Donnel

*This article uses material from the “Donnel” article on the Fire Emblem Wiki at FANDOM is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.*

**Donnel**, also known as **Donnel Tinhead**, is a playable character in *Fire Emblem Awakening* game.

A villager from a remote corner of Ylisse who came to fight with little more than farming experience. However, he is eager to learn and shows a great deal of promise.

In the XP4 fics, Donnel debuted in the XP4 Heroes Coalition - Awakening.

In the AWA fics, Donnel is a student at the AWA Academy.

## **Appearance**

Donnel has a messy brown hair and has brown eyes. He wears a blue & dark-blue tunic shirt with a string tied around his waist over a white collared shirt, light-gray pants and brown boots. His most notable feature is the cooking pot on his head and the cross-shaped scar on his left cheek.

## **Personality**

Donnel is a typical village boy "from the sticks" and is unaccustomed to life outside of his village. Though he was hesitant to ever enter battle, Donnel musters enough courage to stand up for himself and eventually join Chrom's army. His speech is vastly different compared to the rest of the army, speaking with a southern-farmer accent, saying phrases such as "git 'r done!".

In his support with Nowi, it is revealed Donnel's father was an avid rock collector until he was killed, making him carry his father's favourite stone ever since, with his supports with Lissa, revealing that his dream is to travel the world looking for the secrets to his father's stone.

Donnel is well versed in survival and practical skills including animal trapping, fishing, and cooking, as shown in his supports with Panne and both Avatars, with his supports with Kellam even saying he grows food for the army as well. Many people in the army note of his incredible aptitude in learning due to his eagerness to improve himself and find his true potential. His birthday falls on June 4.

## **XP4 Fanfics**

Donnel is a member of the Heroes Coalitions and is part of the Strong Force. He also attends the Vanguard Academy as a student.

### **XP4 Heroes Coalition - Awakening**

In Chapter 2, Donnel, alongside Sumia and Maribelle, are seen inside the garrison when Lissa, Robin, Owain, the Universal Guardians and the Squad of Excellence arrives and greeted them with Lissa hugging him. Later, Chrom and the others arrived and claimed to have an announcement.

In Chapter 3, Donnel is having a conversation with Lissa, Ichigo Momomiya, Ryuuko Matoi and Ricken at the garrison.

In Chapter 4, Donnel, alongside the Squad of Excellence, Lissa, Ricken, Henry and Miriel, are seen walking around a forest somewhere in Ylisstol when they came across Nowi. Then Emotionless emerges from the dark before taking on and defeating the creatures. After the battle, Nowi hugs him in joy, much to his embarrassment and Lissa's ire.

In Chapter 7, Donnel, alongside Lissa, Nowi, Ricken, Ryuuko Matoi, Ichigo Momomiya and Ash Ketchum, are gathered at one table in the garrison having a conversation. Donnel is the subject of an argument between Lissa and Nowi, much to the other's amusement.

In Chapter 10, Donnel, alongside Nowi, reunited with their daughter, Nah, in the garrison. He is once the subject of Lissa and Nowi's argument, much to Nah's bewilderment.

In Chapter 11, Donnel is at the garrison when they heard a noise, they ran to the corridors to see Ryuuko Matoi and Ricken chasing a strange hooded figure. Everyone went after the figure and led them to a large grassy fields, and reveals itself as a Pokemon known as Hitmonlee. The Pokemon then revealed that he stole an ancient alien artifact called the Ara-Ka Cube inside the castle. Everyone watches in horror as Hitmonlee uses the alien artifact to summon a zombified version of Emmeryn and Phila, much to everyone's disgust. Hitmonlee then summoned a large number of Emotionless, forcing Donnel and everyone to fight. Shun Kazami then ordered him to activate his *Gift* which he obliged, revealing that he is a *Blessed*.

In Chapter 12 & Epilogue, Donnel activated his *Gift* turning both Emmeryn and Phila back to life. After defeating the remaining Emotionless, forcing Hitmonlee to flee, life in Ylisstol went back to normal. Chrom, Lissa and Emmeryn gave him their gratitude with Lissa hugging him and tearfully thanking him for bringing back her family. He later joined the Heroes Coalitions as a trainee.

### **XP4 Heroes Coalition - Neo-City Diaries**

In Chapter 19, Donnel met the new recruits Eddy Skipper McGee, Marcus "The Kane" McGee, Eddward Marion "Double D, Edd" Smith, Edwin Horace "Ed" Williams and Rolf Yrmi. During a training session with Major Richard Stronghold, Donnel is seen running back and forth in spacious gym and later seen trampling on Alden Cole. Later that night and after a whole day of training, Donnel took part of the little get-together at the training facility's cafeteria.

In Chapter 21, Donnel is seen with Lissa and Nowi on a bench somewhere at the Training Camp in Neo-City with Lissa and Nowi arguing over him.

In Chapter 28, Donnel is seen inside the Training Facility of Neo-City and later took part of a rope climbing exercise which ended in chaos.

