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Fire Emblem as a WHOLE has this in spades. Thanks to the support system, which gives characters both nifty Character Development and stat bonuses, Fire Emblem tends to be a breeding ground for Ship-to-Ship Combat with the unique difference that Shipping in Fire Emblem - and thus arguments thereof - is often concerned with gameplay viability as much as it is with the romantic dynamic between the characters. It doesn't help that several fans view certain ships as a better couple. The gameplay for the series actually allows the player to do this in game - with Perma Death in near-full effect across the games, if you don't like a character, you can intentionally use a Uriah Gambit to get the character out of the way.
Archanea games[]
- In Fire Emblem 3, some fans decided Marth went better with Catria. However, they're generally pretty civil with Caeda x Marth fans. Its mostly the Marth/Mary Sue or Marth/Roy shippers (despite the fact that they don't even exist in the same universe and therefore never interact in the FE games) (who generally never even played the game) who do the bashing. Just look at these inflammatory comments done by a member of the Smash bros Fan Dumb.
- Many Palla/Abel shippers absolutely loathe Est, Palla's little sister and Abel's canon wife, going so far as to claim that Est is "evil" and "stole Abel away from her poor big sister".
- Marth's older sister Elice gets bashed by Merric/Linde fans, since she is Merric's Victorious Childhood Friend and thus she "cockblocks" Linde's crush-like admiration on Merric[1] that makes her want to become stronger and more beautiful for him. The girl is accused of only going after Merric because she has a woobie fetish and Merric was an ill boy in his youth, or the ship is deemed "problematic" because it's a Rescue Romance.
Jugdral games[]
Fire Emblem 4 suffers from a bit of this as well. As Perma Death and Relationship Values are both important parts of the game, the player can literally invoke Die for Our Ship:
- Beowulf suffers a lot of hate in the fandom as it is, but Finn/Lachesis gives the haters even more fuel for their fire. In turn, Beowulf fans scorn the Finn/Lachesis pairing.
- Lachesis herself gets a lot of hate for being a "slutty princess" due to Thracia 776 based on the fanon that her children had two different fathers (Beowulf for Diarmud and Finn for Nanna). There is no canon evidence of this theory in either game.
- Shippers of Finn/Glade and Finn/Quan also treat her like a heteronormative pest due to their belief that Finn is actually a closeted gay man.
- Lewyn/Erinys fans turn up their noses at Silvia. Lewyn/Silvia fans turn up their noses at Erinys. Lewyn/Tailtiu fans turn up their noses at both. Out of them, Silvia seems to get the most hate for supposedly being "too clingy" and "too immature/bitchy", and her children Lene and Corple are regarded as Tier Induced Scrappies.
- The fanbase also didn't like that Thracia 776 all but canonized Lewyn/Erinys, feeling it invalidated their pairing choices in Genealogy. Luckily, Heroes retconned this by refusing to push one pairing over the others, with Erinys and Silvia discussing the situation and Erinys declining to find out who Ced's father was in a Forging Bonds event. A Ced who was fathered by Lewyn did show up, but this was strictly in the context of Thracia.
- Nanna/Leif is criticized as "boring" due to them being Victorious Childhood Friends in Thracia, especially by Leif/Sara and Leif/Miranda shippers. They prefer to pair them with other characters in Genealogy of Holy War, where the player has more freedom to pick and choose which ships are canon.
- There's the discussion of who Deirdre loved more: Arvis or Sigurd? Fans of the former criticize the love at first sight between Sigurd/Deirdre, while fans of the latter bring up that Arvis/Deirdre is incest due to them sharing a mother. Then there are the fans who just plain hate Deirdre for being a Neutral Female to the point of loudly insisting she's a non-character, despite the manga adaptations' many efforts to flesh her out and give her more to do. (And the Oosawa manga actually making her quite proactive, even having her, Ayra, and Lachesis take down a major boss without any help from Sigurd whatsoever.)
- It's worth noting that the Fire Emblem 4 manga made by Nea Fuyuki does not include Lene or Laylea at all, and make Ares (who they were smitten in the beginning of the game) interested in Julia, who just sees him has a good comrade, at least until the very end, because she has an unrequited love for Seliph, who's in mutual love with Lana in this version.
