bowbowis

[bowbowis]

I mean, that's bad, but two chapters prior you see Rhea dispatching the Knights to deal with rebels and sending students (potentially including the rebel leader's son) to observe the slaughter with the stated purpose being to teach them a lesson about defying the church. Then in the chapter immediately prior you see her order the execution of members of the Western Church without a trial.

The point is "Tower of Black Winds" isn't the first time you see Rhea doing sketchy shit. It's just the first time you see trying to conceal it rather than openly acting like a zealot.

Tower of Black Winds' place in Crimson Flower's narrative

A rather common take I see in the fandom is that White Clouds was written around the Blue Lions. The evidence for this is largely that you spend a lot of time interfacing with Kingdom politics early, with you fighting a rebellious Kingdom lord in chapter 3, the Kingdom's branch of the Church of Seiros in chapter 4, and a disowned Kingdom noble in chapter 5.

While it's true that you encounter elements of the Kingdom often in the early portions of White Clouds, this doesn't mean those portions of the game are written around the Kingdom students, and in fact changing the relationships Lonato and Miklan have to Ashe and Sylvain wouldn't change the focus of their respective chapters, evidenced in that they work for the Black Eagle and Golden Deer stories as well (better than the Blue Lions even, in the case of chapter 5).

Getting the easiest example out of the way, chapter 4 is not about Faerghus or the Kingdom at all, it's about the Church of Seiros's fractured state and the discovery of the Sword of the Creator. I would almost argue the first narrative hook matters least in Azure Moon because the Church of Seiros is a borderline non-entity in Azure Moon, or at least has less influence than in other routes.

Chapter 3 introduces... a lot of plot elements, honestly. It shows Faerghus's crumbling state, it brings up the Tragedy of Duscur, it introduces Catherine, it shows Rhea's harsh mindset toward rebellious elements, and it ends with your House Leader revealing something more about their mindset. Of these, I would argue the last two are the most important, as it's what the chapter ends on. By contrast, the Tragedy of Duscur quickly ends up buried by the frantic pace of the battle.

Chapter 5 is about Crests and Relics, not Faerghus or House Gautier. You can see this in what the three House Leaders have to talk primarily about once the chapter is over:

Edelgard rages against the injustice of Fodlan's Crest-based society.

Dimitri laments the importance Faerghus places on Crests and Relics.

Claude ponders the mysteries behind Relics.

The first of these is the heart of Edelgard's ideals, which are integral to Crimson Flower and Silver Snow.

The last, a major reveal that happens only at the end of Verdant Wind.

Azure Moon, on the other hand... is entirely about Dimitri's personal tragedy. What role does the influence of Crests and Relics have in Dimitri's backstory or his relationship with Edelgard? Uhh, none at all.

If anything, chapter 5 suits Azure Moon the least of all routes, despite taking place in Faerghus and being centered around the brother of one of the Blue Lions.

So although early White Clouds features a lot of Faerghus, not much of it is about Faerghus. Burying this theory even further is the reality that a good chunk of middle and later White Clouds transitions over to the Empire.

Now, going further, one of the main reveals that takes place in chapter 5 is about what Relics do the Crestless. We even see a whole cutscene which reveals the process in all its horror. This is used to an extent later in White Clouds when it's revealed the students were transformed into Demonic Beasts using the power of Crest Stone fragments, but the technique is only used for its full and true horror in one single route.

It's tragic that one of Dedue's most stand-out moments of agency comes on the route that isn't his :/

But yeah, if Tower of Black Winds works best in any route, it's Crimson Flower, which has Field of Revenge in it. You lived the nightmare of Conand Tower once, faced it in the form of Agarthan Demonic Beasts, and now you're finally coming up against it one last time on the Tailltean Plains, such that Dedue's plan ends up stealing the narrative weight from the Church of Seiros entirely. It works staggeringly well.

[bowbowis]

Maybe it was to paint Fraud as bootleg copy of Best Dad, who also erased Hrym when it wanted to say Adrestia goodbye and join the Alliance?

Sure, maybe it's to try and paint Claude as a copy of Ionius and maybe when Dimitri calls for the killing of all Adrestians and tries to retake the Faerghus Dukedom they're trying to paint him as a knockoff Thales who was also forced out of his home and wants to retake it via genocide.

Or maybe it's because those houses are committing treason and effectively declaring war on the Federation by defecting to a hostile power, which the writers felt that was sufficient explanation for Claude's actions.

Seriously, do you have some sort of reverse Occam's Razor heuristic? Like, instead of accepting the answer that makes the fewest assumptions as most likely true, you reject perfectly straightforward explanations and spin wild conspiracy theories instead?

Of course, actions having consequences is a concept alien to Fodlan, except when it's to bash some Northern barbarians, or to give more fuel to "Church BaD".

Edelgard gets killed for starting the war in three out of seven routes, and mindraped for defying TWSitD in a fourth, with her dreams of a more egalitarian Fódlan never being realized in either case; she has to let her friend (Monica) die to maintain her cover in four routes; she has to pay reparations to the Federation for attacking them in GW; she has to give up her momentum against the Kingdom to deal with the fallout of betraying TWSitD and showing mercy to Duke Aegir in SB; and Arianrhod gets nuked because she was too brazen in her defiance of TWSitD in CF.

Claude's refusal to commit to the war leads to his death or him being forced to give up on his ambitions and leave Fódlan in three out of seven routes. He can also be killed for betraying the Empire in SB. In the bad end route of GW his sacrificing Randolph leads to Judith being killed by Byleth when Fleche hires Jeralt's mercenaries.

