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Ike's Sexuality (One Last Time)
gascon-en-exil asked me about the discourse surrounding Ike's sexuality for the purpose of a cross-fandom project. I then remembered that I had a long, extensive argument outlined on my desktop that has been sitting there for two or three years. So I decided that I might as well finally get around to writing this.
I've tried to avoid making assumptions about the reader. That's why this thing is so long. The footnotes are generally not essential--they're there to clarify some points, remark on some odd exceptions, and make lengthy citations. The direct translations here are mine, and mostly match up line by line, except when a % symbol appears to denote that the line and the one above it are somewhat mixed in order.
Full disclosure: I've been on the "Ike likes dudes" side of this argument for a long, long time. This is not an encyclopedic article; although I always try to be objective as possible in my analysis of evidence, this essay does promote my own opinion. I will address counterarguments, but primarily for the purposes of making a rebuttal. For what it's worth, there are some conclusions here that I made over the course of writing this, which Ike-is-gay supporters may find surprising.
Table of Contents
Background - A brief explanation of the Fire Emblem series and the history of the controversy about Ike's sexuality.
By Analogy - Arguments regarding patterns in Radiant Dawn and the Fire Emblem series at large.
Performativity - "In-universe" arguments regarding interactions between Ike and Soren that can be read as romantic.
Exclusively Gay? - Some discussion regarding attraction toward women.
Ranulf - The majority of this essay addresses Ike's sexuality via his relationship to Soren, but Ranulf is also important to consider. This section discusses Ranulf.
Romantic vs Sexual? - Briefly addressing the distinction between romantic and sexual orientation.
Counterpoints - Addressing common counter-arguments.
Queer Representation? - Some discussion regarding Ike and Ike/Soren in the wider context of LGBT characters in media and so on.
Fire Emblem is a turn-based strategy roleplaying series. Every game follows the general format of being split into "chapters," each consisting of a map and scenario (or in some cases a few consecutive maps/scenarios) with a win condition that the player must complete to move on to the next chapter. The story is mostly told through scenes at the beginning and end of each of these chapters, in addition to conversations that take place on the map itself. Some of this content can only be unlocked if the player accomplishes certain objectives, which may be mutually exclusive with the requirements for other unlockable content. At the end of the game, there are usually a few ending scenes alongside a few lines for each character roughly sketching out their lives after the events of the game. The latter are called "character endings".
The cast of each Fire Emblem game is usually tremendously large, perhaps to compensate for its "permadeath" mechanic, where fallen characters are permanently gone (with some minor exceptions). The smallest party size is about 30 characters (FE2), while the largest is over 80 (FE12), not counting Avatar Log units in FE13. Because of this, only a small subgroup of characters get any significant amount of screen time. In several games, this lack of main-game screen time is offset by optional/unlocked side conversations involving the minor characters. In others, these minor characters remain little more than portraits and flavor text for reasons ranging from lack of data space to impractical mechanics. For this reason, there can be serious inequity in the amount of evidence available for main characters and minor characters. However, for this writeup, Ike is fortunately a main protagonist (also called a "Lord") for both of his games, leaving him in a relatively comparable position to the other main protagonists in the series.
For reference, the games in the series are as follows:
Abbreviation - Title (Notes) - Console (Japanese Release Year/English Release Year or -- if not localized)
FE1 - Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light - NES (1990 / --)
FE2 - Gaiden (title means "Side Story") - NES (1992 / --)
FE3 - Mystery of the Emblem (Sequel to FE1) - SNES (1994 / --)
FE4 - Genealogy of the Holy War - SNES (1996 / --)
FE5 - Thracia 776 (midquel to FE4) - SNES (1999 / --)
FE6 - The Binding Blade (or "Sealed Sword") - GBA (2002 / --)
FE7 - Blazing Sword (prequel to FE6; released in the US as "Fire Emblem") - GBA (2003 / 2003)
FE8 - Sacred Stones - GBA (2004 / 2005)
FE9 - Path of Radiance (Ike's first game) - GC (2005 / 2005)
FE10 - Radiant Dawn (Ike's second game) - Wii (2007 / 2007)
FE11 - Shadow Dragon (a remake of FE1) - DS (2008 / 2008)
FE12 - New Mystery of the Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow (a remake of FE3) - DS (2010 / --)
FE13 - Awakening - 3DS (2012 / 2013)
Before the release of FE10, it was generally assumed that the "most canonical" love interest for Ike was Elincia without contest, and the matter of Ike's sexuality was no more an issue than most characters' sexuality is ever an issue. The release of FE10 brought a few surprises: a complete lack of follow-up on Ike/Elincia, bonus content for Ike/Soren, and paired character endings for Ike and two men (including Soren). This news elicited some response from the FE community as early as February 2007, when the game was released in Japan, but of course shit really hit the fan when the game was released in America that November and the news got out to the gaming community at large.
Yes, this argument really has lasted us for seven years.
The initial reaction was quite ugly. Every forum had a thread debating Ike's sexuality, usually devolving into massive flamewars. In some ways you may say that this has not substantially changed, though I think these discussions have gotten less heated over the years, and the general tone of the conversation has inclined in favor of Ike being queer, even on sites such as GameFAQs. (
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
traincat has joked that the better question in 2014 is, "Is Ike a furry?")Nonetheless, all the arguments I've made and witnessed are spread out all over the internet and no one could be expected to chase all of them. At last, for the sake of contributing to a cross-fandom piece, I'm sitting down and writing a roadmap of the issue.
1. Cross-Series Trends: The available content for Ike and Soren (and to a lesser extent Ranulf) fit into a larger pattern of Lord romances.
In every Fire Emblem game (speaking outside of Tellius for now), the Lord has some content which is routinely taken as a canon relationship with a girl (or one girl of many choices). The typical structure of the depiction of these relationships goes as follows:
1) The Lord has a significant amount of interaction with that character throughout the game. If the game has optional conversations such as in-chapter Talks or Supports, the Lord will have those with that character.
2) At the end of the game, there is generally an acknowledgement of their future together in the character endings.
3) If the player meets certain conditions, the Lord will have a special scene near the end acknowledging their relationship with that character.
You can find a table of how games outside of Tellius line up with this over here. It is worth noting that while these relationships have a strong tendency to fit this pattern, many of these relationships do not fit every single point to the letter, which we should keep in mind when looking at Ike. However, despite some variation, I believe this pattern is still extremely meaningful--when the content involved in the second and third conversations are unlocked by meaningful player choices, these pairings are universally taken by all fans to be romantic, with no false positives.1 I believe that people would also agree that these criteria constitute meaningful and relevant evidence -- that is, we're not identifying a spurious pattern along the lines of "No US Presidential nominee whose first name contains a 'K' has lost." These criteria simply capture part of what a Lord romance "looks like."
And Ike/Soren certainly satisfies them. (We'll talk about Ranulf later. He's complicated.)
1) The Lord has a significant amount of interaction with that character throughout the game. If the game has optional conversations such as in-chapter Talks or Supports, the Lord will have those with that character.
To some degree, this is probably to be expected from the main game, since Ike is the main character and Soren is in a plot-important position as a key strategist. However, in both games, the nature of this interaction goes beyond what is strictly plot-important and crosses over into the personal. Their FE9 supports are about Soren's issues and his backstory with Ike. (The ending of A was slightly changed in localization, which I shall discuss later.) In FE10, where most supports are generic copy and paste affairs, Soren has a special set for Ike.2
The main script of FE9 takes the time to address their particular dynamic, including a moment where Ike chastises Soren for being overly blunt and then later tells him not to worry so much about it as it's "part of what makes [him] brilliant," and another where Ike attempts to get Soren to tell him what's bothering him. When Ike goes to get his revenge on his father's murderer, Soren insists on following him, although he is ultimately kept from doing so. Also, in a comic series of side conversations, Soren chases off Ike's overly aggressive (female) admirer (twice). Said female admirer would ultimately sit down with Ike and give him a present for Soren in order to get Ike's attention.
Additionally, the games' main scripts interact with the storyline of the Ike/Soren FE9 supports, which are very much optional content. In Chapter 15, as mentioned before, Ike expresses to Sigrun that Soren has been acting mopey, and tries to get answers out of him. The cause of Soren's angst is only ever revealed in their support line: He had discovered his mixed-blooded heritage around the time of Chapter 14. Early on in Ike's part of FE10, several people gossip about how Soren has "changed" from his old "closed off" self--a transformation that seems to imply that the Ike/Soren support line had taken place.8 Additionally, Ike knows about Soren's mixed blood in FE10, which is something that Soren tells him in their A support.
In summary, there is a lot of personal interaction between Ike and Soren, and the non-optional script of the game places unusual focus upon their relationship.
2) At the end of the game, there is generally an acknowledgement of their future together in the character endings.
If Ike and Soren have an A support at the end of Radiant Dawn, Soren's epilogue changes to:
When peace had settled on the land, Soren packed lightly and set off with the only person he had ever trusted.
(Incidentally, regardless of their support level, Soren's character ending is placed immediately before Ike's.)
3) If the player meets certain conditions, the Lord will have a special scene near the end acknowledging their relationship with that character.
Ah, yes. Here's the conversation that sparked the controversy.
