It occurred to me tonight that Seteth is an extremely complex character for a Fire Emblem game and I donโt think the game even scratches close to the surface in exploring what he has going on.
Allow me to lay out the baggage this character has going on, just from my rudimentary knowledge having never played the game but having listened to my bestie play the game over the phone.
Seteth is a dragon, who cannot take his true form anymore. Stuck as a human now. Imagine the body dysmorphia he suffers. Just because heโs human doesnโt mean he doesnโt feel or experience things that should be dragon, but he has no dragon body to express it.
Imagine him trying to guide his daughter through dragon puberty, as she is most probably experiencing, and he has to do it alone. And trying to help her cope with her own body dysmorphia, because sheโs also trapped in a human body.
Heโs the victim of a genocide. Everyone he knew and loved is dead. The survivors of his kind are miraculously a handful of brothers and his daughter, and Rhea.
Heโs a widower. He grieves the loss of his wife, while also being a helicopter parent, because who can reasonably watch their entire species be murdered and turned into weapons, and all you have left is your (almost died) child, and couple of traumatized brothers. This man grieves the loss of EVERTHING. Even all the humans heโs befriended over the years heโs watched them all age and die.
Heโs like 1000 years old. The man has experienced ages, wars, eras, civilizations, cultures.
The only person in his near vicinity that can sympathize or even understand him is not right in the head, and is doing weird Frankenstein experiments to try and bring back her mother. So he has to keep even that person at armโs length and cannot completely trust her or confide in her, because she is actually more fragile than him.
Seteth has to live everyday as a leader in a church where his family is revered as Saints, and has to pretend that heโs got no personal connection to them, or that one of the saints is actually himself. Can you imagine the hell that wreaks on his self esteem, ego, etc? Trying to feel humble, when everyone around you is being taught to revere you like some Demi-god. No wonder heโs got such a stick up his ass, his ego probably struggles to stay in check. But also he must feel like a liar, a charlatan, which in and of itself would probably wrack him with guilt and imposter syndrome.
He has to hide that Flayn is his daughter to protect her. The measures they go to trying to uphold a facade that they are siblings. Secrets upon secrets upon secrets.
Seteth is essentially a cardinal for the pope. Advisor to the archbishop. This man is trying to hold together a church that Rhea built upon falsities and rewritten history. So not only does he have everything else going on, heโs trying to hold Rheaโs whole organization together and parade as some holy religious leader. Does this man get time to process grief? Probs not, I bet heโs using work as a coping mechanism, which is why heโs a fucking workaholic with a stick up his ass.
Anyway, just thinking about this character and how even just one or two of these things would make him interesting. But heโs got near a dozen different things heโs struggling with (And more that I havenโt even mentioned because Iโve never played the game,) making him a complex and nuanced character. And I from what Iโve seen/heard the games do not even scratch the surface of how much this man is probably a mess. A big messy traumatized disaster.
I love all the fanfics that try to explore him more deeply though. You guys are doing the godsโ work.