#fire emblem critical

[triaelf9]

WIVES WIVES WIVES

[carcosa-commune]

im having uncontroversial opinions lately

[curse-d-owl]

Edelgard:

Also Edelgard:

Dimitri:

Edit: for the people that have worse reading comprehension than a 4th grader and mock me over mistakes i never made allow me to spell it out for you.

Edelgard's claim that she only wages war to rid Fodlan of the central church and that she means Dimitri and Faerghus no harm are both lies cause she fully intended to conquer all of Fodlan for Adrestia and fully intended to kill Dimitri in Chapter 8 of Scarlet Blaze to the point where Ingrid had to sacrifice his life to protect Dimitri.

She's violent and dishonest and Dimitri has every reason to distrust her.

[raxistaicho]

An ill-fitting throne, like an ill-fitting crown

When I was last playing Three Houses, I was struck again by how small Byleth looks, seated on Sothis's throne:

They just look so fantastically unfitting for the throne.

Female Byleth can't even touch her heels to the ground, and while male Byleth can do that much, the arm rests are too far apart for him to use them properly, and he visibly has to sit so far forward that he can't rest his back against the back of the throne, either.

A pretty common theory is that Sothis was huge when she was alive, and aside from just the sheer size of the throne this is supported by, of all the grotesque things, the Sword of the Creator itself:

It's pretty easy to infer that the serrated portion of the blade was crafted from Sothis's spine. A person's spine generally constitutes 25% of their total height, and the Sword of the Creator is huge, especially compared to Female Byleth:

With Byleth being 5'4'', Sothis could easily be between seven and eight feet tall. She'd easily dwarf everyone else in the game, including Dedue and Nemesis.

Where am I going with this?

Byleth not being big enough to sit properly upon Sothis's throne is symbolic in a way: they're being pressed into a position that doesn't suit them. Just look at how uncomfortable and uncertain they seem, particularly female Byleth.

[yuri-is-online]

I'd add that it's super scummy to make the very popular 3 lords from the last game paid DLC content when they're riding the goodwill from that last game. They're practically screaming "You liked this last title so give us extra money."

Of COURSE there's day 1 paid dlc.

Eat my entire asshole, intsys.

[wild-moss-art]

This barbie is going to kill every last one of them!

[monstierider]

Please tell me I'm not the only one who feels like Crimson flower did a terrible job of making Edelgard....not a villain

Like, I feel like IS sort of couldn't find a good way to justify siding with Edelgard to the player beyond liking her as a character and the only way the could sort of doing it was by reducing Rhea to near Duma levels of insane, but even then while I won't condone her actions I can understand why she lost it, from her perspective she just saw someone she allowed into her home, break into the burial site of her dead siblings with the intention of desecrating them and robbing their graves and then watched what is, from her sad, broken perspective, her own mother choose to side with the person trying to take all she has left of her family away from her, I too would lose it under those circumstances. And then there's Edelgard not even being very smart, like, does she really believe her troops would hear "the church has nukes" and not either, question why they only dropped the one on the one location and why only now or just....lose all morale??? And then there's the battle at the Tailtean plains and the good old conversation between Dimitri and Edelgard, "must you continue to conquer?continue to kill?!" "Must you continue to re-conquer? Continue to kill in retaliation?" Like.....it's like even she realises she has no moral high ground over him and is just trying some desperate redirection to not be the villain she knows she is. And also the entire "king of delusion" scene where Dimitri, in his final moments, swears to avenge everyone who died for her, who she killed, to avenge all his fallen friends and family who died because of her and her ambitions and she basically just calls him a nut job.

Like??? Did IS just....give up on trying to make Edelgard look good and just hope that off her fucking rocker Rhea and Edelgards tragic backstory would cover that up???

[emblemxeno]

Rant ahead.

