#they needed it enough that Lorenz pointed it out to everyone and from a narrative standpoint

[dmclemblems]

“Claude in Hopes is exactly the same way he is in Houses! He’s always been like that and has the same feelings/morals!”

Claude in GW/Hopes:

Claude, literally, in Houses:

Let that speak for the fact that Claude was written with a 180 characterization in Hopes.

Claude wants peace and to bring everyone together; not to tear them further apart. That is his character.

[fireemblems24]

I am so glad you pointed out the imperialist vibes Edelgard has sometimes. As someone who lives in a country who was basically occupied ahem conquered because they said "we have better ideas that will improve your lives" and had our culture absolutely shattered, one of the main reasons why I disagree with Edelgard so much is because of that. She thinks her point of view is superior and the most morally right and I really don't like it whenever she sounds so confused about people defending their homeland. Especially that one line she has with Dimitri in Chapter 17 ffffff—

Like, girl, they have the fucking right to disagree with you please stop sounding so confused as to why they can't see eye to eye with you gahhhhh

I would be more tolerant with the war if she had say, did diplomacy before it? But she tried to had Dimitri and Claude killed in Part I (the prologue). I would also understand her better if the war was a last resort and the other leaders were corrupt and all that. But they're not. Many of the students (who have power because many are noble heirs) outside her house are heavily affected by the nobility and Crests (Sylvain, Ingrid, Mercedes, Lysithea, etc.) or at least understanding of the problems caused by them (Dimitri). It's so frustrating how so much of this can be prevented if she just talked about it.

Also, to those who said she wants the change to be quick, even with war it won't be. The fucking war basically caused continent-wide damage. It's going to be so hard to actually fix this. Hell, there's definitely going to be an eventual rebellion by former Kingdom / Alliance people or sympathisers. It's not going to be as clean cut as the game or some pro-Edelgard people make it to be. Not everyone is going to agree with her, whether she takes over or not. She just destroyed the stability of the continent and while yes, she can rebuild it again, it will still take time and who's to say future leaders won't be corrupt? Also, a hierarchy will always exist, whether she likes it or not. Especially if she plans to set up a meritocracy. Meritocracy is going to usually end up giving power and privilege to those with already pre-existing privilege as they the opportunity to show off their merits or develop those skills. Poor and disabled people are going to have difficulty as they don't have equal opportunity to develop skills and accomplish stuff. I'm generalising, but it just ends up as a hierarchy, again. Not only that, it also has ways to enforce discrimination.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is, she needs to long term plan out her systems. I apologise since I have bad memory but as far as I remember, the game doesn't give us too many details on how she wants to establish her system. All I remember is she does the war > Church / Rhea out of power > Establish her government > ???. Someone please clear this up for me because I'm confused.

...and again really, diplomatic reforms are an option. Yes, they're much more tedious. Yes, they take so much more longer. Yes, sometimes it feels impossible to accomplish. But did she not even consider it as an option?

All in all, I do like Edelgard. But I really wish the game let us go against her while we're with her? I wish it wasn't just general "agree with Edelgard" for CF. I remember someone pointing it out to me before that it would've been really great if she had someone in her house who does the same role Felix does in AM... which is basically disagree and call out the lord's shit. And they pointed out Ferdinand could've probably been that character for CF. And I kinda agree? I really think CF would immensely improve if Edelgard had a challenger / foil to her beliefs similar to how Felix does that for Dimitri.

Anyway, sorry for the very long ask lol. I like Edelgard and I agree with some of her morals and ideals such as the crest system being bad but....she's done so dirty asdfghjkl. I do think she's written well enough to incite these emotions in me, and she makes for a good antagonist. As a protagonist lord however.... yeah.

First off, sorry it took so long to respond, but I wanted to give an equally throughout response. 

While I haven’t gotten to chapter 17 yet, I can attest to the notion that Edelgard’s rhetoric is eerily similar to Imperialist propaganda. I do understand this is fiction, and that it’s okay to hand-wave/enjoy things in fiction that you shouldn’t or wouldn’t in real life. Crimson Flower has its charms and parts I enjoy. Edelgard is an interesting character more hampered by things that plague Three Houses as a whole than anything else, but it’s still worth examining how dangerous her rhetoric is. Because, unlike you, my country sits at the opposite end - the Imperialist nation selling that rhetoric to its citizens, and, unfortunately, at the time I bought it - which makes me really sensitive to this. 

I’m from the US and I’m specifically speaking about the US’s invasion of the Middle East. I was in middle or high school, just barely a teenager, and naive and ignorant enough to believe what my leaders said. Because guess what? I bought into it out of misplaced and ignorant (and racist) compassion. I was horrified at the idea these people were suffering unfairly just because of where they were born whereas I got all these promised privileges just because of where I was born. I really thought the US would go in there and give them democracy and everything would be great. Looking back, I realize they were lying, that we’ve only made things worse, that it’s horribly racist to assume the US was just inherently better, and I’ve sense then gained access to fast-speed internet, traveled, matured, etc . . . and thankfully this all happened before I had any actual power to do anything like vote. But to this day I’m beyond pissed off they used my own compassion against me to line their own pockets. It was ignorant and racist, but it was all based in concern that others didn’t have the same quality of life I had and a growing realization of my own privilege. And that’s what I hate so much. It didn’t sound evil. It sounded good. It used people’s good will and compassion against them and twisted it into evil for their own causes. 

