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Fire Emblem Awakening / Tropes M to R

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This game has examples of:

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    M 
  • MacGuffin Delivery Service: Twice. The first is once you've assembled the Fire Emblem and being 'invited' to be given the last piece, a fact that everyone is suspicious of but has no other option but to follow through. The second and biggest is by delivering you, the Avatar, right to the site of Grima's resurrection as the ritual only needs a mortal vessel to complete.
  • Mage Killer: A character with the new Tomebreaker skill gains an extra 50% hit rate and 50% evasion when fighting a tome-wielding enemy. As usual for Fire Emblem, Pegasus Knights are adept and killing mages, having enough resistance to even shrug off wind magic (usually).
  • Magic Knight:
  • Tricksters and Falcon Knights also qualify, since they use staves as well as weapons. So do Dark Knights and Dark Fliers, which are closer to the traditional Magic Knight class from FE4 and FE5.
  • DLC Class "Dread Fighter": Swords, Axes, Tomes.
    • As well as its followup, the "Bride" class: Bows, Staves, and Lances.
  • Magikarp Power: Donnel. At first, he may seem weak, but his skill Aptitude increases the odds of each of his stats by leveling by 20% — For example, the chance of his HP increasing when leveling up increases from 85% to 105% with Aptitude equipped — meaning that now not only is there is a 100% chance his HP will go up by 1, but there is also a 5% chance that it will go up again! This can make him turn him into a powerhouse — if you take the time to train him. And by marrying him with a character who can have children, he can produce a child who can become extremely strong. This page has more details.
    • Donnel actually teeters back and forth on this one a little. While it's true that Donnel's growths are boosted to pretty ridiculous levels, which gets him very strong early on if you get him past the Villager class (the "Magikarp" stage), his actual stat caps, as well as the abilities he has available to him (and can pass to his children), are fairly lackluster compared to most characters. That leaves him a little underwhelming later in the game once the others catch up.
      • Donnel's class inheritance depends on who he pairs up with, because two of his classes are male only. If he has a daughter, the classes she receives as replacements can learn some of the best abilities. The only down side is that she can't naturally learn the Aptitude skill and must have Donnel pass it down to her directly.
      • Though like with everyone else in the game, the better his stats, the smarter it is to Pair Up him to anyone you want to grind and/or survive against a group of enemies.
    • The children characters are recruited during missions with promoted enemies, but are unpromoted themselves. With some training, though, they can far surpass their parents in terms of usefulness.
      • Morgan is the best example of this, as they have the highest potential of any other unit in the game. Depending on who their mother/father is, and thanks their ability to reclass into the tactician class, they can outdamage even Chrom and the Avatar in the final battle. Marrying a female Morgan to Owain essentially makes both of them nigh invincible in battle, as long as they fight together.
  • Mama Bear: Every first generation character has the potential to become this when they marry and have children.
  • Martial Arts for Mundane Purposes: Implied in the bio of highly skilled Swordfighter Lon'Qu where the random fact listed at the end is that he's the "deftest potato peeler".
  • May–December Romance: The Avatar can marry Flavia, Basilio, or Aversa depending on their gender — all of whom are potentially twice their age.
  • Mayfly–December Friendship: In Tiki's support with Nah (a half-manakete), Tiki laments that this is a "curse" of their race, saying Manaketes that care for the human race are destined to suffer because they always outlive them.
  • Mayfly–December Romance: Any marriage with a Manakete will likely be this.
  • May It Never Happen Again: The player character gets the option to sacrifice themselves to permanently destroy Grima, instead of going through with having Chrom put the creature to sleep for a thousand years.
  • Meaningful Name: Most of the game's villains hail from a kingdom known as Plegia, to which the citizens are called "Plegians." "Plegian" sounds a lot like "Plebian." Aversa sound suspiciously like "adverse."
    • Presumably "Plegian" comes from the Greek root "plege" (yes, like the second half of paraplegic) which means "a blow or stroke".
  • Medieval Stasis: It's been well over a thousand years since King Marth's reign and technologically, little has changed. Going by the absence of cannons, one could even argue technology has gone backwards. Some blame this on Grima, though it's not known.
  • Memory Trigger: A conversation about a Comfort Food is the trigger: If Gaius is Cynthia's father and speaks to the Alternate Cynthia in the Downloadable Content Future Past map, Alternate Cynthia will politely refuse the sweets he offers her... but only because she wants to eat said candy after the fight is over, since she remembers how her now dead actual father used to give her candy as a prize for doing good things.
