In this blog post, I will examine why Blue Lions is personally my favourite house in Fire Emblem: Three Houses for the Nintendo Switch. Note that I am not doing this as a ranked list, as each house has things that might appeal to different people. I also would not like to denigrate another house in my post, as each provide a unique perspective on the story, and an interesting band of characters to get to know. This is why I am using the term favourite as opposed to best.
First, a quick rundown of the story. You are Byleth, a mercenary. In this world, your status in society is normally linked to your Crest, with most of those who bear one being nobility. While on a mission with your father, you run into three students from the nearby Officer's Acadamy at Garreg Mach. Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude are also the three house leaders, and future rulers of their respective nations. You are taken on to be the new professor at the Officer's Acadamy, and need to select one of these three houses to lead. Edelgard leads the Black Eagles, Dimitri leads the Blue Lions and Claude the Golden Deer. Mostly, which house the students go into is decided by their country, so there's no personality traits that define them. Black Eagles students come from the Adrestian Empire, Blue Lions from the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and Golden Deer from the Leicester Alliance. But students can change houses if they desire, through the recruit students gameplay mechanic.
Blue Lions house feels like a combination of Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, and I don't just mean on their sigil design. Many members of the house are would-be knights upholding the ideals of chivalry, and are brave as they come. They also happen to contain a large number of smarter, bookish characters. There's Annette, who studies hard, Ashe, who's very into reading legends and Ingrid, who works to be a knight. Even Sylvain, a ladies man character, has been shown to have intelligence that goes beyond how he normally acts. Obviously, Gryffindors can be into reading, but it is my belief that most of them fall somewhere between the two, with a little of the Hufflepuff hard work and Slytherin ambition thrown in. Do not be misled by this paragraph, as none of the houses in this game have a direct counterpart to a Potter house, despite the colour schemes.
The houses in this game are more decided based on where a student originates from, one of the three nations of the setting. This leads to a mix of personalities, and you can also recruit students from different houses, too. The joy with a game like Fire Emblem is getting to see all these different people interact in what are known as 'Support Conversations.' If you've never played a video game, but are curious about them, I'd highly recommend Fire Emblem: Three Houses to people who like reading.
Characterisation:
Blue Lions is a very character-driven route, overall. In fact, I would easily say that it has some of my favourite characters in the game. A lot of this will be revealed in the smaller support conversations, one reason why I try and recruit as many characters as I can, to find out more about them.
Dimitri will likely be the first character many people think of when it comes to the well-written character development of this game, and to go too far into it will really spoil a lot of it for others. He starts off trying to present that image of the perfect prince, but there's something dark simmering beneath his surface. He likes combat, but doesn't like that likes it. He is also very motivated by revenge. He does manange to reconcile both parts of his personality later on, but not before a turn for the far worse.
Dedue is very loyal to Dimitri - Dimitri saved his life during a massacre of his countrymen when they were both boys. This is both a blessing and a curse, as Dedue will support Dimitri even when he isn't thinking rationally. Dedue also loves gardening and cooking, despite his threatening appearance. He can come off as terse, but a lot of that is just not knowing how to interact with others, as he comes from a country (Duscur) that deals with a lot of racism in-story. Before he comes to the Officer's Academy, he rarely interacts with anyone in a way that isn't hostile.
Felix begins the story by hating Dimitri. He also has spent much of in trying to live up to the example of his older brother, Glenn, who was a knight who died in service to the royal family. He is very much driven by a desire to be the best swordsman, but his supports show that he begins to question why this means so much to him. And while he acts very hard-hearted, he can show a softer side around some of the sweeter characters.
Sylvain is a ladies man - if you aren't on a Blue Lions route and try to recruit him as Female Byleth, he will join your house no questions asked. (It's nice to know where your loyalties lie, Sylvain!) But he doesn't think much of the girls he dates, believing them to be after his noble title or trying to bear his 'Crest Baby.' He does manage to take a good look at his attitude in some of his support conversations.
Mercedes has not had it easy in her life. She was actually born to a noble family in the Adrestian Empire, but then left and fled to Faerghus, where her mother married another noble, but then eventually she became the adopted daughter of a wealthy merchant. Since she bears a Crest, most of these families have been more interested in using her to up their position in society. But she herself remains a very kind young lady and one of the most devout characters in the game, with dreams of joining the Church of Seiros to help others like they have done for her. But she does find it rather easy to sway to others wishes.
