anamelessknight

[anamelessknight]

My headcanon says he's killed a ton of people though and we all know that trumps the game itself.

"Edelgard turned a mass-murderer loose on Garreg Mach!"

Unless he had Shadow Kill from Dishonored, bodies would turn up if Jeritza was attacking people every night.

The tales of the Death Knight's activities during White Clouds always came across to me like people seeing him skulking at night, getting spooked, and spreading tales that grew in the telling. It seems like the Death Knight was acting with a little more discretion than would be expected of him.

And before you say, "well he can kill the students!" he actually can't. Player units can't die during White Clouds.

[anamelessknight]

It's my 9 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

[anamelessknight]

What the fuck.

Nilsh tries it: Blackmail!

He swiftly deleted this one (like barely minutes after I took the screencap, I got lucky to catch this one in time and take a screencap) because I guess he realized it looked pretty bad to commit blackmail, which is a crime both in my country and his.

Uhh yeah, this is your boy, Edelcrits, the one you closed ranks around.

[anamelessknight]

Draglede is the true villain.

[anamelessknight]

Yeah, that’s what it ended up being.  Rhea more explicitly says it in the original JP it just got changed in ENG.

Something I’ve noticed for a while now is how the magic circles are structured and have text on the outside.  Despite my attempts, I’ve been unable to decipher the full sentence, so I’ll put these up in case anyone else wants a crack at it.  (Just view image for the big, hopefully.)

It is ????ining over ??? ??? the mother of all

living beings.  As support of all mankind(?) ??????

The goddess always lives in heaven and Fodlan.

Both Faith magic and Black magic use the same circle and text.

Even the CLASS CHANGE uses it.

Dark magic, however, is different.  I can’t tell what’s being said whatsoever.  But there’s six large inner circles and what looks like math in the text ring.

[anamelessknight]

As if she even had siblings.  She’s clearly lying about that to gain sympathy.

My siblings are deeeeaaaad!

Something that’ll never stop being amusing in a pretty sad way is how much Edelgard’s detractors like to harp on Edelgard being saaaaad :’( and her having a bad childhood, and their assumption that we view this as justification of her behavior.

Yeah, they really do like to try to read minds, don’t they? The comparisons to evangelical tactics for winning arguments are ever-present.

So, no. Giving characters sad uwu backstories (and launching them at you from the business end of canon just before the character is due to shuffle off the mortal coil) is how Engage tries to make its characters sympathetic. Three Houses doesn’t do that.

What Three Houses does is demonstrate that, in the end, almost everyone is a good person (or at least well-meaning) at their core, and it’s their own blind spots, biases, knowledge gaps, and the cruel nature of life in Fodlan that drives them to making mistakes. It’s why almost everyone has a route showing someone at their best and at their worst, and yet no route exists where you can save everyone. There’s always the tragedy that clashing ideals and stubbornness leads to good people dying, and unfortunately most routes has them die just to uphold the state of the world that set off the tragedies in the first place.

Rhea isn’t sympathetic because she’s a genocide survivor: she’s sympathetic because the genocide she survived trapped her in her past, unable to move on.

Dimitri isn’t sympathetic because of the Tragedy of Duscur: he’s sympathetic because his trauma placed blinders upon him that prevent him from seeing what’s really needed in Fodlan.

And Edelgard isn’t sympathetic because her parents siblings are dead: she’s sympathetic because she’s a person who wants the best for everyone but has realized the only way to bring that about is by ripping the bandage off of Fodlan.

[anamelessknight]

UPDATE (September 15th, 2022)

We have added more lines to the following support conversations:

Annette/Dimitri

Annette/Sylvain

Edelgard/Hanneman

Edelgard/Hubert

Edelgard/Manuela

Please check out a character’s support page from the main Support menu to find these specific pages.

We have also added translations for 16 paired endings. Please check out a specific character’s page to view the translation comparisons.

Character Ending List:

Balthus (solo, non-CF)

Balthus/Constance (non-CF)

Byleth/Constance (AM/CF)

Byleth/Constance (SS/VW)

Byleth/Hapi (AM)

Byleth/Hapi (SS/VW)

Byleth (female)/Yuri (CF)

Byleth (female)/Yuri (non-CF)

Constance (solo, CF)

Constance/Hapi

Constance/Jeritza

Constance/Yuri

Hapi/Yuri

Hapi (solo, SS/VW)

Hapi (solo, AM)

Yuri (solo)

Find them here

[anamelessknight]

DO YOU KNOW WHAT WRITER SUCKS THE NAMELESSKNIGHT DON”T READ ANYTHING BY THENAMELESSKNIGHT EVER!  Terrible everything and terrible arguments to boot!