This base conversation (an optional conversation that can be viewed before the stage) is situated immediately before the confrontation with the true final boss. It is the only base conversation for that stage. It is an unlockable conversation with stringent requirements.3
It consists of Soren recalling his traumatic past and Ike's importance to him. Soren then breaks into tears, and Ike offers him a shoulder to cry on. This is the same man who yelled at his own little sister to quit crying when she lost their dead mother's memento.4
(ETA 11/26/17: To boot, the Tellius Recollections artbook describes this conversation as them "joining their hearts together".)
So indeed, Ike/Soren looks quite like other series Lord relationships that are uncontroversially taken to be romantic.
2. Patterns in Radiant Dawn
Firstly: outside of Ike and his paired ending options (Soren and Ranulf), every paired ending in FE10 involves marriage, babies, or explicit mention of an "affair". This one is simple to confirm: I invite you to search for the phrase "support with" on this page.
Each game seems to have its own idea of what paired character endings are for. While FE10's America-side predecessors, FE7 and FE8 (FE9 had no character endings), had a variety of character endings for relationships framed in both romantic and non-romantic ways5, this was not always the case: FE6 had six endings exclusively for Roy and the girls he could marry. Before considering Ike, it would appear that FE10's paired endings--unusually sparse in number for the size of the cast--are reserved for romantic relationships. Why make an exception for the only person Ike brings with him beyond the edges of the known world?
Also, for a more quirky piece of evidence, FE10 also gently suggests a parallel between Ike and Soren, and Micaiah and Sothe... and the latter two end up married by default.6a
3. The Seme/Uke Factor
Subtle differences in their localized personalities seem to mask their original inclination toward "seme/uke" stereotypes. Ike was more brusque, Soren was more quiet and less angry, and while I'd never argue that their dynamic is good representation, one might nevertheless point to this as another indication that their relationship is painted in a romantic light, especially since we know that the developers made use of these stereotypes: we have an infamous man-hating lesbian and another character who is quite the stereotypical okama. (That character was also changed substantially in localization.)
As Gascon-en-exil points out, this stereotype is still quite visible post-localization in their design. This is Ike. This is Soren. Look at them.
4. Cross-Series Trends: Soren fits into a larger pattern of Lord romantic interests.
This argument is somewhat weak, since I believe there's some flexibility with what features you can pick and choose, but I've included it for completion.
Soren seems to follow in the tradition of a number of angsty part-dragon waifs (Julia, Sophia, Ninian) all of whom have some sort7 of romantic relationship with the Lord of their game. Meanwhile, his main contender in these debates--Elincia--follows in the tradition of Nyna and Guinevere: princesses who seek the Lord for help to reclaim her kingdom, and interact with him frequently throughout the course of the game, but end the game with their coronation and no romantic relationship with the Lord.
Of course, these sorts of archetypes can and are often disobeyed. One might as well argue that Soren is one in a line of best buddy wind mages (Merric, Asvel) who are doomed to the friendzone. Or that Elincia rides a pegasus, which puts her in good company for lord marriage (Caeda, Fee, Thany, Fiora/Farina/Florina, Tana). Tellius, in particular, breaks a number of Fire Emblem traditions. So unlike point (1), which is about narrative structure and is fairly well-behaved, I believe this point is more open to interpretation.
tl;dr summary: The interaction between Ike and Soren looks just as romantic as those of other Lord romances, once we consider that certain kinds of evidence are inherently not available for a same-sex pairing.
To get this out of the way: Ike is not "explicitly" queer in the sense that the game ever hints that he would like to have sex with a man, or has had sex with a man.
However, Fire Emblem as a series very rarely explicitly addresses the topic of sexual relationships in the first place. There's implied rape and what appear to be awkward morning-after moments, but by and large for the majority of the relationships generally considered romantic, the only proof that anyone's having sex at all is that a baby comes into the picture. Remarkably, there is one instance in some DLC from FE13 that does explicitly depict same-sex sexual desire, but such a cartoonish scenario could only fit in FE13, the most cartoonish member of the series.
In other words, if mentions of sexual desire or sexual activities were our only basis for determining whether a relationship is sexual (that is, if we were to exclude offspring as evidence to make the comparison fair) neither Ike nor the vast majority of the characters in Fire Emblem have any evidence that they are sexually interested in anyone of any gender.
Similarly, once we take away marriages, the vast majority of relationships (pre-FE13) lack any explicit "I love you" or "let's make out" or "let's go on a date" to mark their romantic nature. That's not to say that there's nothing to those relationships beyond marriage--it's simply that it would be left to interpreting the tone of the conversations that they have:
Marth: I did not speak with my heart before. When I said I would go to Altea, I... Well, I had meant... I hoped you would be at my side.
Shiida: .....!
Marth: As you said, we have not spoken much since Talys. With you, I felt I never had to say a word. If the battle started to take its toll, you were always there...close by...I would see you there, so beaut- ahem, so brave... and I would, um,....derive! Yes, derive great strength! Derive... ....Ugh, why is this so difficult?! Shiida, I'm just trying to tell you I-
Shiida: Marth... Shh. Me too... Me too.
- FE11's Epilogue
Of course, the tone of that conversation depends quite strongly on the temperament of the people involved. Other Lords--close to Ike's level of obliviousness--sound fairly unromantic without the marriage factor:
Tana: Yes, I am acting funny. And it's all your fault, Ephraim! Whenever I try to talk to you, you always keep your distance! No matter how hard I try, you never open up to me.
Ephraim: That's not true...
Tana: Is there someone else?
Ephraim: What...?
Tana: It's just... You never pay any attention to me. You never have... It makes me so sad. All I want to do is be near you more and more.
Ephraim: ... Tana, you're still just a child at heart, aren't you?
Tana: Ephraim! Don't talk about me like that...
Ephraim: No, I meant it as a compliment. Because you're so young, your words have such a simple, honest purity... I do appreciate your affection.
Tana: Ephraim... Do you think you could make more time for me, so we can chat?
Ephraim: Yes...of course. But we don't have the luxury to stop and chat on the battlefield. We have an obligation to end this war first. Let's go.
Tana: Yes, all right. I'll see you later. I'm looking forward to it.
- Ephraim/Tana A from FE8
("Ephraim, pay attention to me," Tana says.
"Well, you're nice, but I'm kinda busy right now," Ephraim replies.
Eventually they get married.
Ephraim is such a romantic.)
Once we exclude consideration of textual evidence that a same-sex relationship would never have in a world without same-sex marriage and put other Fire Emblem romances on the same footing, suddenly the evidence we have for Ike/Soren looks quite comparable.
Soren: There's only one place for me to be, Ike...and it's by your side.
- FE9, epilogue if obtained Ike/Soren A support
Ike: Soren, don't cry.
Soren: Cry...? I'm ... crying?
Ike: You're so smart, and yet you're completely hopeless at normal stuff. Look, come here.
Soren: P-please don't treat me like a child. I'm not that...
Ike: Come on.
Soren: ...
Ike: --Sheesh, you're such a pain. [sprite reappears closer] Here.
Soren: [breaks out crying]
- FE10, 4-F-5 Base conversation, translated from the original Japanese9
And of course, as previously mentioned, there's the shoulder to cry on. The admirer who tries to get to Ike through Soren. The attentiveness to each others' moods.
And, well, bringing him along as his only companion10 on a journey, of such length that Ike's epilogue claims "[h]e was never seen again."
The fact that Ike interacts with Soren on a more personal level is especially significant given that the vast majority of his interaction with anyone else is highly impersonal. Nearly all of his conversations with anyone else are about things like his job, fighting, and exposition. He has a tendency to bottle up his personal worries, changing his mind about asking Reyson about something that pertains to what happened to his own mother, and taking about a year12 to tell anyone about the night he witnessed his father's death. Actually, in many ways he seems downright emotionally repressed, insensitive to both his and others' grief. And yet right after a magic seal is lifted and he regains his early childhood memories up to the point where he traumatically witnesses his father kill his mother, he immediately talks to Soren about their newly-remembered first meeting.
Incidentally, the implication that Ike remembered after his memory was unsealed was overwritten in localization. Several small things were changed in localization, sometimes to greater effect. Their FE9 A Support originally ended with Soren saying that Ike helped him and thus became dear to him. The localized version inserted Ike's father into the picture11 and turned an ambiguous "special" into a platonic "friend". There were also quite a few changes to Ike's relationship to Elincia, although that will be covered more thoroughly in the "Exclusively Gay?" section. If we're being picky, Soren also did not specify that he flirted with Aimee for the good of the company--there's a good chance he did it purely for Ike's sake instead.
In summary, Ike treats Soren in a way noticably different from the way he treats anyone else. And if in real life we heard of two men going on a vacation together for the rest of their lives, we'd say they're probably gay.
There are a number of female Ike pairings that have enjoyed popularity in fandom and have been used as attestations to his straightness. Of course, an interest in women does not preclude an interest in men and this section should be considered independently of the argument for Ike's interest in men. However, I believe it's worth discussing the evidence for Ike's relationship with these women since these topics often come up in the discussion of Ike's sexuality--and because the presence or absence of attraction toward women is part of sexuality, too.
To note, this section concerns only evidence from FE9 and FE10. Priam is addressed separately under the Counterpoints section.
