#she's his sister in my Birthright and Revelations verses anyway

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How “Lost In Thoughts All Alone” Connects To Each Route Of Three Houses

OKAY. SO RIGHT OUT THE GATE. I KNOW THIS SOUNDS MONUMENTALLY STUPID BUT HEAR ME OUT. I KNOW THERE IS 0% CHANCE OF THIS BEING INTENDED BECAUSE INTSYS IS INTSYS AND ALSO THESE ARE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT WORLDS BUT THESE VERSES ACTUALLY FIT SOMEWHAT AND IMMA TRY TO BREAK IT DOWN. FAIR WARNING THERE’S GONNA BE SO MUCH STRETCHING THAT YOU’RE GONNA THINK YOU’RE IN A YOGA CLASS.

You can listen to the song itself in its entirety here, I’ll be going by verses and talking about the routes/characters I think each fits. And I’ll be putting this under a read more because I know this is going to be long also @iturbide​ here’s the essay

Also spoilers

First Verse/Opening Verse - Byleth/Sothis

You are the ocean's gray waves, destined to seek Life beyond the shore just out of reach Yet the waters ever change, flowing like time The path is yours to climb

This one isn’t too difficult to talk about. This is the opening verse of the song, and the first verse Azura sings in Fates. This verse also plays in between almost all of the verses in the song - note I said almost. It also plays at the end of the song. This fits Byleth, and by extension Sothis rather well. Byleth is the driving force behind how each route, behind each character’s growth. They manipulate time, constantly going back in time over and over again, whether it’s to take another path, or to try and save a life. Byleth is the one with the power here, and no matter how many times they go back, no matter how they make time bend to their will, it always flows back - the “Golden Route” so many desire is always out of reach, no matter how many routes they play. 

And yet no matter what, you keep going back. Byleth, though I guess at this point I’m talking about the player, is destined to continue trying to reach that happy ending, they’re destined to keep searching for a way to make that happy ending a reality.

The path is yours to climb indeed - as many choose to try and make one, unaware that the path they create is one treaded many times over.

Birthright’s Verse - Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd (Azure Moon)

In the white light, a hand reaches through A double-edged blade cuts your heart in two Waking dreams fade away, Embrace the brand-new day Sing with me a song of birthrights and love The light scatters to the sky above Dawn breaks through the gloom, white as a bone Lost in thoughts all alone

I imagine the white light being referred to here being the reunion scene, and the hand as being Byleth’s. Remember how Azure Moon’s reunion scene left Dimitri shrouded in the darkness, and Byleth in the light? The double-edged blade here could refer to Edelgard herself - he may have been happy to reunite with his step-sister, but it was the reveal of her being the Flame Emperor that “cut his heart in two”, breaking his heart and making him fall victim to his rage. His “waking dreams fading away” to “embrace the brand new day” may refer to his ghosts, how they grow quieter (not quite disappearing entirely, but fading away for now) in the wake of Rodrigue’s death and Byleth’s words finally reaching through to him. 

“Sing me a song of birthrights and love” I think could refer to Dimitri’s mindset. He feels bound by his birthright as the future king of Faerghus, and the love he feels for both his family and his country. When Edelgard’s deception is revealed, a good chunk of the reason his breakdown is so bad is due to the fact she seemingly betrayed that love, betrayed the love that was shown to her by his father and her mother. He views it as her willingly betraying them and directly causing their deaths along with Glenn’s and the genocide of an entire country. He feels it is his birthright not only to right the wrongs committed by his country, but to avenge what happened to his loved ones. 

The next two lines I think reflect his finally quelling his rage, no longer letting it consume him. That “white as a bone” line I can imagine talking about his path - his intentions may have been honorable at the beginning, but his path is no less gory than the one he wanted the head of.

And the final line? It describes Dimitri for a good portion of Azure Moon. He’s lost in his thoughts, all alone, pushing away his support because he believes himself unworthy. 

