#who Byleth can point out Claude knows/understands very well

[dmclemblems]

Just some examples below of characters at camp in GW not being okay with what Claude does (mainly to reiterate past points I’ve made about him/the route):

Mind you, the game forces all characters to cooperate with Claude in GW, even though a lot of them disagree (Marianne adamantly is against everything Claude is doing and expresses it regularly. Her excuse for not leaving or doing anything about is that she hopes the war ends quickly, but she still repeatedly expresses that she doesn’t believe what they’re doing is the right thing to do).

Lorenz repeatedly questions Claude’s decisions, as he should, but due to it being the GW route, all the characters have to follow what he does and just deal with it. There’s no “hey this is bullshit I’m out”, when realistically at this point a good handful of characters would’ve walked out.

This proves the writer’s are totally aware of what they’re writing and know the nuance to it! It’s just that... because Claude is the main character of this route, he’s swept up in the story and has to be adjusted to fit the story accordingly.

There’s no happy ending for the Kingdom and Alliance unless Sylvain (who is a major player in Faerghus politics) can agree to it, which is highly unlikely after he openly expresses his hatred for Claude/the Alliance (as he puts it, the “invaders”, which... were Claude/the Alliance).

Also, I have another post with the camp part of Hapi saying that it’s scummy of the Alliance/Federation that the only reason she and Constance are alive is because they surrendered. In other words, she finds the “surrender or die” thing to be scummy. Then we have Yuri, who notices the same issue:

This point proves that Claude is pretty cold hearted in this route. He not only forces Ashe to surrender (or die, as is implied by his dialogue when he says “Dimitri would be sad if you died” and thus urging him to surrender), but then he even has Ashe fight against his own people.

While this is a recruit mechanic issue and is a problem in all routes generally speaking, it’s not highlighted upon by other characters about other characters. That is to say, Petra for example in AG will express relief that they didn’t have to kill Dorothea, but she doesn’t mention anything about Dimitri forcing them to fight the Empire (which Petra decides to do entirely by her own will). Dorothea expresses some reluctance at first in her own camp dialogue, but it’s never mentioned that Dimitri is forcing anyone to fight against their will.

The fact that other characters are commenting on it means other characters are seeing and understanding what’s going on (which is more than a lot of players can say apparently, like the ones who blindly send hate to people who didn’t enjoy GW/SB lol). They recognize that everything Claude is doing is just shitty and shouldn’t be what they’re doing.

So... why do they keep fighting with him? Because... bad writing. That’s honestly it. Because they’re all forced, by the writing and route’s story, to keep fighting for Claude even though probably a good half of his camp doesn’t agree with his actions. Even though, if this were a better story even somewhat, and if Claude still did what he’s been doing here in this somewhat better story, the story would be made better by the disagreeing characters defecting to the Kingdom. Mind you, three background lords did try to defect to the Kingdom... and were promptly shut down from defecting.

If this were a good story, Claude wouldn’t have had his morals flipped on their head. If this were a decentish story, Claude would have lost a good chunk of his allies who defected after being fed up with his behavior and decisions. If this were a bad and lazily written story, it would look like it does.

ALSO I ran out of tags to explain my last point BUT

the irony of all this is that when he killed Shahid, he was trying not to cry and got drunk over it. This guy who had been trying to kill him and would’ve done so without batting an eye (and probably would’ve told everyone and bragged about it), this guy who has been presumably among his siblings trying to kill him his entire life, and this is who he feels guilty about killing. Then he goes marching to Faerghus, invades them and says he just wants to talk while forcing one of their royal knights to surrender or die.

Apparently Claude would rather feel sad about the brother of his that tried to murder him than the innocent people who never wronged him.

[themisteriousentity]

Do you ever think about how perfectly the three house leaders embody the concepts of "past, present, future"? At least in Houses, it gets a little more muddled in Hopes

Dimitri heavily embodies the past and the way it can drag you down. He forgets the importance of the present and even when going to the officer's academy, he's only going to get access to church records to investigate the tragedy of Duscur, as evidenced by that one event where Dedue and Byleth happen upon him researching late at night in the library and he's investigating Arundel. Even by the end of Azure Moon, he's still not thinking about the future, only putting a stop the the present cruelty and focusing on trying to help that girl he knew in the past until he realizes he can't. It's not until the very end of the game that he breaks from the shackles of his past, but he's also never 100% in the present due to, in Azure Moon, the past never 100% being demystified, as shown by how those who slither in the dark are only eradicated in specific epilogues if you recruited the right characters + bought the DLC.

Edelgard easily represents the present. Her entire focus is on the events of her lifetime and the conclusions she came to based only on (incorrect) past and present information. She came to a conclusion very young and never waivered from it nor investigated it further and only looks towards fixing the problems of the present. The present is built upon by the past, and she perfectly shows that by holding onto past facts to influence the present, but she does not consider the long term future. A youtube video I watched but can't remember the channel name for (I will edit it in as a link if I can remember it) once pointed out that with a merit based appointment system, it'll fall apart as soon as Edelgard is gone and no longer there to maintain it. Not to mention that, like Azure Moon, Crimson Flower has the same issue of only borderline mentioning those who slither in the dark's ultimate demise, and we don't even get a satisfactory ending to that in Crimson Flower. (Side note, Silver Snow is better abut this but is not entirely relevant as that is a Lordless route).

Claude meanwhile is always looking towards the future, informed well by the past and present. He is, of course, aware and affected by the past and present, but like the future itself uses it to build the road to tomorrow. And unlike Dimitri and Edelgard, who have a single minded focus and don't plan for backups, understands that there's no guarantees in anything and is always planning contingencies when he can. And because the future is built from the past and present, he's also the character who most seeks out to demystify them in order to build that future, because even if you don't know a past event, it will still have ripple effect into the future. It's what makes it very important that, unlike Dimitri and Edelgard, Claude steps down from leadership of Fódlan entirely once he uncovers the full truth and realizes that, for all intents and purposes, his type of leadership isn't needed in Fódlan after what it went through and that his next best step is to go back to Almyra and start the next steps there. In fact, in Verdant Wind, they actually almost entirely take care of those who slither in the dark with the only remaining one being Cornelia, but even THEN he had a contingency when he came back to save Fódlan with the Almyran army in the epilogue. Even in other routes, he manages to always perfectly plan for both his demise and his victory, culminating (outside his own path) in Crimson Flower where he plans for his own death. He never stops thinking about the different twists and turns the future can take and plans for it.

This ended up a little bit Claude heavier but to be fair, he usually gives me more to think about.

[omgkalyppso]

Dropping by with random questions for any OCs you want to answer for! 😁

What does your OC admire about their partner(s)? What do they think is beautiful about them?

What is a fact about your OC that only one or two people know?

Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals?

Do they have any specific memories of food/a meal?

Your OC is at a karaoke bar and they see a cute person across the bar who they want to impress, what song do they sing?

On an impulsive whim your OC dyes their hair and gets a whole new outfit, what do they now look like?

If your OC could travel to anywhere in their world, where would they go?

How does your OC celebrate their birthday?

Thank you for the ask! 🥺 I'll answer for Fae, Zoran and Étoile.

What does your OC admire about their partner(s)? What do they think is beautiful about them?

What Fae admires of Claude, Hilda, and Lorenz can be found here.

Fae admires Avery's hope. I think there a lot of times where Fae's bravery is admired, but that when they push past these harder challenges that to them it's like 'it's this or death,' and more desperate or resigned. Avery brings a lot of hope to helpless causes, always able to envision a future beyond a hardship, an understanding after a fallout.

Zoran admires Jeritza's determination, to see himself improve, to see the lives of those he cares about protected and thriving. Jeritza's learning all the time how not to throw away his dignity in the process, how not to approach every challenge and inconvenience with teeth or apathy, and it's his effort in this learning that invites Zoran's continued interest.

Étoile admires Astarion's consideration. As much as the fandom likes pointing out the illogical and unintuitive moments he has, of which there are many, Astarion does (as far as he is aware) try to conceal his vampirism for the sake of group cohesion and his own safety, which "inadvertently" means that he also takes an action that avoids public panic and outcry, even if it's "selfishly motivated" and a lot of his actions are like that, where the merit of them are incidental, and depending on his growth it starts to become conscious. Whether that consciousness is out of a desire to be kinder (leading to the leader or hero spawn paths) or out of a desire to manipulate (in an ascended ending), he's still thoughtful, in his way.

Going to limit myself to 3 random qualities of beauty for the sake of actually answering the section question because otherwise we will be here for three weeks.

Fae finds Claude's chin, jaw and eyebrows beautiful. Fae finds Hilda's lips, (fat) waist and eyes beautiful. Fae finds Lorenz's neck, hands and shoulders beautiful. Fae finds Avery's nose, arms and hips beautiful.

Zoran finds Jerita's cheekbones, collarbone and ass (sorry) beautiful.

Étoile finds Astarion's crows' feet, (vascular) arms and teeth beautiful (source one, source two).

What is a fact about your OC that only one or two people know?

Where Faedolyn is my Byleth / My Unit oc, literally no one (except Sothis???) knows about Divine Pulse. Fae would take this to their grave. But they would confide in their partners (more than two people) that they never expected to live longer than their mother's very short lifespan.

Where Faedolyn is a student oc, they would think that their affections are secrets (whether or not that's true)...

Very few people would know that Zoran (always a student) and Fae are so closely related to House Hevring, imagining it a more distant relation.

I think that while Zoran loves his sister, that only one person knows that they're a little resentful of how luck always seems to be on Fae's side and things are generally easier for them.

Have I made it clear that Étoile's lived in Baldur's Gate for decades but it's only the few adventurers they've travelled with for the sake of making a livelihood that know they worship Auril? So that's not that rare really. And otherwise that they grew up in a temple on a mountain in Impiltur is probably also not that unusual for people to know. But I do think the number of people that they and their mothers killed for the security of themselves and that mountain isn't even understood by the few people Étoile might tell about this, because they wouldn't be very explicit about it (Aranea's been living there for 650+ years). If one ever had cause to go to that frozen lake with ghosts on the wind and bones in the ice, then only if they were invited should they expect to live long enough to be one of the one or two people to have an idea of the extent of it.

Additionally, for something more personal, if anyone knows that Étoile feels destined to loneliness it would be fucking news to them fgdhdfghdfg. If Aranea died unexpectedly, Étoile would return to their temple, and for duty and grief, they wouldn't expect to leave again.

Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals?

Fae and Zoran have experience with sheep, horses, mousers (cats) and working dogs before going to the monastery. They have a good understanding of how to read and interact well with most animals, which leads to animals liking them.

Étoile has it more complicated with the apparent frequency that Speak With Animals can be present in their universe. In their youth, I'm going to say that this didn't come up so much. They had various livestock, guard dog(s), and indoor cats (also mousers) cycle in and out of their time in their childhood home, but for this reason, they're more accustomed to dogs being an outdoor working pet. As a general statement and not a proposed scenario: I can see Scratch being disappointed / offended if, when there was an alternative, Étoile would expect him to sleep outside / in a barn with the other animals, especially while there were house cats (or ferrets) indoors. I think they are not always well-liked by animals.

Do they have any specific memories of food/a meal?

Two meals I associate with / remember for Faedolyn (and that they would remember depending on where in the timeline of their life they are fgdhdfghfgd) are the first feast after the battle for eagle and lion where Claude falls asleep at the table, and the meal at their wedding in my epilogue fic...

I don't yet have a meal to associate with Zoran, but between Jeritza's association with the Peach Sorbet in fe3h and one of their only little appearances in something I've "written" mentioning Mango Sherbert, I do associate Zoran with desserts / ice creams.

I've said before that when Étoile is prompted to picture their happy place it is a memory of a meal! (:

Étoile pictures themself as a child. They are ten years old. They have just finished fasting for the first time as part of a ritual for Auril / Azura. They are breaking their fast with a feast. It is one of the few times pilgrims crowd the shrine of Azura / Auril with different offerings. Their mother - Aranea - tells them to stay humble and doesn't advertise their accomplishment, but Étoile can tell they've done well; and the food is rich and sweet. And their mother - Wylla - is there - the old wolf - making sure Étoile tries every foreign spice that has made its way to the mountains. She's trying to find their favorite. Something to remember for a later celebration. Étoile cared for and surrounded by people who either understand them or are in turn misunderstood so that there is comfort in the crowd.

Your OC is at a karaoke bar and they see a cute person across the bar who they want to impress, what song do they sing?

Faedolyn sings Alicia Keys' No One. Their vibrato would be different but I think they could do it.

Zoran sings Queen's A Kind of Magic, especially if she's in drag.

Étoile would not want to sing but would recognize that you can't impress someone at a karaoke bar by not-singing, and so to sing something to at least move into conversation, they would sing marcy playground's sex & candy.

On an impulsive whim your OC dyes their hair and gets a whole new outfit, what do they now look like?

Faedolyn will dye their hair black and get a new outfit that looks like one of Ivy Soul Calibur's more modest looks:

Zoran will bleach his hair blond and get something like Solas' armor:

Étoile will dye their hair pink/purple and for you / for them I'll select both an armour and an outfit; so something like Haldir's armor (Haldir my beloved) and something inspired by these two pins in their board (probably sans scarf in baldur's gate's climate):

If your OC could travel to anywhere in their world, where would they go?

Faedolyn is always travelling so from wherever they are to wherever they're not; home in the Oghma mountains, home in Garreg Mach, home in Riegan, home in Almyra, visiting in Gloucester, visiting in Enbarr, visiting in Nuvelle, visiting in Duscur, etc.

Zoran is largely settled in Nuvelle at some point, and so if he could travel anywhere, I think he'd pick somewhere further away, see what happens in Dagda.

Étoile would probably be interested in seeing Icewind Dale (the site of Auril's death, the site of where she was focusing her power, and the nearby wastes where her chosen was last seen), the High Forest (the manner of ancient magical energy is more interesting than whatever the high elves might have preserved in Silverymoon to them), and Rashemen (I imagine they were concerned / prejudiced against travelling so close to Thay, but that Minsc's descriptions of a faraway home would have interested them — especially as their own cold homeland is between Baldur's Gate and Rashemen). Étoile would also like to see home again, especially after the traumatic experience that bg3 was.

How does your OC celebrate their birthday?

Faedolyn is overrun with attention and their schedule, and their loved ones are fighting for twenty minutes in their day.

Zoran celebrates his birthday by hiding where maybe only four people know to find him, making an appearance for dinner and cake if there's any to be had.

I forget where I originally said this but I quoted myself on discord about Étoile's birthday before:

i don't think étoile would have expectations for birthday gifts? i think almost anything would delight them, to have been thought of, there are obvious exceptions for things that don't take them into consideration at all (gifts that imply another deity, a shaving kit, etc.) if they had a birthday during the course of the adventure and it was somewhere with a fair number of supplies (the grove, baldur's gate) they might buy themself a little cupcake or even just a handful of berries or something; and then might confide that it was their birthday with astarion (who i expect would tease) or tav or shadowheart (and étoile would share their little treat and be like, "does shar forbid birthdays? if you never get your memories back then you can share this one with me, or at least, maybe, you could think of me on this day") (and specifically not karlach, she'd make a fuss)

[weirdwyvern]

Reading your thoughts on TWSITD and I can’t help but agree that the fact they’re presented as this unambiguously evil monolith instead of like, an actual cult/society/place where people actually LIVE is a missed opportunity. My kingdom for a storyline where there’s an Agarthan parallel to Edelgard and Claude—a revolutionary who knows their people could be so much MORE but the current system needs to burn so they can build something better.

yesss that would’ve been so COOL, there’d be so much room to play with all the complications of taking down a cult/similar. Plus, it grants the opportunity to introduce a wonderfully complex character to the mix—an Agarthan who not only wants their people to prosper, but who recognizes that the Agarthans are being kept from prospering due to their leaders.

