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Characters in Fire Emblem Three Houses
A Ludo Mix Perspective
Joleen Blom
Transactions of the Digital Games Research AssociationMarch 2021, Vol. 5 No 2, pp. 101-130. ISSN 2328-9422Š The text of this work is licensed under a CreativeCommons Attribution â NonCommercial âNonDerivative4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/ 2.5/).IMAGES: All images appearing in this work are property ofthe respective copyright owners, and are not released intothe Creative Commons. The respective owners reserve allrights
ABSTRACT
The article focuses on how dynamic game characters createfriction in a ludo mix strategy consisting of primarily ludic media,disturbing the narrative coherency that trans- or cross-mediastrategies strive for. In particular, dynamic game characters, witha development structure that the player influences, cause narrativeinconsistencies with the characterâs transmedia appearances. Yet,in Japanese media and ludo mixes, character proliferation is thenorm so that different versions of the same character can existwithout any issues of narrative coherency. Through a case studyof the Fire Emblem: Three Houses ludo mix, this article arguesthat the Japanese concept of the kyara, a proto-character,demonstrates to be an excellent means to avoid a clash between
101
the dynamic game character in one work and its appearance inanother work. It concludes that through the use of the kyara, theIP owner avoids any clash between the dynamic game characterâsappearance in its source work and its appearance in other ludicworks, thereby giving the impression that the playerâs agencyover the dynamic game character stays intact.
Keywords
Ludo mix, dynamic game character, Fire Emblem Three Houses,kyara, kyarakutÄ
INTRODUCTION
Game characters do not just appear in games. They travel fromgame to game, from medium to medium and from story to story.Although game characters require their own medium-specificanalytical framework, they need one that is situated in a largermedia ecology that takes their different counterparts intoconsideration, because games create tension in cross-mediatransfers, as the underlying ludic structure of the game cannot beadapted to non-ludic media such as most novels, comics, or films.Game characters add to this cross-media tension, so that whenthey are dynamic â that is, when the player has creative agencyover their developmentâthey obtain multiply identities within asingle work. These identities are difficult to sustain in trans- andcross-media strategies such as media and ludo mixes. Since amedia mix is a commercial strategy to spread content across avariety of media platforms and objects (Steinberg 2012), a ludomix can then be considered a variant of a media mix in whichgames are the focal point of the strategy. As a result of havingmultiple identities, dynamic game characters tend to be pushed toa peripheral position in the transmedia network in which theyappear, giving the player only the illusion of creative agency(Blom 2020a).
102 Joleen Blom
This article is a continuation of my article âThe Manifestations ofGame Characters in a Media Mix Strategyâ (Blom 2020b) on theinfluence of dynamic game characters in the Persona 5 (P-Studio2016) ludo mix. Here I argue that, although characters do nothave to have a fixed coherent identity in the Persona 5 ludo mix,the ludo mixâs intellectual property (IP) owner, Atlus, maintains aposition of authority to determine which identity of the dynamicgame characters should be counted as normative, and which asheresy. Persona 5 manifests as a ludo mix in which officialadaptations by Atlus focuses only on the gameâs overarchingnarrative, ignoring the system of affection segments in which theplayer facilitates relationships between the gameâs protagonist,Joker, and other characters (mostly of a romantic nature). On theother hand, peripheral comic magazines â such as the Persona 5Comic Anthology (DNA Media Comics 2017a; 2017b) â thatobtained the copyright to use the character images, doacknowledge the relationships between characters in their shortâwhat-ifâ stories exploring the different relationships betweenJoker and the other characters. However, this acknowledgmentonly occurs on the condition that the depiction of everyrelationship neatly corresponds to the relationships presented bythe game. No story opposes the source workâs originalrelationships. If anyone wants to see alternative queer readings ofthese relationships, they will have to go to fan works that have notobtained any copyright permission. This strategy of whichrelationships are normative and which are heresy implies that thecreative agency that the player has in Persona 5 is ultimately ofsecondary value to the gameâs overarching narrative structure.
Nevertheless, this was but a single case study of a ludo mixstrategy with dynamic game characters, mostly comprised of non-ludic media, such as manga or anime. Therefore, I find itimperative to explore other ludo mix strategies to understand howdynamic game characters cause friction with their counterparts inother media. Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Three Houses) makesfor a good additional case study, because the Three Houses ludomix has a different structural organization; it consists mostly of
Fire Emblem Three Houses 103
games. With the exception of the peripheral online comic, âFireEmblem Heroes â a Day in the Lifeâ (Intelligent Systems 2017),the Three Houses ludo mix has its characters also appear in thegames: Fire Emblem: Heroes (Intelligent Systems 2017) andSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate (Bandai Namco Studios 2018). Theconnection between these three games make up this articleâs casestudy. Doing so, this article examines the tension created bydynamic game characters in media and ludo mixes as a result ofgames conveying an illusion of creative agency over the identityof the character to the player, while the dominant identity of thecharacters is (for commercial reasons) presented in the mediamixâs other media platforms. It therefore engages with thequestion: how do dynamic game characters create tension inmedia and ludo mixes?