  • Men Are the Expendable Gender: If a female unit falls in Classic Mode, she only retreats. The only male characters who don't actually die are the plot-important Frederick, Basilio and Virion. Plus, almost all the bosses are male and one of the only three female bosses can even be recruited. Also, the only heroic manaketes to survive the 2,000 year stretch between the Archanea saga and Awakening are female, while the three male manakete characters don't appear at all, though Bantu is mentioned as appearing offscreen.
    • Double Subverted with the mooks. There are female ones, but they really only show up as the female exclusive classes. If a class is available to both genders, it will virtually always be a male, with the exception of clerics, priests, and war clerics and war monks, which are technically two sets of different but identical gender-exclusive classes. Aside from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War and Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 this is a feature of all Fire Emblem games.
    • Subverted with the SpotPass and second-generation characters; female characters in these groups die when defeated just like the male characters.
    • Inverted in the next game, Fates, where non-plot important female units are the ones that die and male ones “Retreat”. But played mostly straight in the story. See the actual game page for details.
  • Men Act, Women Are: The epilogues for married couples tend to revolve around what the husband does after the war and how his wife supports his efforts thereafter.*  Even Lucina, one of the most important characters in the game, gets this treatment in almost all of her paired endings. Of course, there are a few exceptions, Kellam and Stahl/Sully in particular.
  • Mid-Season Twist: Chapter 6 (which when you count the Prologue is the actual seventh Chapter of the game) reveals that Marth is a woman who somehow knows of the future. Also introduces Validar, the Big Bad from the Premonition Chapter, and has him meet the fell dragon Grima in human form for the first time. Chapter 7 is when Emm gives Chrom the Fire Emblem to protect as she splits with the rest of the team to lead the war against Plegia.
  • Mineral Macguffin: The five gemstones that empower the Fire Emblem. The Emblem starts off with only one gemstone, Argent, and the other four are spread across the two continents.
  • Mildly Military: The Shepherds do not place much value on formality, coming off as more of a group of wacky teenagers than an army. This isn't too noticeable at first, as they are officially a peace-keeping force, though once they get promoted to Ylisse's main wartime army the silliness doesn't go away. Even their Red Shirt Army counts. There's also the fact alone that most of them marry each other...
  • Mirror Match: Paralogue 22, due to the Wellspring of Truth casting mirror images of the Shepherds, which include their skills although their stats cap only goes to a point.
  • Misery Builds Character: Discussed by the Shepherds in the intro to Chapter 1.
  • Mistaken for Brooding: Possibly with Henry in the English release. In his B support with Olivia, she assumes that he's a Stepford Smiler, but he insists that his constant smiles are genuine. In the Japanese version, however, this is averted, as he really is faking his cheerful demeanor, but the English version seems to lean more towards him being a happy person who has major Blood Lust.
  • Mood Whiplash:
    • Chapter 16, after an intense build up for the battle at hand, you're treated to... Cervantes and his mustache.
    • After the climatic battle against the evil Validar in Chapter 23, come Chapter 24, you find yourself in a beautiful valley covered in rainbows and sunshine.
    • The post battle scene of "Infinite Regalia" as the leader of the Deadlord tells him to come back again and gives him the Silver Card and an Einherjar card. The whole thing is oddly lighthearted as they come off as lonely and want company. This is after being bombarded with bits of Fridge Horror during the battles.
    • In Lucina's B support with her sibling, she'll discuss the possibility that the latter may be able to wield Falchion, and how important it should be to investigate the possibility should it become necessary. The relatively calm music stops as the sibling asks, "What, like if you're busy?" and immediately turns somber when she replies, "Like if I'm dead, (sibling)."
  • More Hero than Thou: The main conflict between the nations is this. Ylisse was a warmongering kingdom at the time of Chrom's father, who had exhausted their resources in the last reign around 15 years ago trying to wipe out the Grimleal, opting to be The Atoner by becoming a nation with a very small military force but was unable to make it up to Plegia for a while due to Emmeryn being stuck mending her own country (justified considering she was nine at the time and Ylisse had almost no resources). They end up getting kicked around many times in the present. Valm, on other hand, tries to unite its dividing countries like its first king and maintains order under Walhart's rule. He's a good king, who like Chrom's father wanted to stop the Grimleal, it's just that many of his men either don't want that, are Grimleal themselves, and prefer to spread chaos (Excellus especially), don't understand said motivation, blindly throwing their lives into a wrong cause in the name of following their king's will, and that Walhart himself has an odd style that not many people like. Hell, even Plegia jumps the bandwagon. Valm's unification war resulted in Gangrel making a unification plan of his own to protect Ylisse before Motive Decay takes place. The Shepherds (a primarily Ylissean militia, no less) are the only ones who actually banded up members from all over to take down Grima once and for all, and they are the only ones who are more concerned with saving the world than deciding who is going to save it or how (though they do believe that they will be the ones to do so).
