#cf route

[shadoedraws]

one of my favourite comics i made forever ago

based off @pillowboat‘s sylvix art 

[katiebell]

you know, I actually think the moment byleth steps in front of that blow meant for edelgard, an action that changes EVERYTHING about their fate, really is monumental, especially after warriors came out and added context

you have this mercenary who’s known for being stone cold, emotionless, and who can annihilate entire mercenary camps in minutes blank faced, as we saw with shez - by all means, they should never, WOULD never take a blow like that so carelessly for someone they don’t even know, much less with such an angry, determined expression - and yet.

the game draws some clear parallels between byleth and edelgard, and in all routes they have a connection that seems unbreakable - all of this starts at that very moment, when the merciless demon gets swept by a wave of emotion so strong that they throw rationality out of the window.

idk, one of my favourite fe3h analyses mentions the ‘literal divine intervention triggered by edelgard’ and that’s exactly what that moment is. not even because of sothis, but because that’s exactly when byleth takes their first step towards humanity and their freedom - i honestly think that byleth only fully regaining their humanity in crimson flower is the only outcome that makes sense, since that’s exactly what we see in one of the first scenes in fe3h. excellent foreshadowing, I’d say

[t0bey]

edelgard is such an interesting character in the sense she can be both an amazing protagonist (if u go CF) and also easily one of the most interesting antagonists in the game between her goals and her/byleth being narrative parallels no matter what route meanwhile i feel like dimitri's potential only really gets utilized effectively in azure moon. his character arc in his own route is the most personally investing out of the house leaders imo while in other routes hes mainly just an OK secondary antagonist lol

him as the tempest king had some good ideas and implications but not really explored much sadly meanwhile he just gets killed offscreeen in verdant wind lmao

[randomnameless]

The quintessential problem with Claude and the deer is that they should not have been involved in the war at all, or at least not Claude. What does he have to gain participating on it? Nothing, and he makes it even more explicit in azure moon when he dissolves the alliance. He could've pretty easely given the power to Lorenz or Hilda and nope out of there (what he does in silver snow), as it is clear througouht white clouds that he doesn't have as much of an attachtment to Fodlan as he does Almyra. And it isn't like the devs couldn't take the deer studients out during post-TS, when Marianne unless recruited is pressumed dead, and Lorenz unless recruited joins the imperial forces and dies helping the empire.

Outside of the problems with racism and the bigoted tropes related to "savage cultures" the Fodlan games perpetuate, the devs did not know how to use one of their house leaders for the main plot of "church vs empire", and idk if that's because they bit more than they could chew, or if it was intentional taking into account who gets the short end of the stick in both games happens to be mixed and from one of those "savage cultures".

TBH...

It's on the devs for having wanted to add a third lord to their game, but failing to, well, link him to any of those plots.

Supreme Leader's war of unification?

Well, Nopes gave him a part this plot - and yet there's no third choice in this plot : you bend the knee or you die. Nopes' wise, Clout decided (in his route) to bend the knee with his "alliance" that is totally supposed to make Supreme Leader reconsider her desire to roll over Leicester and make it part of Adrestia again!

(Granted, Nopes don't tell us how his plea to stop the war after killing the evil lizard lady will play out and leaves an open ending...)

In Houses, well, he doesn't want Leicester to be flattened, and goes on the offensive (counter offensive?) when Billy pops up with basically what is the plot events of Silver Snow (down to using the same strategy with disguises) with the Gronder Map.

And that addition radically changes... well, everything regarding Claude's relevance : he cannot form an alliance with the Blue Lord or the Kingdom to get rid of the Empire because "plot convenient myopia" and apparently Dimitri BaD enough that he attacks Alliance troops for no reason.

Forget SS, GW (and AM, in a way) is just using plot contrived excuse to... not have an united from to face the Empire. Why? IDK. Each Lord must be the hero of his story, or the unification boner means only one of them can "win" an unified Fodlan i'd guess.

Nabateans and the plot ?

