I was originally going to submit my favorite lords, Eirika and Ephraim as a duo unit, but seeing as we already have a good amount of two-in-ones in Infinite as well as completely forgetting how I was originally going to have them work, I decided to go for my other choice.
Sigurd: The Holy Knight
First Appearance:
Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War (1995, Super Famicom)
Latest Appearance:
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018, Nintendo Switch)
Genealogy of the Holy War
Released on the Super Famicom in 1995,
Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War is the fourth installment of the Fire Emblem series.
Genealogy of the Holy War, or FE4 (which I will refer to it as from hereon out) set many standards and broke many boundaries for the franchise. The first, and honestly one of the most important, is that it is the
first game to not take place in the Archanea saga. Unlike FE1 and FE3 (Marth's starring roles) and FE2 (Alm's & Celica's) before it, FE4 takes place in a new setting, that being the continent of Jugdral. The Jugdral saga consists of two games:
Genealogy of the Holy War and its midquel,
Thracia 776. Moving on from lore to gameplay:
Genealogy of the Holy War is the
first game to implement the Weapon Triangle, which has since been a staple element of the
Fire Emblem series since. This mechanism is pretty self explanatory: the two types of attacks (weapons and magic) are split into triangles. These triangles dictate what weapon or what type of magic (though the magic triangle has effectively been phased out after
Radiant Dawn) is effective against another. Another key element of the Fire Emblem series introduced in FE4 is the
skills system. Skills are little bonus abilities that can grant the holder bonuses that can change the course of a battle. Finally, a mechanic that hasn't been too usual of an addition but one too important to gloss over is the
love & inheritance system. FE4 is split into two parts (sound familiar?), with the first part focusing on Sigurd and the latter focusing on his son Seliph. Naturally, the time gap in between means that there would be an entirely new cast to play with, and who better to play as than the characters' kids? These kids are the result of certain pairings between characters, and depending on which characters, they'll inherit unique skills and traits.
Storywise, I won't go as in depth as I had for the previous character prompts because it is like 1 in the morning and I am in midterm season. All that you need to know is that this place called Jugdral was under subjugation by some evil dragon guy named
Loptous for a good amount of time. However, this changed when a bunch of dragon lords gave their power to a dying resistance group, forming the
Twelve Crusaders. These twelve folks would go on to found a bunch of kingdoms, the most important right now being
Grannvale. Sigurd is a descendant of one of the Twelve Crusaders and has a pretty cozy job as a knight of Grannvale. When he gets word that it is suddenly attacked after some political shenanigans, Sigurd sets off to build his army. This is the premise for the first half of FE4. The second half focuses on Sigurd's son
Seliph after Sigurd is put out of commission in the Battle of Belhalla. Seliph builds his resistance army after the main villain Arvis takes over Grannvale and becomes an oppressive ruler.
Sigurd himself is a spirit, which is pretty obvious. He's an important character from a well regarded game. But there's more! There is a key track in Ultimate:
Edge of Adversity, which is the map theme for the Battle of Belhalla, where Sigurd and Arvis have their fated showdown. Infinite adds another with
Uprising in Agustria, the map theme in Chapter 2. We also have the final battle between Seliph and Julius (Arvis's kid),
The Final Holy War. One of our
newly added masterpieces (which it is indeed a masterpiece)
is Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, where you get a whole 8 minutes to play the game! In addition to these bits of representation,
Sigurd is the basis for one of Ike's alt costumes. You know, the white and blue one. The good looking one. You know who else is a non Tellius character who was an Ike costume? Chrom. This doesn't mean much but it's a little food for thought.
I've already discussed some reasons why
Genealogy of the Holy War should be represented with a character - it established many of the series' most iconic gameplay mechanics.
Without this game, Fire Emblem would not have important mechanics like the weapon triangle or skills, or the fun discourse that comes with the inheritance system. In addition to these important mechanics, it is often rumored that a
Genealogy remake would be coming soon. Of course, these are just rumors and don't really mean anything. However, in the chance that these rumors are indeed real, wouldn't it be just like Nintendo to put in a promotional
Fire Emblem character? ha ha ha. Anyways,
Genealogy is often considered to be one of the best narratives in
Fire Emblem (my summary does NOT do it justice at all, please actually play the game or watch a playthrough.)