Conversely, the worst consequence Dimitri ever faces for going on a five year torture and murder spree is Rodrigue dying (by jumping in front a blow meant for Dimitri, so even when his actions have consequences he's still being shielded from the worst of it). Notably, while whether Edelgard deserves punishment for her actions is left to the player's discretion (via the choice to kill or protect her in the Holy Tomb), there is no choice to make Dimitri answer for his crimes, not even picking a different house because in those routes he either gets himself killed making an unrelated tactical blunder (VW/SS) or never goes on the killing spree in the first place (CF). The lack of consequences is even more noticeable when you compare Dimitri to Jeritza, a character with a similarly murderous history who, rather than becoming king, insists on facing prison time after the war.

Did Hans 2 exist?

Who? Can you please just use the characters' actual names? These little insulting nicknames you make up are just childish and, in cases like this can make it impossible to tell who you're talking about. Like, I assume you're referring to someone who reminds you of Hans from Fates. The character who most reminds me of Hans from Fates is Metodey, but for all I know you could mean Kostas, or Kronya, or Hubert, or Jeritza, or Dimitri, or Caspar (it wouldn't be your most bizarre take on a character), or anyone else.

Did Supreme Leader have agency?

Yes, but that doesn't mean she can just do whatever she wants without consequences. A big part of her story is that she's stuck in a really shitty situation through no real fault of her own, and how she chooses to work with and eventually overcome the limitations she's been given to fulfill her dream. There's a reason Aymr is marked with the Devil Arcana (Crest of the Beast), which when upright represents being constrained by outside forces (as Edelgard is with her reliance on TWSitD), but which when reversed represents breaking free and retaking control of your life (as she does in CF).

Why Supreme Leader never offered the same offer of service she offered Leopold to Ludwig?

Because Ludwig is corrupt, was the ringleader of the insurrection that stripped her father of power, was responsible for all the torture and loss she and her siblings suffered in the dungeons, and is also not half as useful to have on her side as Fódlan's mightiest general is.

Is Bernie dad an asshat for beating up the assassin who wanted to murder his heir?

No. He's an asshat for abusing her until she developed a severe anxiety disorder and for protecting her only because he can't use her as a pawn in a political marriage if she's dead.

Is Rhea keeping Colonel Sanders locked in the Abyss?

Again, who? Could you at least put the actual name in parentheses? I'm guessing maybe you mean Hanneman, in which case no. What has exactly has he done to get sent Rhea's sewer ghetto?

Also I can't help but notice you don't have an insulting nickname for Rhea yet. Maybe you call her something like "Dumilla", or "Pope Fatass", or "Grandma Bad-Touch"?

Why Uncle Thales didn't target Enbarr with Javelins in Tru Piss, or pulled out Nemesis from his tupperware?

Because Edelgard pretended to be cowed be the attack on Arianrhod and the rest of their conflict is unfortunately relegated to the epilogue.

I joke a lot about the 10k years of lore, but let's be real, any game with plot threads as vague and weirdly hanging as the ones existing in that verse would have been roasted to oblivion if it didn't benefit from the same "circumstances" Fodlan did.

I mean, there are some areas that are left vague, but I think a lot of the confusion you're facing would be cleared up if you tried approaching the story without assuming that Edelgard is lying or wrong about everything ever.

Why did KT go out of it's way to state that Clout wiped out all the houses that tried to leave the Alliance only to ignore it for the rest of the route

Literally what does it even add other than making Clout look like an evil, power-hungry dictator whose cruel actions are never acknowledged by the story or characters

Maybe it was to paint Fraud as bootleg copy of Best Dad, who also erased Hrym when it wanted to say Adrestia goodbye and join the Alliance?

Of course, actions having consequences is a concept alien to Fodlan, except when it's to bash some Northern barbarians, or to give more fuel to "Church BaD".

Fodlan's plot is... foggy at best, which is why some people earlier theorised that we have a lot of fanworks about it, whenever fans are unhappy or not satisfied with plot threads, they tend to write fanfics/come up with HCs, and that's how we got 5 years of Discourse (tm).

Did Hans 2 exist? Did Supreme Leader have agency? Why Supreme Leader never offered the same offer of service she offered Leopold to Ludwig? Is Bernie dad an asshat for beating up the assassin who wanted to murder his heir? Is Rhea keeping Colonel Sanders locked in the Abyss? Why Uncle Thales didn't target Enbarr with Javelins in Tru Piss, or pulled out Nemesis from his tupperware?

We will never know.

I joke a lot about the 10k years of lore, but let's be real, any game with plot threads as vague and weirdly hanging as the ones existing in that verse would have been roasted to oblivion if it didn't benefit from the same "circumstances" Fodlan did.

[bowbowis]

I'm sure Faerghus's sense of justice appeals to them too.

So I pissed off a zionist and got them cope posting today before blocking, so I feel good about myself. Btw, is it me or are the Zionists in FE Fandom always in on the Anti-Edelgard crowd?

[bowbowis]

#i think especially zoomers forget also that she had a pretty sterling progressive reputation for a long time #like we dunk on the dumbledore gay reveal now but in 2007 even doing that post-publication in an interview #one that involved a bunch of fans including little kids asking her questions about the characters btw #was a pretty huge fucking deal for children's literature

It is worth taking a moment to appreciate just how far we've come in the last two decades. People may call JKR a coward for not addressing Dumbledore's sexuality in the books proper, but at that time it's likely the publisher would have flat out refused to print it if she'd tried.

I remember being floored back in 2013 when The House of Hades revealed that Nico was gay and had once had a crush on Percy. Not because I particularly thought Rick Riordan was averse to including LGBTQ+ characters in his works, but because he was able to get the book onto shelves without it being censored. My first thought was "I can't believe he got away with that", because up until then children's media had always treated same-sex attraction the same as straight-up intercourse: something age-inappropriate that you just didn't acknowledge.

