Welcome back to this ridiculous series where I create Pokémon teams for the ludicrous number of characters in this game I really enjoyed, because that is a thing I do now I guess??
The game’s called “Three Houses” so obviously there need to be three houses, and number two are the Blue Lions, from Faerghus, a kingdom in the northwest part of the continent that broke away from the southern Empire long ago and are now its major rival/frenemy.
Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd
- Future King of Fantasy Prussia
- Although going by his name he might be half-Greek and half-Welsh
- Parents and several of his closest friends were killed a few years ago in a terrorist attack by a neighbouring allied country
- Kinda fµ¢£ed him up a bit
- As, y’know, any one of us might reasonably be fµ¢£ed up by that
- Dutiful, loyal, kind, cares a lot about growing up to be a worthy king
- Believes in protecting the weak from oppression
- Wants classmates to treat him as an equal rather than a king, which not all of them can realistically do
- Struggles to balance moral abhorrence toward violence with seething desire for blood-soaked vengeance
- He is perfect and I love him
Favoured types: Ice, Ghost, Fighting
Vengeance for the dead is an important theme in Dimitri’s story, as is fighting for a cause, which Fighting-types value. Ice because he’s from a cold part of the world and dislikes hot climates.
Disfavoured types: Fire, Dark, Poison
Dimitri values honour highly and won’t stoop to the methods of Dark and Poison Pokémon. Fire as an opposite to Ice, and because he acts as a foil to Edelgard.
Partner: Kyurem
My reasons for picking Kyurem as Dimitri’s partner are mostly related to the second half of his story, which I’m not going to explain. Kyurem is a legendary Pokémon, so appropriate for one of the house leaders. It represents emptiness and brokenness, and also has kind of a savage reputation.
Other Pokémon: Banette, Froslass, Sandslash (Alolan), Primeape, Hitmonlee
Banette and Froslass because Dimitri has a lot of vengeful ghosts in his life, and it’s unclear how literal that statement is. In a fight he likes to get up close and skewer enemies with a spear; Alolan Sandslash feels like a particularly good fit with its icy spines, while Hitmonlee and Primeape are both powerful melee fighters who also provide a contrast between discipline and boiling rage.
Dedue Molinaro
- Survivor of Fantasy Prussia’s retributive attack on the country that assassinated their king
- Was saved by Dimitri and is now his butler/bodyguard/best friend
- Honestly unclear what their whole deal is
- Extremely huge and scary, but has a sweet gooey centre
- Likes cooking and gardening, does extra chores without complaint
- Doesn’t talk much
- Standoffish at first because he’s used to people being extremely racist around him, but all the other kids are made of pure sweetness and light so it works out okay
- Except Ingrid but even she gets over herself pretty quickly
- He is perfect and I love him
Favoured types: Steel, Ground, Grass
Dedue is a two-metre-tall tower of muscle and steel who can stand in the path of literal hordes of enemies. But he also makes time for pretty flowers when he can!
Disfavoured types: Flying, Water, Poison
Dedue is very difficult to get off the ground, and would probably sink like a stone too. As a bodyguard, poison is one of the threats he often has to watch out for.
Partner: Ferrothorn
Dedue is an unkillable steel-plated wall, and his partner Pokémon should be too. Ferrothorn is also very reserved, cautious and menacing, just like Dedue, and as a Grass-type it appreciates his gardening skills.
Other Pokémon: Copperajah, Torterra, Mamoswine, Bellossom, Bastiodon
Dedue likes extremely bulky and defensive Pokémon like Bastiodon that can hold a line against overwhelming odds. Torterra combines his love of plants with his tankiness, while Bellossom represents his softer heart. Like Copperajah and Mamoswine, he’s also happy to charge the enemy head-on when necessary.