  • Motherhood Is Superior: This is largely the case, which also has children tied to the mothers (with the exception of Chrom and the Male Avatar). It makes a point of giving the children supports with the parent they aren't tied to, however.
  • Mundane Made Awesome: Tome users strike fantastic poses as they read their magic books.
  • Mundane Utility: A Sage uses Missiletainn for tasks like cutting vegetables and digging holes before giving it to Owain.
  • Mukokuseki: Except for Nowi, who isn't human, most everyone's eyes are proportional to their faces.
  • Mutually Exclusive Party Members: The only game in the series thus far to avert this. There are no alternate routes with exclusive party members in this game, no substitute characters for the children (as was the case in Genealogy of the Holy War), and the only "requirement" for unlocking the SpotPass characters is that you need to beat all Chapters bar the Endgame in order to play their maps. Plus there's a whole host of DLC characters you can recruit too. The two versions of Morgan are the only exception, since Morgan is always the opposite gender of their parent.
  • My God, You Are Serious!: If Chrom asks Sully to marry him at the end of Chapter 11.
    Chrom: Sully... will you marry me?
    Sullly: ...Har har har! Oh, that's rich, Captain! Damn, you sure know how to... Um, how to... Oh, crap. You're serious aren't you?
  • Mythology Gag:
    • Cherche's wyvern is named Minerva, the first Wyvern Rider in the series.
    • Paris was Ike's early code name. It's used as the Japanese name for the final SpotPass Secret Character, Priam, who claims to be a descendant of Ike and wields the Ragnell.
    • Owain's quotes reference previous games in the series, such as "Radiant Dawn!" as a battle cry.
    • Some of the higher spells have runes floating around them when cast, which, upon closer examination, are written in the Heron language.
    • One event with Nowi has her saying she's met a new dragon friend named something like Banta.
    • In Nowi and Stahl's B Support, she names a bird Janaff.
    • Every second generation character's birthday, save Morgan's, corresponds with the Japanese release dates for most of the games in the franchise.
    • In Ricken's C Support with Olivia, he says he's reading a story about "a prince who falls in love with a forest maiden."
    • Olivia's support set with Donnel has a story about two birds, named after two of the Bird-tribe Laguz.
    • The map for Paralogue 2 is a big chunk of map taken right out of Chapter 4 of Genealogy of the Holy War.
    • Inigo's Paralogue map is a throwback to one of the maps in Act 4 of Fire Emblem Gaiden, complete with a boss who's a loyal follower of a Religion of Evil (both bosses even share the same name), while Gangrel and Emmeryn's Paralogue maps are based on the first Chapters of Mystery of the Emblem and Gaiden respectively.
    • Lucina and Cynthia's non-sibling A Support references the Triangle Attack, a recurring technique in the series. (One that's sadly missing from Awakening, in fact.)
    • Noire has a talisman that, when touched, causes her personality to go 180 and become an Ax-Crazy Blood Knight. Sounds an awful lot like Lehran's Medallion from the Tellius installments.
    • The three main lords can be comprised of two dudes (who happen to be Heterosexual Life-Partners) and a girl, and the first Lord in the story strikes a friendship with a tactician. This game, or Blazing Blade?
    • The heroes' starting lineup consists of a headstrong Lord, a cleric who is the Lord's younger sister, a pre-promote cavalry Crutch Character, and an enigmatic tactician with affinity to magic, very reminiscent of the dynamic between Ike, Mist, Titania and Soren in Path of Radiance.
    • Recruiting Gangrel requires Chrom to speak to him three times, much like how Kris has to speak three times to Katarina in order to recruit her in New Mystery of the Emblem.

    N 
  • Naginatas Are Feminine: Well, lances are. A variety of factors heavily skew lance use towards women:
    • Of the 8 promoted classes that can use lances, 1 of them is exclusive to two characters and 3 more are female-exclusive. Furthermore, 3 of the 4 female-exclusive classes use lances.