Hell, it honestly wouldn't surprise if the Dumbledore gay reveal actually helped pave the way for authors like Riordan to publish books with characters who are explicitly shown to be LGBTQ+ in the text proper.

None of this is to defend JKR's more recent behavior, of course. She can go fuck herself. It's just something that's interesting to look back on.

There are people who actually worshipped JKR and there are people who gushed about her because she wrote Harry Potter and they loved Harry Potter who literally knew nothing about her that wasn't in the author bio on the dust jacket. I think fandom oriented people tend to forget how big a population the latter was! But Harry Potter was so huge at its peak that it had a lot of casual fans who deeply, deeply loved the series, maybe even knew the trivia of the actual books inside and out, but never engaged with the fandom side of things or dove deep into meta information. There were normies attending midnight release parties, the series was that big.

[bowbowis]

I'm begging gender essentialists to take a goddamn anthropology class, or at least crack open a fucking ethnography, and learn that their culture's norms are not immutable truths written into the fabric of the universe.

stop worrying about whether or not queer identities "make sense". gender itself doesn't make sense. "woman" and "man" are arbitrary constellations of traits and features that don't reflect how people who fall into those genders actually think, feel and behave. the definitions we have for manhood and womanhood don't make sense, either. according to cisheteronormative society, feminine men and masculine women don't "make sense" either. the biological sex binary makes ABSOLUTELY no sense, with intersex people proving that it quite literally doesn't exist.

why do queer identities have to "make sense" in order for you to see them as valid? they shouldn't have to. let go and accept that identity is not a scientific theory. it doesn't have to "make sense". none of this does. stop running others' identities through such scrutiny and realize your identity doesn't "make sense", either. embrace it. it's a good thing.

[bowbowis]

No. Petting cats is all part of her fourth-wall breaking, 8D chess, succubus mind games to trick horny men into thinking she's likable so she can sell Heroes alts.

“Rhea’s a genocide survivor and likes cats so she should be allowed to do whatever she wants!”

From the group that brought you - “Edelgard getting tortured and experimented on during her childhood doesn’t justify a continent-wide war” and “Edelgard liking sweets and having ‘cute moments’ is just fetish bait to make the war crimes seem less bad”!

“Edelgard getting tortured and experimented on during her childhood doesn’t justify a continent-wide war”

Well, that alone definitely wouldn't justify starting a continental war, so it's fortunate that's not why she does it :)

But yeah, it's so petty.

[bowbowis]

I noticed it early by playing Tru Piss but, basically, if Seteth's wrong when he suggests she deposed her dad from the throne to become Emperor, the scene when she talks to Best Dad is actually a coup! Not against Best Dad himself, but against Ludwig!

No more of a coup than Dimitri marching into Fhirdiad to depose Cornelia in AM or Rufus in AG. Edelgard is a lot nicer about it though.

We know she already has, during the coronation scene, access to the Military because Leopold is even more fickle than Asheron. So when she politely asks Ionius to give her the crown, and explains to Ludwig that she is now the Emperor, she is accompanied by Billy, and several soldiers :

There's a soldier standing next to Ionius too. It's almost like there are guards stationed in Imperial Palace to protect the Emperor and his heir.

The way the scene plays, she, Billy, Best Dad and the soldiers are on the same side, against Ludwig who just popped up, and well, when she dismisses him, a loldier is in the shot. Same when Best Dad tells her he leaves Fodlan in her hands, she agrees... with a soldier in the plan, not Billy, but a loldier :

Cool. No continuity errors with them just disappearing between shots then.

Seriously what's your point with this?

It's not a bloody one (not yet!), but it's a coup against Ludwig, where she takes back authority/power from his hands, and jails him.

What do you mean "yet". Edelgard is coronated and has Ludwig arrested. That's the coup. The war is something that happens after Edelgard has seized power.

(I wonder what the "she BaD bcs no fair TrIaL" crowd has to say about this scene lol, especially as Hopes!Ferdie notes there's no proof Ludwig is guilty of what he is accused of!)

Edelgard saw Ludwig participating in the kidnapping, torture, and murder of her siblings. That's probable cause to make an arrest and Hopes is explicit that the plan is to give him a fair trial. Edelgard's treatment of Ludwig is pretty well in line with how modern first-world justice systems are supposed operate. It is in no way comparable to Rhea skipping straight from arraignment to execution.

Back to your post, yep, it's a purge!

A purge of the corrupt and criminal elements in her government, not of ideological opponents. Big difference.

*Hopes retconned a lot of stuff, but imo Grégoire is notable as in, in Houses, Supreme Leader gets rid of him but in Hopes, he is used as a pawn. What warranted this difference? Is Grégoire less morally corrupt in Houses, or Supreme Leader gets rid of him because of his ties to Ludwig (after all, they were on good enough terms if Ludwig wanted to arrange a wedding between his precious heir and Grégoire's daughter!) without asking him to side with her, or she asked and he refused?

The difference is whether Edelgard has a use for him. In Hopes she revives the Southern Church to challenge the Central Church's monopoly on religious authority and build support for her cause among the populace in the two years leading up to the war. In Houses Edelgard has only a month between taking power and making her move, so there isn't time to use Varley to drive that wedge between Adrestia and the Church and thus no reason not to arrest him for his crimes.

But in Hopes, he accepts to betray Ludwig because, why not, and being the Leader of the Imperial Information Campaign, I mean, Southern Church, is more attractive than the ties he used to have with Ludwig?

Yes? Varley is a cowardly, dishonorable piece of shit who cares more about his wealth and status than his own daughter. What on Earth makes you think he'd stick his neck out for Ludwig, who has been arrested and stripped of power, instead of trying to ingratiate himself with Edelgard?

(or because KT new some players wanted to meet Bernie's dad, but since the fanbase never gaf about Vestra Sr, dude was off-screened in both games?)