No one gives a fig about that "plot", so it's basically pursuing a side-quest for no payoff.

Now, as @fantasyinvader wrote, Claude's story and journey as one who is ignorant and gets to learn and clear his misconceptions + the background of the land we're living in could have been interesting, doubly so given how Billy is voiceless and cannot play the "protag discovers the world at the same time as the player does" role.

But it has... no payoff.

Much like Rhea's infodump about the World, Relics and Nabateans... Claude reacts to the mention that Billy has a rock for heart, and not about his crest, his shiny bow or the fact that Rhea also had a vested interest in, uh, getting rid of prejudice against people who are perceived as "different" because her family was genocided for that.

Hell, the entire "prejudice" angle from Supreme Leader's war is swept under the rug, so we can have the Deers say nonsense like wanting to rekt Thales for Supreme Leader's sake, while only Flayn and Seteth can hear her "nabateans shouldn't have power over the people"...

There's no parallel drawn in the game about Claude and Rhea's situation - since she's at the center of this subplot - about being perceived as "outsiders" and not being able to do various things from existing to "rule over the people" because of what they are, or even faking their identities and building metaphorical walls between them and the people they're living with because they are afraid of rejection.

Nah, we can't have that, Rhea must be irrelevant to the possible, while also being the biggest scapegoat/dragon of this saga at the same time as a nebulous red herring to sell pots of tea.

Ihthe "fight against prejudice and make people accept each other" angle was that relevant to his route, Claude would have most likely talked or interacted with Dimitri and learnt of his plan to cleanse Duscur's name in his Father's assassination, raised a brow at Petra being a hostage and done something else than give a surprised pikachu face at Rhea's infodumps.

He could have reacted at her reveal that if you might want to live in peace with some people, if those people don't want that and label you as nothing more than fodder or things to be looted, it's not going to work.

And of course, gave a reaction at your second in command (unofficially?)'s reveal that, uh, her house keeps identured Almyran children as war prisoners?

Some people already made some AUs or "what ifs" routes for a proper Claude route and not the nonsense that we got in FE16 where it's basically "I react to the same plot events that happen in the other routes but top it all with a zombie".

The Deers could have been "better introduced" in a plot about getting rid of prejudice, or learning the causes of this prejudice : Marianne was/is hunted because of her blood ties to Maurice - not because what she did, but because what Momo did back then! - Lysithea was treated as a guinea pig and her house rolled over by Adrestia who has a less than rosy views about the "offshoots" that are called Leicester and Faerghus, Lorenz could explain that prejudice, just like piety, are tools used by people whenever they're relevant, like, some people being pissed at foreigners and some who aren't because they make money through international trading like Margrave Edmund does, Hilda justifying her House's animosity towards Almyrans because they lost many people in those pointless skirmishes (maybe a closed ones? Her mom or Uncle or whatever?) which would make Claude realise that "ending prejudice" is a much more difficult quest than, idk, just killing one or two randoms.

The commoner trio might share Claude's views about prejudice and welcoming foreigners, but have more "mundane" worries like being able to have a roof and food to eat, which might be the case of some people in Leicester, or tell us more about Leicester and how it works (give us more insight about the different countries if Fodlan ffs).

Maybe we could have add a Claude who learns and discovers Fodlan, and along the way, starts to love the land as much, if not more, than Almyra and really wanting to protect this land from whatever Supreme Leader's cooking, or becoming an Almyra v.2.

I don't think making Claude the third wheel of the plot was maliciously intentional because of the, uh, implications with RL cultures and Almyra, but more like they didn't know where to put him.

I noticed you wrote the conflict as one that is "the church vs the empire", but I do not really agree - if that was the case, the war would have stopped in VW/AM/SS the second Rhea was caught.

The main conflict is Supreme Leader's war of conquest - with the twist that the devs were really banking on their brilliant idea of making the red emperor the titular waifu of the game that each person/lord/whatever Rhea is must find a way to excuse and/or justify her actions.

