Claude Von Riegen

**Claude** is a playable character and one of the main protagonists in *Fire Emblem: Three Houses* and *Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes*. He possesses a minor Crest of Riegan, and is the 22 year old presumptive heir to the noble house of the same name. Claude is the leader of the Golden Deer house at the Officers Academy. He uses bows and swords as his main weapons, and wields the heroes relic **Failnaught**, along with the sacred weapon **The Sword of Belgata**.

## Claude Von Riegen

### Aliases

ClaudesterThe Master TacticianKhalidThe King Of Unification

### Relatives

Riegan (Ancestor)Blaiddyd (Ancestor)Loog (Ancestor)Klaus I (Ancestor)Oswald (Maternal Grandfather)King of Almyra (Father)Tiana (Mother)Godfrey (Maternal Uncle)Shahid (Older Half-Brother)Unnamed CousinClaudia (Distant Relative)Judith (Distant Relative)Lambert (Distant Relative)Rufus (Distant Relative)Dimitri (Distant Relative)Annette (Wife)

### Occupation

Heir of House RieganLeader of the Leicester Alliance (Post-Timeskip)Crown Prince of AlmyraStudent at the Officers AcademyHouse leader of the Golden DeerKing of the Leicester Federation (Golden Wildfire)

## Biographical information

### Date of birth

24th of the Blue Sea Moon; Imperial Year 1162

## Appearances

### Appears in

Fire Emblem: Three HousesFire Emblem: HeroesFire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes

## Profile

### Early Life

Claude's birth name was Khalid, and he was born in Imperial Year 1162 as the son of the king of Almyra and Tiana, the daughter of Duke Riegan. As a child, he often found himself discriminated against due to his Fódlan heritage and had to contend with his half-siblings. When he left Almyra and taken to the Leicester Alliance, he was again discriminated against due to his Almyran heritage. This led him to develop a desire to end Fódlan's long-standing isolationism in an effort to bring about a new world where everyone accepts everyone else. These experiences also helped him develop his strong tactical prowess from a young age.
Khalid also tries to keep the complete truth of his heritage from others, especially from the Gloucester clan. To such ends, he changed his name from Khalid to Claude - a name more fitting to Fódlan - and claims to be the son of an "offshoot" from the Alliance, brought into the clan just after his Crest manifested. Only Balthus has realized that he is the son of Tiana, a beautiful woman who once was very beloved by the Leicester noblemen, and he has promised to not let anyone else know.
Claude is the heir to House Riegan, the preeminent house of the Leicester Alliance, and the grandson of its leader through his mother, Tiana. Though he was born in Imperial Year 1162, he was not legitimated as heir until Imperial Year 1179, a year before enrolling at the Officers Academy.

If Byleth has chosen to teach the Golden Deer House, Claude becomes increasingly interested in Byleth's origins given Rhea's strange fixation with them along with the fact that they bear the Crest of Flames and can wield the Sword of the Creator. Claude also develops an interest in uncovering Fódlan's true history and the true nature of Crests and the Heroes' Relics after witnessing Miklan's transformation into a Black Beast during the mission of Chapter 5.

After forcing Byleth to lend him Jeralt's diary after his death, Claude learns that Rhea had done something to Byleth as a newborn. At the end of Chapter 10, Claude demands Byleth tell him everything about the circumstances behind their transformation and newfound power, learning that an entity claiming to be the Goddess was living in Byleth's head and surmising that this phenomenon had something to do with what Rhea did to Byleth upon their birth. Claude promises to Byleth that he will assist them in learning more about their origins as well as the secrets held by the Church and Rhea.

With the disappearance of Byleth, Claude never gave up hope that they were still alive. Remembering the promise the Golden Deer made, Claude returns to Garreg Mach Monastery and ascends the Goddess Tower. As he waits, Byleth, who went missing five years prior, miraculously returns. Elated to see his teacher well, Claude invites Byleth to help rout some bandits raiding a nearby town. As they quell the bandits, the rest of the Golden Deer students return as well. With the area cleared, Claude decides to make the Monastery their main base for the war to give them a strategic location to fight back against the Empire. Claude convinces Byleth to stay with the Golden Deer class by promising to aid them in the search for Rhea and learn the truth about themselves and Fódlan.

