#DCB Three Houses Stuff

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felix hugo fraldarius ruining my video game experience, even the replays, since 2019

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in vw, ashe will worry about dedue (and nobody else mentioned in particular/by name) after gronder and hope he survived, bc he heard rumors that dedue died. it made him rly fckn sad.

in ag, when the capital is in danger and dimitri was a hostage to protect his people, everyone worries about rodrigue and gilbert. ashe is the one who worries about dedue.

i love that for them and i love that ashe cares about dedue as much as he does.

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i bring forth blorbo-adjacent memes for my happiness

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I rly miss when Three Houses was new and people were just excited for it and the hype for it was just genuine excitement.

I rly enjoyed AG and it was a familiar kind of hype for seeing familiar old faces, and even that was a year ago now.

The fandom has a very very different air about it now and it's rly sad for me. Everything was rly fun when the game first came out. I don't know that FE will ever surpass that level of interest again (especially since Engage didn't even come close pre-release or post release).

To this day it's still one of my favorites games if only because I loved certain characters and I did mostly enjoy the mechanics.

Idk if the FE fandom will ever feel even a smidge of that level of anticipation for a game again as a collective fandom, but sometimes I wish I could go back to when it was still new and when it was fun seeing what people thought of the game on their first playthroughs.

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remembering back in the day when three houses was just fire emblem working title

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honestly the whole double standard between Dimtiri and Jeritza in the fandom is such bullshit. Jeritza is looked at this poor guy suffering from mental illness, making him aggressive and violent, and Dimitri is just seen as a murderer who did all these bad things.

like... no? they're both suffering from mental illness and are both dealing with struggling with the fact that they have aggressive and violent reactions. it's something they reflect on when they're not in that mindset. the cause of their illnesses are different, but you can't say Jeritza is aw poor boy and then demonize Dimitri. if Jeritza is aw poor boy, they both are.

I don't agree with IS treating mental illness - especially multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia - as mental illness = violence. I don't agree with the fact that both of these illnesses are two that are extremely commonly associated with violence and that IS perpetuated that stereotype not once, but twice with two different characters by having each of them have one of the two that are associated as such.

however, in the situation we were given, they both have these impulses and they both feel guilt over it. they suffer a similar outward reaction as a trauma response.

I'm not looking for a discussion about this (i.e. "but Dimitri did xyz so he's BaD"). you don't look at one person and go "oh they're so evil for how they react to their trauma" and then go "aw poor person suffering from trauma doing the exact same shit the other oh so evil guy is doing". if you think one is evil, you think both are evil (which is not something you should be thinking at all because trauma response is not evil). if you feel bad for one of them because of how they deal with their trauma being something they regret and despise about themselves, you feel that way for both of them. also, neither character uses mental illness as an excuse and they still feel guilt for what they do, so the whole "trauma = excuse" argument falls flat on its face here.

you don't get a free pass to hate one of them and so use their mental illness nor their reactions because of their mental illness against them while not doing so to the other. you don't get a free pass period to demonize them for their mental illness. if you have to use such a low blow to hate on a character, you're a disgusting ablest and I hope you are deeply hated with all the vitriol in the mentally ill world.

if you demonize either one of them for their violent reactions that stem from their trauma (or both, which I almost never see and it's almost always Dimitri at the receiving end of it), then I sincerely hope that one day something happens to you that makes you understand how awful it is to be demonized for being mentally ill.

people may say "I would never wish that on my worst enemy", but I do. if people shit on others (fictional or not, because if you shit on fictional characters for their illnesses then it says a whole fucking lot about you as a person in general and sets the standard for how you would and do treat real people) for how they respond to their illness(es), I do hope you experience something that forces you into a situation where you can realize what a piece of shit you've been. suddenly it's not so fun to insult mental illness and/or trauma response when you have it. in the event that that's what it takes to get someone to understand how horrific it is to use someone's illness to score your low blow against them, then that's what I would wish on you.

it's one thing to dislike a character; it's another to try to grab onto any possible thing you can to justify your dislike/hate/whatever and it be mental illness you grab onto as some bullshit excuse to justify your pathetic argument. if that's what you do, that's who you are as a person. you are someone who uses mental illness to determine someone's worth, character, etc. that shit doesn't just stop at fictional universes. if it's something you've said regarding a fictional character, it's something you absolutely think irl about real people or it wouldn't have crossed your mind.

this also goes for using mental illness to make a character sound less than another character you're trying to say is better than them. if insulting a character and saying they're less than another because of their mental illness is something you do, you are, plain and simple, a disgusting piece of shit and that is quite honestly not strong enough wording to express what you really are.

if you've read this post and are offended by it, consider that you're probably part of the problem and are someone who has done this. you wouldn't feel bothered by it if you weren't someone who has done that.

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au where the faerghus dads in their school years end up in the same timeline as the blue lions from dimitri's school years and they have to co-exist until lambert's group finds a way to get back to their time

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no but like i had a dream that i had class with miklan and we sat in the same row i am absolutely too far gone 😔

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yuri being the only lord to not have a new game+ hairstyle is a literal crime btw

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flynn, seriously, genuinely and honestly: that man... was a true knight

felix, contorting his face in disgust with the most sarcastic voice: he died like a true knight

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One of the biggest reasons I try to recruit all the characters in Three Houses isn’t just because I don’t want to kill them, but because if I do, I still have to go back to the monastery afterward. I still have to pass by their dorm rooms full of their belongings and know that’s where they spent their alone time and where they slept. I still have to pass by the spots they frequented the most. It’s not just the sad dialogue of characters reacting to the deaths, but passing by the spots I vividly remembered them hanging out at.

