#as someone who enjoys Rhea's character - the good and the BaD - it's so uncomfortable ever seeing her show up AT ALL in Joe's streams

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

Hopes is also kind of a flaw in the regard of Shahid's own father not stopping his raid. Like, the king himself isn't stopping his prince son from attacking their neighbors. Also, Cyril really didn't seem to like him, and Claude ended up feeling bad about hearing from a former Almyran civilian himself that the king wasn't all that great of a dude. Like, I think it really put into perspective for Claude how his father is as a ruler, which I can see why Claude, as his son, might not have noticed (kinda like, it's your father so you don't think they could be all that bad but then you hear from someone else's experience).

Almyra is definitely an afterthought for IS though, which is very annoying when one of its central characters was born there and lived most of his life there. Also, I can't remember with total certainty, but didn't Judith say something about Claude having disappeared at some point during the timeskip? I recall thinking he must have gone back to Almyra or something at that time (maybe not the entire five years but I recall him being gone for some time from Fodlan)?

As far as foreign lands go (specificaly, how they treated the poc regions), it's kind of a mixed bag with this game. Duscur actually seems handled pretty well. Even the guys who aren't fond of Faerghus and are suspicious of Dimitri for being the prince (particularly in the paralogue) seemed to just be reacting in a very normal human way and being like I don't really trust this but they did help us so we can leave it like this for now. Following that, they helped Dedue to survive knowing he would return to Dimitri's side. They managed to evade the usual stereotypes, and I think that's part of why Duscur isn't as "fandom dead".

Brigid it's had to say a lot for because Petra's situation alone doesn't equal how we should see the nation as a whole. In fact, we hardly know anything about them. Specifically with Petra we do have the really awkward "why is Petra so close to Edelgard in CF/SB when she's still a political hostage who Edelgard has not officially freed", and the even worse "Petra basically said fuck you to Brigid (more strongly in SB via their A support) because she'd rather risk her life for Edelgard who still has not freed her or Brigid despite Edelgard saying she could go home (though the presumption is that Brigid would not be freed yet anyway)".

The whole Petra situation feels brainwashy and full of empty promises, but the writers just made her a huge Edelgard simp in SB and a lowkey simp in CF. Other than that, we really have nothing about Brigid itself. Even in the Houses paralogue, all we see is her getting reinforcements (either to fight alongside the Empire which feels uh, even more awkward, or to fight against the Empire). We don't learn anything about them, so we just have this weird Petra situation and some lore here and there and nothing else, really. No overall good or bad fandom perception.

Almyra is your local "brigand" location in a sense. They're the brutes who like to fight and don't seem to have any specific goal other than that, really. Obviously we know it's way worse in Hopes where they enjoy pillaging and invading, but the fact remains that Almyra is written in a very negative light, to the point where I tend to wonder why Claude even wants to make things friendly between Almyra and Fodlan other than because it's his home and he wants his homes to be friends (because if you take what canon gives us and use no headcanons at all, I can't imagine why Claude wouldn't just get out of there and never go back or even want to go back, let alone try to be king when it's evidently a very difficult task because his dad can't stop banging the ladies and has too many sons vying for the throne).

Verdane at least gets the pass of the usual brigand region but not stereotyping poc, so the fandom doesn't tend to feel as icky about it. It's also not just told to us that they're not all brigands, but shown through Jamka, Dia and King Batou. Technically if Jamka fathers any kids, there's also somewhat them too (I say somewhat because they didn't grow up there, but they do end up going to take back the throne and fix the land). Like, yeah, Verdane was created with a real world location in mind (as with the rest of the countries in Jugdral), but it took more basic inspiration. Almyra went a step further with culture included and even having poc characters, but made Almyra even worse than Verdane. Nader is basically our only known "good" Almyran character who still lives in Almyra. Hopes gave us one more and... whoops.

Personally I do think some of the fanon about Cyril and Claude is worth having because I think it would be good for Claude to be able to get a former civilian's full perspective on everything (rather than just Rhea and Claude's father). I do also think Claude shows a desire to protect Cyril and get people to trust him, so I don't think the fanon is entirely too far off. The whole "they're definitely bros" thing though is definitely headcanon because even if Claude wants the best for Cyril, they don't act like bros and are not very emotionally close.

Unfortunately of course this is because Almyra's reputation in Fodlan is pretty terrible, but then, what we are told as players is not much better and we basically see the same things the people from Fodlan see (especially in Hopes, which is supposed to the game to expand on Almyra more. I mean, it did expand it, certainly... but in the absolutely very wrong direction).

