Nino

"Ah, hello! I’m Nino! Nice to meet you!"

- Nino in The Blazing Blade.

Nino (Nina in the Italian version) is a playable character in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade. She is a 14 year old mage, who later on becomes the mother of Raigh and Lugh in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade. In a support with Canas, it is revealed that Canas' wife is the sister of Iris (Nino's mother), making Canas Nino's uncle-in-law, and Hugh her cousin.

Nino has an exceptional talent for magic. Despite being woefully under-trained, Nino is clearly a natural genius at the art. Although illiterate as well, and never having been formally trained; she instead learned by memorizing the incantations which Sonia chanted.

Profile
Nino's family, comprising of her father Juge, her mother Iris, and her older brother Kai, were powerful mages, and Nino had the potential to be one herself. They lived peacefully until they were suddenly visited by Sonia, one of Nergal's minions, who held Nino hostage and interrogated her family for their secrets about the dragons. Nino's parents and brother were killed, but Nino was spared by Nergal, who, thinking she could be of some use, had Sonia adopt the orphan mage as her daughter. Sonia resented her "daughter" for as long as she has ever been her mother, but despite receiving abuse from her constantly, Nino still craved the warmth of maternal affection by her. The other members of the Black Fang, including Legault, Jaffar and the Reed Brothers, took pity on Nino, responding to Sonia's neglect by becoming Nino's surrogate relatives. Nino also became close to her new stepfather, Brendan Reed.

Nino makes her first appearance in Four-Fanged Offense, where she is to meet with Jaffar to give him a new assassination contract. However, Jaffar's last job has taken a toll on him, and he faints through excessive loss of blood. Nino quickly nurses the Assassin to health, and protects the house he is in by chasing away anyone who attempts to visit. When Jaffar comes to, he finds himself alive and scolds her for not killing him as is the law of the Fang.

Later, Nino, along with Jaffar, are sent to assassinate Prince Zephiel. Behind Nino's back, Sonia gives Jaffar an additional instruction: Kill Nino after the contract has been completed. But Jaffar, finding that he cannot kill Nino, instead chooses to protect her from harm. Ursula, one of the Four Fangs, arrives on the scene shortly after to check on the progress of Jaffar's mission. Upon seeing that he has evidently defied Sonia, she then takes up the role of killing both targets. Coincidentally enough, Eliwood, Hector, and the rest of their companions storm the castle and manage to protect Zephiel and Nino. Ursula either dies during the siege or is killed by the morph Limstella soon afterwards. During the battle, Nino can be recruited by Eliwood, Hector, and their companions, and, if she talks to Jaffar before the battle ends, they can recruit him as well.

Later in Chapter 26x, Nino, still baffled by her "mother's" wish to have her killed, runs away to question Sonia. When she and Jaffar confront her, Sonia declares her undying hatred of Nino, and spitefully reveals the truth of the latter's past. She then turns hostile, calling forth other troops to kill both Nino and Jaffar. Eliwood and company, who had followed the trail of the pair, are incidentally dragged into the fray, taking up arms to defeat Sonia. Although she is initially hesitant to fight, Nino quickly changes her tack upon witnessing the Sonia's true nefarious nature firsthand. After the battle, Nino receives a pendant from her step-uncle Jan, which contains a portrait of her family. Nino also finds a bloodstain from her true mother within the same pendant.

Nino then travels along with her new companions for the remainder of their journey, displaying deep regret for having to kill her remaining stepbrother in Cog of Destiny, and later on for having to kill their morph forms alongside Brendan's.

At the end of their journey, Nino settles down in Pherae and goes on to become the mother of the twin mages Lugh and Raigh. It is, however, not known what had happened to her prior to the events of The Binding Blade, within which she is absent and had entrusted her twins to the care of an orphanage. Depending on who she is paired with in The Blazing Blade, Nino's fate is given some clarity in the epilogue. On one hand, her epilogue with Jaffar reveals that she disappears looking for him after bounty hunters came searching for him. On the other hand, her epilogue with Erk states that bounty hunters came looking for her instead, and in order to protect her newfound family, she disappeared.

