#the way edelgard is the most important character in the game but the two routes that needed to focus on her to do her justice

[aerithisms]

sometimes i remember how the silver snow route from fire emblem three houses had the potential to be the juiciest sexiest angstiest route in that whole game like edelgard is such a torturously tragic character on all non-crimson flower routes to start with but ESPECIALLY this route, where she allows herself to place her faith in the eagles and byleth and comes so close to escaping her despair only to die miserable and alone at the hands of someone she loved and trusted, should by all rights have been the slay of the century. and then i remember that it was half-arsed and soulless and i get mad all over again

[dragonsarecats]

To be fair CF is just as much about found family than VW

Hi anon! I'm gonna link the post I talked about the Golden Deer here for clarity's sake lol.

I think when discussing themes of found family in different three houses routes, it's important to talk about Byleth. In a game where the single, main variable between possible futures is Byleth's interference, it means the story has to be written in a particular way--I mentioned this before when talking about character supports and endings; each character needs to be able to have a romantic ending with Byleth, which affects how their supports are written. In the case of the Lord's, this means you're given tangible reasons why you should've chosen them.

I mean. Let's be real here. Claude has the highest survivability rate of any character in the base game. He can't die if you're completing Verdant Wind (for obvious reasons), or Blue Lions. He's heavily implied to live to see another day in Silver Snow, and you can spare him in Crimson Flower! Edelgard and Dimitri die without the professor's stabilizing influence--but Claude? What does he lose without the professor.

That's sort of how I determine subtler themes of each route in a way--by comparing what you get with and without Byleth.

So when I argue that Verdant Wind is the most about found family, I mean it thematically; the other routes don't have tangible less found family, but without Byleth members of the Golden Deer just blatantly disappear unrecruited post time skip in several routes!

Without Byleth, the option for found family is removed for Claude in a big way, I personally feel, and not just by full recruitment runs lol. Not completely, of course--even in Crimson Flower a recruited Lorenz laments having to face off against Claude and Hilda is willing to die in defense of him and the city--but enough that it was blatantly shocking to me that if you don't recruit Marianne, she does not appear at all post time skip, no exceptions.

In a narrative sense, perhaps slightly unshocking; but in a practical sense? This leaves Claude without a healer.

Claude can't hold onto all his Deer even if you don't recruit any of them in the Academy phase. Silver Snow, Azure Moon, Crimson Flower--Marianne will always be gone; consistent, non variable. Depending on the route other characters like Lorenz might disappear as well.

The themes of found family are prevalent in all the routes, but since each route is pretty much defined by the Lord who leads it, I feel as though their personal relationship with the found family is most defining, if that makes sense.

People stand by Edelgard, Dimitri, and even Rhea for better, or for worse. Even recruited, characters like Felix make it abundantly clear that switching sides doesn't change the immense emotional attachment they have to their original lord.

This just. Isn't true for Claude.

Without Byleth, he doesn't get to keep everyone together. Without Byleth Hilda is recruitable in two routes. The idea that you could ever do the same with Hubert or Dedue is blatantly laughable.

Byleth's presence is what enables Edelgard, Dimitri, and Rhea to remain the most of themselves, if that makes sense. Edelgard's war strategy in Crimson Flower is a lot less aggressive and scorched earth then it is in the other two routes because she's had the professor as an emotional rock. Similarly for Dimitri, he's able to recover because Byleth is there to keep him alive and safe. And then Rhea will blatantly die in the Verdant Wind route where she doesn't in Silver Snow. Byleth, in every sense of the word, keeps these three characters alive and well.

But without her? They still inspire loyalty and devotion--unquestionable, again, if no recruitment takes place. Dimitri, Edelgard, and Rhea can all face up against you as enemies with the full force of their houses/allies (save for, oddly, Annette).

Claude does not.

Claude's whole route is about learning to trust others in a way that allows them to trust him. The Deer are devoted to Claude in Verdant Wind in a way they just, textually aren't otherwise, and that's due to Byleth's influence, both as a Professor to these individual students, and to Claude.

When I say that Verdant Wind is the most found family thematically to me, I mean it at a very base level. Claude knows he doesn't have what Dimitri and Edelgard seem to take for granted. It seems almost effortless, in Verdant Wind, the loyalty and devotion he inspires in his friends despite how often you, as Byleth, are told that Claude appears to be an untrustworthy and sneaky individual.

