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kendrixtermina · 5 years

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The Team Dynamics of the Three Houses

Essay time! =D

Part One: Team Makeup and Thematic Framework Blue Lions

Overarching Theme: Classic basic fantasy archetypes but with a dark twist (We have Prince Charming/ Guilt-ridden softboy standard-issue JRPG protagonist, Handsome Lech/Idiot Friend, Standoffish Rival, Gentleman Thief, Lady Knight, Sweet nice healer, Adorable spellcaster Girl, the Gentle Giant etc. )

Composition: Has the most people with crests, and the one guy with a naturally occurring major crest. Foreshadows how the crest obsession is particularly bad here, due to Faerghus’ harsh environment and a society that’s both religious and has a serious element of hero worship

History: Notably the most tight-knit group. Everyone knows each other already. It’s basically Dimitri, Dimitri’s longtime best friends, the daughter of Dimitri’s former instructor who heard lots of stories about him and her super nice BFF who gets along with everyone... and Ashe, who didn’t know the others until the academy, but since he is a honest sweety who loves cooking and knight stories, he hits it off with the others right away.

Atmosphere: Everyone has kind of the same hobbies (cooking, handicrafts, weapons collecting, knight stuff) and a lot of history, some posters have remarked on missing the “family ambiente” in the other routes but since the bonds are stronger they’re also more charged, it’s also been said that it’s the group with the most inter-team drama, especially when you feature in their relatives - You have Dimitri’s whole character arc, all the family drama between the Fraldariuses and the Dominics, Ingrid’s hangups regarding poor Dedue etc.

As expected if you recruit any of them they’ll kinda have a hard time going after their old home, even the tsundere ones.

The Leader’s position: For all that Dimitri’s friends refuse to drop his honorifics they really are his friends. They’re just all kinda polite with the obvious exception of Felix, and he’s largely tsundere. Despite the afore mentioned drama we see plenty of Dimitri just hanging out with his friends and even coming to them for help, he’s really just one of the bunch .

Since Faerghus is in chaos everyone’s pinning a lot of hopes on Dimitri and it’s not like he’s completely unaware of that or doesn’t have the corresponding sense of duty, he’s always torn between that and his revenge plan which eventually just takes over. He pursues this entirely on his own, too, with not even Dedue knowing what he’s sneaking around the library for.

How this “flavors” part one: Gives it a very “personal” touch. Faerghus, it’s culture, recent past and current state of chaos are fleshed out a lot (we learn plenty about the Alliance and the Empire but Claude and Edelgard have greater scope plans) and since a lot of the part I missions concern the instabilities in the kingdom they affect the characters directly. Basically since they’re more “regular” fantasy protagonists we gotta hit em all with the Drama hammer to keep things fresh. And that’s how it continues - They follow Dimitri because of personal loyalty (both toward him specifically, and because it’s in their culture), and Dimitri just wants to protect (or avenge) the people he cares about.

How this Ties into The Themes: The Kingdom route eventually becomes very much a Power of Friendship story where they all stick it out with Dimitri in his time of need because he’s their friend and they want to be there for him and that makes a lot more sense if there was a big emphasis on friendship/ found family before that, and of course their friendship is what eventually helps him turn his life around.

How does Byleth fit into this: Dimitri, like Hubert and Leonie, can be filed into the box of those who aren’t immediately awed by their heroic charisma. He doesn’t really get people who aren’t as outwardly expressive as him (eg. Edelgard) But unlike, say, Leonie, Dimitri has no settings between crushkilldestroy and stilted politeness and seldom expresses or responds to overt hostility most of the time. On the one hand there’s a side to him that’s a bit judgemental and vindictive, but that extends to himself too so he’s very ashamed of his flaws and is afraid that he won’t be accepted, so he projects outward that same acceptance that he likes to receive.

So the end result is that he goes out of his way to befriend Byleth, he encourages everyone to speak with them in a familiar manner, insists that they join the victory celebrations etc. Then of course he gets to see that they’re actually quite supportive and so in time they become, as Dimitri puts it “the heart of the group”.

By the time they find out that Dimitri ever disliked them, that’s long past. He’s a very high-empathy, emotional person so once he likes you he really likes you and will regard your troubles like his own. Some ppl might say that maybe the bond feels more special since it took longer to “earn”. He’s practically ready to swear a blood oath with them once Jeralt dies. There’s an unappreciated Symmetry here like he goes through the trouble to ‘defrost’ them, and then they return the favor by supporting him through his difficult times when they perhaps get to see the ugliest side of him.

Further Dynamic Notes:

So you have a dynamic of working past/ understanding and accepting each other despite one’s flaws and differences. (whereas Claude and Edelgard are interested in Byleth right away, because they’re unusual, but in slightly different ways - Claude can kinda relate to the experience of sticking out itself but is still stumped by being unable to read them, whereas Edelgard sticks out in the same way so you’re actually on the same wavelenght to begin with)

“opposites attract” specifically in the way that they balance each other out. A cool steadfast leader type certainly has a grounding effect on Dimitri as a very reactive person, but he also pulls them into the ‘normal’ world a bit after they spend all this time just wandering the world like all places are the same to them. They basically put the magic destiny on the backburner to help him out. They still become archbishop and all to fit the standard fantasy look of it all but not like full messiah like on the church route

Even after the timeskip Byleth kinda plays the mentor role or at least that of the dominant person/ big spoon in the relationship (though Dimitri ends up waaay taler than them especially fem Byleth), “Excuse me this is my emotional support mercenary”

If you go the platonic route you very much stay at „mentor“, Byleth is basically the brains of the operation post timeskip ‘cause the old Mitya can‘t come to the phone right now and Gilbert and Rodrigue would follow him off a cliff

Plot wise, their contribution is to stop the revenge trip when it gets to be a too obvious kamikaze stunt, which they, as a relative outsider to Faerghus and experienced, pragmatic fighter, would do when someone like Gilbert would not

Character journey wise, they refuse to give up on Dimitri and still see the good in him so that he eventually comes to a point where he could envision his own redemption/ come to accept/forgive himself and learn that its okay to move on and live his own life

Byleth can be said to somewhat even out the flaws in everyone‘s leadership styles (while the house leaders help Byleth find their own direction – i didnt come up with this alone there was a brilliant post a while ago that i cant find rn) – In Dimitri‘s case, he has authority/credibility/integrity („Pathos“), being the rightful king with many loyal followers, and emotional/ personal leadership as an emphatetic person who inspired respect for his character („Ethos“) but is lacking in plans („Logos“)

Golden Deer

Overarching Theme: Ragtag Bunch of misfits /Unlikely Heroes (let’s see, we have trickster turned lying politician, upper-class twit turned opportunistic conservative, lazy rich girl, shy glasses boy and his best friend dumb muscle, cursed werewolf girl, stuckup teen genius and the mean money obsessed one )

Composition: Has the most honest-to-goodness commoners - and they largely got in on their own merits, too, while almost all the others had connections. You have a few peeps from the Alliance’s prominent merchant class and one completely ordinary village person whose father was a simple hunter.

History: Bar the two merchant kids none of them know each other and even they’ve been a little estranged since the demise of Rafael’s parents. There are a few backstory connections (Such as Lorenz’ dad basically having murdered everybody’s dead relatives, or Leonie’s village being in his territory) but they’re largely indirect. They come from a range of different backgrounds and life experiences. Even Claude just showed up the year before and doesn’t know anybody. Of course this is all so you can watch them grow into a team on-screen all leading up to Claude’s epic speech about how they got along despite being from different backgrounds (or be surprised if they show up as one post-timeskip)

Unlike Dedue or Hubert, Hilda can still be napped early on because she doesn’t really become Claude’s right-hand person until halfway through part oneIf you recruit any of the deer they’ll say that they didn’t have that much ties to their homeland anyways.

Atmosphere: These are definitely Garreg Magh’s party animals. Or like a bunch of theatre kids. They’re tremendous fun. “Less complicated” as Claude puts it though some have missed the intensity/drama of the other bunches. The Alliance itself might be full of political intrigues but this younger generation is fairly chill with the important exceptions that are Leonie and Lysithea but Leonie’s lack of chill is largely Byleth-specific, she’s plenty chill in her other supports, and though Lysithea probably donated all the extra chill for the other deer and hence doesn’t have any left, the others love her anyways wether she wants to or not because try as she might she can’t really get an argument out of them.

This certainly jives well with Claude’s “friendly surface level extrovert” gimmick they all get along on a surface level and you’ll be hard-pressed to find an ounce of social skills in the Black Eagle house, and the Lions have the Drama Moments, but some have also perceived the deer as not quite as open.

At the same time they’re not superficial. We have a large abundance of Artsy Ones, we have Ignatz, Claude and Lorenz both write poetry, Leonie isn’t good at it but she does draw etc There’s enough insightful ones for depht and insight to be a significant undercurrent in the group dynamics. They all have different sortts of insight - Hilda can read people well, Ignatz has this sort of intuuitive thoughtful understanding, Lysithea is observant and logically astute, Leonie has street smarts etc.

The Leader’s position: Precarious. No one knows him, no one trusts him. He just showed up one day, very suspicious timing, not long after his uncle dropped dead (that was Lorenz’ dad but it’s not like anyone knows) and then he’s a shifty weirdo who cannot help being slightly unnerving despite his friendly extroverted demeanor.

Still he’s a big believer in teamwork, appreciates the value in everyone’s perspective and he can do the friendly extroverted charm well enough to eventually win over most people based on that, though its not until waay after the timeskip that he even considers letting anyone past the soft outer layer. (In Recruited, Raphael remembers him mainly a lover of feats and merriment)

The longer the story goes on the more the Deer transition to being “Claude’s jolly detective bureau” in which he pulls on all their individual insight for maximum info collection.

How this “flavors” part one: It’s taken up largely by Claude’s search for information with the various events being seen in that light.

Claude’s first reaction is often to ask questions and be curious with the emotional response hitting him somewhat later, though it’s definitely also that he keeps up a cheerful face for the team.

Ironically he’s the only one who came to Garreg Magh for it’s intended purpose: To get a ruler’s education and do networking. Dimitri and Edelgard were already onto Thales courtesy of his having killed their families, him searching on his own, her making preparations for her takeover, and Claude doesn’t know - it’s probably a game balance thing because Claude is the smartest person in the game and if he started out with all the info there would be no plot.

How this Ties into The Themes: It all builds towards Claude’s big speech about people from different backgrounds coming together. It’s like a microcosm for what he wants to do with the world, to bring people from different places and backgrounds together and have them understand each other.

Lorenz takes until halfway through part II to come around, but come around he does. (markedly, this happens only on Claude’s route, otherwise he sticks with the empire out of self-preservation and opportunism, though he gladly jumps ship to join the kingdom. )

How does Byleth fit into this: Now I‘ve seen some people saying that Claude initially didn‘t like Byleth or just wanted to use them, but I don‘t think that‘s true. I do think he actually liked them, found them interesting and wanted to befriend them. But Claude, on principle, doesn‘t trust easily, and will in any interaction look at how he can use it.

It‘s a habit born out of both natural curiosity and intelligence (What the 12type eneagramm calls a „Mercury“ Personality type) and the need to survive in a hostile environment where people tried to kill him as a child, and as such it‘s automatic second nature. He has a strong overruling self-preservation instinct. Claude is suspicious and will interogate people completely independent of how much he likes them. No amount of like makes him trust implicitly.

He doesn‘t have a bad impression like Dimitri, but he doesn‘t immediately click like Edelgard and the curve is pretty nonlinear: With Dimitri we have a clear progression from dislike to like and then the reversal where Dimitri had defrosted Byleth and now Byleth must defrost Dimitri. With Edelgard she likes them immediately out of similarity (like Felix likes Byleth, or like Edelgard likes Lysithea and Petra), and the difficulty/drama only comes later when Byleth‘s connection to the church and Edelgard‘s plots become apparent, but mostly she‘s sad that she‘s „destined“ to be enemies with this person she likes, her level of like never goes down. Claude meanwhile – you might compare him with Dorothea. He‘s used to being able to charm people as well as read them, and Byleth is not only a brick wall, but remains one upon closer examination. They really don‘t know about their past – but Claude takes that as evasions and becomes more and more suspicious.

A big turning point here is the Jeralt situation, where Byleth finally opens up and tells him everything, and Claude realizes they‘re not hiding. And that‘s something I really love about their dynamic – Byleth tells him all and Claude is so interested in them and looks out for them.

Though you could assign each of the three a „turning point“ after which they open up - The diary for Claude (which shows him that Byleth really isn‘t hiding anything) Flayn‘s dissapearance for Dimitri (which convinces him that Byleth cares) and the holy tomb scene for Edelgard (which shows her that Byleth won‘t betray her)

Further Dynamic Notes:

Claude and Byleth relate because they both stick out, but it‘s notably about the experience of sticking out in and of itself, whereas in Edelgard‘s case they stick out in the same way. They’re also alike in that they only found out some secrets about themselves when they were already young adults, Byleth’s magical destiny, and Claude finding out he was related to the ruling house. From how he mentions “not being raised in the lap of luxury” and how his royal connections in Almyra are also “distant”, he might in fact have been raised in a normal village and not known he was the king’s bastard son for some time, though once the secret was out he definitely got some princely instruction like training with Nader.

The dynamic both interpersonally and as an action duo is very much a complementary one. Dimitri is very different and has that sorta morality chain dynamic going on. And though they each have their specialties that the other is lowkey jelly of Edelgard and Byleth actually fill a fairly similar niche as the charismatic superhumanly powerful field commander. Meanwhile with Claude there’s a division of labor: Claude’s the planner and Byleth’s the enforcer. He repeatedly observes that his plans would be way less effective without someone of Byleth’s caliber to carry them out.

Out of the three lords Claude is the only one where you get the sense that Byleth works for Claude post-timeskip or that Byleth becomes his subordinate. Dimitri’s lost without them, and while Edelgard offers them a formal position as royal advisor after the mock battle and gets this line about how they can’t yell orders at her in public now that she’s the emperor, but it’s phrased in such a way to suggest that she just wants them to yell orders at her discreetly. They certainly balance out Claude’s presentability/trustworthyness problem the way that Hubert quickly puts them in charge of morale to patch Edelgard’s PR shortcomings, but Hubert pretty much says this to Byleth’s face whereas Claude is the only one who knows where the ship is going for the majority of verdant wind. And in the end he’s like “Babysit fodlan for me while I finish world peace” He’s also the dominant one on an interpersonal level, he gives Byleth this speech about how they should use their position more confidently and promise to detective out their mysterious past for them. He also tries dropping hints that maybe Rhea’s not to be trusted though Byleth’s dialogue options are written to suggest that they bought her maternal act and want her back – some ppl said but this way really expositions that „well meaning deception“ aspect of Claude‘s character. He frequently steers ppl toward something they don‘t want but with the hope that they‘ll want it eventually. Perhaps he could be said to have a very fluid/dynamic view of things and people; The other two lords view them more as fixed, hence „I respectfully disagree… lets settle this by stabbing each other“

The platonic end result is your basic Epic Friendship, tell each other everything, very supportive, look out for each other, take down a zombie warrior together in an epic team attack, what more could you want I think I‘ve made a whole post about what a good friendo Claude is, initial ulterior motives nonwithstanding… He certainly had strategic advantages in the back of his mind but I don‘t think he ever faked liking Byleth

Plot wise, having The Messiah on his team gives Claude a bargaining chip to seize control of the church with its greater influence. On the other routes, he wisely refuses to touch that particular hot potato with a ten foot pole.

Character wise Byleth‘s influence largely serves to mitigate his jaded cynism. He starts to actually believe his far-flung dreams might happen, so he plays far less defensively than on the other routes.

Claude is smart and charismatic („Logos“ and „Ethos“), his main problem is that nobody trusts him. This is a bit more dimensional than just a flaw though, because he hides his real goals (though they are not truly sinister) both to avoid fights with people who would oppose these goals (contrast Edelgard who declares her intentions openly and deals with the fallout, so she has to fight the knights whereas claude manipulates them) and get the chance to gradually convince them and reveal the truth once ppl agree, also he‘s more a tactician than a strategist and often changes his plans in accordance with what he thinks is doable under the circumstances, and not telling what his plans are gives him the freedom to do that – either way, a downside of that is that no one trusts him. He lacks credibility and, having shown up out of nowhere, has less loyalty and support. Byleth, as a chrch-sanctioned charismatic figurehead, naturally mitigates that.

