The phrase “all’s fair in love and war” definitely holds true in the Fire Emblem series. Having characters pair up for specific romantic endings has been a thing since the fourth game, “Genealogy of the Holy War,” and it’s only gotten more in-depth in the games since — barring remakes.

But in a series with more than 600 named characters, not all of them are going to make great dates. Fear not though! As The Pitt News’ official dating sim and Fire Emblem expert, I’ve got a list of characters you definitely want to swipe left on.

Legion

Guys who refer to themself in the third person are a red flag already, but in Legion’s case he refers to himself in the third person because he’s actually a bunch of different dudes connected via hivemind, and when the main one dies, the rest of them stop working.

Now the most pertinent question you might have is “why?” and I don’t have an answer for that. I fail to see how this is a more efficient way of fighting, but I know it’s definitely going to make that first date awkward.

Berkut

Berkut is the proud, noble heir to the throne of Rigel. If you’re not opposing him, he’s a pretty sweet dude when he’s courting someone.

Unfortunately, he’s also so desperate for his uncle/father figure’s approval and being the strongest that no matter how cute your relationship is, he will sacrifice your soul to a dragon god to obtain the power to murder a 16-year-old. That really puts a damper on any relationship, not just because you’re dead but because someone shouldn’t make important life decisions like selling their soul without checking in with their partner first.

Lachesis

It’s always hard being the rebound, but it’s even harder when you’re the rebound for someone’s older brother.

Lachesis is notably in love with her brother — so much so that she has the easiest time getting together with men who are similar to her brother, and her daughter Nanna has a conversation with her nephew Ares about them being in love.

You’re going to have a hard time getting that date if you’re not a tall, noble swordsman in the first place. She also continues pining for her brother even after getting married, so you probably just want to cut your losses before someone gets hurt.

Sonia

Ok, so, Fire Emblem, especially the older games, has this thing where disproportionately male villains are evil just for the sake of being evil, but female villains aren’t really evil — they’re motivated by love for a bad dude and they get redeemed through death or whatever. It’s this whole thing that’s probably worth another blog post discussing gender dynamics, but the reason I bring this up is because Sonia is an exception to this trend. While Sonia is primarily motivated by love for a dude, she doesn’t let that stop her from going above and beyond in being horrible to everyone else.

She treats her underlings like shit, she adopts a child because her crush told her to and then proceeds to ignore and abuse the child. She calls others “human refuse,” and constantly brags about her looks.

If you even get to the first date, she’s going to spend the entire time talking about how perfect she is and treating the staff like crap. It’s not worth it.

Orson

Commitment is always good in a relationship, but there are times it can be taken too far. Like betraying your country and helping the Demon King to revive your wife as a zombie. Although “zombie” implies she has too much agency — it’s more accurate to call her a mindless corpse puppet who’s only capable of saying “darling.”

There’s a fine line between dedication and obsession, and Orson has pole-vaulted over it at the speed of sound. I don’t think you could get him to entertain the idea of a date with you, and I think he’d be offended if you even suggested he should move on from his corpse wife.

Ashera

Some people have really high standards, but no one has standards like Ashera, goddess of order, stability and law. Her standards are so high that when she wakes up 200 years early from her slumber, she takes one look at the war going on between the humans and animal people of Tellius and turns everyone into stone indiscriminately.

She’s an all-or-nothing kinda gal, and that’s a lot of pressure to keep up with. You can’t have a relationship if there’s no room for human error — it just won’t end well.

Garon

The King of Nohr is technically dead by the time the players meet him and is actually a corpse/dragon/goo monster who serves a planet-sized dragon god with the ability to destroy entire realities.

So you know that kind of puts a damper on any relationship. Add in the fact that all of his wives and concubines are in competition to put their kid on the throne, so you and any child you have will probably end up murdered, and there are just a few too many red flags.

Itsuki

Unlike many other people on this list, Itsuki Aoi from Tokyo Mirage Sessions is a really nice dude! He’s supportive of his friends and loves helping random people with all their problems around Tokyo. It’s no wonder most of his friends end up developing some kind of crush on him.

What is a wonder is how this man can’t realize how many people have developed some kind of crush on him. This man is denser than a bag of bricks.

One sidequest involves him helping his friend Touma learn to flirt with women so Touma can figure out how to be sexy eye candy for a stage show. During the quest Itsuki manages to get the numbers of multiple women, and when Touma asks how he did that, Itsuki’s just like “did what?”

You could go on a date that ends with you making out on the mouth and Itsuki will still probably think of you as a very good friend. Save yourself the heartbreak and try someone else.

Anna

A version of Anna shows up in almost every Fire Emblem game to date, so which one am I talking about?

All of them.

They’re either dating fellow merchant Jake, obsessed with making money above all else or literally a child. Or some combination of the three. In any case, none of them have time for you.