Sylvain Jose Gautier
- Son of an important noble house in Fantasy Prussia
- Is usually trying to seduce someone
- Would probably fµ¢£ the Pope if given the opportunity
- I mean, granted, the Pope in this universe is an absolute babe, but still
- Claims to be deeply in love with every single girl he flirts with
- Honestly I think he might be sincere about this; he acts suave and confident but he’s kind of a mess
- Believes that people only value him for his lineage; refuses to take himself, or anything else, seriously
- Has caused me to utter, out loud, while playing this game, the words “Jesus Christ, Sylvain” a frankly astonishing number of times
- He is perfect and I love him
Favoured types: Fairy, Fire, Ice
Sylvain is quite good with magic and very preoccupied with appearances and superficiality, so Fairy-types suit him well. He’s from a cold part of the world and does well with Ice-types, but is also adept with fire magic.
Disfavoured types: Psychic, Poison, Grass
Sylvain dislikes unclean things (hence Poison) and, although he’s quite intelligent, has little interest in study (hence Psychic) or in natural or wild things (hence Grass).
Partner: Rapidash (Kantonian)
Sylvain will usually go into a cavalry class, so it’s nice for him to have a mount, and Rapidash fits his fiery magic and passionate personality. He also just… if we’re being honest, really likes Pokémon that he thinks will be popular with girls.
Other Pokémon: Frosmoth, Cinderace, Sylveon, Ninetales (Alolan), Pyroar
Again, Sylvain prefers to use magical Pokémon that he thinks girls will like, banking on the ethereal beauty of Frosmoth and Ninetales, the charm of Sylveon, the sports star qualities of Cinderace and the majesty of Pyroar.
Mercedes von Martritz
- Daughter of a now extinct noble house, raised by priests and adopted by a merchant
- Probably going to be forced into an arranged marriage, but would rather devote her life to charity work
- A couple of years older than the other students; is everyone’s big sister
- She might actually be older than Byleth, come to think of it
- Extremely chill, to the point of being kind of a ditz
- Constantly baking treats for everyone
- One of the best White Mages in the game
- She is perfect and I love her
Favoured types: Normal, Ghost, Dragon
Normal because Mercedes has chosen to live as a commoner and wants to spend her life helping ordinary people; Ghost because she loves spooky things and ghost stories; Dragon because it’s the type I’ve chosen to associate with faith and religion.
Disfavoured types: Fighting, Rock, Steel
Mercedes is a very non-violent sort, and dislikes Pokémon types associated with raw strength and physical power.
Partner: Dragapult
Dragapult combines two of Mercedes’ preferred types, but also fits her nurturing and motherly nature because of the way it acts as a guardian to the Dreepy that hang out with it.
Other Pokémon: Alcremie, Kangaskhan, Drifblim, Mimikyu, Blissey
Kangaskhan and Blissey are protective and mothering; Drifblim and Mimikyu are spooky but cute; Alcremie helps Mercedes make delicious sweets.
Felix Hugo Fraldarius
- Son of the highest-ranking noble in Fantasy Prussia
- Childhood friends with Dimitri, but thinks Dimitri’s grown up to be a psychopath and wants nothing to do with him
- Considering that Felix himself sets an extremely caustic and antisocial standard, this is very concerning
- Endearingly dysfunctional “three musketeers” dynamic with Ingrid and Sylvain
- Likes swords way too much, generally prefers them to people
- Kind of a rude dickbag if you annoy him, but doesn’t go out of his way to be mean
- Very frosty relationship with his father
- He is perfect and I love him
Favoured types: Steel, Fighting, Bug
Steel because Felix’s swords are his most treasured possessions, and Fighting because he cares about nothing more than using them correctly (he’s also a very capable fist fighter). Bug was mostly working backwards from Pokémon I wanted to give him.
Disfavoured types: Fairy, Rock, Grass
Felix has absolutely no patience for idealism or fairytale values, and he favours precision and skill over the brute strength of Rock-types.
Partner: Aegislash
Felix likes swords to a really problematic extent. There’s honestly not more to this choice than that.