I realized this most in my first playthrough when I didn’t have the chance to recruit everyone and I accidently killed Raphael at Gronder. I didn’t have the enemy attack range turned on so I didn’t realize he was in range of attacking.

During an exploration, I was looking for Ignatz who was, unfortunately, in his dorm room... and I walked into the wrong room and into Raphael’s after he was killed and man that fuckin’ sucked! Feels bad but like, multiplied with big numbers, u kno??? ???

YES, IT’S A VIDEO GAME. YES, I HAVE HUMAN BEING FEELINGS ABOUT IT.

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tbh I really like the idea of Dimitri telling Edelgard to cut a path for her chosen future and not backing down against her when it's not a path he agrees with. like, he accepts that she did what he suggested. she did cut her own path. he didn't end up agreeing with her which makes that memory, as he says, bittersweet, but he doesn't change how he responds to her path simply because she chose a path he didn't agree with.

he didn't explicitly tell her to create a path for the two of them or, when they got older/he realized who she actually was, a path for them and their nations. he didn't give her the dagger expecting her to cut a path to a future that benefitted him in any way. he told her to do it for herself, she did, and he accepts that. he could never agree with it, but he never tries to "take back" what he said to her.

in that way it also is a story of acceptance (an underlying theme throughout BL/AM). he accepts that their paths diverged because she cut a path to her desired future. there's no "well now I sure do regret that!" it's just, this is yours now and I claim no say in what you do with what is yours.

he said make a choice and aim for it, she did, and he accepted that. he accepted that they wouldn't agree on what she'd chosen, even if he wished they did.

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in houses i kill gwendal with yuri

but in hopes i kill gwendal with sylvain and i savor every moment of it

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alfred is dimitri's son but dimitri has twins au

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(Part 1) (Part 2)

Part 3 of the insanely long posts where I discuss the messy writing for Edelgard, why it failed her as a character, and how they had every opportunity to write her well but didn't.

This part continues my comparisons from the previous post. The post was already extremely long and I felt that it would be difficult to read it in one sitting if it wasn't broken up (it might even still be lol).

Like before, the Tellius games are used as examples that discuss what went wrong with Houses and how smoothly the story handled itself, versus Houses' push and pull story, particularly regarding Edelgard (as compared to Ashnard and occasionally Micaiah). That is to say, Tellius knew what it wanted to do and succeeded at doing it. Houses on the other hand wanted something and kept holding back.

It's notable how most characters refer negatively to those who joined the Empire, or there's indication that they were forced to do so.

"Deluding" being a very fucking good word used here, and by Ignatz of all people which says a lot on its own, let alone that he's saying it to his best friend. Basically, the general response to fighting characters from the Empire or who joined the Empire willingly is "you made your bed and now you have to lay in it", whether that's killing your friends or regretting your choice, etc.

"If I wish to live" is a very heavy thing to have to say. Lorenz is basically in no better a position than being a hostage at this point.

This is when attacking him with anyone but Byleth, so it's more difficult to say if he's talking to them or referring to himself (i.e. why would you attack the Empire at a time like this because doing so is reckless). Based on the above quote though, it's fair to assume he's referring to himself, indicating he wants to oppose them and plans to, but at the moment he can't.

Similarly, we have this from PoR:

Forced into service for Ilyana.

Implication by Oscar that Daein is a questionable choice. Shinon explains that he can rise to the top with good skill (which he has) and so chose Daein. This reflects Ashnard and Edelgard's "rise to the top" mentality.

Something else worth noting a bit off this particular topic is that Ashnard and Edelgard both refer to their rule as their vision for "the world". However, as far as the residents of Tellius are aware, Tellius is the world because the rest of the world save for their continent was drowned in a flood a long time ago. Edelgard refers to Fodlan, the continent, as "the world" multiple times in both games. Very notably, all main characters on all other routes refer to Fodlan as, well, Fodlan. When they speak of their ideals for its future, they still refer to it as "Fodlan", thus expressing their desire for the future of their continent, but not implying anywhere outside of Fodlan is beneath them (which would be true to Edelgard's character, as she believes all non-Adrestia lands are beneath her, which is literally one of the first things she ever says in Houses depending on your response selection).

Other than that, here we go with more similarities:

This is very reflective of what characters feel toward Edelgard. What Bryce says is also a reflection of CF's ending cards (those of you reading this who are here for this content and not hate reading know what I mean I'm sure, so I won't put in a full list of examples, but for some: censorship, assassinations, watching the citizens, Caspar's JP CF ending (implied to be no better than Miklan's old group), etc.

For the next one, Ashnard's line is basically the concept Houses gives off as a whole and is also even referring to a few times, that history will decide if someone's actions action were just or evil. It depends on the victors, and that's what Ashnard is saying here.

There's also the fact that he's being told, by a former Four Rider no less, that his path is "so incredibly stupid" (in the most polite, knightly way possible even LMAO. Points for Tauroneo for that one). Considering Ashnard and Edelgard have identical goals and motivations across the board (aside from genocide, as Ashnard doesn't care about genociding any race (i.e. Nabateans for Edelgard) and has no desire to) and this is dialogue given directly to Ashnard, who literally does not respond to the actual comments and pivots to something else (which is exactly what Edelgard does throughout all routes in Houses, be it her own or the others), imo it says a whole lot about Edelgard as well and the intentions the writers had for her as a character.

