fellden app

PLAYER

NAME: Elia
AGE: 27
PREFERRED CONTACT: tuchanka / PM
OTHER CHARACTERS: n/a

CHARACTER

NAME: Felix Hugo Fraldarius
AGE: 23
CANON & CANON POINT: Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Azure Moon (aka the Blue Lions route), Ch. 21, pre-invasion of Enbarr
RESERVATION LINK: HERE.
HISTORY: Here we go! He's from the Azure Moon route.

PERSONALITY:

Honestly, as far as first impressions go? Felix... doesn't go out of his way to make a good one, because he generally doesn't care what others think of him. He's sarcastic! He's brusque! He has no problem telling others exactly what he thinks of them/their plans/their opinions, and his approach is often, um, less than polite! In short, he's a prickly man who prefers to keep others at an arm's length—and there's a fairly good reason for this, but in order to understand it, let's jump back to Felix's childhood and trace his emotional growth through the years.

Felix was the second son born into the prestigious Fraldarius family. His older brother, Glenn, was a rude, almost brash individual whom others lauded as the ideal knight; Felix, in contrast, was known to be a sensitive, emotional child—and a bit of a crybaby, if you ask his childhood friends. "Whenever there was something wrong... you'd come crying to me," Sylvain teases Felix years down the line. "You were so meek and pure back then. Cute, even! Like a baby brother."

This is never presented as a problem; all three of his closest friends—Sylvain, Ingrid, and Dimitri—accepted him as he was, and he presumably had a fairly close relationship with his brother? He mentions his brother reading tales of chivalry to him "all the time," after all, and he certainly looked up to him. Growing up in the highly traditional society of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, where children are taught to fight and to aspire to chivalric ideals from a very early age... hey! Glenn, the Ideal Knight™ that everyone so admired, was an untouchable hero plucked from one of Felix's storybooks.

And then Glenn died.

Losing a brother is, without a doubt, a difficult ordeal for anyone; for thirteen-year-old Felix, however, losing his brother was... far more complicated than it had any right to be. For one thing, Felix went from being the spare to the heir—and all of that responsibility, all of those expectations that Glenn shouldered so beautifully? Everything came crashing down on him, and that's quite the burden for a young boy to bear. Add to that, then, the fact that Glenn, already a larger-than-life figure for Felix and his friends, became a sort of inescapable shadow that touched almost everything Felix knew and loved, and—well. Because Glenn died while defending Dimitri, Felix's childhood friend who looked up to Glenn just as much as Felix did, and because Glenn's beloved fiance was none other than Ingrid, Felix's other childhood friend, Felix's friendships were no longer his own; they changed forever, because of course Dimitri, Ingrid, and everyone else who knew and loved Glenn still saw Glenn whenever they looked at Felix. He was—and is—constantly compared to his brother.

Then there's also the fact that, while Felix mourned the loss of Glenn the person, everyone around him mourned the loss of Glenn the knight—and that meant that they didn't seem to mourn him at all? His own father, when presented Glenn's charred armor, looked at all that remained of his firstborn son and said, simply, "He died like a true knight." In Felix's opinion, there was no genuine sadness that Glenn was gone; there was only a sort of sick pride that Glenn died in the correct manner: by defending the king, his son, and other members of the royal retinue. Felix missing his brother, Felix feeling sad, Felix being anything other than openly proud of Glenn's sacrifice—that was unacceptable, by Faerghus standards.

What does Felix do, then? Felix chafes against those ideals of chivalry he'd once so admired, directing all of his frustration and anger at them. "Chivalry begets the worship and glorification of death," he explains. "Am I alone in finding that grotesque?" Life shouldn't be about putting yourself into harm's way without a second though, all in the pursuit of the perfect, heroic death; life should be about living, and for that purpose, Felix throws himself into his training, dedicating himself to becoming stronger than anyone and everyone. If he's the strongest, you see, then no one can challenge him—and no one can sacrifice their life for him, because after losing Glenn—and his father, really, thanks to how disgusted he is with his father's response to Glenn's death—Felix refuses to lose anyone else.

