#few3h diskhorse

[themoomoorn]

It's ultimately proof that stans and loonies fold in on themselves because Cyril represents a triple-pronged threat:

He was treated like garbage in Almyra and his views that reflect this are wholly independent of Fodlan. None of his Houses endings involve him returning there in any capacity, and he cannot get a paired ending with the only other playable Almyran in the game. (Almyra GoOd, Fodlan BaD, goes against the rich prince Claude having a very rosy view of his homeland. Hopes even throws in some pretty bad stereotypes that only give Cyril's dim view of the place legitimacy)

He was then forcibly made a slave in House Goneril, something that comes up at multiple points in Houses, but is usually downplayed to make Hilda look better, and is erased outright in Hopes (Hilda is one of the most popular characters on both sides of the ocean despite being a pretty realistic portrayal of having a certain kind of racism. Holst is similarly at least liked on a memetic level. This would also have to make people acknowledge that Claude, despite allegedly being very anti-racist, makes concessions to Hilda's views because House Goneril is one of the few places in the Alliance that likes him well enough, and he needs all the support he can get in being acknowledged as Duke)

The archbishop of the continent's goddamn majority religion winds up saving him from slavery with practically no strings attached, and the whole scenario is so bonkers to him that he becomes an attendant-cum-chore boy. After being plucked from the worst that his motherland and his forced adoptive homeland had to offer, is it any wonder that a neutral religious area that accepted him would be seen as his new forever home? (RELIGION BAD! RHAGE BAD! SHE MADE HIM HER SLAVE INSTEAD! Never mind that Cyril doesn't give a damn what anybody thinks of him and does as he pleases, never mind that Seteth himself mentions that Cyril owes Rhea nothing and can do as he wishes, including acceptance into the Officer's Academy if he really wanted it. He's also never treated poorly for not following the Seiros Faith, and when he does say a Seiros prayer for Jeralt in Houses, Rhea doesn't exactly force him to do it either.)

The fact that loonies try to regurgitate the same talking points that Eggstans throw up in regards to Cyril is very telling. There's no way to reconcile that what they want Cyril to be doesn't align with canon at all, because it means acknowledging that Rhea did a good thing, Hilda is kind of a shitty person, and some of Claude's own values are very, very skewed. Remember how in Houses, they put in the effort to have Claude scream, cry, and throw up at the pirates that tried to masquerade as Almyrans during the Alois/Shamir paralogue, but has absolutely no presence in the Hilda/Cyril paralogue where actual Almyrans invade? Similar thing happens for his own Hopes paralogue, which is just a regurgitation of the Alois/Shamir one. And when Shahid invades twice, he's more fixated on Almyra's reputation, which...involves actually raiding and invading for dick measuring purposes. That is not a good look. Or how with Holst, his need to destroy the Seiros faith to allegedly let more views flow in feels extremely hollow, since he has a fairly dim view of religion in general and he doesn't interact with other non-Fodlanese people. To him, it's Fodlan versus Almyra and "maybe a few tokens to make me look better."

But this would have to make loonies acknowledge that while Claude may not be amoral the way Edelgard his, he's flawed as hell, and in Hopes especially he does border more amoral than not, and that isn't a good thing. Much like how the devs shot themselves in the foot with throwing training wheels on Edelgard the Red Emperor, any intrigue that comes with Claude lashing out and being hurt in turn, down to the downright fascinating fact that he'll turn a blind eye to Hilda's racism if it means currying her favor, is gimped because they really don't know what the hell they're doing with him.

Well, looks like even a broken clock's right at least twice a day; an edelstan on twitter was pissed a few days ago when they saw that Cyril's Meet the Heroes description described his time “working” for House Goneril as “some odd twists and turns”, pointing out that such vague wording was most likely used due to a combination of 3H not caring about Cyril's backstory and IS needing to sanitize Hilda's image so she can sell better in Heroes.

