#david stanbra

[ephemeralblitz]

Hey I’m alive, I know it’s been a couple years but better late than never?

Anyway, I just wanted to push my theory here that Xander in Fire Emblem Fates was never voiced by David Stanbra, and instead has been voiced by RE4 leading man Paul Mercier since Xander’s first appearance.

I made a couple videos a little while ago:

Which I think showcases my point considerably well. Uncanny, even.

Basically: Stanbra WAS in Fates, he was clearly Kaze, Siegbert and Shura, but due to other projects he was doing at the time, Stanbra wasn’t able to return as the former two in FEH. A circumstantial point, Stanbra is far less acclimated to game acting, and has only done a half dozen or so in the past decade.

Mercier, however, was a part of the cast as well (my theory is that he’s Walley Hollis in the Fates credits, while his wife Paula Tiso, who voiced Camilla and Orochi, was credited as Holly Wallace), and has consistently returned to the role, across the Corrin trailer for Smash, Warriors and every appearance in FEH. A particularly interesting thing to note is that Mercier’s official role listings have an interesting blank area between 2014 and 2020. This would line up with the presumed opening of Fates auditions, alongside his use of pseudonyms to get around doing non-union work.

Long story short, I’ve been convinced that Xander’s english VA credit (which has never been directly confirmed, only ever assumed) was incorrect, and I’ve found a decent amount of evidence to support that claim. Of course, I can’t be certain either unless I’m ever able to ask Mercier himself, but I would like to know what people think?

[childofaura]

What do you think about kaze’s VA? I know you mentioned you already had a long convo about this but I’m curious. Personally I like fates va over feh. There’s something kinda stiff about his feh lines to me. You can also ignore this if you want if it’s too redundant

No no, I'm absolutely happy to answer this because this has haunted me ever since FEH launched. You're all good, but be warned you WILL get a spiel about this.

So before I talk about Xander Mobus, we need to talk about the casting issue with FEH. In Fire Emblem Fates, David Stanbra voiced Xander, Kaze, Siegbert, Shura, Sumeragi, and Kilma. But suddenly, when FEH came out, Xander was listed as being played by George Spelvin. A lot of people on Behind the Voice Actors theorized that this was David Stanbra working under a pseudonym. They still insist that to this day, but absolutely nothing has confirmed this. Especially when Siegbert was introduced to FEH and people noticed that Todd Haberkorn was voicing him (Which, Todd, I love you, and I love your Morgan and Joshua. But Stanbra fit like a glove for Siegbert). Additionally, not a single alt for Xander has sounded anything like Stanbra's performance in Fates. And to continue, each one of Stanbra's roles has been recast. Because Stanbra can't be found on any social media, and because SUPPOSEDLY "George Spelvin" isn't an actual actor, we have no confirmation.

And this really sucks because David Stanbra, in each of his roles, did such an amazing job playing all of those characters and differentiating them. Xander was stern and commanding, but dutiful and loyal. Kaze was mild, reassuring, and compassionate. Siegbert was polite and eager. And Shura, dearest beloved Shura, was rough and fiery, but gentle and sweet.

So unless someone is somehow able to track down Stanbra and ask him what happened, we will never know. I believe that whoever is voicing Xander is not Stanbra himself, just due to the vast difference in voice quality.

NOW... We should get onto Xander Mobus.

Xander Mobus plays Kaze, Innes, and Arvis. While I have no reservations about Arvis and Innes (and I think he was actually a good pick for Innes), I have some BIG opinions on his Kaze voice.

Performance... like I said, I think he does ok. I don't feel like he uses a whole lot of crazy emotion with his roles, but Arvis and Innes aren't exactly high energy. And like you said about his role as Kaze, he sounds very stiff, like he's trying to mimic Kaze's formal-ness except he's not pulling it off. Kaze is respectful, yes, but he's also warm and inviting. Mobus makes him sound too distant. But Innes he does great, though I feel like with Arvis he's trying to sound too dramatic, less like a natural fit and more like a teenager trying to sound edgy scary. It's still not a bad performance for Arvis though.

And like I mentioned, he wasn't a good fit for Kaze. I just think his voice isn't as naturally deep as Stanbra's was, so while Kaze in Fates sounds like he's actually Saizo's twin brother, an equally deep voice accompanied not by bite but by embrace, in FEH he sounds like a meek teen younger brother. Once again, Innes was a great pick and Arvis was okay.

