Tharja

"And I have a bit of a rebellious streak, I'm afraid. A...dark side."

- Tharja's recruitment quote with Chrom in Chapter 9

Tharja  is a playable character in Fire Emblem Awakening.

Profile
Tharja is a Dark Mage who hails from Plegia, though she does not care about the conflict between Plegia and Ylisse. After joining Chrom's army, she falls in love with the Avatar, regardless of the Avatar's gender. Her support with Nowi reveals that she has the power to read fortunes using a Manakete's scales, and can divine the location of anyone or anything using one. She has the darkest thoughts in the army. She is the mother of Noire and a potential mother of Morgan. Her birthday is April 2.

Tharja is among the forces trying to stop Chrom and his army from rescuing Emmeryn in Chapter 9 at Plegia Castle. However, Tharja questions why she has to fight for such a pointless reason and holds nothing but disdain for the Plegian King, Gangrel. If Chrom speaks to Tharja, Chrom will ask her to join his cause since that is what his sister would do; Tharja, who is reluctant to fight in the first place, joins afterwards.

After the war, if Tharja is still single, Tharja's obsession with the Avatar leads her to a life of casting curses and hexes to reunite with them.

Personality
Tharja comes off as a stalker due to her obsession with the Avatar, regardless of their gender. She even values the Avatar's life more than her own and usually acts quite amorously around them. She is willing to do whatever it takes to win their affections, even if it means changing her whole personality to suit their taste.

Around others though, she is a rather cold and moody individual, usually threatening to curse them if they stand in the way of her plans of gaining the Avatar's affections. Despite Tharja's grim personality around others, she is capable of loving another person, though her love for the Avatar often takes a higher priority in the end. While pretending to be an uncaring individual, she is sensitive about others to an extent, even vaguely telling Nowi, that her parents are dead, while passing it off that they are "far away".

Contrary to the dubious nature of Dark Magic, Tharja's knowledge of hexes and curses allows her to use them for more positive reasons. She has hexes that can ward off insects, cool down fevers, or general ally protection. She even is a skilled talisman maker, making one that helps her daughter deal with her own meekness, and according to the comics she also can use crystal balls. However, Tharja has admitted that Henry's skill as a Dark Mage exceeds her own.

It is revealed that she is very self-conscious in her conversation with Cordelia in Xenologue 17, having no idea of her own sex appeal and was quickly embarrassed when it was pointed out to her. In her conversations with Nowi in Xenologue 16, she was also embarrassed when Nowi said that she had the largest breasts out of the women of the army (silkiest hair in the European version). She is also shown to feel guilty for not being able to save her fellow soldiers that died in a battle mentioned in her A rank support with Vaike. Additionally, she had zero respect for Gangrel's leadership, believing him to be unworthy of the crown and willing to harm his own citizens for his own purposes; she first mentions her disdain while talking to herself before being recruited, and repeats it in her supports with Stahl when she asks him if he believes her to be a spy.

Tharja's relationship with her daughter Noire is extremely complicated, whether in the bad future or the present. Tharja's future self largely ignored Noire as she grew up, as she wrapped up in her research in an effort to avenge her husband's death, and often used her as an unwilling "guinea pig" for curses - until both of them were cornered by the enemy, with the Future Tharja saving Noire at the cost of her own life.

The present Tharja remains cold to Noire, even as she considers teaching her daughter dark magic. She has no idea if her future self truly cared for Noire as she does, but upon telling Noire that she loves her in their A rank support, she is also quick to state that she may never say that again regardless of her feelings, probably since she lacks proper ways to show her actual feelings. In The Future Past, she also shows a borderline overprotective streak towards the Noire of that particular world.

Recruitment
Chapter 9: Enemy, talk with Chrom.

