Aran

Not to be confused with Arran.

"I'm not a hero... I'm just a soldier. There's no life lesson in this... I knew that's how it would be... but still... I..."

- Aran's death quote

Aran was a Soldier fighting with the Begnion Occupation forces in Daein, and later, the Daein Liberation army.

History
Aran was orphaned as a child and was afterwards adopted by a merchant family that lived in Begnion. He eventually joined the Begnion Army to repay the country that had given him refuge as a child.

He is a childhood friend of Laura the priestess. Aran is one of the most underdeveloped characters in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn and possibly the entire series. His personality is hard to flesh out because he has very few speaking roles in the game. This coupled with the fact most Radiant Dawn characters are from the previous game and are already somewhat developed.

At the end of the game Aran, being named as the Loyal Halberdier, served for many years as lookout for his hometown. Everyone relied on him for his honest, if clumsy work.

Personality
From his actions and words Aran can be seen as a relitively simple man. He is loyal to his inner most feelings first, joining Laura and the Dawn Brigade over the Begnion Army. He is very straight forward and doesn't say anything more then is necesarry. He likes to be helpful to people and is discovered later in the game to be helping Laura with her items. Aran has also been called goofy by Laura, altough it's hard to tell if this is true or a simple remark (as Laura's statements are often distorted by her view on things). In a base conversation between the two Aran falls asleep (or pretends to) when Laura finds a sleep staff on the ground, Laura then laughs at him and seems to think he is joking. It is possible that he was pretending to be asleep because the sleep staff still had all three durabilty points on it, then again it was probably like that for gaming reasons.

Occupation
Aran was initially posted as a guard at one of the Begnion - Controlled prisons in Daein. However, when Laura, one of Aran's childhood friends, was taken prisoner by Begnion's forces, Aran secretly let the Dawn Brigade sneak into the prison, rescuing Laura and Micaiah.

Later, in the following battle between the Dawn Brigade and the Begnion Guards, Aran starts out as a soldier still working with Begnion. However, when Laura personally confronts Aran, Aran has a sudden change of heart, and joins the Dawn Brigade, which would later become the Daein Liberation Army.

Starting Stats
|Soldier |Thunder |7 |24 |10 |0 |12 |10 |6 |11 |2 |11 |15 |6 |Lances - D |Shove |Iron Lance Javelin Vulnerary

Growth Rates
|50% |75% |10% |75% |35% |35% |70% |25%

Overall
Aran has good growths in strength, skill and defense, as well as a nice growth in health. Between him, Devdan, and Nephenee, Aran is the tank of the Sentinels, having enough defense for laguz in part 3 to deal little damage, even Tigers (which means a lot, since most of Micaiah's team have a hard time surviving, even when in second-tier classes) as well as enough to survive a couple of hits from Ike's team. He has enough stats to do well against the Greil Mercenaries in part 3. His high skill and strength also means that he can deal alot of damage and almost always hits every time he attacks. That, coupled with his high defense, makes him a very powerful unit. However, his resistance almost always ends up very low, leaving him wide open to magic attacks.