Hahaha,

It's funny because on SPE some people made memes, and you have angry people in the comments, being angry and basically lying or making up facts to either diminish Cyril's uh, "working conditions" in House Goneril, or try to sweep it under the rug to give some "Rhea BaD" takes again

Like :

(meme where Claude doesn't criticise his allies for keeping slaves, but blame racism on the lady who saved the child slave)

"Faerghus is the most violent country because they killed the emperor and enacted a coup while being backed up by mole people" to talk about that time when Loog got his independance

"Rhea BaD bcs Cyril can't learn how to read if you don't support him with Lysithea" even if he writes in the Post TS regardless of recruiting Lysithea or not

"Claude tries to talk to Cyril out of fighting but Cyril drives to a suicide charge with Rhea's blessing so Rhea BaD" in GW, with the source being, idk, since the person who came with that take never sourced it

"Rhea BaD she used the regicide in Faerghus to get rid of her political enemies" you mean the dude who tried to kill her?

"Supreme Leader wouldn't be able to continue warring if Rhea DeD bcs else she would be invading people and would lose public support" like the Supreme Leader? From the land of MAGA? Lose public support?? If she invades nations to restore Adrestia to its glorious past???

"Cyril never said he wasn't eating well in house Goneril" but the JP line says he was always hungry in PAlmyra and Fodlan before coming to the Monastery...

Anyways, as expected, even if FEH tries to sanitise some of Fe Fodlan's most, uh, contentious points, we will always have discourse because some people just prefer their fanon to canon, and while I can understand them to a degree (look Willy is basically fanon at this point) it's always hilarious to see people refuse to engage or even consider that the game they "love" says X when they prefer Y.

When it comes to, in general, Church related characters or Kingdom related characters, we see a lot of discourse like this popping up because while FE Fodlan shat on them (to an extent, for the Church related characters) FEH has to give them the minimum spotlight they give to other characters of the franchise, so yes, Hilda's popularity most likely is the reason why Cyril in MYH just had some "odd twists and turns" (tfw Begnion Senators aren't as popular :( so Muarim was mentionned to have been a slave) but his voiced lines has him mention he was captured as a "war prisoner"...

Putting everything it adds up and we have : Cyril was captured as a war prisoner when he was 11-12 by the Gonerils, was hungry there, complained about "work being hard" there (when Cyril doesn't complain at all in GM despite the huge workload he has!), and implies to Mercedes to have been mistreated in House Goneril because he was Almyran (which matches Hilda's prejudices in her C support about Almyrans).

Why is Cyril's backstory so "discourse rising" then?

Is it because Rhea BaD cannot rescue a child from slavery from a popular character's family/household? Or because Hilda's laziness and preference to let other people do her chores looks especially wrong if we take into consideration that those "other people doing her chores" at home might be children "kept as prisoner of wars and fed twice per week"? Or because it reflects badly on Claude (in both games) who wants to end discriminations and prejudices by getting rid of the institution that rescued an abused child, while working hand in hand with the family that abused said child based on his origins?

(lol@the "but Faerghus BaD" bonus point in the earlier SPE thread I mention, I don't even understand why it was brought up lol)

Back to your post, it's hilarious how this edelstand was pissed becayse FEH whitewashed Cyril's backstory to maybe sell more Hilda alts, when Pat'n'pals try their hardest (in FE16, Nopes and even FEH!) to "alter the script" to shit on Rhea, Dimitri to make Supreme Leader alt'able.

Maybe there's hope for this twitter/X stan?

[themoomoorn]

Scarlet Blaze Salt Mine Highlights Because I Feel Like It(tm)

There's going to be so much petty salt that you'll probably need to get your blood pressure checked. Enjoy!

EDIT: Finished Scarlet Blaze, so I added more images. Part 2 is here.

The Sun Should Have Never Set on Our Empire(tm)

Somehow they made Faye but even worse. And unlike Faye, Monica is a garbage unit. Seems hard to pull off in a Musou game, but her spell list is a mess, as are her stats, and her personal skill is even worse.

They tried to erase her wanting to kill Rhea, but then she still says she wants to kill Rhea anyway. But devs said she's happier and nicer guyz.

Lorenz has siblings now I guess. Note that in his Lysithea Support, Hubert also mentions having a brother and a sister. but he's still the eldest. So why was he stuck to Child No. 9 again???

Labrunda was found in the Stockpile of Convenient Sacred Weapons That Exist Now(tm).

Not only does she still belittle the guy and think him unworthy of her time like in Houses, but come Chapter 14 (providing you kill Byleth's disaster dad), she apparently genuinely was upset that he betrays her. But then again, he happily licks her feet on Golden Piss, so meh.

