#in any other story edelgard is obviously the villain and the church are obviously good

[likeabxrdinflight]

okay having now finished the crimson flower route I honestly don't know how I'm gonna do any of the others and have to side with the church like

obviously I realize this fictional church is not the actual catholic church but hoooo boy the similarities are clearly not accidental and hearing rhea scream at me for like 10 hours of gameplay about how I'm going to burn in hell for being a worthless sinner is...........yikes lady. I'm not gonna be able to unhear that on any of the other routes.

now I've gotten bits and pieces of her side of things- she's lost her family, she's obsessed with getting her mother back, I'm sure there's more to it that will look more sympathetic on other routes, but...I dunno, she struck me as bad news from the very start of the game. not only does jeralt not trust her from the get go, but she doesn't exactly start off in the most flattering light. what is it like, chapter two or three when she starts executing the western church "heretics"?

I just feel like I've seen this kind of person before. she looks sweet and gentle, she acts warm and loving to your face- and as long as you stay on her side, in her good graces, and faithful to her religion- she'll continue to be that way. it's not insincere, exactly, her moments of kindness and affection. she genuinely means it- but it comes with terms and conditions.

she's not very different than any other zealot I've known. put one foot wrong, step out of her good books, do something she considers a sin, and she turns on a dime. and now granted, what byleth and edelgard do in crimson flower isn't exactly a small thing, but still- rhea struck me right away as the type to smile or frown based on whether or not you're meeting her approval. do the right thing in her eyes and you're rewarded with kindness. do the wrong thing and she turns cold. and clearly she's quite unforgiving, that's made apparent well before the time skip.

and that is very familiar to me. I knew people like rhea. I've been hurt by people like rhea. and admittedly it's hard to look past that projection when the game didn't even try to make the church of seiros not look like a direct rip off the catholic church. but whether or not you think the church or edelgard are in the right (or neither, which is probably the correct answer), there's just no denying that rhea isn't exactly a good person- and I'd wager even in routes where she isn't blatantly playing the role of villain, she's not exactly the hero either. the game certainly doesn't set her up to be one.

and this isn't even getting into any of the shit with byleth and sothis, mind.

[lorekeeper-backset]

I'm bored, here have these Fire Emblem: Three Houses What Ifs that accompanied the Author's Note of a chapter of my currently on-hiatus because I'm too lazy to work on it fanfic. They're free to use as story ideas but if you do use any them I'd appreciate you sending it my way.

What If… Edelgard Won? I know what you’re thinking: Isn’t this just the Crimson Flower route? But it’s not. When I say “Edelgard Won” I mean that straight up villain Edelgard (no, we’re not arguing this right now) from the other three routes wins. She trumps the Kingdom, Alliance, and Church and takes over Fodlan.

What If… Claude Became the Hegemon? In other words, what if Claude took Edelgard’s place as the main antagonist. Basically, somewhere along the line Claude decides that the best way to End Racism is if he takes control of everything. So we get to see how scarily competent Claude would be as a bad guy. Obviously, he’d have great strategy because, you know, Master Schemer, but also he’d weaken the other sides by outright stealing troops from them. Because evil or not he’s still Claude. He isn’t fighting to defeat one specific group or blaming one specific group for all the oppression. He just thinks that taking over everything is a faster way to change things than working with the system (which is basically Edelgard’s doctrine but she purely blames the Church for all this bull). And a lot of people will think that he makes good points and decide that, yeah, they’ll join this guy. In fact, the points he makes will be so good that they might even make the audience question who the bad guy is (it’s still him) which I think is something they tried to do with Edelgard (she is right, Crests are an issue) but she also caused way more bloodshed and joined up with Those Who Slither so it’s kind of moot. Claude, obviously, won’t use Demonic Beasts because he’s just as against Those Who Slither as he is as a good guy but he might use Golems he reverse engineered from the Church. Because of how scarily competent he is this will actually force the other three sides to team up for realsies to fight him and Those Who Slither might join in too as a third party (though nobody will actively help them because, you know, they’re Those Who Slither, and in gameplay terms it would function like the battle of grondor field) because Claude is a way bigger threat to them since he’s not only actively hunting them along with everyone else but their main base is in Alliance territory. Man, I really put a lot of thought into this one. Also, Hegemon doesn’t mean he’ll be turning into Fallen Claude or some such thing, just that he’s the bad guy in this scenario.

What If… Byleth Never Came to Garreg Mach Monastery? This one’s simple. Something happened that caused Byleth to simply… not come to the Monastery. Or maybe they did and they just kind of left.

What If… Byleth Woke Up Too Late? Basically, Byleth falls off a cliff as usual but by the time they wake up the war’s over. However, it didn't end in anyone’s favor, possibly due to Those Who Slither or just because Byleth was kind of a lynch pin, so Fodlan is s lawless post-apocalyptic waste land. We could have all sorts of cool post-apocalypse versions of the characters. Like a version of Lorenz who has decided that even though his noble house has fallen, that's no reason not to act like a noble and do heroic things and try to make the future a little brighter (sorry, but Ferdie’s dead in this universe so he can’t take that role). Or a version of Ashe who’s gone dark after one dead friend too many.

What If… Sitri Survived? This one’s also simple. The method by which Sitri survives could be any number of things. Maybe Baby Byleth dies before they can perform the operation or maybe the birth just goes smoothly. Who knows.

What If… Sothis Bonded to Edelgard? This one’s an interesting one. Maybe even more interesting than Hegemon Claude. So, somehow Sothis bonds to Edelgard instead of Byleth. Maybe instead of doing blood experiments Those Who Slither just straight up stole Sothis’ crest stone somehow (which unfortunately means neither Byleth nor Sitri can show up in this story) and for reasons that are probably similar to why their main timeline (for a certain sense of the word) experiment worked on her the Crest Stone takes and now she has Sothis in her head. Sothis probably first emerges sometime around when she first emerged for Byleth, maybe during the same confrontation with Kostis. This allows Edelgard time to develop her anti-Church and anti-Crest views. So now she has this being who may or may not be the Goddess in her head (since she’s not ignorant of Fodlan’s religion and politics like Byleth she immediately recognizes the significance of Sothis’ name) who’s also really abrasive towards her and that would obviously affect her character arc in a significant way as at first she probably searches for a way to get rid of Sothis and Sothis isn't all that fond of Edelgard either for obvious reasons but the two slowly warm up to each other and who knows what happens then. Also, since we need a third teacher and Byleth isn't available, I say we use a retired Jeralt who would also have changed quite a bit due to a lack of Sitri (or possibly, even more heartbreaking, Those Who Slither straight up ripping Sitri or Byleth’s hearts from their chests).

[regrrex]

allow me to preface this little post by saying that I will write a proper meta about the Edelgard vs. Doro’s Opera thing one day because there is a LOT to unpack here but in the spirit of my last ask reply I figured I might as well lay the groundwork. Allow me thus to... ramble a little.

Edelgard not wanting to hear anything about Dorothea’s Opera is a matter that pops up in their support chain & in their paired ending as well. Given how much emphasis is put on it & the fact that Edelgard did not allow Doro to stage her opera until deep into the post war era has various reasons, one of which I want to touch on in this little post (the rest will be explained in aforementioned, proper meta).

          As minuscule as the whole Opera thing seems to be, it reveals a lot about Edelgard’s self-perception; she cannot, for the life of her, see herself or what she did as a truly good or pure thing even when she succeeds / manages to abolish the church, crest & nobility system. Until she abdicates, Edelgard is convinced that her achievements should not be praised; to El, what she did (read: the war & killing Rhea + Thales) was necessary, yes & she would do it time & time again as often as she has to because in the end, she paved the way for something glorious & great. That is the thing; SHE “ONLY” PAVED THE WAY. Edelgard never did anything she did for glory or because she wanted to go down in history as a revolutionary leader. No, she did all of this because she considered it her job, an obligation, almost. After all, she survived whereas all of her siblings died & that survival obviously was supposed to mean something; in fact, we see the exact same mindset represented by another character. Like Lysithea, Edelgard suffers from intense survivor’s guilt, like Lysithea she dedicated her life to something meaningful with no regard to how people or history would come to perceive her in the long run because... it simply did not matter to either (another future meta topic).