Honestly part of my confusion at people trashing on Engage's designs for either being too out there or crazy is that this is the same fandom that venerates Pantsless Marth, Dong Armor Alm, Pegasus Knights with short skirts and thigh highs, mages who don't have armor or practical clothes most of the time, the very existence of the dancer class, etc.

These things are classic and funny to poke at, but they were also things that happened 30+ years ago. Do you not think that Marth going commando and Jagen having eye gouging shoulder spikes in 1990 wasn't just as ridiculous, gaudy and impractical as Hortensia's cupcake circus dress in 2023? In Engage's immediate predecessor you had classes with tit separaters, characters with drill hair, Dorothea in opera garb during war time, Hilda's timeskip fit which looks like a prototype Hortensia fit, Petra's timeskip fit, Kronya's existence, and Female Byleth in general.

Impracticality and overdesign is the weakest criticism you can give FE designs. I get it, we long for the GBA era, but let's be real: those designs were made to complement class design in part to compensate for having character mugs and game sprites as the only constant presentation of the characters. "Crazy" designs and high fantasy armor and clothes started with the more decadent characters in the Tellius games because they had models and didn't have to strictly adhere to class design elements anymore.

[hulloitsdani]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you! get to know your mutuals and followers (ू•‧̫•ू⑅)♡

I took this as an excuse to draw five funny little guys that have taken over my brain, but what I ended up with is a funny sliding gradient for the types of characters I like.

[valkyray]

[stormsbourne]

The most baffling thing about the Kotaku article, besides spewing out typical Edelstan talking points, is how it thinks Claude wants the "status quo" and has an "us vs them" mindset. I'm sorry, but what?! Have they actually played the game?

it doesn't make any sense for dimitri either, who says time and again that he finds the current system abhorrent and wants to cultivate an era where the strong aren't able to easily prey on the weak who can't defend themselves. the entire point of fe3h is that it's four different takes on what needs fixing in a fucked up world. some of the takes are wrong and some are ill-informed, but every "lead character" of each route (edelgard, claude, dimitri, and rhea) have a different view on what fodlan really needs to become a better place.

and in regards to saying edelgard is the only right one, or even the most right one, I think it's just a western thing to view conquest as inherently productive and I think it's an instinct we should interrogate! not to mention that fire emblem is traditionally about either recovering conquered land or defending your home, eventually taking the fight to the invaders but only because you got invaded first. so crimson flower is trying to tell us something by nature of it being a route where you are doing conquest. you are on the side of the initiator. all of the lords in 3h pull from very distinct archetypes (dimitri is a combination of a classic lord and the swordsman/nobleman with a dark past, your ravens and such; claude is a combination of the wyvern riding noble/prince -- often villainous -- and the wandering/itinerant prince like lewyn or joshua). edelgard pulls from the red emperor, an exclusively villainous archetype very, very strongly and has little else to her.

all of this is also without getting into that japanese game writers are just going to have a very different outlook on this shit than online western leftists in their 20s. I find it happens with a lot of non-american media specifically, where people have a hard time understanding, say, japan's relationship with the aesthetics of christianity or catholicism, because they've got the american viewpoint on those religions and what they mean embedded so deeply that it doesn't occur to them.

anyway I don't know how anyone playing through cf watches dedue Do That on tailtean plains while a dour war march plays, and thinks to themselves, yeah, I'm the good guy here

[wild-moss-art]

On her way to solmchella ☀️

[curse-d-owl]

None of the Fire Emblem Fates parents are neither good nor smart for conceiving a child in the middle of a war but what's confusing to me is how better father's are treated like the worst and vice versa.

Take Niles and Arthur for example, they they regret having put their children through loneliness and their children hate them for it. Which is fair don't get me wrong.

But what is confusing is when you have actual bad parents like Ryoma ( in the Japanese script ) and Jakob physically abusing their children and yet neither children resent them the way Nina and Percy do. Infact they get treated as if they're good parents.

It's very strange.

