Reasons Why I want to nominate Claude's parents as the worst parents of the Fódlan characters

I know, I know, it's a pretty high bar (low bar?), considering the other contenders, especially since only one has a name and neither are seen in either Three Houses or Three Hopes.

However, I would not jump into this discussion without evidence.

Spoilers beyond the cut.

In Three Houses, during his B Support with Hilda, he talks about his parents, particularly how they would raise/punish him.

In case you missed it, he discusses being dragged along behind a horse by his father.

His mother would laugh as it happened.

I know he rationalizes it as having been a brat as a kid, but there is absolutely nothing he could have done that would have justified BEING DRAWN, which was part of one of the most inhumane execution methods of the medieval ages and is only associated with torture historically.

Edit to add: Claude states that there is a trick to make the horse punishment less severe than it sounds. He doesn't state if he learned the trick himself after being drawn a few times, if he was taught the trick by an older sibling who went through the same thing, or another person. We also are given no context for how the punishment was carried out, whether it was on a soft grassy surface with no rocks, or a hard, rocky surface, or the duration of the dragging. Claude's first statement does imply that it happened multiple times ("He used to" instead of "one time he"). We do not know if Claude sustained serious injuries, but any combination of scrapes/bruises/rope burn are pretty much guaranteed simply by the nature of the action, and that alone is worse physical injury intentionally inflicted on a child in the game by any parent on more than one occasion, that I am aware of.

And as if that were not bad enough, we get this little gem in Three Hopes:

Where Nader says that Khalid (aka Claude) was the favorite son of the king.

The favorite.

Let that sink in.

Favorites are generally given preferential treatment by the parents. Look at how Claude was treated again, and now look to his other siblings, like Shahid, who fights and dies trying to earn recognition from his father and to be acknowledged as a good heir to the throne. And Claude has more siblings.

I rest my case.

I will grant Count Varley and Margrave Gautier second and third place in the #1 Worst Father category, but King of Almyra tops the scale in a way that is almost impossible to imagine.

Patricia (Edelgard's mother and Dimitri's Step-Mother) may or may not beat Tiana (Claude's mother) for #1 Worst Mother, and Patricia may take overall #1 Worst Parent from King Almyra, depending on her ambiguous and not yet completely disclosed involvement with TWSiTD, the Tragedy, and what happened to Edelgard/Edelgard's siblings, but otherwise, I feel pretty safe with my nomination.

Edit for clarification: I would have loved to have actually met Tiana or the King of Almyra in either game. Most of the parents in the game are presented as good, but flawed, people. They just also happen to be terrible parents. Claude's parents could be great people, beloved rulers, and well-respected in Almyra. Despite my feelings on the matter, Claude seems to like his parents. That doesn’t mean they were good parents. In fact, I still believe they are the worst parents outside of actual villainous parents. Also, because this entry is a game with more fan engagement than what I usually discuss, I feel the need note that I'm not commenting on their parenting in relation to Almyra or Almyra's culture. I'm just commenting on how objectively terrible it is to drag a child along the ground behind a horse, and to laugh at that child in the process. I'll stand by that opinion.

What gets me about GW defenders saying that "Claude siding with Edelgard shows how far he's willing to go to get what he wants, he'll use anyone to further his goals" is that, even if that were accurate to his character... that's not what he does in GW. At all.

Which one of Claude's goals are ever progressed once he sides with Edelgard? And how does siding with Edelgard, specifically, accomplish said goal?

Maybe... killing Rhea? But all of the reasons he says he wants her gone in this game are either completely unproven or blatantly incorrect - there's no proof of the Church forcing arranged marriages, Crests do not force obligations onto those that have them (which Claude himself literally proves), and the Church is helping Dimitri restore Duscur - a foreign nation - meaning they are actively willing to help fulfill Claude's main goal that he came to the officer's academy to achieve.

And... that's it! That is the only possible thing that even POTENTIALLY helps Claude's dreams, and taking a five-second look at it shows that it actually does nothing at all to help anything. But in the meantime? Claude weakens Faerghus through agitating Sreng and invading it himself, forcing Dimitri to fight a three front war; he actively helps Edelgard get herself out of a messy situation, even though not helping her and letting her die would have actually helped him and would have actually been him using her like people keep saying he's trying to do; he and Holst even admit that by the end of the war Edelgard is going to make a vassal state of Leicester after taking the lion's share of Faerghus' territory for themselves, which Leicester can't do anything about because of Adrestia's far stronger military. He is the one saying that! He is the one pointing out that that is going to happen! And yet he just keeps going anyway!

He is the one getting used. Very blatantly, and very extensively. Claude walked himself into a trap and lied to himself into thinking he's the one with the upper hand, which somehow managed to convince a large portion of the fanbase too. There's no gray morality here, there's no cunning being showcased, Claude is just an evil stupid tool

"White Clouds spends the whole section making you suspicious of the Church and Rhea only to turn around and tell you it's a red herring and actually it's the student you should have been suspicious of; which the writers confirmed in interviews"

Interviews a majority of the fandom probably have not, and never will, actually sit down to interact with, leaving their only source to be the original text. If your need interviews from the developers to support your argument that a character is good or bad or morally gray, then your argument is not strong enough to rely on the main text.

I shouldn't have to do homework and dig for interviews from five years ago to be able to play a game an analyze its themes and nuances and decide whose side I think is worth fighting for or which characters I want Byleth to end up with at the end.

"but this fandom has either the reading comprehension of wet paper or projects their Western centric views so hard onto a eastern style game that follows the path of enlightenment with Byleth to a t"

Okay, so where exactly does the whole "no acts of violence" part come in because that's kind of an important early step and it technically doesn't happen until the very end of the game, and even then, in multiple endings Byleth is shown to still have to use harmful/violent means to suppress smaller attempts at insurrection across the continent for years to come. Also, the path of enlightenment also involves not being involved in trades that would hurt people, like weapons trade or animal slaughter or being involved with people who are owning/trading slaves (looking at you House Goneril). There's a lot of other steps in the path that Byleth skips over, but these two are particularly glaring. If Byleth really were "following the path of enlightenment to a t", then we wouldn't be playing a Fire Emblem game, because Byleth wouldn't have agreed to fight in the war to begin with.

"they ignore the text and thus we still have discourse over the church being bad. It's very tiring and why I refuse to talk about 3H because so many have turned it into something it's not."

The biggest issue with this is that this is the entire point of the game!

The game is asking you to analyze it. To dissect it. To talk about it. To make your choices and replay different paths to find the answers you seek. To show it's not black and white and to understand why it isn't black and white. That things are complicated. And no one in this war is free from blood on their hands. No side is 100% right or wrong. It's up to the player to use their critical thinking skills to determine which they believe is the best path forward for Fódlan.

In order for us to fully interact with the text, we sadly have to face some harsh truths, just like Byleth does. Among them being that the church IS bad. Even if most of its intentions aren't and it still does some good, the fact is that it is bad, and it's a major reason why this war started in the first place. To deny that is to deny the text as it is presented to us, and to deny the actual point in the game.

Edelgard is more than just an attempted conqueror. Rhea is more than a seemingly benevolent religious leader. Dimitri is more than a charming prince. Claude is more than a seemingly suspicious stranger. Yuri is more than just a gang leader. Sylvain is more than a playboy. Dorothea is more than a sexy opera star. Lorenz is more than a pompous noble. Hubert, Dedue, and Hilda are more than just retainers to their lords. Seteth and Flayn are more than just members of the church. Alois is more than just Captain of the Knights. Hanneman and Manuela are more than just fellow professors. Sothis is more than a voice in our head.