    • Lancefaire, a skill that improves strength when using a lance (or magic when using a Shockstick) by 5, is not only from a female-exclusive class (Falcon Knight), but that class is part of the same class set as Dark Flier, meaning that any male child who could inherit Lancefaire could also inherit Galeforce. And since male children can only inherit one skill from their mother, and since Galeforce is arguably the most powerful skill in the entire game, Lancefaire is never the best skill to pass down to a male child. Thus, the only units who can reasonably get Lancefaire (and thus specialize in lances) are female units who can get both Galeforce and Lancefaire without their mother's help. The exception is a male Morgan, who can inherit Galeforce from one of the boys and Lancefaire from the Avatar (or technically vice versa, but that defeats the point).
  • Nerf:
    • The forging system seems to have had one, compared to how utterly broken it was in the previous two games. You can now only give a limited number of "buffs" to a single weapon, meaning you can no longer forge both Might and Critical up to max. You'll need to choose between a weapon that hits really hard all the time, or one that's slightly weaker but criticals more often. Needless to say, this limit does not apply to enemies. While they have used forged weapons on the harder difficulties in Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem, they now go past the forge limits.
    • Because your units do not have proper Holy Blood, the Holy Weapons, such as Tyrfing, Forseti, and Book of Naga are all far weaker than they were when used properly in Genealogy.
    • Skills in general also were hit HARD with the Nerfbat. While attacks that hit more than once no longer use up durability for each extra hit, every single one of them has its effect only do half of whatever the max is of what's being added, rounded down, and none of them get the damage buffs Radiant Dawn threw in. For example, Sol (and the Nosferatu tome by association) only restores HP by half of the damage inflicted on the enemy. If the enemy with 13 health left was killed by an attack that does 40 damage, you only get 6 HP back. If you kill an enemy with only 1 HP left, you get nothing.
  • Never Found the Body:
    • During Emmeryn's "demise", the death itself is not shown (just everyone's reactions to it) and the main characters are unable to recover the body. Said character survives and turns up later.
    • This is revealed as the case for Miriel as well in the time the second generation characters are from, as mentioned by Laurent in both Future Past 3 and Infinite Regalia.
  • New Game Plus: After beating the game, future playthroughs will start with the same level of Renown that the previous playthrough ended with. Also, the Avatar Logbook carries over between saves, making it possible (with a lot of gold) to buy back high-level troops earlier than you originally got them.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • It isn't mentioned immediately, but another reason for Walhart's massive conquest, in addition to world peace and unity, was to stop Validar and the Grimleal in their own conquest. He actually would've at least caught up to him if Chrom did not fight him when he did, so Chrom and his army unintentionally allowed Validar's plans to carry on.
    • It's less so, but still the case with Gangrel despite his Motive Decay. He was going to fight Walhart himself and so wanted to take over as much of the continent as possible to bolster his army, but being taken out by Chrom ensured the protagonists would have to deal with Walhart themselves instead.
    • It is implied that Lucina's interference in the past actually sped events up, like the Plegian war ending sooner because of Emmeryn willingly sacrificing herself instead of being assassinated, which allowed Validar to become king.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Future Grima really messed up by following Lucina into the past. His attempt to merge with the Avatar early inflicted amnesia on them (which likely allowed the Avatar to form stronger bonds with Chrom's group), gave the Avatar memories that allowed them to make the fake gemstone plan, and his being in the past allowed for a loophole that could get him Killed Off for Real. All-in-all, Grima should probably have just stayed in the future.
    • However, Future!Grima's only other option was letting Lucina undo his resurrection in the past, which she did, as her intervention caused Validar to be killed two years early. Had Future!Grima not been been there to resurrect him, Past!Grima's summoning would never have happened.. As such, no matter what choice the Big Bad made, it would have been a Nice Job Fixing It, Villain moment. Although, given how the Outrealm Gate worked, there was the possibility that Lucina's interference would had simply made an alternate timeline where Grima never awoke, therefore leaving Future!Grima alone to tear apart his timeline. The DLC The Future Past seems to support this theory.
  • Nintendo Hard:
    • Lunatic and Lunatic+ are so hard that the fans won't even make a tier list about them.