[finncakes]

obsessed with her, she's like a fire emblem character to me

[vanguarddawn]

There's something I've been thinking about tonight that I really don't quite know how to explain, but I'm going to try it anyways.

It all regards a question I've received several times over the years: Why is Walhart one of my favorite Awakening characters, when Edelgard is my least favorite Fire Emblem character? Aren't their goals essentially the same?

This is a question I mostly receive from Edelgard fans who usually don't want to listen to what I actually have to say about either character, and just want to try and put the legitimacy of my biases under scrutiny, usually with accusations of misogyny being thrown in for good measure. And I've never really had an answer for them, not because I didn't want to get involved in that discussion, but because I had always judged Walhart and Edelgard based on gut feeling rather than deeper analysis.

Honestly, the more I look into them both in comparison to one another, the more vast that rift becomes. I'm not necessarily starting to like Walhart even more, but I'm definitely learning to like Edelgard even less, something I'd thought was impossible. I do not have the time or patience to write out a full Edelgard analysis, and honestly I don't want to do that either. So I'll talk about what connects them and what differentiates them.

Walhart and Edelgard are, on the surface, somewhat similar characters. They are both the leader of their nation, and seek to unify the rest of the continent through force, and ultimately intend to forge a world where man can only rely on their own strength rather than that of the gods. Both are armored axe wielders primarily associated with the color red, and both bear inhuman levels of physical strength. Both can potentially end up being defeated by the kindhearted king of the nation they invaded who seeks to strengthen the existing world through structural reform rather than wiping the slate clean, and cherish the power of bonds over the strength of the individual.

So why do I love Walhart but hate Edelgard again? Simple.

Walhart is absolutely fucking delusional. Dude is straight up off his rocker, and the game is actually willing to acknowledge this rather than trying to defend it. He truly believes in his whole "unity through conquest" bullshit, and is only willing to let go of it when he's defeated by Chrom. And you know what he does, instead of Edelgard's "if only i had your strength we could have made the world a better place together" stuff?

Walhart concedes. He basically just tells Chrom and Robin "alright, you guys won, you clearly know what's best for the world. I was wrong, might does not make right, and from now on I'm gonna do things your way." Of course he says it in his own distinctly Walhart way, but the message is still the same. While he doesn't come to accept the real message that Chrom and Robin were trying to send, one of bonds and togetherness, he does realize that his way of going about securing and maintaining peace was wrong. I understand that Edelgard also concedes somewhat in VW/SS, but in AM she tries to murder her salvation after being given one last chance to redeem herself, and in CF she successfully conquers Fódlan so there's no redemption to be done.

It also helps that the god Walhart was trying to stop to begin with was objectively evil and not just a traumatized archbishop. Yes, Rhea does some incredibly fucked up things, but comparing her to Grima, who literally destroys the entire world just for funsies, can't really be done in good faith. Rhea is more compelling as an antagonist because she actually has nuance - nuance that Grima mostly lacks.

I also want to address some localization weirdness regarding both characters. In Awakening's English localization Walhart's goal of crushing the Grimleal is only made clear after the player has already defeated him and is headed to stop the ongoing resurrection of Grima. The English localization of Three Houses, on the other hand, may as well be Edelgard apologist fanfiction with how much it rewrites her character to make her look completely justified in starting her war, including actively writing mentions of civilian conscription and execution, as well as foreign military operations out of the English script, and adding a line to her endings stating that she gives up power once her dream of a Crest-less Fódlan has been realized. She is a completely different character between scripts.

I also like how Walhart is written entirely seriously about even the most mundane of things in his barracks and DLC conversations. If you thought he was crazy about military, wait until you hear his opinion on vegetarianism (he is one and he intends to make it your problem).

Basically, I like Walhart because he isn't meant to be endearing. Awakening makes no effort to redeem him or justify his actions, because they are ultimately unjustifiable. Edelgard did essentially the same thing he did and required a whole game rewrite to justify allowing the player to side with her at all.