...am I supposed to feel something right now

I'm beginning to suspect that the Koei devs were pissed that Byleth the Local Churchgoer was more popular than Edelgard.

Aegir has claim to a stretch of sea that doubles up as their trade route to Morfis. This specific trading relationship is also mentioned in one of the books that shares details about the Empire's territories.

Claude: "BUT FODLAN HATES FOREIGNERS AND THE MEANIE CHURCH SCREAMED AT THEM TO NEVER INTERACT WITH OUTSIDERS Now shut up Dimitri and let me raid your treasure vault you're only being ignorant of my customs."

Only Edelgard's feelings are allowed to be hurt, remember?

Also, whomever calls Byleth a block of wood again should probably take a look at Shez on SB, because calling SB!Shez a block of wood would be an insult to wood.

There's so much disturbing dehumanization of the Nabatean characters (and Byleth by extension), but sure, Arval's soooo sympathetic because he cares about his War Boys, I guess. Oh, and he denounced Thales! What a good lad! /s

Duma take the wheel

Cry about it

Look, I know a macaron is technically a type of cookie, but can't you just call it a goddamn macaron!? Bear in mind that this is the same game that conflates coffee with teff, and the localization actually made a good change by just calling the stupid drink coffee.

I murderkilled Byleth's disaster dad for this go-around and Byleth tips off Claude about...something. Of what, I don't know, but it makes Claude opt for an ill-fated betrayal. He lays it on thick with Byleth, and while Edelgard may get an extra chapter and a marginally better outcome by letting Walmart Greil live, the "what-if...ing..." if you will, is played up the hardest with Claude, which is really saying something considering the original game. And honestly, the what-if-ing does make a level of sense with Claude...but then, you have aspects of him that have nothing to do with Byleth at all perverted by the narrative, as detailed in this post.

Like seriously, even with something like having to murder a half-sibling who repeatedly says to your face that you're a mongrel who deserves to d*e looming over you, like...instead of making something potentially interesting, they derailed him so badly. Honestly, I feel for his Japanese VA struggling to get a good read on the character.

Anyway, end rant.

Even Byleth thinks he's laying it on thick.

I feel like this alleged duress of signing a pact with the Empire would've landed better if it actually was done in the span of days or even weeks, but GW and SB both state it took about four months, which would've been well after any dust settling from Shahid's second raid of the Locket.

Claude, the country you rule has like...almost zero culture.

Sigh.

No shit.

Fuck off, Claude.

Pictured: A "commoner's revolution designed to overthrow an opresuve sistum"

...seriously, why does this dude hate the Nabateans as virulently as she does? It's actually pretty ironic - folks will haw about Dedue or Catherine having no minds of their own, but it's Hubert who's really the most mindless one of all. He mostly lacks the rich inner lives and backstories the other two have.

Sylvain, 90% of the time, is C-Tier. 10% of the time, like right now though? SSS-Tier. Absolutely brutal. Wish we had even more of him.

YA THINK!?!?!?

Because I couldn't be bothered (and because the only Deer with exclusive Eagle Supports/incentives are Lysithea and Lorenz), I only got Shez whining about Claude betraying Egg. Most of the other Deer have unique dialogue doing the same. It's kind of sad how little most of them think of Claude, but then again, he can be a massive dick.

TBC Since I hit the image limit!

[themoomoorn]

Scarlet Blaze Salt Mine Highlights, Part 2 (Because I hit the image limit last time)

It's kind of a sad day when you're transitioning hyperfixations (Chainsaw Man and Tactics Ogre, in this case), because I'm tired of this game and I haven't even begun to cleanse by entire body with Azure Gleam. But I must!

Also I just wanted to finish this slog of a route so badly that I forgot to give away Shez's Merc Whistle. Oops.

Previous post is here.

He isn't wrong. If anything, between this and Egg reassuring Shez that no, betrayal totes wasn't gonna happen, this just reinforces the fact that Egg doesn't respect Claude at all.

Still, big oomph on Claude because his dreams don't even exist/make sense in this game.

Here lies the Tabletop Demon.

Kind of poetic/ironic that he's the only one who can truly die, while poor Dimitri, who gets dragged around like a wet cat in Houses, will always survive in this game. Egg mostly does, if you count her getting subjugated to the director's fantasies lobotomized in Azure Gleam as "surviving."

