#before you could argue that it was just Woobiegard's warped perspective and not that she was actually right - now

[butwhatifidothis]

Okay, I'm morbidly curious, how racist is this chapter? Did Cap really outdid himself here with the dehmunaizing language and rhetoric? And Sothis bless you for enduring through this trashfire. I can't believe people legitimately think this is a must recommendation to understand E**lgard's character and 3H in general with some treating it as more canon than the base game.

Okay, so. Buckle up cuz it’s a bit of a doozy

To start with the “””””””small””””””” stuff, there’s that whole “There was no name in Fodlan’s language for what to call this monstrous form” comment that is very clearly explicitly racist towards Nabateans. Ignoring the fact that Dragon Claws are a weapon in 3H and thus the concept of the word “dragon” exists in 3H’s world, which the Immaculate One is very much a staple example of and thus could easily be described with that particular word in Fodlan’s language - that “monstrous form” is just a state that Rhea’s race can naturally become as a part of their natural biology. Being unable to find the words to “properly” describe how inhuman and beastial she sees this form, when a perfect apt word literally does exist that has no racist undertones at all, would make Woobiegard, at the FUCKIN’ BEST, seem outrageously callous. But that wouldn’t be the first time she’s called Rhea a monster though:

“All that monster had to do was wear a funny hat, and spout some meaningless platitudes about mercy…

(oh, maybe she means “monster” as in Rhea as a person is a monster-)

“ And now, just like Seiros, Woobiegard was alone. Would she lose herself, just as the Saint had? Would she descend into madness, believing in her righteousness even as she damned herself? Without her loved ones, her father and Byleth, perhaps that nightmarish form, that husk she had seen in her dreams, would reveal itself — just like the Immaculate One.

(oh, well, no, not really. Describing Rhea’s other form that is natural to her biology to the mutated “nightmarish form” of the Hegemon Husk - classy!)

Then we get to this bit in Chapter 63:

“The Crests were to blame, not just because of the rapes and kidnappings and savagery that they legitimized, but because they told the world what people could be.

So, the natural blood of the Nabateans that was stolen by humans and made important to human society by humans are to blame for society’s horrific shortcomings. Humans are innocent - it’s the Nabatean’s fault for having magic blood! Humans can’t be expected to not commit genocide and steal Nabatean blood to use for their own gain, or to not directly benefit from said genocide, or to not fuck each other over in the pursuit of this stolen blood of genocide victims, or anything silly like that. We must blame the natural product of this race’s blood that they had no say in humans having. 

(also, uh, ignore that mask slip of “could be” and not “should be,” since that implies Crested humans actually do have a choice which Woobiegard very much wants people to think they don’t until she saves them)

And mind, Woobiegard, does, in fact, know about what Nemesis did, and what happened from it. Chapter 50:

[Nemesis] murdered Seiros’ entire family, in a bid for power.

She knows of the genocide, she knows that power was gotten from said genocide, she knows a human committed said genocide to gain said power - still Crests’ fault tho! If Crests (aka, Nabateans) never existed, everything would be so much better for everyone! 

And then there’s the top dog, the Big Boy, the culmination of a repeated racist sentiment vomited across the course of the fic. Woobiegard had a line waaaaay earlier in the fic that was already omega racist, right? This one, from Chapter 9:

"Of course, the Church had “mediated” that separation [of Faerghus and Adrestia], and given what Woobiegard now knew about the immortal archbishop, she strongly suspected Faerghus' independence was a pretext to keep humanity divided and weak, dependent on the Church’s protection.”

She then says this waaay later, in Chapter 63, bold mine:

"Woobiegard glared at her opponent. “You speak of betrayal, Archbishop, but who was the one who claimed to speak as the Goddess’ Voice?! Who allowed the Southern Church to ferment rebellion in the Empire, and sanctified a Holy Kingdom?” She felt the anger tumble out of her in a righteous wave. “I swore the same oath that Wilhelm did, upon the red blood and the white sword, the ancient covenant between the Hresvelgs and the Church. I promised to achieve peace for all, Crest or no Crest… have you done the same?””

So basically, her racist conspiracy theory she mentally spouted out in Chapter 9 and over the course of the fic is being given legitimacy here; she's being presented in the right for saying Rhea was wrong for separating Faerghus from Adrestia, the act of which Woobiegard believes Rhea did so that she could install herself as the shadow ruler of the country. And this coexists along other moments of Woobiegard thinking this (asterisks mine):

Chapter 49:

“As soon as I am finished retaking this continent for humanity, *the children of the Goddess will no longer control Fódlan‘s destiny.*”

Chapter 50:

She had even witnessed the secret past of this continent — the *lies and manipulations of the children of the Goddess,* infusing their faithful followers with the blood of the Immaculate One.

Chapter 50, bold not mine:

The Flame Emperor looked up at the eager face of one of the children of the Goddess, the *very rulers she had sought to overthrow.* How could this be? How could she stand alongside the Black Eagles, and fight for humanity’s future?

Chapter 53:

She turned, and saw the one figure she had hoped to avoid above all else. *Woobiegard despised the Children of the Goddess for what they had done to Fodlan — standing above, concealing the truth from the people…* despite her sobriquet, the Flame Emperor’s soul was given more to cold, icy rationality then the burning flames of hate. Yet when she looked at Flayn, some long-concealed anger roiled within her.

With all this capped off a bit earlier in Chapter 63, when Woobiegard says this in response to Rhea calling her a mutinous whelp (which, to be clear, Rhea does call Canongard in canon, least in the ENG version):

“A mutinous whelp, am I? So you admit you stand above all of us, striking down those who dare to stand against your rule.”

And she like. Says this one. Like out loud. Meaning her racism is no longer confined to just her thoughts, but spoken for the whole class to hear... and say nothing against. The closest the fic’s come to doing this before is Marianne and Seteth in Chapter 54 and the shitty things she said to him then (that the Church - aka, the Nabateans - hurt Marianne the same way Nemesis hurt them). But she'd never said that it was Nabateans as a race that were to blame (and we don't have access to her thoughts to know if that's what she thought), and also at that point in the fic the possibility still existed, however minimally, for Seteth and Flayn to change everyone’s minds. They could have shown Woobiegard that she was wrong to think of the Nabateans so horribly - and not because “there are goods ones,” but because making blanket assumptions about an entire race is, like... inherently wrong. 

But this chapter, and this quoted line, pretty much conclude that nahhh Woobiegard WAS right all along! It’s not that Seteth and Flayn showed her that Nabateans haven’t taken over the government, their whole point in joining her side was to rebuild themselves into better people as recompense for having taken over the government, with her guiding and righteous light leading them down the path of redemption! And - shot in the dark here, haven’t finished the chapter yet - should the pattern be upheld, Rhea can join them too :)

To almost be fair to the fic, Canongard also believes in the racist conspiracy theory that the Nabateans control every facet of the government and must be destroyed as a race to eradicate their influence from humans. But you see, Canongard is, y'know, wrong in believing that? And is racist for believing that? And in every route other than hers, the villain route, she gets killed by the heroes? And Rhea is saved from Canongard's clutches? Which isn't happening here: Woobiegard is right, she definitely isn't racist, and she is the one true hero. All the times she would think the most racist shit ever about Nabateans are, in this chapter, being completely validated.

Any chance for the fic's tendency to lay the blame for everyone's woes on the Nabateans' shoulders to ever be rectified has been made monumentally harder to pull off with this. This close to the end, and the protagonist is righteous in spouting their racist beliefs to the face of the persecuted minority they are trying to murder - which they are trying to do, in large part, because that character is a specific race that the protagonist explicitly says they despise. Their racist conspiracy theories are being proven "correct." The persecuted minority is definitively in the wrong and is guilty of everything the racist protagonist accused them of.

And as you can see from the quotes, Woobiegard has not been blaming just Rhea. She has not been specific about the person she despises. She very clearly says that she blames Nabateans as a whole. She very clearly states that she despises Nabateans as a whole. And that hatred for Nabateans, at least at the point of the chapter I'm at right now, is being justified as right. And in the entire narrative of this fic, Woobiegard isn't just right, she is the only person at all, in any timeline, who is ever right. 

I am prayin' on my damn knees that by the time this fic ends this shit will have the mother of all explanations as to why this ISN'T astoundingly racist on its face, but brother that's gonna need a mighty big mama to be good enough