Conquest’s Verse - Edelgard von Hresvelg (Crimson Flower)

Embrace the dark you call a home, Gaze upon an empty, white throne A legacy of lies, A familiar disguise Sing with me a song of conquest and fate The black pillar cracks beneath its weight Night breaks through the day, hard as a stone Lost in thoughts all alone

No I did NOT just pick this verse for Edelgard because of the conquest thing I PROMISE. I SWEAR THERE’S MORE TO THIS THAN JUST THE CONQUEST LINE I PROMISE

ANYWAY I imagined that first line referring to Edelgard marching home and assuming the throne. The Empire is far from a bright place, and she’s embracing it as she declares herself emperor in order to declare war on the church. The “empty white throne” line? It could mean one of two things, if not both. The first thing could be telling her to gaze upon Faerghus’s empty throne, the throne she made empty by killing her step-brother - even if she didn’t remember him being her brother. The second thing could be referring to Sothis’s empty throne, as she’s unknowingly following in the footsteps of Nemesis by killing the Goddess and her followers - first with the death of Seiros, and then the dissolution of Sothis’s crest stone (even if she didn’t directly play a part in the latter, Edelgard’s route is the only route where the crest stone disappears for good). If you stretch, you could also make it so that this refers to if you kill Claude, but the throne of Almyra wouldn’t be empty - it would just be angry and ready for war.

The next two lines could refer to the Agarthans. “A legacy of lies, a familiar disguise” could refer to Patricia and Arundel respectively. Edelgard’s mother was revealed by Cornelia to maybe having a hand in the Tragedy of Duscur and making that image of Patricia as a kind woman a lie - though this is in the Azure Moon route, so this could be handwaved. This line could instead refer to how Edelgard views Rhea and the church - they’ve passed on a “legacy of lies”, hiding the horrific truth behind the Relics and the Crests, claiming them to be gifts from the Goddess. The latter line, “a familiar disguise”, could be about Arundel. It’s revealed that Arundel is actually Thales in disguise, and Arundel is Edelgard’s uncle - someone she undoubtedly would’ve been familiar with. 

“The black pillar cracks beneath its weight” could be talking about the weight of Edelgard’s war. Even if the game states that Crimson Flower had no consequences in the end, there are undoubtedly consequences scattered across the land. The newly “unified” Fodlan would be cracking under that weight, with new cracks appearing with every new rebellion, every new attack. Every instance that could tell Edelgard that perhaps declaring war so hastily might have been a mistake. 

“Night breaks through the day” can very easily be equated to Edelgard’s war in conquering all of Fodlan. “Hard as a stone” would be her resolve - no matter what route you choose, Edelgard is steadfast in her belief that she is in the right. She never falters, never once wonders if she was wrong. Her only regret when you kill her in Azure Moon is wishing Byleth walked at her side - not regretting her war, regretting that Byleth was not on her side.

And of course, the final line. Edelgard is alone in her thoughts, even with Hubert seemingly knowing everything. She’s lost in her thoughts of conquest, and similar to Dimitri, vengeance. She may not be haunted by ghosts like he is, but she’s certainly haunted by her ticking clock and the deaths of her siblings as they fell in the experiments, one by one, until she stood alone. It could also refer to the ending of Crimson Flower - now that she’s won her war, what now? Stability would not come right away, and the increasing attacks and rebellions depending on certain choices could have Edelgard lost in her thoughts, perhaps wondering for the first time if she should have chosen differently.

((Fair warning, this is where most of the stretching begins - Revelations is strange in that it actually has 2 verses of its own - it has an opening to replace the “You are the ocean’s grey waves” verse, and a verse more similar to the other two routes.))

Revelation’s Verses - Claude von Riegan & Rhea/Seiros (Verdant Wind/Silver Snow)

The path you walk on belongs to destiny, just let it flow All of your joy and your pain will fall like the tide, let it flow Life is not just filled with happiness, or sorrow Even the thorn in your heart, in time it may become a rose

A burdened heart sinks into the ground A veil falls away without a sound Not day nor night, wrong nor right For truth and peace you fight Sing with me a song of silence and blood The rain falls, but can't wash away the mud Within my ancient heart dwells madness and pride Can no one hear my cry?