Range... I honestly don't know what to say about Mobus's range. In almost everything I've heard him in, he does the same exact generic anime protag voice. And yes, I know he was the new announcer for Smash back when SSB4 came out, but that's a voice ANY guy can do. Hell, there's videos of OneyNG doing that voice perfectly while he's horsing around with his buddies. If you ask me, his best performance and emotion was his role as Jimmy Firecracker in Dragonball Z Abridged. I didn't even know it was him in that series.

Rounding it all up... Xander Mobus is more or less a 7/10. He's a lot like Bryce Papenbrook where there's just too much going on with his performances, and unfortunately trying to fill Stanbra's shoes didn't help.

[undertop]

How does undertop gaster and aster sound like?

I think Gaster would sound like David Stanbra, specifically his role as Xander in FE: Fates

For Aster, Roger Rose! Aka the voice of Takumi and Hisame in the same game, his portrayal of Hisame in particular is very Aster-like

[thewarriorgoddess]

After fully watching the Harmonized Veronica and Xander video I think it’s safe to say that they’ll probably never be able to replicate George Spelvin’s (David Stanbra) Fates performance for Xander. And that just makes me sad. We’ll forever have this weird upbeat voice acting for Xander who’s FAR from an upbeat and chipper guy. It feels incredibly shallow to say this but Imma say it anyway, this awful voice acting for Xander is the sole reason why I haven’t invested in him in Heroes. I can’t fucking stand it. I don’t really want to say that George Spelvin is doing a “terrible” job voice acting because overall it sounds fine......just not fine for a character like Xander. 

Like y’all Xander is my FAVORITE character from Fates by far and for his voice acting to be this all over the place is a mess. He’s been reduced to an OOC meme of “I cannot swim!” as if Xander canonically would really sit there and lament over his flaws like this. I’m so fucking sad. I can’t even pretend I’m excited for this Harmonized unit when Xander’s voice acting is so weird. 

[getitfrenchship]

how about kaze for the voice actor ask game?

The truly cursed knowledge is that David Stanbra voiced 7 Fates characters, mainly because I hope he didn’t hurt himself in the process.

But I’ll go for Xander Mobus since he voices Kaze in Heroes

English:

Japanese:

[missgenoard]

Okay so here is my take on Fire Emblem Three Houses voices because I love English VAs and testing my skills of ear training because it's fun for me!

Dedue: Initially he sounded like Kaze/Xander's Fates VA David Stanbra, but then he also registered as Xander Mobus (aka Arvis and Innes in FEH). However, it was a single voice clip, so it's not much to go on.

Edelgard: Too me, she sounds like either Tara Platt voicing in a higher register, or Caitlin Glass. (It was extremely hard to hear, though)

Petra: She sounds like Karen Strassman? I think? Maybe Lauren Landa sometimes?

Manuela: voice was skipped over which infuriates me because I'M LOVE HER

Sylvain: IN THAT TINY VOICE CLIP HE SOUNDS LIKE SAM RIEGEL AND IF IT IS I'LL BE SO HAPPY (because STAHL) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I LOVE SYLVAIN

Raphael: initially sounded Patrick Seitz-ish but now I'm not sure. Anyway I already love him he seems like a sweetie.

Mercedes: Cherami Leigh I believe!!!

Dorothea: Stephanie Sheh without a doubt

Ferdinand: David Vincent?

Linhardt: Lucien Dodge maybe?

Ignatz: Ray Chase, I think. Also I thought he was a she whoooops

Hubert: too quick

Caspar: same

Bernadetta: Eden Riegel maybe? Or Brianna Knickerbocker?

Ingrid: OoooOooooo I HEAR AMANDA C MILLER BITCHES I could recognize that "Ready!" anywhere

Felix: Robbie Daymond

Annette: HAS TO BE Eden Riegel. She sounds so much like Sumia, Nah, and Genny

Ashe: Yuri Lowenthal!!!!