With this in mind, AM is basically Dimitri's fall (and rise!) because of his ties to Supreme Leader.

In VW? The game cannot explore too much outside of the Supreme Leader scope so we're left with.. well, what VW was.

Claude cannot go on a journey to discover Fodlan and get rid of his misconceptions... because part of those same misconceptions are used by Supreme Leader to start her war, or the sheer concept of a conquest, aka a nation being rolled over by another is anathema to his, supposed, ideal of wanting people to accept each other despite their differences.

I ranted about it since day 5, but the Nabatean subplot (and Fodlan in general) is accessory to Supreme Leader war, there is no point aka no payoff for learning all of that, because you cannot challenge the one who wants to unify the continent.

As such, Claude cannot deviate too far from this plot - while receiving infodumps about "the lore" - and we end up with third wheel of a bike and characters who, at first and second glance, appear to be irrelevant.

Fodlan ends up unified despite starting as three separate countries, we feel bad for Supreme Leader and mourn her unknown ideals, Rhea is gone and the Agarthans aren't a problem anymore.

the second the devs said leicester was a republic, claude was doomed. Merchant republics are always irrelevent or straight up useless in the FE series!

[deathbirby]

What sucks about the fandom is that everybody usually defaults to make post-Crimson Flower fanfictions 'and they all lived happily ever after :)' which... sucks because CF is the most flawed ending out of all of the routes (Duscur is still believed to have killed the King, TWSITD are lurking around as seen in Edel's mural, sovereign nations were forcibly assimilated against their will into Adrestia, etc). All of these issues are ignored to default to a happy ending which is such a let down since all of these issues are SO interesting and genuinely could make really engaging post-CF fanfiction delving into them. That's not even going into how Edel's meritocracy is deeply flawed on further thought as it assumes equal opportunity (despite the nobility and the inter-generational wealth of said nobles), and an equal society where everyone is seen and treated as equals (the people of Duscur who are seen as traitors, Almyrans such as Cyril who were enslaved and forced to work, Nabataens and Edel's blatant racism towards them, etc). Let me make this clear; a meritocracy is better than feudalism or a monarchy outright. The issue isn't inherently with meritocracies, nor is it to dissuade changing the current system of Fodlan. The problems I have with Edel's meritocracy is the total lack of foresight and the refusal to engage with Edel's actions that brought in the system. Meritocracies can work but considering the broader context and political landscape of Fodlan: Edel's meritocracy was a system founded after violently conquering two sovereign nations against the leaders and the civilians wills. Many of these civilians do harbour resentment towards the government (as seen in Hubert/Shamir's ending where they act as secret cops 🤢), how Edelgard only really gives resources to people she knows aka nepotism (especially to Caspar and Bernie who are woefully not well suited for the roles the get). There's also the ugly turd by removing the corrupt nobles who kept her in check, there are no safeguards against Edelgard or future successors abusing their power (which Edel's use of her power is pretty questionable seen in Hubert/Dorothea gathering intelligence for the empire and Hubert/Shamir with being cops). ======== (1/2)