Other Pokémon: Scyther, Hitmonchan, Excadrill, Medicham, Ninjask
Scyther has swords, and Felix hasn’t evolved it into Scizor because then it would be less sword-like. Hitmonchan and Medicham are highly disciplined martial artists. Excadrill has blade hands and is extremely dangerous with them. Ninjask is lethally fast and, again, favours blade-like attacks.
Annette Fantine Dominic
- Niece of a minor lord in Fantasy Prussia
- Extremely talented sorceress; huge nerd, loves to study
- Mercedes’ bff from when they were at Hogwarts together
- Whirlwind of chaotic energy
- Has blown up the kitchen, the laundry, her friends’ rooms, the chapel, the stables, the kitchen again, and every single one of her enemies
- Serious issues with her deadbeat dad
- Eventually gets a massive glowing warhammer that weighs three times as much as she does as her signature weapon, which is truly a glorious image
- She is perfect and I love her
Favoured types: Water, Flying, Psychic
Annette works best as a Black Mage, but most of her spells use wind rather than typical JRPG fire/ice/lightning, so I’ve picked Flying and Water for her magic. Psychic suits her intellect and devotion to studying.
Disfavoured types: Ghost, Steel, Bug
Annette doesn’t like spooky or creepy things like Ghost or Bug Pokémon, and she tends to stay away from close-quarters fighting.
Partner: Starmie
Annette is a black magic nerd who also cares about having utility skills, and Starmie is a great Pokémon to have for that kind of fighting style: unpredictable magic attacks, plus lots of flexible ways to be a team player.
Other Pokémon: Mantine, Xatu, Lanturn, Nidoqueen, Cinccino
Most of Annette’s Pokémon favour magical attacks, but as mixed support types rather than full glass cannons. Mantine and Lanturn are playful, Xatu is intellectual, and Cincinno shares Annette’s love for keeping things clean and tidy. Nidoqueen has potential as a “mage” but is also here because of another character I’m giving Nidoking to later.
Ashe Ubert
- Commoner adopted into a noble family
- Street-thief-with-a-heart-of-gold archetype
- Very big on empathy and compassion; feels he was given a second chance as a destitute orphan and believes in paying it forward
- Extremely idealistic, dreams of becoming a knight
- Smol
- Gentle, kind, cheerful, loves to cook, likes children, all-around cinnamon roll
- Probably my favourite character, but don’t tell any of the others because I don’t want to hurt their feelings
- The Pope made me kill his beloved adoptive father for starting a rebellion
- I just want to give him a hug; I feel so terrible about this
- He is perfect and I love him
Favoured types: Normal, Fairy, Grass
Normal for his commoner background, Fairy for his idealism, Grass for his love of plants and flowers.
Disfavoured types: Ghost, Dark, Psychic
Ashe hates deception and dishonour (Dark), is clever but not really intellectual (Psychic), and is afraid of ghosts (…Ghost).
Partner: Sawsbuck
If he’s going to become a knight, Ashe is going to need a mount. Sawsbuck has a nice plant theme that works for him, as well as a sort of “fairytale” aesthetic that suits Ashe’s idealistic worldview.
Other Pokémon: Decidueye, Slurpuff, Whimsicott, Linoone (Hoennese), Leafeon
Decidueye is a problem because it’s a Ghost-type, but Ashe is by default an archer, and a Grass-type archer Pokémon seemed too perfect to pass up. Leafeon is a smol Grass-type warrior. Linoone flies straight like an arrow, while Whimsicott runs interference and is a good fit for Ashe’s past as a thief. And Slurpuff helps him cook!
