#So it felt more fair to keep my Ike/Soren bias out of the conversation

[theia-eos]

An Uncanny Resemblance I noticed

While I was playing Three Hopes, I obviously had to do the Golden Deer Route first because of my boy Claude. And I realized he has an uncanny resemblance to another character I truly do love, while also being a wholly separate and distinct character. I love them both as characters for different reasons, so I'm really not trying to say they're interchangeable or anything like that, it's just that the more I realized they had in common writing wise, the more stunned I became.

In order to keep the above the cut text spoiler free, I will get this out of the way: They are both well regarded tacticians who do/can specialize in wind magic.

Absolutely massive spoilers for both characters below the cut. You have been warned.

SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

So, anyway, just to make it perfectly clear: Claude and Soren are two very distinct and different people. Claude hides behind overt friendliness and jokes to avoid discussing serious issues. Soren hides behind being really cutting and rude to keep people from getting close to him so he doesn't have to hurt again. Soren is practical and methodical above everything else. Claude acts with empathy, but will make the hard decisions if push comes to shove.

But now onto the similarities that staggered me:

The character:

Is stated to be a highly intelligent tactician and strategist

Soren is stated to be a strategist of peerless talent in the lore of the tellius games

Claude is many times stated to be a schemer, a strategy guy

Has a high association with wind magic

Soren comes with a Wind Tome in FE9 and is a Wind Sage in FE10

If Claude is put into a class where he learns Reason, he learns all 3 wind magic spells and 1 Black Magic spell. In Three Hopes, Claude's combos often have wind magic used, even in his standard sniper/barbarossa classes

Would or does use non-lethal poisons to get the edge on their opponent

Soren uses poisoned food to knock out the guards at a fortress so the Gallian army can get in and attack

Claude jokes about wanting to use poison on the other classes in the Battle of the Eagle and Lion that would weaken them, but not kill them (every time he talks about developing poisons, it's non-lethal, stomach-aches and the like)

May or may not be recognized by their parents with the name they use now

Almedha mistakes Pelleas as her son, and has to ask Soren what his name is, implying that either Soren is not the name he was given at birth, or he was not given any name at birth

Claude's birth name is Khalid, and it is unclear if his parents would be aware that he began going by the name Claude Von Reigan in Fódlan

Is often shipped with a mercenary friend they meet along their path, relies on this mercenary friend for help

Soren is often shipped with Ike

Claude is often shipped with Byleth

Is born of the blood of two "warring" peoples/races and is treated poorly in their childhood because of their mixed blood

Soren is a Branded, half black dragon laguz and half beorc, and he experiences a lot of trauma and hardship as a child because he is Branded

"On my way to Crimea, I kept seeing laguz from the beast tribe. They were terrifying, but after a while I realized something. They never attacked me. They all seemed to notice something about me, and then pretend they couldn't see me. That look was burned into my mind, and it was always the same. They'd scowl, then walk away like they'd never noticed me. In a way, that left me feeling colder and more alone than if they'd attacked me. Hate... That I could understand. This was denial. They made me feel like I wasn't supposed to exist at all. That my simply being alive was an affront to the world. That was how the beasts treated me. And I hated them for it. It sat in my heart like a lead bar. Like a glacier."

Claude is half Almyran and half Fódlan, and he is treated as an outsider within Almyra to the point that he flees to Leicester to escape the way he's being treated

"So the young boy was treated horribly by everyone around him. He hadn't done anything wrong. Everyone hated him simply for existing. Yelling, fighting back, explaining himself... Nothing he did could change his situation. When he was finally old enough, he ran far away from home. He escaped."

Spends a lot of time in their youth looking for a place where they belong

Ike is the first person to be nice to Soren and saves Soren from starving to death, so when they're separated as children, Soren spends several years looking for Ike and feels that the only place he belongs is by Ike’s side

Claude goes to Leicester to try and find a place where he won't be treated as an outsider and be accepted for who he is, and once he finds that's not possible, he decides to make a place where he belongs

The character's father is:

King of a nation that often believed to be evil by other countries, and invades the borders of nearby countries often

Soren’s father is King Ashnard of Daein, and Daein invades Crimea to start the Mad King’s War and Ashnard frequently attacked the Begnion border to claim some territory from Begnion for Daein