F!Byleth: Laura Bailey I think

M!Byleth: could be A NUMBER OF VAs idk

[gamerphantom]

I don’t really headcanon voices for non-voiced characters, but Kabu can, should, and must be voiced by David Stanbra (Xander from FE Fates)

[invisiblechell]

Housamo English VA headcanons because I am bored AF: Ikebukuro  Beserkers Edition

Claude: Kyle Hebert (Voice of Frederick) Snow: Benjamin Diskin (Voice of Jakob) Macan Gadungan: H.D. Quinn (Voice of Incineroar) Oniwaka Hozoin: David Menkin (Voice of Malos) Ikutoshi Ooki: Antony Del Rio (Voice of Dark Pit and Silas) Garmr: Gilbert Gottfried Bathym: Charlie Adler (Voice of Ed Bighead) Nomad: David Stanbra (Voice of Shura) Pollux: Kyle Hebert (Voice of Kaito Momota) Daisuke Ikusaba: Kaiji Tang (Voice of Odin) Andvari: Brian Beacock (Voice of Monosuke) Horkeukamui: Chris Tergliafera (Voice of Ryoma Hoshi)

update: found a better voice for Claude

[lunarlapin]

Top 3 favorite performances from FE characters?

I’m assuming you mean voice work? Here we go:

3. Shura in Fates. David Stanbra nailed him so well that I can’t imagine anyone else voicing him.

2. Zephiel in Heroes. Probably a controversial one, but I actually like this performance for him. very Shakespearean, almost.

1. Can I just say I love Greg Chun as Ike?

Honorable mention to Jamieson Price as Priam because I feel like it would be cheating to include more than one Price role

[pikespendragon67]

So uh

Main reason I get salty over Fates is because of:

Honestly I thought Priam was gonna be the protagonist before Fates was even announced  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Like they dropped him in Awakening as the last Spotpass unit and I thought that was going to be a hint of what was to come in FE14. While that didn’t happen, I still loved the “choose between two sides” dynamic they decided to go with. I thought it was like Shin Megami Tensei 4

Too much hype back when the game was first announced to the point where I thought Conquest was going to have the aesthetic and storytelling of Dark Souls (like I had this whole corruption of magic thing going on that corrupted the Nohr siblings or a rebellion that was lead by Corrin after they went berserk in front of Garon and the Nohr siblings only for them to be banished). Whoopsie doodles

On that note I just finished playing Xenoblade Chronicles on the 3DS when Fates came out so my expectations for world building were also too high

The controversies that arose in like July 2015 or so with the Treehouse localization name + dialogue changes (I think it was Kotaku that wrote the Soleil article?) and that one post that said Fates was racist because the captured boss units were darker skinned than the royal siblings really soured my experience while playing the game. Usually I don’t let Internet stuff like that bother me, but it was just bad timing for me when Fates came out

See, Nohr’s supposed to be the “oh we’re not really that bad” side in Conquest and I can understand that with Niles & Beruka but with Peri I’m still scratching my head after all these years and that’s just me being too petty. Plus they had the Evil Trio not really doing any favors for that, too... Zola got a small redemption arc and I appreciate that, and there are still other Nohr characters that I like (Laslow, Ignatius, Benny, Xander [especially in Birthright because he was Shakespearean in that route], Keaton)

I still worry about the English voice actors’ wellbeing because voicing so many characters in one game can be really exhausting. Like, David Stanbra voicing 7 characters must’ve strained his throat a lot, especially when he ranged from Shura to Kaze. Plus there were just some odd casting choices in general, like D.C. Douglas as Gunter. I can understand if there was a limited budget, and this is the Fire Emblem game with the most recruitable units, so that could also be a part of it. 

I thought it would’ve been cool for some of the Nohr characters to have different European accents. Maybe not as forced as Jamieson Price’s Virion, but like Niles with an Irish accent would’ve been cool

Overall I just have too much Hoshidan/Birthright bias because I was really hyped for the new classes and I still like a lot of them like the Kinshi Knights and Puppetmasters (also I thank this game for making Archers good but I oddly felt like Mages weren’t that important for me). There’s a popular bias for Nohrian/Conquest within the fandom. I agree that there should’ve been less Hoshido worship within the game, though.

And I just wanted to get this off my chest for people that get upset about others not liking Fates for its story and characters. I apologize for being petty about it after all these years, especially if Fates is your first or your favorite game! There are still characters I love, the level grinding was a much better improvement than in Awakening (like buying skills from other players was a godsend), and I really appreciate this game for helping Fire Emblem continue being popular after Awakening. I just suck at showing my appreciation for it ;;

[childofaura]

Do you have any opinions on Max Mittelman, if you’re still doing the FEH VA review?

He plays Itto in Genshin Impact btw

I like Max! He played Ryuji in Persona 5 (I know, I bring this game up a lot even though I’ve never played it, lol), Saitama in One Punch Man, Sabito in Demon Slayer, and… oh… apparently he was Lion-o In that fucking awful Thundercats remake, the one where they all looked like they were made out of balloons. Max, I’m so fucking sorry you got dragged into that shitshow.

