#but imo the duties she had to the Fodlan people were performed through her church

[randomnameless]

Late but I’m here!

The only issue I have with this, as in “Rhea should have guided humans” is how this plays in the Fodlan greater issue of wanting to have 1 Leader of the World (that would of course stay unified) and in the process, it removes agency from the rest of said World that is being ruled over.

In a nutshell, SS wants us to believe Rhea should have been the Leader of the World like so many edelstans accuse her to be, but if she did, then what would the humans have done? It’s as if SS is telling her Rhea apologises because she let humans deal with their own affairs and issues which is... understandable, in a game about guidance - where the player is God Reborn - but not so much in a franchise known for its characters and at least varied world buildings, with different nations existing here and there.

Also I disagree about the War of Heroes, it ends in 98 - by then Rhea already recovered Sothis in 91 and everyone save for whoever is implanted in Maurice’s forehead - per Nopes, Lycaon was made Emperor in 91 (Willy ceded his throne when Nemesis died) but Wilhelm was still around to help him out - they bail out in 98, ergo, 7 years after the each got what they wanted from the WoH - Sothis and peace in Fodlan.

Imo, regardless of him being her kid of not, Lycaon was the “heir” Wilhelm was preparing and counted on, he was the person who could be put in charge after the War, but Wilhelm would continue supporting him. Rhea was still fighting out there to recover the remains of her family, but she was still around and still had faith in the future, humanity or whatever because resurrecting Sothis wasn’t in her plans as of yet.

But then, Lycaon dies, Rhea stops chasing the Elites (Maurice is still around, and given how Nopes added a part where Maurice killed a “Saint” I’m pretty sure Rhea wanted to slaughter him as much as the others) and builds Garreg Mach, preparing Sothis’s return - from that point, whatever hopes Rhea had, died and only Sothis can guide the world. 

Not her, not Wilhelm, not Lycaon, only Sothis.

And yet, even if Rhea bailed out of Adrestia, her Church still existed, and was seen as a reliable authority and/or power to appeal to in case Adrestia went wrong, as Loog demonstrated!

Maybe the S support and Rhea’s fault is this : she should have trusted humanity (and herself!) more, instead of defaulting to Sothis when Adrestia went bonkers, but by closing her eyes to the present Fodlan (and even this is relative, as we see through the game!) she allowed the continent to be guided by the now fallen!Adrestia, which in turn led to more divisions (birth of Faerghus) and strife... and we’re supposed to see this as a bad thing?

As we see it through the game, lolcalisation be damned, the Church of Seiros used to have influence and soft power in Fodlan, Rhea tried to guide, albeit not directly by ruling, humans, who in turn, used her teachings as toilet paper. 

But Fodlan was guided by at least 4 entities, Rhea, the Empire, the Kingdom and whatever happens in the Alliance. For better or worse, humans shared that “guiding duty” Rhea had, and SS’s finale (and her S Support) suggests it wasn’t supposed to be, Rhea alone was supposed to guide Fodlan?

Like you say, when people work together, they don’t need gods, let them be Supreme Leader or Sothis, but for Rhea, it’s only when she works with a specific someone, like Archbishop Rhea and God King/Queen Reborn Byleth will bring miracles, but, Archbishop Rhea, King Lambert, Emperor Ionius and Count Gloucester don’t work, just like Archbishop Rhea, Emperor Otto 3 and King Loog, or not Archbishop Rhea and Emperor Wilhelm, etc etc...

So when Rhea laments that she should have done more to guide Fodlan, are we supposed to think she should have been the only entity in Fodlan, slapped Ionius or even Helga 1 who succeded Lycaon, and ruled more “directly”, or are we supposed to believe she should have worked more with the humans of Fodlan - something she does in-lore and in-game - ?

Unlike Supreme Leader’s Supreme ending with Billy where she bails out the second her successor is appointed, Rhea bails out when her (or at least Wilhelm’s) successor is killed - and yet she still offers a presence to the people of Fodlan through her Church. Trying to fix things with the limited scope she has, without straight out knocking sense in people with her fists.

