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1⭐ Secret Rares from Celestial Guardians!

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Celica Alm 💕

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Seteth, after talking to a fellow dragon who called him a wise sage :

"I'm planning on hosting a costumed party in Garreg Mach, nice idea right ?"

*hums a bawdy Adrestian song*

"I learnt this one from professor Manuela !"

"We wanted to harvest Zanado fruits to make jam, do you want to join us ?"

Seiros the Warrior isn't interested at all in earthly matter like jam, but she just knows Cethleann would want some and she's just here to get her share. Nothing else.

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"My teacher, those cruel things are beasts who have been oppressing humans for ages ! We have to free the world from their vile grasp ! For Humanity !"

Tfw powercreep ruins Humanity's Supreme Future :'(

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Loging on FEH for the first time since, iirc,, Winter!Fomortiis I guess? (after a very short return to complete the Supreme team, to no avail :() -and I suddenly remember why I stopped caring about this game.

The loading screen is basically OC, OC, OC etc, then Bernie and Felix, Robin, OC, Emblem Ike, OC, back Rune (OC).

Hell, no wonder why IS wanted to hammer with the lizard banner and now the 35 years Duo!Marth unit that, uh, yeah, the series started before 2013, because if you just look at that loading screen? Marth, the first lord in the franchise, isn't even on it!

I feel like a reverse Kirby fan who's shat on when the series has to be represented in Smash Bros lol

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what do you think is the worst take in the fe fandom?

Bar the things coming out from Fodlan discourse that are a thing of their own, I'd say it's the unified timeline theory!

Both because it comes with incessant wank about the strongest lord in the franchise since IS recently fap'd a lot at Ike with multiverse theories (when, with flat stats aka everyone with a same number of levels of growth and all, Naga!Julia rekts him) but also because it simplifies to the extreme the different themes and differences between verse to the point where people don't really care about the characters they're talking about and just slap something from another game - which was developed in said another game - to sort of understand what is going on.

And of course, I'm talking about dragon degeneration, since it made a resurgence with the 35th anniversary FEH banner and I've seen some, let's say misunderstood* to be charitable, things on my dash about it recently.

Draconic degenaration aka "seal your powers in a dragon stones else you'll lose your mind and become feral" is something exclusive to the Archanea verse - by extent, to the Valentia, Jugdral and Ylisse verse.

Thanks to Kusakihara retconning Duma'n'Mila being divine dragons, it was brought to the forefront of the main games with SoV, but again, this is because in SoV, Duma'n'Mila are divine dragons, and apparently were exiled before Naga came up with the dragon stone solution to prevent degeneration, and somehow, no one bothered to cross the sea to tell the divine siblings that instead of killing each other with Falchion if one of them were to lose their mind, they could just seal their powers in magic stones.

(I know, SoV retconning Duma'n'Mila to be divine dragons brought a lot of idiot plot balls, but hey, remind me who directed that game?)

Come the second Kusakihara directed game and the nonsense that is SS's finale ending, with Rhea's sudden degeneration, losing her mind and being a world destroying threat that somehow has to be put down to make sure Billy, I mean, the Avatar becomes the ruler of the land in a pure power fantasy move.

3 years after the release of this game, FEH finally decided to "sort of" explain what happened bar the obvious doylist reason of "welp we had no idea what to cook for the final boss of this route which would thematically make sense in the waifu war that is the core of this game so let's go with somehow Rhea loses her mind in this route but not in the other that is basically a copy of this one where the same events happen".

And yet, to this day, aka in 2025, nearly 6 years after FE16 was released, we have some "Rhea degenerated for the same reason Mila'n'Duma and the Archanean dragon do" nonsense.

When, even if we only take FE16 into account, this doesn't make any sense since Rhea, the youngest Nabatean created by Sothis, becomes cray-cray only in one route and we have no indication SS campaign took more time than the VW one or the AM one, but also, Rhea's older "relatives" are still alive and kicking with their minds intact (even if Indech believes a map with endless reinforcments and fog of war is "fun" so I wonder if he wasn't degenerating a bit).

But then, FEH explicitely tells us Rhea didn't lose her mind at the end of SS just because she was old :

Niime tries to cook some "dragon lose their mind as time passes" theory - aka the one that applies in the Archanea verse - and Seteth, aka a dragon in Fodlan, explicitely tells her that, no, this is not the reason why Rhea ends up in the state she is at the end of SS when she loses control, Seiros the Warrior explains how it is not time that made her future self snap, but rather, despair.