2/2 ==== I wanna bring up how Petra was treated; poor girl was kidnapped from her home, tossed into a hostile foreign land where she didn't speak the language and received no support at all from her peers. Going so far as Hubert calling her an animal (we love microaggresions if not outright aggresions to poc). Edelgard assumes her and Petra to be equals, that Petra is completely fine but Edel is oblivious or callous towards the gross power imbalance between the two. Petra is constantly trying to appease society by learning the local tongue, constantly trying to appease Edelgard and prove her own independence to ensure Brigid doesn't appear weak. Edel does show concern, I'll give her that, but she really doesn't do anything to truly help Petra. Iirc, Petra had to learn the entire language by herself without ANY help from anyone, not even Edel nor Hubert stepped in (tho Hubert can gawk at Petra like shes an animal). How is it unfair to assume that if Edel can't even address blatant inequality and oppression towards Petra, something that was in her face, how can she ensure that her meritocracy won't perpetuate further inequality and oppression on a wider scale? I really wish the fandom weren't so scared nor so adverse to exploring these issues in a post-CF fan fiction and really take a deep dive into Edelgard's rule outside of 'Fodlan was super corrupt, Rhea is the absolute fucking worst and Dimitri was just a Rhea Stan, Claude was aaaaalmost cool but he didn't want to work with Edelgard which sucks because they would SO be besties (even tho Claude experienced violent racism and would not tolerate Edel's pasty ass spewing vitriol how Nabataens are inhuman beasts) but its soooooo sad he didn't see Edelgard's goals, BTW CRESTS ARE THE FUCKING WORST :3'. Like, the only thing I have ever read to addressing the flaws Edelgard's rule was To Those Who Are Never Going Home by MadameHyde (but stiiiill doesn't hit the spot for me since its more focused on Garreg Mach than the wider society of Fodlan on itself). I believe in women's wrongs and Edelgard did SO MUCH shit wrong, let👏Edelgard👏be👏pointed👏out👏in👏the👏wrong👏. It sucks that nobody wants to engage or even play with that side of Edelgard, so I'm now stuck developing my own post-CF fanfiction/AU exploring an Adrestian-Garreg Mach and the world of Fodlan moulded by Edelgard's rule lmfao. I really want to explore a politically unstable and balkanized Fodlan, and it's so sad that nobody else sees the vision 😔 Thanks for reading my entire infodump about Edelgard and sitting through this entire essay lmfao. — 🍑 Anon

Oh dear goddess have mercy on me

CF's ending makes no sense when you realize that TWSITD can just nuke Fhirdiad right then and there and win. Thales can also just... brainwash Edelgard and turn her into a puppet according to hopes. It's the least logical ending.

Edelgard's system ultimately would only benefit the strong. The 'weak' (sick, elderly, poor, disabled, etc.) just have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps according to our emperor, but we all know how well that will work.

And yep, the nepotism runs strong with her. Caspar and Bernadetta are NOT fit to rule. We know from one of the endings that Caspar acts recklessly and dangerous on military campaigns but people just ignore it. That is a very bad look for Edelgard who just tolerates it.

Petra's whole situation deserves her own post tbh. She's a political hostage who gets treated like dirt. Edelgard couldn't even help her learn the language despite the fact that she has all of the resources to do so.

let👏Edelgard👏be👏pointed👏out👏in👏the👏wrong👏

write this on my gravestone lol

[inkperch]

I really, really wish you could recruit Seteth in a Crimson Flowers route-

Like. At the point where you spare him, when the writing on the wall is clear, he strikes a deal (assuming Flayn is still alive) that he'll fight by your side as long as you let Flayn get as far away as possible from the fighting. (Maybe even have 'sparing Claude' as a requirement, you call on his favour to send her to Almyra under the protection of their prince.)

Meanwhile Seteth has the ulterior motive of trying to negotiate a terms of surrender for Rhea... Only to slowly come to terms with the fact that, in Crimson Flowers, his sister has Absolutely Lost It(tm), and won't take any 'surrender' short of tearing out Byleth's heart, and El's head-

Give him some unique, CF only varients on his Supports, let someone who genuinely cares for Rhea side against her and challenge El's stances, let him call out Hubie on not standing up to El and just quietly cleaning up after her from the shadows (in a way that is definitely not him projecting as he watches his sister go insane to a degree that seals her own fate from him similarly not challenging her as much as he should've), give him an angsty ass unique interaction where he pleads with Rhea to see that she can't win against El and Byleth, but she can survive, but she doesn't even care about her own survival at this point she just wants those two dead-

I just think it would be neat.

[ramyeonguksu]

Put in the tags whether your FE3H OC would thrive outside of their "main" route or not!