Pretty much, yeah. People wanted to see Gregoire suffer for what he did to Bernie and Hopes delivered.

why the hate boner against the dude? Is it because she really believes he led the experiments? . . . #or is it something else? #Best Dad also blames Ludwig for the experiments #do they hate Ludwig because he dared to lead an insurrection against House Hresvelg? #idk but it'd make more sense than #the fog we have #10k years of lore

Edelgard and Ionius KNOW Ludwig was involved in the experiments. Neither game presents us with any reason to doubt the fact that he was collaborating with Those Who Slither in the Dark, Hopes even has two routes which flat out show him doing it. Even if he somehow wasn't involved, treason is also a pretty good reason to hate the guy. Not to mention Ferdinand and Lysithea independently confirming that he was corrupt and treated the people of Hyrm cruelly.

Ludwig is scum. Scum who is personally responsible for ruining Edelgard's life, and she still treats him with more decency than the other lords treat their prisoners. There's no ambiguity here, you seemingly just can't accept a scenario in which Edelgard isn't either the bad guy or a fool.

#and yet she works with Thales!

Edelgard hates Thales too, but like Varley in Hopes, he's useful to her for the time being, plus getting rid of him is much harder and much riskier than getting rid of Ludwig.

I think you should think long and hard when you start to reach the point where you sympathize with convicted childkiller Ludwig von Aegir and child abuser Gregoire von Varley @randomnameless

Also isn't Fantasyinvader kinda fascist? All I see posted from him in social media through screens is arguments ranting against modernity and being all pro-feudalism.

[bowbowis]

As somebody who majored in anthropology in undergrad, it's endlessly frustrating to hear these people bang on about "traditional" whatever because it always - always - betrays their abject ignorance of vast diversity of cultural practices and lifestyles which have existed in an equally diverse array of times and places. To them human history was just one long episode of Leave it to Beaver until women, or blacks, or hippies, or gays, or immigrants, or jews, or transexuals, or whatever else their particular bugbear may be came and fucked it all up.

Do women drunk on the trad wife fantasy know that women have been working in factories since the 1800s?

Like, why do you always assume you’re going to be middle to upper class living in the suburbs being a full time homemaker?

You’re more likely to be living in a multigenerational household while also doing some work on the side while raising your kids. Your money will go straight to your husband and he gets to decide what happens to it.

[bowbowis]

The tragic/hilarious thing is how all the hardcore Bible thumpers I know would look at that image and feel nothing but contempt for Jose and Maria.

I mean the whole damn point of the Nativity story is that the supposed son of God (interpret Jesus how you fucking want, of course) was born to a couple of poor, exhausted peasants in the stable for the inn, and his first bed was a feeding trough for animals. That would nowadays be like a poor couple where the mother gives birth in a parking garage behind the motel because they couldn’t find a better place and nobody else would take them in. It’s a pretty gritty setting, and the idea is that God was reborn in some of the rock-bottom lowest circumstances. The only thing majestic was all the angels and shit, and of course motherly love

I get that a lot of the art portraying Madonna and Child as fabulously wealthy europeans in splendid robes and golden light was meant to glorify God + whichever nobility was sponsoring the artist, and while of course it’s genuinely beautiful art, it just always struck me as horribly missing the point, which is that the supposed son of God started in incredibly humble circumstances, among the kind of people that everyone else looks down on

[bowbowis]

Emperor

Emperor

[bowbowis]

The Immaculate One's model seems to be scaled-down in-game, as it appears significantly smaller compared to other characters than it does when ripped.

If the Immaculate One is truly 1335 centimeters tall on all fours in this image, that would make Edelgard and Shez around 10 feet tall.

Notably the in-game size is much closer to what's portrayed in the cutscenes.

In the final cutscene of CF the Immaculate One, when rearing on its hind legs with its neck fully extended, would be approximately 7 times the height of F!Byleth, who is 164cm.

7 * 164cm = 1148cm or 11.48 meters tall.

Contrast the ripped model, which is 1335cm, or 13.35 meters, tall on all fours.

Can’t remember if I posted this one

[bowbowis]

Ergo : power inbalance is baked in the fantasy genre. And yet, the writers often manage to tell some version of "the ones who have less power are no less important", like with Tolkien, it's a bunch of hobbits who manage to take down the greatest "evil" of their era, or some message like "having more power/being more important means you are bound to help the ones who have none" thingie.

You're soooo close to getting it... Yes. There is a power imbalance baked into medieval fantasy settings, one which most audiences would agree is abhorrent by modern standards. Authors typically get around this either by not dwelling on the implications (as in most Zelda games), or else using it to convey themes about the importance of the less powerful or the responsibility those with power owe to those who lack it (as in many past Fire Emblem titles).

Now enter Fódlan, a setting which does dwell on the implications; where the less powerful are most definitely not treated as equally valuable (see Dorothea and Sylvain's backstories, among other examples); and where for every aristocrat who abides noblesse oblige there are three more who feel they have the right to run roughshod over the commonfolk. Ferdinand's belief in the romanticized ideal of the nobility is not portrayed as sage wisdom, it's foolish naivety which he frequently has to resort to the "no true Scotsman" fallacy to maintain. Fódlan is all about deconstructing that power imbalance that other fantasy settings take for granted.

So, we have this fantasy setting with its inherent power inbalance... that quickly became something that is/was unacceptable, because IRL, power inbalance is based on bullshit and something everyone decries - so if your beloved media reflects on what you like IRL, you can't like a setting with an objective power inbalance, even if is justified by magic which doesn't exist irl like shooting eyebeams or some people being more "special than others" who can live up to 1500 years old. Fodlan's power inbalance, for some parts of the fandom 2019, cannot be justified by traditional fantasy settings so, those settings/fantasy elements are straight out ignored.