PK's of script is even clearer without the misleading "not unique to Fodlan" thing Niime says in the localised version :

Sharon Sharena basically asks if Rhea turning cray-cray is because she's old as fuck, after Niime said degeneration due to the passing of time is not that uncommon in other worlds (no mention of it being heard in Fodlan + her mention of "other" worlds could be interpreted as her excluding her own on purpose since we know time doesn't make Elibian dragons lose their minds!), and Seteth basically says nope that's not what happened since Rhea's been archbishoping for eons and had no "distortions of mind and body".

Seiros the Warrior then explains the reason why she will later lose her senses if the player plays SS is because of "despair" which opens another can of worms in a doylist pov - but fwiw, both in doylist and watsonian povs this convo here basically headshots the "Rhea becomes the final boss of SS due to Archanea's draconic degeneration" theory.

To see it revived time and time is really surprising, especially in a non discourse way, but uh, yeah. United Timeline, despite the wankfest about multiverses, is not a thing, so united mechanics don't work either and crossover shenanigans are, just, crossover shenanigans : it's here to have fun interactions between characters who would never interact otherwise, but it's not supposed to be taken seriously as a key to explain why A+B = C in all verses.

*Misunderstood because I want to give the benefit of doubt, but this just made me remember how I've seen some redshit post completely miss the point of Medeus' character and apparently sad uwuings about him later becoming the Dark Dragon due to draconic degeneration when it's his entire story and a plot point that Medeus' fall to the dark side isn't because he was degenerating - hell he accepted to turn in a manakete against his fellow Earth Dragons who wanted to remain dragons and he sealed them in the dragon tarble!!! - but because humanity pissed on the sacrifices he and his people had to make to either enslave the remaining manaketes or sell the precious relics used to kept his sealed comrades safe to make money!

Medeus' becoming the Dark Dragon wasn't caused by a natural cause like degeneration, but because humans led him to despair!

But I know reddit and nuance are like oil and water, especially since July 2019 when it comes to dragon characters, so...

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Thracia wof fwend !

It's so far, even if it's a pain most of the time, the game with the best ludonarration !

Berserk!Mareeta will attack Eyvel in chapter 5, but unless you, as the player, control Eyvel to attack Mareeta, Eyvel will not hit her, aka, she's not going to defend herself !

And for some reason, Galzus will not counter attack if the player attacks him using Mareeta, just like Eyvel does which should make clear what is the actual bond between them : Mareeta's parents will never retaliate against her.

There's also the "secret" about Faerghus's parentage, he has the same class as some dude from the previous game he's totally unrelated too, just like Nanna's brother, but can also use the same sword he does when Nanna cannot !

Also the fact staves can miss, sure, I know, it blows when it happens but given how their accuracy is tied, like other weapon, to their skill stat, it sucks especially when you start with Tina's trash bases.

But the red units can miss too !

Then they look like pure morons who failed to rewarp tfw no battery in their staves anymore but since this is literally a "skill issue" it'd also imply that some of the Loptyr guys Veld recruited are, like, the bottom of the barrel Loptyr Priests :(

We will never have a ludonarration like this ever again :(

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FE5 and Fodlan mash up :

I will get straight to the point. Why did you start this war? There had to be a way to change things in your territory without the need for so many senseless casualties. It may be hard to believe, but this is the way that leads to the fewest casualties in the end. Don't you see? How could I? Countless people have already lost their lives in this conflict. The longer we took to revolt, the more victims this crooked world would have claimed. I weighed the victims of war against the victims of the world as it is now, and I chose the former. I believe that I have chosen the best path, the only path. Even after seeing the faces of those who have suffered the ravages of war, you would still force them to throw their lives away for the future? You are obsessively devoted to this war and deaf to the screams of its victims. You cannot change the cycle of the strong dominating the weak with a method like that. You're wrong. That very cycle is exactly what I have devoted my life and my power to destroying. If after all of this you believe the weak will still be weak, that is only because they are too used to relying on others instead of on themselves. Yes. Perhaps someone as strong as you are can claim something like that.

“Get out of my house! You call yourself the Liberation Army, when you can’t even save one kid? You people sicken me!”