[butwhatifidothis]

It's funny how people once pointed out how Edelgard would say to Byleth that she didn't think that they belonged on the path that put them on her side - that Byleth wasn't meant to be here - to show off why CF was like. Not good. Because even the lord of the route is trying to tell the player that uhhh Byleth doesn't belong here, they're supposed to be on the other routes. Which checks with how the devs said that SS is the route the world-building is based on, and how within the game itself CF directly goes against SS' world-building.

It's like. It's like a pretty clear wink wink nudge nudge that the player Dun Goofed and was on the Bad Route with the Red Emperor who mows down any in her way. And which is further backed up by all the the bad implications in CF endings... and its mural... and throughout the story... and the explore dialogues... and Byleth's (and other characters') visible character regression...

But Edelstans have looked at that clear-as-day red flag through some damn fine rose-tinted glasses, and have completely turned that intent around. Nooo, we've got it all wrong, that wasn't any sort of nudge to the player that they're on the wrong path - that's Byleth defying their fate! That's them challenging what was meant for them to go down, and them forging their own path forward through the choices they made!

...Ignore how, if CF is an available route to go down, that would intrinsically make SS a choice as well. Because it is no longer the default in that scenario; one has to make the active choice to still side with the Church over Edelgard. Meaning, like. There is no fate to defy here.

...And ignore how this makes it sound as though this is the only choice Byleth makes about something in the game at that point. There's, well, AM and VW to consider, but even being a saint and ignoring the biggest flaw in this argument, there's still like. The Sealed Forest. You know, that moment when Byleth, not the player, chose to do something, of their own volition, and even against the wants of Rhea (the stand-in for fate, according to Edelstans)? Real funny how that never seems to ever be a factor in Edelstans' arguments about why Byleth needs Edelgard to learn how to make choices - they can do it just fine.

Just like they, Byleth, and not the player, chooses to side with Rhea and not Edelgard as the "default."

Like they NEVER seem to see that as a possibility! That Byleth CHOSE to side with Rhea! They say that's Byleth *~submitting to the whims of fate~* instead of giving Byleth any agency, because that would mean that Byleth would by default choose to defy Edelgard.

But you know what character does attribute Byleth's choosing Rhea as a result of their willful choices and agency?

I refer to an old screenshot:

The game is the one that is saying that Byleth actively and deliberately chose to go onto SS. Not only does nothing in the game support the idea that choosing Rhea/SS is something outside of Byleth's control/a result of strictly fate and nothing else, it literally says the complete opposite. But Edelstans are so hard-set on believing that Byleth can't be anything without Edelgard that they, ironically enough, force them to be by her side and deny any agency Byleth may have that takes them away from her. It's just... a sight to behold really lmao

[krazieka2]

It's so surprising to see you on an Edelys fanzine, I seriously thought you didn't like Edelgard!!

No, I like Edelgard a lot! All of the students are likeable characters to me.

[thisfirelight]

I find Dorothea referring to Edelgard as "kid" funny lol. Also, rare moment of her calling Edelgard by her name. There are other explore dialogue post-timeskip where she still calls her "Edie".

[saviourkingslut]

ill be honest there's something really funny about people adding edelgard (and hubert ig) to monastery chess clubs bc she technically canonically sucks at tactics. this is not what the game's narrative wants to convey but when you start a war with ample time to prepare a massive military force plus the element of surprise and also you have the Mole Sorcerers of Nefarious Plotting more or less on your side and then over the course of five years you don't succeed in annihilating a nation where you have already installed a puppet government and you haven't even had the chance to start in on the other nation on the continent i will say you are not beating the sucks at warfare strategies allegations.

[emblemxeno]

At least in Fates, no one will try to defend Garon because he is a cute empress

The closest comparison that people make will be Conquest!Corrin, but even then, that game spares no efforts at making Corrin take responsibility and feel bad for what they do. They aren't victim blaming like Edelgard is wont to do, they get called out by named enemies frequently, and they actually feel for the people they've hurt, even the generics.