Base Stats

 * -|Normal=


 * -|Lunatic=

Growth Rates

 * 90%
 * 30%
 * 60%
 * 40%
 * 60%
 * 40%
 * 45%
 * 30%
 * }

Max Stat Modifers

 * 0
 * +3
 * -1
 * +1
 * -3
 * +1
 * 0
 * }

Supports
Romantic Supports
 * The Avatar (Male)
 * Frederick
 * Virion
 * Stahl
 * Vaike
 * Kellam
 * Donnel
 * Lon'qu
 * Ricken
 * Gaius
 * Gregor
 * Libra
 * Henry

Other Supports
 * The Avatar (Female)
 * Nowi
 * Noire
 * Morgan (Only if Tharja is her mother)

Class Sets

 * }

Base Class
Tharja's growths may be a little strange compared to the three mage characters present before she is recruited, but as a Dark Mage, Tharja performs her role nicely. Although the Avatar, Miriel, and Ricken may already be at a higher level, Tharja is able to take physical hits better than Miriel, is stronger and faster than Ricken, and does not have the varied growths that the Avatar has. Her Skill is indeed quite low, though her skills in Hex and Anathema help compensate for that by lowering the opponents' Avoid and Critical Avoid. Though Tharja may need some catching up to do by the time she is recruited, she has the ability to use Dark Tomes, which can be useful. Tharja has Nosferatu upon her recruitment, which can be a good relief weapon in case she takes a beating. Four chapters after her recruitment, she will be able to wield as many of these as she can, as Carrion Isle begins to sell them.

Tharja can perform well as both a Sorcerer and a Dark Knight. As a Sorcerer, she is slightly stronger magic wise, but unfortunately still has fairly low Skill. Luckily, her attacking skill from this class, Vengeance, has a high activation rate, although Henry will generally activate it more often than her due to his higher Skill stat. Tharja can learn Tomebreaker, which will boost her hit and dodge rate against tome units, allowing her to potentially be used as an anti-mage unit. Tharja works decently as a Dark Knight, and between Tharja and Henry, there is very little difference aside from her stronger Magic but lower Skill. Despite the loss of Dark Magic, the Dark Knight gives Tharja the Slow Burn skill to help with her low Skill and Luck, as well as Lifetaker to prolong her survivability from the double-edged sword of the Vengeance skill's damage.

Reclassing
Tharja's two reclassing options are Archer and Knight classes. Though Tharja will struggle in these classes after first joining them, owing to her inability to utilize her strong magic offense, grinding her strength through Energy Drops and leveling up can actually turn her into a decent Longbow Sniper, due to her access to Prescience, Hit Rate +20, and Anathema to patch her mediocre skill stat, as well as strong damaging skills like Vengeance and Luna. Furthermore, Bowfaire is her only weapon-boosting skill, in turn making Sniper perhaps the only physical class worth having Tharja in.

While reclassing to one of the Knight-family classes makes her rather lackluster, reducing her strengths of high Magic and Speed, the Great Knight class holds useful skills for her in the form of Luna (a less risky, more reliable alternative to Vengeance) and Dual Guard+, which makes a good filler skill whenever she is paired up. As a General, she is less than effective, though Pavise can be picked up to patch her Defense as a Sorcerer, and also compliments Vengeance quite well, especially if she opts not to run Lifetaker so that Vengeance's damage output is increased. Combining skills like Dual Guard+, Pavise, Bowbreaker, and Tomebreaker altogether make her very difficult to kill, which in turn makes her Vengeance all the more deadly.

Fire Emblem Heroes

 * -|Original=
 * Dark Shadow
 * A mage from Plegia with a dark side and a possessive streak, especially with Robin. Appears in Fire Emblem Awakening.

Base Stats
Rarity:

Base Set
Tharja is a strong budget Red Tome unit who has functioned well thanks to a combination of decent offense and bulk. While she has been powercrept by her Bridal form, her ease of access has kept her relevant due to her merge potential. She is a standard Blade Tome unit with her Rauðrblade+, thus loves to be on Buffing teams. He has Vengeance for her offensive skill, which for the most part allows her to deal more damage when injured, but ultimately is not suited for Arena battles. She has Darting Blow for her Skill A, self buffing herself when initiating with good +6 to Speed, and Spur Resistance for her Skill C for ally buffing. Base Kit alone, Tharja is fairly unimpressive and requires outside help, both for skill and team composition, to shine.

Counters
Tharja is stopped by the blue meta entirely, fairing little chance against the likes of common blue physical units, like Hardin, Tana, and Ephraim, Blue Dragons, like Female Corrin, Nowi, and Male Kana, and strong blue mages, like Delthea, Lute, and Micaiah. Strong reds also deal with her effectively like Sigurd, Ayra, and Zelgius. Because Tharja thrives when buffed, heavy debuffing units like Arvis and any who run Panic Ploy immediately cripples her offense.

