This column originally ran in Back Alley Games Issue 16, June 2025

The Fire Emblem series is partially responsible for my pansexuality. There’s no shortage of queer coded characters, especially in the most recent entry, and there’s quite a history to it. A “Genealogy of the Homo War,¹” if you will.  

Sometimes the series really drops the ball, but I think that there’s a fair amount of positive and important representation in the series, and it’s personally relevant to me as well. When Fire Emblem Awakening (2012) came out, I was given the royal blue crest-emblazoned 3DS with the game already preloaded onto it. It was my prized possession for nearly a decade, and it took a catastrophic accident for me to finally part ways with it. 

It was a tearful day, but I made sure to transfer my save to an old ax-headed, non-folding 2DS. There I continued to hammer away at the game, playthrough after playthrough, experimenting with builds and optimizing the child characters with the best skills their parents could pass on to them. 

I was enthralled. Particularly with the first person you see in the game: Chrom. His soft face, strong voice, and the kindness he shows to you in the very first cutscene all had me fawning. In fact, all of my playthroughs as a female Robin ended with she and Chrom married. 

It made me realize certain things about myself. So, when the divisive Fire Emblem Fates (2016) games came out and there were actually some gay people in them, I was pretty excited. Little did I know that Fire Emblem had been stealthily hinting at gay romance in the series since 1999.

Ancient and queer (like Sappho)

Marty and Dagdar are from Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 (1999), a punishingly hard game without an official English translation. Instead, what we have are quite faithful fan patches from the ever-fantastic FE community.

One translation in particular is where we begin: “Daguda ga aishita otoko²” or “The Man who Dagdar Loved.” That’s the title of the unit Marty’s credit roll card, which is something of a “where are they now” segment that plays for each character that lives to the end of the game.

This has been hotly debated by internet smarties for decades, so to preface my analysis: I am not a linguist, and I don’t know Japanese. As such, take this with a grain of salt. 

Some insist that the language used, the Japanese word “aishita,” is an explicit confirmation of the romance, whilst others will argue that specific term is used to show their deep friendship. However, for a close friend, you at the most would use “daisuki,” as “aishita” tends to refer to incredibly strong feelings. 

Regardless, in their epilogues, the two men retreat to the mountains together to raise kids and help their community. Hmm. What a wink and a nudge for 1999.

Lyndis and Florina’s supports in the Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade (2003) are a tad more ambiguous, but still pretty gay. Lyn does indeed ask Florina to spend “forever” with her, which when presented without context doesn’t seem very ambiguous, but it’s not as outright as Marty and Dagdar’s ending. 

The secret bonus content is a gay hug

There are numerous pieces of “gay bait” scattered throughout the series post-Thracia, but none are as blatant (to me) as Ike and Soren’s relationship in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (2005) and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (2007). 

Ike follows the tried-and-true JRPG protagonist trope of “oblivious to women’s feelings,” and there is an interpretation of the original Japanese text that could be read as “he isn’t interested in the affections of women.” 

This would be yet another example of that “stealthy hinting” that I mentioned before if it wasn’t for how explicitly their relationship can be read as romantic. One quote I keep coming back to is from one of Soren’s support conversations:

“There’s only one place for me to be, Ike… And that’s by your side.”

Countless pieces of fiction feature two male characters platonically devoted to one another, but when the reward for maxing out their relationship across two games and two consoles is a hidden hug scene where Ike holds Soren as he cries, I’m pretty confident in my queer reading of it. 

I wonder if certain sections of the fanbase would still see their relationship as platonic if either Ike or Soren were a woman. Personally, I don’t think so. I believe if that were the case, these supports would be read as wholly romantic.

Can we please get some normal gay people?

As the series continued into the 3DS era, we began to see canon gay representation in the series, albeit with some incredibly problematic context. In Fire Emblem Fates, Laslow’s daughter Soleil is constantly flirting with women³. During Corrin’s support conversations, he slips a powder into her drink that makes her see men as women, and by support conversation A, Corrin can even marry her. 

This is changed in the English localization to Corrin consensually blindfolding her so that she doesn’t get so excited around girls. Soleil is not able to be romanced by a female Corrin. Say what you want about it, but the whole situation makes me quite uncomfortable.

This isn’t the only queer representation in the Fates games, as there are actually two bisexual characters that will enter into a relationship with a Corrin of either gender, Niles and Rhajat. Romancing them as a same-sex Corrin locks you out of the respective child units associated with the characters – though Rhajat is a second-generation unit, so she has no child character. 

These support conversations are pretty par for the course in Fire Emblem, with Rhajat’s being particularly interesting to me as she’s essentially Tharja, a unit from Awakening that is obsessed with the player character regardless of their gender but is only a romance option for male Robin. It almost feels like Intelligent Systems was trying to make amends for that fact with Rhajat’s bisexuality in Fates.⁴

Fellas, is it gay to love your fellow soldier? (Yes.)