Ingrid Brandl Galatea
- Daughter of a minor and relatively poor noble family in Fantasy Prussia
- Very serious and no-nonsense, but has a compassionate streak
- Also a badass Valkyrie knight with a flying horse
- Has absolutely zero time for nice clothes or makeup
- Still looks stunning, all the time
- Father wants to marry her off to someone richer and more important to advance their family politically
- This is bull$#!t and she is having none of it
- Dorothea would 100% turn gay for her and honestly I see the appeal
- Who am I kidding, Dorothea is definitely bi already
- She is perfect and I love her
Favoured types: Flying, Fighting, Ice
Ingrid’s “default” class progression makes her a flying cavalry unit, so obviously she favours Flying Pokémon. She’s extremely dedicated to knightly ideals and combat training, hence Fighting, and is from a cold part of the world and has kind of a Valkyrie aesthetic, hence Ice.
Disfavoured types: Ground, Fairy, Electric
Ingrid tends to stay off the ground as much as possible. She also has no patience for beauty or glamour, things I associate with both the Fairy and Electric types.
Partner: Swanna
An elegant and fast-flying Pokémon who can spear enemies from the sky, Swanna is a pretty natural fit for Ingrid’s fighting style.
Other Pokémon: Cryogonal, Glaceon, Mienshao, Hawlucha, Fearow
Ingrid mainly favours Pokémon who, even if they can’t exactly fly, are relatively comfortable in the air, like the levitating Cryogonal and the acrobatic Hawlucha and Mienshao. Fearow can fight alongside Ingrid and Swanna in the air. Glaceon shares her weirdly effortless elegance.
That’s two houses out of three, and number three – the Golden Deer house – is up… probably late next week I guess?
Pokémaniacal 
1) I have trouble mentally putting Sylvain into Blue Lions because he was in my first house (Black Eagles) nearly from the start – his recruitment requirements are either half high charm and reason, or be a woman. Seriously, I played as female Byleth and could recruit him the moment recruitments opened up. I sure got to experience the “Jesus Christ, Sylvain” from the start!
2) To your comment that Dorothea is “definitely bi already”, I’m not sure if you realize but she IS a bi option. As female Byleth, I romanced her… who am I kidding, she romanced me. 😂 But she most definitely is 200% bi and was happily married to me in the epilogue.
3) Any chance you’ll do the remaining characters (knights of Seiros and fantasy Pope babe) after Golden Deer? Enjoying this mini series, and curious who you’d pair with the last few characters (plus your summaries of each character are #relatable).
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Huh. I thought the only female bi options were Edelgard and Mercedes. Dorothea definitely *seems* like she might be open to romance with a number of female characters – Ingrid, Petra, maybe Edelgard, even some of her conversations with Manuela could arguably be taken that way.
And yes, I do have some material prepared for the Knights, and for the Ashen Wolves as well – they’ll be up after the Deer.
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Oh no, Dorothea is definitely a bi option, given I married her. It’s a really cute ending too. I was surprised Manuela wasn’t bi because she flirts with Byleth constantly, even when Byleth is female!
And how could I forget the Wolves???
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Dorothea is so bi that you can pair her with Petra, herself only available to Male Byleth, and their ending clearly implies they’re much more than friends.
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Haven’t played the game, incredibly disappointed that apparently you can’t be gay with Sylvain. Especially given I wasn’t expecting you could be gay at all? But apparently you can with only a few given characters? That’s just rubbing salt in the wound.
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Sylvain is a bit too girl crazy to be believably bi, IMO. And yeah, only a handful of bi options exist, but it’s an improvement over the previous title which had only one same sex option for each gender. Games before that didn’t even have any (despite Awakening having a woman who’s obsessed with the protagonist regardless of gender). Fire Emblem has slowly been getting inclusive, but at a frustratingly slow pace. I wouldn’t expect the entire cast to be bi (sure, it’s freedom of choice, but it’s realistic to at least have a few absolutely straight characters), but having 3 or less choices if you want to play a gay protagonist is just… sad. Thank god Dorothea is so stunning, I didn’t have Mercedes in my first playthrough snd… Edelgard is cool but intimidating, I don’t think I’d want to marry her.