And it's only through accepting this one truth, that the characters and institutions are not black and white cut outs, that we can get the most full picture of what exactly the true conflict is.

You cannot interact with the text of Three Houses by denying the nuance that makes the story happen in the first place.

The writing is messy, and complicated, and not always well done. But it's also simple, straight forward, and brilliant. It's a contradiction and compliment of themes. It's so very human. And that's what makes it so engaging.

(Apologies for the long rant but that anon sparked something in me and I had to put my two-cents in.)

Nah, don't apologize, this was great, thank you very much for sending it! :D

Out of curiosity, where do you stand on the "Edelgard is evil" debate? (I swear I'm not trying to start drama I'm just genuinely curious given your thoughts on how the RWBY writers handled Ironwood.)

I feel like every defense of Edelgard is people saying that Those Who Slither In The Dark and Rhea are worse and therefore her attempts to take them out means she's fine, but imo Edelgard is pretty indisputably a villain no matter what other people did. She's the 'sympathetic villain who has a point' kind of evil, the 'the end justifies the means' kind of evil, but it doesn't excuse her actions. She's kind of a conqueror who tries to set herself up as a dictator in charge of other countries that her army invaded. Iirc in the Crimson Flower path, you basically just sweep through Fodlan taking people out who stand in your way of conquering, with no regard to civilian life (and yeah, sometimes Edelgard is like 'that was sad, huh?' after a battle, but that's hardly enough) and then they tacked on a 'and then after that I guess they took out Those Who Slither in the Dark' to the epilogue. And then people kind of just decided that's the good path because they hate the Church of Seiros. I also have a problem with how the writers wrote Edelgard in Fire Emblem Three Hopes, especially in regards to how they basically made Claude's path a win for the Black Eagles (and made Edelgard a Sad Wide-Eyed Widdle Baby). It seemed like Fire Emblem Three Hopes strongly wanted to appeal to Edelgard fans, and I feel like it really hurt the game actually.

Edelgard is very different from Ironwood. She was a villain from the start, her arc wasn't rushed, they never acted like no one cared about her and they never hung all the problems around her neck as a way to dismiss the problems with the status quo. She was a nuanced villain, and that's the extent of it imo. She falls into the problem of 'the revolutionary person who has a problem with the system is actually also a horrible person who is just as bad as the people she's against,' which I do have some problems with, but I also feel like it's slightly more of a 'District 13 in the Hunger Games' situation rather than a White Fang situation.

But a lot of people look at the nuance involved and look at her being against the current system and use it as a reason to dismiss all her crimes and pretend she's only ever been the good guy who only ever does good things. So yeah, that's my general opinion on that whole discourse.

Well, looks like even a broken clock's right at least twice a day; an edelstan on twitter was pissed a few days ago when they saw that Cyril's Meet the Heroes description described his time “working” for House Goneril as “some odd twists and turns”, pointing out that such vague wording was most likely used due to a combination of 3H not caring about Cyril's backstory and IS needing to sanitize Hilda's image so she can sell better in Heroes.

Hahaha,

It's funny because on SPE some people made memes, and you have angry people in the comments, being angry and basically lying or making up facts to either diminish Cyril's uh, "working conditions" in House Goneril, or try to sweep it under the rug to give some "Rhea BaD" takes again

Like :

(meme where Claude doesn't criticise his allies for keeping slaves, but blame racism on the lady who saved the child slave)

"Faerghus is the most violent country because they killed the emperor and enacted a coup while being backed up by mole people" to talk about that time when Loog got his independance

"Rhea BaD bcs Cyril can't learn how to read if you don't support him with Lysithea" even if he writes in the Post TS regardless of recruiting Lysithea or not

"Claude tries to talk to Cyril out of fighting but Cyril drives to a suicide charge with Rhea's blessing so Rhea BaD" in GW, with the source being, idk, since the person who came with that take never sourced it

"Rhea BaD she used the regicide in Faerghus to get rid of her political enemies" you mean the dude who tried to kill her?

"Supreme Leader wouldn't be able to continue warring if Rhea DeD bcs else she would be invading people and would lose public support" like the Supreme Leader? From the land of MAGA? Lose public support?? If she invades nations to restore Adrestia to its glorious past???

"Cyril never said he wasn't eating well in house Goneril" but the JP line says he was always hungry in PAlmyra and Fodlan before coming to the Monastery...

Anyways, as expected, even if FEH tries to sanitise some of Fe Fodlan's most, uh, contentious points, we will always have discourse because some people just prefer their fanon to canon, and while I can understand them to a degree (look Willy is basically fanon at this point) it's always hilarious to see people refuse to engage or even consider that the game they "love" says X when they prefer Y.

When it comes to, in general, Church related characters or Kingdom related characters, we see a lot of discourse like this popping up because while FE Fodlan shat on them (to an extent, for the Church related characters) FEH has to give them the minimum spotlight they give to other characters of the franchise, so yes, Hilda's popularity most likely is the reason why Cyril in MYH just had some "odd twists and turns" (tfw Begnion Senators aren't as popular :( so Muarim was mentionned to have been a slave) but his voiced lines has him mention he was captured as a "war prisoner"...

Putting everything it adds up and we have : Cyril was captured as a war prisoner when he was 11-12 by the Gonerils, was hungry there, complained about "work being hard" there (when Cyril doesn't complain at all in GM despite the huge workload he has!), and implies to Mercedes to have been mistreated in House Goneril because he was Almyran (which matches Hilda's prejudices in her C support about Almyrans).

Why is Cyril's backstory so "discourse rising" then?

Is it because Rhea BaD cannot rescue a child from slavery from a popular character's family/household? Or because Hilda's laziness and preference to let other people do her chores looks especially wrong if we take into consideration that those "other people doing her chores" at home might be children "kept as prisoner of wars and fed twice per week"? Or because it reflects badly on Claude (in both games) who wants to end discriminations and prejudices by getting rid of the institution that rescued an abused child, while working hand in hand with the family that abused said child based on his origins?

(lol@the "but Faerghus BaD" bonus point in the earlier SPE thread I mention, I don't even understand why it was brought up lol)

Back to your post, it's hilarious how this edelstand was pissed becayse FEH whitewashed Cyril's backstory to maybe sell more Hilda alts, when Pat'n'pals try their hardest (in FE16, Nopes and even FEH!) to "alter the script" to shit on Rhea, Dimitri to make Supreme Leader alt'able.

Maybe there's hope for this twitter/X stan?

i think the thing that bugs me most about the Discourse™ surrounding 3H is that it is just kind of pointless, and i don't mean that in the "it's pointless to discuss video game stories way" because it isn't! it isn't pointless to do that!

it's pointless because 3/4 routes in the game end with Byleth in a position of absolute power and authority over the entire continent of Fodlan, and therefore has the ability to institute whatever changes they damn well please, backed up the god-like ability to reverse time itself. Being the Archbishop of the Church with the ear of the King in AM, and simply just actually being the Ruler of United Fodlan in VW/SS, Byleth will pretty much always end the game as an enlightened despot. Byleth is, also, a blank slate self-insert, and while they do have some semblance of a personality in their various dialogues and scenes, their actual political beliefs are pretty much up to player interpretation, hence the reason you can even choose between the 4 paths in the first place.

in essence, it makes it very easy for the player to say "well Byleth will simply fix everything" after the credits roll regardless of which path you chose. Especially considering that all their students, who they most likely have very good relationships with, are liable to lend Byleth their political support. Not getting into characters like Sylvain who were already looking to institute change and reform in the areas they had direct control over.

