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kendrixtermina · 5 years

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The Recruitment Freebies: Thoughts on Sylvain and Felix

Now when it comes to recruiting characters, there are 2 who kind of stand out and are, in their own way, somewhat ‘easier’ to get.

Sylvain joins you automatically if you’re playing fem Byleth, whereas Felix actually requires high stats/abilities that no one else does but since your primary weapon is most likely going to be a sword anyways and he requires sword skill, he’s actually not so hard to collect. Given that they’re both handy units (Felix kicks butt like no tomorrow, Sylvain is pretty customizable and gets a relic early on) you’re sorta encouraged to snatch one or both.

If you’ve seen them in their original environment, you’ll easily notice why: They’re kind of the kingdom’s token cynics.

[Longer Essay Under The Cut]

The Initial Situation

One thing that stands out right away is that the Blue Lions are one of the tightest-knit groups: The Black Eagles have sort of vaguely heard of each other because most the imperial nobility lives in the capital and the one commoner used to be famous, but that’s it, only Linhardt and Dorothea really express any regret over betraying Edelgard if they do, and their fates don’t differ that much by whatever faction they’re in - Ferdinand is certainly sad to see the Empire itself go down (see that amusing line about an ‘Adrestia-shaped hole in [his] heart’) and has a minor existential crisis when his family’s lands are confiscated after he spend his whole life preparing to rule them, but while he gets that line wondering what might have become of him if Byleth had chosen a different path, he pretty much always becomes a statesman no matter who winds up on the throne.

The Golden Deer, meanwhile, are from wildly different backgrounds and even Claude just showed up last year. If they stay together, they eventually become a tight-knit group under Claude’s leadership (except Lorenz, if Byleth’s not with them), and if you recruit em, they will largely pursue their own interests as they were never too unified to begin with, with most of the commoners saying they were never that involved in politics, and most of the nobles acting out of self-preservation or opportunism.

By contrast, most of the Blue Lions know each other personally and will be pretty conflicted about defecting from the Kingdom if you recruit them, and it’s no wonder:

Sylvain, Felix Ingrid and Dimitri were childhood friends and all big weapons enthusiasts, Dedue has followed Dimitri everywhere he went for the last few years, Anette’s father worked for Dimitri’s, Mercedes is Anette’s BFF from magic school and while Ashe didn’t know the others before since he was a poor village kid before Lonato took him in, he becomes fast friends with the rest of them due to their shared admiration of knight stories.

So in this more idealistic and old-fashioned groups, Sylvain and Felix can be thought of as the token cynics or more independently-minded characters. This is most obvious with Felix: He sticks out like a sore thumb, vocally expresses his dislike of the others and their values and basically keeps to himself on the training grounds, and its only through the other’s doormatsey dispositions that they seem determined to ignore his hostilities and continue considering him a friend whether he wants to or not. He doesn’t fit in with the other Blue Lions at all.

Sylvain, meanwhile, doesn’t stand out that much at first glance, he seems like another fairly common character archetype in the silly childhood friends lineup and gives Ingrid plenty of cause to get into Mom Friend mode, but the whole thing with him is that while he pretends to be a hedonistic oaf, he’s actually something of a brooding intellectual type underneath, very ‘byronic’ overall.

Ultimately, both of them are motivated by a desire for, and love of freedom. (which is probably why a lot of ppl think they’d be a compatible and interesting as a romantic couple - for all their outward difference, they have a common ‘core’ there) Sylvain has been treated all his life like his life and power don’t really belong to himself and he desperately strains against those binds by acting out, and Felix finds his countrymen to have a bit of a grostesque lemming mentality and wants no part of that.

At the same time both show their ‘cynism’ in very different ways, and neither of them is a ‘complete’ cynic, but the areas where you find their residual idealism are also different. I would say that Felix’ cynism is more apparent, while Sylvain’s runs much deeper, but more on that later.

Though he cares little about maintaining a reputation and indeed seems to sorta seek out or get a kick out doing what his father would hate, calling himself a ‘good for nothing/scoundrel/ someone who’s going to hell’, to sorta go against that pressure to be a good kid, when it comes down to it he’s actually still pretty honorable and does actually believe in The Power Of Friendship (as noted by both Ashe and Dimitri - it’s probably why they like him) He’s inclined to be a Good Guy, he just doesn’t want the pressure that goes along with it.