- Likewise, in Mitsuki Oosawa's version, Lana ends with Scatatch and Julia marries Seliph. Chulainn and Beowulf don't exist (though there are some illustrations featuring them); Ayra and Lex are paired off, while the Brother-Sister Incest vibes between Eldigan and Lachesis go off the ceiling, and once he dies she goes off with Finn. Granted, all 3 mangakas who did official Fire Emblem 4 manga went with their personal pairing preferences, but Nuts Fujimori, at least, didn't excluded any characters in her version.
- Chulainn and Beowulf got off easy by not being featured in Oosawa's manga ('sides, she did draw them). Eldigan's wife/Ares mother (named Grahnye in the canon game, but here is named Iria) is made into a spiteful, cold Rich Bitch who's perpetually jealous of Eltoshan and Lachesis' closeness: once he's leaving to Augusty, she cruelly tells them that if they're lovers, their love is oh so condemned to death, is later seen whining to Lachesis when she tries to take command of Nordion after Elto is imprisoned, and gives her permission to join Sigurd's crew only in hopes to get her killed in battle. And once Elto kicks it, she shows almost no emotion after his death, and is eerily happy to know that "that child" (Lachesis, obviously) is crying and suffering for it. (And she is.) We don't know almost anything about Grahnye/Iria in canon aside of her being from Leonster and her demise before Gen 2 rolls in, so was it really needed to make her such a bitch, so Eldigan/Lachesis would look better?
- Whether or not the manga adaptations are canon is a massive point of contention among certain shippers. Since FE4 started the trend of being able to pick and choose your own couples, the mangas canonizing certain ones did not sit well with people who didn't like those pairings. Others who ship those pairings and like the direction taken with certain characters consider the mangas at least semi-canon.
- Ever since Heroes started amping up the Ishtar/Reinhardt Ship Tease and more or less confirmed Reinhardt has feelings for her, shippers of Reinhardt/Ishtar have started to hate Julius for being Ishtar's canon lover and gleefully bash him as "trash" while treating Ishtar as a poor little victim of his abuse. While he is canonically a villain who commits many atrocities, and in Thracia 776 he threatens to kill Reinhardt out of jealousy for his closeness to Ishtar, Ishtar is also very clearly his Morality Pet whom he does care for as much as he's able to under Loptyr's possession. At times they also blame him and him alone for Ishtar's suffering, ignoring that her own mother is just as responsible as she pushes her daughter into villainy and encourages her to only love Julius for his status rather than for the sweet boy he used to be.
Elibe games[]
- There are 6 different endings involving marriage for Roy: Cecilia, Sue, Lilina, Larum, Shanna and Sophia. While not as fierce as say the Eliwood/Hector/Lyn affair, they can get quite heated:
- Roy/Cecilia is hated due to the large age difference and the professor-student relationship.
- Some shippers also despise Lilina for falling into the Childhood Friend trope with Roy, claiming it's "boring" and "overdone". They prefer to pair her with Ogier or Gonzales, claiming she grows as a character more with them. Some dislike the pairing because they can potentially be cousins depending on who their fathers married.
- Larum is called "abusive" for pushing her feelings onto Roy. While he does show discomfort at her eagerness, it's more in the vein of him wishing she'd tone it down so he can get to know her rather than outright hating or being afraid of her.
- Roy/Wolt can is a popular yaoi ship, but some fans are squicked by it due to the pair being raised as siblings and even being called "milk brothers".
- In Fire Emblem 7 aka Blazing Blade, Ninian the Dancer aas in the middle of the rabid Lyn/Eliwood, Eliwood/Hector, and Eliwood/Fiora fans, who in turn bashed her for being a damsel in distress, boring, angsty (for reasons which aren't necessarily related to Eliwood) as well as for standing in between their pairing of choice. She could only shake a bit off the fan hate in Fire Emblem: Heroes, and only in Heroes in which she can actually fight. To this day she and the Eliwood/Ninian pairing are still criticized for being "problematic" and "antifeminist," and accused of being "forced" on the player.