This article uses the theoretical distinction between the kyara, avisual icon without a story, and the kyarakutÄ, a dramatis personathat develops as a person in a story, from Japanese media studies,to explain what strategy the Three Houses ludo mixâs IP owner,Nintendo, adopts to avoid a clash between the multiple identitiesof its dynamic game characters. Japanese scholarly work oftenuses the kyara to explain the overabundance of incoherentinformation about a character in a media mix (Wilde 2019), orconsiders it a touchpoint for new consumers to a ground ofproducts in a media mix (Nakamura and Tosca 2019, 3 â 4). Thisarticle however, adds to those functions that Nintendoâs use of thekyara actively serves to avoid clashes in the coherence ofdynamic game charactersâ identity when the figures spread overmultiple works. It argues that, even when a ludo mix containsmultiple ludic works, the IP owner seems reluctant to add a storyto the characters outside of Three Houses, in order to potentiallyavoid any clashes with character coherence in their source workand their appearances in other ludic works.
104 Joleen Blom
THE MEDIA MIX: KYARA AND THE KYARAKUTÄ
The phenomenon of media convergence is known in Japan as themedia mix, which, as stated before, refers to a commercialstrategy to spread content across a variety of media platforms andobjects. Steinberg (2012) describes the media mix as the âcross-media serialization and circulation of entertainment franchisesâ(vii). It has its own history and development alongside of what weknow as media convergence in Europe and North-America (alsocalled the âWestâ) (vii). In the âWestâ, common labels used forthe phenomenon of media convergence are âtransmediastorytellingâ (Jenkins 2006; 2007), âtransmedial worldsâ(Klastrup and Tosca 2004), or âtransmedia practiceâ (Dena 2009),among others.
Unlike transmedia storytelling, in which the coherence of storiesis of primary interest (Jenkins 2007), in a media mix, charactersare the focus point that connect different media, stories andobjects with each other (Steinberg 2012, 83). Characterproliferation is the means for all these media platforms toconnect, as characters appear in different stories and settings thatdo not necessarily have to make any coherent or continuoussense. As a result, multiple versions of the same character existand continue to proliferate as they hop from one medium toanother.
Works on transmedia storytelling took off in the early 2000s, butJapanese works on the media mix have been around since the late1980s. In 1989, Ĺtsuka defined the concept ânarrativeconsumptionâ (Ĺtsuka 1989; [1989] 2010) to describe howindividual narratives of characters enables consumers to graduallylearn about the world in which they live. Through theaccumulations of multiple small narratives of the characters, theconsumer comes to see a grand narrative, the world behind thecharacters so that the consumer comes to understand what ishappening in that world (Ĺtsuka 1989; [1989] 2010).
Fire Emblem Three Houses 105
Ĺtsukaâs work remains largely untranslated, but one of the fewtranslated works on the topic of the Japanese media mix isAzumaâs Database Consumption ([2001] 2009). Within this work,Azuma responds to Ĺtsukaâs concept of ânarrative consumptionâ,claiming that the ânarrative consumptionâ Ĺtsuka speaks aboutcollapsed with the entrance of postmodernity. According to him,the collapse resulted in the phenomenon in which, for the otaku
1,
the character becomes the most important object of a work (31).Contrasting narrative consumption, Azuma names the consumingbehaviour of the otaku âdatabase consumptionâ, which refers tootaku consuming the aggregated elements of characters andsettings, but not the grand narrative (54). The database he speaksof consists of these aggregated elements based on the moe,feelings of desire towards a fictional character that they mightinvoke, which could be cute cat ears, sailor uniforms, or specifictypes of hair, and more. From this database, different elementscan be put together to form a new figure, towards which one hasfeelings of desire, and placed in a new context.
To account for all the different versions of a character, Japanesetheorists and scholars of Japanese media studies distinguishbetween the kyarakutÄ and the kyara (Wilde 2019, 5), first coinedby ItĹ GĹ (2005). In his â still largely untranslated â book,Tetsuka izu Deddo, ItĹ describes the former as a dramatispersona, a person who gives the impression of being born into alife and also having the possibility to die in that life (120). Thekyara, on the other hand, is just a âproto-characterâ, a visual iconthat only looks like a character; it precedes the kyarakutÄ before itactually becomes a character (116). The main aspect of the kyarais its versatility to be repurposed for many different contexts.Wilde explains that kyara function essentially as hubs orinterfaces that can be placed and used in many different contexts(7). For example, in manga, or dĹjinshi
2, kyara function more
1. Otaku are men, usually between 18 and 40 years old, who obsessively consume popular
cultural products, such as anime, manga, or games.
2. DĹjinshi are self-published fan magazines by amateurs depicting alternative stories
involving the characters of a particular media or ludo mix.
106 Joleen Blom
akin fictional persons, whereas as figurines they are merely avisual representation. This means that, unlike the kyarakutÄ, thekyara is a character without story, which, according to Wilde, isnot because the image is not grounded in a lack of narrativeinformation, but rather, it is âbased on the (over)abundance ofcompeting and utterly incoherent informationâ (2019, 6).Although Wilde considers them hubs or interfaces, Azuma, in theuntranslated book GÄmuteki riarizumu no tanjĹ (2007, 125),explains the kyara to be meta-monogatariâteki na setsuten, meta-narrative nodes that can be placed in different narrative contexts.As nodes, they enable the possibility of a meta-monogatariâtekina sĹzĹryoku no kakusan, proliferation of the power of meta-narrative imagination, that lets consumers imagine the characterin separate stories, which includes not only the original worksfrom the same author, but also derivative works from otherauthors. In short, what can be gathered from these explanations isthat, while the kyara can be considered a visual clichĂŠ useful to beplaced into different settings, the theoretical distinction betweenthe kyara and the kyarakutÄ operates as a theoretical spectrum tomake sense of the different narrative settings in which thecharacter appears due to the media mixâs focus on characterproliferation.