[raxistaicho]

Analyzing Hubert and Byleth's A support

Hey all, been a while since I had the idea to do an analysis post, but I finally had a good idea!

So everyone's familiar with Byleth and Hubert's A support, right? That's the one where Byleth is just minding their own business when Hubert suddenly bursts onto the scene and tells them he'll kill them for being a Nabatean.

Wait, wait, that doesn't sound right, I think we should start over from the beginning.

Now, the way it actually begins is with Byleth standing in the ruined cathedral at Garreg Mach, when Hubert emerges and begins monologueing, as only he can.

Nice place, isn't it, Professor? Standing here, you can almost feel the goddess's absence. Discounting what dwells within you, of course.

I do want to draw attention to something here. The last line there calls back to a line from their B support:

I see something of Lord Arundel in you… When I look at you, I feel I can almost see a second self lurking beneath the surface. It is as if you are in constant dialogue with something inside your heart—something with desires very different from your own. Does that description feel familiar to you at all?

After everything that's happened to Byleth and all their choices, Hubert's made peace with the fact that Byleth is different in a way he can't fully understand, and in a manner that reminds him of the goddess. It's also an acknowledgement that Byleth is both similar and yet different to the children of the goddess and the deity they've foisted upon the people of Fodlan. Because, let's not forget, the goddess Sothis is quite different from Byleth's beloved head gremlin.

But I digress,

Do you think some punishment would rain down from the sky if this monastery were to be destroyed? Of course not. Even if the so-called Immaculate One came back here for revenge… That would only be a result of this war, not the work of a deity.

This is more of the same; the goddess has no agency. Any act, however apparently divine, is simply the actions of Rhea and her kin attempting to appear godly. Because that really is the true nature of the Church of Seiros: very powerful otherworldly beings using their innate gifts to mislead the people of Fodlan into believing an all-powerful goddess is watching over them.

Again, Sothis, the primordial god, is dead, and by now she's forfeited any chance to return to the land of the living. The goddess truly no longer exists in any way that matters.

Byleth then asks whether Hubert hates the goddess, to which he replies,

If it is between love and hate, then I would choose the latter. The goddess failed to properly govern this world. That is why it is necessary for Lady Edelgard to become the supreme leader of Fódlan.

Basically, he's saying that the gods have failed so spectacularly that the only way to fix Fodlan now is through an act of continental war. And really... Rhea has failed. Fodlan was so thoroughly broken that the events leading up to 1180 is a string of calamities even before you get to the Agarthans' direct conduct. Even her own church is falling apart at the seams, with the southern branch extinct after trying to influence Imperial politics, the central and western branches openly in conflict, and the central branch privately scorns the eastern branch for being too even-handed.

Hubert closes this thought with,

Those with power must use it wisely. Is that not a teaching of the Church of Seiros? It's absurd to preach to others what you cannot practice yourself.

This is why I get frustrated seeing people just cutting everything up until this point and focusing only on the soundbit parts of the supports; they're excising the crucial context, that Hubert despises the Fodlan divinity because it arrogantly claims and authority its proven itself unworthy of.

Anyways, Byleth then has two choices as to how to reply, with both reaching the same conclusion,

Hubert then goes on to say,

That is not the case for inhuman creatures with lifespans well beyond our own. We must fight to preserve what makes us human.

This is what lies at the heart of his disdain for the Church of Seiros, and the whole reason he and Edelgard are doing what they have to do: the gods have failed to be godly, so humanity has to rise and govern themselves instead.

Gods are supposed to be wise, perfect, and eternal, and yet Rhea and the Church of Seiros, the true avatars of the supposed goddess, are not; they must make the same flawed hypocrisies as the humans beneath them do, so what right have they to presume they know which path humanity should take?

Anyways, continuing on,

You are the one closest to the enemy. I wonder if you will be able to maintain your humanity to the end.

