Fire Emblem Awakening, and why I dislike Sumia.
Now that I'm to the endgame of Fire Emblem Awakening (Well, at least my first playthrough), I wanted to give my opinion of the characters.
For the most part, I had a general good feeling about all the characters, my favorites being Sully, Tharja, Lon'qu, and Vaike. I went and married more for feels than anything, and I had a tough time choosing from the cast of first generation women...except one.
He name is Sumia, the first pegasus knight you get in the game.
Let me make one thing clear. I'm a man, and do not want anything to do with Chrom, other than making him a killer.
My dislike of Sumia first stems from her character portrait. For all the characters, they have regular weapons; besides Chrom, Lucina, Walhart, Yen'fay, and Priam. What is Sumia holding? Luna, one of the 'Regalia' weapons. What makes her so special that she gets to hold a (temporarily) rare weapon? With Chrom and Lucina, it's easy to understand, as Falchion is their sword, passed down by the previous exalts. Walhart's Wolf Berg, Yen'fay's Amatsu, and Priam's Ragnell are all personal weapons, though the latter two can be used by others. Is Luna Sumia's personal weapon? No.
Second is her personality and characterization. Sumia is a kind but klutzy and not confident in her abilities as a Shepard. But she is able to 'speak' to animals, and has a 'hidden strength that others don't'. She reads to escape her life and performs flower fortunes for self motivation. So she was able to calm down a pegasus that nearly trampled Chrom by just being herself, and can trip over her own two feet. What? That's not cute or unique, that's irritating. Nearly Mary Sue territory.
Third is her supports. She can support the Avatar, Chrom, Frederick, Gaius, Henry, Cordelia, and Cynthia; Lucina and Morgan are optional, if she ends up their mother. Wait. So she only has five romantic supports, when all the other potential mothers have all the guys up to Henry? Why does she have so few? I don't see any reason why Ricken, Vaike, Stahl, Lon'qu, Kellam, or Libra shouldn't be able to support her, as well.
Then onto the contents of the romantic supports. I only know Chrom's, the Avatar's, and Gaius', so I'm going from those. For Chrom, it's blackmailing him because he tripped over a pebble, seeing it's their 'first secret'. Then she bakes him a pie (rhubarb, which he dislikes) as an apology. She apparently made it in a way he enjoyed it. Then he's in love. For the Avatar, she explains her 'escape' into her novels and asks if he wants to read any of them. Avatar declines, and she starts to cry, which the Avatar takes one to stop her. He takes a liking to it, only to hear how 'sad' Sumia's life is, so she goes into books to escape her 'sadness'. Then she starts yelling quotes from one of the books at him, and apparently, they fall in love. For Gaius, she bogards her way into his mission for honey, thinking he wants the larva to eat, and not bothering to hear him say otherwise. She then grabs the bee's nest and throws it to him, getting him covered in bee stings, while she gets one in the bend of her elbow. Then Gaius gives her the honey, and she makes a pie for him. Then he wants to marry her, though I can't really blame Gaius, so much as his voracious sweet tooth. But seriously? She wins two of them over with her baking? Then with the Avatar, she's just acting like a nerd. All while still keeping up the 'woe is me, I'm no good' pity party. You, Sumia, pretty much had everything handed to you, unlike Cordelia, you only 'normal' support. She's madly in love with Chrom, but doesn't even get the chance to speak with (support) him, had to run away while their other comrades were killed, has a bitch of a daughter, and was bullied for being too good. Yes Sumia, your life is 'so sad boo hoo'.
Fourth is actually playing with her. After playing FE7, 8, and 11, I can officially say that Sumia has got to be one character that needed the most babying out of every flyer I've had to deal with. Florina? No. Vanessa and Tana? Not a chance. Sheeda, Palla, Catria? No. The only one I had to babysit was Est, and that was for her being a good character, but obtained late game. Sumia isn't. Even when I had her married to Chrom and as a dark flier, I constantly had to have him paired up with her to keep her from dying, and had to have Lissa nearby to constantly heal her, because she couldn't kill on her own, either with lance or tome. With the first playthrough (which I restarted after not liking my marriage choices) She was the only one to die while as a tier 2 class. Even Miriel as a sage and Lissa as a low level War Cleric died less than her.
Fifth and final isn't really Sumia's fault. It's the developer's. They went through hoops to make it that Sumia was Chrom's canon wife. The opening cinematic? Has Sumia holding baby Lucina. The scene where Sumia saves Chrom from the rain of javelins? That scene's title is 'Lovebirds'. Even if you have Chrom attached to Sully or Maribelle, who snaps him out of his funk after the events in Plegia? (spoilered description just in case) Sumia. When 'Marth' reveals who she really is, Sumia's in the background, whether or not she's attached to the situation. Seriously, Intelligent Systems? Why did you bother to give us options for Chrom if you have all the arrows pointing toward the klutzy pegasus knight?
So, there's my rant about my dislike for Sumia. Could this have been remedied? Yes it could. I feel all my dislike for this girl could have been fixed by making the other guys available to her. And then not making her Chrom's 'canon' wife. I don't want to feel that the game is mad at me for splitting the two to different spouses.