Imagine them trying to convince their friends/family to help them in their endeavor (“We don’t have to keep following them, we can leave, life can be so much better for us”) only to be met with mixed responses. Some think they’re out of their mind or just being disastrously naïve, some understand their reasoning but aren’t willing to take the risk (“This life is already good enough, it has to be – it’s safer like this”). The Agarthan character cares about these people, a lot of them are folks they've grown up with; they can’t just lay them all upon the altar to achieve their dream.

Maybe the Agarthan is someone who snuck out of the underground on their own out of curiosity, or maybe they got lost while on an aboveground mission—point is, they started noticing differences between how they’d been taught to view the aboveground world and how it really is. Like a “damn, we’ve been missing out on all this?” sort of revelation. Making some aboveground friends would also be a good way to help change their worldview, get them a glimpse into outside cultures, etc.

Obviously they’d have a lot of internal back-and-forth on whether it’s actually worse Out There, trying to figure out how much they’ve been taught is true, all the while being fed the same propaganda and discouraged from questioning it. The actual topic of leaving would be even harder to work through, especially if all Agarthans have access to some sweet tech like what we see in Shambhala—a lot of them might not have many skills they could use to make a living in outside society. Once the thread’s been snagged, though, there’s little else to do but unravel.

The topside isn’t nearly as dangerous as it’s been made out to be. So why does their government keep saying it is? They’re supposed to be fighting to topple the Church so they can reclaim the surface, but there are already plenty of people up there—some who aren’t familiar with the Church, some who don’t even care. So why do they have to stay underground? Why do they have to keep fighting a battle that is slowly seeming less and less necessary?

Rotating in my brain at a very fast speed is the idea of this hypothetical Agarthan interacting with Rhea, Seteth, and Flayn (assuming they know they’re an Agarthan). Flayn is pretty compassionate and probably the most willing to get along with them of the three, but like…damn, there’s still a lot to unpack there. They might be able to appeal to Seteth a little through a “I don’t want to fight you, I just want to make things better for my friends/family” sort of reasoning; Flayn means the world to him, and though he’s not inclined to trust a descendant of the ones who put them through so much, he can at least empathize with wanting the best for your loved ones. As for Rhea…ngl I don’t see it going well under most circumstances. They would probably need Seteth, Flayn, and Byleth on their side for Rhea to be anything other than 100% paranoid.

Interacting with the three of them would probably be good for the Agarthan, though, considering how Nabateans seem to be viewed by them at large. They go in thinking about all the times they’ve heard the Children of the Goddess described as monsters, how they can’t be trusted, how they’re a blight upon Fódlan, but…dude. These are just people? These are just people. Sure sure they can turn into dragons or whatever, but [waving arm at Flayn] that is a CHILD?

sorry for the ramble but man, that kinda storyline would’ve been both excellent and very compelling considering how well it ties into the overarching theme of “good people can still find themselves on opposing sides of a conflict”

[travelling-on-the-octopath]

Thoughts on GW and Finally Answering Route-Specific Asks.

This post is quite long, mostly because the asks themselves are long, and I want to fully address them. I was an idiot and didn't answer them sequentially, but if you see answers that are shorter than others: certain asks overlapped in terms of content/my response to them, and I wasn't keen on saying the same thing over and over again lgkdjg. Anyway, onward!

Thoughts

Though I can't claim to understand what the fuck was going on in this writing room, it's pretty easy to guess: They needed a Claude who sought as much conflict as possible, and they weren't willing to put in the legwork to flesh out Almyra into a full-on conflict. Maybe that's because keeping Almyra centre stage would also keep the Alliance army pinned in two places: Myrddin, to fend off Imperial forces, and the Throat. Dimitri kinda speaks to that, seeing as before he goes about sweeping the western Empire on his way to Enbarr, he was zipping between Fhirdiad and the western front for a time. But with Dimitri, at the very least, they had the decency to leave his character as a whole well enough alone. Someone said this to me once, and I haven't forgotten it: A good character can carry just about anything, story-wise. People enjoy content about people, and good characters are that. The problem arises when you sacrifice character for plot, let alone a contrived one, and this route was honestly the perfect example of that.

My other grievances with the route are pretty easily summed up in answering the asks, but this is essentially the crux of it all: Claude says over and over that what he wants is peace, but he does everything to contradict that, and the route doesn't treat that dissonance with the severity it deserves. I'm told I'm doing the right thing for the sake of Fodlan's future, but when you think about it for two seconds--less than that--it falls apart like wet tissue paper, because Claude leaves Fodlan far worse off than when it began. It sucks that it's been "officially" chalked up to the lack of Byleth, but even if that were true, Claude still comes across as a right idiot because of his inability to look at his actions and understand their potential, and eventually realized, consequences.

Asks

I wonder if they were trying to make claude killing his brother his turning point to being the worst version of himself Cause hes like "that look of desperation on his face tugged on my heartstrings is all. i thought a guy like me would be impervious to this kind of thing. Looks like I didn't know myself as well as I thought. but now that I know I won't make the same mistake again" Is he hardening himself to death? Is this how he becomes so much more ruthless ? He's still mad OOC but i assume this is what the writers were trying to do ? After this he takes the Throne and makes an alliance with edeIgard. Forming an alliance with the war mongering imperalist was the official sign hes become the villain. And... It's still abrupt and makes no sense lmao

I can honestly, comfortably say that this was either not the intention, and just meant to dish out some pain to Claude, or WAS the intention, and executed maddeningly poorly. I let Judith die in GW, just for the sake of playing the route without all the fancy workarounds trying to get a teamup, and that caused him a great deal more visible/noticeable stress than Shahid's death, yet both end up with the same result: Claude does a Stupid Thing, his friends are like "Why are you doing this stupid thing?? Can you PLEASE let us help you?", Claude says yes, proceeds to do another stupid thing, and pretty soon after the stupid things are treated like completely normal things (e.g., invading Faerghus to get Dimitri to fork over Rhea.) His schemes are framed more as an issue stemming from his lack of reliance on others rather than a devolving of his ability to tell right from wrong, likely stemming from the fact that his character as a base in this game was just fucked from the word go.

I’m convinced that they wrote Claude the way they because him and Dimitri working together makes too much damn sense. In Houses Dimitri had to die and Claude had to be written out of the story. Yet, they still tease us by giving them moments that show they still get along great no matter the timeline/AU. I ship Dimiclaude too so this hurts me even more.

No but you're right, anon. Every bit of conflict between them in Houses had to stem from either miscommunication, meddling, or straight-up death/disappearance. AG hammers home that a partnership between the Alliance and Kingdom is not only completely feasible, but in everyone's best interest; Faerghus has the military prowess Leicester lacks (confirmed in Hopes), and the Alliance can provide rations/crops the Kingdom can't grow themselves. The friction between their nations here is the result of shoddy writing, and honestly nothing more. Azure Gleam had them at their best (and frankly most canon-compliant), and everything else had Claude down his throat because . . .

Because.

i don't know how to say this in a nice way, but it feels kind of... off-putting, to see count gloucester being portrayed as such a caring guy for his son and his people and the alliance and it's claude that's the no good very bad one. when 3h very clearly had the opposite be true. 3h says count gloucester murdered claude's uncle for power - hopes says nah he totally didn't do that (in lorenz's/ignatz's/raphael's paralogue - no guys it was someone else in house gloucester who did that, we swear!). 3h says gloucester didn't care for lorenz's say in things - hopes says he totally sees the error of his ways and apologizes for it (or close to an apology). 3h has him allow raphael's parents to be killed as collateral damage in killing claude's uncle - hopes says that he'd never ever sacrifice his own people and any leader who would (like claude) isn't fit to rule (and again, he didn't get raphael's parents killed anyway according to hopes). gloucester cares so much for the livelihoods of the people under his care and it's claude who's willing to sacrifice his own people if it gets him what he wants. gloucester would hand over his power to someone else if he thought it right, unlike claude who hogs all the power for himself to bulldoze over everyone. and then gloucester is basically proven right in anything he's ever said about claude ever in hopes. i dunno, am i the only one that's like... uncomfortable? with that direction hopes took? not accusing the creators of anything, i doubt they were being actively malicious. it's more that the writing is a bit... unintentionally loaded, i guess.

I would say most of this is more than fair to point out, but I don't think Lorenz's drive/conviction that the nobility lives in service of the people comes from nowhere; I was always under the impression that he got that from his father, who had that one quality going for him, but who was otherwise kind of a snake lol, and one who maybe didn't follow through on the lessons he imparted to Lorenz. Claude calls Lorenz a fox, Lorenz admires his father/emulates certain behaviours without wanting to walk his exact path, etc etc. That being said . . . You're on to something, I find, in saying that when they made Claude Do What He Did, it was kind of an opportunity to do a soft retcon on Erwin and make him a little . . . kinder? And sort of letting him off the hook for Raphael's parents dlgkjdfg (though i was under the assumption they were blaming a TWSITD agent, rather than someone else from House Gloucester). But I think it's important here that Claude's route isn't supposed to portray him as the no-good-very-bad one, despite what we know to be true. His route has a shit ending, don't get me wrong, but they all have unresolved endings, and frankly none of them looks much happier than the other. Claude has the support of his friends, and is no longer contested by them despite having gone right off the deep end; as a result, he meets no consequences, doubly so if you manage to spare Judith.

So Claude sides with Dimitri in AG but EdeIgard in SB/GW, is the flip flopping ever explained

In an official capacity? No. But it's an easy conclusion to come to, I've found: Claude doesn't do conflict. He's best suited as only an ally in this sort of game, because it leaves violence as an option several items down the list for him, rather than the go-to. That, at least, answers the conundrum of Azure Gleam; the remaining unknown is whether Claude's route was then shaped to an alliance with Her Majesty because Scarlet Blaze was written first (though I find that hard to believe, seeing as these routes already take no shame in diverging), or whether they had him ally with her in his route from the get-go, and then decided it would be cool if that remained the same on SB only to result in a backstabbing.

The further I got into Golden Wildfire the more it just felt like that route was a second thought. “Ok now we have the pro-church route with the kingdom and the alliance aids them” - “Yes and we have the anti-church route with the empire and Claude aids them but may betray you” - “Perfect but wasn’t there like a third route?” - “Yeah…I mean just make him an absolute ruler like a king or something and redo the empire one, in his profile you can see that he dislikes blind fate in gods so this will definitely make sense” - “Alright but we already had this story started with Almyra-“ - “Nah the empire one will do” Like why did the golden deer have to get the short end of the stick AGAIN?? Couldn’t we have just chosen who to ally with at least. But yeah the bandits mission in chapter 13 just proved to me that they just needed to get a third route somehow done Sorry for my rant but when I saw your post about chapter 13 it reminded me how….sadly unnecessary the Golden Wildfire Route feels

Never apologize for ranting, because I know I've done my fair share of it, and this route really does bring that out in a person.

I think what's a little sad is that Claude's decision to streamline decision-making for the sake of the Alliance during war stems from a place of wanting to protect it, and I've already said that I don't inherently mind the decision place someone at the head of it all; my problem is that he suddenly seems to resent the old method of the Alliance entirely, and it's like the story warped to suit him in that pushback feels hollow and he can't be wrong in any meaningful capacity.

Almyra was so wasted, and the way they DID use it (his brother's death) manages to become less important narratively than Judith's and, CONFOUNDINGLY, Randolph's. I'm so mad they wasted it.

I guess if you want dimitri-claude teamup, go for standard AG; if you want dimitri-edeIgard, minimal as that is, go for alternate AG; if you want edeIgard-claude, go for GW.

“We do not care where the Federation places its faith, so long as it is not with the Central Church.” Is sleazy. Gustave understands (go AG writing team!) removing the church removes the institution that teaches the faith. They aren’t inseparable. If the central church falls they really would rely on EdeIgard’s toady bishop. HOLST KNEW THAT AND STILL WENT ALONG WITH IT WTF

Holst got shafted as all fuck honestly, though what Deer didn't. Everyone stops pushing against Claude after a certain points despite his plots getting worse. They got really close to a full-blown confrontation/severe consequences for Claude on this route and chickened out, so it doesn't surprise me that Holst sort of talks out of both sides of his mouth.

I think that the main issues with Hopes Claude - Clopes, if you will - are his unfounded accusations against the Church (like, the SPECIFIC GRIEVANCES he has with them, not disliking it by itself), his willingness to side the Gardy, and the whole Sreng thing. Claude doesn’t care about Crests in that he doesn't blame them for everything - especially not for things that are literally completely unproven (marriages?? Bro what??). Claude isn't afraid to take up the duties and responsibilities his title - whether duke or king - call for. The closest thing Hopes gets "right" is his belief the Church causes isolationism... which Clopes has far less reason to believe, given his lack of time in the Church to expose him to the one branch that actually IS racist (Western) and given his more direct experience dealing with Almyra's invasions. Which would explain why Fodlan isn't keen on foreigners FAR better than the literal nonexistant isolationist preachings of specifically Rhea. Claude wouldn't join Gardy, as shown in CF - same conditions as GW, Gardy is showing that she's the winning side, she's invaded the Alliance, except NOW she actually WON against him AND has Byleth on her side. Still doesn't join her! Doesn't even give her Failnaught! But Clopes, who managed to beat back the Empire with just Alliance troops, and who literally just had Gardy lie to his face about not invading him, would suddenly join her? And believe her on her word about the Church being bad? Nope, don't buy it. Claude wouldn't do That with Sreng. Not up for debate. No explanation needed. The people who claim otherwise are deadass wrong, like objectively. No two ways about it, no nice way to say it. I've seen at least two different direction GW could have gone to showcase Claude "being darker" without assassinating his character as thoroughly as these three instances do. (Also, though, on that front: 3H fandom stop equating deadass evil actions as "morally gray" just because YOU like are committing them, Clopes pulling that shit with Sreng is about as gray as INK)

I've been missing out on calling him Clopes actually dglkdfjg what a fucking name, thank you anon.

There's practically zero chance that Claude managed to learn of Ingrid's marriage proposals in the time they were at Garreg Mach, so I have no idea where that comes from, and Dorothea pursues marriage completely independent of Crests; she just wants to live comfortably. And that's just one of his claims. What he says in that support is fuckingggdfgkjdlgj i don't even know where to begin. WHERE does he get this from. Have this post from the gigabrain of all Claude enjoyers as to why his gripes make literally no fuckin sense. I really, really don't like to say "well if you don't like this thing then clearly you didn't understand it!!!!!!" because that's so fucking pretentious, and often untrue, but . . . but . . . WELL . . .

The Golden Deer: *collectively shits on Acheron for being an opportunistic weathervane* Claude: *acts like an opportunistic weathervane* The Golden Deer: *at most give him a bit of a scolding before immediately following suite anyway* Game: *obviously does not realize this blatant hypocrisy* SIIIIIIIIGH GAME... You can't have Claude acting like a shitty slimy scumbag in a way that's LITERALLY JUST LIKE a gimmick character written to be clowned on for how hilariously evil they are, do absolutely nothing with that narratively speaking, not explain how or why Claude would act like this, and expect me to accept that just because you're pushing a "b-b-b-but this is how he is without By/leth!!" excuse. It's bad writing. You did a bad writing. Bad game, bad.

But anon, how could you possibly compare dear, sweet Claude to Acheron! :( /s

No, but seriously, it's actually kind of funny. Like how do you write this and remain utterly lacking in self-awareness as to WHAT you're writing fdlgjdfkg

Am I the only one that's like... kinda weirded out by how some in the fandom are reducing FEWTH!Claude's actions as "mistakes"? Because like... that's such a weasely way of phrasing exactly what he does in GW. It makes it sounds like the people who have a grievance with his actions are only mad because, like, he's not flawless and perfect or something like that when that's not the issue here at all. He deliberately worsened the conflict between the two countries to further his own gain. He deliberately invaded the Kingdom and put its people in danger. That should be described in a way that people can actually know what FEWTH!Claude did. I'm probably reading too much into it but it's just kinda annoying if nothing else to see all the horrible shit FEWTH!Claude does be muddied down just simple "mistakes" :/

The problem with that, anon, is that it's not some random fan take. The game frames it that way too, honestly, at least from the standpoint of his allies. It just doesn't care enough to make this the tragedy it is, because I don't think that would have sold nearly as well. It's better to try a half-assed attempt at making a sympathetic/loved character do an oopsie daisy, because it's far less likely to leave a bad taste in the mouth of the player. It's not the only route with this problem, in either game, even though a hack n slash would be a sort of interesting platform to try out a violent, uncaring power fantasy. What's sad to me, though, is that people who have the ability to look at all the facts available are still choosing to treat this as a series of mistakes, and treating this as some sort of fleshing-out of Claude. Of course, people are entitled to feel and think what they want; that's the whole point. But I would be lying if I said I trusted their judgement of Claude's character.