First, the elephant in the room:
1. Elincia
As an overview: Ike does have a set of supports with Elincia in FE9, and as two key players in FE9, they share a fair amount of screentime, some of which could be conceivably romantic. However, come FE10, they share no more than a few friendly words and a lot of politics talk.
Localization Changes
A common complaint about Radiant Dawn is that it suddenly dropped Ike/Elincia. Actually, what transpired is the opposite: Ike/Elincia was added to FE9, and then the localizers apparently gave up on putting the same spin into FE10.
A key change in FE9 is at the end of their A support, where Ike's motivations in helping Elincia are inverted:
| Character | Localized | Japanese | My Rough Translation |
| Ike: | You employed me as a mercenary. I'll give you your money's worth! ...No. It means more than that... To my last breath, I will do all that I can to ensure your dream...Elincia. | 俺は、あんたに雇われた傭兵だ。 あんたの望みを叶えるために 全力を尽くすと約束する。▼ | I'm the mercenary you hired. In order to grant your desire, I promise I'll use every last drop of my strength. |
(English Ike: It's not just a job!!!
Japanese Ike: That's exactly what it is.)
Additionally, the voice acting in the Japanese version of United comes off differently.
Of Princesses and Nynas
It's understandable that people would tend to infer a romantic relationship between the the protagonist and the princess that he saves. It's an extremely common storyline in JRPGs and elsewhere. However, the oppposite is true of Fire Emblem games: the protagonist literally never has a romantic ending with the foreign prince or princess whose kingdom they help regain.13
Similarly, while United would appear to be a romantically suggestive cutscene by virtue of its premise alone, it wouldn't be the first time that the lord has conversed privately with the Nyna-figure during her coronation at the conclusion of the game--and nothing came of it romantically then, either.
A Valid Reading?
It could be argued that the Japanese and English versions of FE9 ought to be treated as separate works, in which case Ike/Elincia would certainly be the pairing with the strongest support by the end of FE9. Within the scope of FE9 alone, Ike/Elincia looks plausible. But narratively speaking, FE9 primarily exists to set the stage for the much larger conflict in FE10, as Sephiran suggests at the very end. Hence, FE9 should not be analyzed on its own. As earlier noted, FE10 fails to support the pairing, leaving them with only minimal interaction, no private conversations, and no ending. Looking at the English version of the game alone, perhaps the events of FE10 seem like a betrayal of FE9's intentions--but they are what they are, the awkward result of the localization team's decisions.
In the end, the only pairing for Elincia that receives the game's blessing in the form of a special ending is Geoffrey.
2. Mia, Marcia, Lucia
These are the next most popular female Ike pairings, which I'm writing about here for completion alone. There's astonishing little interaction between Ike and any of these women.
Mia
Mia's stated reason for following Ike around is that she admires his warrior's honor. They don't get supports in FE9: their only interaction consists of her recruitment and their subsequent base conversation, followed by Mia's announcement that she'd like to join the Greil Mercenaries at the end of the game.14 As of Radiant Dawn, she's a member of the team and likes to spar with him a lot. That's pretty much all you see of Mia in FE10, period. In her epilogue, she "set[s] off in search of new opponents. She traveled the whole continent, but sometimes rested at Greil's Retreat." (Recall, also, that Ike probably not at Greil's Retreat at that point.) She has no unlockable romantic endings, and no special FE10 supports.
UPDATE 2/11/2016: For the sake of completion, I'll note that FE10 had a number of real support conversations slated to be written, which never came to completion, and Ike/Mia was one set that had been planned. I've seen a rumor that FE9 had an Ike/Mia support in the Japanese version, but there is absolutely no corroboration of its existence. For reference, Mia's Japanese supports can be found here.
If you want my opinion, Mia is a rare example of a female character whose loyalty to a man is about fighting and virtue and not wanting to hook up with him. But of course, we're accustomed to expecting loyal women to be loyal out of romantic interest, so perhaps this is why she's such a popular option.
Marcia
If I had to guess, Ike/Marcia came into vogue for two reasons: One, she's a pegasus knight, and two, she calls him handsome twice. (In the localization, anyway.)
| Character | Localized | Japanese | My Rough Translation |
| Marcia: | Well then...I'll come talk to you about repaying my debt later. What's your name, handsome? | じゃあ… また今度、お礼にうかがいます！▼ お名前を教えてください。▼ お願いします！▼ | Well then... Next time, I'll ask about your thank-you gift! Please tell me your name. I beg of you! |
- Talk to Marcia, FE9 Ch 3
| Character | Localized | Japanese | My Rough Translation |
| Ike: | Packing, huh? Want some help? | 準備がか？▼ | Making your preparations? |
| Marcia: | Do I want some...? Pfff! You're a hoot, handsome! I'm already done! | あ、アイクさん！ はい。準備完了です！▼ | Oh, Ike! Yes. I've finished my preparations! |
- "Marcia" Base Conversation, FE9 Ch 10
It's part of her speech style. Marcia's... energetic. I think the fact that it didn't exist in the Japanese shows that it's just a verbal flourish. The most interaction they have is when Ike incidentally saves Marcia from some pirates while on a related job. Their subsequent conversations consist of talking about packing and grumbling about her brother. At the end of FE9, she says she's going to rejoin the Begnion Holy Guard, but ends up among the Crimean Knights, and doesn't say a single word to Ike for the entire duration of FE10. Marcia has no romantic endings in FE10.
As for the Lord/Pegasus Knight thing... it may be a reason for liking the pairing, but I think archetype arguments are quite weak on their own. Marth/Caeda, Roy/Thany, Eliwood/Fiora, Hector/Farina, Hector/Florina, and Ephraim/Tana all had much, much more going for them than a couple of recruitment conversations and brother wrangling.
Lucia
As I understand it, Lucia is sometimes paired with Ike because he saves her once in a major plot point in Radiant Dawn.
In the course of FE9, they only talk in the briefest of exchanges regarding plot-critical matters: Lucia infodumps him about how the Crimean resistance is getting along, and then later contradicts his battle plan. Then she sighs wistfully about Elincia's feelings. In FE10, Ike saves her while she's about to be executed as part of a job; she thanks him in a single formal line: "No... It worked out fine in the end. Please put it out of your mind." Later in her only interactions with Ike, she appears alongside Elincia, delivering such romantic lines as, "We are actually in Daein to look for Count Bastian of Fayre," and "Of course. I cannot let Her Majesty out of my sight. You know that."
Lucia's FE10 ending mentions her closeness to Elincia, and may also be amended to include an affair with Bastian if they are A supported.
3. General Interest in Girls
Over the course of FE9 and FE10, Ike doesn't seem particularly interested in women in general. On the contrary, we see him trying to lose his batty female admirer (Repeatedly. A lot. Really, it's a running gag.) and failing to see the point in admiring female servants.15
Of course, not being interested in stalkers and servants isn't the same as being interested in women in general. I would like to note, at this point, that it would difficult if not impossible to "prove" that Ike (or any character) is not interested in women, since it would require making some case that, on top of not showing interest toward any of the women around him, he does not have the potential to fall for a woman in the future. That standard of evidence is nearly impossible in a work like FE9/10, where romance is a tangent rather than a focus, and sexuality could not reasonably be expected to be discussed explicitly.
Fortunately, we are spared from discussing "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" and all that, because actually, we do have evidence of presence...
4. Lethe
Apart from Elincia and his mother figure (and Jeigan of the game) Titania, Lethe is the only other female with whom Ike has supports in FE9. These supports also seem to be setting up something, with Lethe inviting him to his homeland on the pretense of learning more about fighting. Ike accepts the invitation. In the epilogue of FE9, an A-supported Lethe mumbles, "I don't know when, but... If that thing we talked about happened...that would be fine. I guess. Not that I care. So...good-bye."
This genuinely appears romantic: Lethe asks Ike to come live in her country with her for some significant period of time, and Ike responds, sure, as long as you're there! We've seen this kind of migration and cohabitation before and it's decidedly a romantic trend.16
As we know, by the time of FE10, Ike has not yet paid his visit, and Lethe and Ike only exchange words once... and it's talking about preparations for a communal dinner, with Oscar and Titania present. Throughout the course of FE10, Lethe seems predominantly concerned with military matters, and says nothing at all to Ike in the main game script. Her FE10 epilogue says she becomes a Captain and trains new recruits. Perhaps Ike does drop by to spar in his trip to fight Caineghis for fun, but it certainly doesn't sound like "come live with me."
What happened there?
I believe that the options in FE9 ought to be understood as possibilities which may occur in parallel universes. FE10--since it had to pick something as the default--choose to continue one specific version of events, in which Ike/Soren A support happened and Ike/Lethe likely did not. You can see this kind of selection reflected in things like Astrid's situation and talk of the Nados Castle event as well. As I've said before, I believe that FE10's take is in some sense authoritative--or at least endorses one particular version of events--especially since FE10 is the central entry in the Tellius duology.17 And Ike/Lethe, as a pairing, has little to stand on by the end of FE10.
At the same time, I believe that the fact that Ike may go off to live with a catgirl in an alternate universe does count as evidence toward his romantic orientation, even if it doesn't have any bearing on Ike-the-Hero-of-Blue-Flames's final choice of life partner. It says that at some point, under the right circumstances, Ike could've ended up with a catgirl.
