Xander

Nohrian prince respected for his military prowess. Wields the divine blade Siegfried. Appears in Fire Emblem Fates. Name: Xander Gender: Male Race: Human Birthday: October 27th Relatives: Garon (Father), Katerina (Mother), Arete (Step-Mother), Camilla (Younger Half-Sister), Leo (Younger Half-Brother), Elise (Youngest Half-Sister), Azura (Step-Sister), Corrin (Adopted Sibling), Siegbert (Son), Forrest (Half-Nephew) Occupation: Crown Prince of Nohr Weapon: Swords </Personal Information> Xander is a young man with short blonde hair, pale skin and red eyes. His attire consists of a black headband, a black knight armor with gold pattern and a purple cloth on the front of it, and a short purple cape. A paragon of patriotism and fealty to Nohr, Xander acts as expected of his title as Crown Prince. He is a valiant warrior and the first one to charge into battle for the sake of glory for Nohr. Any order of King Garon is completed with utmost perfection, even when he does not wholeheartedly agree with the intentions or the immediate results. For the sake of his people, and most importantly his father, he believes that the ends will justify the means. While a harsh judge of character, he proves to ultimately be a shrewd leader who can see the best in people, even in the likes of his own retainer Peri for example, that other people may show pause or concern. This does not mean that he is completely accepting as he has his own opinions of certain nefarious individuals, even ones allied with his father, like Hans and Iago.

While his priorities are set on bolstering Nohr's interests, Xander is at his core a family-man. Despite the dark history of the Nohrian royal family, especially in wake of his mother's death and the ensuing power struggle between Garon's concubines, Xander shows true affection and care for his younger half-siblings. He frequently makes time at home whenever not out in battle or missions to spend time with his siblings, showing a surprising amount of knowledge of their preferences, hobbies, and habits. Even Camilla, who is incredibly knowledgeable of her siblings quirks, admits that Xander's knowledge rivals her. Corrin, his adoptive sibling, receives similar care and is one of their primary combat instructors alongside Gunther. He affectionately calls them "Little Prince/Princess" whenever giving counsel and has always held the belief that Corrin will do great things for the sake of Nohr. He will sometimes circumvent his father's orders if it will affect his sibling's well-being and has taken blame for their actions. However, on the battlefield, should any of them turn on Nohr, Xander shows no mercy on them and openly considers them an enemy such as Corrin in Birthright and Revelation or Camilla in Revelation.

Like Camilla and Leo, Xander cares for his step-sister, Azura and wanted to spend more time with her. In his support with Azura, he offered for her to attend meetings with him regularly even though he was aware of Azura's mistreatment by the Nohrians. In their Warriors support, Xander reveals that he's always thought of Azura as a younger sister. He always talks sincerely to her and felt like he lost a family member when Azura was kidnapped.

Xander has also been depicted multiple times in supports as a humble person who delights in bringing happiness to others without inviting any attention to himself. This extends to situations when it is blatantly obvious that he is responsible for the happiness experienced by others, where he will take the pains to stage arguments in order to conceal his involvement. In this regard, he is known to have gone so far as to outright deny claims that he has provided aid to others.

Having seen numerous battlefields, Xander is commonly depicted as battle-worn, having come to terms with the numerous lives he has taken for his country. As his supports with Nyx indicates, he is guilty from having taken so many lives and often wishes for death rather than to continue living with his crimes. He notes that his view of the world is more grey compared to Corrin's black-and-white outlook, believing that no one is truly evil, but merely shades of right and wrong that stems from their character. This is most reflected in his choice to have Peri as a retainer who, despite having sociopathic tendencies, he trusts with his life and does not force her to change her ways. He does not tolerate cowardice or needless slaughter, and is willing to cut the aggressor down to maintain Nohr's honor, as shown with Kotaro, when it was revealed he attempted to force Hoshido to surrender using Kagero as bait, Zola, when he attempts to win the war in a cowardly way by trying to kill the unarmed Hoshidans, and Iago and Hans, when they attempted to kill Corrin for sparing Hinoka.

Having lost two retainers in the past who sacrificed themselves to protect him, Xander's relationship with his two current retainers Peri and Laslow transcend the typical Lord-Retainer relationship. Prior to dueling Corrin in Birthright, he ordered his two retainers to stay behind to avoid needless sacrifice, but when they disobeyed, it caused him immense grief.

Xander has a never-ending obsession to improve himself due to lacking natural talent, a fact alluded to in his support conversation with Sakura, and admitted by himself in his support with Frederick. He reveals that due to not been born gifted, he has always been extremely diligent and serious in learning things or training so as to make himself competent. Furthermore, despite respecting Marth's opinion that he is indeed already very skilled and needs no further improvement, he disagrees and still firmly believes that he is not good enough.

He has the best handwriting in the entire army. The eldest son and the eldest child of five in the Nohrian royal family and the son of king Garon and the first queen, Katerina, Xander personally supervised Corrin's combat training when they were adopted into the family during their childhood.

Xander is known to have been born with no exceptional talents, being physically weak and having an introverted personality in his youth. According to his Japanese support with Corrin in Warriors, he was criticized by courtiers for being "unbecoming" for a Crown Prince because he was too withdrawn, an image he attempted to fix by adopting a serious demeanor. Additionally, he reveals to his son that whenever he was overly pressured in making a public speech, he would pretend that he was speaking in front of a group of rabbits (carrots in the Japanese version) in order to calm himself. As he confides to Sakura through their supports, Xander eventually overcame his shyness by forcing himself to talk to his father, King Garon, whom he had considered to be the most terrifying person he had ever known. Despite starting out poorly with a sword, Xander trained vigorously so as to gain the rights to wield the legendary sword Siegfried, eventually becoming one of the strongest people in Nohr and being one of only four people to have passed the Rainbow Sage's trials prior to the events of the game.

According to the supports shared between Elise and her retainer Arthur, Xander used to be much more doting and happy during her adolescence, and was even known to have enjoyed joking and playing with her. This same support also reveals that due to Garon being cold and ruthless even in his treatment of her, Xander used to act as a surrogate father towards her, providing her with the care and support that she needed. However, his change in personality and demeanor due to the stress of warfare have since caused her to step away from him, as she feels that it is more important for her brother to devote his fullest attention to his duties instead of indulging her.

He was given more backstory details in his support with Takumi in Warriors, which suggests a more prideful and reckless phase of his past life. He admits that similarly to Takumi, he used to train excessively out of pride that his skill with the sword could improve overnight, only to later realize to be useless, as his constant overworking drove him to become heavily bedridden from exhaustion in turn. Moreover, he recalled to have wandered off by himself to fight Faceless in order to test his ability, only to lose his way in Nohr's dark forests and wander lost for days, which resulted in him returning to the castle "parched and near death". The Japanese version offers a different version to this story, as he stated that he got lost in the forest finding Faceless to battle, but was able to return safely by the end of that same day. However, getting lost in the forest wasn't the sole outcome of his recklessness, as he was additionally harshly rebuked by his father.

Xander had two different retainers prior to Peri and Laslow. During a battle with the Hoshidan army, Xander's forces were overwhelmed and the two sent Xander away, fending off the enemy so he could retreat; as a result, both were killed in battle. While retainer-less for some time, he eventually found two new ones. The first was Peri, whom Xander had discovered at a noble's combat tournament. Despite placing third, her character and potential had impressed him enough to name her as his retainer. Later, Garon assigned a mysterious swordsman to him. Initially suspicious, Xander battled his second retainer, barely winning and was greatly impressed with his skill. Xander uses swords as his weapons.