The protagonist of Fire Emblem: Three Houses is Byleth, a green-haired, silent character that can seem pretty odd at times. For such a dialogue-heavy game, its surprising that the main character barely ever speaks, yet the rest of the characters seem to love them. Today, we’ll be looking at why making Byleth an uncustomizable silent character was a good idea, and why the opposite would have been better.
10 Custom Character: Byleth Is An Overcorrection
It’s pretty clear that Byleth is an overcorrection from Corrin, the protagonist of Fire Emblem Fates. Corrin was a customizable and spoken character, but the sometimes poor writing of Fates led to many hating the character. If Byleth had just been written better, they could have easily been spoken.
9 Byleth Is Great: Byleth Is An Overcorrection
Then again, maybe it was good to get a silent character this time around. This certainly doesn’t need to become the norm for the series, but Fates certainly did a number on the fanbase. Having a game that really dialed down the main character as a sequel to Fates was probably a good idea for the time.
8 Custom Character: Byleth Can Be Creepy
Byleth can be kind of creepy at times, though. No matter what is happening in Three Houses (which features a very dynamic and compelling story), Byleth is just, standing there, unspeaking.
It can really take players out of the experience. Byleth being mostly silent is fine, but all the time? It’s just a little offputting.
7 Byleth Is Great: There’s A Reason For Byleth’s Appearance And Oddities
While Three Houses does make it clear that Byleth does speak very sparsely, albeit not that we can often hear, it also makes it clear that there are story reasons as to why Byleth looks and behaves the way that they do. We won’t spoil it here, but the story does broach the topic of their silence and appearance here and there, especially in the DLC.
6 Custom Character: Really Connecting With Your Character
With a custom character, you get to connect with your character in the way that you decide. Do you want them to look like you? Do you want them to look nothing like you? No matter what you prefer, you have agency in your game’s character when they’re customizable. You get to see a little bit of yourself in the game, which is sadly missing with Byleth.
5 Byleth Is Great: The Students Get A Spotlight
Well, since Byleth doesn’t speak that means that you have time for other characters to fill in the gaps, namely, your students. Byleth being silent really allows for each student to get a spotlight in the game. None of them feel underdeveloped, and everyone except Lorenz is likable for their own reasons. Considering how important they are to the game’s plot, this is great.
4 Custom Character: More Memorable
When you have a custom, but more importantly, spoken, main character, what they do and how they behave is more memorable. In Three Houses, Byleth is essentially devoid of a personality, which makes their character overall forgettable.
Characters like Corrin and Robin don’t suffer the same fate, their actions are memorable, which makes them more likable in general.
3 Byleth Is Great: The House Leaders Work As Deuteragonists
While Byleth is forgettable, the house leaders, Edelgard, Claude, and Dimitri, are anything but. While their professor might be underdeveloped, all three of the house leaders are incredibly interesting and complex characters. Their motives and backstories are all wonderfully developed, and make sense to who they are. Their decisions throughout the story do as well. The three are all incredibly engaging and almost feel like the main character of the game at times.
2 Custom Character: The Game Feels More Real
The world of a game simply feels more real when the main character isn’t just having one-sided conversations with literally everyone all the time. While you could customize Corrin’s design, they had a mind. They had thoughts. They expressed them, as well. Does Byleth do the same thing? No. Their lack of a personality just doesn’t feel real. It’s not something that would happen in a real life, so it feels silly happening in the game. While it is implied that Byleth talks at times throughout the story, actually hearing them would make it seem more real.
1 Byleth Is Great: The DLC Costumes Help
While it’s pretty clear that a spoken character would have been more preferable for a story-heavy game like Three Houses, Byleth’s uncustomizable design makes sense to the character, so that’s fine to stay. What was nice is that, through DLC, we were slowly given more options to dress Byleth up in a way that we liked. While this wasn’t full-blown character customization, it still allowed us to add a little bit of a personal flair to Byleth, an option that was missing before the new costumes were added in.
NEXT: Fire Emblem: The 5 Worst Designed Characters In Three Houses (& 5 Best Designed)
