#fe16 meta

While most students at the academy have had some sadness in their lives, a few have had terrible abuse or trauma given to them.

Bernadetta's father, who was slowly falling out of nobility, took his anger out on his poor daughter, desperate to create 'the perfect wife' so he could still have noble connections. However, he instead ended up abusing her horribly, including tying her to a chair to force her to stay still. It got so bad that Bernadetta's mother ended up stealing her away to the Officer's Academy in the dead of night, an occasion that made Bernadetta think she was about to die. Due to the fact that her father's abuse gave her a horrible anxiety disorder, it's no wonder Bernadetta is so afraid of connections or criticism, even believing that the all-complimenting Sylvain, who read her book, must be making fun of her, and even wonders for a second if she should actually do something bad to stop him from ever mentioning it again. Bernadetta is very small before the Time Skip before growing quite a bit in five years. It's not hard to imagine that in addition to being physically and emotionally abusive, her father also wasn't feeding her very well.

Edelgard lost all her siblings to Crest experimentations, and also lost most of her lifespan, living for years in a dungeon, trapped away. There's no wonder as to why she hates Crests so much.

Dimitri lost all of his family from betrayal, and was the sole survivor of the party at the Tragedy of Duscur. Even years later, they continue to haunt him. There's no doubt that Dimitri has some sort of terrible mental illness from the experience, and even worse when you realise he had to conceal it until he just /couldn't/ any more, and ended up causing a bloodbath of his own.

Sylvain's entire personality has been shaped by abuse - confirmed physical abuse by his own brother, Miklan, implied emotional abuse by his father (in the Japanese version, he mentions that his father will do bad things to him if he finds out he ran away to fight in the war) and implied CSA*, which makes his flirting with Ingrid's grandmother not quite so amusing any more. He has a high defence growth (40%) similar to those of a typical future Heavy Armour specialist, which is a bad reminder of how his brother hurt him, including pushing him into a well and leaving him on a mountainside - which is even worse when you consider that he lives in the /coldest place in Fódlan/. He is angry towards Byleth for having a powerful Crest with no repercussions, has no ability to trust anyone new, hides his intelligence (as seen in his supports with Annette), and has eye bags even in his pre-time skip portrait. He refuses to flirt with Bernadetta and Marianne because he recognises how damaging it would be to them, and only really connects with Mercedes, who sees through his persona with kindness, Dorothea, who recognises someone who is only valued for their inherent talents, and Felix in their A-Supports, where it is implied that Felix knows how little Sylvain values his own life.

Lysithea, like Edelgard, was the only survivor of an experiment to implant a second Crest, losing most of her siblings and friends who have undergone the same procedure, and emerging with her health damaged and lifespan shortened. Again, it's little wonder that she came to despise the Crests and belief placed into them, to the point where trying to tie her magic abilities to her Crests rather than her work, skills and knowledge is a major Berserk Button for her. In fact, on the Golden Deer route Lysithea, after discovery of similarity between the two, vows to avenge Edelgard after the latter's defeat and demise, whereas on the Black Eagles route she'll be eager to switch sides and join Edelgard in her campaign against the Crest-based nobility even if she hadn't been approached in the Academy phase.Then there's 

Marianne. The poor girl, adopted by a small noble hoping to increase his influence through a marriage of convenience, was shunned and abused simply due to her "improper" Crest that is believed to be cursed and bring misfortune (due to its association with Maurice, one of the Elites who eventually turned into a Demonic Beast). What else could be expected from it — other than her turning into an utterly broken asocial loner and, at one point (as she admits in A-Support with Byleth), contemplating suicide?

Jeritza/Emile, as mentioned before, was estranged from his mother and half-sister when they fled to Faerghus, and ended up killing his father when the latter decided to bring Mercedes back to have Crest-bearing children. Out of the trauma brought by this event the Death Knight persona was born, haunting him ever since and turning him into a bloodthirsty monster now and again. Even after getting a position from Edelgard, he fears that the Death Knight can activate at the worst time, struggles to keep it in check and openly hates it — and by extension, himself. Suddenly, the lines about his desire to have Byleth 'pierce' him sound less like a combat-or-erotic Double Entendre and more like a call of desperation. Granted, he gets better towards the end Crimson Flower, but still...

of course there is Dedue whose  people and culture were massacred in a genocide

to quote dedue 

 in his felix C support :

Dedue: Faerghus destroyed my homeland. Burned it all to the ground. Slaughtered my people.

How would the veteran Knights of Seiros from FE16 change the dynamics of the Jagen Club?

[Not that any of them are landing in Heroes anytime soon (ever?) except IDK maybe Catherine...]

Now I have the same look in my eyes that the boar used to have in his. The look of a savage beast who loves nothing but destruction and violence.