Before We Found Out It Was Glade...

[Randoman]

Who did you personally think the least popular/most underappreciated character in all of FE was going to be from the FE Heroes poll, before the results came in? You can list either specific character names or things like "I was betting it'd be a Gaiden or Thracia 776 character". And remember, Shadows of Valencia wasn't out yet, so during the time of the poll, Gaiden's cast didn't have the recognition and exposure that it has now.

I decided to stick this in General FE instead of the FE Heroes section, since we're talking about all FE characters and General FE seems more fitting for talking about the whole FE cast.

Personally, I thought it'd be a Gaiden or Thracia character. I knew it very likely wouldn't be a character from an FE that was released internationally (unless it was an NPC like Hayden or Fado from Sacred Stones) due to mere exposure giving all international FE characters sizable fanbases. FE1, 3, 4, 6, and 12 all have pretty big fanbases in Japan and FE1, 3, 6, and 12 have the bonus of Smash representation, so I didn't think the characters from those games would be the least popular (except for NPCs like Malledus from FE1). Even with a lot of characters from FE1 not having many lines, the fact that a fair amount of them became memes (like Wrys and Vyland) made me not count them out of the running.

For a lot of the NPCs, I didn't even know they were allowed to be voted for, and I have a feeling that many others who were voting didn't know that as well and mainly focused on playable characters/major villains. And keep in mind, I don't even know which NPC's were and weren't allowed to be voted for, so me listing Malledus, Hayden, and the like might be incorrect since I don't even know for sure if they're eligible for voting or not.

So yeah, my general prediction for least popular/most underappreciated character was a Gaiden, Thracia 776, or a story non-playable character, As for specific guesses for least popular/most underappreciated characters, Malledus, Ryuto, Jesse, Judah, and Dorias come to mind. 

[Magical Glace]

I definitely would have guessed someone from Gaiden, on account of most of the characters not saying more than two lines, and it being an old Famicom game with a clunky interface meaning not many have played it, especially outside Japan.

[Slumber]

The thing that would have made me say a Gaiden character is that Gaiden characters share sprites, and the fact that the script is so barren. Thracia characters at least all have unique portraits, sprites, and each get at least 3 lines.

But then again, Thracia was still the worst selling game in the franchise, so the exposure would have been less than Gaiden. Its cast is also like, 3-4x larger than Gaiden's, so the chances that somebody gets forgotten about is probably greater.

Edited August 9, 2017 by Slumber

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I'm truly surprised the least votes for a character numbered over 15. If this was before the results were posted, and you told me there were almost 800 characters in the poll, I would tell you about a hundred would end up with zero votes. I was very wrong. And there were far more participants of this poll than I ever imagined, even factoring in how everybody has 13 votes maximum.

I fancied myself a pretty big fan of this series, and made genuine votes for characters I'd like to see in the game, but the most obscure characters I voted for are Mycen (not even in the bottom 100), and Ares (not even in the bottom 300). I wasn't bothered that 90% of the cast of Thracia would probably fall under the lowest ranked Fates character, but apparently hundreds of votes did care, since 15 Thracia characters are higher than Ignatius (rank 516) instead of 2 or 3.

[Rezzy]

Layla, the dancer with like one line of dialogue in Birthright.

[Shadow Mir]

Frankly, I was thinking it'd be either a Gaiden or Jugdral character - Gaiden is an old Famicom game with a clunky interface, and both of the Jugdral games have aspects that would likely turn people away from playing them, in addition to Thracia being the worst seller in the franchise.

[Azure Sen]

Any of the minor villains like Lombard/Langobalt and Sandima, especially from the pre-GBA era. Maybe even Iago and Hanz given how unpopular those two mustache-twirlers are. I certainly wasn't expecting a playable character to make the bottom of the list.

[Rex Glacies]

It was definitely going to be a Thracia character. Thracia 776 was the lowest selling game in the series, and thus had the least amount of fans who knew the characters. In addition, the game takes place in the same world as Genealogy, so many characters would be overshadowed by characters in that game.