    • The DLC map Apotheosis throws at you enemies with ridiculously high stats that you're unable to get, the ability to halve all damage taken (which is enemy-exclusive), a variety of overpowered skills that halve damage from certain weapons even further 100% of the time or always guarantee their attacks land (thus negating dodgetanking tactics and the "weapon breaker" skills), and top-notch forged weapons that you could never hope to attain. You're gonna need every single game breaker at your disposal if you want to stand a chance against them: Galeforce, forged brave weapons, several rally bots, plenty of rescue staves, supports, tonics, Limit Breaker... Suffice to say this is the biggest challenge any game in the franchise has ever offered.
  • No Body Left Behind: Standard for the Risen, their bodies just fade away like ash and/or magical energy when killed. With their mounts, it tends to vary on how they're slain.
  • No Kill like Overkill: In this game, all attack skills can stack with critical hits, thus elevating the hurt from skills like Ignis and Luna to near or over triple-digit proportions. Amusingly you can even get this to happen with Lethality, but it doesn't do anything - Lethality always deals fixed damage. So you'll just have to imagine what your unit just did to make their victim Deader than Dead. It can even happen with Astra if your critical hit rate is high enough: you get five attacks dealing three times their halved damage... effectively dealing 7.5 times the original damage, though usually your opponent won't even make it past the second crit. No kill like overkill indeed.
  • No Man of Woman Born: Naga said that Grima cannot be killed even with the Exalted Falchion, but only be sealed away for a millennium. The only power capable of destroying Grima is his own. This gives the Avatar, who is said to be "one and the same" as him, a "Eureka!" Moment, and you are given the choice to take another option in the final battle.
  • Non-Indicative Name:
    • The Dark Knight cannot use dark magic, despite their name including Dark. This becomes really strange when they class change from Dark Mages so they lose their ability to use dark magic.
    • Ironically, the Demon's Ingle, in light of Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. In the Japanese version, it was called Duma's Remains, the Final Boss of Gaiden, which makes it seem like the place was Duma's resting place despite not being in the same location where you fight him. However, the Valentian Accordion art book states that both Mila and Duma were buried together and their burial ground became the Mila Tree.
  • Noodle Incident: The Avatar accidentally sees a tattoo given to Gaius that marks him as a thief. In order to convince Gaius he won't blackmail him, the Avatar tells him an embarrassing secret involving a cow (if the Avatar is male), or a chicken (if the Avatar is female).
  • Nostalgia Level:
  • Not Using the "Z" Word: They're called Risen. However, Henry does refer to them as zombies when he first appears.
  • NPC Random Encounter Immunity: Averted. When the Risen start showing up, it's a big deal, and Chrom has to visit Ferox to request soldiers to help keep the citizenry safe, since he and the Shepherds don't have enough manpower to keep the entire country safe at once. There is also at least one Side Quest where you have to save civilians from the Risen. This sets up the random encounter mechanic...and then the plot forgets all about it because we have bigger issues to deal with.

    O 
  • Odd Friendship: Many supports play off this dynamic, but notably:
    • Chrom and Gaius, the royal and the lowly thief.
    • Frederick and Henry, the serious lieutenant and the carefree sociopath.
  • Oddly Small Organization: Before they met the Avatar, it seems that the Shepherds who defend the Halidom of Ylisse had just 11 members: Chrom, Frederick, Lissa, Sully, Stahl, Vaike, Miriel, Sumia, Kellam, Ricken and Maribelle.
  • Official Couple: None as such, but both Sumia or the Female Avatar/Robin are strongly hinted as Chrom's "canon" wife depending on who you support with.
    • Every pairable character has another with whom they support the fastest. Unlike with Chrom and Sumia, this is downplayed, as there are no "extras" that come about from supporting them.
    • Cases are made for Female Robin and Chrom, considering Female Robin is technically Chrom's fastest support (the two can pair up from the very start of the game) and the extra scenes and dialogue available in Chapter 13 and 21 if Robin is Lucina's mother. One may say this is simply to avoid plotholes; it would be rather bizarre for Lucina to be just as willing to kill her mother as a tactician her dad is friends with or for Robin to speak about the daughter she had just had as if she was seeing her for the first time. However, even Lucina lampshades their official couple-dom. In her supports with Robin where she's not her daughter, Lucina accuses Robin of trying to seduce her Chrom and even remarks how it's strange her father didn't marry Robin considering how close they are. She even seems rather annoyed by it after first accusing the female Robin of being a harpy out to seduce him.
    Avatar: Chrom's nice, I suppose, but I've never thought of him as gallant. ...Or wonderful.
    Lucina: What are you saying? You don't think he's gallant?! You think he's just NICE? But you're with him all the time! How can you be so blind to his incredible charms?! How dare you not be attracted to him! It's beyond insulting! If you don't start falling for him soon, my true anger will show its face!