- In turn, Eliwood/Ninian and Ninian fans can get quite defensive of the pair and Ninian herself, insisting it's canon and accusing other Eliwood shippers of hating Ninian even when they don't. There was even a narrative pushed by some shippers that Ninian is the true mother of Roy and that he's canonically a quarter dragon, even though nothing in FE6 suggests this and Marcus's description of Roy's mother liking Ilina flowers could also fit Fiora (also from Ilia) or Lyn (her best friend is from Ilia, suggesting she could have developed a liking for the flower due to Florina's influence). That said, this isn't as nearly as widespread as anti-Eliwood/Ninian fans claim it is.
- Eliwood/Fiora courts some controversy for the fact that Fiora is a side character and does not have any interaction with Eliwood outside their supports, causing people to accuse them of being Strangled By the Red String. Some also hate it for the fact that it would make Roy and Lilina cousins if Hector married either of Fiora's younger sisters.
- Lyn/Eliwood and Lyn/Hector sometimes get bashed for having her stay in Lycia rather than returning to the plains she loves so much, even though she's clearly happy with them in the ending cutscenes for their marriages.
- Similarly, Priscilla was bashed six ways from Sunday because all her supports are boys...who happen to be part of the fandom's most popular slash pairings and one reasonably popular het pairing. She got called all manner of misogynistic names and one particular fan has even accused her of being a Mary Sue just because men like her. Others claimed she was "more interesting" if she's single and lonely forever, because a girl who had a crush on her brother could never be happy with someone else, nor could she make that particular man happy. This doesn't seem to be as common nowadays, though.
- Angst-ridden Pheraen knight Harken is often forgotten or shoved aside so that his canon fiancé Isadora can hook up with dashing thief Legault. It doesn't help that his recruitment is a Guide Dang It, so he's easily missable.
- Sain already gets a lot of crap for being a flirt as it is, but throw pairings like Kent/Fiora and Wil/Rebecca into the mix and it gets worse.
- Some Wil/Rebecca fans not only hate Sain, but also detest Rebecca's other possible love interest, Lowen.
- People who pair Erk with other people often bash Serra in the process - especially in fanfiction, where Erk seems to become a mouthpiece for the author's hate of Serra. Serra herself is portrayed as a selfish Erk-obsessed shrew of a woman (there is a fic where she was willing to let one of the other girls die from an injury so she could have Erk to herself) and is "properly" rebuffed in the end. Similarly, Erk is bashed by people who pair Serra with Oswin or Matthew, who portray him as if he truly loathed Serra instead of caring for her yet not being able to say it.
- Leila and Matthew's canon love for her are shoved to the side to make room for the more popular Matthew/Guy, in spite of Leila canonically dying, which should if anything provide a good basis for a Hurt Comfort Fic that has Guy helping Matthew getting over his grief, etc. On the flip side, quite a few Matthew/Leila fans loathe the Matthew/Guy ship, brushing it off as fans just thirsting for yaoi even when some fan works actually go deeper into the relationship presented in their supports.
- Some Kent/Lyn fans can be quite adamant about their shipping preferences, especially in the case of Kent/Lyn vs Kent/Fiora, Lyn/Rath and Lyn/Tactician:
- Kent/Fiora is an odd case in that the shippers don't hate Fiora herself but rather her supports with Kent, decrying them as out of character and comparing them to bad fanfic. Mainly because Kent dares to show affection and attraction to a woman who isn't Lyn.
- Rath is sometimes disliked by the shippers for being too quiet and seemingly apathetic towards Lyn in their supports. Which makes no sense considering that Rath isn't apathetic or insensitive, just... genuinely Not Good with People. (And considering his backstory, for very good reasons).
- Dislike of Tactician/Lyn is slightly more understandable because it exists mainly in fanfic, where the Tactician is beefed up into an overly perfect Gary Stu and Lyn's other love interests are made to look like assholes in order to validate the pairing. Still, there can be exceptions to the norm.