[anamelessknight]

actually both sides are bad makes u think huh

[anamelessknight]

Hey there.  Just wanted to add some stuff.

Balthus’s Brother lives on SS.  Chaos of War explore dialogue from him.

Leicester’s casualties at Grondor on AM were severe enough that Claude had to use his plan because he had nothing left.

Abyss was abused by Faerghus in AM until endgame. Dimitri doesn’t end isolationism in AM.  That “foreign relations” in the ending mural should be “minorities” but Treehouse gonna Treehouse.

Likewise the same thing with Constitutional Monarchy. 

And VW doesn’t abolish nobility.

A systematic comparison of the routes. 

To the surprise of no one, Silver Snow is the worst. 

[anamelessknight]

Weird, the top part of my first post - hi, that’s me - wasn’t included in this.  It’s the one with all the fun numbers leading to how I came to my conclusion down below along with a paragraph how in a very generous interpretation that Edeleth was more popular.  Here’s a handy dandy link for anyone interested.  It has a number of scenarios as to how I drew the numbers, including adding together everything in a most generous fashion, just flat numbers, or examples removing Explict/Mature tags.

Fun Fact: Dimileth had more fics rated as Mature/Explicit than Edeleth did at the time I wrote that six months ago (wow!).  While today, Dimileth has 613 Explicit fics on Ao3 compared to Edeleth’s 402 Explicit fics.  Without those Explicit fics in the mix, Dimileth has 1661 works, whilst without Explicit fics, Edeleth has 1668!  Isn’t math fun?

[anamelessknight]

Byleth, Crimson Flower and Buddhism.

Before i begin, i want to make it clear, i'm not looking for a discourse.

So, i have seen some theories regarding Byleth regaining back their heart beats, thus becoming a human in the CF ending, and it's relation to Buddhism. It has to do with Byleth's "enlightened one" (or nirvana in jp) class. The class signifies Byleth as a reference to Buddha, as a Buddha is one that has reached enlightenment/nirvana, and their role is to teach/guide people to reach the enlightment too. I have seen them not only here, but in several other forums and social media.

The most popular theory about why they became human then, is that, it is a punishment for Byleth, for failing to be the teacher Fodlan needs. Fodlan needed someone to guide them into enlightenment, but Byleth failed, because they helped killed a god (Rhea), so they were reduced to a mere human. I have no idea who put on this idea first, but this is a wrong take on Buddhism. It is in fact, quite insulting for Buddhists.

It is insulting for Buddhists, because those people said, according to Buddhism teaching, a Buddha can turn back into a human if a Buddha does grave sins, (as proven by Byleth turning into a human), thus basically saying Buddhism teaches a Buddha is still capable of sins and earthly desires. NO. A Buddha can't turn back into a human, as to become a Buddha, one has let go all earthly desires and causes. A Buddha is incapable of sins. There is simply no way. Nowhere in Buddhism teachings teaches a Buddha can turn back into a human.

So no, Byleth didn't turn into a human because they were punished.

Please keep in mind, that Buddhism is NOT the same with confucianism or whatever religions that have Buddhism mixed with other believes. I have seen someone used Monkey King (Journey to the West) reference to explain Buddhism in CF. Monkey king is not Buddhism! It's a mixed of a bit of Buddhism and local chinese folk believes and many others, plus it's a fictional novel.

So then, why did Byleth become a human?

Now, Buddhism itself has many branches. I myself learned Theravada teaching, thus i didn't understand either at first why Byleth became a human in CF in regard of Buddhism reference. It wasn't until i spoke with a friend, i came to learn that Japanese Buddhism is actually of Mahayana teaching. And that changed everything.

You see, in Buddhism, there is one thing called Bodhisattva. In Theravada, that simply means a person on the path becoming a Buddha. But, in Mahayana, that has entirely different meaning. In Mahayana teaching, a Bodhisattva is a person who is already enlightened, thus eligible to be a Buddha, but postpone it due to their compassion and desire to help others, so they stay in the cycle of death and rebirth (samsara). They can take many forms in samsara, as a human, animal, anything that is beneficial in purpose to help others, all the while STILL retaining their enlightenment. Their status doesn't change.