  • Oh, My Gods!: Common in the English dialogue.
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: Some of the music, such as "Divine Decree" and "Mastermind".
  • Ominous Pipe Organ: "Chaos" and "Annihilation", further accentuated in their Ablaze versions.
  • Only I Can Kill Him: Only the Avatar striking the finishing blow can truly kill Grima.
  • Only One Female Mold: Technically played straight, but unlike most instances of this trope, there's only one male mold too. Body types for classes are all shared with only one per gender, creating bizarre situations when characters are reclassed. This is most notable with the flat-chested Lucina wearing the Archer outfit, where she suddenly gains a few cup sizes to match Noire, or when a dark-skinned character such as Flavia is reclassed, giving her a generic model where she has light skin on her legs and arms.
  • Ornamental Weapon: Some classes, like the Assassin and Swordmaster, carry additional knives or swords on their person, but these are merely part of their model and cannot be drawn even if their other weapons break.
  • Our Zombies Are Different: Unlike Sacred Stones, the Risen are all normal classes instead of their own exclusive ones, Revenants and Entombed notwithstanding.
  • Out-Gambitted:
    • Chapter 23, the Avatar pulls it off quite well.
    • This is soon followed up by the Hierophant/Grima out-gambiting the Avatar.
  • Outside-Context Problem: Lucina is a mild example. She is a Kid from the Future with the exact same legendary sword as her father, which is supposed to be one of a kind and a dragon killer. What makes her out of context, however, is her knowledge of the future. She uses this knowledge to foil Validar's assassination attempt on Emmeryn, stops him from stealing the Fire Emblem, keeps Chrom from being mortally wounded from a sneak attack, and get Validar killed because he saw none of this coming. If it wasn't for Grima traveling back in time with her, the Bad Future would have been averted by chapter 5.

    P 
  • Pair the Spares: It's possible to do this if one feels like pairing off their entire party and the two odd ends happen to be compatible romantically.
  • Penultimate Weapon: Brave Weapons. The Regalia weapons are statistically the most powerful and offer interesting stat bonuses, but the Brave Weapons let a unit double up their attacks, allowing an unit to strike up to four times. They can also be purchased from a regular shop near the end of the game.
  • Perplexing Plurals: In Chrom and Sumia's A Support, Chrom isn't sure if the plural for "pegasus" is "pegasuses" or "pegasi". He then settles on the latter in their S Support.
  • Permadeath: Par for the course for the series, though it's averted if you play on Casual/Newcomer mode, where all fallen units (except Chrom and the Avatar) will return for the next battle. Also downplayed for plot-critical characters, who will only retreat, but will not remain playable, if they fall in battle.
  • Petal Power: The Ignis skill has this effect after landing a successful hit on an enemy.
  • Pimped-Out Dress: Eirika's DLC costume◊, showcasing the female-exclusive Bride class. Complete with Giant Poofy Sleeves, lots of frills, and what appears to be sheer Fluffy Fashion Feathers. May double as a Battle Ballgown.
  • Piñata Enemy: The gold Entombed variant of the basic Risen gives out a lot of EXP when taken down, up to 100 points for a unit of sufficiently lower level. Thieves also give rather more EXP than other units of their level.
  • Player Character: The Avatar; you get to select your gender, name him or her, select a character portrait and model, and select his or her voice. You're locked in with the Tactician class, though, but you can use Second Seals to change into almost every other class.
  • Play Every Day: This seems to be the designers' intention, as opening up the game on a daily basis results in 5 new barracks events and at least a few random encounters naturally spawning. On Hard/Lunatic mode, this is especially important since those encounters are the main renewable sources of EXP and gold.
  • Please Put Some Clothes On: Chrom asks one of the bikini-wearing Annas to do this in the intro to the Summer Scramble DLC.
  • Plot Armor: Even in Classic Mode, characters that are killed, but still have an important role later on will simply retreat. You can't use them in combat, however (and naturally Chrom and the Avatar are exceptions).
  • The Power of Love: An actual mechanic. Units in relationships with each other (i.e. have Support ranks), whether platonic or romantic, give better stat bonuses fighting together and have better chances of getting an attack in with their partner or blocking a hit for them. Naturally, the highest ranking (S) between married couples has the best bonuses.