Skill Inheritance Options
Tharja is best stuck with her base weapon. As such, her kit revolves around maximizing its potential. Her supportive skill is either Reposition or Draw Back to move allies around her with the former or reposition her ally and herself with the latter. Blade Tomes usually run Glimmer due to its low cooldown and syncs well with the high damage output from her tome while Draconic Aura makes a decent substitution for raw damage. Fury is the standard to give her stats a flat boost while slowly reducing her damage so she can fully employ Desperation. Alternatively, running Swordbreaker helps to deal with her Red Sword counters. Finally, her Skill C is flexible, though either a Hone skill, preferably Hone Attack, works wonders for her. For those who are willing to sacrifice an Ishtar, Odd Attack Wave also has merits and benefits if planning on running it.
 * -|Winter's Envoy=
 * Normal Girl
 * A mage from Plegia who, while usually creepy, is acting bright and cheerful...for some reason. Appears in Fire Emblem Awakening.

Base Stats
Rarity: ✯✯✯✯✯

Weapon Refinements

 * Candelabra+

Base Set
Winter Tharja is one of two Mage armored units and is widely considered to be the best Red Tome unit in Heroes currently. She runs an exceptional mixed defensive bulk, making her incredibly difficult to take down, despite the visual lacking in armor to her design. Her base kit basically solidifies her as a defensive unit as her base weapon, Candelabra, boosts her Atk/Spd/Def/Res by 2 when she is attacked and utilizes her strong Resistance stat to empower her Iceberg Special. Winter Tharja also comes with Close Counter allowing her to retaliate against all who try to attack her. Her main skill that gives her so much power is Vengeful Fighter, allowing her the ability to double when attacked like Quick Riposte while also accelerating her Special cooldown. She also comes with R Tome Valor, helping her and her Tome allies with SP grindning. All-in-all Winter Tharja is a solid defensive unit, though she has flexiblity with a lot of outside investments to create many different takes on her usage. However, her main drawback is, like many seasonal units, her lack of ready availability.

Counters
Winter Tharja is strong enough to survive many units in the game, but her low speed makes her susceptible to many units, even some middling speed units. Any sort of Blue unit in particular, especially magical tanks like Fjorm, Nowi, and Fallen Hardin easily counter her. Her armor also makes her weak to the likes of Caeda, Clair, and Micaiah, all who run weapons that are effective against Armor.

Skill Inheritance Options
Depending on the route the player wishes to take Winter Tharja, her build changes. Regardless of her build, as an Armored unit, she wants either Swap or Pivot to help with mobility.

If planning on using an Player Turn oriented build, she will require a lot of units who are incredibly hard to acquire. Having her inherit her base version's Rauðrblade+ will allow her to better maximize her offense through Armor buffs, especially with Glimmer to fully mage usage of the buff damage boosts. Death Blow maximizes her offensive damage since her Speed is too low to try and boost to double anything. For Skill B, Bold Fighter patches her low speed by guaranteeing that she can double on initiation on top of the special cooldown acceleration. Finally running some Armor skill for Skill C is great for team synergy. Either running Armor March or Ward Armor on a budget allows great synergy.

If looking to maximize her Enemy turn oriented base kit, taking Ignis or Glacies better boosts her damage output since she has cooldown acceleration from Vengeful Fighter. She can run with her Candelabra+ weapon, though those willing to sacrifice a Katarina can give her Rauðrowl+ since she is going to by sticking close to her Armor allies for buffs. Finally, her high Resistance makes her a good candidate for Ploy skills, most preferably Resistance Ploy deal more damage to her enemies.
 * -|Bridal Bloom=
 * Obsessive Bride
 * A mage from Plegia with a dark side and a possessive streak. Determined to get her hands on the festival's prize, a bouquet. Appears in Fire Emblem Awakening.