Even in Azure Moon & Silver Snow, where Edelgard fails her actions still lead to some form of gradual change; arguably not as “good” or definite as she wanted but she alters Fodlan’s structure nonetheless. && in a way, that is why Edelgard is content upon dying in either of those routes because at least she did “something” & did not waste her existence (which is also why she a) asks for execution in Silver Snow or b) provokes execution in Azure Moon; I will meta about this eventually). Her initial survival meant something. It achieved something. It is honestly tragic, really.

          With that out of the way; to this end, because she knew she would potentially die / go down in history as a tyrant, Edelgard demonized herself. She painted herself as a villain from the moment she was coerced to masquerade as the Flame Emperor & never considered herself anything but. Her isolation & behavior in White Clouds is an example of her self-obloquy; she does not once consider that anyone would ever willingly side with someone as heinous as her & she has made her peace with it, too; she probably wrote farewell letters to her classmates & practiced parting speeches. In fact, Edelgard was visibly reserved, cold & aloof until she suddenly wasn’t anymore. Until she realized that suddenly people begun to care, begun to reach out their hands with two of the most striking being Dorothea & Byleth. She is visibly baffled by acts of kindness or genuine declarations of care & friendship because she never considered herself deserving or worthy of such.

          “EDGE OF DAWN” (alt. Girl of Hresvelg) is LITERALLY a song about her realizing how much she loves living in Garreg Mach among those she learns to cherish & care for, while also knowing that all of this will collapse the second she reveals what she has done so far & what more she is about to do because who in their right mind would follow her into this hell?

          Now, imagine having spent half your life demonizing yourself to such a massive degree, deliberately reminding yourself time & time again of every heinous thing you are doing / what you are about to do, knowing far too well how much death / destruction you will bring & that you will literally plunge an entire continent with hundreds of people into chaos. Imagine being more than self-aware of all the horrors you will inflict upon the very people you want to protect so desperately because there is no other way around this whole thing (the war cannot be averted, Thales has already told you that much; why, you have literally been “created” to wage war on your abuser’s behalf). 

          Now imagine someone approaching you during the timeskip & being like "hey I wanna glorify your harrowing & horrendous story of violence & bloodshed in a heroic, war/ all-romanticizing opera". 

          As much as she loves Dorothea, Edelgard is 100% self-aware of what she has done & feels guilt because of it; she did what she did so whoever comes after her does not have to & she will never consider herself a hero in any shape or form; it is why Dorothea’s opera causes her so much distress & why it will take her a long, long time to eventually accept it / see it in person. 

[varley-of-torment]

Here’s my take on Crimson Flower (a ramble)

TL:DR: The focus on Rhea being the villain is based solely on Edelgard being manipulated rather than her own goals. Had the ending revealed she was tricked or her goals were more consistent with other routes, it would have been better.

I’d like to mention this is just to my understanding of the game’s lore (and also just my thoughts! It’s cool if you like cf, this is just me).

First off, Hubert’s back must hurt from carrying this route.

*thunderous applause as the audience laughs and clinks champagne glasses at my joke*

Anyway, My main problem with Crimson Flower is that I don’t find it satisfying. I don’t mean in terms of story or presentation, I mean I can’t get invested in the goal. Because what Edelgard is fighting for (specifically in this route) is based on blatantly incorrect information. 

Crimson Flower is all about defeating Rhea. Rhea’s the villain. The Church of Seiros manipulates Fodlan with an iron fist. Rhea specifically is responsible for the crest system. The thing is though... that’s not true. The Church of Seiros doesn’t do any of that. Rhea is a questionable leader at times, but she mostly keeps to her own bubble and goals.

Like, it’s not a matter of perspectives; Rhea does not do the things Edelgard thinks she does. 

Edelgard, to my understanding, is motivated by the corrupt crest system. That’s the source of her trauma, it is a flaw in their society, I get that. But she starts a war with the Church of Seiros, an unrelated third party. In Silver Snow, they actually give a pretty satisfying explanation-- The church is the oldest, most sacred anything in Fodlan. If it is taken down, Fodlan will be easier to shape. That makes sense. That is means to an end.

I’m down for a villain route in theory. If the above was the logic Crimson Flower Edelgard used, I’d have no problems. But they insist Rhea is the evil villain, so your end goal doesn’t have to do with the destination (if that makes sense).

This brings me to Thales/Lord Arundel. Again, this is my understanding of the lore, and this game is very dense in information. The only reason for Edelgard to think Rhea is to blame for crests is that Edelgard is being manipulated by Thales. Like... that’s all that makes sense. Yeah Rhea executed those Western Church members without a trial, but Edelgard was already planning her war by then. Wether through lies passed down the family or he just manually put it in her brain during the experiments. 

So here’s what I’m thinking when I play cf:

“What’s that Edelgard? You want to destroy the crest system? Okay, how are you going to do that. Destroy the Church? But the Church has nothing to do with crests, it mostly keeps to itself. The Church is evil? Who told you that? Thales? You mean the guy who tortured you for twelve years and killed your siblings in crest experiments? The same one who specifically wants revenge on the Nabateans because of a war a thousand years ago? The one who is the leader of a demon cult? That Thales? He’s obviously manipulating you, but at least you plan to destroy him and the rest of twstd after the war-- oh wait that’s Hubert. Right.”

That’s about all I have to say. I’m not saying cf is horrible, since I do really like the atmosphere and designs. Jeritza is also a nice addition, the fact that you can romance the death knight and it’s GAY is really funny. Also, if what Edelgard said was the truth, that is a pretty cool story. idk this is me tiredly rambling after a shift of my job, have a good night (or whatever time of day it is)

[odyssiaca]

i said i was gonna do it, so here i am! i am writing this on the fly, making it up as i go along so who knows how long it will be! who knows. 

i have finally played every route in fe3h, including the dlc- currently im making my way through the new game+ and screaming because this is my life now apparently. this isn’t really a deep and meaningful essay just... my experience playing the game and all the routes. 

( pls note i played on casual and normal for my original playthrough because i am a wimp. for ng+ im still playing casual but this time im playing on hard. )

this is the order in which i played the routes + dlc: verdant wind, azure moon, cindered shadows, silver snow and crimson flower. 

right! so!! let’s start!

White Clouds: the first twelve chapters are obviously pretty same-y, which is fine, except when you’re playing 4 times in a row. i liked the fact that the goddess tower was unique for every route and character you were trying to get s support with. there were some unique aspects to the different house, ie. judith, arundel, rodrigue, finding out about dimitri and edelgard. but other than that i did get pretty bored when it came around to doing it... again. and idk just, like i said the reveals obviously weren’t as shocking the 4 time around but like, they were still enjoyable, which is good at least!

Verdant Wind: this route is... eh. it’s the first one i did because dear god i am in love with claude. the route in and of itself is probably one of the weakest ngl. there were things that didn’t make sense in the context of the route and unlike azure moon and crimson flower it didn’t feel unique (given that this route and silver snow are.... IDENTICAL. except the final bosses) the final boss was dope and i am obsessed with God Shattering Star, but other than that? meh. i liked it at first because it was my first one and yknow, claude. but now it’s just idk, it’s lacking. and i’m gonna be honest: i don’t like most of the class. i like claude, hilda, marianne and lysithea. that is it. the others are just overbearing or kinda boring. lorenz i just, i can’t get over his design, i know he’s a deep character but i dislike most of his c supports, i hate his hair and the way he talks. ignatz and raphael are forgettable. i know they’re also very deep characters but their surface levels make me not want to go into their characters. and just. fuck leonie, i’m sorry i just cannot handle her. she’s overbearing, annoying, thinks that because jeralt trained her she’s better than everyone??? GOD. her supports with hilda are cute, and i like her post-timeskip design but otherwise she’s one of my least favourite characters in the game. im sorry. (edit: okay im revising this because it was late at night and perhaps i was a bit harsh. i dont actually mind the characters i mentioned that much, in fact they can be quite funny, however, i still prefer characters from the other houses more.) so my verdict of this route is that i did enjoy it, i liked the cutscenes and the timeskip designs but it’s still only my second favourite. 8/10.

