#like if any of VW or the DLC revealed any clear aspects of Agarthan culture or anything like that they could have been something neat

[butwhatifidothis]

What is your opinion on the TWISTD/the Agarthans?

In general? They're an interesting concept implemented in a terrible way.

Cuz, like, there are ways to make a subsect of humans that have declared themselves above the gods, to the point of viewing fellow humans as lesser for not following their way of life and to the point of instigating genocide against a race of beings that have done nothing wrong. If they were going to be given focus, it would've been interesting to see what's it like just being an Agarthan.

Like, obviously not all of them look as crazy as Solon or Thales, since Kronya looks just like anyone else but grayer, so what makes an Agarthan have drastically different looks? Is it living longer - have Thales and Solon been alive for around a thousand years? They're both magic users while Kronya isn't, does that have something to do with it? Both male while Kronya's female, is that it? And on that front, what about Cornelia? Does her actual appearance have something nutty going on? And what's goin' on with their lore in the library? Do they think Sothis replaced their god, and is that why they hate her and her children? Is this god Arval? But I thought they hated the gods and thought themselves better than them, was it only Sothis they thought they were better than? And so on and so forth; on that front, I'm hoping 3 Hopes can shed some light on them (hopefully without outright demonizing the Nabateans in the process).

But. Like. They aren't given any focus. Like, almost at all. So you have a bunch of people who can freely shape-shift at will, have shown to be capable of extremely convoluted yet successful acts of subterfuge and espionage (like Lambert's murder), and have what are essentially nukes at their disposal... and yet they never feel like a threat, once post-timeskip hits. And when you look back on the game, you realize that TWS had plenty of moments where they could have just killed everyone at once without even needing Edelgard's war - the Battle of Eagle and Lion is the most egregious of them all, having all of Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude, Rhea, the future leaders of the large majority of the noble houses from all three nations of Fodlan, and all of the Nabateans (that are still interacting with humans) present and condensed into one easily blowupable area, but if they had been any sort of competent and done that then there'd obviously be no story.

So what they end up being more than anything else is just the fandom scapegoat to alleviate any wrongdoing from, well, mostly Edelgard lmao. Something something "She needed to do this or TWS would do X/She couldn't trust anyone because they could be TWS in disguise/She might be bad but what about TWS tho so is she really that bad." And/or they're used to make Rhea look bad cuz the fandom wants to make undue, shitty comparisons to her and them for no reason.

But story-wise, they're kinda just... a distraction? Like there's a reason AM's story works just fine by taking out all of the main heads of TWS on accident; they're useless in the grand scheme of things, and giving them the half-hearted focus that the other routes do just takes away from time that could've been spent focusing on the character arcs of everyone else. But on the other hand, taking them out completely is tricky because a lot of what happens is because of them; their competency existing but only in pre-game events clashes with their incompetency that exists almost everywhere else.

So I guess TL;DR of this is that TWS/the Agarthans could have been an interesting addition to 3H's lore, but they end up overcomplicating things too much without really feeling like they have much of a presence outside of being a fandom scapegoat to cast all blame on