Now, to understand what he really means by "human", it needs to be contrasted against what he's previously been discussing: the failures of the gods. "Humanity" in most instances it's mentioned by Edelgard and Hubert is in contrast to Rhea and her kin as gods, not as a species.

Edelgard's conflict with the godess of Fodlan and her church is in the way she and they have failed to govern Fodlan, not her distaste for their green hair and pointy ears. She's always clear where she takes issue; their belief that they know what's best for mortals despite being no better than them.

And make no mistake, Rhea does think she knows what's best for Fodlan in Sothis's absence, despite all evidence showing she doesn't,

For another example of Fire Emblem using "human" in a way other than to speak of them as a race, look to Engage,

Celine obviously wouldn't saying that dragons are inhuman, unfriendly monsters. Describing Alear as "human" is a way of expressing that they're humble and personable, which Alear absolutely is, if nothing else.

"Human", in this instance, just as in 3H, is contrasted against the idea of gods as otherworldly, unknowable, and aloof. Naga would be a great example of the latter, while still being a fundamentally benevolent character.

When Hubert speaks of Byleth "losing their humanity", he means losing their connection to other people and becoming distant, the way Rhea did. Dorothea expresses similar fears in chapter 11,

This is directly after Byleth fused with Sothis.

Dorothea worrying now implies that Byleth's unusual behavior is different from their ordinary stoicism.

Edelgard also brings up something similar in her own A support with Byleth, expressing concern that she's grown detached from ordinary people, and while she thought of Byleth as a kindred spirit in that regard, she's also relieved that they can express feelings like jealousy.

Of course, most of the Nabateans aren't quite as detached as Hubert and Edelgard seem to expect; Flayn and Seteth certainly aren't, but their focus is almost exclusively upon Rhea, who certainly is rather detached from ordinary people. That said, we can't fault characters for not having access to every scrap of information that the reader is privileged to have.

Anyways, in response to Hubert's fear, Byleth can implicitly give him permission to kill them;

I wonder if you will be able to maintain your humanity to the end.

If I'm unable to…

Does that mean you know I will do what must be done? You must trust me a great deal.

While this might seem like an "that escalated real fast!" moment, it's in truth an evolution of their C support, in which Hubert threatens to kill Byleth if they appear to present a threat to Edelgard, and their B support, in which Hubert grows more certain Byleth will be a threat to her.

My family, House Vestra, has been sworn to House Hresvelg for generations. Since the dawn of the Empire, we have worked to protect the emperor by any means necessary— both in the open and in the shadows. If you incur our wrath, you will see just what I mean.

With this groundwork in mind, we're meant to read Byleth's vague line as giving Hubert permission to kill them. The game's backstory is steeped in examples of characters gaining and abusing their power, for intentions both good and bad, Nemesis, Rhea, the Fodlan nobility, and Byleth by now would be keenly aware of the corruptive influence power represents, and Byleth at this point is already one of the most powerful individuals in Fodlan.

In contrast, should Byleth express confidence that they won't fail the way Rhea did, he'll accept it almost in stride, a response unthinkable for the man he used to be,

I wonder if you will be able to maintain your humanity to the end.

Of course I will.

You make it sound easy. I find myself trusting you. Even with my life.

I've seen people analyze this support as a sign that Hubert still doesn't trust Byleth, but if anything it's the opposite: after the decisions Byleth has made, and after the way he's opened up more to them, Byleth and Hubert have come to trust each other a great deal. Byleth entrusts Hubert with their life, while Hubert entrusts Byleth with his secret plans for the future.

They've become conspirators in ensuring the success of Edelgard's plans, and it's why they their relationship is one of my favorites in all of Three Houses, if not Fire Emblem as a series.

It's incredible seeing where they begin and where they end. So yeah, I hope anyone who's made it this far found that to be an interesting read of an oft-misunderstood support :)