Cherche

"Might I join, sire? This may not be my country, but it is my cause."

- Cherche

Cherche (セルジュ Seruju, Serge in the Japanese version and Zelcher in the non-English European versions) is a playable character in Fire Emblem Awakening.

She is voiced by Kana Akutsu in the Japanese version and by Amanda C. Miller in the English version.

Profile
Cherche is a former vassal of House Virion from Rosanne, and the mother of Gerome. Her wyvern mount is named Minerva. Despite her domestic nature, she is surprisingly strong as she gained her vicious dragon mount by defeating her and surviving her fire breath, only getting a burn scar on her shoulder (a bald spot in the Japanese version) from the encounter—all when she was only nine years old, through as her supports with Nowi shown, Minerva was sick and thus weakened at the time. Her support with Gaius reveals that she detests fighting, but the only reason she does is so she can live to see her family again. In her support with Gregor, it is revealed that Gregor betrayed a former employer of his in Wyvern Valley to save a then baby Minerva from being killed. In the A support conversation with Vaike, Cherche tells him that she found Minerva in Wyvern Valley as a child, and that she trained as a Cleric using a heavy staff and disciplined Minerva with the staff when she misbehaved.

Two years after the defeat of Gangrel, Walhart has all but completed his conquest of Valm and is preparing to invade Ferox. Chrom is summoned by Flavia to meet Virion, who delivers the news of the impending invasion. However due to his personality and lack of urgency, Cherche intervenes and quickly explains the situation to speed things up. At Port Ferox, Cherche joins the fray and decides to fight alongside Chrom's army.

In the epilogue, should Cherche remain unmarried, Cherche returns to Rosanne to reclaim the country that Virion lost. Cherche and Minerva were never seen apart.

Personality
Cherche is a domestic woman raised on simple values who is good at cooking and sewing, in contrast to her vicious wyvern. This is because, despite being just a knight at first, Virion's particular fondness of her led to her duties being combined with those of a servant, with the pressure and suspicion of others forcing her to balance both her attitude and skills in the process.

Though disdainful of his behavior, she's loyal to Virion, deciding to stay with him despite his fall from grace. Having an understanding of his torments, being the only person Virion shows his real self, she isn't afraid to mock his demeanor when felt needed, something that he admits to actually affect his mood.

She has a bizarre sense of aesthetics, referring to monsters and bugs as cute. She also manages to not lose sight of Kellam because his armor is 'cute' and later offers to decorate its shoulder plate with spikes so it would be 'cuter'. Her taste is questionable to the point where, in EXPonential Growth, she's pleased by the Entombed's appeareance.

Cherche shares an extremely close bond with her wyvern and has developed an ability to tell what Minerva is feeling or saying by her shrieks. Many conversations and dialogue in general revolve around this bond, with she treating her mount like a common animal and even only accepting to marry if the wyvern also consents with said person.

She is the scariest person in the army to anger as she tends to threaten people by implying that she will make Minerva eat them all with a smile on her face. Her birthday is October 17.

Base Stats

 * -|Normal=


 * -|Hard=


 * -|Lunatic=

Growth Rates

 * 100%
 * 70%
 * 20%
 * 55%
 * 50%
 * 50%
 * 55%
 * 15%
 * }

Max Stat Modifers

 * +3
 * 0
 * -1
 * -1
 * 0
 * +2
 * -2
 * }

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

Other Supports
 * The Avatar (Female)
 * Miriel
 * Nowi
 * Gerome
 * Morgan (Only if Cherche is her mother)

Class Sets

 * }

Base Class
When she arrives, Cherche is essentially a flying, physical tank: her HP grows with each level due to her 100% growth rate in HP, she has a good 55% growth rate in defense, and she has a high strength and decent skill and speed. Upon recruitment, she will likely be a bit behind your other units, though with her Hammer in her recruitment inventory and the abundance of Knights in the early chapters of the Valm arc, she can quickly catch up and land a promotion. However, she must be wary of the Bow Knights and Wind mages found throughout the Valm campaign.

While the Griffon Rider class yields a useful support skill for her in Deliverer, Cherche fares better as a Wyvern Lord due to the class's more dedicated tanking ability, as opposed to the lukewarm balanced stats of the Griffon Rider. She also acquires access to lances, rounding out her weapon triangle coverage nicely, and can pick up the extremely useful Swordbreaker skill as protection against Wyrmslayers. Despite the class's weaknesses to bows and magic, as well as a Speed stat that can sometimes get her doubled by speedy promoted enemy units, Wyvern Lord Cherche is a very solid unit through the remainder of the game's story chapters as long as her tankiness and mobility are properly utilized.

Reclassing
While Cherche's growths and initial stats suit her Wyvern Rider and Wyvern Lord class very well, both her reclassing options, the Cleric and Troubadour lines, are very magically oriented, and unfortunately yield few potent offensive skills for her to take back to her Wyvern Lord class. And unfortunately, due to her low magic growths, getting her through the magical classes will be a bit of a struggle. However, her class pools do yield her a very solid support movepool, making her an excellent escort for her husband and an effective rear line member of a pair-up. From the Troubadour class she can grab Demoiselle, a situational ability that is nonetheless useful if many of your frontline units are males; but perhaps more useful for her is the Valkyrie's Dual Support+ ability, which starts her with a Level 9 Dual Support bonus when paired with her husband. Dual Support+ is also her best skill to pass along to her son, as it's otherwise female-exclusive in addition to being a solid ability in general. One useful skill for Cherche if she returns to wish to the Wyvern line eventually is the Troubadour's Resistance +2, which helps patch that weakness as best as she can.