Azure Moon: look. i’m just saying, this route? is the best. hands down, it’s absolutely amazing. it has it’s flaws, and it’s very different from the other routes and is also very much the most fire emblem like route but that’s okay. this route is devastating, heartbreaking, really fucking sad. and that just draws me in. when i first did the route i was gonna marry mercedes because i am gay and love her but the character of dimitri is just so incredibly well done- before and after the timeskip. i like the fact that there’s essence behind his character, meaning. i actually found this route to be kinda hard in places (cornelia for example and also edelgard) and it’s also very unique. i like the way the two factions of faerghus and adrestia interact, and also the way the alliance is just dragged into it. ( claude doesn’t die which is good!!!!) in the other routes you only really see dimitri as this crazed character but in azure moon you find out WHY and yes, that is good. the characters are all very unique and i like them all they all have their own stories and characteristics that make them as unique at the route. the cutscenes and stills are, beautifully done and truly heartbreaking. and just. AH. i adore this route more than i have any right to, on the whole it’s my favourite. 10/10.

Cindered Shadows: this isn’t really a route, but that’s okay, im sure you guys don’t mind. i love the ashen wolves, they’re amazing. the story is... weak. because it doesn’t fit into the actual plot at all and that annoys me. aelfric is a character i dislike immensely but maybe that was the point? i find the explanations in the route to be its downfall, because it clashes with what we already know in the game. sitri is pretty and im glad we get a tiny bit more byleth and sitri backstory but otherwise the characters and abyss are it’s saving grace. 6/10.

Silver Snow: im gonna go ahead and say it: fuck this route. it’s verdant wind but with seteth instead of claude. it’s verdant wind but bad and boring. it’s dull and unnecessary. i had really high hopes for this route because it’s the church! i dont like the church but a route with them could be very interesting! it was not! it lacked personality, it lacked uniqueness. i don’t particularly like most of the characters and basically just used the students and fuuuuuck the final boss. the only reason i did this route was because i wanted to romance yuri but also edelgard.  2/10 would not play again.

Crimson Flower: ... ... ... WHERE ARE THE CUTSCENES!!!! where is the reunion scene between byleth and edelgard, why is it all stills!!!!!! WHY IS IT SHORTER THAN THE OTHERS!!!! WHY. the story in this route is actually very interesting, and well thought out. but the aforementioned points are what make me want to ram my head into a wall. idk why they thought to give silver snow cutscenes and not this route but it was stupid. i do like the way the portrayed the church and rhea though. as the villains they technically are. i like the characters a lot, they’re all great, and i love the angst!!! the way you get to choose if you want to spare or kill your children whom you love. ( i spared claude and lysithea because i am weak. ) but its just. the vibe of the route is ruined by the lack of cutscenes and thats dumb ik but it is what it is. and also it did NOT need to be shorter, there was no reason for it to be as short as it was. 5/10.

so in order we have: 

Azure Moon

Verdant Wind

Cindered Shadows

Crimson Flower

Silver Snow

i enjoyed the game a lot, the writing was beautiful and the characterization was also really good. but some of the characters and routes were just. weak. very very weak. 

idk what else to say so imma leave it here i guess!! pls feel free to debate with me, i’d like that a lot. 

[kendrixtermina]

The "waifu bait" criticism of Edelgard is so dumb given that most of the cast is technically waifu/husbando bait in one way or another, they're all meant to appeal to players as romance options, and she's the only one getting flack for it. (Well, not the only one, there were some people giving Dimitri shit too for being "wish fullfillment for stupid teenage girls who think they can fix a man," but I see the complaint most often with Edelgard.)

Yeah. I mean, you can boink Rhea and Jeritza!

It’s not like satelite love interests aren’t a plague onto anime and fiction in general, but I only ever hear this “you only like them because they’re waifu/bishie” thing directed at characters who very much DO have personality, unique compelling features and plot relevance. 

I’ve also seen this thrown at, say, Evangelion’s Miss Ayanami, as if all the fascinating sci-fi concept stuff and compelling narrative about finding your own worth and making a connection in a cruel lonely world wasn’t there - and at least we do see her through a “main character’s love interest” sorta lens. (I was thinking about how Byleth is actually quite similar, except more proactive with more of a dorky side, and less philosophical/reflective, but because Byleth is the MC we come off with a fairly different impression. )

Meanwhile with Edelgard they really didn’t pull any punches, the whole story is set in motion and dominated by her active choices, most the unique designs/outfits she gets are geared to look elegant/powerful.  (Apart from the usual ‘individually wrapped boob armor would break your sternum’ thing but you’d really have to know physics for that/ could be fixed easily by making the fit more sweater-like), she has a specific discernable philosophy and makes impactful choices, that can genuinely be agreed or disagreed with.

You can’t swag her into your way of thinking - you can only ally with her under the presupposition that you already actively agree. (See all the people complaining that you cant “criticise her more”, expecting her to be like Dimitri basically even though they are exact opposites. You can only get on her route by making two deliberate choices. I mean they wrote this with your first playthrough in mind, in-universe you’re not there because you wanna complete all aroutes but because you actively chose to join her after she spent a year unsubtly trying to recruit you to her cause)

You don’t talk Claude out of his tactics either. (and forcing it all into this comparision often leads ppl to overlook that he has ambiguities or character development at all, maybe he isn’t vilified but he gets simplified and therefore wronged just as much in the end. They’re not all Dimitri. The whole point of having three or four different potential deuteragonists to choose from is that they’re different)… heck, even if you look at Dimitri, you only get him back to what he really wanted to do back in part I before his black-and-white thinking and exaggerated sense of duty got the better of him. 

With all three, joining them eventually just enables them to get closer to their actual vision. Back when you meet her in Remire, Edelgard outright tells you that “with your power on my side, we could courttail the slitherer’s atrocities much more efficiently”. You don’t change her mind at all; You enable her to use “Plan A”. Same with Claude, who otherwise plains much more defensively both because he has less support and because he’s more jaded. And Dimitri essentially pulls a Sayaka, ie being unable to live up to his own unrealistic standards drive him to lose all hope and become the very opposite of the hero he wanted to be, but you do help him get back to that, or to a more balanced mature understanding of that. 

The best proof of that is that the popularity poll numbers actually went down after the release, ie a lot of ppl who liked her just bc they liked her design were turned off that there’s a specific personality there that isn’t necessarily their type/ a MO they don’t necessarily agree with. Or all those peeps complaining that the S-support was too understated for them. Claude got that too - They’re just not the most open/expressive people in the world, one would think that after playing through their routes you would know and understand that. Whereas Dimitri has been super emotional from day one (which is both his greatest strength and greatest weakness), so it figures that he’d be more conventionally romantic. 

- Hardly things that would happen if she were written to be “blandly pleasant”.  I mean generally speaking she’s not the best as showing her feelings and when she does she’s often pretty blunt at it even with her closest friends (El: ”Hubert! I order you to tell me what it is you’re not telling me!” Hubert: [elegantly weasels out of answering] El: [after he’s left the room] I’m worried about him tho. )

Seems senseless to claim that she’s blandly pleasant when she’s absolutely gotten a love-it-or-hate-it-marmite-reaction all across the board. It also seems to go along with the implicit idea that everyone who likes her is heterosexual boys. I’m neither, and it’s not like heterosexual boys aren’t ever interested in “plot” or “writing” I mean geez. Though I would resist the temptation to fully ascribe it to things like that. 