I don’t think Edelgard is after Faerghus and the Alliance because she wants oil. I think she honestly thinks she’s doing good. And, if this were real life, I think that makes her rhetoric even more dangerous than a corrupt politicians’.  Because everything else is still the same. She’s being ignorant, nationalist instead of racist in this case, and honestly thinks her moral superiority will improve everyone’s lives even if it means ravaging the entire content in war. She is dangerously naive and ignorant. 

Maybe I’d support her more morally if I believed for an instant the general populace welcomed the changes she wants to bring, if the leaders she fought against weren’t open and wanting change themselves, ect . . . But the dialogue indicated her presence inspires people running and screaming in terror, not welcoming her presence (see the chapter where you kill Claude). The Kingdom is still fighting tooth and nail against her. She’s not supported. Her changes aren’t wanted. And she hasn’t bothered to learn a single thing about the cultures she’s determined to squash under her heal nor the leaders heading them. 

I also think I’d support her better if we had a clearer idea of what her plans were. But CF has shifted from Edelgard speaking about interesting ideas and classism to evil dragon overlords and chastising Byleth for making her blush. The decision to side with her or Rhea is not choosing between two ideals, but an emotional, spur of the moment thing. Edelgard’s early supports with Byleth attempt to convince the player to side with her not based on political ideals, but on feeling sorry for her. 

CF gives you no choice but to agree with everything Edelgard says (as you said, there’s no “Felix” or a “Lorenz”). It wants you to support her war without question, and therefore you don’t get any answers to questions like - if this is really just about Rhea, why are we invading the Alliance? Because they won’t hand power over to you? Why didn’t you just stick to the Empire to enact your changes? In the end, you’re left with what sounds more and more like an entitled Imperialistic princess with absolutely no idea how ignorant she is hell bent on conquering what she thinks belongs to her based on a conspiracy theory. 

All that said, I do think Edelgard has interesting ideas and isn’t wholly wrong, just how she goes about it is horribly wrong. And I fully believe the core issue is how CF has dropped the ball big time writing wise, because diving deeper into her ideas and not her crush on you would go a long way. So would shifting the narrative away from evil boogey dragon lady must die and everyone else is wrong and I am superior and right and more towards a clashing of ideals, this route could’ve been a lot more and seemed a lot less ignorant, naive, entitled, and Imperialistic. 

[yusuke-of-valla]

Since I really doubt every character is gonna be playable in Three Hopes, my main wish is for Dedue to be playable, even if it breaks continuity. Boy needs more screentime.

I mean we saw Hubert and there was a quick glimpse of Hilda and continuity is already fucked given everyone should think Dimitri is dead at this point and also Byleth is here and Jeralt I say there’s a good chance he makes it out

Though that DOES raise the question of: assuming we don’t get all the students (which we might? Certainly that’s enough people for your Average Warriors game but it’s also more than usual and we’re going to be very heavy on certain units. Like idk how you differentiate Ignatz, Ashe, and Bernie. At least Leonie can be a horse archer) who would get in.

Like Narratively they’re probably gonna complete the Lord/Retainer/Rival trios so that would mean Ferdinand, Felix, and Lorenz are givens

That would mean the units are

Axes: Edelgard, Dedue, Hilda

Lance: Dima, Ferdinand, maybe Lorenz

Archers: Claude

Sword: Felix, Byleth

Magic: Hubert, and maybe Lorenz

So assuming it’s not everyone I’m guessing

Black Eagles

Linhardt

Dorothea

Petra

Blue Lions

Sylvain

Ingrid

Mercedes

Golden Deer

Marianne

Ignatz

Leonie

My reasoning being: if this game is balanced anything like Warriors we’re going to need healers in the party and also Marianne’s stupidly popular, we were short on swords and archers so I added Ignatz, Leonie (Leonie can be a mounted archer so we have one from each movement type) and Petra, Dorothea is also stupidly popular, and it just makes sense if you’re limiting the amount of people you use to include the rest of the Faerghus Four

Of course this is assuming they are going to bother limiting things at all (or give us some units now and the rest in DLC) and not just include all of the cast and bust their asses trying to make the gameplay unique for every overlapping character

Oh and also this assumes they’re NOT including grappling, in which case Caspar is probably in over Petra? And swap Ignatz with Raphael

[kendrixtermina]

I have said many times that the game’s strength is in using perspective to create tragedy - everyone is acting based on what they know and though everyone uncovers more information over time no one gets all the puzzle pieces. 

There’s also a very salient point (especially for our times) about how there will always be evil people and what really matters is what the good and/or neutral people decede to do about it/ being unable to agree on that. Everyone goes through each other to get at Thales & co. I mean even Rhea (whom I would not consider good) very much wants them gone/ was in a sense responding to their evildoings. 