So effectively, Jill's words here are dismissed by her enemy. I don't recall that Edelgard does this quite so directly to people, but she does use words that dodge the comments aimed at her. She makes it a point to let her enemies know that she does not care.

Granted, at least Ashnard is funny about it! Come back some other time I'm busy is a lot funnier than no u.

Adding this in from RD since it holds relevance to the Edelgard portions of this:

This is if you don't recruit Jill and trigger this battle dialogue.

This is an example of desperately trying to defend the actions of someone you care about but can't actually defend. In this case, obviously Micaiah more or less had her hands tied because of the Blood Pact (an actual reason for the fighting that she was against and literally had no choice regarding, i.e. she wasn't "forced to do it because of the status quo" or any other nonsense used to prevent Edelgard from sounding like the villain the devs literally said she is).

Back to Tanith, boy, I wish she could've been in Houses with this line. For the people, Edelgard says? Look around you, naive classmates of hers who followed her because (insert shallow reason here that even Hopes gave more depth toward). Is all this death for the people? Well, according to Edelgard it sure is. It's deaths for the people! She sees a bright, happy future (for herself!) in all this death!

No, I'm not joking. Well, I'm making fun of it. I'm making fun of the fact that the devs actually thought to have this in the game (Houses) and still tried to pivot around her being a full on villain. Edelgard repeats many times that she will kill and sacrifice for her goals (not for the people, but for her own selfish goals like Ashnard. She uses "for the people" as her cover story, but we all know if we're not here to hate read what those CF ending cards really told us).

Point being, "for the people" is the cover up story, and Tanith is saying "this isn't for the people". Fact is, she's right. It's not for the people. In Micaiah's case as per this game, it's because they're being forced by Begnion (the Begnion Empire, mind you, which in both Tellius games has its own extreme problems among its nobility just like Adrestia) via Blood Pact to continue this fight. Tanith isn't stupid. She knows this mess isn't for the people. That's how Micaiah has to phrase it to get people to fight for her and not turn on her, because if they do decide not to fight, that means they aren't capitulating to the Empire's demands and thus the Senate will initiate the Pact. She convinces her allies it's for the people, who they themselves don't even necessarily truly believe it but force themselves to for a friend's sake.

For Edelgard, it's a cover up story, but of course it's not because of a Blood Pact. In her case, it's back to Ashnard. Her story/character/motivations/etc are a mix of Ashnard in Micaiah's part 3 situation. She's basically Ashnard but with people defending her with lines similar to what they say about Micaiah/why she's doing what she's doing. This doesn't mean Edelgard and Micaiah are the same, no - it means that's just what the characters say about Edelgard in her defense.

Also, if there's an Empire in an FE game, it's the villainous territory, plain and simple. As a few examples because I'm not going through every game:

Begnion is a major antagonizing territory in RD, and in PoR there are many things going on behind Sanaki's back because a good chunk of the nobility is corrupt. Even their army is corrupt in RD. Let's not also forget that the mastermind antagonist of the entire Tellius series' plot is the fucking Prime Minister of the Begnion Empire. He's no Duke Aegir (who is, mind you, also a villainous Prime Minister), but the way he manipulated Ashnard the way Thales manipulated Edelgard is eerily similar. Difference being, he actually cared about Sanaki and they had a very positive relationship which was genuinely real and true, but he did admit to lying to her and whatnot. He staged everything, much like how Thales staged everything to cause a continental war (the entire premise of what Ashnard is trying to do). The Begnion Empire is basically run by corrupt nobles and a guy masterminding a continental war, with Sanaki as the figurehead. It's a combination of Adrestia's corrupt nobles and Thales' manipulation, with Edelgard being the manipulated into action Ashnard who always had these ambitions but just needed the spark to begin his war.

In FE4's second half and in FE5, they are fighting, surprise, an Empire that is run by, surprise, a literal cult of shadowy, underground people waiting to take revenge on the bloodlined people. This is the inspiration they took from FE4 during Houses obviously, but that alone should tell you the Empire is meant to be the villainous territory in Houses. Jugdral had been ravaged by the Lopt Sect and the people were, and knew they were, suffering. All this to revive their god, just as the Agarthans were trying to revive their hero Nemesis. Mind you, Loptous is the villain that the bad people are trying to revive, so... that should probably tell you Nemesis ain't that great of a dude. If he's a hero the villains, anyone considering him a hero is also a villain. Edelgard just also believes anything the Agarthans feed her for some reason and parrot all their beliefs and desires despite being a victim of them. Stupid writing choice for her imo, but that's what was decided. Not to say Edelgard is anything like Alvis, boy oh sir no, that's another topic entirely but don't get me started on it. All I will say is that they're nothing alike. Edelgard says the pretty words but doesn't go through with them nor mean them. He says them and he means them, but he was blocked by the Lopt Sect who had the actual control of the Empire. Every blame was laid at his feet, but he had no real power and that was stated directly in the game.

Grado was basically an empire that was corrupt in waiting. No matter how righteous it seemed due to its leaders, as soon as those leaders died/got corrupted, the nasty people came flocking out. That means they were there all along and as soon as they got their chance, they took it. Take a look at the villains you face and how nasty of people they are. Look how bad it became as soon as Fomortiis was truly in charge.