To put this another way, we are assuming that Ike in FE9 and FE10 is the same person with the same orientation. FE9 presents Ike/Lethe as a valid romantic option, showing that he can take an interest in girls. FE10 probably continues the story with Ike/Soren A but not Ike/Lethe A, so Ike has no reason to be involved with Lethe in FE10 since no relationship has been started between them, meaning that FE10 doesn't show that his relationship with Lethe cools for some sexuality-related reason.
So it seems to me that Ike is not, in fact, exclusively gay.
And now we jump from the topic of the catgirl who may be his FE9 alternate universe wife to the catboy who is his other paired ending option in FE10.
Of course, to establish Ike's interest in men, we only really need one example of a male he is interested in, and Soren suffices. There is less evidence that his relationship with Ranulf is romantic. They have a set of supports in FE9, no special supports in FE10, and one private base conversation about how much Ranulf's job sucks. Their interactions tend to be friendly without any clear sign of something more, and Ike doesn't interact with Ranulf much more than comparably plot-important characters--up until Ike brings him along on a trip to the ends of the world with no turning back.
But I also think that's why Ranulf's situation is so interesting.
Eliwood and Lyn had a similar setup. Their fairly platonic support chain ends with an explicit invocation of "friend":
Eliwood: Hey, I wouldn’t have made it this far without your help, too. You are my good friend. This is what friends do! Now, shall we?
Lyn: Let’s go!
- Eliwood/Lyn A support
And yet, A support was sufficient to trigger their paired ending:
Eliwood and Lyn
The marquess of Pherae and the princess of Caelin were wed after the conflict. All of Lycia was in an uproar, but none could sunder their bond of love. They have a son named Roy, who will become a great hero.
- FE7 Epilogue
I don't mean to argue that all friendships necessarily end in sex. However, we do have precedent for relationships that look largely like friendships, then abruptly blossom into a romance at the very end. A platonic build-up doesn't rule out the possibility of a romantic development. That being so, is there reason to believe that the Ike/Ranulf ending is indeed romantic?
As I have mentioned previously, outside of Ike's endings, every single ending is romantic or sexual, and Ike himself only has two endings. Soren is fastened to his side like an old piece of chewing gum, so (all other considerations aside) perhaps it's not surprising that he would leave Tellius forever to travel with Ike anyway. But why Ranulf? Why not, say, Lethe? Or his clingy little sister? You might argue, "They had to choose someone!" But, well, did they? Unlike the optionality available in the GBA era, every character in FE10 outside of Ike only has one possible paired option. Additionally, there is no strict demand that the main protagonist ought to have more options. Several lords in the series have only had one potential love interest18, and besides, Micaiah is also a main protagonist and she gets no alternatives to Sothe. The fact that Ike can have a paired ending with Ranulf is a design choice worth noting.
In summary, the interaction between Ike and Ranulf may look incredibly platonic, but similar dynamics have led to marriage in the past. Under the circumstances, their paired ending is likely enough to be a romantic one.
(If you seem to recall some Word of God stating that Ranulf is not gay: that was my mistake. The passage in question probably just says that he's not interested in his subordinates' catfight over him.)
ETA 5/9/15: After playing through FE10 in Japanese, I realized that the extended script (the script used in Hard and Maniac modes that was never brought over in localization) had a lot of small moments between Ike and Ranulf that made them seem much closer. I liveblogged the extended version here, including translations for any scraps of extra script I found significant. I personally found the Ike/Ranulf epilogue much easier to understand in light of the development they got over the course of the game under the extended script. (Incidentally, Ranulf feels much more like one of the game's "Lords" in the extended version, which only makes the Eliwood/Lyn analogy that much more accurate.)
ETA 11/10/17: I've written a general article about Radiant Dawn's extended script here. I want to point out, in particular, that they have a compulsory exchange in the chapter text that looks an awfully lot like Radiant Dawn's A supports.
(If you are confused by this question, please peruse this wikipedia article, or skip this section because it probably isn't relevant to you.)
Throughout this writeup, I have not made a clear distinction between romantic and sexual orientation. This is largely because Fire Emblem gives us very little means to talk about specifically sexual orientation at all.
Look at what kind of evidence we have that anyone is sexually interested in anyone, prior to FE13. Occasionally, we have scenes like Kent and Fiora's awkward morning after support, but those are quite rare. Typically the only information you have on who's-screwing-who comes from the babies that appear... and technically, the existence of a baby doesn't necessarily mean that they were sexually interested in each other.
So personally, I believe that outside of a few unusual cases, it's difficult to confirm or deny sexual interest independently of romantic interest, for lack of evidence across the board.
So Ike, like most other Fire Emblem characters, could support an asexual biromantic reading or something along those lines. However, it is worth wondering why Ike in particular attracts these readings far more often than any other Fire Emblem character.
"Nintendo is a family-friendly company." / "Nintendo upholds the traditional family." / Etc.
Solely among the paired endings of FE10, we find the following relationships:
- Micaiah/Sothe: An orphan and his caretaker. They had first met when she was about 16 and he was about 7,19 and she would continue to raise him for about a decade. FE10 has them married at the conclusion of the game by default6b.
- Makalov/Astrid: After fleeing from her controlling, sexist noble family by joining the military, Astrid eventually falls in love with Makalov, a disreputable addict of gambling and alcohol, and follows him in joining the Crimean Knights, where she spends her days "mooning over him and cleaning up his messes."
- Bastian/Lucia: Their epilogue sums this one up: "First among the ministers to support her queen, Lucia never married. However, her affair with Count Bastian continues."
- Haar/Jill: Haar has been a subordinate of Jill's father for at least eighteen years prior to FE9.20 Jill is definitely younger than 18 as of FE9. That means Haar probably saw Jill in diapers... before eventually marrying her.
- Naesala/Leanne: This pairing seems innocent enough, until you consider that Leanne is mentally still a child,21 and the epilogue has her bearing two babies.
That's not going into the many interesting and troubling relationships we find among non-player characters, or in other games. It's trivially true that Nintendo likes to court a broad audience with games the whole family can enjoy, but this clearly hasn't stopped them from putting in a full... variety... of relationships. Why should we believe that a same-sex relationship is so much more scandalous than sex out of wedlock, psychological incest, running away from one's family to marry a gambling drunk, or psychological pedophilia?
Once we look at other games, we also find several examples of rape, blood incest, pedophilia, incestuous rape, necrophilia, and so on.22 ... Oh, and also a girl feels up another girl.
Ike doesn't act gay. He's too manly.
We have plenty of gay men for whom retaining a vigorous hold onto their masculinity is important to them. In Western culture, we have Bears (and a "no fems" trend in hookup culture). In Japanese culture, we have what is often called the bara genre.
For those of you who've never seen it before, "bara" looks like this: (nsfw) The word also has a complicated history, if you want to read about that on that post.
Manliness is not exclusive to heterosexuals.
Priam
Priam is a bonus character in FE13 who claims to be Ike's descendent (末裔). His introduction instigated a second round of drama about Ike's sexuality, as many people took him to be "proof" that Ike is straight.
There are things that could be said about the assumption that evidence from FE13 should be considered when discussing Tellian characters for their own sake,23 that Priam's words should be taken at face value,24 or that bearing a child necessarily means that a man is sexually or romantically interested in women,25 but in the end, even if we assume that FE13 counts and that Ike was interested in a woman with whom he continued his bloodline, all this would go to show is that Ike can be interested in women, not that he is disinterested in men.
Even though many people tend to assume that bisexuality26 does not exist, it so happens that the FE13 developers (despite the heterosexual baby party) did in fact acknowledge bisexuality: Kjelle expresses sexual interest in Severa (and this conversation is explicitly about sexual interest in the Japanese) although she can also S support with a man.
So Priam, like Lethe, could suggest that Ike can potentially be interested in women. If you take his words at face value, and accept information in FE13 as evidence, and suppose that no surrogacy-like situation had taken place, then with these assumptions one might conclude that Ike did have a relationship with a woman at one point. None of that takes away from the evidence that paints Soren as a romantic option, and Ike's potential to enter a relationship with a man.
At the end of all this discussion, one might like to ask what this really means for anyone. After all, sitting around comfortably in 2014 while Orphan Black introduces two major explicitly lesbian characters, one major explicitly gay character, and one soon-to-be-major explicitly transgender character, it's hard to think of a non-explicit vaguely seme/uke relationship as a sign of progress.
Things were different back when it all started. Only one year prior to FE9's release, Bush had been re-elected and my home state (the notoriously swingy middle-of-the-spectrum Ohio) voted to ban anything resembling same-sex unions. In general, the climate in America was still conservative enough that the localizers played down the tactician and played up the princess in FE9, turned an offensively effeminate black man into an offensively dumb black man, and wrote out the flamboyant queer tiger in FE10. In contrast, as of this writing, half a year ago same-sex marriage became legal in Utah.
At the time the old fandomers started shipping Ike/Soren in the early days of FE9 fandom, we had been accustomed to being considered yaoi fangirls, internalized the idea that our preferences were inherently acanonical, and yielded to the Ike/Elincia fans at the crosswalks of dignified discussion, as was the norm. Our ships were always subtext and I think, by and large, we knew that it was hopeless to convince the majority of people that they had enough basis to be considered in the same light as popular straight ships.