Black Eagles

Overarching Theme: Subverted Villain tropes. We have Emperor Evulz / mad science supersoldier, Black Mage classic, Seditious Chancellor Junior, Sexy Mage, Eccentric Scholar, Pretty Barbarian, Fighting Obsessed Blood Knight and Antisocial Sniper

Composition: It‘s nobles all the way down, even the one commoner used to be famous and is from the capital where all the wealthy ppl live (as opposed to the decentralied alliance and the very spartan kingdom nobles) – The capital‘s a heaven for culture and sophistication but you also see the evident elitism/corruption/inequality problem going on. In keeping with Adrestia being more secular, Ferdinand‘s the only one who‘s explicitly stated to be a believer (in the Marianne support) and he‘s not even super devout

One should also appreciate the irony that the side with the ‚saintly‘ crests is now against the church whereas Faerghus, ruled by the descendants of Nemesis‘ former allies and where he used to have his stronghold are now fighting for the church. But should you go with the church route it also makes a kind of sense as they‘d be goig back to the empire‘s distant origins in a sense.

History: They all vaguely know/ have heard of each other due to their parents being co-workers or living in the same town, many have at least met each other but at the same time they‘re not BFF like the Lions and many take a bit to warm up to each other.

Another thing of note is that while many of the Lions‘ families were also friends and have been associates since the days of Nemesis, many of the backstory connections for the adrestian studenrs would seem to predispose them to being foes rather than friends, half their dads‘ essentially dethroned Edelgard‘s and are various degrees of complicit in what happened to her siblings, Petra was basically taken hostage by the previous administration, Dorothea has good reason to have beef with the local rich people etc

Atmosphere: I‘ve seen some ppl who played the other routes first say things like how they were struck by how individualistic they are and how there‘s far less team cohesion, or how they „all seem to hate each other“ - I don‘t think that‘s correct assesment but they definitely are quirky, independent-minded or both. They scamper off in all directions when introduced and definitely don‘t bother with formal politeness or friendly facades, if they‘re annoyed with you most of them will probably say so. Even Bernie gives Ferdinand a lecture once XD They‘re basically goth. Though I do think it‘s sorely underappreciated that there definitely IS friendship and admiration between them esp. later in the story, admiration & appreciation being key factors especially since they‘re none too easily impressed.

Of course being independent minded makes it likely that they wouldn‘t blindly follow a leader who‘s up to no good, but it would make them just as suitable to participate in a rebellion

Another thing of note is that while the Kingdom nobles all learned to hold sharp objects in the nusery and many of the deer have street smarts or survival experience having had to live through tough circumstances most of the Eagles are complete greenhorns when you first deploy them – sure many have seen their share of effed up stuff but not in a warlike setting. And you have many of the sensitive/reluctant ones like Bernie, Linny and Dorothea. This of course could either make you think twice about the church sending them on missions or predispose you toward Flayns brand of pacifism.

Of course this just leads to Hubert and Edelgard (and to a lesser extent Petra) to clearly stand out as the experienced ones. El-chan and Hubie dear have most definitely killed a man before. The rest of them will definitely have to measure up to pick up the slack after the two of them leave.

The trajectory certainly goes differently, in CF they all return notably more confident after the timeskip (most notably with Bernie) perhaps in keeping with how Edelgard believes in & promotes self-reliance whereas in Silver Snow they never quite stop being like „AAAAA“ though I suppose the point is that they get their act together and do the deed regardless.

The Leader’s position: Absolute both in terms of power (sorry Ferdie) and dynamics. Definite ‚student council president‘ vibe, she largely interacts with them as a taskmaster/ to make them do their homework. She markedly doesn‘t like this and would like to be one of the bunch but genuinely finds it hard to step out of boss mode.

She does try her best to cultivate an equal atmosphere and for what it‘s worth most do drop the honorifics and tell her when they disagree.

How this “flavors” part one: The emphasis is certainly on expositioning how much everything in the setting sucks especially on the church‘s horribleness, I mean in the end if she‘s essentially like „We‘ve all seen it this past year“ but of course there‘s also definite foreshadowing that sHE is up to something, there‘s certainly peeps who picked her ‚cause she‘s pretty and she looked more put-together/less obviously dodgy than the others but then didn‘t personal taste wise jive with her character. The whole scene after Jeralt‘s death is definitely a point where you either decide you hate her or love her forever; You get both „WTF“ and „I get it“ type of dialogue options.

How this Ties into The Themes:

No matter what route yo pick you essentially get a story about going your own way and putting right what the previous generations done fucked up – wether they do this by leading Adrestia back to its holy origins, or by backing Edelgard‘s revolution.

On a political level they either go against their homeland or the previous administration, and personally they‘re all sorta expected to take over their parents‘s job and follow these expectations of proper nobility that they have no interest in and many of them renounce their titles or cut ties with their folks. Only Ferdinand particularly wants his fathers job and even them he means to do it very differently. The happy ending, for most of the eagles, is getting to choose their own paths

How does Byleth fit into this:

Mostly, they shift the team dynamics from Edelgard as the absolute leader in a lofty, distanced position to her coming closer to being „one of the group“ working under Byleth.

There‘s a reason she later names her elite troop the „Black Eagle Strike force“ in honor of their time at the academy. This is almost the bigger difference, because Byleth isn‘t there for the timeskip. The big change is caused by creating this situation where all the black eagles leave with Edelgard, so she knows she can trust them and having real allies needs the slithers less.

It‘s very hard for her to step out of boss mode for reasons ranging from her personality, backstory, monarch obligations and fear of vulnerability, but having Byleth be the boss for once helps. Some of her most formative experiences were a) Her family betrayed by almost all its allies including her own uncle b) being helplessly dragged around as a hostage. She wants to avoid being helpless ever again at all costs and thus grew to be a very proactive decisive adult which is mostly a good thing but can cause her tome come off blunt and unyielding at times. I mean when she‘s worried that Hubert, her best friend, is hiding some worrysome secret from her she‘s like „Tell me that‘s an order!“ and when he expertly sidesteps that (since he knows her well and understands that she wouldn‘t actually force it out of him) she‘s stumped and doesn‘t know how to tell him that she‘s worried about him – and this is a guy she knows since forever. With the other eagles she really looks out for them but can only really show it through her „leader“ persona, she has this one trick, and when it doesn‘t work (like with Caspar or Linhardt who don‘t really want anyone to boss them around or talk politics) she‘s stumped.

This is hugely mitigated when another person of her caliber shows up with whom she can share the responsibility or even leave it to them so she learns to allow herself to be soft and do stuff like admit her doubts, this starts with Byleth but also radiates into the other relationships. See Caspar and Linhard revising their bad first impressions of her later in the support chains

Further dynamics notes:

A recurring theme is being misunderstood (outright stated in the introduction and that one quote by ladislava – and also in the church route dialogues where Seteth says that „the people will never understand her ideals“ ) and finding someone who understands, which is different from Claude and Dimitri who ultimately want the world at large to understand and accept them. Edelgard has given up on that long ago - her version of the „pep talk“ scene implies she thinks its impossible to truly understand anothers sorrow – I like to think that after her siblings died she found great comfort in Hubert being „not much for condolences“ and talking plans rather than sympathies while everyone else was showing pity for something they couldnt understand. Dimitri is basically traumatized (he relates to Dedue about losing everything and thats why they‘re so tight knit), Claude is basically an outcast and relates to all that dont quite fit in, but Edelgard… yes her family‘s dead much like Dimitri‘s, but in addition to that, she has been through an indescribable science fiction fantasy thing that no one has any context for. She views herself as so altered that she considers herself a whole different person and her past self basically dead. Hence someone like Byleth or Lysithea who could relate to all that is very, very tempting to her – we‘re not told if that‘s the truth or just her perception though, Hubert doesn‘t note her being extremly different, and later on she kinda admids that she herself distanced herself from other people.

Likewise the ship dynamic is ‚birds of a feather‘. Edelgard tells you right away: She feels that she and Byleth are similar and is drawn to them because of that. It‘s not just the mad science background, both are stoic natural leaders with a bit of a dorky side. This goes both ways – While others are often mildly stumped by Byleth, she can read them pretty well and gets a lot of dialoue like „wow you‘re telling the truth“ or „I can tell you‘re lying“ - that happens so often that it‘s even used to hint that she‘s the flame emperor.

If you had to name a dominant person it would probably be Byleth but overall this combination is disntinguished by being relatively equal and balanced. She likes having Byleth‘s support but repeatedly mentions wanting to support Byleth as well - As she says after the big mock battle, „sometimes its better to have someone to rely on to support each other through the darkness“. Team dynamics wise they feel a similar niche – the abnormally powerful, stoic charismatic leader who inspires many followers and is a gifted field commander. When they‘re not allies they are foils after all. But as pointed out in their A support despite their similarities each of them have their own particular strenghts that the other envies – Byleth is a better tactician and ultimately better at moral support (though their time powers help). On the flipside, Edelgard is more proactive whereas Byleth struggles with that, and at least her 22 year old self probably has more raw strenght (judging by her stats total and how they‘re evenly matched in the church route reunion cinematic though she isn‘t using her preferred weapon)

If you don‘t marry her then the note the A support ends on would suggest that Byleth sorta gets adopted as a honorary big sister/brother with how El asks them to use her childhood nickname and just lampshading the sense of kinship between them – the platonic outcome is a family bond, which buils as much on similarity and alikeness as their romantic outcome

Plot wise, Byleth‘s presence gives Edelgard something that she wouldn‘t otherwise have: Reliable allies. This means not just Byleth themselves, but the other Black Eagles whom she feels are more firmly on her side as they never defended Garreg Mach from her assault. As she puts it when she tries to recruit you as the „Flame Emperor“, the slighterers will go around causinga strocities but with the sword of the creator on her side she could courttail that better and generally has less need to coorperate even for purely pragmatic reasons so she is free to weaken them ahead of time, kills Cornelia right away rather than work with her etc. Interestingly this is why the front lines are actually further back when Byleth returns than they are in the other routes, but then the war ends the quickest.

Character journey wise, Edelgard goes from being convinced that she has to give up everything to be a tough leader to allowing herself to just be a person, cummulating in the ending where she pulls a washington/cincinatus, abdicates and gets a normal life.

In terms of leadership style, Edelgard has „Logos“ and „Pathos“ to spare, she‘s described as a remarkable leader who inspires remarkable devotion and has a cause/ rationale – but she‘s got her weakness with inspiring loyalty on an interpersonal level. The followers are loyal to the cause – Edelgard herself is perceived as unapproachable and shady/unsavory, see Dimitri‘s rant about how she‘s „strong“, or statements by herself and Ladislava that people tend to misunderstand her. As a superhuman science experiment she is by definition not a „relatable“ leader. So once Byleth proves trustworthy Hubert immediately puts them in charge of morale and of support/pep talking the reluctant recruits.

(In part II we‘ll get into decision making processes but I think here we have to separate by route rather than house since it’s most evident post-timeskip and dependent on plot events.)

Team Dynamics and Decisionmaking

Empire Route

Here, there is a very clear distinction between inner circle and outer circle. Edelgard and Hubert have their own thing going on and once you prove loyal, you’re in, and you get to see a whole different side to both of them, Edelgard lets down her guard, Hubert acts polite and sympathetic where he was previously suspicious and mocking, and they basically tell Byleth everything, including the unsavory pursuits that they keep secret from everyone else – but overall the secrecy, maintained for realpolitik reasons, never truly stops. Basically those three make all the decisions.

Notable is that if you’ve recruited Lysithea she hovers on the threshold between inner and outer circle. She was fed the cover story of the nuke being a church weapon (though she did’t buy it) but WAS told about the secret assault on Arianrhod. This is prolly cause Edelgard likes her, she can become her main advisor in their paired ending.

Kingdom Route

Dimitri describes himself as as someone who thinks change should come from the people and that the leadership should serve them, for all that he prefers to uphold the basic order of society, and this is reflected in his leadership style – though this also reflects that he is a ‚people person‘ rather than a planner, so the plans are left to his advisors like Byleth, Gilbert and Rodrigue. He is more the emotional/ spiritual lynchpin than the mind or will of the group.

In Azure Moon, especially later on, the decisions are really made by the entire group and you see them considering their next step together. Dimitri spills the backstory as soon as it comes up, telling everyone about his relationship with Edelgard for example.

In early part 2 this is at an extreme in that Byleth, Rodrigue and Gilbert are de facto making the decisions and Dimitri is at best a grumpy figurehead that they‘re putting up because they need him as a symbol, but at the same time he doesn‘t really compromise on his revenge obsession and is just dragging the whole team along/ not really reacting to how they are making him the lynchpin for their hopes. (though it is important to note that he didn‘t ask him too either – they decide to follow him out of friendship or loyalty to his house) yet inwardly Dimitri too is blindly following what he believes are his obligations.

A huge turning point is when he returns after the whole rain conversation and Byleth gets to ask him some variety of „What do you want to do“ in which Dimitri makes a step toward both inner and outer self-directedness, but precisely because of that becomes are more complete/better consensus leader.

I also want to stress that Claude and Edelgard LOVE togetherness and cooperation and equality as concepts every bit as much as Dimitri does they want to be one of the team but they find it difficult. And of course Dimitri’s style has its own flaws too

Alliance Route

While the Blue Lions decide everything together and either variation of the Black Eagles setup has an „inner circle“ that makes the decisions, in the Golden Dear that inner circle is basically just Claude.

Even Byleth doesn‘t find out his plans until part two, and it‘s later still till he comes clear with the team (and still doesn‘t reveal all but points to Cyril as a stand-in) Hilda and Lysithea are discernable as preferred right hand people, and Byleth and Marianne as special confidants, but in the end Claude rarely shows his real self and only he knows the plan. If Hilda and Lysithea pick up alot about him and his true self it‘s because of how observant THEY are and how much Hilda is basically a lot like him.

Claude does all the thinking and motivates followers (from Lorenz to the random merchans who support him) by promising them things they want – because even if he can‘t trust peopöle, he can trust their self-interest.

Church Route

Since you are with the church that is ideally a sort of benevolent parental authority under the supposition that people need guidance and that‘s a good thing it is perhaps fitting that though Byleth winds up the nominal leader, this is actually the route where they are more of a follower. They do watch Seteth says, who is doing what he believes is his duty and mission, and we have Flayn as an innocent, pacifistic voice.

They lost their dad, and the Nabateans are a sort of surrogate family. (wether its one that youre born into or marry into, the wiord „family“ is stressed) – they are the „inner circle“ making the decision and the empire kids, ragtag misfits estranged from their homes, follow. On the one hand they‘re going against their home country on the other they have the saint‘s blood and Adrestia USED to be church aligned so it also makes a kind of sense.

Among the Adrestian kids themselves, Ferdinand and Petra get a chance to shine as the ostensible leaders. They are stalward, competent leader-like people in CF too , but there they are more overshadowed by the much more experienced Hubert and Edelgard. - Though when you think about it they are like „pure hero“ versions of them who were never forced to become as cold and pragmatic. Ferdinand, like Hubert, is a nobleman from a storied family who is proud of it but wants to fix its tarnished reputation from his corrupt father. Petra, like Edelgard, is a former political hostage who experienced hardship at a young age and worked her way up all on her own, being very serious and competent despite her young age. I prefer the version where they stay buds rly.

It‘s worth noting that Seteth, ‚Heir of Purpose‘, sees it as their families duty to protect Fodlan and is the only one really doing that – his brothers noped out, and Rhea, uneknowst to him, twisted „protect“ into „rule/subjugate“. One might question who gives him the right to decide things because his mom is magic but on the other hand he really is 100% benevolent and I see no sign that he has any greedy intentions especially in in Silver Snow, all the countries collapse and someone needs to keep order, he doesn‘t understand what the empire‘s doing and why just sees their agression and really is rising to the challenge of upholding peace because something needs to do something about the violence. He had withdrawn to protect his daughter but then in the end he‘s the last one who is really doing what Sothis would have wanted. He looks most like her too having the slightly darker, ‚spikier‘ hair.

