Three Hopes has got me reflecting on my time with Three Houses and while I love the game to death, I still can’t get over how much missed potential I think Silver Snow had as a route. Rhea is a really fascinating and tragic character who is crucial to the game’s backstory, and whose past struggles with TWSITD and her grief-stricken desire to see her mother again makes for really intriguing parallels with both Dimitri and Edelgard. She could easily have carried a route in the same way Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude do. Plus, imagine how sick it would have been to play as her, as Seiros? Likewise, whether you love her or hate her, the Byleth vs. Edelgard conflict could have had so much emotional impact. This is the route where Byleth spent ten ingame months bonding with Edelgard as a student and friend, coming to understand her past struggles, fears and ideals, only to be horrified to learn how far she really means to go in pursuit of those ideals and siding against her. That kind of teacher vs. wayward student storyline has the potential to be incredibly intense, especially since all the other Black Eagles are also taking a stand against their former classmate.  Yet when you play the actual thing, Byleth and Edelgard only get two scenes together (one of which gets recycled in Verdant Wind where it has far less impact), and Rhea is kidnapped and offscreen for most of the route, so that fascinating character arc only gets addressed properly at the very end after an out of nowhere final boss (and this assuming you met the criteria so that Rhea actually lives and completes that character arc). All while it becomes painfully clear that Byleth just isn’t a defined enough character to carry a route by themselves.  I know why this is the case, mind. I know Three Houses was kind of rushed, I just think this could have been so much cooler.