The Alliance, led by Claude’s tactics, fully unifies their full might as a nation with the capture of the Great Bridge of Myrddin, gathering their strength and eventually taking down Edelgard and the Empire at Enbarr after Dimitri and the Kingdom are defeated at Gronder Field. Claude will then let Byleth finish off Edelgard themselves, before turning his gaze homeward and steeling his troops to take down Those Who Slither in the Dark. He also shares his dream with Byleth about opening Fódlan to the outside world.

Upon hearing that Holst was severely injured fighting Nemesis, Claude decides that they should intercept his forces at Caledonian Plateau. Claude may be sent to fight his ancestor, although he expresses disappointment when he doesn't speak. Upon killing Nemesis' Ten Elites, the Alliance Army is able to injure Nemesis. Claude and Byleth challenge Nemesis together, where he fires several arrows, though they all miss. He then fires another arrow at the sky before charging and getting swatted aside by Nemesis. The arrow then lands back down and pierces Nemesis' arm, allowing Byleth to kill him. Claude then extends his hand to Byleth, stating that it is up to them to bring about peace, as he returns to Almyra to establish new ties with Fódlan.

## Relationships

*Entrusting the future of Fódlan to his friends, Claude left for Almyra to reclaim his place as heir to the throne. Several years later, when he became king, he took initial steps to open trade routes with Fódlan, and entered into negotiations with Margrave Edmund. During this time, he was reunited with Marianne, who had grown under her adoptive father's guidance into a wise and talented woman. She offered him her aid, and as they worked together to secure friendly relations between their respective nations, they fell deeply in love.*

## Personality

Claude is described as easygoing at the surface, but has a side that forces others to keep their guard around him. His introduction to Byleth at the Officers Academy emphasizes this as he refrains from divulging his potential professor any information about himself to give himself a "sense of mystery" and to entice them to choose his house in order to get to know him better. While appearing lazy and casual, he is far more astute than he lets on and is always a few steps ahead of his peers during conversations.

He tends to get along with those he interacts with, but his nonchalant attitude to his duties as heir to the Leicester Alliance seems at odds with each other and sometimes frustrates his fellow nobility classmates, namely Lorenz. Despite this, he has a wealth of knowledge of the Alliance's current state of affairs and has enough diplomatic sense to understand the ramifications of certain potential actions of Alliance against the neighboring country of Almyra.

He is a cunning strategist and is particularly skilled at mind games to throw his opponents off. He openly converses with Byleth of a ploy to give his house rivals food poisoning to give his house an advantage in the first mock battle. While he does not do so, he simply stated it to rile his rivals. He cares greatly for those under his command, valuing their lives and advises them to retreat rather than fight to the death, as shown in the *Crimson Flower* route numerous times. He abhors killing, only doing so if completely necessary; his tactics generally rely on incapacitating the enemy. His skills as a tactician have grown significantly after the time-skip that his guise of neutrality intimidates other nations' advisers, such as Hubert, as they know he has ulterior motives in hand.

Claude dislikes blind faith in gods, as he prefers to rely on the strength of men. On the other hand, he enjoys archery, long rides, subjects of curiosity, poetry, scheming and organizing feasts.