Then along came FE10, and suddenly it seemed the tide had turned. Ike only gets endings with two guys. At the end of the game he hugs Soren who weeps on his shoulder. What's going on!? "GUYS... IKE/SOREN IS CANON!!!"
And promptly the legions of people who were the kind to write "no yaoi" in their summaries crossed their arms and harrumphed, and either grumbled about RD's irrational decisions or insisted that Ike was still straight. But for once, the source material had blessed what we had seen in its predecessor and we finally had a reasonable amount of proof to show the Reasonable Neutral People of the day that our ship was not in fact mere flight of fantasy. The fact that one party involved was the macho favorite of the majority of the casually homophobic gamer side of the fandom only made it all the sweeter. It meant a lot to many of us, and for some, it still does. Many people are invested in the matter of Ike's sexuality for essentially--yes--the somewhat petty reason of wanting to enjoy being right about this issue for once.
But it is important in a larger sense.
In 2007 it was important representation in the sense that non-gag same-sex pairings in mainstream Japanese works were incredibly rare. It still sort of is. For many of us in Japanese media fandom it was our first brush with a very nearly explicitly gay pairing. These days, representation isn't really the heart of the issue anymore. The issue at hand is the public reaction to a character for whom there is significant evidence of same-sex attraction. It is because Ike occupies a gray space between strong suggestion and explicit queerness that the reaction to him is so bitterly divided--and that these opinions, collectively, provide a fascinating view into the way public perception changes over time. Around the time of the Priam explosion, I wandered into the GameFAQs forums to see what they were up to, and found that more than half of the posters argued that Ike was into men. After Priam!
I want to avoid that saying any individual person is homophobic for not thinking that Ike is into men. However, I certainly believe the matter of Ike's sexuality is significant because of the trends in the way people have reacted to him. Like how the absence of popular mixed-race slash pairings is a significant trend, fandom's collective reaction toward the subject of Ike's sexuality reveals interesting biases. Why do so many people propose asexuality for Ike, but no other major Fire Emblem character? Why is an Ike/female character pairing evidence-based because he rescued that girl at some point, when saving Soren's life and eloping with him isn't enough to salvage the pairing from being a "crack pairing"? And why do so many people both in support of straight Ike and gay Ike find it annoying when bisexuality is proposed?
Even though the old reasons for arguing about Ike's sexuality are no longer relevant, something about this issue revives the topic time and time again. For my part, this has been a thorough presentation of all the evidence for all of the popular or reasonable arguments I have heard up until 2014. I hope it has been useful to you.
This section is very long and completely skippable. I aimed to cover all my bases with this writeup, so these footnotes go into an absurd level of detail and cross-referencing for those who might want elaboration on a point.
1 Including non-optional content, one might make a silly case that various plot-important advisor characters and MacGuffin princesses fit these criteria, although no one wants to say that they canonically hook up with Lord. However, once you stipulate that the content must be unlockable, every relationship given an unlockable special late-game scene is considered by the entire fanbase to be romantic--and they are also often considered exceptionally blessed by canon--with the exception (of course) of Ike.
This test does give some false negatives (that is, some relationships taken to be romantic do not qualify) but that is not relevant to the current argument.
2 The localization created some more variety in the supports by separating out royals, whereas the Japanese simply had a casual tier, a polite tier, and some exceptional individual supports. There are very few of the last kind. It's worth noting that Ike does not have individualized supports for anyone.
3 Update 11/26/2017: Serenes Forest spells out the exact requirements:
Transfer a Ike and Soren A Support from Path of Radiance (Note: this step can be done at any time, but to be safe, you should probably do it at the earliest opportunity).
Ike and Soren have a A Support in this game.
Bring Soren into Part 4 Final.
View Ike’s memory scene by fulfilling the requirements to recruit Lehran.
A new Base conversation “Soren” will appear during Part 4 Final-5.
4 FE9, Ch 20:
Ike: Did you drop it? Or put it somewhere and forget? Something like that?
Mist: No! I always carry it with me! I would never lose it! I had it before I went to bed last night... It vanished while I was sleeping! Sniff...waaaa...
Ike: Don't cry. It's not your fault.
Mist: But...but...
Ike: I said don't cry! I'll find it! All right?!
Mist: All...right... Sorry...
Soren: ...
[scene ends]
5 For examples of some heterosexual non-romantic endings:
Renault and Isadora
Renault simply vanished after the battle. Isadora, now alone, returned to Pherae as a member of the imperial guard. Years later, she entered the service of Elimine, hoping to find answers in the clergy.
Eirika and Forde
After the war, Eirika and Forde returned to
Renais. Eirika spent her days toiling in
the reconstruction of Renais, and he was her
faithful supporter. His portrait of Eirika
captured the smile he had thought lost forever.
6a 6b Micaiah/Sothe is an odd case in that the player has a choice about them, but it's opt-out rather than opt-in. Micaiah and Sothe begin with an A support, which--if unbroken (as is possible in RD)--will lead to marriage in the ending.
Regarding the parallelism, aside from the mention of Soren's name here, it's worth mentioning that this is placed shortly before the Ike/Soren base conversation, and there are some noteworthy similarities in the stories presented.
Micaiah/Sothe 4-F-3:
Micaiah
...A long time. I met him when I was hiding out in the back alleys of Nevassa, over ten years ago. He was so skinny, but his gaze was so piercing... I wondered how such a young boy could look like that. One day, I noticed he was standing close to me, just watching. He continued like that for a few days. One day, I held out my hand. He was suspicious of me, but came over anyway. He looked like a scared animal. Then his little hand slipped into mine. It was shaking. His fingers were so thin and frail. I couldn't let go after that.
Ike/Soren 4-F-5:
Ike
He looked like he was my age. He was as skinny as a twig, wearing rags and covered in dirt. He looked like he was near death. I took out my lunch and I handed it to him. He made a noise like a scared animal and shied away. He was suspicious of me at first, but eventually he took my sandwich and started to eat. It was like he'd never eaten before in his life. I didn't have anything else to feed him, so I told him to come to my house. But he kept shaking his head no.
[...]
Soren
Yes. You'd forgotten that day in Gallia. But I didn't care. My only wish was to see you again. I just wanted to see the only boy who had held out a warm hand when I had nothing.
7 As discussed in the lord table post, Julia is complicated. The secret half-sister of Celice, she was originally intended to be married to Celice independently of the player's decisions, and quite a few traces of this remain in the final version of the game. On the other hand, after this plot point was altered, she became one of only two women in the second generation who cannot become Celice's lover without incredible amounts of unintended mechanical exploitation.
The other two are much less complicated. Sophia is one of Roy's marriage options, though not his most strongly endorsed. Ninian is Eliwood's most strongly endorsed option.
8 There is no other plot line that would logically cause Soren to open up to anyone. The only other piece of potential personal development is his support line with Stefan... where he is subject to an older man's adamant insistence that he will someday fail to belong and that he should abandon everyone and live in the desert with his kind. Not exactly the kind of development that makes one less emotionally closed.
9 There are a number of small changes in localization, though I believe this is one case where the change in tone doesn't change any romantic implications.
10 While it's conceivable that he brought random NPCs, no player characters aside from Soren or Ranulf can ever accompany him. This includes all the members of the mercenary group that he called family.
11 Which is a hilariously effective way to cockblock someone:
Shiida: So...I suppose that means you have bid Talys farewell for good...
Marth: Don't be silly, Shiida. I need to at least go thank your father and tell him the fighting is done.
Shiida: My father...? Marth, I'm not asking about my- Never mind. Please excuse me...
- FE11 epilogue
Incidentally, the infamous RD base conversation would spell out that incident and make it clear that only Ike was involved.
12 Although he appears to suggest to others that the Black Knight killed his father in Ch 9, this implication only seems to be in the localized version.
| Character | Localized | Japanese | My Rough Translation |
| Caineghis: | His wound was fatal. I could do nothing. I thought it best not to interfere in his final moments, so I remained hidden. Tell me, Ike... At his last, did he confess anything to you? The identity of the Black Knight...Did he reveal it? | あの傷では助かるまいとわかったのでな・・・・・・ 残されたわずかな時間を 邪魔するまいと思い・・・姿を現さずにおいた。▼ アイクよ・・・・・・▼ あやつは最期に・・・おまえになんと告げた？▼ あの黒鎧の騎士の正体を、 おまえは知っているのか？▼ | With that wound, I knew he probably could not be saved... I thought it best not to intrude in the little time he had left... I did not show myself.% Ike... In his last moments... did he tell you anything? That black knight's true identity, do you know it? |
| Ike: | The Black Knight? No. I don't know who he was. My father entrusted me with his command, told me to trust King Caineghis and to live peacefully in Gallia. He said to forget everything else. | ・・・・・・・・・・・・ 騎士の正体は・・・わからん。▼ 親父は、俺に傭兵団を任せると・・・ カイネギス殿を頼り、 このガリアの地で平和に暮らせと・・・言った。▼ 全てを忘れて・・・・・・▼ | ... The knight's identity... I don't know it. My father said he left the mercenaries to me... to rely on Lord Caineghis, and live in peace in Gallia. And to forget everything... |
| Caineghis: | Is that so? Well then, let me do as I can. If any of your mercenaries desire to live here, I will so arrange it. I will vouchsafe them homes and land. | ・・・・・・そうか。 では、わしができることをしよう。▼ おまえたち傭兵団が ここでの暮らしを望むのであれば、 わしはそれを許そう。▼ 住まいと、土地を与える。▼ | ... I see. Then I will do what I can. If your mercenaries wish to live here,% I shall allow it. I will allot you houses and land. |
| Ike: | Your kindness is truly appreciated. But, speaking for myself, I couldn't live here in peace. Not now. I will avenge my father. I cannot so quickly forget the past...Or the Black Knight. | ・・・王の気持ちはありがたい・・・ だが、俺はこのまま、 ここで安穏と生きる気にはなれない。▼ 俺は、親父の仇を討ちたい。 このまま、忘れるなんてできない・・・・・・▼ | ... I am thankful for the sentiment... But I don't mean to live here in peace while things are like this. % I want to avenge my father. I can't just forget while [this is the way things are]. |
In any case, Titania seems plenty surprised in Chapter 22 when the topic comes up.
