Discussion What do you think of the character Rosado from fire emblem engage? Can we hope for some more positive representation for future Nintendo titles?

[DecoReturns]

So some Backstory for non-Fire emblem fans.

IS has a bad record when it comes to some characterization. Even when the intention is trying to be “good” slowly getting to a more progressive environment, but always having something offensive to undo everything for some stupid reason or another. Same sex pairings took until three houses to happen. Even tho Awakening and onwards implied it in some supports. There’s some gross cheap shots in Fates and Three Houses was too scared to have Male X male pairings bar 1. (The other was DLC). (Want some major red flags. Look up Soleil)

Granted some stuff is still bad, but getting better, still not where they should be tho. Engage has More same sex pairing in this game. Tho a spoiler aspect kinda sucks (nothing bad per say, more like unexpected for a fire emblem ending)

However, Engage introduced Rosado

“Princess Hortensia's reatiner. He loves cute things and always maintains a bright, positive attitude.”

As you can see, Rosado is classified as Male, and remarkably. The game doesn’t actually question it or use cheap shots about it. (Of course I Haven’t seen every support so I’ll be upset if I’m wrong). And not only that, their customizing options are unique compared to other male characters. seems like a step in the right direction compared to previous attempts. Even if it’s a bit sad that I’m surprised about no cheap shots.

Do you think this is an upward trend for Fire emblem games? Can we expect some more for other Nintendo games? Progress still seems too small but it’s better then regressing at this point.

Nintendo is lacking in a lot of areas for representation. For a company who’s classify their games for “everyone”. It doesn’t feel like for everyone. I’m hoping this is a start of an upward trend, but it’s fair if maybe I expect too much.

 

[Deleted member 3476]

As for me, I love the character Rosado from Fire Emblem Engage. Cheers, OP!

 

[Thunder84]

Rosado was one of the highlights of an otherwise bland cast. He was handled very well, and had some great supports. He still fell victim to the game’s reliance on tropes (in his case, his desire for cuteness everywhere) but his stronger supports were some of the best in the game.

 

[Kartina]

He's good but I don't know how well he would work on maddening, he has a good class and coming late gives him a big sp pool for some cool abilities, I should give him a shot in my next run.
of course more character representation is amazing and I hope to see more of this

 

[Mango]

...I don't understand what he's representing.

 

[Clov]

I like him! He's cute, and I'm glad that the fact that he loves cute things isn't mocked by the game. In one of the later supports with him he even talks about how he wants to help make a world where everyone can be who they are, regardless of gender. It's all very sweet!

That being said, I'd love to see an outright trans character in a Fire Emblem game. Rosado himself isn't that meaningfully different from Forrest in FE Fates in terms of personality, so he's not really breaking much new ground. Personally, I think it would be great if the next Fire Emblem had a playable transgender woman. Since Engage has shown that they can treat gender non-conforming men respectfully, why not take it a step further?

 

[Síriocaz]

He's a nice person and seems to be more self-aware of his remarks regarding his cuteness than Hortensia and Goldmary, I like him.

 

[Party Sklar]

I love Rosado so much! It's one of the few characters in Engage that are on par with the Three Houses characters, and I think he might be one of my favorite FE characters ever. I hope that the positive reception to Rosado pushes IS to include more characters like him – and even trans characters – in future games.

 

[TheSpearGuy]

Another FE rep for smash

 

[Raccoon]

...I don't understand what he's representing.

yeah I didn't think femboys were considered representation

the more you know

 

[9-Volt]

He's absolutely great but nothing Nintendo haven't done before.

Remember Gracie from Animal Crossing? She was he in the Japanese version of the games. it's the localization team who changed his gender, for some reason:

 

[PixelKnight]

I didn’t use him in my playthrough (I’d pretty much already settled on my core force before his group joined) but I’ll probably give him a go on my next playthrough along with some of the others so I can see more of Rosado’s conversations with other characters etc.