  • Pre-Asskicking One-Liner/Pre-Mortem One-Liner/Bond One-Liner: Everyone gets several of each! When units are paired, the non-attacking partner character cheers the active one with the former. Then, they get the second upon nailing a Critical Hit or activating a skill, complete with Super Move Portrait Attack. Some of them are simple, like "Here goes!", while others are more badass, like "Pick a god and pray!". The last one naturally occurs if you defeat an enemy, though you can get some gems like Severa's "That was mine!" should the paired partner get the kill instead.
  • Production Throwback: The DLC chapters reuse past music, like 8-bit and 16-bit chiptunes.
    • The entire game has its basic mechanics thrown back to the semi-nostalgic feel of Shadow Dragon and New Mystery, with no in-battle supports or proper rescue mechanics, and the weapon triangle's effects (when applicable) only becomes noticeable the better you get with a certain weapon, and only with the basic physical weapons, not magic.
  • Profane Last Words: Played Straight initially but then Subverted later in the prologue. When defeated by Chrom and The Avatar/Robin, Validar shouts: "This isn't over..DAMN YOU BOTH!". It's subverted because later when you get to the actual level, he's revealed to have survived the attack and afterwards is fought for real. When he is finally beaten, he expresses surprise at fate being averted.
  • Properly Paranoid:
    • Lucina might actually be onto something in her supports with a female Avatar when she gets absurdly paranoid that Robin's trying to seduce Chrom (or that the two might fall in love without meaning to). Lucina catches Robin outside Chrom's tent and instantly assumes she's sneaking off to meet with him in secret and her response is: "...Is this his tent?". While it's unlikely Lucina's right about the affair, Robin's definitely hiding something, because she reveals in her B support with Lon'qu that she knows exactly when and where everyone in the camp sleeps, so her feigning ignorance of whose tent they were next to is a bald-faced lie. Likewise, a married Chrom's B and A supports with a female Robin still involve the two getting a good look at each other in the nude, talking about how the experiences made them closer to each other, laughing about it, calling each other "partners in crime," and promising to keep it a secret from everyone else. All of which is a lot funnier/more suspicious when Chrom is married with a kid to someone else, and said kid is trying to bust Robin for inappropriate behavior.
    • Additionally, a female Robin will accuse Aversa of trying to seduce Chrom in their supports, making Lucina's suspicions seem a lot more rational.
  • Protagonist-Centered Morality: Not in the main story, but in most of the DLC Einherjar chapters, a member of the side you're fighting against (and only on the side you're fighting against) will question the righteousness of what they're doing, even in "Rogues and Redeemers 2", where you team up with the bad guys.
  • Protection Mission:
    • As a staple of the series, this naturally shows up. The first instance is Chapter 6, where the party protects Emmeryn from an assassination attempt and the second is Chapter 15, where they have to save Say'ri from a horde of Valmese troops. Both count as Badass in Distress since both protect-ees would be capable of fighting back if not for their lack of weaponry.
    • Paralogue 3 makes you protect three unarmed Villagers. Since the class is designed to be very weak, their defenses are paper-thin and can easily be mowed down if you don't intercept the enemy army. You are rewarded for the trouble, though.
    • Paralogue 10 counts since you have to protect Severa as she makes her way to a certain NPC. Severa is especially annoying since she's constantly moving and will blindly charge enemies that can easily kill her.
    • In Paralogue 11 you get a reward for every villager that survives the end of the chapter (5 in total).
    • There is also Paralogue 17 where you have to protect Tiki as she gathers her Divine Dragon power. Bonus points that the enemy will make a beeline straight for her and won't bother to attack your army.
  • Punctuation Shaker: Seems to be standard for those hailing from Chon'sin.
  • Purple Is Powerful: Most Plegians in the game use magic and are associated with the color purple. Some of them can be your most powerful units including Robin, Henry, Tharja, Morgan, Gangrel, and Aversa.

    R 
  • Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Nearly everyone in Chrom's army, especially the recruited enemies.
  • Ramming Always Works: How the Avatar decides to deal with the Valmese fleet, which outnumbers the Ylissian/Feroxian/Plegian fleet by severalfold. The twist is that they set half their own boats on fire and jump off before the ramming happens, since the remaining ships have enough room for their whole army. This crazy plan actually works.
  • Rainbow Speak: Grima's lines when in the appearance of the Avatar are red.
  • Rank Inflation: Notable aversion in that the S rank for weapons is absent in this game. This means an A rank is sufficient to wield any weapon of the category, so there is no need to specialize in one type anymore.
