by Jim
Oh God… he’s talking about Fire Emblem again!
Yes I am!
So ever since Fire Emblem Awakening came out, there has been some controversy over the characters. Though I tend to ignore these as there seems to be a controversy every time a FE comes out, I wanted to weigh in on this one…
For those of us who’ve played Awakening… we all know who Nowi is.
Yup she’s the spunky dragon girl that people either really love… or really hate for some reason. Her stats are a little low and she is a pain in the ASS to level up, I will give you that, but her offspring is one of the most powerful Manaketes you can get, and the manakete class is powerful in and of itself.
Anyway, she drummed up some controversy a while back… which I still see debated on the forums every now and then because she can achieve an S-Class ranking with another character, aka marriage. The problem is that she looks like a 12… maybe 13 (AT BEST!) year old.
I’ll be honest, in my game, I usually pair her up with Gregor. In my opinion it’s the best story if you go that route.
Now some have said that this is promoting pedophilia because of how young Nowi is. The problem is that Nowi isn’t a 12 year old human being, by human standards in the game, she’s well over 1,000 years old, and while she has a rather energetic attitude, she does show a level of maturity that reflects that.
Gregor… I actually don’t know how old he is. However, near as I can tell, most of the Fire Emblem characters are between 16 and 45. Gregor strikes me as being on the older side, so maybe pushing 40?
Technically you could argue that Nowi is the one crib-robbing here, but that doesn’t make sense either.
A lot of people have said that it’s not the actual age that’s important (okay…) it’s that she looks like a 12 year old and that promotes pedophilia. To that argument, I cry foul. There are medically recognized conditions, albeit rare, where someone doesn’t age. In other cases, some more petite people just look younger as well. Heck I attended college with a girl who to this day looks like she’s 13. So what, do those people not deserve to be in love, have a relationship and a family? Will they have large societal hurdles to overcome? Unfortunately, yes… but that should not stop them.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not making a case for pedophilia or promoting it. I personally think that it’s a serious mental illness that is in dire need of proper treatment.
This isn’t a case of that at all. Nowi isn’t a human being, she’s a different species all together with different maturity and aging rates.
One could make the argument that by her own species’ standards, she’s just a child, but that would require us to know how they age, their culture and biological maturity… people, it’s a fantasy story. We’re not getting that deep into this! I know some people like to, but personally unless it’s somehow necessary to the plot, I’d rather spare the gory details.
In the end, I don’t believe that Nowi’s appearances poses any real problems. To the anti-child endangerment crowd, I’m with you guys 100% that no child should ever be hurt or abused, but you’re focusing on the wrong target here. The god-awful show ‘Stage Moms of LA’ would be a better place to direct your rage.
But maybe I’m wrong, maybe there’s something I’m missing here. Let’s open this up to discussion! Leave me a comment, I’d be happy to discuss this with you!
Readers,
Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.
jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com
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I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.
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Thanks friends!
Catch you on the flip side!
-Jim
James Harringtons Creative Work 
If you still are open to replies, I’m going to point out you did miss several things on this subject.
First we are giving plenty of info on Manakete aging, do you remember Morva and Myrrh from Sacred Stones or Bantu and Tiki from Shadow Dragon? The former were all adults and the guardians of the latter who were treated as children by human and Manakete alike. When Manaketes are adults, they look like adults, why do you think there are so many wrinkly old manaketes with problems standing up straight?
Gar
Nowi is changed a lot from Nono, the Japanese version of the character who is obviously a child. Nowi was given an: older voice, a support about her childishness being facade, and her supports being rewritten to make her more mature. But in Japan, she is very much a child.
Even in the overseas versions of the harvest scramble, its admitted that Manaketes look like children are physically and mentally children. An excerpt is provided below:
Morgan: And this slower growth—does it apply to your mental age as well as your body? I mean, are you psychologically younger than a human of the same age?
Nah: Rrrgh… Yes. That’s why I didn’t want to say anything…
The localizers drastically altered other bizarre or offensive elements. Anyhow at least we can all agree the localization made lemonade when they were given lemons.
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I think that’s an interesting point. Can Nowi (Nono) still marry in the Japanese version?
If so, I’d say that raises a plethora of other issues… though as we’ve already seen… this isn’t exactly a game that shies away from the ick factor. There’s literally incestuous relationships that can happen in the game, most notably Azura and Corrin.
My focus is definitely on the American version. If we’re going to get into the morality of things coming from Japan… well let’s just say that this is a can of worms best left unopened.
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Yes Japanese Nowi(NoNo) is still very encouraged to get married and have kids as otherwise you cannot get Nah(Nn). Nah(Nn) also speculates their father was a lolicon(word used) in their father daughter support, whilst in the overseas version, she speculates a shotgun wedding. She also calls the character, Brady, a pedophile, for seemingly showing interest in her, which is again altered.
Awakening has possible cousin incest between Owain(Lissa’s Son) and Lucina(well as a Chrom father Kjelle or Cynthia) can become lovers.
There was also a gay stereotype who was mocked by the good guys as well as an NPC who mocked same sex relationships. For reference, this was new to the new series and wasn’t in future entries either.
It should be noted all the above, including the sexualized treatment of NoNo(Nowi) and Nn(Nah) were very controversial in the Japanese fandom as well. As was the simplified plot and pandering towards the player character. Notice how often Robin is complimented and how every playable character of the opposite gender is romancable by them, especially for Male Robin.
Back in Manakete aging. In the Japan only Mystery of the Emblem, its said Tiki acts like a human child because she was only unsealed for ten years and spent her time around humans. However later introduced Manakete children, likely because of Tiki’s popularity, also acted like human children without Tiki’s backstory.
It should also be noted that Awakening almost entirely ignores the story of Shadow Dragon and Mystery of the Emblem(whose creator is no longer with Nintendo), having entirely different writers. Nowi/NoNo was definitely designed as a sexier version of young Tiki though.
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PS, I’m always open to replies. On this page, there’s no such thing as Necro bumping.
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Thanks for liking my fantasy blog. This is fantastic stuff. I didn’t know other folks were writing fantasy fan fiction about Nintendo games. If you post an NES friendly post, I would be happy to link it to mine so that you could get a few more followers. Ciao!
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I like this take on Nowi. Fire Emblem Awakening is a wonderful game! Personally, though, I’d rather marry Chrom or Lon’qu.
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I usually pair Lon’qu with Lissa. The exchange is entertaining to say the least.
Robin either goes with Lucina or Tiki in my games.
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Oooh, Lon’qu and Lissa sounds entertaining. I put Lon’qu with Panne on my first playthrough as well as Lissa with Henry.
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Yeah, she pokes fun at him the entire time, which plays well into his discomfort around women. It get’s to the point where he thinks that Chrom was messing with him when he assigned Lon-qu to be her protector.
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