And here is where you lose the thread. You're take for granted the very conventions that the Fódlan games are interrogating. You say the power imbalance is justified by magic. Three Houses asks if that's really true. Why should somebody long lived be afforded more dignity than someone who isn't? Why should shooting eye-beams entitle someone to be king? These are the kinds of questions Three Houses is asking. It does so most directly through Edelgard in White Clouds, so I guess you can just brush all concerns aside if you take it as axiomatic that she's evil and wrong, but that's not how the game treats her.

TL;DR: It's not that people are too woke to accept the power imbalance of a traditional fantasy setting; it's that Three Houses is a deconstruction of traditional fantasy settings that asks players to critically examine the justifiability of that power imbalance. Consequently, when the game gives players a chance to fight for a more egalitarian system many are going go for it.

Why do we still have in 2024 stupid takes like Rhea created and enforces the crest system?

Bcs Rhea BaD anon.

More seriously,

FE Fodlan is one of one of the most divorced FE verses from its fantasy elements (see : Nabateans being as important as Ignatz's leather shoes) : Tellius has the Laguz existing, Archanea/Ylisse has manaketes hanging around and being a core point in FE Archanea, Elibe has its entire history involving dragons and the best ending finally be about acceptance between the two races, Magvel has zombies, Valentia has terrors and in SoV we have dragons and magic dragon blood, Fates has dragons (and laguz-like!) and even Jugdral have people with magic dragon blood.

(i ranted and ranted and ranted under the cut, so it's a bit long)

Unlike Fodlan, Jugdral's "people with magic dragon blood" are a key element to the story told at large, and it bleeds through the mechanics used to tell that story. FE4 wise, toddler!Seliph has a S rank in swords when Beowulf, even if he trains his entire life, will never achieve A rank in swords. Base!Julia with her holy weapon can smack Loptyr, when max!invested (at least lore wise) Forseti!Ced will never be able to kill him.

It's unfair for Beo and Ced, but that is how the verse works because, in that verse, some people are mc guffins or "the only ones" who are able to do something, or even, straight out, stronger/have more talent than others.

In traditional fantasy settings we have the "same" sort of rules, you have elves who do X and Y, humans won't can't, dwarves who can't either but they can do W, orc who can do J, etc etc.

Even for all of the "deconstruction of the genre!" gimmick ASOIAF has, according to some people, Dany is fire-proof and Jon most likely survives after being assassinated because he is a Stark and can use his doggo as a back up save, both things Edmure Tully will never be able to achieve.

Tolkien has Numenoreans being straight up blessed by the Valar/stronger/longer lived/etc etc than middle-earth humans, on top of also having elves, dwarves and ents.

Ergo : power inbalance is baked in the fantasy genre.

And yet, the writers often manage to tell some version of "the ones who have less power are no less important", like with Tolkien, it's a bunch of hobbits who manage to take down the greatest "evil" of their era, or some message like "having more power/being more important means you are bound to help the ones who have none" thingie.

In Fodlan, the "beings who have more power" than humans are the Nabateans (+ Sothis herself!). Sothis can create life, her daughter - through unknown means - can create artifical beings, one her children can control weather (the one who was turned in a milkshake for Charon!), one of them has monstruous strength (the one turned in a milkshake for Blaiddyd), one of them could communicate with animals (Timotheos iirc - if we assume he was a Nabatean or got his powers from his crest), her granddaughter can set up an AOE to heal what would otherwise be fatal wounds (it's heavily implied this is what Flayn did when she overused her power and went comatose) etc etc.

This is the original power inbalance in Fodlan.

Then some humans "stole" this power from Nabateans, and got a share of it themselves, which is what is later called "crest" : aka, some humans got a part of the super/magic powers that Nabateans originally had and thus, because, for all intents and purposes, "super-humans".

Now, Fodlan discourse started with FE16 being released in 2019, not that long after GoT's ending - which was trash - and in an era where fandom turned from "harmless fun" to "something that looks like activism and earns you point if you manage to use it to express your real life opinions".

In 2019, after Dumb and Dumber tanked GoT and removed most of ASOIAF fantasy parts to deliver "sex that sells" with a moldy plot, some part of the fandom started to conflate and harass people over what they like, and how it, apparently, reflected on their real life opinions ("if you hate this female character it means you hate women!"/"if you think X becoming king is a good ending, you don't value democracy!").

So, we have this fantasy setting with its inherent power inbalance... that quickly became something that is/was unacceptable, because IRL, power inbalance is based on bullshit and something everyone decries - so if your beloved media reflects on what you like IRL, you can't like a setting with an objective power inbalance, even if is justified by magic which doesn't exist irl like shooting eyebeams or some people being more "special than others" who can live up to 1500 years old.

Fodlan's power inbalance, for some parts of the fandom 2019, cannot be justified by traditional fantasy settings so, those settings/fantasy elements are straight out ignored.

Thus the "crests"' magic effects/powers are ignored, and dumbed down to, roughly, what a middle school student would think "nobility" is/was in the Middle Ages/Renaissance.

Jean-François Marie Pierre de Bourbon isn't inherently better at smashing things with a sword than Bob, or at healing than Roger, any "advantage" Jean-François Marie Pierre de Bourbon has over them is, maybe, that he started training earlier.

In Fodlan?

If Jean-François Marie Pierre de Charon has a major Charon crest, he can dance and clap in his hands to summon rain. Bob and Roger, no matter how hard they train, will never be able to do that. Jean-François Marie Pierre de Charon will thus be seen as having higher "value" or being straight up "better" than Bob or Roger, because as long as he is here, your crops will never suffer from drought.

But... we can't have that, because if you confuse fandom and real life opinions and aspirations, you cannot admit that some people in Fodlan are inherently "better" at something, only because of their blood, otherwise, what would it translate to IRL?