Again, there’s gonna be a LOT of stretching. I think that first verse might not actually be for Claude or Rhea exactly - that verse sounds a lot more like it’s meant for Byleth. Telling them to accept that they’ll not have their golden route, accept that life isn’t just happiness - but it isn’t just sorrow either. And yet Byleth persists. 

The second verse though - the first half I think fits Claude more, and the second half fits Rhea more. Though you could argue those last two lines also fit Nemesis emerging from Shambala in Verdant Wind - I don’t think so, but it’s there.

Claude’s definitely got a burdened heart - he’s got so many trust issues that if you could build with them, you’d have a skyscraper. But it’s through his interactions with the Deer, and by extension Byleth, that the walls he put up to protect himself slowly fall away. The mask he put on of a carefree individual silently gets dropped, and by post timeskip, you can see that Claude trusts his Deer - and Byleth, if this is Verdant Wind - with everything. He’s the neutral route in this, he doesn’t choose to fight for either side, his fight isn’t for either side. He’s fighting to destroy the borders between lands, fighting for the truth (in that his route is the one where you learn everything), and for peace, equality. He may be the funny upside down meme to most, but he’s the only one of the three to actually fight for truth and peace, the real versions of both - you don’t get to learn the truth in Azure Moon, and in you only get to see what Edelgard believes is the truth in Crimson Flower. 

Rhea’s the one who knows everything. She knows the truth behind the Relics, the Crest Stones, Crests, everything - and yet she stays silent. She stays silent, afraid that more would follow in the footsteps of Nemesis and bring more bloodshed - hence the “sing me a song of silence and blood”. The next line could refer to how no matter what she does, the darker parts of history wouldn’t be scrubbed away. Even if she did succeed in her attempts to bring back Sothis, in an attempt to wash away the dirt from their past, what then? Did she really think Sothis would welcome her back with open arms, with what she’d done to achieve her goal? And the last two lines...those are rather self-explanatory. Say what you will, for a time, Rhea did indeed go mad. She believed herself to be in the right, much like Edelgard did, and became furious when anyone said otherwise. That’s shown in her ruthless execution of those who opposed her, and her downward spiral in Crimson Flower. The final line, “can no one hear my cry?” may refer to how, even if one of her brothers and her niece were there by her side, neither knew what she had become. Neither ever knew what lengths she went to, nor did they know how much pain she was in to have driven her to madness, driven her to the belief that creating and killing at least twelve vessels in an attempt to create the perfect one for Sothis was right. Perhaps if someone had heard her cry, things would have been much different.

Interestingly, this is the only verse to not end with “lost in thoughts all alone”. If you think about it in the terms of Claude and Rhea, this may be for different reasons. Claude is remarkably well-adjusted for someone thrown into war - he gives a “power of friendship” speech during the final fight for crying out loud, if anything, he’s actually grown for the better. He’s not lost in thoughts all alone because he’s learned to actually lean on others for support. In Rhea’s case, her not being lost in her thoughts all alone would be for an entirely different reason - she isn’t lost in her thoughts. She’s not thinking clearly, but she isn��t lost like Dimitri or Edelgard. She isn’t so lost that she can’t command troops outside of “KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM”, nor does she question if she was in the wrong like Edelgard might’ve had the latter won her war at the cost of stability. To the very end, she doesn’t regret her decisions - she may not have made them with a clear mind, but she knows what she did, and she isn’t lost thinking of what might have been. 

((TECHNICALLY there is one more verse, sung by Shigure in the Heirs of Fate DLC. The reason it’s not brought up? That one is much more context sensitive - the only line I can really think of fitting anywhere is “Endless dawn came but not without a price” possibly referring to the end of the war in every route, with “dawn” here referring to peace, and the price being the countless lives lost in the war. Then again, each route’s definition of “peace” is rather shaky, some more so than others, so it could refer to each individual leader’s goals being reached in their routes at the cost of a war.))