It reminds me a bit of that one Fiona Apple song: “Do I wanna do right? Of course./ But Do I really wanna feel I’m forced to/ answer you?/ Hell no!”

Felix meanwhile - well. Some might say he’s tsundere, and I suppose he is, stock phrases wise, but to put it more specifically what he is is counterdependent. Which is a word commonly used to describe that teenage behavior of always doing the exact opposite of what your parents or the mainstream do, thereby being just as influenced as a dependent person. It’s closer to being dependent than indepedent - He wants badly to be independent, but doesn’t really know how. He still very much has attachments to his father and his oldtime childhood friends, he just rejects them fiercely, because between Glenn’s death and his first deployment to Sreng, he came to see that attachment as something that will destroy him, something incompatible with self-preservation. He still dearly loves Rodrigue, Dimitri and the others, but he doesn’t want to be like them. He wants to be free, he’s a reasonable man and sees that they’re all walking off a cliff and he doesn’t wanna jump of of it, but his opposition is so absolute because some part of his kind of wants to.

At the same time he’s not entirely a complainer for complaining’s sake. Though very fighting-focussed he has his own strong code of ethics and standards- Dimitri markedly falls short of them. They’re not that different, Felix too feels the wide open wound of being still bonded and attached to people who aren*t there anymore (”Training for a duel with a corpse”, as he puts it) - But while Dimitri let it eat his life (though there’s more complexity here of course but that would derail this into a whole different essay), Felix kinda errs on the opposite side of pushing down all attachment, but at the same time, he does it because he’s concerned with saving the ones who are still alive. That’s the point he stresses in his paralogue where he argues with his father, “We’re here to protect our subjects”. He wants to protect himself, yes, but he also wants to protect other people. He’s all about that. He wants people to protect themselves not glorify throwing their lives away.

Which is why despite all his vocal complaining he still ultimately hangs out with the others, cannot help but worry about their wellbeing etc. They might be negative bonds now but they’re still very much bonds.

Meanwhile, in Sylvain’s case the cynism comes not from rejection but disillusionment and distrust. He’s a good guy but his ability to form bonds is almost completely destroyed. All his life he got showered with fake conditional love while being presented with an example of what would happen if he didn’t stay in ppl’s good graces: His brother, who’d been dropped like a hot potato. I don’t think he can think of himself as good; He kinda got treated as an unfair existence the moment he came into the world. At least if you get no love, you still have the hope that you might eventually get love. But fake love? Fake love poisons everything. It’s disgusting wrong, it’s not really for you and it just makes you wanna get rid of it by any means neccessary. Speaking from experience here.

Apart from the bonds he got with his childhood friend and those with exceptional people skills like Byleth, Mercedes and Dorothea, he doesn’t really trust anyone beyond a certain level.

But that’s a subtle distinction.

At first the most apparent difference, and the first contrast to come up in their support chain, is focus. Felix responded to the unpleasantness in his past with absolute laser focus, particularly on fighting and becoming stronger, whereas Sylvain avoids ever the appearance of focus like the plague, downplays his capabilities and chases distractions in a way that may be rather relatable to those of us who had the whole weird-ass Gifted Child Experience. Hence, Sylvain might come off as extravagant/frivolous while Felix appears disciplined, even ascetic.

This is also apparent in how its implied that they “jump ship” - Sylvain does it on a whim because of fem Byleth’s ample bosoms, (whereas man Byleth needs to impress him with reason skill which ties more into his hidden dephts) whereas with Felix it would tie into his pursuit of strenght and how he focusses on that more than anything else. Byleth stands out as a badass, so Felix juins his class or that’s his reasoning in the dialogue he gets.