This is why, imo, part of the fandom (and the game sure doesn't help! Fodlan is no Jugdral and its gameplay lacks coherence regarding the in-game lore! Remember how Raphael can use a relic and only loses 10HP, when Miklan, plot wise, was turned in a demonic beast?) that loves this take, arguably, reduces crests to a title and family name.

Why should the Bourbon family rule over us, when they're no better than Roger or Bob? Isn't it unfair the Bourbons are still valued nowadays when the only thing to their fame is their name, and not what they are actually doing?

The game plays coy about crests - we know each of them has a specific power - but it never reveals what are those powers (lore wise!) save for 2 of them. So are crests superpowers, or just a family name with a particle, or both? Is the "system" (a friend made a post debunking any idea of "systemic" application of this notion in the three countries) based on bullshit, or on, objective superpowers?

Dimitri tries to tackle the issue, but only around relic usage : the Gautiers are valued if they have a crest because they can use their superweapon to protect the border. But what about valuing House Charon's ability to bring rain and guarantee good harvests? What is the other superpower tied to the crest of Gautier that isn't "use a femur and wreck havoc with it"?

If Marianne's ability to talk to animals is tied to her crest, why isn't it more developed? Instead of having useless shit like talking and befriending horses like a Disney princess, we could have Maurice-blooded people be masters of counter-intelligence, imagine if they can talk to birds/rodents and ask them to scout various areas or spy/ask them what they saw ! Hell, we could have had a situation where in a fog of war map, where Marianne, if, idk, through Billy fed enough animals in the monastery, would have a better field of vision than anyone else, with some blurb/one-line about her relying on the animals around to know and see what is going on! Alas, it wasn't meant to be.

FE16 eludes the question, because the character who "questions" a world centered around "crests" is the marketable asset of the game, and cannot be challenged in any meaningful capacity v- she feels it's unfair that her crest seemingly dictate her life, and only in the gacha game with ery serious writing like the Heavy Plate Corps or Sniddies, does she get a modicum of self-reflection - or at least someone challenging her - where she is told that she could use the superpowers she has to help people instead of blaming the world for getting one.

In a traditional FE setting, where some Lords question why they were born with power/or are in powerful positions, the answer is always that no matter what they were born with (or without in Leif's case!) what is more important is what they decide to do with that power. Elincia never wanted to become Queen? She will still fight and protect Crimea and its people. Marth is the last hope of Altea, even if it means leaving Elice behind. Seliph doesn't want to fight in Thracia anymore or feels like he's a fraud? He can turn tail and return home, while the world around him falls apart. Leif also feels like a fraud because he doesn't have superpowers like his cousin? Does that mean he should turn his thumbs and watch as his people are being caught/enslaved/sacrificed?

In Fodlan you have no reflection like this : Linhardt is, imo, the best example.

Dude hates blood and has a crest (aka magic powers) geared towards healing, you could make a case that for someone who has hematophobia, being a healer is difficult and this would be the reason why he refuses to heal/use his powers to help people around him... but no. Lin's laziness is played for laughs, and his refusal to do anything not related to his topic of interest is never questioned/analysed under the angle of, say, a head nurse who has no crest and laments that she couldn't save everyone who was hurt during an assault, who snaps at him for having the "gift" he has and not using it for the sake of people around him.

"What Lin decides to do with his power?" : Well, nothing.

Instead we have a reflection on his bright mind going to waste if he lazes all day long, culminating in his Supreme support where an Imperial facility is created specifically to cater to his tastes, that will enable him to research crests as much as he wants...

But still, nothing about his innate "healing" power!

In the end, it's no surprise that part of the fandom latched on that "crest = nobility title" because the Fodlan verse refuses to develop anything about its fantasy elements (hell, iirc Nopes swaps "crests" for "blood" and "titles" in its Supreme route ?).

"Sure, but where does Rhea fit in this nonsense?"

Rhea is, in this vision, the ultimate target !

For all of the "I ignore fantasy elements", Rhea is always (in FE16 at least!) turning into a dragon : no matter how hard you want to ignore fantasy, she's here to remind you tht, in this verse, dragons exist.

But most importantly, as Fodlan must be analysed through an IRL lens otherwise modern fandom cannot engage with it, Rhea, by virtue of being the lady in charge of a religious organisation called "Church", is also seen through a lens : Rhea BaD bcs Religion BaD and Catholic Church BaD.

FWIW, thanks to the five years of discourse we had, I learnt more about cultural values and differences existings between, here and the rest of the world - especially a place that is overepresented on fandom spaces - on organised religions especially the catholic church. Of course this bled on fandom takes and analysis, which projected some users' irl bias against the Catholic Church on the fandom organisation and entity that is the Church of Seiros. Combine this with secularism being now weaponised and used to ridicule people in spaces like r/atheism and you have a perfect recipe for "Religion BaD = Catholic Church BaD = fictional organised religion with a catholic flair BaD".

Granted, given how a certain loLcalisation team also originates from this place, it's no surprise that some "creative liberties" they took tried to hammer even more, let it be in the script or the fucking "what is this game about?" page on their website, how this fictional organisation is basically a squenix trope of "evil cult manipulating everything in the shadows and sekritly controlling the world".

Besides, the main heroine of the game (even if that comes with a twist!) opposes this faction (CoS and especially its leader!) and, by the way those games are built, as seen earlier, they cannot disavow her too much, else the entire gut-punch the devs were gunning for (you are betrayed by your beloved character! But unlike what happens in Baten Kaitos, you only are attached to her because she is your avatar's simp) will fall apart. So she must be, somehow, right and not motivated by more personal and heinous reasons, like not accepting "non-humans" to have powers over humans, or thinking the world is not a place for them (this was carefully scrubbed out in Nopes, btw!).

