#FE8 Innes and Vanessa don't marry either

[randomnameless]

Then why don't Dimitri marry Dedue 😕? This ain't about avatar-centricity it's about whether or not characters are written in a way that suggests the traits people claim they have are intentionally part of them. And I think "I'll get with a person but not their literal genderswap" is the single most definitive way to characterize sexual orientation. But then I've never found the concept of "sexual orientation" a helpful way to understand ppl or even myself.

Anon,

I don't think characters have to be written "in a way" to suggest if they are bi or not.

I have watched enough stuff from the 80s, 90s and early 2000s to know that when people wrote someone coded as "queer" it was an excuse to fit as many offensive tropes as possible onto them.

I guess we both agree on this, so, on the main topic.

Dimitri and Dedue follow a tradition of "very devoted knights and their lieges" from the saga, you can trace them back to Finn and Quan from Jugdral, to Elphin and Percival from FE6 and the weird... fixation Frederic has with Chrom, if you want to reach a bit.

They blush when they call each other's name, they rub ointment on the other's body, Dimitri calls him "cherished and irreplacable" and Dedue lit says he cannot fathom a life where he is not by his side.

It is way closer to Siggy "a fate without deedee is not a fate I will accept" than, say, "hey Cousin Seliph, I know I suck because I'm not a Crusader, but I'll do my best to help you so we will put an end to this war together".

Dedue is burried next to Dimitri in their ending, and if we don't even want to take Dedue into account, Dimitri has a deep and meaningful bond with Felix, that is so important to Felix that he cries more than Dimitri's wife when Dimitri dies!

So while I do not think it is purely a discussion and concept about Dimitri's sexual orientation, if the label straight could have been misleading (maybe Fodlan doesn't really have the same notions about sexual orientations, a bit like what happened in Rome it's just two people holding hands, one has his hand being held, while the other holds the hand), Dimitri definitely has "strong romantic feelings" for at least 2 male characters, and I suspect they're holding hands in his royal chambers.

Dimitri can have strong feelings for women and men - as for why he doesn't marry men, part of me wants to say they did not want to put "important male characters" in a bi relationship because, even in 2019, "peepee on peepee" action is still seen as uncomfortable by some people around the world, unlike "pure girls with pure girls giggling" which is, idk, more acceptable because sexism. So IS, a company from Japan, makes a lot of circumvolutions to avoid saying Dimitri'n'Dedue married, even if they take care of orphans, have their "eternal rest" next to each other and are on a first name basis while blushing like school girls.

For real life examples, it's just like Emperor Hadrian and his "friend" Antonin. They were not married, not at all, and historians from a certain era really really tried to paint them as friends.

But then morals evolved, so History was revised.

Other part is because Dimtri takes the Mandate from House Hresvelg - thus he must create a dynasty and that is just the way it is in FE.

Tl; Dr : while sexual orientation is, imo a trait and not a character, Dimitri is heavily coded to have "strong feelings" for both men and women, even if he doesn't marry his two male "love interests".