#obviously Rhea never followed that class/lesson maybe because everyone died before they could give her that 'talk'

[randomnameless]

About crest removal, I think it's a non issue for humans. the difference is I don't see it as mere blood, I see it as tangible power that was never theirs to begin with.

IMO, This power belongs solely with the Nabateans. We know from Rhea that Sothis' never intended for humans to get crests. This power was either stolen from the Nabateans through violence , forcibly put into people through vile experiments , or given by the saints only out of sheer desperation to stop Nemesis.

Crests that get passed down are just crests that their ancestors stole or got through magictechy means. Either way, they were never meant to have it and the only reason it ever became part of their identity is because of the toxic "Crest System" they created around it due to their obsession with power.

How is a crest all that different from hereditary titles to humans ? in Fodlan, Crests are a valuable commodity that they obsessively collect like land, titles, and relic weapons (Book of Seiros II) . It's a tool, its Power. It's not really part of their natural identity, it never was.

At best, Crests are part of someone's identity like Hereditary Titles and Class is. And i don't really have issues with removing people from the top 1% or stripping titles from people LOL.

Yes they'll probably have an identity crisis, but I suspect it's more a result of having lost access to power rather than losing a piece of their core identity.

Like is Edelgard going to give a damn she lost a crest? I agree, she would be PISSED ! But it has nothing to do with it being part of her identity. It's because it's power she can no longer use to wage her war with.

Hopefully this is making sense cause Ive never been good at voicing my thoughts LOL . I dunno what it is exactly but something about the idea that crests are part of their identity just sounds so... false.

My mind goes to the times when warmongers stole relics from the peoples they genocide and how they claim it as their own and continue to benefit from it years later. The exploitation and greed pisses me off I guess.

(Those are old asks, august and september - I wanted to write something serious, but then forgot, and here we are, in november lol, sorry anon(s)).

So!

To First anon,

I would agree about Crest only being something that doesn't belong to them and not "blood" for the Elites (or first generation crest wielders), but for their children who inherit it?

It's part of who they are (that's not the only part that makes them an invidual, of course) and they were born with this. Should you give away a "part" of yourself, because your ancestor, who ultimately passed it down to you, stole it 1k years ago?

Also, I think that there is something important about how Nabatean blood, thus Crest, can appear in humans : in FE16, we learn Nabateans and Humans can have offsprings together (Flayn and Linhardt's paired ending). Ergo, a being with both bloods (their resulting children have crests of Cethleann!) can "naturally" exist - and I am pretty sure if you exsanguinate said beings from 50% of their blood they die - humans can have Nabatean blood (or Nabateans can have human blood).

Besides, Nabateans can choose to share this "power" with humans to save them (Yuri, Jeralt).

We will never know what were the "rules" if there were any about sharing blood with a human, but both Rhea and Aubin (if he was a Nabatean, but imo, this blood = crest strongly suggests he was!) wished to save a dying human kid. Crests isn't only "power", it's also some sort of powerful "medicine" able to help and heal humans!

I agree though, Humans being humans and greedy would later create some sort of hierarchy using Crests as a mean to discriminate - and what is even more saddening, is how Adrestia, the place where the humans got their crests without "stealing" them from Nabateans - is the place that puts the most value on Crests as someone's identity (whereas the Kingdom values Crests for the power it can bring, Adrestia seems to value Crests just as a social "plus").

In the case of crested families, well, those games being what they are, we have no character who is thankful for their crest because it means they are able to help others or do things other people cannot do (maybe Dimitri?) - but take a person with a crest of Cethleann who prides themselves on being able to heal a flu by snapping their fingers, someone from a family that is well known for being the best healers in the region, if you remove the power of their crest, what are they now? Just healers, who cannot heal life threatening conditions and ailments that they could previously heal with their crest.

So while I agree a crest can be seen as power, and power is ultimately a tool, it can also be part of your identity. Miklan thought he wouldn't be anyone without a Crest, and resented Sylvain for being the person he was supposed to be (the future Margrave Gautier).