Further Thoughts

I’m curious to see how Yuri, the Ashen Wolves, and Cindered Shadows compare/contrast to this and i theyll manage to make the dynamics sufficiently different so that its neither a carbon copy or a blabk mary sue ish superlative.

I mean the other routes are so interesting to dissect because its a tradeof and all have their own flavor so really CS would do better to try to be “different” or, better yet, “complementary” than “better” or “cooler”

#three houses #fire emblem: three houses #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #black eagles #blue lions #golden deer #three houses meta

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 4 years

Text

More Three Frat Houses AU miscellany:

Claude has to get Byleth a fake id so she can go out clubbing with them - not because Byleth is too young to drink, Jeralt is pretty sure she’s old enough, but because Byleth doesn’t even have any real id to identify herself by.

Byleth: “At this point, I don’t think I legally exist anywhere.” Claude, Dimitri, Bernadetta, Felix, Hubert, all for a very wide spread of personal reasons: “god_i_wish_that_were_me.jpg” Flayn: “Oh, oh! I don’t think I do, either!”

Nobody in the Black Eagles house knows where Jeritza came from, but he just kind of moved into the frat house about a week after Edelgard and Hubert were kicked out of their apartment. Edelgard’s entire explanation of the situation is basically “Academy administration wouldn’t want a non-student living on their property and using their resources, so fuck them” which is absolutely not an explanation. He doesn’t bother any of the others, he’s just weird, so they all kind of sort of let him stay because even Ferdinand, who like, doesn’t really want to actually be part of this frat for as long as Edelgard is in charge of it, feels kinda bad about just kicking the guy out back onto the street. Nobody learns the first thing about Jeritza until Mercedes comes in like, a month after he moved in, with some extra cookies, which she drops on the floor and the container shatters on the floor as she shrieks, “EMILE?”

He doesn’t even tell her why and how he ended up here.

Hilda: “My brother told me that one of his old college friends, to this very day, lives in the tunnels beneath campus committing tax evasion and avoiding paying back his student loans. Funny urban legend, right?” Balthus: “God I can’t believe Holst ratted me out like this.”

Jeralt has not filed taxes for at least a decade.

Dimitri still gave Edelgard a dagger when they were kids. She uses it to chop vegetables.

Claude, hanging upside-down from the fire escape, banging on Lorenz’s window at 3 am: “Hey, I ruined my phone and lost my house keys when I fell in the river, can you let me in and grab me a towel and not ask any questions?”

Dimitri has to wear an eye patch for a couple months after kicking Edelgard and Hubert out, because he can’t find either his glass eye or his backup glass eye. Eventually Felix gives them back to him and tells him that he paid Hubert $3 to steal them on his way out because Felix was pissed about the coffee table.

The Academy has a feral cat problem because they set a bunch of them loose to try and deal with the rat problem, yet the Academy still also has a rat problem. Marianne has named the rats that frequent the Golden Deer house.

Alois is a campus security officer who drives a golf cart around campus, and has had it stolen numerous times by too many of the frat hooligans to list.

Dimitri and Dedue are once woken at 1 am by Lysithea showing up on their doorstep and begging Dedue to make her something with vegetables in it because she’s craving vegetables and she’s pretty sure that among other things means she’s dying, please help, no store that sells vegetables is open and there’s nothing in the Golden Deer fridge but two cupcakes, four cans of whipped cream, and a bottle of hot sauce.

Ingrid: “Why is there spaghetti on the ceiling?” Annette: “Oh, you know how it is with spaghetti.” Ingrid: “....no.”

Hubert buys all three houses some very nice tvs, leaving everyone suspicious of where he acquired them/the money for them.

Rhea has to ask Seteth and Jeralt to help her figure out where some strange charges on her credit card came from. They never actually do figure it out because none of them are particularly good at technology.

Sylvain: “Hey, you know what it’s called when you try to kill your brother?” Dimitri: “Attempted murder.” Felix: “Fratricide.” Sylvain: “Homie-cide. Or every other Tuesday during my childhood, but mostly - oh my god fratricide is that why it’s called a frat.” Dimitri: “Please back up to the earlier part you mentioned. Sylvain: “Homie-cide?” Dimitri: “No, the bit after that.”

Pokemon GO. Edelgard is very mad that everyone did not join up with the team that corresponds to their frat color. She wants to beat Claude and kick him out of this gym BUT SHE CAN’T DO THAT BECAUSE HE’S ALSO ON TEAM VALOR. RED IS NOT YOUR COLOR WHY ARE YOU ON TEAM VALOR, CLAUDE.

Dimitri, jaywalking across the main road: “Hit me, bitch, I dare you.” Leonie: “Yeah, sometimes I barely even look, like hit me, pay my tuition, that’s all I want.” Dimitri: “Wait, you get your tuition covered if you get hit by a car while on campus?” Leonie: “....why do you want to be hit by a car if not to get your tuition paid for?” Dimitri: “I don’t know, doesn’t everyone want to be hit by a car sometimes?”

#three frat houses au #i still have not played the ashen wolves dlc this is just the one thing i know about balthus #the lysithea story is based on the one time at uni that i walked to whole foods at 8 pm to get broccoli bc i was CRAVING veggies #as much as i enjoyed writing all of these things i think the dimitri-leonie conversation at the end is my favorite #this is rather blue lions-heavy bc they are currently the ones occupying my brain

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isuzukuretsuki · 4 years

Text

me before playing blue lions: haha I’m not like ~other girls~ I don’t like Dimitri and I think he’s boring and basic.

me after playing blue lions: I will die for Dimitri.

I finally finished Azure Moon!! Can’t believe it took me 4 damn months to finish this route. Just like with Crimson Flower, I decided to do a very long write up of my thoughts of this route after letting my thoughts marinate for a bit. There will be spoilers for both Azure Moon and Crimson Flower. Also disclaimer: these are just my personal opinions.

Tldr: this route was so fucking good!!!! I jumped ship from being team Edie/BE to team Dimitri/BL faster than Sylvain jumps girlfriends because I enjoyed this route more than Crimson Flower in almost every way possible. The Blue Lions are my KIDS and I will die for each and every one of them. Blue Lions may not be my first route/house, but this is where my heart rightfully lies.

I guess the first thing I should get out of the way are the negatives. While this isn’t really a complaint about AM specifically and more so the narrative over the entire game... the conflict between Edelgard and Dimitri seems really stupid and contrived. In other games, war happens because the villain is evil. In this game, war happens because the villain is fucking stupid. Basically, I still ain’t convinced that Edelgard’s war was ever necessary LMAO. She straight up nuked the church’s authority and relevancy out of orbit the chapter before the time skip, so she technically already accomplished her goal; why she still feels the need to go on a savage conquest alludes me.

Speaking of nuking the church’s relevancy out of orbit, that’s exactly what happened to Rhea LOL. Despite all the church goons clamoring every .5 seconds about how they gotta save Rhea, we literally never see her again at all after the time skip, even at the end of the game. It makes no sense why Edelgard would keep Rhea imprisoned and not kill her, especially when Rhea seemingly served no greater purpose to Edelgard and became completely irrelevant in the war phase.

Edie says some mumbo jumbo of “I weighed the victims of this war against the victims of the world and I deem that there will be less victims of war” like bitch, how??? How do you tangibly quantify “victims of this world”. If she means “people who had a shitty life because of shitty society”, then those people are always going to exist because every society has its flaws. Even if you change society, you aren’t decreasing that number because you’re only solving problems by creating new ones (Edelgard’s specialty). Also the mental gymnastics you have to do to be tortured by an evil organization only to team up with said evil organization to take down another organization that, unless I missed something, isn’t even directly responsible for the death of all your siblings??? In both CF and AM, Edelgard comes off as incredibly thoughtless and illogical in her actions and I can’t help but feel that if she had been just a little bit more diplomatic, then maybe, just maybe, she could have found a better solution without starting a bloody war.

This brings me to the god forsaken chat between Edelgard and Dimitri. Dimitri demanding to know why Edelgard started the war only for her to go “it was the only way” has about the same narrative weight as “Riku why did you become one with the darkness?!” “Because I’m the worst”. Instead of bitching about whose ~ideals~ are better, how about y’all sit down and actually discuss what each person wants to accomplish and maybe figure out a way to accomplish these goals without murdering each other over it? Not that I think Edelgard would accept anything BUT murder, but jesus, this is why you don’t leave diplomatic matters to actual children.

Speaking of why you don’t leave diplomatic matters to children, god that Gronder battle. I get that it’s supposed to be an epic showdown between the three houses that mirrored the mock battle pre time skip but... the Kingdom had literally NO reason to fight the Alliance!!! The reasons they provided to justify why the Kingdom and Alliance couldn’t team up at Gronder was so fucking dumb, especially when two chapters down the line, Claude is knocking at our door begging for help. I will say tho, I never knew how much I appreciated himbo in distress Claude until now lmao.

Rodrigue's death was also really poorly done imo. As much as I liked having Dimitri’s father figure be the one to snap him out of his insanity, (I love found father/son relationships...) how on earth are you guys so fucking incompetent that you let this tiny little girl kill Rodrigue??? It doesn’t help that the exact same thing happened with Jeralt and Monica. This... just ain’t it, chief.

I think the biggest bone I have to pick at AM specifically is... so what the fuck is the truth behind the Tragedy of Duscur LMAO??? They literally blue balled me by dropping the bomb of “Dimitri’s step mom may have conspired in it” ONLY TO NOT DO ANYTHING WITH IT. I assume that the full truth behind the Duscur tragedy will probably be revealed in VW (I hope) because it involves the slithers but it’s highkey ridiculous that the BL goons... never actually find out what really happened, and why. And I get that the story is about them moving on from their trauma and the past, but they should have at least figured out the actual truth behind it so they can get the closure they deserve???

Despite the gripes I have with some of the writing, unless VW or SS is mind blowingly amazing, this route will easily stand as the best route for me, because.... it is kind of is mind blowingly amazing. I wholeheartedly love character driven stories, and this route absolutely delivers in that respect-- the character writing is amazing and is essentially the heart of this story. To think Dimitri and the Blue Lions were the lord/house I was least interested in at first. Even after hearing people talk about what the BL goons and Dimitri’s character arc was roughly about, I was still blown away by just how damn fucking good it was, and this route exceeded my expectations in every way possible.

When playing CF, I struggled to connect with a lot of the beagles; I didn’t have that problem at all with the BL goons and the route does a phenomenal job at making me actually give a shit about these characters and their problems. Childhood friend squad (+Marianne and Ashe) are easily my favourite characters in this game by a landslide, and the dynamic between not only the childhood friend squad, but all the BL goons, was just so, so amazing. Watching these characters that are seemingly joined by a single tragedy, rise above all their suffering as they grow, heal, and overcome hardship together is just so... MY KIDS... MY HEART..... I really got the sense of not only their shared pain, but also shared intimacy, care, and friendship. Their support conversations with each other had everything; from goofy and fun, to soothing and nurturing, to painful and harrowing.

The connections that the BL goons have to the pre time skip missions gave part 1 story so much more meaning, and it only gets better after the time skip. I really appreciate that the BL bean boys actually feel relevant to the main story, and that their input and opinions actually mattered. The cast’s struggle to come to a consensus on the best course of action during the war phase made them feel like actual people with opinions, unlike in CF, where everyone was just a mindless passenger to Edie’s not so merry joyride. This also made Dimitri’s arc way more impactful because the narrative actually holds him accountable for the consequences that his behavior/poor decisions had on others. What I also really liked about the war phase is that you could just feel how war torn the kingdom was and how much everything went to shit after the time skip. I felt really strongly to the characters’ sense of hopelessness at fighting a losing battle as they struggled to keep their home land in tact while everything just kept spiraling out of control and deteriorating further.

So to see the BL goon beans slowly, one battle at a time, turn the tide of the war and push back against the corner they were backed in, was SO fulfilling and rewarding. The battle of Fhirdiad is probably my favourite battle in the entire game because it felt like all the suffering and toiling that the BL goons went through was finally worth it, and just watching the kingdom slowly heal after being liberated was just such a good feeling. This kind of payoff is something I think CF sorely lacked, since tbh, I struggled to celebrate Edie’s victories with her. Though I do appreciate how Edie’s a much more threatening antagonistic force than either Dimitri or Rhea were in CF too bad Edelgard’s boss battle was pathetically easy and Dimitri shredded through her armor like swiss cheese... at least Rhea put up a slightly challenging fight.

I could gush about the characters all day, but Dimitri? He makes this game, 100%. This truly felt like his story and he was the star of this route. On a superficial level, I’m a basic bitch as well as a slut for angsty boys who have trouble talking about their trauma because I want them to rail me. I fucking loved his feral personality it was just so fun to watch and interact with LMAO 10/10 would let him use me until the flesh falls from my bones. His dialogue in this state is just so demeaning, belittling and raw that it somehow comes a full circle and becomes charming I promise I’m not a sick masochist.

I’m also a degenerate and dimileth is my otp. The way the relationship between Dimitri and Byleth develops over the game truly felt like a bond forged over time. The way Dimitri admits that he couldn’t trust Byleth at first because he was put off by the way they could “kill without batting an eye”, to being so elated when he sees them smile for the first time that he’s completely mesmerized when they starts expressing emotion... oof, talk about otp material. I think what really sold me is the way he’s their anchor after Jeralt’s death; their emotional support both in a traditional sense, but also in a darker sense when he declares he will kill anyone so they desire it because their enemies are his enemies. Character A declaring they’d die for character B? Soft shit. Character A declaring they’d kill for character B? A+ romance right there, boys.

On a non superficial level, Dimitri’s character arc of his fall from grace and subsequent redemption was absolutely phenomenal. Just seeing how far he sinks, how far he goes, only to see how far he climbs his way back up after hitting rock bottom, was such a roller coaster and I loved every minute of it. I also probably like revenge stories more than I care to admit. Dimitri has everything; blood lust, cruelty, obsession, but also empathy and compassion so extreme that it’s his very own innate kindness that drives him into insanity, which is what makes him such a compelling character in my eyes. The extremity of his psychosis was absolutely heart breaking, but despite everything, him making the conscious decision to change for the better and rise up to fulfill his role as king was just astounding to watch.

I will say though... maybe I have a screwed up moral compass but tbh Dimitri brutally killing imperial soldires didn’t really upset me because... this is war??? That he didn’t even start?? Everyone is killing everyone??? Even if he never went feral, he’d still be killing because his bloody kingdom is being invaded?????? But I digress.

While I think just how damn avoidable everything was kind of detracts from the tragedy of his relationship with Edelgard, I still really loved how steadfast and unconditional his love for her was (after he stops going feral), and you can tell just how much she meant to him every time he spoke of her. I also love how the dagger kind of becomes a symbolic motif throughout the story, and Edie throwing the dagger at him in the final cutscene as a sign of her wholehearted rejection of him was just fucking depressing, but also very fitting of her character.

I adore the whole overarching narrative and themes surrounding grief and death, befitting of a war game. How, as tempting as it is to constantly keep the memory of the dead alive, there comes a point where you have to move on and not let your life be ruled by those no longer around. The way that the characters react to the death of loved ones and grieve so differently was a huge highlight of the BL squad’s characterizations, which just makes them feel more alive and human. Honestly, no words can really describe just how incredible of an experience Azure Moon was.

Anyway my order from favourite to least favourite BL goon bean boys are: Dimitri > Ashe >/= Sylvain >/= Felix > Ingrid > Mercedes > Annette > Dedue. (I love Ashe/Sylvain/Felix almost equally LOL)

tldr my experience with Azure Moon:

tfw my second best girl is childhood friends with all the best boys in the entIRE GAME and she settles for a guy with a dead wife, daughter, and most likely triple her age :|.

I’ll be finally playing Golden Deer next, which I’m gonna do on NG+ Maddening so.... hope that goes well!!

#fire emblem three houses #ellie plays fe3h terribly

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sara-scribbles · 5 years

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Hi, could I request a Berkut x summoner support conversation (au where Rinea doesnt exist)

Berkut Summoner Support

C Support

Summoner: Thanks for coming to tea, Prince Berkut.

Berkut: Hmph. I had no pressing matters to attend to at the moment. I do not mind having tea with a commoner like yourself. Though, why tea?