But at the same time what we see here is that both were born with great natural power but don’t want that defining their lives. Sylvain downplays and refuses to use his, while Felix is determined to get straight that he actually “earned” through his harsh discipline and dedication, and vocally disavows conventional wisdom (”Crests, lineagle, knighthood... all trifles. Only strenght and skill matter”)

Post-Timeskip

So while a lot of characters like, say, Dorothea, get alot of the same dialogues in each route, others kind of get different little arcs depending on where they end up - for example if you recruit Lorenz for the empire he will at first join out of pure opportunism (that, and trying to get mercy for his corrupt-ass father), but then towards the last few months, he’ll actually come around to Edelgard’s way of thinking.

Felix is one of the characters whose dialogue differs the most by route - church & Alliance overlap a lot though with a few pointed differences, and his ending narrations are totally different depending on whether you recruited him or left him with the Kingdom. Of course, this would have to differ to an extent as he can’t exactly become Dimitri’s right hand when there’s no Dimitri, but the outcomes are starkly different to the point that even his paired endings with different characters all have two versions.

In the Kingdom route he generally succeeds his father whereas in the other routes, he typically renounces his title and becomes a mercenary unless his partner or BFF convinces him otherwise.

Unlike, say, Ferdinand, who does about the same thing regardless of who he ends up working under, for Felix the decision to ditch his classmates is a big big turning point, a choice

Sylvain by contrast has rather more similar endings wherever he goes and his dialogues are more similar - one highlight being how he has the exact same “history is written by the winners, whoever wins will say they’re right war will probably always exist...” lines regardless of whether he’s fighting for or against Edelgard. Whenever he isn’t commenting on the weather of their next destination or the general suckyness of the war, he remains mildly sceptical of whatever side he’s on, including one memorable instance where he refers to poor Hubert as “Edelgard’s idiot sidekick” and thinks they should try more negotiating, though he’s not blind to Dimitri’s flaws either when they go fight him.

Not really a big joiner or believer, this one, no illusions about how they could always be wrong, which perhaps makes it more touching how he invariably ends up becoming a peacemaker and activist after the war, basically becoming a fulltime do-gooder.

Since the inner mechanics with Felix are quite different, so are his outcomes. Sylvain’s gonna be like “I’m not optimistic but I gotta try doing the right thing”, no atter who he’s following, but you get a whole different Felix depending on what route you’re playing.

Because for him, wether to stick with Team Kingdom or not kinda represents a choice between his lingering attachment and his drive to reject that.

In the Kingdom route, he stays a lot more like he was in his academy days: Complains a lot, but still sticks with everyone to the end. He sort of fills the role of the contrarian number two, the one providing a contrastic viewpoint (while, Sylvain, while not optimistic, is no less stubborn about sticking with a friend in need than the rest of Team Kingdom)

He comes across as the Only Sane Man at times, esp. when he calls Titanic on the whole Revenge Trip to Gronder, “Iceberg ahead? ya’ll seeing the iceberg right?” but of course if you’re just complaining you’re kinda part of the problem - He muses that he must be crazy too, if he’s going along with everybody. Can’t bring himself to leave. Eventually that attachment wins out and he doesn’t even bother hiding it especially once Dimitri gets his act together. At that point he figures that the best he can do is to keep him on-course. Though they don’t go back to the same dynamic they once had, they go back to being BFF and the new dynanic is probably more useful to Dimitri as a counterpoint, they pretty much each succeed their fathers in proper Kingdom Manner and stay an A-team for the rest of their lives just like their das were. Idealism triumphs, though it’s a more matured, well-thought out one that is less about high standards and more about forgiveness/redemption.

It seems like he kinda became what he didn’t want to be early on (in the paired ending with Dimitri he even winds up in one of those chivalric tales he used to hate!), but it also looks like that made him happy. Maybe because it resolved the contradiction and tension within himself, all the energy he expends in rejecting his feelings of attachment, to like, actively not care about Dimitri.

I mean in their B support at one point he almost accidentally lapses back into Nerding Out About Swords Like Old Times - He needs to actively remind himself that he’s supposed to hate Dimitri now, and he does an even worse job at No Longer Liking the others.