For Supreme Leader though, I agree, she'd more pissed at losing "power" and not part of her identity - and yet, the idea of "removing" crests from humans who got them, from the Elites, or from direct blood donation (or because those humans are hybrids!) imo feels wrong.

Annette was born with a crest of Dominic, should she get hers removed to "apologise" for what Dominic did eons ago? Should she lose a part of herself ?

I think the difference between Hereditary Titles and Crests is how Crests are basically part of that someone - yes, Annette technically should never have had a crest, but are we really going to exsanguinate her to remove "part" of her blood? Hereditary Titles are social constructs - Crests, in the Fodlan World, are biological parts of someone.

Oh, and now that I think about it, iirc, Yuri is quite proud to have his crest, because his crest is the proof Aubin existed and helped him, and motivated him to save/help people.

That crest is a part of his identity and what motivates him.

While it's still irksome that what was, at least in the Elites's families, stolen "property" being passed down as their legacy, the children of the Elites just happened to be born with those things - it is irksome, but again, I don't think they should "pay" for what the Elites did by "losing" parts of themselves - that, in any case, cannot return to the one from whom that "property" was stolen!

And again, Fodlan gives us the perfect counter-example with Adrestia - humans got "crests" from willing sources, but with time, they use that same power against the ones who gifted that power to their ancestors!

The Elite's descendants are the ones to protect the Nabateans, when the descendants of the humans favoured by Nabateans are the ones who now want to kill them! Yuri, in his most "canon" routes, sides with the Nabateans. Jerry refuses to work with them. And yet, they both got blood from a Nabatean.

It's almost as if the origin of the property/blood/crests doesn't matter, what matters is now what the current humans are doing with that "power".

I kind of understand your feelings about Crests, anon, even if I disagree! It's such a shame that the Fodlan games basically don't really care much about Nabateans to give, say, reactions to people learning where their relics and crests come from, and how Nabateans would react to that.

Ultimately, Rhea's choice of sparring the families and children born with those crests saves her in the BL routes, and yet, Macuil is ultimately right in GW, with the cruel cutscene from Nopes where we see Goneril oppose Seiros in Tailtean, and GW ends with Rhea opposing Goneril (and her pals)' descendant in the same plains!

Humans being greedy and exploiting something that weren't theirs to begin with is annoying, but put in balance with ultimately, striking children for the sins for their ancestors by depriving said children of parts of themselves feels, imo, as wrong.

Don't worry about voicing your thoughts even if it ends up as a messy ask lol, I always plan to write something coherent, then I remember I forgot a thing, and it ends up in, well, some sort of non-coherent wall of text lol

As for you, second anon -

Not everyone from the cast!

Adrestians got their Crests from, per Nopes, consensual "blood sharing", and then they passed it down to their descendants... who will later turn agains the very Nabateans who blood shared :/

Yuri ultimately got his crest because Aubin wished to save him, and did so by giving him his blood, ditto for Jeralt.

So I wouldn't say it's the worst way possible - but what I feel was the intention of the devs with this question (even if they clearly gave a quarter of a fuck about it!) is not what should befall the playable cast who got their crest from the Elites, but what the playable cast should do now, with that power. Will they use it for "good" reason, or use it for "bad" reasons ?

Like, in Rhea's lines from Nopes to the crest bearers who descend from the Elites :

"The goddess protects those who wield the power of their crest with a righteous heart."

or in JP : 紋章の力を正しく行使する限り, 主はあなた方をお守りくださるでしょう。

Which, googlised is something like " As long as you use the power of the emblem correctly, the Lord will protect you."

Those children cannot do anything about the dead Nabateans they share some blood with, but they can at least make sure "dead Nabatean"'s power isn't used for nefarious stuff.

Tl; Dr : Humans can get crests from 4 different ways (blood transfusion, directly descending from a Nabatean, descending from someone who got a crest or killing a nabatean), and only one is really condemnable, but for the other 3?

Crest "removal" procedures deus ex machina nonsense kind of piss on those differences and is the easy way out to, again, absolve humans of their agency, we go to an easy "well they don't have power so they won't use it for stupid stuff" route instead of going to the moer common and harder "no matter how you got them, use your powers responsibly" route.