Is Tharja really a Yandere?

[Gruntagen]

Sure, she's a dark mage who stalks MU, has half her flavor text as referential to MU, and has that creepy conversation where she says the MU more or less solicited her for sex in her dreams, but her interactions are hardly indicative of a Yandere.

From my personal assumptions from exposure to what few anime and visual novels I've consumed, a Yandere is supposed to be characterized as mentally unhinged and incredibly oriented towards violence, quick to anger, often speaking and gesturing like they have barely-hidden mental or emotional problems, and occasionally have clear facial cues, usually from their eyes. But going from what I've read of her supports with characters who aren't the MU, her character seems more bent towards being a wallflower with a sadistic streak, and hardly mentions the MU as much as you'd expect from a character with a main personality tenet of "obsessed with the player character". 

 

So why was she marketed as a Yandere if she isn't actually that Yandere?

Edited March 13, 2017 by Gruntagen

[Harvey]

My guess is that she probably wanted to hide her identity inorder to survive.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

I'm pretty sure she is a yandere, though we're never actually shown her putting the final nail in the coffin (trying to kill the Avatar). She exhibits most of the tendencies, like clinginess, stalking, and exuding a dangerous aura. She also says she'll murder you in your sleep if you back out in her CG confession (she says "It's too late to regret this" in Japanese). It sounds like a joke, but I wouldn't take that risk.

Yanderes aren't always outwardly creepy in anime. School Days is the most infamous example. Kotonoha and Sekai are really kind and sweet girls normally, until Makoto triggers them by cheating on them and whatnot; then they start to outwardly exhibit the visible traits of a traditional yandere.

[SpearOfLies]

Aside I feel really wrong for your descrition of yandere, she is not a yandere. She have simple stalker mentality. Which yandere too have but she miss all the other traits. And the yandere vibe of her CG is not exactly yandere. She say so after you marry her and hardly believe no wife can became like yandere if their husband betray them.

[Dragonage2ftw]

I mean, it's not like she murders people for Robin, aside from the enemy troops.

[saisymbolic]

She's not a yandere. A yandere would be more than willing to go berserk and turn on her object of affection should they betray/disobey her (e.g. Yukako Yamagishi from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure). If Tharja were an actual yandere, if one were to marry Robin to someone else, she would likely try to kill Robin and his wife. Possibly Chrom, too, to be honest.

As we know, Tharja is more than satisfied just having the ability to be near Robin, even if he finds love with someone else.

[Taxon]

Honestly, I think Tharja is a Yandere. It's important to keep in mind though that while she is possessive and cruel, she's not an idiot. She is shown to have a pretty good self preservation instinct multiple times throughout the game. Hell, the whole reason she joined the Shepherds in the first place was because she didn't want to die for someone else's cause. She wouldn't start a fight she knew she couldn't win. Robin is a very high profile member of Chrom's army so if anything happened to him there would be an immediate investigation. She knows that if she tried to murder, kidnap or brainwash Robin or his spouse, the rest of the Shepherds would quickly catch on and promptly eviscerate her. Tellingly, if she does manage to marry Robin then she is shown to be completely comfortable with hurting him. According to Noire, Tharja cursed her husband into submission every time he so much as spoke back to her (to the point where he apparently cried himself to sleep). It's not hard to imagine that she would cause more permanent damage if he did something to really upset her. Even if she wouldn't outright murder him, she would still be willing to torment him enough that he would be terrified of leaving or disobeying her, which is more than enough to qualify for being a yandere. I mean, half of her event tile dialogue with her husband involves her threatening him for crying out loud...

Basically, Tharja is as bad as she feels like she can get away with being. If Robin were a non-essential nameless grunt in Chrom's army that no one would really notice if they vanished? Yeah, Tharja would totally kidnap him.

[TheWill]

Tharja's character is more align with the 'spooky/loony girl' trope such as Pokemon's Hex Girl or Tomoko from 'I'm Not Popular'.

[BANRYU]

On 3/12/2017 at 11:12 PM, Gruntagen said:

So why was she marketed as a Yandere if she isn't actually that Yandere?

I think 'marketed' is your key word here and the answer to your question, actually; even if it's irrelevant to a LOT of her writing, it's a trope that is popular in Japan as far as I know, and having a character who wants the player character is one method of player empowerment, I guess. Makes the player think 'I am desirable' or whatever IDK man.

Marketing, though. It was what they thought was the most marketable, and I think they might have been right lol. even if it wasn't the most appealing aspect of her character. 

The sad thing is it actually could have been an interesting way of further informing her character-- presumably the whole reason Tharja stalks Robin is something to do with Grima's influence-- but I guess the reason they couldn't go into detail there is because supporting too much with her too quickly would reveal things that the plot has to unveil....?? IDK man

[Dragonage2ftw]

On 3/15/2017 at 9:48 PM, BANRYU said:

I think 'marketed' is your key word here and the answer to your question, actually; even if it's irrelevant to a LOT of her writing, it's a trope that is popular in Japan as far as I know, and having a character who wants the player character is one method of player empowerment, I guess. Makes the player think 'I am desirable' or whatever IDK man.

Marketing, though. It was what they thought was the most marketable, and I think they might have been right lol. even if it wasn't the most appealing aspect of her character. 

The sad thing is it actually could have been an interesting way of further informing her character-- presumably the whole reason Tharja stalks Robin is something to do with Grima's influence-- but I guess the reason they couldn't go into detail there is because supporting too much with her too quickly would reveal things that the plot has to unveil....?? IDK man

I've talked about this with people on GameFAQ's, and I can almost guarantee that they were going for a "Tharja likes Robin because of Grima" thing.