Claude mentions the Central Church's isolationist doctrines that motivate him to kill Rhea, but like, those... don't exist? Those only exist in the Western Church, which is always in revolt with the Central one because of how open Rhea is. And with the knowledge of Judith being a deeply devout believer, her backing Claude up immediately in VW once he shows that he went to Almyra for help would imply that she wouldn't have shown any real care about outsiders to him during the year he was in Fodlan before he came to the academy. So it's not like he got any evidence of "isolationist doctrine" from her - the one person he'd really be able to draw any conclusion about the church from, given his lack of time in Garreg Mach in Hopes. And given that he'd fought back against two extremely large invasions from Almyra in his own route, it makes way more sense to think that the main contributor of many Fodlan people's distrust/hatred of outsiders comes from... the constant invasions? That Fodlan (at least with Almyra) does literally nothing to provoke? And not anything from the Central Church? (tho to be clear that doesn't justify their distrust/hatred, strictly explains it) Like, honestly speaking, the isolationist part of Claude's distrust towards the Church never really made much sense given that he can support with Shamir and Cyril - two direct pieces of evidence that suggests Rhea doesn't give a shit if you're a foreigner - but in 3H he at least had experience with the Western Church, the actually xenophobic branch of the Church, and so some misunderstanding in his head could theoretically happen to have him attribute their flaws broadly across the board. And he nonetheless tries to hear Rhea's side of things because he still wants to know shit. But Hopes never gives a reasoning to him believing that about the Church, takes away the one possible explanation 3H gave, and stripped him of giving any shits about knowing anything. And people like this? lmao

The writers wanted conflict without putting in the legwork to make it make sense; in fact, they shot themselves in the foot so fucking hard, because I can't remember Judith ever being pious in Houses, but she is in this game. My theory as to the reason for the addition is that they needed some sort of sign off on Claude's crusade against the Central Church, and having the combined support of Marianne and Judith kinda did that; after all, if two endlessly devout people support his destruction of the church, it can't be that bad, can it? I don't have much more to add to this that I haven't said already regarding Claude's writing and the need for conflict, so I can only offer you a pat on the back anon, because these are trying times for us all.

{edit: adding this one in:

That video of Dimitri saying Claude keeps chasing him and Claude saying he should stop running…I thought if all the context was ignored (lol) it could be good DimiClaude content but then five seconds later Claude said it was Dimitri’s fault for putting himself in that situation as if Claude isn’t working with the warmongering imperialist like ok

yeah claude's basically the king of all assholes here I don't know what's going on with him <///3}

\

And that's that on that! I don't think I'll be making any more original posts commenting on GW specifically because I've said all i need to say, but I'll answer asks if they come. To all the anons who sent these and were going through it, I offer you comfort in the form of virtual baked goods and warm blankets.

[mercyburned-aa]

golden wildifre spoilers / thoughts  ( kinda ranty )   ( if you’re not a roleplay blog,  DO NOT interact with this post please,  i’m tagging it so people can blacklist spoilers.  thanks! )  //

things i will be bringing into my portrayal of byleth:  pretty much everything EXCEPT that she doesn’t even react when people call her the ashen demon.  she hates that name,  she hates being dehumanized,  she hates ...  everything about it,  even if she knows she can’t go and personally ask each and every individual person to stop using it.  i will be sticking with how she reacted to hanneman in three houses,  i.e. looking visibly upset.

another thing i’m not bringing on:  i’m not sure what in the hell was going on with the jeralt / byleth / leonie paralogue because,  like ... one of byleth’s dialogue lines the expeditions is  (paraphrasing)  “when i see people in danger,  i just act instinctively to help” but then in their shared paralogue she’s like “well saving the villagers from being kidnapped isn’t part of our contract” and leonie rips into her about it,  “when you see people in need shouldn’t you help?”  and they have byleth respond “i don’t see anyone, do you?”.   like... the fuck?  that’s just really contradictory to not only her dialogue in three hopes, but the whole way she’s introduced in three houses,  where she and jeralt save the three lords simply because someone asked, not because they were already contracted to.*

i feel like that was really just there to put the focus on leonie and jeralt’s relationship instead,  but like --???  i know jeralt has his line about how mercs shouldn’t take jobs without pay right after the paralogue is over,  but this doesn’t sit right with me and so this will not be brought into my portrayal either. 

* yeah yeah i know this is an AU,  but she and jeralt were in remire before 3h started and they had no idea who anyone was at that point yet.

otherwise,  idk,  i ... have some nitpicking with claude’s writing in this route.  not a ton,  but i’m disappointed that he just sort of takes the empire’s word for a couple things instead of trying to find out the truth on his own.  twice in one conversation his dialogue is more or less “well if what the empire says is true”. and...what if it isn’t?  ( i’m not saying it is or it isn’t, but it feels ... not calculated to just assume that it is ). 

and the reason i’m phrasing it that way is that in this game,  without the context of three houses in the background to show how the church and rhea have been shady,  there really isn’t....very much at all yet?  and i’ve got like 2 chapters left lmao.  this might be my “i actively don’t like the red house lord” bias speaking here but i’ve been TRYING to not let that interfere too much,  believe it or not i have REALLY been trying to be objective because i know this is an AU setting.  i guess what it boils down to is that if i hadn’t played three houses beforehand,  i really would not know what in the heck the church had actually done that warranted an international war instead of, like... a smaller-scale rebellion or something?   maybe an angry mob?  all we really have is one person’s word for it (and some random NPCs who have like three lines,  which is better than nothing,  but like??   a cutscene at least?  something?)  and as someone who likes to independently verify everything myself and doesn’t like other people to make my opinions for me in any setting,  i don’t like having only one person’s word for things LMAO.  i know it’s a warriors game so i shouldn’t expect a full plot,  but like.  this is.  not great writing in that regard?

don’t TELL me the church is evil.  SHOW me.  SHOW ME in this game so that even if i hadn’t played three houses before,  i would understand why we’re doing this thing.  and maybe i will eat these words next chapter!  i am open to being wrong!  but it feels like lazy writing in that regard and MAYBE i’m wrong in thinking that someone might play the warriors game before the base game  ( like i almost did for awakening because i saw it on the switch and assumed it was the same thing until someone corrected me! )  but.  meh.   i don’t love “tell” writing like this.

i still love claude.  he’s still my boy.  and i know this is an AU where he doesn’t have those stronger relationships with those around him until much later and he also doesn’t have byleth around  ( ”it’s like some part of me was calling out to you this whole time”  it’s because she’s your wife )  but i still think the large part of what made me love him in the first place is still there,  just a bit different.  i’m still trusting him despite some of the spoilers i’ve heard because those can really lack a lot of context but whew.  i still love u claude and i believe in u.

tl;dr — my issue isn’t with the stance that claude is taking but rather how the game doesn’t set up a huge amount of context for why he takes the stance that he does. i’m on chapter 14 and i feel like this is only the second or so time he’s really talked about his opinions so it all just feels very …. Unbalanced to me.

[butwhatifidothis]

“You’re just a pathetic little hypocrite, talking about friendship and honor and mercy as you slaughter your way through every single person that disagrees with you. Do you know how many times I’ve seen Aymr’s work, ‘my Emperor’? How many families I’ve comforted who didn’t have enough of their loved ones to bury, because of you! 

“You killed them all in the most brutal way you possibly could, just so that they would suffer... like a beast craving blood. I finally understand…what you believe is right. You believe in a world where your noble ends justify any depravity, any violence, in service of your goals. You murdered my family…you ensnared my friends in your schemes… I will rise up to meet you, Flame Emperor, and I will cut you down.”

Like. Honest to god, just a tiny bit of editing (only two words were changed) and you can easily take these sentences - all of which are either “wrongful” criticism of Woobiegard or “rightful” criticism of Dimitri - and make them out to be a hero monologuing about the evils of a villain they’re about to take on. Ignore that all of that lowkey sounds like the same person (those are quotes from four different characters) which is its own problem - none of this doesn’t apply to Woobiegard.

Being a hypocrite? Oh yeah, that’ll be delved into a bit further down. Slaughtering her way through everyone that disagrees with her? Definitely not untrue - literally everyone she’s spared so far had to agree that she was right first. Brutally killing her enemies, to the point of cruelty? Judith and Raphael, the latter of which would at best have to be fished out of one of Fodlan’s largest rivers if he’s ever found in the first place and the former’s body was literally completely shattered. Murdering Dimitri’s family? Well, now see, she didn’t do that - she just worked with his family’s murderers and let them get away with the murder of Dimitri’s family, his family’s knights, and the people of Duscur by never even attempting to rat them out, for years! Totally different and so much better. Ensnaring Dimitri’s friends? At this point, yeah, you can very easily argue that Woobiegard straight up manipulated not just his friends, but pretty much everyone around her. And the cherry on top is that everyone on Woobiegard’s side literally is justifying their depravity with their “noble ends” - remember, this war had to happen after all! They had no choice but to do all of this! For the greater good!

But that is not the intended message readers are supposed to pick up. We’re not supposed to think “huh, wow, Woobiegard’s kinda ass,” we’re supposed to genuinely believe that she had no choice, we’re supposed to think that these quotes don’t apply to her in any way. And it’s like... 

How can you honest to god write Woobiegard accepting Aymr for the reason that this Relic gives her more power to protect her friends and do better in her war, while shitting on Margrave Gautier for using that exact same idea to pick his heir and protect the border from invaders?

How can you honest to god write Woobiegard casually destroy Judith’s body, while shitting on Dimitri for being overly violent? Something that's never even actually shown off in the fic itself?

How can you honest to god write Woobiegard initiate the fight with Judith and then chase her down when she runs and brutally kill her after trapping her so that she can’t run anymore, while shitting on Seteth for chasing down the Rhodos Coast priests who were initiating the fighting and were hurting people just to steal land and weapons from his wife’s memorial site?

How can you honest to god write Woobiegard only spare Claude once he admits to causing the war’s strife and only spare Seteth and Flayn once they admit to being at fault for Fodlan’s suffering, while shitting on the Klone for daring to suggest that Woobiegard kills everyone who disagrees with her?

Like, this is what Cap’n left in. He deliberately wrote this. He took out Canongard taking Byleth’s credit during the siege, he took out Hubert telling Byleth that he and Canongard chose to work with TWS and that it wasn’t forced on them, he took out any mention of Hubert’s paralogue (as of Chapter 56) or Hanneman’s Chapter 14 CF explore quote (where he calls Demonic Beasts war assets), he wrote Kronya being an uwu baby bean who only did wrong things because Man Bad, he wrote Count Galatea as an omega sexist to justify Ingrid betraying everything she’s ever held dear to her, he gave Marianne the power to feel the emotions of humans just to make her join Woobiegard - he has shown that he will either leave out or deadass change shit that he doesn’t like if it means something doesn’t go Woobiegard’s way. 

But all of the other stuff I listed? And more? He kept that in. He thinks that’s fine! It makes reading this so wild man omg

[fireemblems24]

Post Grondor Field AM Analysis

I'm prefacing this by saying that I'm still not sure I can write a good analysis of this scene for two reasons:

1. I don't know what comes after, and

2. I'm very emotionally involved in what happened.

But I tried my best. One thing is for sure though, what happened in Grondor in AM was an incredibly significant turning point for AM and Dimitri and my thoughts and analysis on it will definitely expand as I keep writing about and playing the game.

Part of me is just so happy I got to see Dimitri's supports, have the inevitable turn around, and get to do things like tea and dinner time again that it's hard to be objective about this scene.

And by "this scene," I don't mean that actual fight at Grondor, but everything from Fleche's attack to Byleth's words in the rain later.

It wasn't all about Byleth . . .

Given how poignant Dimitri's character arc has been so far, I had a deep rooted fear player-pandering would ruin it. Byleth, as a concept, isn't bad, but too often the heaps of praise feel underserved and other things (like Claude's intelligence, Edelgard's relationships with everyone else) get ignored to make more room for player-pandering.

Thankfully this did not happen. Byleth, throughout the early chapters of AM's part 2, failed to reach Dimitri. And, honestly, seeing Byleth actually struggle for once has done wonders for how I view her character. Still, I worried that player-pandering-power, rather than something that felt earned, would cause the inevitable eye-opener for Dimitri.

But it wasn't just Byleth. Fleche's vengeance kicked everything off, what veered Dimitri away from his fate in other routes. He accepted his death at her hands, not bothering to defend himself. Rodrigue stepping in the way and his parting words forced Dimitri to confront things he'd ignored. Throughout AM so far, people have posed questions to Dimitri who refused to answer them because he didn't want to face what they asked. But Rodrigue dying for him, spending his final words telling Dimitri to live for himself - combined with Fleche's attack - forced Dimitri to confront things he avoided. It wasn't until after all of that when Byleth steps in.

And Byleth didn't "fix" him either. Dimitri's supports show a young man who's still very much struggling with his mental health, poor self-image, his previous actions, and wondering if he deserves not only to live for himself - but if he even deserves to live. Byleth didn't hand-wave Dimitri's problems away.

Everything about the scene is stronger because it didn't fall back on player-pandering, but more earned, realistic, and dramatic actions and consequences - including Byleth's involvement which felt far more earned than usual because of prior failure.

But I wish Dimitri's friends played a bigger role.

Not everything was perfect though. I wish we got a little more than we did from Dimitri's house mates - especially his childhood friends Sylvain, Ingrid, and extra special mention to Felix and especially, especially Dedue.

Throughout all of AM, none of the above mentioned characters feel utilized to their full potential. This isn't a problem exclusive to AM, and by all means it's far from the biggest offender, but given how close all the ties are in AM, it's felt when it's not there.

I still don't know what exactly I would've done with them. Maybe I'd need to make the game an actual novel to do it, and you can't forget how perma-death has historically held back games at times, limiting major moments to a select few "retreat" candidates.

Still, though, getting a bit more from Ingrid, Sylvain, Felix, and Dedue would've made the scene even more powerful.

I actually really liked the scene in the rain.

I haven't made it a secret that I dislike Byleth. Or maybe disliked is more accurate. Lately I've been rethinking my stance on Byleth, in part because I've heard from people who like her or found ways to make her work and from my own thinking about the game while planning future write ups.

I don't think it's Byleth I really dislike, but the player-pandering. Separating the two isn't easy, but it's easier since I've starting coming around to seeing Byleth as her own character.

There's been a few moments that made me care for Byleth, and this scene in the rain was one of them. Because she didn't just fix everything. She tried and failed for months to reason with Dimitri, and despite everything she never gave up on him or failed to keep offering her hand.

I'm not going to lie. I got all the bubbly, heartwarming, heartbreaking feels the writers wanted me to in this scene. Seeing Byleth reach for something and fail, and then finally, finally get through was rewarding in a way many of Byleth's prior accomplishments aren't because this one felt earned. And by God did she earn it.

Some people will likely disagree with that last point, but I disagree with them. She asked Dimitri hard-hitting questions, forcing him to come to unpleasant conclusions rather than trying to force him into anything. She kept Dimitri from veering to far off course, even at expense to herself when she killed Randolph. She saved Dimitri from Fleche when he refused to save himself. She quietly supported him, coaxing out the good she knew was still there and refused to give up on.

