#celica fe

Day 150 - Celica, Fire Emblem Echoes

finally finished my playthrough of echoes! i really liked it (if you could tell from all the damb forsyth's i've drawn)

Specifically: Marth and Ryoma.

Just, what’s up with that opener? “You carry yourself with such grace for one so young,” Ryoma, please. And Marth’s response is to completely ignore that part and focus instead on Ryoma mentioning he fights well (Ryoma’s next line)

Every time anyone compliments Marth in this game, he either completely ignores the comment or turns the compliment on whoever he’s speaking with.

Ryoma: “You’re swordsmanship is impressive.”

Marth: “I have a long way to go before my swordsmanship reaches your level of skill.”

This seems to be a common trait of Marth, throughout his appearances. He’s a humble character, who prefers to downplay whatever he’s done to focus on his allies’ achievements. This holds true for his comments in Heroes, too, where he says all of his accomplishments are thanks to his allies.

Depending on how you play Fire Emblem, this could very well be completely true!

Anyway, I love Marth’s inflections when he speaks. I don’t know how to explain it completely, but he is… awkward? He’s very formal, and his tone is polite even when he’s arguing with Caeda. Awkward isn’t the right word, maybe stilted?

(While discussing voices and Fire Emblem characters, I want to briefly touch on Xander’s voice, which does not fit him. He sounds like a frail, little old man. Or, maybe he just isn’t pronunicating as much as characters like Xander or his own siblings? Either way, it is always a shock to me when I hear his voice)

I like Marth’s support with Tiki especially. In every support he has with absolutely anyone, he comes across as kind of motherly? Like, he just supports their decisions and is very gentle while he leads them away from exaggerating. With Tiki, his tone is very brotherly. He’s very obliging to her. It’s very funny that he tells Tiki that he knew they’d be fine when he heard she showed up.

The way Marth talks to the others, I mean aside from Xander and Ryoma, really implies that when he’s nervous, he covers it by speaking more politely. He uses less contractions, which is a shorthand way of making a character feel more refined. And he enunciates very crisply. Alongside his tone, his conversations with people he views as intimidating, like Xander and Ryoma, make him appear more stilted than Marth actually is.

Marth is a very stilted speaker, but he’s also charming? In a very blunt way. I like his conversation with Lyn, because he manages to call her beautiful without making it sound flirtatious. A wonderful talent, I wish I had that.

But also, the way he speaks to Celica and Lyn both is very interesting. Most people would get upset at Celica, since she basically questions all of his life choices, but he’s very calm about it. He doesn’t get upset with her like he does when Caeda suggests he sit off on the side. He doesn’t get frustrated at all. And it’s clear that she sees Alm in Marth, and I think the implication is that Marth knows her complaints aren’t really about him.

But, with both Lyn and Celica, with everyone really but they make fine examples, he is obliging. With Celica, he basically says “I have to fight because that’s the path I’ve chosen, but you have taught me to focus on peace after the fighting’s done.” With Lyn, “I’ll mentor you and you’ll mentor me.” His compliments just sound like a mother to me. I mean, he tells Lyn she’s beautiful in her own way, he is such a mother-

I admittedly am not sure of how old Marth is supposed to be in this game. A lot of characters talk about him being impressive for his age, but what is his age? The number 16 sticks with me, and I looked it up and yeah, no, he’s like 16. He is, by far, the youngest mother protagonist in the series. I think he might be closer, in Warriors at least, to 17 or 18, since Celica’s dialogue implies Marth’s war lasts for years, and Marth says that they’re right in the thick of it. (Not his exact phrasing.) As well, he knows Tiki already, so it has to be somewhat far into the game.

Marth is a fascinating character to dissect the conversations of. It’s difficult for me to feel like I’m speaking in character, because Marth doesn’t act his age even slightly.

The closest we get to Marth acting 16 is probably his conversation with Frederick. He says, “I don’t need anyone to hold my hand,” which would seem out of character if not for the context: Frederick is trying to clean up after Marth. Marth gets a bit flustered because of the implication that Frederick might view him as needing his hand held, like Frederick is viewing him as a child. Even so, he’s very graceful with his complaints, and one might not notice why he’s upset, or the implications behind why he’s upset at least, upon first viewing.

Warriors does a terrible job with height. How tall are these people? You’re trying to tell me that Marth is similar in height to Xander, Chrom, Lucina, Celica, Lyn, and Tiki? All at the same time? I don’t believe you.

I do, however, believe that Marth is relatively small. First: he’s young enough and his voice is high enough for me to be reasonably convinced that he hasn’t had his last growth spurt yet. Second: Lucina is consistently mistaken for Marth, and seeing her next to him, she is similar in build to him. Even if she wasn’t, however, Chrom and Lissa are both direct descendants of him too, and neither of them are exactly huge. Third: Marth grew up in a castle, but only for the most part. For a large portion of the years he would have spent growing, he was on the run or fighting in a war. This almost certainly stunted his growth, at least a bit. Fourth: Marth is bad at horse-riding. He mentions it in Heroes, but specifically, he says he needs help getting on and off of a horse.

Marth is smol. The prosecution rests.

This whole post started because I think it’s really funny that Ryoma calls Marth graceful. His exact word is “graceful.” And, don’t get me wrong, Marth certainly is, that fact is undisputed by any source material, Marth is a graceful person— it’s still really funny that Ryoma comments on it! Technically, I suppose you could view Lyn as commenting on it too. I mean, she says he holds himself “nobly” —which does make it a bit funny that she then asks Marth to teach her to act more like a noble, she really just sees him as embodying the word, huh — but you could view it as her calling him graceful without using that word.

Ofher characters’ reactions to Marth truly are very amusing. They often say “someone like you.” Lucina and Chrom are my favourite examples, because they both are SO pumped to meet Marth. Lucina is fangirling so hard!

(Lucina mentions that she thought of Marth as different than he actually is, like her mental image of him was off I mean, and it has the same vibes to me as Shen Qingqiu seeing Liu Qingge. Don’t ask questions, just take it and go-)

Chrom’s support is fun in that Marth says “I get so caught up in helping others that I forget my own safety.” Celica’s support is fun in that she says she wants to pray for him and he says, “I’ll see that your prayers are answered.” (Which, I mean, he’s kind of likening himself to a god, but I think Marth just doesn’t really get religion? I think he just doesn’t understand that gods answer prayers.) Xander’s support is funny because Xander says he has a lot of work to go to live up to his father and Marth says, “I can’t imagine someone more imposing than you.”