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umbralstars · 7 months ago

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Kemetic Influences on Fire Emblem Three Houses (Part 1)

I know I have made a more unstructured post regarding this before; however, I am certain in my assessments that the influence of Ancient Egyptian mythology had on 3H is vast and more varied then I, personally, have seen people discuss. Yes, we know of the etymology behind Sothis and Seiros' names, but I believe these connections go much deeper than the surface level. This will be structured with me discussing what I am most sure in to what is more interpolation on my part. This part about Sothis is so long that it needs to be it's own post entirely. Sothis is based on Hellenistic/Roman period worship of Lady Isis

As we know, Sothis' name can be traced to one of the names of Sirius, specifically the Hellenized name of Sopdet the goddess of said star. However, this is surface level. Sopdet was often syncretized with Isis during the Hellenistic period and in Lady Isis, I believe, there are more clear allusions to Sothis and how she acts as a deity within 3H's world. Lady Isis is an Egyptian deity who was worshiped across the Mediterranean during the Hellenistic and Roman period. Sothis in her mythology, actions, and how she is depicted in-game shares remarkable similarities to Isis. The images and sources I will be using as a reference come from Dr. Andrew M. Henry's (ReligionForBreakfast) video on the topic and FEDatamine for everything regarding 3H.

Sothis and Isis are both "great mother" deities who act as supreme goddesses to their followers.

Even before coming to supreme status in the Mediterranean, Isis was an incredibly important goddess within Egypt. She was the bringer of magic, a guardian of women, a compassionate goddess who wished to relieve all human suffering, and much much more. All of these traits are extremely close if not direct parallels to Sothis. We know that magic within Fodlan is directly connected to Sothis through the visual of all the magic circles (save for Agarthan dark magic) and it can be postulated that, like Isis, Sothis magic was beyond the capabilities of other humans or other deities. Faith magic in particular is directly correlated with the ability to heal and protect, which is one of the main domains of Lady Isis in antiquity and modern day. She was the healer of the sick and injured, so much so that she often traveled in human form so that she could aid those who called out to her. I don't believe it is a coincidence that healing magic was reskinned as faith in this game given that context. And the connections continue beyond that. Consider this text from a temple to Isis in Cyrene:

During the Hellenistic period, Isis' power and prominence grew to wear she became a supreme goddess within these polytheistic societies. She was believed to be the ruler of time and fate itself, and, as stated here, one of the creators of the cosmos who first set time to course. She was often depicted holding a steering rudder or with the planet beneath her very feet as the goddess through which all fate flows.

Next, take this quote from Lucius Apuleius: The Golden Ass a text from a satirist, but nonetheless believed to hold elements of truth to Isis' worship during the Roman period.

Once again, we see the language that would describe a supreme, cosmic deity. Compare to similar wording in The Book of Seiros Part 1: "The goddess is all things. She is heaven above and the land below. She is eternity incarnate. She is the present, the past, and the future. Her eyes see all. Her ears hear all. Her hands receive all."

Due to this language, it is believed by some religious scholars, and presented within the video, that within the mysteries of Isis there was an element of henotheism at play. A philosophy within religious practices where one god is worshiped a supreme deity whilst not denying the existence of other gods, and such a system of worship is what I believe to be happening within Fodlan's religious context. Other gods are known to exist, they are spoken of in the Book of Seiros; however, Sothis is supreme goddess of Fodlan.

Now, I ask, what is Sothis' primary characteristics within the Church of Seiros and as depicted in game? She is the supreme Goddess of Fodlan, who's depicted with having control over time and fate itself (literally divine pulse), spoken of as a savior not only in the past but also through the actions of her vessel Byleth, who created all life (or at least the Nabateans) as "The Beginning", and the arbiter of souls as an explicitly afterlife related deity.

All of these traits are direct parallels to Lady Isis, and I am not even finished listing all the similarities. First take this quote from The Book of Seiros Part 2: "In the beginning, amid the great cloudless ocean, Fódlan came to be. At the end of a long journey, the goddess glimpsed that land and there alighted. Upon that sacred ground, she breathed life into the world and created all of the creatures upon it.

By the goddess's hand, plants took root, birds took to the sky, and animals roamed the land. Last of all, she created humanity." Within multiple Egyptian creation myths one of the prevalent and constant features is the primordial ocean of Nun. It was place of nothingness and chaos all at once, a "cloudless ocean" if you will. And from that ocean came the first land, the benben, and from there any number of gods created all life. This includes Isis, who within the inscriptions at Philae, is described to have created all life and the cosmos itself (Žabkar 1988, pp. 134.): "Indeed, she is the Lady of Heaven, Earth, and the Nether World, having brought them into existence through what her heart conceived and her hands created..." Both of them are related to the afterlife and are explicitly called out as deities of fate. Once again from the story of Apuleius:

Lady Isis' connection to the afterlife as she who guides the soul to it's fate goes back even further in Egyptian texts and she has been a funerary deity all the way back in Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts. Take that in context with Rhea's line of Sothis being the "arbiter of souls" and much of her cosmology in-universe revolving around the afterlife you have another link between them. Isis was said to be able to prolong a person's life if they were to follow her mysteries as she knew the lifespan of all people and could manipulate it with her magics. She also typically interacted with her followers via dreams. This is something Sothis is shown to do constantly with her appearing in Byleth's near death moments, within their dreams (at the beginning of the game and later during her speech regarding Fodlan's plight. And can I say, Sothis being aware of the blood being split and awakening Byleth to explicitly put it to an end is a very much like a savior goddess). Then, in Rhea's backstory, she said that she heard Sothis' voice within the Holy Tomb (or within Enbarr) and that is what lead her to take up the name of Seiros and begin to fight against Nemesis. Sothis inspiring the creation of the Adrestian Empire through Seiros, and Byleth's place to chose the fate of Fodlan, directly correlates to Lady Isis' role as a goddess of kingship. Her protection was explicitly called upon both during the defense of Egypt and during campaigns of military conquest, and that she alone was comparable of armies of soldiers. Isis and Sothis both are also transparently related to nature. They are callers of the rains (cited in the Philae Hymns for elsewhere and in-game for Sothis) and related to bounties of the harvest. In this way, Sothis may also cross into the sphere of Osiris who was more explicitly a fertility god and the ruler of the dead/judge of souls. An interesting similarity can be called to the myth of Osiris' death and dismemberment at the betrayal of his brother Set, Isis' incomplete resurrection of her husband, and Horus' becoming king of Egypt after contending with his uncle where he avenged his father; with how Sothis herself was killed and dismembered for her power, then Seiros' creation of Adrestia (where he also chose the first king) to avenge her mother, and her inability to resurrect her due to Sothis' body being scattered and incomplete (at least, until her ib/Creststone was placed within the intact khet of Byleth). But that is an aside for now. I want to finish this off with a look of the physical similarities between depictions of Isis and Sothis. Once again from Apuleius:

"Firstly her long thick hair in tapering ringlets was loosely spread over her divine neck and shoulders, and her head was crowned with a complex garland of interwoven flowers of every kind. At the centre, over her brow, a flat disc like a mirror or rather a moon-symbol shone with brilliant light. Coiled vipers reared from the right and left of her coronet which was bristling with erect ears of corn. Her multi-coloured robe was of finest linen, gleaming here pure white, here a saffron yellow, there flaming rose-red, with a woven border flowing with flowers and fruit, and what dazzled me most of all was her jet-black cloak with its full sheen, wrapped gleaming about her, slung from the left shoulder, knotted at the breast, and sweeping over her right hip. It hung in sweetly undulating complex folds down to a tasselled fringe, and along its borders and over its surface fell a scatter of glittering stars, round a full moon at the centre breathing fiery rays. And she bore a host of emblems." To me, there are some similarities between this and the depiction of Sothis plus how Rhea dressed and Byleth's Immaculate One outfit. The floral motifs of lotus flowers, the crisp white of Sothis' mural appearance and those of Rhea and Byleth, the crowns of flowers and star motfis, the way Isis bears many emblems around her, much of it bears some similarities to Sothis. But this is not the only depiction of Isis, let me show you some visual representations. Let us compare this mural of Sothis to some depictions of Isis:

Here are two of Isis from Pompeii with one being a mural and another a famous reconstruction of a statue:

Again, while not 1:1 there are some visual similarities in design. The white linen of her dress and the cut of it are fair similar, as are the wings that are associated with nearly every depiction of Isis. To show and example from Egypt:

The fact that Sothis is shown with feathered wings in particular feels important given her other similarities with Lady Isis. Plus the throne hieroglyph that represents Isis and often often seen above her head looks exactly like the throne of Sothis as seen in the Holy Tomb. Lady Isis is also known as the "Lady of the Throne" just like how Sothis is called the "Girl on the Throne." The amount of connections between them does not feel like coincidence to me. If you want to take the Romance into account as well, both Sothis and Isis are associated with floods in that case, especially with floods that are said to be caused by their sorrow. Sothis is a savoir deity who protected and saved from Fodlan from the destruction of the Agarthans; she is said to have caused a flood in the one, possible, Agarthan account we have. Her name is Sothis, transcribed from Sopdet, lady of the blue star, who was syncretized with Isis who also became manifest within Sirius. I think I will make one more note: the Rite of the Goddess' Rebirth is transparently related to Wep Ronpet, the cosmological new year in Kemetic religious practice. Both take palace in late July (or into early August for some dates of Wep Ronpet), both are related to the rising of a particular star (the Blue Sea Star is based on Sirius, this fact), both are related to the rebirth of the world and the gods, and both are a day of celebration with family and friends. As one final aside: in Kemetic practice, worship of the gods has always been an intimate and close affair, both in antiquity and in modern practice. Gods are active and immediate presences within the world, and they are presently felt within physical parts of the world. Ra, Aten, and other solar deities are all the sun, Nut the sky, Shu the air and wind. Various "truths" about natural phenomenon could all be true at once and created a multi-facted view of existence. So Sothis having the Blue Sea Star as her "home" are acting as her spiritual double entirely makes sense within this framework. Sothis' laws are also fairly similar to the Laws and philosophical underpinnings of Ma'at; however, delving into that is outside the scope of this post. So I will need to leave things off here.

#fe3h #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem #sothis fire emblem #fe3h meta #stars rambles #i'm sorry if this feel unorganized i've been trying to synthesize my thoughts for days #sothis having all these allusions to lady isis has been very obvious to me for years #so i'm happy to have post laying it all out #and obviously this isn't the only influence #but one that i feel doesn't get talked about enough #and it's important to me #so with that #dua lady isis

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