#the fodlan games dgaf about their own lore

[randomnameless]

Small correction in regards to your last post: the background Concubine fiasco in Fates happened because Garon's concubines wanted to gain favor with him and ascend from just being a side-piece in his harem into being the defacto Queen of Nohr, with all the privileges and power that would entail, with them caring so little for their own children that they'd often send them into dangerous missions for their own benefit and would beat them if and when they refused; with all that in mind, it seems like the main cause for the conflict was just good old self-interest and greed, not the concubines wanting better lifes for their children.

Oh ok thanks!

Granted, couldn't the "I'm doing this for my kid" also be an official excuse?

If Elise becomes the next heir, then, of course, her mother would become the next Queen, or maybe the most important wife, since she's the mother of the heir? But it would just be a totally unwated consequence of her worrying so much about her daughter to make her heir, of course! It wasn't her plan from the beginning! Not at all!

the more I think about it, the more pissed I am at Lady Ionius's lack of existence or importane - Supreme Leader only mentions her once, when she said her dad was already married "for politics" before wooing Anselma, but unless Lady Ionius got him 8 children before he met Anselma, the guy must have had other concubines before Anselma caught his eye...

Damn, now I need to think of a name for Ionius's wife, I can't keep on calling her Lady Ionius!

Anyone has ideas?

[randomnameless]

It's crazy how both Adrestia and Almyra have just as much (if not less) worldbuilding and development as the neutral countries in Fates; even moreso when the latter are canonically complete fodder to Nohr and Hoshido, are mostly irrelevant to the actual war, and are just there to give Corrin and their comrades something to do while they travel to Nohr/Hoshido/Valla to put an end to the main war, while the former are meant to be two of the biggest and most important players in the main war and are shown putting up a good fight against the other major countries

Why do you think so many people developed intricate headcanons about Adrestia and Almyra anon -

it's precisely because they are supposed to be "big player" important nations (let's say compared to Albinea) but their games dgaf about them bar some "in Adrestia people love tea" low tier of development lol

All jokes aside,

Some people already said it better than I could, but in general you come up with headcanons to talk about something you really like but has many holes in the canon, that's why you can have a lot of room to come up with whatever you want (or it's easier to avoid the "not canon compliant" hammer since canon is a puff of smoke).

Hell, I took the coliseum + Rhea's Seiros the Warrior's clothes + Word of God saying Adrestia is supposed to be based on Italy with german names to come up with a general "ancient rome" aesthetic for early Adrestia in my own hcs.

Some people really developped an entire lore with languages and patterns and a lot of cultural stuff regarding Almyra - kuddos to them! - because, for a place that is often compared to "Fodlan" by Claude and serves as the basis of his character, well, the Fodlan games are... really scarce about giving us any details regarding Almyra as a country -

(and then Nopes happened - sometimes it's better for canon to remain in a perpetual foggy state than to become what Nopes did to Almyra !)

I like every breadcrumb I can find about Adrestia through the various supports, books and NPCs, but well, you can't make a decent meal out of breadcrumbs.

And Fodlan scattered so many breadcrumbs around that at first glance you expect a banquet... and then only find out that the "promised dinner" is just, well, a handful of breadcrumbs thrown here'n'there on the table.

That's why I'm so upset at the "worldbuilding" lol, it could have been so much (some breadcrumbs are tasty, where's the dish???) but we end up with... a plate of nothing.

Sure FE as a series isn't the best medium to develop and explore different countries/cultures (even if Engage tried to have the cast visit different places and talk to different people, just like Echoes where you can visit villages and talk to people living in said villages!) but FE Fodlan really dropped the bar, and unlike Jugdral, we have no Treasure Book to reveal more about the crumbs we're playing with.

So yeah, I can't really see where the "better writing and worldbuilding than Fates!!!" spiel comes from, and I say this as someone who wasn't particularly fond of FE14 lol

[randomnameless]

Where is it even mentionned the Church is xenophobic?

Mainly in the Claude routes iirc?

But then in FE16, Claude uses refutes this claim to Lorenz, remembering Petra, Dedue, Cyril and Shamir exist, when in Nopes, he just rolls with it without second guessing anything.

