Byleth

> - Byleth joins Smash House!
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* Male
* Female

On January 17th, the start of the year 2020, the first Fighters Pass for Super Smash Brothers Ultimate was coming to a close, and Nintendo decided to end it with the Protagonist of the newest title in the Titular Tactical RPG Series, Fire Emblem[1].

## History in Fire Emblem

### Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Byleth starts their Journey in Fire Emblem: Three Houses as they're having a strange dream involving a battlefield where an unknown figure is seen stabbing a man known as "Nemesis" for killing her "mother." Byleth then snaps out of the dream, or so it seems, as they are still actually dreaming.

This is where we're introduced to the character of Sothis, a character very integral to Three Houses lore and to Super Smash Brothers in terms of Byleth's inclusion. Here, much like the other Fire Emblem avatars, Corrin and Robin, is where you choose Byleth's gender and name soon after waking up where you're thrust into the action, having to help three travelers fend off a group of bandits.

After defeating the bandits in a tutorial section, the travelers introduce themselves as Claude, of the Leister Alliance, Edelgard, of the Adrestian Empire, and Dimitri of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. They invite Byleth, along with their father Jeralt to come with them to Garreg Mach Monastery, and it's here where their journey in Fire Emblem: Three Houses begins.

Here, Byleth becomes a teacher at the Monastary, teaching one of Three Houses that you choose after speaking to the respective house leaders, and depending on the house you choose the story, characters, and maps you play on will all change, giving the game heavy replay value.

At some point in the game, Byleth acquires the Sword of the Creator, a Sword seen in their Smash artwork said to be one of the weapons crafted via the goddess, in Three Houses you can use it twenty times before having to recharge. This limit, unlike with Robin's weapons, does not carry over to Smash.

#### Sothis:

Using her bones, many figures were able to craft the holy weapons, including The Sword of the Creator, Amyr, Failnaught, and Arehdbahr, all of which Byleth uses their moveset.
Around a quarter of a way through Three Houses, Byleth gets trapped in a void by a man known as Solon, and Sothis scarifies themselves in order to get Byleth out of the void, fusing with them and becoming one. This situation gives Byleth green hair, as seen in their penultimate and final alternate colors in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate.

## FE Heroes Byleth

* Male
* Female
* Summer

### Fire Emblem: Heroes

Byleth appears as a Summonable unit in Fire Emblem Heroes, the free mobile game where you, the Summoner, have to travel across various Fire Emblem worlds, fighting and recruiting characters to stop a nefarious plot by an evil villain. You can also alternatively go into PVP battles against other players, fighting against their respective summoned teams online.

Byleth has three forms in Heroes, One for Male, Two for Female:

#### **Tested Professor Byleth -**

Tested Professor Byleth is a 5 Star Heroes Unit who's appearance is based off of Male Byleth's Mercenary outfit form from Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

> *Child of the former captain of the Knights of Seiros, Jeralt. A stoic, capable professor at the Officers Academy. Appears in Fire Emblem: Three Houses.* - FE Heroes Description
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#### **Proven Professor Byleth -**

Proven Professor Byleth is a 5 Star Heroes Unit who's appearance is based off of Female Byleth's Mercenary outfit form from Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

> *Child of the former captain of the Knights of Seiros, Jeralt. A stoic, capable professor at the Officers Academy. Appears in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. - FE Heroes Description*
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#### **Summer Byleth (F) - Fell Star's Duo -**

Summer Byleth is a 5 Star Heroes Unit, and a version of Female Byleth decked out in summer attire along with another Three Houses character, Rhea battling alongside her.

> *Byleth, a professor at the Church of Seiros's Officers Academy, and Rhea, the church's archbishop, enjoying a summer away. They appear in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. - FE Heroes Description*
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Byleth has also placed high in this year's Cyol5 (Choose your own legend 5th Round). An event where players of Heroes get to choose the next unit to have a legendary 5 Star version in the next update. Male Byleth placed 4th among male units, while Female Byleth placed 2nd among female units, overall both making the top ten of all units, 6 and 7 respectively.[2]

## History in Super Smash Brothers

### Pre-reveal predictions

Byleth had always been a character that has been predicted for Smash Brothers Ultimate, as soon as the first Fighters Pass launched, especially when considering the success of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, selling over 3 million copies worldwide as of November 2020.[3]

However, in terms of reveal, judging by the first Fighter Passes predicted trend of being all Third Party characters (Each character being from a company that's non-Nintendo) people predicted they lead off, or at least at some point be in the second Fighters Pass, though these predictions wouldn't come true, as soon afterwards Byleth was revealed in the final Fighter's Pass 1 presentation.

### Reveal

On January 16th, 2020, Byleth was revealed to a live audience in the final trailer to the First Fighters Pass, titled "Mr. Sakurai Presents ???" with Sakurai holding up three fingers in the thumbnail. This would later be known as counting in Binary to the number "Sixteen" the same number which Fire Emblem Three Houses is, being the sixteenth Fire Emblem game.

