Why Byleth is Underrated and Undermined
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- Опубликовано: 26 мар 2024
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses has such a large cast of very popular and beloved characters. But Byleth has always been a noticeable exception, being deemed to have no character. However, someone I've noticed for a long time is that Byleth does have a character, which the came failed to properly convey. Leading to them being another character in the series I deem to be underrated. Now I'm here to finally explain why I think that.
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I've always hated the bad reputation that Byleth gets from the fandom. It's not that they have "no character," but they're literally emotionally repressed both due to the circumstances of their birth and growing up on the battlefield. However, you see traces of their true character throughout the game, especially in their interactions with students.
Being a mime after Robin and Corrin talked just fine did not help.
Ha jng a reason doesn't excuse the poor execution. You love byketh cuz he îs The silent boring cool type
Also no you almost never see traces of his character în their supports. The byleth supports are also The worst supports în The game
@@mihaimercenarul7467 My friend, I encourage you to go back and rewatch some Byleth supports and really pay attention, because Byleth displays a lot of character in those. They get mad at Sylvain's flirting, they express concern for Yuri when he gets caught up in something dangerous, they encourage Ignatz to embrace his hobby of painting...
Byleth constantly expresses concern for their students' well-being and behavior, supporting them or scolding them when needed. We as players might have some influence over the exact attitude Byleth has during these scenes, but the idea remains the same.
@@goldlight1322 my friend, if I have to watch every byleth support, analysing every single molecule just to find 1 or two molecules of emotion and character from him out of all The supports, then it shows how badly written he îs. All of his supports are the students talking to a brick wall, telling their sad back stories and thanking byleth for helping them after byleth stared at them for hours.
Byleth is my favorite avatar in Fire Emblem. I really like their emotionally static to genuine feelings arc. However, I do get why so many people think Byleth is boring. Largely, Byleth is silent and it doesn't feel like it should make much of a difference, but once Three Hopes came out it was clear to me how much missed potential there was in just letting Byleth's voice actors read the lines. I'm glad both Three Hopes and Engage have been able to showcase Byleth's character AND have voiced dialogue.
Male Byleth is today and probably forever my favourite fire emblem character and female byleth is also good, but I personaly prefer male over female byleth.
Male Byleth's design fits the character a lot better, which is why I prefer it as well.
Amazing video Byleth is honestly my favorite Fire Emblem character and this video says a lot about why I feel that way and I hope this video gets more popular because I would love for more people to see and understand why I love them so much
Also male Byleth with the mint hair and his regular outfit is my favorite character design it directly appeals to me everything about it I love it so much
I will be honest, Byleth being severely underused as an ally in Three Hopes was my biggest disappointment with the game, alongside of course Shez never getting a proper backstory. Here was everything I wish Nintendo and Koei Techmo did with Byleth once they're recruited:
1.Byleth was part of the group meetings at the beginning and/or end of each chapter.
2.Byleth had support conversations with the House Leaders, Monica, Rodrigue, Holst, and Yuri.
3.Byleth was warped to Zahras alongside Shez and the House Leaders.
4.Byleth and Jeralt had unique dialogue with Rhea during the final battle of Azure Gleam.
5.Byleth had their own Light Dawning theme when using awakening.
6.Byleth and Jeralt appear directly behind Shez, Monica, Edelgard, and Hubert during the Four Banners cutscene.
7.Byleth and Jeralt appear with Claude, Rhea, Felix, and Dedue in the final cutscene of Azure Gleam.
8.Byleth and Jeralt appear alongside Shez and Claude during the final cutscene of Golden Wildfire.
Thank you for this :D Byleth is also one of my favourite avatar characters, so I'm glad to see something constructive said about them for once.
I treated them as character first and an avatar second, so maybe that's why I ended up caring and relating to them more than other people.
I've always liked Byleth's character, but because the general perception of them is so negative, it made it harder for me to pin down exactly why I liked Byleth so much, so it was really nice to see a more detailed analysis of their character to help me organize my thoughts. Part of it is that a mercenary turned professor who wields a whip sword made of bones is just an insanely cool character concept, but that alone isn't enough to carry them, especially in a game with as good character writing as 3H.