"Now what that ambition is, I simply do not know, but I will boldly assume it had to do with using bibles as toilet paper."

No Lies Detected(tm)

Sothis attempts to salvage this trainwreck with a quick and miserable death, but by plot dictation, she sadly fails.

Byleth's death here is on par with Dimitri's on Verdant Wind in how unceremonious and cruel it is. Devs, are you sure you're not actually mad at how popular Byleth is? Especially the one with the 200% Bustline Modifier?

We Stan a megalomaniac /s

The Agarthans never got to the Holy Tomb or the Holy Mausoleum in this game, and here we get the idea of the kind of crap Houses!Edelgard condoned.

Really, the one thing Rhea did wrong was not using the Aurora Breath on Edelgard during her coronation.

Like

Even now, Rhea knows Agartha is the true enemy here?????? Like back in Chapter...4?????

But no, per the Edelgard/Balthus Support, Edelgard started the war anyway, she knows that she's benefitting from the same megalomaniacs that have their hands in the Empire's politics, and she had farfetched history spoon-fed to her. She doesn't care. She still wants total power.

Bruh

Monica is talking about killing Thales, btw. Peak wlw representation, everyone /s

Linhardt is abhorrent.

Shez DGAF about anything, least of all on this route. But I suppose it's fine because they're not a weird nepotism teacher, or whatever.

So here's something I've noticed: Scarlet Blaze and Golden Wildfire share several near-identical scenarios (the most obvious being the Chapter where Ordelia needs to be pacified), CGs (the still of Egg and Clyde shaking hands), and even video cutscenes (Rhea transforming into the Immaculate one; only the background is changed). GW!Claude knocks of a number of Edelgard's rhetoric and dialogue ("My hands are covered in blood and will never be clean again, feel bad for me uwu") and now we have a hollow knockoff of something poignant Claude says to Byleth on Verdant Wind.

There's also the general fact that because the Houses version of Claude ultimately became more heroic than intended, and because they had already delayed the game three times, they had Verdant Wind knock off most of Silver Snow...which is the default route for the Black Eagles.

There is a quasi-tumbleweedy-incestual bond between these two characters/routes. They fold into one another like brain proteins tangling on each other. This is not the case for Azure Moon (bar maps being shared, and even then the context differs drastically) and even more so for Azure Gleam.

Point is, I'm a Claude stan, but at this point, I feel like the Blue Lions route should be the canon one.

Local vampire simp and local masochistic noble boldly state their totally normal relationship with one another. I think I liked the Houses/Ending Card version more, because their bond made Edelgard jealous.

I did this strategy over the other two and it did absolutely nothing, by the way.

"ShE dOeSnT cArE aBoUt HiM" blah blah blah, we get it, you refuse to read the text and can't get over that Cyril and Claude are mostly incompatible when it comes to bonding.

I found a Khaloonie discover the flavor text for Seiros Tea (it's tea from southern Almyra and it got slapped with an in-universe localized name) and flipping out over it recently, funnily enough. Houses has been out for three years (as of this post) now, and you've only read that text recently???

"My daddy had stake over ruling the whole continent single-handedly first, you cut the line!"

Sothis please take the wheel -

Can confirm, they literally do almost nothing while Thales and Rhea tumble over that bridge. Very "Wormy Episode of Spongebob" energy right here.

"BUT SHE ENDED THE WAR FASTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" /s

Good job Shez, you broke it.

The ending animation of the Crests rotating like planets changes depending on which route you picked, as that land's "native" Crests are what's displayed. Since the Empire's "native" Crests are that of the Four Saints (plus the Apostles Noa and Timotheos if you want to get technical), you get to bask in a kiddie pool of irony.

In the end, the standom's support of the Empire is akin to how many fans, from its inception in 1979, support the Empire of Zeon and factions similar to it across the Gundam franchise, I feel. Shame that Adrestia isn't as well-crafted as Zeon.

Speaking of worldbuilding, I suspect that there's a weird sort of hatred at how Faerghus is the most well-built (in a worldbuilding sense) of the three lands. This is pretty much proven by its first four chapters alone (having played the demo), and I can already tell I'm gonna be in for at least a decent time once I get to Gleam.