Dolhr is a fucking disaster I ain't even getting into that internal dragon war turned dragon and human mess LOL; just know it's Not A Good Place. Also consider that Lang (a particularly terrible person) betrayed Grust (a perfectly reasonable place turned corrupt due to Dolhr's influence) to join up with them and Lorenz said Not Today, rebelled, and Lang was in charge of ordering Marth to go fend off that rebellion (and threatened Altea to get Marth to agree to fight). Lorenz continued to say Not Today to the point of committing suicide rather than work alongside them or die for them. He held no ill will toward Marth for what Marth had been ordered and essentially threatened to do (for fear of Altea's position in all this). Seeing Lorenz of all people refuse to take part in Grust's Dohlr loving bullshit, Marth also rebelled. Consider that how every time a Leicester noble sides with the Empire, it tends to be the corrupt or morally questionable ones. Like Marth, people were afraid to rebel. Quite ironically (or perhaps intentionally? who knows the devs ain't said), it ends up being Houses!Lorenz who rebels against the Empire in VW and optionally in AM if recruited (or in AM would die as, again, essentially the Empire's hostage). Like Archanea!Lorenz, he was against the Empire, and like Marth, fought with them for a short time out of the force of threat to himself/his lands and people but eventually had enough and turned on them.

So, did the writing skimp out on Edelgard and Adrestia being completely villainous? Yes. Are they supposed to be? Yes, absolutely. Both in writing and by the devs' word, she is the villain. Did they, in the game, fuck that up because she was marriage material? Absolutely! Did they reduce her character to being a love interest who was obsessed with the player character and couldn't win her war without her love interest? Yes, completely!

What I'm saying is that she had potential to be more interesting (re: I love Ashnard and I've said this many many many times and will never stop saying it because he's a great villain and probably my favorite in the entire franchise, which imo should say a lot when I view him and Edelgard on completely ends of the villain spectrum despite them being identical in all the explained ways) and it was ruined by the devs toning her down so that she could be waifu material.

She had potential to be a well written character and great villain like Ashnard is, but it was bogged down both making her an uwu sweet waifu (thus attempting to negate her bad qualities with the uwu behavior) and trying to insist that she was fighting for a good cause (which I suspect is because they wanted to make her marriage material. You don't see us being able to marry Ashnard or, as a female example of a villain, Petrine - who for that matter directly serves Ashnard).

My point in this last section is that FE Empires have been the villains since its goddamn inception, and Adrestia is no stranger to that, but Edelgard herself was written as though, because she's a woman, had to be fetish bait, marriage bait, and a cute girl. If it was a man running her Empire, we'd have the result of... -lists off every male imperial ruler in FE history-.

It's also a huge shame to me that the first time they truly had a woman in charge of the villainous territory, they completely botched it. It could have been awesome to have a good female villain, but they ended up blurring the lines. They ended up reducing her to straight man bait too, what with all her female relationships having women obsess over her (compare to the other wlw relationships, canonically optional or not (ex. Cathmir being a canon ending and Dorogrid not being an ending), which don't feature the women involved treating their partner how the women treat Edelgard). I'm not saying bi or lesbian players can't like her, but that she was seemingly written with straight male players in mind.

Other wlw relationships aren't written the way Edelgard's relationships are written, which is basically nothing but loving up on her most of the time (both male and female characters do this except Ferdinand and Linhardt, the former of which was completely rewritten to be a 180 and yet another of Edelgard's harem in Hopes). This includes Petra, who is a political hostage. She should be questioning Edelgard as to why her territory isn't free yet despite Edelgard being emperor now, or when it will happen. None of this is really touched on, and Petra just decides that she wants to fight and die for Edelgard (including in Hopes, where her feelings about that are even stronger and she literally says in their A support that she knows she's risking her life but actively desires to for Edelgard's sake, even if it means betraying her own people for it). Instead, they ignore all that for the sake of having yet another female obsess over her.

Now, does this mean people are bad for liking the better sides of her that happened as a result of this? No, people can still enjoy the character we ended up getting because of these side steps - the character we ended up with regardless of their intentions. However, I do think it's because of all these side steps that people don't see her as a villain despite every intention of that being there and being present. However, I also think people should understand why she's also hated because of these side steps. For example, why I hate the Edelgard that we ended up getting, but yet I love Ashnard despite all these many comparisons I've made.

It's just a shame that we didn't get to play on the villain's side and have it play out as, very explicitly, that the player character is now also a villain. That we made the choice for our character to be a villain to side with the villain and ultimately take part in villainous actions. It's a game with a story! That kind of thing should be explored! It doesn't make people bad for enjoying a villain's side of the story with that villain not being side stepped as a good person. If we got to play a route Ashnard I would love that! I wouldn't deny that he's the villain just because I'm playing his route though, and that's what CF tried to do - deny that the villain is the villain. It's not "everyone has their reasons" yadda yadda everything and anything is morally gray. That's what they try to push to excuse Edelgard despite her being Female Ashnard in every other regard.

There's a reason it got to the point of the infamous "no u" line - because they were trying to have a story that justified the villain, fell short of it because the not-villain they kept gunning for the idea of was committing villainous behavior/actions, and couldn't actually justify it in a way that sounded reasonable. It ended up coming like she had no excuse for her actions, which, yes, makes sense, because she doesn't have any! She's the villain! But they... tried so hard... to side step it... when they had nothing they could side step it with... and now that line is the local Houses laughing stock... in the woman's own route...

Lastly, there's the aspect of the war dialogue versus playable characters. There are two things:

Most of the recruitable students in CF only say they fight for the Empire because they fight for Byleth - their professor - not Edelgard. The only characters who specifically say they're fighting for Edelgard are the original BE students. The others claim to only be following Byleth's path (or they simply joined after being spared).