Indeed when he gets what he ostensibly wanted, or rather what he wants to want, it doesn’t seem to make him all that happy - This was indeed the realization that prompted me to do this analysis. He goes full lonesome cowboy and marches off and he doesn’t sound all that happy about what he’s done, and his paired ending with Sylvain is one of the ones that makes it very obvious - In the Kingdom route, they stay Together Forever as they were in childhood, like they never got estranged at all. In the other routes it’s a sad, melancholic, darkly romantic thing about how Sylvain inherited his title, Felix came to help him out once and they never saw each other again, and Sylvain eventually gets a keepsake from Felix... and this is if you recruit them both. They get a sad enough dialogue if you grab only one and make them fight each other, but even if they run away together, essentially, they don’t become happy together.

The circumstances aren’t that different, if they still wound up in the same faction - But Felix is different.

Because he doesn’t just leave because of Byleth’s heroic charisma like many of the others - He goes because, in essence, he is putting his pursuit of strength over his lingering attachments for his friends. To leave the kingdom means to actually become what he pretends to be. To actually become a lonewolf warrior who cares only about strenght rather than an ultimately loyal tsundere.

Which is where the above rambles about counter-dependency come to bear: He says he doesn’t care but he does, so much he can’t stop. So to take this step, which at the time seens reasonable and sane and free to him, is to cut off part of himself.

Though even here there are different gradations depending on where you recruit him to.

In the Alliance and church routes he simply jumps ship on the kingdom out of self-preservation. Sanity before Honor, just like he was always talking about. The kingdom’s in horrible shape, it can’t win, or so he sees it, Sylvain’s reasoning is pretty much the same but more resigned/sad (”There was nothing I could do”), after all for all they know, Dimitri is long dead (though Felix, always one with keen insight, suspect him to be alive a bit before he shows up)

Then Dimitri turns up alive, but promptly gets himself killed, and Felix regrets it. Every bit as much as other kingdom characters. He wonders if he could have stopped Dimitri if he’d been with him. He channels this into avenging Dimitri first on the empire and then on TWSITD, and starts using his name at this point.

Tellingly enough, he refers to the local afterlife beliefs that are so prominently featured in the Kingdom route. The ones that Rodrigue taught to both Felix and Dimitri and that likely played a role in the latter’s inability to forgive himself for all that Rodrigue is largely a good man who was a positive influence. He talks about “facing” Dimitri in the afterlife or allowing him to rest in peace much like Dimitri’s own talk about appeasing the dead - As much as he’d like to be Felix was not actually immune to his upbringing. basically he really regrets it.

The church and alliance routes differ somewhat in the dialogue before the last stage in a way that makes the church route seem “milder” - He considers working under Byleth once they become King/Queen, so he doesn’t seem quite as “lost”, whereas in the alliance route he expresses interest in dueling Nemesis. Not that far beyond his usual “must fight worthy opponents/ blood knight attude” but certainly more of an embracement of it and also very reckless, since as far as we knew the zombie horde is blazing an almost unhindered trail through the land and pretty much had Hilda’s renowned invincible brother for breakfast.

The empire route, of course, requires him to go even further - it’s one thing to evacuate a sinking ship, another to go a path where there’s a good chance that he’ll have to go against, and even fight/kill his former comrades. The game sure included tons of unique dialogue for this. You can even have his feud with his father end quite lethally, and Dimitri will even comment on it when you engage him. Ouch!

Right after the holy tomb scene most the recruitees’ dialogues are either some variation of “I’m scared but I trust you sensei” or “Now that she’s actually explained her reasoning, Edelgard’s got a point” - Felix’ is neither.

Though he’d presumably agree that Crests and Status are overrated, that’s not what he talks about. He says he wants to forge his own path, one that isn’t his father’s or Dimitri’s.

He may or may not be doing the right thing but it’s for the wrong reason.

It’s a decision that’s perfectly logical if you feature in all factors except for his own heart - by which I don’t mean some bullshit 19th century “head vs heart” contrast but simply self-knowledge, which is necessary to make choices that you won’t regret, especially when the ‘correct’ path is ambiguous.

He wants to be free, deeply and desperate but, there’s also the counterdependency in play. He’s not going with the Empire because he wants to go with the empire, but because he wants to go against Rodrigue and Dimitri. Rejecting them to prove to himself that he can.

And turns out he can. He can cut em all down, with fairly unfazed Dialogue about how he’s going his own path, will never bow to the likes of Dimitri, will pursue strenght no matter who stands in his way etc.