But it's easy to see in routes where you don't chose him that without Byleth, that image mantains. Claude is an outsider. And maybe he doesn't need Byleth in the way the other lords do to survive or achieve his dream (after all, there's nothing saying he can't open diplomacy with his former classmates after he goes back to Almyra so long as he lives to do so), but just as Byleth is uniquely able to be a peer to the Golden Deer, so can Claude uniquely trust and gain the trust of his house in full.

It's not as dramatic as the other two houses, and I think it's the point. Edelgard and Dimitri have already built a solid foundation of devotion and loyalty. Ferdinand and Felix (your "rival" characters in those houses) are loyal without Byleth, even if Ferdinand claims it's to guide her or if Felix complains every step of the way. Lorenz isn't. In Verdant Wind, you sort of take it for granted that everyone will be there at the reunion if they survived the Academy phase. Of course they will--they promised, didn't they?

But outside Verdant Wind, it's clear to see that you as the player took it for granted. And that's why I think Verdant Wind is thematically the most found family. It's not because the other routes don't love each other as much or aren't as complex or there isn't devotion. It's because fundamentally Verdant Wind is about Claude, for the first time in his life, having a group of people he can rely on and who will rely on him without hesitation. It's about the formation of found family, and how Claude doesn't need it to achieve his dreams, but man, does it give him something to achieve those dreams for.

[moltz23]

FE3H Development Trivia: That one time Black Eagles tried to trick its players

Yep, you read that right (also, thanks for checking up this post!). One often missed aspect from the development history of Three Houses’ development is that Intelligent Systems (namely, Toshiyuki Kusakihara, the game’s director) once blatantly attempted - and failed - to trick players introduced to the world of Fodlan with the Black Eagles House, which is a small bit of trivia I’ve been wanting to touch upon for a while.

It’s important to go back in time, when Three Houses was still relatively fresh in everyone’s minds, and development interviews had just started to surface about the game. Post-launch, the first details we got from it came through a February 2020 Famitsu Interview which, oddly enough, contained extra info only for its digital release. One of these bonus details was the thought process behind Black Eagles and its branching paths:

–On top of that, [Black Eagles] also had a hidden story branch. Yokota: We kept it hidden, but the idea to have a story branch was there since the creation of the Black Eagle route. –Did you have plans to implement a story branch for the other houses? Yokota: No. We only decided it for the Black Eagle house and to keep it a secret. Edelgard is a character with a unique position, but we thought it would be more interesting to have two stories here, then we implemented the triggers for it.

Going forward a few months later, Nintendo DREAM’s May 2020 issue provided far more details on how each of the four routes came to be: 

Q: Can you tell us which route was made first in order to expand and explore the world? Kusakihara: The first and second parts of the Empire route. which is called by the userbase as the “Church Route”, Silver Snow. The progression of Class Leader Edelgard to become the antagonist… that is what we initially decided upon. It was from there, that every route’s story and the progression of other Lords as characters were expanded by the Koei Tecmo Scenario Team. As the Class Leader would leave, the Black Eagles were initially decided to be the most difficult route as imagined (gameplay difficulty). Yokota: Ahh, this is about losing access to the most powerful unit that you would be raising, right? This is pretty bad, yeah. Kusakihara: In my personal opinion, I think that some cruelty from the parts of developers is necessary. This is because if we weren’t cruel/callous in any way, then, just like pre-established harmony where everything only interacts with itself, it would be easy for readers/players to predict everything that will happen. A scenario that would completely be predicted by the reader/player is not something that feels attractive. And that’s why we went all out that way, but the wish to walk with Edelgard was incredibly strong even in the development team. Walking with Edelgard in “Crimson Flower”, or rather known as the, “Supreme Ruler Route” is something we honestly meant to be much more difficult to enter. Yokota: I’m really sorry to you, Kusakihara-san too, but I was also someone who battled with Koei Tecmo on it. The exploration event split was initially too difficult and there were no hints at all. Even now, if you don’t explore during the certain day (lists the exact month in Japanese), then you wouldn’t be able to go to the Supreme Ruler route either. Nevertheless, most people generally go out to explore on the start of each month, so it ends up being rather obvious, eh. Kusakihara: Compared to what I envisioned, it’s about 3 times easier to enter, but that’s fine, I think. Yokota: In my opinion, I was thinking that this sort of difficulty is fine instead, lol. The Black Eagles Story was the first story Kusakihara-san wrote, so I thought you might be more against this, but it’s nice that we are able to go into a route split here, so the “Unpredictable Story” that Kusakihara-san wanted was able to be achieved through this form. It feels like you were able to make it without much deviations right from the planning stage all the way.