In other words, the recruited characters weren't given dialogue to imply they actually care about Edelgard's path and are not even there for her. That gives off the notion that these characters aren't necessarily even in agreement with her. Very few (such as Lysithea if recruited prior to being spared, and Constance) actually fight specifically for the Empire or Edelgard (and Constance's reason is for herself and not Edelgard).

Basically, the writers didn't bother even trying to give the characters motivation to fight for Edelgard's path, and so made many of them - let's face it - ooc in the process. I won't go over details in this post about specific characters being ooc, but if anyone is ever curious and doesn't already know, I could definitely make separate posts for those.

In comparison, RD gives legitimate motivations to the characters you fight against regardless of which side they're fighting on. Zihark is the most iffy, as his motivations to defect from Daein for the Laguz Alliance make more sense, but even he is at least given the introspection of "why am I fighting for this/what am I doing". Any character who was previously playable in PoR has a legitimate motivation to fight for the side they're on, including the possible defector characters where their dialogue makes sense on either side.

Some characters also understand they're fighting people they care about and just won't fight them. Brom and Meg, father and daughter (a huge disaster in CF when it comes to parents fighting their children and absolutely butchering the parent characters' characterization just to somehow make the situation work even though there were better ways of handling that) won't fight each other, just as Zihark will not attack laguz - fitting right into his character. He will attack back against a beorc, but in gameplay will not attack back if attacked by a laguz.

In Houses, they didn't even bother with this and it made a lot of the relationships feel a lot more shallow. For example, Ilyana is only on the side of the Laguz Alliance in part 3, but she can talk to Micaiah - her previous commander in part 1. She attempts to talk Micaiah out of fighting, eventually deciding well okay fine we're both strong against each other's magic so it's not too bad, to her despondently giving up and saying they should forget that conversation ever happened.

On a very similar note, the dialogue in Houses is often very volatile (particularly in the localization) from recruited characters to their former friends.

They gave off the impression that the Empire is right and just, and how dare anyone be against them. The dialogue is handled in a way that makes almost every character angry (with few exceptions, one being Mercedes against Annette) with their old friends. There is very very little of characters being genuinely upset in a sad way that they're fighting their old friends.

When characters in RD know each other and have to fight, it's always respectful and/or sad. The relationships are respected in the writing - individually - and character's didn't have to be tweaked to make their situaton work.

What does this have to do with Edelgard's writing? It's the fact that characters recruited onto CF treat the war they're fighting on the side of to be the correct side in a way that tells the player "you are the good guys". Now why is that a problem? Because the intent was originally to make Edelgard a villain.

Instead of going through with it, they made it so every character you recruit (including characters who spent their entire lives prior to the war living in the lands they are now attacking and helping an aggressor army invade) didn't just become a villain along with the rest of the people on your side. They make them come off as actually justified.

I don't mean just that the characters themselves believe they are personally justified, but that the narrative itself tries to tell you yes, they are actually justified... even though we're trying to also tell you that these are the villains you're with. The narrative itself pushes against itself, framing you as being in the right, and always pushing characters to be sad about fighting Edelgard regardless of her actions.

While Dimitri has the back and forth in the second half of AM about how he feels about fighting her, he's the only character who has a justifiable reason to feel so conflicted. The narrative is always pushing how sad it is that you have to fight her outside of just Dimitri's feelings. They take it a step further in Hopes, when Edelgard basically has a harem of people obsessed with her and praises her for all she does, never telling her when she's gone too far.

Compare this to Micaiah, who Soren claims is seen as a goddess by her followers. She has the love of many people, including playable characters, who openly doubt her and her actions (specifically in part 3) - repeatedly. Micaiah is not a villain and is not written to be. Characters push against her for answers and reasons (including Sothe, who is basically the Hubert to Edelgard), leaving her in awkward positions where all she can say is that she believes in her king, because the truth is, she has no other answer.

Houses' narrative keeps trying to insist that Edelgard is justified and heroic, while constantly having her lie to the other characters/not answer their questions or concerns, ally with the other villains, invade innocent and neutral lands, conscript civilians, admit to sacrificing her own civilians for her own personal selfish goals (so sacrificing random innocent civilians just going about their daily lives who have nothing to do with her), consider all lands not ruled by her to be beneath her, victim blame anyone who fights back against her, and... the list. Goes. On.

As a character she had potential to be a great villain whose side of the story you could actually play, but for whatever reason the writers just... didn't go through with it. Whether it was for marketing, because they didn't really know what they wanted to do ultimately, felt that you shouldn't be able to marry a villain and didn't want to remove the option to marry her, who knows. It just remains that the story went in wildly different directions and ended up with people having different perceptions of Edelgard because of it.

And if anyone says "but you hate Edelgard so of course you would say all this!", I'm gonna respond to them with a picture of Ashnard and that's it. :)

Also, I hate Micaiah (and will admit she's not the villain) and have for many, many years (looong before Edelgard was even a thought in IS' mind)... but Edelgard's existence has lessened that hate somewhat slightly because of how awful her character is. I don't mean that in a love to hate way either - I mean that treating her atrocious behavior and actions as good and heroic is disgusting and abhorrent to me.

There are extremely, extremely, extremely few characters in the entire overall franchise I truly hate with a visceral hate that goes beyond "ugh they're so annoying". Of those characters, most of them are just well written villains and not characters I hate the stories of (Valtome comes to mind, but he's a very unfortunate case of evil queer villain stereotype. May not have actually been an intentional dig at queer people from IS though and may have actually been a harmless whoopsie (especially given how RD has, iirc, the first trans character in the franchise, which the localization sneakily completely cut out from its existence. Nowadays we have Rosado for queer rep, so that points a little bit more to Valtome being a big whoopsie-we-didn't-mean-it-that-way. Lekain also comes to mind, who at least isn't a big oopsie).

