Jeigan (archetype)
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The Jeigan archetype is a common character portrayal found throughout the Fire Emblem series of strategy role-playing games. The archetype is named for Jeigan, a character that appears at the beginning of ' and ' Book I, as Marth's mentor. In Fire Emblem: Monshou no Nazo Book II, he appears as a non-playable character. In general, the archetype refers to a prepromoted character acquired near the beginning of the game with vastly superior statistics in comparison to all other friendly and enemy units, but deteriorates in utility over the course of the game. Jeigans tend to level up very slowly, gain little experience for defeating enemies that would yield larger bonuses to other characters, and have a rate of stat growth that is well below average. Jeigans are commonly surpassed in terms of power and utility by most units that begin the game at low levels, and they are commonly of very little use by the end of the game.
In terms of plotting, the Jeigan is usually a Paladin that plays a mentoring role in relation to the Lord character(s). Due to their role in the game, they are sometimes not actually killed when they run out of hit points during battle, but instead suffer a grievous, unhealable injury that prevents them from taking part in further battles. Jeigans are not of royal heritage and usually have no blood relations with other characters, with Oifey and Eyvel as the only exceptions.
List of Jeigans
- Jeigan: From ' and ', Jeigan is the character who exemplifies the traits of a Jeigan. He has sworn to guide and protect Marth. Kain, Abel, Gordon, and Doga are members of his squad. He does not fight in Book II of Fire Emblem: Monshou no Nazo, but he talks with Marth throughout Book II.
- Alan: From Fire Emblem: Monshou no Nazo, Alan is a slightly better character than Jeigan. He has slightly higher starting stats and growth rates, but this is also offset by him starting at a higher level.
- Cuan: From , Cuan is the brother-in-law of Sigurd, the main character of the first generation. Though he comes promoted and early in Prologue, he actually has very good growths and a lot of potential, eventually wielding a holy weapon. It is disputed as to whether he should actually be considered a Jeigan, yet is insisted upon by some because of the lack of a Jeigan in the first half of Seisen. Cuan is the most likely candidate due to leaving 2/3 of the way through Sigurd's campaign and never returning, and the fact that his and Ethelin's children (Leaf and Athena) are only average as second generation characters, a problem that doesn't really plague Serlis.
- Oifaye: From , Oifey is a nobleman of Chalphy Castle. In Sigurd's generation, he serves as Sigurd's advisor. He fights in Celice's generation, and has sworn to protect him. Along with Shanan and Celice, he fled to the Kingdom of Isaac at Sigurd's request shortly after the takeover of Lubeck Castle, and there he and Shanan raised Celice. Oifey is one of the stronger Jeigans, thus leading to controversy over whether he really should be considered part of the archetype; his candidacy is further put into question due to the fact that he comes halfway through the game, not at the beginning as Jeigan does, unless you want to count his advisory role. He is a distant relative of Sigurd's family. He is the first Jeigan with blood relations with other playable characters.
- Eyvel: From , Eyvel is considered by some to be a Jeigan. Unlike the norm, she is not a Paladin. Instead, she is a Swordmaster with already maxed Speed and nearly maxed Skill. Because of this, her classification as a Jeigan is tenuous, as the Jeigan archetype tends to indicate low stats across the board. The player only has the chance to use Eyvel in chapters 1 through 3 and 5, after which point she becomes unavailable until the last Gaiden chapter, where she may be rerecruited for only 1 and a half more chapters worth of usage. (Note that the last Gaiden chapter in Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 is right before the last chapter itself.)
- Dagda: From Fire Emblem: Thracia 776. Like Eyvel, he wasn't a Paladin; he was instead of the Warrior class. His friend Marty can outclass him after a moderate amount of leveling, but since weak characters can actually serve a useful purpose in Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 (thanks to the Arrest (or Capture) system), Dagda can still be helpful at most any point in the game.
- Marcus: From and Fire Emblem (Game Boy Advance), Marcus served as an advisor to Eliwood and later Roy. Marcus marks the return of Paladin-classed Jeigans. In Fuuin no Tsurugi, he is an old man, having served Pherae for three generations and being the trainer of new knights, and has the statbase and growths you'd consequently expect for an elder non-magical unit. He is, however, considerably more powerful than Jeigan. In Rekka no Ken, he is in his prime, and is much stronger than his older self and even offers helpful advice to the group. He is still generally outclassed by the other Paladins in the game, although he is by no means a bad character. Marcus is often unjustly derided by midbies to the games.