To that end, the game does kind of undermine itself and the routes end up being more about who you want to live more rather than any actual ideological conflict no matter how much the game tries to frame it as the latter. if you agree with Edelgard's motivations but simply like Dimitri, Rhea or Claude more as characters, than there's no reason to really side with her since the player is actively put in a position where it's easy to imagine that after the credits roll Byleth simply does institute the changes that Edelgard seeks in a way that doesn't involve the death of their blorbos/continent-spanning war.

and I think this kind of ends up a factor in why there's a lot of undeserved vitriol thrown Edelgard's way. People see Byleth be given this absolute power, with the support of some of the most powerful noble houses of the land, and they imagine whatever kind of utopia they think Byleth could build with that power, and get retroactively mad at Edelgard. Never-mind that Byleth's ascendancy is only really possible specifically because of Edelgard's war, among numerous other different factors that led to it.

The real sort of funny thing is that the debate is also pointless in another way: Edelgard pretty much always accomplishes the objectives she sought out regardless of which route you chose. In all 4 routes Fodlan is unified. The Agarthans are either completely destroyed (VW) or majorly set back (AM/SS). Huge social reform is coming all across Fodlan, mostly of the variety that she wanted (yes, even in AM, I need to remind people that Dimitri's dad literally got killed for being "too radical" for the Faerghus nobility, not to mention that Dimitri is literally said to institute a new form of government in his solo ending)

idk how to end this just stop getting mad over video game characters

I just keep thinking. Look at what Ferdinand says after Edelgard is defeated.

Ferdinand: The history of the Empire spans 1185 years. And just like that, it ends. But the Hresvelg legacy could live on... When Edelgard assumed power, there were no other rightful heirs. She said that whoever takes the throne next should do so by virtue of merit, not blood. And she truly meant what she said.

Following the defeat of TWSITD, he talks about how Byleth should be leader in Fodlan. The game really wants to push that by defeating Edelgard without the support of a country's army, Byleth has proven themself worthy of the throne. Byleth's flag is supposed to represent, according to the devs, the faith your units put in them. Faith enough to abandon their countries in this war just because of a promise made.

Meanwhile, look what happens when you side with Edelgard. For all her talk about merit, she's just going to take the credit for Byleth's leadership, and then hands the army off to Caspar who according to the Japanese can't keep them under control. Despite saying she's only after the Church and their allies, she starts the route by invading a country that declared neutrality, intent to dispose of any leaders there who won't bend the knee and makes it clear killing Claude is her preferred option. And she does this because she promised Caspapa control of the former alliance in exchange for his support, while at the same time willing to create a comfy job in order to entice Linhardt. Her support with Ferdinand makes it clear she hasn't thought about how to even the playing field between nobles and commoners, which gets worse in the Japanese as she spent two years reforming the Empire only to coddle the nobility and oppress the masses. Hubert goes behind her back to kill people he views as a threat to her even if ordered to spare them, and his endings involve supporting her through secret police spying on the people and putting down rebellions. She makes it very clear she's going to continue working with Thales until things calm down after the war, but she also uses pilfered Agarthan tech to maintain order. She has no interest in exposing the truth, instead ignoring it when it's not supporting her narrative and even spreads lies to make herself look good. Hubert even says that she knows that TWSITD were behind the experiments and made her father their puppet, making Edelgard's history and reasoning suspect. Hanneman even reveals the Imperial Army is still using Crest beasts, meaning people are being experimented on despite her claims about wanting that to never happen again.

Edelgard is supposed to be tyrannical, especially when compared to Dimitri per the devs. Dimitri gives the commoners a voice in politics and works to support them, Edelgard centralizes power on herself and believes relying on others makes one weak (though people helping her is alright). She and Claude both want change in Fodlan, but Claude puts aside his prejudices and as a result learns the true history. Edelgard does not and instead continues to work with those who engineered this war. But against Byleth, Safflower comes across as it's meant to discredit Edelgard. To show that she doesn't have merit as a leader, that she remains an immature womanchild lashing out at the world because of what happened to her and expectations of her shouldering responsibilities.

The game opens with a lot of mysteries and red herrings, making it look like the Church is to blame for the ills of Fodlan. I think that's part of what has fed this discourse. The game tells us things are bad. Claude might be a radical at first, but as he opens his mind and reaches out his hand he starts to see a different picture and changes his tune, instead returning home to reform Almyra. Dimitri does oppose the Church and gets labelled as the status quo lord as a result, but that ignores the changes he does make and the support he gives the people. He's the one who actually gives them power. Byleth is the player avatar but their own decisions get thrown out when they don't align with the player's wants. But then you get Edelgard, the radical who wants to change things, and is ultimately shown as wrong, hypocritical, manipulative and just no good. So much so that her supports have to rewrite her character and the story in order to make her more palatable. Easier to swallow rather that accepting what they unknowingly supported, and even then saying some things that make people go “did you really just say that?”

Edelgard is not the answer, her route has no real merit.

3 Hopes: A Lord's Downfall

Since 3 Hopes is all about tradeoffs and choices, I thought it would be fun to write up how the 3 Hopes lords could be seen as cautionary tales of different leadership types. Their imperfection is shown in the contrast between how they garner support and where, in a non-storybook world, they might fail to deliver in the end.

Disclaimer: This is just a fun thought exercise about the hypothetical problems with these types of leaders, not a personal endorsement of or attack against any of them. I know lord discourse is all the rage, but please keep things chill.

Edelgard - The Inspirational Radical's Endless War

Charismatic and easy to rally behind, this kind of leader's message is straightforward. Simple, even. We must end The Bad Thing™ to improve your lives.

It appeals to common sense, peoples' desire to assign blame, and their hunger for justice or revenge. It makes them feel like the inherent unfairness of their world could be made fair if someone tried hard enough. And now they have a leader who can do that.

But then, you win. And the world is still a messy place because ending The Bad Thing™ was never a fix-all answer. This leader still wants to do good, to fix what ails those they lead, but their platform is built on external responsibility for their people's suffering. What is left but to find another enemy?

First, it is TWSITD. Then the Church. Then the Kingdom and Alliance. Many could be turned on next if reform stagnates. Nobles who step out of line. Foreigners who are deemed too influential in Fodlan. Commoners called too lazy to reach their potential.

Ultimately, the Inspirational Radical relies on a battle of morality between Us and Them to unify. It can spark loyalty and change but also perpetuates conflict when that change doesn't live up to the perfect utopia they promise.

Dimitri - The Servant Leader's Endless Toil

This leader believes in the people's voice above all. They will lower themselves to stand alongside those they rule, listening to every quibble, no matter how small, and try to fix it.

They are idealistic about their personal responsibilities but realistic about what they expect from others. They inspire their followers by preaching it's the duty of the "haves" to help the "have nots" until those categories are eradicated, leading by example.

This leader's changes are slow but effective. Yet, for all their steps forward, the people are never satisfied. They ask for more speed, more goods, more power, more fairness. And as is human nature, they are selfish and shortsighted, wanting for themselves before their neighbors.

Protecting the Church. Seeking justice for Duscur. Stabilizing the country. Improving relations with Sreng. Elevating commoners. Removing reliance on Crests. A neverending pile of conflicting priorities is doomed to crush them as they seek to own blame for every imperfection.