Rather than openly express this to the people closest to him... well! Look at it this way: we have one angry, sad boy who's told time and time again that he's to stoically endure the loss of his brother. Is it any wonder that Felix decides the smart strategy is to hide his emotions? To create a sort of wall between himself and others by projecting a cold, callous attitude not unlike the one his brother was known for? It's easier to push people away, to turn inward, than risk forming an attachment to someone before he's strong enough to ensure his own survival and/or see if they're strong enough to ensure theirs. Strength becomes... everything! It's why he frequently challenges people (re: Byleth) to spar with him within the first, like, ten minutes of meeting them. Better to know then and there if they're worth his time... better to push them away before any sort of attachment forms...

The problem with this approach, however, is that, despite Felix's best attempts to distance himself, it's impossible for him to not care for his friends/allies/anyone who spends a good deal of time around him? Glenn's death prompted him to build a metaphorical wall around himself, but he's still that same emotional boy at heart; he feels things just as deeply as he did when he was young, and I think the best evidence of this can be found in his relationship with one of his childhood friends: Dimitri, the very prince of Faerghus that Glenn died to protect. Felix and Dimitri were incredibly close when they were younger; there's a later line when Dimitri recalls how Felix "used to whine unless [he] could do everything with [him]," and that friendship persisted even after Dimitri witnessed Glenn's death. Dimitri was assuredly one of the people Felix was thinking of when Felix made the decision to become stronger so no one would have to make that same sacrifice for him.

And then, two years after Glenn's death, Dimitri died.

Or, well. The Dimitri that Felix knew died, right in front of him, as Felix watched Dimitri brutally, excitedly slaughter members of a rebellion. As Felix tells Dimitri at a later time: "It was ruthless slaughter and you loved every second. I remember the way you killed your victims. How you watched them suffer. And your face... that expression. All the world's evil packed into it. That was our first battle. I remember it vividly."

Obviously, seeing this new, highly unpleasant side of Dimitri was a terrible shock. So this is one of the people he's growing stronger for, all in the hopes of keeping them alive? This is the person his brother died for, the person his father dedicates more and more time to? It's a betrayal of the highest order—and that's when bitterness mixes with all of that anger and sadness he's still holding within him. He pushed Dimitri away; he began openly treating Dimitri with scorn and derision; he mocked Dimitri at every opportunity, calling him a wild beast, a boar, a thoughtless animal. He did his best to close himself off from this person entirely, and in doing so, he built that metaphorical wall between himself and others even higher. He didn't need any more friends, you see. No more crushing disappointments allowed.

And yet! And yet! Despite his disgust with/for Dimitri, Felix didn't shy away from him; he spent years calling Dimitri out to his face, telling him that, while he could play the part of the perfect prince if he liked, he still needed to address the brutal nature he was trying so hard to mask. Felix was the only person to notice this about Dimitri? He was alone for years and years and years, and when others finally did catch onto Dimitri's deteriorating mental state, Felix continued throwing barbs at the prince—but he also warned their professor to keep a close eye on him. He was, in his rude way, always looking out for his childhood buddy, because again: it's impossible for Felix not to care.

This is really taken to the next level when the continent of Fódlan sinks into war—and Dimitri was supposedly executed. Felix didn't believe this; in fact, Felix spent the next five years both fighting for his kingdom and looking for Dimitri, and when he finally found him... well. Things continued on as they had for so long, really; Felix insulted Dimitri, Felix called Dimitri out when others looked away or attempted to coddle him, and Felix closely watched Dimitri's every move. He couldn't bring himself to abandon his old friend, despite the disgust and hurt he felt every time he looked at him; instead, he pushed his old friend to address his issues and move past them, even when his own father popped up and told him to knock it off.

And then his father died... while defending Dimitri.

Are you sensing a pattern here? I'm sensing a pattern here. Anyway! The point is... that even after everything Dimitri did, and everyone that Felix lost to Dimitri, he still refused to abandon him entirely. He didn't outright forgive him, and he has yet to forgive him; Dimitri came to apologize for everything after Felix's father's death, and Felix bluntly told him, "I'm not after more empty words. I want you to speak through your actions." It's clear that Dimitri has to work for forgiveness? Has to prove that he's worthy of it? But Felix was—is—willing to give him that chance, because, and I can't stress this enough: it's impossible for Felix not to care about the people around him. He feels things far too deeply. He will always, always be there when people need him, even if his approach isn't the best because he isn't quite sure what, exactly, he's supposed to do.