They all curse him for betraying him, only Sylvain who’s not the sort to have much certainty about being right, gets more of a “sad/tragic” line about their childhood promise.

But that’s on the battlefield. Back at the monastery it’s a different matter. In this route he shows significantly LESS regret about what happens to the kingdom peeps - after all, he knew he’d be fighting them. He’s just completely embraced the ‘living to fight’ thing here and you get the sense that some other parts of his may have been lost in the process.

Ironically he says he killed more ppl than he can count and that he’s practically as bad as Dimitri now (”Your better world better be worth this”, indeed...) and while he’s completely unflinchingly resolute he’s not exactly unphased.

You can certainly understand why he’d end up as a restless sorta wandering mercenary (interesting, too that if you pair him with Byleth they’ll go with him - interesting enough in its own right since that’s the sort of life they use to have before coming to the academy)

So I guess this could all ultimately be seen as a parable on ‘be careful what you wish for’, or, more accurately, ‘know yourself before making wishes’.

#fire emblem three houses #fire emblem: three houses #sylvain jose gautier #felix hugo fraldarius

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cleohn · 5 years

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﹤𝚂𝙾𝙽 𝙽𝙰𝙴𝚄𝙽, 𝚂𝙷𝙴 / 𝙷𝙴𝚁, 𝙲𝙸𝚂 𝙵𝙴𝙼𝙰𝙻𝙴﹥; * - hello CLEO AHN. long time no see. i know a lot about you. like how you're TWENTY THREE, how you're a DANCE major, and in fact.. how you BURNED DOWN YOUR FAMILY ESTATE FOR THE INSURANCE MONEY, ACCIDENTALLY KILLING A TV REPAIR MAN THAT WAS INSIDE. would be a shame if it got out, wouldn't it ? so let's play a game. 𝚃𝚁𝚄𝚃𝙷 𝙾𝚁 𝙳𝙰𝚁𝙴 ?

ahhh shit here we go again ... clown town ......

BACKSTORY

old money baby !! for those of u who have seen gossip girl …. u know nates grandpa …. the vanderbuilts…. thats her mom’s side of the family JSBDJWBJWD those of u who havent all u gotta know is that her grandpa (mom’s dad) is this super rich very old fashioned family oriented man -__- he had 4 sons and 1 daughter (cleo’s mom) and very obviously favored his sons

anyway he was always super hard on cleo’s mom !! very controlling of her life, very judgmental abt her choices, even though cleo’s mom was super desperate for his approval so she …. kinda revolved her life around what he wanted for her but it was never good enough </3 her mom literally married a doctor just to make this dumb old man happy and he was like ok hes not a surgeon though so …

anyway cleo watched all this as she grew up and she was .. come se dice NOT happy abt it !! she was always super close and protective of her mom (not really close to her dad that much considering her mom really only married him for approval and safety) and she was always trying to get her mom to be like fuck the family !!! but her mom never did

and cleo’s grandpa never lightened up even as he got older … which was starting to give cleo some anxiety bc he was bound to die sooner or later and she was super nervous he was gonna be stingy abt his money and divide it unfairly giving more to his sons and very little to his daughter even though his daughter did everything this man wanted !!

so cleo started scheming….bc shes always been the type to be self sufficient like when she wants things to get done ? shes gonna do it herself ! she doesnt wait around for stuff to just fall into place also shes kinda impatient aha so she wasnt abt to just WAIT for her grandpa to die and see what his will said….

her first plan was just to steal the will. but then she was like ok not thinking big enough…..how can i make sure we get our money……then it all clicked. their family estate ….this old ass mansion…..where the whole family gathers for thanksgiving and christmas and her grandpa’s bday….she was gonna stage a little accident x

she was eighteen when she burned that baby to the ground ! she was methodical abt it like she did her research on their insurance plan, on how that money would be divided equally among the family automatically bc they were all listed as owners, she even looked up how to set the fire and where so it would look like an accident and not like an intentional burning….