Personality
Nino, despite being neglected and hated by her foster mother, has nevertheless not been warped into an embittered individual. Instead, she develops an upbeat, cheerful personality, where she is generous with the love and care that she displays to all whom she meets. As she does not receive compliments prolifically, Nino tends to regard those who praise her, including people like the Reed Brothers and Legault, with deep respect.

The kindness of Nino is one such that despite the anger she harbours towards Sonia, she is hesitant to kill her. She even tries, albeit rather feebly, to find a reason not to commit to the deed, although Sonia's remorseless goading eventually convinces her of the need to kill the woman.

Always doing her best.

Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade
Description: ''One of the Black Fang. True and innocent.''

Growth Rates

 * 55%
 * 50%
 * 55%
 * 60%
 * 45%
 * 15%
 * 50%
 * }

Supports

 * Canas
 * Erk
 * Florina
 * Jaffar
 * Legault
 * Merlinus
 * Rebecca

Overall
Nino fits the Est Archetype, a unit that joins late and at a low level, but has very high growths. While she has high potential, with most of her stats turning out very solid if you spare the time to train her, it's important to note that the time required for her to catch up with the rest of your army will leave her with really little time to be useful (She joins in Chapter 28 in Hector Mode in a game that ends after Chapter 32). The other Anima magic users, Erk and Pent, both join much earlier and will overall contribute more, especially the latter since aside from having solid offense right off the bat, he is also very useful due to his base Staff Rank of A. Nino's growths in HP and Defense will leave her relatively frail even after training her up. This means that if the player insists on using Nino and wants to get the most out of her, giving her an Angelic Robe might be a good idea, since the additional bulk will enable the player to use Nino more aggressively.

When looking at Nino's growths, her high Speed growth might suggest that Nino has an important lead in this stat over her competition. However, her low Con causes her to take speed penalties from most Anima tomes; even Fire will weigh her down before promotion, and even after promoting she takes penalties from all the other tomes. This undermines her Speed lead notoriously, but giving her a Body Ring will help her in this aspect since the additional Con will allow her to wield Thunder without penalties.

Developing supports with Jaffar or Erk would both be good ideas for Nino as they would provide bonuses for her defense, evasion and critical evasion, increasing her survivability. Developing a support with Rebecca would also be a solid choice as Nino would be a deadlier unit. Nino would also get an evasion boost from supporting with Rebecca. Jaffar's support would develop faster than Rebecca and Erk because of a higher starting value. However, they all develop at the same rate.

SpotPass
*Enemy only, joins unequipped

Fire Emblem Heroes

 * -|Original=
 * Pious Mage
 * A kindhearted member of the Black Fang assassins. Longed to help her mother. Appears in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade.

Base Stats
Rarity:

Base Set
Nino is a great Green Mage thanks to a solid Atk and Spd stat. Her innate weapon is Gronnblade+ which boosts its damage based on how many buffs she has. She has Draw Back for a fairly typical Mage support skill to help move allies out of danger. Resistance +3 is a semi decent starting flat stat increase, but she tends to desire more useful skills, such as Fury. Finally she has Hone Attack 3 which helps boost her allies as they will most likely be doing to her. Nino is a accessible unit that yields above average results. With some investment put into her she is perfectly viable in the Arenas and all around usage.

Counters
Red units in general are her biggest bane, especially those that pack Distant Counter or who carry high Res. Common threats like Ryoma, Celica, Winter Tharja, Black Knight, Zelgius, and even Lyon all easily dispose of her. Her low Def makes her vulnerable to most physical units, even non red ones, allowing her to be dispatched by many common Archer units like Bride Cordelia and Brave Lyn as well as Kagero.

