  • Psycho for Hire: Metodey, a prominent member of the Flame Emperor's army. He isn't affiliated with Those Who Slither or the Adrestian Empire (at least not officially), he's simply a psychotic mercenary who kills for fun. He also may or may not be a cannibal depending on how you look into several of his quotes.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: In a setting already full of horrible villains, Miklan is especially noteworthy due to the game all but blatantly saying that he's a brutal serial rapist. Yuri expresses disgust over his abductions of women and assures Byleth that while he's far from pure-hearted, he'd never sink to Miklan's level.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: During teatime with Hilda, she'll suddenly get cagey and assure you that if you hear anything that it isn't her stomach growling. "Just so you know."
    • Early in the game, you can check up on Bernadetta and hear her chowing down on something before she realizes you're outside of her dormitory. Cue the panicky cries of "I-I'm not secretly eating cake!"
  • Starter Villain: Kostas, who's the obligatory Chapter 1 bandit boss seen in most Fire Emblem games. Though in a minor twist, he does survive past the opening chapter... only to die in the chapter immediately afterwards.
  • The Stoic: Byleth starts off completely emotionless, and is still rather subdued after growing the capacity to experience emotions. While this is due to the effects of having Sothis' heart implanted in them, it might run in the family since Jeralt is a very serious, quiet man himself.
  • Token Evil Teammate: While most of the Black Eagles are friendly and good-hearted kids, Hubert is an openly sadistic creep who doesn't bother hiding his nasty nature from other people. He does lose this status in non-Silver Snow routes where the rest of the Black Eagles defect along with Edelgard, though he's still a Card-Carrying Villain among a bunch of barely evil Anti-Villains.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Flayn loves fish. As in, really really loves fish. She often talks about eating it, and at one part of the game, your daily monastery activities are interrupted by a fishing tournament where all the participants are trying to catch a fish she deems good enough to eat.
  • Video Game Cruelty Punishment: If you kill Seteth and Flayn in Crimson Flower, you'll be locked out of Leonie and Linhardt's paralogue, which awards you with a special bow should you beat it. Makes sense, since you've already killed two of the five remaining Nabateans. Linhardt, who already refuses to let the genocidal Edelgard and Hubert accompany him, likely believes that if he invites you along that you'll kill Indech as well.
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