- As a "bonus", some anti Kent/Lyn shippers falsely accuse Kent of being "creepy", "selfish", "domineering" and "too possessive" of Lyn. If they ship Rath/Lyn, they may even accuse the guy of being racist against Nomads too, due to his "cultural shock" in the first part of the game and acting a little forceful in Araphen. (Something that Kent himself acknowledges few later as a mistake, apologizing to Lyn for being insensitive.)
- Some Hector/Lyn shippers can be quite rabid in proving their ship is the most canon due to some extra ship tease they're given on Hector's route, alienating players who prefer Hector with Florina or Farina.
- Some Hector/Farina fans claim that their ship is canon because Farina is exclusive character in Hector's route, even though she can also be paired with Dart the pirate or Kent the cavalier.
- While not nearly as prominent as others, there's a small but increasingly loud coalition of hate developing for the Nino/Jaffar pairing; people denouncing it as "unhealthy", calling it "pedophilia" when Jaffar's age isn't ever brought up in the game AND Nino isn't a prepubescent child either, or claiming their very emotional A support "ruined" Jaffar's character-never mind how Jaffar was also kind-of emotional when he asked Legault to take care of Nino in case he kicked it. A good chunk of these people, unsurprisingly, are Erk/Nino shippers.
Sacred Stones[]
- In Fire Emblem 8, some Joshua/Artur and Joshua/Marisa fans quite vocally bash Natasha and the Joshua/Natasha couple. Some Seth/Eirika shippers also seem to have a special dislike for Natasha as well; in general, Natasha is often accused of being a Gold Digger due to the fact that both her paired endings are affluent men... never mind that she doesn't even know Joshua is a prince in their supports, and that the ones with Seth show her as a Workaholic who comes to collapse at some point because she won't stop healing and caring for the people around her. She's also derided for supposedly "wanting a man to support her", despite the fact that after all she's dealt with and how hard she works to take care of others, secretly longing to be taken care of a bit herself is hardly a sin.
- Joshua/Marissa shippers aren't innocent either. They portray the sweet cleric as a shrill and evil bitch who does everything in her power to keep Marisa away from Joshua so she can marry him, while derailing the cool-headed but still naive Action Girl into a angsty tragic lovelorn heroine who worries more about Joshua finding her desirable or not than the self-improvement she seeks in canon.
- Ephraim/Eirika and Ephraim yaoi shippers used to hate Tana for having a crush on Ephraim, as well as the pairing itself. While the Tana/Ephraim pairing's still not that well-liked, thankfully the hatred for Tana herself has died down.
- Colm is bashed as well by people who prefer to pair up Neimi with someone else.
- And then there's the very persistent war among Seth/Eirika shippers, in which Saleh's existence is completely ignored, and Prince Innes and Prince Lyon are derailed in order to make Seth look like the better choice. (Meanwhile, Master Saleh and Forde are just plain ignored.)
- Innes/Eirika shippers aren't exactly innocent, as they love to accuse Seth of being a chauvinist and wanting Eirika to Stay in the Kitchen. Nevermind that Seth was specifically entrusted with his princess' safety right before Renais was taken over, and that he can be single or marry Natasha if the players want him to.
- Seth/Eirika shippers are also quite nasty to poor Lyon, decrying him as "weak" and "unworthy" of Eirika's affections for his insecurity and fears ultimately being the catalyst for the game's plot and nearly causing Magvel to be overtaken by the Demon King. Many fans reduce him to a whiny Emo Teen throwing a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum just because he couldn't get a date with the princess, rather than understanding his very complex insecurities.
The Tellius games[]
- Path of Radiance once had Ike/Soren shippers who bashed Elincia to no end. This, despite the fact that Ike shows no interest in her romantically. It stopped in the sequel when fans started to warm up to her, due to her coming into her own as a leader and the complete lack of Ship Tease from her end (she shows more emotional connection to Geoffrey and Lucia than to Ike). The tenth game implies she ends up with Geoffrey. And you can make Ike and Soren's Ho Yay more or less canon if you get their supports.
- These days, the Ike/Soren shippers are a lot more sane than the Ike/Elincia shippers. One particular fan of the latter demonizes the fuck out of Geoffrey, as you can see throughout this topic.