Claude comes the closest to uncovering everything, but he only finds out at the very end after many twists and turns and lowkey questionable actions, and there are many points in the narrative where he’s missing some info the others have or gets frustrated because he can’t figure it out (which isn’t meant as a criticism of him at all, it just goes to show that while he may be the single smartest character but he’s still human)

But one downside to that is that the characters don’t get a chance to react to many of the info pieces they never come across

Edelgard and Dimitri never find out the truth about the relics (I think Edelgard would just sigh, conclude that Nemesis was a bad guy after all, and mumble something about how of course the Crests came from some warped source, I don’t think it would change her opinion of Rhea at all.   But Dimitri and the other Kingdom characters would be interesting ‘cause they were all so proud of their legendary ancestors - It’s a big meaningful moment when Dimitri gets handed his father’s lance, the precious family heirloom... turns out it’s all a lie and that thing is the spoils of a massacre. I guess his reaction would be similar as with the patricia reveal )

Speaking of which, Edelgard doesn’t find out about all that crap with her mother. I mean she would definitely have feelings about that. Hubert, Lorenz  Ferdinand would probably break out the booze and welcome her into “Children of villains anonymous”. I’m genuinely not sure whether or not she’d start considering Dimitri as a brother. The odd thing here is that though she’s the one who’s related to her by blood Dimitri actually spent a whole lot more time with her and hence could be said to have known her much better, she was practically more his mother than she ever was Edelgard’s.

Dimitri never learns much about the slitherers really though he still ends up casually taking out a bunch of their leaders 

The whole Claude being related to the king of Almyra thing. Dimitri and Edelgard are both very much anti-prejudice but knowing that he actually has the largest inheritance out of the three would change the dynamic and political shemes involved a whole lot

Flayn and Seteth don’t find out the full extent of Rhea’s shady antics. Edelgard assumes they know & condone it and treats them accordingly, they don’t go “We didn’t do it!” ‘cause they don’t know there’s an “it” and naturally enough want to protect their aunt/sister after losing the rest of their family, but at the same time Seteth is a good reasonable man and knows wrongdoing when he sees it (he urges her to come clean, calls her out for the Byleth thing, says something about trying to treat the students equally etc. ), an actual open dialogue there might’ve had unpredictable results ranging from “nothing changes everyone is just sadder and more conflicted” to  “Put down the Axe little miss we’ll talk her into stepping down without a fight” 

I need that Claude and Hubert friendship so badly its so sad that they only come to respect each other by the time one of them is dead or exiled

That said I’d say that even if everyone knew everything (including that they share the same enemies) they have sufficiently different attitudes and methods and there would still be a plot left. 

[luminisvii]

okay im gonna go black out and write some bullshit about my Thoughts on Literary Analysis and Character Writing bc i love writing and i love trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. i am an unfortunate fan of fire emblem, so the real joke is on me, but let’s do this anyway. using a lot of bold as always! it makes me feel special.

Why is Leonie such a divisive character? 

as per usual, here is my disclaimer that it’s okay to like Leonie. it’s also okay to dislike her, as long as you’re not being a massive dick about it. lord knows people are rude to me about lorenz and i didn’t ask for their opinions. if you like leonie, i am not out to get you, i’m not going to tell you that you shouldn’t, i’m not even mad at you. Neat! you like a character i don’t! and that’s just fine. i honestly don’t care! go have fun! 

so let’s talk. theres a TL;DR at the end so be ready.

i’ll make no bones about it: i’m in the camp that dislikes her. i don’t have the energy to hate her as i do for faye, but leonie is pretty obnoxious as a character and it’s an uphill battle to like her. i’ve played VW like three times since i’m a self professed GD stan so i’ve dealt with her a lot, read most of her supports, and seen her as a character in actual cutscenes and stuff.

the short answer: making a character obsessed with another one and having that be most of their personality is really annoying. 

the long answer: let’s start on that now! these are my personal thoughts and analysis, so you’re free to disagree with me if you think i’m falling short.

one statement i will make right away is that i’m not offended by leonie being mean to the player. a lot of people who stan leonie like to argue that people dislike her because she’s one of the few characters who doesn’t kiss byleth’s ass immediately. that’s fine. that doesn’t bother me. after all, seteth and hapi are mean to byleth at first too, and those two are far more beloved… in fact, it’s funny that they’re mean to byleth. i would also argue that my favorite lord claude is not buddy buddy with byleth at first either, but if these popular opinion threads have proven anything to me, people love taking claude’s lying ass at face value. that’s besides the point—it’s okay that leonie isn’t immediately friendly to byleth. that is not an objective character flaw. characters need something to conflict over in the narrative, and not being instantly friendly to a player insert is not a problem in the slightest.

the major flaw in leonie’s character, imo, is that the writers decided it was a brilliant idea to make her obsessed with a man who barely seems to acknowledge her. this is an extremely unfortunate reoccurring character trope in fire emblem. notable other victims that more modern fe fans may recognize are faye and cordelia, faye being the worst offender. luckily, leonie isn’t as bad as faye. but it really is irritating that leonie, along with these other women, seem entirely driven by men who cannot acknowledge them. within three houses, you have similar traits in male characters as well: cyril is another notable offender, and to a lesser extent, dedue’s fixation on dimitri. now, we do see jeralt talking to leonie at the very least, and he does speak about her at least once in my memory, and positively at that. so it’s not as pathetic as the likes of faye. 