The Servant Leader will inevitably collapse from the strain of shouldering the strife of all their followers. When they do, no one can fill the thankless role they leave behind because it requires living for nothing but the people they serve.

Claude - The Ignorant Dreamer's Endless Maze

This leader can see a perfect world off on the horizon. A beautiful one where people could all work together if they only acted rationally and kindly to others.

It's pleasant and easy to speak of, appealing to those who want to believe in a peaceful resolution to life's ills, where common ground can be found if everyone tries hard enough. However, their fantasy is incomplete and unclear, hampered by ignorance.

Over time, reality sets in. They make sacrifices in the name of that big dream with the promise that it's for the greater good. Their cloudy vision can't stand up to the dogmatic drive of other leaders, so they incrementally warp their ideals and dream to fit reality until it only half resembles where they started.

Almyran peace is sidelined. Power is consolidated. Friendships weaken while appeasing conflicting desires. Distrust is sown within their own borders with the Archbishop's death. More war seems inevitable, though they march onward, believing in the slim hope it will end.

The Ignorant Dreamer remains a beacon to others through message alone. They forever drag their people through an ever-more-complex maze in hopes of finding a dwindling exit that leads to that utopian dream they sell their followers.

Okay I don't do this normally but out of curiosity, I looked at that guys' posts and yeah they're going around sealioning anyone who likes Dimitri being all like "how can you say Dimitri/AM is your favorite when you didn't play all the routes". Buddy it's called having preferences, subjectivity and opinion. I'm sure if we twist their behavior around back at them, they'll be like stop bothering us for liking Edel cause double standards is their bread and butter.

Yeah, I had taken a brief scroll through their blog the first time I saw them argue with Random about Claude because I had a pretty strong feeling that they were just another stan running around around against Rhea and Dimitri fans because I knew that person didn't follow Random when they started pulling the bad faith Claude takes.

I scrolled through a few posts before I was like yeah I'm not even gonna bother looking further because I could see all they were doing was arguing with people whose names I recognized, and the only people who ever do that are the stans. They also have absolutely nothing else but discourse on their blog.

It's crazy to me too, because I've seen those same Dimitri fans try to talk about anything else FE related and yet they still get pulled back into discourse. Like, I'm at the point where I believe everyone in that immediate group is just actively being stalked by the stans (and I recall one of them mentioning they are being stalked by them, but my guess is if one of them is, all of them are).

Also, the stans tend to pull the "you didn't play xyz route" when I'm quite certain most if not all of the Dimitri fans on Tumblr have at the very bare minimum watched the full route on YouTube of anything they didn't play. All these people have the information they need to know where they stand opinion-wise, and like you said, it's just... having an opinion. The stans have their opinions, we don't agree with them, and we don't engage with them unless they engage with us first.

Something I've noticed about the group of Dimitri fans that gets stans going after them is that it's always the stans who start it. They always respond to asks sent to those people. In other words they go onto those people's blogs, look at their posts/their replies to their anons, and start arguing at them over literally anything they say in thsoe ask responses.

Every single time I see a post reach my dashboard from any of those people (you might know the Faerghus/Dimitri group I'm talking about), it's always a stan going after them when they were just answering one of their own anons and posting something on their own blog. I'm sure there are people who think they engage in discourse too much, but they don't even start it. They get harassed and can't just blog in peace.

Unfortunately those same stans have been targeting Random as of late (and I've noticed it's more and more different ones so they're probably going after someone as soon as they notice their buddies are doing so) so it's not that surprising that they've taken notice of me since she and I interact regularly. They basically go through the chain of who interacts with who and try to start shit.

Oh nonnie honey, you better believe if even a single Dimitri fan did to them what they do to us, they'd be all over that and whining about it and posting callouts and shit.

I just want to be able to post whatever my feelings are about Dimitri without worrying that people will try to tear it down because "it's not about Edel-chan and it portrays Dimitri in a good light".

I've blocked every Edelstan I've come across but more of them keep popping up, so... I guess the blocking never ends. My block list is basically just Edelstans and bots at this point with few exceptions.

Funny how the stans don't block Dimitri fans who hate Edelgard to avoid seeing them (it's because they don't actually want to, because they want to argue), even though we're all over here trying to block them, but some of them block evade to keep going. Literally like Dimitri fans have tried to block them and move on, but they persistently find ways to keep harassing. And like I said, they go down the line, so eventually they'll just find every active Dimitri lover who posts about him and whine at them.

Hey Kynim, what reason could the Church of Seiros, the Central Church, to interfere with more positive relations with the outside world? Do they fear that different religions could make their role less important and eventually make them bo longer in control of Fódlan or even the most wierd idea; that new branches of the Seiros religion would develop in other countries like Almyra. The last one is a funny idea, but what is your idea on why they this is the case?

Gonna put this under the cut bc it got a bit long ;w;

FYI: I do not really enjoy FE3H/FEW3H discourse but I know topics like this will probably attract that sort of crowd. My bias is for Claude/Leicester/Golden Deer, and this includes the "dreaded" GW!Claude that people dislike. 3Hopes despite all the flaws in narrative I love over 3Houses in general. The other factions/lords, while interesting, I am not as invested. So please don't label me as some apologist for anyone that isn't my stated bias. 

BTW my answer to this ask will focus more on Seiros/Rhea so don't expect much Claude in this lol

In theory, I think the Church of Seiros would be ok with being friendly with the outside world. But the issue lies in Seiros/Rhea's priority of self-preserving 1) the remaining Nabateans and 2) the following that Sothis had with humans. And given how the Nabateans were nearly driven to extinction by Nemesis, I feel like Seiros/Rhea has a deep-seated suspicion of humans despite her image as the best holy woman since the goddess herself.

For her, the only way to prevent humans from causing another massacre is to make the current humans in Fodlan to believe in the goddess Sothis and never question her tenets. This meant hindering/banning things that could potentionally "reduce faith" in the goddess as mentioned by the Abyss text "The Encyclopedia of Fodlan's Insects" which you can read here. The title may be misleading but you can see some of the odd examples of Church banning things to maintain "peace" via preventing humans from questioning their religion with devices like telescopes, autopsy, and the like. We also see in GW that technology at least Almyra is far advanced compared to Fodlan, as seen here:

So it seems that Fodlan is an isolated area for Seiros/Rhea to feel safe over trying to spread its influence. It is important to note that the Seiros Church is a shelter for the archbishop. Keeping the area that houses her shelter safe is what she wants the most, which stated rather clearly in both games. Given that her first time she had to deal with the non-believers of Sothis ended in an extremely traumatic event, you can see why Seiros/Rhea is hesitant to reach out.

"But wait," you might say. "All these foreign nations seem to be intent on attacking Fodlan so they are a victim! Who wouldn't want to isolate themselves and distrust outsiders knowing that?"

The game unfortunately only shows the Fodlan point-of-view when it comes of past events...so it might seem that way at first. But it is also interesting how Fodlan despite being a "victim" of all these attacks, usually come out on top and end up subjugating/annexing nations, even claiming their superiority over them by calling their "foreign" neighbors as monster and savages. Given how Fodlan is sort of a loose parallel of Europe and how Eurocentric certain historical events are in academic books...I just don't personally buy Fodlan being completely innocent.