Summoner: Well Byleth, both of them actually, told me about their tea times with students and faculty. They said it helped bring them closer to each other. I was hoping this could work with the heroes here as well.

Berkut: Making friends over tea…? What a novel idea. I am used to high quality tea, so I expect no less here.

Summoner: I hope you like the tea I’ve chosen. The apricot scones were made today.

Berkut: The tea smells…adequate. As for the scones, they are not as flakey as I would like, but they will suffice.

Summoner: Great! So how do you like the Order of Heroes?

Berkut: Some of these so called “heroes” are mercenary and common thieves. Why have them in the Order when you have more formidable allies. You even have divine beings, yet you waste time on such rabble.

Summoner: It’s true some of the heroes have shady pasts. But they, like you, were summoned here with the divine weapon. They’re just as worthy as everyone else to be considered heroes.

Berkut: Perhaps that divine weapon of yours is broken. Such a thing should bring forth better than cut-purses and the like. For example, why have you not brought my Uncle? He is a man of great power and virtue. Instead you have such dirt as Alm and his Deliverance…

Summoner: I don’t get to choose who I summon. Some people are brought here while others aren’t. But maybe in time your Uncle will join us. As for Alm and his friends, they’re invaluable members. Whatever disagreements you have with him can wait.

Berkut: No matter. He and his ragged band of men will be trampled under Rigel’s foot once I return home.

Summoner: Of course. More tea?

B Support

Berkut: What snacks do we have today, Summoner?

Summoner: We have strawberry and mango macrons. They’re quite tasty.

Berkut: I see you have had some before our tea time. Sneaking food are we?

Summoner: Maybe… I couldn’t help myself. Anyways you look like you have something important to say to me.

Berkut: Yes. I do not approve of the group you have thrown me in with. Of all people to fight next to, you picked Alm. I want a change. Now.

Summoner: I can’t. You and Alm compliment each other on the battlefield. As much as you might dislike him, you two work well.

Berkut: Of course I do well on the battlefield. I have been raised to be the next emperor of Rigel. Expect nothing less but perfection. However, I do not want to fight with the likes of him. I demand you change this!

Summoner: Prince Berkut, as royalty I’m surprised you’re acting so childish. There will come times where you have to work with people you may not like. You could one day have an advisor you dislike. Will you act like a child throwing a tantrum because you don’t want to work with them?

Berkut: A c-child?! Preposterous! You know nothing! Hmph!

Summoner: Guess I’ll finish the rest of the macrons…

A Support:

Summoner: Hello, Prince Berkut. Do you mind stepping out of my way?

Berkut: I’ve been trying to talk with you, but you ignore me. You will hear me out right now.

Summoner: If I must…

Berkut: The last time we had tea, you said some uncouth things about me.

Summoner: I only said the truth. I believe you were the uncouth one, slamming your tea cup and storming off.

Berkut: Listen well, Summoner, for I will only say this once. I am…sorry for my lack of manners. As a prince I should act with refinement. At that moment I acted like common rabble. It was very unbecoming of me.

Summoner: Hmm… Sorry I didn’t hear you. Could you say that all again?

Berkut: Stop grinning like a fool! Your ears work perfectly fine! You heard me.

Summoner: …I did hear you. And apology accepted. I may have placed you and Alm together with the hopes that you might get along with him. I’ll move you to a different team.

Berkut: No. Leave me. You are right about working with others. As future emperor, I need to learn to work with those I consider less savory. A good way to learn that is here.

Summoner: Well I’m glad you were able to think on this and come to a very mature conclusion. You’ve really grown a lot since coming here, Prince Berkut.

Berkut: I’ll admit coming here has opened my eyes. Perhaps this place is not as bad as I once thought. And you, despite being of common blood, are far more than I gave you credit for.

Summoner: Wow, that sounds like a compliment! An apology and a compliment on the same day?! Are you sure you’re feeling well?

Berkut: Do not mock me, Summoner.

Summoner: Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. Let me make it up to you.

Berkut: I expect tea and snacks next time we meet.

S Support

Summoner: This is a change. You actually invited me to tea.

Berkut: I had the best leaves gathered for this blend. Also a strawberry and chocolate parfait.

Summoner: Oh! I love parfaits! And is that tea…it smells like…

Berkut: I was told this is your favorite tea.

Summoner: Oh… Yes, it is my favorite…

Berkut: Why are you crying?! D-did I do something wrong?!

Summoner: No. No. I just… the tea brings back memories of my family. Of home…

Berkut: Ah, I see. You miss home. Then my next request will be useless…

Summoner: What is it, Berkut? You can ask me. Maybe it will be something I can do.

Berkut: …When I return to Rigel, you are welcome to come with me. You could even command the Rigelian army in your spare time.

Summoner: I’m flattered you think so highly of me. However I will have to decline. When this war is over, and I am no longer needed, I want to return home.

Berkut: Hah… That rejection was a swift one indeed. A part of me knew you would say no.

Summoner: I’m sorry. I just don’t think I could live in another world if I was allowed to return to my own. I do appreciate the fact that you would offer me such a position.

Berkut: There is more… I wanted you to come to Rigel with me to rule by my side. You may not be a noble, but you have proven to be worth more than any noble. I have grown…comfortable with you. I would miss our tea time and conversations.

Summoner: You want me… Me as… I don’t… Are you proposing?!

Berkut: No need to look so alarmed. It was merely a suggestion that you do not need to take. I do not want to be the one holding you back. As much as it pains me, if happiness is returning to your world so be it.

Summoner: Berkut… Thank you. I know this isn’t how you wanted things to go, but I think I have a compromise. If the proposal still stands, I will gladly marry you. And however long we are here, we can be together. How does that sound?

Berkut: It is… acceptable. I want a grand ceremony and to be married in front of everyone. I expect nothing less. Give me your hand.

Summoner: You even have a ring… Berkut you are something else. But I guess that’s one reason why I love you.

Berkut: And I you. Perhaps I will convince you to return to Rigel with me.

Summoner: Perhaps you will.

#fire emblem #fire emblem heroes #fe heroes #feh #fe imagines #feh imagines #fire emblem imagines #fe berkut #feh berkut #summoner support

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frankenby · 5 years

Text

Okay, I’ve been playing Pokémon Shield recently so consider this FE3H/Pokemon game crossover idea I had for a moment.

Characters:

As of right now, I’m only going to put who I think would be gym leaders/Elite Four people. I may or may not have given every student (and some other characters) pokémon teams with four pokémon each, except if people don’t care about this then I’m not going to do much more with it except for my own personal enjoyment.

Elite Four

Sothis: Champion I think it’s pretty obvious why she’d be the champion. They’re very respected and powerful, but she’s still given the opportunity to be elusive and mysterious.

Rhea: Headmaster of Trainer School (Explained in plot) and Elite Four Member She’s not as powerful as the champion, but she is still quite powerful. I’m thinking she’d specialize in psychic pokémon or dragon pokémon.

Lambert: Elite Four Member Dimitri will be well-known and respected, considering how powerful his father is. He will also have a lot to live up to. I’m leaning towards making Lambert specialize in ice type pokémon because Faerghus=cold and cold=ice.

Patricia: Elite Four Member Again, having your mother be on the Elite Four will make you well-known. Also, it’s plot important. I feel like she’d specialize in fire type pokémon because... you know. Flame Emperor.

Reigan: Elite Four Member Claude’s grandpa doesn’t have a name, so I feel like he’d go by his last name. Again again, being on the Elite Four will mean that Reigan’d grandson is well-known. I kind of feel like he’d be an electric type gym leader because... I don’t know. Yellow?

Gym Leaders

So I would make the nobles gym leaders, but also there are too many nobles and not enough gym leaders. Here’s what I have so far. My reasoning may be garbage (as you can probably tell from the section about the Elite Four)

Rodrigue: Ice Type Gym Leader I will say it again. Faerghus=cold, cold=ice. I just feel like Rodrigue should be a gym leader.

Holst Gonriel: Fire Type Gym Leader Holst was a General in the Alliance and was respected for that, so it makes sense that he’d be a gym leader. Why fire? I don’t know, but I’ve connected dots that aren’t actually connected in anyway to justify myself for this long, so... He probably has pink hair, pink=light red red=hot hot=fire

Seteth: Psychic Type Gym Leader Okay, I swear I had a reason for making him a psychic type gym leader and not a dragon type one, but I can’t remember it. Please just trust me. Or don’t. Please feel free to argue with me, actually. Also, Flayn would most definitely be like Wally and want to be a trainer, but Seteth would be like, “No. it is too dangerous, but you may have this Togepi.” Then Byleth would beat him and he’d be like, “Having my ass kicked by this child has made me rethink my view point. You may be a pokémon trainer now, Flayn.” And yes, Flayn is referred to as his daughter in this.

Miklan: Rock Type Gym Leader I don’t know. I don’t know why I want him to be one. I don’t know why rocks. Just rocks. “Not bad for your kind. A bunch of rocks.”

Cornelia: Ghost Type Gym Leader Tell me this woman wouldn’t have a Mismagius and/or a Hattrene. It just fits.

Jeralt: Steel Type Gym Leader I originally had this as Gilbert, but I feel like it would make more sense for it to be Jeralt. I guess maybe the reason for him sending Byleth to school/them moving would be so he could be a gym leader. Also, steel makes sense because he was a knight, I guess?

Ladislava: Flying Type Gym Leader I love her, okay? So I put her in here. What are you gonna do about it? Ground me? You can’t. Speaking of ground, I was going to make her a ground type gym leader, but it makes more sense for her to be a flying type because she’s got a wyvern, so flying type.

Judith: Fighting Type Gym Leader Again, I love her. It just makes sense to me for her to be here. Why fighting? She is the hero of Daphnel. She’s good at fighting.

Plot:

I came up with this at midnight when 1/6th of my brain cell was functioning. It’s probably got things in it that don’t fit the lore/are just not good and I’m sorry. :( If you want to add ideas onto anything I’ve put on here, please do. Feedback would make me very happy. Also, I have no idea what I’m using this plot for, it just exists because I made it and I wanted to share it.

What if there was an optional school for those interested in trainers? I’m actually pretty sure something similar exists but I could be wrong. Prior to their journey, they could receive a starter Pokémon and be taught how to strategize. Byleth and Jeralt could move to the nearby village a few months after the school year begins, but Jeralt could convince the headmaster—Rhea—to let Byleth join. Byleth could recieve their starter Pokémon I don’t know what the starters would be and battle against someone maybe Jeritza or Catherine or Shamir idk as a sort of entrance exam.

Upon passing, Byleth could be allowed to join one of the Three Houses. I’ve been considering naming the houses after the legendary dogs, the legendary birds, or the lake guardians.

(The paragraphs in italics are just talking about the potential names for the houses, so you can skip it if you don’t care about that.)

So I feel like Entei, Raikou, and Suicune could definitely work, but I’m not entirely sure how I feel about naming them something like, “The Entei House.” You could, of course, use their titles, but that would be something like, “The Volcano Pokemon House” and im not sure about that either. Still, I know Arceus is rumored to have played a part in these Pokémon becoming legendaries, and Arceus is going to play a part in the plot.

Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres could also work, but again, the names would be weird. “The Articuno House” Or “The Ice Bird House.” I just feel like those are weird, however I do like that the types for each House are different.

Then there’s Uxie, Azelf, and Mesprit. Their colors match pretty well, and the titles of these Pokémon could definitely relate two the House leaders. Uxie is the knowledge Pokémon and it is also yellow. Claude’s color scheme is yellow, and he’s very witty. Azelf is the willpower Pokémon and it is also blue. Dimitri’s color scheme is blue and Dimitri often has to restrain his impulses and strength. Mesprit is the emotion Pokémon and it is also pink, which is pretty close to red and it has red gems. Edelgard’s color scheme is red. The only issue with this is that Edelgard isn’t any more emotional than other characters, or at least that is what I feel. If anyone has anything to add regarding this, please feel free to say so! (Especially if I’m wrong about my Pokémon lore.)

The house Byleth picks would determine who their rival is (it’s the house leader) and who they would interact with more often. (Trainers sometimes travel in groups, so it wouldn’t be uncommon for them to see all of their old classmates hanging out.)

Again, the plot of the story was created by me at 12:00 am after reading a few bulbapedia articles on Pokémon stuff so that I could find the correct Pokémon to use.

So Sothis is the champion. Not many people have the opportunity to face her, and she’s very secretive. No one knows how long she’s been the champion, either. So I wanted her to have befriended a legendary Pokémon, but I also wanted her to be immortal (or at least I wanted her to have lived for a long time.) So, I decided to have her befriend Jirachi, the Pokémon that grants wishes. She became the Pokémon champion, but as she got older she wished that she could keep living and defend her spot as champion until someone defeated her in battle. Her wish was granted, and at some point she had children, Rhea and Seteth. I’m not incorporating her other children and I’m keeping their names, too. The Elite Four are the only people who really speak to Sothis, along with her son and granddaughter. They are obviously suspicious of why she looks so young and how she’s been there so long, so Sothis tells them the truth. When Rhea finds out, she is determined to protect her, knowing that being defeated in battle will mean she will die. Patricia, however, wants this power for herself. She secretly forms and becomes the leader of a team called Team Flame wow so creative I know who’s goal is to obtain the azure flute, capture Arceus, then use it to defeat Sothis, as Patricia is unable to defeat on her own. Cornelia, Ladislava, and Jeritza will also be members of Team Flame. Once Byleth defeats/captures Arceus, Sothis will ask Patricia if she really wants to be immortal and watch as all of her loved ones leave her behind. Patricia is remorseful, and Sothis asks her to return to the Elite Four. Once Byleth defeats Sothis, she peacefully fades away and Jirachi also departs.

That’s all I have for right now, but I would love for there to be an open discussion about FE3H/Pokémon because I love both and they are all that’s on my mind right now.

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langwrites · 5 years

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Lang Plays Fire Emblem: Three Houses

So a while ago I said I was planning on playing the story routes in this order: Blue Lions, Black Eagles, Church of Seiros, and then Golden Deer.

The Golden Deer made a liar out of me.

So, here’s an approximation of What Happened During Verdant Wind.

So many spoilers below the cut, you guys. I do a lot of route comparisons.

Okay, I’ve been staring at the “which house do you want” selection screen for an embarrassing amount of time.

This shouldn’t be hard. I had a plan.

But no.

I clicked the Golden Deer, just like that. What the fuck, Claude. I blame you.

Immediately upon talking to this rop of students again, I can feel the difference in the social group from what the Lions were like. The latter were really a bunch of noble kids around their prince, and they felt really tight-knit. Classic Fire Emblem starter crew.

The Golden Deer is the fucking Scooby Gang.

First impressions of individuals:

Raphael, thank goodness, is the one character who absolutely has his shit in order. Sure, he’s bad at book work and thinks everything comes down to MUSCLES, but all of his emotional issues are handled by the time he arrives at Garreg Mach. He’s the brightest of sunshines.

Ignatz needs some more confidence in his art, and also I want to see his painting of Seiros. Now, if only both of his offensive stats and growths weren’t incredibly bad.

I was so close to making him my dancer. Just because he sure as hell wasn’t gonna be useful anywhere else.

Lorenz! I don’t like him. His haircut is a monstrosity.

Leonie! We are going. To be. Besties. Even though the timing of your support conversations are incredibly bad.

Marianne no please don’t be sad everyone loves you

Hilda is the greatest enabler I have ever seen. By which I mean she enables other people to do all her work for her.

Lysithea is going to have the last word with God. And especially he Death Knight.

And finally Claude! Teamwork makes the dream work, so obviously meme work does the same.

I’m sorry.

PRE-TIMESKIP

Mock battle! Marianne’s great and I love her and also the only healer oh god.

OKAY. I have access to New Game+ bonuses. What do I do first?

Immediately crank the Professor Level stat to max to avoid ever having to run short of activity points again.

Next, raise all skills I can’t easily get to at least Rank D+. HEAVY ARMOR IN PARTICULAR.

Third: Boost supports with people whose support ranks are an absolute pain in the ass to earn. Lookin’ at you, Rhea.

Also, put glasses on Byleth (named “Yuri” for this playthrough). Glasses are the bomb. I am the evil genius.