outside of that, leonie cannot stop fucking reminding everyone she comes across: she loves captain jeralt. she’s his only apprentice. and you, dear player, who is his child, are not good enough, because you don’t love him as much as she does. practically all her convos with byleth are about how they don’t love jeralt enough, save for a slight turn around in the A support where she talks about her promise to protect byleth in jeralt’s place. to be honest, i usually ditch her in any run i’m forced to take her (hello sylvain, the superior idiot redhead cavalier) so this promise is just cute.

the arrogance in this attitude is insensitive at best, and as seen in her B support with byleth, potentially malicious and self centered at worst. 

let’s not beat around the bush. the main point of contention for leonie is her B support with byleth, which is locked to jeralt’s death. you cannot get this support until jeralt has kicked it. and if you’re on GD, chances are you have gotten enough support points with leonie to get it immediately upon his death. the man’s grave is still fresh. what does she have the gall to say to her beloved mentor’s child?

“I've spent my whole life working to become a great mercenary like your father. There were so many times when I wanted to ask his advice, but I couldn't. I just had to make do. That's how I've made it this far. Just hard work, all on my own. But then you come along... And it's like you don't appreciate Captain Jeralt at all, or how lucky you were to have him around your whole life! Ugh! It still really bothers me! You might be his kid, but I'm still his best apprentice! Got it?!”

YIKES.

no matter how you dice it, saying that to someone whos father just died? NOT GOOD. it doesn’t matter what her reasoning is. a lot of people argue that this is realistic, that she’s acting out of grief. maybe so. however, if the game wants me to like her, they’re failing, no matter how realistic her reaction is. if this was supposed to be seen as a moment of weakness, that would be one thing, but it’s clear leonie never learns anything from this. she never gets better. she spends the rest of her life constantly centered on jeralt, and sees byleth as a competitor and obstacle to his affections, even after he’s dead. 

i don’t want to entirely make this about byleth, because let’s be real, byleth is only one of her many supports. but it is the most easily noticeable, and the least charitable to her character. 

also fun fact i did a basic search for jeralt in her supports and thats 37 times hes mentioned lmao this isn’t even accounting for her non support dialogue! which is still a lot! 

so a decent chunk of her supports still involve her talking about how great jeralt is as if the man is jesus. her better supports don’t involve him at all. i don’t have easy access to a lot of her dialogue by chapter, but quite a bit of her regular dialogue references jeralt too, be it by name or title, and a good chunk of her endings, especially her solo one, have her just taking up his title and job and drinking habits. it’s supposed to be seen as cute.

this woman is in her 20s at the beginning of the game. she’s my age. this kind of behavior is worrying. 

so you’re thinking “tell, you’ve spent a LOT of time talking about how leonie won’t shut the fuck up about jeralt. what about the rest of her character? unlike faye, she actually has one!” right you are! i will concede that. leonie does have things going on for her outside of her constant screeching about jeralt! what are they?

we see that her personality has her as a hard worker and frugal person because she’s grown up in a life that has less than many of her peers. she’s rational and rather keen, capable of assessing her opponents correctly and outsmarting them. she likes to help others. her supports with claude are fairly interesting as they talk about their own perspectives on the world to each other in a friendly manner. she talks to bernadetta and praises her skill in craft and manages to befriend her. in fact, all her supports where she doesn’t mention jeralt at all are pretty good. she can be headstrong and sometimes quick to jump to conclusions, but leonie isn’t one to be too beholden to preset ideas and shows a capability to learn and change.

wait, this sounds like a pretty well rounded and likeable character i’m describing! what happened here? this kind of portrayal is almost contradictory to the side of her that only thinks of jeralt. 

a lot of people who like leonie like her for these aspects. at first, i had thought her to be interesting, since she’s the poorest student in the entire school, here on money raised by her entire village, which must have been extremely difficult for them to do. she doesn’t understand how nobles can be so frivolous, and butts heads with the likes of hilda, who has been raised in luxury her whole life and she clashes even harder with lorenz, who is obsessed with nobility. in a way, leonie is the slap from reality that many of the rich students from garreg mach need. and she also serves an important function in the dynamic of the deer—she’s a bit of a hapless straight man to all their bullshit. they always need one of those! in the lions, that role falls to ingrid, while edelgard plays that to her own house. 

so yes, there is merit in leonie’s character. there’s a lot to like about her here. however, in my opinion, it’s not enough to make up for the incredibly abrasive aspects of her fixation on jeralt. it really just comes back to that—that someone decided that it would be a fantastic character trait to have her never stop thinking about a man, and flaunt this to the man’s child. constantly. almost all her dialogue directed at byleth is about jeralt. post skip, a lot more of her lines become about jeralt and making him proud. it’s like she thinks that he’s her dad. she’s a grown ass woman! leonie is one of the older students! she is an adult by the time the game starts! an adult with some actual worldly experience, unlike her peers! what went wrong? why is she like this? why did they make her so fucking annoying when it comes to jeralt?

so yes, that’s what i think is the major flaw of her character. a flaw that is not easily overcome. cyril is a largely derided character for similar reasons. another simple control+f tells me that rhea is mentioned in cyril’s supports 59 times so uh, woo! he has leonie beat there.