“Ha, you call yourself the Liberation Army, huh? Well, my little sister’s still captured! Don’t go around acting like a hero when you can’t do shit!”

I guess Hicks and random NPC #25 wouldn't give flying fucks about what the lords think weak people or strong people should do, or changing the cycle of strong dominating the weak or whatnot.

Their relatives were captured/sent to death and no matter what "ideals" Reidric or Julius are seeking, they're still missing and that's not going to save them at all.

Hicks is a nobody, and yet, even that nobody had a relative the player couldn't/didn't rescue. Player feeling bad or not, FE5 doesn't pull its punches when it comes to story and gameplay integration, if you don't do the annex missions and rescue children, you're going to be insulted by NPCs (and they won't give you sweet rewards).

The game makes sure you won't forget those NPCs, they're not just unknown "countless people", they're real pixels/units who die if you do not rescue them.

Tl;Dr : Hicks and his NPCs friends would have told Supreme Leader and Dimitri to eat shit.

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Thematically speaking, Gustav is the "story boss", aka the one who is sitting on Quan's throne in Leonster.

Leif's army should have merged with Seliph's when Seliph busted his ass after the Leonster siege, but in FE5, contrary to what happens in the FE4 events, Leif doesn't immediatly joins Seliph.

Leif will return to the very first castle he ran away from in this campaign, aka Manster, to get rid of Reidric and Veld who are, as you put out, mere generals or minions, when it's Seliph who kicks Blume's rear out of the peninsula.

And while we can question Leif's legitimity as future ruler of the peninsula - since he wasn't the one who kicked out the most important Imperial presence there - FE5 explains that while he isn't the one to get the kill on the "important" people, Leif is, ultimately through Veld, the one who puts an end to the Loptyr Sect's activities in the peninsula.

All those green NPCs he saves through his journey? The children he rescues? They weren't harvested by Blume, Julius or Oldvis themselves, but by randoms working under their orders : Leif will put an end to those randoms.

Veld is nothing but a more glorified Novala, and yet, if Leif really wants to help his people, he has to get rid of him.

Getting rid of Veld isn't the only reason why Leif wants to return to Manster though, the narration basically spells it :

After securing the city, Leif faced his final obstacle. Towering before him stood Castle Manster, the “Palace of Evil.”

Though in the past having to escape from this ominous castle, Leaf now stood ready to breach its walls. To reclaim a long-lost treasure… and to cut open the path for a new age…

Sure Leif told his advisors he dreamt of liberating Northern Thracia, but the real reason why his journey started? The reason why he lets Seliph liberate Conorte (idk the name in the new translation) while he focuses on Manster?

It's because Veld and Reidric stoned captured Eyvel, his surrogate mother.

Veld and Reidric are only underlings, and yet, they're the ones who ruined North Thracia and kidnapped Leif's mother.

If FE4's goal is basically to seize castles and look at the greater scope of things, FE5 can't do the same since it's a midquel.

Instead, it goes full on characters, let them be lively NPCs, brigand bosses, imperial bosses or even members of the Loptyr sect. As a character driven story, it makes sense the final boss(es) aren't big players in the greater scheme of things.

Leif went to war in FE5 to rescue his sisters from Reidric and Veld, he will end the FE5 campaign by rescuing his mother from their clutches.

Tl; Dr : Veld is Leif's endgame boss because he is a random who's harming the people of Northern Thracia, but also, because Veld personally stoned caught Leif's mother.

I still can't believe how cool Veld looks in Heroes.

As far as final bosses go, Veld has always stood out for being just another evil crusty mage who was elevated to final boss status. It makes sense from a game design standpoint though. Due to Thracia's nature as a midquel, the game's story does not end the actual conflict. Everything Leif and his army do is nothing but a mere stepping stone towards peace and as such it is thematically fitting that their final adversary is only a "general" of the opposing faction, making Veld a unique final boss in the series.

Also his battle theme slaps.

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Berk, ça devient de plus en plus n'importe quoi ces pubs !

D'accord pour lutter contre la désinformation, mais je n'ai envie de voir ce con sur mon tableau de bord ! Ce sera quoi ensuite, Baba ?