To an extent it’s simply confusion. “How can they like this thing that obviously sucks? Must be an ulterior motive”, whereas in reality ppl who like her have probably parsed what happened here differently to begin with (It depends greatly on how powerful you concluded Rhea was, ie, wether what Edelgard is doing is a conquest or a revolt. She certainly sees it as a revolt. Even today in the modern day most of us see revolts as legitimate, or at least, if they get overly destructive, as a fault of the bad government. Heck, there are many on this very site who would label all revolts legit by default (”eat the rich”, the more ‘original sin-like’ variants of privilege theory) which is further than I would go )

There certainly are a bunch of ‘cute’ scenes post holy-tomb scene and under the assumption that Edelgard is this my-way-or-the-highway type of person that many have her pegged as I can see how they might think that it “makes no sense” but that’s really down to wanting her not tp step outside of that idea they have of her. I mean even supervillains have silly everyday situations. Bin Laden loved Disney Movies, Hitler loved his dogs. By itself that has nothing to do with morality or likeability. It’s just being human. Supervillains blush, not because they’re not villains, but because they have blood vessels in their faces. It’s only logical that once you get close to someone and get them to trust you, you get to see more of their silly or vulnerable sides. It’s the same with Rhea. (except that the same people argue that having personable vulnerable sides at all makes Rhea good s of course it causes some cognitive dissonance when Edelgard also has them. I’ve yet to see ppl calling “waifuism” on Rhea (whom I would consider a full-fledged villain), and they shouldn’t - it’s characterization.) Same with ppl calling Edelgard a “manchild” for liking stuffed animals and sweets. She’s actually very mature and adult for her age, having some interests that aren’t super high-minded is just realistic and if you looked at her as a full 3D person who can have more than one trait you’d see that. 

This also goes with that tendency of holding up AM as the gold standard complaining about the lack of AM-like plot that they completely miss the different but equally compelling character arcs in VW and CF. That’s not a lack of arc, that IS the arc, it’s just a different arc: We get to see this tough, in-control high-minded character who’d completely given up on the normal life she wanted so much and resigned herself to never being understood finding out that she is very much still capable of normalcy and humanity and finding friendship and love and I think that’s beautiful. It’s my jam. 

And it’s meaningful precisely because it’s a change from only seeing the tough leader guise otherwise. Complaining about that is like complaining about getting to see Claude’s more wistful, dreamy, benevolent, not-entirely self-interest side in VW or claiming that the writing would be better if he were just a straight-up selfish trickster. Actually, if you removed their heroic traits you’d end up with a lot more generic characters. You’d simply get every wild card trickster ever, and every “Nietzschean” villain ever.  It’s the fact that they’re unconventional heroes that makes Claude and Edelgard so unique, compelling and interesting. If you like conventional heroes, Dimitri is right here. Your basic heroic fantasy ‘rightful king returns/ soft peace loving hero’, plus your basic jrpg guilt-ridden angsty protagonist. I mean there’s good reason that these character archetypes are popular. Plus he’s especially well-executed and recontextualized by the contrast to the others, but there he is, enjoy him! We’re not stopping you. 

It’s really Seteth who came up short arc wise. You could have given him an arc, the potential was there, he essentially transistions from protecting himself and his family to taking on his family’s heroic quest and rising up to that, but he doesn’t get like, a scene reflecting on that. Or you could’ve sent them on some mission to actually curb some corrupt cardinals etc, shown them actually reforming the church and realizing that it wasn’t all perfect, after all he very much knows that Rhea herself wasn’t all perfect. 

For all that much of media is obsessed with making characters “hot”, the truth is that if people like them for any reason, they will find them hot anyways, regardless of whether that was the intention. (unless the people in question are aroace, or the character is a literal, realistic prepubescent child)

You don’t have to “make”  a character hot for ppl to find them so.

[supergenial]

Cindered Shadows was pretty decent

I recently finished the Cindered Shadows DLC and decided to once again write about my impressions, don't worry though, this one isn't as long as the previous ones. Spoilers: I think this is as good as fire emblem is gonna get for a while.

1) No Agarthans, thank GOD

A story as old as fire emblem: There's an interesting human villain with down to earth motivations or obsessions, but in the large scale of the story they're overshadowed by a supernatural being who wants to destroy the world for no reason other than "they're just evil". This is Edelgard and the Agarthans, Arvis and Manfroy/Loptous, Rudolph and Duma, Ashnard and Ashera, Walhart and Grima... you get it. This shit sucks to put it bluntly. Having these stereotypically evil bad guys who are clearly evil is one of the main things that brings down the plot of any fire emblem game. I'm of the belief that they should kick out these supernatural villains and just leave us against the human villains, the one's with actual ideals and beliefs other than "hurr durr, destroy the world".

And then there’s our villain for this DLC. Now yes, it feels like they recycled a certain professor from the Harry Potter series, but I like that he is "The" bad guy for the DLC, he's not being controlled by anyone. He's obsessed with Byleth's mom and in-game this makes a lot of sense. If Byleth, who is incapable of communication, can drive people crazy for them just by existing then just imagine a Byleth who can actually talk. Her "waifu" charms must be off the charts, so I can't blame this guy for being obsessed. More importantly he's not being controlled by the Agarthans, he's not being played by anyone. He's a man who's lived a righteous life, he took care of a lot of people who all love him but ultimately decided to use them for his own gain and his own obsessions. As far as FE villains go... He's good, honestly, great job Intelligent Systems, I expected a lot less.

2) Reduced avatar wanking

Shots fucking fired

Sure, Byleth's mom is a main focus of the plot, and Byleth is the one who sets the plot in motion, but rarely does it feel like the game is going "gee Player, you're so great, you're our god, we all love you and want to marry you". Byleth still plays a large role sure (unfortunately) but it still feels like this is the story of Yuri and his gang with Byleth being their strategist which is, idk, way better than the idea behind the main game? The one where Byleth turns into a literal god, gets every achievement of the army attributed to them only, has every other conversation remind us how glorious Byleth is, etc.

In fact the dlc goes as far as having Hapi constantly belittle Byleth and even make fun of their communication skills by calling him Chatterbox (good job to the localizers, she doesn’t say this in the japanese audio). Get that teacher’s ass girl, destroy them. (Obviously I would hate this behavior if it was directed to someone else, but in this case I'm willing to make a concession).

3) Yuri's backstory

Ashe: I admire and love this man who is my only parental figure but Rhea said he's kind of bad so I killed him Yuri: Church ordered me to kill a bunch of thieves and delinquents and I refused

You have no idea who much I love the fact that Yuri is someone who protested his orders and got kicked out of the church for refusing to kill civillians. This instantly sends him very high in my rankings. Playing through the first half of the game all I wanted was to stop and say "No, Lady Rhea, fuck you. I don't think it's very cash money for the most powerful military force in the continent to eradicate a lightly armed militia of farmers (with popular support in their locality!)" this is what true imperialism is all about! But there is sadly no option for that.

Just by telling us that Yuri is someone who was punished for saying "No, these orders are inhumane, I refuse to carry them out" that is enough for me, the game is saying "yes, we know, have your compensation price". In the end Yuri is extremely loyal to Rhea which is unfortunate but hey, at least they lampshaded one of the most glaring issues I have with the main game, so that's at least something.

4) "You've obtained all information. Proceed with the story, NOW"

Rather than wasting time forever thinking up which activity I should carry out, abyss is simply a place where you talk to the abyssal denizens to get some plot information or speculation, and boom, you're done. No running around forever, no quests, no doors that take ages to load. You can perfectly skip the abyss parts and at most you'll miss out on Edelgard's conversation with Dimiri (which is fucking hilarious) and a few rusted weapons that can be forged but that's it. Upon talking to every resident of the abyss the game will actually say you’ve acquired all information and will prompt you to go into combat rather than assume you want to dilly dally for a while.

I actually rather like this and would not be opposed to it being the philosophy behind future in-between segments between chapters. I can understand IntSys wanting to load in a ton of features like a sauna and fishing to rack up excitement for the game, I know I was excited for fishing, but when these activities have rewards tied to them, replaying becomes kind of a chore, "aw geez, I have to fish 69 fish to reach professor rank A+ AGAIN" (I actually had to when trying to get the piss screen from clearing maddening). Getting only some conversations and a bit of context for the story, that's... pretty good honestly, I liked this better than the monastery and better than My Castle. Throw in some skits with multiple characters at once and I’m gold

(seriously how come there’s no scenes with the three of the bros, Dimitri, Sylvain and Felix all hanging out together, the fact that a third character never shows up in support conversations is fucking bad)

5) Sometimes less is more

I've extensively complained about three houses already but bear with me. Yet another thing that infuriates me about the game is the extensive amount of work it required. I truly do think that if they had released only the blue lions route and left everything else in the plot as mysterious and unexplained loose ends left entirely up to speculation, that'd be a great game on it's own. Instead I have to see all the hard work that went into making the other routes only so that, in the end, they just had me going "well it was ok I guess". Every scene in the game requires work, many hours of coding, writing, voice acting, sound editing, making sure the models don't look too messed up, bug testing, etc. The amount of work that went into three houses was brutal regardless of what you think of the final product, yet a lot of people didn't even bother playing through all of that. So yes, I honestly wanted less, give me a more concise game rather than spreading too wide and ending up thin.

