Theodora

Theodora Sergio Sabangrain is the young Queen of Saramis and one of the four Heroes of Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, leading the Wolf route. Nintendo introduces her as hailing from the Kingdom of Saramis in the south, representing a culture that worships the Keeper of Death and Night, a goddess loathed throughout the lands. Swearing to restore the honor of her goddess and defend the faith of her people and the peace of her kingdom, she leads her veteran retainers into the Heroic Games with the goal of winning.

She is the only Hero whose battle kit involves commanding troops, and the only unit any Gambit evidence attaches to. Her route runs five years before the collapse that opens the game, and Eshmel can travel back into it; see Routes.

Profile

Story

Saramis is one of the countries under the Dagdan Empire's suzerainty, and it does not worship the empire's gods. Its goddess is the Keeper of Death and Night, named Yu Phas in the wider pantheon material, and the Direct is explicit that she is loathed throughout the lands. That religious isolation is the pressure Theodora is under: her entry into the Games is a play for standing as much as for the wish at the end of it.

Her own statement of purpose, taken from the game, runs: "What I seek is a great strength. An unyielding strength for any foe. Sheer strength to uphold the faith I hold dear. Above all, I need the strength to lead my people, strength enough for a queen!"

By the time her route begins her father Sergio, the previous king, is dead, and she holds a throne he named her to rather than one that passed to her by order of birth. Lower-confidence material resting on quoted in-game text rather than published profiles also describes her losing her right arm in the attack that killed him, and taking a replacement arm that carries a ten-year limit on her life and slowly erodes her mind; none of that has been confirmed in released material and it is recorded here only as unverified.

Preview material describes her as judging people by ability rather than birth or station, which is consistent with the retinue she brings to Dagsion: two career generals, a noble's son trying not to lean on his family, and a mercenary who negotiates her own pay.

Two scenes in Dagsion show how she carries the title. At Anatolia's fortune-telling shop she asks for a reading on the winner of the Heroic Games, and is told plainly that she will not be the victor and will not reach the end of the battles. She takes it as a provocation, and her answer is the clearest statement of what she believes she is carrying: "On my shoulders rides the hopes of one million citizens."

The other is her first proper meeting with Orchel. Chasing someone through a temple she has no permission to enter, she is accused of being a thief, and answers with the full form: the queen of Saramis, Theodora Sergio Sabangrain. Orchel refuses to believe anyone would claim royalty on a first meeting, and Theodora hits back at the mask. Neither of them comes out of it well.

Megaira's Beacon

Every group entering the Games registers under a clan name chosen by the player. Theodora's is Megaira's Beacon, named after a lighthouse at her capital.

See Factions for the other clans contesting the tournament.

Combat and Blaze Art

Theodora starts as a Noble, one of two unique starting classes in the game alongside Commoner. Both are infantry with four movement and no proficiency bonus. Her weapon proficiency includes Authority, and preview footage shows rank D there unlocking a skill called Rein, which inflicts Avoid -3 on adjacent foes.

Her Blaze Art is Earthen Hurl. The Direct describes it as "Theodora uses the power inherited from her ancestors to rend the earth and hurl it at foes", and hands-on accounts measure it as tearing up terrain and throwing it at a single target up to five tiles away. That gives her reach a lance-range unit would not otherwise have.

The name changed between showings. The second trailer rendered the art as Earthen Throw and the Direct rendered it Earthen Hurl, which is the later of the two and the form used here. It is still the only one of her Blaze Arts to carry a name. Where Leda's set skews towards support, Theodora's is built around an attack that does its own damage without needing anything else on the field.

As with the other Heroes, Blaze Arts are paid for in health. Using them fills a gauge that grants a stat boost as it rises, and filling it entirely triggers a burst that halves the unit's HP for the rest of the battle.

Preview footage also gives her a named personal spear, which grants a Combat Art called Full Moon, and shows her carrying a Crest that the game gives a second Dagdan name. No Crest effect data has been published for this game, so nothing is written here about what it does.

Battalions and Gambits

Theodora's unique commands are the clearest of the four. The Direct states them plainly while covering the abilities unique to each Hero: Theodora can recruit soldiers in towns, and send out her assembled troops to gather materials or deploy them in battle. Battalions is the official English term for those troops. Recruiting them is a world map action taken in towns; dispatching them for materials and fielding them in a match are separate uses of the same pool.

Gambits are present in this game, and every sighting of one so far is Theodora's, which points to them being tied to her Battalions rather than to a general system available to every unit. She has a dedicated Gambit battle line, "Unleash your might!", and the Gambit screenshots released so far all show her. One of her Gambits has been shown in full: Disturbing Strike, used from a command bound to the A button. It is limited by uses rather than by a cooldown, and a released battle shot catches the counter stepping down from 2 to 1 as it is spent. The targeting box covers three tiles in a row and caught three enemy soldiers at once, and the forecast for that attack read 94 hit and 0 critical for 7 damage. Theodora is in the Noble class in that shot. No other Gambit has been named, and no list of them has been published.

On the Wolf Route

Wolf is one of the four route branches, entered from the Pale Raven's Perch like the others, with progress tracked separately so all four can run in parallel. One of its chapter titles has been published: Part 1 Chapter 4, "Unlikely Allegiance".

Theodora crosses the other Heroes as an opponent. Preview material places her as a boss inside Cai's route and Cai as a boss inside hers, and the forces of the Kingdom of Arago appear first as Dietrich's tournament opponents and later as Theodora's enemies in an actual war. In the game's opening she also appears among the risen dead fought as tutorial bosses, in a different class from her playable one.

The prize she is playing for is the wish Solel grants the winner. Accounts of what she intends to ask for differ, and the versions in circulation involve securing territory bordering Saramis and raising a temple to her goddess there; the specifics have not been confirmed, so they are recorded here only as unsettled.

Showcase footage of her group matches the registered roster with one addition. In the fight against the Forgotten Alcor soldiers she fields Bonaventure, Tobias, Lysander, Lilian and Sofia, teaming with Talimun and with Anatolia, who brings Sha Lan. Which path that clip belongs to is read off who else is on the map rather than stated on screen.

Notes

Theodora's listed likes are conflict and the happiness of the people of Saramis. Her selection line in battle is "The Queen stands ready!", and she praises a successful ally with "Nicely done!"

Her surname is also seen written as Sapangren. Both spellings come from transcriptions of the same line of dialogue.

Route listings give her Part I subtitle as "Theodora, Breaker of Armies", and the advance soundtrack release includes a track titled "Queen's Gambit" attached to her; see Soundtrack. Japanese renders her name セオドラ＝セルヒオ＝サバングレーン, Korean 세오도라 and Traditional Chinese 賽奧朵拉. Japanese material names her goddess more narrowly as the Goddess of Death, which the English localisation expands to the Keeper of Death and Night.

Related Pages

For the kingdom she rules and the taboo that shapes it, see Saramis, and for the wish at the end of the tournament she is playing for, see Heroic Games. Dyan is the brother tied to the plot against her succession, and Bonaventure is the strategist who argues her claim against him.