To cap off this shit-cake, here's what I find to be a pretty apt representation of how Edelgard is viewed/turned into during Azure Gleam's ending:

[themoomoorn]

Keep in mind that if Iggy is filched onto CF in Houses, he will express an utterly OOC and really creepy joy at the prospect of recapturing Derdriu's destruction/capture in a painting -

It's yet another instance of the game making characters snort Hresvelg Grey. And given the weak wills of some of these characters, I'm more than willing to believe that some of them can fall under Hresvelg Grey's thrall (or drink Claude's Golden Piss, in Hopes' case), and Ignatz kinda falls under that category? He can show a very strong backbone when he wants to (not recruited on CF, or telling Lysithea off in their Houses Support for one), but he's also wishy-washy with his desires. That being said, I've always put him in the "less likely to be swayed" category, even though I can also see him go to the Kingdom in Houses under certain circumstances. I guess this is him in a weaker state of mind.

As far as the Arval question goes, I'm convinced that having Shez preserve his stupid cycle is him mimicking something Flamey says in Heroes: perpetual war is better than what they deem a "false" peace (AKA a state of not-war with the one major religion centered around pointy-eared elf people in place, no ballistic missiles flying around, and the Empire isn't the sole power on the continent). It's megalomania, really.

I'm... kind of confused about this? Like Ignatz is basically saying the only way for people to move forward is by continuing to fight and destroy? That's a pretty awful message in general, but coming from Ignatz it just feels weird. It sounds like he's just accepted war and that it's just... something that happens so we should shrug it off and move on?

I know this game tends to have very strong pro-war/pro-invasion messages which is already really gross to me, but it went from being annoying and icky to just making me feel disgusted. Also, Ignatz of all people shouldn't just shrug his shoulders and be like well that's just the way of things, I guess! There's an active war going on so it makes sense that towns could be rebuilt and destroyed again. It doesn't mean just give up on it.

Also really doesn't feel like an Ignatz thing to say.

[themoomoorn]

The biggest issue that I see that few others note is that while the execution of Claude here is lousy, if the devs and story framed this as Claude diving headfirst into ignorance/perceived superiority and becoming little better than the Emperor, then that'd make the experience a bit less sour...but the devs had instead intended it to be a "celebration" of him being "ambitious," which in turn is reflected in his costume, which is only less nonsensical as Egg's sailor uniform armor reflecting her being "free" and "happier." If anything, his outfit should reflect him veering towards a worse path - the darker colors, the lack of diversity in it (his Wyvern Master outfit has both Fodlanese and Almyran elements), keeping his weird Padawan braid (Seriously, what the fuck are Almyran braids, IntSys???).

Going by how Claude behaves in this game, if they did bother to acknowledge Cyril, I'd bank on him earnestly thinking Cyril got "indoctrinated" and he'd try to make him see the "error" of not liking poor innocent little uwu Almyra his ways. This would, naturally, either work, and we'd get a Cyril who's as shattered about being force-recruited like Ashe is in GW and SB, or Claude would just off the guy and no one would comment on it - doubly so since there's zero mention of the Gonerils keeping Almyran slaves + Almyra kidnapping and making child soldiers.

Should the topic come up at all in a hypothetical Nopes Support, Claude, being ignorant, would probably empathically deny Cyril's experience...and much like how Hubert placates Hapi's discomfort over him wanting to use her condition (the sighs that summon Demonic Beasts) by dangling cups of coffee at her, Claude would probably pull something similar and all would be fine. Seriously, a lot of the Hopes Supports kind of do that???

What the devs intend and how they present it is the Fodlan games' biggest problem, in the end.

My main issue with Claude's motivations in Hope's is his specific needs with the Church don't really make much sense even in a vacuum. Like going off just what we're presented in his own route in Hopes, blaming them for Fodlan's xenophobia makes no sense since we're shown Almyra has the same attitudes (via his brother no less, so he should know), and blaming them for the existence of hereditary kingship is especially odd since he's the prince of a hereditary kingship

Hopes tells us basically that Almyra is split on Fodlan. That in itself is fine, but Fodlan isn’t really different from that. He blames the Church for it though, and like I’ve mentioned in the past, it just doesn’t make sense. I’m not sure how he can come to that conclusion other than being ignorant of Fodlan itself. Faerghus had been trying to get friendly with other places since Lambert’s reign and the Church could’ve told him they didn’t want that.

