Any character(s) that have grown on you?

[ChickenBits]

The title basically says all. Have there been characters that you hated at first but now love or at least are neutral towards? There's been several characters like that for me but I'll just mention the ones where my opinions have drastically changed over the years. Not all of them have been on my dislike list initially because I tend to forget about a character's existence if I don't get attached right away.(Note: This is my first topic post on here so if there's already a discussion like this or I posted in the wrong section please tell me. I'm kinda guessing about where this should go)

Maribelle: I honestly hated her at first. First impressions were so bad that I refused to train her up at all during a lot of my Awakening playthroughs. She seemed to be nothing but a spoiled brat with a sharp tongue and her way of thanking Robin irked me to no end. This all changed when I decided to read up on her supports. I figured I might as well since I wouldn't be unlocking hers anytime since I never used her. Man did my view of her take a 180. She's surprisingly well written and there's a lot of kindness underneath. The reasoning behind her friendship with Lissa also surprised me because at first I thought it was just a relationship built on convenience since Lissa is royalty but Maribelle is truly devoted to her friend. Once a character near the bottom of my Awakening character list is now top 5 easily and maybe top 10(I'm to indecisive to have a concrete list) of all time. The one thing that didn't changed was that I've always loved her design.

Most of my Archanea favorites: I probably shouldn't bunch them up together like this since I love the cast to various degrees but like I'd be repeating myself for a good chunk of them. Fun fact: My second favourite game in the series  used to be my least favourite(This might become a theme, least favourite turning into something I love). It was mostly the lack of supports that put me off and it felt really different going from the GBA to the DS. After a while of hating the game I was determined to get my money's worth so I changed my attitude and did some research. Simple, I know but it was very effective.  Reclassing became a lot of fun once I tried some ridiculous stuff(first time reclassing Wolf and Sedgar will always be a treasured moment. They can seriously trivialize the game) and the writing started to lure me in once I actually gave it a chance. The cast gave just enough to get a feel for them and that was all I ever really needed since I love to imagine things. I have a lot of headcanons surrounding the characters which forged a lot of bonds. Sometimes I would come up with exaggerated stories for why a character died before a gaiden chapter and how the new member would be integrated into the group after a tragic loss. 

Xane: This boy deserves a spot to himself because I used to forget he ever existed and now he's a favourite of mine. Sometimes he is the favourite since I'm constantly shifting between him and several other characters for the top spot. I really don't talk a lot about him but that's because he's in the same boat as Pelleas, I have no idea why I love him as much as I do. There's a lot reasons why I like him but there's no defining reason or moment as to why he's a beloved character, it just clicked randomly during a Shadow Dragon playthrough. It's been two years and I still don't know why 

[eclipse]

This belongs in General.

And for the topic, that would be Tharja, after I read her supports.  Don't like her aesthetic, but do love the development she gets!

[ChickenBits]

18 minutes ago, eclipse said:

This belongs in General.

And for the topic, that would be Tharja, after I read her supports.  Don't like her aesthetic, but do love the development she gets!

Thanks for letting me know :) 

It's refreshing to see a more positive opinion towards Tharja. She's very interesting yet a lot of people write her off as pure fan service when there more interesting things to her character.

Edited February 16, 2018 by ChickenBits

[Etrurian emperor]

Azura. Its a little hard to feel much about Azura in the main plot because she spends a lot of time being distant or forced by the plot to withold information. But a plot treating a character terribly is not the same as them being bad characters. In her supports Azura comes off as one of the more better written characters. They portray her more as shy and introverted instead of "mystical" like the main plot and I love how her interactions change depending on how comfortabele she is with her conversation partner, just like a real shy person would. Despite her shyness Azura is often kind and helpful in her supports rather than standoffish.

[Lau]

Corrin. I still think they're the worse Lord, but take them out of Fates and write them as a character instead of an avatar and...they're actually really good. Thank you Warriors.

