#history of fodlan?

[randomnameless]

The two routes where we learn about the red canyon? i believed we only hear about it in claude's !

You forgot Willy's Sekrit History (tm) !

It's in a roundabout way, but according to that telephone, the champion of Humanity and those pesky pointy ears merely fought over who should rule over the world, and somehow, humans crafted relics themselves.

Jury's out if Billy, in this route, knows if those two elements are related, but JP!Manu spells it more clearly :

Manu can't fight against Rhea in her "giant beast" form, when Billy tells her to run away, Manu agrees because she "can't even use a relic".

Aka, it's commone knowledge that Relics are needed to fight against Nabateans.

Now, chicken and egg question : were Relics crafted because humans needed enough firepower to fight against Nabateans, or were they crafted after the "fight" erupted in this narrative ?

But back to the original post, I wonder what becomes of Zanado in a post CF Fodlan, maybe it becomes a tourist attraction or it's thoroughly trashed and destroyed - after scavenging anything "useful" for Humanity - idk.

[slanky-here]

With new years just around the corner and in the spirit of not forgetting, I'm going to drop my new years resolutions:

🎊🥂 Goals for 2025 🥂🎊

💡 Stop procrastinating on The LongFic™; begin drafting and revising the first and second arcs of the fic, also streamline and workshop the story outline 💡 Begin posting oneshots and drabbles on AO3, slowly honing my skills as a writer for The LongFic™ 💡 Overcome my hermit tendencies; start making more mutuals and friends, join various fanwork weeks/challenges, interact more with fellow fanworks 💡 Work up the courage (and portfolio) to join a Zine; be it writing or illustration, get involved with community projects with fellow creatives 💡 Create more polished illustrations; sit down and work on more artistically ambitious projects—do more art studies, master studies and style studies 💡 Read more books; read more Martha Wells' stuff, seek out new authors to get into, reread literary classics (1984, Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm, etc)

💡 Learn more about world history; learn more about ancient societies of the world. Specifically learn more Asian and Middle Eastern history, culture, folklore 💡 Get into more media: play new video games, watch new shows (animated, live-acted, etc), listen to a podcast, try new things!

[cutestrival]

have you heard of the Astra sword technique? take notes

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

just got to the stupid zaharas chapter and went through dimi and claude's conversation and my god

they really did not use a single quarter of a brain cell when putting that conversation into ag

"your issue is with the church, not with faerghus?" eh wot hootie tootie claude never had a problem with faerghus and hasn't been acting like it. makes it sound like they've been fighting each other (i.e. this is meant to fit gw but and they just copy/pasted the whole conversation bc it just makes no sense).

"we have nothing to gain by fighting you." yeah, you... haven't been and never said you were planning to.

"we could've been friends." and whhhhyyyy can't you? there is an entire zero bad blood between y'all and lorenz has already pretty much said this whole second half of the war thing has been proof of the friendship between the kingdom and alliance soooo...?

"had i joined with you" uh um but you literally did this has been ongoing for half the war now

additional funnies are claude just being so butthurt that dimitri is like this might endanger your life and claude is like aw shucks my life has been endangered since i was born i'm basically an endangered species!

also, dimitri saying it brings guilt to do the things claude would do bc he's been there. lel. claude had no guilt in gw tho (for killing rhea and all that shit).

but fr tho, it just seems like gw claude and dimi got warped into zaharas and the ag ones are just passed out in the normal world having the same yeehaw ass fever dream LIKE

this entire conversation legitimately makes worse than zero sense. i can only imagine how confused people were who played ag first and got this conversation bc it like, legitimately has no place in this route. this is like a fever dream on steroids that were laced with drugs.

i was lucky i was playing ag while simultaneously watching the other routes on youtube or i would have also been absolutely bonkers confused.

[astranova]

headcanon crumbs for sothis? pls i beg. that art slaps so hard.

aaa yes!!!! omg i have so many like a whole document full!!!

i really do hc sothis as an actual captial G, some kind of celestial god or creator being that chose to fall or create a physical or “mortal” form around herself intentionally to be around life on planet. because mortal people literally wouldn’t be able to comprehend something like that it was depicted as a meteor or earned her a reputation for bringing disaster. like okay, the cosmic alternative universe in league of legends (cringe) i guess?? i kinda imagine she’s a being like that. ik sothis is connected to sirius so in my hc thats the last star she made or the remains of the body she shed to become mortal idk, like stripped of its spirit and godhood it just became a dead husk

i hc she stood at 10 ft tall in a human form at her most mature and for funsies!