Most discussions on the distinction between the kyara and thekyarakutÄ remain untranslated to the English language, butgradually, more articles in English on the topic are starting toappear, which can be particularly useful to understand the morepragmatic use of the kyara in a media mix. Such an article comes,for example, from Nakamura and Tosca (2019), who describe thekyara functioning as a ârecognizable archetypeâ (12) in differentseries and media entertainment that do not have to make anycontinuous linear sense. They explain that, as the IP holdersurrounds consumers of a particular media mix with IP-relatedproducts in the form of the kyara, fans can choose whateverproduct they want to consume. Simultaneously, this allows the IPholder to create âmore touchpoints to newcomers to a ground ofproductsâ (4). In other words, besides a visual image without
Fire Emblem Three Houses 107
story, the kyara is part of the consumer strategy of the IP holdersto attach as many possible consumers to their media mix aspossible.
DYNAMIC GAME CHARACTERS IN A LUDO MIX
The Japanese video game industry is characterised by the mediamix (Picard and Pelletier-Gagnon 2015, 3). This industry isshaped on a local scale by marketing strategies, on a nationalscale by industrial transformations, and on a global scale bycreative and technological developments (3). Picard calls theparticular media ecology of Japanese games âgeemuâ (2013), asthe Japanese video game industry operates âat the crossing ofelectronics, computer, amusement and content industries in Japanâand technological and artistic developments â from the hardwareto the softwareâ (2013). Manga or anime are usually the mainmedia platforms for a media mix (ItĹ 2005; Lamarre 2009; 2018;Napier 2001; Steinberg 2012), but games increasingly occupy thefocal point in the consumption of a media mix strategy as well.Although one of the best internationally known media mixexamples would be the PokĂŠmon franchise (Allison 2004; 2006),more recent examples include Nier: Automata (PlatinumGames2017), Persona 5 (P-Studio 2016), Animal Crossing: NewHorizons (Nintendo 2020), Final Fantasy VII Remake (SquareEnix 2020), and this articleâs case study: Fire Emblem: ThreeHouses, to name just a few.
A ludo mix presents its own challenges in consumer strategies:games tend to cause friction in trans- or cross-media strategies,disturbing the narrative coherency that transmedia storytellingstrives for, as they structurally differ from non-ludic media(Aarseth 2006). This friction is usually dismissed by relegatinggames to peripheral, ancillary elements of, and gateways to, atransmedia storyworld (Aarseth 2006; Bateman 2014; Evans2008; Harvey 2015; Wolf 2012). Yet, in a ludo mix, as gamesbecome the anchor on which the strategy operates, the
108 Joleen Blom
incoherency that games create, cannot be concealed. According toAldred (2012), game characters especially tend to cause issues inmovie-to-game cross-media transfers, because they have to act asthe embodiment of players in the game world, whilesimultaneously they have to function as film characterstransported to the game (91). She explains that the friction lies inthe duality in which film characters are tied to the seeminglyrealistic representations of the actors playing them, whereas gamecharacters primarily operate on their functionality in the gamespace (100). Although other scholars such as Thon and SchrĂśter(SchrĂśter and Thon 2014; SchrĂśter 2016) describe gamecharacters as more than just functions in game spaces, explainingthe entities as intersubjective communication constructs to beexperienced by players as fictional beings, game pieces, andrepresentations of others respectively, Aldred (2012) points to theexpectations and constraints movie-to-game characters are boundto as the representative of their filmic manifestations. Thestructural differences between games and non-ludic media forcethe movie-to-game character to be coherent with its filmiccounterpart, rather than being a locus of agency and subjectivityfor the player to experience the game world with (102).
It is within this friction between games and other, often non-ludic,media that the dynamic game character becomes relevant. In anearlier study, I explain (Blom 2020a) that dynamic gamecharacters are a type of video game character with a developmentstructure that branches into different outcomes. These outcomesare undetermined until the player actualises one or morepossibilities that influence the direction of the development ontodistinct branches with a specific outcome. The actualisation ofthese possibilities has structural consequences for how the playercontinues to traverse the game as they open up a certain path andthereby close off another path of that characterâs development(Blom 2020, 146). For example, choosing to destroy Maelonâsdata in Mass Effect 2 (Bioware 2010) has major consequences forEve in Mass Effect 3 (Bioware 2012), who dies because there isnot enough knowledge of her condition to save her. Had the
Fire Emblem Three Houses 109
player chosen to keep Maelonâs data, Eve would have survived.This means that the player has creative agency over the identity ofthat character, so that, as a result, different players can end upwith vastly different versions of the same figure.
Given that characters are the devices through which mediaplatforms and objects connect in media, it becomes relevant toperceive how the dynamic game character creates additionaltension to the already existing friction between games and non-ludic media in trans- and cross-media strategies â such as theludo mix.