[Michelaar]

As was said above, Corrin. Also Roy.I didn't really like Roy when I first played Binding Blade, but he really grew on me.

[The Roger The Paladin]

The big one would be Marth. Playing Super Smash Bros Melee he was this character whose games just weren't released over here. His dialogue was in Japanese. I felt like he was hogging a slot suited for other characters. By Brawl, my opinion had softened. He was kind of an old friend by now. Then playing the games, he was just kind of a good guy. To the point where he's my main in Warriors.
Mind you I went through the entire bit with not knowing who X was to eventually playing their game after my resentment it wasn't someone else with a good number of Smash Bros characters in the original and Melee. Really, really helped expand the number of series I've played.

[Slumber]

Joshua: I used to dislike him, and saw him as a really blatant attempt at a "cool character". I also have not really liked any Myrmidons as units since Rutger. However, as time has gone on, I appreciate him as one of the standouts of FE8, a game I otherwise really don't like.

Lissa: About 3 months after I beat Awakening, I really started to sour on the "lol CRAZY CHARACTER GIMMICKS!" style of Awakening. Granted, not every character in Awakening is a walking gimmick, but I also don't really like the characters who aren't gimmicks, because by comparison, they come off as really plain and boring(Not counting the characters whose gimmicks are to be plain and boring). It was a double-edged sword that Awakening built up, and I really disliked it. The characters that were obnoxious one-notes somehow managed to drag down the otherwise normal characters that I usually wouldn't have too  much of a problem with. HOWEVER, Lissa is one of the few I genuinely enjoy in that cast as I played it after I lost my patience with nearly every single Awakening character. She straddles a good line between "lol I'm so eccentric" and "I don't really have anything going on". And I typically don't even like the little sister character types, but I like Lissa. Go figure.

Pent: Yes, yes. I used to not like the All-Mighty Pent. Back in my days as a wee-lad, playing Fire Emblem, I started with a tendency to not really like using pre-promotes. The first time I played Fire Emblem, and the first time I saw a unit promote, I was like "HELL YEAH, THIS IS COOL"(Ironically, this unit is Wallace, probably the worst, least cool unit in the game). As somebody who has been a hardcore RPG fan since I was 4 years old(Thanks FF4), I loved seeing characters develop statwise, and promoting was a big 'ol giant piece of development all at once. So when a character couldn't promote, I didn't really like them, and I didn't like using them. Something I still mostly feel to this day. I still don't really like using Marcus, I don't like Isadora, I don't like Jaffar, etc. I even tried to ignore Athos the first time I played the game. But I have grown to like Pent as a unit, and I've grown to like him as a character as a result. Geitz is in a similar situation, but I've always kind of liked Geitz because he had fur trimmings on his gear.

[SavageVolug]

Azura- When I first saw her I was like "Great another Micaiha. Low HP, low DEF, can't dodge or double etc" However she proved me wrong on some of those points, she will get fast and her STR. will get really good as well. On the Revelations path it feels like she is the lord of the story instead of Corrin (#Azuraisthetrueprotagonistofthestory) especially since she has an actual plight in what is going on, all that Corrin wants to do is resolve the conflict of the two nations without going against either one.

Ophelia- At first I disliked Ophelia strictly because of who her father was which is admittedly unfair to her. One of the things about her character that like is that she is a reader, a bookworm if you will. Which is an aspect that I enjoy about her.

[Jingle Jangle]

Cherche: When playing Awakening for the first time, I I thought she was one of the more blander characters in the game. But after replaying the game for the second time I realize there's a lot more to her. From her hobbies to her backstory.  Especially in Heroes is where she gets a greater chance to shine with her impressive stats.

 

[dmurr]

Cordelia, for me. I knew she was popular but never understood it, but since I've been playing her in Warriors I've realized I really like her and her design. Voice actor has a huge role, and since Warriors is fully voiced, I think that helped a lot.