Titania: Ike! Are you saying you know who killed Commander Greil? You never said anything about that! We all thought his murderer was unknown... Why didn't you say anything?
Ike: ...I don't know. I never felt like talking about it.
- Ch 22
Ike would finally tell Titania about the incident at the start of Chapter 27.
13 Outside of Elincia, this encompasses Nyna, Guinevere, Say'ri, and arguably Pelleas.
I said before while discussing archetypes (under Performativity) that archetypes make for weak arguments because there's quite a bit of room to pick and choose. However, when the argument is that Elincia is a likely love interest because she's a princess in this position, I believe it's relevant to point out that Fire Emblem has a tradition of saying that these types of princess characters are not likely love interests.
14
Her line in the epilogue:
Mia: Heya, Boss! We did it! Whooo-hooo! You know, I am completely in love with your fighting style. If I could train under you, it would be great! So let me stick around for a while. All right?
15
| Character | Localized | Japanese | My Rough Translation |
| Ike: | ...Gatrie, we're inside. There's nothing here but the temple handmaidens. | ………… おれには、廊下と 『侍女』とかいう女どもしか見えんが。▼ | ...... Well, I don't see anything other than the corridor and the handmaids.% |
EDIT 1/25/2017: Upon revisiting this, I think the Japanese could potentially have that implication. A better translation might be something like "Well, I don't see anything other than the corridor and women of the handmaiden variety." (But in a more Ike-like voice.)
16 For example, Roy and Lilina similarly talk about possibly living together at some point after the continent has settled down. There are many examples where one character moves to be closer to another character, and it's almost always romantic.
Kyle and Syrene
After the war, Kyle visited Frelia, where
he was greeted with a warm reception by
Syrene. After the two retired, they were
wed. They raised a daughter whose skill
in martial arts and etiquette excelled.
Ross and Amelia
Amelia traveled to Ross's hometown, where she
decided to remain. Over time, the two fell in
love and were wed. Years later they had a son
who grew into a warrior. As he grew in skill
and strength, he surpassed even his father.
Dart and Farina
Farina's love for Dart compelled her to stay in Lycia. She visited Badon often and flirted with Dart at every chance. He never knew how serious she was when she told him that a female pirate would be quite profitable!
Sain and Fiora
Although they returned to their respective countries, Sain and Fiora continued to seek each other out. When Lyn abdicated Caelin's rule to Ostia, Sain resigned his commission and moved to Ilia. He and Fiora later wed.
There are a handful of apparent exceptions, with complicating factors.
Saleh and Myrrh
Myrrh returned to Darkling Woods, but at
Saleh's request, she eventually moved to Caer
Pelyn. In time, the townsfolk learned to
treat her not as the Great Dragon but
rather as a normal girl, and she was happy.
It should be noted that Darkling Woods (after the death of Myrrh's father) has no other sentient creatures, and Saleh's request is not so much "come live with me" as it is "you don't have to be an outcast and live by yourself, come join our village."
There are also some examples under duress, such as Lachesis's move to Lenster and questionable relationship with Finn, but given the firebombing and everything in between, I don't believe this ought to be considered in the same light as Ike and Lethe.
In another apparent counterexample, both parties involved are men, making it difficult to demand explicit evidence in the early 90's that they would become romantically involved.
Altean archer Gordin
For some reason he left the Altean knights for Pales. Later he joined Archanea's free knights.
Greatest archer Jeorge
After the war, he formed the Archanea free knights to protect people from thieves.
- FE3 Epilogue (with names standardized)
So Lethe's invitation for Ike to immigrate to Gallia, and his acceptance clarifying that he means to do so to be near her, is quite a meaningful statement.
17 One might compare the situation to what FE5 has to say about FE4, but I believe FE10's take should be valued more highly for several reasons:
1) FE4 and FE5 are outright contradictory in many respects, whereas FE9 and FE10 (outside of mutually exclusive decisions) are not (excluding some translation/localization errors).
2) FE4 is the main game of the Jugdral series; FE5 is a side-story to the much larger conflict in FE4. Conversely, the main conflict in Tellius happens in FE10, while FE9 sets the stage.
3) FE9 and FE10 appear to have been conceived as a whole. FE4 and FE5 are particular stories in Kaga's large headcanonverse which he saw fit to make into games, but FE9-10 seems to have been developed from the start as a single narrative. Aside from a general sense of narrative unity, we can witness that its development pains emerge in interesting places: the internal name for FE9 as found by hacking the disc is "fe8," suggesting that Tellius had been delayed for further development while actual FE8 (Magvel) was produced to appease the masses.
18 Marth and Caeda, Alm and Cellica, Sigurd and Diedre.
19 Micaiah can be estimated to be in her mid-twenties in Radiant Dawn. She has no memories of living in Begnion, suggesting that she was 4 or younger at the time of the Serenes Massacre, when she was smuggled out of the country. The Serenes Massacre happened in 625. FE9 begins in 645, and Radiant Dawn begins in the summer of 648. That puts 23 years between the Massacre and the present day. Add anywhere between 1 and 4 years to that. She says she met Sothe "over ten years ago." Subtract ten years to get a range of 14-18.
There aren't any hard numbers for Sothe. However, he seems to be in the younger cohort in FE9, suggesting that he's 14 or younger then, and then in the normal teenaged cohort in FE10, suggesting he's 16 or older there. (These estimates are based on Fire Emblem traditions involving the ages of young kids vs responsible teenagers: Roy at 15 is kind of the borderline between these two age ranges.) Given the three-year gap between early FE9 and the beginning of FE10, he must be pretty close to these boundaries. So he's probably about 16 or 17 in Radiant Dawn, which would make him about 6 or 7 at the time of their meeting.
Visually, these estimations appear to match up with the CG for that first meeting.
20 Shiharam: General Petrine! Do you truly think so little of us? It's true that we were born in Begnion and not Daein, but my men and I have been loyal to this country for eighteen years. We have spared no effort to learn all the proper manners and customs of this land. But now, after all of that, to be dismissed as a "bunch of foreigners..."
- FE9 Chapter 20
21 Reyson: That's what they all said...My family. My tribe. And then...they died. The humans were drunk with joy. They laughed! They sang! ...And then they slaughtered us like livestock. My mother, my brother, my elder sisters... Even my infant sister, Leanne! All killed in a single night.
- FE9 Ch 17-4, in reference to the Serenes Massacre.
Unbeknownst to Reyson, Leanne was sent into magical hibernation at that point. She has only been awake for at most 3 years since then, which would make her still quite young, especially since bird tribe members are still considered children at 24.
22 Many of these examples hail from Jugdral: Leen's treatment at Darna, Cigyun's entire life story, and Diadora's relationship with Alvis among them. Kaga has said that he's committed to depicting realism in his work:
If you just learn a little history, the fact is, within real history, political marriages, patricides, that kind of stuff happens of course — that’s reality.
Of course, judging from modern sensibilities, there are many people who think it’s extremely unpleasant. As for me, I’m absolutely not endorsing that kind of incest and patricide. I simply want to know how things were in history.
23 For example, FE13 would seem to suggest that Taguel exist in the world that was formerly Archanea. Does that suggest that Taguel existed in the time of Marth? Similarly, in FE13, Mount Prism exists on the island formerly called Talys. Also, in FE13 Naga is quite present if not physically alive, whereas in FE1/3 Naga was quite explicitly dead (alongside most of the other divine dragons) which is the entire reason the party needed to seek out Tiki in the first place. If we are analyzing FE1/3 for whatever reason, do we need to reconcile bunny people, sacred mountains, and undead goddesses with the world as it was? Most people seem content with considering FE1/3 independently of what Awakening (FE13) added, since FE13 is so incredibly different in spirit.
Tellius is quite a different work from Awakening, and its developers seemed to have a very different vision. When analyzing Tellius for its own sake, I would not personally take FE13's evidence too seriously, especially when it's at ends with the original games' stance on the matter. That goes for both Ike and rabbit people.
24 I think it's fair enough to assume that Priam isn't lying. While it's difficult to disprove most things that characters say about their backstory, in genre fiction we generally take these infodumps at face value unless given reason to think that they would be lying about it.