she speaks w/ multiple voices!! like more than just the usual nabatean distortion in their dragon form

she bleeds ichor, which makes her different from other nabateans who’s blood becomes green when they shift forms. i also hc that nabateans come from her just existing (like fairies popping out of flowers and stuff!! her “divine influence” made them, and they are in her image. and then her children were immaculate conception by pulling from nature imo :p, i think thats the difference between “saints” “apostles” etc. im also a saints being her literal kids truther) but that at her core she’s not just limited to the title “nabatean”. like a square is a rectangle but not every rectangle is a square?? if that makes any sense????

i hc her dragon form as looking more owl like! since everyone in fodlanverse loves owl feathers and can all receive friendship up points w/ them. shes a giant, very long serpentine-owlish dragon, specifically barn owl bc i like them the most. i usually draw her about the size of a mountain but she can be any size! she’s beyond physical limitations so she can be super tiny too. and that the inside of her wings reflects space and she has multiple pairs.

okay this one is weird and personal but hear me out :’), i hc that her original hair color, as a celestial was like cosmic dust or gas and starlight, bright, colorful. and that when she fell she evolved according to what the environment demanded, lots of greenery and nature, so her hair and eye color became green as an evolutionary trait. like environmental camouflage. so she wears the ribbons to emulate her original “color”, so i reject the CoS sothis being depicted w/out them

i also hc that she’s a little bioluminescent, or has some bioluminescent spots!! like how stars shine at night

she also makes the sound of bells or chimes wherever she walks! her entire being just screams unreal

i hc she can manipulate time anywhere, in any reality, since that seems to be some of the least of her powers, despite what the team at heroes depicts

in my headcanon she didn’t sleep within byleth, when they were a baby she was a baby and they grew up together etc. ik that for gameplay sake the literal mechanic had to be introduced and she had to be introduced as a game character, but in my mind palace (bc im more important) she was completely reborn alongside byleth and they grew up like siblings and she acts like that to her children because she’s influenced through byleth and she has no memories of her life after the fall at all, or even before, just a base instinct of the things she’s capable of. and the arrogance she displays is just the usual for someone that young and in possession of that much power and how they might behave. i do think she was still dead/unconscious in sitri though, just her magic sustained sitri’s life.

[randomnameless]

Popping (lately!) in,

Speaking from a strict political sense...

I can't see it happen at all.

As close as Rhea is to Willy's descendants, that fondness didn't prevent her from organising a mediation that ultimately led to Faerghus being independant from Adrestia.

On the contrary, I'd say that if Adrestia tries to push the legitimacy "we have the saint's crests!" angle, the CoS will judge them even more harshly for the state of their own country, and the fact they are :

1/ the only ones who gave the boot to their regional branch

2/ the ones who are currently "negotiating" with a relic, aka in Yuri's paralogue, Gerth basically tells us that he's using the Relic as leverage against the Church, which isn't something you'd do to a potential ally...

No matter how hard they'll push on the legitimacy angle or on the "we will right the current wrongs in Fodlan and rule those places better than those people do", judging by their recent history I can't see the CoS being convinced : how can they pretend they'd fare better than Leicester, politically speaking, when Ionius was deposed by his nobles a no less than a decade ago, after a rebellion that happened because he terminated House Hrym ?

Depending on how far we follow the canon events, accusing the Kingdom of misusing their relics and crests - or not looking after their people - would be seen as pretty hypocritical after the Remire (located in Imperial land!) incident, especially since it's the Church that takes care and looks after the ones who survived!

Lipservice or not, I can't see Rhea - who ran the CoS for 1k years - thus her Church, give a thumbs-up to an Adrestian annexion of the world.

Hell, in Nopes (depends if you see it as canon or not), she lends her troops to the Imperial Heir, but explicitely says that her knights aren't supposed to see any fight (and she calls Faerghus the CoS' child or something?)

I could see a point being made about making allies with the strongest force on the continent, who has historical ties with them, and yet alienating the only current ally they have (Faerghus) to side with someone who betrayed and disappointed (kicking out the Southern Church, in Nopes a book suggests the Empire wanting to part ways with the Central Church even before the Southern Church incident!) isn't a choice I'd see Rhea - who kept a modicum of continental peace for 1k years - do.

In 3H canon, it's kind of taken for granted that Church sides with either Faerghus or Leicester. Leicester also gets treated as sidekick/allies to both Faerghus and Adrestia by canon and fanon; see the amount of combined BE+GD or BL+GD route works. And although it's much rarer than the others, I've even seen BE+BL combined route tag.

However, I think that a Church-Empire team-up route to conquer the other two nations would actually be very convincing in-universe politics wise, and convenient. If Edelgard wasn't as dead set on getting rid of the Church first, or if any other Adrestian emperor tried to re-conquer the rest of the continent at any point, I think allying with the Church and getting their blessing to do it would almost certainly have happened.