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Thinking back on the WTF lolcalisation about Liprica's fate in SoV and some trend I've noticed with the general "Nobles BaD" discourse -

The "Liprica became a noble y'know since she got to live in luxury!" add-on after specifically explaining how she came to live in the castle, aka after being kidnapped and raped enough to get a bby felt really crass and gross -

And yet, I can't shake the feeling that, somehow, someone thought "important enough" to add that even if she was effectively abducted, abused and lived a shit life until her ultimate death, she still had a life of luxury, aka had it better that a random commoner (who cannot get a life of luxury sad uwus) ?

Are we supposed to, uh, not give a crap about Liprica's being a victim of marital rape because, by being kidnapped and raped, she became "nobility" ?

I mean, the order of the sentences is important here :

she was kidnapped

2. she was raped

3. "despite the luxury I guess her life in the castle was difficult!"

Hell - fucking - o ???

But then I remembered this quote - which imo illustrates the same issue - exists in Kusakihara's Fodlan :

But we can't let the commonfolk get hurt. We should try to confine the damage to the noble section of town.

Considering this exists in her native route, where she can has a support with Hanneman learning how Hanneman's sister, despite being a noble, was also forced to pop up children like candies, Doro, even with Billy's guidance, still cannot get over her hatred of nobles and wants them dead, or at least, to get hurt.

When the party is all about "no casualties!", we have here, one character, who wishes for some, but only for the nobles, not for commoners (or, in VW, when the party will notice that the people weren't evacuated and are used as meat shields!).

IDK what Hubert's sister did to her, but apparently she's an acceptable casualty, like Hanneman's nephews, Lin's mom (if she's still around) or Flèche.

And that's not taking into account how "commoners" also work in mansions and all, like Doro's very own mother.

Writing this (but not only Doro's lines, even if Leonie gets a better development thanks to having natural character development with Lorenz), are we supposed to root for Doro? Or pretend she has a point? Why was this line added? What does it bring to Doro's character ?

Just like lolcalised!Irma told us Liprica lived a life of luxury, Hubert unnamed sister or Hanneman's nephews are acceptable casualties because they were born as nobles?

If Kusakihara really wanted to walk the walk, I guess he could had her basically tell Bernie "If casualties cannot be avoided, then I hope your mother dies/suffers" ?

@fantasyinvader I guess this is another case of Fodlanism, but coupled to Kusakihara's wish to insert "Nobles BaD" in a franchise that doesn't shy away from depicting corrupt and asshat nobles, but also often stars royalty and various nobility as your core characters, it reads as particularly tone deaf.

I can't wait for a NPC in the sure to happen Jugdral remakes to tells us that Hilda tortured Tailte to death "but despite the luxury, I guess dungeon life proved most difficult on Tailte, who left the world shortly after being brought in Castle Friege".

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I think the worse Fodlanism is if any unit other than Byleth or Linhardt faces Caspar. "Did you have to kill a lot of your friends to get here? Cause I'm gonna give this fight everything I've got!"

Umm, you don't have to. You can recruit every other unit in the game bar Caspar and he'll still try to call other people out for killing those they used to know. But this also sidesteps the fact that his nation is attacking them and they're the one's fighting back. Edelgard is the one who began trying to kill her "friends" and he's defending her.

IIRC there's a saying that basically amounts to nobody give a fig about killing 10k randos, but if you kill one named character suddenly it's the end of the world?

We can give him some slack though, given how Caspar should, imo, be prone to buy various "information campaigns" from Supreme Leader, but yes, this is especially tone deaf considering his Emperor started the War and launched her attack on the Monastery, where some of his so-called friends were still around - with only two measly weeks to evacuate.

Again, a demonstration of double headed eagle self-awareness, but that's to be expected with Adrestian characters, remember when Doro blames the goddess for having to fight against Billy'n'co?

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Thracia hours fwend!

Let's start with FE5's deconstruction of the Camus trope!

Sure, Reinhardt was very popular due to his tome in FEH, and unlike his sister, could kill things, but Reinhardt is depicted as pathetic man by the very same sister who sang his praises, and was jailed in an attempt to defend his honour earlier in the game.

When Olwen defects to Leif's side after witnessing what was really happening with Oldvis' empire, Reinhardt refuses to hear her out and treats her like a kid who needs to go home for her nap.

Reinhardt doesn't fight for his country, or his luf interest anymore (since she had to dump him else her satanic boyfriend will kill him!), when he is fought, he has lost all motivation and even has to be reminded by Saias - who is his own can of worms - that maybe, maybe, Olwen found another reason to live and fight, that is different from hers.