- Not to mention the very, very ugly war between Tibarn/Reyson shippers and Naesala/Reyson shippers. This is another one where the tenth game comes to the rescue, as it sets up a canonical relationship between Naesala and Reyson's sister, Leanne, who becomes the mother of his children (a little heron girl and a little raven boy), thus potentially "freeing" Reyson to be with Tibarn. Looking back on it, there were definitely hints of that relationship back in the ninth game, where Leanne was just an NPC.
- In Radiant Dawn, main character Micaiah occasionally gets bashed for her romance with Sothe and standing in the way of Ho Yay, on top of getting accused of being a Canon Sue.
- When Boyd/Mist was more or less made canon in Radiant Dawn, many Rolf/Mist shippers got angry. Luckily, this particular ship war was small and flew under the radar compared to others.
Awakening[]
- Chrom/Olivia has been passive-aggressively bashed for "happening too quickly" and one long-gone fic even had both of them cheating (Chrom with the male Robin, Olivia with Lon'qu) to discredit the idea that a whirlwind romance can lead to real love. Olivia herself has also been bashed by insecure Chrom/Sumia and Chrom/Robin shippers.
- Sumia and Female Robin qualify as Chrom's Implied Love Interests. Out of the two, Sumia takes the worst part: she is still hated to this day by great amount of the fanbase, especially Chrom/Female Robin shippers who accuse the ship of of being "anti-feminist" and "problematic" or "forced scenes for no reason at all." Never mind that the plot pushes Chrom/either Robin way more, including a scene where they call themselves "two halves of the same whole".
- Chrom/Cordelia shippers are also nasty to Sumia, accusing her of "breaking the girl code" by "stealing" her poor best friend's true love if Sumia marries Chrom. This, despite the fact that the two women keep friends regardless of who they marry, and never once discuss Chrom and the fact that Cordelia made the conscious choice not to pursue a romance with him.
- Female Robin isn't free of hate, since fans of Chrom/Male Robin compare her unfavorably to her male counterpart and accuse her of being solely an abusive bitch.
- Gerome has been blasted by Robin/Lucina shippers for being "abusive" or "bad for Lucina" because he's stoic and doesn't handle his emotions well. On the flip side, detractors call Robin/Lucina "creepy" due to the fact that the former met the latter when she was an infant.
- The above mentioned Ike/Soren vs. other shippers were reignited when Priam, a Hunky Badass who claims to be Ike's descendant and has Ike's sword Ragnell, showed up in Awakening. Ike/Soren haters started gloating that the ship had been sunk (even when Priam never fully explained whether he's a distant descendant or a direct one), while Ike/Soren fans accused IS of being homophobic (even when, again, Priam's direct relation to Ike has never been 100% detailed). Heroes may have mitigated this when Priam showed up as a fanboy of Ike and Ragnell, showing zero indication that the two are related in any way.
- Cordelia gets some shit for being Chrom's Hopeless Suitor, with fans outright saying she's only using her other prospect husbands for making Severa while pining for Chrom endlessly for the rest of her life.
- Inigo/Gerome shippers bash Inigio's female love interests for being mean to him while insisting he can ''only'' be paired with Gerome because him being in a straight relationship is "gross". Oddly enough, Inigo himself also gets bashed for his Casanova Wannabe ways, with fans saying that he's "better" if he's gay.
- Some Brady/Owain shippers hate Inigo and call him an abuser for teasing Owain in her supports.
- Robin/any second generation character gets heat from fans who find it creepy, due to the second generation being the future children of Robin's friends and allies.
Fates[]
- Shippers of Hinoka/Male Corrin trash Camilla for being very vocal in her love for Corrin, calling her a "toxic obsessive yandere whore" among other things...while conveniently ignoring that Hinoka herself is quite obsessive over Corrin, to the point of borderline ignoring her younger siblings to fret over seeing him again, and this is acknowledged in the game itself (her supports with Takumi and Sakura).
- Played oddly with fans who ship Leo with men. His prospect wives themselves aren't bashed, but Leo himself is painted as a misogynist who would feign love for them in order to sleep with them and make his son, because he could only ever truly love his own gender.