It's stated in-game that the Empire has grown distant from the Church as of late, but despite all that, Adrestian connection with the Church runs way deeper than other two countries. The nobles of Adrestia literally have the saints' Crests! If anybody could claim the legitimacy to being the truest and oldest believers, it's them. Plus Empire is still the largest and presumably the strongest nation in Fódlan, so the Church probably won't mind getting close to them again, either.

It wouldn't even take much for the Adrestian imperial heir to repair relations with the Church, too, especially if they go directly to Rhea. Rhea would have a soft spot for Wilhelm's descendants, so Edelgard or any other Hresvelg saying the Southern Church will be reopened might literally be all it takes to win her over.

Then the stuff like the Miklan incident can be used to accuse the Kingdom of not taking good care of Crests/Relics like they were meant to. The political disarray in Leicester can be used to accuse them of being unable to rule themselves. And if the Empire pays a bit of lipservice, swearing that they will retake those lands and rule justly under the guidance of the goddess as their founders did, the Church would probably give the stamp of approval and tell them to go for it.

Whether this alliance lasts or whether the Empire turns on the Church once the conquest is done and take all the power for themselves would depend on the emperor (if Edelgard is in charge, it would definitely be the latter).

But the prospect of a Church-Empire team up is actually way more politically plausible in-universe than fandom thinks imo.

[curse-d-owl]

I'd like to talk about how great Dedue is. I've defended him slot from the racist writers and fans but i haven't taken the time out if my day to praise the characters i defend so I'd like to recitify that.

Dedue is a kind and strong man that values his friends.

He's shown to be kind and patient to scatterbrained students like Annette and Flayn, he knows how to be sincere and critical of other people's failures like how he told that Flayn did fail at cooking but that he felt the care she put into it nonetheless, he doesn't stop cause his students fail and in fact keeps supporting them.

He waits for Ashe to get back from a scouting mission and saves some food for him and sympathizes with Ashe regarding the loss of their family and their shared interpretation of the afterlife. He helps cheer up orphans that lost their parents by making beautiful flower crowns with them, a skill he learned from his sister.

His hobbies also include soothing and supportive professions that make other people happy such as cooking, gardening, sowing and making flower crowns. And he loves sharing about Duscur and it's history, culture and environment to anyone that genuinely shows interest and is happy to other people respect Duscur. One of his main dreams is to see Duscur fully restored and for his friends to visit and witness it's beauty.

He's also incredibly smart and studious. He learned the language of Fodlan so we'll that he speaks like a native, he knows a lot about Fodlan's history and other houses like how he's well acquainted with the history behind arianrhod and the demise of House Martritz. In his support with Gilbert it's revealed he's well versed in strategy and combat because he worked hard to follow in Gustave's footsteps in order to protect his friends in his. And on top of that he's willing to be a teacher to anyone that asks for his help whether it's to skills pertaining to the battlefield or outside of it. In Hopes it's revealed he works much harder than the average person cause he wants to make up for his inability to wield a heroes relic.

Even with his immense kindness he's also capable of being harsh when he needs to be and isn't afraid of anyone regardless of their station. He's willing to retaliate to Felix for angering him, let's Sylvain know he would've gotten folded for trying to hit on his sister, he openly says how much he hates the king regent and he calls out Gustave's self pitying and prayer empty and unproductive to everyone including the people he lost. In Hopes hes shown to even chastise Dimitri for making wrong decisions and gets into heated arguments with Felix and he's rightfully resentful towards the church for their mistreatment of Dedue at the Monestary and their complicity in Duscur's oppression. The church members have done nothing but he antagonistic towards him when he wants nothing but to help them out during the assassination plot and Flayn's kidnapping.

While he's able to be vulnerable and have deep discussions with his close friends he is a man that likes to keep conversations short and sweet and keeps to himself, hence why he can easily befriend Shamir despite their differences. But despite that he is willing to go out of his comfort zone and stand up for Sylvain from getting slandered.

Dedue is great and he's one of my favorite 3h characters even despite the offensive writing decision that unfortunately plague an excellent character. Doesn't mean i ignore these problems, let alone deny it. It simply means i like him critically.

[randomnameless]

My husband came up with this idea that made me see Ionius in a slightly different way: Edelgard mentions that the Empire "demands many heirs" in her Goddess Tower support w/ Byleth, hence why Ionius had a load of kids by different women. Normally I'd think "wow that's stupid, way to invite a power struggle after you're dead" but what if it's actually an Empire tradition? Like, Ionius maybe is the first Emperor in a while to try to consolidate power but maybe only one of many to have a ton of kids, AND the reason is not only to have a kid with a Crest, but that the Slitherers practice Crest experimentation on each generation of heirs with the hope of creating a two-crested Nemesis clone to help them kill off the Nabateans. Ionius just happened to be the survivor of his batch of siblings. Maybe having 10-11 kids is to make sure that some of them will live long enough to be the next Emperor, and that's why the "Empire demands many heirs."

