the deidre writeup i was holding off on because i hate every single deidre fan in existence

deidre is one of the most unique characters in fire emblem history at this point in time. light mage gifted with an absurdly heavy light tome who only has nihil as a skill in a pursuit dependent for good combat game and has a high magic growth, so you would think she would have AT LEAST ONE good niche, right? wrong.

if you're playing optimally she's a bad character who will slow your army down if you need to babysit her, and even if you're playing suboptimally, as mentioned, her only fucking skill is nihil in the goddamn pursuit game. julia fixes on this issue which tells me deidre was designed this way on purpose. god damn

funnily enough if you give deidre the pursuit ring (this is an extremely bad idea) it fixes on nearly all of her issues because she comes with a 70% magic growth and 14 magic aa a base stat which makes her a solid b tier unit

(pursuit fixes deidre)

but also; did you know she's the intended naga tome user in gen 1? yes, she has major naga blood and minor loptyr blood, which means in theory pursuit ring and deidre with the naga tome should be an absolutely deadly combination

here's the thing though: you only get access to the naga tome in gen 2 at the very, very end of the game. debatably, this is one of the strongest weapons in FE history which is why it gets this treatment, and the only character ever allowed to use the tome is julia

like, within meta, deidre is a forgettable unit. the most unique unit in the series, but nothing worth commenting on. in the metatext of the story though

did you know she's the empress of jugdral/grannvale? this is perhaps one of the only times in the series you play as a heir to the continent of a nation, and she's an extremely lacking unit as an infantry unit in fucking horse emblem

she also has one of the most unique backstories of any fire emblem character but a lot of people weaponize the sadness of her backstory as a get out of jail free card for her running away from all of her responsibilities and failing as a mother and wife like cigyun before her, which is ridiculously sexist.

it's funny because her foil IS lewyn, except he gets to live in a very off handed way and by choosing to take responsibility for his actions, he gets a chance at a second life outside the war when the conflict is finally settled

Playing around with Deidre’s monster design, or at least some of the garb she’d wear after becoming one. Started off with the headpiece references and then went from there.

Featured in the first: Xareni, Ikal and Deidre

Featured in the second: Cherry (and her child) Phoenix and Bonde