I'd never in a million years say someone in real life should put up with Dimitri's toxic behavior and verbal abuse, even considering his extreme trauma and aggravated mental illness. But seeing someone fuck up so badly still get forgiven, still get supported, still struggle but honestly change for the good, still get loved, start to accept and forgive himself through the power of love and forgiveness from others is very powerful, especially since media so often downplays those "softer" things as weakness in comparison to the "badassery" of ambition and stoicism. Using Byleth, who previously had little experience with feelings, who was encouraged to experience them in healthy ways by Dimitri, return the favor isn't really the worst choice.

It's cliche, but cliches aren't always bad.

The mentor dies. Redemption in the rain. Revenge against the protagonist's actions opens their eyes. Etc . . . This scene was chuck full of cliches, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Tropes serve an important narrative purpose because a writer can rely on them to convey a message to the audience that either saves time or sets them up for something unexpected or even expected. Fire Emblem has always and will always be incredibly cliche and full of tropes. It loves tropes so much there's in-universe ones that make some unit or character discussions sound like a foreign language to people outside of or new to the fandom, talking about "Ests" and calling someone a "Camus."

What matters is if a story pulled something off well, not if it's terribly unique. A mentor dying is powerful because it forces the student to grow. Redemption in the rain is high symbolic of water washing things away + the somber atmosphere rain creates. Someone trying to get revenge against a character provides an eye-opening experience about the ripple effect of their actions. We see these things in fiction all the time because they work.

All the tropes worked like expected in this scene. Using images instead of cut scenes did make less of an impact, but more on that later.

Tl;dr: There's nothing unexpected or terribly unique about what happened. It was honestly painfully predictable, but that doesn't make it bad and is in a series that does this all of the time.

The voice acting carried because those images can't.

A major downside to this scene is that it used vague images instead of a cut scene. I get that budget and time were likely concerns, but many cut scenes from earlier in the game seem rather trivial. Did we really need that dance one? Really? I don't think so.

This was a hugely important, action heavy moment. Using one or two still images to convey everything that's happening and all those emotions, really makes it less than it could've been.

That said, the voice acting saves it. I've raved about how amazing Chris Hackeny is as Dimitri, so nothing new here. Rodrigue's and Fleche's VAs also did a fantastic job. No one oversold or undersold the emotions. Even without the cut scene, you felt what happened thanks to the skill of the actors. This scene would've been so much harder to engage with without them, if this was an older FE game where all you got was text. This is 100% one of the moments highly elevated by the decision to have a fully voiced game and choosing high caliber talent (let's not talk about Radiant Dawn's voice acting).

Questionable support timing.

One issue I had came right after the scene when I viewed Dimitri's supports. The nature of some - like his with Raphael and Alois - didn't quite line up with the character I saw in dialogue right after. I wish they staggered them a bit more or got picker about what you could get in part 1 or 2.

This isn't limited to Dimitri either. In the same support batch, I also got a Marianne B support where she still had no confidence or self-worth. And then like 10 minutes later I talk to her in the monastery and she mentions about how seeing all the death in Grondor made her value her life even more.

In the past, I've also received entirely valid opinions that Dorothea in part 2 is hard to understand because she's cherry and flirty in her supports, and morose and hates the war in her monastery stuff, making her seem inconsistent.

It's a bit jarring. It's not really an issue for characters who don't change much like Edelgard or Raphael, but even for characters with more subtle differences than Dimitri, Marianne, and Dorothea - like, say, Lorenz - you get a lot of weird stuff because of supports. I just think Dimitri's stands out because he's a main character with a really prominent, important turning point for his growth.

[randomnameless]

I write and write and make comparisons between a swimsuit and themes like tolerance and freedom,

But in this fandom, some people draw more dubious comparisons, especially ones regarding a certain game - and I warned (who?) at the beginning of the FE16 trend that while it wanted to have a Jugdral flair, it obviously failed. You have a sprinkle of Jugdral in FE16, but it’s only a surface image, or even a mirage.

“CrEsT SyStEM”? Holy Blood? No, those comparisons at least were made in good faith and had some merits.

One of the worst comparisons was noted by several friends, a certain someone, wanting to push a certain ship involving a certain character, managed to write :

“Every route makes one villain from Genealogy of the Holy War the hero, Edelgard being Arvis, Dimitri being Eldigan, Claude being Travant and Rhea being Manfroy”

:(

This will not be a post about Manfroy’s hips, you are warned

Who is Eldigan (Eldie)?

A man who is the carrier of Hezul’s holy blood, Hezul being the founder of Augstria, a sovereign state. Everyone loves Eldie, he is good-looking, strong, kind, chivalrous and has the magic blood that makes him able to use his magic sword.

Is he the King of Agustria? No.

The King is a man named Chagall, who has an ugly sprite, doesn’t have Hezul’s magic blood and cannot use the magic sword. He also killed his father, and is really jealous of Eldie.

However, Eldie’s line (House Nodion) has sworn to support the royal line of Augustria (Chagall’s), so even if everyone wants Eldie to ascend to the throne, he will never accept it. Even if Chagall pisses on him, or imprisons him because he felt like it, Eldie will not rebel against his King. Eldie is seen as a Camus, because he will fight and die for Chagall, and his country, when Sigurd is... more or less attacking Chagall (because Sigurd’s forces are occupying Augstria and Sigurd’s orders are to bring peace to the land, Chagall doesn’t want peace and wants to fight to retake his throne). If everything ends well, Eldie will promise Sigurd he will try to talk one last time his king, try to convince him to accept a ceasefire and peace with Granvalle - but Chagall is an ass and beheads Eldie.

Dimitri... isn’t like Eldigan, at all. First of all, Dimitri is supposed to be the crown Prince, instead of being a mere knight sworn to serve the royal family. Secondly, Dimitri doesn’t die because his liege beheads him - Edelgard will never be his liege - he dies either by defending his borders against someone who is bringing war to his lands and wants his head, or he dies because he pursues Edelgard in a three way battle in Gronder.

We do not know what Rufus is like to his nephew, but I am pretty sure he is no Chagall.

The only common points Eldie and Dimitri have is their blond hair, and sometimes, their manner of death. there is also something about bonds with their sisters but we’re not here for that

Who is Travant?

Travant is the King of the Thracian Kingdom, a proto Nohr-like place, where farming is difficult, and the people living there are starving and often turn to banditry or become mercenaries to be able to earn some money.

Thracia’s neighbour, the Manster District (Manster) could export food to Thracia... but they do not, because, well, the people in charge of the Manster District do not like Thracians a lot (and use slurs to talk about them, but Quan is a special character). So Thracians raid the border, with hopes to reunite the peninsula, with the dream that, one day, they will seize the arable lands in the North.

Travant has an infamous line, which more or less went like “I will unite the peninsula for the sake of my people, and if that process dooms me to hell then so be it”.

And to hell he will go, because by Jugdral standards, ambushing Quan and his family in a desert (horses cannot move in sand, another example of gameplay and story integration!) with horseslayers, is despicable, especially since he leaves no one alive, even, apparently, killing Quan’s young daughter Altena.

(Travant ranks pretty high in the douchebag ladder).

With time, Altena grows, unaware that Travant, who adopted her, isn’t her real Father, Quan was. Things happen, Altena discovers the truth, and Travant finally achieves his dream by making a suicidal charge against Seliph’s forces (he doesn’t even bring his magic lance to the fight!), with him dead, finally, the peninsula can be united under one leader.

Claude? Also has a wyvern. And comes from another land than our hero (but which one?). And... that’s all.

If Almyra raids every sunday, it is not because they are starving, but because they are doing it, per Cyril, for funsies. Claude pretends to be a schemer and underhanded, but he never does something on the scale of the Yied Ambush (the moment where Travant pulled out the horseslayers against Quan). Claude never takes a child hostage, and never orders his daughter to punish civilians.

If Claude wants to unite the two countries, it is not because he wants his people to finally leave their life as mercenaries and bandits behind, but because he wants people to understand each other.

Edit because I’m sleeping : Travant will die for his dream. Claude... always survive. Always. I am not saying he doesn’t believe in it, but he is not as desperate as Travant is.

Comparing Claude to Travant is like comparing... Virion to Iago. They are both male with long hair, and pretend to scheme. Bar that? Well... they both have hands...? I guess?

Who is Manfroy?

Manfroy is... both a mastermind and a plothole.

Manfroy was the one in the shadows engineering a war in Jugdral, not because he likes wars, nope, but because he wanted political instability to recreate the Loptyr Empire.

He will help a douchebag to conquer the world, and use him to sire Julius, the only person in Jugdral who can become a host for the dark dragon Loptyr. The last time Loptyr was there... well, apparently it wasn’t roses and sunshines, slavery was rampant and citizens were pitted against each other to make sure the strongest ones would become citizens of the Empire.

Why Manfroy does this? It depends on the sources, but it is heavily implied Manfroy is part of a sect (sect as in group of people practicing a religion, here the Loptyr religion/cult) persecuted by a lot of people in Jugdral - to the point where Agustrians were having witches hunts to chase them. Manfroy and his followers escaped the the Yied desert, touted to be an inhospitable land. His people had no where and no one to turn to, so they prayed to their God Loptyr (who doesn’t give 3 figs about them).

Manfroy is thus the Archbishop of the Loptyr Church. He also killed his son in law, for some reason, and planned to turn his granddaughter in a zombie. Manfroy also supports (and conducts?) the child hunts, basically the plot in the second part of FE4 and FE5 where the Granvalle Empire and the members of the Loptyr Church round up children, take them from their families (sometimes by killing said families) to send them to Granvalle, with the highly suggested goal of sacrificing them one way or another to Loptyr.

On the not-so bright side, Manfroy doesn’t kill Julia - when Loptyr/Julius expressly asking him to do so, because Julia is the only person, story-wise, able to kill him.

What a guy! 

Now, Rhea?

There are some comparisons to be made, unlike Claude and Dimitri, but again, it reinforces how they could be seen as foils.

Rhea? Yes, also engineers the birth of a vessel.

However, unlike Manfroy who “forced” Arvis and Deirdre to marry and have a baby, Byleth’s birth, born from the union of Jeralt and Sitri, was completely unexpected. There is no trace in canon of Rhea arranging Jeralt and Sitri’s meeting, and future wedding.

Rhea? Also wants her granddaughter to “die”?

Well, not this one, since Rhea thinks Billy is actually an amnesiac Sothis. Billy would just recover their memories.

Rhea? Doesn’t start a war to build her Sothis vessel. Hell, the DLC is about her previous experiment to resurrect her mother - it was a failure, but someone supposes she fails because she did not want to bleed dry the Four Apostles. Rhea wishes to resurrect a benevolent Goddess (when Manfroy knows Loptyr is... far from benevolent) but will not kill to do so.

Sitri? Asked her to save Billy, by offering her own life.

The most interesting foil though is... how Rhea and Manfroy both belong to a community that was persecuted by others, the people they are supposed to live with.

Manfroy? Went the “if the world hates me, then I will hate it and burn it down” route.

Rhea? Doesn’t want to kill humans, hell, she and her brother disagreed because she didn’t want to kill children of the people who wronged her! She opens a monastery and offers guidance to anyone who needs it, a shelter for the needy and tries her best to protect peace and the humans living under her care.

They could have followed the same path, but didn’t. Manfroy rounds children to kill them, Rhea offers a new home to children who lost theirs.

They can also be compared with their “welp” points, Rhea gave CF!Billy the means to destroy her, just like Manfroy “forgot” to kill Julia - and yet, again, it is different. Rhea trusted Billy and never wanted to use them as a tool, in the other routes, it is because she trusted Billy with “those means” that Billy is able to save the world. Manfroy? Berserks Julia, wishes to use her as a tool and suffers when she regains some agency and beats her brother. But even without Manfroy, Julia would have recovered the Book of Naga to end Loptyr.

Rhea and Manfroy are definitely not parallels, but foils.

And the best for the end...

Who is Arvis?

Well... to summarise Arvis in a few words...

it’s impossible.

So, Arvis is the descendant of one Jugdral’s God-Crusader, Fjalar. Arvis is very proud of his heritage, but he also bears Loptyr blood, through his Mother. And yet, since the Loptry blood exists thanks to Saint Maira - the brother of the Loptry Host of that time, Emperor Galle, who rebelled and helped the Crusaders - he is also very proud of this heritage and his two brands.

Arvis’s familial history is a mess, his father was a womanizer and his mother abandoned him (which might have fueled his Freudian complex?). When his Father died, he exiled all of his bastard siblings, bar Azelle (his bastard half-brother, sired to his mother’s favorite maid). Arvis apparently wasn’t interested in women before he met Deirdre and fell in love with her...

But he had time to sire a bastard (on his best friend and confidante).

Arvis wants to build a world free of prejudice and oppression, and wants to build it by... associating with Manfroy, who blackmails him about his Loptyr blood (if Arvis is proud of his Loptry blood, sadly the Agustrian witch hunts are still a thing, and it will not be well seen in Granvalle’s nobility); however, he made it clear, to Manfroy himself, that he will never allow another Loptry Empire to be reborn. Arvis thus uses hiw fellow Dukes Reptor and Langobalt to set up a coup against Prince Kurth (the Prince of Granvalle) to kill him. Arvis grows close to Kurth’s father, Azmur and more or lesses takes care of everything in Granvalle, since Kurth has no heir left.

And, by chance, Deirdre, Kurth’s bastard daughter, thus rightful Princess of Granvalle, appears at his door. She bears the mark of Naga (the special blood of the Crusader Heim), so they marry, and if they have a son, their son will rule over Granvalle, Arvis acts as a regent until then.

(women can’t rule shit in Jugdral)

Then what? His plan is set into motion, all Granvalle Dukes die, he and Sigurd (plus his pals) are the only ones left, Sigurd dies after being lured to a welcoming party, and Arvis becomes the last man standing able to rule Granvalle, who became, through his plans and treacheries through the 1st gen, an Empire.

(and then his son becomes a Loptyr host, vaporises his mom and makes his sister disappear, wrestles power from him and he is reduced to a sad state (oldvis). He makes a last stand against Seliph, after delivering him Sigurd’s magic sword, and dies.)

Okay.

So, now, Edel.

Arvis managed to become the ruling... person in Granvalle by eliminating all of his rivals, and securing a nice marriage. Edel becomes Emperor... because Ionius gave her his crown, as her father.

So they do not rise to power the same way.

Edel never talks about her brands, but Arvis is proud to bear them and proud of his ancestors. Judging by how Edel speaks of Wilhelm I as a traitor who sold humanity to creatures, I am not sure she is proud to bear his blood.

Also, while Edelgard is extremely prejudiced against Nabateans, Arvis wishes to create a world... free of prejudice (his actions though...). He does not mind Manfroy preaching his stuff, when Edelgard will not allow anyone to follow the Seiros faith (friends put it better, but in several routes, the people who were followers of the Church of Seiros are missing in Adrestia...).

While both Edel and Arvis think they are making “sacrifices” for the greater good, as pointed out earlier, this greater good is different. They both ally with a death cult, but Arvis is naive enough to think Manfroy will not backstab him - he even wishes for him to preach his nonsense freely. Edelgard has been hell bent since day 1 on getting rid of Thales and friends.

By the time Arvis learns of the child hunts and Julius’s nonsense... he wants to stop it. He is however powerless to do so (or so we think! Apparently he and Ishtar managed to hide every children captured in a castle!) but, at least, he tried to do something.

Crest Beasts... are still used, no matter the path, and even after Edelgard became Emperor.

Now, if Manfroy had to capture children and round them up for execution to make sure Arvis would become Emperor, would Arvis have supported him? I... don’t think so. If children were captured during Arvis’s conquest of the world and it was a “necessary evil”, would Arvis have accepted it? We don’t know. Prideful as he is, I don’t think he would have agreed.

(which is all kinds of wrong, the man can start wars and backstab friends, allies and turn his own brother to ashes, but hunting children is too much? Meh. And yet, Manfroy mentions something about his ways and his pride being an obstacle to the realisation of his dream).