Oh!

FWIW, the Index of Imperial Nobility mentions how House Vestra is supposed to "coordinate things such as Imperial Consorts", adding to that how House Vestra has been at the Hresevelgs' back since the danw of the Empire, yeah, we can make a pretty good case that Adrestia has a long standing tradition of, uh, imperial consorts and all.

It can be seen as dumb because it invites power struggles, but it avoids the issue that could very well have happened with the Kingdom, aka Dimitri ded = the King's direct line is dead and it's chaos because one of the first duties of a King/Emperor/Leader under those kinds of hereditary systems is, well, to secure a heir - the lineage cannot be broken!

(that's where we usually have sekrit heirs popping up from nowhere in some kinds of stories, or bastard children !)

Having multiple Consorts - thus a large number of heirs - makes it sure that the line will not be broken as easily as, idk, a baby choking on a pretzel or a serious flu.

However, as Hanneman mentions in Hubert's support, having dozens of consorts means creating dozens of families who suddenly have to get some privileges bcs the Emperor is figging their daughters - and depending on how powerful those families are, if the Emperor obviously favors one kid over the others (or pisses on one over the others) one of those families might not be happy and start shit in the Empire - taking more and more consorts means shaving little by little the power of the Emperor in Adrestia!

(and guesses who spearheads the insurrection? Arundel, one of those "consort kin"!)

The topic of Ionius' 11 children is sadly forgotten by the plot - but iirc Word of God said the Ordelias (Lysithea) were experimented upon as a test, and when the Agarthans had, uhhh, conclusive results, they experimented on the Hresvelgs.

Given who was in charge when Ordelia was ran over by Adrestia - even if no character mentions the consequences or make a link because you have tea bags to sell - imo it would totally make sense that Ionius killed two birds with one stone : flexing his underdeveloped muscles at peons who helped people who dared to betray him, and getting guinea pigs for his plans to get the strongest Emperor ever.

Bear in mind that the Ordelia fuckery was done before the Insurrection aka, Ionius had this plan before Ludwig'n'co decided to depose him!

(Was Vestra aware of what was going on? Who were the Agarthans working with Ionius? Is it a situation à la Manfroy'n'Arvis, people disapproving of the Emperor listening at shady people?)

The Ordelia experiments leads me to believe the plan to become "super strong with dual crests" was hatched and developed during the Ionius era, but again, the game is so crappy at lore building that we don't even know if Ionius had 10 (legitimate) sibs, or only 5, and what they are doing when Supreme Leader is running the show, or did when Ionius was defanged.

Granted, we don't know since when Agarthans are slithering in Adrestia - if we believe the "Willy's sekrit history" was tampered with and assume Supreme Leader was telling the truth, that it was passed down in generations, maybe Agarthans were slowly manipulating Adrestian Emperor to get their revenge on Nabateans (in Nopes, a book about the rebellion of the Southern Church mentions how the Emperor wanted to cut ties with the Central Church anyways since a long time, but doesn't explain why).

And so, maybe Agarthans devised several plans, that all failed, to make the Hresvelgs turn against the Church and be strong enough to be flattened in 5 seconds, and it only worked during Ionius' era ?

We will never know, but it's still fun to think and headcanon about!

To bounce back on the "Adrestia demands many heirs" thing, given how I am fond of a certain AU, what if

This came up as a reaction to the entire Lycaon debacle?

Wilhelm 1 picked a heir, his heir died "to a mysterious illness" and instead of assuming rulership or helping another heir to rule - like he did for Lycaon - Wilhelm bailed out of Adrestia.

It could be explained by Lycaon being the golden child and favourite kid of his dad, so if he's not the one ruling, Dad doesn't give a fuck anymore about his Empire... or -

What if Lycaon was Willy's only child, and the subsequent Hresvelgs are "cousins" or members of a branch family?

In that case, it wouldn't be Willy playing favourites, but bailing out because his own son "suddenly fell ill and died" and he wouldn't be as involved as he was in helping his own kid, if now we're talking about helping a great grand-nephew or someone else.

(Rhea would have had to give a transfusion to the subsequent Emperor - i name her by convenience Hildegarde bcs no imagination and it's faster to type than "the female emperor who succeeded Lycaon and dueled against Ferdie's ancestor who wanted the throne" - to make people believe there is a direct continuity between Wilhelm, Lycaon, Hildegarde and her future heirs).

In that "only kid" scenario, it would also justify why House Hresvelg became so obsessed with taking Consorts and having a lot of heirs - Adrestia was nearly left Emperor-less after Lycaon's death because they had no other heirs to pick a successor from...