In Chapter 29, Donnel appears in a flashback taking part of a kickball game at the back of the Vanguard Academy.

## **Abilities**

Donnel has two Male-only classes: Villager and Fighter.

Donnel is horrible when you first get him. But if you stick with him you can end up with an extremely powerful unit for a good chunk of the game. The best way one could describe him as a unit is this you could put the growth of everyone else on a graph and while for about the first 8 maps on the game he may seem useless. However if you stick with Donnel towards midgame you got a very powerful unit only rivaled by Second Generation units for the most part. However, one issue to Donnel though his personal caps are lower than most of the cast however by that point game's mostly done with but this is an issue on the harder difficulties. Ultimately the choice of if Donnel's worth using or not is up to the player if they want to put the effort into making an extremely powerful unit or would rather not deal with a liability that may seem rather weak compared to the Second Generation.

Donnel's reclassing options are Mercenary and Fighter, both of which are a step above his Villager days. It is also worth mentioning that Donnel will be reverted back to E rank in whatever class he reclasses into, forcing you to use Bronze Weapons or expend Arms Scrolls on him to allow him access to stronger weaponry.

After grabbing Underdog, it is highly recommended to go straight to Mercenary, since his immediate acquisition of Armsthrift combined with his high Luck makes him extremely good at extending the lifespan of rarer weapons. The class also balances out Donnel's stats with good speed, skill, and strength and good defense. In addition to the stat compliments, the Mercenary class will offer Donnel the Patience skill, which will increase his Hit and Avoid during the enemy turn. His Hero promotion from this class yields Sol, allowing him to heal himself during battle, and with his fairly high Skill, Sol should activate often. Hero is Donnel's most well-balanced class in terms of stats, abilities, and weapons and is recommended as his end class. Reclassing into Bow Knight will offer Donnel access to Bowbreaker, a useful skill to complement Counter from the Warrior class, which will not activate against ranged attacks from weapons such as bows.

Fighter boosts Donnel's offensive capabilities as much as possible while slightly dropping his defenses. This class emphasizes axes letting him wield Hand Axes for range until he promotes into either Hero or Warrior. Zeal and Max HP +5 are good skills for Donnel to use even outside of this class. However, over time, these skills may begin to lose relevance as Donnel begins to reclass multiple times, leading to them being swapped for more versatile skills such as Sol. Warrior adds higher Strength caps, Bows, and Counter to his repertoire, the latter of which is especially useful in conjunction with Sol from the Hero class. Unfortunately, due to the overlap of Mercenary and Fighter both promoting to Hero, Donnel has access to only three upgraded classes total. This gives him a rather limited, but useful, skill pool.

Overall, Donnel has to be reclassed to be a unit worth using, as Villager is useless in the long run. Despite his somewhat shallow range of abilities, Donnel can still be a very capable unit with skill combos like Sol and Counter, with Bowbreaker alleviating the combo's range weakness to an extent and Patience further extending his survival during the enemy turn. Armsthrift will allow Donnel to wield expensive and forged weaponry for longer periods of time, making him a prime candidate for holding fabled weapons like Helswath. Ultimately, Donnel's biggest strengths lie in his fast growths and Luck stat. His growths and the benefits of Aptitude allow him to cap out faster than nearly all other units, making him a very strong mid- to-lategame unit with some early-game investment and decent training.

### **XP4 Fanfics**

Donnel is a *Blessed* with a *Gift* called the Gift of Life which gives him the ability to bring back someone to life.

## **Trivia**

* Donnel came in 13th place for males in the *Fire Emblem Heroes Choose Your Legends* popularity poll. He had 10,479 votes.
* Donnel shares his English voice actor, Sam Riegel, with Stahl.
	+ Donnel shares his Japanese voice actor, Ichiki Mitsuhiro, with Hinata and Hisame.
* Donnel's portrait always shows him wielding a Lance, even though none of his other classes besides Villager uses it.
* Donnel will sometimes say "let's get-r-done!" when Dual Supporting. This is probably a reference to the famous catch phrase used by American comedian Larry the Cable Guy.
* Donnel has the smallest class set out of the entire cast of *Awakening* having only 6 different classes (7 including Dread Fighter).
	+ Donnel's base reclassing options (Mercenary and Fighter) are referenced in his C Support Conversation with Stahl, where Stahl recommends that Donnel learn from their fighting styles.
* In Donnel's localized A-rank Support conversation with Cherche, he mentions that his last name is Tinhead. This is a reference to his Villager class, where he and all the others like him wear giant pots on their heads.
	+ In all of Donnel's reclassing options, he wears a tin pot on his head.
	+ Donnel is one of the few *Fire Emblem* characters with known last names, the others being Jill, Elincia, Sanaki, Sigurd, Seliph, Leif, Alm and, anime-exclusively, Marth.
	+ Donnel is the only character with a last name in the English but not in the original Japanese version.
* A set of map sprites featuring Donnel as a Swordmaster exists within the game data, although they are unused in the main game itself.