## Trivia

* Claude shares his English voice actor, Joe Zieja, with Jamke and Canas in *Heroes*.
	+ Joe Zieja stated in an interview that in his audition for *Three Houses*, he did readings for other characters such as Dimitri, Dedue, and Ferdinand before being chosen as Claude.
	+ Starting from 17th August 2019, Zieja published his playthrough of the Golden Deer route in his YouTube Channel.
	+ He also sang a cover of God-Shattering Star along with renowned metal musician Jules Conroy, a.k.a FamilyJules. He premiered the song in his Twitch account and Conroy later uploaded it to his own YouTube channel.
* Game director Toshiyuki Kusakihara stated in an interview that the writers drew inspiration from Rajendra from *The Heroic Legend of Arslan* and Yang Wen-li from *Legend of the Galactic Heroes* when creating Claude.
	+ The interview states that Nader was intended to reveal that Claude's real name is Khalid, but this was eventually scrapped.
* Claude stands at 175cm (or about 5'9"), while in the war phase of **Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes**, he stands at 177cm (or about 5'9").
* Claude is one of the few Lords in the *Fire Emblem* series to not feature the color blue either in his hair or his clothes, a distinction he shares with both Celica from *Gaiden* and its remake and fellow *Three Houses* lord Edelgard.
* He uses yellow colours for his class battle models in game.
* Due to House Riegan being a cadet branch of the Blaiddyd royal family, Claude is distantly related to Dimitri.
* Claude has the most supports with students outside of the Golden Deer compared to the other two Lords, which are Annette, Ingrid, and Petra. Dimitri has Marianne and Raphael while Edelgard only has Lysithea.
* Claude can have the most skill proficiencies in the game with a total of six, after unlocking his budding talent in axes. He shares this distinction with Balthus.
* As a boss in the Crimson Flower route, Claude is one of the few bosses in the *Fire Emblem* series that will be an entirely different class depending on the difficulty, either being a Wyvern Master on Normal or being a Barbarossa on Hard and Maddening.
* Claude is the only house leader in *Three Houses* that can potentially survive in all routes. He lives by default in the Azure Moon and Verdant Wind routes, and he can be either spared or killed by Byleth in the Crimson Flower route. His fate in the Silver Snow route, however, is left ambiguous and is reported to be missing.
	+ Compared to the other house leaders, Edelgard only survives in the Crimson Flower route, and Dimitri survives by default in the Azure Moon route, and like Claude, his fate is left ambiguous in the Silver Snow route. Though unlike Claude, he is reported dead rather than missing.
	+ Additionally, Claude, Dedue, and Gilbert are the only route-exclusive characters that are confirmed to survive in more than one route.
* Claude's design and characteristics share a lot of similarities with Persian culture. This includes:
	+ His pre-timeskip design, being based off the Persian Achaemenid archers. They are depicted as wearing yellow, having a singular earring, and wielding a composite bow.
	+ His post-timeskip design, being based off a Kontush Sash: an ornate band worn around the waist which originated in Persia. At the end of this sash, Claude possesses a garland of Turkish püskül which wards off bad luck.
	+ Claude's personal battalion, the Immortal Corps, is a reference to the Persian Immortals—the name given by Herodotus to an elite heavily-armed infantry queued unit of 10,000 soldiers within the grand army of the Achaemenid Empire.
	+ An Almyran ritual Claude celebrates, as mentioned in his C-support with Annette, is a reference to the real-life "Chaharshanbe Suri", a Zoroastrian fire festival originating in ancient Persia.
	+ Meditation Claude partakes in every morning, as mentioned in his C-support with Ingrid, is another practice of Zoroastrianism.
* Claude has placed high in several character polls done in magazines for *Fire Emblem: Three Houses*. These include:
	+ The first survey conducted by Nintendo DREAM Magazine, Claude placed 2nd. The male-female vote ratio was 1:2. He ranked 2nd with 19.8% of the vote among those who completed the game and 22.9% overall.
	+ The second survey conducted by Nintendo DREAM Magazine, Claude placed 2nd. The male-female vote ratio was 1:3. He ranked 2nd among those who completed the game with 286 points.
	+ The third survey conducted by Nintendo DREAM Magazine, Claude placed 2nd The male-female vote ratio was 1:3. He ranked 2nd among those who completed the game with 256 points.
	+ The fourth survey conducted by Nintendo DREAM Magazine, Claude placed 2nd. The male-female vote ratio was 1:4. He ranked 2nd among those who completed the game with 144 points.
	+ The fifth survey conducted by Nintendo DREAM Magazine, Claude placed 3rd. The male-female vote ratio was 1:4. He ranked 3rd among those who completed the game with 20.8% of the vote.
	+ A survey conducted by Famitsu Magazine, Claude placed 2nd. He ranked 2nd for males and 2nd overall with 1,249 votes. He also placed 3rd among S-Supports chosen in the first playthrough with 339 votes.
	+ The January 2020 issue of Nintendo DREAM Magazine, Claude ranked 6th in the character popularity poll for most favorite Nintendo character.
	+ The February 2020 issue of Nintendo DREAM Magazine, Claude ranked 10th in the character popularity poll for most favorite Nintendo character.
* In the fourth *Fire Emblem Heroes: Choose Your Legends* popularity poll, Claude ranked 2nd place for males and 3rd place overall with 59,751 votes.