cleo did all that and yet she failed to realize that their was a tv repair guy coming over to fix a problem with the wifi that day /: the worst part is she didnt even find out she accidentally killed someone bc there were no reports abt it like all the headlines mentioned was how this family estate that had stood for generations had tragically burned down </3

so cleo went off to college, majored in dance despite her grandpa pushing for all his grandchildren to have practical majors bc she refuses to bend to his will the way her mom did, and all was well…..for the first two years.

then comes christmas of her junior year of college where her grandpa gets too drunk and lets it slip he’d covered up a DEATH the day of the fire. cleo was like im sorry can u repeat that…and he lets the family know that there was a repair guy inside the house when it went up in flames and that he paid off the police in order to avoid being sued by the dead man’s family since all the reports were saying the estate had outdated electrical and thats why it caught fire

thats when cleo realized she fucked up <3 not only did she burn down their estate she also KILLED A MAN and it’s her fault it got covered up and that his family will never get closure bc she made it look like the estate had fucked up electrical when she set the fire in order to be able to get the insurance money

so that was really fun for her junior and senior year have been so great for her <3 shes great <3 JSDBWBDJWBDJW

ok now moving to personality..

PERSONALITY AND TIDBITS

cleo’s super protective over the ppl she loves (like her mom) and can be loyal to a fault !! will go to extremes to protect those she really cares about (like burning the estate down aha) but the second u cross her shes not quick to forgive and she will hold a grudge til the day she dies /:

shes stubborn like super stubborn….the type of person that u cant force to do anything or change their opinion abt anything like if its not her choice ? shes not gonna do it JSBDWBDWBDJ has a tendency to not want to admit when she fucks up bc she’s a high key perfectionist so when she does fuck up shes like ok cool i’ll just die do not even look at me dont even talk about it

kinda over caring about what kind of an impression she gives off. like there are probably lots of people who when they first met her thought she was a bitch bc she likes to mind her business and can act kinda dry when she doesnt know you but cleo would just let them keep thinking that forever shes not here to change ppls minds

if u do take the time to get to know her though ur gonna realize shes a lot nicer than she looks JSDBWBDBWJ and a lot less stuck up than u would think someone who comes from so much money would be. she never got the chance to develop into a spoiled brat since she was the black sheep of all her cousins <3 thank u grandpa

speaking of being the black sheep. JDBWJBDJWBD she will take….any opportunity these days to piss her grandfather off. has a tendency to pull of crazy stunts like get herself arrested on a public nudity charge or order cases of dom perignon and have them delivered to the dining hall just bc she can. most of the time when ppl hear abt the things she does they dont believe cleo would have actually done something like that bc she really does not have a wild child vibe about her …. at all

and shes not one JSBDWBDWJ like she parties a normal amount. if u ever see her doing something crazy 99% of the time she’s doing it to make someone mad or doing it because someone told her not to, and then the other 1% of the time shes doing it to cope with the fact that shes a murderer JSBDJWBJDWD

pretty liberal when it comes to sex but shes also not the type to always put her business out there. if u ask she’ll let u know but thats that ! also not a fan of drama of any sort if she has a problem she’ll let u know & expects others to do the same

she loves to dance hehe she’s been a ballerina since she was 4 (it was the one hobby her mom made her do that actually stuck) and thats really like…..her true source of joy shes never happier than she is when shes dancing <3 literally does not care when ppl ask her wtf shes gonna do with that bc shes having fun babey and shes got money she doesnt need a real degree….. JSBDWBDWJDWJ

she looooves to dress nice. if ur chara dresses sloppy or ugly shes gonna buy them a designer fit and ask that they wear it just so things can look aesthetically pleasing JSBDJWBDBWJDBJWBDJWBJ she loves her aesthetics….probably a bitch that has a bullet journal and actually keeps up with it

loves to karaoke but she only ever sings 80′s songs and shes gotta be wasted first … a cat person !! but tries to make exceptions for the sake of everyone else… allergic to peanuts like deadly allergic she will die…coffee addict but she pretends to be a tea person just so she can post those cute pics on insta but then every time she makes tea shes like this shits nasty…loves rom coms she will defend rom coms and claim they are the superior movie genre til the day she dies if u even mention tarantino she will kill u on sight…..idk what else to say im running out of juice this is the end x pls plot x

#tags under co im not prepared so what so what...#error.intro

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