Base Stats
Rarity: ✯✯✯✯✯

Base Set
Bridal Tharja is essentially a more optimized version of her normal version, with a higher Atk/Spd combo of 35/35 compared to 32/34. However, in exchange for this, she has low Def/Res. Essentially, Bridal Tharja will hit hard but will fall quickly if she does not finish off her target. Bridal Tharja comes with her own personal Weapon Múspell Fireposy, boosting her Speed by 3 and further increasing her Atk/Spd +2 for each ally within two spaces of her. She runs Rally Attack Speed which combos onto her unique skill Speed Feint, decreasing the Speed of all enemies within all four cardinal directions of her if she uses a Rally skill on an ally. Finally, Bridal Tharja has Attack Speed Bond, boosting her Atk/Spd +5 when adjacent with to an ally, allowing her to reach a massive +11 if adjacent to at least one ally and having 3 within her weapon's range. Her base kit allows her to be incredibly strong, especially when near her allies, though maximizing her stats by purposefully positioning your allies to achieve the effect may not be practical. Nevertheless, she is one of the strongest Red Tome infantry units who is only hindered by her Seasonal status.

Counters
Bridal Tharja is easily disposed by Magical tanks like Fjorm, Hardin, and Nowi. Powerful Blue Mages like Delthea, Linde, and Reinhardt easily dispatch her with ease. Her paper thin defense makes her vulnerable to the likes of Ayra and Mia. Finally, while uncommon, R Tomebreaker units like Lilina or Sanaki also can combat her by eliminating her speedy nature.

Skill Inheritance Options
Bridal Tharja can become more of an independent Mage unit if she takes her base form's Rauðrblade+ combination for stronger attacks with team buffs. Running Glimmer regardless if she runs Múspell Fireposy or Rauðrblade+ results in devastatingly strong attacks when it procs. Draw Back is generally her best support skill as a Mage, though Reposition also works while maintaining her innate Rally skill still works just fine. Fury further boosts her combat stats while reducing her health slowly so she can enter the threshold for Desperation. Finally her Skill C can be Odd Attack Wave if you are willing to sacrifice an Ishtar, otherwise Smoke skills, preferably Speed Smoke helps her to guarantee a double attack against most enemies until she can reach her Desperation range. Those on a budget can also pull Threaten Speed or Threaten Resistance can achieve similar effects.

Supports

 * Corrin
 * Hinoka
 * Camilla
 * Robin
 * Azura
 * Linde
 * Olivia

Awakening

 * Tharja/Awakening Quotes

Heroes

 * Tharja/Heroes Quotes

Warriors

 * Tharja/Warriors Quotes

Possible Endings

 * Tharja - Grim Stalker
 * Tharja's jealous obsession with Avatar never subsided, even after her return to Plegia. Anecdotal evidence suggests she devoted most of her effort to hexes and curses that might reunite them.


 * Tharja and the Avatar
 * Many wrote of Avatar's legendary exploits, but accounts of his origins and character varied. Scholars, poets and bards agreed on one thing alone—he loved his wife, Tharja, above all else.


 * Tharja and Frederick
 * As Ylisse's new knight captain, Frederick took charge of keeping the peace and training new recruits. Tharja's rare appearances at the training yard sent terrified recruits screaming into the night.


 * Tharja and Virion
 * Virion returned home to Rosanne where he was labeled a traitor and a coward, or else ignored entirely. But a few well-placed hexes from his wife, Tharja, eventually brought the populace to their senses.


 * Tharja and Stahl
 * Stahl continued his service as an Ylissean knight and led crucial missions across the realm. His scatterbrained gaffes caused Tharja's eyes to roll, but the pair still made a happy life together.


 * Tharja and Vaike
 * Vaike returned to the streets that raised him and was welcomed as a hero and brother to all. Still, he was no match for Tharja, whose frequent curse slinging put her husband in an understandably foul mood.


 * Tharja and Kellam
 * Even after her return to Plegia, Tharja kept an unhealthy obsession with Avatar that led her to vanish for weeks or months at a time. Her husband's name has been lost to history.


 * Tharja and Lon'qu
 * Lon'qu returned to Regna Ferox and served as Basilio's right-hand man. The cold Feroxi winters proved too much for Tharja, who left time and again in search of heat more in line with a Plegian desert.


 * Tharja and Ricken
 * While continuing to study magic, Ricken realized how childish some of his actions had been. Tharja stayed with him and perfected her hexes, and the couple's magical talents soared.