If Supreme Leader, who we are supposed to root for and whom the game ultimately rewards because "reforms" happen in the endings, says that the CoS is the reason why humans value superpowers, she must be right, or at least, not completely wrong???

Which raises the final point on this topic : FE16 came in 2019, which was election year in the US, and we all know that election time in the US means the rest of the world is also affected, even if the rest of the world, well, isn't the US. As I mentionned, the US is over-represented in fandom spaces, and fandom is far from being a safehaven from all the mayhem and passion that always boil during election time and its immediate following.

Coupled with the "my fandom faves define my real life opinions" thingie I already wrote about, and we had an explosive cocktail for bad takes, needless aggressivity, ridiculing people with dissident opinions because they are seen as "wrong", etc etc. And let it be something trendy or not, especially when (young?) people are arguing about "politics" in online spaces, but it always boils down to gross simplification of various complex issues and/or using catchphrases or "shock-value" words to win over whoever is reading/listening.

(et je ne dis pas ça parce que certains de nos politiques font des "immigrés clandestins ou pas" la source de tous les maux, ou le fait que nos députés font la même chose en ce moment, Jonluk et Marine main dans la main, pour paralyser l'Etat afin de pousser Manu à la démission et éviter la case prison pour Marine)

I always thought the "CEO of racism" was a meme, but through Fodlan discourse, I started to wonder if it was something started seriously by someone who really thought that "racism" is caused by one person.

And we finally get to the point : somehow, somewhat, Rhea is supposed to be responsible for people/humans valuing superpowers.

Forget that the same "quest to obtain those superpowers" led to the extermination of her kin, or how the devs themselves explained that people - at least in their setting - always want more power :

As a result, what would happen to humans who gained power... they would want even more power, and find a dragon much stronger to beat in order to collect materials forcefully, in order to make even more powerful weapons... and so that was the cycle that was born. And that was the birth of Fodlan's Ten Elites

Wait, kill that, those superpowers don't exist since the game and the characters (bar Catherine, but I agree with @9thwither here, Cat is one of the most overlooked characters in this fandom!) never talk about them, so they don't exist...

Rhea is thus the reason why people value bloodlines - especially since those bloodlines don't come out with superpowers.

It sounds better and closer to what you could "hear" irl, from someone who's discoursing on the internet to explain "why" some people are more valued than other, it's because of religion and the Pope! It cannot be because of, well, human greed or just the need to have more power (for good or wrong reasons), no.

"But random, the Church most likely promotes a "divine right to rule" doctrine and let the 10 Elites' families rule over their clans in Faerghus thus gain nobility!"

Sure, but everything is moot if you consider this : to make this take viable, we ignore the game and consider that crests are just bloodlines, and not, objective sources of superpowers.

So why are we, discussing about this hypothesis/theory, even arguing about what the game says and/or does?

Bob Blaiddyd can kill a giant lion/wolf with his fists at base level, is it because of a supposed doctrine that people rally and want to be in Bob's graces, or because Bob has the power to protect them all? Karen Charon can summon rain, are people siding with her because Rhea told them to, or because Karen can make crops grow?

In conclusion : why people are still, in 2024, sprouting those takes?

1- Because they refuse to engage with the game and realise that it is a fantasy game belonging to a very specific genre

2- Because fandom opinions reflect on your real life opinions and likes : so they must find a reason to oppose what their perceive as an unacceptable power inbalance otherwise it means that they support the various inequalities that exist IRL

3- Because Religion BaD and bar the "projected takes from transposing feelings about an IRL church on a fantasy one" more and more people tend to prefer an "easy to proceed" solution than think about multi-causal issues and find solutions that might not.

Of course, I can already guess that some people might argue that they don't "refuse to engage with the game" since this take is more a less a condensed version of the Supreme spiel, and as developed above, the game does - willingly - a shit job at demonstrating that her spiel is nonsense (they had to add the "greed" part in an interview released after the game and its only and final DLC!), just like her sockpuppet who supposedly learns how misguided he was in certain routes... only to end with the same ice cream, albeit with a different topping.

However, Dimitri and Sylvain mention how crestless children are disowned in Faerghus... when Dimitri's own uncle is ruling over a domain himself, Ingrid's brothers exist in the background and Gustave is still Baron Dominic's brother, on top of having been the royal master at arms for at least, depending on the route, 3 generations of Faerghan kings.

In a game where Dorothea can blame the Goddess for fighting in a war her bestie started - without anyone pointing this out - it's obvious this verse has unreliable narrators, but after 5 years and having played all routes in both games + a DLC + a dev interview explaining how and why some humans acquired crests...

Tl;Dr :

Reason 1- is most likely the most prevalent why this take exists anon, "because some people refuse to engage with the game" with the added topping of "save for what Supreme Leader and her sockpuppet say that I can use to demonise the characters I don't like".

[bowbowis]

For Edelgard and Petra to be friends, Edelgard would have to be willing to release Brigid from vassalage. #Edelgard Critical's hate-boner is built in no small part on headcanoning Edelgard as a power-hungry expansionist who would never do such a thing. Therefore, if Petra appears to feel positively toward Edelgard they must conclude that she is either brainwashed or secretly boiling over with hatred and, in either case, can only get justice for herself and Brigid by siding against Edelgard.

Is there a specific reason the Edelcrit side is so convinced Petra secretly hates Edelgard or did I miss some important “telling” event in my playthroughs?

They probably consider Petra one of the hardest of the Eagles to demonize, so they want her "one their side," as it were. Also she's probably one of the easiest to imagine siding against Edelgard if your only thought process is that Edelgard's somehow responsible for everything Adrestia did, including the things that happened before she rose to power.

[bowbowis]

Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the game wherein you play as a local autistic mercenary who is voluntold into a professorship they have no training for and then is forced to play the world’s most politically important high-stakes game of fuck, marry, kill.