  • Rank Scales with Asskicking: Many characters, but especially Chrom, Lucina, Walhart, Basilio, and Flavia. All of them lead, have led or will lead their country and they are all great fighters.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Emmeryn, Basilo, Flavia.
  • Recurring Riff: There is one that functions as some sort of main theme of the game. Although it's always attached to other themes and never appears on its own. A clear example is the first 20 seconds of the Opening Theme. If you pay attention, you will hear those notes very often throughout the game.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning:
    • The Risen, in both their portraits and battle animations.
    • Played with by the party. Just about every redheaded character, as well as Maribelle, Panne, Brady, and Yarne, all have russet brown eyes (which are more red on the redheads), but they're only dangerous to the enemy, naturally.
  • Red Mage: There's no longer any magic triangle whatsoever. A unit with a Tome weapon level can use all three regular varieties, and Dark Mages can use dark tomes on top of that. The class which comes closest to fitting the classic model is the Sage class, able to use both tomes and staves. However, they are fully capable of taking ranks to use the most powerful of both.
  • Red Shirt: The Hierarch. They're noted to have been the royal family of Ylisse's guardian. Unfortunately they are killed off as soon as they appear in Chapter 7. They don't even have a name.
  • Redundant Rescue:
    • Lucina blocking the Risen that ambushes Chrom at the end of Chapter 13 can become this if Chrom's level is high enough.
    • Several support conversations involve one character blocking an enemy hit or taking it for themselves, regardless of whether the original target is enough of a badass to handle it on their own.
    • Any time Double Guard activates when a character takes no damage from an attack or had zero chance of even getting hit.
  • Relationship Values:
    • The relationship system from the Jugdral games returns, only this time allowing (almost) any two units of the opposite sex to tie the knot. Even the Avatar can get in on the action.
    • When certain characters obtain an S rating with each other, they will also have children. These children are dependent on the mother, except for Chrom, who always has Lucina after Chapter 12 no matter who he's supported with, and the Avatar, who has Morgan.
  • Respawning Enemies: Unlike other chapters with reinforcements, the final chapter will have infinite reinforcements that do not stop spawning after a set number of turns, meaning you have to take out the boss or you will eventually be overwhelmed. The game is merciful enough to warn you about this upfront, and it even tells you to just kill the boss as quickly as you can.
  • Retraux: The "Champions of Yore" DLC recreates the first level from the original game (And by extension, Shadow Dragon). The Lost Bloodlines one recreates part of the first level from Genealogy of the Holy War, and Smash Brethren is the last level from Blazing Blade. They also use the music from these games, in their original forms.
  • The Reveal:
    • "Marth" is actually Lucina, Chrom's daughter from the future.
    • The Avatar is Grima's vessel.
  • Reverse Grip: The Thief class branch and Dancers wield their swords like this. The Dread Fighter only does it in his Victory Pose. Since all the weapons in the game tend to be rather big, it looks a bit unwieldy and, in the case of a Dread Fighter wielding an axe, painful. Stranger yet, reclassing Panne into a thief results in her holding her sword the normal way... until the moment she dodges or starts to swing, where it suddenly flips around into a reverse grip again!
  • Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: This happens to an NPC in Chapter 8 after he betrays Ylisse for Plegia.
  • Rewarding Inactivity: Like stated above, a new event is triggered in the Barracks every 2 hours regardless of whether or not you actually play the game, with a maximum of 5 of them. Then again, since this means that you should optimally play at least once every 10 hours to avoid missing any events that can give you temporary stat boosts, free items, EXP or increased Relationship Values, it's not certain to which degree of this they were actually going for.
  • Rousseau Was Right: Emmeryn truly believes that deep down, everyone is redeemable and just wants peace, in contrast to the slightly more cynical Chrom. After Emmeryn sacrifices herself, Chrom realizes that even Plegian soldiers are just regular people. However this is contradicted by villains such as the Grimleal, none of whom possess any redeeming qualities.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Actually quite a few characters, among those being Chrom (the prince of Ylisse), Lissa (Chrom's sister, and therefore the princess of Ylisse), Lucina, Maribelle, Virion and several others. Being a khan of Ferox means that Basilio and Flavia are expected to lead from the front (not that they'd have it any other way). Of course, Chrom gets lots of crap from the other characters for putting himself in danger, but he always ignores them. The Avatar, too, once Validar becomes King of Plegia or marries Chrom, Lissa, or anyone else of royal or noble blood.
  • Running Gag: Several, almost one per character.

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