The possibility exists that he's glossing over the details. In the old Archanea games, Marth was the rightful inheritor of Anri's divine blade, the Falchion, but he was not a direct descendent. Rather, he descended from Anri's brother's bloodline. The script was always very careful to hedge around the connection between Marth and Anri, using phrases like "of the blood of Anri" (as in, "Anri's kin") rather than "descendent", so there is a linguistic difference in these two cases. However, it does set a strong precedent for rightful divine heirs not necessarily being of direct descent. A common practice in premodern Japan (and still sometimes practiced today) is to adopt a close relative's child as one's own to continue the family trade. I don't believe this was the reading the developers intended, since FE13 is everyone-has-babies land, but independently of intent I believe it's a plausible interpretation of Priam's statement.
25 Most people seem content to assume that bearing a child from a woman is the same thing as being sexually or romantically interested in that woman. We know very well from the classic narrative of the closet case that this assumption doesn't always hold. (Actually, one old homophobic argument that homosexuality breaks up families is based entirely upon the observation that some gay men marry and have children before deciding that they no longer want to live that way.) Even outside of these unhappy situations, gay men seeking to raise a child of their own have and still do seek out a woman to help them accomplish this, sometimes considering them a member of the family as well. In modern times this generally involves artificial insemination, but surrogate motherhood goes back to ancient times. This is generally reported as a solution for infertile heterosexual couples, but I think it would be irrational to suggest that gay couples would not explore the same option in cultures that permit them to live in the open.
[As a housekeeping note for those less familiar with these kinds of mechanics... sexual arousal is not required for ejaculation. Physical stimulation alone will suffice (a fact that causes male rape victims considerable confusion and distress).]
26 For the purposes of brevity, I'm writing "bisexuality" to mean an orientation that is attracted to at least both men and women. You can mentally replace this with pansexuality if you prefer.
Update 11/26/2017: Fixed Serenes Forest links, which had been broken when they renamed their pages. Please let me know if any links on this page appear to be dead for any reason.
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Interesting point re: Priam and Anri. So Priam could be a descendent of Mist in technicality?
My first thought was that Aimee found another strapping blue-haired fellow and later started claiming that her baby was Ike's....no subject
The language used to describe Marth and Priam are noticeably different, so I don't think Priam was meant to be a non-direct descendent, but given what we've seen before about the way sword-bound divine right works, it's sort of plausible.
That idea is the best though.no subject
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Thanks!
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I've always been on the fence about the topic of Ike's sexuality myself, but it's always surprised me how vehemently people argue against the possibility of him being homosexual when the topic comes up.
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Thanks!
As ever, it's just about impossible to get 100% proof of sexuality either way, but by god a lot of people really don't want him to like dudes and will be totally unfair about the lack of balls-touching evidence.
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(Anonymous) 2014-08-13 03:12 am (UTC)(link)I also think a point against IkexElincia is that there are a few times where it seems that Elincia tries to express a more personal perhaps even romantic interest in Ike and he either doesn't notice her intent or outright rebuffs her such as after the battle with the raven pirates in fe9 chapter 12 or when he confronts the Begnion court to defend Elincia's honor a few chapters later and afterward Elincia asks him to call her by name and he refuses to.
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Yeah, claiming that there's a link between Ike/Soren and Raven/Lucius only supports an argument for Ike/Soren being romantic if the reader accepts that Raven/Lucius is a romantic pairing... which, I think, would be an argument somewhat more tenuous than this one to begin with.
Regarding rebuffing Elincia... I do think Ike can be somewhat oblivious, but I don't think that necessarily speaks to his sexuality. In the Chapter 12 post-battle script, I see him making racist claims while Elincia gently argues against him? But I agree that his refusal to call Elincia without title in the future would suggest an intention to remain distant from her.
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(Anonymous) 2014-08-13 04:10 am (UTC)(link)Regarding the chapter 12 post battle script, I was talking about at the very end where she asks if she can hang out with him and he's just like "sure whatevs."
I look at the rebuffing in the context of that base conversation with Gatrie and the servant girls, which happens in the same chapter (14). That can't be a coincidence don't you think?
Lethe/Priam
(Anonymous) 2014-09-29 09:09 pm (UTC)(link)Anyway, the point of my post. Your mention of how they treated Ike x Lethe from 9 to 10 made me think of a few things. First, I feel like you're somewhat taking things how you want to in regards to Priam, then again so am I with this. I'd take Ike x Soren with relation to Priam as you took Ike x Lethe in relation to FE10: a possibility that discusses an "alternate universe," but never quite happened in the main one. So Soren and Ike could have had a thing, but nothing ever came of it.
The second is a bit more of a crack theory. FE13 takes place in that different "universe," since there's a precedent with the otherworld gate. Given this Priam is a descendant of Ike x Lethe in this alternate universe.
Again very interesting read, and while I'm still not sold, this is hands down the best argument in favor of this that I've read.
Re: Lethe/Priam
That's actually my personal favorite theory with regards to Priam: Lethe's child in an alternate universe branching off FE9. :p
Keep in mind that this essay is primarily about sexuality. Ike's bisexuality is not changed regardless of whether he skips Tellius with Soren or AU!Lethe.
Admittedly it's also 20% ship manifesto. But I don't mean to say that Ike/Soren is the only option 4eva: simply that Soren enjoys a status as the most backed option for Ike, like Lyn is for Hector. That doesn't mean that Hector can't get with Farina or Florina.
Actually, going back to Priam, I think Eliwood/Ninian is a good example here, because while Ninian is undoubtly pushed in FE7, FE6 says nothing about Roy being of dragon blood. So you've got a similar clash, where the dude's game proper says one thing, and other games with incomplete information seem to contradict this slightly.
Anyway, if you think that Ike/Soren is strongly supported by evidence but you don't ship it, that's completely fine by me and outside the scope of this article. Soren is a disturbed child with issues and his way of loving someone is probably a turn-off for a lot of people.
Presumption of Sexuality
(Anonymous) 2015-12-21 10:51 pm (UTC)(link)The first time I played PoR, I read Ike and Soren's relationship as purely platonic (I was also a teenager at the time with no openly queer acquaintances in a time when Queer representation in the media was sorely lacking). On my subsequent play throughs, and when playing RD, I found the obvious chemistry and closeness between the characters difficult to ignore, especially having regard to Ike's repeated platonic responses to the women around him, and when comparing his relationship with Soren to other romantic pairings, and to platonic relationships.
Re: Presumption of Sexuality
Thanks for commenting.
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(Anonymous) 2016-05-23 08:08 am (UTC)(link)Honestly, I never really dove down the rabbit hole of exploring the different "controversies" in the pairings in FE9 and FE10, but as you point out, it is notably significant that Ike has those extra scenes with Soren and that's how I felt when I found out those existed. It's kind of just something important to note and I think it also is notable that Ike's endings mainly include other guys. I never really saw it as a big deal, but also FE9 and FE10 were the first two games in the series I've actually been able to finish. I love the series in general because it's so rich in story and has amazing artwork and I've played other earlier titles, but seriously they're hard and can be pretty frustrating, so there's a number of titles I've started but never finished. That said though, the possibility of Ike x Soren or Ike x Ranulf kind of didn't make me bat an eye or anything, and my standpoint generally speaking on these topics is that I'm pretty picky and generally don't ship *anyone* arbitrarily. I usually stick to canonical pairings and whatever the story tells me because I don't see a point in over-analyzing every interaction and investing myself in championing one pairing or another to possibly end up disappointed, but even with that mindset and looking at this fandom, I still find Ike's endings and supports to be interesting and notable. I just can't refute the possibilities.
That said, if I had to put myself in a box, I'd probably be in the camp that would lean more toward Ike being asexual or bisexual.
Plus, another layer that I think you could add to the argument is in terms of timing and setting. I mean, the arguments we're making about sexuality come from a modern perspective, but the setting for Fire Emblem games are in a pre-modern setting with castles and knights and such. When we're talking about that time period in our world, discussion about sexuality during medieval times or like any other equivalent time period was not really a thing. No one really openly discussed being gay regularly during a time where you're really just trying to survive. On top of that, back in those times there were other sociopolitical reasons to have marriage regardless of what any individual's desires were. There were tons of things surrounding marriage and sex and having children just for the sake inheritance or having an heir or even for simple economic reasons where many a marriage happened without any romantic feelings being involved at all, and usually after an heir was present no one really cared all that much what the couple did anymore or if they even had anymore kids. If we consider that this dynamic given the similarity in setting for practical reasons could be present in Tellius, Ike could still have a wife and also still be inclined to be closer to Soren or Ranulf. Hell, we don't even know the exact timing of when they go off on a journey together exactly after the game. What if Ike tried to be a family man because that was a thing people did and maybe Mist was bugging him about it and for whatever reason after that he went on his journey. Or even what if they dropped by Gallia and Goldoa on their way (noting that technically both boys are of laguz descent) and they happened to run into Lethe and had a one night stand interaction? These endings don't exactly paint a full picture either.