worst of all this is a flaw that narratively, she does not overcome. she never grows and gets better from it. she never changes her single minded determination to impress jeralt, even long after he’s dead. a good chunk of her endings have her taking up his business and acting just like him, taking his title too. somehow lorenz is the more likeable character, and lorenz starts off as a much worse person than her! he starts as a stinky incel classist and somehow, especially over the course of verdant wind, manages to learn and grow and change into a much better person, while leonie remains stagnant in who she is. her own peers outdo her in almost every aspect, in that they appear to be capable of growing up while leonie, already an adult, never seems to show any signs of maturing over the course of the game. we see ignatz turn from a meek nerd to someone who’s willing to do what it takes to protect what he cares about. marianne grows from suicidal and depressed to finding the will to live because it means she’ll be able to spend more time with things she enjoys and people she loves. lorenz goes from snobbish and distant over his complex about nobility to being one of the kindest members of the deer, willing to go against his father for the greater good. even hilda matures! hilda starts the game lazy and unambitious, trying to avoid work, saying she’d never risk her life for her friends, to fighting against some of the strongest forces in the continent and ESPECIALLY on CF we see her refusing to abandon claude in his time of need, no matter how bad it gets, even if it costs her life. what does leonie do? leonie seems to forever be stuck in the mindset that she has to impress jeralt, no matter how far she goes.

this is incredibly nitpicky, i’ll admit, this isn’t really part of the character analysis, but i find she under performs as a unit too. she may have ungodly speed and no weaknesses in her skills, but damage output wise she’s easily outdone in house by the other canon paladin of lorenz and his wonky statline, and out of house sylvain has basically the same ability as her, the same color hair, and a crest + relic that make him way more effective. the man has bulk, too. so, that’s a small ding to leonie as well. i had the same problem with sully in awakening. for all the talk about how these women are just as good as the men, they appear to under perform quite a bit.

and i’m gonna talk real quick in a basic list format of arguments i’ve seen for people defending leonie, since i’m running out of like, a coherent way to talk about some of this stuff.

-She’s realistic.

maybe so, but the game intends for me to find her as likeable and sympathetic, as it is for all recruitable characters. her reactions to byleth and sometimes others may be realistic, but don’t paint a charitable image of her. again, the moment in her B support with byleth is so bad, it makes her seem like she’s acting towards them with cruel intent. while i don’t care about byleth’s feelings since byleth isn’t a real person, what it does is it paints leonie as malicious, no matter what her intent was or how realistic it is. yes, she’s in grief, she’s lost someone important to her, but in what context is telling someone who just lost their dad that they didn’t love him enough supposed to garner anything but hatred? even if she apologizes for it in their A support, that means she basically took years to do so and still seems to think of byleth as an obstacle to her being like jeralt.

although as i have said before, the rest of her personality is fine. i find her non jeralt stuff is much more well written. she’s a down to earth person amidst a sea of lunatics. that’s not a problem.

-People don’t like her because she’s mean to Byleth. 

this is probably true in some regards although i can’t say for certain. because byleth is a player insert and some might take it personally, but otherwise i find this isn’t much of a good universal claim since there’s more to the disdain to that. personally, i think it’s hilarious when video game characters are mean to me, but that’s just My Opinion, so no, i’m really not offended by leonie being mean to me. other characters are also mean to byleth, and that leads into the next point...

-Other characters act similarly towards Byleth and they’re popular.

one, look at those stupid unpopular opinions threads on twitter. they’re not as loved as you think. two, a lot of the characters who are listed for these things are often the likes of seteth and felix, and let’s talk about the context of their actions there. seteth is indeed mean to byleth at first, but his intent is wildly different from leonie’s—he’s suspicious, and rightfully so, of this mercenary who came out of nowhere and rhea is suddenly showing a lot of interest in and is giving a position of power to. seteth is not acting out of malintent or jealousy, he’s acting out of concern for the students and his daughter as well as rhea. because his core intent is “protect everyone around me” it comes off as far more palatable and dare i say, endearing. this is vastly different than “i’m jealous towards byleth because i love their dad and hate that they’re getting attention i can’t.” with a character like felix, this is outright incorrect—felix is not necessarily more rude to byleth more than he would be anyone else. felix is angry with the faerghus four in particular, but everyone else gets the same level of vague disrespect from him otherwise, so his behavior is not centralized to byleth. again, i don’t care about byleth’s feelings. there is also cyril, who is similarly obsessed with rhea, and is just as irritating as leonie for it, if not worse because he gets an extra layer of being a poc character obsessed with a white one who saved him. 

tl;dr: context and intent matters. a lot. i know this is a ton to ask of the fe fandom to consider taking things beyond face value, but please consider the context of characters actions and their intent behind them.

-People who don’t like Leonie are misogynistic.

i won’t discount that there are bad actors who are likely extra critical of leonie because she’s a female character. it could be and has been argued that the reasons that characters like edelgard and ingrid are so controversial is because they are female. but not everyone who raises criticisms is strictly doing so in bad faith. most people i’ve seen criticizing leonie do it for the same reasons i am, which is that she’s an abrasive character. these traits would not be any better on a male character and in some regards could be worse. so for this one, it’s better to take it as a case by case situation, and pay attention to how people are talking. those doing so for less savory reasons often let it slip eventually, somehow. i’ve been avoiding using the word “bitch” in this entire thing for this exact reason.