[slanky-here]

its feels so different doing research and learning thats not for school..

[copyquat]

Have three houses on the brain again and i wanna rant so:

Part of the reason i love edeleth so much is because of the implication that the two eventually disappear to live a normal life together.

First of all its just a really sweet idea, of edelgard wanting nothing more than to run away with the love of her life into anonymity to eat sweets and paint her wifey.

The main reason i like it however is cause every other route ends with byleth becoming the leader of all fodlan and like… why. Like i get it in the self insert power fantasy type of way, i get it in the byleth is KINDA the reincarnation of sothis way (they aren’t but i get the sentiment i guess) but why would byleth, who has spent most of their life as a mercenary, who didn’t know jack about the church, and who enjoyed being a teacher want to suddenly become pope of fodlan?

Like i feel the main reason was to fufill the power fantasy of “haha look you know rule over fodlan after all you’ve done for it” but i think the reason it fell flat for me is just cause like… i have a hard time self inserting into a character that isnt a completely blank slate (and yes byleth has a personality in houses, just cause they arent voiced most of the time doesnt mean they dont have one) which causes me to again wonder why byleth would ever want to become archbishop. And i think the only ending that doesn’t happen in is if u s rank rhea but thatd still make you spouse to the most powerful woman in fodlan (and your kind of grandma but thats beside the point) and just-

I cannot imagine byleth as the type of person who would want that. At most i could imagine them doing it out of obligation and so theres always the slight bitter taste in my mouth after every non crimson flower ending of “one of mu favorite characters is not living the life they want, theyve been shoved into this role through circumstances they couldn’t control and i dont feel like they are truly happy here.”

Idk sometimes the happier ending isnt the one where the knight becomes the ruler of the land, sometimes its when they disappear into history with the one they love to eat sweets and teach kids math.

[hyun3hk3y]

Symbolism in "Portrait of Lady Edelgard Von Hresvelg"

This is something that I’ve usually never really felt comfortable doing. If you ever wonder why some artists are a bit more reluctant to actually *talk* about the “meaning” of their work, its because it strikes the same tenor as having to explain why a joke is funny.  If I have to actually lay it out for the viewer why certain decisions were made in the execution of a work of art, the magic of the whole experience may be lost.  Moreover, many artists avoid making definitive statements on their work because they do not wish to deprive viewers the opportunity to derive their own unique explanation. 

While I chiefly view myself as a fine artist, most of my artistic training was as an illustrator.  As an artist, this can lead to an interesting dichotomy when it comes to creating paintings.  During my studies, I was told that the job of an illustrator is to solve pictorial problems for people often by making pictures that tell a story or convey an idea.  Fine art’s definition, in contrast, tends to be more nebulous.  But I digress, on to the painting…

A number of people on reddit and Tumblr have remarked on the candle with the snuffed-out flame.  No interpretations on it have been offered, the mere presence of a candle with a smoldering wick is a strong enough implication.  However, this is one instance where I drew inspiration from art history so I believe it is worth elaborating on.  The animus for the candle originates in the Arnolfini Portrait by Jan Van Eyck.  Below is an image of the painting with the pertinent candle circled.

Art history scholars have a number of different readings about the candle’s presence, but the one I was taught in Art History is that the lit candle indicates the presence of the holy ghost or the watchful eye of God.  Three Houses draws from a number of religions for its world building, in the case of The Church of Serios, the developers took the majority of their cues from The Catholic Church.  If a lit candle would suggest Edelgard’s faith in the Goddess, then an extinguished one must imply Edelgard’s *loss* of faith. 

In addition to the extinguished candle, I would also like to direct viewers to the reflection of the candle in the polished wood table surface. In the reflection the candle is still burning very brightly, almost down to the base of the candelabra.

The purpose of this image is to recall a saying from old Taoism Philosophy in China: “The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.”  Those who are familiar with Edelgard’s back story in Three Houses will find its relevance obvious.  I doubt I am the only one to make the allusion.

This brings me to the next major piece of symbolism I employed in the painting, the dagger and the drapery on the table.  The dagger’s significance should go without saying, but its application as a device will become more apparent after I explain the table cloth.  To put it succinctly, the majority of the dark shadow shapes made by the tablecloth are arranged to evoke the shape of the crest of flames.  Below is another visual to help illuminate this detail. 

The immediate implication here is the detail of Edelgard possessing the crest of flames.  As for why I decided to depict it in a more concealed way…When I first got the idea for this painting, the whole concept was that if a person saw this painting in a gallery, they would be looking at an actual artifact from Fodlan, one that created by an artist who actually lived there.  This is why the second row of the inscription reads “In the Imperial Year” on the left side and “1179” on the right.  This means the painting would have been completed just before Edelgard starts attending Gareg Mach, and long before the greater public would know she has the crest of flames.  How the artist came to know this would remain a mystery.  I like to imagine it as a detail that Fodlan’s historians would debate over for years after the game’s narrative.

There is also a second message that I have intended with the dagger’s placement cutting (heh) across the crest…Gripping the dagger over the crest of flames is a statement about what the path is that Edelgard will take, especially when the crest is examined as representing the Goddess Sothis.  In fact, there are two (technically three) lines of dialogue from Three Houses I had in mind for this symbolism.

That about sums it up!  I may do a couple more posts in the future where I show how the painting evolved from thumbnails, to studies to the finished image if theres interest in that sort of thing.

[randomnameless]

The biggest thing that bothers me with Willy's sekrit History is this :

In the end, Seiros was victorious. The Immaculate One and her family then took control of Fódlan.

Nopes wise, Willy was around after Nemesis's death, aka he saw Cethleann'n'Cichol yeet away, ditto for Macuil and Indech retreating in his hamlet or his pond.

So what "family" members is this talking about ? The Apostles? They only popped up after GM's completion.

Tinfoil hat theory :

Nemesis ded, who's left to rule over Fodlan? Seiros (her bros have left) and the Hresvelgs. Seiros dgaf, so the Hresvelg, claiming descent from Seiros herself - thus being her fam - take control of Fodlan. Now, was this entire "we're her fam" grounded in reality, a cop out to explain their crests, or something they sprouted out of nowhere to give legitimacy to their rule, as in it's something else that "we were stronger than your previous leaders so we now we're in charge?"

Something like :

Willy : "wow Seiros is a dragon!"

Lycaon 1, writing in his dad's journal : "if I have Seiros's power, does it mean we're related? Am I her son?"

Hildegarde 1, taking over Lycaon's entry when he dies "accidently" : "as Saint Seiros's last living kin, it is our right and duty to us, Hresvelgs, to rule over Fodlan. Yeah, that sounds nice, I should use this against any barbarian trying to challenge my rule."

Emperor Ionius 5, who is very salty about the entire Faerghus issue "Seiros is a dragon and her disgusting kin is ruling over the world, that means we, humans, aren't even masters of our own destiny!", completely oblivious to the fact that per the Totally Legit History (tm), House Hresvelg is also part of Seiros' fam.

TL;DR : we were robbed of Supreme Leader's big self realisation moment when she finally found "dah truth" about "History" and cried tears of joy discovering she was not a lizardspawn.

Edelgard’s lack of interest in looking into the history of Fodlan beyond what her (dubiously reliable) father and (fantasy Nazi torture squad) TWSITD tell her is such a clear and glaring character flaw that so many of her “did nothing wrong” fans defend as Good, Actually. Like I can’t wrap my head around it, we know that there’s so much about the history of the continent that El either doesn’t or refuses to learn and while it’s understandable in some ways why she can’t it’s still like. Bad. It’s so clear that if her actual goal was liberation then she would’ve done more research, gone to the church and told them that hey, the Slitherers™️ are at it again and we need to do something. But she doesn’t, because that’s not actually her goal… it’s conquest of the other two nations and an overturning of the current system to favor her (mostly already privileged) friends, plain and simple. But people who either didn’t play any routes but CF or just didn’t pay attention/have poor media analysis skills love to say otherwise. Bluh.

I still can't get over how she was tortured and lost all her siblings to TWSITD and decided that the CHURCH was the biggest threat.

Edelgard 100% believes she is in the right and is the ONLY person who is right and thus is the ONLY person who can bring about change. And with "change" I mean "unify Fodlan and bring it under the control of the Adrestian Empire like it was in the past".

At no point does she consider that Wilhelm's history could've been tampered with, or simply been misunderstood after a whole millenia has passed. And why not? Because it's the only thing that drives her hatred for the church, and if it was disproven then she has no leg to stand on? Probably!

[featherquillpen]

Ferdinand von Aegir and Masculinity

One of the ways we can interpret Ferdinand's arc in Crimson Flower is as a reparation of his relationship to masculinity.

There are multiple lines of evidence suggesting that Ferdinand holds patriarchal beliefs at the beginning of Three Houses.

Ferdinand's line at the very start of game about how he is "Ferdinand von Aegir, legitimate son of the Aegir family." The preoccupation with legitimacy, both in the fiction of Three Houses and the real world, comes from one of the central tenets of patriarchy: control over reproductive labor so that men can pass down power and property to sons they are sure are their own. It is impossible to be fixated on legitimate sons (the production of heirs who can inherit property within the confines of marriage) without being fixated on controlling women (forcing them one way or another to produce sons for the men who married them, and only the men who married them.)

Ferdinand's one-sided rivalry with Edelgard. Why does he need to prove himself to be better than her so badly? I figure there are multiple reasons, but very likely one of them is that she is a woman who stands to inherit a great deal of power, which is something that happens very rarely in Fodlan. All the noble houses we hear about in Three Houses are run by men (Duke Aegir, Duke Riegan, Margrave Gautier, etc.) The young noblewomen at the Academy are all under intense pressure to marry, and there is a lot of evidence to suggest that they and their houses would then be under the control of the men they marry (Ingrid's whole story especially suggests this.) All the histories from the library talk about Kings, Emperors, and Dukes running the three nations in the past. This situation with Edelgard becoming the female ruler of a nation is unprecedented, and it seems to make Ferdinand feel insecure, especially since she's supposed to be the figurehead and he's supposed to be the power behind the throne (as established by the Insurrection of the Seven, his advice box question about how he wants to be Emperor.)

To be clear, I'm not saying that Ferdinand holds these views consciously. It's just that he, along with every other character in the game, lives in a society and has unconsciously absorbed some of the beliefs common to noblemen in that society (he's far from the only one!)

(Incidentally, this is why I get really annoyed when people say that Dorothea hates Ferdinand early in their arc together because of a misunderstanding. That's not true! Dorothea hates Ferdinand because she perceives him as a sexist nobleman, and she's right. Give her some credit!)

Character Growth

What I really enjoy about Ferdinand is that he's stacked high with character flaws, but he gets to learn and grow so much as a person, and the arc of his relationship to masculinity is no exception.

There are multiple support chains where he learns to accept women's boundaries and give them more autonomy. There's the support chain with Dorothea, of course. But there's also the support chain with Bernie, where she lays down a boundary with him and he learns to accept it. There's the support chain with Mercedes, which starts with Ferdinand lecturing her about exactly how she ought to be religious, and ends with him stealing her adoption paperwork to empower her to free herself. There's the support chain with Marianne, which starts with him lecturing her on how to be a proper noble and ends with him telling her that only she can define her own purpose in life.

There's also the obvious marker of Ferdinand's changing relationship with masculinity, which is his long hair post-timeskip. If we look at the character designs for other men in FE3H, we can see that he has the longest hair of any man in the game, by a long shot. The man with the second-longest hair is Linhardt, and he has a tea party line about girls getting jealous of his appearance. Generally, it seems like hair shoulder length or shorter is normatively masculine, while hair longer than shoulder-length like Linhardt's and Ferdinand's is not. So Ferdinand now feels secure enough in his relationship to masculinity that he can break the mold that way.

Crimson Flower

One more important point is that Ferdinand is able to go farther in repairing his relationship to masculinity in Crimson Flower than in other routes. There are multiple points of evidence for this.

First, there's Ferdinand's support chain with Edelgard, exclusive to CF, which is paired with some changes to his support chain with Byleth. In CF, Ferdinand is able to accept that Edelgard is better suited to lead than he is, and accept that he might be able to thrive in a support role instead, a more healthy take on masculinity than his earlier drive to prove that he must be more worthy to lead. Of course, this growth does not happen in the other routes. He continues to set himself against Edelgard, and with her out of the picture, he goes on to become the most powerful person in Adrestia, just like he wanted from the start.

Another interesting difference we can find in his paired endings. Returning to the concept of patriarchal lines of succession I discussed above, most of Ferdinand's paired endings feature him becoming Duke Aegir, marrying, and producing heirs, thus perpetuating the patriarchal line of succession. Ferdinand has only three paired endings in which he either does not become Duke Aegir, or makes sure that he is the last Duke Aegir, and all three of these are exclusive to Crimson Flower. In his endings with Edelgard and Hubert, he doesn't become Duke Aegir at all, but devotes himself to serving Edelgard as an advisor. In his CF ending with Constance, they become "one-generation nobles" who "pioneer the reformed class system." This shows that Ferdinand has broken free of the idea that he needs to pass down noble power through a patriarchal line of succession.

[ferditheas]

THE SECRET TRUTH THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT! Why a Sylvain and Lorenz Paired Ending Would Change The World

There are a lot of Sylvain supports which don't go up to A rank. And for nearly every one of those supports, I've seen people say they would have loved a paired ending for them.

Normally, the Lorenz support chain is not included in these discussions. But by the time I am done with this post, you will surely be convinced - we were robbed!

Here is a snippet from Lorenz's paired ending with Marianne:

The pair was particularly successful in providing new innovations in dairy farming, and came to be known as the mother and father of horses and cattle in the region. It is said that Lorenz was rather vexed by the title.