SHAPING DESTINIES IN THREE HOUSES
Three Houses is the newest instalment of a long line of gameswithin the Fire Emblem (FE) series. The player takes on the roleof Byleth, a mercenary-turned-professor at Garreg MachMonastery, the headquarters for the Church of Seiros and theOfficer Academy. Although Byleth is the figure that the playerdirectly controls, the player has, in fact, agency to influence awhole cast of different dynamic game characters. Each characterhas their own specific statistics, conditions, possibilities andlimitations that the player influences throughout differentsegments of the game. This influence spans across the gameâsmacrostructure (Backe 2012), the overarching narrative structure,and the gameâs microstructure containing different segments andevents, including battle, cooking, dinner, support, or tea partysegments contributing to the charactersâ development.
Agency in the overarching narrative
The gameâs macrostructure can be pictured as a four-branchnarrative tree with four different main outcomes, depending onwhich house the player opts to be the leading professor. At thestart of the game, the player chooses between three houses: theBlue Lions, Golden Deer or the Black Eagles, each represented by
110 Joleen Blom
its respective house leader, Dimitri, Claude, or Edelgard. Thischoice bears heavy structural consequences for how the playerwill traverse the game: each house will present the player with adifferent story route, and a different ending. As the leadingprofessor of the Golden Deer house, the player will enter theupcoming war with Claude to open FĂłdlan to the outside world.Choosing Dimitriâs house, the Blue Lions, leads the player on aroute towards revenge, as Dimitri has sworn to kill Edelgard, theleader of the third house, the Black Eagles. Choosing the BlackEagles gives the player two possible routes: as this narrativebranch unravels, the player can either choose to side with eitherEdelgard to create a unified FĂłdlan under the Empireâs power, orthey side with the Church of Seiros against the Empire. In short,because of this choice at the start of the game, the player caneffectively experience the gameâs story from four differentperspectives, all with different story outcomes, to experience themaximum of the gameâs content.
The choice for different narrative branches also bears structuralconsequences for the development of the characters. Each househas a group of students over which the player has a certainamount of influence, but that agency is limited to the house that isled by Byleth. For example, if Byleth leads Dimitriâs house, theBlue Lions, the player is able to influence the Blue Lionsstudentsâ development, which the player cannot do for students inthe Golden Deer or Black Eagles house, unless they specificallyrecruit these other students. Recruiting characters from the othertwo houses can be quite important to the player, because being inthe playerâs house ensures the studentsâ survival in the upcomingwar, a major plot point in the gameâs macrostructure. However,this recruitment depends on the combination of the (skill)statistics that the different students prefer, and Bylethâsacquisition of those specific statistics. During my play of theGolden Deer route, I managed to recruit Felix, Sylvain andDorothea, because my Bylethâs statistics for her sword and magicskills were high enough, and the character was female (thecondition to recruit Sylvain). However, especially in the first
Fire Emblem Three Houses 111
playthrough, it is incredibly difficult to raise all Bylethâs statistics,as the resources are scarce and increase only slowly throughoutthe overarching narrative story when Bylethâs level also increases.As such, the player will be unable to recruit all available studentsin a single playthrough â with deadly consequences. For example,I tried to recruit Ferdinand from the Black Eagles house into theGolden Deer house, but due to my low dexterity and heavyarmour skills I could not persuade him. Only death awaited him.
As such, the choice of house determines which narrative branchthe player will unravel in the overarching narrative, andsimultaneously affects the destinies of the dynamic gamecharacters within each branch. This choice bears particularlyheavy consequences for the house leaders, Dimitri, Claude andEdelgard, as â although Claude can survive the war in mostnarrative branches â Edelgard and Dimitri will always die outsideof their own narrative branch. That said, the player does have theagency to influence these characters by recruiting them into theirhouse so that their destiny in the overarching narrative would bedifferent than if they had stayed in one of the other houses.However, the playerâs agency does not simply stop there, since, asI will explain in the next section, the player will be able toinfluence the students with greater granularity in the gameâsmicrostructure than the gameâs macrostructure can provide. In themicrostructure the player obtains the creative agency to create andshape the relationships between the individual students andteachers to develop them as narrative entities and game piecesalike.
Dynamicity in the microstructure: romance and friendship
The dynamicity of the characters in this gameâs microstructure ismostly derived from the gameâs system of affection, a ludicprocess that lets the player facilitate relationships between gamecharacters (Blom 2020, 197). Several games from the FE seriesmake use of the system of affection, also known as a supportsystem in these series. Games that use the system of affection
112 Joleen Blom
include FE: Genealogy of the Holy War (Intelligent Systems1996), FE Awakening (Intelligent Systems 2012), and FE Fates(Intelligent Systems 2015). The latter two games, and ThreeHouses, have been using a so-called marriage system, broughtover originally from FE: Genealogy of the Holy War.
As the player recruits different students in their house, the playerobtains the possibility to create different connections betweendifferent students, and between Byleth and the studentsthroughout multiple segments of the game. For example, duringthe exploration mode, the player has the possibility to dine withtwo different students that strengthen the connection betweeneach student, and each student with Byleth. The students can alsosing, cook, or have a tea party with Byleth. In the battle mode, theplayer has the possibility to position students who fight next toeach other to strengthen their relationships. And, in theoverarching narrative segments, the player will sometimes choosebetween two to three answers that can strengthen â and alsoweaken â the connection between Byleth and the other student orteacher. Although the player has many opportunities to facilitatethese relationships, they can only facilitate these connectionsbetween a fixed set of characters: for some students the player isunable to create any kind of relationship at all, whereas for others,the player can only facilitate a certain kind of connection
3. No
matter how much I might wish it, the student Marianne will neverhave any kind of relationship with student Felix beyond what the
3. These limitations are specifically determined by the charactersâ gender. Byleth can
obtain an âSârank with one individual out of all characters from the opposite gender,
but only a limited amount out of the characters from the same gender. It is especially
striking that a female Byleth can have a rank of âSâ with five female characters:
Edelgard, Dorothea, Mercedes, Rhea, and Sothis, whereas a male Byleth can have an
âSâ rank with Lindhardt, Jeritza, Gilbert, and Alois, of which the latter two are
platonic relationships (Fandom n.d.; n.d.). This means that, despite the charactersâ
dynamicity, this dynamicity is limited by the heteronormative standards the game
maintains, and when it does allow queer relationships, it favours female-to-female
relationships. This could suggest one of two things: either the game is more
comfortable with the depiction of queerness between women, or the game caters to
the male gaze that objectifies womenâs sexuality aimed towards heterosexual men.
Fire Emblem Three Houses 113
overarching narrative dictates. Additionally, even if I were to tryto facilitate a connection between her and the student Sylvain, thisconnection will not surpass rank âBâ.
The facilitation of relationships between characters rewards theplayer in two ways: first, the player obtains stronger game units inbattle. When two or more characters with a relationship rank ofâCâ or above are within three squares of each other, they receivebonuses in their statistics, making it easier to win from difficultenemies. Second, the player receives additional narrative content.This reward is particularly important, because the system ofaffection in Three Houses is ultimately a meaningful experienceon the narrative side of the character. When the player puts intime and non-trivial effort to facilitate relationships betweencharacters, they are rewarded with special conversations betweenthe characters whose connection they strengthened, which canreveal additional information about these figuresâ backgrounds.For instance, the relationships between Byleth and Dimitri,Claude and Edelgard can only be strengthened if the player haschosen their respective house. When the player reaches rank Cbetween Dimitri and Byleth, for example, they discover early inthe game that Dimitri lost his parents at a young age â his motherdue to illness, and his father and stepmother four years prior.They also learn that Dimitri was close to lord Rodrigue, the fatherof the student, Felix. If the player then also reaches rank âCâbetween Dimitri and Felix, they learn that Felix hates Dimitri,considering him more a beast than a human, due to the Dimitriâsruthless slaughter of a rebellion two years prior.
The information that the player receives through these meaningfulevents in the gameâs microstructure provides them with additivecomprehension. Additive comprehension is a term borrowed byHenry Jenkins from game designer, Neil Young (Jenkins 2006,123). It can be described as a term that refers to the additionalknowledge someone attains when they gain a piece of informationthat turns their perception of the situation around. Dimitri looksand acts like the prime example of a noble young heir to the
114 Joleen Blom
throne, but even before the player discovers the full extent ofDimitriâs dark past through the gameâs overarching narrativestructure, the system of affectionâs support scenes demonstrateDimitriâs bloodlust tendencies, showing that he is not who heinitially appears to be. Later, when confronted with rampaginginhabitants of the village of Remire, the player can interpretDimitriâs painful reaction to the scene as bloodlust, rather thansuddenly being ill or afraid of the sight â which is what the sceneinitially suggests. This interpretation was later confirmed byDimitri himself when he apologized for his behaviour at that time.In other words, it is in the microstructure in which the system ofaffection is most prominently present that the player is able todelve deeper into the characterâs background stories and the(initial) nature of their connections to the other students. As theplayer facilitates and strengthens these relationships between thecharacters, the information that the player obtains gives them thepossibility to interpret narrative segments from the gameâsmacrostructure in a different light.
That said, it is not only additive comprehension that the playerattains through facilitating these relationships. Additionally, theplayer can influence the individual endings that all (surviving)students will receive through the system of affection. The possibleendings differ slightly, depending on which story route the playertakes, but the biggest differences between the students depend onwhich partner the characters end up with. When the playermanages to bring Dimitri and Byleth together â have themmarried, that isâ Dimitriâs individual ending will look asfollows:
Paired with the end of war, the joyous marriage of Byleth, thenewly-appointed archbishop, and Dimitri, the newly-crowned kingof Farghus, gave the people of FĂłdlan much to celebrate. The twowere devoted to improving life for the people and to seeking greaterwisdom in order to reform the government and the church from theinside out. As leaders of church and state respectively, at times theyengaged in heated debate. Even still, when enjoying a long horseride or a quiet evening, they were not as the world saw them, but
Fire Emblem Three Houses 115
rather two adoring spouses, desperately in love. They remained assuch for the rest of their days. (Intelligent Systems 2019)
Most dynamic game characters in this game will have a similarending, provided they have a partner. If Dimitri ends up withoutany partner, his ending describes his focus for making hisgovernment more participative in his reign, listening to all kindsof voices, which grants him the title of Savior King.
All in all, it can be said that the granularity to which ThreeHouses lets the player influence these dynamic game charactersprimarily operates on the system of affection. This system makesthe game characters become dynamic, and as such, enables theplayer to create meaningful experiences that they can enjoy asthey influence relationships between characters, based on theirown personal preferences and limitations of the game.