Arvis is... a complicated character. A douchebag through and through, who tries to redeem himself at the end, but ultimately fails. He is rewarded for his actions in the 1st gen by the 2nd gen, where Julius becomes Loptyr and destroys his Empire. He had it coming? Yes. Is it painful to watch? Yes.

Edelgard... does not face any retribution for her actions.

Yes, she can also kill her (step) brother. But either she didn’t remember it, or only cries after it, and ultimately puts the blame on him - so it is not a sacrifice ?

People doubt her words? Well, it doesn’t matter, Linhardt, Yuri and Lysithea are still alive after their... interrogations. Reptor doubted Arvis’s words? Aida was sent as back-up (and... backstabbed him).

Ultimately, Arvis loses Deirdre (whose ghost chills with Sigurd’s), Julia and Julius, whom he loved dearly. Edel loses... Billy, and some randoms.

So, in a way, Edel feels like a discount Arvis, because she misses his ascension to power and his downfall. Arvis doesn’t mow down enemies on the front lines like she is doing, Arvis maneuvers to ensure victory.

Both fight for ideals, but Arvis seems to believe in them when I cannot believe a world for “humanity” involves continuous making of Crest Beasts.

Both betray the main character, but Edelgard is hit with the uwu hammer, thus cannot kill Billy - Thales does it in the non CF-routes.

So... short story, long story, Eldie is not Dimitri, Claude is not Travant, Rhea is a foil to Manfroy and Edelgard is a discount Arvis.

Also, I don’t know what kind of weed the person who wrote this take had, but labeling Eldie as one of FE4′s villain is as dumb as labeling FE7 Karla a villain because she appears as a red unit you have to fight.

where is edel’s bastard son

[agent-cupcake]

Can I ask your opinion? So, I feel like everyone into 3H is in love with Dimitri, but I can't connect with him. I don't dislike him, but I feel like there isn't much to his personality without all his various mental health issues. It's hard to get a feel on what he's really like, so I end up just seeing him as a walking ball of trauma and not a three-dimensional character. Do you have any thoughts on Dimitri himself and how to separate him as a person from his psychological issues? Thanks!

Hmm, I guess my first thought is that everyone resonates with characters differently and so if you don’t particularly feel connected to him, that’s not wrong. Fictional parasocial relationships are very similar to real-life relationships, so it follows that nobody is going to like every character. I can’t say that a portion of my love for his character doesn’t come from his mental issues because that’s something I personally relate to and feel drawn to in others. That’s just who I am and how I build relationships. There is also something to be said for the unavoidable way mental illness informs a person’s behavior and character, it’s as much an aspect of them as being born with blond hair or losing an eye.

That said, I will do my best to explain why I think Dimitri is wonderful. Not in spite of his mental illness, but because I don’t think that’s all he is.

So, Dimitri is, as he says, a very clumsy person. This unfortunately extends to his social skills. He has a lot of very socially awkward tendencies and a general lack of self-awareness. This contrasts with his innate desire to please people, or at least avoid upsetting anyone. The thing is, Dimitri doesn’t always completely understand what upsets people or how exactly they might feel. His childhood isolation left him rather emotionally unaware and desperate for the acceptance and approval of others. That’s not to say he doesn’t try to understand other people’s feelings, but it’s not an intuitive process. He has a habit of saying kind of dumb or uncomfortable things out of nowhere, which is most likely his real feelings coming out in rather inept ways. He means well, but he’s just so dang clumsy.

The desperation to be included and validated I mentioned, I think, can be seen in the way he tries so hard to make the other Blue Lions see him as a peer and equal all the while keeping himself rather closed off from them. Dimitri approaches conversations as a means of focusing on the other person, trying to make an appeal to them rather than as an interaction where both parties could be seen as vulnerable. Of course, just like most other socially awkward introverts, he opens up when he feels closer to the person, but that takes a while. Gotta unlock the supports, you know? Although it’s not necessarily obvious, his incredibly stiff behavior (especially pre-timeskip) and the way he switches between overly formal and awkwardly friendly in his interactions with people as he tries to figure out how to socially and emotionally navigate relationships really gives me the impression of someone trying desperately to fit in without even the faintest clue of how to actually manage that. He also does his best to avoid social situations, which, mood. Basically, Dimitri’s a big dumb massive introvert trying to act like he’s not.

FURTHERMORE, he is a dork. An absolute goof of a person. Dimitri canonically thinks so-bad-its-good puns and jokes are hilarious. His own style of telling jokes is saying things that may or may not have contextual humor in a normal voice and then claiming after the fact that he intended it as such. Now, his supports with Alois are absolute factual proof of the so-bad-its-good humor, but might I also direct your attention to the scene before the battle against Miklan in Conand Tower (the event name is “Tower in a Storm (Blue Lions)”). Basically, Gilbert is explaining the history behind Conand Tower and Dimitri says, in an incredibly earnest voice, “You’re very well informed, Gilbert. Please, tell us more.” This is a joke. Supposed to be, at least. The delivery is somewhat emphasized, but not in a recognizably sarcastic way. Gilbert, who knew Dimitri very well when he was young, realizes it’s a joke after a second. But there are other things Dimitri says that I believe are his bad “jokes” and since nobody knows him well enough to tell, they don’t call him on it. There’s no proof, but his line in the Lord’s intro where he says, “And here I thought you were acting as a decoy for the sake of us all.” to Claude has to be an attempt at sarcasm. Dimitri is oblivious, but not stupid. In his Goddess Tower conversation with Byleth, when discussing the topic of wishes, he says, “Perhaps it would make more sense for me to wish that we’ll be together forever. What do you think?” In a completely normal voice. Following are two speech bubbles of “...” before he laughs and proclaims that it’s just a joke and that he’s getting better at telling them. Now, this is a two-parter because I see this as both his horribly awkward tendency to say things he feels without thinking too hard beforehand as well as his silly deadpan style of “jokes”. Granted, he does apologize. Dimitri’s got socially awkward zoomer humor. It’s endearing.

Here is a video of Dimitri hitting on Byleth pre-timeskip. I’m not sure how far it goes to endear someone to him, but the mostly awkward and occasionally smooth attempts of Dimitri’s flirtations are absolutely a highlight of his character. 

Now, this isn’t quite as cute as all that, but I think character arc and change do a lot for making a character feel more three-dimensional. Dimitri is hypocritically selfish. Although those are both negative terms, I don’t necessarily mean them as such, at least not in their totality. Both are things to overcome, which he does. And that’s why I feel like they’re a valid point of discussion when trying to explain the allure of his character.

The hypocritical part comes from the way he easily allows and forgives the flaws of others while constantly castigating himself for the same reasons. He says things that show an absurd amount of a lack of self-awareness. For example, he tells Edelgard, “Hm. You will prove a lacking ruler yourself if you look for deceit behind every word and fail to trust those whom you rely on.” All the while straight-up lying to and emotionally avoiding his friends. Dimitri also tells Marianne, when she is punishing herself for putting other people at risk, “What matters is that they came back safely in the end. You shouldn’t blame yourself for that.” Really, his C and B with Marianne is an exercise in hypocrisy. The standards Dimitri has for himself are incredibly, unattainably high. He’s setting himself up for failure in that way and, to an extent, knows what he’s doing because he knows that those same standards are too much for his friends and allies to meet. He wishes to take on everything himself. But, what I find so beautiful about this, is that Dimitri eventually realizes that he can’t do that. He is not strong enough to take on the weight of the world on himself, he comes to understand that it’s something he must allow himself to share with the people who care about him. He comes to realize that, as difficult as it is to accept, he is a weak person. Despite all of his introversion and inability to emotionally open up, he figures out that having a support system and allowing yourself to rely on people who love you is a necessity. Personally, I think this message is incredibly important in real life. Watching Dimitri come to that conclusion and argue it’s importance really rounded out his arc and journey as a person. Now, the relatability of this conclusion will differ, but I don’t think it has to do with his mental illness as much as it is a fundamental aspect of growth.

The selfishness is basically outlined above. Dimitri is selfish about his pain and secrets, purposefully and selfishly driving people away because he wants to keep the burden to himself. His vice is guilt and he indulges in the pain of it like an addiction. Hatred, too, is a drug. He thinks he needs it to keep going, even though all it does is bring agony to himself and others around him. Learning to accept and let go of these feelings is, again, something I think is important and a character arc that I really love, especially when you see him suffer as much as he does. Now, the execution of this is lacking, I admit. But that’s an issue for another time I think.

I am not quite sure if I did much to change your opinion, but this is all I can think of for now. There is probably a lot more than I’ve left out because I think about Dimitri far too much to be healthy. So, I’ll leave you off with some honorable mention aspects of his character that I think are super fun:

Pre-timeskip Dimitri has his hair tucked behind his ear. He can lift a wagon by himself. In the DLC, when faced with an impossible-to-open gate, it was not muscle man Balthus who said he couldn’t open it, but twinkish teen Dimitri. He’s not really smooth with one-liners. Like, at all. Notably, when attacking Manuela post-timeskip, he says, “Perhaps I should have appeared before you holding a bouquet of flowers, rather than the weapon that will end your life.” Adding to this, at one point, Dimitri fucked up a pick-up line so badly the girl came after him. Areadbhar has a mitten on it in the Azure Moon final picture. He breaks everything. His Crest activation ability even supports this, using twice the durability of any given Combat Art. One of his post-timeskip counselor messages is, “I lived in the slums for a long time, and I saw how the people there suffered from poverty and the ravages of war. There must be something I can do to save them." His room in the academy is right next to Sylvain’s, meaning that for almost an entire year Dimitri was a single wall away from hearing whatever nonsense Sylvain was getting up to. Dimitri is the only Lord that takes the throne and doesn’t abandon his people in some form or another.

And, finally, he is pretty sexy. And that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?

[iturbide]

Oh damn, edelgard doesn't have a support with Flayn! Clearly she's racist against flayn!Oh wait, tons of characters don't have supports with flayn, and aren't able to spare seteth and flayn. I guess everyones just closet racist. :/

And Lindhardt didn't say "We aren't bringing edelgard cause she'd kill the dragon."

He ASKED to keep the trip a secret since the location concerned the saints of seiros and a holy weapon. Hell, Lindhardt even TELLS the professor to tell Edelgard about what happened for him.

You can't claim edelgard is racist towards all Dragons, when the only dragons she CAN be racist to all belong to the church she considers corrupt and are her enemies. She doesn't hate Rhea BECAUSE she's a dragon, she hates Rhea BECAUSE she's the head of the church she considers corrupt and the cause of the whole crest system.

Look, if you disagree this intensely with me, you really can block me. I'm not trying to change your mind, but this is my blog, and therefore a place for my opinions; said opinions never get much spread because I have a small follower count and my posts generally don't get reblogs, so blocking me is a very quick and effective way of making both our lives a heck of a lot easier, since you don't have to deal with me and vice versa.

With that said, though, she literally said that dragons were monsters. It is an actual in-game quote from her. I legitimately don't know how that can be spun into her not being anti-dragon.

Also, please not that I'm not saying calling into question that Flayn doesn't have supports with other characters in the game at large. I'm saying that the other House Leaders, who consistently have supports with every member of their house -- which includes Flayn since she's scripted to join if you pick them -- have supports with her, while Edelgard doesn't. I personally find it noteworthy because if you bring Lysithea on board -- whether it's just as a support character or full-on recruitment -- Edelgard can have at least a C support with her even if you eventually go on a Silver Snow run, at which point they can't go higher in their support chain. There's really no reason why Edelgard couldn't have had a C-B Support chain with Flayn, except that -- given her general feelings about dragons on the whole -- she may well have been purposefully keeping her distance from Flayn, knowing that she's actually a dragon. Again, there is the fact that only Byleth can spare Flayn, not Edelgard: it's not that she doesn't dislike either of them, it's that she kept a lot of her feelings under wraps until she was ready to make her move -- after all, she certainly played nice enough doing the archbishop's bidding up until the Holy Tomb mission.

In addition, going from saying "there's an option to spare Seteth and Flayn" to "anyone who can't is clearly racist" is a bit of a leap; the game is coded so that only Byleth has the option to spare several characters, while other units automatically treat them just as enemies. You can't have it both ways, saying that Edelgard's not anti-dragon because the option exists at all or that anyone who doesn't have the option has the same mindset. It's just how the game is coded. Honestly, Edelgard not having the option to spare them because of said coding is a knock that could be made against my argument, too -- but I'll own up to that.

And I really don't understand why Lake Teutates being "associated with the Saints" would be a problem for Edelgard if she wasn't directly opposed to dragons. There is literally a Saint there, and Linhardt seemed to have a feeling they'd meet up with Indech; if Edelgard weren't going to pose a threat to whatever they encountered, why would he recommend excluding her? He also asks Byleth to let Edelgard know "when the time is right" -- which doesn't sound like that time is now.

Here's the thing: Edelgard really, deeply believes that dragons are a problem. It's not just that Rhea's the head of the Church which she considers a problem: if that were the case, she wouldn't have said that Rhea is the leader of the monsters who have been controlling Fodlan. Heck, in the chapter where you face Claude, she asks Byleth "should the one leading the people of the world be someone with humanity or a creature that can merely masquerade as a human at will?" In her own words, several times throughout the course of the game, she makes it entirely clear that she does not regard dragons as human in any sense, and seems to view them without any kind of empathy whatsoever. Again, in the chapter where Flayn was kidnapped she didn't try to accelerate a child's rescue and in the end helped the Death Knight escape; even without knowing the internal politics between her and Those Who Slither, if she viewed Flayn as an actual child she could feasibly have done something to get her out of there sooner and passed it off as Byleth figuring things out themselves, because she's the only one of the three House leaders who has inside information into that situation.

There are very few dragons left, judging by the situation in Fodlan that we see in the game: most of them were massacred by Nemesis and their corpses desecrated to grant Crests to the Ten Elites and forge Heroes' Relics for their use. The few dragons who remain went into deep hiding or ended up associated with the Church (or both, as is the case with Indech and Macuil, who are considered Saints but left). But Edelgard, in her own words, says there are "monsters controlling Fodlan in secret" when confronted with The Immaculate One -- not that this is the monster who's been controlling Fodlan, but that this is the leader of them. Based on textual evidence, including her own personal words, she considers dragons to be inhuman monsters who have been manipulating mankind: that, to me, screams anti-dragon sentiment.

[omgkalyppso]

Would you want to do 1, 17, 19 for Hilda for the pride asks??

You know I would! fdghdfg Thank you for the ask. uwu

1.How do they identify?

I headcanon Hilda to be a bisexual cis woman. There's nothing interesting about in/tsys making a feminine woman but I can entertain myself with Hilda as a fat, muscular femme.

17. What advice would they give their younger self?

It's a coin toss whether I headcanon one of fire emblem's missing mothers as deceased or not; I do in Hilda's case. So in a canon setting there's just aging (retired) Goneril Senior who has given control of the house to Holst; who Hilda says would have been the next obvious choice for leader of the Alliance if Claude hadn't shown up.

(I have a point, I'm getting to it.)

The difference in how Hilda addresses Cyril compared to how Holst refers to Cyril in his letter, reminds me of interactions in my mixed family. Hilda reads the letter to Cyril (for the audience's benefit Really but we can pretend) as a gesture of good will, but from what we can glean, Holst didn't write to Cyril, his letter was fully intended for his little sister and I feel that the words between the lines of this (and probably other letters from Holst) are, "Don't turn out like dad. Can you see it? In how we were raised?"

In a modern setting fic of mine, I have Fae, Claude and Lorenz visit the Gonerils. They join Holst in his furnished basement while Hilda's parents stay on the main floor and they can hear Goneril Sr shouting his displeasure / lack of understanding from the floor above. Hilda's mother is the only character I've written to actually (accidentally) misgender Fae (so far?).