-Her non-Byleth supports are good.

this is highly subjective imo and comes down to what you personally like in a character. i do like some of her non byleth supports, but she still has an unfortunate habit of bringing up jeralt in non byleth supports, so the only ones that are truly good are the ones where she doesn’t talk about him at all. even then, some like her one with marianne can do the same accidental portrayal of her seeming like a pretty unpleasant person. this isn’t saying that leonie can’t be flawed or short tempered, after all i adore felix and he’s got Some Fuckin Issues, but her portrayal as a kind and bright person clashes with how she’s portrayed surrounding byleth and jeralt. far too much. i like her supports with claude, i like her line with bernadetta, and her seteth one is good too, but i’d also argue that as a personality she doesn’t bring much to the table. she’s a perfectly serviceable character when she’s not dealing with byleth, but i personally fail to see more appeal to her. she isn’t particularly enrapturing like some of the others, and unlike someone like ingrid who has a similar role in BL, doesn’t have the shared history and integration with the deer that grants ingrid a unique perspective on her peers. although again, this is highly subjective, so it’s tough to argue about this. i’ll grant that yes, the writing that doesn’t surround jeralt is WAY better and almost makes leonie a redeemable character.

-Other characters are worse.

very true! i’ll cite faye again as the bottom line for “this is how abysmal this character could be” and in feth itself there is, as stated many times before, cyril. however it doesn’t mean that leonie is better by association. and i also often see people citing seteth as an example over the rudeness to the player too, but once again that’s about context and intent. hapi is a lesser example, due to a similar mistrusting nature, and there’s quite a bit of the cast who are cold and rude because that’s just who they are. now, thank fucking god that leonie actually talks about things that aren’t jeralt. like, seriously, i’d die. she still talks about him too much, but i really should go through all of faye’s dialogue to do a proper count. 

so now you’re probably thinking—if you even got this far—“gee tell, you sure do like running your fuckin mouth, eh? so what’s the point of all this?” let’s wrap it up. 

the TL;DR:

what this all boils down to is that leonie’s got a serious problem in her writing where her entire life revolves around a man, and the way it’s dealt with isn’t particularly great. she doesn’t have a dynamic character arc like some others that redeem them from their problems, and the personality she has outside of her relationship to jeralt and byleth often clashes with the one she has with them, particularly centering on byleth. when dealing with byleth, the image it paints of her is extremely negative, and not one easily shaken—again, the B support moment is just THAT BAD. that is the most cited moment for why people hate her. it just seems like for all the flaws she has, they are not compensated for or grown out of like other characters in the game do for theirs.

theres also that tweet about how we put more thought into these characters than intsys does, so. yeah. definitely doing that right now. thanks, intsys, you did it again.

i will also point to the argument that we should hold the writers accountable, not the fictional characters who aren’t real and don’t have feelings. i don’t think leonie needs to be held accountable for her bullshit. i just wish the writers could have treated her better.

this is personally why i find leonie so difficult, and hopefully if you didn’t understand why people don’t like leonie, this can help enlighten you. i’m willing to hear people out if they have something to say, and as always, if you are a leonie stan, please go enjoy yourself, have fun, and don’t let me ruin your parade. i just enjoy trying to figure things out and talking a lot along the way! so that’s all, here’s hoping that in the future they do better, and remember that GD is the best house okay bye take this picture of me typing up this whole ass thing

[porcileorg]

On the ‘Various Others’ initiative in Munich (2019-09-12 – 2019-10-13)

Author: Magda Wisniowska - Munich, September, 2019.

It was Munich Open Art last weekend, opening on Friday. Various Others, a much newer initiative ran alongside.

Various Others is, very simply, about collaboration and exchange. Each space - whether institution, gallery or off-space - belonging to the initiative partners with one from outside, in order to bring new art back to Munich.

For someone like myself, this is interesting. I feel that, in the spirit of Spinoza, anything increasing our power to act, is by large a good thing. And this collaboration certainly does: galleries become more active through working with new partners, the audience becomes more active by having more art to view, the artists are more active by having new exhibition opportunities in a different city. The efforts of everyone involved should be applauded and encouraged, so that this initiative may long continue. 

Content however is a different matter. Obviously no one expects nowadays the kind of complete enlightenment - the ultimate knowledge of a true God - Spinoza would wish for, but too often the conceptual aims behind the work are left unexamined. This has less to do with the art exhibited during the course of Open Art and Various Others, but more with the type of reviews this kind of event attracts. These focus almost entirely on the idea behind Various Others, that is, on how its exchange program functions, why such a program has come to being and how it might be beneficial to those involved. The few that do review the actual shows (Frieze selects five highlights) keep to a bare paragraph each.