Cindered Shadows on the other hand is concise to a fault to make up for that. The story is pretty straightforward and leaves no loose ends to itself, there's no anime cutscenes, no supports (within abyss, you can support them all in the main game). There's even that very awkward sacrifice scene where some characters are having their life and blood drained from them yet the visual representation we see is just them standing around like normal, with Yuri even doing that hand pose he does all the time instead of squirming in pain or something. It's very awkward looking, objectively not good, but it gets the point across and doesn't make me go "wow you put in all this effort for nothing" because the whole thing is also fairly short (5 to 10 hours in hard mode).

I know, it sounds like I'm shitting on the dlc, but the point is I'd much rather get something short that leaves me satisfied than something like the main game that makes me go "this could've been so hecking gooood if they changed X" for the rest of my life.

6) The gameplay

Chapter 4 is my favorite mission in the whole game

They made Hard Mode good. I previously said maddening was the one difficulty where this game made sense, but this one achieves perfection with just hard mode. This is because the team actually knows what you have. In the main game there's all sorts of variables to account for due to the large amount of player expression that is possible, you can reclass anyone into anything and throughout many lucky or unlucky level ups, maps can be entirely different based on that rng and choices. Here though, your characters already have solid bases starting at lvl 20, and you can't reclass too much so the devs know exactly what you're working with and can plan accordingly. Beating the maps feels incredibly satisfying not just because the objectives have more variety now, but also because you feel like you found the right way to use the tools you were given. This is why the first few chapters of any fire emblem game often feel so good, because the devs know exactly what you have.

Not that I think player expression is bad! It's very satisfying to warp skip chapters and to use broken units like battalion vantage+wrath Dimitri as these things make you feel like you've truly subjugated the game, but it takes some time for those things to really take off. There's a time to reap and a time to sow, and the sowing time can get pretty dull sometimes but that's what makes the payoff feel worth it. Still, for a short experience like cindered shadows is, this style just fits perfectly, plus chapter 4 has quickly become one of my favorite chapters in the whole game, along with chapter 6.

7) In The End

Idk folks, I just like it. If you just want more adventures with the three lords, this is it.

If you’re looking for any excuses to avoid this I'd say the better ones are: maps are reused from the main game (they work much better here though), it's 10 hours at most so it's price-to-cash ratio isn't very good with the expansion pass being $30, and also the Abysskeeper feels a bit TOO winkwink nudgenudge to me, especially since Gatekeeper was popular enough to make it into Super Smash Brothers. Like yeah bro, we get it, we all love Gatekeeper, you didn't have to do this.

I also like that they finally gave Dimitri a semi-problematic quote where he says he kinda likes the idea of poor people living underground out of sight, I think it’s a very rich-white-boy flaw to have and not entirely awful given his life experience up to that point. And yes I do think he has no flaws and is entirely unproblematic in the main game, “feral” as he may look it doesn’t seem like he goes around killing civilians or doing anything other than busting up imperial troops which is kind of justified since they started the invasion, on top that he’s the strongest unit in the game and the most chill and honest ruler once he calms down, so little dent in his record that’s irrelevant in the large picture is indeed welcome.

Overall though, after being so massively disappointed by the Fates DLC, so much I didn't even bother with the ones for Echoes, I certainly like what I'm seeing here and that's a good sign, bravo Intsys.

[jinjojess]

Jess Talks FE3H

I had a Thought the other day that I shared on my Twitter, and @goldstarzzz asked for some elaboration on it. Since Twitter sucks for nuanced, long-form discussion, I decided to type it up on my blog instead (though the draft I was working on during my trip home on the train has been lost twice because of annoying reasons I don’t want to get into now).

Be forewarned that I’m gonna be verbose here, so this shit will be long.

Obviously, we’re going to touch on some FE3H spoilers, so be aware of that.

I haven’t finished any of the routes yet, but there’s something that I want to discuss about the game--namely Edelgard and how if you aren’t on her route you get very little in the way of context for why she does the things she does.

While on one hand, I like how realistic that restricted perspective is, since in real life you don’t know the motivations and past experiences that have shaped a person unless you actually do make an attempt to engage with them and get to know them, and it fits in nicely with the themes in Three Houses of how history is written by the winners, everyone is the Hero of their own story, and conflicts are not Good vs. Evil so much as clashes of worldview/agenda between groups of fallible individuals.

However, the fact that you don’t get any context at all from the other routes does Edelgard dirty as a character, and is where we get these tiresome, dumbass takes like “Edelgard is literally Hitler” and “Edelgard just does things for no reason” from fandom members who are only engaging the narrative on a superficial level. 

(As an aside, there’s nothing wrong with just taking a narrative at face value, but you do have to give up any claim to commenting on its non-subjective quality if you do that.)

And I mean yeah, if you’re on one of the other routes then it does kind of seem like Edelgard’s heel turn comes out of nowhere, rather than a steady, uneasy build to an eventuality. In a game where you couldn’t get close to her beforehand and see the dominoes lined up along the fault line, as it were, this would be Bad Writing (e.g., Monica/Chronia), but you can take the time to hear Edelgard out and listen to her justification before that happens. She’s a playable character with an actual route, which is a big departure from the usual villain.

The things Edelgard is fighting for are objectively good: eliminating the aristocracy; disrupting the Church’s unquestioned authority; dismantling obsession with crests and fate and birthrights. She’s a trauma survivor who wants to help people who have been hurt and destroyed by the machinations of the Rich and Powerful. 

Her methods may not be ideal, but honestly, is she doing anything any different from anyone else in the game? It’s possible she does and I haven’t seen that yet, but so far the things you do on her route aren’t much different than the things you’ve been doing all game already, just under the banner of Seiros. Sure, you have no emotional connection to the NPCs from the East or West Churches, but that doesn’t change the base fact that you’re still going out to exterminate them at the behest of someone who outranks you.

Edelgard and her route’s existence is a challenge to the status quo of Fire Emblem--it makes the player question the usual set up of Good Guys vs. Bad Guys, makes you stop and wonder if hey, maybe all these brigands you’ve been hacking through have the same level of interiority and charm as the characters you’ve been playing as.

The problem with this is that Three Houses is still a Fire Emblem game. Yes, what you’re fighting for is ostensibly different, but the way you get there is identical: kill off the Enemy until they run out of guys on the map. So even if the point is that Edelgard’s goals are lofty but her methods are unacceptable, the entire theme goes belly up since Claude and Dimitri are basically using the same methods. Unless they have some mechanic I haven’t heard about where you can diplomatically resolve conflicts, they are functionally identical to Edelgard with regards to what they actually do. 

This dissonance between the themes and the mechanics reminds me a lot of Pokemon BW, with N and Team Plasma. They’re positioned to address the elephant in the room re: Pokemon’s base premise, but then because they’re restricted by the mechanics, every dispute is resolved with a battle, which kind of undermines the whole thing. Even N, who is depicted as the one who most sincerely believes in pokemon autonomy and rights, still battles you to prove that battles are unethical.

Is this realistic in that many real people will use noble goals as a smokescreen for their actual, more selfish agenda? Sure! But while that applies nicely to Ghetsis and his little cult, N feels more like he’s intended to be an anti-villain, someone who Has a Point Actually, and you should critically examine your actions in-game. It’s far more powerful when the antagonist isn’t actually wrong, just different from you, and it’s a shame that N had to sacrifice some of his integrity as a character to fit into the format of a Pokemon Game.

Going back to Edelgard, while I’d 1000% percent be down to be able to play from the perspective of someone who’s manipulating people under the guise of social reform, that a) doesn’t seem to be the intention, and b) doesn’t really fit with the other themes of moral relativity. If you make Edelgard a Bad Guy but Claude and Dimitri Good Guys (or Neutral Guys, even), that doesn’t really say much about the nature of conflict.