But while Felix's relationship with Dimitri shapes/illustrates so, so many things about his personality, if we look at his relationships with other people? All of that care and concern is still there, even when he tries his best to bury it. He helped Ingrid with her chores after she was wounded in battle; he fussed at Sylvain for attempting to protect him during a battle, then rushed to his bedside when he hears that he's grievously wounded (spoiler alert: he's NOT); he told Ashe to never give up on his dream of becoming a knight; he stopped everything to listen to Bernadetta when she simply asked him to; he worked around his hatred of sweets because Lysithea baked a cake just for him—like, need I go on? It's obvious that, while he tries to keep a certain amount of distance between himself and others, he just... can't. Oh, he'll snap at them, and he'll continue to say exactly what's on his mind at any given time, but if people can patiently look past that—which people frequently do, given that he isn't as hard to read as he'd like to think—then he'll wind up (grudgingly) accepting them.

This, then, is the Felix we're left with after such a long journey: an outwardly cold, sharp-tongued individual who tries his hardest to keep people at bay, because he knows damn well that he can—and will!—grow attached to them. A man who wants to escape both his brother's death and the chivalric values that glorify it, all because he wants the people he cares for to do all that they can to live. A person who claims to value strength above all else, even as he goes out of his way to help his friends when they're at their weakest. He's a bit of a mess, really—but he's doing what he thinks is best, and that's what matters in the end.

ABILITIES/SKILLS:

• Swordsmanship: Felix "Sword is Life" Fraldarius takes his training very, very seriously—and it shows! He is known as one of the finest swordsmen that the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus has to offer, and while a great deal of this can be attributed to how long he's wielded his chosen weapon—"I learned to thrust a sword before I learned to write my name," he tells his professor—he's also the type of person who's at the training ground well before the sun rises, hacking away at training dummy after training dummy... He has some class-specific abilities in the game itself, but if I'm being honest, mods? They all boil down to "Felix is very, very good at waving a sword around," so. He definitely knows how to use his weapon to his advantage, no matter the situation!


• Major Crest of Fraldarius: Felix possesses a Crest, which is an inherited ability that Felix... doesn't have control over, per se? It ~activates~ of its own accord during random attacks, increasing the MT (attack power) of Felix's weapon—which means that Felix occasionally hits harder than he normally does. His Crest also ties in with both the Sword of Moralta and the Aegis Shield, allowing Felix to tap into their specific abilities.


• Magic: Felix has access to two spells: Thunder (minor lightning magic; 8 uses) and Thoron (advanced lightning magic; 4 uses). Honestly, he doesn't use these spells... all that often? He definitely relies on his sword more than anything else, so I doubt they'll pop up in many combat-oriented scenes.


• Lone Wolf: This is Felix's personal ability, aka the ability he starts the game with, and it basically just states that he's better/more comfortable working by himself? He's not one to command a battalion, or lead a squad of allies; he prefers to work alone on the battlefield, because he's more effective when he doesn't have others to keep an eye on.


• Noble Upbringing: As a noble, Felix was certainly given a first-class education centering around various important subjects/skills: horsemanship, etiquette, territory government, politics (Faerghus- and Fódlan-specific), etc. He's a well-bred, well-learned man, even if he sees no reason to brag about such things. He's not out to impress anyone.

INVENTORY/COMPANIONS:

• The Sword of Moralta (restores a bit of health to its wielder each turn, and Felix's Major Crest of Fraldarius increases its effect—but I'm honestly not going to mess with this in the game) + a normal sword he's always just... carrying around...
• The Aegis Shield
• Concoctions... three of them, to be precise! They're healing potions.
• A black iron spur... which is exactly what it sounds like! It's just a single spur... a sad memento...

FACTION CHOICE: Moon Temple!

REASON: While Felix's classmates/allies prefer to stand around and talk things through, or waste time worrying about this or that, Felix prefers to go out and get things done. He sees a target? He's going for it. This isn't to say that he's brash; he's methodical on the battlefield, studying his opponent(s) carefully before taking them down and moving on to the next one. Also, his feelings regarding a specific task/mission are things he tries very, very hard to bury, because he believes they only serve to hinder his progress. That isn't to say that he'll mindlessly follow people/plans; he chafes against unjust orders, he scoffs at ideals that others will willingly throw their lives away for, but if he's given a particular goal and he determines that it's sensible? He's going to accomplish it.

TATTOO: We'll go with the symbol for the first quarter moon on the back of his right hand! Because a swordsman values his hands above all else...

SAMPLES

NETWORK:

Here!

LOG:

TDM Top-level

NOTES, QUESTIONS, COMMENTS: I can't think of anything!