#no matter the era humans will ditch agarthans to worship Sothis lol | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

randomnameless · 4 months

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I think there's another element that just screams why Wilhelm's meritocracy failed. Nemesis and the Elites weren't just viewed as heroes, their weapons were viewed as sacred and people followed their example by killing and stealing to increase their own power. The Empire were viewed as zealots by their people, people which Wilhelm then took into his power. These people believed in an ideology that seems to have viewed Agarthans as gods, their belief systems are going to align with that ideology and while some might have bent the knee and some might have fled, others might have just paid lip service to the new religion in order to maintain their own power (much like Lorenz says they do in the present).

This whole discussion also seems to make what Wilhelm did not much better than Edelgard's "I'll conquer lands and kill any leaders who don't bend the knee," and irony is coming to bite Rhea in the ass by a descendant who champions the same beliefs she fought against But on the other hand, their intents were different. Wilhelm wanted unification to end the bloodshed and stealing, bringing peace to Fodlan. Edelgard broke the peace to bring those ways back and increase her own power, completing the moral decline and becoming everything the Empire was supposed to be against.

TBF,

Both Wilhelm and Supreme Leader start wars of conquest, so there are some similarities, but as you said, intent was different.

Which might explain why there were - if we follow this theory/hc - why there was no civil war in WoH Adrestia, when Tru Piss ends up with dealing with "unrest", in the Tru Piss situation, instead of appointing Leopold as the governer of Leicester, Willy could have appointed Gloucester Sr and conscripted part of his troops in the Adrestian War Effort.

The "bend the knee or die" behaviour from Supreme Leader comes from her wish to be the only, well, "Supreme Leader" of Fodlan and/or as explained in FE16, try to replace Sothis/the CoS in Fodlan by herself.

I guess in the WoH's situation, it was either "side with us or with nemesis", with the added twist that siding with Nemesis meant being an inherent threat to Adrestia (if might makes right), the CoS's teachings and Nabateans themselves - I'd say Willy was paranoiac but who wouldn't be if they had to deal with this situation : siding with Nemesis means possibly learning how to make Relics and that's, imo in this theory, the one thing Wilhelm wants to avoid at all costs.

Like, siding with Nemesis would have meant those people want to continue to kill/pillage/burn because "they're strong so they can do it", and possibly turn against Wilhelm's trusted allies (if not more! like, possibly, his own son!) to turn them in shiny weapons to become even "stronger".

In the end, it doesn't matter, because subjugation is subjugation, but if Willy doesn't want to MAGA - or isn't as obsessed with it as his most well-known scion - but only to kill Nemesis and make Fodlan a peaceful land where Nabateans can exist, I could see Adrestian occupation being "lighter" then, say, what happens in Firdhiad during AM.

Thinking about this though, I wonder if Rhea mediating and ackowledging the Kingdom's existence isn't a way to "make up" for Willy's subjugation - sure maybe he wasn't the one to consider northerners as subhumans, but this situation still happened because Adrestia conquered those lands and those people - and restoring their autonomy to those people, with, of course, the constant presence of the Church to "guide" them in the right course of action, and not start to, again, kill/pillage/burn because they're stronger and maybe find the sleeping Cethleann to vivisect her.

Of course it's ironic, because even with the Western Church, it's the Kingdom who supports and helps her and more or less adopted Willy's ideas about what a noble should be (not someone holing themselves in the capital!) when Adrestia fell apart in 7 years !

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Willy's conquest is fascinating to me, because no matter how hard I try to spin it, there's still the issue - not tackled by the Fodlan games of course - of Nabateans and Relics : humans, during the WoH, know how to craft Relics, and what material they should use (I doubt Rhea'n'the Saints used hair dye for fun) - how do you remove this "knowledge" from humans, especially the ones following Nemesis who were depicted as greedy and power hungry?

Even if he might have had the best intentions (restore peace to the land, and support the Nabateans) Wilhelm had to deal with this issue -> which ultimately led to the "bend the knee (and remain ignorant about relics) or (possibly learn how to make relics and) die", it sucks, but it might have been the solution he found to solve this riddle.

So, in a way, given how the Empire was founded on a "bend the knee or die" as all Empires are, imo, Adrestia was bound to decline, even if I think Nabatean influence would have slowed it tremendously, and, say, made Enbarrites not consider Northeners as livestock (so maybe everyone could have coexisted "peacefully" a bit longer).

As for the people who joined Willy (thus bent the knee) -

Given how Adrestia at inception was nothing and the Empire had no Relics nor crested kickass warriors like Nemesis (sure, Seiros is a thing, but there's 1 Seiros and 4 Saints for 11 Elites and Nemesis!), I wonder if the people who joined Adrestia at first weren't joining the "weakest" horse, thus had to let go of their "might makes right" motto.

I also think the CoS helped a lot to smoothen things between conqueror and conquered - maybe by offering relief and helping rebuild the conquered lands, something that would be impossible in Nemesis' land (why the winners, aka, the strong, help the weak?) - and the Empire banked on the CoS's good PR to be more easily accepted by the people?

As for the ones who paid lip service, well, they might have existed lol, but I'd say, learning Nemesis keeps on losing (even if he is the strongest) when he's fighting someone who doesn't even have a relic (tfw people think Wilhelm is the one fighting Nemesis and not Rhea!) might have made them reconsider the Agarthan's pov and what they were really believing in - if Gods gave Nemesis'n'co their weapons, why is a loser like Wilhelm, not blessed by the same "gods", able to defeat them?

Maybe the God from the Seiros Faith is stronger than the Gods who blessed Nemesis? So the Seiros Faith is the real deal?

#fantasyinvader #Fodlan AU #War of heroes stuff #pre imperial era #sort of #adrestia stuff #no matter the era humans will ditch agarthans to worship Sothis lol #even if Willy might have wanted to conquer the world for more selfish reasons like Supreme Leader #he still had to deal with people knowing about relics and nabateans #if lycaon is rhea's kid then it's doubly a priority #he wants to win because nemesis is an asshole to bring peace to the land #but also to hide the truth about relics else Lycaon will be torn apart and turned in a pair of daggers #given how the kid “was died” mysteriously i guess Willy failed #FE16

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