From the Cleric family, not much is of use to her, though Miracle is a solid skill for her when tanking, especially in conjunction with the War Cleric's Renewal skill. The War Cleric is also perhaps her best option for combining her offensive capabilities with her support potential, as she can also make use of the Cleric's Healtouch skill in this class. The Sage class offers nothing to Cherche unless she wants to try being magically-offensive, a role played far better by many other units, or unless she wants to be a Rally unit by combining her collective class's Rally Magic, Rally Resistance, and Rally Luck skills—though this role is also played better by other units like Lissa, who has access to the Pegasus line's rally skills.

When deciding on the best role for Cherche in a postgame setting, frontline tanking as a Wyvern Lord is an option given her access to Renewal, though it's also done better by other units like Frederick, who has access to Luna for offense and Aegis for defense. Limited as her skill pool is, Cherche's greatest use may be in providing a support role from the back of a pair-up as a Wyvern Lord, using Deliverer to escort her partner and skills like Strength+2 (the only means of boosting her offense that she has), Demoiselle, and Dual Support+ to further assist her partner. Though it means losing her beloved Minerva's mobility, she can also function well as a War Cleric (or better yet, a Bride if you have access to it, as the Bride's Bond skill is yet another passive support ability that works well from the back of a pair-up) in the same role by using Healtouch to heal allies when she's not attacking. While Cherche's main use is as a flying tank in the story missions, she can still be effective as a support unit so long as she's in a class that makes use of her high strength.

Description

 * Wyvern Friend
 * Wyvern-riding fighter in Virion's noble house. Thinks her wyvern Minerva is adorable. Appears in Fire Emblem Awakening.

Base Stats
Rarity:

Awakening

 * Cherche/Awakening Quotes

Heroes

 * Cherche/Heroes Quotes

Possible Endings

 * Cherche - Wyvern Friend
 * Cherche and her beloved Minerva returned to Rosanne and struggled to reclaim the country Virion had managed to lose. Rider and wyvern were never seen apart.


 * Cherche 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, Cherche, above all else.


 * Cherche and Frederick
 * As Ylisse's new knight captain, Frederick took charge of keeping the peace and training new recruits with his wife, Cherche. Students quickly learned to fear the couple's famously disarming smiles.


 * Cherche and Virion
 * Virion returned home to Rosanne, where he was labeled a traitor and coward, or else ignored entirely. But Cherche's smarts and kindness eventually brought her husband back into good standing.


 * Cherche and Stahl
 * Stahl continued his service as an Ylissean knight and led crucial missions across the realm. He eventually grew fat on his wife Cherche's tremendous cooking, and the two had a long and happy life.


 * Cherche and Vaike
 * Vaike returned to the streets that raised him and was welcomed as a hero and brother to all. Still, the children were fonder of Cherche, who spent her time feeding and clothing orphans everywhere.


 * Cherche and Kellam
 * Cherche and her beloved Minerva returned to Rosanne and struggled to reclaim the country Virion had managed to lose. Her husband's name has been lost to history.


 * Cherche and Lon'qu
 * Lon'qu returned to Regna Ferox and served as Basilio's right-hand man. Cherche knit many wool caps to shield her husband from the bitter Feroxi winters and, of course, a cap for her dear wyvern, Minerva.


 * Cherche and Ricken
 * While continuing to study magic, Ricken realized how childish some of his actions had been. But Cherche's caring and patience saw him through to the end.


 * Cherche and Gaius
 * Gaius never lost his sweet tooth, though he ultimately returned to less savory enterprises. When her work in Rosanne was done, Cherche would return home and cook for her husband, much to his delight.


 * Cherche and Gregor
 * After the war, Gregor briefly sank into a life of excess, but at his wife Cherche's request, he found work in Valm. After a successful stint there, offers flooded in from around the world.


 * Cherche and Libra
 * Many an unfortunate child found joy in the small orphanage Libra and his wife built after the war. Cherche was a natural mother to the children, who were also quite fond of her wyvern, Minerva.


 * Cherche and Henry
 * Henry settled down with Cherche and turned out to be a surprisingly good father. Their newborn son was said to be quiet but also fond of wyverns, like his mother.


 * Cherche and Donnel
 * Donnel returned to his tiny village and built a happy life with his mother and his wife, Cherche. The latter's easy laugh and many skills quickly earned the love and respect of her new family.

Smash Bros. Series
Cherche does not directly appear in the Super Smash Bros. Series. However, one of Lucina's Palette Swaps is based around Cherche's color scheme.

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

Etymology
Serge is a masculine name of French origin. It is also a Latin word meaning "servant". The latter probably represents her status as one of Virion's former vassals.

Cherche is a variation of the French verb "chercher", which means "to look". In this case, Cherche translates into "looking" or into "look", as an imperative. "Cherchez la femme," or "look for the woman" is a phrase in classic French novels that points to a woman being the source of trouble in any man's life, a clever joke on her relationship with her master.

Trivia

 * Cherche's dragon mount was named after Minerva, as revealed if Cherche fights Minerva in Lost Bloodlines 2.
 * Cherche shares her English voice actress, Amanda C. Miller, with Sully.
 * Cherche also shares her Japanese voice actress, Akutsu Kana, with Tharja and Rhajat.
 * Cherche's official artwork from both Awakening and Heroes, as well as her Cipher TCG appearances, depict her wielding the Helswath.
 * Cherche's birthday is the same day that Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance was first released in North America.
 * Due to the fact that she was originally trained to be a cleric, both of her reclass options are healers. Ironically, among the first generation, she has the highest strength and defense modifiers of any female and one of the highest overall.
 * According to Awakening's project manager Masahiro Higuchi, Cherche was the first character that Yusuke Kozaki designed for the game.
 * Cherche's portrait has the least amount of facial expressions in the game, with only four.