I agree about Almyra‘s kingship though. It feels kind of like he just wants to create a Fodlan that isn’t like his home, and it feels… odd. It feels more odd that in Houses he goes back to Almyra and takes the throne, so I mean… he’s aware he’s in line and competing for it and that his bloodline makes him able to do that. Also, Petra is living the same type of kingship, so… not really sure why Fodlan is getting the blame for the existence of a very, very common type of way of ruling.

Just blaming the Church for everything won’t solve all of Fodlan’s problems. I get that his alliance with Edelgard is a means to prevent the Alliance from struggling further, but also that if Edelgard doesn’t end her war after Rhea is gone that she clearly had more going for her war than just the Church. It’s just that Claude isn’t the type to be ignorant and stay that way. If he was lacking knowledge, he would seek it. Considering that’s a core part of his character, it feels wrong to have that removed.

I also don’t like the fact that he can kill Cyril. I think that bugs me more than anything else. The fact that he just doesn’t even question why an Almyran is fighting for Rhea specifically (not even just the Church, but Rhea, who is his main target) bothers me a lot, but also the fact that like… he sees an Almyran living in Fodlan and doesn’t question it and is willing to kill that Almyran just to kill Rhea. I could be remembering wrong i.e. Cyril dying in that fight, but I recall him dying? But his relationship with Cyril as one of the only Almyrans in Fodlan was an important thing for him in Houses and I feel like him seeing Cyril fighting for Rhea in GW should have been enough to make him hesitate and question what he was doing.

To me Claude just feels too aggressive in Hopes. There’s a difference between things happening in people’s lives that would diverge their choices and motivations, but changing key aspects of their personality makes it less enjoyable for a story overall. It doesn’t help that he closely works alongside the Church in Houses and uses Garreg Mach as their base. Hopes Claude feels more like he stays willfully ignorant and it doesn’t feel like him.

[themoomoorn]

Compounding the "Almyra gets in-universe and out-of-universe Unfortunate Implications(tm) on steroids is how Shahid's invasion has Claude cry foul of him "ruining Almyra's reputation," and Nader cries foul of the same thing when you do Claude's Paralogue (the one you only get if Judith survives Chapter 10)...only for both Nader and Claude to belittle Fodlaners in the same Paralogue, on top of the aforementioned "BUT WHY WON'T YOU LET US PLUNDER AND RAID SHIT!? WEEEH" shitshow.

In-universe, on top of Almyra doing their border invasions for no real reason other than fun, it's implied that they're a very well-off nation and large in size, in contrast to the small colony Brigid, the subjugated-and-also-small Duscur, and the small, barren Sreng - with the latter's own raids being justified by, again, having soil and land that's even harsher than Faerghus'. Out of universe, this now has Almyra further stewing in extremely racist and long-standing stereotypes of Persian/Turkic civilizations being "barbaric" and aggressive - which, not-so-funnily enough, also happened to Persia-adjacent Verdane back in FE4. And for some reason, the Khalidloonies don't get this?????

Flaws that Claude had regarding his own ignorance of both Fodlan and the world at large is taken out to pasture, more or less. He's now little more than Edelgard's ignorant, man-child toady.

srsly, the thing about whether Claude is "written well" is actually kinda racist imo. we're talking about a PoC-character here, yet he is somehow only "written well" (in many of the edelstan's opinions) if he sides with the white woman unconditionally rather than following his own agenda

I’ll let people who are closer to the issue speak more on the racism angle, if they’d like… I do think it’s really unfortunate how Claude often gets treated as an accessory to the preferred lord in fandom discourse (especially the common perception that it’s ok for Edelgard to do whatever she wants “because Claude would agree with her”).

I do think part of this is a consequence of Claude just not being as well integrated into the story as he definitely should be… but it does bring some unfortunate implications along with it, at least from my perception. Hopes didn’t exactly help with their writing of him, but again since I haven’t played GW fully myself I won’t comment on that further.

[themoomoorn]

You can even go one step further and make the argument that this is what I call a husband-father conundrum.