So no, I don't just hate Edelgard for the sake of hating her. I hate her because the narrative evidently couldn't handle her, or the fact that she was a female lead and a villain. Considering that, that's why I wanted to make this analysis - to list off the reasons that I find that the writing failed her as a character. That writing is how my feelings came to be what they are.

She wasn't allowed to be her own character and own it. Ashnard was allowed to be his own character and own it. I don't agree with Ashnard and his world would be shit to live in lol. He's an interesting and amazingly handled character though, and I absolutely love him for what he is.

I love Tellius because of how authentic the writing feels. How real, true and emotional it feels. Both its games don't shy away from putting their leads on the spot. It tackles difficult subjects and it handles them spectacularly. Characters are put into certain situations where they react as you would expect them to, thus not manipulating things here and there just to make a situation fit and work that normally shouldn't.

Yes, I am absolutely fucking telling you that Sylvain would never lay a hand on Dimitri, Felix or Ingrid that wasn't a bro hand or a flirt hand. He is their awkward flirting bro and he would not kill them. Thanks Hopes btw for fixing the recruitment issue and making almost none of the Lions able to defect - because they wouldn't based on who they are and instead of staying true to that in Houses, they changed those things just to fit the mechanic of recruitment instead of limiting who you could recruit to make sense with the characters.

Anyway, I think I'm done with this absolutely ridiculously insanely gigantically huge giant analysis that took three massively enormous parts to finish. Hopefully I don't think or anything else to add.

If you made it this far, you are the good shit.

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

(Part 1) (Part 3)

In my previous post about how the writing failed Edelgard and the confusion of shifting her between protagonist and villain, I mentioned possibly doing a continuation relating her to Ashnard.

I've done this many times before, be it in posts or tags of posts, but I've never done it in a full blown analysis post. I decided to go through with it and detail exactly what the issues I find are, because as a villain, Ashnard succeeded with zero hiccups. Edelgard is literally identical to him in beliefs and motivations (right down to wanting Adrestia, his Daein, to rule the continent). However, the fandom ended up split on "is she really a villain or a misunderstood antagonist".

The idea of this pair of posts is to go over exactly how that happened, and why two characters who are exactly identical in their major motivations ended up not being seen by the fandom in the same way. That is to say, Ashnard is collectively understood to be the villain, so why isn't Edelgard?

This post also goes over their similarities and exactly what they are with context from Ashnard's lines, as well as others who interacted with Ashnard.

I also go further into other problems with Edelgard's writing and why it failed to truly decide on a path for her, muddying her writing and story and how some of it serves no purpose to her story or route (ex. her backstory). I also brought up contrasts between her route and those issues with all the other routes, as examples of how the other routes had clear goals/stories in mind that weren't shifted one way or another.

Since this unfortunately got insane levels of massive yet again, I'm cutting the entire thing up into a part one (the previous post), part two (this post) and part three (the next post that will cover a continuation of this post to make it more digestible because it would be too massive otherwise).

To start, I break down the similarities nearly worded exactly the same between both characters:

Question the way in which society was designed

Birth station determines your life

Uses people of low birth to justify atrocious actions. That is, claiming people of low birth are suffering and should be able to rise by their own merits. In Edelgard's case, she uses this as a propoganda tool but never follows through with it (as per CF's ending cards and the many underlying implications, such as censorship, spying on her own people, keeping only her friends/allies in power, etc). In Ashnard's case, he just wants to watch strong people fight each other and take strong people into his service. However, he has two strong people fight to the death to determine who is stronger and takes the winner into his service.

Believes people should benefit from their strength (regardless of what that strength is/brings/leads to, such as TWS and the Death Knight being a mass murderer (this is not about Jeritza directly, we know what his problems are and why he does these things, but she allows for it and feeds into those things by giving him the reign of the battlefield that she does when Jeritza himself does not approve of all the killing he's done) and the Black Knight being used to eliminate all of Ashnard's obstacles that he personally does not want to waste time on or at the time cannot).

Uses strength to "remake" society. In Edelgard's case, she's using force and strength of arms to force Fodlan under one banner (something her immediate family has been doing since Faerghus first split from Adrestia). She uses her strength to rule with an iron fist and obliterate any and all opposition (which she openly admits to). In Ashnard's case, he explicitly states he believes the strong should rule the weak and wants the strong in his service, so he allows people of all status to step up to prove themselves.

Class and rank won't matter (in Edelgard's case this is a lie used to subdue doubt and not something she follows through with. Again, the ending cards. In Ashnard's case he does mean what he says).

The strong are the ones in power. A G A I N, CF's ending cards.

The weak are stuck weak because they are weak. They get no help from Ashnard/Edelgard because they are weak. In Edelgard's case, she wholeheartedly believes the weak are weak by fault of their own and that it is their own fault if they are dependent on others. In Ashnard's case, he believes the weak are weak and deserved to be ruled over because that is the natural order of the world (bitch rly said natural selection lmao).

Ashnard explicitly states he believes the weak cling to the strong, which is exactly what Edelgard believes and she expresses this to Dimitri in AM.

Similarly to how Edelgard and Dimitri end their conversation with the understanding that they will never agree on their subject, Ashnard promptly ends his conversation with Reyson because he understands that they will never agree.