Annette is Mercedes's best friend. Annette is a cheerful girl who is fond of singing songs to herself while she works. She's a hard worker, and got herself into the School of Sorcery through her studies. Many of her supports involves someone helping with her work, or imploring her to just take a break. She joined the Officer's Academy for a particular reason, searching for her father. She's also one of the first to try and cheer up characters when they have a bad time - she and Mercedes bake sweets for you, after a certain point in the story.
Ashe - I'd be remiss not to mention here that Ashe is my personal absolute favourite character in the whole game. He likes reading and cooking, so basically me in a medieval setting. He's a commoner feeling a little out-of-place in a place of nobles. His parents ran a restaurant, but when they died he was left to raise his brother and sister by himself. He stole to keep them fed. But when he was trying to steal from a noble one day, he was transfixed by a book, and the noble took him on as his adopted son, and taught him to read! Ashe still remains one of the kindest characters in the whole game, showing remorse over many deaths and insisting that petty criminals get a chance to improve their situation.
Ingrid is interesting, the daughter of an impoverished noble. Her father always made sure she got the best things to eat before he did. While he does love her, it's also in his best interests to keep her strength up, as she's been the only bearer of their family's Crest for generations. She was engaged to Felix's brother, and is still haunted over his death. Since the people of Duscur are thought to be behind this (although evidence in this game suggests that this is not the case) she holds contempt for the people of Duscur, which comes out in her supports with Dedue. However, this is never an issue in game, and by her later support conversations she appears to be changing her views.
Obviously, you can recruit and will gain other characters as the game goes on. But a full list would take forever, so these are the eight Blue Lions characters who are there from the start. And you can recruit most of these (all but Dimitri and Dedue) into another house, which is always a good way to see their take on a different side of the story.
Ties into the overall story:
Honestly, at first I thought the missions you get during the academy phrase of this game were unique to the Blue Lions. One of the earliest involves tracking down a Kingdom noble who is also Ashe's adopted father, likely earlier than most people would have recruited him out. This not only provides good dialogue during the fight for Ashe, but also Dimitri, who doesn't like attacking one of his own nobles. A little further on, one of them involves the brother of Sylvain. Annette's father and Mercedes's brother also play roles, too, and Mercedes's brother's isn't obvious at first.
In the second part of the game, the story does get much more personal, becoming the three distinct routes that this game is known for. You very much do get three games for the price of one, here. Even outside of their own route, if you don't recruit them, the Blue Lions get some pretty cool scenes and lines as enemies.
Gameplay thoughts:
I find that Blue Lions makes a very balanced house for battle purposes. We're meant to be slightly weaker on the magic side, but you still do have one black mage (Annette) and one white mage (Mercedes) given at the start. Mercedes learns a heal spell with a range that can heal your units from almost anywhere on the battlefield, and her ability heals her if she heals a friendly unit. She can also learn some more combat spells easily once you leave her Reason (black magic) skill.
Two of our members have a Budding Talent in Reason, and the main character can also learn black magic. You also get another white mage who can learn combat magic as the story progresses, and you can recruit from other houses to cover your weaknesses. I personally like Dorothea, as she is relatively easy to recruit from high charm skill, and gets some long-ranged black magic spells that the Blue Lions house does lack.
However, you might not need this so much, as physically this house is very strong. Dimitri has the highest attainable strength stat in the game, Felix wrecks things as a fast swordsman, meaning he can attack twice from very early on in the game. Ashe develops into an archer with a very high chance of a critical hit. Ingrid, once levelled, will become a badass Pegasus Knight who can fly to protect far locations on the battlefield. Sylvain became my first cavalry unit, giving him range at a point in the game where few others will have a range like this. Dedue comes in very handy in the early game to protect some of the units you need to level up, while they're still relatively weak.
While no house is obviously 'better' or makes for a Golden Ending, Blue Lions is the house where the highest number of main characters can be left alive at the end of it. This appeals as the way this game forces you to be attacking your friends is brutal, in the best way possible, showing how much the war really is taking it's toll on your allies. I even like to leave some of them as enemies and to support their main lord, for the story.
Criticisms:
One of the things that I will point out is that some of the hidden antagonists of this story don't come to the forefront. You don't learn the truth of the Church of Seiros, either. This does work as a way to encourage you to try out the other routes, however. There still feels like there is a lot of things left
unanswered on this route.
Oh, and you don't get Claude as a playable character.
Conclusion:
While Blue Lions appeals to me, playing into many character archetypes and storylines that I like, I can also see why people might prefer another house. Really, it's all down to personal preference.