Along similar lines to this though, I think we also have to consider that the game is from Japan, which is an Asian country. While in modern times in mainstream Japan there isn't a whole lot that really addresses same-sex relationships, it's not like same-sex relationships are unfamiliar to the country either. There is a notable amount of same-sex literature and records of different types of same-sex relationships. A lot of Japanese culture has a lot of similarities and parallels to Chinese culture as well because of some shared cultural basis in some philosophies like Confucianism among other things, but the point is that these things weren't viewed as "abnormal" in ancient times for either country and a lot of the more modern "disdain" for it comes more from Western influence and ideas. Particularly in China there are figures who are noted to having both homosexual and heterosexual relationships, but that doesn't speak at all as to what the actual sexuality was of those figures because in terms of the society there was a "need" for certain kinds of responsibilities and obligations to be fulfilled and that obscures that kind of information historically. Particularly in Chinese culture there's a strong emphasis on carrying on the family line as a part of your filial duty, but as noted in the medieval example of heirs in terms of Europe, once that obligation is fulfilled no one really cares what you do on your off hours. Confucianism while simultaneously stating that a person had an obligation to ensure that family was important and needed to be continued into the future, also painted relationships with women in more of a negative light as a distraction to men's productivity and placed a great deal of emphasis on the positives of male relationships at times to the promotion or glorification of homosexuality. This isn't *really* like an official endorsement of heterosexual or homosexual relationships either way necessarily, but you know on an individual basis people could have applied these ideas to their lives in different ways so that it was subtly encouraged and people didn't seem to care quite as much as people care now. Corroborating with that, there were also ideas in Taoism about preserving a guy's "life energy" which simultaneously kind of paints all women like energy sucking succubi. There are plenty of other examples and things I could go into that I'm leaving out, but all that together, I kind of just feel like this probably isn't that controversial of a topic in Japan as it seems to be outside Japan.
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I think it's difficult to say how much medieval customs should reflect upon Tellius. Its influence is clearly medieval, but there's also a lot about the setting that isn't. Even just focusing on the social elements... the biggest empire in the world is ruled by matrilineal succession. There's a notion of human rights implicit in the game's condemnation of the way laguz are treated. High-class women are permitted in the army. A woman can divorce her husband (Tauroneo/Rolf supports). I think it's difficult to map medieval social norms onto Tellius without going against what's already 100% canon.
(I also think you're overstating the survival element a little bit. Sure, there were many poor people struggling to survive, but that's also true of many people today, and they still find the time to have fleeting moments of passion. Have you ever asked the snotty question, "Why do poor people have kids they can't feed?" Because love and passion, man. It's just part of the human condition.)
Regarding Japanese fandom, I think you're placing too much weight upon historical beliefs throughout Asia. The modern Japanese perception of same-sex relationships is startlingly similar to the Western one. I had a Japanese Tellius fan tell me that this post meant a lot to him because all he could find was homophobic crap on Japanese forums.
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(Anonymous) 2017-04-07 08:21 am (UTC)(link)I enjoy reading Ike as a queer character and I believe that to some extent that reading was intended by the original writer, Soren just fits a lot of the trappings love interests typically fall into and Ike is the only lord that doesn't end up getting married.
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Yeah, the core Tellius staff wasn't around for Awakening, or anything after Tellius for that matter. Fired for bad sales maybe? :/
Anyway, whether or not authorial intent matters does depend on who you talk to.
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(Anonymous) 2017-04-07 03:21 pm (UTC)(link)I wish IS would hire that team again, the Tellius games imo have the best narrative and character designs. And yes, it's also hard to determine exactly what was intended in the first place either way but you can't use that as undeniable proof of anything, it's largely subjective. Nonetheless I do think it is fair to disregard Awakening's canon when considering the Tellius games, since they are such different entities and a queer reading is too convenient to pass up just because a different creative team may have had a different vision (and surely they did, again considering how different the newer games are compared to the Tellius games). I do say a lot of this in regards to Priam obviously since that is the most common counterpoint people seem to use.
May
(Anonymous) 2018-01-11 04:19 am (UTC)(link)I played the PoR 10 years ago (still do ocassionally, because i enjoy the game that much) and after that, I got the RD. I've always thought of Soren and Ike like a couple, in the many ways a couple may be conceived. I was 17 and my little brother, 7. He also learnt about how love can be diverse and not neccesarilly a marriage or a baby.
Your article is entertaining and well sustained, it's a pleasure to read it. Greetings!
Bisexuality and Lethe
(Anonymous) 2019-02-09 08:19 am (UTC)(link)For me personally, I see Ike and Lethe’s relationship as mutual respect... for Ike at least. Lethe on the other hand acts Tsundere and does respect Ike, but may be denying some hidden feelings for him. Ike on the other hand respects Lethe, but is pulling a “Mia”. I see Ike as oblivious to her feelings and solely focused on “Cool, sparring partner in a Laguz nation for a while? I dig that!”
Now this may be just my interpretation bias, but I can relate to that possible Ike interpretation of the situation because as a gay guy, this has happened to me with some girls who may not have known which way I swung. I just happened to be oblivious and respect those girls like Ike did in the fictional world of Tellius
Re: Bisexuality and Lethe
(Anonymous) 2019-02-09 08:36 am (UTC)(link)Re: Bisexuality and Lethe
I don't disagree that the argument for Ike/Lethe is indirect, but so is the argument for Ike/Soren or Ike/Ranulf. Granted, the body of evidence is larger in general in Soren's case, but it's based off the same kind of logic. It's like if your evidence for the existence of God is the Old Testament/Torah, and an atheist is like "idk that's circular reasoning? I don't think it counts" and then a Christian comes along like "but we have MORE HOLY BOOKS. so clearly our god is realer."
I don't disagree that people often have fairly self-interested motivations for arguing that Ike's sexuality is one thing or another, but you'll find that that's pretty much every topic in life. And you've probably got one of these motivations yourself.
Re: Bisexuality and Lethe
(Anonymous) 2019-02-09 03:53 pm (UTC)(link)I blame Fire Emblem Heroes for this becoming a thing. I actually didn’t know how big and controversial this topic was until I went down the rabbit hole curiously after seeing negative reaction to “Ike is maybe gay?” via IS’s antics with most (but not all) Bound Hero battles being a lot of implied couples and yes that includes the weird cousin one of Azura and Male Corrin... Back to topic though, they did Raven and Lucius and then Ike and Soren. Soren’s dialog for both his regular version and alt doesn’t help his case and neither does the 4Koma official FEH comics. Then we have the most recent thing that sparked the Ike sexuality topic which is purposely putting Soren and Ike on the same Valentine’s Banner. People can argue “Soren is just seen as a brother! This is Greil Mercanaries, the family.” While I do agree about the familial love theme on the summoning banner for the most part, they could have fully committed to this implication by having Boyd instead of Soren considering FE9 Ike did not remember Soren nor met him again until the player starts up the game. Prologue PoR Ike and co are set up like a family unit with Soren being introduced later. As you know, in FE10, Soren isn’t truly remembered until Ike regains his traumatic memories.
Anyways, maybe I’m not getting my point across, but IS seems to be intentionally fueling the fire for both sides by continually doing things like this in Fire Emblem Heroes. It’s a bit frustrating. I understand though. At this point, present day’s Fire Emblem’s Unofficial poster boy is Ike and having the gay/bi thing being a part of him could mean a loss of fans/customers and general bad feedback and publicity.
Re: Bisexuality and Lethe
This has always been a thing for far far longer than Fire Emblem Heroes has even existed. As far as the Valentine's banner goes, I'm pretty sure IS knows exactly what they're doing and they're fujobaiting for money. I mean, c'mon, it's a mobile gatcha game. It's always about fanservice for money.
Re: Bisexuality and Lethe
(Anonymous) 2019-02-10 03:31 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Bisexuality and Lethe
(Anonymous) 2019-02-10 06:47 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Bisexuality and Lethe
(Anonymous) 2019-02-13 05:28 pm (UTC)(link)Anyways I just thought I’d defend the asexual and bisexual claim too provided that the person truly believes this and isn’t claiming this randomly and loosely and out of malice of a gay Ike. For me personally, since sexuality has a “scale” of sorts, if I were to have Ike be bi, I still think he’s highly more leaning on the guy side of things from my impression of him personally and the fact that you reminded me how much Tellius is littered with subtext and fujo bait for other characters too. Lol, I read your tumblr links and the ones that caught my eye most were Tibarn and Reyson. Wtf, “tie you to a bed to prevent you from battling”? That’s uhh... kinky of Tibarn XD
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(Anonymous) 2020-10-06 05:37 am (UTC)(link)no subject
(Anonymous) 2021-01-15 10:13 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
(Anonymous) 2021-03-06 07:25 pm (UTC)(link)Bruh xD
(Anonymous) 2021-12-09 06:25 am (UTC)(link)"You can't say I'm wrong"
Bruuuhhh xD
Good bait
Ashlee
(Anonymous) 2022-01-15 01:55 am (UTC)(link)I'm a long-time Ike and Soren supporter. I was 12 when FE9 came out and picked up FE10 as soon as it released. I fostered dear friendships through the fandom and that ship. I enjoy this post for its clear points but also for its biases as well (although to call them biases seems unfair, because in all honesty, I see nothing but facts).
I've never had the, ahem, pleasure of NEEDING to argue Ike's queerness to anyone, but it is nice to have all of this great information so neatly compiled if I ever just wanted to have a glass of wine and start ranting deliriously about it. I know this post is pretty old as of this comment, but it all still stands true today. I'd love to hear even more contextual and evidentiary parallels between Ike's relationships and the relationships we have seen in more recent entries that you didn't address here (because you couldn't), like Fates and Three Houses.
All that said, thanks for writing this. It's amazing. Cheers!