I think Claude would have had a harder time bringing Nader over if Goneril Sr was still in charge of the border. I don't think he's only made of hate, but I think her parents would be reflective of the fears, stereotypes and reputation that's hinted at with regards to the "Eastern Menace" of Almyra and Fodlan nobility as a whole.

I think this is supported by how they spoil and scold Hilda.

And so.

Hilda's advice to her younger self would include a reassurance that her inner life will one day just be her life, and that her being extroverted won't always be a performance or a misinterpretation with how she'd rather laze / do nothing / not try. I think she would advise making sure she's more patient and generally kinder with herself and others, which would include a gamut of diversity, because even though she's very sympathetic, she expresses it with a haughty entitlement in her youth that has been learned and nurtured by people she can never fully please anyway.

I think other advice she would have for herself would veer further from the theme of Pride except for how it still would relate to her, a bi woman, you know?

Anyway, rotating this line in my mind at light speed:

Hilda: Ooh, they eloped! I like that. It's so romantic. Imagine, abandoning your family forever to be with the one you love! Not everyone can do that.

19. What’s the [identity]-est thing they’ve ever done?

In Houses canon: That one line in the m/arihilda paired ending:

The accessories sent to Marianne personally by Hilda became some of the most highly valued treasures in history.

It has to win out because without the m/arihilda paired ending there'd be far less wlw Hilda content. However, I also want to honour her A Support with Claude for this:

Hilda: When you smile or laugh, it's not sincere. I can tell. I've only seen you genuinely smile a handful of times. Like when you're talking to the professor. Claude: Well? Good one, Hilda. You hit me right in the gut. I guess you're right. I'm not so different from you in that way. But how did you come to realize that? Have you been watching me that closely? Hilda: I'm afraid so. My eyes seem to wander toward you, of their own accord. Waagh! Hold on! Forget I said that. I didn't say that.

Because I interpret this as a casual attraction to both Claude and Byleth (regardless of gender). I don't know. It's something about unintentional attention -- and care built up over years, you know?

In Hopes canon: Her Leonie support chain.

Nonsense: Her dock martens / big ol' boots + pink aesthetic.

Explicit Nonsense:

Either when Lorenz comes out as bisexual sometime after marriage and the nature of their intimacy changes, first with her pegging him and then with them discussing more candidly their attraction to others of any gender.

Or whenever she has sex with with any of her partners in any configuration.

[philliamwrites]

The Dawn Will Come [Chpt.5]

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Pairing: Dimitri x Reader, Claude x Reader, Edelgard x Reader, Yuri x Reader, Edelgard x Byleth, lots of minor pairings

Tags: #gn reader, # platonic love byleth & reader, #reader is a tactical unit, #angst, #slow burn, #subplots, #unreliable narrator, #pining, #remporary amnesia, #reluctant herp, #canon divergence, #lost twin au, #many chapters, #original content

Words: 5.4k

Summary: Waking up in a forest without any knowledge of your past and who you are, you join the house leaders of the Officers Academy to search for a way to return your memories. Unfortunately, the church has different plans for you, and Fate places you in the centre of a cruel game with deadly stakes. It certainly doesn’t help to fall in love with a house leader who is doomed to be your demise.

Notes: Chapter 4 | Chapter 6

Chapter 05: Born to Trouble

Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.

[Hiob 5:7]

    A breeze picks up loose leaves and carries them over a steep hill. The sun, directly above your heads, emits no blazing head and still, wearing light armour and carrying weapons leaves a layer of perspiration on your forehead. Every minute marching towards where the Eagle House students and their astute professor are waiting builds worry and the desire to turn around and put as much distance as possible between you and them but the rope tying you to the task called obligation makes it impossible to sate it.

    A slight pull makes you pause and scratch the thin skin under your eye, the feeling so strange as if someone is tugging your mind in the complete opposite direction. Now that is a new sensation, and you’re careful to remember that when answering the onslaught of questions Hanneman will surely prepare once he’s back. Feeling no pain, you write it off as exhaustion for now, already looking forward to relax in the sauna later and wind down.

    “Is something the matter, Herald?” Dimitri asks. Save for a few scratches and a smudged cheek, he looks fine and appears to be in great spirits. You want to lick your thumb and wipe off the dirt but smearing spit on the heir of a kingdom might not be a great idea in front of his future subjects.

    “Everything is fine,” you, the Liar, say with as much conviction as your conscience allows, which is surprisingly easy. Maybe you were a performer before your amnesia, acting on a stage for an audience that celebrated you switching roles with an ease like changing clothes. Dimitri as well trusts your words, though he could as well be playing the role just to lessen your worry.

    The last possibility to stall the unavoidable confrontation vanishes. They are waiting for you near the stronghold just beyond the forest from which you emerge after another painful, tense march. The remaining Black Eagle students are positioned in a triangle around Byleth. At its tip stands Edelgard, strong and tall, her axe ready to strike whoever stands between her and victory. Flanking her are ever-brooding Hubert and—

    “Linhardt?” you gasp, freezing on the spot which makes everyone sticking to your heels walk right into you. Sylvain only saves himself from falling because he quickly holds onto Dedue who tolerates it like a friendly bear allowing a little bird to sit on his back.

    “Is he doing something?” he asks, tiptoeing to get a better look. “What’s going on?”

    You point a finger at the Black Eagle student. “No one told me it was allowed to bring students back from the sidelines.”

    “Because it isn’t,” Dimitri says, patiently pulling a twig out of his hair. “Those who have lost cannot re-enter the mock battle.”

    You stare at everyone separately, hoping it carries enough weight for them to understand your problem—rather why is no one questioning the obvious? They consider you with as much confusion though, at least something you have in common.

    “Then why is Linhardt participating again?”

    They share worried glances.

    “Herald, what are you talking about?” asks Dimitri with a crease between his eyebrows.

    It is enough to make your next protest come out more desperate. “An hour ago, Felix and I dealt with Ferdinand and Linhardt. I told you!”

    “But—” Sylvain’s face goes blank with surprise. “Didn’t you say you guys got Ferdinand and Dorothea?”

    “Dorothea?” You didn’t even know she participated. “No, I swear, we— Why would I claim something different?” They lack the answer to that just as you and any minute pondering it longer is stolen by a vicious MiasmaΔ that splits a tree behind you in two.

    “Hey!” Sylvain shakes a fist at Hubert. “Use magic only in moderation!”

    His answer is another MiasmaΔ that nearly knocks Sylvain off his feet. Before you can form words, Edelgard takes a swing at you. The hit would have undoubtedly leave you with a concussion were it not for Dimitri’s quick intervention. He deflects her blow though his lance gives a worrying crack.

    “Dimitri.” Edelgard’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “It’s time. We can finally settle the question of who’s stronger.”

    “Very well.” Dimitri’s stance doesn’t falter even as sweat gathers at his temples. “I accept your challenge. With you as my opponent, I won’t hold anything back.”

    Edelgard’s mouth twitches. Dimitri demands with a sharp jut of his chin for you to get out of the way. You don’t argue. Not with the rest from the Eagle house approaching. Dedue, reading your mind, or rather the frantic look in your eyes, charges towards Byleth, leaving Linhardt and Hubert to Sylvain and you.

    You focus on Linhardt, mouth burning to question, “What spell did you use to switch places with Dorothea?”

    He is so baffled by that, you move without thinking—a swift strike, the sword turned midway so the blunt end smashes into his nose. He stumbles back with a sharp cry, a hand flying up to stop the blood running in rivers down his uniform. There is no time feeling bad for catching him off guard like that. A picture flashes before your eyes. You throw yourself to the ground and feel the lance swipe over your head not a second too soon. You roll back up on your feet, glaring at Hubert. He simply raises a brow in challenge. Sure, you accept, fully aware there is only one way to win against him.

    “Edelgard!” you gasp in horror. Hubert’s head twitches but he doesn’t fall for your scheme.

    “Really, Herald? I know Her Highness can take care of herself. You need a better trick than that.”

    “Really? Then how about this trick?”

    This time, Hubert whirls around and is greeted by Sylvain’s fist to his jaw. Combined with your MiasmaΔ, he doesn’t stand a chance. That victory is only short lived though. Out of nowhere, Byleth appears and knocks Sylvain out, not batting an eyelash. She towers like a vengeful spirit, arriving to seek retribution. Trying to move around her, you don’t leave her out of sight for once, your mouth dry and your heart beating so fast your ribcage hurts. The tension is thick enough your swords could cut right through it. It is so tense, in fact, you only manage a dry, “Hey.”

    Byleth raises her sword. “Hello.”

    “Great day to … you know.” You mirror her movement. “Clobber each other with wooden swords.”

    “Less talking, more fighting.” Byleth charges.

    You turn and run away.

    She immediately pursues like a wolf chasing after a deer. If you weren’t so focused on moving your legs as if your life depended on it and not tripping over something, you could swear someone from the sidelines is cheering for you. Someone sounding like Claude.

    “Herald, try a surprise attack! She’ll never expect you to stop and swing your sword at her!”

    No, no, no, he can come down here himself if he has a death wish. But another chance emerges before you, one waiting in the lush thicket that you disappear into in hope to lose her. That hope is quickly vanquished when twigs and dry leaves break right behind you shortly after you breach the edge of the forest. In your panic, you grab onto a branch and pull it with you until you’re sure the blow will at least make Byleth stagger to catch her breath. When you let go, she already knows what you’re up to. With a vicious blow, she breaks the branch and throws her sword at you when you try to run past her back to the field. The pain is unlike anything you’ve felt during training. It brings you to your knees, the stronghold in sight and yet so far away from the forest’s borders. The impact knocks all breath out of your lungs, making you unable to call out for help.

    Byleth stands before you, her sword back in her hand and risen to deliver righteous punishment—until it isn’t Byleth, it is a man, but you can’t see his face, his features hidden by dark shadows.

    Don’t, you think but your mouth forms “You don’t have it in you” instead and before you know it, you speak those words out loud. The picture disappears in a flash so bright, a paper bursting into flames, pain explodes in your head before everything zooms back into painfully sharp focus.

��   Something changes in Byleth’s eyes, her hesitation a surprise immediately costing her gravely for Dimitri appears by your side, facing her and a desperate sound of relief escapes you because that means Edelgard is out of the game. It is only a battle of stamina at this point, the battle blurring as you stumble to your feet and help Dimitri to overpower Byleth even though your back is a medley of pain. Judging from how her reacting slower, you get a picture of who from the Black Eagles was fighting the most up until this point.

    Everything happens too fast. It takes one turn, one swipe of Dimitri’s lance, incredible luck that Byleth starts to get exhausted, and a second later, her knee gives in and she’s on the ground, a wooden edge to her throat. The silence is only disturbed by the second roar of trumpets signalling the end of the mock battle.

    You gasp.

    Dimitri gasps.

    Byleth blows a strand of hair out of her face, her face a blank slate.

    Screams and shouts erupt from where everyone else is waiting for you, drowning Jeralt declaring the Blue Lion’s win.

    “Herald.” Dimitri’s smile dazzles you more than the sun’s light, radiant and handsome. “We did it. We did it thanks to you.”

    “No, it was you—” A wave of fatigue washes over you from overusing your power. Exhaustion smothers you, so suddenly that your vision blurs around the edges. Your limbs are leaden; you feel as though you are sinking into mud. Before you hit the ground, Dimitri catches your arm and steadies you.

    It is the unpredictable comedic sort of timing were the cosmos decides it is the right timing for the rest of the students to catch up.

    Sylvain lets out a loud, suggestive whistle, appearing way too chipper for someone just brought back to consciousness thanks to white magic. “Who knew His Highness would decide to court someone wide out in the open like that? Did you invite our dear Herald to dinner first?”

    Ingrid pushes him hard. “His Highness isn’t like you,” she says at the same time Dimitri asks, “But I do plan to invite our Herald to dinner.” All eyes are on him. It is suddenly really hot even though his gauntlets around your arm are cold. “We all are invited to celebrate our victory with a feast in the dining hall.”

    “Aww, goddess help him,” Sylvain sighs, looking like he’s about to facepalm his hand through his forehead.

    Any response on your part is delayed by Rhea and Seteth reaching your group after congratulating each student who participated on their work.

    “Congratulations on winning the mock battle, Herald,” Rhea says, looking incredibly pleased. From the very beginning she’s probably expected nothing less and you wonder if her smile were as content had you failed. “You showed great leadership and trust in your students, who all did exceptionally well.” She’s smiling at every one of them like a proud mother. It leaves a warm, fuzzy feeling inside your chest, her contentment a beacon that banishes the last shadows of doubt in your heart. You could get addicted to this feeling.

    “Now, please return to the monastery,” Seteth advises the students. “We have a few matters to discuss with the faculty members.”

    As the students disperse, Dimitri quickly ducks his head in your direction. “We will speak more later.” He trails after his friends, falling into step with Dedue.

    “Look at them, being so excited. How adorable.” Manuela smiles, not showing any signs of anger about losing the fight or exhaustion flicking the students back together. “Good job leading them, Herald.”

    “And yet, I must advise you to participate more actively in the battle itself next time.” Seteth crosses his arms in front of his broad chest, not sharing Rhea’s idea on how a good job looks. “Professor Byleth showed great assistance and fighting spirit. You would do well to learn from her.”

    Byleth gives a little shrug when you glance at her. She doesn’t seem to care much for that.

    “Don’t be so stern, Seteth,” Rhea chastises him fondly. “There is still so much room to grow for all of them, our dear Herald, Professor Byleth and the students. For now, let us return and allow them a moment of respite. Their first real mission awaits them at the end of next month.”

    Seteth pulls a face as if he bit into a lemon but doesn’t object.

    “I have one concern myself,” you quickly throw in before tracking back, wondering how no one else mentions it. “When Linhardt and Dorothea—”

    “I would like a word,” Byleth suddenly says, grasping your wrist lightly in such an easy, familiar way you immediately shut up. They leave you two to it as you follow them a couple hundred feet behind, both silent though the voice in your mind doesn’t shut up about the dozen of questions bouncing back and forth. After what feels like hours, Byleth finally says, “You noticed it, didn’t you?”

    You stare at the road, a yawning void in your head where just a second ago a cacophony of questions caused a headache, unable to put two and two together. When it finally clicks, you wipe your head so fast in her direction it pops in your neck. “It was you? How did you do it?”

    Byleth doesn’t answer immediately. Her gaze drifts over the treetops, calmly swaying from left to right. The battle has concluded half an hour ago, but it already feels like a lifetime has passed and the peace and quiet of nature around you is like a completely different world. The land surrounding the monastery is exceptionally beautiful, luscious and overgrown with flora that covers the ground in a colourful patchwork rug. How the rest of Fódlan must look like…

    “When we first met, you asked how I could trust you. It will sound strange but you and I, we are connected.” She’s still looking up ahead, now at the towering spires of the monastery piercing the sky.

    Your mouth is dry. “Connected how?”

    She stops now. When she turns and looks at you, again the thread that ties you two together strums in an ancient tune. You stop breathing for that second.

    “You control the flow of the future, and I control the flow of the past.”

    You still don’t understand. Byleth reads as much from your lack of response. “What I mean to say is, I rewind time. When you defeated Linhardt, I turned back time’s hands to have Dorothea walk his path instead to keep my healer. I just never expected anyone would notice. And no one did. Except you.”

    It’s like those words don’t reach you. They recoil from a waterfall that rushes through your ears, distorting the words. When your brain finally finishes freaking out about it, only one thing appears of importance. “You cheated!”

    Byleth wears an expression that clearly states, That’s rich coming from you.

    “I— That—” How can she remain so calm? This information tilts your world, turning every hour you spent lying awake at night in your chambers wondering if you’re the only one with a power like that into a painful memory. “Does that mean you have a Crest as well? If our powers are alike, surely there must be an answer to why we have it. If we talk to Hanneman about it—”

    “You won’t,” Byleth cuts you off, her tone as sharp as her sword. “You will share no word with anyone about what I just revealed, or I will strike you down.”

    The wind picks up, flickering your robes left and right and rocking trees that bow in humility to a force much greater than them—a feeling you can relate to. Cold sweat runs down the back of your neck. This isn’t a threat. It’s a promise.