CHARACTERS IN THREE HOUSESâ LUDO MIX
At the time of writing, Nintendo, the IP owner, does not seem tohave granted a copyright license to have Three Houses adaptedinto a manga or an anime. This does not mean that the charactersdo not make any appearance outside of the main game at all. Ascharacter proliferation is the main aspect for media and ludo mixstrategies, the Three Housesâ ludo mix has its characters appear inthe mobile phone game Fire Emblem: Heroes (Heroes) and inSuper Smash Bros Ultimate (SSBU), both on the Nintendo Switchand intellectual property of the Nintendo company. Since both ofthese platforms are ludic media, which means they have thestructure to uphold dynamic game characters, it is relevant to seehow a ludo mix strategy consisting of primarily games engageswith the tension that dynamic game characters bring to thedifferent ludic works.
116 Joleen Blom
Fire Emblem: Heroes
Heroes is a free-to-play game, available to any player as long asthey have access to the internet on their smartphone. The gameconsists of six different battle modes, of which I will focus on theso-called âStory Mapsâ that contain the narrative structure. Thisstory mode includes a âmain storyâ, âparaloguesâ and three otherâmapsâ in which the player can refresh the rules of the battles, orobtain additional skills for the fighters. The main story iscurrently divided into four different books consisting of differentchapters. In each chapter, the player is presented with a map, thegameâs battle segments, in which they must defeat the opponentsto progress to another chapter. The gameâs story is told throughcut-scenes appearing before and after the map. It follows theadventures of Alfonse and his sister Elena, the prince and princessof Askr Kingdom, and the player who dons the role of thesummoner able to transport FE heroes from other worlds intoAskr Kingdom. Technically, the player can completely ignore thestory mode and its paralogues, and still play the other battlemodes just fine, but it is beneficial to go through the differentchapters, as it will reward the player with new heroes that theplayer can use for the battle segments.
The summoning of different heroes is one of the main features ofthe game. These characters can be obtained with the in-gamecurrency of orbs that the player obtains by logging in,participating in special events, or clearing battle maps, amongothers. The player spends these orbs through a mechanic adaptedfrom gachapon
4machines, vending machines with capsule toys
found in Japan, that the player of Heroes uses to exchange four tofive orbs per round to receive a single random hero. The chancesof summoning a five-star hero, the highest rated heroes with thebest abilities and statistics, are very low; so low that Nintendooften creates special events to allow players to obtain these kinds
4. Gachapon are vending machines in Japan, dispensing capsule toys. By throwing in a
certain amount of money (usually between 100 â 500 yen), consumers can obtain a
random mini-figurine from a determined set of figurines.
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of heroes through different means other than pure luck. One of theopportunities to receive a Three Housesâ character was thatplayers who used the same Nintendo account for their copy ofThree Heroes on the Switch, and for their copy of FE: Heroes,could receive the male version of Byleth. The female Byleth onthe other hand, can still only be received through the gachaponmechanic, and has therefore been much harder to obtain. What thestatistics of the characters suggests is that these characters aregame pieces to be possessed and used, rather than characters withtheir own story development.
The treatment continues throughout the entire game. The heroeslack the distinctive impression of being a character, functioninginstead as kyara more than as dramatis personae. Thecharacterization of the heroes happens through beautiful visualimages and voice lines. The characters are drawn by differentartists, with each character unit containing four different images:a ânormalâ image, an âattackâ image, a âspecialâ image, and aâdamageâ image. Each character also has several voice lines theyutter when the player taps on them in the character screen, duringbattle, or when the character is summoned. For example, one ofBylethâs voice lines is: âMy heartbeat isâŚnot what you expectedit to beâ, which does not exactly give away what is so unexpectedabout their heart beat, but a player familiar with the source work,Three Houses, will know it refers to Bylethâs lack of heartbeat.Yet, their âcharacter-nessâ does not extend beyond the visual andaudible representation, that is, beyond the kyara. They might lookand sound like characters, but unlike the story-driven dramatispersonae from Three Houses, these heroes lack the story to turnthem into dramatis personae. In this game, the heroes functiononly as game pieces, and are just as replaceable as the playerâspieces in a game of chess. All their visual images and voice linesdo is refer to the charactersâ source works, from which theyborrow their sense of âcharacter-nessâ, and even then, only on thecondition that the player is familiar with that source work. Inshort, these heroes function as kyara because they completelydepend on the intertextual support from their source works to give
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some impression that they are a character, but aside from that,they lack any story in Heroes itself to give that impression.
On top of that, despite the game having a story mode, thenarrative structure can be entirely ignored as the game focuses onthe heroes primarily as game pieces whose abilities and statisticsare of importance to the battle segments. The number of stars theyhave and their statistics and abilities are aspects of the characterthat the game constantly asks the player to strengthen and level upby giving them not only orbs, but also feathers, and the skillpoints they obtain by completing battle segments. These statisticsonly matter for the battle modes, and add almost nothing to thegameâs story mode. Even so, in the battle mode of the story, thebattleâs mechanics is extremely minimized in comparison to thebattle mode in Three Houses. In Three Houses the battle modematters for the improvement of the charactersâ relationships, asthe charactersâ positions next to each other raises their affection.In Heroes the battle mode matters not because there is no systemof affection; all the heroesâ position on the battlefield determinesis how high their statistics are, to increase the chances ofdefeating the opponent. The only aspects that the player hears orsees to give the heroes an impression of âcharacter-nessâ is theheroâs visual representation and voice lines when they use theunit. Yet, the same line is repeated so often that it can becomeannoying to the player. I took the hero, Shigure, out of my team,simply because I could not stand to hear the line: âI am Shigure!â,one more time.
