#mostly due to revisiting my favorite childhood medias

[ramunaee]

rinzler!!!

[sireneia-a]

Operating under the headcanon that Fates is actually just a myth / fairy tale in Fire Emblem canon, I was thinking I'd like to make a post where I choose what "character" each of my main muses have or have had as their favorite growing up! I'm also adding Clive to this list cause for the former I already had his fully written out before I removed him from my roster LOL 

I'll be following Bruno Bettelheim's model of children taking to certain characters in fairy tales because they are an externalization of whatever existential predicament they are going through at the time. I'm aware Bettelheim was a problematic man, yes, but I think his theory on developmental psychology in relation to fairy tales is really interesting ( assuming it’s his to begin with ) and I've been working to apply it to other media besides fairy tales anyway, so might as well combine my schoolwork with what I love.

As a result, I'll be using his theory as a guide for this post. All explanations and match-ups under the cut! As fun as it would be to also think up what version of the tale, ( Birthright vs Conquest vs Revelation, Second Gen included vs not, Heirs of Fate also known or not ) I'm just working with the idea that all of my muses know any and all content.

KLIFF - His favorite would've been Hayato! Kliff in general would've connected more strongly to a mage due to his grandmother being a powerful mage herself, sparking his own interest in magic, but he also would have identified with his plight of being embarrassed by his own habits and insecurities. They're not the same as Kliff's own, but he still relates to him.

CLIVE - Clive's favorite as a child versus his favorite nowadays is very different mostly because he underwent different struggles when he was younger. Whilst when he's older he finds himself fond of Xander and Corrin due to struggles of following one's heart versus doing what's best for one's countrymen, as a youth he would've been very partial to Laslow. Laslow, for him, represents a man with ties to military service yet a free heart that longs to partake in life's simpler pleasures such as asking women out for tea and dancing. Clive was a lot less stressed as a youth, merely being a noble's son who wanted to spend his days lounging about with his friends and later on gossiping about their taste in women and heroes.

TATIANA - Her favorite has always been Caeldori! At first it was because she admired Caeldori for being so put together and wishing to do so much tireless work for the army, being an absolute paragon that Tatiana herself wished she could be in order to repay the church for taking her in when she was younger. Tatiana looked to Caeldori to help her get through and come to terms with her own clumsiness and shortcomings so long as she put in the effort. As she grew older though, she revisits the tale and finds herself relating hardcore to Caeldori’s sighs of romantic love.

DEW - Dew’s favorite is very vocally Shiro. He probably gets pretty upset if you’re only familiar with a version of the tale that doesn’t include the children units. Dew particularly finds himself fond of Shiro because of how Shiro operates: he does what he wants, living freely despite the burden of being a prince and he knows it. It’s a philosophy that Dew understands and it surprised him when he was younger to totally just get a royal even if he’s only fictional. He loves the fact Shiro just kinda wants to stick it to his old man too and just picked up spears to be able to have an edge over him. 

IUCHAR - I feel like this could either be super surprising or not at all, but Iuchar has been partial to Forrest since he was first read Fates alongside his brothers. He tries to be quiet about it nowadays though cause I can totally see someone making fun of him when he was younger proclaiming that he liked Leo’s son. Nowadays, his fake answer is more along the lines of Laslow or Soleil. The truth to his fondness for Forrest is because he feels for his arc of wishing to be accepted. Even if they’re not dealing with the same things exactly, Iuchar most likely held some sort of insecurity when he was younger as not only the middle child but also being constantly on even ground with Iucharba yet not wielding major holy blood. When he got older, his concerns shifted because he was able to use Forrest’s story to cope and eventually move on! He DOES enjoy Forrest’s personality a lot though and probably got his eye for aesthetics after seeing Forrest get so interested in it.

TINE - Tine’s favorite operates based on the idea that she was first read Fates while she’s living under the Frieges and not in Silesse. With that in mind, she’s attached to Azura and even to the present day mid-FE4 keeps going back and back again to reading Fates because she has yet to move on from the existential dilemma she’s living with. She finds comfort in knowing Azura was moved from her home to another family as a young child and feeling trapped and cursed. She especially feels for Azura in Conquest when she’s placed under such heavy suspicion by the Hoshidan family, drawing parallels between Azura’s story and her own with Hilda. 

LENE - Lene since the dawn of time has been a Hinoka stan I’ll be real. Much like Tine, she hasn’t solved her existential predicament but she doesn’t revisit the tale nearly as often as Tine does. She admires and feels for Hinoka with how they both are yearning to search for someone, specifically a family member, and they just can’t give up on it, choosing their pathways in life to be a means to an end in finally finding them. 

COIRPRE - Coirpre, when he was extremely young, identified with Corrin. I headcanon that when he was very young, the mercenaries of Thracia would often poke fun and point out Hannibal’s bachelor life with statements like “Where’s the wifey?” or otherwise making it apparent that Coirpre is missing a mother. Coirpre finds solace in Corrin’s arc because Corrin deals with strange family dynamics and being adopted into the Nohrian family, something much like himself even if Corrin’s family is much, much bigger than his own. He ends up coming to terms with this predicament very quickly though, moving on from Fates to a different story soon after since he had decided he was okay with not having a mother because he loved being Hannibal’s son and also spending time with the Thracian royal family. He closes the book, merely only commenting on it afterwards saying that he thinks Corrin ought to align themself with Nohr and not Hoshido and he doesn’t understand why they would choose anything besides the Conquest route. Later on in life during FE4 though, he finds himself returning to it again and reliving his attachment to Corrin once more because of Lewyn revealing to him his true parentage: something he didn’t want to know and now that he does, it rocks his core ESPECIALLY if it means he has a duke or a prince for a father. He would find Corrin’s tale that much more necessary to cope with his dilemma, finally understanding the crisis between choosing one’s birthright versus the family they were raised with as he struggles to choose whether to return to Thracia after the war or to take up his late father’s lands and abandon the happy life he once knew.