They just decide not to become a Buddha yet, because they feel they will be more helpful in other forms. As once you become a Buddha, there is no way you can be back into a human or any other creature. (This part where "once you become a Buddha, you can never go back and become a human or any other creature" teaching is the same in Theravada and Mahayana)

Byleth in CF is a reference to Mahayana's Bodhisattva. Byleth was already enlightened, but in the end they didn't become a Buddha (or god, as fe3h fanbase refer it, but for a side note, in Buddhism, a Buddha is not a god) yet, instead, they became a human, because it is the form which will be most beneficial to help others in CF. It is in lieu with how Edelgard in CF stated as long as humans stand together, there is no need of gods.

Byleth still retain their enlightenment in CF, they still act as a teacher to guide others to reach enlightenment, they just do it in human form. They did not fail their purpose to be the teacher Fodlan needed and loose their enlightenment. They are still the enlightened one in human form - just as a Bodhisattva does.

Now, whatever take you prefer in explaining why Byleth became a human, be it simply to say they regained their humanity, or it is a reference to Buddhism's Bodhisattva, is up to you, but, please, do not say it is a Buddhism teaching as a punishment because Byleth had failed, so they got reduced from a Buddha to a human. It is quite insulting.

Thank you.

[anamelessknight]

I really don’t want to be on tumblr anymore but since I got linked to your post from elsewhere and felt the need to respond.

To add on to Dimitri’s situation, he chose to go around being a murder-hobo.  At any time during those years he could have gone straight to Rodrigue and resumed his rightful place.  He chose to go around alone when he had the easy option to not live in slums.  He had a choice that the have-nots do not have whatsoever about deciding their lives and futures without great sacrifice or luck.

Two Crucial translation muckups in the Parlay scene

1. The ‘Highborn’ line (Source)

As ppl have pointed out it’s kind of nonsensical since Edelgard is a princess herself. That would be because it’s a translation mistake. Remember, Dimitri’s line before that is, “…I learned all this from [Byleth] and everyone elses”

Her answer is more like “Those who have that [ie, support, mentors, allies] can’t understand what it’s like not to have it.”

Apparently the error comes from the word used for ‘have’ being similar to the expression ‘haves & have nots’ (in reference to something Dimitri said earlier when he talked about her “trampling the weak”) - so there’s still the implication of “Wait dude you were pretty privileged actually” but not per se tied to status. 

It is true that Dimitri has been a beggar but most beggars don’t have Gilbert & rodrigue chasing after them to give them an army. If he weren’t a prince he’d wind up like the people in Abyss. His life sucked no doubt but as in real life,  privilege doesn’t mean no difficulties, it means more safety nets. 

He was born crown prince and always has been crown prince. He’s the prince in part ‘cause his uncle had no crest. He didn’t have to work for his power through schemes and politics like Claude or plot a coup like Edelgard (who would never have been heir if not for her family being murdered)

In AM he had Byleth, Gilbert and Rodrigue in his corner plus many loyal lords. 

Claude has Judith. Edelgard has Hubert. …and that’s it for them. 

This is not to say that Dimitri’s life was easy, but it wasn’t hard for lack of support or guidance (but for other reasons)

2. The “dear forgotten friend/I never lost my heart” line (Source)

That always struck me as odd because it seems at odds with… Everything else.

Like you just don’t get the sense that he that level of important to her at any other point. If you don’t get her godess tower event and pick a specific dialoue option, she never even mentions Kid!Dimitri. Silly childhood story at most. 

As for teen!Dimitri she only ever treats him as a rival, act confrontational & seems off-put by his unwarranted friendlyness…

With Claude she’s annoyed at his banter but she respects him as a worthy opponent (at least post-timeskip.) 

With Edelgard expediency always goes before feelings but we know there’s ppl she’d rather have on her side - Petra gets a “plz join our side” letter, she has unique Dialogue with Lysithea, Constance and non-CF Byleth where she laments antagonizing them… 

Dimitri is just not on that list.“Your obsession with me is creepy, you’re deluded” etc… like she understands that he’s just a misguided pawn rather than a bad person, so his death is sad, but she doesn’t like him. Also she doesn’t even consider herself the same person anymore. (though it’s unclear how much that is reality or just her feelings/complexes)

Well… in the original, the second line is simply “my spirit never broke” and the former doesn’t exist at all. Yeah. They adlibbed that. 

[anamelessknight]

Looks like I have no choice...

[anamelessknight]

Time to cut the internet and travel cross country in pandemic time.

Great.

If i don’t post again I’m probably dead.

Stay healthy everyone else.

[anamelessknight]

Ashen Wake 3

See you on the other side.  Or not.

Ao3

Fanfic

Or will be a fanfic link when it finally updates.

[anamelessknight]

Do to real life concerns my activity is going to dwindle or stop entirely.