So it seems like Edelgard should be just as sympathetic as the other two leads, yet there’s some really troubling things in the way. 

For one, the fact that she’s a noble herself and the heir (later Empress) to vast resources, including a military that unquestionably heeds her, makes her crusade feel more like condescending Noblesse Oblige rather than a revolutionary uprising. There’s a kind of scummy appropriative element to it that is difficult to ignore, especially since you have Dorothea right there, who’d make a much better figurehead for this movement than the heir apparent to a goddamn Empire.

(Side note but Edelgard also has the misfortune of being a literal Imperial, which in today’s society is not a connotation neutral thing. Being from a “kingdom” or an “alliance” is quaint, but “empire” has become such a staple trope for villains that it’s not even surprising that she’s the one who heel-turns. Add in the fact that Hubert is presented the way he is, and it becomes really obvious which of the Three Houses is going to be the Problematic One. Fire Emblem just can’t help being itself, even when it’s toying with more mature themes.)

But on an even more general level than that, Edelgard’s convictions get a bit undermined when her goal is “stop the powerful from using the less fortunate as pawns” but all of her victories happen thanks to...putting her social inferiors in mortal peril. 

Like yeah, right after you choose to side with her (and she manages to get over the vapors that induces), she has that moment where she appears to be cognizant of the paradox, but I somehow feel like her route isn’t going to end with her dissolving the Empire and handing off all the power to the populace.

She can’t, because this is a Fire Emblem game, and in Fire Emblem games, you win the war at the end. There’s a heavy cost, of course, and we’re all going to have a moment of silence about it, but there’s still a victory and a happy ending when it’s all said and done.

Obviously, if this doesn’t happen at the end, and all four routes (including the Church one) close on a Pyrrhic victory or something, then I will stand corrected and be very pleased. However, my money is on the standard happy ending that conveniently ignores that the common folk are going to be feeling the effects of the war long past any of the privileged, powerful people in your game.

So yeah, that’s my thoughts on how I think Three Houses took some really interesting steps toward being more nuanced, but still gets tripped up on its identity in some ways. Given the way the narrative is set up, this ends up affecting Edelgard way more than the other characters.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

[supergenial]

Three Houses sucks actually

It’s been a whole month so after about 180 hours of play and doing all four routes, I thought I’d write down all the minor nitpicks that upset me about this fantastic game. Obviously spoilers ahead.

First of all, I do think it’s a great game, it’s one of my favorite fire emblem titles so far. I will not claim to be a veteran, but I have been playing since the gba games, I’ve played every game between fe6 and three houses, even fe12. I know genealogy is supposed to be GOAT but I’m holding out for a remake like I did with gaiden (and boy, waiting payed up big time on that one). Also if you love this game and think it’s perfect, that is awesome, I urge you to not read this so you don’t get upset about someone not understanding the game that you love (even though I love it too). Anyway, let’s begin:

I. The Four Routes are bad (together)

This game presents the player with a choice of 3 houses they can join, with that decision deciding which story you actually get to see. Along with Lion, Eagle and Deer, there’s also a “Church” route that is kind of lame, but not game-ruining. On their own they’re all actually pretty darn good stories. But these routes are extremely flawed. Not intrinsically, mind-you, but rather as a whole. In a game with multiple routes, you’d expect them to complement each other but instead each route actively makes the other ones actually worse. Do keep in mind that I think each route is pretty good on it’s own (even church) whichever one you pick first you will enjoy it greatly, and it will only deteriorate as you progress through the others.

Edelgard’s route is a political story of a revolutionary who wants to crush aristocracy and replace it with a meritocracy, her objective therefore is to crush the church that oversees the 3 nations. It feels like something out of shin megami tensei, she’s basically a chaos hero (which I usually hate) but with some nuance and less insane. It’s a great route! Gameplay-wise, it is my favorite, and also has the most thematic cohesion with the early game where all the students have misgivings about their noble status. Problem is it would have you believe that Dimitri has a complex ideological reason for standing up against her and protecting the church, when in reality playing his route tells you that he really has no political ideologies that he believes in (he straight up says this to Mercedes in their A support), he’s just a king defending his territory, which is really underwhelming as he has no parallels or contrasting motifs in regards to her, he’s just a dude. Another awful thing that basically everyone agrees is bad about this route is Those Who Slither in the Dark, a group that is set up as villains that have to be defeated, but instead get dealt with off-screen in the epilogue. You’d think it’s because they were lazy, and didn’t want to make a level for them, but there’s 2 routes in which you do fight them, they have their own level already in the game, it’s just not in this route. The plotline then just feels very lazy and incomplete, but even moreso once you play Claude’s route and you just... you just fight against those who slither, which is all I wanted to do at the end of Edelgard’s route. Perhaps the most disappointing route, but I happen to have an affinity for disappointment and the themes it goes for.

Dimtri’s route is a fantastic story of a broken man reclaiming his sanity. It’s the most character-driven and the most emotionally charged of the three. It’s an amazing route! Easily the best written as it picks a single theme (Dimitri’s downfall and rise) and does it extremely well instead of spreading too wide and losing focus. The ending is a bit underwhelming though. Basically everything after Dimitri recovers his humanity feels like filler, though his A supports are really amazing, all of them, making his post-feral phase worth it. The bigger problem is that this route actively sabotages the player’s enthusiasm towards playing Edelgard’s route as it paints her as the ultimate evil, the True and Only villain that has to be defeated. As such, a lot of the reaction I’ve seen online is that people who play this one first flat out refuse to play Edelgard’s route because really, why would you? She’s badbadnotgood, her sanity and reasoning are as flimsy as it gets, and she broke Dimitri’s heart when he was a kid, along with killing his entire family according to this route. You’d have to be insane to be excited to play as her, it’s something you’d only do for the sake of completionism. In the church and deer route you fight Edelgard too, but she’s presented as a well-intentioned extremist rather than an evil snake. Yes, even in the church route, the very one thing she wants to destroy!

Claude’s route on the other hand is so complete it suffers from it. It goes over every major plotline and actually solves it with very little thematic resonance between it all. Those who slide? He takes care of them. Rhea’s misdeeds? They’re acknowledged. Edelgard isn’t insane? He agrees. Who exactly was Nemesis?(the very first cutscene we’re shown!) Got it too. What is Sothis, what happened to her, why is she bound to Byleth? Got it. His route is ridiculous in that it covers too much ground and lore that could’ve been better put in the church route as it has no real thematic cohesion with Claude. He wants to end racism or something, ok cool, but he never fights any “race-realists”, none of the villains in his route are diametrically opposed to his ideals, and his final boss is a last minute diabolus ex machina with no real theme to it. It would’ve been easy to drive the point further that by beating the deadlords they’re burying the prejudices of the past and forging a new world without their literal ancestors hanging over them, but instead the scene goes for a sort of power of friendship type of feel and just rolls with that. It’s an exciting route with many hype moments, but when put together with the other ones, it feels kind of really weird that his route is basically a lore dump to fill in the lore gaps rather than a story about something.

It’s a given that in a game with 3 routes each one would tell their side of their story and be somewhat incomplete, leading the player to play all three to get the whole story. Instead these 3 routes actively try to drag each other lower instead of boosting each other higher, which is really disappointing. 

Don’t even get me started on the church route, that shouldn’t even be in the game at all. It’s the same as Claude’s route, the exact same, but without Claude. Ok so that means Seteth gets a lot of development in this route right? No, not really, he’s just kind of there. Rather than Seteth being the lord of the route it’s more like this is a lord-less route. Ghost Dimitri is a really cool scene, for sure, but outside of that seriously screw this route. You might think “well but I like Rhea, I want to be on her side”, well spoiler alert kiddo: you literally fight Rhea in this route, she’s the final boss. And you don’t get to hang out with her all that much either so forget about that. While I dislike Rhea, I think having a route for her is reasonable since that sickening mommy fetish is so popular these days so of course you’d want to pander to that audience for that sweet cash, but people who like Rhea don’t even get that because you have to actually kill her at the end (which I actually really like, it made the church route Actually Good for me, plus it’s a really fun level despite being yet another fight at Garreg Mach, more on that later). Also in this route you don’t get to see Rhea in her Seiros armor that is 10/10 hot as shit so why even bother, go play Edelgard’s route if you want to see some actually cool Rhea scenes and quotes.

edit: just been informed Rhea does live if you S-support her, kind of disappointed but ok, that’s pretty good for all who liked her and it makes sense.

