Veronica Mega Appreciation Post

Hello everyone. It may come to a surprise to you all, but Veronica is my favorite Fire Emblem character. I know. It’s shocking. I usually get asked “Why do you like her so much?” Along with her being tossed into the “She’s an Oc she sucks like the rest of them.” category. And I don’t think that’s fair to just cast her aside like that. So today I will be going into full depth of why Veronica is amazing as a character.

How she’s presented (Backstory and Character)

I will it that Book 1 while it wasn’t awful, didn’t take itself as seriously as the later books have. Veronica is presented in these ways:

*A young princess

*Overly sheltered

*Shuts people out

*Cares of no one but her brother

*Feels obligated to follow in her father’s footsteps and destroy Askr

*Wants nothing but to feel powerful

That right there is all presented in the first year of Feh’s existence. People will say she’s an edgy teen but her character is executed in a way where Veronica herself doesn’t like showing her development.

In the entirety of Book 1 Veronica is always trying to one-up the Askr Trio and foil their plans to stop her. And ultimately she fails and gets mad at not only the Trio, but herself because she wasn’t able to be the strong person she wanted to be. She failed her mission and sulks into the background.

Book 2 comes along and she decides to partner with the Muspell army. She does this because she sees the army as super powerful, and that she’d be aiding them to their success. Her family goal has always been to destroy Askr. So if she could destroy them AND Nifl at the same time with people by her side, she’d feel much better about herself.

Despite her becoming fairly close with the army, she ends up being betrayed and locked in the dungeon with Ylgr. In the final chapters of Book 2 Veronica is worried because she feels as if she’ll die before seeing her brother again, and even if she was close to death she couldn’t stand the thought of Ylgr going crazy about it.

Veronica is so used to be silent and dealing with situations as she has never been able to control them in the past. She has such a lack of empathy that she’s irritated by Ylgr crying about not wanting to die and not “accepting her fate.”

She encounters Laevatain who plans on kidnapping her and Ylgr for the sacrifice and it’s in this part of the story where Veronica really thinks to herself. She’s taking everything into consideration and realizing that she might die there.

She taunts Laevatain telling her she’d rather die than be used by Surtr. She’d rather die than be used by someone who plans on destroying not only Nifl and Askr, but Embla as well. This is the first time she’s thinking about helping others. She’s willing to die so that others can’t be harmed

In the end she gets rescued by Bruno and that’s the end of her relevance in Book 2.

That’s also the end of pre-protagonist Veronica from me. I’m about to go into full detail of the change and growth Veronica went through in Book 3, 4, Dragalia Lost, her Brave and Spring alt, and Thrasir.

Feel free to take a break and come back later as it will be a lot of reading :)

Brave Veronica

The nitty gritty of Brave Veronica is that she comes from a future where she’s set aside her differences and is working to be a true hero that helps people in need. She’s lending her strengths with the hope of peace.

Considering the next few Book stories will still have Veronica at the current age she is, Brave Veronica comes from a time long after the war between Askr and Embla has concluded. Bruno has disappeared and she works hard to find him side by side the friends she’s making along the way.

This is the first time we see Veronica engage in a wholesome conversation with someone that isn’t Bruno or Xander. She shares her personal feelings with Celica and is consoled by Hector and Ephraim on how they don’t view her as an enemy as they did before, but as an ally.

She’s opening up on how lost she’s felt and how she’s struggling to find her purpose outside of being evil. She realizes she is her own person and will do all she can to help people while also devoting herself to finding her brother.

Spring Veronica

Loki is persuading Veronica into going to the Spring Festival and of course she’s refusing to go until Loki says Bruno will be accompanying them.

Even if Veronica sees dressing as a rabbit as super embarrassing, she enjoys the thought of being able to spend time with Bruno at the festival.

In the end, Veronica warms up to the outfit and is happy seeing Bruno happy whilst partaking in the festival.

She tells the summoner she’d be willing to stay at the festival with everyone as long as it lasts. Even if it were to last forever.

Dragalia Lost Veronica

This is going to be a long one. In the entirety of the crossover in Dragalia Lost, Veronica learns several things.

At the beginning of the crossover we see her coercing guards into doing her bidding but is shortly stopped by Euden and Co. She decides to work with them, similar to how she works with the Askr Trio.