Similarly to how people will not bend to Edelgard's vision because it would negatively affect their life, Reyson refuses to accept Ashnard's vision because he, as a physically weak and frail person, does not have the strength to thrive in Ashnard's ideal world. Reyson is an example of someone who would suffer in Edelgard's ideal world, because he is physically weak and has to rely on Tibarn and previously Naesala to survive. In Edelgard's world, the herons would be useless strength-wise and thus never deserve to rise to the top. They would be bottom of the barrel and by ruled over by people stronger than them.

Since Reyson refuses to accept Ashnard's ideal world, Ashnard's response is that he plans to kill him - exactly what Edelgard does to anyone who stands against her or doesn't want to live in her ideal world.

The only MAJOR difference is that Ashnard doesn't care if beorc or laguz are involved in this world of his. Edelgard wants to eliminate all Nabateans (and she admits as much herself).

This is what I mean when I say... Edelgard is literally the same character as Ashnard. The reason she's not deemed "the villain" by many is because of her affiliation with Byleth, the protagonist. Even on her own route, she is fulfilling the villain role... but because of Byleth's presence, the game gears toward forcing a romance for her, and people generally don't like to see a romantic interest for the protagonist as the villain.

Yes, villains can still have human emotions and fall in love. However yes, due to people not wanting to see romance in a villainous character, people don't perceive her as a villain. Without Byleth, CF is still the villain route.

Interestingly, in Hopes, Edelgard is much more open about her actions and her iron rule mindset. She is also much more open to accepting the truth of her actions and how bad they actually are. She doesn't care though, because those actions will lead to her vision of Fodlan.

I don't hate Byleth at all, but Byleth's existence in CF is a detraction to the writing in the sense of Edelgard as the story's central villain (with the background villains being TWS and assorted others earlier in the game). It's the use of romance and trying to make Edelgard woobified, thus making players feel bad for her and many people never expressing that her trauma does not excuse her from inflicting all this suffering on innocent people, or that invading other countries that did nothing to you or yours is not okay.

Ashnard is ridiculed and despised for doing exactly these same things (invasion, etc), but he doesn't have a player romance to help him save face in the fandom from being what he is - a villain.

No responsibility is ever taken for her actions (any indication that she has done so is lip service from her, as we are never shown that she has done so and we never hear from a single other person that she has done so). This is because she fully believes in her actions, thus sees no reason to be held responsible for "mistakes" when she does not view them as such.

By contrast:

Dimitri doesn't use his trauma as an excuse for his actions... even though his trauma is the direct source and reason for his actions. Again though, he doesn't use that as an excuse to justify it or say it's okay.

Claude doesn't use his trauma as an excuse to say it's okay that he sometimes hurts people emotionally because he pushes them too far with trying to learn about Fodlan so he can bring it emotionally closer to his birthland. Both of them take responsibility for their faults even though they do have trauma as a reason for it and could reasonably use that as an excuse with an apology.

Rhea on the other hand does do some sketchy things and acknowledges that, but she takes responsibility for it in all routes bar CF where she is in the middle of war (i.e. in fight mode, versus all other routes not being directly in the war and thus having time to talk with people and discuss things). In AM, she does step down and go into isolation, no longer involving herself with humanity. SS and VW are more direct with her taking responsibility.

These characters have that in difference with Edelgard, the dev proclaimed villain, because they do not forgive their actions as "it had to be done for the greater good" because they know when they were wrong. Rhea blurs the line there with the whole greater good situation, but she ultimately does it in response to her trauma from her kin being victims of genocide - something Edelgard is notably resuming but which is swept under the rug to make her less horrendous - which is, again, a failure in writing of her character because romancing her is prioritized over her having independence from Byleth/romance and being able to pursue her path freely with her own beliefs. Instead, she makes excuse after excuse for why she's in the right instead of just, like Ashnard, acknowledging that that is just what she wants because it's what she believes in).

I direct you to the Lonato chapter and the fact that Dimitri will literally snap at Byleth and literally call them insane for suggesting that it (killing) had to be done, desperately insisting there must have been another way that did not involve taking those people's lives (mirrored when he has the option, as king, to take a life for being involved in the Tragedy of Duscur, but chooses not to do so and instead reflects on that man's meaning of justice instead of deciding that because they don't see things the same way that the man must die.

However, the thing is, her trauma is only there in the story to further woobify her to make her more appealing as a romance option. Her trauma plays no part in the grand scheme of her goals, and she in fact is working closely with the people who inflicted that trauma on her. It isn't like, for example, AM where Dimitri's trauma is the central cause of his personal growth as a character.

Byleth is also not the central driving force for Dimitri recovering as part of his character arc; it was Rodrigue - the only singular person Dimitri would listen to and take a scolding from and eventually give in and even refer to as "friend", something he does not do to any other singular person before his recovery begins (he in fact pushes Byleth and everyone else away, with his only semblance of sanity left coming to the surface thanks to Rodrigue's presence). Byleth helps in his recovery, but Byleth could not have ever done that without Rodrigue's words to Dimitri. Byleth was sort of an extension to the situation, but it was never Byleth who initiated the events that led to Dimitri's growth. Byleth was heavily ridiculed and ignored by Dimitri prior, so before anyone tries to say Dimitri is woobified for romancing, no, he's not. That's part of his character arc, and it was also not Byleth who initiated that phase of his arc. Byleth was part of it and helped in it, but another major character in Dimitri's life was used to enter that arc phase.

Contrast to CF Edelgard being dependent on Byleth and unable to properly wage war without their presence for five entire years - something that is not the case for Edelgard in any other route, thus making her that much more inconsistent between her own route and the others to make her own romanceable on her own route.