- Anyone who ships the Corrins with any member of the Royal Families of Nohr or Hoshido is in for a virtual beating from people who scream at the idea of fictional incest. Corrin/Azura got similar fire from the fandom due to the Revelation path revealing that they're actually cousins.
- Some hardcore Male Corrin/Azura shippers didn't exactly bash other pairings with the two, but pushed the ship as "the intended canon" at the expense of the characters' other pairings-including Female Corrin/Azura, simply because it was a same-sex version of their OTP. They were insistent in the belief that Het!Corrin/Azura was the one true pairing with the most special interactions, and that Azura only became a queen in Revelation if she married Corrin, even though she could become one by marrying Ryoma or Xander too. Luckily, this behavior eventually died down.
- Soleil gets this a lot due to her constant skirt-chasing and lack of boundaries, with her detractors glad she's not the female Gay Option because she "needs to be kept away from all women". It's especially prominent with Ophelia, though, as she comes on way too strong and makes Ophelia nervous in 2/3 of their support chain. The fact that both girls admit they made a mess of things (Soleil by being pushy and Ophelia by running away because Soleil didn't meet her high expectations as a partner) and patch it up in the A support isn't enough for the detractors, and some of the shippers can get defensive as a result.
- Rhajat and Niles are loathed by shippers of female Avatar/Azura and male Avatar/Silas, who wanted Azura and Silas to be the gay options. (To the point of starting rumors that Azura and Silas were the original options due to mis-representing some data found in the game's code. The rumors persisted for years.)
- Charlotte with any with the royals got some guff due to her Gold Digger facade, despite the fact that her supports have her marrying Leo, Corrin and Xander out of love and explaining she wants money to care for her ailing parents rather than for herself. This eventually died down, Charlotte is one of the more popular Fates characters these days.
Fire Emblem Gaiden/Echoes: Shadows of Valentia[]
The original Gaiden was notably the only entry in the series more or less devoid of shipping wars due to its obscurity. When Echoes came out, though, things took an ugly turn.
- Canon Foreigner Faye is loathed by Alm/Celica shippers for her obsessive crush on Alm.
- Celica herself gets called "antifeminist" or pushed aside by Alm/Clair and Alm/Faye shippers. Alm/Faye shippers also blame her and her alone for the fight between her and Alm in act 2.
- Some Celica/Saber shippers decry Alm/Celica as forced, claiming Saber is more caring towards Celica than Alm ever was.
- Alm and Boey both get scorned by Celica/Mae shippers, especially Boey who is seen as an inconsiderate asshole who does nothing but fight with Mae when in reality he cares deeply for her.
- Clive is a walking target for being Mathilda's canon love interest at all, but mostly by fans who worship Mathilda and think she could do better than a man she's canonically stronger than. Some even think that she should be dating women like Clair or Sonya and purposely get Clive killed to "free" her from him.
- Prince Berkut is downright accused of Domestic Abuse by Rinea fans who think she'd be better off dumping him for another girl - especially Celica. While he does sacrifice her to Duma for power, the game makes it very clear that he is Not Himself at the time, because before then he's been shown to be nothing but gruff yet still affectionate towards her, and this only happened after he was subjected to a gigantic Break the Haughty process..
- Tatiana is not liked by Camus/Nyna shippers due to her and Zeke's relationship being more in-depth and explicit in Echoes, to the point where if both survive he marries her.
- Many fans who hate the Clair/Gray pairing bash Gray for his early behavior towards her (seeing her as a standard hero reward in Act I, Clair's obvious irritation with him in the beginning of their supports) and their outdated shared Gaiden ending (where she marries him because he wore her down even though she loved Alm, and contrary to both of her "Gray dies" endings where she mourns him for the rest of her life)... completely ignoring that Gray does change his attitude towards Clair, she does soften up towards him, and their Echoes ending removes many of the unsavory implications of the old one (plus a rewritten "Tobin dies" ending where Clair helps Gray overcome his grief-induced alcoholism over losing his best friend and they get together). Some fans even accuse him of representing toxic masculinity when he's really just a teenage boy who has a bit of growing up to do when it comes to women. That said, some fans simply hate Gray being paired with a girl that's shipped with other girls and shove him off with Tobin, in a case of "the womanizer is better if he's gay" (see Inigo in Awakening).
