Zeno Robinson didn’t know what he was getting into.
The actor, who plays Cai in Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, was not a newcomer to Nintendo’s popular strategy RPG series. He’d previously portrayed Fogado in 2023’s Fire Emblem Engage and Ross in 2017’s Fire Emblem Heroes. Robinson auditioned for several parts in Fortune’s Weave, including supporting characters like Peter, Simon, and Lysander. But he told Polygon in a recent interview that he wasn’t aware Cai was one of the game’s four protagonists until he’d already landed the gig.
“I had no idea until we started recording that [Cai] was gonna be, like, a major focus. So my mind was blown,” Robinson said. Instead, he was expecting a young boy with a minor role. “When I auditioned, I thought he was gonna be kind of like Cyril — he’s Griffin Burns’ character in Three Houses.”
Cai’s importance to the overall story wasn’t the only pleasant surprise for Robinson. “As the auditions for Fortune’s Weave came in, I was like, there’s a lot of Black people in this one. It was exciting,” he explained. “It’s not every day that you get to audition for a character who’s going to be a protagonist in a Fire Emblem game, a character of color, a young, Black kid with locs. I saw a lot of myself in the design. He’s got this really kind, gentle heart. He has the biggest heart, I think, out of everybody in the game, and that’s how I am in my life, too.”
The other three main characters in Fortune’s Weave are a battle-hardened warrior, a formidable queen, and a vengeful dancer with a kill-list a mile long. Meanwhile, Cai’s a 15-year-old from a rural village who enters the Heroic Games in the slim hope of preventing the execution of his father, Castor. For Robinson, getting into character meant embracing a shift in perspective.
“It’s mostly the way your brain sees and processes the world. As we grow older as adults, there are things that happen that sort of get us away from that innocence that we have as kids and also as teenagers. You have a very idealistic [view of the world], like, ‘things should be like this.’ It’s mostly in attitude and psyche, playing a 15-year-old Cai,” he said. “Everything’s exciting and everything’s cool, you know? And he’s hopeful. He’s got the bright eyes, right?”
Robinson said one of the main challenges of this performance was making Cai more relatable and memorable than a typical “shonen boy,” a plucky young hero in the vein of anime and manga series like Naruto and Dragon Ball.
“I knew he was a shonen protagonist. And I also knew that there would be a bunch of routes in the game, and everybody had these really complex stories. And I think I was really, deeply afraid that people would find Cai boring,” Robinson said. “So I went into each session trying to make Cai as relatable, and as likable, and as multifaceted, and as nuanced as possible. So when things were sad, I wanted you to feel the weight of that. I wanted people to really, really draw themselves to him. Like I’m drawn to him. I really care about him. So I wanted to translate that care in the performance. I think when you see someone’s heart, and their passion, it’s almost impossible to dislike them.”
[Ed. note: Spoilers follow for the end of Part One of Cai’s route of Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave.]
Much of Cai’s story in Fortune’s Weave centers around the importance of family — both the one you’re born with and the one you choose for yourself. As Cai defies the odds to advance through round after round of the Heroic Games, both those families grow larger. That gives him the confidence to confront his father, Castor, who makes an unexpected appearance in Dagsion’s arena — on the opposing side. Robinson said this was his favorite scene to perform in the entire game.
“I loved the Castor-Cai confrontation in the games, when he sort of blows up on his dad, and he tells him you don’t get to throw away your life. You’re just giving up, and with the limited time we have, I wanna cherish that with you and with the rest of my family. And I think that’s such an important and really special message,” he explained.
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That message hasn’t been lost on Fire Emblem fans. The actor said he’s heard from a number of people on social media who felt a particularly strong connection to Cai’s story — and the authenticity of his performance.
“There have been people who have related deeply to Cai because his story ultimately is about his fear of losing his father, and fighting for his father’s life. So a lot of people who are dealing with grief, of losing their own fathers or their relationship with their fathers, it was a surprise that it reached them in that way,” Robinson said. “Being able to put in a performance that helps people with their grief is an incredible honor.”