While Gaiden would be a reasonable guess, it had a couple of things Thracia did not. Firstly, it had a smaller cast, so characters in Gaiden (even if they were all unremarkable) would be easier to identify. Secondly, it was the second game in the series. Therefore, it would receive more attention by virtue of being the original's successor (as opposed to being a random game from somewhere in the middle of the franchise). Finally, and I don't know how big of an influence this was, but Sacred Stones received a lot of inspiration from Gaiden, and so fans of Sacred Stones might have looked into Gaiden after playing the Sacred Stones.

[Rezzy]

1 hour ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Frankly, I was thinking it'd be either a Gaiden or Jugdral character - Gaiden is an old Famicom game with a clunky interface, and both of the Jugdral games have aspects that would likely turn people away from playing them, in addition to Thracia being the worst seller in the franchise.

Hey, let's release a game on a console that's been dead for 3 years!

[bethany81707]

4 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

I fancied myself a pretty big fan of this series, and made genuine votes for characters I'd like to see in the game, but the most obscure characters I voted for are Mycen (not even in the bottom 100), and Ares (not even in the bottom 300). I wasn't bothered that 90% of the cast of Thracia would probably fall under the lowest ranked Fates character, but apparently hundreds of votes did care, since 15 Thracia characters are higher than Ignatius (rank 516) instead of 2 or 3.

I think my most obscure vote was cast to Elena (Ike's mother), who placed rather respectably. Ishtar, too, was also in the running for that title, but she made it higher.

I was definitely expecting the least popular character to be a random villain like Sandima. I was not expecting it to be a playable.

[Sartek]

I would have bet on Ralph (aka generic mercenary #2506) from FE5

[Slumber]

10 hours ago, Sartek said:

I would have bet on Ralph (aka generic mercenary #2506) from FE5

Ralph's become sort of a meme unit like Arden. Everything about his character(What little there is) is about how normal the guy is, which obviously leads to him being a target of exaggeration. Obviously it's not to the same extent of Arden, but Ralph's got a bit more attention for what tiny bit of character he gets.

Though I would have pegged one of Glade's subordinates would have been at the bottom, be it Alva, Kain or Robert. Glade's married to Selfina and is Finn's best friend, so you'd think those character connections would put him above those other 3 other cavalry units who literally just have recruitment lines, death quotes, and escape quotes.

Edited August 11, 2017 by Slumber

[Baldrick]

Also certainly a Thracia, since that game's obscure and has a huge cast.

I would have guessed Trewd. He's so easy to miss, and is heavily overshadowed by the other swordmasters. And he's not generic enough to be a meme.

[Snowball]

I'd have put my bet on Hicks maybe. He is a very forgetable unit if you use Brighton (and you should at least during the Manster arc), and both design-wise and personality-wise is not memorable, but not as much as to become a meme like Ralph, like someone said above.

I wouldn't have imagined Glade being the last one either. That wife and that leadership star.

11 hours ago, Slumber said:

Glade's married to Selfina and is Finn's best friend, so you'd think those character connections would put him above those other 3 other cavalry units who literally just have recruitment lines, death quotes, and escape quotes.

And at least Robert was a BS/FE12 character and a decent unit, but I didn't even considered Glade scoring worse than Alva and Kain.

[NinjaMonkey]

I thought it was going to be one of the Tellius merchants. Also, I didn't expect Vika to do as well as she did (Top 42% FTW)!

Edited August 12, 2017 by NinjaMonkey

[Extrasolar]

I had absolutely no knowledge of Gaiden or its characters at all and never touched Thracia, so I assumed it would be Gareth, since a lot of the time I even forgot about that guy's existence. Not to mention, I knew that Tellius as a whole wasn't too popular in Japan, and didn't sell too well here, so there's a large base of FE fans that never even touched the game. Doubly forgettable, in that case.

[qwernst]

I thought it was going to be Gareth from the Tellius games.

[Cute Chao]

I'm still surprised it was Glade. I mean... there were a fair few very forgettable Gaiden and Thracia npcs (including minor villains) added, so I would've gone with them. I wouldn't have expected it to be a playable character.