#bar Nabateans

[randomnameless]

I knew I found an instance where Constance mentionned the “Progenitor God” and it wasn’t just a fragment of my imagination!

It’s against Aelfie!

This is what comes of meddling with a sacred tool commissioned by the progenitor god.

(even if in the Teaspoon translation, JP!Constance wonders what the eff are those artifacts :  So this is the power of the chalice… These holy artifacts created by the progenitor god, what in the world are they…)

And I found it very strange because the only persons who call Sothis by the epithet “Progenitor God” are, afair, Nabateans!

Otherwise it’s Goddess or whatever slurs Agarthans think of, but Constance, a human, talks about the “Progenitor God” as Seteth, Rhea or even Flayn do!

Now, even stranger, is this part :

Ah, yes, the chalice of legend! My father mentioned it to me a very long time ago.

The Chalice is an old and forgotten legend by everyone - save for the Apostles themselves, but given how the precedent Rite of Rising ended up, Rhea asked them not to pass down their blood (lel) and imo, most likely, not to reveal what the frick was that Rite, something Constance’s dad, who’s obviously not Saint Noa, does as if he was talking about her grandma’s canelloni’s recipe.

So, we have House Nuvelle that is privy to secrets no one bar Nabateans are privy (or high ranking members of the Church), calls the Goddess as Nabateans do... and we’re told she descends from Saint Noa.

Now, Nopes highlights how House Nuvelle had super mages and was “favoured” by the Emperor :

Long ago, part of this area belonged to House Nuvelle. They produced a number of distinguished mages, and were even favored by the emperor. Word has it they were utterly obliterated in the wake of the Dagda and Brigid War. I suppose no matter how prosperous a house is, they all fall to ruin eventually.  

(from a kingdom general in chapter 11)

Now bar the eternal question of “are they distinguished because they are super talented thanks to their hardwork, crest or both”, I earlier had a HC about the Apostles being Nabateans, and if Chevalier and Aubin gave their crests by, uh, blood transfusion/ingestion, we don’t know jack shit about Timotheos, but Noa most likely had her own kids - members of House Nuvelle - and did more than just, “have” them, since she told them what was the Rite of Rising, what was the Chalice and most importantly, told them Sothis was the “Progenitor God”.

Constance being 1/7394th nabatean confirmed

[randomnameless]

I've read the same JP translation (but i dont' remember who did it to give proper credit :() - the Elites are wondering why Seiros hates them so much -

But to them, Seiros was a human, I mean, I shit on her hair dye everyday, but if she needed to hide her hair'n'ears, it means being a Nabatean outside was dangerous because Nabateans were already racially profiled.

Given how Rhea only suspect the Agarthan's involvment later on, imo it gives more credence to the theory that the Elites were indeed here in Zanado, or at least, humans knew a being with green hair + green eyes + pointy ears was "not a human".

The games never straight out say if Nemesis repainted Zanado's walls alone or if the Elites were there - but earlier in this fandom's life, I discussed this point with a friend, @damoselcastel, and it would be sort of meaningless and negate the Faustian deal that are, basically, relics (power at a great price!) if the Elites themselves weren't aware how they were made and/or participated in their creation.

As for the devs...

Nopes has Seteth, out of anyone, mention how an Elite was cured from an incurable disease after ingesting Nabatean liver oil receiving a crest so at least some of the Elites had more reasons to participate in Zanado than a participating in a big farming event.

Even if, imo, it doesn't absolve them of anything - the Elite who was terminally ill might just have asked for a drop a blood from a Nabatean, if the Nabatean was like Macuil and told that Elite to fuck off it still doesn't justify killing that Nabatean - on what grounds do you take the life of someone who isn't a danger to you to save your life? - using that Nabatean' remains as a bone club and, idk, genocide his kin???

Imo this part of Nopes gives more characterisation to that unnamed Elite - from an understandable desire to, uh, not die from his disease and get some Nabatean blood, he ultimately killed that Nabatean and participated in the genocide of his kin...

Aka, in Nemesis' world, where "might makes right", it was totes alright to slaughter a bunch of randos in a village and racially profile the survivors if it meant getting shiny new weapons and/or medicine.

Oh, and to anon... we know why there were depicted as such, and it has a lot to do with Hresvelg Grey. Remember anon, the fundamental maxim of Fodlan discourse :

Rhea BaD.

Is there any reason the fe3h wikis are saying that the 10 elite didn't know about the origin of their powers and weapons? The only reference used is an abyss text from an elite's journal saying they didn't understand why Serios hated them so much, but none of them even knew Serios was Nabatean because she was hiding her ears and using blonde hairdye.

Is there another source that says otherwise or am I not connecting the dots here?

That statement always confused me tbh. Everything points more to the Ten Elites knowing exactly what happened and that they were complicit in it. According to the devs, humans wanted power so they killed a dragon and looted their corpse to kill the next strongest dragon. That was what gave rise to Fodlan's Ten Elites and Nemesis (who got his technology from the Agarthans).