Glad there's a proper video on this reserved weirdo that I love that doesn't bash them mindlessly as opposed to properly critiquing how they were handled while acknowledging and diving deep into all they have.
Though I can't fully agree on the "emotionless" part since wouldn't that mean they lack emotions? Byleth was just never able to properly express their self and being called a demon as a result, likely since childhood, probably made it a bit worse, along with people just not wanting to get close to them because of how they come off at the surface.
Byleth's whole existence really embodies the whole saying of "Look beneath the surface" honestly.
I'm sorry, but can never not pick Female Byleth for the Azure Moon route simply because her romance with Dimitri is one of the most heartwarming.
Dimitri is the sun that always brightens up Byleth's days, while Byleth is the bright moon that guides Dimitri from the darkness.
This was a really good video. Your analysis of Byleth's arc was really good.
I know that it's not your main point, but I really loved how you brought up the receptions to both Male and Female versions of Byleth. Male Byleth looking bland, and Female Byleth's "assets." Byleth is the definition of a character design that grew on me, more specifically Male Byleth. Male Byleth looks bland, but compared to the crazy proportions of Female Byleth's design at least his design made since.
You make some great points, and I agree with pretty much everything. However, I find there are two ways to judge an Avatar character. You can judge them by how well they represent the player as someone whose role you play as in this Role Playing Game, and you can judge them as a character in their own right.
You mostly focused on the latter, so I would like to bring up the former.
Byleth is often dunked on for being a silent protagonist, including in this video. However, that didn't just happen by chance. There is obviously a reason for why Byleth is like that: So they could be a better vessel for the player. By making them silent, Byleth has more trouble being a character of their own but serves as a better insert for the player.
Yet the strange thing is, I never see that brought up. Byleth's silence is usually treated as categorically negative, with no consideration as to what the writers were trying to accomplish by making them a mute.
I have never heard anyone complain about other silent protagonists, like in the Pokemon or Zelda games. Heck, those silent characters are often fan favorites (think Red and Link)! Yet when Fire Emblem does it, and does it even better by offering an in universe explanation for their behavior AND adding a character arc, it's seen as something entirely negative. I don't get it.
To illustrate why I think Byleth is basically the perfect Avatar character, we have to look no further than Alear and Corrin. If we judge them by the same two criteria laid out earlier, we find that they are worse for being player inserts as they talk and make decisions by themselves outside the players control (and by being too important to the world they are in), but they also fail at being an interesting character in their own right. Essentially, they take up more screen time and actively fail more at each of those two metrics, which is why I see them as much inferior to Byleth.
It blows my mind whenever I see someone say that they think Alear is a step up from Byleth. I genuinely can't see it.
I can only speak for myself, but I assume others that dislike Byleth will agree with some of my points. I would like to start with this: I FUCKING HATE silent protagonists. The trope is easily my least favorite when it comes to rpgs and is usually a massive turn off for games that feature it.
In a narrative driven game I find that these characters have two major issues. 1. them being silent while all of the other characters can express themselves normally is incredibly jarring and often negates any sort of immersion them being silent would supposedly have. 2. Them being silent often knee caps their character development and characterization, as the game can only use the character's actions to and extremely limited text to showcase any character development. Byleth has both of these problems in spades. Obviously he showcases the first, but it is made even worse due to the fact that every other character is fully voiced, creating even more of a disconnect. The fact that all of Byleth's characterization is limited to only single lines of text in massive conversations limits my ability to see Byleth as anything other than a brick wall for the other character to bounce off of. Because of this extremely limited dialogue, Byleth is underdeveloped and underwritten. So when the game goes on about what a connection he has to his students, I'm calling bullshit because as far as I've seen Byleth's interactions with his students are mostly exposition dumps with little to nothing done to actually establish a proper relationship. This in turn, harms many of the games major story arcs, as a massive motivator is Byleth's relationship to the characters, relationships that are severely underwritten, and this unbeleivable.