LEVEL GRINDING TIME.

It’s a lot harder with Blacksmith access being story-locked, but I can do this!

As a direct result, every single battle after this point is a complete curbstomp in my favor. Because the grind don’t stop.

I broke a lot more weapons than last time, though.

I will befriend Leonie and Ferdinand if it’s the last fucking thing I do. I will befriend everyone, and I will not get timeskip-locked out of supports! >:(

Ferdinand was my first recruit. Oh dear.

Okay, there are like five born cavaliers in this game. Leonie, Ferdinand, Lorenz, Sylvain, and I guess Dimitri if you’re on the right route.

Last time, Sylvain was a great paladin and a decent Dark Knight before he started getting one- or two-stat level ups for like thirty levels. Similarly, Dimitri was great until all his ultra-secret-awesome promotions didn’t use a fucking horse.

Contrast Leonie who, despite sitting out 99% of the game out of spite from me getting locked out of her support chain, went to endgame with a ten-level deficit and still rocked.

Ferdinand didn’t count since I failed to recruit him last time and he died. These two facts are directly related.

I didn’t use Lorenz at all; I recruited him to keep from having to kill him later.

This time, Lorenz straight-up sucks, Sylvain did the terrible level dance for like the entire game, and Dimitri’s not recruitable.

Contrast, again, Leonie. Her support chain with the player character is hot garbage, but she plowed through most of the game as a mainstay of my team and made it to Bow Knight first out of anyone.

Bernadetta and Ashe as Bow Knights don’t even come close to being as durable as she is, except for Ashe’s absolutely bananas Resistance. 29?! WHY?!

And Ferdinand is also awesome. His only real weak point is Resistance, but he doesn’t need it. He dodge-tanks everything, is faster than Leonie, and has two Saints’ relics he unknowingly stole from Seteth.

He still talks in MLA format, though.

I started putting off recruiting people so I wouldn’t have to level-grind them up to par with the rest of my team.

But if these people wanna join, of course I’m saying yes.

Lord Lonato’s rebellion and Miklan yoinking the Lance of Ruin feel way less relevant on a Golden Deer playthrough than on a Blue Lions one. None of the Herd really know who the hell these people are.

I say that despite having already recruited Sylvain for this playthrough and deploying him in the relevant level. He wasn’t treated as there by the game’s preamble cutscenes.

At least the Holy Mausoleum stuff feels more...handled? Claude actually asks questions about rebellion and about the “assassination plot,” where Dimitri didn’t really.

OKAY SO there’s this whole plot thing where Flayn goes missing for a month. With the Blue Lions, this is handled like a manhunt. Dimitri’s seriousness about the issue rubs off on everyone except Sylvain, and Felix actually correctly identifies the culprit almost instantly. He doesn’t know he’s done it, though, because basically everyone is just throwing out accusations. Manuela is the real MVP.

CONTRAST THE DEER. The very first meeting reads like a Scooby Doo episode, when they’re piling up clues and throwing out suggestions like the gang of goofball teenagers they are. Claude’s got this group running like Persona 4′s Investigation Team. None of them are jaded or frantic, they’re just doing this.

Why did Rhea entrust the investigation to a herd of teenagers.

Anyway, the rest proceeds as usual.

I don’t know why the game tries to drop the same set of hints for each route. “OoooowoooooOOOOoooo, your house leader might be the FLAME EMPEROR.”

The Flame Emperor wears heels. And is still too short to be either Claude or Dimitri. Especially Dimitri. Who the fuck let this kid get so tall.

The only real result of all this bullshit is that my wyvern-riding sniper of doom is not available during the first map where Yuri personally beat the Death Knight into the ground.

Which, by the by, was hilariously cathartic.

It doesn’t exactly matter, since the only unit who can make real use of the Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes is unrecruitable, but bragging rights.

Remire Village’s drama is about as bad while playing as the Golden Deer. One of the foreshadowing cutscenes, though is excellent:

Claude actually finds a book that depicts The Immaculate One before its debut, only to have it confiscated by Seteth and learn that it wasn’t a library book at all; it belonged to “Tomas.” Like, all of his suspicions--which he shares with the player--start lining up. Censorship! Monsters! Sword of the Creator! What the hell is going on here??

Dimitri’s version of the cutscene involves him being caught investigating Lord Arundel by the player and Sothis. Which--since his route doesn’t meaningfully deal with the Morlocks faction aside from steamrolling them as incidental opponents--seems kinda useless.

Kicked the Death Knight into submission again out of spite.

Sylvain was useful! Mostly because I had him sit there and distract the incidentals while Claude and Lysithea cleaned house, but still!

Claude is the only lord character who seems to understand that the transforming Morlock faction probably needs to be taken more seriously. For the remainder of Part One, no one does so.

Rhea you’ve got some ‘splainin to do.

Marianne’s my team’s dancer this time. She’s a sweetheart. She seemed happy to be asked and to pursue the lessons, and being able to use Physic is a good trait in someone who’s nearly always going to be waaaaay behind the rest of the group.

Dad-stabbing happened.

Again.

Boop boop Solon’s dead.

Again.

Dear diary: I learned the definition of irony and set the Flame Emperor on fire.

I kid.

But Claude took her out in one completely overpowered shot, because crits are a thing, Flame Emperor class skills don’t reduce damage enough to survive it, and his Dex stat is through the fucking roof. And he was on a wyvern at the time because fuck it, why not.

Claude’s reaction to all of this is a minor letdown compared to the fully-rendered cutscene in the last route.

This would become something of a trend--taking out OP bosses with unexpected critical hits.

I didn’t expect to like Lorenz and now I do. How.

This is hilarious simply because he seems to be the only character that Mercedes hates. What the fuck, man.

Once again, Edelgard invades! Once again, I drop someone unexpected on her head!

Not really. It was Yuri.

Yuri does the timeskip shuffle and we’ll see everyone again after a nap.

FIVE YEARS LATER.

Aw, Claude was waiting for Yuri to show up. Adorable.

The post-meetup fight is actually harder than it was in the BL route, despite excessive level-grinding. This is due to three factors:

Claude is automatically on a wyvern, meaning that he has inherent class vulnerability to archers on a map with at least five of them. And less range than they did, for some fucking reason.

Lorenz and Ignatz started out on the same corner of the map and both of them are shitty offensive units who could barely kill a mage between them. (Neither of Ignatz’s offensive stats cracked 20 for another thirteen levels.)

I don’t have Ashe and his personal skill Locktouch, and nobody started with a Chest Key or Door Key, which meant I had to keep various enemies alive long enough to steal all of their stuff. And the enemy item drops came up one short of the number of chests on the map. I want my stuff, dammit.

LET’S MAKE A SCENE.

Randolph, as a boss in Verdant Wind, did not get any better at figuring out when he’s outmatched. Therefore, I killed him with Raphael again.

At least he straight-up died this time.

Claude didn’t even get to set the damn place on fire.

Ingrid is turning out to be way better of a unit this time than she was last time. She’s a little slower, but a lot stronger.

FELIX, WHERE THE FUCK WAS ALL THIS STRENGTH HIDING LAST TIME. YOU’RE TEN POINTS AHEAD OF THE GUY WHO HAS STORY-BASED SUPER STRENGTH.

AND SPEED.

Iiiiiiiiit’s JUDITH!

She only shows up on one map in the entire Azure Moon route, and that’s a damn shame. She’s so cool in Verdant Wind.

A lord-class character who isn’t also a Lord! WOO!

Also her spies are better than anybody’s apparently.

I am choosing to believe that because Ingrid’s family is related to Judith’s, her badassery in this route is the direct result of meeting her distant cousin and absorbing badass radiation.

There’s something funny about having to pull one over on Lorenz’s dad to get anything done. The Great Bridge falls not to power, but Claude baiting Count Gloucester’s entire army to be somewhere else. (FEAR THE DEER.)

As a result, Ladislava dies alone. (As opposed to taking Ferdinand with her due to plot shenanigans.)

Lysithea and Ferdinand’s paralogue was really quite sad, for all that the only named guy who died was deeply unsympathetic. Ferdinand’s dad was an asshole, but he wasn’t the asshole for this particular scenario, and now both of his parents are gone. :(

Felix...hasn’t heard from his dad in a while. Worrying.

Oh, and Caspar’s uncle is still dead, in case we were keeping track of that.

Dorothea’s happier with Ferdinand alive. She did an impression of the Gatekeeper. :3

Gronder Field! FUCK.

I delayed playing this chapter for two solid days because I already knew what was gonna happen. Specifically: Edelgard gets injured and evacuated, and Dimitri drops of exhaustion just in time to get run through like ten times by the Emperor’s rearguard.

I eventually got my shit together enough to do the thing.

Marianne, Raphael, and Ferdinand went after the Kingdom army first. Leonie and Felix hung back and then reinforced them after taking out the archer on the central hill.

Claude killed everyone in the center of the map, which meant Edelgard set the entire hill on fire and if Bernadetta had not been recruited she would’ve burned to death there on the spot.

Ahem.

I sent Yuri to clear the entire left side of the map by herself.

She succeeded.

Raphael KO’d Dimitri with a luck Gauntlet crit, got blasted down to half health by a Warlock, then plunked ineffectually at Dedue until Marianne used her Levin Sword to sort him out.

Ferdinand killed everyone else on that side of the map.

Claude once again got the kill on Edelgard with a lucky crit, after Yuri had killed everyone else (up to and including the Demonic Beasts) single-handedly.

And then the plot moved on. Hilda’s account of Dimitri’s death was awful, Dedue’s reaction was worse, and off we go to punch Edelgard’s teeth in.

Again.

Annette’s dad is probably dead now.

Felix’s, too.

(I THOUGHT WE WERE DONE WITH THE DAD-STABBING.)

FOOOOOORT MERCEUS.

No matter how many times I think about it, Claude’s Almyran army reinforcements only make so much sense. How the hell and fuck did he manage to sneak an entire foreign army across a whole country to help with one battle?

But hey, they’re here, and Claude almost admitted the reason why he could do that. And the arrow greeting between him and Nader was cool.

(Spoiler: On top of being the Alliance’s leader, he’s also the crown prince of Almyra!)

The Death Knight had the gall to run from my army.

Yuri punched his ticket for the third time, which was not the charm.

And then Fort Merceus took an intercontinental ballistic missile and suddenly defeating the fort’s garrison feels a lot less triumphant.

Spot the miscolored eyes in this cutscene!

Welp. Fuck it, we’re off to Enbarr. Time to also punch Hubert this time! What a change of pace.

Eyyy, it’s the Enbarr map. I totally forgot to bring Seteth and Flayn along to check out the opera house, despite a whole bunch of characters talking about how they totally wanted to check that place out at some point. No room for deadweights in a map that has SO MANY ARCHERS.

Managed to get the special dialogue between Ferdinand and Hubert, and now I’m sad again.

Killed Hubert with Claude.

And because this is a two-part map, we immediately run off to chase down Edelgard. Due to the player army not doing a really weird 180 in the middle of the plot to kick Cornelia out of Fhirdiad, she didn’t have time to turn into a giant demonic thing! She just has WAY TOO MANY MAGES.

Strategy: Forget what Door Keys are, split the team by Avoid rating, and go to town.

Claude nearly died thanks to a critical mass of Gremories and Mortal Savants (and still, what the fuck is that name), but Dedue-as-guest-character didn’t, so I count that as a win! His defense was so high that the Giant Demonic Beast couldn’t even scratch him.

Claude, Petra, and Ingrid all having Alert Stance as a skill means dodge-tanking is hilariously easy.

Also, Ingrid was supposed to just take a chunk out of Edelgard’s HP bar for the final assault and ended up crit-killing her on the first attack. With a bog-standard silver lance.

Weird as the situation turned out, I guess that means one of Dimitri’s friends really did avenge him after saying they would. Even if Dedue was the only one who had a special cutscene about it.

We rescued Rhea! And the characters being happy about it doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. I want answers, same as Claude, and being forced to RP Yuri being oh so worried about Rhea’s safety felt incredibly disingenuous.

Claude actually yells at her over the “...” she seems to think is an explanation. THE TIME FOR SECRETS IS PAST.

WHY DID ALL THIS SHIT HAPPEN.

WE’VE BEEN AT WAR FOR FIVE YEARS.

A WHOLE BUNCH OF PEOPLE DIED HORRIBLY FOR BASICALLY NOTHING.

Incidentally, this is why I didn’t end up playing Edelgard’s route as planned. Her logic for kicking two other sovereign countries in the balls felt incredibly self-centered.

At least Catherine’s happy. Same with Alois and the rest of the Church crew.

They are soon going to be not as happy.

I’m filling out the ENTIRE support log before endgame. I have absolutely no idea what characters are going to end up together as a direct result.

The last conversation? Seteth and Manuela’s A+ support!

Because so many of the support conversations are romantic at A/A+ level, I guess we’ve managed to turn this ragtag army into a polyarmory.

Oh boy, Thales sure is a sore loser.

I say, as though I didn’t kill EVERYONE he knew over the course of an hour and also split his skull open under Seteth’s axe. His racism would have keeled his ass over before death set in.

That sure is a ICBM.

GOD DAMMIT RHEA, THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A Q&A SESSION AFTER THIS.

WHY DOES EVERYONE WHOSE JOB IS EXPOSITION UP AND DIE.

Meanwhile: THE UBER-DEAD PEOPLE.

Claude, your route is batshit. What is this genre anymore?!

I wanna point out that, despite seeing Rhea/Seiros do the dragon thing, the player character never told Claude what the fuck that was about. I feel like one of the first things I would have done after the class reunion would be going, “By the by, did anyone else notice the fucking dragon?!” WHO IS ALSO THE POPE???

Bah.

ANYWAY. Looooong-overdue exposition time!

I notice that Rhea didn’t out Seteth or Flayn, which was nice of her.

Claude, she can turn into a fucking dragon. I don’t think immortality is that far from being plausible.

GOD DAMMIT NEMESIS, CAN YOU FUCK OFF FOR TEN MORE MINUTES.

Uuuuuuugh fine, fuck everything, I’m putting your head on a pike.

CLAUDE, THE SWORD OF THE CREATOR LOOKS LIKE A SPINE.

OF COURSE IT’S MADE OF BONES. A BUNCH OF THE HEROES’ RELICS MOVE ON THEIR OWN!

The frantic music is not helping.

Time to kill a bandit king.

“My flabber is completely gasted by now.” Okay, that made me laugh.

Nemesis’s boss mechanic is pretty neat. To kill him at all, you need to kill all of the minibosses in the level and take down his friendship-based-plot-armor.

Or it would be, if I didn’t already make a habit of steamrolling everyone else on the field before tackling the boss at the end.

CUTSCENE.

Cutscene lesson: “Fuck honor duels.” It’s time for CHAIN SWORD LIMBO.

Claude, your bow shoots LASERS. SINCE WHEN.

Also getting kicked across the field by a dude twice his size didn’t seem to actually affect his mood much.

Awww, Yuri smiles now. Adorable. :D

AND THAT’S A WRAP.

Pairings: Yuri/Sothis (mostly to get them out of the way and see what everyone else would do), Claude/Petra, Raphael/Marianne, Catherine/Shamir, Lorenz/Mercedes, Ashe/Annette, Felix/Sylvain (bad end; the former straight up disappears), Seteth & Flayn wander off, Manuela/Dorothea, Lysithea/Linhardt (again), Leonie/Ignatz, Ferdinand/Bernadetta, Caspar/Hilda, and a couple of people are alone. Cyril gets to actually be a student after the story’s done, though!

Whew, that was fun. Gonna mix up the pairs a bit next time I play through the endgame and see what happens.

#fire emblem three houses #Lang plays Fire Emblem: Three Houses #Lang Plays #spoilers #long post #fire emblem

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anamelessknight · 5 years

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Now that Golden Deer is finished time to talk about its characters, their combat viability and whatnot.

First up, fighting time!

Byleth was not the bomb he was in one run. Don’t get me wrong, he was still damn strong and could pinch in doing whatever was necessary. Could still clear half a map by himself. But had to be a bit more lucky that before. Just because of the Hard bump? Maybe. Still, ended up MVP of 10/40 maps.