I believe the jp version is more of a "What did Nemesis do to Seiros?" Seiros was a complete stranger to them. Nobody knew she was a Nabatean. They're like "why the fuck is she so pressed like the fuck did he even do to her?"

[battry-acid]

fuck it, fitzgerald posting

i don't have anything but sketches and ideas for him right now, but this is my fe3h oc zhekhail fitzgerald !!!

simply put, he is a nabatean that was asleep for centuries and does not know he is a nabatean. zhekhail was his given nabatean name, and fitzgerald a family name from the bishop that adopted him. it is part of his character arc that he learns this while attending the officers academy, and he is either manipulated by or saved from rhea's influence. he's a member of the blue lions house as he originates from charon territory.

fitzgerald was raised by his adoptive father to be deeply religious, the bishop believing him to be a second coming of seiros. this, of course, isn't true. he's just a guy. having been barred from interacting with other children growing up, fitzgerald is incredibly excited to move to the academy to finally be able to befriend people his age. his main goal is to make friends, and he hasn't figured out much else past that.

his outfit purposefully takes inspiration from bits of seteth's and flayn's clothing! poofy sleeves and glove...things...like seteth, and a little bow in the back like flayn. i picture them being found family :]

more to come of this little fuck !

[sethshead]

Palestinian identity is today considered an exclusively Arab identity. If you have any questions about that, consult the 1964 PLO charter. This explicitly excludes Jews, who are not Arab. However much activists may try to revive the terms “Arab Jew” or “Palestinian Jew”, Jews never identified as Arabs, nor were ever accepted as Arab by Arab Muslim or Christian neighbors. At most, Arabic-speaking Jews identified as mistaravim, “Arabized”, just as many Iberian Christians called themselves Mozarabic under Islamic rule. During the days of the British mandate, “Palestine” was a geographic expression accepted only by Jews; Arabs in the mandate considered themselves Arab, whose political connection, if any, was to Syria. After 1948, those “Palestinian Jews” became Israeli; it was not until the late ‘50s that the Arab population of the West Bank and Gaza, and the diaspora from the former British mandate displaced by the 1948 war, began to adopt a distinct Arab identity as Palestinians.

These Palestinians bear no relation to the Philistines, the Peleshet, of the early Iron Age. Those Philistines were a Sea People, probably Greek, who were settled in five city-states around the contemporary Gaza Strip after their unsuccessful invasion of Egypt. Their civilization was crushed by the Babylonians by the 5th Century BC. They were driven extinct. Their cities, their language, their culture, their identity were all snuffed out. They assimilated with other groups and were scattered to the four corners of whatever empire ruled at the time. Contemporary Arab Palestinians have no relation to the Iron Age Philistines.

Even the word “Palestine” is likely a Hobson-Jobson blending “Peleshet” with the Greek “Palaistine”, meaning ‘wrestles’, a calque on “Yisrael”, i.e. Israel. It was only ever an exonym imposed on the region by European empires. The Romans renamed Judea (Yehuda, the origin of our endonym “Yehudi”, and “Jew”) Syria Palestina in the 2nd Century to assert their ownership of it and erase any sense of Judean autonomy after the Bar Kochba Revolt. Since then, the term only had meaning to Europeans: Romans, Byzantines, Crusaders, imperialists. Palestinian is not an ancient or indigenous identity.

But none of that matters.

Arabs have lived within the borders of modern Israel since Roman times, with Nabateans and Ghassanids both settling in the Negev. Arabs immigrated en masse to Eretz Yisrael in numbers following the Muslim conquest of the 7th Century. They have been here a very long time. They have the right to live here and to self-determination where they constitute a majority, just as Jews have the same right where Jews predominate.

Whatever they called themselves in the past, however admixed they are, however many came from Syria and Egypt in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Palestinians exist now and are entitled to respect and sovereignty. They have every case for a fully viable state in the West Bank and Gaza bordering a Jewish-majority Israel with mutual recognition and normalized relations. Palestinians do not have to legitimize themselves by erasing Jewish history, and Jews don’t have to justify our self-determination by denying Palestinian identity. Anyone who rejects this eventual and inevitable outcome of negotiations has no interest in peace or justice.

[raxistaicho]

"God's gonna get Edelgard for this!"

Yup, we sure have gone there!

So a while, RandomNameless got an anon ask:

Insane that Sothis can watch Billy slaughter her children and subjugate Fodlan in twu piss, and still say she adores him. The devs were drinking the El Grey that day.

You know it's RN because the stupid nicknames.

So yeah, Anon's just angrily ranting that Sothis doesn't care about her daughter which established a false religion, made people suffer for a millennia, and tried to violate the laws of life and death, which, when Ashera did it in Radiant Dawn, was treated by Caineghis as an utter betrayal of her supposed core attribute of order.

“A blasphemy, you mean! How could the goddess of order violate the most fundamental natural law?”

Stay salty, anon.

RN herself weighs in on it next. I'm gonna let her go on a bit because the actual argument she's making needs to be stated in full.