There is a lot to unpack here, but for this topic’s sake, what’s worth rescuing is that: 

One, only Black Eagles was ever planned to feature two story branches, which was envisioned early on. 

Two, the developers consider Silver Snow branch the actual Black Eagles path, while Crimson Flower is instead seen as the Supreme Ruler route.

Three, it was very important for Kusakihara to keep Crimson Flower very hidden initially, to the point many people at KT were reportedly not ok with this decision and had to push against it.

And four, emphasis was given to how Silver Snow is inherently cruel gameplay-wise (to the extent of being intended to be the hardest route) and its story was meant to be unpredictable, with Edelgard herself playing a big role in both points.

These four factors not only made what makes the Black Eagles House unique in Three Houses, but also contain an underlying scheme from IS' part which not only didn’t quite succeed, but also radically changed how we perceive it’s two story branches: Silver Snow, and Crimson Flower.

The Failed Deceit

Black Eagles’ story – for those unaware - openly telegraphs which choices spark the big story changes as long you’ve fulfilled two easy-to-meet requirements (namely, reaching Edelgard’s C+ Support, and talking to her while exploring in Chapter 11). Once the game is updated up to version 1.1.0, you’re instantly told that some content’s been added to CF. And to cap it off, the Japanese title of Three Houses, Wind Flower Snow Moon (風花雪月), revealed a whole year before release back in June of 2018, hinted there would be four stories, so there’s very little secrecy left involving Edelgard’s route in the game we ended up getting. 

Regardless, just the idea of CF being more hidden, while having Silver Snow be seen as THE Black Eagle route, very much sends the message - without saying it outright - that the original plan with the Black Eagles route was to railroad most of its first players into Silver Snow, all for the sake of having them fulfill Kusakihara’s vision. Because in hindsight: what purpose serves having a story with two story branches, where one of them is far more accessible than the other? This is no FE6 where visiting one of the two neighboring villages will change the upcoming chapters; In Black Eagles, Silver Snow is available by default, while Crimson Flower is conditionally locked.

Of course, as the title of this part suggests, the scheme didn’t really pan out in the end. The efforts on making Edelgard’s route secret were mostly undone by KT, and like it’s said in the interview, the path became very easy to get into. How easy, you might wonder? Well, in a 3H survey from Famitsu made in October 2019, it was revealed that of all the people that started the game with Black Eagles (1185 people), 77,9% of those (923) ended up on Crimson Flower. The effects this had within the public, contrasted with their original intention, was so drastic that the fact it’s admitted in the interview that even the Japanese fanbase calls Silver Snow “The Church route” gives away that Death of the Author is in full effect here as for which Black Eagles story is perceived as the actual Empire route.

Finally, the emphasis on Edelgard’s route being conceived as this story branch, parallel to Silver Snow, that once required a lot of effort to get into, also raises implications I haven’t seen people discuss in general. Three Houses loves to recycle its content, so when Crimson Flower gets compared with the other routes at a surface level, more often than not, it ends up praised for being different while also getting criticized for its short length, to the point it’s widely believed the path is unfinished. And yet, who’s to say that its identity is a side effect - an artifact, if you will - of having been envisioned as that one super secret story branch few were meant to enter by sheer accident?  I think this is worth pondering because at a closer inspection, there are so many design choices unique to it that are not shared anywhere else  (such as: tweaked difficulty balancing; a strict resource pool; paralogues having unique quirks in it; inverted light and dark symbolism for important scenes; harder endgame monsters, etc.), that in my opinion, does put into question the idea that the path was intended to be far longer than it ended up being.

Three Houses is one of those games whose development has always intrigued me. Compared to Engage, it very much feels story-driven and one can tell tried its best to surprise the player both in the narrative and gameplay, even if it very much tried to eat far more than it could chew (like, it does have a gigantic page The Cutting Room Floor, and the sheer amount of content that was silently fixed, tweaked and added post-launch is also something very few people touch upon nowaydays). And I feel that the whole attempted stunt with the Black Eagles is something that’s not often appreciated and brought up, regardless of your feelings on the ideas behind them and their execution (I have a ton of bones to pick up with SS myself, but I digress).

