Hello everyone, and welcome to my character analysis on Soren from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn! I hope you like it, and thank you so so much for watching :)
This was super eye-opening. The comparison to Ninian is brilliant. I’ve always loved Soren, but I’ve never been able to put my finger on what exactly made him better than other characters with similar flaws, I just knew that he was. This was an awesome video like always!
Soren might be my favourite in the series. Certainly, I've been voting him in CYL. While I ship him with Ike, I'm firmly of the opinion that both of them are asexual, which is pretty different! His exclusive dependence on Ike is unsurprising and very realistic when you look at his background. His abusive experiences and the fact that he grew up never talking are going to train him to feel threatened by literally everyone with no expectation of being able to influence anyone even if they don't try to hurt him. Ike is an exception and as a broken person, he will throw himself at Ike as a crutch. That's actually the expected psychology, especially as he's seemingly spent his formative years locked away and under the care of one person. It really shows through him having only two supports in PoR; one with Ike, and one with someone who persistently tries to get his attention (and Soren hates it). Finally, I have to have mention the PoR dev interview where IntSys mentioned originally having a route split where Ike chooses between taking Soren's advice and Titania's. Soren's meant joining Dein, and well that arc would very likely lead to a king Soren. And holy crap, that would be so cool. He'd be amazing and yet terrible, and I want to see that and this is why I'm pushing for Soren in CYL. /gush
AHHH!! Thank you so much for this. Soren is my favourite character in all of Fe as well. I absolutely loved this and in how much depth you went. I do disagree with the stereotype yaoi thing though. Soren is not submissive at all, like he's the sort of person who bullies others instead of getting bullied. But than again, that's how I view him. I asolutely adore this little cupcake. ♡ You earned yourself another subscriber!! :D
So glad you pointed out his similarities to Ninian! Awesome and balanced analysis on one of my absolute fave FE characters.... AND you've got a Madoka poster in the background?? 10/10 instasub (can we talk abt how similar soren and homura are tho)
Soren is my favorite character in Tellius and one of my favs in the series. I love the sarcastic genius asshole with genuine flaws. He's an amazing character and one of the best out there
path of radiance may be my favorite game to ever exist, and soren is one of the much more interesting characters in its cast. Great video! and nice gladr at the end!
Wow I never really looked much into Soren's character. Also never saw how dependent on Ike he was (which was blatant so my bad I guess haha). This was so interesting to watch! Keep up the great work! 😁
@@daisysaur9445 It is really fun. I play Fire Emblem Heroes and didn't get the Soren/Ike meme until this video lol. It's an interesting character dynamic. Thanks for educating me on a character that I was kind of curious about!
Edit: Also, awesome 1000 subscribers! I wouldn't call Soren a gay stereotype, at least the way you descibed it to me, is more of a archetype. Because it fits more in to literary works. As well as the fact that Japan has many such charactions in their media, like the many deres... where a fictional character fits into a copy and paste mold. Or something...
Soren is my favorite character by far in Fire Emblem. I loved this video! I actually never picked up on Soren having the uke character tropes until you mentioned it. Great video, looking forward to more from you! =)
Alright watching this video is now my inspiration for finishing path of radiance and radiant dawn. Not that they're bad or anything, they're just expensive
I can't really say that I'm a huge Fire Emblem person because I've only played one of the games (the 2004 GBA one) and I just never could get into the gameplay because I'm not into turn-taking with the exception of Pokemon. But I really liked the character designs for the games so I would always go on the wiki and research the characters and when I stumbled upon Soren's artwork, I was instantly drawn. I find it disheartening that people dislike him for being a "gay stereotype = via feminine and submissive" because to be perfectly honest, that's the reason why I like the character as a feminine, gender nonconforming person myself and the simple truth of the matter is that people like us exist so to complain about this character being this way I just find rather disappointing especially because it does seem like after hearing you explain his backstory, they put a lot of work into his character where he's more than just a stereotype even if it was beyond harsh. I also am happy you brought up the double standard where that if Soren was a woman, then he wouldn't be seen as problematic because there is a concept that if a man is dependent on someone for emotional support, it's seen as feminine, weak, and unacceptable as opposed to women. Again, this is why I like that they took a risk with Soren making him the way he was because if he isn't the standard, he had enough traits (his intelligence and loyalty) to show that he's not completely helpless Anyway, awesome video, I learned a lot about this character :D
One of my favorite characters also! I love characters that arent just cookie cutter perfect, I like it when characters have faults that you watch them overcome
I dunno if I'd consider Soren to be a gay stereotype. I understand why people might headcanon him and ike as a couple but there isn't really anything in the text to suggest this is the case. Even if they were in a relationship though I still don't think soren is a stereotype. Soren isn't a submissive character, so he doesn't fit in the uke role.