And to address the aspect of judging the character as an insert for the player, I don't think it matters. I am of the opinion that the character being a good character in their own right will always trump being a good insert for the player, because the frustrations of being a poorly written and integrated character outweigh any positives that would come with the player being able to insert character traits onto the character.
@@lancestriker0111 Yeah, I can't say I entirely agree with that. I seem to be in the minority, but I find silent protagonists to be really good at immersing me in the games world. Three Houses and Hollow Knight are both games I actively enjoyed more because they had silent protagonists.
Personally, I never felt that jarring feeling you are describing. When the students say that they have a great bond with the professor, then I believe it because I AM that professor, and I DO feel close to these students. That, to me, is the strength of a silent avatar. They are allowed to not be interesting for two reasons:
1. They are me. They're characterization is me. I know I am a complex individual (like every human being) therefore it is easy for me to think of my player character as being comolex.
2. There are loads of other characters in Three Houses with personality, backstory and growth. Byleth doesn't have to be like that. Judging an Avatar as "they are not that deep of a character" or "they lack characterization" feels to me like the equivalent of criticizing an RPG for having poor gunplay. Like yeah, that isn't not true, but that's also jusging something for what it isn't rather than critiquing it for what it is, which is not the way I like to look at things.
They set out to write a simple character to contrast the complex cast of Three Houses, so I suppose judging the character for their lack of complexity always felt counter intuitive.
@@hansgretl1787 I suppose part of this is just a matter of perspective. For me, when a game is narrative driven I don't feel like inserting myself into the story. Part of the enjoyment of the story for me is seeing the author(s) expand upon a fictional character and world in order to express some sort of theme or message. Naturally this means I am constantly aware of the fact that what I am experiencing is fiction, and thus any sort of "personal immersion" is impossible. Because of this, I do not feel that avatar characters belong in narrative driven games. For me, as expressed in my previous comment, rather than immersing me into they world they are constantly taking me out of the story due to them not being written like a normal character. To me having a self-insert avatar protagonist feels like a cheap way for the game to get away with not having to write an interesting character. Even in stories I like with avatar protagonists, it's usually in spite of having an avatar protagonist rather than because I think they're done well there.
@@lancestriker0111 Yeah, seems like we'll have to agree to disagree with that one. We're like Edelgard and Dimitri, we just can't see eye to eye lol.
"Getting away with not writing an interesting character" does sound weird to me though. This game has dozens of well written characters. I don't believe for a second that they made Byleth silent because they were incapable of writing a good protagonist. And it's not like an inability to write a compelling main character ever held them back with giving Corrin or Alear all the screentime in the world.
@@hansgretl1787 I did not say I thought the writers were incapable of writing a good charcter, Byleth's portrayal in three hopes shows that they are clearly capable of writing this character in a compelling way. I prefaced that statement with feels like, because that it always how these kinds of silent protagonists feel to me. I can understand the reasons why writers implement these characters the way do, but it always ends up feeling lazy to me because I don't find those reasons compelling.
When it comes to Byleth, I would also like to talk about Sliver Snow. So spoilers ahead. His relationship with Edelgard and Rhea in the route was very compelling to me. Despite them wanting to use Byleth, they've shown a lot of kindness too. The two open up to Byleth and Byleth does the same since they're kindred spirits. Which leads to the war phase. The scene where Byleth kills Edelgard is one of my favorite scenes in the game. The sad look on Byleth's face as they have to kill someone they were really close to was powerful. Same with Rhea at the end of Sliver Snow too. Byleth dropping the Sword of the Creator with a "What have I done?!" look was also powerful. Dimitri's final goodbye in Silver Snow is also very noteworthy of their emotions. Those scenes and a lot of things you mentioned makes me think people weren't even paying attention or didn't see their dialogue for some reason. It seems pretty easy to pick up on to me. Regardless, Byleth is a defined character and is probably my favorite FE protagonist.
