Choose Your Legend, or CYL for short, is a poll put out by Fire Emblem Heroes, (a mobile game) that lets the players vote for who they want to be the next Legendary Units. There are two categories, Male and Female. The top two of each will become Legendary Units, however, first place gets a personal skill. Now, this is normal and seen as fair. However, what happens when an NPC beats the very first main character in a series? Cause that is exactly what happened.

Those who have played Fire Emblem: Three Houses have most likely talked to the NPC, non-player character, that is simply known as Gatekeeper. What he does is in his name, he protects the gates of Garreg Mach Monastery. Known for his cheerful greeting of “Greetings Professor! Nothing new to report.” He is a constant in the game. He simply watches the gates and greets you when you speak to him.

Then you have Marth from Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light and Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem. Not only is he a character, but he is the protagonist of these games as well as their remakes Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem. He was also the very first Fire Emblem character to be put into Super Smash Bros. He is one of, if not the flagship characters for the Fire Emblem series. I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to compare him and Fire Emblem to Pokémon and Pikachu.

With these two characters, you would expect the flagship character to crush the NPC in the CYL, but that did not happen. In fact, the complete opposite happened! Marth had 46,699 votes. Gatekeeper had an astounding 72,267 votes! Gatekeeper beat Marth by 25,568 votes. Some may scratch their head and wonder how this happened. After all, Marth is the very first protagonist! He’s been around the longest! However, I think I know the answer.

The answer is simply this. It was Choose Your Legend. It was not left up to the developers or the big wigs to decide the next legendary units. It was up to the fans and Gatekeeper is not just an NPC, but he is indeed a beloved NPC. Some dedicated people modified the game to make Gatekeeper playable! Also, the game is Fire Emblem Heroes after all. Perhaps this shows that when enough people decide to vote for someone, anyone can be a hero.