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yanderefairyangel · 1 year ago

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10 - Zephia sorta gave up on life... yes

I mean, why wouldn’t she use the time crystal she made for herself to turn back before being beaten to death by Alear and Veyle otherwise ?

I explain it too in the Mauvier deep dive but the Hounds’ name are based of the french name of colors, and Zephia’s name, Sepia is a mix of Griss, Marni and Mauvier’s color name.

Losing them means that Zephia lost 2 elements of what made her her, even if she never treated them properly anyway nor would admit deep down she needed them more then they needed her. After all, she still tried to have Mauvier turns side even after he made it clear that she lost him forever the moment she pludged the knife into Marni’s chest, she still called the Hounds family even if she had this super messed up idea of a family and that her bound with Griss is at the same time pure, genuine and... ducked up as hell because this man is literaly obsessed with her, idolize her which is ... exactly the kind of love she yearned for, (WHAT ?!) but yeah she did realized she messed with the Hounds and she isn’t really one to acknowledge her mistake now, is she ? She choosed to walk down this path till the end.

What’s more, her other and real essential goal, her only purpose, her reason to live, the thing she though would brought her salvation and still could clung into the delusiong of it happening is going away as Sombron is drawing closer to his goal and sure, she might not know about 0Emblem and Sombron’s project, but we, the audience, knows that he never intended to give her the child she wanted since his plan was just to get the rings back so he could leave this world as quickly as intented, so to not face the disappointement and because she had no others reason to live, she decided to give up. And while making this decision she still decided to help Alear and Veyle to get it back at Sombron. So she already gave up all ideas of “cleaning the slate” and just decided to accept whatever fate she ended up having, conscious of having ruined herself the family she could have had if she had actually tried to love them correctly.

(NB: I am still bringing this up because I saw some people calling it a plot hole, but while I can explain it like this, I think the most obvious answer to it not being a hole is that the time crystal she created is drastically different then the one Alear uses. Alear uses a time rewind crystal, the one Zephia made is a TIME TRAVEL crystal. Those are different in the sense that time rewind means you rewinds, hence if for example your arm gets injuired and you rewind back to the moment before you get injuried, then your injuty will disappear because you have never been injuried to begin with. However, if you time travel, your arm will still remain injuired, but you will face a double of you before he gets injuried. So even if dying Zephia had used it for herself, she would still be dying, but she would have met her pastself like Alear and Pastlear in chapter 24)

Death was literaly the only possible fate for her, unlike Mauvier she could not have joined you. Not with all of that. It’s because of her choices and in truth, she was incapable of choosing another path for herself since it’s the one she created for herself and embrace it. To stay true to who she is and what she wanted, she could never have choosen another path. What mattered was her wish but only when it’s too late does she realize it was already here. Because it’s how abusers are ; they only realize too late their mistakes, only when the glass was broken are they thinking about how they could have never broke it in the first place, so only when her death arrived is Zephia finally able to realize that she destroyed herself her own wish.

All of this makes Zephia a much deeper character then she is, it’s explain her motivations and it aligns with Engage’s commentary on family overall, but it definetely doesn’t make her seems like a reedemable or sympathetic villain because she is just as stupid as Sombron, the only thing she has over him is that she ends up realizing how blind she was, but whatever good she might have done, it was already too late. She is also one Sombron’s victim but unlike Veyle who was completely brainswashed and Rafal who was still possesed, she completely gave up on reality and try instead to embrace a shadow because it’s easier to dream of an utopic family than actually fight her own toxic tendency to built a solid fundation, only when it’s too late does she realize that she what she could have built was there if she just decided to open the eyes, but her tragic side is really that she could not because she wasn’t ready to accept that love is also giving love and accepting to suffer the loss of it.

And oh boi, she really is a piece of... wow, her story is sad but at the same time she is so messed up... there really is something about character not wanting to open the eyes eh ? Regardless Zephia would have been way less tragic had she been redeemable cause guess what ? the reason why tragedy works so well is because we all know that if the character had made things differently the outcome would have been better. That’ s the thing with tragic characters, whatever decision they are lead to take the wrong and worst one even out of free will for whatever reasons. Another reason as to why I think that still makes Zephia an irredeemable jerk that still don’t have completely stupid reasons is that there is simply nothing she could have done to make ammend. Unlike Veyle and Rafal who hurted people unrelated to them in any way and because of a mind quite altered, and in Veyle’s case completely, Zephia hurted directly Veyle and used her as a pawn, and killed Marni. Her other victims were only indirectly her victims, since it was the Other Veyle’s doing and Other Veyle was shown to be a sentient being capable of making choice of her own even if Veyle can’t be held responsible for it as it was her other persona created by Zephia, but Zephia never gave Other Veyle any order. The Fell Princess may be her creation but it’s a creation she left able to develop a will of her own. So the people that would have to forgive Zephia are people she always rejected and would always no matter what because she can’t help it, even with Veyle’s kindness and her feeling for Mauvier, she was already past the point. Why do you think that only when she is gone do we learn that maybe she had her reason to be a jerk ? That’s not even comparable to Veyle which was obvious that she was mind control nor Rafal that before the last fight showed signs that he migh actually be slightly mind control even with less intensity then Veyle if you recall his dialogue with Nel.... Zephia showed no signs which is why her turning back makes no sense for many players because of how it wasn’t prepared and that’s normal it doesn’t make sense, Zephia’s whole point is that it was too late for her, so the explanation also come when it’s too late. She can’t be redeemed anyhow anyway.