While Seiros/Rhea may not have actively supported these wars/conflicts in Fodlan, she still is their symbol whether she wants to be or not.Given how long her reign has been (either as Rhea or some other alias being archibishop), this weighted reputation precedes her. Yes, the game shows she isn't a cartoon villain and can do good. Her devout followers see it and fight for her.

While the game sucks at showing this, it is clear her long leadership is not perfect and has become stagnant, letting the nations abuse the system she had initially laid out (probably with good intentions?).  Insert joke of Rhea being the late Queen Elizabeth here. 

3Hopes glosses over this but in 3Houses we see her multiple times using the Church’s influence to do take action on things, like suppressing rebellions and ousting bandits (see: White Cloud events). Still, most of these are used to protect her establishment and the order she set for the continent. Other social matters, Rhea does not really do anything unless she herself is threatened. So people like Edelgard felt justified in waging her war to just...uproot all of that obsolete system to reset everything.

Is that a great idea? I am not really sure, but it did make for two fun FE games lol.

My Thoughts of FE Three Hopes

Wow, Arkus talking about 3H? What is this? 2018? Also talking about FE3H, I must have a death wish.

So before I start even talking I really want to put this disclaimer out here, especially when talking about the divisive nature of 3H, these are my OPINIONS. This is not a objective analysis of the game nor am I am claiming it to be. These are the thoughts I had playing this game. If you enjoyed it, good. If you didn't, that Is also good. You do not have to agree with me, but I am asking for people to be respectful if they want to engage with this. And if you do agree with me, please do not use what I say as an excuse to attack people with other opinions. I am not trying to personally attack or offend you if you like this game/character/plot point. This is my opinion of a piece of media. There is plenty of opinions of this game on the internet, all I am doing is adding my thoughts to the conversation.

Anyway, people might now I am generally more middling on 3H nowadays. I think its greatest strength was its character writing and its willingness to try different things even if I wasn’t a fan of them like the time management aspect. But I felt the social sim aspect and developmental issues behind the scenes resulted in a much uneven game and at times unfinished project. I’ve also looked back and realized a lot of its politics are not that great. Like the strength of the narrative is the character conflict, that you have these three forces who all want what is best for people like them with crests, and its very compelling drama where you see how much they care about each other, but just can’t agree. But step back from the context of the conflict, the issues aren’t really crests or even the church, but rather the feudalist system which is never really addressed in a major way (And we know you can be a rich noble without a crest). With most of the plot centering around a lot of people who are nobles. Heck, you have actual subjugated and colonized people and most of their plots are either treated as backstory or something to be resolved in their character endings (Even Claude and his anti racism isn’t that relevant in comparison to the strife of the crest bearers and their place in Fodlan). While I think characters like Dedue and Petra are good, the story of 3H is not their story. Like every ending still seems to maintain the system with slight alterations, the thing that’s changed the most is who is calling all the shots in Fodlan. Which isn’t uncommon for many FE’s that maintain a simple “The good lord is the good one to rule”, but given 3H attempts to ask more nuanced questions, it feels like it the political aspect is much more undercooked. Which sucks because anytime discourse about 3H happens it boils down to: “Church bad! Church good! Fascist! Not fascist!” when there is an actual discussion to be had about the issues of the internal politics of the game and how it relates to the status quo. But again, when it focuses on CHARACTERS the 3H story is very good.

But hey, now we have Three Hopes! A musou style game that is an alternate take of the 3H world with loads of extra content! Surely this will be able to scotch tape the issues with the original while also providing another three completely separate routes that are all satisfying on their own, right?

Well... not really.

Look, I know I’ve lost people when I said that, but from what I have seen, I think a lot of people wanted Three Hopes to be, Fodlan: The Definitive Edition. Give the people Three House with all the stuff it missed out. Like how Persona Royal is the definitive way to play P5 which not only improved the story in an organic way, but still let you experience P5 as it was. But 3Hopes isn’t that. 3Hopes is a completely alternate universe, with honestly so much variations, I would say trying to apply logic and revelations from Hopes and retrofit it to houses just clashes too much and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I see a lot of people try to apply stuff learned about in Hopes as being relevant to Houses, but I disagree with that. I feel like knowing about this in Hopes doesn’t retroactively fix the problems of Houses, and I feel some character are almost completely different so the application of this Hopes characters ideas and thoughts are relevant to the Houses version isn’t really fair. Overall, if you are just here for another game with the Fodlan kids though, I get why this has its appeal and its easily the better FE Musou while integrating more FE elements. But it is a spin-off and I am treating it as such.

Okay if you are still sticking around to listen to me ramble after that, let me just get positives I liked about the game out of the way first.

From a story standpoint, I like that this game is willing to fill in stuff from 3H that went either on addressed or was flat out ignored. Shez is better than Byleth in everyday and their relationship with Arval feels far more genuine than Byleth and Sothis. Yes their design is very “OC do not steal” but honestly, I prefer your MC to just be a mercenary that got made a student and not a teacher.

In terms of routes, I will touch on some subjects later, but I actually do believe 3Hopes did manage to make Edelgard in particular more compelling, by actually showing her weeding out the conspiracy in the Empire and centralizing her power rather than it being all off screen, as well as actually allowing her to do more dubious acts when wartime came which was one of my biggest issues with Crimson Flower as a whole as it was an antagonist route where they didn’t do a lot of the actually pretty bad stuff they did in other routes like making the Dukedom which empowered Cornelia. So using Bernadetta’s father as a pawn or saving Lenato as an act of good faith with manipulative undertones actually made Scarlet Blaze a better route. 

Speaking of routes, I quite like how 3Hopes was willing to basically say “This character could go any way in this war, and this is who is ride or die their lord.” I avoids some really weird stuff like Ingrid ever being on black eagles with the only reason being “The Professor told me to” and also adds an interesting layer with characters like Yuri or Dorothea who will do what is best for them and their groups. It also I think allows for more story opportunities like Felix and Sylvain backing Dimitri, Hilda and Holst tag teaming with Claude etc.

Rhea not just disappearing or getting captured also adds for her character to take a lot more initiative. Rhea is mostly passive in 3H with the exception of Crimson Flower. Which led to her character basically being a lot of speculations. And I don’t particularly care for discourse that ends up just being based on speculation. SO yeah, Rhea feels like more a character here.

The politics in 3Hopes are... still pretty bare minimum. I like more characters talk about policy more openly and address concepts like getting people involved in government and the only reason they are keeping lords around is to manage things until they are replaced. It doesn’t feel weighted on one side or the other: all lords get a chance to have an opinion. But again, it is something. 

Graphics wise, it is an improvement. It looks far better than 3H and the character animations, expressions and attacks look so much better. Like Im not even gonna say “Well its a Musou, I expect it to look good”, because I remember FEW, it didn’t look that great with some of its animations. 

That’s the positives out of the way. Lets get into the negatives.

So you know how I said the three routes in 3H generally feel unfinished or not as fleshed out as they could be? Well 3Hopes is the same. It adds more, but due the spin off nature again, it feels not quite finished. I think you should know what 3H is before playing it, but Hopes has just a lot of “because I said so” momentum to its plot. I understand it needs to get to next battle, but it also doesn’t feel super meticulous on its route system. So it really just feels like Fates where everything was already decided for me when I make the choice of what house to join. 

I do respect the game willing to just say that war and conflict doesn’t end no matter what choice you make, but it also just generally feels like you accomplish little when you beat the route big bad, but there’s not a real resolution.

