FE-bruary, Day 1: The Catria

[mark_asphodel]

A brief history of the Peg Knight With Unrequited Affections!  AKA the "Catria" trope, which seems to have found favor with IS in recent years.

FE1: I see nothing

FE2: Claire allegedly has the hots for Alm, but marries someone else anyway.  Whether Alm has any inkling of this is unknown.

FE3: In which the "Catria's crush" thing is introduced... discreetly.  Also, there's the Palla/Abel thing but Abel's not a prince so we won't count that.

FE4: Fury's interest in Levin is pretty damn clear no matter who you pair him with.  The Mahnya angle makes this even more complicated.  But they get retroactively canonized so Fury's like an Ascended Catria or something.

FE5: I don't think Karin necessarily has a Catria-style crush on Sety, and at any rate I don't see it dragging her down.  I mean, who wouldn't have a bit of a crush on Sety?

FE6: In which Roy can marry Thany and nobody cares.

FE7: In which an unprecedented number of Peg Knights can marry a Lord.  As in, all of them.  Arguably all three in one playthrough if you get the Lyn/Florina ending.  :P

FE8: In which Tana can marry Ephraim, Vanessa can get with Innes, and Syrene seems to also think Innes is hot but gets on with her life just fine.  But Vanessa's pervasive interest in Innes makes her The Catria in this one.

FE9: We are not discussing Ike/Elincia tonight, thanks.

FE10: Did the trope get averted here?

FE11: Oh god, it's back. Yes, Catria's now officially In Love...

FE12: ...with a side order of creepy thanks to MyUnit.  

FE13: Hello, Cordelia.  Nice trope you've got on there.

So, yes, we have a consistent pattern of a middle or younger sister showing a clear interest in a prince who is either the game-Lord or her own direct superior, but in MOST cases this can resolve without any heartache involved, and Tellius just kind of ignored it altogether.  The sequence of FE11-FE12-FE13 seems to have aggressively made the whole "Catria" trope, well, a trope.  We'll see where they take it from here. 

Comments

[samuraiter]

Cordelia: "Thanks. Unlike my outfit, it keeps me covered."
Catria: *no underwear* "Did I start that, too?"

[mark_asphodel]

She certainly did. :/

[raphiael]

Tellius really doesn't have any, yeah. Helps that the peg knights mostly don't answer to Ike or really interact with him much. Marcia. . . calls him handsome? That's it.

I think it's interesting that even though Roy can get with Thany in FE6, both Thite and Thany are emphasized, IIRC, as being totally into other guys. Thite's thing for Klein might honestly be the closest you've got there, especially since he makes no sign of returning her affections. And he is called "Silver Prince" in his ending.

EDIT: I lied, I totally misremembered Thany having a thing for Dieck. Their supports are pretty gen unless you read into them.

[mark_asphodel]

And he is called "Silver Prince" in his ending.

True! I wasn't sure how that stacked up, especially as Klein is neither HER prince or the lord character. I guess it's close enough to pass, especially as visually Thite takes cues from Catria far more so than do her sisters and their counterparts.

[raphiael]

He's her direct superior, at least, though it's a little weird because for whatever reason despite acting as an Etrurian general, he's also called a mercenary, IIRC. So it makes no sense and I have no idea who he answers to, but Thite answers to him.

[mark_asphodel]

OK, then. Thite's a Catria.

[thenicochan]

It's funny how Thany and Thite are into two dudes who are into each other.

#fanbiasftw

[myaru]

FE10: Did the trope get averted here?

Looks like it got ditched right along with all the support conversations and hero/princess cliches. Marcia IS pretty free with her compliments, I guess...

[knmc]

Interesting how the three last entries increase both old and new FE tropes... umm(remember some old convo in 2008-9).

And the Catria trope, FE7 take that to his literal extreme(all the lords can marry with their respective pegasus knight, I see what did you do there Narahiro)

[amielleon]

Tellius is odd in that none of its pegasus riders are related by blood -- you have an ex-soldier, a deputy commander, and The Commander. Elincia is more properly a Nyna in FE9 (though she has echoes of Est), and an Ashera-knows-what come FE10. The fact that RD is uniquely segmented and hands out prominent roles to a variety of characters and mixes them something crazy throughout the story makes tropes difficult to assign. But in any case I think we can all agree Elincia makes no show of having feelings for Ike come FE10, unless you're EmblemQueen.

[mark_asphodel]

Well, really, Tanith would be the likeliest trope carrier as the "middle sister"/Sigrun's deputy. (And TBH I find the visual echoes of Palla-Catria-Est pretty strong in Sigrun-Tanith-Marcia, more so than with the FE6 girls). And they just didn't go that route with Tanith.

[amielleon]

Tanith is practically the most asexual character in Tellius.

[thenicochan]

Even if a majority of the fanbase (read: me) thinks that Tanith/Sigurn would be amazing.

[amielleon]

I ship it too, man.