Of course, it is not easy to review an event that comprises of, at the very least, fourteen openings on its first night, spread across a modestly sized city, with everything closing at 9 pm. On my walk on Friday I manage to see nine things, which is more than many: the performance by Gregor Hildebrand at the Ludwig Beck department store, the exhibitions at Jahn und Jahn, at Sperling, at Rudiger Schöttle and Knust und Kunz, at Jo van de Loo, at Barbara Gross, at Loggia and at Nir Altman. So what follows will be necessarily a flawed personal account.

Gregor Hildebrand @ Ludwig Beck [click here] At the first point of call, the Ludwig Beck department store, I did not see much of the performance, the store layout allowing a full view only to a privileged few. Those standing between the rows of hip-hop CDs could see more of the (admittedly very photogenic) band members on stage than what was going on with the painting in the corner. As far as I could see, Hildebrand was making one of his magnetic tape type paintings before a live audience. Which seemed to me both very brave and very obtuse, this being perhaps the point, to reveal to the buying public how simple his production process is, a magician who indeed only uses a couple of mirrors to perform his tricks. I could overhear behind me, I never thought it would be so quick and easy.”

‘Computer and Paper' @ Jahn und Jahn, with Galerie Conradi, Hamburg, and ​Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin [click here and here] Onwards south to 'Computer and Paper' at Jahn und Jahn, which despite its somewhat threadbare title is a potentially intriguing group exhibition of six artists. It is part of the Various Others initiative but need not be, the premise of the show strong enough to be expanded and shown in a different institutional context.

Taking an art historical approach, it gathers a small number of works - many, but not all, on paper - to explore the relation between the physical and the digital, as it stands in our post-internet world. At least two sets of paper works, Laura Owen’s small intimate collages and Albert Oehlen’s more formal abstractions, are from the 90s, both artists being some of the first to question their painterly practice in relation to developments in new digital technologies. The work recaptures that moment in time when photoshop was still rare and exotic, a wondrous tool just ready to be discovered. But it does not, indeed it cannot, anticipate the developments that followed: broadband, the rise of social media, smartphones, apps. This task is left to younger and equally prominent artists like Avery Singer. In the large airbrushed paintings she presents at Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler in Berlin, she considers the impact of new technologies and social media on her own artistic subjectivity. Here at Jahn und Jahn we are offered only small glimpse into her practice with two small early works on paper. A more considered investigation requiring a deeper engagement, comes from Hamburg artist, Thomas Baldischwyler, who presents one installation piece and two collages behind glass. One work uses the Victor Burgin poster, “What does possession mean to you?” together with its double message “7% of our population own 84% of our wealth;” another is inscribed with the graffiti-like slogans “We still control computers, when will computers control us?” and “Rehearsal war and peace. They calculate stock market prices and write poems.” The installation includes the short narrative of how the artist covered his laptop camera with a sticker, and is accompanied by a wooden panel made to look like an enlarged sheet of stickers, complete with its plastic hang tag. There are clearly other references at work, and you want to know how these might connect in some overall critique of capitalism through digital culture, but the work remains - despite repeated viewing - steadfastly opaque.  More accessible, but also simpler in aim, are the utopian/dystopian drawings of Soyon Jung, a mix of etching and Letraset type transfer depicting future ruins of corporate and political headquarters. Equally direct in his critique is Felix Thiele, who showed with Jung as part of the exhibition 'Death Hoax' at Hamburg’s Westwerk. He presents three shiny iPhones replicas with crudely painted apps, a desirable consumer object made useless, but equally desirable as art. 

Augustus Serapinas and Malte Zenses @ Sperling, hosting Emalin, London [click here and here] Up the road at Sperling is the two-person show of Augustas Serapinas, who shows with Emalin, London, and Malte Zenses from Berlin. Serapinas is an exciting young artist, who deals with displacement in a very literal and unambiguous way.  For this exhibition he transported an entire derelict greenhouse from Vilnus back to Munich, and reinstalled it in the Sperling gallery. There is a socio-political element to the work, its attempt to confront the growing gentrification of Vilnus, as well as the need to preserve an ongoing process of destruction, also visible in Serapinas’s smaller framed works, in which plants are preserved in glass at the moment of their turning into ash. In this, his Munich exhibition recalls his earlier one 'February 13th,' where he famously managed to transport several still-frozen snowmen, more or less intact, from Vilnus to Emalin’s London space. In this case too, the work was about the saving of snowmen from destruction, again acting out a kind of preservation by removal. However, the London show seemed more vivid, more visceral in its impact. It makes sense that the press release referred to Julia Kristeva’s definition of installation as something on the verge of the sacred, where it asks us “not to contemplate images but to communicate with beings.” Something is missing from the Munich installation that would allow us to make such a claim of communication with being and I am not sure if it is the lack of smell (surely the greenhouse should smell of weeds and wood rot?), the very uniform indoor lighting or the lack of isolation (the other exhibited work is very close by). In comparison, Zense’s paintings are more difficult to pin down, though their abstract language is also clearly a consequence of a similar process of transposition from one context to another. They trade in displacement, both in a linguistic and Freundian sense of the term, their marks harbouring only an arbitrary relation to what they might stand for as a sign, unconscious desires put to use in the  symbol. They also allude to the process of destruction. The work consists of many layers, each erasing and obscuring a previous one, their final state again preserved in glass. Taken together, the combination of the two practices works on a conceptual level. It is pleasing to consider how one idea, such as that of destruction, shifts from one context and medium, to another, very different one.