He was changed in localization a bit to have more bite. The point is mostly about how he acts towards Ike though rather than others. He fits it more in JP and for that I am forever grateful we have a sarcastic sassy strategist in ENG. Also bless his VA. Just switch the feh language to jp and tap Soren and you'll notice the difference.
I'd also just like to say I don't like the stereotype so I understand if you're not up to really delving into it. Valid. I'm just a bastard who spent too much time learning a ton about their fav.
He isn't and her "tie" with Ike seme archetype is a farce. He's living up to his father's shadow archetype which is why he starts off thin and becomes a man later on. Soren is not flamboyant at all and this archetype is played very hard with Leon and Valbar.
Awesome vid, Soren is one of my favorite FE characters too. His character arc is something you very rarely see written about, especially in videogames. I'm gonna be nitpicky about one thing, because I'm pedantic and like to argue. I think with the Ninian vs Soren comparison, the fans who make both of those stances are probably two separate camps. The people who say Soren is overdependent on Ike likely just had a casual playthrough where they didn't read supports or base conversations. Those same people probably just thought Ninian was really bland, since almost all of the elaboration on her dependence on Eliwood is in optional text. I would say people who analyze characters wouldn't really have a problem with either of them since they're both pretty well fleshed out (Soren much more so IMO, but that's probably due to the Gamecube having more room for text than the GBA). I get that "Soren is too dependent on Ike" and "Ninian's dependence on Eliwood is okay" are opinions that exist, but I just haven't seen anyone have both of those opinions at the same time. Sure, someone who thinks that probably exists but it's way too rare to say it's the common consensus, which is what you seemed to imply.
Wow, both a new Daisy video in a reasonable time, and based on Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, the latter is among my top ten favorite games! What a great way to wake up on my day off. One thing I might advise you on: I think you might want to remove any references to male anatomy from future videos. It always kinda bugged me in the past, and it seemed to go slightly out of hand this time. I would have spoken up sooner, but no other RU-vidr has ever even responded to my anti-profanity requests. Minor gripe aside, this may be my favorite video you've done so far. Your outros have vastly-improved, clutziness is a very endearing trait on RU-vid, considering how many overly-scripted videos I watch, and you're among my top 3 favorite RU-vidrs! Please keep it up! Sincerely, your biggest fan (though not in a creepy way).
I actually like Soren, but hate Ninian. I'm alright with his relationship with Ike in Path of Radiance (there is room for improvement), but kind of don't like him much in Radiant Dawn... In almost every regard. Too bad about not having the Stefan supports, I'd of enjoyed seeing those here. For those of you wondering, Stefan basically says *Spoilers* Stefan is a branded, and he knows Soren is a branded, and tells him basically to come to the dessert after everyone he knows dies from old age.
I kind of agree, it's probably cos most of his growth happens in path of radiance, and because he is more important in that game. Also yeah he is very good in FE9, but not so much in FE10 from a battle unit perspective
Wait, you're saying Ike is Seme? Hahaha! Ahem, no. Sorry, but his build stems from him living up to his father's shadow archetype, not a seme archetype. Which is why he starts off only looking like a shadow to his father during Path of Radiance. As for the whole argument, Priam having Regnell is a sign that he either A. Found Ike's corpse or B. It was passed down and Ike is the only one to possess it not Mist so him being Mist's lineage is not the case plus this was 2007 and Japan was not really that open to gay marriage which is still an issue today. Trust me, Valbar and Leon are that archetypes, not Soren and he's not a flamboyant character either. Even with long hair are we going to call Ryoma gay for it? He's supposed to be a *recessive* yet also a *critical* character. I am forcing my opinion on you on this issue!