Now while I think Edelgard became much more interesting character in Hopes, I feel like she also gets a worse treatment. Having things like Hagemon Husk and mind control forced on her really feels like its limp wristlet trying to avoid her doing her most ambitious acts, and generally not addressing her and Those who slither in a satisfying way and once again just focusing her sights on Rhea. I have never been a fan of Thales’s influence on the plot and boy it doesn’t becoming any clearer in this game. Scarlet Blaze again feels incomplete with Tharles and Rhea just doing themselves in feels extremely unsatisfying. And before you think I am picking on Edelgard, trust me I have words for all the lords. There was a lot of people upset with Claude in Golden Wildfire seemingly being so bent on killing Rhea as that was the only way to fix the system. While many have already pointed out how that is wrong and basically his own ending proves that conflict doesn’t just end when one figure head is taken out, I actually do think this showed an interesting thing about the perception of 3H characters. Claude is often called a schemer, but we don’t really see him take any duplicitous actions beyond not reveal his racial background. He’s honestly a pretty open guy, but one willing to be very observational which sets him apart from the very single minded Edelgard and Dimitri. However, Wildfire does make Claude much more manipulative in his actions with Edelgard and his murder of Rhea. But many found this out of character as it seemed as Claude is the one who always found another way. I think overall, Golden Wildfire is fine, but once again, it playing with a different Claude and I think that will effect some people.

And now we get to Dimitri. Who I think got the worst of it all. Dimitri is quite literally down a character arc. I like intro of actually feuding with his uncle, there’s definitely manipulation by Cornelia, but if you know 3H, Rufus has a bit of a point in his fear of Dimitri. But that really never comes. Boar Dimitri is primarily absent and we honestly lose the best part of his character journey, needing to learn his vengeance isn’t going to fix the issues his people are facing. That he must take that anger and make a better Faerghus as king. Im not against maintaining sane Dimitri, but it really feels like Azure Gleam is objectively trying to be the good route. Multiple characters like Miklan get a redemption, the Church sides with Faerghus, Claude and Dimitri ally with not manipulation by Claude, Edelgard is made into a puppet and saved by her adoptive brother and left in a state she is no longer a threat, and he still has his close friend in Shez. Like literally, Dimitri gets everything he wants with his mental issues never being an obstacle. 

Some have theorized that this was intentionally, this was the team creating a deconstruction of the concept of the golden route. That secretly everything happened is bad. But I don’t believe this theory. I believe due to Dimitri being the most popular lord, we saw a route where a lot of his edges were sanded down to give the player a more dream-like, almost Kaga era, style story of noble people over coming noble problems and magic bad guys in black robes was the real evil. Dimitri was already subversive of the standard Fire Emblem lord, he is Sigurd or Chrom that thinks powering your way through will make things right and then needs to be told that how he has acted is wrong. He went to edge and needed to be pulled back. And if not, he will ultimately die.

And speaking of characters, Sothis’s sudden change is... again not that well done. I like the idea of Sothis controlled Byleth and it works for Shez’s story, but its also super disconnected from any church stuff so it feels like another missed opportunity.

And of course there is the game play issues. For a musou game to be this many chapters, its generally monotonous. Some people love it and will never get sick of it, but I will admit when I am on my 3rd play through of the game, I was feeling like I had scene Shez’s ultimate attack a hundred times by that point.

So did I hate this game? no not really. Its an FE spin off game with completely different play style, the only thing I can compare it to is the last FEW which it is a lot better than. I don’t think Hopes and Houses should be treated as linked, they are clearly different takes on the same concept. I think I found myself liking Hopes when it pandered to me already knowing the characters. But I honestly still think Houses was the better way to experience these characters for all the faults I have with it. 

Overall, it is a not worth full price title, but I can’t say its awful. I think what it tries to do is commendable and if you just want more time with the Fodlan kids, I think you will love this. But I just can’t say I liked it myself. 

Since I asked about your favourite 3H characters, who are your top 10 least favourite characters or characters that you absolutely hate?

Uhhh I’mma go ahead and tag this one out as discourse, because yes I do hate Edelgard. But at the same time I usually do my best to either not just spam Edelgard hate (besides my anti-Edelgard posts for FEH, which I actually feel is pretty valid because I’ve had so many people agree with me that Edelgard gets a stupid amount of favoritism in FEH; even people who LIKE Edelgard agree with me), and I do respect people’s opinions for liking Edelgard, even if I vehemently disagree with it.

So with that being said, I’ll list my least favorite/hated characters for 3H. Some I hate for character/story reasons, and at least one I hate for gameplay reasons (though I like him as a character). These will also be in no particular order but number one is definitely number one.

Edelgard. Won’t elaborate because I’m not here to start arguments.

Kronya. She killed Jeralt so she can eat shit >:(

Hubert. I get he’s filling the role of retainer, but man the shit he pulls and how he treats other people… he’s the exact opposite of Dedue.

Yuri. I admit to probably over-exaggerating how bad of a person Yuri is, but he still comes off as super annoying to me. He’s just not very personable or friendly, which isn’t a problem by itself but it’s more that you’re SUPPOSED to like him despite being all nonchalant all the time. And I really don’t.

Byleth. Yes, I don’t like the main character of Three Houses themselves; Shez was better executed as a character. Byleth is quite fully a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. Everyone’s infatuated with them, they’re practically undefeatable and don’t really have much to learn or grow from, they almost never make any kind of mistake, and they carry Sothis’s blood and crest; these aren’t necessarily an issue on their own, but altogether it makes for an incredibly boring character. And they’re so bland and expressionless.

Gilbert. I don’t hate him for his story, or his character. I think he’s great in those regards!… No, it’s because THIS MOTHERFUCKER is an IDIOT in Chapter 5. Runs right in range where the archers are located without moving into a safer position. There is no plausible way to keep this dipshit alive in Maddening Mode.

Sothis. I don’t HATE her, but I am definitely sick of her “incomplete” form. We should have had her regain her memories and become an adult again, that could have resolved SO many plot issues that were left open-ended, like with Rhea and maybe Nemesis and TWSitD. Maybe someday we’ll get Ascended Sothis in her original form from the mural.

Mathias. I ENJOY his story. I ENJOY the role he plays. Between the stalwart nobles and royalty that is Lambert, Rodrigue, and Gilbert, Mathias is the exact dark underside of the crest system that Dimitri believes is unjust. That being said, it’s still pretty fucked up how he treated both Sylvain and Miklan, and he’s decently responsible for how Miklan turned out (not to say that Miklan deserves no blame for his choices, he absolutely does. He willingly made his own choice of being a brigand and treating Sylvain like shit).

Dorothea. This one I’m mixed on because I don’t hate her or even strongly dislike her. But if there’s one thing I really don’t like about her, it’s how she gets really creepily seductive, especially in the Byleth supports. And in Ingrid’s support she straight up tells Ingrid she’s gonna physically sexually harass her (and she’s already verbally harassed her). Which is kind of stupid considering how gross she feels when people only view her for her physical beauty. So yeah, to some degree I dislike her enough to put her on this list.

Monica, actual Monica from Three Hopes. I’ve already mentioned how her character is poorly written into being yet ANOTHER character who ass-pats Edelgard for no plausible reason in the other routes. If Dimitri or Claude are the ones who save her in their respective routes, why is she so strictly loyal to Edelgard? Especially considering how Edelgard was fully aware of the Kronya plan in Three Houses which means she essentially let her die for her cause. I’ll never understand it.

