Over 10 hours into Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave and I think I’ve figured it out. Dietrich is the game’s “main” character. Not any of the other Flame Lords, and not even Eshmel, the customizable avatar character akin to Byleth from Three Houses or the affectionately nicknamed “toothpaste-chan” of Engage. It’s the beautiful blonde boy. And while I thought that’d be upsetting, I’m surprisingly on board with this development.
While there are officially four Flame Lords—and even that is suspect because Anatolia, the nun with a gun, seems to have her own special thing going on—Dietrich’s story (so far anyway) seems to be the one that touches the most on the game’s bonkers-ass setting and is most closely tied to unravelling the greater mystery of exactly what the hell is going on.
Let’s back up a bit. Fortune’s Weave’s story starts out with one helluva curve ball, making it stand out among Fire Emblem games. We’ve gone beyond sword-and-sandal fantasy epics and catapulted all the way into the future with lasers and computers and giant starships. When you wake up as Eshmel, you’re a disembodied spirit in what’s essentially a Bacta tank with glowing displays and wires all around you. But before you can learn anything significant about this, you’re shot back in time, and none of the game’s anachronistic accoutrements are mentioned until you start Dietrich’s path.
Of all the Flame Lords, it makes the most sense to give Dietrich The Most Overall Plot Significance (so far) because the only thing driving his story is “fight monsters, be pretty, eat hot chip, and lie.” The “I wanna be the strongest” trope only works for so long before it gets kinda one-note, especially when put up next to the motivations driving Theodora, Leda, and even Cai. I’d even go so far as to say Dietrich has the best of the three main stories because it’s the one I wanna see play out the most. Whereas with Leda and Theodora, my motivation to see their stories play out comes from liking those characters a lot, with Dietrich, it’s the opposite. I could care less for him as a character; he just currently has the story that makes me go “What the fuck is going on?” the most. His route is also the one that intersects earliest with Anatolia, who also has the makings of Big Plot Developments swirling around her.
She also has a gun. And we already know how fun guns are in this game.