#blue lions ily but goddamn you have NO fucking clue of what's going on behind the scenes in fe3h
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ok wait sitting on the arval stuff more (three hopes spoilers riu dni)
also i havent done the arval paralogue bcuz like. on god i'm not replaying this game rn cuz i will get burnout so bad
also this was the recruit byleth route on azure gleam so. again i am NOT replaying immediatly because i like the game but i also like myself.
ok ok so i think arval eventually betraying shez was set up really well actually.
the game does a good slowburn job of setting up that at some point shez just doesn't care abt defeating byleth anymore.
shez and arval initially are united in purpose, partners in destiny, but when shez joins one of the houses and becomes an important commander in a war, their personal revenge starts appearing insignificant to them and is eventually outweighed by their newfound trust and love for their friends.
additionally as they realize the connection arval and their power holds to those who slither in the dark, they grow afraid of their own power. the power they got from arval.
in azure gleam (and other routes similarly, probably) their fear grows so intense after unveiling how much tragedy those who slither brought into their friends' lives that they ask dimitri to strike them down should they ever turn their blade against their friends.
and, yknow, shez themself wouldnt just kill their friends willy-nilly. "if i ever turn my blade on you" actually means "if arval ever turns my blade on you." by making this request they acknowledge the possibility arval would do this.
whereas shez's drive for revenge fades, arval's only intensifies. arval's wrath drives a further wedge between them and shez, who starts to feel horror at arval's intent.
arval likely regained some degree of their memory when byleth went sothis mode, as seen by how fucking mad they got even before truly becoming epimenides again.
so like yeah this plot development was well-foreshadowed. and i think the map where you fight shez slaps. absolutely banger moment.
howeverrrrr. after that. i can accept epimenides banishing the three lords to the shadow realm as a cost-cutting measure because every route needs to resolve the arval plot and it would be hard to justify doing it differently three times so whatever. have a convergence point i dont care.
BUT. arval accepts becoming epimenides as their destiny. "i was always meant to become you," they say. but like? shez doesn't? shez never seems to acknowledge that the arval they know is gone. this is why i expected arval to show up again! bcuz. shez doesnr accept that they are the one who killed arval.
throughout the endgame they will still occasionally reference arval as their friend and like. pretend talk to arval in a more "if you could see me now" type of way but
epimenides makes it pretty clear that they (epimenides refers to themself as a man so did arval legit just forget their own gender? arval has so much transgender swag) don't really value shez and them calling shez their partner in destiny just felt like mockery to be honest. like oh you're not doing what i want so i'm gonna take over your body against your will you peon fuck you. that's the vibe on epimenides.
and then you gotta ask yourself how much arval actually valued shez for them to just become epimenides without a fight? without hesitation? cuz yknow typically in stories like this the power of friendship will snap whoever out of it which is what happens to shez but not to arval. arval just accepts what they've become and they die for it. the end. fin.
again!!! arval accepts this!! shez doesn't! it's such a weird dissonance. ig it's kinda subversive that power of friendship doesn't actually save arval but it still feels like a rugpull.
also suuuuper bad taste in my mouth from the azure gleam ending where like. thales and epimenides and all those slither guys talk about purifying the world from beasts right? reclaiming their rightful home above the surface by killing sothis? and at the end rhea says that she will purify the land by killing those who slither in the dark.
so it's like. both sides r the same. and the implication that sothis is the one who banished the agarthans to shamballah or wherever to let humans live in fodlan instead is. eh. everyone is the hero of their own story ig.
maybe i just dont know enough abt fe3h deeplore (<- has only played blue lions routes bcuz replaying academy phase gave him burnout and he hasnt picked three houses up since)
anyway this is just my experience. and my opinion
tldr: tho arval's betrayal is set-up really good and the first half of it is epic the actual fight against epimenides feels lacking because of how differently shez and arval feel about the situation with no attempt by the narrative to reconcile this dissonance.
#feli speaks#few3h#take a shot everytime i finish a video game and immediatly make a ramble essay abt ir#maybe i will actually play another route of three houses. and finally get like. lore#blue lions ily but goddamn you have NO fucking clue of what's going on behind the scenes in fe3h#the story is GOOD in how it hones in specifically on dimitri's development and that OWNS i love it but it does come at the cost#of the big picture stuff#'whoops ig el turned into a demon. time to kill her with no context!'
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