Ah yes I needed this ❤❤❤
Byleth is undermined almost entirely by IS's completely unwillingness to ditch this moronic avatar character thing. If they were just treated as full characters instead of inserts for the player pretty much every avatar would be infinitely better.
It really does suck when compared to Robin and Corrin, Byleth at the very least has a reason to act how they act. They don't have memory lost, they are not written like either a dumb character or a goodie goodie, they have a professional mercenary life and legendary title, a reason why they lack emotions and while some characters do not trust them at first, through time there is a trust forming. Not to mention it's not like they don't try to have emotions I mean their dad died even when they tried to do everything in their power to prevent that from happening and they actually tear up. Honestly I see them as more of a strong silent type where in the beginning they don't speak as much and they don't open up all that well with other characters but over time and gradually, they develop bonds that even last all the way up to the 5 year time skip. Thinking back I much prefer Byleth(Male) and Bel(Female) then what we got after them. Don't get me wrong the 2 Shez were a good idea to give us back voiced characters..... But whose bright idea was it after that game that in engage we're stuck with 2 toothpaste commercials/someone's original characters the so called Dragons that are definitely not Dragons. In any case I am glad that we're getting some appreciation for the 3 houses protagonists and good job with the video!
I think Robin is a great character and Byleth flies much closer to their quality of writing when it comes to the content not of the main campaign.
@@yoder6162 I mean don't get me wrong Robin was a good step in the right direction, it's just with them, I just didn't like how with those 2 the main bulk of their character development or at least the end of it was pretty much at the very tail end of the game to where now they're super important when originally they were fine with sharing the protagonist role with Chrom in the beginning arc...... And then the slopply second arc happened which just feels like it came out of nowhere. They definitely improved with Byleth years later though.
To be fair, Byleth's reputation has improved drastically since 3H's first release. Byleth is somewhat popular, especially after him being added into FEH. He always ranks very high in CYL, a popularity contest featuring every single playable FE character. His reputation only got better after Three Hopes and Engage with many people saying he's one of the better avatars if not the best. 3H's execution is the issue here, if Byleth literally only talked he'd be equally as loved and praised as the rest of the 3H cast. I've always loved Byleth, his design was always cool to me, his weapon is sick and I always liked Byleth's "growth" arc, seeing him turn from an emotionless Ashen Demon to a great professor who genuinely cares about his allies.
Robin is considered better as an avatar though. Robin even won Choose Your Legends twice. From all the lists and videos in avatar ranks I have seen so far, it's:
Robin
Shez
Byleth
Alear
Kris
Marc
Corrin
I like Byleth as well, though I played both male and female versions and while I maybe misremembering. I did get that arc or at least it was more clear from the female version. Female Byleth is just far more emotive than her male counterpart and seems tailor made for the Azure Moon route, as her romance with Dimitri is very well done. As such, I'm sorry but I doubt that its simply just her looks for why people like her.
For me, Byleth is one of the best FEavatar in the series.
Alear and Shez come close to second and third
Alear, robin and even corrin are way better than byleth
I mean most of the community considers the avatars to all be F tier characters, so it that really saying that much
@@mihaimercenarul7467Hell no, I'd take an entire roster of silent characters over the abomination that was Corrin
@@hyperm8 the problem with corrin was more the characters that were around him, and less corrin
Shez, Robin, and Byleth are my top three.
Off topic: How come you don't do response videos anymore?
I haven't had anything to respond to
@TheMetalBlade5 Oh. I thought you just decided to stop due to personal reasons.
@@TheMetalBlade5Nostalgia Egg responded to your frenzy rage on modern SMG4. You came off as a petulant child throwing a temper tantrum. You deserve to dissed in with your childish attitude.
Hey@@TheMetalBlade5what's up?
I love this anime ❤
I think byleth is geniusly designed as an avatar. They are a blank slate in the base game but any color makes them shine. The edeleth/dimileth are amazing ships. Emblem Byleth is an enjoyable character, hopes byleth being a menace. Even in fan comics fan-non byleth is the cutest thing ever for being a dumb character.
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