* in the JPN version, she simply says “it’s so sad however” which means she does shows some empathy with Sombron’s victim but she still chooses to repress those feeling and be a complice of this.... remind me how the Internet in it’s infinte wisdom though there could be something in the game telling you taht you should forgive Zephia when all we learn about her all conclude to the obvious fact the story condamned her already and that if her being a tragic character works so well is because she works on a “it’s to late basis”? Ah yes, right, 3H.

post scriptum : when I am speaking of Zephia being "cursed" I am not implying that she was possesed unlike Rafal and Veyle, it simply is a reference to the Mélusine story since folktales rely heavily on symbolism and curse/spell and the sort of have heavy symbolic values, in the case of Mélusine, her curse turns her into a monster in disguise, a woman who lost her humanity shown through her monstrous appearance and whose only salvation is the love of a family but she is unable to break her "curse" and as a result becomes a the damned being deprived of love and in this case, the damnation of a mother who cannot be here for her children despite loving them, essentially turning into a being who cannot offer them the love and care she wish she could;

4 Hounds deep dive part 4 : Zephia

In the Hound family, I demand : the mother/older sister. Let’s break down evul momy lizard.

So of course SPOILERS AHEAD and no, whatever postive things I migt say about this piece of lizard meat, I don’t like her nor do I justify any of the things she has done but if I have to be critical, I’ll have to put my biais aside (I'll do the same thing as for Marni, reblog and add)

So Zephia, or if you prefer as I like to call her, Aversa 2.0 is basically a mix between Aversa and Nyx : she was some sort of genius talented baby mage dragon since according to both her and Mauvier, she had stronger dragonic impluse, far stronger then average Mage dragon so I guess dragonic impulse are linked to genetics in the Engage world ? Cause she says it’s “a gift” so it’s innate, not as if she spend hours practicing, ... in others words like Aversa and Nyx but because she is too OP, she ended up blowing up her home town, killing her own family in the process

That’s what we know of her backstory. A woman so OP she could have been the Fell Dragon if Sombron wasn’t there. This events tooks place when she was young but at some point, she ended up working for Sombron. Since Sombron is over 3 000 and arrived 1 000 years ago in Elyos after his family got killed, coupled with the fact that Zephia is over 2 500, this means that Zephia’s rampage tooks place at least 1 000 years after Sombron’s arrival in Elyos since he and Lumera since they are of the same age where child. As a loyal servant of Sombron, when he was sealed away, she immediately worked in order to bring him back, watched over sleeping Veyle in her temple and eventually took over Griss, Marnie and Mauvier and forms the Hounds, a “group whose goal is to serve Sombron and protect Veyle”. Once Veyle awoke, seeing her gentle personality, Zephia began her manipulation to “fix” her and if she is very manipulative with Veyle, she is actually incredibly loyal to the Fell Princess (that’s how i call Evil Veyle) since this version of Veyle is the perfect version. She is so devoted to Sombron that she puts every of his needs and desire before everything to the point of becoming blind and... not very bright cause she is incredibly dumb sometimes... eh, but basically she is the perfect pawn for Sombron because she is driven by a desire, a specific desire ; that Sombron would be the father of her own children. So now, here we go.

The main thing with Zephia much like the other villains in this game, she is driven by the desire of love and family

1 - Zephia la Mélusine

Melusine is a unique class that debuted in Engage, and is reserved to the only 2 mage dragon (or rather Full Mage dragon) that can join our party or is an ennemy in Engage, Zelestia and Zephia. Described as “an alluring magic knight who rides an evil dragon”, it’s name is based on a creature from European folklore, la fée Mélusine, a Nixie.

There is a lot of version of her story, but most famous as her being cursed by her mother to turn into a a dragon half woman each Saturday and that her only salvation would be to find a man who would accept to marry her, to have her children and to respect the oath of never seeing her bathing each Saturday. At some point, Melusine meets a man called Raymondin, a young lord who accidentally killed his uncle and helps him in return, he accepts to marry her and promise her to never spy on her as she bath in secret every Saturday. They have children most of them having monstruous feature according to foklore, but they are of the number of ten. However, Raymondin’s brother, the count of Forez encourages his brother to spy on her by saying she might be up to something bad * cough, cough cheating * and of course, being the jealous husband type Raymondin eventually ends up spying on her and discover her dragon tail. The version varies from there but all ends the same : Mélusine, desesperate as her husband’s action condamned her to endless damnation, she screams out of despair, and fly out of the window (yes cause she is a dragon/fairy so she had wings with her tails... don’t ask me ok, it’s a mythological figure) but she returns at night to caress her kids, and legends as it that at night when she can’t enter the place to take care or see her children, she spent the entire night crying out of despair and that when someone of the family dies or that her family’s good pass onto someone else, she screams and laments. Her names in breton means “La Mielleuse” = the Sweet/The Smooth

Now bear with me : Mélusine was a dragon-woman yearning for family and whose salvation relied on founding this family but she was robbed of it because of an invidual’s toxic behaviour... reminds you of someone ? It’s pretty obvious that not only her design, her class and story macthes with this story, that’s preety much why the dev decided to name her class that. Zephia’s story aligns pretty much with that of Mélusine, she too seeks salvation in family only for it to ends tragically but their fate is rather different however.

2 - Zephia and the meaning of family

When exactly did she started to be obssessed by it ? Well...

After this conversation... very weird conversation if you ask me. I mean, Zephia associate the words “children” with “subordinate. To which Sombron answer by “If you require some of those [loyal subordinnates], then just do what I do. Make children”. Sombron’s answer make sense with how he is. Cause look at the definition Sombron gives of family

(NB to me, I gotta make a post about the meaning of family cause the more this goes, the more complex it gets)

Regardless by Sombron’s definition, children are synonynoms of subordinates but the interesting bits about Zephia is that what seems to have drawn her attention was this part

She comments that it’s a “revelation” and this comments obviously shows that Sombron put something knew in her mind.

What Zephia however doesn’t seems to realize is that Sombron doesn’t care about his children love and that his children most definetely did not loved him, but rather feared him with the sole exception of Veyle but Veyle was too young at the time and overall remained ignorant of a lot of things but Veyle is another topic.

Upon this thoughts, Zephia tries to remember her family. She obviously doesn’t because of several reason : other then the fact that she was young when her rampage occured, it’s well established that because of their lifespan being longer than human’s, dragons often forgets a lot of things the more time passes, but even more than an average human brain.

Basically, Zephia’s definition of family aligns with the one given by Sombron but the difference is that Sombron makes kids because “power” whereas Zephia wants kids because she want Luv... and that’s where it gets interesting

3 - Zephia break down : a woman who yearned for love

This is the parts where you see that Zephia isn’t a comically evil lady but a character with actual motivations. Just like the character her class is named after, Zephia seeked for the love of someone, that someone be her child.

That’s how Mauvier describe Zephia to Zelestia, but note that he mentions how above all her negative traits, she is lonely. In the full convo, he said the last part of the sentence with a sad look and a sad tone which are notable speaking of Mauvier, a character that emotes very little and most importantly who resent Zephia for killing Marnie. What I like about this support is that Mauvier begins by saying it’s his point of view and perspectivism is going to be important about the Hounds in general, but even though what he saw and knew of Zephia was her harsh and destructive side, he was also able to sense her loneliness.

That’s not that surprising because Mauvier is Veyle’s knight, and who was the most lonely person Mauvier ever met ? Veyle. And who also wanted a family and love ? Veyle. Basically, Zephia shares a lot of common things with Veyle (excuse me, i have to wash my mouth for saying this I hope it’s the last time) : that is to say

1 ) they both are terrible lonely

2) they both yearns for the love of family

3) they both yearned for Sombron’s attention + got contaminated by him (to some extent)

Zephia was after all resposible for the death of her own family even if she could not control it and who knows how many years she spent all alone until she met Sombron and entered his service ?

She even express the wish to see her parents once again but that’s not all

It’s revealed that the reason why Zephia never allows herself to get attached to any of Sombron’s children is to protect herself from sadness* since she knows he will dispose of them sooner or later. A kind of “ your goldfish is gonna die within 2 days, why bother getting attached ?” mentality. Or if you prefer this

This also explain her entire relationship towards Veyle.

Regardless, Zephia’s relationship to love is actually quite complicated because when she dies, we have this whole conversation with Griss

And when say that, guess what ? I’ll believe her. Zephia really though of the Hounds as her family, no matter how toxic she was towards them... because of her complicated story with love. Even Veyle mentions that Zephia showed kindess towards her (though we all know why eh) but she was shown to be capable of acting both as a loving mother and an abuser because Zephia remained lonely during such a long time that she forgot how it feels to be love and a family, but most importantly because the only model of a family she saw during all these years was : Sombron’s. A toxic environnement where violence was required to have what you wanted, those kids had to kill in order to survive themselves and she also saw those children being killed in awful ways. Sombron literaly tasked her with getting care of the corpse... yeah. Basically, Zephia’s problem is that she yearns for the love of her children but she doesn’t know HOW to love them nor even express it, mainly because the only familial environement she remember is a... no actually toxic is an understatement when it comes to describing the experience that is being Sombron’s children. Zephia’s love manifest itself through her attitude of being harsh and destructive despite her motherly attitude and before someone acts like “toxicisty isn’t love” yes, I know that.

HOWEVER, toxicity can be a result of love, or rather love can create a toxic behaviour. All feelings are like medicine, medicine is somthing that can cure you or poison you depending on how you use it. Anger can be the fuel of toxic behavior but we sometimes need it, same thing for sadness. Love may be what we all yearn for, but there is no denying that it can also be what freed the worst in all of us. I think the movie that shows that best is Luis Bunel’s masterpiece, El.

But I digress, what is important is that Zephia is incapable of being a loving mother because the only “love” she witnessed was the one given by Sombron to his children.. so yeah any family she could have based on this influence was bound to be ducked up. She wanted to and to be loved, but because of Sombron’s influence, she was incapable of understanding the real meaning of family even though she still had one thing over Sombron and that was to understand that a family can bring you the love you desire which Sombron never even consider since he seems to consider his children to be like the humans that believes in him. She was still able to praise her “children” when needed but still gave them violent punishement when she judge it necessary. if Zephia is Melusine, then Sombron is at the same time Raymondin and the one who cursed her. By uttering the cursed words that made her want to have a child, he actually doomed Zephia to crave for something she is incapable of having and that would dommed her. My personal commentary on Mélusine’s story was precisely that she needed love to be saved, but not just her husband, but her loving family and that it’s precisely the inner toxicity of her husbanf, his jealousy that doomed her to remain a monster who would still love her children but unable to remain by their side. Sombron’s influence is like a curse (and don’t worry Rafal, one day I’ll talk about what he did to you) and he also cursed Zephia, corrupted her with his toxic view on family. In that regard, that makes the ressemblances between Veyle and Zephia ever more barrant; she too after all, was a tragic woman who yearned for the love of someone, her child.

She also bears strinking similarities with Sombron : Sombron seeks 0 Emblem, his Elys, his ideal. Zephia has eyes only for him.

Zephia confirms she had no romantic feelings for Sombron and that she wasn’t exaclty looking for his affection unlike what Mauvier claimed even though you could say that maybe Zephia did not wanted to admit it, but seeing how things are presented I believe Zephia more. What is important is that she pushed everyone away for Sombron, but not really for him, but for what she wanted him to be : the father of her child. Just like how Sombron become obsessed by 0 Emblem to the point of not seeing anyone, Zephia became blinded by her desire to have a child. When Veyle fights against her, she says “ You don’t see me, do you, Zephia ? You see me and you think of Papa.” Sombron’s influence on someone just as lonely as he was is obvious : he was a lonely dragon seeking for the love of only one person to the point of making everyone suffer and not caring, and Zephia repeated the same schema on the Hounds, with the difference that she did care about them to some extent.

Proof ? Well, she still leaves Mauvier and Marnie chances to get back on her side, when she fight Mauvier, Mauvier still talks about how he truly believed they were family but in his support with Zelestia he will take this back, though for Zephia they were indeed family because to her, that’s how family is like. Even as they are fighting in chapter 23, Zephia still offers Mauvier to return to her side. Zephia’s attitude definetely was shaped by Sombron’s influence since she became almost like him and guess what ?

Mauvier may be talking about magic powers here, but I am not (especially seeing the allegory there can be within Sombron’s magical power), what I am saying is that Zephia could have been an equal to Sombron’s toxicity in family if it weren’t for 2 different things : one, she is aware that family mean love. 2, she ends up realizing herself how blind she was and love did deliver her (and death too, incidentally).

#fire emblem engage #fire emblem emotional damage #mélusine #fire emblem #four hounds #zephia fe #zephia fire emblem #fe engage

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