Claude was a wrecking machine and probably had the highest total stats of anyone I had. Flying? With a bow? He could reach out and touch someone. WITH DEATH. Also his battalion was all sorts of nuts. Ingrid’s gonna love it.

Hilda I ran through armor knight line to get her some damn solid defense with a SPD score that wasn’t actually terrible. Despite this she ended up with less DEF than Claude, go figure. She joined him on wyverns after the timeskip and with the march ring and her relic she could assassinate anyone I needed gone while being survivable. Her res was single digit well past the timeskip but her HP was good enough it didn’t matter.

Lorenz was the sad tale of a unit with top stats in everything but SPD. He refused to get SPD to such a degree that Raphael was outspeeding him. After the timeskip he kept refusing to get any stats at all, beyond HP. Seriously, his HP was titanic. Ten levels below Byleth and he had more. But even Lysithea ended up with more DEF than him.

Raphael had a slow, slow start. Gauntlets can only forgive so much when everything doubles you. Then he hit war master and EVERYTHING DIED. There was not an enemy in the game from that point on that survived a full round. Not even fortress knights or demonic beasts.

Ignatz was a decent unit who eventually fell off simply because other units were more valuable so he didn’t get EXP. Still, I brought him to endgame over Lorenz because he had range and I stacked enough HIT items he always had 100% accuracy even on swordmasters, who often survived with a pittance of HP that Ignatz was just barely able to scratch off.

Marianne was not as powerful a healer as Linhardt simply because she didn’t have warp. She was slow and frail (worst on the team for the latter). Then she got Holy Knight and she was still slow and frail but she could move and use her large MAG to kill certain targets.

Lysithea can honestly be called the strongest unit in the game and holy shit did she prove it time and time again. 11 MVPs and often with me keeping in her reserve. Anything I wanted dead she killed. Even her DEF at the end was respectable for a mage. She mastered nearly every single magic class, and only didn’t master holy knight because I forgot to reclass her for a map. Thyrsus is ridiculously powerful in her hands and I will be grabbing her and Lorenz ASAP on any other route.

Leonie had a strong school time, a dangerous early-timeskip period, but finished off very strong. She wasn’t quite a stat powerhouse of other units but she was always dependable and versatile. Except for her weird hatred of crits with a killer bow. Seriously, how do you only get 2 crits at 50% odds for an entire bow?

Flayn I actually used this time around since I made her a dancer. She got a few kills when dancing wasn’t useful but otherwise... she was a dancer. She could dance for Claude and let him smash a barrier in a single turn.

Ingrid I pulled in near endgame because she utterly outclassed Lorenz. (Since she flew she was basically stuck on Claude as an adjutant, so she was kept leveled.) In the end she actually had better stats than Byleth. But despite this, she didn’t have the abilities he’d trained so was less killy. Still, flying, resistant and strong. She made good work while she was with us.

Cyril I pulled in because... I guess I felt bad? I dunno. He became part two of the flier kill team and did some good work along the way. Getting supports with Claude and Hilda certainly helped his survivability. Or would if I didn’t send him off alone so much and undercut my point entirely.

Anyway, that was my main force. I brought in Catherine a few times but I was mostly saving her for the next route.

Now time for pairings and plot and kill counts! Actual spoilers and stuff on dudes.

Cyril I forgot to take a snapshot of his ending, whoops.

Anyone, since I’m actually staying on his side I can actually talk and use him and whatnot. Anyway, Cyril is one of the people most helped by Rhea and humanizes her. He’s incredibly, fanatically devoted to her to the point he’s fine with anything she does. There really should have been a time on BE where he was mandatory to help Rhea’s side of the issue.

He hates when people offer to help him with chores, and honestly, I get it. I hate that too so I’ll take him better than others.

This is different for Lysithea, who he actually accepts help from, even if she’s bad at some of it. Whether this is because of their age or because he feels she’s not patronizing him the way the older students are is up to your interpertation. Anyway, the two of them have one of the sweetest supports in the game, with her helping him learn to read and write and him eventually giving her a letter. “You make me so bappy” awwwwww.

Ignatz was a sweety to everyone he met. This mad him kind of “bland” simply because his main difficultly was wanting to paint over living up to his parents’ expectations of him. Plenty of characters have the latter with more drama so someone without it is nice.

Flayn is really, really, really bad at hiding she is Cethlen. It’s no wonder Seteth’s such a busybody considering how difficult it is for her to go a conversation without alluding to it.

Like her pairing right there! Ignatz wants to paint Cethlen and Flayn just can’t keep her mouth shut about wanting to pose for it or change her posture because Ignatz made a suggestion.

Lorenz’s most obvious comparison is Ferdinand, both have a high degree of pride in the nobility, but whereas Ferdinand is fostered in the environment breeding better people Lorenz is a firm believer of the inherent suppository and classism. It’s not that he hates commoners or anything, in fact he is highly protective of them as a noble, but he is very much an ardent defender of the system, and a champion for it. This makes him very defensive, and some supports, a lot of them, are about yelling this out of him. He learns, and accepts others’ views, but never stops trying to be a perfect noble. That support where he wants to just hire Ignatz as a painting knight is great.

Marianne is morose, and suicidal. Yikes girl. A lot of her supports are trying to dig her out of that rut. This can cause some whiplash if you get an A where she promises to do better but then she’s back to her depression in a C later. But hey, one good conversation doesn’t magically make the bad go away so...

Lornez/Marianne had a kind of creepy C in all honesty as he basically stalked her and leered at her. This flipped around wonderfully at B where he became enamored with her natural beauty and charm and apologized for his poor behavior and accepted her for who she was.

Well, there’s a pair the spares right there... I can’t remember a thing about the support.

Anyway, Raphael is a big eater, but is at least getting swole instead of fat. He knows what he wants, knows what he’s weak at and focues on his strengths instead. Unlike Caspar, who’s kinda similar, Raphael is actuall average at battlations compared to Caspar’s weakness. Raphael is simple, but endearing. He’s not stupid, he just doesn’t like books. He’s actually able to master stealth to a degree that he surprises Shamir.

Leonie is the character in the Deer who most has their life together. She knows what she wants and is working for it. Her Jeralt obsession can be... obnoxious, especially when she comes at B-rank to yell at Byleth for being ungrateful. Her usual bluntness and practicality means she doesn’t deal with anyone else’s garbage and says it straight out. Also she cosplays as Jeralt during the war and no one comments on it. That’s a wonderful “subtle thing”.

Hilda is lazy and manipulative and is mostly at the acdemy so people will stop nagging her. Despite this, she is a hard worker on her interests and refreshingly honest about her life. Her brother comes up a lot and basiclly being the Alliance’s top dude has put a lot of pressure on her even if there’s no expectations.

I forced her together with Caspar because they fit together well since they’re both so perfectly open and honest with one another. Even if Caspar was the densest motherfucker alive in their A support. My god man.

Claude was exactly what I wanted, and expected. He’s a great character, perfect for the third face of the conflict, who can accept Edelgard’s goals, but not her motivations, without being trapped in Dimitri’s own issues. I would hazard an idea if Claude surrendered the Alliance early in an El route but whatever...

Anyway, part of Claude’s motivation is his mixed heritage from Almyra. Lorenz’s mistrust is mostly about this but like most characters his past supports his reasonings and ideals. He knows if he gets just enough leverage in Fodlan he can widen their horizons kept low by the Church. But without El’s violent shortness.

Claude is good, and a lot of that is more see-than-read and whatnot.

Ingrid I really should save for the Lions. Frankly she doesn’t get much since she was a late poach with few supports. She’s really uptight, I guess, and I know why and all.

These two are honestly kind of awful together. They are completely at odds the whole time, and even when they try and get along because they see each others points they’re so uncomfortable with it they just have to stop. It’s great. Since she got glued to him for so long she actually overtook Byleth for the top spot.

I married that girl and I’d do it again.

Byleth got some truth bombs regarding Rhea’s experiments to revive Sothis. Which was just otherwise heavily implied on Eagles. Becoming king is kind of... huh though. I guess things are just that bad enough and everyone loves him so hey.

Lysithea is still an absolutely great character. Her wide range of supports really lets her shine in multiple areas while having her history influence and lead her actions. Look at that 74% one-round record. LOOK AT IT.

I am so glad she got to live this time. Even if it’s shaky why. But then again knowing Byleth he probably just mastered Crestology in a day or something.

#Fire Emblem #Fire Emblem: Three Houses #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Three Nameless Houses

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sage-nebula · 5 years

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As I mentioned earlier, I finished my Golden Deer playthrough of Fire Emblem: Three Houses today, and I have some complaints. Since the complaints are spoiler-heavy, I’m going to go ahead and put them under a cut.

My biggest complaint is something I’ve seen a lot of people talking about, but that I had hoped was an exaggeration, and that it’s that the Golden Deer route (and presumably the Blue Lions route) is so much longer than the Black Eagles route. (For those who don’t follow me, the Black Eagles Strike Force (a.k.a. Crimson Flower) route was my first playthrough.) This on its own wouldn’t be a problem, except the length feels somewhat artificial. Rather than needing more chapters to defeat the Empire and close what the story that Claude and Byleth had started from the beginning, the additional chapters are tacked on by way of a letter from Hubert telling Claude about Those Who Slither in the Dark, and then Zombie Nemesis rising from his grave and needing to be fought. And setting aside the utter ridiculousness of Zombie Nemesis and his Zombie Ten Heroes (as well as that Tron-looking city Those Who Slither in the Dark supposedly built with what I can only assume is the same technology that gave them actual missiles, none of fits with the otherwise medieval setting and is pretty ???), all I can say is . . . excuse me?

That should have been part of Edelgard’s story.

Like you have no idea how indignant I am about this. It’s not that I’m upset that Edelgard’s story was shorter (though yes, it would have been nice to have the same amount of chapters for her story as well). It’s that I’m upset that Those Who Slither in the Dark were directly combated in Claude’s story, when Claude had fuck all to do with them. The only tie he has to them is through Lysithea, who waited 5+ years to tell him or Byleth about what was done to her, and even then, Claude understandably treats it as a tidbit of interesting information, without a whole lot to go on from there. Claude doesn’t have any personal ties to Those Who Slither, he has no reason to care about them outside of, “oh, they might try to kill people maybe.” And even then, that only really pertains to Fodlan itself; Claude’s story was all about opening borders and letting other nations in, and almost doing away with the concept of individual countries altogether. Claude’s goals aren’t directly in line with Those Who Slither; he has no reason to know of them at all. The fact that he only found out about them because of an extremely tacked on post-mortem note from Hubert highlights that all the more.

But Edelgard does. These are the people who experimented on her as a child. These are the people who tortured her ten siblings to death right in front of her. These are the people her uncle is aligned with, the people who used her father, the people who she feels she has no choice but to work with, the people who murdered her love interest’s father, and so on and so forth. Those Who Slither are a prominent and present force in Edelgard’s route from the jump. And she makes it clear, time and again, that working with them makes her trauma rush to the forefront every time she has to see one of them and that she plans to take them all out once Fodlan is taken care of, which means that it would make the most sense for the army to move on to Shambhalla as soon as Rhea is taken care of on the Black Eagles route, rather than having that reduced to an epilogue.

But that doesn’t happen. Instead, we get a footnote saying that they took care of Those Who Slither in the epilogue, while it’s the Golden Deer who get to actually do the deed. This, despite the fact that the narrative had to twist itself into a pretzel and do something completely implausible to get that knowledge into Claude’s hands (because that note was out of character for Hubert for multiple reasons I won’t bother to get into now). Why this is the case, I don’t know. Part of me wonders if it was a time constraint, but this game had already been delayed once before, and in any case, that doesn’t explain why they didn’t put time into including Those Who Slither into the Black Eagles route to begin with, rather than putting them into Golden Deer first and then tacking on an epilogue note in the Golden Deer route. I’m hoping that perhaps the DLC chapters that have been promised will include a continuation of the Black Eagles route that lets you deal with Those Who Slither on that route, but at the same time it’ll be pretty terrible if we have to pay to get the resolution to that route that should have been included from the get-go.

All of that said, the lack of sense of not dealing with Those Who Slither on Edelgard’s route despite the fact that she was the one with the most reason to go after them isn’t even my only reason for being mad about it. I’m also mad about it because it would have been good for Edelgard to learn that while she was not wrong about Rhea needing to be taken down, she was wrong about what kind of person Nemesis was. I’m not taking everything Rhea said about Nemesis and the creation of the Heroes’ Relics in the Golden Deer route at face value, because Rhea lies a lot and can’t really be trusted. But it’s clear that Zombie Nemesis was not at all a good dude. At the end of the Black Eagles route, Edelgard still believes that Nemesis had his story warped by the Church of Seiros entirely and truly was a King of Liberation. If she was confronted with Zombie Nemesis, who only wanted to destroy and murder with impunity, she would have realized that no one on either side was completely trustworthy, that there were wrongs on both sides, that Nemesis wasn’t actually a hero and neither were the other Heroes that the Church and nobility pretended were great all along (the latter of which she would have no problem with since she wanted to dismantle the nobility anyway). It would have been additional great development for her, but she never got it because the story was cut short. (And before anyone argues, “But Byleth couldn’t take on Nemesis without the Sword of the Creator, which she can’t use anymore after killing Rhea because the Crest Stone vanished from her heart,” remember that the entire point of taking down Rhea was that humanity could stand on their own and did not need deities---or the power of deities---leading them around like puppets or tools to be used. Byleth taking on Nemesis without the goddess’ power and winning anyway because she has Edelgard’s support would have fit with the theme of the entire route and would have been a far more fitting end, not the least of which because it would have shown Nemesis that his murder of Sothis and her children to gain more power was completely pointless.)

So anyway, as you can tell, I really hate how Those Who Slither were taken out “in person,” so to speak, on the Golden Deer route rather than the Black Eagles route. It made absolutely no sense and leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. That aside, I really hate how pro-Church and pro-Rhea Byleth was forced to be in this route (as discussed here), and I also really hated how Edelgard’s death scene was handled in this route, too.

Setting aside the fact that it feels kind of forced that the three House Leaders can’t come to work together post-timeskip (at least in the case of Edelgard and Claude; Claude refuses to join the Black Eagle Strike Force if spared for vaguely defined reasons, and while I get that Edelgard is stubborn, she herself says that she knows that her goals are very similar to Claude’s, so like ??? her refusal to team up was very forced), I really, really dislike how angry they made Byleth look during the animated cutscene where Edelgard dies. Don’t get me wrong, Edelgard’s speech was completely heartbreaking, and it’s clear to me that she has feelings for Byleth on that route as well. The fact that she’s pushing Byleth to kill her, not in an angry way, but in a “do this, it’s what’s best for you” kind of way just absolutely ruins me. But Byleth is glaring at her through it all, especially at the end, and to kill her before she’s even finished speaking? What the fuck, honestly. I know I’m biased as an Edeleth shipper, but my feelings do come through as I’m playing a silent protagonist, but they didn’t in this case. I didn’t agree with Byleth’s expression or emotion there one bit, just as I didn’t agree with all the “OMG MUST SAVE RHEA” that I was forced to pretend I wanted to say leading up to that. I think the writing there was sloppily handled, and that the player’s actual feelings toward the characters wasn’t well accounted for at all. (This isn’t even mentioning the fact that I refused to attack Edelgard with Byleth in the first place, and instead attacked her with Claude, so to see Byleth deliver the killing blow anyway . . . god, I really hated it.)

All in all, considering all of the above and the fact that there are only three students (Claude, Hilda, and Lysithea) in the Golden Deer House that I actually like, and one (Marianne) that I think is okay, while the rest can just go chill in the trash bin for all I care, it’s safe to say I won’t be touching this route again. I’ll dearly miss Claude and Hilda (gonna recruit Lysithea first thing so I won’t have to miss her), but it’ll be worth it not to have to sit through that nonsense again, for real.

At least the Crimson Flower (Black Eagle Strike Force) route is still almost perfect.

#fire emblem: three houses #fire emblem: three houses spoilers

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ichigo777666 · 4 years

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FE3H Playthrough Log

My notes of my progress while playing FE3H. Originally written in my notebook. Still haven’t finished writing this either..