Should she have done more? Maybe...? Could she have done more? Without basically becoming the only Leader of the World and enforcing her decrees with swords in the heads of Adrestians, and later, Fodlan people, who just don’t care about her anymore? Uh... no.

And it’s, again, telling how in the end of SS - when Billy supports her - Rhea remains the Archbishop, she doesn’t “directly” rule over Fodlan, that’s Billy’s thing! Rhea remains the Archbishop with her Church and soft power...

Basically what she has been doing since the end of the WoH, and this time, it works for Fodlan because Billy is here. And conveniently, the 3 other lords/nations disappeared, so it’s kumbaya time and no one will challenge Billy’s rulership.

I know you mentionned in earlier posts about the game not being that complicated, but all the issues raised in the game - in the other routes - that limited Rhea’s scope of action “can you force people to accept something that is different”, “how to end discriminations” “my way or your head” ultimately end up with a “and they lived happily ever after because Billy is Sothis reborn/awesome/the character supposed to be the player’s self-insert so of course they manage to change everything for the better”.

Tl;Dr : this support and this ending isn’t about Rhea, the only reason why their joint guidance/rule is called “miraculous” is because Billy is here, instead of all the precedent losers who preceded them. Rhea’s sin is that she didn’t work with Billy since the beginning - which is completely bonkers, but this is what this support and this ending lead to.

@randomnameless

I think that while Rhea does blame herself in the S support, she never specifies what she did wrong. But when you consider her arc, how she needed to let go of her mother rather than wanting her to come back and make everything better again, I think there's a good case to be made that it's not any supposed Crest system or false history that she's saying was wrong. Rather she's saying she was wrong by not directly guiding the people.

Think of it like this, both her and Wilhelm got what they wanted out of the War of Heroes. Rhea avenged her people and recovered their remains, including her mother's, while Wilhelm united the continent and ended the era of bloodshed Nemesis brought about. But then after the war, they just left. They left, and the Empire they created went into moral decline almost instantly. They got what they wanted, but didn't stay to continue guiding the people. That is what Rhea's fault is, regardless if Lyacoan was her kid or not. They should have stayed, performed her duties to the people they're now responsible for, rather than peacing out with the hope that the changes they've brought about would stick.

(you know, kinda like how Edelgard's plan to reform the empire then retire will likely crash and burn considering the Empire was founded on meritocracy).

That is Rhea's sin. She came back, saw things had gone to shit and her attempt to fix it was to bring her mother back to life so she can fix it. That she can make things go back to the way they once were, similar to how Edelgard's plan is to restore power to the Emperor and reunite Fodlan setting the world back to what it once was. But in a way, it's also similar to what Byleth ultimately does in Flower. They deny taking leadership, instead putting their faith in Edelgard to fix Fodlan and even call her a title referring to a god if they S support her (though, El is also the name of the supreme deity of the ancient Canaanites and in Eastern Sumetic languages. Supreme deity for supreme leader, fitting) thus undermining (alongside the society Edelgard is said to strive for in the Japanese text) any idea that the world made by Flower is one without gods. Edelgard wants people to be self-reliant, ultimately controlling the religion of the continent to pass her own beliefs off as those of the Goddess. Game even calls her out in a few routes of wanting to replace the Goddess with herself (Mila did too in FEH), just like how the "good" route for Scarlet Blaze reveals that Edelgard…secretly still doesn't trust people.

The game does believe in the message Edelgard speaks of, don't get me wrong, but it's in Silver Snow that message isn't undermined. With Byleth's support, Rhea can be saved and learn to move on. Their combined efforts sees miraculous reforms according to the text, rather than them instead expecting Edelgard or Sothis to fix everything for them. When people work together they don't need gods, or in Ed's case a dictator with a god-complex, indeed!