The reveal began with a reference to a cutscene late in game where a member of "Those who Slither in the Dark", Solon banishes Byleth out of existence using the forbidden spell of **Zahras**.

Here, in a quickened version of the cutscene in game, Sothis asks Byleth if he's prepared to die, and afterwards proclaims that there is no other choice for her to do, so she pulls out a Smash Letter, revealing Byleth to be the next character joining Smash Brothers!

We then get some gameplay snippets of Byleth, showing of their stage of Garreg Mach Monastery and a few of Byleth's long range moves using the Sword of the Creator, as well as showing off various swordfighters, having Byleth getting attacked by the likes of Cloud, Ike, Hero, and Link before getting sent back to the empty dimension with Sothis.

Sothis touches on how Byleth is back a bit earlier than she expected, and snidely remarks, "I see, too many swordsman are there?" making a reference to a popular Smash criticism of Fire Emblem that all of the characters use swords, making many in the community say similar things. Sothis then asks Byleth what they will do in order to solve this problem, and... somehow, Female Byleth shows up from out of nowhere.

Sothis rewards Byleth's "cleverness" by summoning the three Heroes Relics from Fire Emblem: Three houses, those being Arehdbahr, Amyr, and Failnaught, the weapons used by the respective house leaders after the 5 year timeskip halfway through the game. Sothis smirks, and we're sent back to the scene with Solon where a circle appears around the Smash logo, showing off female Byleth holding the three Heroes Relics.

Female Byleth has a Splash Screen, that being "Byleth Recruits Byleth" before she flies away, short gameplay snippets of Byleth using the Heroes Relics before we get final part of the trailer, showing "Super Smash Brothers. Ultimate X Fire Emblem Three Houses."

Images from the trailer -

Byleth being attacked by the forbidden spell of ZaharasFemale Byleth doing a pose on Wuhu IslandByleth unleashing the blinding speed of the Failnaught bowFemale Byleth recovering from the Heroes Relics landing

## Reception on SmashFAQs

> "Byleth?! ....ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?" - Teddybearsolid
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Byleth was... a controversial pick on SmashFAQS to say the very least, being the eighth Fire Emblem character in Smash Ultimate, another Swordfighter (for the most part), and a generic protagonist with blue hair who didn't speak. Many were... understandably outraged like GBleek2, in his topic, "THIS is why Byleth sucks" where he remarks a few choice words.

> *Tell me the difference between Byleth and the other FE characters? They use different weapons, okay. But the people who care have already been satiated so much. - GBleek2*
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However, some seemed to reconcile despite thinking Byleth to be a garbage pick like Blue-Lemon-Z who said,

> *"Fire Emblem Three Houses is already just past its sales peak, so any later would be far too late for promotion, and would piss off smash fans even more if the game got even more irrelevant. You have to remember Nintendo is a business and wants to promote potential sales as much as they can for certain things. If they absolutely wanted another fire emblem character for the game, (which some people actually did want or requested Byleth for smash) they needed to put Byleth in now or never." -Blue-Lemon-Z, In defense of Byleth \*pukes a bit\**
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Others, like KazooieKong seemed to make jokes about the event, with topics like "Why the f\*\*\* did we get Byleth over..." a topic that would be leading people to think it would be complaining, when as it turned out they were making a jest about... Sothis' giant feet...

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Moving right along!

## Trivia

* Byleth is the only FP1 DLC to not be from a third party company, making them an outlier in that regard.
* Byleth at the time of inclusion was the only fighter with different idle animations, thanks to Female Byleth having different proportions to her male counterpart.
* Byleth is the 8th Fire Emblem character in Smash, putting the series up with the likes of Super Mario and Pokémon in terms of raw numbers.
* Byleth is the only character to use a lance in Smash History, as of Pyra/Mythra's inclusion.
* Byleth is one of the few characters in game to have two names on the official Super Smash Brothers Ultimate website, though this is seen only in Japanese. This is due to the fact that, in Japan Byleth's name changed dependent on their gender, the male being roughly translated to "Beret", while the female version roughly translates "Beres". Making the wording in Japanese "Beret/Beres".
	+ Notably however, in the Japanese language version of Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, when the announcer says their name, he refers to them as "Byleth" no matter the gender.
	+ Byleth shares this trait with "Steve/Alex" and "Pyra/Mythra", though is the only one who doesn't have a separate announcer voice line for the different versions.
* Byleth is one of the few characters in Smash to have Bisexual tendencies, as shown in the endings of Fire Emblem: Three Houses where you can choose to marry a male of female no matter which gender Byleth is. (Though Female Byleth has more choices compared to male in these situations).
* The "Byleth joins Smash House" is a reference to the start of Fire Emblem Three Houses where you have to choose which house, your choices being listed here. Smash House, while not being grammatically correct, in this case is a sound reference to Three Houses.
	+ "Byleth recruits Byleth" is also a reference to Three Houses, as in that game's academy phase, a sort of between battle phase in Three Houses, you can recruit students from other houses to join yours if you meet certain requirements.
* Byleth's Trailer is the most disliked Reveal Trailer in Smash History, having 89k dislikes as of March 20th, 2021.[4]