The emphasis on the hero as a game piece is also clear in the mainstory mode. In this mode, regardless of the heroes the playerchooses for their battalion, the characters in the story mode ignorethe heroesâ appearances, and only acknowledge the charactersthat have been scripted to be in a particular battle segment, thatare usually, if not most of the time, the opponents. Additionally, ifthe player places the character on their team that is also on theopposite team, the game ignores it. Two or even three characterscan exist in the same battle at the same time, and it will not make
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a difference to the story. The player can even have the samecharacter twice or more in their database of heroes, with the onlydifference being the star rate and therefore different skills andstatistics. In other words, as far as their âcharacter-nessâ goes, itdoes not go beyond the heroesâ visual images and their voicelines, which refer to the source work they appear in. This is quiteconvenient since it means that Bylethâs dynamicity from ThreeHouses does not clash with any story that Heroes might depict.Rather, as Byleth is without story in Heroes, only existing as acharacter on the level of intertextual references to its source work,the game avoids any friction in Bylethâs character coherence.Bylethâs function as a kyara in Heroes makes it so that there is notension in character coherence between Heroes and Three Houses,because Heroes does not present a story to clash with.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Besides his/her appearance in Heroes, Byleth is also available asdownloadable content (DLC) in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate(SSBU), a crossover fighting game for the Nintendo Switch.When the player buys this DLC, Byleth joins the 63 othercharacters as a playable fighter whom the player(s) can choose touse to fight battles in the multi-player and single-player modes ofthe game. Other characters, such as Claude, Edelgard, or Dimitrionly appear in the background environment that comes with theDLC, but cannot be engaged with otherwise.
Characters play a large role in the fighting game genre. Accordingto Hutchinson (2019), unlike role-playing games or action-adventure games, characterization of the figures occurs primarilyin the gameâs peripherals, since the fighting game genre does notcontain hours upon hours of linear gameplay to flesh thecharactersâ backgrounds (Hutchinson, 2019, 71). Instead, thecharactersâ backgrounds and relationships are told throughperipheral segments such as the game environment associatedwith the figure, the opening cinematics, cut-scenes betweenfights, and the voice lines they utter before or after the fighting
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segments (Hutchinson, 2019, 73). âAll these pieces of story andcharacterization act like a puzzle, which players must piecetogether in their minds as they play through the gameâ(Hutchinson, 2019, 73).
One of the most important aspects to the fighters in the fightinggame genre are the moves of the character. Hutchinson (2019, 73)points out that characterization partially happens through playersbecoming familiar with the fightersâ move-sets. In Three Houses,the player controls Bylethâs fighting moves only through indirectcontrol due to the gameâs turn-based battle system; on thebattlefield it is just a matter of giving the character the order tofight, and Byleth will act on that order. In contrast, in SSBU theplayersâ direct control over Byleth lets them experience thecharacter in a more physical way. The characterâs fighting movesfrom Three Houses are translated into moves that the playerdirectly controls in SSBU. As a result, the character can becharacterized differently in one game than another. For example,to my surprise, Byleth moved slower in SSBU than in ThreeHouses, because I had always thought of the figure as a rather fastand light fighter. Instead, Bylethâs heavy movements changed myimpression of him/her, piecing together a different part of thepuzzle that makes up Byleth in SBBU.
That said, although the game attempts to characterize Byleththrough the aforementioned peripheral segments commonly usedin fighting games, as a cross-over fighting game, it ultimatelyemphasis the characterâs intertextual appearances,recontextualizing the figure as a kyara in a fighting game. Justlike Heroes, the game rewards the player by recognizing theintertextual references, which players unfamiliar with ThreeHouses might not understand. The example I use here is BylethâsâFinal Smashâ move. Each SSBU fighter has a âFinal Smashâ, anall-out attack so powerful that it usually knocks an opponent outof the fighting stage. They can only use it occasionally. Duringthe release of Bylethâs Final Smash, the goddess, Sothis, appears,while at the same time, Bylethâs visual appearance briefly
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changes to his/her god-form. The story behind this reference isutterly lacking, as nothing in SSBU even attempts to explain whyByleth has this move, why there is suddenly another characterpresent, or why Bylethâs appearance changes. In Three Houses,however, all these aspects are explained, as Three Houses revealsin any story route that Byleth is the reincarnation of the goddessSothis, and eventually merges with the goddess to gain theirultimate power. A player unfamiliar with Three Houses will notunderstand the intertextual reference, which is a significant factorof Byleth being a dramatis persona, whereas, a player familiarwith that game can interpret Bylethâs âFinal Smashâ as the figuretapping into his/her true potential, knowing the story behind thetransformation. In short, just as in Heroes, the story of Bylethremains in the characterâs source work, with SSBU just relying onthat story while offering no story in the game itself.