Skill Inheritance Options
Nino needs an attack skill and Glimmer works best if planning on maximizing her Gronnblade+ damage while Moonbow is for more consistency, while achieving a similar effect. Fury is a better replacement for her Skill A as its flat buffs and damage penalty both gives her the extra strength she needs and can slowly put her into the damage range for Desperation 3 to maximize player turn damage. Alternatively, Life and Death works well since she already has low Def and Res and trading it for Atk and Spd is more useful for her in the long run. Death Blow or Swift Sparrow also yields similar results though she can only use it during the player's turn. For Nino, she requires very little and the skills she needs comes from 4-star units so the player does not need luxury skill that many of the top tier characters need.


 * -|Scattered Fangs=
 * Pale Flower
 * A young woman who was part of the assassin group Black Fang. Now she communes with a pegasus in order to aid her allies. Appears in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade.

Base Stats
Rarity: ✯✯✯✯✯

The Blazing Blade

 * Nino/The Blazing Blade Quotes

Heroes

 * Nino/Heroes Quotes

Possible Endings

 * Nino, Pious Mage
 * At Eliwood's invitation, she started a quiet life in a small village in Pherae. She plans to return to Bern to visit a certain cemetery.


 * Jaffar and Nino
 * They were married after the conflict and were gifted with twin boys. Their time in Pherae was happy until bounty hunters came for Jaffar. To protect his family, he disappeared. Nino vanished in search of him.


 * Erk and Nino
 * They were married after the conflict and were gifted with twin boys. Their time in Pherae was happy until bounty hunters came for Nino. To protect her family, she disappeared. Erk vanished looking for her.

Etymology
As a feminine name, Nino may derive from the Assyrian name Ninus, or Nina, the name of a Babylonian and Assyrian fertility goddess.

Saint Nino, a woman said to be a relative of Saint George of Cappadocia, is famous for introducing Christianity to Georgia in the 4th century, and the name is still popular among Georgian women (e.g. the famous Georgian princess Nino Chavchavadze). Although it is ironic since the word "niño" is the masculine Spanish noun for "child", whereas "niña" is the feminine equivalent.

Trivia

 * Nino shares her English voice actress, Sarah Blandy, with Kagero, Midori, Layla, and Fae.
 * Nino has known Legault for several years, considers him an uncle and refers to him as such.
 * In Awakening, her SpotPass team shows reference to Black Fang members, having a Swordmaster (Lloyd), a Hero (Linus) and an Assassin (Jaffar).
 * On the official Japanese website for Nintendo, Nino won 1st place on the character popularity poll for Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade. The male-female vote ratio is 2:1.
 * Nino came in 19th place for females in the Fire Emblem Heroes Choose Your Legends popularity poll. She had 7,825 votes.
 * Nino came in 7th place for females in the Fire Emblem Heroes Choose Your Legends: Round 2 popularity poll. She had 15,532 votes.
 * In his A support with Melady, Lugh mentions that his parents died when he was 4 years old (as of FE6, he is 13, since he is 2 years younger than Roy). Because FE6 is set exactly 20 years after the events of FE7, and Nino is 14 years old in FE7, that means Nino was 21 when she had Lugh and Raigh, and 25 when she died.
 * In her A support with Canas, when she shows Canas the portrait of her real family, she says "I'm in the middle. The ones on the side are my twin brothers," but then only goes on to name one brother, Kai. This is because the former sentence is a mistranslation; in the original, she said, "I'm in the middle, and the person next to me might be my twin brother."
 * In Heroes, her official artwork shows her using a red tome, despite her being a green tome unit.
 * Nino has an alternate version in Heroes, where she rides a pegasus steed. According to Nino, Florina, whom she considers to be a "big sister", had taught her to ride a pegasus. This appears to be a continuation of the pair's supports in The Blazing Blade, which begin with Nino expressing wonderment at Florina's pegasus steed, stating that she has "never seen one" prior to meeting Florina.