    “You spend too much time with Hubert,” you manage with a trembling smile only held together when the tension dissipates from Byleth’s face.

    “Professor Hanneman is still studying my Crest,” she says, a tinge of sorrow in her voice that strikes you harder than any danger or threat, “but I can assure you my abilities are not tied to it. I’m sorry.”

    She must have felt what you so desperately wished for: a connection. The assurance that you are not alone in this world with this strange power.

    It makes the way back to the monastery like a march through mud, laden limbs walking towards a goal you don’t know will be worth all the exertion. When the silence becomes too unbearable, you build up the courage to ask, “What are we, Byleth?”

    She drops her gaze to the ground. It is the very first time you see uncertainty hover like a shadow over her face. “I wish I could tell you, but I don’t know.”

    The sky turns an orange canvas when you finally return to the monastery. The last villagers from the small town downhill start returning home, their tools laid to rest inside their carriages. You can’t wait to sink into a nice hot bath, washing away the dried sweat and grime from the battle and change into loose, comfortable evening robes. You don’t come further than past the entrance hall. Leaning against a high pillar, Dimitri is adjusting the loops on his gauntlets, blond strands falling into his face like golden strips of sunshine. Before you reach him, Byleth says with a light touch to your elbow, “Please see Professor Manuela about your wound, okay? You did great today.” You promise her you will and watch her until she disappears through a hall leading to her personal quarters.

    With your attention on him, Dimitri looks up and stands straighter. He grins at you, his smile sudden and jarring like a thunderclap.

    “I have been waiting for you, Herald,” he says and takes you by the wrist. The cold of his gauntlets bites at your skin, making you hiss. His hand immediately drops, and he turns around in panic. “Oh, apologies. It is difficult to control my strength sometimes and—”

    “No, no, that’s not it. I was just a little surprised.”

    He sighs in relief. “Still, I am sorry. I will try to refrain from doing that in the future.”

    “Dimitri.” You graze his clothed underarm with a finger, unsure if that was a wise decision when his eyes widen in surprise. How is it you only notice now how long his eyelashes are? “I think we have seen today I am not that fragile.”

    His eyes jump away, avoiding contact, the blush creeping up his neck clearly standing out against his pale skin. He clears his throat. “I just wanted to make sure you will join us for dinner. I was not joking earlier when I said we should all celebrate our victory.”

    “Are you guys sure? I’m not your teacher and in the end, I didn’t do all too much.”

    Dimitri shakes his head. “Nonsense. You fought with us and led us to victory. We would love to celebrate with you, and while you won’t be with us all the time, I’d love nothing more than to share our happiness with you. Joy can be so fleeting, after all, and I’m sure the rest of the class feels the very same.”

    “If it really is okay with you all…” You glimpse over at him. Why not. Why not enjoy some leisure time with the students. You could surely use it to get to know them better and distract your thoughts from Byleth’s revelation. “Just give me some time to get ready. I’ll see you in the dining hall.”

    “Actually, please come to our classroom,” Dimitri says. “I don’t know how Sylvain managed it, but the kitchen’s head lady allowed us to dine in the classroom.”

    Your brows fly to your hairline. Dimitri answers with a little, low chuckle. You both have a pretty good idea how he managed to pull that stunt.

    Back in your quarters, you wash away the dirt and pick a simple robe the colour of freshly pressed parchment. The water’s heat renders today’s injuries to a dull pain save for the scrapes on your knees that still burn but are clean now. Hunger quickly catches up as well, dispersing your last doubts of intruding the class’ celebration. After leaving your room, you stop by the infirmary where Manuela makes quick work of your remaining wounds with her magic, turning purple bruises into faded yellow spots you immediately forget once you step out and head to your destination.

    The tables are already laid, arranged into a formation that resembles a circle allowing conversations to flow easily. You expected them to be already stuffing their faces but when you step into the Blue Lion’s classroom, the only source of light is a dim candle flickering in the middle of some students huddled together. Only Mercedes’ soft voice is audible, not counting the little whimpers from Annette or Ashe shuffling as he tries to hide behind Dimitri who appears to be the only one invested in her story.

    “… no one knows how deep the tunnels underneath the monastery run. But once they reach where walls are built from skulls and bones, they turn and go back … or try to do so, for who knows what horror lurks behind every corner.”

    “Nooooooo,” Annette cries, clutching to Dimitri’s sleeve. “Why would anyone go somewhere like that?”

    “A-and who built it in the first place? Tunnels lined with bones…” Ashe shudders, still looking smaller than Dimitri even though he is the one sitting.

    “A fascinating idea.” Dimitri’s excitement, bright as a spark, doesn’t bounce over to his friends. “To imagine there could be a whole civilisation living right in plain sight like that.”

    “I can’t imagine we wouldn’t notice,” Ashe reasons. His conviction would be more credible, would he not still cling to a white tail of Dimitri’s shirt. Before you can join and see if you would fare better listening to stories about haunted and forgotten places, Sylvain steals past you, his voice making you jump. “Shouldn’t you guys be finished by now?”

    Seeing your sour expression, he simply winks and hurries inside, carrying a big steaming pot. Followed by the rest of the Lions, they carry plates with dried meat, slices of bread, vegetables and cheese, and place them on the tables for everyone to just pick whatever they want. With a flick of your wrist flames flicker to life inside both fireplaces and the candles on top of the chandelier above your heads. Everyone hurries to find a seat. The students have all changed out of their battle garments into the academy’s summer uniform, its fabric much lighter than the heavy embroidered regular uniform they wore upon your first meeting.

    “My dear friends.” Dimitri raises a cup, holding the thin stem between slender fingers. It would look more elegant were its contents not simply orange juice. “To our victory today and many more to follow.”

    They raise their cups to toast except for Felix who knocks his drink back as if it were strong liquor he desperately needed to sit through this evening gathering. He doesn’t look as pale as before. A quick check up by Manuela after the battle affirmed that he was alright and simply fatigued from countless sleepless nights spent at the Training Grounds.

    The other participants don’t look too bad either. Bruises that vividly blossomed hours ago have faded, swollen purple eyes already start to heal—all certainly thanks to Manuela’s quick work. Sylvain surely won’t be as successful chasing girls with a shiner that makes the prettiest violet jealous of his colour and Dimitri tries to hide it but you don’t miss him tensing from time to time or moving his hand towards his side; probably a bruised rib he doesn’t want anyone to know. He catches your stare and offers a slight, boyish grin under half-closed eyes that only whispers of a shared secret only meant for you two. It does a funny thing to your stomach, a flip or drop, a light twist like missing a step and the fear of falling only to meet solid ground a split second later. You quickly look away and focus on spreading curd on a loaf of bread, not trying to think too much about how the muscles strained under his clothes wielding his lance or the fierce determination colouring his eyes a shade brighter when victory is in palpable proximity.

    You feel a piercing gaze, hot like a solid touch on your skin. Quickly whipping your head around, you catch Felix’s glare from across the room, completely ignoring whatever Sylvain is telling him. It leaves you completely tense for the rest of the dinner, wondering what his problem is and why he is so hostile towards Dimitri specifically. You’ve heard from some students who have walked into an argument those two had, something about a massacre two years ago but details, as is their nature, grow hazy over time and distort until they evolve into something completely different and unrecognisable.

    Felix holds your gaze for a long second, and it is only later after you all clean the classroom from your festivities and decide to retire to bed that you catch him by himself. The monastery at night is a desolate, lonely place save for a couple stray souls wandering about, either on their way to their chamber or out for a quick, last evening prayer inside the chapel. Felix’s destination is none of those as he strides towards the Training Grounds and you call out to him. He slows but doesn’t stop his step until you catch up. “You’re on your way to training, right? Shouldn’t you call it a day? Especially after what happened—”

    “I’ve got no time sitting around and making smalltalk,” Felix snaps, and a month ago you would have thought he aimed his anger towards you but recently you’ve discovered he’s towards the whole world—always glaring, always hissing like a cornered, wounded animal. “There are more important matters like growing stronger—”

    “And suffering from overexertion, I suppose.”

    Felix pulls a grimace. “It was a mistake I don’t intend to repeat. You saw Professor Byleth’s strength. It took two of you to win, and even then, it was mostly luck. I just want to try out some moves Professor Byleth exerted today so I can surpass her strength next time I challenger her.”

    “Why is it that you seek to fight so much?” you ask, deciding forwardness to be a better approach than idle chatter with a person like Felix. He doesn’t give immediate response, not because he ignores you, as is your first assumption, but because he gives it some thought.

    “Why, hm… I learnt to thrust a sword before I learnt to write my name. This is how it is for all children in my country, the perfect environment where I could live free of stodgy values and virtues. Grow strong so you may live, and live to grow stronger. That’s what I was taught.”

    It is no secret Faerghus is the land of knights and chivalry, and still it is hard to imagine a small version of Felix wielding a sword even before he learnt how to use a quill, scraped knees instead of black inked fingertips. What a strange world.

    “As long as you don’t forget to take a break should it get too much. Everyone was worried today.”

    “Everyone should mind their own business. I’m not their problem, and they aren’t mine.”

    You’re too tired to argue relationships don’t work like that, any minute longer on your feet and they’ll simply give out. Wishing Felix a goodnight, you turn towards the chapel but don’t get very far.

    “Herald.” Felix is halfway through the door. “Let me give you one advice.”

    “That is?”

    “Don’t get too close to that damn boar.”

    You’re about to ask what he’s talking about, but he continues, “Beneath all that princely polish, he’s an animal, nothing more. He’s strong and skilled, sure. But don’t place your trust in him as a human being. Take care he doesn’t chew you up and spit you out.”

    Not waiting for a response, Felix moves on, leaving you with more questions than answers. Every creature with two eyes can see hostility between Dimitri and Felix crackling like lightning about to strike the ground and burn down forests and villages. But to go this far and say these words about his future king … Words that couldn’t be more contrary to the impression he’s left on you.

    Whatever Felix wanted to accomplish, his words succeed to remain in your head the whole night, driving off any sleep you direly needed after that day. But even without that, your mind is occupied with questions. It is like stumbling into a spider web, sticky tangles everywhere with no way out.

    Who is that man you remembered? It was such a brief, yet striking memory, of what moment you cannot recall. His hostility was evident in his stance, sharp sword high up to drive down with enough force to cut your head from your shoulders. And yet here you are.

    And your words, You don’t have it in you. If you were familiar enough with that person to know this, who was he to you, and what had stopped him? Did he have a change of heart and instead used the blunt end, giving you a concussion and amnesia instead? Where is he now? And would he return to finish his work?

    Since that day, you look out for anyone fitting that built: tall and lean, visible even through robes with a design completely different from anything you’ve seen around the monastery. Asking Rhea or Seteth could be an option, but strangely enough, you don’t want to reveal it to anyone yet, not until you’ve found an answer yourself first.

    That is how your first moon at the monastery passes. Now there are more questions than before, more secrets to carry with no clear goal in sight. Lessons continue, you attend seminars and life unfolds in Garreg Mach, surprising you how easy it is growing accustomed and familiar with the place and its people—some more so than others.

    Byleth still invites you to her obligatory weekend-tea time sessions, rarely accepting no for an answer even though tea isn’t really what you consume to wind down. She’s acting like your talk after the mock battle has never happened and you do your best to mimic her even though you’d love nothing more than to see her power in battle. That opportunity shows at the end of the following month when Byleth and her class are tasked to deal with bandits the knights cornered in Zanado, the Red Canyon, but Rhea has different plans and instead sends you with the Golden Deer House to the village at the foot of the mountain to help clear debris a flooding left on one of the main roads leading to Alliance territory. It takes two days until the stench from the muddy riverbank is completely washed out of your hair.

    There is still no sight of the man from your memory, even though word about the Herald’s return has reached every corner of Fódlan by now. It makes you wonder if it’s less a matter of if and rather when he sets food inside the monastery. No additional memory has resurfaced, no sudden epiphany provides explanation and you doubt that will change even though Seteth drags you inside the chapel to pray for the goddess’ help whenever his time allows. Mostly, you use those occasions to ask her to make Raphael and Ingrid leave some Nirvana Cake for you.

    Then there is your other little secret of course. After another month of waking to an indistinguishable voice calling out to you every once in a while, you’ve grown used to it, finding a strange comfort in someone or something looking over you. Maybe it is the goddess. Maybe she is trying to reach out to tell you something important, to give divine insight and reach out to her followers. You just hope once she comes through to you, her words won’t proclaim hardships and sorrow.

[somepinkthing]

Is edelgard a racist and/or xenophobic? Yeah definitely a little bit. But you gotta frame it in the context that about 90% of the characters we meet are too. Tbh I wasn't aware people really focused in on this aspect of her character until recently. I am not denying or dismissing it, it's an important theme, but for edelgard it's more in the peripherals of her story arc. However, the fact that it exists so casually perhaps makes a point in and of itself

Fodlan is isolationist. It has been isolationist for as long as its people can remember. That has created a mindset that is very distinct amongst people born and raised there. Them vs us. If you are not for us, you are other. Something else. Unacceptably different. That logic applies to broad political topics such as race and to more personal issues as well. That’s the norm of fodlan. Edelgard is not immune to racism; very few in the cast are. We see it in lorenz with his blatant distaste of outsiders. We see it in ingrid with her assumption that people who are different are the enemy, guilty without any proof and guilty to each and every person. We even see it in people like hilda and sylvain, who harbor no ill will but simply don’t think too hard about their actions or attitudes towards sreng or almyra. We see it in how people treat petra like an interesting commodity, dedue like a danger to society, cyril like mud beneath their shoes, and claude like a violent interloper. This is the environment edelgard fits into. That’s not an excuse by any means, but it does provide a certain context for the scale of the issue. The problem isn’t that it’s rare, the problem is that it’s the norm. Xenophobia is so ingrained that even people that might be decent otherwise don’t see the system as wrong

Now, if we are comparing, amongst the lords edelgard is definitely the most ignorant of this issue and, arguably, might not always pay problems outside of the crest system the attention they deserve. On this front especially, she can’t compare to dimitri who has seen the aftereffects of such hatred firsthand. And neither of them will ever know how it is for claude to live it every day of his life. Edelgard is more or less on par with hilda or sylvain. She holds no malice towards people from outside of fodlan and is open to seeing them as allies and friends. She’s even willing to consider opening peace talks with almyra. It's not that she's entirely intolerant, it's that she just doesn’t think too hard about her learned biases and her own position of power. The best example of this? Petra and claude

Edelgard treats petra like a friend and equal but, at no point, does she ever really seek to understand petra’s situation. In her letter to petra before the timeskip, she reminds petra so easily that Brigid is under imperial rule and, in the same breath, tells petra to make her own way and choose for herself. That's where the disconnect comes into play. Edelgard likely meant every word she wrote but given their situations? It’s disrespectful at best and a threat at worst. Edelgard never asked petra what her opinions of the empire are, about her situation, about her aspirations except to compare them to her own, or about brigid at all. Again, their interactions held no malice but it also lacked consideration. It's not that edelgard was being cruel but she didn't understand nor did she think to ask

Then there’s her words to claude in verdant wind and to byleth her paralogue. The irony of criticizing almyra for its invasion when she invaded another sovereign state just last month is not lost on me. And her words to claude in verdant wind? Honestly even if she had never said anything out loud, her attitude towards claude throughout the game more than spoke to her mindset on that front. But I think people latch onto it too much as a sign that edelgard is extraordinarily racist while I feel she was meant to represent a norm in those moments. “You can’t possibly be good for fodlan you weren't raised here,” is an unfair assessment which implies a lot of untrue things about immigrants, but comparatively? Edelgard’s opinion is downright tame and it's entirely possible that she even didn't understand that this is discrimination. I'm aware that claude spent at least seven years intensely studying fodlan's history, customs, and people and that he's more than proven himself as a leader—I'm not saying edelgard's right, don't misunderstand. I'm saying that the takeaway isn't that edelgard is singular in this. Rather, this opinion is fodlan's norm. The point is that even edelgard, who preeches against allowing one's birth to determine their future, would accuse claude of being unfit for a role simply for being born elsewhere and see nothing odd. In her mind, there's no reason keeping an "outsider" out of leadership roles should contradict her ideals. This scene exists to showcase how deeply intolerance is ingrained into all of fodlan's people, not to imply that edelgard is the outlier

Now, there is ofc one other thing that can’t be overlooked when talking about this topic: edelgard’s view of the nabateans. A million things can be said about that. Perhaps the agarthans whispered lies to her that she believed. Perhaps her hatred for rhea blinded her. We know for a fact she at least never knew the whole story. Whatever the reason, edelgard undeniably views nabateans as Other. They are not human, not like us. She heavily implies that they do not deserve to participate in fodlan’s future in part because of rhea’s mistakes, but also in part because they are not human. That they've lived on this earth just as long as the current human race has doesn’t seem to occur to her, only their relation to rhea. And yeah rhea had no right to use the people's faith the way she did and someone should say it, but we know for a fact that rhea isn't the only nabatean. Of the ones we know, only three have anything to do with the church! To decide that all the nabateans are overlords based soley off rhea is... something

The way I see it, edelgard's questionable takes on the nabateans are as likely to be due to xenophobia as it is a mixture of her being understandably angry, her relationship with rhea, the empire's history, and TWSITD's influence on her. However, whatever the case, there's no denying that it's messed up for edelgard to view an entire group of people this way and I know some people don't like CF partially because of this—and that's fair! To me though, it’s another aspect of her character that plays well into her backstory and all-or-nothing viewpoints. As for the rest of it though? If you dislike her for buying into fodlan’s crap about outsiders that’s definitely fair too, but don’t forget that her degree of ignorance is hardly the exception. It is very much the norm and, yes, that statement probably includes some (or a lot) of your faves

[weissicles]

Humanity and Catharsis: FE3H Crimson Flower Meta!