That’s pretty much my whole list, this time I had to include Three Hopes because I actually wouldn’t have had ten characters otherwise for the list. And it goes without saying but this is obviously my subjective opinion and I respect that these are people’s favorite characters.

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the thing edelgard and dimitri have story wise is outside of their own routes theyend up falling to their personal darkness dimitri ends up falling ot the "boar king" problem edelgard ends up having to rely on agarthians and becoming colder and harsher than she was before byleth acted as a light saving them in the route where they are the main heroes ( and rhea in cf goes out of control and her worst issues excaberating while in other routes she spends 5 years out of power 1/2

being forced to think about what she has done (and I imagine edelgard would visit and talk to her to get information when she took garegg mach she scrounged as much information as possible and tried to decipher the truth behind all the stuff the church hid) 2/2

What is even the point of this? I'm sure you copied this from somewhere, distinctive misspelling and all.

Also, the parallel doesn't work with Dimitri in CF because he's sane there, either because he didn't have a full psychotic break (more likely, because Dedue is there) or because he underwent his character development offscreen. I really don't know how there's wanky discourse that seems to miss this completely, when the game even provides an easy visual shorthand for his clear-sightedness in his lack of an eyepatch. Then again, these same people frequently act as though Dimitri is raging and vengeful all through AM and never undergoes his character development, so you're clearly just ignoring portions of the game that you don't like.

You'd be in good company with the Khalidstans; they ignore large chunks of Claude's development where he learns to sympathize with Rhea, and think IS is racist for writing that.

A Minor dispute.

Put it behind you. Deal with it.

No, this isn't related to devoted fans and their discourse lol (even if i had to take a jab at them with the title lol)

Ike: I have to ask, Sephiran. What are you after? What’s this all about? Sephiran: Why do you wish to know? You would achieve nothing by learning my reasons. You would help no one. I lost faith in lesser beings, and desire an end to them. That’s all. Ike: So why did you save me on that day? Sephiran: May I ask you a favor, Ike? Tell me how you feel about it now. Can you bear recalling those horrific memories? Ike: Yes… I’m fine, now. But I suppose at the time I wouldn’t have been able to take it. Sephiran: All beings endure tragedies for as long as they continue to live. It has always been the case that suffering is unavoidable. And this grim reality plays out over and over, in every country, under every ruler… As long as there are beings who feel, they will feel pain. Ike: So what? We should all just give in and die? Put it behind you. Deal with it. Sephiran: Do not make light of this… Ike: I’m not. Sephiran, I’m extremely grateful that you once helped me through a terrible time. But we have to accept that occasionally we all have to deal with hard times. I’ve had pain, I’ve had suffering, and I have gotten up and moved on. I don’t try to forget what happened that day. I just accept it… And neither that or anything else will ever stop me. Sephiran: You are a strong man, Ike, son of Gawain. But not everyone is as strong as you…

This scene is unlocked if you've seen Ike's FB.

Of course, Ike here doesn't know the fuck he is talking about, as he later expresses by wondering why Sephiran is suddenly called Lehran (maybe if the game left Miccy/Yune talk to him before the start of the map, instead of letting him do all the convo it would have been different?).

So, in a way, it isn't as callous as Ike telling Lehran to put the genocide of his people "behind him" or to "deal with it", because he doesn't know what Sephiran is talking about.

But in a way, I have the feeling if Claude or Petra told Dedue to "put the massacre of his family" behind him or to "deal with it", Claude or Petra would have received a certain amount of shit, even if, when they would have said those, they wouldn't have known what the fuck Dedue went through.

Anyways, Ike later learns what, or who, Sephiran is, and talks to him. Maybe he will apologise for his callous words, spoken when he didn't realise what he was talking about ?

Ike: Sephiran... I mean, Lehran... Lehran: I can't apologize enough. I was so terribly mistaken, and now there's nothing I can do to help. Ike: Don't worry. Lehran: What? Ike: Wanting to do something that matters is enough. Sometimes, how you feel is more important than how you act. Lehran: Ike I... there's no one that I think more highly of... Ike: No time for compliments. We still have work to do here. Lehran: Yes... yes we do.

Lehran apologises for having wanted to destroy the world (and drops Altina in a trashcan because Ike is now the person he thinks the most highly of!) - and in the general scale of things, yes, Sephiran has much to apologise for, so he better start pulling his weight and try to make up for having tried to kill everyone.

But the "your people were genocided? No biggie, deal with it!" is completely ignored - or it is, again, another example of Ike talking shit and the game convoluting himself to make sure he never faces any consequences, even if, in this situation, the consequence would just have been an apology, like the one he gave to, iirc, Mordecai and Lethe after calling him subhumans but not realising calling someone "subhuman" was insulting.

Sure, the line he gives after the fight against Sephiran still holds value :

Ike: If death is what you really want, then I’m not going to let it happen on my watch. I don’t care what you’ve gone through. I don’t care how much you’ve suffered. What you’ve done is unforgivable.

It's not because you suffered, or went through the worst humankind can offer, that you can inflict the same on people!

When Lords like Marth, Seliph, Leif, Roy, Eirika, even Elincia try to understand people and what led them to act as they did - without ever giving excuses or wondering if they could walk with their respective antagonists - Ike here refuses to understand, and only condemns.

Is it because Ike isn't a Lord, so he isn't concerned with some general "making sure this situation never happens again"?

But then, he is the one to say those :

“But, even the dumbest creatures will love their family, their friends and… even love others. They will all have things that they can’t afford to lose.” “We know that we’ve messed up. We’ll do our best to avoid more war and to make peace our highest priority. Ashera, just give us one more chance. All we ask is for one more chance.” “You were like a mother to all of life– Your children still require a mother like you. When you watch over us, we don’t always do things that make you happy and sometimes we even disappoint you. Still, I think we would like you to continue watching over us. How about it?” “We all need to work hard to accept each other. As long as we don’t try and run away from our mistakes, then I’m sure we’ll be able to see each other again one day.”

How can you do you "best" to avoid more wars, if you don't even understand why the current one started, or don't care about the reasons that led the fucker who started this current war to, well, start it?

How can we talk about acceptance if we don't "care" about what the others live through?

So, on top of writing a check his ass can't cash - since he will leave Tellius and not be there to "avoid wars" or make sure people "accept each other" after promising the goddesses "we" will exactly do that - Ike's words here are empty.

-> In a nutshell, Ike reveals with those battle quotes and conversations that he is not ruler/leader material - but we knew that since RD's start since we followed Miccy and Elincia - and more importantly isn't the kind of person asking "why" things happen, they just happen but somehow everything will work out when it will happen again - because the why, or the cause, wasn't identified - and I think it's a perfectly fitting answer for the Tellius Saga and the larger Branded "issue" : we will never know why it happens, it just happens.

(can we say the epilogue, with Ashunera returning, is an ultimate "fuck you" to Ike's empty promises at the end of this chapter, since it starts with another war happening in the background?)

---

Back to that nonsense of a battle convo, I find it really interesting how Ike is basically thanking Sephiran for having wiped his memory when he was a child, to help him "deal" with the fact he witnessed his father stab his mother, because at that time (when he was a kid), he wouldn't have been able to deal with it.

But then, Ike tells Sephiran to "deal with" the tragedies he witnessed and lived through...

After thanking him for sparing him the "deal with it" step- he now asks Sephiran to take - when he was a child.

WTF?