Now, why is this a problem? Because on all other routes, the main characters have motivations and goals that Byleth's existence will not deter.

Claude isn't going to stop trying to make friends between Almyra and Fodlan whether Byleth is there or not.

Seteth is not going to stop looking for Rhea and fighting against the Empire whether Byleth is there or not (and they were in fact actively doing that even before they knew Byleth was still alive, just searching for Byleth on the side in case they were actually still alive).

Dimitri would have fought Edelgard whether Byleth was there or not (which he does in all other routes, but Rodrigue isn't able to properly help him in non-AM routes because the other routes needed to get Dimitri out of the picture to shift focus to the route's main character and the current villain (I say current because TWS gets involved after her death in VW/SS). If Dimitri survived those routes, he would have to be more involved in the story or players would be asking where he is/why he isn't involved. In AM, Claude is excused from the story and we understand he returned to Almyra. In CF, Claude is excused from the story after either dying to Edelgard's army or returning to Almyra. In SS, he's excused from the story as having "disappeared", but the general fandom consensus is that he returned to Almyra (so he in other words, he had somewhere to go outside of the setting of the central conflict, thus could survive all routes). Dimitri didn't have that, so he had to be removed from the story somehow. Still though, he does target Edelgard in all routes.

So again, why is this a problem? Well... all the other lead characters have agency without Byleth on all routes, including outside of their own. Their goals are not halted by anything except death and will continue seeking their goals on routes that are not their own. Byleth does not need to be there for their story to be the same story, even if it ends differently (Byleth is the player proxy to experience each route's story, thus if not present in a specific character's life, will not change their motivations. The end result will of course change, but their attitude toward their goals does not change).

However, Edelgard is very specifically still the villain and viewed as such in all routes except CF. You might think, well of course, since that's her own route... but why couldn't they commit to making the villain still the villain on her route? Why did they go out of their way to lessen the impact of her actions/motivations/beliefs? Why didn't they, in writing, make it very clear that you sided with the villain and thus are also a villain in CF? Why is it that Ashnard has almost identical lines about his motivations to hers, but she isn't viewed as the villain in her route but instead as the hero?

Again - it's the romance option. It's the very unfortunate idea that they wanted to woobify the only female lead to make her more paletteable for the player. Dimitri, again, has a backstory and central arc revolving around his suffering and is the focus of his route, but Edelgard is given a sad backstory that... the story doesn't come back to. That the story doesn't utilize to make her have a redemption arc. That the story only uses... to make you feel bad for her.

It's unfortunate because the only female lead couldn't be solid on her own in her own route. She becomes so sad and lonely without Byleth, and the characters even tease her about it during the timeskip reunion (mind you, in no other route is this an issue and she continues fighting her war very well. She's actually wnning without Byleth in all other routes and is evidently (supposedly?) in love with Byleth on all routes, but still manages to do just fine without them on all routes... except her own).

Edelgard has random cutesy aspects like painting Byleth and being embarrassed about it. She likes to drown herself in sweets and be a girl. These are tactics used by the writers to make her cuter and whatnot... but then, why are those aspects not used in the other routes? Why do the other characters manage their stories and arcs just fine without needing extra cute fluff? They can be married by the player character, but they don't utilize unnecessary and random fluff that doesn't fit in with the vibe of the route.

Then you look back and see, well, they toned down the female only on the route you can marry her. They didn't let her be the character she was amped up to be. They had to tone her down and make her more appealing to players... but they... didn't do this with any of the guys.

Regardless on your stance regarding potential sexism in the writing thusly, it just is fact that this is what happened and this is how the stories were handled. They could have made her a full blown villain of all the main characters, and if you joined them you were now also the villain. But... no, because they wanted a cute girl.

Unfortunately, it really shows when Ashnard is a man and is able to be his own character freely with no obstacles in his writing.

Whether you feel it's sexist or not, the fact is, the romance aspect was a lot more pushed in the player's face in CF. AM looks like it's doing something similar at first, but that illusion is gone when seeing Dimitri in the timeskip and he no longer gushes over Byleth and is no longer polite and friendly. When he does regain his gentleness, a lot (if not all?) of his seemingly flirty and funny aspects aren't used. He's a lot more formal and rational, and he's not reduced to a player's marriage object. They toyed with it, essentially, before the Remire chapter, when Dimtiri's mental health was degrading. Once we got to see the real depths of his character arc in part one, all of that fun, cute, silly stuff was gone, and it didn't return.

Edelgard though? Wasn't written that way, literally having romance be a plot device for her only in her own route where you can marry her. She was changed specifically for her route. The other lead characters (Dimitri, Claude, Seteth and technically Rhea)? All the same across all routes.

Even Rhea's switch flip in CF is still Rhea. It's her when she's pushed to the brink, being fought by the person who has Sothis within them and who possibly was even involved in killing the last of her kin. It's her when she's backed into a corner, but it's still her.

If Dedue survives/isn't transformed in CF, Dimitri's death shows that he's still the same person/has the same motivations and feelings that he has in all other routes when he's not at his lowest point (and when he is at his lowest point in each route, he's written consistently in that state in each one).

Claude will still defend Leicester at all cost in every route, even if it kills him (he can die in AM, but you get game over. But the fact remains that he will stay and fight instead of escaping to safety when he's about to die - something he tells Hilda to do. The only time he leaves is when he's spared in CF after being defeated. In that situation, he still risked death and didn't back down from the battle).

Next part will be in the next post because this is already long and the two posts as one was just... too long lol.