The Xenophobia from Fodlan is not well depicted, that being said, save for, maybe, Duscur where the xenophobia is "justified" by the xenophobic people as "deserved" because Duscur apparently killed their king and his retinue - think of ASOIAF's Red Wedding and the world hating on the Freys.

For Almyra? Bar off-handed mentions here and there about raids for funsies and Almyrans pillaging for funsies, no one, especially not Claude, points out how the negative feelings Fodlan people have towards Almyra isn't because of the Church fueling them, but because Almyra attacks for funsies since a long time (which prompted everyone to build the locket, and the Church to create the Officer's academy!).

As posted in the TOS ask, you don't end xenophobia and discriminations in general in a day, but in FE16, you're sure as hell not going to get rid of the xenophobia against Almyran people if you don't deal with the "weekly raids to bring souvenirs!" thingie, something that is presumable done by Claude in his ending tapestry, since he proposes a treaty... but is not developed in game(s) at all.

Ditto for Brigid and Dagda - as much as modern!Adrestia blows, they were attacked by both armies and defeated them. Are they thinking Petra is an animal because she is not Adrestian (it's def a possibility given their history if that novel is to be believed as representative of a certain mindset some times ago!) or because she is from Brigid, a nation that tried to invade them?

I think it's the first time in the FE series a country/continent is/was attacked by so many foreign states, Almyra, Brigid, Dagda, Sreng... Only Albinea and Morfis (and Duscur even if this info is only revealed at the end of some routes) don't target Fodlan and apparently trade with the continent (tfw so many albinean berries in various recipes!).

Some members of the CoS are xenophobic (tfw a random monk doesn't like how there is an almyran boy next to the Archbishop!) and the Western church apparently takes the cake, but to say the CoS, as an institution, promotes isolationism is disregarding the world-building and lore and Claude's character growth and his convo with Lorenz in VW!

Now, what's fascinating is how both Lorenz and Leonie think the Central Church and the CoS look down on other practices of faith or are isolationists... when we know the Central Church dgaf about it, so are they parroting what the Eastern Church is preaching? Or what is the doxa of the CoS according to, uh, a random noble who warps it to fit his own designs?

like the gonerils keeping almyran children without feeding them?

[randomnameless]

I was browsing a tag (i know i shouldn’t do that) and i read an old post nerding about ancient civilisations and parallels with FE16 which made me glee bcs i love to nerd about history 

But then i was disappointed 

Important Agarthans seem to have greek names (?) so they could be ancient greece, okay why not (the superiority complex over the rest of the world feels adequate but then idk if Socrates (Soloncrates?) would call actual humans beasts or not).

But then it was affirmed that Rhea, not the Nabateans, but Rhea, was Ancient Rome (Romea?). She 1) razed the Agarthans, 2) expanded the Church in the continent and 3) allied with Wilhelm of Adrestia and later Loog who represents the various germanic tribes.

Which made me raise an eyebrow.

1) I’ve already posted earlier about the Sothis/Agartha war but here it seems a bit odd to single out Rhea amidst her people for having rekt Agartha when it was, at most, a collective action of several Nabateans, regardless of the fact that Rhea may or not have participated in the first war.

Also, in FE16, the Nabateans gave their technology to Agarthans, who in turn developed it and turned against them. Ancient Rome was tsun-tsun with their greek neighbours, but it is now commonly accepted that the first romans tried to “copy” or at least were heavily inspired by Ancient Greece to build a national identity. I mean Virgil even wrote a poem to make a Trojan ancestor to what would later become the roman people, and that’s not talking about how the old Roman pantheon borrowed the Greek one but with aliases worse than Danved and Devdan...

In FE16, “Greece” actually borrowed/received their technology from “Rome” but tried to attack “Rome” and failed. “Rome” retaliated, destroyed “Greece” to the point where romans don’t even know what “Greece” was and can only make suppositions about its existence. 

This doesn’t match RL history.

2) Expanding the Church in the continent : this is actually speculation, but afaik, when Adrestia conquered the continent, its religion would have automatically been spread? Still, comparing the Church of Seiros to another religion starting with a C doesn’t really work.

Adrestia was founded by a dude who had been annointed by Seiros herself. The Church, or at least Seiros and her pals, already existed before the Empire. Constantine the Great was the first Emperor to convert to christianity, but he was not the founder of Rome! Christianity became a “state” religion after Constantine. Heck, Julian thought his uncle’s religion was lousy so he returned to a polytheist cult.

