#and ALSO you have all the routes to consider. sb where miklan is left with his brother in law but his brother died

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

the idea of three hopes dimivain is also so funny to me tho bc dimitri goes and recruits miklan and then miklan just gets back only to find out his brother and king are Very Close and he's just like "oh god. oh no". he knows exactly what he is going to be subjected to for the rest of his life.

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

I agree with the stuff with you guys said, but I also want to add, as the resident Miklan stan (that's a half joke for ppl who will take that so seriously they will think I think Miklan never did anything wrong ever), that the Empire struggles in every route dealing with Arianrhod. They repeatedly mention how they're either at a stalemate or that the Empire is outright being pushed back.

In SB you only get away with being able to win more because the route kinda makes it so you're always the winner no matter what route you're on, but Miklan is also noticeably completely absent in SB. The assumption of course is that he's still around and fighting, but he may be stationed elsewhere and it's a fact that the Empire never actually completely defeated the Kingdom (and Claude ends up having to be the one who has to go there anyway iirc in SB, while Edelgard deals with other things on her end because Ludwig started a rebellion. Never thought I'd look at Ludwig and be like yeah I totally agree with you today).

So in SB, you have a situation where the Empire can't even beat the Kingdom on their own, and even with the help of the Alliance they still can't really completely defeat them (the Kingdom is considered "weakened" but never outright defeated).

In GW, as above, they're weakened but not defeated, and Edelgard's army can't do anything more than sit at a stalemate against Arianrhod.

In AG, Miklan successfully holds the fortress while the strongest body of the army is away at the Kingdom capital and the entire time they're on their way back and on their way to Arianrhod... and for a chunk of the time they're at the fortress. After he dies, the Empire's army is basically crushed and left in tatters because of Thales, so even with him gone they can't really do anything.

The funniest part? Nobody in the Empire mentions how it's a crestless man leading the forces at the most important fortress in the entire fucking Kingdom. For all the complains about Crests, it was a man without a Crest whose life was sullied by Crests who is leading successfully and is a strong warrior in his own right. As much as Miklan may insist he's more brawn than brain, he definitely has enough brain to know how to properly command troops to defend against a siege against an extremely important location. You can't be incompetent to be defending a place like that or leading the troops.

Yes, Catherine and Shamir joined him in AG to defend the place, but the Church was always just reinforcements. Catherine also acknowledges Miklan's prowess, as does Seteth. You know, the Church BaD second in command who surely supports Crests and all that shit because Crests are all their fault (bc didn't u know it was the CoS who genocided themselves and that's why everything is their own fault???!!!).

In the Kingdom army meanwhile, throughout the time Miklan is at camp with the main body of the army, him having such an important and high position in their army (remember, even before defending the fortress was one of their commanders) gave others hope that they could also rise in the ranks one day despite that they didn't have a Crest.

You know, the thing Edelgard tells people she wants for the Empire but insists the Kingdom and Alliance do not do. While mind her, the Kingdom is already lightyears ahead of her and the Empire in that regard, with the Duscur forces volun-fucking-teering to help them fight the Empire, and Dedue essentially being the king's personal bodyguard. These are people who can't have Crests because they are not even from Fodlan.

That, too, also puts a dent in Edelgard and Clout's "Rhea is at fault for everything and Crests are taking over Fodlan because of her" bullshit; especially because Rhea visits the camp sometimes, has Seteth right there who could report anything and everything back to her, and has the Church personally assist in aiding in Duscur's restoration and independence while maintaining a positive relationship with them (i.e. they will be their own nation again but their relationship doesn't end with that, so there's no "oh but Rhea is just trying to get the foreigners out of Fodlan!". She knows they'll still have a relationship with Fodlan via Faerghus).

I'm not sure how Edelgard's route can be seen as the "just" and "progressive" route and all that when the Kingdom is, again, lightyears ahead of the Empire in all the things Edelgard claims to want for the Empire. How is AG not the hero route then? How is AG the uwu BaD route because they shelter the Church (who literally only has some of its troops fighting with the people who sheltered them to aid them for, you know, sheltering them)?

Back to Miklan, I find it pretty important in a sense? that he's not mentioned at all in SB (but he is mentioned in GW and it's explicitly stated he's at the western front). Most of what Edelgard tells the people is propaganda, sure... but I think it also in a way is proof of the hypocrisy.

Shez is in a high position in their army, and surprise surprise, Shez has special powers (and perhaps even unironically rather than ironically is connected to the Agarthans, who Edelgard has always had to deal with in one way or another). Even though Shez lacks a Crest, there's still something "special" about them that separates them from being just an ordinary mercenary.

Meanwhile, there's no mention of Miklan, possibly because... then Edelgard and thus the players are forced to acknowledge that a man without a Crest is in a position of high authority and defending the place that is most critical to the Kingdom.

"But he was forced to do it!" At first he was, but he grew to appreciate the situation, and in AG even basically likes helping the towns that were destroyed by the war. When you're aiding a town on the map, you specifically get dialogue from him about it (also implying he's marching with the main troops to all their battlefields until he's stationed at the western front).

Meanwhile, in the Empire, you have people who just want to go home and people who don't even want the war. People who complain about it all the time. Then you have people who just want the promotion, implying that they won't be able to get a promotion/higher position without war - meaning Edelgard wouldn't give out those positions during times of peace. Why would they be worried about that if they knew they could still get promoted? Constance, who is from the Empire, also has a line exactly about this in GW in the final chapter exploration.

Then you have the Kingdom, where positions of power were being given during times of peace before the war even happened. In other words, Dimitri had no idea a war would break out during those two years and had already been working on all that stuff. While Edelgard was busy preparing for war for two whole years, Dimitri took that time to better the Kingdom from the state it was left in post Lambert's death (of, you know, trying to make friends with foreign nations).

He had Miklan located and brought to him well before he even knew a war was going to happen and made him one of their top commanders. Miklan could either redeem himself and continue having prominence in the army, or he could be a piece of shit and die for being a piece of shit.

Miklan decided to change his ways and not take his problems out on just anyone (i.e. what a bandit does). Once given the chance, he became a valuable asset and started to heal as a person. It was enough for even Matthias, who disowned him, to "see no reason not to avenge him" when he died. When their own enemy corrected himself to refer to Miklan as "Sir Miklan" in honor of the man he became and for his sacrifice (and remember, Dimitri always has a "retreat and don't die" mindset. He would rather his people flee and live than die fighting, and Miklan could've done that just the same and Dimitri would've accepted that just fine. He stayed and fought even though it killed him, and he wanted to prove himself against Gwendal).

So what I'm saying is, considering all of this, I still don't understand how Kingdom BaD other than a blind hatred for them for sheltering the Church. People always go on about how it's because he's devout and blah blah and a Church simp, but he's not even religious and doesn't even like the goddess (re: his, ironically, Goddess Tower conversation, i.e. he outright explains in the fucking Goddess Tower itself that he doesn't feel strongly about the goddess). They even explained in a lot of detail why Dimitri chose the Church over the Empire (basically for the same reason explained in GW amongst Claude's crew about how they know Edelgard will still try to make Leicester a vassal state after the war).

[...]it really feels odd that suddenly, in the Zahras chapters, Dimitri's all "okay" when his closest friends either died or were grievly injured and the game proceeds as it does when, come on, why wouldn't Dimitri kill her the second they're out of the Zahras verse??

A shit excuse for them having to end the chapter and go back to the normal storyline, basically. They couldn't have that happen because it would need to happen in the main story, but since that was a secret chapter they needed a way to end it peacefully. Noticeably in GW, the split second the chapter is over, Edelgard is chasing Dimitri again immediately.

As for the political stuff, I imagine it's because they settled all that offscreen in the two year timeskip. It's just easier on the story to not go over that stuff and give us the result without detailing it all. It would probably just be Edelgard talking to them, them all coming to an agreement, and on from there. We won't know what really happened, but it's just best to guess it was a simple discussion about politics and they all got on the same page somehow. All the complicated stuff is just stuff we didn't see (which I know how much you would prefer to see it, but I believe that's just what happened from a gameplay perspective).

In SB I believe it's also very important that like you mention, we get details about the past in AG. The reason we get all that is because there's nothing to hide in AG. Characters willingly outright tell us/the other characters all this stuff because they have no reason to keep it from anyone. Nobody in the Empire mentions anything because it's been full of political strife and everyone is trying to hide something or trying to move away from being part of something. There are things to admit and lies to be exposed, so nobody ends up talking about anything that may bring questions about.

Regarding Rhea, yeah ,basically what you said. In GW too, her priority is Fodlan's safety itself. She understands what the real problem is and where priorities need to lie for people's safety. In SB Edelgard is honestly just a nuisance to her. It's the Agarthans she reacts to being present, and she's more or less just tired of Edelgard's rhetoric more than actually worried about it.

That's why, when it comes down to it, she doesn't team up with Thales to take down Edelgard, and she doesn't team up with Edelgard, the other threat to Fodlan's peace, to take down Thales. Edelgard could be fought evenly by other people in Fodlan... but she likely believed there wasn't anyone equal to Thales' power and that if she didn't stop him, nobody would be able to. Mind you, if she died and Thales survived, she'd be dead so it shouldn't matter to her who else dies in post, but... it does matter to her, hence why she took the risk.

Granted, the story ends without truly, genuinely confirming "oh yeah they're both definitely dead". GW and AG both make it a point to express that Rhea and Thales have died per route respectively, but SB just leaves you to assume/guess they both died.

But yeah, in GW Rhea also takes up arms to fight also for humanity, which she states directly, when talking to Seteth before the final chapter's battle. She's willing to stand up against Leicester for the damage they've had a hand in in Fodlan's peace, and she mentions how maybe it's just time for her role to come to an end (implying that she's always been in that role because she believed it was needed, not because she was being uwu a tyrant.

She could've kept trying to run and hide and keep being this supposed tyrant, which I mean... look at Count Varley lol. He runs and hides and never faces anyone in battle on his own free will. Rhea chose to fight though, accepting that if her time had come, it had come, and if it were to come to all of that, she wanted Seteth to take Flayn and flee and survive. She decided that if she was going to die, she didn't need to take them down with her (which I know someone out there has spun as "she did it so other Nabateans could continue being a tyrant in her place! Flayn BaD!").

Tbh Hopes portrayed Rhea in a much better light than Houses did, but unfortunately because of Houses the damage was already done in the fandom.

anyway miklan fire emblem i love u and i s supported u in my heart

I'm having a really hard time fathoming how some people consider SB to be a righteous/heroic route or a route where we're the good guys. The route where:

You invade two independent nations under the pretence of "saving their citizens from oppression" (though I guess you can't be oppressed anymore if you're dead lol) even though Her Majestic Hypocrisy repeats a bunch of times that she's in for conquest and that she'd obliterate anyone who stands in her way.

The cast keeps victim-blaming the invaded parties for *checks note* defending their countries. 

The death toll is the highest. You have to kill Ingrid, Rodrigue, Gustave and Sylvain. And you can also kill Ashe, Mercedes (btw, if she dies, the cutscene where Dimitri and Dedue grieve changes slightly, which is nice), Annette, Shamir, Ignatz, Raphael and Marianne (how does Margrave Edmund feel about Claude's alliance with the empire knowing his daughter was killed by its army?). 

IIRC, this is the only route where you conscript merchants into the imperial army. No wonder the empire has the biggest army.

Based Rhea who, despite being hunted, still thinks about the safety of the continent first in the final chapter. It's hilarious how characters like Edespot or Clyde harp on about how Rhea is the big bad, and in the few scenes you have with her, she's just kind? Anyway. Rhea based.

In the C support conversation - which happens right after Felix got seriously injured and Sylvain got killed- there's this bit where Dimitri is like "I don't know if I can talk with like everything is normal, so many have died already" and Edespot's response is basically "yeah I don't see it that way. Let's agree to disagree". Also, I believe she wonders if she shouldn't just kill Clyde and Dimitri once they're out. Even though Clyde is her ally at the moment. You bet on the wrong lord, Clyde... 

I probably forgot a few stuff, but... oh well.

To be honest,

The only things I like about Supreme Bullshit are :

Its ending! Supreme Leader and Barney (well, at least they throw a sword?) being sitting ducks while Rhea steals the show, and sacrifices herself in an epic shonen scene to get rid of the real threat, aka showing that unlike someone, she knows how to prioritize, and it ends up in an explosion. It matches the ending of the F-Zero anime (at 0.48!), Rhea/Falcon rushes to deal a blow (a Falcon punch and a Seiros strike I guess?) to their mortal enemy, there is a giant explosion, and both Rhea/Falcon fade away in a blinding light. Too bad the Supreme Bullshit BGM is eons away from "Searching to the Truth" :(

The reveal that Rhea kept the keys to the sekrit passages in the Imperial Palace - or Rhea knows more about Enbarr and its castle than the current Emperor and her aides...

Doro's paralogue being incredibly tone deaf about, uh, soldiers being "too busy" by the Mittelfrank troupe, that they can't basically protect the dancers/performers from bandits, when the paralogue happens in an area that is expressedly supposed to be full of soldiers!

If starts align in a certain way, it's the only route in Nopes where Clout dies!

Leopold! He's like Victarion Greyjoy, only if he was taken seriously. But we, as players, know better! Also he's a living retcon, from having a major cichol crest to gift to his son because he fought well (and not to, say, Big B or even Ferdie) a sacred weapon despite the route being all about muhritocracy!

Supreme Leader plans and plays with the cards she has in her hand - from trying to get good PR to get rid of people (Varley sr) by pitting them against her next target (the CoS)!

An entire game full of new Supreme Replies (tm)!

For shippers around, it has a Cathmir scene where everyone knows Shamir will prioritize Catherine's life over her allegeance! too bad this is a Supreme Leader route, so no, Shamir won't fucking try to kill her for blackmailing her and can even kill Catherine herself later on....

That's not a lot lol, and most of it are breadcrumbs because for the proper plot...

Yeah, it kinds of sucks.

Supreme Bullshit is even more tone deaf with the War and its realities than Tru Piss (and that's a feat!), Ferdie being completely, uh, off the mark about everything (invading lands and rekting people, and then saying those people's fears are only in their heads! Pal, one of the first missions in the SB exclusive chapters is to rout refugees??? + the nonsense about the Kingdom having more crested generals, when data shows the Empire has more crested peeps than the Kingdom!), Caspar being turned in the worst version of himself who dgaf anymore about protecting "innocents" and "justice", and, uh, everything with Monica.

Victim blaming is the norm with Fodlan games, but yeah, it really feels odd that suddenly, in the Zahras chapters, Dimitri's all "okay" when his closest friends either died or were grievly injured and the game proceeds as it does when, come on, why wouldn't Dimitri kill her the second they're out of the Zahras verse??

I really disliked how Supreme Bullshit yeeted Ionius from Adrestia, or how it didn't explore in more depth the Insurrection of the Seven, especially since we side with Leopold'n'Waldemar against Ludwig, who used to be allies! Also, as far as I remember, no one mentions anything about Arundel, why he ran away to the Kingdom with a young Supreme Leader and how he changed when he returned, or something?

If Ludwig is pushed by Supreme Leader, reciting her Dad's words, as the one who led the insurrection and the experiments on her, why the fuck no one else mentions them, as Leopold and Waldemar were on Aegir's side back then? They don't even mention "Arundel" participating, like, Volkhard sides against Ionius and hides his niece, but 3 months later, he returns and offers her as a guinea pig?

As is the norm with the Supreme Leader routes, the "truth" isn't what we're looking for, because we know Supreme Leader pushes a narrative she will follow to reach her goals, but where Tru Piss gave hints here and there about her narrative being, uh, rubish, we have no clues here, and Leopold prefers to flash his loincloth than giving us anything meaningful about that incident.

When you compare them to Matthias and Rodrigue (and Gilbert?) who often mention Lambert "back in the days", it's more and more obvious that... we're not supposed to ask questions in Supreme Bullshit, and just go with the flow.

And it ends with a high five.

I'd say it deviates less from Tru Piss than Golden Shower does from Verdant Winds, but it's an "expected disappointment".

That's why my only higlights are not plot relevant (save for the Captain Falcon - Rhea parallel) - because we know the plot will never deliver something meaningful in a Supreme Leader route.