Character Profile | Anna

By Ian Soltes 20.08.2016 1


Anna
There's a fire inside of her…

Some might be surprised, but across all of the Fire Emblem, the mascot is not Marth, Ike, Robin, Corrin, or anyone like that. Instead, after the emblem itself, there is the humble, red-headed merchant named Anna.

Statistics

Age: Varied. Even ignoring that some games feature a time-skip, Anna's age is indeterminate and may be impossible to pin down for a multitude of reasons. For one, there are multiple versions of her, so deciding what age Anna is first requires deciding upon what Anna is being talked about. However, all of them appear to be in their late teens to early 20s, across all Fire Emblem releases.

Species Human? Maybe? While Anna physically resembles a human being and can even have children with them, with so many different possible versions of her across so many dimensions, it's certainly not impossible that she's a little bit more than human. In the Fire Emblem community there is a small joke that Anna is, in fact, not human but rather the physical incarnation of the Random Number Generator (or Random Number Goddess), which would make her divine. This seems to be further re-enforced by the fact that she can apparently be in multiple places at the same time.

Image for Character Profile | Anna

Location Wherever she wants to be - even if she's somewhere else. In Fire Emblem: Awakening, Anna can appear as a merchant at multiple locations on the map at the same time. This means that perhaps she's capable of instantaneous warping, or there are multiple Anna merchants who all somehow look identical, or even that Anna's marketing brand has amazing uniform and physical body requirements.

Family Matters Ungodly (godly?) complicated. For starters, it is possible for Anna to marry and have children in both Fire Emblem: Awakening and Fire Emblem: Fates, meaning she's potentially the wife of Robin and Corrin, as well as the mother of Morgan and Kana. With her, at the least, having a multitude of identical sisters across multiple worlds, the idea of 'family' may be completely meaningless beyond her immediate family in that particular world.

Main Features  Beyond her appearance in almost every Fire Emblem title, Anna's most defining feature is a lust for profit that outstrips even the greediest of business tycoons. In her playable games, she joins in as a trickster/outlaw, both known for finding ways to unlawfully obtain money. She is also well noted for having a very high luck growth rate in both incarnations, with Awakening giving her a whopping 80%.

Clothing Anna's clothes are varied and immense to the point where defining them is pointless. In-game, prior to Awakening, her class was varied to the point where it was useless. However, with the release of Awakening and Fates, her look has become more defined. Namely, she has bright red hair in a ponytail, combined with a traveller's skirt and tunic, also red, with some golden highlights. This can change, though, between designs, trousers, and the like.

Concept

Anna is the Fire Emblem mascot. It is unknown why, exactly, her current design was selected but she has been there from the beginning. However, she is likely at least inspired by the goddess 'Fortuna' from Roman myth/'Tyche' from Greek myth. Considering that the English word for 'fortune' comes from the former's name, they are seen as goddesses of fate, the notion of the nature of fortune in Dante's Inferno, and her high luck growths it is, actually decently likely that Anna is based off of the pair.

Best Appearance

Anna has appeared in every Fire Emblem title, except for Fire Emblem Gaiden, in some form. She even made it into Super Smash Bros. Melee as a trophy. She has been playable in both Awakening and Fates, as well.

Image for Character Profile | Anna

Do Not Mention

Poverty or, really, anything not really related to money. Anna's money-lust is so great that, even if married to her, she will gladly ask Corrin if '…it's okay is she still loves money more than him.' This doesn't mean that she's heartless or anything of the sort, but greed is her vice, for certain.

Anything Else?

Anna is a fightable boss in one of Awakening's Xenologs. In this battle, she has the highest stats of any Fire Emblem character ever, reaching into the 70s for both her skill and speed. Oddly, Luck, despite being her primary stat elsewhere, is only 65. In this boss battle, she has the skill 'Rightful God,' which was, previously, Grima-exclusive, further cementing the notion of her divinity.

Anna may have even jumped franchises into TearRing Saga in which one shopkeeper both looks identical to her and shares her poses.

As the guardian of the Dragon Gate, interacting with the player for purchases and tutorials in multiple games, and even reminding the player to take breaks in Awakening, Anna may be fully aware of the 4th Wall in-character.

In Awakening, Tiki vaguely recalls having met someone similar to Anna a long time ago, but couldn't remember any specific details.

Anna is an interesting character, no matter how anyone decides to approach her. Appearing in multiple dimensions in multiple roles, even if she is merely someone who just happens to pop up in each world, makes her worthy of note. If, however, there is more too her, she may, very well, be the Random Number Goddess to whom many gamers depend on across many adventures.

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Comments

All hail Anna! The one true RNG! May my foes be cursed with 1/1 hit/crit chances!

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