#they just needed to write a story tailored to claude to justify those actions

[blazestarre]

I finished Scarlet Blaze last week and currently on Ch 11 of Azure Gleam. Keeping with the theme of my other 3Hopes post, I’m once again focusing on Claude and his...interesting depiction, this time on SB.

Why did I mention where I am in AG? Because the route made me realize something: GW is just a copy-paste of SB’s story. I thought the routes would all be similar stories, just with slight variations based on which route you choose. Nope! The events on AG, while they start the same as SB and GW, takes a huge swerve at the end of part 1, completely changing the story. AG is unique, SB is unique, GW is not. Once again, Claude doesn’t get his own unique route and has to settle with Black Eagles leftovers. I don’t think VW suffers all too much from it, because the story still works - Claude just doesn’t get as much of a spotlight as Edelgard and Dimitri do in their routes and has to share the lead with Byleth. Since Byleth’s presentation is lackluster (I love Byleth, but the devs really did not balance their role as avatar AND main character very well), SS suffers from the lack of a strong lead. VW just takes SS and gives it that strong lead in Claude. So it works.

GW, on the other hand...oh boy. The biggest weakness of GW is that the story does not support Claude’s actions and so they had to have Claude use troll-logic to make any sense of it. I’ve mentioned before that I think I know what direction they were trying to take Claude - desperate and stressed enough to take actions that he normally wouldn’t consider. He lacks the character development he had in WC, never got to know Edelgard and Dimitri, never realizes there’s something more going on with the Church. I get all that and I actually think GW has some really interesting ideas for how Claude could negatively develop as a character. The bits that are good are really good. Everything up to Ch 8 is excellent and there are even pieces of Ch 9 and 10 that work, too (mainly the GD calling out Claude).

Here’s the problem: GW Part 1 has the Alliance winning. They drive out the Empire, stay united, and even beat Count Bergliez. Then there’s the Almyra invasion, which was also excellent. Claude’s moment at the end of the chapter, refusing to participate in a post-battle feast because he just killed his brother? Beautiful. But none of this sets up Claude teaming up with Edelgard. He’s not in a situation to be desperate. The Alliance is united AND they have the support of Nader and Almyra. There’s no reason they can’t ally with the Kingdom like they do on AG.

But SB? Claude’s decision to ally with the Empire makes sense. Here, Claude IS desperate, and in the cutscenes where he appears, they make that very clear. Shahid doesn’t attack on SB (for some reason), so Holst and his troops have to remain at the Locket in case he does attack. Meaning Almyra is a very real threat to the Alliance’s eastern border. Count Gloucester and Count Ordelia both defect to the Empire, along with Margrave Edmund (or he at least shows his support, but he doesn’t have all that many troops anyway). This leaves Riegan and Goneril troops, and the latter are defending the Locket. So really, Claude’s the only Great Lord who can do anything against the Empire. And considering when all 5 Great Lords combined have the smallest army in Fodlan, Claude’s not in a good position.

The Kingdom and Church are not in a strong position, either. They fail to take back Arianrhod and still have to deal with their own civil war. At this point, without WC to learn more about the other leaders in Fodlan, Claude has to take choose which side to take based on what will give the Alliance the best chance possible (he also never forms the Federation here). From his position, joining the Empire is the logical choice, but not one that he’s happy about.

Claude’s rhetoric about the Kingdom and Church are absent in SB. When talking with his allies, he makes it clear that the only reason they are attacking the Kingdom is because the Empire is requiring them to based on the pact. No insane troll-logic about taking down Rhea so Edelgard loses her justification for war. Instead, it’s clear he’s backed into a corner and does what he can to help Leicester survive the war. Hell, he might even be thinking along the same lines as CF!Claude - try to keep the Alliance around, but if that’s impossible, make the transition to the Empire as peaceful as possible.

What makes it clear to me that Claude allied with the Empire because he felt he had no choice is how easy it is for him to be convinced to betray Edelgard. Now, I recruited Byleth so I didn’t get this scene, but I have watched it online. Byleth seems to give him another option, one he didn’t consider before, and that convinces him to turn against the Empire. His speech to the Alliance army is much more in character than his various excuses in GW. Yes, he also declares war on the Kingdom and Church, but I don’t really blame him here. He’s been the aggressor against them already, and again, he doesn’t know Dimitri here. It might just be Claude trying to show that the Alliance is tired of being the third-wheel in Fodlan. Again, he’s been through a lot in SB, losing most of his battles with the Empire and then having them walk all over the Alliance. To me, this is a glimpse of what a negative character arc for Claude could have looked like. 

Now, Claude still isn’t portrayed as an upstanding person here, but I can give that a pass since you’re playing from the Empire’s POV and Edelgard has never had a high opinion of Claude. But despite that, the story still gives solid logic to his choices. This truly is a Claude who is desperate and stressed enough to take actions that he normally wouldn’t consider.

It’s like the developers wrote AG and SB, but when they got to GW, the were just like, ‘Ah fuck, another one? Let’s just slap together something from the other stories. Claude sided with Dimitri and the Church in 3H? Well, have him team up with Edelgard this time for something different.’ Then they did, added some Almyra and gave Claude some lines to justify things without actually rewriting the story, and BAM! GW! 

GW could have been a great Claude story, but instead they plucked Claude from Edelgard’s route and tried to shove him in a route where he’s winning. Now he doesn’t know what to do with himself and the other characters don’t understand what’s going on either.