Kris

Kris is the deuteragonist and a playable character in Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem. As the Avatar of New Mystery, Kris is a custom character whose name and gender are created by the player who participates in the game's stories and battles, similar to Mark from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, albeit much more involved as a character than the previous use of the concept. Players can change Kris' name, gender, starting class, appearance and background. They can choose what their character's past, present and future is, which influences their base stats and stat growths. The default appearance of Kris is the blue-haired, male Mercenary who stands next to Marth in the game's boxart. The default Female Kris also has blue hair and is a Myrmidon. From a gameplay perspective, Kris functions exactly like any other playable character. However, since they are one of the main heroes of the game, alongside Marth, their death results in an instant Game Over on both Classic and Casual mode. Unlike Marth, Kris does not need to be brought out into the battlefield, at least once the Prologue is over. One exception to this is Chapter 16x: Reunion. Kris has many Bond Support relationships with characters, akin to Marth, and also has a huge selection of Support conversation-like base conversations with other characters. Kris' personality is very straightforward, with their prime trait being their undying loyalty towards Marth and their desire to train to better themselves, as the majority of their actions and conversations with other characters are generally about said aforementioned topics, going deep to the point that, at the end of the war, Kris asked to have their name removed from history, despite how they would have been just as famous as Marth, just so that the latter would be a hero the world could look up to. As a result, even Marth himself questions such devotion at times, but still valued Kris as a true friend, even calling them his other half. Fiery to a fault, their dedication towards Marth often causes the Kris to harbor a grudge against those that slight his liege, as when fighting Lang, their anger towards him for his disrespect towards Marth was still present long after the fact. It also puts them at odds with some comrades out of concern for his lord's safety, such as Astram or Sirius. However, in time, the Kris came to trust and value them as comrades as well, even willing to keep Sirius' true identity a secret when they discovered it. Part of the reason behind such eagerness is eventually explained by Male Kris in their supports with Marth, where he confesses that he enjoys fighting and getting stronger, but worries about straying from his path as a knight if left unchecked. Though usually adept, Kris has trouble with certain skills such as cooking, being so terrible that even Caeda commented that it tasted like steel, despite all their practice. Even so, Kris did not want to stop trying, despite their grandfather's attempts in making them give up at it. Another problem for them is their terrible sense of direction, getting lost very easily, to which they admit to this, but whenever this does happen, they don't admit that they are lost until someone points it out. They are also shown to be rather gullible and naive, or perhaps just overly trusting towards some people, such as believing Xane's prank that having a similar hairstyle to Tiki's and having the tiara of hers would grant them legendary strength, and should they continue to wear it, they still believe in Xane's prank despite Marth telling them that it was a prank. They even believe some exaggerated tales about some of their comrades, such as Draug and his invincible defensive skills, which inadvertently made Kris train in a convoluted method that Draug gave them to show it, only for Kris to show being able to perform it by a limited degree, much to Draug's shock. Kris also gets flustered rather easily, especially when it comes to the opposite sex, shown in conversations with Samuel, as they are not completely sure on feelings of love. Male Kris even admitting that he is bad with girls and is shown to get easily flustered with some, like Phina or Palla. Female Kris states to Samuel that she had discarded her womanhood long ago and gets embarrassed whenever she was called cute or beautiful. This trait leaves them targets to be teased by others. Despite their straightforward personality, they have shown a slight playful side with Phina, as Male Kris tried to make a sudden confession of love, and Female Kris tried to get her to wear an extremely revealing dancing outfit that would shame them, before revealing to have been joking. While they are loyal to Marth, Kris has shown to also be equally loyal to friends, expressed the strongest when it comes to Katarina, whom Kris shared a strong trust for, and was deeply hurt when she revealed herself to be an assassin, remaining silent whenever anyone brought her up afterwards. When facing Katarina for the final time, Kris revealed their dedication to their bond by refusing to fight her and trying to convince her to return, declaring that they would stand by her side no matter what, which got through to her and caused her to join Kris.