It also represents one of the unrepresented eras of Fire Emblem, that being the Jugdral saga. Many common suggestions tend to fall into already represented sagas like Archanea (being the games featuring Marth, Alm & Celica, and Chrom & Lucina) and Elibe (Roy). Adding Sigurd would represent a new saga and one that is highly popular at that. Also it has one of the best characters in
Fire Emblem ever, my boy Arden.
Now going on to why Sigurd specifically should be in Smash: he's the more recognizable protagonist of the two. Sigurd has often appeared in official merchandise and games a lot sooner than Seliph:
Sigurd is the only one of the pair to appear on the FE Premium Arrange II Album cover, a cover that is a celebration of every single Fire Emblem protagonist, even the Three Houses Lords. Seliph is just really oddly absent from it. Sigurd is a lot more recognized in Fire Emblem Heroes, with more alternate costumes than his son. He's also pretty popular, landing comfortably at 55 of 791 eligible characters in the 2017 Choose Your Legends poll and 29 of 801 eligible characters in 2021. Thus, it can be argue that Sigurd is the face of
Genealogy as recognized by Intelligent Systems. Sure, we have broken precedence a lot, especially with Kazuya and freaking IORI YAGAMI in Smash over the more recognizable Heihachi and (arguably) Kyo. This leads us to why he should be in
Smash Bros., period, with how his gameplay and imagery would be completely different than his son and other typically suggested
Fire Emblem characters.
Possible Gameplay Styles
If you haven't noticed, every single piece of artwork I have used for Sigurd in this post have two things in common. His sword Tyrfing, and his horse. Yep, a horse. Sigurd, unlike many other common suggestions who have horses, starts his game out with his horse and ends his arc with his horse. Thus, when creating his moveset, we will have two givens: Sigurd will wield a sword, like his
Fire Emblem friends before him (sadly), and he will remain put on his horse.
This technically means that we will have the first quadrupedal Fire Emblem character. Naturally, as a Knight Lord, Sigurd will have high speed around the stage. However, like with other commonly suggested vehicular fighters, Sigurd will be awkward in the air. He's propelling two bodies at once, after all. There are ways to work around the problems faced in the air: magic, and the fact
Fire Emblem horses are known for being quite... nimble (see the GBA and
Three Houses critical animations). So combined, we would have a way for Sigurd to recover as well as hit enemies in the air.
Another way to distinguish Sigurd from the other blue hair pretty boys is with his sword.
While we already have pretty mechanically interesting Fire Emblem swords (Marth and Lucina's Falchions), Sigurd's Tyrfing has the chance to be more accurate to his source material as well as be more mechanically interesting. It also comes with the skill Miracle, which allows for the wielder to have the chance of surviving lethal blows. This could be implemented in a number of ways, such as buffing his defense or activating via a button or condition. Regardless of how Tyrfing's skills are implemented, the combination of the factors that make Sigurd unique truly allows him to stand out from his peers.
Final Thoughts and TL;DR
So, if you read through all of that, you can probably see why Sigurd is not your typical anime pretty boy with blue hair. Sigurd's inclusion would recognize the origins of key
Fire Emblem mechanics, introduce a new era, and hell, a new play style. While we do have an abundance of main characters from Fire Emblem, the series' rotating cast makes it difficult to branch off into side characters when there are so many interesting protagonists remaining. It would be pretty cool to have a main character on a horse, don't you think?
TL DR ↓↓
1. Sigurd represents Genealogy of the Holy War, which comes from one of the two unrepresented main Fire Emblem universes. (the other is Sacred Stones)
2. Sigurd and his game are extremely popular, often scoring high on polls and receiving high reviews.
3. Genealogy of the Holy War introduced many of the core Fire Emblem gameplay mechanics that are still in use today, and are still not represented in Smash.
4. He would be our first fully vehicular fighter, and a quadrupedal one at that, leading to a unique play style, especially for Fire Emblem.
5. He's hot