A few hours into being in the castle, Cleo finds her ed out. We learn that she essentially starved herself as she’s used to her servants bringing her food.

She gets a reality check that not everything revolves around her and that once in a while she’ll have to do things for herself.

As the crossover develops and Loki comes into play, Veronica has to pick which side to fight on and chooses to not trust Loki.

What wraps up her development in the crossover and leads to her being a true hero is when she says how in the world they’re in now, she is not Princess Veronica of the Emblian Empire. She is an ally fighting for what’s right.

This was the regular Veronica’s first dose of being a real hero and working with her supposed enemy.

Book 4

Veronica stumbles into the Askr Trio and greets them with a friendly “Hey” She reveals her true intentions to them on how she heard someone resembling Bruno was found in the woods. So she tags along with the Askr Trio as they had already planned on going into the woods.

Now mind you that Veronica in Book 1 or 2 would not have been so quick to tell her “enemy” her plans or even think of ing them. Veronica’s hatred towards the Askr Trio has gone down and she’s willing to trust them as they have never been mean to her.

After being betrayed by dream Bruno and Xander, Veronica works with the Askr Trio to stop the Dokkalfar.

In the Fallen Heroes chapter, they meet Mirabilis who plans on taking them into the dream world to find Freyr. That’s when Triandra appears.

Veronica tells Alfonse and Co. to fall asleep and let her take care of Triandra. She is LITERALLY protecting their bodies so they don’t get hurt while fighting off Triandra all on her own. That is where Book 4 left us off on before they went into the dream world and I assume only more Veronica development will come out of it.

The Start of it All Paralogue

This will be a quick one.

When Loki discusses to Veronica how their plan to get the children of Altea to fight against Askr, Veronica is super hesitant to go through with the plan.

After everything the Askr Trio (especially Alfonse) have done for her, she’s having second thoughts of doing anything that can harm them.

Book 3

I saved the absolute best for last. (Kinda) Book 3 has the most compelling story in of Veronica and her development.

Midway into Book 3, she asks Loki how she can kill Hel and goes off into the woods to kill Hel herself. She meets the Askr Trio and tells them her plan and decides to work with them.

Shortly after, they’re attacked by Thrasir and must stop her. Then in the Changing Winds chapter story they end up killing Thrasir where they find out that she was just Veronica from a timeline where everything went wrong- much like with Alfonse

Unlike Alfonse and Líf however, Veronica and Thrasir do not have the same kind of bond they have. Veronica hates Thrasir for what she’s become and feels no remorse when they do end up stopping her.

Veronica looks Thrasir in the eye and is ashamed of how she went about doing everything. That’s when Veronica realizes she needs to be better than Thrasir and make sure she doesn’t become herself.

Thrasir

Thrasir is Veronica from a time where everyone around her died, so in the same time as when Alfonse became Líf. Unlike Alfonse, Veronica barely had anyone other than Bruno, who was rarely in her life.

Thrasir felt lost when everyone disappeared for good so she resorted to getting immense power from Hel-something young Veronica had always wanted- in hopes of Hel restoring her world.

Here’s the thing about Thrasir. In a conversation between her and Líf, you get a sense of fear from Thrasir. She has no more power over Alfonse like she used to. They are equals and that’s when they became the only people they had.

She loathes Veronica for being a foolish child, but that is only because she is ashamed in her present self and her past self. All Veronica’s have the same mindset when it comes to other people. Veronica, Thrasir, and Brave Veronica believe that Bruno has come to hate the very side of her and that’s why he’s always gone.

She doesn’t hate a Veronica from a different world, no. She hates herself because she’s forced to do everything right but no matter what she does it’s never enough and in the end, it’s never worth it because her plans get foiled, she gets kidnapped, or in Thrasir’s case, her entire world gets destroyed.

At the end of Book 3, her and Líf share a conversation with Thorr and Loki about offering their strength to the gods with their world being restored as a reward. Whether or not this will be taken into Book 5 or ever again is beyond me, and I’ll just have to wait and see.

So what did we learn today? Do I think Veronica is the most well developed character in Fire Emblem Heroes? Of course I do. Does my explanation of her development align with how much I like her? I hope so. Hopefully now you know that Veronica is more than just an edgy child who whines when she doesn’t get her way, but a villain who has had many things happen to her that have led her to become a hero.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk :kissing_heart: