#it's nonsensical watsonian and doylist wise

[randomnameless]

The quintessential problem with Claude and the deer is that they should not have been involved in the war at all, or at least not Claude. What does he have to gain participating on it? Nothing, and he makes it even more explicit in azure moon when he dissolves the alliance. He could've pretty easely given the power to Lorenz or Hilda and nope out of there (what he does in silver snow), as it is clear througouht white clouds that he doesn't have as much of an attachtment to Fodlan as he does Almyra. And it isn't like the devs couldn't take the deer studients out during post-TS, when Marianne unless recruited is pressumed dead, and Lorenz unless recruited joins the imperial forces and dies helping the empire.

Outside of the problems with racism and the bigoted tropes related to "savage cultures" the Fodlan games perpetuate, the devs did not know how to use one of their house leaders for the main plot of "church vs empire", and idk if that's because they bit more than they could chew, or if it was intentional taking into account who gets the short end of the stick in both games happens to be mixed and from one of those "savage cultures".

TBH...

It's on the devs for having wanted to add a third lord to their game, but failing to, well, link him to any of those plots.

Supreme Leader's war of unification?

Well, Nopes gave him a part this plot - and yet there's no third choice in this plot : you bend the knee or you die. Nopes' wise, Clout decided (in his route) to bend the knee with his "alliance" that is totally supposed to make Supreme Leader reconsider her desire to roll over Leicester and make it part of Adrestia again!

(Granted, Nopes don't tell us how his plea to stop the war after killing the evil lizard lady will play out and leaves an open ending...)

In Houses, well, he doesn't want Leicester to be flattened, and goes on the offensive (counter offensive?) when Billy pops up with basically what is the plot events of Silver Snow (down to using the same strategy with disguises) with the Gronder Map.

And that addition radically changes... well, everything regarding Claude's relevance : he cannot form an alliance with the Blue Lord or the Kingdom to get rid of the Empire because "plot convenient myopia" and apparently Dimitri BaD enough that he attacks Alliance troops for no reason.

Forget SS, GW (and AM, in a way) is just using plot contrived excuse to... not have an united from to face the Empire. Why? IDK. Each Lord must be the hero of his story, or the unification boner means only one of them can "win" an unified Fodlan i'd guess.

Nabateans and the plot ?

No one gives a fig about that "plot", so it's basically pursuing a side-quest for no payoff.

Now, as @fantasyinvader wrote, Claude's story and journey as one who is ignorant and gets to learn and clear his misconceptions + the background of the land we're living in could have been interesting, doubly so given how Billy is voiceless and cannot play the "protag discovers the world at the same time as the player does" role.

But it has... no payoff.

Much like Rhea's infodump about the World, Relics and Nabateans... Claude reacts to the mention that Billy has a rock for heart, and not about his crest, his shiny bow or the fact that Rhea also had a vested interest in, uh, getting rid of prejudice against people who are perceived as "different" because her family was genocided for that.

Hell, the entire "prejudice" angle from Supreme Leader's war is swept under the rug, so we can have the Deers say nonsense like wanting to rekt Thales for Supreme Leader's sake, while only Flayn and Seteth can hear her "nabateans shouldn't have power over the people"...

There's no parallel drawn in the game about Claude and Rhea's situation - since she's at the center of this subplot - about being perceived as "outsiders" and not being able to do various things from existing to "rule over the people" because of what they are, or even faking their identities and building metaphorical walls between them and the people they're living with because they are afraid of rejection.

Nah, we can't have that, Rhea must be irrelevant to the possible, while also being the biggest scapegoat/dragon of this saga at the same time as a nebulous red herring to sell pots of tea.

Ihthe "fight against prejudice and make people accept each other" angle was that relevant to his route, Claude would have most likely talked or interacted with Dimitri and learnt of his plan to cleanse Duscur's name in his Father's assassination, raised a brow at Petra being a hostage and done something else than give a surprised pikachu face at Rhea's infodumps.

He could have reacted at her reveal that if you might want to live in peace with some people, if those people don't want that and label you as nothing more than fodder or things to be looted, it's not going to work.

And of course, gave a reaction at your second in command (unofficially?)'s reveal that, uh, her house keeps identured Almyran children as war prisoners?

Some people already made some AUs or "what ifs" routes for a proper Claude route and not the nonsense that we got in FE16 where it's basically "I react to the same plot events that happen in the other routes but top it all with a zombie".

The Deers could have been "better introduced" in a plot about getting rid of prejudice, or learning the causes of this prejudice : Marianne was/is hunted because of her blood ties to Maurice - not because what she did, but because what Momo did back then! - Lysithea was treated as a guinea pig and her house rolled over by Adrestia who has a less than rosy views about the "offshoots" that are called Leicester and Faerghus, Lorenz could explain that prejudice, just like piety, are tools used by people whenever they're relevant, like, some people being pissed at foreigners and some who aren't because they make money through international trading like Margrave Edmund does, Hilda justifying her House's animosity towards Almyrans because they lost many people in those pointless skirmishes (maybe a closed ones? Her mom or Uncle or whatever?) which would make Claude realise that "ending prejudice" is a much more difficult quest than, idk, just killing one or two randoms.

The commoner trio might share Claude's views about prejudice and welcoming foreigners, but have more "mundane" worries like being able to have a roof and food to eat, which might be the case of some people in Leicester, or tell us more about Leicester and how it works (give us more insight about the different countries if Fodlan ffs).

Maybe we could have add a Claude who learns and discovers Fodlan, and along the way, starts to love the land as much, if not more, than Almyra and really wanting to protect this land from whatever Supreme Leader's cooking, or becoming an Almyra v.2.

I don't think making Claude the third wheel of the plot was maliciously intentional because of the, uh, implications with RL cultures and Almyra, but more like they didn't know where to put him.

I noticed you wrote the conflict as one that is "the church vs the empire", but I do not really agree - if that was the case, the war would have stopped in VW/AM/SS the second Rhea was caught.

The main conflict is Supreme Leader's war of conquest - with the twist that the devs were really banking on their brilliant idea of making the red emperor the titular waifu of the game that each person/lord/whatever Rhea is must find a way to excuse and/or justify her actions.

With this in mind, AM is basically Dimitri's fall (and rise!) because of his ties to Supreme Leader.

In VW? The game cannot explore too much outside of the Supreme Leader scope so we're left with.. well, what VW was.

Claude cannot go on a journey to discover Fodlan and get rid of his misconceptions... because part of those same misconceptions are used by Supreme Leader to start her war, or the sheer concept of a conquest, aka a nation being rolled over by another is anathema to his, supposed, ideal of wanting people to accept each other despite their differences.

I ranted about it since day 5, but the Nabatean subplot (and Fodlan in general) is accessory to Supreme Leader war, there is no point aka no payoff for learning all of that, because you cannot challenge the one who wants to unify the continent.

As such, Claude cannot deviate too far from this plot - while receiving infodumps about "the lore" - and we end up with third wheel of a bike and characters who, at first and second glance, appear to be irrelevant.

Fodlan ends up unified despite starting as three separate countries, we feel bad for Supreme Leader and mourn her unknown ideals, Rhea is gone and the Agarthans aren't a problem anymore.

the second the devs said leicester was a republic, claude was doomed. Merchant republics are always irrelevent or straight up useless in the FE series!

[randomnameless]

Thinking about those posts I have with @yanderefairyangel about the crust system -

If crestless parents can have crested children, then why the fuck are crested heirs apparently so sought after, if their crestless siblings can also create crested heirs?

Look at Hanneman, his crestless sister had to pop out children until her death, because even if she lacked a crest, she might birth a crested child (it didn't work).

Compare to Sylvain's whining about women only wanted to get out with him to get his crest babies - but if it's crest babies we're talking about, then Miklan can get crested babies himself!

So, if people are valued due to their ability to produce crested heirs... being crestless isn't that much of social stigma, since being crestless when your parents had one means you have a chance of passing one to your child (see Lissa in FE13).

Imagine the shitstorm we could have had, if Dimitri, being Lambert's son, didn't have a crest at birth, but Dimitro, Rufus' kid, had one. Would Dimitro be the crown prince of Faerghus? Given how he has a crest... I'd say yes, but would that mean Dimitro lives with his uncle Lambert to receive a proper royal education ? Or he stays with his dad?

What if Dimitro is an ass like his father, and Faerhgians + the top vassals (Fraldarius, Gautier, etc) prefer Dimitri, what would happen ? A civil war?

Worse, what if both Dimitro and Dimitri have a crest of Blaiddyd, who sits on the throne? Dimitro is born to the eldest son, but Dimitri is born to the crested second son.

[randomnameless]

Don't forget Marianne being worried about Edelgard's feelings in Azure Gleam as another prime example of Edelwanking; that's a strong contender for the top spot, given how it takes someone who's on the receiving end of an invasion and makes her uwu about whether the leader of said invasion is feeling okay, while giving no fucks about the danger said leader is putting herself and her allies through for the sake of a landgrab.

Hot take,

I was actually pretty milquetoast about Marianne during FE16, then the momo sobfest from FEH made me sigh, and her perf in Nopes, especially in Golden Shower "They see that magic as the goddess's protection? Their faith has blinded them!" and "People do horrible things when their faith becomes tainted with fear. We must stop them at once!" was just... ugh.

(Rhea's magic comes from Sothis you moron, as a Nabatean her powers come from Sothis herself! And yes, their faith has been tained by fear because you and your stupid general are assaulting them and they're making their last stand! no amounts of "i'm still not sure we're doing the right thing" can be used as a plaster to make up for those leaps in logic!).

The GD in general just became friends of Supreme Leader, and all this uwu about her, regardless of the thousand randoms (even from the Alliance and, hell, her own people!!!) dead/suffering is just icing on cake.

Just like Lys who wags her tail because Supreme Leader gave her some sweets, the GD peeps have no substance and are of no interest to me tbh.

The only ones who might get a pass are Ignatz - whose existence legits shits on "crestless people live trash lives and can't marry sad uwus" even if the games ignore his existence, and Leonie who is one of the fews in FE16 to hold Supreme Leader accountable for Jerry's death when Billy "if someone killed my father I would hate them" themselves has the "can't we uwu" or "must we kill her sad uwus" choice - Nopes demolished them but I grew fond of those randoms joes earlier than Nopes' release, and Ignatz has the Mona Rhea support to boast (pissing on Clout's "reasoning" btw!).

[randomnameless]

In a note to Maurice's design it says, "To give it an older feel, we made it a larger size than normal." And in datamine, Rhea's age (physical body) is two years older than Seteth. I know it was stated in JP that Rhea is the youngest children of the goddess, but I get confused thinking about all this. Was it supposed, during developing, that Rhea would be the youngest of children of the goddess, or not? Because I'm starting to find that her not being the youngest makes more sense.

As for Macuil being on the KoS banner, I remember in Nopes a book named Scholar's Tome had a more accurate picture of Macuil than the KoS banner. However, a book description doesn't say why Macuil is on it, nor does a Nopes artbook.

Excuse me if my English is bad.

If your english is bad then what about mine lol

I'm pretty sure the datamined ages, for Nabateans, is "planned nonsense", because we know Rhea isn't 28 - or she has been 28 for the past 1180 years!

Watsonian wise - maybe Seteth wanted to "be younger" so his lie about being Flayn's brother would be more plausible than if he was much more older than her?

Doylist wise... maybe it was to be part of the general twist behind the church - Rhea is in charge, but her second is actually her older brother (or relative) - she is the one in charge, but she isn't the oldest being in the Monastery ?

I HC'd Momo being bigger/larger was due to him, uh, having more time to "assimilate" with his relic and having a matching crest, but the doylist explanation is so down to earth it's a letdown lol.

About the book :

Yeah, it both seems closer in some parts (it has horns and the tail is fluffier + it has the weird "designed for better flight experience" bone part from the tail) but the forelegs don't match the real thing.

Maybe the person who made this had a better memory than the people who made the banners of Macuil ? Maybe Nopes wanted to imply it's an old tome (since you have to repair it!) from an era where Birdie taught some humans magic, or something...

[mae-kent]

like doylistic analysis wise maekon is weird. watsonian analysis wise it makes perfect sense in story for lex to arrange this nonsense

kon fans who think maekon is incest are exposing themselves as not having read kon’s early comic appearances because 1.) it’s canon and 2.) she’s not kara. like maekon is problematic for a lot of reasons and i do not think they should date ever but they are not related (biologically or by adoption- kon doesn’t get taken in by the kents until years later.)

mae’s role in the superfam is complex at best, so i get the confusion- she’s a lana lang clone with a sort of sisterly relationship to clark at this point. but also.. the supergirl that’s related to clark biologically (and therefore kon) is fully out of continuity at this point in comics history.

[randomnameless]

Yep!

That's why Sylvain's drama "women only want to fuck me because of my crest i wished i had none sad uwus" is completely stupid even in verse, because women would want to fuck him crest or no crest because 1/he's a member of one of the most prestigious houses in the kingdom 2/even if he didn't have a crest he can still pass it on -

which would also mean Miklan still had some "worth" even if he wasn't born with a Crest, he could have become a nobleman of House Gautier or someone like Ingrid's brothers, but he was too jealous so he decided to kill his younger brother instead and went on to do bandit things - abducting women? at least in FE16 - instead.

I'm pretty sure Baron Bartels had no Crest, that's why he wanted to secure one through Mama Martritz and ultimately got Emile with his Lamine Crest. IDK where it was said he tried to collect many crested children, but from what we know, it's heavily implied he tried to secure a match between Emile and Constance when they were still kids (maybe hoping to get a Noa crested grandkid?).

I can't buy the Essar family pushing Hanneman's sister to get a kid with a crest... given how Hanneman himself is a bachelor without any children (at least until he marries Doro lol). If the Essar fam wanted to have someone to "spread" crests in their House, why the fuck didn't they have their son marry/sire children right and left to get Indech crested scions?

It's something very common in a lot of Adrestian backstories, women are expected to bear children with crests to make their family/husband rise in the "nobility ladder", but nothing similar is ever asked of crested men!

Nopes's story about the Southern church is, imo, pretty telling about Adrestia, at least this one, being a very sexist place...

Take the wiki with a grain/mount of salt lol, it's periodically edited by some devoted fans and thus its accuracy is inversely proportional to the number of times Supreme Leader's name appears on the page.

Like, the paragraph you've screencaped starts with "in Fodlan", but we only see people desperate to get crests to marry in Nobility in Adrestia, arguablin Faerghus (with Ingrid's suitor?) but not in Leicester at all (Marianne's dad hid her crest, and Leonie isn't on the wedding market!).

Also, crestless siblings (older siblings because that line obviously referenced Miklan) aren't ignored by their families, they just don't inherit the title of Head - Rufus was still a regent and a Duke, Miklan was banned and thrown away of House Gautier because he tried to kill his younger sibling more than once (and idk if he started to capture woman before or after being kicked out of the house), and Ingrid's older siblings lack a crest but are knights in their own right. Heck, even for Gilbert - born as a second son, and crestless at that - when he was still Gustave, managed to become the captain of the King's guard.

We're still left with the question why did the Essar fam married their daughter to a nobody, if Crusts are supposed to be that awesome, and the answer is...

10k years of lore, lol

I think the writers didn't write set in stone rules for Crest so they could have a more varried experience for the cast and all but some of them just... makes me ask question. Like why is there so many in Empire people who have several crest, not only all of Mercedes and Jeritza's half siblings, but also Edelgard and Lysithea yet in other country they don't and it's not all people of the Empire because Caspar doesn't have one and Hanneman's sister doesn't have one...and then you learn that they experimented on Lysithea first when she is 2 years younger then Edelgard who was 14 when she was experimented upon by the Agarthans... just... what the heck is this game ?

Jugdral too apparently didn't have rules for Holy Blood inheritence!

But... the games aren't all gung-ho about blaming Holy Blood for everything wrong in this verse...

Granted, iirc, do we know if the Emile and Mercie's step siblings had crests? I thought their step father wanted to shag Mama Martitz to get crested more kids - bar Emile who was already a crested Bartels !

Also, Hanneman's sister had one, that's why she died when her hubby tried to re-roll many times to get a crested heir?

That's partly why I'm curious about Adrestia, because we know there are crested nobles/people who are either fit to be pawned off as wedding prizes, or they just... exist, and no one gaf about them.

There's a heavy dose of sexism in how the Empire deals with this issue, but tbh, I wouldn't say it's specifically a "crested" issue, but more one where... Adrestian's society sucks, because some people try to become "more powerful" by any means necessary, let it be alliances where they offer their daughters, getting "high valued" babies or just, getting rid of people because they can (house martitz, house nuvelle, etc etc).

Monica was adopted by Baron Ochs, but she wasn't offered to a potential husband who started to work on his legacy to get a trillion crested heirs.

Bergliez was retconned in Nopes to have a Cichol Crest, even if all of Caspar's supports in FE16 treated him as a "non important" member of the House not because he was crestless, but because he was a second son...

But in general, yep, at least in backstory, Adrestia has a lot of unnamed randoms with crests (which is represented in Nopes, some generics have crests!) and yet they're randoms and not the ones calling the shots, almost as if having a crest, or not having one, isn't as important as being born male to the right family.

(and I will die on this HC-hill, Adrestia must have a least 3 different branches of the Hresvelg House, meaning at least a dozen of legitimate randos with a Crest of Seiros, Supreme Leader must have had some cousins too, and we're not even talking about bastard children!)