Unable to accept it - or to accept his loss of purpose after being fired - Reinhardt refuses to join Olwen's side, even after learning all about the child hunts, and instead, prefers to die by her hand, gifting her his most prized possession (a magic sword).

He either dies a coward, or runs away if he is spared, and is lost to history.

Sure, it can be harsh, especially regarding how other Camuses are treated in the franchise, but the final nail in Reinhardt's coffin is... Amalda, who, for some reason, wasn't added to FEH yet.

Amalda is, much like Reinhardt, a general who joined the army to serve someone she admires, in her case, it's Arvis. Amalda really believed in his ideals, but when the child hunts happen and the Empire is taken over by Manfroy and Julius, she tries to do something, appeal to her superior to ask him, naively, to stop treating the people of Manster like crap and hunting children, as a result, she's demoted to guarding some place and can be killed off as nothing more than a random soldier.

However, when she dies, Amalda is rather glad, feeling this is what she deserves, as she calls herself someone with bloodied hands, since she couldn't prevent the Empire from continuing its nonsense.

Still, what's more important with Amalda is how she exactly does what she preaches : not only does she try to ask Gustav (her superior, in charge of Leonster!) to stop his nonsense, but she is actually met by Leif'n'co way earlier than her introduction as a general !

In chapter 15 (iirc) she's a dreaded green unit - dreaded because she kills bandits everywhere without letting any xp for our units ! - who is protecting bumfuck village from a raid of, well, bandits who want to enslave and pillage the city.

Amalda isn't only a character who angst about "teh people", she is also a character who goes, apparently incognito, in various villages to protect them from bandits and the general lawlessness that runs rampant in the Imperial territories : even if her superior tells her to eat shit, she'll pick her sword and protect random NPCs.

When we can finally recruit her (tfw no one picks B route sry miranda), Amalda doesn't initially want to defect, but not because she's in luf with someone or believes in her country over reason, nope, she stays because she's afraid her unit will be slaughtered if she leaves!

And this is exactly what happens if we recruit her, but at least, her soldiers also turn into "green units" so with a lot of savestats and RNG luck, it's possible to save them!

Comparing her to Reinhardt is comparing the sun to a dying LED keychain - when Amalda worries about the people, even if she doesn't leave the imperial army, she still hacks bandits right and left to protect randoms NPCs. Amalda doesn't stay in the Imperial Army because she lufs Arvis a lot even if his Empire is destroying everything she believed in, no, she stays because she worries about the fate of her comrades.

Ultimately, Amalda leaves the Imperial Army and becomes a member of Leif's army, but never forgets that as a member of the Imperial Army, she will forever have blood on her hands.

However, we can't ignore Reinhardt's main quality, aka, giving us this conversation :

Pour one for General Muler!

And then Heroes came along and ruined Reinhardt!

Seriously though, well put, my fwend.

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Is it just me but the

He kidnapped and "forced her to become her bride" but it's very very important to add that, in the process, Liprica got a life of luxury!

"She was kidnapped and raped, but hey, did y'know she lived a life of luxury ?"

TBH, at this point, I just hope Kusakihara just stops drawing/writing games altogether, because this?

This is disgusting.

@hapigairu

Because you brought up Celica's promotion again, here is a comparison between Gaiden's and Echoes's versions:

Gaiden:

Pretty straight forward: Celica's mom had a rough time at the court, but for the sake of her daughter, she persevered. Touched by this relevation, Celica accepts her blood and position to honor her mother's sacrifice. Her position as princess of Zofia is the proof of their connection.

Echoes:

The conversation is similiar, but has two small, (but important) differences. First, Celica doesn't promote here because Irma doesn't have the circlet. Second, here is a much stronger focus on royalty and less on Celica's bond with her mom. This ruins the parallel to Alm's situation with his unknown parent.

This dialogue is shortly afterwards followed up by this:

"This is no mere memento of your mother" is the exact opposite of "set this memento of you mother in your hair" from Gaiden. Wtf. And of course it had to be a man who does the coronation and tell her that wearing this crown means having responsibilities.

I remember that Echoes gave me some weird cognitive dissonance upon my first playthrough. Some of the game's text made no sense within the game's plot, like the whole "nobles and commoners" shtick when the game's main character has an "was a secret prince after all" plot reveal. Or Berkut torching his fiance and then going "Duma's power got me acting unwise". How did this fit his arrogant, war mongering actions up until this point? It's because Kusakihara inserted his own narrative and theme into an already existing story. And not just any narrative. It's one that is not compatible with the source material.