Claude's father is the king of Almyra, and his people often attacks Fódlan's Throat to prove their strength, viewed as barbaric and cruel by the people of Fódlan (the fantasy racism of Three Houses is not an issue I'm well equipped to discuss, I know how problematic it is, but I'm not saying the king of Almyra is Ashnard, we never meet him. It's just that the king of Almyra would be viewed in a similar light by the people of Fódlan as everyone outside of Daein views Ashnard)

The character's mother:

Is the daughter of the leader of a nation

Soren’s mother is Princess Almedha of Goldoa, daughter of King Dheginsea

Claude's mother is Tiana, daughter of the Duke of Riegan, leader of the Leicester Alliance

Is the second child of the leader of her homeland

Almedha is the middle child of three children of King Dheginsea

Tiana is the youngest of two children of the Duke of Riegan

Has an older brother who is killed

Almedha's older brother Rajaion is turned into a Feral One by Ashnard and dies at the end of the Mad King's War

Tiana's older brother is killed with her father, creating the power vaccum in the Leicester Alliance that Claude eventually fills

Her older brother was killed for the machinations of another

Rajaion was turned into a Feral One so Ashnard could have a strong weapon

Tiana's brother is killed by Mercenaries hired by Count Gloucester to harass merchants

Left her homeland

Almedha left Goldoa because she wanted fight and her father would not allow her to

Tiana left Leicester because she fell in love with the King of Almyra

Is considered to be the wife of the king of the "evil" nation

Almedha is viewed as the dowager queen of Daein and said to be King Ashnard's wife, even though they never married

Tiana is the wife or mistress of the King of Almyra, it is unclear

Is shown to admire the belligerent ways of the king with a taste for battle herself

Almedha is said to have wanted to wage war with her dragon powers and shown to have had some admiration of Ashnard's methods, even if that meant killing 1,000 innocent civilians

Tiana is described by Claude as a warrior goddess, beating a man who had been undefeated in over a hundred battles, and laughs right along with the king of Almyra as he punishes people

If no one's ever gone over the massive list of similarities between Ike and Byleth before, here's a quick and dirty run-down because they are commonly shipped with their close mercenary friend.

The character's mercenary friend:

Has a dead mother who was part of a religious order

Elena was a priestess of Palmeni Temple

Sitri was a member of the Church of Seiros as a priestess/nun

Has a mercenary father who raised them to be a mercenary, and never speaks of the dead mother

Greil runs Greil’s Mercenaries and Ike being allowed to join the mercenary company is the opening of the game. Greil speaks of Elena so little Ike knows something's wrong with Greil whrn he talks about her before dying

Jeralt runs Jeralt's Mercenaries and Byleth joins and earns the name the Ashen Demon. Jeralt speaks of Sitri very little.

Their mother once possessed a "Fire Emblem" and this resulted in her death

Elena took Lehran’s Medallion to hide it from Ashnard and was killed when Greil accidentally touched it

Sitri had the Heart of Sothis which gave her life and passed it to Byleth when Byleth was stillborn, this gives Byleth the Crest of Flames (Fódlan’s “Fire Emblem”), but killed Sitri

Their father is killed by an agent of the villain, and the mercenary seeks revenge against their father's killer

Greil is killed by the Black Knight, and Ike swears vengeance

Jeralt is killed by Kronya, and Byleth immediately searches for and kills Kronya

Is the main character of their game

Ike is the Lord of FE9

Byleth is the avatar character of FE16

Is stated to look a lot like their mother

Ike has blue eyes and blue hair like Elena

Byleth looks a lot like Sitri

The mystery of who their mother is and how she died is a significant plot point of the games

Elena’s death caused by Greil touching Lehran’s Medallion is revealed slowly through many chapters in the final half of the game

Sitri's death is why Jeralt left the Knights of Seiros and isn't revealed until the end of certain playthroughs of FE16

The mercenary struggles to express emotion

Ike's neutral expression looking somewhat angry is frequently commented on by numerous characters throughout the games and he finds himself unable to cry when his father dies

Byleth grew up not expressing emotions because their heart literally does not beat and they are regarded as the "Ashen Demon" as a result, and multiple characters reflect on Byleth's growing repertoire of facial expressions as the game progresses