 * Tharja and Gaius
 * Gaius never lost his sweet tooth, though he ultimately returned to less savory enterprises. Meanwhile, his wife, Tharja, set up shop and hexed people for a living. The pair were said to get many odd looks.


 * Tharja and Gregor
 * After the war, Gregor briefly sank into a life of excess, but fear of his wife's hexes led him to resume work as a sellsword. Tharja secretly tagged along and used her talents to keep him safe.


 * Tharja and Libra
 * Many an unfortunate child found joy in the small orphanage Libra and his wife built after the war. The younger tykes were very fond of Tharja who feigned annoyance, but secretly enjoyed the attention.


 * Tharja and Henry
 * Henry settled down with Tharja and turned out to be a surprisingly good father. Their newborn daughter's mood was said to shift violently, perhaps due to having two dark mages as parents.


 * Tharja and Donnel
 * Donnel returned to his tiny village and built a happy life with his mother, and his wife Tharja. The latter never warmed to the villagers, but she was said to smile around her family.

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U
Tharja does not directly appear in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. However, one of Lucina's Palette Swaps is based around Tharja's color scheme. She was removed as a Trophy following the ESRB Leak.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE
Tharja appears as the Mirage partner of Kiria Kurono, a "Dark Mage" Mirage. She transforms into a magic staff to aid Kiria in combat. She also uses her magic to aid Kiria in her daily life. Tharja is the creator of the Uta-loid Tiki software. It was conceived using her magic so that Tiki could draw Performa from those that use it in order to sustain her form.

If a Master Seal is used on Tharja, she can promote into either a Sage or a Sorcerer.

Fire Emblem 0 (Cipher)
Tharja is illustrated in the trading card game Fire Emblem Cipher with the following cards:

Etymology
Tharja's name may have come from the Hindi name Tharaja, meaning "star with full glow".

Her Japanese name, Sallya, is a Hebrew name meaning "princess".

Trivia

 * Tharja was the 3rd most popular female character and the most popular parent character (behind the female avatar) in the Japanese Fire Emblem Awakening popularity poll.
 * Tharja came in 3rd for females in the Fire Emblem Heroes Choose Your Legends popularity poll. She had 29,540 total votes.
 * The "Choose Your Legends" event of Fire Emblem Heroes revealed that she was 4th place out of 791 with 29,540 votes, making her the 2nd highest scoring character of the Awakening portion, and third most popular female character overall.
 * Tharja shares her English voice actress, Stephanie Sheh, with Kjelle, as well as Fates ' Rhajat, Sophie and Beruka.
 * Tharja also shares her (first) Japanese voice actress, Akutsu Kana, with Cherche and Rhajat. Her second one, Yuuki Takada, voices Nino in Fire Emblem Heroes.
 * Tharja is the only character to have special Event Tile/Barrack relationship quotes when paired with the Avatar.
 * Tharja's confession scene ends with the same bubble background like most of the cast, but the color of her background is green instead of pink. This is likely a reference to the term “Green with Envy”, which goes well with Tharja’s overall feelings towards the Avatar.
 * Tharja is the basis for Rhajat, the daughter of Hayato from Fire Emblem Fates.
 * Tharja has had numerous instances of censorship and change.
 * Her original Japanese roster description "Has the nicest body in the army" was changed to "The one with the darkest thoughts." However, many other characters received different roster descriptions as well.
 * Tharja's conversation with Nowi in the Harvest Scramble DLC was altered in European versions to talk about her hair rather than her body. The North American version retained the original Japanese conversation.
 * In the Summer Scramble DLC, the rear part of her swimsuit scene was very subtly censored by a curtain in North American versions of the game, for unknown reasons.
 * In a rumored leak from the ESRB, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS was supposed to have 686 trophies, and a Tharja Trophy was shown in the leak. However, her trophy is not present in the released game. There are only 685 trophies (not counting DLC) in all regional versions of the game. It was speculated that she was most likely removed to avoid a "T" rating, rather than the E10+ the game has. None of this information was ever confirmed as true.
 * Tharja is the winner of the 3rd Voting Gauntlet (Battle of the Mages) and the 9th Voting Gauntlet (Enduring Love) in Fire Emblem Heroes.
 * She is also the first character to win more than one Voting Gauntlet.
 * Tharja's victory pose in Warriors is based off her Max Factory's PVC figure.