That's what baffled me in Tru Piss lol, and first route bias etc etc meant Sothis was unsalvageable given how it became painfully obvious, even for someone who didn't complete the other routes, that the goddess Rhea calls "mother" is Sothis herself ! Bear in mind Hresvelg Grey meant Sothis couldn't interact with the cast bar Billy, will never talk to her relatives and will never have any influence on the plot. It's as if Elbert only talk to Mark, while Eliwood is still frantically looking for him, and Mark never tells Eli where his dad is.

So here, RN is misunderstanding the point of Sothis in the broader narrative. Yes, Sothis happens to be Rhea's mother, but "being Rhea's mom" isn't her role in the story. RN, because she's a huge fan of the Nabateans, wants the story to be more about the Nabateans, but it really isn't.

See, there's a reason the Agarthans are dispatched in one chapter in all routes and are never the final bosses or the true villains of the story: the story isn't about them. They're important to its background, but they're important for what they represent and what they do, not who they are. The Nabateans are the same.

Ultimately, the story of Three Houses is a tale of the conflicts between mortals and the divine, and the differing ideologies espoused by those who represent those sides. Edelgard firmly represents the will of mortal humans. Rhea, her antithesis, represents the desire of the divine to watch over mortals. Rhea, unlike her species is important because she is Edelgard's opposite. Thales, who might have been Rhea's opposite, is not as important because he isn't: Edelgard already serves that role. Dimitri leans more toward the necessity of the divine in human affairs, while Claude leans more toward the self-governance of humans while using the divine when necessary. There's a reason Claude sides with the Empire when he must, and the church only when he can control it for the purposes of promoting humanism.

Byleth is smack in the middle, fitting their dual-nature as both human and god, but they must choose a side in the end. In CF, they fully embrace the human, while in SS they fully embrace the god. VW and AM are something more in the middle.

Sothis is similar in a way, as a being who was once a god, died, came back as something less than a god, and chooses to sacrifice her powers to Byleth, thus remaining something less than a god. Sothis willingly chooses not to resume her role as the goddess (in Zahras when she decides to give her powers to Byleth rather than taking Byleth's body as her own in order to escape), and so her role in the story is not to be the goddess or Rhea's mother, but to be Byleth's guide, setting them at the start of their path and then departing so they might make the rest of the way.

But Rhea BaD BaD BaD,

And now we dip into the anti-Rhea conspiracy theory...

so her mother cannot take over Billy (something she canonically does in Nopes) to save her,

Here's another fact RN can't accept - and she calls Sothis a horrible mother for it - but Sothis doesn't approve of Rhea. Furthermore, Rhea's downfall in CF is almost entirely of her own making. She set the groundwork for Fodlan's oppressive social system, she refuses to allow it to be reformed, and she never questions why anyone would disagree with her. Because, for Rhea, reforming the church and Fodlan means resurrecting Sothis and submitting Fodlan to her divine rule, which becomes impossible without her church (it's already impossible because Sothis knows her time as the goddess is over and she's respecting the laws of life and death, but still).

and to erase Supreme Leader who hilariously tells everyone she doesn't exist.

It's not even that "hilarious". Edelgard's right in that the goddess worshipped by the Church of Seiros no longer exists: she's dead, and when she had the chance to come back, she chose not to. The Church of Seiros might worship a being with the same name as the gremlin in Byleth's head, but Sothis the head-gremlin and Sothis the goddess are a whole life apart from one another, and the Sothis we know chooses to remain the former.

But now we get to the real meat of this post.

Fantasy Invader.

Oh yeah!

I think this is a translation issue as Japanese Sothis doesn't say that "the stone in your chest is gone," she says "the stone in your chest...shattered."

Teaspoon Translations has it as "crumbled away" and has no ellipse, but who am I to question Fantasy Invader trying to make things look as sad as possible?

It broke, which would mean something considering it's supposedly her heart.

We bwoke Sothis's heart by killing poor baby Whea T_T

What's more, the game changed Byleth's Nirvana class to Enlightened One, and part of achieving Nirvana is purging oneself of attachments that might cloud your judgement.

But only if it's Edelgard. If it's Dimitri or Rhea, attach yourself as hard as possible in the hope they come around.

Also, in the context of Three Houses, detachment is a bad thing. Byleth grows out of being the Ashen Demon through attachment to others. Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude become their best selves when they open up and allow others in. Attachment is a good thing in Three Houses.

Ergo, by playing Safflower (the route being named after a type of thistle, a path of thorns if you will)

Ah, yes, I remember that one. It wasn't very good.

the player breaks Sothis's heart,

Oh he actually just said, "you break her heart :("

the thing that holds her essence,

No, because by then Byleth held her essence. Not the crude, physical matter Rhea shoved into their chest.

You'd think the person who goes all-in on religious symbolism would value the eternal soul over the ephemeral body.

causing it to seemingly disappear,

Except it doesn't? Her essence, I mean, not the Crest Stone. That's what the S support is for.

But sadly, Fantasy Invader has a way to explain that away.

It's a really bad way, but a bad way is still a way!

yet she leaves behind the Sothis you knew.

I'm sorry, what. Nothing indicates the Sothis from her S support is some... bizarre cast-off shadow of her.

Sothis, the real Sothis, abandons Byleth at the end of Safflower, leaving behind any attachment she once held as Byleth walked down the path of the Beast as per Dimitri's comment.

I'm sorry, what. Is it too much to ask that FI provide some evidence for this claim? I mean actual evidence, not his headcanon derived from his poor attempts at analyzing Buddhist symbolism.

Wouldn't leaving behind a part of herself to remain with Byleth go against this whole no attachments thing? That's a pretty big attachment! And if Sothis rejected Byleth, why would she do that? She can't just make a clean break from Byleth, she has to literally detach the parts of her... soul... personality, that care for them? Wouldn't that make her an incomplete being? It was a bad thing in the Tellius games when Ashunera split her soul into parts!

Combine this with the implications Sothis can come back if she recreates her body,

You know, that thing she demonstrates no ability to do! If Sothis could just make herself another meat puppet to incarnate into, Rhea wouldn't have had to spend a millennia trying and failing to do that for her.

and why Nemesis needed to kill her when she was asleep,

Because she would have defended herself and killed him if she wasn't? He didn't have a Relic or a Crest back then, he was just a bandit trying to kill the most powerful Nabatean in the world.

What, is FI trying to imply Sothis's soul just got stuck asleep because she died asleep and that's why she never bothered to come back the first time she died?

and you get an idea what's going to happen when that occurs as well as another piece of evidence Edelgard is an Agarthan in all but name.

And there we go, "God's gonna get Edelgard for this!" Sothis will totally self-restore herself at some unknown period of time in the future, kill Bad Red Lady, and make everything right.

Well if that's the case, why do you bother getting upset at anything Byleth does, FI? Just be like those Christians who are sure Jesus is coming back any day now and he'll fix everything on Earth when he does.

So yeah, yet more salty desperate self-assurance that Edelgard's totally gonna lose the minute the credits start, trust me bro.

I mean seriously, if her detractors are so certain she'll fail, why bother getting upset when she wins? It really makes you think.

[fayesdiary]

I know we compare Fodlan's crest to Holy blood, but did we ever mentionned how it is also very similar to how dragon Veins were transmitted ? I mean, there is total of 12 Heroes who got blood from the Nabateans (because of genocide) while in Fates, we got 12 Ancient divine dragon who gave their blood to several rulers. At least one of those 12 individuals plays a big parts in the plot and as an antagonistic figure at that (Anankos/Nemesis). The dragon have magical blood that helps grow older slower and gives you magic power you might transmitt to your descendant which is the case of the Nohrian, the Hoshidan and the Foldan society (but not of Laslow, Selena and Odin for reasons) and they got their magical weapon from them. The only difference being... the lack of consent of the Nabateans in all of this.

I see what you're getting at, but at the same time... are there really 12 dragons in Fates? I remember there being far, far less (The Dawn and Dusk dragons where the royals got their Dragon Veins from, Anankos which is where Corrin and Lilith got theirs (also Soulnankos temporarily gave the Awakening trio Dragon Veins), the Rainbow Sage... maybe the Ice Dragon? None of the latter two give Dragon Veins though, although the Tribes do get power over their own element so *shrug*)

Anyway. I believe the reason Dragon Veins are almost never equated to Holy Blood and Crests is that while they do share some similarities in how they function (carrying over through generations, being initially acquired by drinking dragon blood, granting superhuman powers), Dragon Veins function the same no matter their origin, regardless if it came for the Dawn or Dusk Dragons or Anankos.

And also, barring maybe Yato, none of the Fates Sacred Weapons (or whatever they're called I don't remember) seem to explicitly need a Dragon Vein to be used? In fact if I remember some supports correctly you actually need a great amount of skill to be able to properly wield them (Kiragi's support with Takumi mentions that he is still unable to either call or draw the magical string of Fujin Yumi, and the fact that none of the Gen 2 royals are able to use their parents' Legendary Weapons in the main timelines, rather only in Heirs of Fate). And also, no one covets for Dragon Veins in the same way they tend to crave Holy Blood and Crests.

But regardless, yeah. Even Dragon Veins were willingly given by humanity (by either mating between dragons and humans or offering of blood) just like Holy Blood while Crests... absolutely did not.

(realized this answer is really messy due to my memories of Fates lore being kinda foggy, if it's not too much trouble @nowis-scales could you please give a second opinion as the local Fates expert? :D )

[flower-of-knighthood]

I mean the concept is simple, genocide is bad, regardless of whether the Nabateans ruled as gods or governors/citizens or whatever (and like you said, neither translation give weight to this idea that they were oppressive tryants, it's like saying Edel is an oppressive tyrant because she ruled Adrestia).

And the people from that server trying to justify genocide and double down with conspiracy theories and racist rhetoric makes them look like complete dickpistons.

Thanks for the ask.

You would think that the concept of genocide being bad would be easy enough to grasp. The bar was literally so low that someone could trip over it, and somehow people still find a way to not meet that simple bar.

The ironic thing is that there are other franchises such as Attack on Titan or Lostbelt 6 in Fate Grand Order which do a better job, at making it tempting to support the genocide of a group, all without arguing something way out of context on purpose.

[fantasyinvader]

I keep thinking about the Shadow Realm bits in Hopes, and how if you really think about the level reflects how Shez can't replace Byleth's influence. These things happen regardless of which route you take, so it shows how whatever growth the Lord has it doesn't fix underlying problems.

Shez and the Lions can support Dimitri so he keeps his darker side in check, but they don't do anything about Dimitri's suicidal tenancies or help him grow into being the Savior King. His route ends not with him ending the war, but instead continuing it to punish the Empire despite Edelgard and Aegir being puppets of TWSITD. It may be the best ending in Hopes, but it's not up to par with his ending in Azure Moon.

Edelgard tells her shadow that she can't trust anyone, not even herself. Considering her trusting Shez rather than just keeping an eye on them is a big part of their dynmanic, this line undermines it. Despite what they go trough, Edelgard looks at Shez the same way she would if they had joined a different class. What's more though is that this can also refer to Edelgard's own habit of lying, she lies so much she wouldn't trust anything out of her own mouth and it's important enough to be brought up in Edge of Dawn, the main theme of Fodlan. Unlike Byleth, Shez can't lead the Empire students into becoming a resistance, instead Shez just goes along with Edelgard even when admitting that her rule oppresses the commoners.

Claude's shadow calls him out on pretending he's the good guy. Claude in Hopes is very opportunistic, doing whatever it takes to achieve his goals and siding with whatever side is currently winning. He's lost his morality at this point, but still focuses on making himself look like the hero. He never learns the truths Houses!Claude did, never became repulsed by the actions that Edelgard was willing to undertake, and worse of all his ending is based on the idea Edelgard will just stop with Rhea's death rather than looking like the villain herself. Which is laughable, because Hopes is a lot more transparent about Edelgard being after total conquest. If anything though, Wildfire makes it out that Shez makes Claude even worse, giving him the idea to crown himself king and do away with Alliance politics.

In addition, none of the routes end with Fodlan being reunified, nor can Shez S support. Byleth's S supports happened after the conflict was over, so it's saying Shez can't bring an end to the fighting regardless of what side they choose or if they recruit Byleth. Shez's story ends on a question mark.

Shez is undoubtedly worse for the students bar a CF!Byleth, and even then only if Shez joins the Lions. It's why Hopes is not meant to replace Houses. It's one more case of Nabateans being presented as the good guys while Agarthans are bad. Shez might be a "good" Agarthan, but they're also less concerned about morality, motivated by revenge, and can be a bad influence on those around them.

[egyptonlinetours1]

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[randomnameless]

Chimming in,

The Agarthans being humans is hinted at, as you pointed out, but in a way, they're also the "reason why everything sucks" (TM) in the greater plot, if you don't drink too much tea.

And... that sucks.

Take Manfroy, he wasn't the one who told Chagall to get rid of Eldie, or if he did, he played on preexisting animosity, just like the Langobalt/Reptor/Arvis coup against Kurth.

Sure Manfroy (or was it Veld?) told Travant when Quan was going to cross the desert, but in the end, Quan died because Travant had his own beef against him (and the Manster district at large).

But no, in Fodlan, Agarthans are the cause for everything wrong, while the other "humans" can't be held liable for anything.

As for them looking like, well, they do...

Remember how Kusakihara was in charge of SoV, and Jedah (and his goons) suddenly turning blue/purple?

While I could see some dark humour/irony in Thales'n'co claiming to be original or the only real humans around, despite looking inhuman compared to Raphael'n'co, I wonder if their appearance wasn't modified through Nabatean Technology, aka Kronya having a "stone heart" and/or Solon's weird eye thing.

We know Agarthans developed some sort of magitech thanks to Sothis sharing her knowledge, so maybe their appearance is a result of this ?

Nopes could have shed more light on Agarthan and Agarthans through Larva, Barney and Epipen - but in the end, we just know that Epipen, while thinking Nabateans are a blight upon humanity and must be erased, disapproved with Thales' plan to use Nemesis, and that Epipen was "brought back" through some sort of liquid, to ultimately inhabit Barney through his proxy Larva.

Bar that?

Zilch.

FE Fodlan refused, for a certain reason, to fall back on usual clichés like "what does it mean to be human" when at least two factions pretend to be humans to justify their hatred of the third one, but through the course of both games, we see how the third faction (the nabs), despite never claiming to be human, seem to be the most "humane" ones.

There's no Sara or Salem in FE16/Nopes to try to flesh out a bit Agarthans, the closest character we have to them is Barney, and we know how much relevance they have in the greater plot (aka, no one gives a flying fuck save for 3 lines about Shez's ties to Agartha and it has no influence over the plot, compared to Billy being part Nabatean-Sothis' vessel in SS and arguably CS).

In the end, too, another flaw of FE3H is that it isn't able to make itself stand without making the Agarthans so... wildly inhuman

Like how Kronya's heart not being a heart is just. Never explained. It's just there. Fuck you if you care I guess, but also, it's a detail, and it's another detail in a pile of detail that detach the Agarthans from their supposed humanity. Because that's... who they are supposed to be. The humans who got exiled underground by Sothis after destroying the Fodlan, leading her to take her deadly nap.

The worst part is... I kinda love the Agarthans ? I don't think they are really good as a story element, because their presence undermines a lot in terms of world building, but at the same time they are so stupid fun. I love the techno-magic, I love the dubstep, I love their fucking over the top dialogue. It's fun ! It's genuinely kind of dumb honestly ! I like Thales, he's an horrible man !

And it's ... They are supposed to be human. And frankly I think humans can be disgustingly evil the way the Agarthans are, sometimes. But... FE3H puts them in a position where they just don't look human.

I think the introduction of SF-like elements to FE is, genuinely, kinda cool ! But it just never goes beyond that, and beyond being kind of a weird crutch to Edelgard's story. Hm. Not quite that. But it's like they took inspiration from Arvis and Manfroy and missed what made it interesting ? without letting Arvis get away from his actions ? And in that case, Manfroy is not a weird underground guy whose heart is not a heart and whose appearance is almost undead-like (and also no shapeshifting plot).

Then again. As I said. I like Thales. I like Thales' design, in particular, I think he looks great, and he genuinely does have some really over the top, awful, horrible dialogue that I like because sometimes I want to see a terrible stain of a guy being terrible. But man. I think it kind of removes something from the story to have everything having to be linked back to him and his dubstep people. Makes it all feel kind of detached from what sounds like the main conflict is supposed to be about, when you think about it for too long.

[randomnameless]

FFS Sharena

Forget the "uwu Momo was said to be an equal to the 10 Dudes" he was part of them, and erased because he was slaughtering people too much and loved to garden a lot

"She imbued this weapon -

that is totally just a normal weapon not a living corpse made with the essence of a being that was created by the goddess and wielded the purest/rawest form of magic that was passed in that being's blood and is basically what you call "Crest"

-with her magic and now can use it as her own"

Watch as the next Mary-Ann alt will reveal that if the relic reacts to her, it's not because of her crest (and the fact that the relic is still someone reacting to their own blood) but because she's just so badass that she can animate this chunk of metal and casted a spell on it to make it more OP than an iron sword.

[battry-acid]

FITZGERALD INFO #2

fitz thoughts continued!!! here's a full written biography for funsies:

~ Biography ~

Zhekhail was born over a thousand years ago in Zanado. Shortly after, the threat of their civilization being destroyed by Those Who Slither in the Dark and Nemesis caused Zhekhail’s parents to place him in a chamber disguised as a tomb on a mountainside. They cast a long-lasting sleep spell upon him (which also preserved his youth) and sealed him away. The civilization of Zanado was destroyed and the Nabateans were almost completely wiped out, safe for Seiros and the Four Saints. Nemesis killed Zhekhail’s parents, and Those Who Slither in the Dark used his mother’s bones to create Thunderbrand for Charon, a member of the Ten Elites. 

In 1164, the tomb was opened by an expedition group from Kukeri, a town in southern Charon territory, led by Father Edward Fitzgerald. The bishop uncovered the body of a sleeping baby, wrapped in a blanket emblazoned with an unfamiliar crest sign, who awakened upon being touched. Edward marveled at the fact that this being, which appeared to be less than 12 months old, could remain in a tomb in which the only entrance had clearly been sealed for a very, very long time; the pillars of stone were cracked and covered in overgrowth, dust coating the floor of the tomb’s chamber. And yet the being cooed and laughed as any human baby would. As he began to leave, Edward noticed the inscription of the name “Zhekhail” upon the stone casket in which he had slept. Such was the child’s intended name. He took Zhekhail back to the church of Kukeri and decided to raise him himself, as he had no children of his own.

Though Zhekhail seemed to age like an ordinary child, it was clear that he was far different from them; when falling down or running into things, he remained unscathed. On the occasions where he would be more significantly injured, the blood he bled was green instead of red. Despite clearly having a pulse, he had no heartbeat. Even as a toddler, he could tell when a thunderstorm was about to roll in, and would go outside to watch the clouds as they flashed with light. Once, at 4 years old, he was struck by lightning, yet was completely unharmed; in the hours that followed, he unknowingly gave Edward a shock of static electricity every time he tried to touch him. 

Not knowing that he was a Nabatean, Edward came to the conclusion that Zhekhail must be godly in some way, and hypothesized that he would be the second coming of Seiros. From then on, he decided to raise Zhekhail in total seclusion from the rest of the world and teach him everything he could based on Seiros’s scripture only. 

Father Fitzgerald conditioned Zhekhail to be exceedingly religious. It was instilled within him to be kind and generous to all, but to also be distrusting of foreigners, and to remain isolated among fellow believers. Though not nobility, he was expected to be a believer and to inspire other commoners to be believers as well. Despite so much stress put on his effect on others, the bishop never allowed Zhekhail to actively practice such efforts, as he was barred from speaking with other people, let alone being seen. The townspeople of Kukeri didn’t even know their bishop had a son, only the select few closest to him (those that had gone on that religious expedition to the Oghma Mountains).

During the years of childhood into young teenhood, Zhekhail remained in a cellar below the church grounds. His adoptive father would read the teachings of Seiros to him every day, so often that Zhekhail learned to recite it by heart, and would occasionally offer him other books to satisfy his curiosity and boredom. Zhekhail was able to listen to the sermons the bishop gave to the town’s believers above, reading and singing along with them. Father Fitzgerald would occasionally allow Zhekhail to roam the upper floors of the cathedral when no one else was present, and though he didn’t allow him to interact with other children, Zhekhail longed to befriend the ones he saw playing in the street just in front of the church. 

When indoors, Zhekhail would talk to the beetles and centipedes that occasionally skittered across the walls. When outdoors, the dragonflies and bees would flock to him, butterflies perched atop his green-haired head. Though unable to properly communicate with them, Zhekhail clearly had an aura to draw insects towards him, affectionate and trusting of him. Father Fitzgerald interpreted this as a further sign that he was some sort of saint in the making. The friendships he made with the bugs he encountered were the only friendships Zhekhail ever got to make.

As a young teen, it became harder and harder for Father Fitzgerald to keep Zhekhail’s existence a secret, as he kept sneaking out to explore aboveground and was occasionally spotted by churchgoers. Though he punished Zhekhail, he kept doing it, as his desperation for human connection and his curiosity of others only ever grew. In the final month of 1179, the bishop decided to take his child to the Archbishop of the Church of Seiros, Lady Rhea, feeling as though it was finally time to present his case to her on finding the next messiah.

At Garreg Mach Monastery, Edward Fitzgerald offered Zhekhail to her, seeing himself as a loyal servant to the goddess Sothis, and that he had gone as far as he could in conditioning the child to become a saintly figure. Shocked by the existence of another living Nabatean, especially one so young, Lady Rhea took Edward up on his offer to bring Zhekhail under her care. She presented the idea of enrolling Zhekhail at the Officers Academy, which would begin a new school year in a few months, as the first steps to socializing him and becoming used to life at the monastery. With the decision made, Father Fitzgerald returned to Kukeri with Zhekhail for a few months until the start of the Great Tree Moon.

Zhekhail was not made aware that, after arriving at Garreg Mach for the beginning of the school year, he would never see his adoptive father ever again, as he had handed over custody to Lady Rhea. From then on, he was under her exclusive watch. Rhea told Zhekhail to introduce himself as “Fitzgerald” to other students as it was a more socially acceptable name than his given Nabatean name. Believing in her good intentions, not questioning a single word, Fitzgerald agreed. As he was originally from Charon territory, Rhea decided to place him in the Blue Lion house.

Now excited to meet others his age and receive proper schooling, Fitzgerald gave little thought to the weight of his adoptive father’s absence and Rhea’s everpresent eyes on him. He’s clearly being manipulated and taken advantage of, but he’s too optimistic and blindly trusting to notice. All he cares about now is making friends and figuring out his place in the world.

i really need to figure out post-timeskip stuff for fitzgerald too, but that's a whole other can of worms. i think fitzgerald would start as an enemy on the crimson flower route as a church affiliate, but he can be persuaded to join based off of actions taken pre-timeskip. i want to offer him an out from rhea's influence. and that's not even mentioning all the three hopes stuff...i would totally have the opportunity to go buckwild with his path there. i think he would defect from the church on his own and go full medieval punk rock dancer on 'em. unsure whether he would be recruitable on every route, maybe excluding blue lions because of their ties to the church? i dunno yet.

i will share writing for all that stuff once i figure it out :3

[fireemblems24]

I LOVE how every action Rhea takes in the game can be traced back to her trying to preserve the peace and protect her people. Also I saw a post a while back that I cant find right now, but it disected all her actions in WC and how she is trying to have Byleth regain Sothis' memories. Ex. its always Byleths class that gets sent to the Red Canyon (and it does trigger some of Sothis memories), how she happens to sing the Song of the Nabateans in Byleths prescence, how her questions and dialogue 1

always lean thowards asking if Byleth remembers something or if they felt anything particular after certain incidents related to Sothis. Its why in the Holy Tomb Rheas big plan seems to be to just have Byleth sit on Sothis throne, she's hoping it will fully help trigger Sothis memories (because apparently that throne was so important to Sothis she still manifests it inside Byleths skull despite having lost all her memories). 2

Rhea's a character that gets more and more interesting the more you know about her. And I fully agree. Everything about her motivations, actions, behaviors, attitude, etc . . . makes perfect sense and is such a cohesive character once you learn the truth about things.

It's also sooooooooo awesome that Rhea's actions really can't get labeled "good" or "bad." It's way more interesting and complex than that. She's got every reason in the world and then some to do what she did. But not everything she did was good, even if she had a good reason and pure intentions. But neither did she do anything flat-out evil either (barring the moment the writing threw her under the bus in CF to make Edelgard look better). She's both capable and flawed as a leader. She's really, truly the only morally grey character in Three Houses and gah, I could just write about her for hours.

I really hope Three Hopes gives us more of her. And she and Sothis really deserve to have a heart-to-heart for once. Please, I'm begging the Nintendo gods.

[emblemxeno]

I saw a really bad take that said that the Nabateans had their genocide coming..just..fuck these Edelstans so much...

It's gross!!! Gross, gross language!

And I know it's a video game at the end of the day, but like, jesus what's the bar for saying an entire race 'has its genocide coming'?

They sound no better than the racists that hate Duscur

[gascon-en-exil]

wait, what's up with rufus in the original japanese?

When I watched Rufus's first scene I was struck by how often he dehumanizes Dimitri - calling him a creature, saying there's something aberrant in his eyes, etc. While this could be an attempt at a bullet points version of Dimitri's inner darkness since nothing else in the Prologue of Three Hopes (bar Felix calling him a boar for unexplained reasons) indicates anything of the sort, it doesn't make much sense in-universe as Rufus has never witnessed Dimitri's violent episodes like Felix has. My thought was that Dimitri's outsized guilt complex runs in the family, and that Rufus dreams of a lion ripping out his throat because he's haunted by the knowledge of having arranged his brother's death and his mind is exaggerating Dimitri into this inhuman avatar of retribution. It would be all rather Hamlet.

Now, you'd have to speak to someone who can actually read Japanese for a direct source, but from what I've read it's plainer in the original that what these lines are actually getting at is that Dimitri has a Crest making him - from the perspective of a Crestless person like Rufus - not fully human. That's an angle of Crests that Three Houses never explored, although mainline FE has done it before (Tellius's Branded) and it tracks with how the Agarthans routinely refer to non-Agarthan humans as beasts...when Rufus has had one of them in his counsel for several years, apparently.

I say this is potentially interesting depending on where the story of AG goes because it could develop additional dimensions if the route does anything with Edelgard's pro-human, anti-Nabatean message. Thus far AG is the only route to have even hinted at the doctrine of Edelgard's Southern Church, and while it could just as easily be only a nationalist mouthpiece for the Empire it could also be vilifying the Nabateans as a way of undermining the Central Church's legitimacy. Preaching that "Crests = bad" could conceivably be an effective way to also undermine Faerghus seeing as they're the only nation that demonstrably values Crests for inheritance purposes, especially if they use it to sway Crestless houses like Rowe to their side. (Of course this would make Edelgard a massive hypocrite were this true, seeing as she has two Crests and is Rhea's biological descendant, but - villains, you know....)

Either way this is purely speculation. There's still little to go off to say how any of the routes will handle the Central and Southern Churches. I don't expect any of this to come up in SB at all, and for that route to ignore the Southern Church entirely until it's discovered that Varley is doing something treacherous and we have to kill him. AG though not only alludes to their doctrine but has a generic bishop in conference with Edelgard and Hubert in the Chapter 4 midpoint scene, so it does seem like an angle that route might pursue further - and if it does, the way that Rufus regarded Dimitri might come back into play.

[randomnameless]

More lolcalised stuff- this time, about Supreme Sadness when Billy turns green

:'(

Before the fight, lolcalised!Hubbie gives some meaningless stuff, but jp!Hubbie... already guessed, and/or knew, how "special" Billy was, after all, they, of all people, should be able to rekt Solon and a bunch of Agarthans, right?

The lolcalisation toned down Hubbie's fondness for Supreme Leader, Billy is "our professor" and not only, Supreme Leader's mentor. Damn, combining this with the ealier mention, what were Hubert's thoughts about Billy during WC?

They're not their teacher, did he just saw them as one of Supreme Leader's fancy or one of her whims - who also happens to be someone who would help or ruin them?

Note how the "why" was turned in a "what" and the "in such a way" it's just, chief's kiss.

"mah teacher, why did you turn in a lizard?!?"

"because otherwise your science minister would have killed me? My bad, I can't say that."

I feel like the wordless "..." conveys more shock/ire than the "I see" from the lolcalised version (and the seiyuu is basically giving a long "inspire then expire" sound, as if Supreme Leader is trying to calm down), but think of Supreme Leader here, the SoC + being lizard colored means, to her, that Billy is indeed kin to Seiros who was also "loved by the goddess".

No matter how hard she denies it, now it's real : Billy's part lizard :(

Pat removed some parts, Sothis now "looks" favorably upon Billy and Seiros just because Billy wears the SoC, nothing about their new lizard traits.

Pat : "Supreme Leader just asks how Billy will use that power, it's Billy who pick choices!"

FE16 : Supreme Leader pits "the world and the people" against the Monastery, surely, this isn't foreshadowing anything :)

Note how Billy doesn't mention the Monastery in their choices, maybe it's what "the students" was supposed to be, or it's to sell a certain later choice?

(But then Supreme Leader adds that if the World and the Students were to fight, no matter what side Billy would pick, it'd still mean he fights for both so...)