And I'm not going to even mention how he somehow took Kaga's writing and made it more sexist. That's an accomplishment, for sure.

I hope he will never be in charge of a remake again....let him make new games I won't buy, but don't touch past FE titles, please.

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Is the name Kevin/Kévin considered “cringe” in your country, or even used as a shorthand for an obnoxious/tacky young man? (“he's such a kevin!”)

(whether your consider yourself to belong to french or german culture is up to yourself, this CAN include other french- or german- speaking countries than france and germany such as belgium, switzerland, luxembourg, austria etc)

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TBF,

Both for FE16 and Nopes in a way, there's a feeling the devs wanted to write a story that would be centered on different characters, each with their own POV.

As you said, there's enough material to believe they wanted to come up with a story where every character believes they're a hero in their POV... and yet, because those characters and their stories aren't written in a vacuum, there are clues, NPCs, books, mentions etc etc here and there that some narrative we follow is biased.

However, the cast doesn't react to those clues about their worldview, as you noted, Claude will only remember Petra exists - even if he already reached an A support with her - in the second half of the war Arc, when he will realise maybe the CoS isn't the obstacle he believed they were to reach his dreams.

The devs believed the players would only play one route and call it a day, and yet, as I noticed earlier, we have enough easter eggs here'n'there and throwbacks between routes (Ignatz noticing how Supreme Leader's lines from Tru Piss are the same ones as the Agarthans in the JP version!) to instead clue us that the devs also wanted the players to play all routes and see how different the characters act in them, or how some choices affect them in their non native routes (Felix for example!).

So on the one hand, we have the devs pushing some "the players will only see those characters in one route", and on the other hand, we also have the devs going all "we will show those characters change between the routes" with always the same Supreme caveat : sell pots of Hresvelg Tea (or nightgown cipher cards).

By virtue of being an expy, Claude is also hit by this syndrome in a way : only the Lions can express negative feelings about "outsiders" given what they believe happened to their loved ones (Matthias with Sreng, Ingrid with Duscur, etc etc), but even if we learn Almyra raids every monday to buy souvenirs, we cannot have a playable character from Leicester express any ill feelings regarding Almyra that are on par with the Lions' personal losses : Hilda will repeat what her racist grandma told her and happily laze around while "servants" will do her chores, but she cannot tell Claude how Almyrans, through their "cultural exchanges" slaughtered her cousin/brother/sister/mom.

No character, bar the old and supposedly unattractive ones (read, the faculty members and for some reason, Dedue) or Rhea (bcs she BaD) can be unlikable, because FE16 is all about parasocial relationships, even it means the plot is half a gummy bear.

Dimitri's arc, where he cannot be invited for tea anymore, is an outlier, everything he says and does during his "boar" phase is unreasonable - including asking Randy to take responsability for being a member of the Imperial Army who invaded and slaughtered his way to gain a promotion (a bootleg copy of FE5's Raydrick?) but now has the nerve to plead for mercy - and yet, after the events in Gronder, he is the Saviour King and, thank goodness, can be invited for tea again.

He and Supreme Leader will talk about peanut butter and cream cheese instead of, uh, y'know, the war and destruction Lady Farquaad allowed in the pursuit of her ideals (while ignoring the nabateans in the room) and in the end, he will drop any hatred or ill feelings against her, ending with this wonderful :

We have no choice but to destroy each other... Such is the destiny we were born to.

"Isn't it so sad fate forced us to fight against each other :'( we could have been fwends and shared pastries :'( :'( :'( very sad uwus"

-> If Elincia pulled this shit at Ashnard, I'd have thrown my copy of PoR in the nearest trashcan.

Meanie!Dimitri can apparently make Caspar wonder if he's going to receive flak for having joined the army as a former member of Adrestia (compare with Cormag and Duessel fully accepting their status as traitors but willing to push through for the sake of their countries), but he can't receive flak for being the son of Leopold "I am the leader of the Imperial Army" von Bergliez, when the cast already faced numerous "War Assets" fighting side by side with the Imperial Army!