I finished the Crimson Flower route for Fire Emblem: Three Houses! Now it’s time for some meta. This isn’t spoiler-free and it’s pretty long... so read at your own risk! (Though, I’m pretty late to the party, so I’m sure you’re all way ahead of me...)

Byleth’s Ending

First and foremost, let me begin by saying that this ending has to be my favorite for Byleth. I mentioned in an earlier post that I am aware of the end results of the Azure Moon (AM), Verdant Wind (VW), and Silver Snow (SS) routes, despite still needing to play it. I still felt pleasantly surprised and very pleased to play through the CF route, especially for Byleth, because I truly believe this was the best ending for their character. Byleth loses their divine powers, becoming even more human than they were at the beginning of the game, and that’s pretty neat.

(Borrowed this image from r/Edelgard; thank you, u/BrilliantGenius)

I think the biggest reason why I love this ending so much for Byleth is because they return to being a real person. Throughout the whole game, the player gets to watch how Byleth, a traveling mercenary, realizes that they are connected to Sothis, the Goddess, and how they awaken their true powers. Byleth merges with Sothis in every route, but only in the CF route do they lose their divine powers, as killing Rhea results in the breaking of the crest stone in their heart. Why does this matter? Numerous times, Edelgard mentions how she wishes to end the tyrannical rule of the Children of the Goddess (CotG), particularly Rhea, because she perceives that humanity has moved past needing to be ruled by non-humans and the oppressive systems they’ve created. Edelgard is traumatized by her own horrendous past, which drives her to find ways to end suffering. She appears like any crazy, mad queen figure in the routes that cast her as an antagonist, but what remains true throughout all routes is her passion for finding ways for humans to be humans without unnecessary suffering. She desires to restore humanity to its dignified state by eliminating the CotG, which make sheep out of people.

That’s why Byleth--the one with divine powers, quite literally the Goddess Incarnate--returning to how she was at the beginning is so powerful. This person, who became a weapon to change the tides of war, now gets to be a normal human. The crest stone breaking and her heart beginning to beat for the very first time symbolizes the collapse of the crest system and the freedom from a system that hailed Byleth as a weapon rather than a person. What’s more, Edelgard, the lord fighting for ideals of humanity, is the first person to hear Byleth’s heartbeat. She is the first person to realize Byleth’s changes, to see how they become a person again. Her dream for Fodlan is realized first in the person she looks up to the most, the person who has fought by her side since the start of the story. If that’s not poetic, I don’t know what else to tell you.

Catharsis

Now, what about Edelgard?

Let’s not pretend that she isn’t controversial. She is, and for good reason. Presented as attractive and likeable regardless of your choice of house, Edelgard serves as the antagonist for 3 of 4 routes. She dies in every route except CF and that matters. She turns into a heartless, cold leader whose ruthlessness can no longer be justified as the bloodshed continues to worsen. In the eyes of the other lords and Rhea, there is no possible way for someone as crazed as Edelgard to live. And frankly? The way that she turns out without Byleth, that makes sense.

So, why does it matter that she lives in CF, and that we see her the way she is? In no other ending do we ever see Edelgard herself returning to a sense of being human. No other ending provides reason for why she should live. CF is the only route where we can explore her character in full, realize that she is just a girl after all, and that she is human, too. That is why it is only in CF do we see this: Edelgard crying.

Following the battle at Tailtean Plains and slaying Dimitri, Edelgard nearly cries when she talks about the fallen king. Now, this is just a headcanon of mine, but I imagine that she might have remembered something about him and their childhood at the mention of her nickname, El. (”To the fires of eternity with you, El...”) His death shakes her to the point of nearly crying, but she doesn’t. She even says that the Edelgard who sheds tears died a long time ago.

But she cries when she thinks Byleth is dying.

This is the moment when the Adrestian Emperor returns to who she really is: Edelgard. Unable to help herself, Edelgard experiences grief and reacts as any person might by crying for the person she loves. She does something she hasn’t done in years, probably since she’s been a very young child in the dungeons underneath the palace in Enbarr. Why? Because she loves Byleth and losing someone you love should break you. This scene goes to show how Edelgard cares deeply for her teacher to the point of experiencing loss. When she realizes that Byleth may yet be alive (since the crest stone broke), she presses her head to her chest, hears her heartbeat for the first time, and starts to laugh. Yes, she laughs! Quietly, and mangled with the sound of some tears, which we can assume are shed out of pure joy that their professor is alive.

Here we see that Edelgard, like Byleth, is returning to a more human state. She’s finally allowed some catharsis, a major resolution to her suppressed character. Throughout the whole game, Edelgard has been nothing but repressed, constantly wearing the mask of Emperor, bound by duty, unable to be truly free. Without Byleth, she becomes even more inhuman as she really becomes more tyrannical. But with Byleth, like her teacher, she becomes more human, able to express feelings, able to be warm, able to experience loss because she loved.

Now, this is my more personal take on it, but I have always liked the thought of Edelgard and Byleth being more romantic than platonic following the timeskip. It’s heavily hinted that Edelgard has always taken a keen interest on the professor. What initially begins as a hope that Byleth may side with her turns into an actual desire to walk with her and experience a new dawn with her. Interestingly, the Japanese version has Edelgard more explicit with her romantic feelings than in the English version. Regardless of whether you read their relationship as romantic or platonic, I think this ending makes it clear that Byleth and Edelgard are equal, humans, people who care for one another and work well together. Byleth fulfills their role as more than an advisor. They are a mentor, a friend, and even family (see their ability to call Edelgard “El”, a name only Edelgard’s father and Dimitri use in CF). In that way, this route’s final message is this: that to love is to be human, and to be human is ultimately to love. That is why I really think that this route is the best possible outcome for Edelgard and especially for Byleth.

Other Takes

While I was disappointed that it was only 18 chapters long, CF does take a more direct approach, as the tides shift significantly when Byleth sides with the Empire. I would have liked if Claude and Dimitri played a more prominent role, though I know that CF focuses mainly on Edelgard and the BE’s against the Church of Seiros. I really think there was potential for Claude and Edelgard to be something besides a warring emperor and a neutral leader. I will admit: Edelclaude is a crack ship of mine. But I find their similar views on the church, their dreams of a new dawn for Fodlan, and their odd interactions to be interesting enough. I understand why Claude either must die or leave (for Almyra). If he hadn’t, that could have changed the way the war turned out, ultimately lessening Byleth’s role. It’s an interesting thought for a canon-divergent story. And let’s be real: Edelgard and Claude somewhat flirting while they face off in Derdriu? Ain’t slick at all!

And Dimitri... Oh, poor Dimitri. My best friend and roommate just finished AM and was so defeated by Edelgard’s death because of her relationship with Dimitri. They’re a tragic set of people, Edelgard and Dimitri, and it makes sense that in both AM and CF, one of them must die. Still, I was so shaken by Dimitri’s last words before Edelgard personally executes him in CF. I would like to think that that was not easy for her at all. I would like to think that she remembered him, at least a bit, and that she felt something there as she killed him. I don’t know what else I would have wanted out of Dimitri in CF, but I know I wanted something more. AM does a great job of providing good angst from Dimitri’s side. It would have been nice to see that from Edelgard’s side as well.

----

All in all, CF was a great route and may remain my favorite route, as I’m very impressed by Edelgard as a character. We’ll see! It’ll be a while until I play another route, but suffice to say that I’m floored by FE3H’s story, characters, and world. What a beautiful game, through and through!

[existential-fox]

Fire Emblem: Three Houses Thoughts

As someone who has always enjoyed JPRGs (thanks FFX) I kind of went into FETH knowing I would probably enjoy it. It’s character driven! It has different classes for each character! You can romance a character of your choice! There are goddesses, ultimate weapons, dragons, and a magic system! How could I not like this game?

The thing about FETH is it didn’t really throw any twists or turns that I couldn’t have predicted my way but the conclusions were still satisfying. The story was good but not in a ‘woah, change my life’ way. It did its job but its not FFVII or Tales of Bersera good in my eyes. No. It’s the characters and their individual stories that kept me playing.

I played Verdant Wind btw so there will probably be some spoilers for this route in my notes below.

You can’t really speak about Verdant Wind without first mentioning Claude. He’s the House’s Lord and the person you chose to align with at the start of the game. I chose The Golden Deer because of Claude. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I spoke to all the students, liked the look of some of them, felt meh about others, but when it came down to the choice I had to go with my gut feeling- this guy feels down to earth compared to the other two. I feel like he would be a laugh to hang out with. Plus he’s pretty.

I wasn’t wrong. Claude speaks to others as if they are his equal... because they are to him, and part of that also means that he isn’t afraid to make fun of his classmates or even his rival houses. Claude is top bants, and of course he remains pretty up to the point of the time skip- where he looks straight up handsome. Golden Boy indeed.

But my favorite thing about Claude- and the rest of the characters really- is that what you first see isn’t what is really going on. Claude might speak causally with people but he is extremely mistrustful of people at the beginning of the game. He keeps all his cards close to his chest under the pretence of being a ‘schemer’ but while he does have a sharp mind the real reason for this is he doesn’t trust others to take him and his goals seriously. He’s been treated as an outsider his whole life. Been discriminated against. Moved from pillar to post at the will of the nobles and seen discrimination happening from the other side as a result of this. Which is why his route is perfect for him. In between Edelgard, Rhea, and Dimitri, Claude is the third party, trying to make the best of a situation and struggling to see both sides. He wants to gather all the information he can because he would hate to have a wrong opinion due to trusting the biased opinions of others. He finds the truth for himself. 

But Claude doesn’t stay that way. Yes, his goal from the beginning has been to tear down the wall separating Fodlan from the outside world but.... ironically he had to tear down the wall within himself that was separating him from others as well. Claude at the end of the game is a very different person to the Claude at the beginning. He is open to Lorenz and Hilda’s suggestions, willing to share his plans with Byleth and others, up to the point where he reveals his ultimate goal to the others and they stand by him. Nobles, commoners, Crestbearers and Crestless. Claude truly becomes a leader in that scene. He inspires in a way all leaders should and leads by example. 

And it’s not just Claude...it’s all of them: Hilda, Lorenz, Leonie, Lysithea, Ignatz, Rapheal and Marianne all develop over the course of the story (especially if you do their Supports) and their development feeds into both Claude’s and Verdant Wind’s story.

Let me talk about Marianne for a second. I honestly didn’t think much of her to start with- oh here’s another  ‘I’m so sorry’ fragile girl- I thought- I’m sure she’ll stay exactly the same, the way they always do.

Nope. Marianne is a mess. She’s a severely depressed, suicidal, living from day to day, barely taking care of herself, mess. I like that the game highlights this as her being utterly unhealthy. It’s not edgy goth girl, or cute shy girl, it’s Marianne being a danger to herself. The game writes her despair as being rooted in her Crest (the cursed Crest of the Beast) but it is ridiculously easy to read this Crest as a metaphor for Mental Illness. She’s told to stay away from others because of it because she might hurt them. Her father suffered from it before her and it was passed down to her. If people knew the nature of her Crest they would shun her as something dangerous and untrustworthy. And lastly, it is achingly clear how much she wants to be freed of it... even if that freedom costs her life. I’m reading it as a mental illness metaphor and I’m sticking with it.

But its her supports that bring her back to life. The people around her speak to her in various ways befitting their character (I like this too) and each one highlights something different that they see in her that is admirable and good. Rapheal admires her affinity with animals. Lorenz admires her quiet nature. Ignatz recognises how easy it is to appreciate the small things when with her. Claude recognises her strength in being different. Etc. etc. None of these things cure her but by being around people and seeing that they don’t reject her but accept her instead her shell begins to crack. Maybe it doesn’t have to be this way, Marianne begins to think. Maybe there are small parts of myself that are not only tolerable but... wanted in others.  Maybe I don’t have to apologise for my existence.

It’s hard to say when Marianne truly turns a leaf because much like real life, change doesn’t happen in one moment, but it’s important to recognise that she does change. She still has the Crest at the end of the story (read Mental Illness) but she noticeably is able to speak her mind without apologising, able to offer her help rather than shying away, and most importantly able to laugh. It’s amazing how vocal Marianne is after the time-skip. She’s still Marianne but a healthier person. And I love her for it. 

I won’t go over the other characters as I’ve spoken plenty about my two faves but I do love them all. Yes, even Sylvain. Can’t agree with his methods but I do understand and empathise with his reasons. And people are often like that.

Going off characters and into other things:

Gameplay- 

I liked it but made the mistake of choosing Normal. It was ridiculously easy by the mid-way point. I would defo play on Hard in future games. However I love the strategy of choosing who fights who, when to draw someone back, when to use Gambits etc. Also love the class system. Pegasus Knights go brrrrrrrr. 

Music- 

This is a ‘it does its job’ for me. Nothing really stood out asides the final boss theme. But it didn’t annoy me or get bland so there’s that!

Monastery Life-

Pre Timeskip- Was fun. I liked trying to recruit students and finding lost items and doing all the support raising stuff. It was a nice break from battles.

Post Timeskip- Eh. Not enough students around to justify it tbh. It didn’t bore me but I did find myself wanting to go back to battles, story, or supports.

Verdant Wind story- I like this route for its lore and for how it mirrors Claude’s character. I did not like last minute villain even if I liked his theme. I was kind of surprised Sothis never came back?? Killing the students I didn’t recruit was fucking cruel. Have no idea what happened to Dedue. Maybe he went to the Bahamas for a long holiday after losing out to the kill.  

I want to play the other routes to understand Edelgard/Dimitri/Rhea’s viewpoints but I do feel like VW is a complete story in itself. You don’t need anything else but Claude really.  Why get messed up in politics and Crest shit when you can try to end racism, right? Who the fuck cares about that other stuff. 

Anyway in conclusion this game to me succeeds for two things- compelling character development and compelling character relationships. I’m kind of astounded tbh that the writers wrote so many characters and yet made them all compelling in their own ways. 

I bought a Golden Deer shirt because I am so invested in these characters so they’ve got to be good.