LogFAQs > #895684562

11. Ike (Fire Emblem series)

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/fireemblem/images/8/84/Ike_fe10_lord.png/revision/latest?cb=20090516063807

"I'm Ike, of the Greil Mercenaries."

Ike is definitely one of the more simple characters on this list. He's not a super deep character and I'm not going to have to dig deep to talk about why he appeals to me. Truth be told I'm not quite sure myself why I like Ike to the degree I do, but man he's just such a fun character to me. I love him in both of his Fire Emblem games and he was one of my mains in Brawl and SSB4. I've got an Ike Amiibo right next to me! I Like Ike. (List Spoilers: this is one more character on this list in the Top 10 with an existing Amiibo. I own that one too.)

Ike has not one, but two great character designs. Path of Radiance Ike is a good take on the more typical anime JRPG protagonist, looking more like a young man than a young teen and rocking the headband to boot. Radiant Dawn Ike definitely took some 'roids in between game but its still a huge breath of fresh air to see a mercenary who actually looks like would be able to swing a sword that big. Speaking of swords, Ike's shoots lasers. Lasers! He can also heal himself by activating Aether which is frankly silly and breaks the last 1/3 of Path of Radiance but also super fun to watch. Ike is a one-man army.

What I like the most about Ike, though, is his place in the world. Tellius, the continent Ike lives on, is a bit of a messed up place. It takes the typical political infighting up a notch by adding in a severe case of fantastic racism towards beast-people called laguz. There's murder, backstab, betrayal, even a genocide. Every country and race is super distrustful towards each other, and for good reason.

Ike rises above all that. His outlook on things are so simple and direct hat nothing ever manages to corrupt or change him for the worse. He's not stupid - not even close - he's just 100% honest and treats everyone equally. One little example I like is early in Path of Radiance, where he unknowingly uses a racial slur against a laguz and gets chewed out for it. Ike's response is to apologize, change his language, and continue the conversation without missing a beat, talking like he normally would to anybody else. The laguz is left a bit speechless over how quickly Ike adjusted while at the same time admitting fault, and by the end of the game Ike has become the strongest liason between humans and laguz in the entire continent simply because the laguz realize that Ike doesn't see any difference between them and humans.

There's plenty more examples that happen throughout the series. When one laguz is attack by a mob of humans, instead of letting the laguz attempt to escape on his own (which is what the laguz asked Ike to do), Ike intervenes and calls out the crowd even though it drew attention to him when he was trying to stay undercover. When the deposed princess Elincia is subjected to political insults and backbiting by the Begnion senators, Ike yells at them to apologize, literally telling them that should be ashamed of themselves. Ike his no filter and no patience for small-minded crap, and while it gets him into trouble more than a little, it's also what wins him so many allies and friends.

I also can't go the whole writeup without mentioning his rivalry/vengenace story against the Black Knight. It's the result of one of the more emotional events in the series, forcing Ike to grow as a person over the course of several years. There's one line where, after defeating the BK for the first time, it mentions that Ike slept well for the first time in months. It's a little thing, but it's effective. Ike is a character made up of little things that add up to make an extremely likable guy. I Like Ike, We Like Ike, Everybody Likes Ike.

No, seriously, he's effectively supplanted Marth as the mascot of the series. Sorry man!
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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.