[fleshing-out-fodlan]

Crimson Flower Lysithea Story

I think the Three Houses writing is really held back by 1. the lack of impact non lord characters have on the story post time skip and 2. the lack of in depth unique development for characters on different routes. I understand why this was done from a game play perspective (perma death and also giving every single character 3-4 unique story lines is a lot of work and just unrealistic) but from a story telling perspective it definitely isn't ideal. So I wanted to take a swing at giving a non lord a unique story on a route that isn't their own a way that makes sense from the perspective of the developers.

Crimson Flower Lysithea is probably the most obvious place to start, she was also experimented on by TSWITD so there's so much potential for where her story could go. In Crimson Flower, you are working with TWSITD, something that will stir up strong emotions in Lysithea, even if she knows the plan is for the alliance to be temporary. I think this can tie into Lysithea's need to rush everything. We all know Lysithea's life span is shortened, so maybe she's afraid she won't live to see TWISTD destroyed. TWISTD is what destroyed her family and if they're still so powerful when she dies, she has no way to ensure her family is safe from their torment. So, she comes up with all these plans to prematurely bring them down. We get a cutscene at some point of her talking to Hubert, saying she has to have a meeting with Edelgard and Hubert refusing to let her through because he believes it will be a waste of Edelgard's time so he instead tells Lysithea to just tell him whatever she wants to tell Edelgard and he'll pass the message along if it's worthy of her time. Lysithea tells Hubert her plans but he quickly shuts them down, pointing out some flaw that will hurt their team's chances at succeeding. Lysithea gets frustraed and starts hurling her immature insults at Hubert (I'm imagining similar vibes to her Ignatz support here) but Hubert hardly reacts, finding her more amusing than offensive, causing her to get angrier and just storm off. I imagine this cut scene happening after chapter 14 (so right before the battle where you meet Cordelia). After this, you get the explore dialogue for chapter 15. Lysithea's original dialogue here isn't that important in terms of character development (it doesn't really tell us anything new about her character, generally just that she wants to protect her family which is also established by the stuff I'm adding anyways). So, her explore dialogue will now involve her mumbling to herself about Hubert being an idiot and how she knows what she's doing. Then, she notices you listening and gets annoyed, commenting on how eavesdropping is a childish activity.

Then, we have the "Seige at Arianrhod" battle. If Lysithea and Linhardt are both on the field you'll be given an optional quest (kind of like in Remire where you have a quest to save all the villagers but can still win the battle if you fail that quest). The quest is to have Lysithea be the first on to attack Cornelia. If you don't do this quest, nothing else will happen in Lysithea's story. If you do this, it will trigger a mid battle cut scene showing Lysithea attacking Cornelia but Cornelia is much stronger than she initially thought. After putting up a good fight, Lysithea gets severely injured. Edelgard steps in and stops Cornelia from landing a fatal blow and calls Linhardt over and he then teleports away with Lysithea. You then go back to normal battling mode but you can no longer use Lysithea or Linhardt. There will be two options for what happens after the battle.

Option A. Linahrdt and Lysithea did not reach their A support: In this timeline, Linhardt is not able to save Lysithea. In a cutscene where the battle is being discussed, Edelgard asks Linhardt about Lysithea's status and he says that she died. In the midst of the mourning Edelgard makes a comment about how Lysithea didn't seem like herself, how she's usually so well calculated but in this moment seemed to be driven purely by her emotions. The camera zooms in on Hubert's face, showing one of his more contemplative profiles, as Edelgard announces that they can't dwell on the past and must get back to working hard to secure the future Lysithea was fighting for in honor of her memory. All the characters disperse except Byleth and Hubert. Byleth makes a remark about how Hubert seems like he's thinking about something and Hubert makes a comment about how Lysithea had mentioned a desire to take down TWISTD as soon as possible but that he had stopped her from talking to Edelgard. You're then given two dialogue options. You can either say he should've let her talk to Edelgard which will cause you two to lose support points and Hubert will say something about how Lysithea's actions today proved she was not worthy of Lady Edelgard's time. The second dialogue option is remarking on how Lysithea had so much potential. Hubert will respond to this by somberly agreeing and then the cut scene will end.