II. Claude, the master tactician

“Ugh, don’t call me that”, Even he’s fed up with the title

My favorite of the three lords in the game is easily Claude but it’s pretty unfair that he survives every single route (unless you actively choose not to spare him in Edelgard’s route), whereas Dimitri and Edelgard always die outside of their routes. But that’s not the worst of him, what I hate about him is how he gets hyped up as THE MASTER STRATEGIST whenever other characters speak of him. Granted, writing a “Smart” character is hard because you have to be smart or else the readers won’t buy it, but the writers don’t even try and instead make him out to be a complete fool in almost every route (he’s actually pretty smart in the church route imo, but he’s also never seen in that one).

In his route, he does exhibit some degree of strategy and thought, devising a trap to protect Garreg Mach (by setting his allies on fire???) and doing a bit of a Trojan Horse when seizing Fort Merceus. However, if you play Dimitri’s route, Gilbert suggests doing the fire thing, and in the church route you just infiltrate Fort Merceus in the exact same way. So congratulations Claude, you’re about as smart as... Gilbert, a character that no one ever refers to as a strategic or military genius. This is another case of routes weighting down other routes, if you only play his route you think “oh yeah, he’s smart, he Trojan Horse’d the empire, what an absolute madlad”, but once you play the other routes it’s like, oh, ok, I guess that’s just meant to happen that way whichever side you choose.

Ok, maybe he’s not a genius master strategist in his story, sure, after all Byleth is the tactician so of course he’d take a back seat, but what about as an enemy commander? he’s gotta have some devious map design to back up his claim to genius, right? Wrong.

In Dimitri’s route you fight Claude and Edelgard post-timeskip at Gronder Field just like you did before the timeskip. In this battle, Claude’s objective is to stop Edelgard. You think to yourself, oh that’s wonderful, an ally! Together we’ll crush that evil snake together! Except his army focuses yours, instead of going straight for Edelgard, as he did in the very same battle pre-timeskip. The game says there’s some fog, but guess what, this game HAS a fog mechanic to make some maps have low-visibility, and that fog is not present in this map! As such, he comes off as a total doofus in this chapter. This battle feels like Batman v Superman, a fight that just “has” to happen to sell the idea that the heroes are against each other, but Batman and Superman shouldn’t be fighting at all to begin with, they’re on the same side! They only fight because it’s the “hype” thing to do. Sigh.

Later on in the same route Claude is attacked by the empire in his hometown. His “master strategy” is to corner himself against an army that outnumbers his army 10:1, and trust that Dimitri will save him, the very same Dimitri that nearly killed him a couple days ago at Gronder Field. This is a pretty stupid and naive strategy on it’s own, but it gets worse once you look at the enemy troops in this map. They are all horses or infantry, not a single flier. Claude himself, he rides a wyvern. He could’ve escaped out to the sea, you might even think that’s his plan, but no, because Judith is there in the map and she certainly isn’t riding a wyvern, same goes for all his other men. Imagine the mockery, the sheer audacity of driving your enemy into a corner and thinking you’ll kill him only for all his men to suddenly get on wyverns and escape from you, which is possible thanks to the mount/unmount mechanic. Just imagine, you’re trying to save him and upon reaching halfway through the map, he and all his men get on wyverns and escape, saying they’ll trust you to take care of the empire as they run away, as you realize he just fooled you into taking out the trash for him. It would’ve been awesome! A moment worthy of The Master Trickster, but no, you just have to kill the boss before he kills Claude and Judith and that’s the map, that’s the whole thing.

And don’t even get me started on his map on Edelgard’s route. For a whole month people hype Claude up to be John Von Neumann combined with The Joker and Sun Tzu, so I’m expecting his level to be a really twisted one: warps, damaging terrain, falco knights with horse slayers, ballistae, swordmasters with armorslayers, siege tomes, sleep staves, berserk staves, etc. Instead, the level in which you fight against Claude has basically 0 unusual terrains, his “master strategy” is to just call for reinforcements until you cut off the source of reinforcements. This means that his “incredibly genius master tactic of galaxy-brain depth” is to use brute force, which is literally the exact opposite of clever tactics. Needless to say, this was to me the biggest disappointment, really wasted that opportunity to make a level that’s actually unique.

Then you go on to fight Dimitri’s right afterwards and guess what: his map has a siege tome user(with decent crit rate!), it has a unique monster gimmick where you have to kill an enemy every turn to avoid them turning into monsters, it has 4 commanders all calling for reinforcements leaving you to choose wisely which one needs to be stopped first, it has a river separating both sides of the map so that your teams have to be cleanly split up if going for multiple objectives, etc. It’s my favorite level in the game because it’s well thought out, interesting and basically more like what you’d expect of the mission where you’d fight a tactical mastermind. Sigh.

III. Ideological Conflict (a lack of it)

This is my biggest issue with the game

I really memed myself playing Edelgard's route so early because as I said previously it feels like a shin megami tensei chaos-route. She is fighting for an ideal, and so I falsely developed the hope that the game would have an ideological conflict. If you play Claude's route, you see that he is also fighting for his ideals, dude wants to end racism, that is awesome! However even when the characters do fight each other, their ideals are never in conflict. In Edelgard’s paralogue you fend off an almyrian invasion but she tells Byleth that she wishes they could be allies, and that in the future they should sit down and talk with almyrians to make their relationship better. In Claude’s route he is often fed up with the church’s historical revisionism and you can see he holds a lot of contempt for the institution as a whole. Edelgard and Claude may fight each other due to circumstance but their ideals are never against each other, in fact they kind of want the same things. And surely enough, Dimitri also thinks racism is whack, which is mostly explored through his relationship with Dedue. But Dimitri just doesn’t really believe in anything, in his route he’s completely reactive to the forces around him, there’s just no ideal world that he’s working towards, instead he just deals with the bullshit others have set in his way (not that there’s anything actually wrong with that, it’s just really underwhelming when the other stories are about ideals). 

And really that’s ok. Like I said this is a problem of my own I memed myself into thinking I was playing a much better game, and only have myself to blame for those expectations. It’s very normal of intelligent systems to not want to put into the game a playable character who is racist or anti-equality. Except we have Lorenz and Ferdinand, two characters that are so fiercely pro-aristocracy I started the game hating them(nowadays Ferdinand is easily in my top 5). Ferdinand believes that nobility is a cross to be carried for the good of the people and that rather than a highway to an easy life, it is a tremendous responsibility to bear and that commoners are better off relying on a noble like himself to make their lives better.

Nobility being a cross is something supported by the narrative! There are many characters dissatisfied with their lives solely because they were born as nobles and have to deal with problems exclusive to nobles, most notably Sylvain, Ingrid and then Mercedes who straight up becomes a commoner because of the pressure of nobility. Lorenz on the other hand has been pressured by his family so much he’s a completely brainwashed tool of the aristocrats, but as the game progresses he gets his head out of his ass and becomes a more likeable character. 

“Edelgard intends to abolish the nobility, but I know I can disuade her”, Ferdinand you bumbling fool, that is literally her main policy, have you ever actually listened to her?

Those two show it is possible for the team to write characters with bad ideals and then develop them into likeable ones, they just didn’t feel like having a lord that upholds bad ideals and grows out of them or is betrayed by their shortcomings. Hell, just imagine if after the last chapter in black eagles those who slither betrayed Edelgard instantly, showing that allying yourself with villainous people only because they’re convenient is sure to lead to betrayal. It would’ve been a sobering moment to see her say that maybe, maybe pairing up with mustache-twirling bad guys might have been a bad idea after all and having to really consider the damage she might have caused by letting them co-exist with her for her goals. Instead her route just ends, significantly shorter than all others. Aghhh. But yeah, this is a problem of my own expectations because fire emblem never had amazingly complex stories to begin with (I know I know, genealogy is supposed to be pretty deep, but that was over 20 years ago, it’s just not relevant to modern fire emblem until it gets a remake).