What I mean is that Jerry - who lest we forget is physically 45, looks older due to knighthood/booze, and is in reality 300+ years old - woos and courts Sitri, a sheltered, sickly nun who's basically neurodivergent and has to remain at the monastery due to her fragility, and unlike Jerry's wibbly age, it's pretty firmly stated that she lived to 20 and died at 20. It's heavily implied he knew her when she was a child, and he also felt joy being her window to the outside world - not a very balanced dynamic. He found her most attractive when she did domestic chores or picking flowers. She's cited to be introverted, bookish, emotionless with trouble expressing herself, which Jeralt found attractive and found joy in getting her to smile, because of course this cute young girl has to smile. They get married, he gets her pregnant.

Alas, the worst case scenario happens when it's time for Billy to come out: Sitri is not only in bad shape, but her baby is stillborn. It's either have both die, or save the baby, and she willingly chooses the baby (complete with implicit knowing about how her own heart isn't human! Remember that.) Now I will say that yes, it'd be very abnormal for the baby to not cry at all. But at the same time, Billy's been checked and is cited to be healthy. And like...you're an old fuck who's been alive because of magical pope Crest jingle juice for a few centuries, and surely he'd have sensed something unusual about Sitri too? Unless...she didn't want to tell him?

Unless Rhea was being possessive of Baby Billy - and we have no proof she was, all she kept saying is that the baby was fine - then the first reaction I'd have would probably be a bit scared, but like...running off with the baby, faking your own death, and setting part of the monastery on fire??? What the fuck.

But getting back to my point, instead of having a cute housewife around and playing courtly love with her, complete with Gary Puckett songs playing in the background, you have to deal with a daughter who inherited her lack of emotionality and neurodivergence, and suddenly it's not cute anymore. Jerry can't play house with his kid, and because they burned their bridge to a stable living environment, they're both worse off for it. And thus begins a life of toxic parenting, more booze, and leaving your kid adrift for 21 years.

He couldn't even be bothered to have taken Greil's approach to the mercenary life: A "home base" to raise the kids in while at work (Gallia), a menagerie of other good-natured people to help raise them (Titania et. al), rearing at least one of them up to take over the company...like, giving a rat's ass in general...Jerry put in the bare minimal, and like once the church comes a knockin, like wow, hole-y-shit, Billy's suddenly thriving and he begrudgingly accepts this???

Fuck Jerry.

I think it’s telling how the reaction of a lot of people to Nopes!Jerry in this circle of tumblr is telling him to kick rocks/wanting to give Rhea and Seteth and Cyril and Flayn Billy’s custody papers lol

Tbf even good portrayal in Fe16 was leading to this...

For sure you could still argue it was just clues here and there but nothing of the magnitude of what nopes brought, abs ultimately, before passing away Jerry wonders if everything he did was a mistake and if staying at the monastery wouldn't have been better, so he sort of acknowledges he was wrong...

But Fe16 still gave us Jerry who ran away bcs Billy didn't emote - Just like their mother BTW - or found them to be abnormal, and pissed on 300 years of trust with Rhea when she tells him not to worry the baby is safe.

What really surprised me back then is how Jerry immediately runs away bcs Rhea made his baby "abnormal" without ever acknowledging that he himself isn't the most normal dude around, just like Citrus, or that strange long lived people who need to use hair dye exist, so what is even "normal".

Then Fe16 also brought the Leonie and Alois supports, and they don't paint Jerry in a good light.

Basically if we could say Jerry made wrong choices based on, uh, ableism, he still tried and loved Billy.

Come Nopes and there is a serious point to be made that despite saying the contrary, Jerry didn't care nor loved Billy.

[themoomoorn]

I'm a Shahid stan and I say hi lol

(An aside dub rant...like it's weird. J*e Zi*ja is a great VA in most of his projects. But Claude, which is arguably one of his most iconic roles...is not well acted. At all. In many parts. Both in Houses and Hopes. Like good grief. The cutscene where Shahid tries to gut Claude and Claude arrows him off a cliff? The difference in how JZ executes the scene versus Ryan Colt L*vi's amazing rendition of Shahid is...something else. Soma Saitou is also great. I know it's unfair to compare JZ to someone like Toshiyuki Toyonaga, but many of the English VAs nevertheless act well, so I don't know why English Claude is so...mediocre.)

listen, azure gleam/golden wildfire solidarity is the group of fans on each side who like the older brother character that used to regularly attempt to murder their younger brother

i wish you all a very pleasant side character that everyone else hates appreciation