Rüdiger Schöttle [link], Jo van de Loo [link], Barbara Gross [link] More centrally, Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle cooperated with ShanghART to show the abstract paintings of Chinese artist, Ding Yi with their signature 'x' and '+' crosses. Jo van de Loo presented the work by one of its gallery artists, Lorenz Strassl together with Monika Michalko from Produzentengalerie in Berlin. Both artists share a certain surrealist, dreamlike sensibility. At Barbara Gross, there were woodcuts and etchings by Andrea Büttner, shown concurrently with the artist’s London gallery, Hollybush Gardens.

'Dark Latern' @ Knust x Kunz hosting Attercliffe™, Sheffield, UK [click here and here] Beautifully selected by Paul Morrison is group exhibition 'Dark Latern' at Knust x Kunz. Among the crowd, one could find the minimalist geometry of Jan van de Ploeg; a black and white graphic drawing by Riette Wanders; a long-exposed, bleak photograph by Dan Holdsworth; slick works by artists with a Goldsmiths connection, such as Glenn Brown, Gerald Hemsworth or Glasgow based Michael Stubbs; Koen Delaere’s texture heavy black canvas; Saul Fletcher’s intriguing little photograph of a row of sticks leaning against a roughly plastered wall; a playful abstraction of Caroline McCarthy; or baroque image of a candle flame by Ralf Brög. All of the work is small and simply hung at eye level, demonstrating that an exhibition could be interesting without any grand curatorial gestures. Tim Etchells slogan, placed centrally in the space, could be the title for the show, and very good title it is: “objects in nightmare arrangements.”

Tramaine de Senna and Nicholás Lamas @ Loggia hosting MÉLANGE, Köln, and Sabot, Cluj-Napoca [click here and here] Another intriguing show could be found close by at Loggia, one of the few off-spaces in Munich that is also part of the Various Others initiative. This too is a deceptively simple two-person exhibition, featuring the work of young sculptors Tramaine de Senna and Nicholás Lamas, in collaboration with Mélange from Cologne and Sabot, Cluj. On first glance the show is almost conventional in its arrangement, a tightly grouped collection of art objects on plinths, even if the plinths are not of the square, white variety. The design qualities of Senna’s work lends the exhibition an arty feel, so that it looks a little like an abandoned surrealist installation, but in combination with Lama’s objects and their mix of the natural and artificial, the overall impression is of a modernist cabinet of curiosities - if such a cabinet was run by a dyslexic alien with a moderate interest in art and a well-established shoe fetish. Objects lose their everyday meanings in the unusual combination produced by Lamas: what looks like fossilised coral, bursts out of a neon blue sneaker, carefully placed on a gently modulating, bent car radiator grill. Cutting across familiar systemic structures in a strongly dialectical way, nature seems to imitate the unnatural, human items, planetary processes.  Senna’s work is more artful in comparison, in that it references other art, design and fashion, with a high heeled shoe at the end of an epoxy clay pedestal or bright leopard print across shaped cardboard hanging on the wall. Hers is the more familiar strategy of recovering unfamiliar meanings from very familiar everyday.  

Eva Grubinger, Timo Seber and Johannes Tassilo Walter @ Nir Altman hosting Galerie Tobias Naehring, Leipzig [click here and here] The last event of the night is Nir Altman’s, another group exhibition where gallery artist, Johannes Tassilo Walter, is partnered with two artists from Leipzig’s Tobias Naering, Eva Grubinger and Timo Seber. Walter presents a new series of paintings, while Naering and Grubinger show older work: Seber, his Slave to the Biorhythm from the Not Fair, Warsaw, 2017 and Grubinger, one piece from her 2018 exhibition 'Steam,' Untitled (Petropawlowsk, Stepan Petrischenko). The combination of artists is clearly a challenging one, as the connections between them are not immediately apparent. Walter’s paintings are very formalist and process based, demanding careful scrutiny and deep engagement. Made with many layers, one has to pay attention to how the different gestures react and overlap each other and then reappear on different grounds. Grubinger’s sculptural work uses formalist devices, but has a much more pronounced conceptual, if not to say political aim. Untitled (Petropawlowsk, Stepan Petrischenko) is one work from a series of four, which imbues its seemingly modernist structures with industrial references to present little-known facts of nautical cultural history, a series of mutinies that resulted in the destruction of a dominant power, in a celebration of individual dissent. Known for his investigations into communication mechanisms of video game culture, Seber presents a set of mirrors suspended from ceiling by thick leather straps, our reflection obscured by prints of germinating seeds and block-like red marks. If there is a reference to mass culture, it is  an obscure one, this work seemingly focussing on the cultural, social and biological construction of the viewer’s self image. Together, the artists not only share a certain formalist sensibility - certainly some of the pairings of red, blue and yellow are very aesthetically  pleasing - but also an interest in the processes of construction, whether this is related to the cultural artefact (Walter), political engagement (Grubinger) or identity (Seber). 

The night ends abruptly, with everyone rushing to the Various Others dinner. I head home too, past the cemetery.