- Seth: From , Seth, another Paladin, holds the military rank of General in the country Renais. Seth boasts the highest growth rates for a Paladin in the game, but his base statistics aren't overly high, and as a prepromote he doesn't have enough levels for his growths to really take effect. At maxed levels and on average, Seth is easily on par with the other Paladins in the game.
- Orson: From Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, Orson is another tenuous candidate for the Jeigan archetype. The problem in his case comes from his lack of usability; he can only be used in one chapter in the main game. He can be unlocked for use in the Free Map/'Creature Campaign', but by that point he is irrelevant. Orson was a high-ranking officer in Renais' army.
- Titania: From , Titania is the first female paladin Jeigan. Titania continues the current trend of Jeigans having higher growths than the unpromoted cavalry. She was once a knight of Crimea, before meeting Greil and becoming second-in-command of his mercenary group. After his death, she is Ike's only source of information about his father. Titania may be considered one of the most useful Jeigans, since her reasonable base stats and high growth rates make her a very viable unit.
Jeigan Characteristics
Experience Stealing
This term denotes a situation in which a higher levelled character, usually promoted, kills an enemy/enemies which a lower levelled, usually unpromoted, character could have killed. Because experience awards are scaled in that higher levelled characters receive less experience than lower levelled ones, more so if the character is promoted, it is taken as if the higher levelled character 'stole' the experience from a lower-levelled one.
For example, say Eliwood would receive 25 experience from killing a brigand, and Marcus would receive 3. If Marcus kills the brigand, then it is said that Marcus stole (wasted) 22 experience.
Generally, this fault is only attributed to Jeigans, because they tend to be the only promoted characters around while the majority of your army is lowlevelled and unpromoted. Also, it is commonly taken that any experience ever given to a Jeigan is a waste of experience, due to the prevailing belief that they are worthless characters.
There are groups of people which claim that this principle does not in fact belong to the Jeigans, but to the players, as they are the ones which put the Jeigan in the situation where (s)he stole the experience in the first place. This is not unfounded either; in many stories, the character who has the most story-wise traits like a Jeigan is usually doomed to either be killed, lose a considerable amount of usefulness anyway, or become a traitor.
- Jeigans which don't fully adhere to this principle
- *Jeigan - In FE1/3 games, the experience gained from each enemy was set, and not shaped depending on the killers level or whether they were promoted of not; as such Jeigan received the same amount of experience for a kill as anyone else would have. However, his growths are terrible, being at only 10% at the most for each and every stat, some even at 0%.
- *Alan - Same reason as Jeigan. Only Luck is at 0%, but this is offset by Alan still having half his stats at single digit while being at a higher level.
- *Cuan - The experience system in Seisen is based on there being 30 levels instead of two tiers of 20 levels, and Cuan starts at level 4, gaining as much experience as Sigurd's Social Knights. He does, however, eventually leave Sigurd's group, with a major possibility that any stat gains he managed end up wasted.
- *Seth - Unlike most of the other Fire Emblem games, there is an unlimited amount of Experience to be gained in the game due to the Tower of Valni and the presence of random skirmishes.
Early Appearance
Jeigans are known for appearing very early in the game, often in the first chapter or prologue. This is due to their usual role as bodyguard to the game's lord. This is just a tendency of Jeigans, not an inherent drawback (except for where it leads to experience stealing).
- Jeigans which don't adhere to this principle
- *Oifey - Oifey appears as a playable character on the second turn of Chapter 6 of Genealogy of the Holy War, or halfway through the game. However, he could still adhere to this rule due to the fact he comes early in the "second generation."
- *Young Marcus - He appears in Chapter 11 of Fire Emblem; however, the first ten chapters are a separate tale, and so he still appears early within the context of the main storyline.
- *Orson - Orson first appears in Chapter 5x of The Sacred Stones as the Jeigan accompanying Ephraim, the game's second playable Lord. This is Orson's only playable appearance in the context of the main storyline.
Paladins
With few exceptions, Jeigans are known for being of the paladin class, a powerful horse-mounted unit.
- Jeigans which don't (fully) adhere to this principle
- *Cuan - Cuan was a Duke Knight. (Although Duke Knights are very similar to paladins, but restricted to using lances.)
- *Eyvel - Eyvel was a Swordmaster.
- *Dagda - Dagda was a Warrior.
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