Fanon Almyra is also something I have to invest in with my fics, because everything we know about Almyra just points to it being a pretty awful place. Claude tends to say things that basically imply they're just people like anyone else, but he's the only person who indicates anything even remotely like that. Even Cyril doesn't paint it in a good light (i.e. it's not just people from Fodlan who paint it in a bad light), and the characters we do know from Almyra (bar Hopes) are either aggressive NPCs or Nader, who doesn't have much characterization going for him outside of liking to fight (which perpetuates part of the stereotype in canon) and being pretty chill otherwise.

In Hopes it's obviously worse, but even Nader, pre-six month timeskip where he suddenly became a brute for the worse who so badly wanted to pillage Faerghus and then brag about doing so (with the implication that he'd be congratulated by the Almyran people for doing so), was very hesitant to work with Shahid because all his comments about Shahid are negative, to the point he ends up betraying Shahid for Claude. So, the only other "good" guy we know (good in Houses, "good" in Hopes) reacts poorly to the other named Almyran character. As with Houses, the NPCs are meh.

The one NPC that did talk about pillaging more openly basically just said that they weren't allowed to do that and he just guessed that was the Alliance's rules. His tone wasn't angry or upset, so he didn't seem particularly bad as an individual, but his words being what they were do imply that fighting aggressively/pillaging is so ingrained into their basic culture that it's genuinely surprising to this NPC that it's not allowed in the Alliance. Could be a solid dude, sure... but what he implies is that it's standard Almyran behavior to attack, fight and pillage.

Houses doesn't give us anything as directly bad as that, but the various bits and pieces are... not good either. The fact that Hilda was shocked at Claude's story about what his father had done to him and how she exclaimed that that's basically torture is a powerful statement alone, but the way Claude acted about it made it seem like that's nothing out of the ordinary for Almyrans. If something Hilda equates to torture is just everyday life for Almyrans, that doesn't come across as a very normal, happy place.

hey random stop talking shit abt mayo and cucumbers i know exactly what you're getting at right there don't u do it (pro mayo and cucumber, mayo and cucumber for life)

As far as the narrative Claude believes about Rhea, that at least we (you and I lel) know is false. The problem with regular raids from Almyra is still an issue though, and enough so that pirates even can use their name and be believed. Like, no, the pirates aren't muddying Almyra's reputation or good name. They're just pirate-capitalizing on an already existing bad name. The fact that they even have the opportunity to do that is proof enough that it's that easy to say "Almyra is attacking again" and be immediately believed without question. That's not a good look for Almyra.

In Hopes, Lorenz is generally the only solid voice of reason who contests basically everything the narrative and story stands for. He does regularly voice his concerns and speaks up about better alternatives. Unfortunately this is just Hopes' way of saying "look we addressed it so you can't ask why nobody addressed it", because they still go through with the narrative and everyone shoots Lorenz down for everything he suggests aside from the "Almyrans can't pillage while fighting with our army" concept. Hopes addresses most things that are questionable via Lorenz, but he's like the only smart guy in a group of total idiots. ":( we don't wanna fight Edelgard bc she's our old classmate of like maybe a few months tops... :(... so let's go fight our old classmates not-Edelgard!!!" Lorenz, meanwhile: hey isn't that dumb?

Something I definitely noticed from the fandom is that in VW, fans don't just believe every single thing Claude ever says unless it specifically pertains to Rhea. And I don't mean every fan of VW/every huge Claude fan, but the fandom at large is like this. I've followed Joe Zieja for most of his post-Houses streaming career and have been in his server for very long periods of time (because it's sub based so sometimes I'm not in there since I'm not always resubbing because I just can't justify it financially every month since I'm not as active all the time), and I can tell you with absolute certainty that most of his viewers/followers despise Rhea (as does he), literally want her dead/to personally kill her themselves (not sure if he feels that way/is just joking for the streams, but he sure as hell hyped himself and the chat up for it in GW), and believe every single word that comes out of Claude's mouth about her (even though Claude doesn't know her even half as well as the people who, you know, have lived their whole lives in Fodlan, which... would've been a nice part of the game if they had Claude reflect on all those details. They kinda started to but then the game ended lmfao).

(Also I do not hate Joe Zieja by any means, and I am very fond of him! He's fun and very kind. I'm not saying he or his community are all inherently bad people and I've made plenty of friends there. I'm specifically saying that I've seen, time and time and time again that they (most of them) hate Rhea so much that they will believe any single negative narrative fed to them about her - even the fans who have played AM and should know better.)

I mean look at fanon Almyra. It's a way better place than in canon because fans looked at canon Almyra and realized how bad it is and didn't appreciate that the writing handled it that way (generally but also for "this is kinda racist" reasons).