But in FEH, he’s Gray, Leo, Kaden, Forrest, and Gordin.

I think his performances are a lot of fun! Especially his Kaden voice, I like his playful tones and he balances making Kaden a little self-absorbed but still very sweet and helpful. His Gray is perfect too, in Echoes his lines with Tobin play off each other very well, and I hope someday we get to hear the famous “Shut up, Tobin” in FEH. Good mix of slightly sarcastic but still good natured. Oh, and Forrest and Leo are amazing as well, David Stanbra isn’t the only character playing a father AND their son. Can’t say much about Gordin since I didn’t use him, other than it’s probably better than “BUT MAAAAARRTH-!”

And he was a perfect cast for all these characters, he plays a very decent mix of characters and still makes them all pretty different from each other.

I think his range is… decent, actually. His voice is distinguishable in all of those roles, but he has the ability to actually pitch his voice up and down, kind of in the same vein that Yuri Lowenthal can.

I think that overall, Max sits at an 8.5 to a 9/10. He’s a great actor and I like that he’s friends with Robbie Daymond and Ray Chase.

[silent-again]

Who would you think would be a good voice for Teo?

I’m really obsessed with Fire Emblem Fates atm.

So all the voice actors I had been considering for Teo are from that game. But even then, I can’t settle on it.

But I still managed to narrowed it down. The voice actors I considered were for Ryoma (Mathew Mercer), Xander/Kaze (David Stanbra).

[opendoorlorien]

David Stanbra as Xander sounds like he wants to die in the warriors trailer lol

[getitfrenchship]

⭐ I followed you for You because you seem really friendly so feel free to throw your own trivia at me! (but also places a ⭐ for Kaze deets)

According to my mom we’re related to Mark Twain! That actually inspired me to get better with writing when I learned that in the 3rd grade

Kaze’s one of the 7 (maybe 8?) characters originally voiced by David Stanbra in the original Fates English dub. I’m biased toward his performance of Kaze since the gentleness matched the character *coughxandercough*. Then in Japanese, him being voiced by Daisuke Ono was one of the reasons I started to like him since that was Priam’s seiyuu as well (plus his face looks like Priam’s)

[thenjaigamer-blog]

Infamous second son

Infamous Second Son (stylized as inFAMOUS Second Son) is an action-adventure video game developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 4. It is the third installment in the Infamous series. The game was released worldwide on March 21, 2014. Like in previous Infamous games, the player-controlled protagonist possesses superpower abilities that players use in combat and when traveling across the city.

Second Son takes place in 2016, seven years after Infamous 2's Conduit protagonist Cole MacGrath sacrifices himself to cure humanity of a plague and destroy The Beast.[10][11] Cole uses the powerful Ray Field Inhibitor weapon, which kills him and most of the other Conduits.[11] The United States government establishes the D.U.P. to hunt down and capture the world's remaining Conduits, dubbing Conduits with the pejorative "Bio-Terrorists".[12] The protagonist is Delsin Rowe (Troy Baker), a 24 year old graffiti artist and the local delinquent of the Akomish reservation. Delsin has the unique Conduit ability of Power Absorption, allowing him to use other Conduits' powers. His brother, Reggie (Travis Willingham), is the local sheriff, and often arrests Delsin for his acts of vandalism.[13] Both are Akomish Native Americans, whose territory lies at the shore of Salmon Bay, Washington. The antagonist is Brooke Augustine (Christine Dunford), the director of the D.U.P. and a Conduit with power over Concrete. Her actions in the Akomish reservation drive Delsin to travel to Seattle, now under lockdown by D.U.P. forces. Delsin and Reggie encounter three other Conduits: Henry "Hank" Daughtry (David Stanbra), a convict with control over Smoke; Abigail "Fetch" Walker (Laura Bailey), an ex-junkiewho uses her Neon powers to hunt down the illegal drug dealers in Seattle; and Eugene Sims (Alex Walsh), a reclusive video gamerwho uses his Video (digital materialization) powers to save suspected Conduits from the D.U.P.

[yukiwrites]

David Stanbra has been listed on BTVA as Xander's VA for Heroes now. Which is believable given how distinctive his voice is IMO. But yes I'm really hoping for Marcella Lentz-Pope and Cam Clarke to come back as Corrin myself...

Really?? Eyyyy the husband is backk!