In the Allied Territories of Leicester: Book One document in Three Hopes, we get confirmation that dairy farming in fact has a long history in Gloucester:

Agriculture, including dairy farming, as well as lumber and hunting all flourish there.

What does this have to do with Sylvain? Well, I ask you to think back to the dining hall - and the dish Gautier Cheese Gratin:

A gratin of bird meat topped with heaps of Gautier cheese, which is famous for its low fat content. It has a unique flavor.

Gautier produces cheese. Famous cheese, at that!

Imagine what would happen to the culinary world of Fodlan if the Gloucester knowledge of dairy farming was combined with the Gautier cheese techniques!

Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

[fantasyinvader]

@mwezina

I think the thing is, Edelgard isn’t just Cao Cao. Rather she’s more representative of a concept that lies at the heart of Three Kingdoms, the cycle of the empire.

"The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus has it ever been."

Fodlan united under the Empire, but as the Empire underwent moral decline and moved away from the Church it lost it’s control over Fodlan. It ultimately came to a point where the Emperor, trying to consolidate power on himself, was rendered a puppet by the Agarthans. The Agarthans then manipulate the next emperor into starting a war, passing on their ideals and beliefs onto her through her father, which includes their belief that the strong rule over the weak. She managed to turn her manipulators into her puppet, ultimately betraying them if she emerges victorious from the war as she proves to be both stronger and more cunning than them.

Much like how Cao Cao’s promotion of merit and ambition led to his descendants being ousted by the Sima clan, who would then go on to unite China, the Agarthans created someone who embodied what they stood for and lost in the end. Yet despite this, the Jin dynasty is considered a low point in Chinese history and it wouldn’t be long after uniting that China would again be divided.

It makes the future of Edelgard’s empire more uncertain, as there’s no Flayn ending revealing Fodlan changed in the long term. Hell, considering Byleth is linked to Nirvana, the idea of breaking the Cycle of Reincarnation, and they lose access to Nirvana at the end of Flower, it appears the cycle of empires continues on in Fodlan.

Edelgard identifies her path as hadou in her Japanese S support, indicating she uses the power of the government and violence to assert her rule over the masses. She is not a benevolent leader, she’s someone who should have been removed from power by Byleth, as Byleth held the Sword of the Emperor of Heaven. Instead, Byleth failed to uphold the mandate of heaven and lost access to Nirvana as a result. And some knowledge of Confucianism gives us an idea of what happens afterwards.

Edelgard’s empire, restored through her corrupt and immoral actions, is going to continue the cycle. The corruption will continue to fester, breeding resentment and urging the people to rebel against it. As wickedness and ass-kissing are rewarded, people will lose their sense of morality and give into selfishness. Those in power will seek to hold onto it, to keep it for themselves and their families much like the original Imperial nobility did, which would eventually erode the power of the Emperor. Fodlan will break up as the decline happens, but eventually another war of unification will happen again.

And maybe Sothis returns to try and stop the bloodshed, as the empire is also invading other nations like the Agarthans before them while Edelgard is still in power.

[butwhatifidothis]

Dimitri: *has much of his dream be restoring and clearing the name of Duscur, a land and people that are hated by most of Faerghus - including one of Dimitri's own childhood friends*

Dimitri: *literally has Dedue, a man of Duscur, be his right-hand man, and who he openly defends against people being cruel to him even at the expense of his own reputation/safety*

Dimitri: *has his ending talk about how he made an entirely new form of government that lets commoners be participants instead of only nobles*

Dimitri: *has his ending talk about bettering foreign relations*

"Analysis" people: So as you can see, Dimitri is representative of maintaining a harmful status quo, because one time he said that it's understandable that some people hold extreme value in Crests (even though he himself doesn't)

Edelgard: *explicitly says she wants to put Fodlan back under a strictly Adrestian banner*

Edelgard: *believes the other two countries of Fodlan to be pale off-shoots of Adrestia*

Edelgard: *thinks the "meritable" (read: strong) should have a right to rule over those born in certain families, which is literally how Adrestia initially worked (because in practice those "meritable" families would just become nobility and repeat the cycle over again)*

Edelgard: *has her dream of reunifying Fodlan be what many nobles in Adrestia have been dreaming would happen for years*

"Analysis" people: And if you look here, you can see where Edelgard is representative of progress and change, because she talks about getting rid of Crests' importance from society (which doesn't even happen on CF)

insane to me that people will still do character analysis of 3h characters and then say dimitri's representing the "extreme of tradition" or some shit (when edelgard is the extreme of progress or whatever) like do y'all ever use ur brain to look at and engage with the actual canon material without picking bits selectively or wilfully misinterpreting lines and events so that your argument seems substantiated or are you completely without integrity whatsoever. 'analysis' my fucking ass.