I am gonna be honest I really don't get how people don't understand Crest have nothing to do with being nobles, it's literaly the whole reason behind Mercedes's and Emile's tragic story, that their father who didn't had a crest wanted to marry Mercedes because she had one like her Mother so his children can inherit the Crest of Lamine.

On a side note, I do think that even if Rhea didn't created the Crest system it would have happened with or without her, Crest are superpowers that are rare and humans either worship like a god or treat as a witch people who have special power, I wouldn't believe for a second that left out as is in nature people who have Crest wouldn't try to rule over the other anyway or wouldn't be treated like aberrations.

Hm...

Mercie's mom had a crest and was a nobody, which could be married off to a bastard : aka, despite her crest, Mercie's mom wasn't a noble who was able to say big F to potential "suitors" who were supposed to be beneath her in status since they had no crest themselves.

Constance (and what's left of her fam?) were demoted to nothing and sent to the sewers in Garreg Mach, even if Constance comes from a prestigious family that got a crest from a Saint.

As you said, regardless of nobility wanting to pretend to have "better blood" than the pleb, Crests are superpowers, which would always be sought afer.

The games does it best to avoid talking about the tangible and objective benefits of having a crest - when we see Dimitri crush a man as easily as a snowball in a cutscene - but imo, it's part of Fodlan's DNA, try to spin a very objective and no-solution conflicts (you have a world with two races, and one has superpowers compared to the other, how does it work?) to artificial lip-service and copious amounts of smokescreens.

For something that was only alluded to but completely ignored because otherwise both Nopes and Houses fall apart - Seteth tells Yuri in their Nopes support how it is rumoured that an Elite was cured from an "incurable" disease after getting a crest...

Admitting this is remotely true to what happened in Zanado, does it justifiy the subsequent massacre and genocide? Dominic might die in 2 days if he doesn't kill a Nabatean, was he "right" or justified in killing the Nabatean who became Crusher and drinking their blood?

If humans are envious for good or bad reasons of the Nabateans' powers, what is going to happen when a Nabatean would refuse to share said power ? Are the humans justified in trying to steal it? Are Nabateans asses when they refuse to "lend it" to humans?

This game tries its hardest to avoid blaming the usual trifecta of human greed/assholishness/lust (for power!) as the reason why the world doesn't go round, and blame everything on... blue eyes, that can somehow shoot lasers too.

Of course someone with in-built lasers would be better seen/more valued than someone who hasn't the same lasers, but bar the milquetoast "we should try to accept everyone!", what is the specific answer to the Gautier border issue - crest means the border is defended, no crest and no plot hax means it isn't - should the defender of the border be the crested kid or the non crested-kid?

Nopes!Sylvains finds a loophole and replies with "we won't need to defend the border if we're not at war with Sreng anymore", and it's a nice solution, honestly. I like it. It makes for a bright perspective, of a future where, if everyone play their part, Crests won't be "needed" anymore.

But when it comes to using the power of a crest to heal, will you go to Manu, who cannot heal someone who has a cancer, or to Flayn, who can, if you suddenly learn you have one?

"Just develop chemiotherapy!"

Yes but I'm dying - who should I go to?

Imo, Crust System is used both in fandom and in-game to avoid mentionning the existence of super humans (or non humans if we want to stay close to Supreme Leader's words) and the inevitable jealousy/envy their existence creates/causes in humans, who cannot help but seek after the power they have.

I feel sad because when I first played 3h and finished with GW, I was so happy and it felt like it was going to be one of my favorite FE games, maybe one kf NY favorites of all games. I loved all of the GD crew, the maps looked gorgeous, and the thematic of that story being breaking down the walls of tradition to embrace others deeply resonated with me. I loved AM very similarly, CF not so much. But what makes me sad is the more I think about the game and read about all the sloppy writing mistakes that I didn't notice or think about, the more I can't really claim its a favorite of mine anymore. Sorry if this is a bad place to vent, but my venture into the discourse of this game really killed what I once thought of a great story.

No, don't worry, I love salt!

I think FE16 had a long honeymoon, and now all those small things we didn't care about are suddenly much more important, or we're not wearing googles anymore.

Coupled with a lot of devoted fans spreading nonsense after nonsense everywhere - inviting people to look closer at the script - and we end up with this weird fandom, where everything was consumed in around 3 years, with a lot of "us vs them" mentality coming from redshit and other spheres.

Is the fandom dead? I don't know. I don't think so, people are still engaging with AUs, making fanarts and all (even if some people still have to diss on a character because she ate their pet or something), there are "meta" posts, or just people talking about things they like.

However, discourse really poisoned the story and the game, because you cannot talk to people due to the "us vs them" mentality from Redshit, which permeated (thanks epsilon!) through SF, Twitter (it has always been a hell hole) and even some corners of Tumblr. Fanfic? Transformative works have always been transformative, and no one writes canon - but for 10 "Rhea bakes cookies for the children" fics you have 87 951 "Rhea eats babies and is a homophobe and wanted to kill Billy who is always a woman" fics. Draco in Leatherpants has always been a thing, but to this magnitude? I will never pretend to have the only valable reading/characterisation on a character, but damn if only reading Ao3 makes me believe I'm completely out of my game regarding some characters. The Aeneid is a must-read, and shits on so many characters - and yet characterisation from The Aeneid is copied and pasted in other fics like, are you writing fics based on canon, or based on... The Aeneid (and NoA's FE16) ?

FE16's story is boring and not engaging - save for AM, because of the very interpersonnal nature of Dimitri's story, Claude's story promised things, it ends on a positive note but... I was left expecting more. Will Claude really be able to build this world? Will he face difficulties ? What about traditions that are worth keeping, will he throw them away? I don't know. I wish we had more about this than an ending card.

I disagree about Tru Piss though, it's like reading the posts from a Twitter parody account. You're not supposed to believe it, or if you do, then it's just for the lols or you're perfectly aware this is the "trap" route, as in you thought you were going to save the world? Psyche! Your goal has always been to topple Fodlan to Make Adrestia Great Again! Even if you never knew it.

I won't say FE16 doesn't take itself seriously like Awakening, it tries to be serious, too serious, that's why a good punchline like Tru Piss works perfectly.

Ultimately, if they release the Elibe bundle, we will return to a "complete" game, where people hired a continuity guy and where the most important issue is not to make the player happy, but to tell a story in an engaging way.

For what it's worth, if you want to talk about the story you're welcome here, I'm don't reply that fast, but I'm trying!