In FE16, the only schism between Adrestia (the Empire) and the Church happened after the Southern Church was expelled, giving a good 1000 years of church approved Empire.

Saying Romea expanded the reach of the church through out all of Fodlan isn’t wrong, iirc part of the mediation accepting the Kingdom’s existence is to allow the church to preach in the newly formed kingdom, but i’m not sure it could be tied to RL history, because in Fodlan, Wilhelm walked side by side with Jesus, and Jesus crowned him Emperor. Jesus won against Nemesis. Adrestia’s legitimacy/creation comes from Jesus.

So I don’t think it’s Rhea expanding the reach of the Church through Fodlan, but more Seiros is part of the Empire’s lore, she’s that actual saintly figure who defeated the strongest man ever so everywhere in the Empire tales of Seiros and her deeds are heard of, it makes sense to follow/buy her story. 

Also, if the “religion” the church of Seiros preaches is the rewritten history, people must have “converted” after the unification of Fodlan and yet, if Seirosism is the state religion, and the state is controlling Fodlan, can we say Romea expanded her religion through the continent, or Fodlan, after being conquered by Adrestia, automatically became Seirosist?

It would actually echo the bid to allow the Church to preach in the newly formed Faerghus, if Loog wanted to fig off Adrestia, he might even want to have a different religion than the one from the Empire he came from, hell, the Kingdom even returned to the former naming practices existing before Adrestia. 

The Church would have wanted to make sure that no matter what Loog was doing with his bunch of humans in the North, he would still believe crests are a gift from the goddess, they shouldn’t be misused and if you ever find Macuil don’t murder him to make weapons out of his body.

short story long story : it’s the story of the egg and the chicken, did Seirosism became the leading religion in the continent because Rhea actively preached around, or because it was Adrestia’s state religion? idk.

3) Rome “allied” (well, TC said Rome lorded and traded with germanic tribes until shit hit the fan) with germanic tribes. They could be traded with. But they were not roman citizens. I’m not that well versed in this part of the Roman Empire (even if some part of France was classified as Germania at that time! RIP Franche-Comté T-T). Thing is, Rome never asked for Germania’s help to defeat some enemy, hell, when barbarians invasions happened, it hit Germania first and then Rome.

This is where the Romea analogy falls. 

First of all, Wilhelm became Wilhelm of Adrestia thanks to Seiros who annointed/crowned him, without Seiros there is no Adrestia. (iirc in one of Seiros’ books it is said Seiros makes emperors out of men, and the tradition needs the archbishop to bear witness each time a new emperor is crowned, so i suppose Rhea crowned/proclamed/anointed/made Wilhelm an Emperor).

Rome never had that kind of influence (afaik?) on the various germanic tribes. 

Before Adrestia we had Enbarr and, I guess, several tribes. As I see it (it may be wrong!) Adrestia is made to mirror Rome, sort of. Wilhelm “of Adrestia” set out to conquer unify the world. Now, did Seiros told him to conquer the world or did he came to that conclusion alone, we will never know. And yet, in the time period we’re speaking of (antiquity?), there’s no “Germanic Empire”. Adrestia started as an unified state, not as several tribes. Adrestia thus cannot be likened to “germanic tribes”.

Second, Loog did not receive help from Rhea, but it’s implied (still it’s from the shadow library so i’m not holding it against the TC) he received help from Mole People. 

But from what we know, in the Vanilla game, Loog defeated the Emperor of Adrestia. It is during the aftermath that the Empire, House Charon and the Church negotiated and decided Loog could found his Kingdom. I do not see how Rhea “allied” with the guy, nor, again, what kind of germanic tribe he represents given how he actually got his independance from the Empire to create his own Kingdom.

Then we have another set of facts which are less about history and more about the game, but for the history ones : 

Romea cannot 4) enforce the will of the Church and Western branch rebelling mirrors Rome’s western’s provinces being unruly and Romea gradually losing grasp on Adrestia 5) The Church isn’t completely sacked but still remains in CF to mirror Rome’s “gradual” fall/out of powerlessness (for funsies 6) Edel and the Agarthans make Rome face what they did to Greece and represent the germanic tribes coming after Rome after they managed to free themselves from its influence)

4) Unless I’m mistaken, the most occidental border of the Empire was the Atlantic Ocean?  astérix is a product of french chauvinism 

Northern borders were more problematic, we had Hadrian’s Wall to keep Picts at bay and in the 3rd century the “Saxon Shore” to fend off against invaders coming by the sea. 