1st Playthrough

Chose Black Eagles (intending to woo over Edelgard) as F!Byleth then immediately got distracted by the hotness that is Seteth...So wound up going Silver Snow with no additional recruit-able characters. Went into my over-raising perfectionist complex and wound up maxing everything I could.

F!Byleth, Petra, Bernie, Dorothea, Caspar, Lindhardt, Ferdinand, Flayn, Seteth, Catherine, and Shamir were all S+ Maxxed out on EVERY SINGLE SKILL with EVERY SINGLE CLASS MASTERED (minus a few of the dark mage/dark bishop classes due to lack of dark seals). Completed all support conversations with all of these characters to the max level.

Chose Seteth for my ending.

Total Time for this playthrough: 144 hours...

Total time spent in Fe3H: 144 hours

2nd Playthrough

Chose M!Byleth this time (and immediately realized his female counterpart is superior) and then Blue Lions. After realizing I liked NONE of the students, I set my sights on my fishy dragon queen Flayn :). Recruited every recruit-able character from GD & BE BEFORE we got to the Gronder Field battle. Then obsessed over support conversations again. Recruited all character I could. Completed all all support conversations with all of these characters to the max level (only lacked Claude, Edelgard, Jeritza, and Hubert).

Chose Flayn for my ending then realized I could spam the last maps over & over again to choose a different ending (since I had made a new save before choosing Flayn). Went on to do the S rank (Male) endings for Catherine, Gilbert, Alois, and Manuela before I had a memory lapse and accidentally erased the pre-choice file...

Total Time in this playthrough: 100 hours...

Total time spent in Fe3H: 244 hours

3rd Playthrough

After making the mistake above (see last paragraph) and realizing I still had to do a whole bunch of BL endings with the girls before I could never use them again, I decided to redo my last playthrough with M!Byleth and BL house...and try to speed through it as just Byleth...I am bad at this and prone to battle quest for hours to level up skills...

But powered through and wound up doing M!Byleths endings with Ingrid, Annette, Mercedes, Lindhardt, Petra, Dorothea, Bernadetta, Shamir, Leonie, Marianne, Lysithia, and Sothia.

Total Time in this playthrough: 11 hours

Total time spent in Fe3H: 255 hours

4th Playthrough

By this time I am SICK of BL house...and I never want to deal with Dimitri again...so naturally I became F!Byleth to finish off BL for once and all! Again, attempting to speed through as just Byleth with some support. I have practice this time - it should go easier!

Nope, I’m wrong! Somehow I’m even slower this time... But I got done F!Byleths endings with Lindhardt, Dorothea, Ferdinand, Caspar, Mercedes, Sylvain, Felix, Dedue, Dimitri, Ashe, Lorenz, Raphael, Ignatz, Alois, Gilbert, and Hannerman. Maybe b/c I sped through most of the dialog but oddly Sothis was NOT an ending option here...weird.

Total Time in this playthrough: 16 hours

Total time spent in Fe3H: 271 hours

For those keeping track, I’ve basically done every ending I can do except route specific ones (Edelgard, Claude, Hubert, Rhea, Jeritza). I also have ALL the support conversations done between all characters that DO NOT involve one of the 5 characters above...

5th Playthrough

So I finally decided to tackle Golden Deer this time. I chose F!Byleth since I need Claude’s ending. I only recruited the characters that Claude has outside interactions with and focused on a team of GDs. Obviously I was much slower.

I finished F!Byleth’s Claude ending (again no Sothis) in a little over 23 hours. Realizing I still needed Claude’s support conversations with M!Byleth I booted up a new file and played the first 20 or so minutes (until you arrive at your room) and bought Claude’s supports for M!Byleth. I then went back to my file from my first playthrough (SS) and realized I HAD SAVED before the final map...unfortunately the only character I needed from that list was F!Byleth’s Sothis ending so I spent about 20-30 minutes finishing up the last map in SS again to get that.

Total Time in this playthrough: 24 hours

Total time spent in Fe3H: 295 hours

6th & 7th Playthroughs

By now all I need is BE Routes. If I play as F!Byleth, I can finish all 3 S Endings for Crimson Flower. But I still need Rhea’s ending...as both F & M Byleth. So I hatch my plan! CF doesn’t split off until Chapter 11. So, I’ll play BE house, recruit all the characetrs I need to finish Edelgard’s & Hubert’s conversations and then, at the start of chapter 11, I’ll split my save into 2 files. One will go SS for Rhea and the other I’ll then play as CF! Genius! And, if this works, I should be able to go back into a new file as M!Byleth and just play the first 20 minutes & buy the support conversations. This will allow me to finish M!Byleth’s Edelgard, Hubert, and Jeritza (and hopefully Rhea too). Hopefully....I’ve never bought a S-Rank before so hoping this works!

Spent 12 hours in part 1 up to chapter 11 (307 total playthrough hours). I raised the whole team to about level 30 & finished most of their requirements for their master classes. Figured it was easier to do it before the split and then have to not worry too much afterwards....

Decided to finally do Crimson Flower. And it went quick. After only 7 hours I finished Crimson Flower with F!Byleth’s endings for Hubert, Jeritza, and Edelgard. I quickly went into a new game & played the first 10 minutes to access the support logs and bought M!Byleth’s support conversations and endings with Edelgard and Hubert. But Jeritza’s doesn’t exist...until PTS. Which means I’ll need to do an 8th playthrough as M!Byleth in Crimson Flower.....

But for now, I’ll go back and finish SS! All I need is Rhea’s ending...but I have to level up Seteth so he can join the fun! I sped through most of SS...although this bit me in the ass for the final map. Only 5 hours to Rhea ending. Then it was easy to go into a new BE file & buy M!Byleth’s Rhea ending.

Total Time in this playthrough: 12 hours (part 1) + 7 hours (Crimson Flower) + 5 hours (Silver Snow)

Total time spent in Fe3H: - 319 hours.

8th Playthrough

Well, as stated above I can’t buy Jeritza’s supports until they become available which is post time skip.... so I need to do another BE M!Byleth run. I only need to make it to the point where Jeritza joins so just basically to PTS. Given that, I only need to really raise M!Byleth and Edelgard slightly as she’s a required unit on some maps. So speed through the beginning again....for the last time.

NOPE! WRONG! You cannot buy Jeritza’s supports apparently even if you own the counterpart supports ((FYI this works on every other character in the game except for him, so....)) ...so I now need to PLAY THROUGH to the end of CF! This fricking sucks. I now have to grind up the rest of my team (who are all level 20ish) to 40 b/c doing the final two maps with just Byleth is near impossible. Great! Wonderful! Insert another 11 hours!

Total Time in this playthrough: 11 hours...((for those curious this was 5 hours pretime skip & 6 hours post time skip))

Total time spent in Fe3H: - 330 hours!

...and that does it for now....until I decide to tackle the DLC!

But this is FULL COMPLETION! Every Byleth S support done for both genders and all support conversations between every unit done.

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fireemblems24 · 4 years

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Flame Emperor Reveal Analysis

This game is all over the place with this. This level delivered some of the most intense and emotional moments so far, but doesn’t always capitalize on character development and conflict.

I’m playing all four routes in Fire Emblem Three Houses mostly blind. Below is spoilers for all four routes (which I’m learning the names of now). And for the first it’s actually 4!

Crimson Flower & Silver Snow

I lied. Originally I planned on writing a different analysis for Crimson Flower and Silver Snow, but the build up is the same. Only the fallout is different, and yeah there’s a lot to say about how things played out.

The Black Eagles routes have the biggest advantage for this scene because your main character is the Flame Emperor. It does not hold back. All of your students, sans Edelgard and Hubert, are terrified, confused, and hurt. None of them grasp fully what’s going on when Edelgard takes her mask off and orders her army to kill anyone who stands against her. The voice actors do a fantastic job here: Dorothea, Caspar, Bernadetta, and others sell the mess of emotions the Black Eagles experience, and Edelgard sounds stone-cold and in-command. Her betrayal is the gut-punch it should be.

The level presents a no-win scenario. One of your students is willing to kill you and everyone else you’re supposed to protect, and Rhea is out for blood. No matter what happens, no matter what you do, you lose. It’s a heartbreaking, emotional mess of a situation the writing sets up.

Even prior to all this, the dance between revealing to much or to little about Edelgard’s true intentions is fantastic. Where the Blue Lions basically dumps the answer in your lap and the Golden Deer gives little to no hints at the Flame Emperor’s identity, the Black Eagles is the only route where I do not know if I would’ve guessed correctly or had so few clues that I didn’t bother trying to guess.

Edelgard drops enough hints to guess correctly if you’re looking for them. She always questions Byleth about his thoughts on the Flame Emperor, trying to drive a wedge between the Emperor and the heinous actions the masked knight is involved in. Likewise, Edelgard constantly asks Byleth if he’d pick her over the whole world. She also makes alarming declarations that tow the line between reformer and despot. All of these actions make sense in retrospect - she was fishing to see who would and would not side with her regardless of her actions.

The scene in the Holy Tomb builds up to a crescendo, Edelgard is defeated, and Rhea makes her demand to kill Edelgard. It’s a bit telling Rhea needed to go so extreme in order to make siding with Edelgard believable, but it’s counteracted by the game going as far as making Edelgard an enemy unit who can and will kill her classmates. Both women resort to extremes. Rhea is emotional, hateful, and screaming for blood. Edelgard is cold, calculated, and resorting to using victims of human experimentation to kill her own friends. These are two driven, passionate women exposing their ugliest sides in an emotional scene ripe for fantastic character development and conflict.

And then . . . the wrap-up.

Silver Snow

Should you choose to kill Edelgard, you land in Silver Snow. Rhea’s angry rant against Edelgard is fantastically delivered and makes me anticipate further development from her character. Back in Garreg Mach Monastery, Rhea juxtaposes her earlier scene for a softer one. She implies a willingness to sacrifice her life to protect her home, and asks Byleth to take her role should something happen to her. Rhea’s plan all along was to put Byleth (who is connected to Sothis, who is connected to Rhea, though the details are still unknown to me) in charge. After hearing Rhea call for blood, it’s a sweet scene between Byleth and the archbishop. The problem with it is that every route gets these scenes sans Crimson Flower. It’s two great scenes for Rhea, but not unique to Silver Snow.

And here’s the weird part - there is no unique content for Rhea outside of a few initial lines when choosing to kill Edelgard. Instead, we get the Black Eagles upset and unsure about Edelgard’s actions, a few wondering how much she planned all along and how involved she was in every horrible thing that happened during their school year. It’s necessary, but there’s nothing stand-out in anyone’s dialogue to bring home a real gut-punch.

Seteth gets the best unique content in Silver Snow when he offers the Black Eagles a chance to defect to the Empire should they desire. It’s delivered softly with no threat behind it, showing an earnest desire for the students to feel comfortable even if it means they’re going to turn around and try to slaughter him in thanks. Thankfully, none of the students leave. Cyril and Catherine automatically join your team, and Hilda is now recruitable as well to make up for losing Hubert and Edelgard.

The fall out for choosing to stand against Edelgard is . . . fine. For such a unique event in Fire Emblem (siding against your lord, possibly losing two units you’ve heavily invested in should you not know what’s coming), I expected a bit more drama and flare and a lot more Rhea. However, this is only the start, and it gave what it needed to give.

The stage has been well set. Everyone’s in a no-win situation. Should they lose, they and everyone else in Fodlan will suffer an all-out, dragged-out war. They’ll lose their school and have to fight against their home country (sans Petra) where most of their family and friends live. Killing Edelgard ends the conflict, but she is their former friend, classmate, and rightful leader. She gives them no choice - fight for me or die standing against me. Neither option will leave Byleth and the remaining students wholly satisfied, so I foresee more bittersweet confrontations coming, and I look forward to it.

Crimson Flower

Deciding to protect Edelgard lands you on the Crimson Flower path. I have to say, I’ve read and watched thousands of stories and this one scene stands out among all others.

Never in my life have I ever seen characters react to a situation in a way that makes less sense. Even more baffling is how much potential gets tossed out the window. Stories thrive on conflict and character development and this scene is ripe with potential, but instead of even letting the fruit grow rancid they just . . . act like it never existed.

After Byleth picks to guard Edelgard, Rhea loses it and is ready to tear Byleth to pieces before turning into a dragon. The Black Eagles and Edelgard all run away and, not long after, make it back to Enbarr safely. How they escaped a rampaging dragon or successfully fled Garreg Mach is hand-waved away. This is the kind of hand-waving I can forgive. It’s lazy writing, but it doesn’t really impede the story. What I cannot forgive is the hand-waving that comes next.

Edelgard has a brief scene where she tells her classmates her intentions - she wants to rid Fodlan of the Church of Serios’s control, claims that Rhea and her fellow beasts have secretly ruled humanity and held them back, and is going to declare war. She asks who will join her. Predictably, all of them do - except Flayn. Edelgard mentions that Flayn has opted not to stay with the group.

Hmmm. I wonder why. Could it be Edelgard’s lackey kidnapped and tortured her for a whole month, preparing her for blood experiments at the hands of an evil group of mages who just happen to be Edelgard’s allies? Maybe that had something to do with it. The fact the game presents this is as some magnanimous act is hilarious. I believe Edelgard would let someone like, say Petra, turn away too, but she deserves no “brownie points” for allowing someone who she allowed to get tortured and set-up for a slow death as a human sacrifice to leave and not decide to attack her the home where her father still lives. I think this aspect of Edelgard’s character would’ve hit home significantly harder if someone who wasn’t so throughly victimized by Edelgard’s actions had fled, or you actually saw Flayn leave.

No one asks about the Death Knight. No one asks about Flayn’s kidnapping. No one asks about Kostas attempting to kill students. No one asks about the students kidnapped and experimented on or Remire Village or Jeralt. No one asks where the Crest Beasts Edelgard is using came from. No one asks about the fact she just tried to kill all of them, or what she’s going to do with the Crest Stones. No one even mentions the Flame Emperor. No one questions the history she spilled on them, claiming the church was behind the splitting of Fodlan despite not even having enough knights to guard their own monastery and needed students to help out at events.

I could buy the Black Eagles running away with Edelgard. The scene where Byleth chooses Rhea or Edelgard is highly emotional. Things happen quickly and no one is given much of a chance to process anything. Rhea doesn’t give anyone much of a choice by shifting into a dragon. I wish they didn’t rely so much on “Rhea bad” to make any sense of siding with Edelgard, but it is believable. What I cannot buy is how no one questions anything afterwards.

It’s like the whole cast just forgot the first eleven chapters. No one even mentions the Flame Emperor’s existence. The moment the mask came off, it ceased to exist. Everyone mindlessly believes everything Edelgard says, and no one even asks any questions - not about Rhea, not about the history of Fodlan, not about the Flame Emperor’s actions. Barely anyone bats an eyelash at the idea of attacking their own school and killing former classmates, teachers, and friends. Everyone comes across borderline brainwashed. Did the writers have so little faith in Edelgard’s position they were afraid to even attempt exploring it? Even worse is the strategy meeting is just Edelgard, Hubert, and Byleth - the Black Eagles are no where to be seen. It makes them come across like mindless puppets rather than anyone remotely rational - like pawns arranged on a board required for gameplay reasons than actual characters.

Never in my life have I seen a story throw away so much potential character development and conflict. The situation here is intriguing. Edelgard’s stance is fascinating, but everything falls short when all that’s interesting about it is getting tossed out the window because Rhea is secretly evil and nothing Edelgard did beforehand seems to matter anymore. I am seriously concerned about where this route is heading, because despite the massive potential, it seems like it cares less about that and more about making sure Edelgard looks good rather than complex and interesting, even at the cost of logic, character development, and by turning other interesting characters black so Edelgard has someone she can look better than in comparison rather than standing on her own ideals.

Verdant Wind

Am I correct in assuming the fandom consensus is that Verdant Wind had the least impactful Flame Emperor reveal? Because it did.

Edelgard had little to no presence in Verdant Wind. Outside of pre and post class vs class battle banter, her only scene consisted of interrogating Claude and getting and giving no answers. Claude has no connection to Edelgard and neither does Byleth or any of the Golden Deer. When the mask comes off and it’s her face behind it, there’s no emotional response.