Also, I wasn’t a huge fan of fliers in general in Engage. Partly mechanically- I played on classic and archery/ballistas being pretty much instant death to them hampers them a bit. Also it felt necessary to divide the troops into multiple teams sticking close together on almost every map too, reducing the need for fast outriders when a flier was a liability when faced with archery, whereas in previous games I often had a core team but fliers on the flanks. Not to mention

Spoiler

bosses using Lyn’s engage archery ability

.

Thematically it also felt like they should have had one of the core 12 Emblems as a flier rather than just sticking with old lord units as a celebratory thing. If you’ve got lords with cavalry, archery, magic, sword, axe, spear and healing abilities, fliers felt a bit left out. Seeing as Sigurd felt good to have on cavalry, it would have been cool to have a Caeda or Camilla emblem or whatever as one of the core 12, giving buffs to flier units. Maybe that’s just because I tried to match up the emblems thematically with units that felt right rather than just mixing and matching though.

Maybe that’s all just down to not having used Rosado though, as I’m aware late game units are a bit stronger in Engage. I stuck with the first Pegasus knight you get (Chloe?) and by act 3 was a bit unimpressed with both her stats and how little she was able to contribute without being the most fragile unit I had to plan for on every map, including the healers. Ultimately I ended up using her as a flying Healbot to keep her out of range.

 

[Hauke_von_Arding]

Have people forgotten about Forrest? Fates cast was VERY blant but Forrest was actually handled very well as gnc character too as far as I remember. So yes, Fire Emblem is at least in this regard very nice about handling them and Rosado did it even better now.

By the way, he has a nice B Support with Lapis about his background and that he is from a village where people just don't care about gender stereotypes and all that.

Spoiler

 

[Tangerine_Cookie]

...I don't understand what he's representing.

yeah I didn't think femboys were considered representation

the more you know

Alternative forms of masculinity that don't follow the "traditional" gender roles, if you ask me.

 

[Mango]

yeah I didn't think femboys were considered representation

the more you know

This is kinda off-topic, but "Femboy" is such a weird term. I have no idea what it even entails anymore. I also want to apply the label to myself for some reason, yet the "boy" part of it stops me dead in my tracks.

Is this character a "femboy?" Or is he just a boy who likes cute things? Is there even a difference?

Alternative forms of masculinity that don't follow the "traditional" gender roles, if you ask me.

I mean that's fine, but I never considered "male but likes cute things" something that wasn't represented well, at least in recent times. Of course I'll also admit I don't know much about the character besides how the op described him so I may be a bit off base.

 

[Hailinel]

This is kinda off-topic, but "Femboy" is such a weird term. I have no idea what it even entails anymore. I also want to apply the label to myself for some reason, yet the "boy" part of it stops me dead in my tracks.

Is this character a "femboy?" Or is he just a boy who likes cute things? Is there even a difference?

I mean that's fine, but I never considered "male but likes cute things" something that wasn't represented well, at least in recent times. Of course I'll also admit I don't know much about the character besides how the op described him so I may be a bit off base.

This is Rosado.

He presents in an extremely feminine manner and no one blinks an eye or gives him shit for it. He is just allowed to be who he is.

 

[Raysu Delight]

Rosado is fine but can't help feeling that they just chickened out of making an actual trans character, and decided to go with the safer "he's male but non gender conforming" type character instead. Even the design of the character feels that way to me - the colour of his hair and eyes are almost as if he's supposed to be a nod towards trans people without actually being trans himself. In my view it's all a bit disappointing; the character would've been much more meaningful if he was actually trans, but as he is in the game it's nothing we haven't seen before.

Might be off the mark with what I'm saying so I hope no one takes any offence to it, just the feeling I get from Rosado personally which makes me dislike his inclusion a little.

 

[Tangerine_Cookie]

This is kinda off-topic, but "Femboy" is such a weird term. I have no idea what it even entails anymore. I also want to apply the label to myself for some reason, yet the "boy" part of it stops me dead in my tracks.