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I mean, is it unrealistic for everyone to be queer? Sure. But it’s less unrealistic than it is for a likable character to be cishet. If we’re going for utter realism let’s add some aro-aces and same-gender only romances.
Plus, think of the dynamic: “straight” boy constantly flirts with women, turns red as a tomato and questions sexuality when man flirts with him.
But if there’s three queer romance options per gender, are there no bi girls in the last house? Also, what are the three gay male choices in this game? (How much taste do these devs have?)
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Baby steps. Nintendo is a fairly conservative Japanese company, it’s progress we got a handful of bi characters in the series.
It’s not super relevant that all houses have a bi option because most characters can be recruited into any house – off the top of my head, only Edelgard is house exclusive of the bi options. So they aren’t equally spread. I’m not sure which characters actually are bi options for the males though, as I generally play as a female unless I’m trying to woo a straight female character. I’m personally not into men, so I would have to go out of my way to research that.
That being said, it’s also hard to tell who is a bi option without looking at every support ending. Generally the marriage options are characters you can reach S support with, but marriage happens after you beat the game (you can only S rank with one character and you get an ending with them), and well… for example, one male character (Alois) is a man in his 30s (I think? Might be lates 20s, I forgot, but he’s older) with a wife and daughter. He can reach S rank with Byleth of either gender. I was baffled at first that it implied you could marry this man, regardless of gender, and split up his family. Turns out the ending with him does NOT result in marriage (you marry no one but I think become his best friend). It’s the only S rank ending I know of you can get that isn’t marriage and is available regardless of gender, but that existence means there might be other characters I’m not aware of that appear to be bi endings (as in, an S rank is an option) but just result in best friends. The only way I can think of to confirm this is to either beat the game with every one of those endings or look them up (and I like eventually finding the endings myself). Chris might have a better idea of which male bi options there are and what their endings are like.
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To be fair, Sylvain only acts girl-crazy because he wants to either drive them all away or find one who he can be certain doesn’t just want to marry into Big Magic Powers Nobility
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The weird thing is there’s definitely dialogue that implies Sylvain is bi… but apparently not.
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Oh is there? I missed that!
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I’m thinking of his first(?) support conversation with Flayn, where she talks about all the rumours she’s heard about him. She says he’s known for seducing both women and men, and he doesn’t contradict her.
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I know nothing about Fire Emblem but I always love this kinda nonsense XD
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As far as working backwards from the Pokemon you gave Felix, both of them are Bug/Flying and I think it makes more sense to choose the latter; it’s the type of THE Turning Swallow Cut, after all (Aerial Ace in English).
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Hmmm – now I see an incredibly far-fetched and ridiculous reason for Grass to be super-effective against Flying.
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Especially far-fetched due to the fact that Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, Japan’s answer to Excalibur, literally translates to “grass-cutting sword”…
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(They should totally make a Grass-type attack called “Oar Slam” or something that works in the manner of Freeze-Dry against Flying-types, though!)
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What the hell is up with Dedue, is he supposed to be a servant that comes with Dimitri or is he just 30 years younger than he looks? Like, these guys are early twenties tops, right? Dedue looks like a fifty year old at least. Hell, Hubert looks like he could be forty, too.
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He’s just the token representative of Japan’s desire to make a darker skinned light/white haired character. He really is around the same age as the rest – FE wiki has him listed as 18.
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I definitely like your take on all of these in this series. It’s always a lot of fun thinking about pokemon to match with characters from a completely different game!
Seeing Corviknight on Edelgard’s entry got me curious too. While I do agree with your take on Dimitri, doing some digging I learned that if he learns any magic it’s the thunder/thoron spells. Which is justification enough for me to say I could totally see him with a Luxray too – giving him a Blue Lion to counter Edelgard’s Black Eagle.
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Oooh. Luxray would be a good call for Dimitri. I didn’t really think about what magic he gets since it’s a much less realistic option for him than it is for Edelgard, but that reasoning makes a lot of sense.
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