Rhea though, forget it, everyone only drinks Nabatean Blood Tea unless you're a fan of AM (not just played it and ignored any full on factual information that didn't agree with your preferred narrative, where you saw Rodrigue having a flashback in his dying moments of Lambert being expectantly positive of their ongoing relationship with Duscur. But uh oh! Rhea BaD! So BaD that she's stopping foreign-- what? Lambert is dead? Must've been Rhea, to prevent him from forging those foreign relationships!!! ...No? It was TWS? Well... Well...!!! It made Rhea happy to find out!!! 'Cause no more foreign relations!!! ...What? She never tried to stop Lambert from making friends with foreign lands? Well...! WELL...!!! Rhea BaD anyway!!!)

As someone not religious and never having been, I think it's just totally bonkers how hard people project against churches.

Back to Almyra though, I can't really blame people for projecting to make it a better place. Just generally, as a human being, it makes me uncomfortable how IS would take a culture of people and just... make Almyra into what it is. Having Middle Eastern blood just makes it a little extra uncomfortable.

As for Claude saying so and not being made to reconsider, well, I guess we have his "support" if you can even call it that with Dimitri in Hopes, but the worst part is that, because Dimitri "challenged" his views (he didn't all that much really, and mostly warned him about what would happen, etc), Dimitri is seen by non-AM fans as a church simp of some sort, despite Dimitri specifically saying on his own route that he does not care for the goddess and does not feel positively about her.

Also unfortunately, most FE16 players evidently have zero sense of nuance and can't think for themselves, so if a character says it's true, they fully believe it without question and will believe any single thing a character ever says. I'm looking mainly at the Rodrigue haters who ignore his entire character/personality because Felix said uwu I hate him he's sooo mean. Those same people also missed the nuance of Felix not truly feeling that way, being an angry teenager and just trying to convince himself he feels that way... only to regret it as soon as his father dies.

Can you tell it still bothers/annoys me that so many people do that?

Anyway, obviously we know Almyra isn't the best place ever and is portrayed very poorly in both games, but it's a shame honestly. Canon is mostly ignored by the fandom because of the racist undertones it leaves and not so much because "Claude said so" in this case. It just leaves a bad taste in many people's mouths that the only poc location with a lord attached to it is inarguably the worst and most immoral of the foreign areas (i.e. the others don't have a lord hailing from them).

I just wish people would stop pushing the whole Rhea BaD agenda and using Almyra to do so, because they have literally nothing to do with each other. Rhea brought Cyril into her care but she has nothing to personally do with Almyra, for or against. She lets Leicester deal with them how they see fit, thus letting them rule how they see fit and not interfering, just like how Faerghus was left to its own devices with its surrounding lands.

Do you feel like the fandom has a sort of bigotry of low expectations attitude towards Almyra? Like Rhea is literally satan for not teaching Cyril to read (even though she didn't know he couldn't) but Almyra, where he lived during the time in his life where most kids are learning to read, doesn't get any flack for not educating it's children. And that's on top of treating the whole "ignoring the orphans you create in your raids for funzies until you can use them in your raids for funzies" as not a big deal at best and something Cyril needs to get over so he can embrace his Almyran heritage at worst.

Hm...

I didn't interact with khalidstan side of the fandom, a friend gave me a few links and I clicked, blinked, and they immediately returned lol.

Almyra in fandom in general is... a short summary of what Fodlan's issue is, and the need to use copious amounts of headcanons or to project real life events on the two lines given because 10k years of lore means we still don't know the name of Claude's dad or why the fuck he isn't stopping the raids.

And in a way, I can't really say it's undeserved, to project so much, because we all like to see something new, and something "not often seen" in jrpgs, Almyra's aesthetic was so heavily inspired by real world locations, so of course people wanted to know more about it than about "random medieval european land #8854" and...

Well. The game doesn't say a lot about Almyra, it is mentionned about, someone you are supposed to see as a protagonist with knowledge about this land says some good stuff about it and... that's it!

(at least it wasn't the utter disappointment Hyzante was in TS, because that's another can of worms, but given the "aethetic" picked for the ultra religious people who justify everything by their religion that is actually false and controlled by an old fart using a puppet, and who also enslaves people, and has no redeeming quality bar its last survivor being a Mother (tm) who apparently knows some medicine - let's say this portrayal would have fit well with the early 2000s depictions of a certain religion and its followers in the real world).

So for this new and "exotic" (i fucking hate that word) country, of course people wanted to know more... and when the "more" showed that IS didn't move from the Kaga era with Persia = Verdane, well.

Some people, who really wanted to be invested in Almyra (maybe projecting a lot about it) were disappointed, and had to basically create fanon!Almyra from the few breadcrumbs we got - ending with the "Almyra is wonderful and #didnothingwrong, Fodlan BaD and Syrup must embrace his Almyran identity as Khalid's bby bro!" - canon events can be ignored!

And, as headcanon/fanon, okaay, this can work, I mean, it's not because people make sandwiches with mayo, eggs and cucumbers that I have to eat it, you know? Some people eat those kinds of sandwiches, I don't, don't like, don't read, etc etc.

But then, removing the fandom's tendency to headcanon and, well, be a fandom, in FE Fodlan itself we have... Claude.

And the way the games treat Claude, imo, ultimately fuels those headcanons.

Rather, not only Claude, but more specifically, his views about Fodlan, Almyra and the supposed reasons why they can't get along.

As I posted way too many times in the last 4 years, Claude will - for a reason I suspect is tied to Hresvelg Grey and the red herring called Rhea - never interact with the Almyrans attacking for shit'n'giggles in Hilda'n'Cyril's paralogue. He will not talk about House Goneril's habit to, uh, "take orphans left on the battlefield" with them.

But it's an issue with the Fodlan games in general, you can have an elephant in the room, or a giant dragon, if it goes against the narrative a certain character pushes, that elephant will be ignored, like, the lord won't even have 1 line about it.

The game took time to code Claude having line about random pirates "dirtying" Almyra's good name by pretending to be Almyran pirates to, just, steal stuff - but it didn't took time to code Claude maybe tell to the random peon leading the raid of the week to stop the fuck out - and I ultimately don't think it was a foresight.

Claude will tell you the reason why Almyra isn't well seen nor accepted in Fodlan is because of the Church or the faith Rhea preaches (since in VW Billy will still be head of the church), because the faith Rhea preaches apparently encourages isolationism, xenophobia, etc etc...

And nowhere in the game(s) will someone tell him that, uh, no, the faith Rhea preached welcomes people of all faiths and origins (Cyril sort of does, but this support is optional when Claude will always say the same thing at the beginning, middle and end of his route(s)), or how people do not welcome Almyrans with open arms because of their habit to raid their lands every sunday (re : lack of reaction in the Hilda'n'Cyril support) - Hell, in Nopes, it's Lorenz, not Claude, who tells Almyrans that they shouldn't pillage the cities they are invading (re : the elephant in the room, Lorenz adresses it though, even if it's played for funsies).

So if Claude says Almyra is the second coming of paradise on earth, and the game never bothers to correct him or have him learn, react and reconsider his earlier opinions, why should the fandom bother? Claude is a protagonist and can be the Lord, so of course whatever he says - even in passing, is true!

Coupled with the projection/fanon/headcanon issue of earlier and you have fanon!Almyra - where Syrup needs to ditch the woman who gave him meals and a roof and basic care to return to his "almyran" origins even if in Almyra he was treated like fodder and had "no reason to live".

Why?

Because said woman is a certain fandom's projection on the catholic church + the game(s) need a red herring + Hresvelg Grey + Claude said so and the game(s) never confronts him so it sort of works.

I think, back when I still had faith in redshit, I tried to argue to someone who said "obviously Almyra has more advanced medicine bcs trust me bro" with something like "in a world where singing 2 "Ave Sothis" can heal a fractured arm, what the fuck is advanced medicine?" Ditto for the more advanced ships because they have canons, we're in the Fire Emblem series, who gives a fuck about a canon if you have a mage with long range magic on the other side ? Ask FE4, people can summon meteors - do you really think a "canon" is advanced technology in an universe with magic? (unless we make a difference between magic and technology but it's all sort of pointless, some place isn't more backwards than the other if it uses different methods to reach the same results?).

----

Then, let's not kid ourselves, Almyra, just like everything in Fodlan, has been used by the fandom to demonise Rhea, because Rhea BaD since she's the fandom projected version of Pope Francis and Supreme Leader + Claude think she's the reason why Fodlan sucks.

So with the "Rhea is satan because she never taught Cyril, who kept that information hidden, how to read, but the Gonerils are somehow A-ok despite not teaching him too - granted they also forgot to give him food so at least they're consistent in how they completely don't give a fuck about him" -

I also read the "Rhea is evil because she only saved 1 Almyran Child from House Goneril, but again, House Goneril isn't evil for, uh, keeping more than 1 Almyran child needing to be saved" -

And Nopes gave us the best "Rhea is evil incarnated because she doesn't tell Cyril to run away when people want to slaughter her, unlike what she did for her blood relatives, so it's actually Rhea's fault that Claude had to use Cyril as an archery practice dummy!".

If Rhea must be bad, then everything she stands against must be Good! And that includes the people she bought a fort to defend against!

Tl;Dr : some part of the fandom idealisation of Almyra comes frmo 1/projection

2/Khalid said so and the game(s) never force him to reconsider

3/Rhea BaD (this one is a bit of a cheat, since it can be used to explain 95% of the various discourses that happened in this fandom since its creation!)