“Wait so you want Dimitri to be racist?” Oh hell no. Dimitri is literally perfect as he is, just look at him. What I’m saying is he should’ve gotten his own game, because he doesn’t fit in with the other two lords in this game as he has no vision of how the world should be (other than “Good”) and no ideological struggle he needs the world to understand. His story just doesn’t need Fodlan. The kicker is that his house, were it not for their tight and adorable friendship, is the one that is more likely to side with Edelgard as Sylvain, Mercedes, Ingrid, and Felix all hate nobility/aristocracy, and Ashe’s dad whom he idolizes literally gets sentenced to death by the church. Dimitri on a solo game would’ve been a cool story (better than Fates that’s for sure). But in three houses he doesn’t complement the other two lords, and the other two lords also bring him down. It’s what I’ve been saying: the routes just don’t complement each other. Remember how I said many people played Blue Lions and then just flat out refused to play the other routes? It sounded like I was belittling them but those people were right, they’re living their best life and I applaud them, they truly beat the game.

Worth noting that the church route is technically, from an outside perspective, a pro-aristocracy route. The black eagles students are all aristocrats except for Dorothea, and in this route it’d be a fair observation to say that they’re a bunch of spoiled kids who are trying to preserve the status-quo because they don’t want to give up their lands and servants. Obviously this isn’t how the route approaches character motivations, but an incisive in-world historian would’ve made this scathing observation by simply looking at who’s spearheading the revolt against the emperor: a bunch of rich kids.

IV. The Pre-Timeskip common route (FOUR times)

Moving onto gameplay-related nitpicks: what were they thinking? There’s like 13 chapters before the timeskip in every route, and they are always the same missions regardless of which house you choose. One of them is to kill Ashe’s dad and the other one is to kill Sylvain’s brother, you would think those missions would be exclusive to the blue lions and that other routes would have an equivalent for them: a story that hits home, that gets personal with one of the characters you chose and more importantly that just plays differently across all the routes. Instead the game would have you play the same missions 4 times so that you end up dreading the sight of them, on top of them having no real relation to the characters you’re using in 3/4ths of the routes. If the dlc route has me defend Garreg Mach even one more time, I’ll just go insane. Speaking of that:

V. Dimitri, Claude and Church route all have same maps

If you feel like playing all four routes, it’s gonna feel like you’re just playing the exact same game over and over. The maps you play in are literally all the same. And Edelgard isn’t scot-free either, but at least in her maps you fight from the other perspective of the map you know, you’re at least coming at it from another angle (though she will still have you defend Garreg Mach post-timeskip, completely negating the pleasure of not doing that pre-timeskip). I get it: these maps are huge, and they’re highly detailed because you can zoom in and literally see the battalions and all that, it’s really super neat and takes a lot of time to make so you can’t just have a hundred maps. But I mean by the end of the game (that is, playing all four routes) looking at any of the maps feels so tiring. I feel like I might just never replay any of the routes at least for a very long time because I’ve grown sick of seeing them over and over and over so many times. And dear lord, if I have to play Flayn’s paralogue one more time without fliers I’ll just shoot myself. Speaking of fliers.

VI. Fliers are absurdly broken

Literally what were they thinking. Wyvern Riders have absolutely insane stats and thanks to the dismount feature, they lose nothing by being in that class. The last levels in Claude and Edelgard’s routes are severely favored toward fliers too, both of them featuring tons of damaging terrain that is hard to cross for horses, though at least Nemesis has the decency of having many ballistae set up (probably because Claude himself is a flier so they expect you to have at least one). Also all that damaging terrain screws over horses because they thought horses were broken or something. But really, you’d think mobility is such an important stat that they’d compensate for it elsewhere, but no, all you lose is the opportunity cost of not having more crit as a war master (which female characters don’t have access to anyway) or being able to use magic. And horse units just get screwed over in every conceivable way, you’d expect that they at least get some beefy additional stats over wyvern riders but instead they’re actually weaker since wyverns are faster and speed is such an important stat. Also wyverns have so much defense that even in hard mode arrows (their supposed weakness) will have trouble denting them (or even hitting them thanks to their extremely high avoid).

edit: I also invite you to look at the growth rate modifiers for each class and see that all horse classes provide a negative speed growth rate, which is bad enough without realizing that wyverns are so minmaxed they even provide a cute minus 5 magic as a “balance” while getting boosts to both defense and speed in their final class. Are you kidding me? Horses are basically a player trap, they look cool and they’re half the master classes so they gotta be useful, right? Couldn’t be more wrong. Also what’s the deal with mortal savant providing -10% speed growth, that shit is bananas, how could the Naruto class hamper your speed if Naruto is all about that running, IT’S INSANE.

This is all exacerbated once you go for a low-turn-count playthrough, a fairly popular style of play among fans of the series where as the name indicates you try to beat the levels in as few turns as possible. Suddenly fliers go from clearly the strongest, to necessary. What’s absurd is how fliers are affected by the Stride battalion in the same way all other units are. Stride is a battalion effect that allows a group of units to have higher movement for one turn, your little walking units suddenly being able to walk 12 squares like it’s nothing feels pretty good but this battalion can also boost the movement of fliers and horses which means: why would you waste it on infantry units? It would’ve been so easy, and would’ve made so much sense for stride to only work on walking units, or to at least have reduced effectiveness on mounted units, but they just completely forgot that.

I knew I should’ve gone wyvern, could’ve had way more 1′s

VII. Crests

Oh wow, a neat game feature where each character has a unique skill related to their bloodline, and the story acknowledges their existence by saying they’re so highly valued they decide who’s noble and who isn’t. Surely they came up with really interesting effects for all of them, right? Wrong. “Raise Mt when using skills”, “Raise Mt when using magic”, “Raise Mt when attacking”. This shit is boring. But hey it’s ok right, you can’t expect them to come up with unique interesting skills for each character to have right? Except they did, each character (crest-bearer or not) has a personal skill, and they are all way more interesting than crests. The only non-boring crests are the ones bore by Annete, Mercedes, Hilda and Ferdinand. And Annete doesn’t even learn meteor, so her magic-conservation isn’t even that amazing once she becomes a gremory, though it probably is fairly useful if she becomes a dark knight instead. I will say though, crests are still way better than the personal crit skills from radiant dawn, like Stun and the like which were basically glorified critical hits in some cases or straight up silencers in the case of luna or eclipse (hell, those skills got so bad that the endgame is filled with Nihil wielders, characters who just straight up cancel the activation of enemy skills because the game itself had to patch them out preemptively due to how ridiculous they were, but at least they were impressive and memorable and not just “raise Mt a little bit sometimes” are you kidding me).

VIII. Lost items

Up until now these have all been nitpicks but if anything gets my blood boiling is those dreaded lost items, a gameplay feature that I just straight up gave up on and never looked back. You find a billion lost items throughout the monastery, which is great, an item that shows the personality of the character that lost it, and once you return it to them your affection grows. The problem is that there’s really like a hundred of them, and they’re not hard to find but rather are a pain to give back to their owners, for the screen where you select them doesn’t allow for any kind of sorting options. How hard was it isys?? I press X and the items are ordered alphabetically, was that really so hard? You really expect me to rummage through this endless list until I find the right one from the sea of really small text for ants? THIS IS THE REAL GAMEBREAKER, THIS IS WHERE IT ALL FALLS APART AND I REALIZE THIS GAME IS A TOOL OF THE DEVIL TO WRECK HAVOC INTO THE SOULS OF ALL PLAYERS.

In the end

So yeah, basically it’s a pretty good game, I’d say at least a 9/10 and unironically among my favorite fire emblems. I won’t go into detail about what I like because that’s not the point of the post and really who gives a shit, but it’s really good and I can’t wait for the dlc next year! Also this:

(also please let magic always function like in this game where instead of tomes and staves you have a set number of uses per encounter like it’s dungeons and dragons, that shit ruled)

edit: I did another post about the maddening difficulty, you might like it if you have read this far