Also you get a badass whip sword.

[bowbowis]

Why are people so eager to strip this game of its nuance anyway?

I see it all the time: Edelgard's extreme actions can't be motivated by benevolent goals, she must be maximally evil; Rhea can't be problematic because she's not actively malicious; Claude can't be an opportunistic bastard, it must be bad writing.

Like, regardless who you think is right, isn't the game a much poorer experience when you try to make it comport with that kind of black and white thinking?

Today I'd like to talk about the mistakes the writers made with my favorite 3h lord is Claude, specifically houses Claude. they've done a lot right with his character but that doesn't mean he isn't without his unfortunate flaws.

Lets begin with Almyra and how Claude sees the situation between them and Fodlan.

Almyra is poorly utilized and done dirty by making them war loving barbarians for the sake of it and causing everyone and themselves grief due to their unnatural love for war. And on top of that they made Claude uncharacteristically dumb by blaming Fodlan and Rhea for Almyra's consuquences despite being smart enough to know that Edelgard is the aggressor in part 2.

This could've been easily avoided by making either the 10 elites or the Agarthans responsible for the fued between Almyra and Fodlan.

Next is his view on Rhea and Edelgard. I talked about this before but to sum it up he distrusts Rhea that she can't be reasoned with to the point that he believes that change can only happen if she's gone, all because he blames Rhea for Fodlans throat and yet a violent war monger like Edelgard who endangered his friends during white clouds and works with the Agarthans is granted patience, a chance of mercy, cooperation and the benefit of the doubt.

What makes this even worse is that Claude distrusts Rhea for the wrong reasons. Things like her allowing Fodlan to oppress, conquer and kill foreign nations like they did with Duscur and Brigid are extremely valid reasons to distrust her. The solution to that issue is properly criticising both characters.

The next problem is that he's great pals with Hilda, who's family enslaved an Almyran child and subjected him to extreme labour with no rest and some bread every few days. The ever so simple fix is cutting that slavery junk out. It doesn't get addressed as it should've, only exists to prop up Rhea as a white saviour and Cyril is the brown servant. Just get it it out of here.

And last and certainly not least his support with Ingrid not addressing her unjustified racism and hypocrisy in condeming all people of Duscur for the actions of a few while simultaneously giving Faerghus a free pass for their worse crimes. That could be solved by either A. Cutting her selective racism out ( cause again, it only exists to prop up white characters, isn't handled properly, you don't need extreme racism to have depth, nuance and conflicts and nothing would be missed if it was cut out ) or B. At the very least harshly condemn Ingrid for her repulsive behaviour.

Barring the first issue the selective treatment of similar characters, the needless and extreme racism that purely exists to prop up white characters and not taking the oppression and mistreatment of Duscur and Brigid seriously are issues that plague the entire game and not just Claude.

But that's it for my criticism. Like i said Claude is my favorite lord but that doesn't mean that I'm gonna deny the faults. Liking your favorite character and bring critical about them isn't mutually exclusive.

[bowbowis]

put three f/f ships you like in the tags. doesnt matter how obscure or embarrassing the media, go for it. and no, your m/m ship doesnt count as women

[bowbowis]

Me: Edelgard is a worse liar than what you falsely accuse and condemn Dimitri for

I never called Dimitri a liar, what the fuck are you talking about?

and she has unjustly attacked Leicester numerous times with the intent to conquer it and only secured a pact in Scarlet Blaze cause of her relentless attacks.

Nobody denied that Edelgard attacked Leicester as part of her war with the Church. You were claiming that she attacked them after the Church was defeated, and that it proved she was lying about her overall goal being to take out the Church. Remember?

"The whole point of my post is that Edelgard lied about only wanting to rid Fodlan of the central church by continuously invading Faerghus and Leicester after completing her goal." -You

I pointed out that Edelgard never instigated a new conflict with Leicester or Faerghus after the fall of the Church, and the continuation of preexisting conflicts in which the other party refused a peace deal or broke the one they already had with her, does not indicate that she is interested in controlling Fódlan beyond her mission to dismantle the church. Now you're acting like the argument was whether Edelgard ever attacked the other nation at all, when emphatically was not.

Also, the Empire never "attack[s] Leicester . . . with the intent to conquer it" more than once in any given route. I'm curious what "relentless attacks" are you referring to too. The Imperial Army is in with Leicester for all of one chapter in Scarlet Blaze before Erwin betrays Edelgard. Everything after that is just a mad dash to save Leopold and his men from Claude's trap. Also regarding Scarlet Blaze, the attack on Leicester is prompted by the Alliance lords swearing allegiance to the Central Church, so it's not necessarily unjustified either:

This moutbreather: "Erm she isn't a liar cause they're both politicians

We can quibble over whether a false statement made with the assumption that the listener will understand it to be false actually qualifies as a lie, but what exactly are you trying to prove here? That Edelgard sometimes acts deceptively? Yeah, no shit. It comes with the territory of being a political and military leader. There are much better examples of Edelgard acting deceptively in both games and they take special care to call attention both to the fact that she's doing it and why, because she's normally straightforward to a fault.

Anyhow...

One instance of somebody lying does not prove they are also lying in another instance. Especially when the context is completely different.

and she never attacked Leicester cause Claude broke the treaty in Scarlet Blaze 🤓☝🏻" You're an IQ deficient moron.

She never attacked Leicester after the fall of the church. The reason there is an ongoing war between them in the bad ending of Scarlet Blaze is because and Claude broke the peace treaty they had previously established and declared a new war on Adrestia. That goes directly against your claim that: "The war continues solely because of Edelgard's selfish desire to conquer Fodlan for Adrestia."

Also:

Edelgard:

Also Edelgard:

Dimitri: