#and the fact that they live 3hs away doesn't help but still

[sherlock-is-ace]

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[travelling-on-the-octopath]

Since you're a Dimiclaude shipper, and since I enjoyed your GW commentary (since I quit GW at chapter 11 lol), I was wondering if maybe you could help me to understand the popularity and appeal of Dimiclaude. I must confess I've been confused by it's popularity since 3H, given that Claude and Dimitri barely interacted in 3H. Sure, Claude did a bit in AM but not much. Dimitri was so unimportant to VW. And now, Hopes has only made me more confused given GW is a mess, even if AG had something.

MY DAY HAS COME.

I should start off by saying this is in no way an attempt to force someone to like a ship they don't like. The whole point of this is to have a mighty good time. I'm gonna go over the big stuff, the small stuff, and then the stuff I've noticed with my own two eyes that isn't highlighted in the story at all, but to me is interesting/fun to think about.

Before I get into the meat of it: It doesn't go over my head, or that of a vast majority of other shippers, that Dimitri and Claude don't have the same screen time as most other ships, who have supports and main-story event interactions that bolster their popularity. But it's the mainline screen time they do have that sort of makes every other little thing great. (For the most part I'm staying away from Hopes because, well. Because.)

I do get what you're saying about Claude having a small role in AM, but that role still stands out pretty starkly when you look at the game as a whole; Dimitri has a whole chapter in his route dedicated to aiding the leader of another faction when the other leaders are any combination of MIA or set to be killed. The other routes just . . . don't have this (unless you want to count saving Rhea in VW, but that was in tandem with taking down the Empire, so--not dedicated). Routes/maps dedicated to killing faction leaders, sure (Enbarr, Tailtean, Fhirdiad, Derdriu), but never going out of your way to save them. Claude's role is small, sure, but for a background character? He becomes pretty important. I mean, it's only because of him that the Kingdom army is allowed to succeed. He distracts Imperial loyalists to allow them through to Myrddin, which is yet another example of them working together/Claude believing in Dimitri's war effort, enough so that exacerbates the Alliance's infighting even further for them to pass peacefully. The Kingdom army ran the marathon, sure, but Claude was their pair of premium running shoes.

That, at least, sets the stage for their dynamic on AM specifically. Dimitri is someone Claude is more than willing to work with during the war. Why? Well, their goals are aligned. And, the game seems keen on telling us one thing:

Claude knows Dimitri more than one would think.

This seems like an unimportant dialogue choice, because Claude says the same thing regardless of your choice. It arguably would be unimportant, if Claude didn't prove he does, in fact, know Dimitri well within the same conversation:

This isn't a generic speech; this is someone who knows Dimitri's unfailing and detrimental empathy, and likely the more gritty details of it. This is someone who . . . well. Knows Dimitri. They're not total strangers (they have their moments of familiarity/friendliness in WC, as I'll continue to blab about), and it shows. Boom, a world of fic opens up: did they spend enough time together at school for Claude to have an inkling as to Dimitri's ghosts? Has he kept tabs on the inner workings of the kingdom army the whole time? dimiclaude intrigue: sparked.

And it goes both ways. Dimitri doesn't buy Claude's bullshit for a damn second; he never has.

Could you argue that Dimitri just reads him wrong? Sure. But that's not in Dimitri's character, and he's the farthest thing from naïve. Add that to his track record of him reading Claude like a flyer advertising the opening of a business (which I go into a little later), and you have a mutual understanding between people who, for a variety of reasons, live behind varying numbers of shields. How did Dimitri come to know Claude's heart that well? dimiclaude interest: ignited.

Claude collects as many facts as are available to him; what he saw told him to place his faith in Dimitri, as both a military leader and a person whose heart is too big for his chest. And, here comes my one mention of Hopes, Dimitri has that same faith in him on Azure Gleam. Do I think it has the same foundation, given that they spent a fraction of their time at Garreg Mach? Nope. But it's sweet, that he's so unendingly confident that Claude will come in in clutch and save the Kingdom's collective ass. And it remains true that they're complementary here, even if they're not as familiar with each other. The idea that a one-man army and Speculation And Distrust Incarnate(TM) would fight back-to-back? That's the tasty shit. Good. This version of dimiclaude is primed for the political allies trope (and arguably ARE the political allies trope, with a little heavier emphasis on it than the potential "high school" sweethearts, or long-distance flirting à la the end of AM, or the tragedy of a post non-AM alternate universe, etc). It isn't as fulfilling as Houses dimiclaude, for a number of reasons, but it is cute. (And as much as it angers me when I think about it Seriously, shout out to the fact that they seem to have a telepathic fuckin link on GW lmao??? "he wants me to do this i know he does i know it" and "he just invaded my country. but somehow i can tell he meant no lasting harm by it/doesn't intend to conquer faerghus" WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU TWO??FGLKJDFG)

Little things about them inside the narrative that make me go insane:

> These tweets showcase that in Japanese, during the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, Dimitri meets Claude's Bullshit(TM) blow for blow; if you don't want to peruse, more than okay. I'll summarize: In the English translation, it got lost a little that Dimitri was impersonating someone who got riled up by what Claude said, rather than actually getting riled up only to realize Claude's intentions partway through. He pretends to get all uppity, and honestly the delivery+the whole interaction is so cute. Frankly, it's really great for great for both of them; Claude isn't unpredictable and unknowable, and Dimitri is a bit of a brat who likes a sprinkle of fun in battles that aren't life or death. The moment is still cute in English, even if it makes english!Dimitri read more straitlaced than his Japanese counterpart.

Side note but he is SO unbothered when Claude tries this the first time ldfgkjdfg it's no wonder it didn't work at the Battle of the Eagle and Lion either (at least in Japanese). Reads Claude like a book in size 64 font lmao

> They're the only lords seen talking to each other in an exploration on the weekend, which is one of those piddly little crumbs that means fuck all, but I do think it's cute. (And I point out their positions as route lords because they, as heads of their factions, have the least reason to interact. Dimitri talks about EdeIgard/has scenes with her because Reasons, while she and Claude are caught in a constant loop of "I'm going to make this sly yet cutting comment and you're going to respond with something equally sly and cunning and at the end of it all we're going to kill each other, so." It's just nice that dimiclaude is ally-/friend-coded because the other two lord dynamics are Something.) Lumping into here: the battle for Garreg Mach scene where they fight side by side (fighting together yet again), and the prologue cutscene where they run up together. Could they have been on complete opposite sides of the field and met each other at that exact moment? Yes. Will I choose to believe the other explanation? Always <3 it's part of the fun.

> At Derdriu, Claude tells everyone else they're right on time, but tells Dimitri he's late and snaps at him to hurry up. Seems to me like Dimitri brings out the brat in Claude the way Claude brings out the bitch in Dimitri lgkjdflgkj. Or, if you want to flip it, Claude pretends everything is fine in front of everyone else and Dimitri is the only one he can be honestly frustrated/frazzled with.

> (And on that note, their interaction at Gronder in Japanese pleases me greatly because of how audibly frustrated/angry Claude is and how good those moments are for his character. He's someone who adapts to situations on the fly, and to do that he has to remain calm. It seems Dimitri might just make him lose it more often than most dgldkfjg.)

> Listen I just find this cute as shit

> Claude gives Dimitri the heirloom of his house; the physical manifestation of his claim to Fódlani lineage is something he trusts in Dimitri's hands, when he could have just left it where it belongs: with House Riegan. For a character whose core revolves around being from more than one place, it's a gift of a pretty hefty emotional weight.

> And on the heels of that, Claude imagines Dimitri in his future, or maybe playing a part in Dimitri's, on the foundation of their shared political goals. It opens them up to a massive, massive world of post-canon fic where the crumbs we got in the game can be tasted and replicated to make a full cake--three tiers, airy buttercream icing, sugar-paste flowers, the works. At that point they would both be kings, and the darkest parts of their lives would be behind them, and the possibility of it is created in the game itself.

Little things (mostly) outside the narrative that make me go insane:

> Dimitri's Crest looks like a star, while Claude's looks like a moon. Given that their motifs are moons (Azure Moon, Paraselene) and stars (Fallen Star, God-Shattering Star) respectively, I allow myself to vibrate when thinking about it.

> They both grew up in countries that prize combat prowess; peak fic fodder

> Dimitri's Relic-specialized Combat Art, Atrocity, is about doing battle and wrecking everything and anything; Claude's, Fallen Star, is about avoiding combat entirely. Indicative of their fighting styles, and speaks to the aspects of their character that make fitting them together so fun and interesting. Dimitri's impatience+raw strength in combat paired with Claude's pragmaticism+adaptability. It's good shit.

> Dimitri's real-world constellation is Sagittarius; Claude's is Leo. Descendant of the King of Lions with archer stars and the archer who inherits Failnaught having lion stars???? call that star-crossed lo--and i'm pulled off stage. But that leads me to:

> They both hold a certain degree of antagonism toward trusting higher powers meddling in their lives, which makes their focus on either the present or the future well-suited to each other, and intrinsic parts of their characters. Star-crossed by accident, but the greatest part is that they choose to come together a number of times.

> Their messy, messy relationships with their family, and apparently they can relate to having their family members actively try to kill them lmao ???

/

The appeal to me, at the end of the day, is that while they're vastly different, they're not at all opposites. They're complementary. They exist on different points of an axis, but they keep the same rhythm and movement that keeps them from hindering each other. They're both fundamentally good people with a certain sharpness to their intellect that makes them compelling as anything from allies to romantic partners. Claude dreams, and he dreams big, but he's smart about it; he knows his limits, and finds ways to push them without breaking them. Dimitri has recently come out of being sunk neck-deep in the past, but all the same wants a world that's better for the people he's responsible for. Even on a level of aspirations and political goals, they're aligned. They're equals, in power and wit and heart.

They're just neat <3

I feel like I've bombarded you enough for now fglkjdflg but feel free to come back any time if my dimiclaude babbling has piqued your interest. If not, thank you for letting me babble regardless ^^"

[butwhatifidothis]

Do you feel that Claude stays true to his Three Houses character in the Azure Gleam route?

Far more so, yes.

Not to say there isn't still hiccups: despite seeing for himself that foreign diplomacy is happening within Faerghus despite Rhea and the Central Church's presence, and despite seeing for himself Crestless individuals rise in the ranks of the Kingdom army despite Rhea and the Central Church being right there, Claude is still clearly under the belief that the Church and Rhea have to go (or more, that's the so-implied-it-might-as-well-have-been-explicitly-said implication he's given in AG). If he were completely in-line with how he was in 3H, he would have changed his opinion once he saw how evidently he was incorrect.

Hell, literally all he needed was Cyril's word in 3H for him to warm up to the idea of him and Rhea not needing to be enemies, so everything he'd see in AG once he sides with Dimitri and Rhea should've damn near made him a believer in comparison lmaooo. Him not having his curiosity - which is what this ultimately stems from - is a problem throughout all of Hopes, not just GW and SB, and its absence is pretty noticeable.

(or more, its deliberate removal is noticeable - it’d be one thing if there was genuinely nothing to stimulate the curiosity, but that’s not what happens here lol)

But other than that, yes, he's far more true to his character. He doesn't side with the one initiating violence, he doesn't sacrifice his allies (however much one sees Randolph as an "ally" outside of semantics - I don't, but clearly the game wanted me to think of him as one), there's no needless """""""sacrifices""""""" of completely innocent lives, he's willing to set aside his suspicions towards Rhea seeing how it's not her, but Edelgard who is causing the most harm to Fodlan and its people and its future currently, he doesn't do stupid shit that only helps Edelgard nor does he regurgitate her rhetoric (outside of minor Church Bad), he's not blindly believing a liar's words with no proof.

As you might've noticed, it's mostly him not doing a lot of things that makes him far more in character more than it is him actually doing things. GW and SB add in so much shit into Hopes!Claude's character that directly goes against 3H!Claude's character, so taking them out of the equation reveals just how, like, easy it would've been to make an acceptable version of Claude for Hopes. AG!Claude is by far and away the most tolerable version of Hopes!Claude, just because for the most part he... doesn't act like Hopes!Claude.

And also, now, mind, I don't think it's really an accomplishment on AG's part - cynical as I've become of Hopes' writing of Claude, the only likely reason he's so drastically different between AG and the rest of the game is because this is where he never has Edelgard as an actual enemy. He thinks she is, but narratively speaking Edelgard is not the one Claude or Dimitri are fighting for the second half of AG - it's Thales, who's made Edelgard little more than a megaphone to shout orders through. By the time Claude enters AG Edelgard is lobotomized, unlike in the other two routes where he's directly opposed to her and ever so coincidentally ends up basically becoming Edel-lite.

There's no need to make Edelgard look better since she's already been properly set up as a Poor Uwu Victim, so all the shit added to Hopes!Claude is no longer needed and are thus erased entirely. You'll notice how Claude is fuckin' no where near as violent and callous and manipulative on AG as he is on the other two routes, and how in fact he's one of the nicest dudes on fuckin' Earth as he

freely gives his best generals (two of which are Roundtable heirs) as well as multiple generic soldiers

freely gives supplies to the Kingdom

risks his own life with not just no prompting from someone else (unlike with Edelgard) but with his active insistence that he do so, during AG's Aillell

all without ever backstabbing Dimitri/Rhea (unlike Edelgard, in SB) or even asking for anything in return

Since there's no propping up Edelgard required for AG, Claude just goes back to being the "pure good guy" he was in 3H (and was described to be in 3H by his OG creator). Like, when I say that it's obvious obvious that Claude was written in Hopes primarily to service Edelgard, I mean it's, like, omega obvious obvious. He's not a piece of shit made to make Edelgard look better in comparison, he's just... Claude lmao

[oh-cool-a-burning-sword]

The Byleth support reveals that Arval tried to carefully avoid damage to Shez. My heart, it really felt like the moles used them as a tool. Even if their objective was achieved, it felt empty. Still, I like to hc that Arval broke away from Epimenides and became their own person, deciding to live for themselves rather than being directed to do something. Oh shoot, maybe that's how Shez still keeps the space powers after "killing" Epimenides, as Arval might be there ala Sothis from Part Two of 3h.

Not only that but when you defeat Epimenides, Arval gives Shez the ability to leave Zahras. Said power going into the Shez's magic sword, the one given to them the first time Arval gave them powers. If they didn't care for Shez, Arval probably wouldn't have done that, they could have just let Shez and the three lords spend all of eternity trapped in the void. I feel like Epimenides would have done exactly that if he could.

IDK if Arval really broke away from Epimenides. Despite never supposedly meeting their creator before the Zahras incident, he was still able to influence Arval's thoughts and actions. He didn't have complete control, but he was able to make Arval feel like there was danger whenever Byleth was nearby, and made them feel like killing the Ashen Demon was their and Shez's destiny.

Yet from what I've seen. It feels like while Arval was influenced by their creator, their loyalty lies mainly with Shez. And I think what makes this obvious is the chapter where you can recruit Byleth. They offer to help in any way they can if you have Shez suggest to recruit the mercenaries, and later they even agree that it might have been a good idea if you succeed.

Then we got the fact that we know that Arval can possess Shez. If they were truly against the idea of letting the Ashen Demon live during chapter 10, they had the perfect opportunity to posses our protagonist and fight. Instead they just suggest it to Shez and ultimately let them decide. (SB at the very least gives the perfect opportunity, as Byleth was cut off from reaching Rogridue thanks to the bridge. All they would have needed to do was use a Shadow Sneak at a nearby stronghold and then ambush Byleth.)

It's only four chapters later (supposedly 4 months if we're going with the idea that unless stated otherwise each chapter is a month) where Arval finally does it. And even then, seeing as Shez wasn't fully sure if the voice telling them to kill Byleth was their friend, it could be that the attack was more Epimenides' idea with Arval following through with it. Though making sure that Shez doesn't get hurt in the process.

If Arval's in the same or at least a similar position that Sothis was in during Part 2 of 3 houses, then maybe a potential DLC could give us a way to bring them back? We know for a fact that Shez cares for Arval, even after the whole Zahras incident. And seeing Shez's nature I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to drop everything should even the slightest chance to save Arval were to present itself.

[themoomoorn]

To be fair...

...in the OG game, Claude alludes to explicitly running away from Almyra at a few points, specifically his A Supports with Marianne and Byleth. This does seemingly contradict an earlier point in the game (Chapter 3 post-battle) where Claude tells Hilda and Byleth that he promised he wouldn't tell about where his parents lived, but Claude has a way with words when it comes to evading talking about his heritage. It seems that only Tiana really knows where Claude went. And because she's cut herself off from Fodlan entirely, and has an inkling of an idea as to what her son wants, I'd believe it if she opted not to tell her husband where he ran off to.

Claude explicitly tells Byleth that he ran away to get a new perspective on Fodlan to prove that Almyra's view of them was wrong. To his disappointment, the feeling of hatred between the two countries is mutual, hence he begins his grand quest to bring the two lands together...and also, in a way, etch out a place where he can belong. He also alludes to this goal in the main 3H game.

And while Claude is the king's seeming favorite, this is still a guy who punished his "favorite son" by tying him to a horse and letting it go crazy, with Tiana even laughing at him. This also didn't stop any kind of torment or violence from half-siblings and others. So the king probably favors Claude for whatever positive qualities he has, but also likely because he's the kid that his chosen girlboss queen-wife bore for him. And him being king in the culture he's in, he probably wasn't going to coddle him anyway. I'm dipping into headcanon territory, but who's to say that the king's "favoritism" isn't some form of gaslighting, or desire to mold Claude as his heir?

Because of the direction 3 Hopes Claude goes in (Up to Chapter 8, because after that is when Claude getting the Old Yeller treatment kicks in), we don't really get much in the way of alluding to his true goals. The war as it stands doesn't help, but he also didn't spend all that time at the academy digging into church history, or bonding with his classmates, or speaking about his dreams with fellow outsider Byleth, which makes him...almost forget his dream in a sense?

In fact, if you have Shez take Claude out riding and ask him about his dreams for the future, Hopes!Claude will even say that he has no idea what he really wants. Houses!Claude? He knows exactly what he wants.

The part with Shahid not recognizing Claude is still stupid though.

So, thinking about Claude

Keep reading

[travelling-on-the-octopath]

Tweet I found: "Fire Emblem takes one of the most beloved FE protagonists and makes him live up to the promise of being a morally gray genius who plays both sides ON TOP of giving him a character arc."

I'm sorry, WHAT? One, Claude was only ever originally thought of as anything CLOSE to that; the """""promise""""" of him being anything other than what we got in 3H... never existed past the rough drafts. Like sorry-not-sorry to this fandom that insists so hard on making Claude way more morally dubious than he ever was in 3H, but Claude is for the most part a soft-hearted sucker. He was never half as bad as either he tried to say he was or the fandom ever treated him. And this is partially proven by even the eastern fandom being outraged at Hopes!Claude - the eastern fandom, who was never subject to Meme Man Claude portrayals of him! Like yes he can be underhanded, but the dude's just... nice, overall.

Two, if Claude was ever really someone who "played both sides" in 3H like this person said was """promised""" to us, then why doesn't he ever directly try to willingly help the Empire at any point in 3H? You know, like he does with helping the Kingdom cross Gloucester territory undisturbed, or how Claude gives Dimitri Failnaught, or how the Alliance lords willingly decided to fold back into the Kingdom, in AM? Even though the Empire, on CF, has Byleth to make them seem legit, and even though the Church would've still had the same dogma that Claudelgard insists they have that made him become an asshole?

Three - and I'm cupping my hands around my mouth for this one - A CHARACTER DOING BAD THINGS DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY MEAN THEY'RE ON A CHARACTER ARC. Claudelgard is not on any "arc" - not on one that's any sort of competently written, at least. Him killing his brother and him saying he's willing to get his hands bloody afterwards does not, by ANY means, signify that that now means he's willing to COMPLETELY THROW AWAY ANY CHANCES HE HAS AT HIS AMBITIONS FOR BETTER FOREIGN RELATIONS, or that he's willing to believe someone he KNOWS to be a liar on just her word, or that he suddenly gives a shit about expanding his power (when THAT has NEVER been a concern of his, either in 3H or even in 3Hopes before that moment) to the point that's he's willing to help the Empire in any way in order to leech off their influence. Really wished that the people who like Claudelgard would stop throwing around the term "character arc" as some kind of gotcha against those who see the very clear breaks in Claude's character that needed to happen for him to do pretty much anything he does post Chapter 9.

And would, like, just stop being so rude in general actually?? Like, the amount of times I'm seeing say things like "the people who don't like Claude in hopes just don't like him making mistakes" "they flanderized his character and forgot that he can be bad too" "oh to be a Claude fan who knows how to read (<- ACTUALLY SAID)" is enough to make me wanna scream lmao, like holy shit

This got . . . long. Oops.

I'm not going to pretend I haven't said things similar to "they just don't understand"; I've said it about the Lions, and I've said it about Claude, because while it does feel gross to say (who am I, a little clown on her corner of the internet, to go after someone's interpretation of a game), after a certain point it's very clear that the text does not matter to certain consumers nearly as much as their own conceptions of the character, which is . . . irritating, to say the least. It's less about proving right and wrong, and more coming to the conclusion that being selective regarding canon is a consumer's choice, but after a certain point their interpretation cannot be taken seriously because of how little care they give the facts in the original media. Which is to say: People can enjoy this version of Claude if they want to, but I would heavily encourage a breakdown of what they enjoy, and if that's really something that was present in Houses or if it's just something they wished were there. Because people can holler until they're blue in the face about the character Claude could have been, should have been, would have been better as, but at the end of the day, I don't give a shit about the original draft of this game's writing beyond a cute little "huh, that's interesting," because it, frankly, does not matter. It can certainly provide a frame of reference to how they bastardized his character in Hopes; and if you were going to write an essay on how writers treat characters who don't fit into their franchise's usual tropes, and how that result interacts with their consumer base, sure, you could cite the original plans for Claude as a case study, in that he was going to be some sort of conniving middle ground between Blue Lord and Red Emperor--but from a narrative standpoint you cannot reach into the writers' hard drives and say "See! This was the plan all along!" because I think if someone did that to Princes I think I would fucking implode. Intention is not product; there is a reason drafts exist. If the writers really, honestly cared about giving us a morally loose character, they would have taken care to keep him that way instead of allowing his character to become one who's firm enough in his morals to trust the Blue Lord with the state of affairs--and his family heirloom!--while he fucks off back home. The writers made choices; Claude von Riegan, AKA Khalid somethingsomething (WHEN ARE WE GOING TO GET A FAMILY NAME, INTSYS?), is the result of those choices, and while he doesn't get to shine nearly as much as we all would have liked in Houses, he's sure as fuck consistent: He always has a backup plan, he doesn't take well to people using violence to get their way, he very much cares about those closest to him, and above all he treasures his ambitions and protects it with everything he has, without feeling the need to throw away his life. People are more than within their right to want something different but . . . oh well? Like I'm sorry, I really am, but that is not what we got. Frankly, that's what fanficiton is for.

And......I'm going to ask this in the most respectful manner I can, but:

What fucking character arc? Because Claude remains tragically one-note on Golden Wildfire. He's made to work for the plot, again, instead of having it go the other way around. That means he can never be confident in his plans, because the plot needs him to get to a certain point to make Decisions(TM); that means he has to throw aside common sense and his stance already established in this game to make an Alliance that makes absolutely no sense for his character, but it necessary for the plot for . . . *checks notes* reasons. There were no ups and downs for this Claude, because he was little more than a plot device instead of a full-fledged character.

The reality of it is: Claude in Hopes was poorly written, and he is by no means comparable to Claude in Houses as a means of saying what should have been. He's not even allowed to walk away with the title of smartest dude on the board because half of the decisions he makes are just straight-up idiotic. I can't look at this guy and cheer that this is the guy we were supposed to get because a) the guy we got in Houses was flawed without being insufferable, and b) you can't just undo a whole game's worth of canon because you want to. Hopes, as per the developers, is not meant to override Houses, which means they're meant to co-exist, and as we've established by this point, these two guys are . . . nothing alike. If people want to look at my takes and the takes of others and say we simply never understood Claude, or that we can't appreciate a scheme-y schemer . . . well, sorry, but no.

[butwhatifidothis]

Question, do you think FE3H could've gotten a lot of its point with the Church across better had there been multiple Archbishops besides Rhea? Like, have Rhea be the Archbishop of the Central Church, and then have Archbishops for the Western and Eastern Churches as well, and then the Archbishop of the Southern Church is either gone or stuck at Garreg Mach. It could've helped draw some of the fandom's ire away from Rhea, and would've helped emphasize that the Central Church can only do so much to fix things when the rest of the continent is a mess.

Personally? Doooon't really think it'd help much tbh.

Cuz like, unless all the Archbishops were named, important characters of 3H, they'd just be forgettable no-names. which Edelstans would then use as evidence that Rhea is still the "head of the Church." May be a bit uncharitable of me to assume they'd do that, but these are also the same folk that make the arguments that the Church both 1) doesn't respect the sovereignty of the three nations by continually meddling in their affairs and 2) never helps the other three nations of its own accord.

Never mind the fact that Church does respect the sovereignty of the nations by only helping out - which it does do, regularly - when asked to... those are two inherently contradictory statements. "This institution tramples on the sovereignty of Fodlan's nations by... giving aid to them. Specifically when asked to. But also they never give aid in the first place."

Plus, Rhea would still be Nabatean, and Edelstans genuinely don't believe they have a right to rule over the people in any way. Rhea still being Archbishop, even if just an Archbishop of many, would still rile these people up simply because she's Nabatean. And that's not me just throwing shit at them either! They literally say it themselves that this is one of the main reasons they have an issue with Rhea being in charge of anything. They think "Oh well she can live a long time therefore she can't be trusted with any power at all ever." To hell with not saying a race should be disallowed from having positions of power, "they're not human so it doesn't count."

Plus, Edelgard is the main one painting Rhea in a bad light. She's the one that calls her a creature, a monster, part of the enemy that's plagued humanity, vile, cruel, someone who has no depth she wouldn't sink to - putting in a few more Archbishops wouldn't fix the narrative focus of Rhea being a villain for CF players. And since she's the one being given the most focus (which she still would be even with more Archbishops, because she's Nabatean and Edelgard hates Nabateans), Edelstans would still throw all their ire at her