There's Something About Adean

[mark_asphodel]

So, over on the GameFaqs FE13 forum, somebody started a thread about the ugliest guy and gal in Fire Emblem.  And it was all full of the usual cheap shots (Dorothy!  Meg!) until someone hit the target dead-on.

Adean and Briggid.

That's right.  Adean and Briggid.

I don't like a lot of the FE4 designs, and I warmed up to Briggid eventually via her FE5 incarnation, "man face" or no.  She's a kick-ass militia leader and a good mommy and I <3 her.

But Adean...

Part of my longstanding disinterest in FE4's characters is directly down to this chick and how she's handled.  It's not just that she has bizarro hair and a creepy little squashed kewpie doll face.  It's that the Jugdral guys are into that sort of thing.  Let's see... Sigurd rides to her rescue, but we can just credit that to his noble heroic nature.  But then you have Azel and Midayle drooling over Adean.  And then Jamka shows up.  And let's not forget about Dew, which makes for four predestined lovers.  And she gets a special talk with Claude, too, so that's five lovers.  Six, if you throw in Finn on account of his Gen2 talk with Lana.  Six out of the fourteen Gen1 playable guys can agree that Adean is hot stuff, and two of the remaining eight aren't on the marriage market anyway.  Hell, I bet you can't get six guys to agree on a pizza topping.  But everybody wants to bang Adean.

[And yet her son resembles Lex.  The hell?  Did I miss something here?  Did Lex sub in for Azel in some kind of Cyrano de Bergerac ploy?]

But looks shouldn't matter as long as her personality shines, right?  

Yawn.  I'd compare her to Cream of Wheat, but I like Cream of Wheat.  Adean is a saintly snooze, IMO.  I'm not overly fond of Lena!healers, but Adean pretty much exists to a) look beatific (but still ugly) b) get laid and c) raise half-a-dozen children offscreen... after she's retired to a convent as an abbess.

I hate that orphans'n'convent shit.  HATE it.  Mostly on account of what was done to Minerva, but it just seems to tie into some seriously weird undercurrents in the game franchise which can and shall be explored later.  Look, if characters want to acquire kids thorough unconventional means and the end goal isn't sex slavery or human sacrifice, more power to 'em[*].  There are, after all, a lot of kids in the various FE worlds who need a home and a parental-type figure.  But this idea of some chaste woman caring for a gaggle of kiddies and maybe engaging in a virtuous platonic relationship with some inoffensive guy (Oifey, in Adean's case)... well, if it's presented as the apex of female usefulness in Fire Emblem, then yuk.  

And with Adean, that's pretty much all there is.  Her twin sis is pulling the exact same act in Fiana, with half the kids and a side order of amnesia, but there's more to Briggid/Evayle than "offscreen mother figure" and so the effect is much more palatable to me.  Adean?  Sorry, I'm trying to digest a stale lump of instant vanilla Jell-O pudding here.  Blech.

Oh well.  The hottest Gen1 playable lady is indisputably this one, and Levin's taking her home.

Levin totally wins this round.

* Raising them for political ends is apparently A-OK if you're a playable character and monstrous if you're on the opposing team.  So I'll just assume it's OK across the board.

Comments

[samuraiter]

I think Dorothy is cute, personally.

And I like Cream of Wheat, too.

Ferry? Was seeing Cecilia for a second. o_O

[mark_asphodel]

Ferry. Fury. Whatever. Rawr.

Dorothy is cute. Just not in a way fanboys appreciate. I'm glad she's there, personally.

[writerawakened]

I was thinking Sigrun :P

[mark_asphodel]

They're all Palla expies anyway.

Palla > Expies, but Ferry still beats the other Gen1 chickies in my book.

[amielleon]

Levin gets the best woman, then ditches her to die. He's a bastard of a winner, there.

But maybe since it's Jugdral I shouldn't use "bastard" loosely as an insult.

[mark_asphodel]

He's a bastard of a winner, there.

He does have some extenuating circumstances.

Since virtually none of the Gen 1 guys are technically confirmed as dead, the door's open to propose that any number of them survived the battle but bailed on the women & kidlets thereafter. Azel and Claude both have those semicanon mitigating backstories (Azel going to Alvis, a damaged Claude remaining with Sylvia for a time before apparently dying), but Holyn, Dew, Midalye, etc... who knows. [The nobodies I deem more likely to survive than guys like Lex and Jamka, who were probably executed if they weren't killed outright.]

I'm fairly sure they all did get killed, but then again... so did Levin.

[raphiael]

Dorothy is a cutie. I know the game goes on about how ~plain~ she is, but really, actually the ugliest in the series? Can't see that. Oh, fandom.

[mark_asphodel]

I don't see you defending your namesake. ;)

[raphiael]

Oh, she's not really ugly, but she's annoying as all getout. I actually like Dorothy :D;

[mark_asphodel]

I think Meg is kind of cute. It's good to have some chubby playable characters who aren't Oliver-revolting. That's something I like about Sharlow.

[raphiael]

Yeah, she's definitely not grotesque, there's that. I still felt like she was played up as DO NOT WANT, though, which kind of bugged me. Not quite as bad as Oliver, at least.