Ike explains how he is thankful, but he ultimately had to "got up" and "move on" from the pain, and accept it. And that's precisely the point, Ike managed to take on that pain, "get up and move on" thanks to Sephiran's own meddling and help - else, by his own admission, he wouldn't have been able to "take it".

But now, he asks Sephiran to take his pain, without any magic amnesia to help, and deal with it?

And while I hate the idea of trauma olympics, grown-up Ike (even in POR) can now deal with the fact his dad killed his mother thanks to Lehran's magic amnesia - but he tells Lehran to deal with and get over - 1) the genocide of his tribe, 2) assassination of his great (etc) granddaughter because she had his blood, 3) the loss of his powers for a crap reason and the knowledge that laguz are bound to "die" if they mingle too much with beorcs as he personally witnessed it, 4) severe depression after realising he is not a laguz anymore but not even a beorc since beorcs will use pitchforks at him even if they regarded him 10 seconds before as sage, and the rest of Tellius' general fuckery? - without magic amnesia or plot hax?

Reyson was very close to pull something similar in FE9 when he tried to erase people in the Forest using "ancient magic", but abandoned the idea when Leanne was found - if PoR!Ike learnt that, would he have told Reyson to "get over" the heron genocide and Naesala's betrayal?

Of course not, because I'm pretty sure Ike knows, before meeting Reyson and even picking Leanne, what happened in Serenes.

And in RD, when he says those words, he doesn't know (but he later will!) that Sephiran is a heron.

Tl;Dr :

Supreme Leader's "minor dispute" is frowned upon by everyone, even if she might genuinely not know about what Nemesis did that made Rhea so enraged, in a doylist reading, Supreme Leader is a character who ignores a genocide to push her own specist agenda.

Doylist reading of that RD scene is, Ike telling Sephiran to man up and deal/get over the genocide of his people - but unlike Supreme Leader, when he comes to learn the truth of Sephiran's despair, he dgaf.

Thankfully, this scene is only triggered if Sephiran survives, so Ike can later explain his behaviour : he doesn't care what kind of suffering Sephiran endured, since nothing justifies what he was trying to do (kill everyone).

Even if the thing he should care, but doesn't want to, is, for part, a genocide.

I feel a bit dissatisfied with the golden wildfire ending like I don't wanna spoil but that's how it ends??? The cutscene was cool but thats it? There's no definitive end like.

I'm hoping since GW was my first route I'll get closure for its ending in other routes but that seems unlikely like overall I enjoyed the route and thought it was cool the ending just doesn't seem to fit like the final battle should've been the 2nd last battle in my opinion or there should of been more clear cut dialogue afterwards.

Spoilers under the cut since I'm struggling to articulate my point while being vague. (it also turned into a rant about GW/Claude so heads up)

Like the ending is just like okay Leicester beats Rhea no more central church influence, Claude proposes an end to the fighting and it is yet to be seen whether or not Dimitri and Edelgard will agree. Like that doesn't seem satisfying at all or even conclusive tbh. It would've been cool for a scene of dialogue where Claude is helping Dimitri and Edelgard broker peace between their two nations as well as his own for the benefit of everyone.

Now again to reiterate I did quite enjoy the story as a whole I just wish there was a more resolved ending. I thought it was interesting to see Claude's portrayal throughout this route, siding with Edelgard was something unexpected but an interesting angle to take since we're led to believe in order to get him on side Edelgard shared what she knew of the Church and about those that slither in the dark.

I'm seeing a fair bit of discourse over Claude in this game (the whole clyde thing in the tags) and while I do feel 3 houses Claude would have never done what three hopes Claude did, its an alternate universe. A retelling of the story with different key moments for its characters.

In both universes Claude is shaped by events from the point of meeting Shez or Byleth. So as far as I see it of course Claude isn't going to be the exact same as he's been influenced by very different events. His ambitions and dreams while still the same have to be achieved through different means. So he's going to be different. So yes while I did compare and contrast Claude in three hopes to Claude in three houses I personally don't think there's anything horrifically bad about his portrayal in three hopes.

Now of course this is my opinion and if people disagree cool beans thats fair we're all allowed to and entitled to that. This just my accidental two cents cause I did not mean to go on like this but ah well XD

@emblemxeno

I feel like if you look at Engage, while not mentioning her the game is pretty good to Rhea. As I mentioned before, Byleth's trial theme song uses tracks that associate it with Silver Snow. Song of the Nabateans, pointing to Byleth's draconic heritage, Edge of Dawn, a song that depicts Byleth and Edelgard's relationship as they end up as enemies and isn't used in it's full version in Flower, and Paths that Shall Never Cross, referring to Byleth and Edelgard goin their separate ways.

This is all associated with a Byleth that's held in the same esteem as Revelations-Corrin and True Ending Roy, in addition to every other past FE lord.

While the House Leaders do get their bracelet, they don't get much else. No paralogue chapter like the other DLC emblems, nor do they show up in the xenologue. Nothing, just a cutscene where we get them for free. Considering how the Cipher card that came with Houses in Japan mentions that it's your story, it's ultimately Engage saying that the game is Byleth's story above all else. Not Claude's, not Dimitri's and not Edelgard's, Byleth's.

Edelgard also says that the three lords protected their worlds, but anyone who has played Houses would see that her route goes in the other direction, working with TWSITD, killing/exiling the other lords and killing Rhea. What Edelgard did to protect the world is the exact opposite of those routes, so who really protected the world?

Hopes uses Nemesis as the big bad for Fodlan, not Rhea. Nemesis, who Edelgard makes out to be this champion of humanity, is the one held to the same level as Loptyr, Grima, Ashera, Duma... Nemesis was the bad guy, Rhea killed a bad guy and Edelgard killed her while praising the villain. Claude's route is the one that tackled the supposed big bad therefore it's the one more in-line with past FE heroes, and by extension Dimitri and Byleth's routes. They're the ones who protected the world, Edelgard instead goes on to conquer it when not stopped by them.

Even how we get Byleth's ring calls back to Silver Snow. Hortensia was an academy student, a princess borne of a concubine, her father was manipulated by Sombron's forces into doing their work, her former classmates defect to the Divine Dragon's side and she does as well in the end even if it means fighting against her former country. Compare this to Edelgard, who joins the academy, is a princess borne of a concubine, implications Ionius was a puppet for TWSITD to push Edelgard into stating the war to kill their ancient enemy, her classmates defect in Silver Snow despite fighting against their homeland and possibly their own families while Edelgard...continues attacking the rest of the continent using the monsters that were once men TWSITD provided her. Her own version of the Corrupted. Bonus point is that Hortensia prides herself on being a "cute" girl, while Edelgard's depth comes from her both being a violent conqueror...and a cute girl.

If anything, Hortensia went down the path Edelgard refused to do, hence why she's a hero in the end.

Lumeria being a dragon living at the center of the continent, worshiped as divine? GOOD GUY. Doesn't matter that she did something to Alear that changed them, it saved Alear's life and not treated as a bad thing. Alear's hair changing color is also seen as a good thing, with it returning to it's natural red is the bad ending. Meritocracy isn't so good when people are tossed away for not serving their master well enough, people without merit being labelled as defects.

If anything Engage, a game meant to celebrate the franchise, shows for out-of-line Flower is from the franchise. It's everything players have fought against in the past, while other routes are held up to the same standard as past heroes. Doesn't really surprise me Houses discourse hasn't died down after Engage, Engage made Edelgard look like shit.

Especially compared to Hortensia.

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