Today’s article has actually been finished for a while, but we elected not to post it as it was just finished on the day of voice actor Billy Kametz’s untimely passing. Today we present a character much beloved in the meme community, the man, the myth, the legend: he is Ferdinand von Aegir.
Ferdinand is a playable unit character in Fire Emblem Three Houses is a playable character unit from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, released on the Nintendo Switch in 2019. As we are familiar, the basic idea of the Fire Emblem franchise is to develop units for strategic RNG combat – Three Houses takes this a step further and allows you to develop the same units over an extended period of time along straight paths or to make lateral jumps into unrelated classes. This is especially true with today's subject, for reasons we will discuss.
Originating as a member of the Black Eagle house from the Adrestian Empire, Ferdinand fills a few roles within the party and within the narrative. Notably, he is the self-proclaimed rival of future-Emperor Edelgard, and scion son of House Aegir which has until the events of the game been in control of the Empire from the shadows of bureaucratic red tape. He touts the value of nobility both in story cut-scenes and in his support conversations, and his character arc is often considered one of the better written ones in the game. As a unit, he is the house's resident Horse Boy, and boasts no proficiency weaknesses (a trait only shared by a handful of other units), meaning that he can feasibly go down any class path with little effort – the tradeoff to this his notoriously difficult recruitment requirement of Heavy Armor proficiency.
When discussing Ferdinand, it is easy to know where to begin: he is referred to by majority of the fandom as "Sunshine Boy", and for good reason! From the very beginning of the game, Ferdinand is brimming with enthusiasm and a do-good energy in everything that he does – who here isn't familiar with his proclamation of his name every single time you select his unit in combat? His stringent adherence to things he considers a noble's duty are what make him such a rich character (pun intended), and he often chafes at some of the callousness of antagonist characters, wanting to insert himself into the forefront of the action when possible. But it isn't just with aggression that he displays his kindness – what sets him apart from other noble characters in the game is his willingness and his eagerness to listen to his companions, and his respect for their opinions once voiced. His association with nobility equating to good-heartedness is so deep that it is even ingrained into his character design – after the timeskip he sports an incredible mane of long hair, and when it comes up in conversation it is revealed that he fell into a depression at the reveal his family's involvement in villainy and simply didn't cut his hair for five years.
This pure-hearted naievety doesn't merely present itself in a do-good attitude, either. Because he was raised to believe he can do anything (and, with the right direction, he often can thanks to his skill proficiencies), Ferdinand can often make blindly optimistic decisions that have the potential to bite him in the butt. In one instance after hearing that Edelgard, his self-proclaimed eternal rival, was able to kill a monster on her own, his sheer belief in his superiority causes him to attempt to fight two monsters at the same time, leading to Byleth needing to step in to save his life. Another instance of this is during a conversation with Dorothea, who revealed she does not like him due to his pride in his noble stature – in response to this, Ferdinand bakes her pastries to win her over, and she promptly points out that he did none of the actual hard work of harvesting or refining the materials, leaving him flummoxed. This author would not go so far as to call him unintelligent, as it is clear he has all the benefit and privilege of his station and the private education that goes with it, but it must be addressed that for much of the game, Ferdinand has a shallow, rose-colored view of the world, and does little deep consideration of any given situation unless forced. Big thinker, this boy is not.
But now we must get into Ferdinand's himbo-deficiencies. Although handsome, Ferdinand is not necessarily spectacular in his physical stature. His in-game body model is similar to many of his peers, if a bit slighter, and any buffness is not something that comes up in conversation. His base Strength stat is on the higher side, but his base Strength growth is nothing special. While it is true that he often becomes an invaluable unit in most playthroughs, much of this is the result of careful strategizing using the class system rather than his inherent talents (which actually focus more on speed and hitting quickly multiple times) - because of heavy reliance on RNG, it is possible that Ferdinand may need some hand holding and special attention for his stats to fall in line.
But we could forgive a good beefy Ferdinand unit his physical faults if it were not for his unfortunate lack in the Chad department. This is not to say that Ferdinand is not a valued member of his teams, but it is to say that his teammates have to do rather more digging to get to his soft gooey center. While the player has the benefit of seeing Ferdinand as a whole, from the beginning of his arc to end, and with all characters, many of Ferdinand's peers find him obnoxious, abrasive, and stubbornly reliant on his privilege. Indeed, many of Ferdinand's initial support conversations are outright hostile, well into A support range – and unlike other hostile character interactions, Ferdinand is mostly the recipient of this bad blood through actions of his own doing. He stumbles and gets off on the wrong foot, and spends the rest of his support chains making up for his poor first impressions. It is through these conversations that he learns and grows as a person, but it is also through these conversations that we see that Ferdinand's classmates...initially don't like him all that much. Where we the audience see our beloved Sunshine Boy, the rest of Garreg Mach sees that loud rich kid who tells everyone else to get good without the benefit of his good intentions.
In the end, the real Ferdinand von Aegir were the friends we made along the way – but he is no Ferdinand von Himbo.
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