Option B. Linhardt and Lysithea did reach their A support: In this timeline, you will see a cut scene between Linhardt and Lysithea before seeing one with Edelgard and the Black Eagles recapping the battle. This scene takes place just after Linhardt finished healing her and Lysithea makes a comment about being so exhausted she's about to pass out. Linhardt then says something about how he's going to pass out too after seeing all the blood. Lysithea simple respond with a "..." and Linhardt realizes something is wrong. He makes a comment about how Lysithea's actions were stupid and how she was unnecessarily risking her life and asks what she was thinking (but he does it in his Linhardt way where he's not saying it angrily just very matter-of-factly). Lysithea talks about how she wants to see TWISTD destroyed in her lifetime to make sure they can't torment her family anymore. Linhardt makes a comment about how powerful groups can never be overthrown quickly (maybe he could make some reference to a similar event in Fodlan history but I'm not knowledgeable enough about the history to think of an example off the top of my head) and also says that her dying early to accomplish this goal would be counterproductive. She asks what he means and he explains how she's one of the best mages on the side and how Cornelia was only one person. Even if she succeeded in taking down Cornelia, there'd still be the rest of TWISTD and the black eagles would be at a major disadvantage without Lysithea. He says she may not live to see the end of TIWSTD, it's possible none of them will, but if she focuses on taking multiple, smaller steps, she can make a greater difference than if she just tries to make one giant, risky leap.

After this, you can now unlock the Lysithea Byleth A support. This support will stay pretty similar, I like how it discusses her feeling a need to rush things due to her shortened life span. The main change would be that now she would mention what had happened in the last battle and discuss it and how it ties into the her desire to rush things and how she's starting to make peace with the fact that she may not be able to accomplish everything she wants.

This is where I imagine Crimson Flower Lysithea's arc ending. There are only six post time skip Crimson Flower chapters I believe, so I didn't want to add too many new cut scenes, especially considering that Lysithea is a side character who isn't even native to this route. I wanted the story I wrote to be one that could realistically be added into the game while maintaining good pacing, so I left out some scenes I would've liked that narratively just didn't fit in as well. If anyone has any head cannons for their version of Crimson Flower Lysithea, whether that be a written out story or just small head cannons you like to imagine, I'd love to hear them either in a reblog or an ask!

[crimson-flow3r]

I've only liked fe3h for a little over a year but I'm being so serious when I say it's probably one of the most important games I've played in my life

when I started, I got it as a "I haven't seen you in 5 years heres some late bday gifts" gift from a friend of my mom. I knew literally nothing about the game, and got to go in completely blind

I spent a solid 10 minutes just staring at the screen for when you get to choose what house you teach -- I could not choose between the black eagles or golden deers. I don't remember why, but I just didn't like the blue lions at all

I eventually chose the black eagles, only because I remember I loved Linhardt's dialogue and him as a character

I fell in love with the group immediately, and found everyone extremely interesting and funny. The characters that intrigued me the most were Edelgard and Linhardt.

I did some non-spoiler research and head that apparently the black eagles split off into two different routes, so I tried my best to get high support with Edelgard

(below this is gonna get more personal and is gonna definitely be a lot more writing so its gonna be under read more lol)

Where the game really clicked for me and ended up becoming so special is Jeralt's death. I lost my own father a few years back, so it was honestly extremely hard to watch the cutscene-- especially since I loved Jeralt so much. But it genuinely helped me work through the trauma of my own dad dying. I had to take a week long break from the game, but it helped me process so much. I feel like I never got to properly mourn my dad's death, but this genuinely helped me.

Seeing Byleth so upset over this, and seeing everyone support him so much-- it was so healing.

Im really connected to Byleth as a character, and see a lot of myself in him. And everyone in the monastery comforting him after Jeralt's death felt like people comforting me.

It just genuinely helped me so much. After that I genuinely learned so much more about myself and how I grieve, and started to heal better. I talked to more people about how I felt, and coped in my own ways [art and fanfiction]. And it was all because of this game. Mourning over Jeralt was like mourning over my own father all over again, but in such a more healing way.

I could also go off for hours about how important the Crimson Flower route is to me. All the characters feel like family to me. Edelgard is such an intriguing character to me and I love her as a house leader so much. Over time of the game I grew to love absolutely every Black Eagle. I also ended up recruiting only Lysithea, so I definitely consider her an honorary black eagle.