Of course around this time there was an important crisis that weakened the Empire, so it might explain why there was unrest everywhere. This crisis saw the birth of the Western Gallic Empire, but also of the Eastern Palmyrene Empire (everyone was happy when Diocletian unified the empire afterwards). After, let’s say, 300ish, the Empire, in general, had difficulties to deal with and keep its borders.

Back to FE, the western church rebelling is actually at odds with Rome, because when it comes to religious stuff, the eastern provinces were the most concerned/active, not the western ones (1st council of nicea was made because of the arian controversy (The Son and the Father are the same entity or not? Discuss) in the eastern provinces). 

Apparently, the Western Church rebels because they don’t like/follow the creed of the Central Church, but if we wanted to keep the Rome analogy, it should have been the Eastern church rebelling. From what we see, it is not because they follow another religion, but they have a difference in doctrine (but then it is muddled because mole people, otoh, it is never said that the western church thinks seiros is a hax or the goddess doesn’t exist, they want to claim lands on behalf of Saint Cichol which means they adhere, at least, to the main dogma about saints) and really don’t like Rhea for some reason. tbh i think some “germanic tribes” converted to arianism but they weren’t the theologists who theorised it

Central Church lost its grasp on Adrestia in 1065 (iirc?) when the southern branch was expelled. Idk if everything was fine and dandy before, but given how Rhea oversaw the construction of Garreg Mach after the WoH and tried to resurrect Sothis with the Chalice, I’d say she already said “peace i’m out” to Adrestia and would just be there for some ceremonies (crowning/being a witness for new emperors i suppose).

I’ve said it earlier, but Adrestia is not supposed to represent the “germanic tribes”, Adrestia is Rome. Adrestia having german names could also mean that the devs were lazy because Gaius Claudius isn’t a funky name, but the HRE was situated in western-central europe. Edel’s rebellion against the central church could mirror HRE and the Reformation, save for the fact that Edel dgaf about the goddess bcs humanity doesn’t need gods or something. So the analogy doesn’t really work...

5) Coming to which, CF!Church is not anything like Seirosism or, i suppose, the former Sothisism cult. Various bloggers already tore this take apart, but the “Church” in post CF-Fodlan seems to be less spiritual and more of an organisation which is overseen by the Emperor. 

I mean, if Edel says humans don’t need gods, what is the Church supposed to do? Fodlan has a cult? A religion? Faith? Faith in what? People are supposed to be free to chose what to believe in, but it is clear that “humans” don’t need gods, so what? You can believe in whatever you want, but not in Sothis because we don’t need her, and fig to the children of the Goddess or fig you if you’re still a follower of Seirosism? Rome still exists nowadays as a capital of a living country, I cannot affirm the Church exists, or if whatever the church of Seiros did is still maintained.

Also, “Rome” as in the Roman Empire (kind of) survived with the Byzantine Empire and the HRE. I don’t think offshoots of the Church of Seiros would be allowed to prosper in CF’s Fodlan.

6)  :)

I cannot remember if Romea’s people (well a civilisation cannot have brethrens it’s not a being!) were turned into various weapons by Socrates and Plato (if they had been blacksmiths i’d have been more interested in philosophy classes i swear) but as far as i know Edel’s Adrestia didn’t wage war against Romea because of her conquests or what she did to Soloncrates/Ancient Greece, nope or to free Adrestia from Romea (especially since Adrestia got rid of the church since 1065). Edel wants to conquer the world and change the “system” in place.

Bonus : About names, yes, the devs validated the “Adrestia is both rome and germany combined” which is as WTF as it seems, and yet, last Emperor from the HRE was named Francis II with his birth name being Franz Joseph Karl which is very far removed from, idk, Trajan being Marcus Ulpius Trajanus. I don’t think the devs thought a lot about names tbh, still, if Emperor Wilhelm might sound “german” and yet his second name Paul, is latin (paulus) so idk. Ionius was apparently a name used in Rome?