Fire Emblem: Three Houses/Three Hopes[]
- Three Houses happens in a academy setting, and the main character is a professor - albeit one who's only 21 years old and has just begun teaching at a military academy. Some parts of the fandom clutch their pearls over the idea of student and professor dating in a fictional medieval universe. Pairings like Hanneman/Dorothea, Hanneman/Edelgard, Manuela/Dorothea, and any of Byleth's potential romances with the students get hit especially hard with this.
- Edelgard von Hresvelg can marry both Byleths, is the most popular option for Female Byleth AND is strongly implied to still love him/her even if her route's not chosen and therefore she can't be their lover. The Edelgard/F!Byleth fans tend to look down on near every other Byleth ship in one way or another. Especially Edelgard/M!Byleth, which is said to be "heteronormative". Plenty of "if you don't ship F!Byleth/Edelgard you're a MISOGYNIST!" bitching can be expected, too.
- On the flip side, many Lady Rhea/Byleth shippers loathe Edelgard and will do all they can to demonize her and make Rhea look like the better choice. Especially via reducing the very complex and very broken Rhea to a helpless woobie and sweeping her worst actions under the rug while being utterly unforgiving to Edelgard for hers. Not that Edelgard/Byleth shippers are much better, as many tend to do the same via infantilizing Edelgard for her troubled past and diminishing her worst decisions, while at the same time demonizing Rhea for hers.
- With the July 2020 release of a summer banner in the Fire Emblem Heroes spinoff game featuring a "duo hero" of female Byleth and Rhea, the shipping wars reached new heights. On one hand, Byleth/Rhea shippers became smug and petty at their ship getting the spotlight, delighting in the upset of Edelgard/Byleth fans. On the other hand, some extreme anti-Rhea Edelgard/Byleth or just plain anti-Rhea fans started screaming because Rhea/Byleth contains a degree of incest due to Byleth carrying the Crest stone of Rhea's mother, Sothis.
- F!Byleth/Edelgard and F!Byleth/Dimitri fans have also been seen cat fighting it out, as an extension of the general "Edelgard vs. Dimitri" sort-of fandom war where Edelgard fans accuse Dimitri of being a Marty Stu and a bloodthirsty asshole with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, while Dimitri fans call Edelgard an evil bitch and say her fans are Nazi and fascism apologists.
- There are anti-Dimitri/Edelgard shippers, who consider the ship "incest", despite them not only sharing zero blood relations but neither of them knew they were stepsiblings at the time they became each other's First Love.
- Dorothea Arnault is bisexual, being able to marry either of the Byleths and having some A-paired endings with ladies what ooze Les Yay. Many yuri fans openly and aggressively complain about the girl being paired with any men, period, insisting that she's "coded lesbian" and that she'd only care about guys (especially Black Eagles men, who are all nobles while she's a commoner) to be a Gold Digger to them.
- Dorothea/Ingrid is a strange case in which shippers bash Ingrid, aka one half of the ship, for not falling at Dorothea's feet instantly due to Incompatible Orientation. For them, the ship is all about Dorothea getting whatever she wants, and Ingrid is called a bigot for flat-out saying she does not want Dorothea to "pounce" her. Ingrid's feelings do not matter, she's just a pretty prize for Dorothea to catch.
- Ferdinand/Dorothea especially catches heat due to the nature of their supports, where he wants to be closer to her while she hates him for an incident in their past where she mistook a young Ferdinand's shock at seeing her bathe for a look of disdain, hitting her trigger of being treated like shit by nobility. It takes until their A support for him to get past her defenses and clear up the misunderstanding. Petra/Dorothea shippers in particular hate it for being "straight" and have whined quite a bit about it having fans at all.
- Some bashers of Edelgard also happen to be Hubert/Ferdinand shippers who pair the boys together while at the same time suggesting neither of them should be "forced" to stay with Edelgard, even in her own route. This is becoming especially apparent with Hubert "fans" who maliciously downplay and try to "fix" him of his devotion to Edelgard by suggesting he'd be much more happy and fulfilled in a relationship with Ferdinand and rubbing Edelgard's face in this fact.