LEIF - Leif is firmly Team Takumi and you can’t convince him otherwise. He especially feels for him in Conquest and will rant about how Takumi deserved better for days on end if you let him. I can totally see both him and Ares sharing a favorite in Takumi and them being able to potentially bond over that actually. Regardless, he has always been frustrated over his situation with his home life being destroyed and would totally latch onto how when Mikoto dies, Takumi blames Corrin for it. Leif would also as a child blindly see Corrin in the wrong and always side with Takumi. He understands Takumi’s anguish over his mother dying. At the same time though, as he gets older, Leif does learn to identify with Corrin considering Corrin’s situation as a fugitive but he feels weird because it’s not as if he thinks Takumi is any less valid. 

LIFIS - Lifis is one of the more fun ones to come up with for this post haha! Anyhow, Lifi’s fav as a child is Nyx and he honestly still probably is attached to her story mid-FE5 since I don’t think he got past the issues he held onto which made him like her in the first place. He finds her maturity really cool and feels for her since she gets asked intrusive questions a lot too. He ends up misinterpreting her situation as a form of being bullied and connects with her as a result; he ultimately sees her as how he wishes he handled situations, respecting and admiring her a lot. 

MARK - This is solely from the perspective of Mark as a young child in Bern because at this point he’s come to terms with the fact that he’s a tactician and tries to make use of his gift, making him parallel with his favorite’s canon ending actually. Regardless, under the headcanon that Mark at first tried to follow his parents’ footsteps as wyvern riders and being active in the military, he relates to Felicia. He sees her getting praised at something she didn’t aim to be ( being heralded as a good military commander and combatant and not the maid she wants to be ) and gains a feeling of solidarity out of it even if their positions are mostly reversed: he used to wish to be better as a soldier but instead turns out to be better at something off the battlefield. 

KENT - bfbfbhfhfhfh I’m so sorry Kent you’re getting one of the more boring answers I’ve written especially since you’ve been on this blog so long..... But I’d say his favorite is Saizo! Partly because Saizo is a Cain and Abel archetype just like himself so that’s neato, but he chooses to latch onto Saizo moreso because ever since he was young, he has always striven to one day become a knight for Caelin and he’d use Saizo as a model of what an “ideal retainer” is. If we operate under the headcanon that him and Sain are childhood friends, he probably also empathized with Saizo more because both of them are associated with green guys who keep getting distracted by women even if for completely different reasons.

ELIWOOD - gREAT QUESTION... i’ll be real i forgot eliwood on this list at first, Regardless, it’s difficult to think of because I haven’t really thought of nor used Eliwood enough to warrant many headcanons ( mostly because there’s plenty of other Eliwood rpers who I love to read and the FE7 community isn’t that big, so I don’t really get the chance to throw him out that much ) and canon doesn’t really give me a hell of a lot for his young childhood except that he hung out a lot with Hector and well, I didn’t really develop any ideas on what his youth was like besides that. We definitely get to know his existential predicament in his late teens considering that’s when FE7 starts up, but until then it’s a blank. Even then, I don’t really know if there’s really a character in Fates that captures the feeling of “wants to believe in their father no matter what even if he’s shifty???” Like unless you want to argue Corrin in Conquest? And the children units don’t really explore that, either being like they just like their dads or they dislike their dads. Honestly, just based on hunches, I could see him really liking Shigure or Hisame though. At the same time though, I could see him relating him and Hector to Siegbert and Shiro respectively in terms of their friendly sparring matches.

STAHL - Well, this one isn’t particularly deep or anything either, but I’m pretty sure Stahl would be a fan of Silas. He views Silas as a nice guy with simple dreams and can’t fault him for that. He does see Silas for a deeper character and honestly analyzes the other characters in Fates for that, but he doesn’t really connect to any of them. He didn’t spend a lot of time with Fates as a story truth be told. He does at least feel the whole “passing up on a former love” arc though when gets a little older.

MARIBELLE - Though part of me was wanting to say Hana due to the fact that Maribelle would be able to relate to the whole devotion to her best friend and totally agrees with Hana on her strong conviction to aim to be a samurai despite others looking down upon her, I think that if Maribelle gets exposed to Fates before she ever meets Lissa, she’d truthfully identify much more with Rhajat. Maribelle was picked on and treated as an utter outcast by all the other noble children, and she’d find comfort in how Rhajat seems to be seen weirdly upon others and gets scolded for scaring them even if Rhajat at times doesn’t actually intend to. Nowadays she totally says her favorite character is Hana though, but she’s grateful to how much Rhajat helped her through the rough patch in her early life. Bonus in that she sees Tharja and gawks a little at first, finding her so similar to the character from the fairy tale she enjoyed so much as a little girl.

BERKUT - Berkut’s choice in favorite isn’t particularly deep, mostly brought about by his own restrictions. He probably would only let himself relate specifically to royal characters with how his mother encouraged him to act like the heir to the throne that he was and to elevate himself, so he wouldn’t let himself relate to anything less. He then ends up picking Siegbert as his favorite character because it’s like Berkut pointing at him and thinking: He’s an awkward prince!!! Same!!! cause i 100% totally see Berkut being fairly socially awkward especially in childhood. He admired Siegbert’s dedication to his father and trying to become a good ruler, uses him as an example before he ends up moving on from the story and at this point probably just looks at Siegbert and thinks of him as “too soft” or something like that.