In that same vein, Tharja meant nothing to me as well, but since she's been everywhere lately I've actually started to like her. Camilla is the same as this too... actually I still kind of hate Camilla.

[Sasori]

At first I completely dismissed Laurent as a boring copy of his mom and wasn't very interested in him. However I started liking him more because of how different he is when compared to his mother. Miriel usually just repeats the same (sometimes funny) expiriment of the day with other characters, but Laurent using his smarts to help people out usually resulted in interesting conversations or chemistry with other characters.

I also remember not liking Nino when i was a kid. I don't know why though since Nino is a pretty great character. Good backstory, cute, but not defined by that and she has a set of good supports. Maybe it was her Est status or I just dismissed most girly characters at the time.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Maybe Tauroneo? From forgettable to likeable and tragically underused for me.

Skrimir- I never disliked him, but now I see him as getting a fair deal of character development in Parts 3 and 4, which I didn't before. A hypothetical RD remake would do well to make his prominence more clearly stated.

Serra- I don't like her personality that much, but her reading her Hector and Lucius supports did a fair bit to redeem her in my eyes. Enough I'd strangle Lyn, Florina, and Farina to give her Hector out of pity. And although she's a cleric, she does marry Oswin, Erk or Matthew when Aing them.

 

3 hours ago, Slumber said:

Geitz is in a similar situation, but I've always kind of liked Geitz because he had fur trimmings on his gear.

I think Geitz looks good and is a decent unit. But I feel his character, being lost in life without a goal in mind, leaves him unable to be that well liked. Since only in the A Dart does he ever find something meaningful for the long haul in life. And we don't talk of the Karel.

[Tuvy]

23 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Maybe Tauroneo? From forgettable to likeable and tragically underused for me.

Skrimir- I never disliked him, but now I see him as getting a fair deal of character development in Parts 3 and 4, which I didn't before. A hypothetical RD remake would do well to make his prominence more clearly stated.

Serra- I don't like her personality that much, but her reading her Hector and Lucius supports did a fair bit to redeem her in my eyes. Enough I'd strangle Lyn, Florina, and Farina to give her Hector out of pity. And although she's a cleric, she does marry Oswin, Erk or Matthew when Aing them.

 

I think Geitz looks good and is a decent unit. But I feel his character, being lost in life without a goal in mind, leaves him unable to be that well liked. Since only in the A Dart does he ever find something meaningful for the long haul in life. And we don't talk of the Karel.

I feel that him not knowing his purpose in life is the reason why he's my favorite character,(in FE7) but that might just be me.

For characters that have grown on me the biggest character that stands out is Lowen, as I originally didn't use him as I already used both Kent and Sain.

Edited February 16, 2018 by Tuvy

[DragonFlames]

This is a hard one for sure, since most characters I like I liked from the get-go and characters I hate, I still hate. Haven't really changed my mind much, honestly.

Though I do have one character I didn't like much in the beginning and now I can safely say that they are among my favourites now: Lianna from Warriors. Like everyone else, I was sort of put off by her hair colour in the beginning (Super Sayian Fire Emblem or what?), but when the time came to actually play Warriors, I picked Lianna as my main lord (because who likes Rowan, am I right?) and her personality and playstyle quickly convinced me that she wasn't terrible. Then I unlocked some of her supports and I was like 'yeah, I think I like this character' and her design grew on me as well, to the point where I actually think she's kind of pretty. Though I'll be honest, her voice actress did play a part in this, since she also voiced Eleanor from Tales of Berseria, a game which I hold very dear because of it's stellar playable cast (and to be honest, everything else about it, too).

I still don't like Rowan, though.