As such, even in this game, Byleth does not escape its fate as akyara, and operates primarily as a game piece without a story.The game relies on Bylethâs manifestation as a dramatis personain Three Houses to give a sense of âcharacter-nessâ, but does notgive Byleth a story that could potentially clash with thecharacterâs source work. Instead, by characterizing Byleth onlythrough its visual depiction and moveset, which intertextuallydepends on Bylethâs source work, SSBU stays neatly within thelines of Three Housesâ characterization of the figure. As a result,Nintendo avoids any conflict between Bylethâs differentmanifestations within Three Housesâ four story branches, andBylethâs manifestation in SSBU.
TENSION IN THREE HOUSESâ LUDO MIX?
Out of the three games discussed, only Three Houses presents itscharacters as dynamic, enabling the player to influence theoutcomes, fates and different nuances. Both Heroes and SSBUportray Byleth primarily on the level of the kyara in which his/hervisual image from the source work is used to recontextualize the
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character in a different setting, whose role is then adjustedaccordingly to fit the mechanics of the game. On top of that, thesystem of affection is nowhere to be found in both Heroes andSSBU. Rather, both games present the character more akin gamepieces than a dramatis persona with a story.
To come to my conclusion on how dynamic game characterscause friction in a ludo mix, I would like to return to Wildeâs(2019) and Nakamura and Toscaâs explanation (2019) on thekyara. As stated before, Wilde describes the kyaraâs existence asa theoretical concept grounded in the overabundance ofincoherent information to explain the entity as coherent (6) â as isoften the case for the Western understanding of characters (Blom2020). Nakamura and Tosca explain the kyara as touchpoints fornewcomers to the IPâs products. What I demonstrated through myanalysis of Bylethâs appearance in Three Houses, Heroes, andSSBU, is, however, that the kyara is not only an explanation forthe overabundance of incoherent information, nor simply atouchpoint, but it is also used by IP owners to strategically avoidclashes in character coherence â in particular, that of the dynamicgame character. The four different story routes of Three Heroesâoverarching narrative, and the system of affection on themicrostructure of the game gives the player agency to suchgranular detail over the dynamic game characters, that anytransfer to another medium not only clashes with the playerâs ownagency, but also with the macrostructure of the gameâs narrative.The Persona 5 ludo mix strategy showed that the IP owner, Atlus,has no issues ignoring the playerâs agency in their official mangaand anime adaptations, but in the case of Three Houses, the fourdifferent story routes pose another problem: which story routeshould the IP owner adapt? Adapting any story route to a mangaor anime would mean that Nintendo risks rejecting the narrativestructure they created, casting off three narrative branches whilegiving significant weight to the other branch. This would alsomean that one of the three house leaders, Claude, Edelgard orDimitri would be presented as bearing more significance than theothers. This is a risk that Nintendo might not want to take and
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could be a reason why Three Housesâ story may never be adaptedinto an official manga or anime.
It should be noted, however, that Three Houses is not a ludo mixcompletely separate from the previous FE ludo mixes, especiallythe ludo mix of Heroes. Heroes has an official â but peripheral âmanga series called âFire Emblem Heroes â a Day in the Lifeâ(Intelligent Systems 2017) available online in a selection oflanguages such as English and Japanese, and updated with a newpage every fortnight. The format of this manga is the yonkoma,four-panel comics meant to provoke laughter. Each page containsa what-if story written by different artists about the characters thatappear in Heroes. Since Heroes operates on summoningcharacters from previous games, this means that the yonkoma hasa rich cast of kyara that they could recontextualize in this short-story format. It provides the opportunity to show how characters,which usually do not appear in the same game, meet and interactwith each other through comical what-if situations, or they areused to make fun of Heroesâ mechanics. For instance, Bylethappears as two separate characters, just as in the game, Heroes.For example, the yonkoma âEat Up!â shows both male and femaleByleth in one panel, showing no problem at all that this istechnically not possible in Three Houses. Yet, this is entirelyappropriate, due to the yonkoma format of this manga, which isnot meant to be taken as the actual story of Three Houses, butrather as omake
5, little extra stories that stand apart from the main
narrative of any storytelling medium. These comics standcompletely separate from Heroes, and are not meant to beinterpreted as a continuation of any story.
A similar strategy occurs with Three Houses, Heroes, and SSBU.As demonstrated, neither SSBU nor Heroes clash with thedynamicity of the Three Houses characters. Both games
5. Omake are quite common in Japanese popular culture. In anime or manga series omake
often manifest as short comedy sketches at the end of an episode or volume that
depicts characters breaking the fourth wall by talking to the audience, or otherwise
being in comical situations, in general.
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completely ignore the dynamicity of Three Houses by not addingany story to the characters. The appearances of the characters inSSBU and Heroes remain on the level of the visual surface; theyfunction as kyara, recontextualized in the context of those twogames, whose characterization depends on the playerâsrecognition of the intertextual references to the source work,Three Houses. Therefore, the kyara shows to be an excellentmeans to avoid a clash between the dynamic game character inone work and its appearance in another work. It gives theimpression that the playerâs agency is still intact within the sourcework, and lets Nintendo off the hook of the problem of how totransfer the four-forked narrative to adapt to a non-ludic mediumthat is not meant to make light of or ridicule the intense andserious story that Three Houses presents. Of course, only timewill tell if Nintendo will actually adapt Three Housesâ story into amanga or anime, but if I were to bet money on it, Iâd bet againstit.
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