Is this character a "femboy?" Or is he just a boy who likes cute things? Is there even a difference?

On one hand, femboy is a term that has been used for so many different kinds of people that I'm not even sure what it means either. I'm not even sure if it's considered a slur in some circles, or what actually means anymore.

On the other gender is a thing Walmart made up to sell more pink and blue clothes, all my homies hate gender, etc; so absolutely use whatever terms you want to define yourself because ultimately that's up to you.

 

[Hailinel]

I like Rosado but almost the entire Engage cast left no lasting impact on me.

 

[Revolsin]

crossdressing is considered relatively normal if a lil eccentric in japanese media, it's trans people that are ungodly unrepresented

 

[zumaddy]

Well Halvorson is almost definitely an AI bot bumping this thread late, but an update: Rosado placed top 20 in the Choose Your Legends poll with support from LGBT fans on social media. So it seems people do value him generally as a character.

 

[JR436]

I crossdress occasionally, so I gravitated towards Rosado instantly in the lead up to Engage.

Haven't played it yet, but he seems likeable enough. He comes across as a bit one-note, but I think that's just a general theme for Engage from what I've seen.

I do appreciate the localisation giving him a more masculine voice - though the JP VA is very impressive for pulling off what he does, he has crazy range.

 

[Ramune]

Some of the comments here about gender nonconforming men being "the safe option" or some sort of stop-gap on the way to "real" representation are not it FYI! If, like me, you'd like to see IS improve on this front and include other gender identities and a wider range of characters in their next roster, might I suggest the biggest problem is not the slot taken up by someone like Rosado but perhaps the many, many slots taken up by masculine cis men?

 

[Raysu Delight]

Some of the comments here about gender nonconforming men being "the safe option" or some sort of stop-gap on the way to "real" representation are not it FYI! If, like me, you'd like to see IS improve on this front and include other gender identities and a wider range of characters in their next roster, might I suggest the biggest problem is not the slot taken up by someone like Rosado but perhaps the many, many slots taken up by masculine cis men?

The thing is there are no "slots". It's a game that can include whichever characters, and as many characters as they want to include. It was disappointing for me to learn what Rosado's character actually was when I was playing through the game, after getting my hopes up and thinking he could be something else from my initial impression. I didn't see any masculine cis men and think that they might have been transgender representation; that's why I was personally disappointed in what Rosado's character turned out to be.

Like I said before; it isn't any slight on the character himself, just the way I personally feel about him.

 

[Stilt Village]

Surprised people are confused as to what a femboy is, though reading the Wikipedia article, I can see why. Wow that is a mess.

In actual use, it's basically just a boy who dresses like a girl, typically in a "cute" fashion. It's like the spear counterpart of butch, complete with the assumption that anyone who looks like this is gay. It's more or less synonymous with "sissy", but that's an older derogatory word that's nowadays almost exclusively used in a sexual context and often with transphobic undertones. Connotative and denotative meaning and all that.

I also wouldn't say characters like this are intended to be as progressive in Japanese media as they might appear to be in the west. Crossdressing stuff seems much more accepted there solely on just how frequently it comes up, which I suppose technically makes it less "progressive" in context by default, but a lot of the time it's pretty messy or not done with good intentions. It's common for it to be unclear how a character actually identifies due to a combination of (so I've heard) cultural and linguistic differences in LGBT terminology, and the author not caring or actively going against their character's wishes.

A recent example of this was one minor character in Tevi, who I think was supposed to be trans, but the way they talked about it was really poorly handled and self-contradictory, which is odd because the localization had enough care to get proper grammar, someone who understood how to use slang, and someone who knew how to use a Thesaurus (boy did they ever). They should have been able to write this in a way that reflects how anyone would actually approach the subject in English. It was supposed to be positive, everyone is nice to her, but the execution was really awkward.

Basically, just because you're more likely to find a portrayal, doesn't mean it's going to be good or well-intentioned. I can't speak to this Fire Emblem character though, never heard of him before today.