Like, I've seen people make fun of Corrin for crying over not just their loved ones but also civilians and complete strangers, because damn, god forbid a character not sympathize or be emotional over terrible things happening. Compare to Edelgard where she doesn't give one fuck about Randolph or Ladislava kicking the bucket, and really only cares if Byleth is in trouble, and the game then expects me to sympathize with how hard it must be for her lol.

[elektroyu]

Just got a letter today that meant... not so good things for me. Even more paperwork, more stress, more fighting to secure something for me to live off. This can take literally years. I hope not though. Idk from where I'm supposed to take the strength to do all that honestly.

I feel so so old suddenly

[t0bey]

in my fire emblem feelings again and u ever just have to sit back and appreciate how well-written edelgard von hresvelg is as a character

[randomnameless]

Imagine a world where Jeralt wasn't an idiot and he didn't kidnap Billy away from Rhea. Supreme Leader's war would have ended before it could begin because Billy would have known Eggy was spewing bs.

It's all his fault Fodlan didn't immediately improve. Great job, racist dumbass.

Anon,

in that AU, Billy would have told Rhea about the gremlin in their head, and the plot would have been radically different lol

More seriously,

Billy, despite being raised as a... well, how Jerry raised them, knows that this "crusts put a value on people's worth" spiel is shit, because Billy themselves have the rarest crust ever, and they're not immediately promoted to "ruler of the world", hell, they must still listen to people and can't do whatever they want.

The leader of the KoS is Jerry through Rhea's favoritism, but before that? Who had that role? Alois, a crestless random, was Catherine's superior.

When Hanneman discovers Billy has a crest? Well, they're still a teacher, just like Crestless!Manu.

"but the church promotes the crust system"

"wtf are you taking about"

But since we can't have that, or have Billy appreciate what they are supposed to appreciate as seen through Heroes/Engage aka some sort of peace, sense of belonging and guiding/teaching stuff to people instead of being a sword for hire, the plot happens.

Also, given how Billy'n'Jerry must have travelled around during their time as mercs, or were at least in Remire where people weren't that preoccupied about crusts and what not, but as randoms, about what they're going to eat tonight or if they weren't going to be attacked by bandits or mad scientists who will turn them in guinea pigs, the "Sacrifices must be made, I'm killing people for their sake" would fall hollow, especially given what happens to Remire which is located, again, in Arundel...

@fantasyinvader wrote recently a post about Billy's status as a character/avatar hybrid and how the focus on one status... neutralises the other, but that's what we have with this character (and everyone in Fodlan tbh, save for the Lions thanks to Nopes and the Nabateans) : Billy being the player's avatar must bend to the player's will, so they will be able to join Tru Piss and feel sad uwus about fighting the red Emperor, that's how the game was designed.

This fucks over Billy as a character, especially in Tru Piss, but also, partly in Winds - assuming they did the "help Seteth" quests, his paralogue or just talked to the various students/NPCs in the monastery - and yet, allows for the artificial "route split" or "pick your lord" choice.

TS' Serenor did the thing better with "have a character + let the player pick which character they want to follow", without scrubbing Serenor's personnality.

[deathbirby]

It's kinda weird how much the Edgeystan pipeline kept escalating to its dumbest yet disturbing conclusion "Edgey did nothing wrong, the slithers manipulated her and they're the real villains. Also Rhea bad and disobeyed Sothis. Her war isn't imperialism but a revolution." -> "Edgey did nothing wrong, Sothis and the Nabateans are colonizers trying to assimilate and control humanity. Nemesis and the Slithers are the true heroes and are freedom fighters fighting against oppression. Genocide and terrorism is acceptable if it's done on the right people." -> "Fire Emblem as a franchise is all about dragons bad and killing them to free humanity from their oppression, therefore Edgey and the Slithers are right. Engage and Fates don't count cause they suck." Really goes to show that even in fiction, no one is immune to radicalization and propaganda.

I love how they used to say that Sothis hates Rhea and would never agree with her and would totally side with Ladle, but then hopes comes out and they immediately call her a colonizer when they realize she does actually care about her family and is mad about seeing their bones.