It wasn’t until the remake of Fire Emblem Gaiden (1992), Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (2017), that we got a character who explicitly states they’re gay: my beloved Leon. When Leon’s close friend dies in battle, another warrior, Valbar, was there for him. Leon, having lost all hope, looks at Valbar as a kind of bright light. Speaking to Leon in town, he opens up about that time:

“Valbar saved me from that [sadness]. Every time he saw me, he’d take the time to say something. Cheer me up. What can you do with a man like that but fall in love? You’re thinking I’m a tramp, aren’t you?⁵ Well, I’m not. It’s hardly my fault that the world is full of wonderful, lovable people. Such a thing really motivates one to get out there and save it.”

This monologue blew my mind. It’s such an incredibly nuanced piece of writing for the series. When I first picked up Echoes in 2017, this was massive for me; that a gay man was written with so much care. Many of the characters in Echoes received a bit of a glow-up in their support conversations, Leon being one of them, as in the original he was not depicted as queer. The game even has Lukas, one of your knight units, state in a support that he can’t bring himself to show romantic affection at all, which has strong aro/ace connotations.

Echoes itself is brilliant, it only makes sense some of my favorite units come from that game.

The dragon goddess in your head is gay

Speaking of favorite units, we come to Fire Emblem: Three Houses (2019), which is rife with some of FE’s best offerings. This game marked the shift to more “playersexual” characters, so the avatar-romanceable gay characters are all technically bisexual. 

That clarification is needed since there are a fair number of supports between units of the same gender in Three Houses that end in a romance, implied or otherwise.⁶

But for the player character, Byleth, the game featured a few queer romance options at launch, with more delivered via DLC. The standout supports that I think of when it comes to Three Houses are Yuri and Edelgard, two of the house leaders.

When the player meets Yuri, he’s the head of the underground Ashen Wolves faction, a group of outcast students that made a home for themselves underneath the Garreg Mach Monastery.

While his disposition may lead some to not trust him, in truth, Yuri is simply trying to keep his community safe. However, with mercenaries trying to rip their home, the Abyss, apart, it falls to Byleth and the students at the monastery to assist the Ashen Wolves.

In all of Byleth and Yuri’s paired endings, they live out their lives like those old gay couples who never age and live until they’re both 99. It’s really sweet, the two in every route considered to be immensely accomplished. They are stated to disappear together, both going off to enjoy their old age after stopping the secret big bad of Three Houses, Those Who Slither in the Dark⁷.

With Edelgard, her conviction and fortitude are bolstered by the presence of Byleth, and by choosing her route, one of the most interesting narratives in the series begins. Being there for her emotionally avoids the horrible fate awaiting her at the end of Dmitri’s and Claude’s routes.

Together you both aim her convictions at those responsible for her fate, and it’s quite satisfying.

Her lover being another woman also feels phenomenally thematic, as it stands to reason she’d have no interest in siring the next royal and passing down her crest. She even outright states that she wishes to give up the throne and run off with Byleth once it’s all said and done.

All in all, Three Houses was some damn good eating for those invested in the topic at hand.⁸

The real victory was the (queer) friends we made along the way

When I mentioned Fire Emblem was moving in a more “playersexual” direction à la Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023), the situation in Fire Emblem Engage (2023) is mainly what I’m referring to.

Everyone in the cast can reach S Support level, and while not all of these supports carry romantic connotations, a lion’s share of the cast will enter into a romance with the Pepsi-Colored Prince(ss) Alear regardless of gender.

Whether or not this is your preference, whether or not you think this affects the writing either positively or negatively, I believe this is the best direction to take FE romance. 

Nobody feels left out and everyone pretty much gets what they want. Granted, again, a good number of supports are not romantic, but the game is very happy with letting you do pretty much who/whatever you want.⁹

Fire Emblem is one of the very few JRPG series that consistently features queer coded characters and is unafraid to allow the player themselves to be gay. The fact that there’s such a large history of queerness in Fire Emblem, confirmed or not, allows this series in particular to act as a flag to signal other queer gamers.

The series invites all kinds of people to play it, and most importantly, especially in the new titles, welcomes them to enjoy the game just like everyone else gets to. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic: I think it’s a beautiful thing, that a series with such a wealth of characters from different walks of life and perspectives is unafraid to include queer voices despite possible cultural and societal pressures.

Even though there’s some very questionable context on the road to Engage¹⁰, I continuously look forward to what comes next in this series because they’re not afraid to look at me and say, “we do indeed see you, Jesse, and your personal experiences are valid and valuable.”

Maybe I’m being too generous with that reading, but, once again, this series is one of very few that truly makes me feel seen. How marvelous that is.

1. Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War is the fourth game in the series, released in Japan in 1998. ↩︎
2. This romanization may be somewhat inaccurate, but our resident (and beloved) weebs do their best. ↩︎
3. A trait the text says she inherited from her father, though notably she is more successful with women than he is. The implications of inherited womanizing would need a much longer article to explore, however. ↩︎
4. Whether this attempt is successful, however, is another story. ↩︎
5. Valbar is married. ↩︎
6. Ferdinand and Hubert and Dorothea and Petra, to name a couple couples. ↩︎
7. This is their full name, and it’s never abbreviated. ↩︎
8. Including a sapphic relationship with the in-universe Pope. ↩︎
9. Anything except looking less like a middle schooler’s DeviantArt OC, that is. ↩︎
10. Looking at you, Soleil support chain. ↩︎