The fallout is equally lackluster. Claude demands answers from Edelgard, which she refuses to answer, and she warps away. Afterwards, things play out the same way they do on every route. And that’s the core issue here. Claude and the Golden Deer bring nothing unique to this scene. Elements of surprise that Edelgard is the Flame Emperor, her willingness to kill all your units to get crest stones, and her declaration of war is there on every route. Claude’s character and goals have had no impact on the plot.

Analyzing this scene has brought to light my main issue with the Verdant Wind route thus far. It’s that Claude and friends have done nothing to move the plot forward. Things just happen; no character is making anything happen. You could argue it’s the same for the Azure Moon route, but Dimitri’s clearly defined goals and emotional connection makes it a streamlined story with a sense of forward progression instead of plot points getting dumped in the player’s lap.

It’s too bad, because Verdant Wind could’ve approached this differently. Instead of Claude getting nothing done and shouting about every relic that showed up, he and Byleth could’ve solved mysteries together a la Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boy. For all of Claude’s questioning everything, very little attention was paid to unmasking the Flame Emperor. Verdant Wind guided its players to look at the wrong mysteries - mysteries that ultimately got no answers while ignoring the one part one was actually about figuring out, and if this was flipped, Verdant Wind would’ve had a much more impactful Flame Emperor reveal.

I will give Verdant Wind major bonus points though. It is nice to see a character question Edelgard about her involvement in things. Dimitri’s too caught up in his Duscur trauma (which I don’t believe Edelgard participated in) and neither Silver Snow and especially Crimson Flower question Edelgard’s actions as the Flame Emperor, but Claude throws at her all the questions I wanted to hear: what about Flayn? What about Jeralt? What about Remire? So congrats Claude, you’re the only character and the only route that’s holding Edelgard actually responsible for her actual actions. If only she was the mystery you were investigating instead of one that went exactly no where for eleven straight chapters.

Azure Moon

What’s interesting here is that the Flame Emperor’s reveal is less about who the mystery person is and more about our protagonist’s, Dimitri’s, reaction to it. And that is core reason behind this scene’s success.

Multiple users on here told me to play chapter eleven of Blue Lions first, and I’m both glad and upset I listened to them. Glad, because they were all right, this route had by far the best Flame Emperor reveal, but sad because it all went downhill from there.

The Crimson Flower/Silver Snow routes should’ve had the best Flame Emperor reveal. After all, those are the routes where Edelgard plays the biggest role, but the follow up to the scene is fairly lackluster, especially in Crimson Flower. Azure Moon, on the other hand, did everything Crimson Flower was afraid to - address the elephant in the room.

Characters in Crimson Flower respond to the situation as if Edelgard didn’t just try to kill all of them, nor do they ask any questions about her actions as the Flame Emperor. Everyone acts as if none of that ever happened, and by not bothering to even mention it, those actions stick out even worse than they would’ve otherwise.

The opposite is true in Azure Moon. Everyone is unnerved by Dimitri’s violent outburst. Felix jumps at the chance to tell everyone, “I told you so.” No one knows what to do about Dimitri, nor do they really have time to process anything with Edelgard’s war machine knocking on their front door. However, this is the base expectation of a story - that characters respond realistically to what happened prior instead of teleporting to some surreal dimension where Edelgard isn’t working with people who perform human experimentation.

So what exactly did Azure Moon do to make this reveal so successful? It utilized the route’s unique aspects: Dimitri’s mental instability and desire for revenge, terrible family history, and emotional connection to Edelgard.

Unlike Verdant Wind, Edelgard has an actual presence and relevance in Azure Moon thanks to her connection to Dimitri. He cares about her like family, which makes her betrayal more personal and automatically more impactful than in Verdant Wind. Even more brilliant here is milking the emotional aspect of what happened. Instead of focusing on “shocking” the reader with Edelgard’s betrayal, it drops hints about her secret identity with all the subtly of a lead brick.

You know what inevitable, dramatic, and tragic outcome is coming. Edelgard, Dimitri’s only remaining family (outside of an uncle he’s on bad terms with), is working hand-in-hand with the people who caused the deaths of his family which led to the genocide of a race of people and the source all of his trauma. Dimitri makes it quite clear he’s out for revenge, and that anything related to Duscur triggers his PTSD so bad it seems like a dissociative or psychotic episode. Azure Moon does not build up a mystery, it builds up an emotional conflict - like watching a train wreck that you know is coming and can’t stop.

And that’s the brilliance of it - this scene isn’t about Edelgard being the Flame Emperor, we already know that, it’s about Dimitri, who this route is about and who the player is emotionally invested in during this version of the story.

Nor does this game disappoint here. There’s no softening anything to try and make Dimitri look “better.” He has a full-on violent breakdown. It’s devastating. He is succumbing fully to his demons after fighting against it over and over while getting tossed into triggering situations ad nauseam and getting no help in return (after all, therapy, medication, hell even the concept of mental illness simply doesn’t exist). All the signs that the route has built up explode in an emotional scene, and probably thee best cut scene so far with some of the best voice acting in Fire Emblem to carry it out. Every plot thread comes to a head: Dimitri’s lust for revenge, his unstable mental health, the mystery of the Flame Emperor’s identity, etc . . .

The upcoming battle has more meaning now. It has what is at steak in the other routes - win or lose and the fear of having to kill former classmates - and more. Because it isn’t just about the battle of Edelgard vs the world, but also the battle for Dimitri’s mental health and for his soul. There’s a bit of a catch-22 here, is Edelgard dying really the best ending? Killing her saves many lives, but at the cost of Dimitri’s mental health? What if she dies and he doesn’t kill her, but what if he does? Would he kill himself now that the dead are avenged? Or what if she lives and this drags on longer? No option is good. There isn’t an easy win button by offing Edelgard or taking over the school. Every possible ending is a bad ending. Your lead character is in the middle of a mental breakdown, and giving into his demons and lust for revenge (which is a separate issue exasperated by ill mental health) and the situation only makes it worse and is to dire to properly let anyone deal with said breakdown. The tension, the drama, the sense of foreboding dread, is all so much more here than in all the other routes.

What makes Azure Moon’s handling of the Flame Emperor so good is that it widely succeeded where the other two routes failed. Verdant Wind didn’t make the reveal relevant to anything Claude was interested in or working towards. Crimson Flower completely and utterly failed to address Edelgard’s actions let alone use that to create compelling tension. Azure Moon did both. It made the Flame Emperor reveal relevant to the route, even made it actually about the main character of the route. Nor is it shying away from conflict and tension, even if it means letting it’s main character fall out of grace and risking the player’s infatuation/admiration/whatever with/of Dimitri by having him succumb to his dark side. Because it’s not protecting him, he’s going to turn out a way better character for it.

I will admit though, that I think playing all four routes impacted this a bit. It didn’t benefit Azure Moon, but I think this route spoiling who the Flame Emperor is hurt the other routes. Verdant Wind might’ve had at least some tiny smudge of an impact because it’s the only route where there’s very little way to correctly guess who the Flame Emperor is - the only one where it may be truly a surprise. Crimson Flower/Silver Snow does make it a bit more obvious, but doesn’t quite spell it out for you the way Azure Moon does. Here, the player kind of has to be looking for it. Obviously though, you can only learn this once, and good writing could’ve made all the routes impactful with very small tweaks - have Verdant Wind actually focus on the mystery that’s solved at the end of Part 1 (who is the Flame Emperor) and actually have characters react to and get answers about Edelgard’s actions. I also think the choice between Silver Snow and Crimson Flower looses its tension when you go into it knowing you’ll pick both. Azure Moon easily had the best reveal, so I want to ultimately thank everyone who told me to do this one first - you were all very, very right.

#fire emblem #Fire Emblem Three Houses #fire emblem 3 houses #fe16 #fe3h #am #cf #ss #vw

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clanmccrackengaming · 5 years

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Chapter 5

In this chapter you learn that a disinherited son of a noble house has stolen a Hero’s Relic and you are tasked with getting it back.

Before setting off for the first week, Byleth hit level 10 in the previous chapter and is now ready for an Intermediate class. I’ve elected to go with Thief.

Not only did I pass, but the minimum speed stat for a thief is apparently 11, and since I had a lower speed then the minimum it automatically boosted me to the proper level, It helps to offset all those terrible level ups I’ve been getting.

Week 1: Explore

Starting off with my usual explore phase ritual, I watch all the new supports I’ve unlocked, Go around and collect all of the quests and blue items scattered around the grounds. I check the garden, Asked Petra to join me this month again, asked her to tea, did choir practice, ate a meal with Petra and Lysithea, and ate another with Hilda and Lorenz. All in all nothing spectacular, accept for one minor detail…

AHHHHHH GHOST IGNATZ!?

Well to be perfectly honest when you lose a character this early in the game they are not technically ‘dead’ they just get injured and retire from combat. Apparently they still show up at the monastery, but you cant interact with them in a meaningful way. You cant give them gifts, or return their lost items. You cant invite them to meals, or observe their supports. Soooo, I’m still going to treat him as dead. This apparition is a lingering fragment of his being put here to make me feel bad for not protecting him better.

Week 2: Battle

In the second week, I chose to battle. I only have 1 action point for this phase, and I have 2 quests that need to be finished. Clearing the Way is a quests that unlocks additional merchants, and Maintaining Your Training doesn’t unlock anything meaningful. Try to guess which one I picked.

This map is the exact same map we’ve run a couple times all ready. They used it for that one fog battle. Strategy wasn’t anything special but here are the highlights

The level ups were nothing spectacular, but they were better than nothing. Byleth was the MVP

Week 3: Explore

Happy Birthyday, Leonie

Exploring again, 5 AP.

Trained Swords with Catherine, and Rhea. Choir practice then a meal with Leonie and Ingrid, and a second with Lorenz and Hilda.

Assignment

Before starting the assignment Petra asked to join my house as a full member.

I accepted, obviously

With the assignment started, we tracked the bandits the stole the relic to an old tower in the Kingdom Territory.

This mission is unique in that there are several reinforcements that appear through out the map. Some of them will ambush you, and attack you the turn they appear. To make matters even worse, the ambushers also have Pass, meaning they can team up on your weakest members and there is generally little you can do about it. So we need to move forward with that in mind.

To help augment our forces Lady Rhea sent a knight with us. Gilbert is a Fortress Knight, and because of that carries a massive shield and axe. He is meant to be a tank of sorts.

For this I really wish I had a capture card so I could have recorded it. I’ll try to go into the strategy I used, but it is a little difficult only having screen shots.

Derp

You start off at the bottom of the map in a checker pattern. There are 3 units to the east in your immediate way: 2 to the north east and 1 on the other side of the wall in front of a treasure chest. Before you start clearing out units though, make sure you turn on the enemy danger areas. Specifically turn on the red markers for the 4 archers in the center of the map. This is important because if you (Or Gilbert) stop moving within range of one of those archers, not only will they hurt you, they will also aggro every other unit on the map to get to you. It cost me 2 Divine pulse to learn this lesson.

Do NOT stop within range of any of these archers.

My first goal was to clear out the three in front of me and bunch my self in the hallway so as to create a choke point for the first two waves of reinforcements.

By the time the first wave arrives you want to have your formation looking something like this. Put your tanks in the bottom row, pack in your mages in the second row, and your long range archers in the third row. This will make the enemies take on your tough units first instead of running though you and hitting the back rows. Strike with the achers/mages first where there is no retaliation, finish injured units off with your melee when you can kill them off without a counterattack happening. Damage the mages with high resistance units and finish them off in the same manor.

Once you move into this formation the first wave will appear and attack. If you did it quick enough, Gilbert will take the brunt of their attack. This is what you want. Sad as it may sound, you want Gilbert retreating from this battle. If he survives it he WILL aggro the archers on the hill. It’s just the way his programming works. You cant control him, and the only way to prevent him from stopping in one of those squares is to stand in them yourself, which defeats the entire purpose.

In my run Gilbert did not survive the first wave, but he did get a lucky crit and took one of them out for me.

Clearing out the initial 3 units, and the 3 remaining units of the first wave netted me the following levels

Lysithea, you are my most deadly unit, but if you keep up these levels you wont be for long.

Close up of the formation

Take the time to heal up. When you are ready, move one unit to this square to spawn the second wave

When the second wave spawns, take it the same way you took the first one. Clear out the second wave and use the key your found (or a thief) to open the chest for an Armorslayer sword. It will come in handy later.

The second wave got me these levels.

A solid level

After clearing out the second wave I pushed forward. There was a lone mage sitting in the middle of the hallway, I baited her out with Marianne who had the best Res in the army. She was able to tank her attacks without taking a single point of damage, your mileage may vary on that. Note: The healer on top of the hill did heal this mage, and I was afraid it would agro the entire hill, but that wasn’t the case. Once we killed the mage the healer did run around the hill towards me, but he didn’t bring anyone else with him. You can start setting up for the next ambush point while you wait for him to make it to you.

Setting up in this formation is perfectly safe, the ambush will not happen until someone from the formation steps beyond this first pillar, so watch that you don’t step past it until you are ready to engage.

Once you do engage, 2 thieves will jump out of the wall to the east and one mage will approach from the west. The mage is too far to be a threat at this point, but if you followed my formation above and moves the entire formation 1 square west to spawn the ambush then the thieves will attack your two rightmost units. In my case this was Claude and Byleth. Each thief got off one attach, ate the counter attack of both, then I was able to pick apart the ambushers. Gaining me the following:

Marianne, come on 😦

I am not sure what specifically triggered the second wave from this spot, but it involved 2 more thieves from the exact same spot without anyone having to move. At this point the mage from the west caught up to me so I had 3 units to deal with. Clearing them out got me the following levels:

Once you get past this part the rest of the level up to the boss is pretty straight forward. Just take your time, take it one mob at a time, and if you can help it do not take any damage on the player turn. Move the rest of your army forward and progress.

From this point to the boss I gained the following levels:

Not off to a great start, Petra 😦

Marianne, no.

See, this is what the rest of you should be aiming for. Good job, Leonie

Leonie took out Michlan with this shot, AND she got a superior level up

With Leonie’s arrow Michlan was defeated, but he wasn’t quite ready to let defeat claim him. He attempted to use the Hero’s Relic he has stolen, but because he didn’t possess a crest of any kind it transformed him into a giant beast.

Using the last remaining gambits, I was able to break all four of his shield plates, which rewarded me with 5 umbral steels. I also got one of his health bars down.

Byleth was able to take a second of his health bard with a crit with the Sword of the Creator

Lorenz finished the beast off with a well placed Fire Spell

46 turns? If felt like it took a lot more than that.

I went extremely slowly in this run. I basically walked around the entire arena in formation being careful of additional ambushes. I only ran into the 4 total waves, I dont know if there are others that I didn’t trigger, but even going as slow as I did I only used a bit over half of the total turns available to me.

Take it slow and you can get through this without losing anyone.

Overview

Byleth +3 Levels: +3HP, +1Str, +1Mag, +1Dex, +2Spd, +1Lck, +1Res, +2Cha

Claude +3 Levels: +2HP, +1Mag, +2Spd, +2Lck, +1Def, +3Cha

Marianne +3 Levels: +1Str, +1Dex, +3Res, +2Cha

Hilda +3 Levels: +2HP, +1Str, +1Dex, +1Spd, +1Lck, +3Cha

Lorenz +4 Levels: +1HP, +1Str, +3Mag, +4Dex, +2Spd, +2Def, +3Res, +2Cha

Lysithea +2 Levels: +1Str, +1Dex, +2Spd, +1Res, +1Cha

Leonie +3 Levels: +2HP, +2Str, +1Mag, +2Dex, +3Spd, +1Lck, +2Def, +2Cha

Raphael +2 Levels: +1HP, +1Str, +1Mag, +1Dex, +1Lck, +1Def

Petra +1 Levels: +1Spd, +1Cha

Gilbert: Retreated (Fatal)

Total number of levels gained: 70

Total number of unsatisfactory levels ( >= 2 Stat ups): 22

Total number of null levels (0 Stat ups): 0

Remembering the Fallen

FE Golden Deer Maddening: Chapter 5 Chapter 5 In this chapter you learn that a disinherited son of a noble house has stolen a Hero's Relic and you are tasked with getting it back.

#Chapter 5 #Fire Emblem: Three Houses #Golden Deer #Journal #Maddening

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