- Some especially staunch Edelgard/Hubert shippers can be very protective of their OTP due to the above Edelgard-bashing Ferdiebert shippers, going so far as to accuse all non-Edelgard Hubert ships of doing the same thing as Ferdiebert shippers, in addition to stripping away the core element of Hubert's character or dooming the other person to "always being second best".
- Female Byleth is starting to get this from people who ship Dimitri with anyone else, but especially Dedue; they'll accuse her of being a Mary Sue and hogging all the attention regarding Dimitri-related shipping. Others tend to complain against all Byleth/Lord ships due to them being pretty much everywhere.
- Some Dimitri/Dedue fans became so locked into the idea of them being canon that they literally considered pairing either of them with a woman "painful". This trend only worsened as these particular shippers began to snarl and hiss at the idea that any other ship with either could be just as or more popular, or think people who don't ship it are homophobic even if those people ship Dimitri or Dedue with other men rather than each other. Then they have the gall to wonder why they've earned a reputation for being obnoxious.
- For a time, there was a trend of fans who see Alois and Gilbert as closeted gay men despite both being married, possibly in response to their S supports with male Byleth being platonic. This has led to the theory that Gilbert was always gay and resents his family, hence his running away from them, and that Alois really loved Jeralt and his wife is solely a beard. Completely ignoring that a) their S supports with both genders of Byleth are platonic, so the female one can't marry him either, b) Alois is shown to adore his wife AND simply is not the kind of guy who'd even bother hiding his feelings for someone else (male or female), and c) Gilbert aka Gustave left his family due to a massive trauma, aka the Tragedy of Duscur in which his liege Lambert was one of many people horribly killed. His sexuality has nothing to do with the fact that Gilbert hated himself for his failure, and likely left his wife and their daughter Annette so as not to taint their reputations for being associated with a failure like him. Thankfully, this has died down considerably.
- Yuri Leclerc of the Ashen Wolves side story initially got hit hit hard with this stick by some fans due to his very deep and revealing support chain with Dorothea. The fact that he is also an Implied Love Interest for both of the Byleths has helped lessen the hate coming from this quite annoying Vocal Minority who hisses at the idea of Dorothea being with a man, and it didn't take long for the heat to die off and Yuri to become one of the most beloved characters in the game.
- While Yuri's best friend and fellow Ashen Wolf Balthus von Albrecht is quite well-loved otherwise, some fans were seen screaming at the fact that one of his love interests is Lysithea von Ordelia - who is both much smaller and much younger than he is. Many "PEDOPHILIA" accusations were flung against the ship, never mind that she's not a little girl when they meet; thankfully, they went as fast as they came.
- Some Sylvain/Felix shippers have started to accuse people who don't like the ship of being homophobic, because obviously not liking the most popular m/m ship means a person hates the gays, even if they are LGBT themselves or simply prefer Felix and/or Sylvain with other male characters.
- While not widespread, a few Dimitri/Felix shippers have come down hard on Sylvain/Felix shippers and the pairing itself, accusing all shippers of being out and out bullies and the ship of being abusive.
- In Three Hopes, the real Monica von Ochs was finally introduced - along with her massive crush on Edelgard. While she was initially well-received, a few possessive Edelgard/Hubert shippers immediately started bashing her her for being a "creepy stalker" while putting Hubert's devotion on a pedestal or claiming Monica's behavior "would never be allowed if it came from Hubert."
Engage[]
- Engage has a strange variant in that shippers don't demonize other characters for "being in the way" of their OTP so much as they bash the writers and developers for only giving Alear paired endings and not their favorite ships. Lapis/Alcryst and Diamant/Ivy fans are the most vocal among them.
- A very weird variant has happened with Alear themselves. Some vocal fans who think female Alear is the "true" Alear have gone on record claiming that shipping male Alear with any of the characters is "taking away" the love interests who "rightfully" belong to the female version.
- ↑ Well, this person is never identified as Merric, but the very few leads in the Akaneia games point at him and Fire Emblem: Warriors confirms it in Marth and Linde's own supports.