Hell, when Doro asks us to be sad for Ferdie because we killed him, it's as if Cormag asks us to cry for Novala the arachnid lover - both Ferdie and Novala were fighting side by side with eldritch abominations (Novala has the upper hand here, since Baels are their own things and not, mutated human beings turned against their wills in weapons to be used as "assets").

Imagine if, say, during their paralogue, Mercie shits on Caspar for being all gung-ho about fighting the Death Knight when during his time in Adrestia, as the son of Leopold, he must have known about war assets and only ditched the country recently, but not as soon as his Supreme Leader declared war on GM and started to conquer Fodlan.

Hell, we'd never have had the Hector/Jaffar support conversations* in Fodlan!

The show then spends it's time giving exposition when the characters need it rather than for the audience.

Basically Fraud in Nopes who cries about isolationism, when the audience, especially in AG, has access to various books and all explaining how Faerghus, the so-called favorite child of the CoS, traded freely with Albinea and Duscur before Farquaad's associates ruined everyting.

The characters don't interact or even feel like they live in their world, as a result, the story told starring them is a huge mess and feels so disjointed that I really believe Fodlan's popularity in fics was partly prompted by people wanting to make characters "react" to various things they should have reacted to in game, but never did because of reasons.

*Seteth will have talked about ice cream and Rhea's love for cats to Jeritza instead of insulting/hating/resenting on spot like Hector did to Jaffar (or Ochlys does to Mandrin in Unicorn Overlord).

@randomnameless

There’s really something... off about the writing of Three Houses, isn’t there? According to the devs, they wanted players to immerse themselves in Fodlan. It wants us to pick up all the bits of lore and backstory, see the implications of what’s being said, connect the dots and the like. This is all meant to back up the natural progression of the story regardless of which House we pick to teach, in addition to showing the player how wrong the fourth route is if the fact it’s leader wasn’t depicted as the “Lady of Deceit” wasn’t enough of a clue. It’s supposed to be on us to figure out the mysteries and how they work, and the fact the localization changed information that was meant to be clues does not help.

Sure, you can say that “everyone’s a hero from their own POV” and that might be true in the case of Houses. Edelgard and those who join her believe they are heroes and doing the right thing, but that doesn’t mean that they ARE doing the right thing and the point of immersing ourselves in Fodlan is for the things I mentioned above to start making it clear to the audience what the game views as right and wrong. And, again, the localization doesn’t help because it wants to lean into things being morally grey and that it’s not just that the villain believes she is the good guy, it wants her to be the good guy with it’s alterations to the script.

But here’s the issue; the game basically relays a lot of this through exposition. And the game is so freaking focused on handing out exposition we get stuff like characters never bringing up the Flame Emperor again after the reveal. People don’t react to stuff like a normal person would, not when they can give a piece of information for the player’s string board, nor are they capable of piecing things together themselves unless the plot calls for it (like Claude pointing out the diversity at Garreg Mach). Hell, they released Hopes with exposition they couldn’t fit into Houses!

People would be horrified by what Edelgard is doing, and would be commenting on it. Characters would normally call this shit out, even Fates knew that, but in Houses it’s absent and it makes Fodlan feel so shallow as a result. Like the people aren’t even living there, they’re just reciting lines. And this shallowness resulted in people believing the game was saying things were okay because the characters went along with it. Like Hanneman confirms that the empire still uses demonic beasts in Flower if recruited, so what does it say about the noble students given ranks of general by the empire doing so after going through White Clouds and knowing where Edelgard’s war assets come from? Chances are they were all commanding demonic beasts themselves prior to the formation of the BESF.

Houses tries to be smart, but this all makes it feel like it’s secretly poorly written. If people are walking away with the wrong idea of what the game was trying to say, then there’s a big problem there. Translation plays a role, sure, but this all goes back to the game’s original script and how inorganic the worldbuilding actually was.

It reminds me of Gundam Reconguista in G. In the first episode, the very idea of exposition is mocked when the protagonist is asked a question by his teacher. He says everyone already knows the answer so why should he, but the teacher responds by telling him to just repeat the textbook answer. It highlights how artificial most exposition actually is, done for the convenience of the audience rather than making sense in-universe. The show then spends it's time giving exposition when the characters need it rather than for the audience. It made the show harder to follow, sure, but in the end the world felt so thought-out and lived in it felt believable.

Fodlan does not feel believable in the slightest. It feels like everyone there has no attention span whatsoever, or robotic tour guides telling us about the setting rather than the game showing us this crap.