Edited February 16, 2018 by DragonFlames

[redtutel]

Cherche and Genny, particularly because of Heroes

 

i grew really attached to the protagonists of Heroes and Warriors over time as well

[Etrurian emperor]

Camus and especially Zeke grew on me after playing Echoes. In Shadow dragon he's just a bare bones Camus and his whole mystery persona in new mystery is a little dull but I really enjoyed his character as Zeke. Perhaps its because he now has a beautiful, beautiful voice or that we can finally see Camus with his hair down whenever he's being all lovey dovey with his wife.  Me liking Camus the most when he's Zeke was especially surprising to me because I had dismissed Zeke as a very weird aspect of Camus for a long time since I didn't have the most positive view on Gaiden and the Archenea games don't really go into it. 

And while he's not a Fire emblem character I'll also say Yuri Lowenthal as Marth. I always found him to be a consistently good voice actor but he was just awful as Marth in project steam. He sounded like such an unbelievable sissy. 
But when we see his performance in FE warriors it seems like he really grew into the role. Marth still sounds a little bit as a sissy but only to the extent that it conveys his gentle nature. 

[Ertrick36]

Maribelle is also one of those characters that grew on me, though I think I was more indifferent to her at the beginning.

Cynthia is another from the same game.  I found her abundantly obnoxious, but Future Past made me like her more.  Really, Future Past made me like all the children characters (and some parents, too) more, but Cynthia's jump in favor for me was by far the most significant one.

Another that I once really disliked but now actually think is a quality character is Charlotte.  It wasn't the gold digger thing so much as her wearing skimpy clothes and acting the way she did with guys that made me dislike her and think she was just this vapid gal with sex appeal and little else.  Exploring more into her supports, I grew to find more of a character in her than I initially thought - even someone I could feel sympathetic for.

On 2/16/2018 at 8:34 AM, dmurr said:

Camilla is the same as this too... actually I still kind of hate Camilla.

At this point, the main thing that keeps me from having any appreciation for her character at all is the fact that she seems to always eclipse the other Fates characters and also gets shoved in every crevice of FE.  And also the fact that every iteration of her character since Fates has only gotten worse and worse.

[DarkLordIvy]

Ike had to grow on me a bit for the pettiest of reasons. My introduction to Fire Emblem was via Smash bros Melee and even though I didn’t play any FE until Awakening, Roy was my absolute favorite character to use in that game. I was beyond miffed when Brawl was coming out and I saw that my favorite flaming sword wielded had been replaced by a buff Marth. No Roy and no Mewtwo were actually I think why I ended up never getting Brawl. Once I played PoR though, Ike won me over pretty quick with his blunt personality and obliviousness to social queues. At this point he is now hands down my favorite lord. 

Cynthia and Sumia have both grown on me a fair bit recently. Cynthia more than her mom since I’ve actually been using her in my recent Awakening run. I actually really like her as Gaius’s kid, having actually read some of her supports I don’t find her nearly as annoying now. Her being a ridiculously fun unit has helped too, a dark flyer setting off two lethalities per turn should be illegal. 

[Ae†her]

I used to dislike Saizo because I thought he was just overwhelmingly and unnecessarily rude, and that that' all there was to his personality other than his complete obedience. However, in my most recent play through of Revelations I started to realize Saizo is probably the most badass character in Fates, and maybe the most well-written one too. His background story, while it has it's cliches is still a pretty good way of adding depth to his character by explaining his stubborn and unsympathetic personality, and how vengeance has turned Saizo the way he is. Saizo is just very savage towards people in support conversations because he just doesn't care about their petty feelings when he realizes there are worser things a person can lose. However, he's not just a mean machine, he's actually very caring as we learn in his support conversation with Kaze, and he's in general caring to his fellow retainer and ex, Kagero as well as his liege lord Roma. He's also still respectful to other Hoshidan royals, except the ones that he doesn't trust albeit him not trusting Azura is kind of stupid. However, Saizo is also a royal somewhat as he is the head of a clan that has served the Hoshidan family well for many generations so in his conversation with them he doesn't act overly submissive either just dedicated to preserving integrity rather. 

[edgelordweeaboo]

I just recently replayed Path of Radiance and am currently replaying Radiant Dawn and I like Ike way better than I used to, I used to not really like Ike but after replaying PoR he grew on me a little bit. I still like Leif, Sigurd, Alm, and Hector better but I actually kinda like him now.

[Erureido]

Hinata definitely comes to mind as one character that really grew on me overtime.

I remember first playing Birthright, and I barely thought about this guy. I initially found him to be quite bland and forgettable character-wise. The only memorable aspect to him that I remembered about his character at the time was how him and Oboro were competing with one another as they bantered who was the superior retainer. I made him a Blacksmith in that same run, and while he was decent, he wasn't one of my best units.

Then I played Conquest, and I got to Chapter 23 where you fight Takumi on the wall. When I killed Hinata in that map, his death quote struck me:

"Lord Takumi... stay strong... I will never forget the day you gave me this katana... was my proudest moment..."

There was something in that line where I really sensed not only a retainer who feels regret at failing to do his job, but also a comrade and a friend who feels sad knowing that his master has lost a retainer in battle. I'd have to say it was one of the more moving death quotes among the opposing retainers in Fates (the only other one that hit me was Laslow's death quote in Birthright).

After reading Hinata's death quote, it made me interested to reading his support with Takumi. When I read through that full support chain, I was quite touched to see a side to Hinata that I never knew about: that him and Takumi treat each as good friends. Hinata was willing to prepare a whole sparring competition so that he can make his master just from seeing his retainer winning. This also led me to give a second look into Hinata's support with Oboro, and it made me realize how the trio had a great dynamic going on where they felt like a trio of close friends in addition to the two retainers showing their dedication with their jobs. I delved into more supports with Hinata, and the more I read them, the more Hinata started to grow on me. He's just a really chill guy who is quite perceptive of people's emotions and is willing to lend a hand to those that are feeling down and make them happy. I ended up like quite a good chunk of Hinata's supports too: in addition to Takumi and Oboro's with him, I also liked his supports with Hinoka, Felicia, Hana, Rinkah, Kaden, Odin, Mozu, and Azura. Of the ones listed, his supports with Hinoka and Felicia are my favorites. I loved how he teaches Hinoka how she needs to learn on relying on others and not doing everything herself, and I love how he helps Felicia finally feel content with something she's good at. This dude really is a bro! 

Hinata reminds me of another one of my favorites from Awakening: Vaike. Both like to spar in addition to having bro-like attitudes,  although unlike Vaike, Hinata doesn't have a giant ego about himself and nowhere as much as backstory (and admittedly, that's my main issue with Hinata: he has little backstory). I also think Hinata has the best Swordmaster outfit in the game. That purple and black combination is too good! 

I have to say that Hinata has definitely become one of my favorite Fates characters. I still have a number from the same game I like over him, but he's just an individual that grew on me overtime.

Another character that also grew on me overtime was Lissa from Fire Emblem: Awakening. I initially didn't care about her much when I first played the game. She just struck me as an average little sister who tries to entertain others. I also barely used her in most maps because I didn't know how to properly use Healers at the time, and thus, I gain the impression she's a lackluster unit. 

However, after doing a second playthrough of the game, I learned how to utilize and raise Healers, I found Lissa to be a much better unit than I thought. Once she became a sage, she became quite good, especially when she formed a solid duo with Ricken. I still didn't think of her much as a character, but that would change once I played Fire Emblem Warriors. It was that game (or more specifically, reading the supports there) when I really began to appreciate Lissa's character. I really liked how playful she can be while also having a soft and kind side to her.  Compared to other little sister characters with similar characteristics like Elise, I find Lissa's entertaining personality to feel more natural and not forced. Those supports in the game also led me to re-reading some of her supports in Awakening, and they only deepened my appreciation for her. I also had a blast using her in FE: Warriors: her moveset is such a blast to-use, especially when she does her wheel attack with the axe. In all, Lissa has definitely become one of my favorite Awakening characters.