Going into the Crimson Flower route completely blind literally changed my life. Every story beat had me on the edge of my seat. Every character interaction made me extremely emotional [have that be happy, sad, or angry depending on who lol].

The last two fights of the route were genuinely heartbreaking. Having to kill Dimitri and Dedue broke my heart. Even though I originally didn't like the Blue Lions, the fandom really made me grow to love them. Going up there and having to kill them made me feel ill. Then, the fight after, having to slay Rhea -- it felt so rewarding and also so upsetting.

I hated having to kill anyone, and I really just wish everyone could be happy lol

But, the point is, there is no story route where everyone is happy.

apologies if nothing makes sense

happy 5th anniversary, fe3h

I love you so much

[fantasyinvader]

I've been thinking about Edelgard's supposed depth according to the creators, the fact she's meant to both be a cute girl and a brutal dictator in-line with the series past villains.

I feel there is something here. Like, which way is the gap moe supposed to go? Are we supposed to see her as this conqueror only to see she's the cute girl, or is the cute girl the surface and the conqueror what lies underneath? Considering how the game treats the Flame Emperor being unmasked as this major reveal, I'd say it's the latter of the two. We are meant to be taken in by the cute girl lord, especially since Dimitri and Claude are initially assessed as having a hidden darkness and having a fake smile initially. Not to mention Rhea. It would make sense why the devs expected most people to pick the BE's as their route, since Edelgard is not only presented more favorably (though she does drop her views on the other nations if praised after the prologue, a hint of where her character is going) and she's a cute girl that will draw in male players.

The we consider the route split and it's various symbolism. Byleth defaults to Silver Snow, symbolized by the game's own take of Buddhism's banner of victory. The devs even pointed out the importance of Byleth's flag, saying that it was the true Fire Emblem of the game to them symbolizing people coming together to fight for you because they believe in you. This would mean that the player walks the path of Nirvana/Enlightenment, the path of the righteous if you interpret the Safflower/Crimson Flower route as being a path of thorns. Safflower would mean that the game uses attraction to try and ensnare the player into going down this route, with the player being the one to ultimately decide to join her or not. Edelgard is presented as both a temptress, tying into the story behind the banner of victory, as a false messiah considering her signature weapon bears the Crest of Maurice aka the Beast. It's said to be the representing the animal path in the Japanese, the opposite of Enlightenment, while the path of thorns reading would make it out to be a sinful where Byleth was lazy.

Byleth is supposed to fight Edelgard, no matter how painful it might be for them or the player. It's the central conflict the game was designed around, especially it's main musical theme Edge of Dawn. it depicts how Edelgard and Byleth's relationship plays out, Edelgard hoping Byleth will choose to walk beside her only to lie to them and end up as enemies. The music doesn't play in the Flower route, but it's also baked into Apex of the World, Edelgard's final boss theme that also plays in Azure Moon. The musical choices of Engage would also suggest the heroic Emblem Byleth is from the Silver Snow route through the pieces that make up Trial of the Academy, with the other routes being relegated to a DLC Emblem with the three lords.

i also feel that the game questions if the player is turning a blind eye if they join Edelgard. The first part of the game establishes the Flame Emperor as someone helping TWSITD with their acts in order to reap the rewards before being unmasked, with TWSITD saying they're doing these things for her benefit. The idea of the path of the beast would suggest Byleth/the player sides with Edelgard out of ignorance but when the Japanese script has Edelgard being called out by Dimitri for ignoring shit, something she admits to doing in Hopes, it really looks like the game is questioning if the player is doing the same thing.

Seriously, if Edelgard is told to her face that the people who experimented on her did so in order to create a weapon against the Goddess and her children by the person who did the experiments and killed her siblings, saying the nobility did it in order to make a strong emperor to rule over Fodlan after they stopped her father's attempts to centralize power and took it for themselves, that makes her look beyond stupid if she isn't intentionally ignoring the truth.

Really makes the case that Edelgard is initially meant to be seen as the cute girl, with the tyrant being her depth. It's not meant to be a case of "and actually, you discover she's a real sweetheart if you join her." No, Flower is meant to be a route where you didn't do the right thing and moved to stop Edelgard, instead ignoring everything to join her. You ignore who Edelgard actually is, instead focusing on her waifu-status, as well as the reality of what you are really doing.

No wonder the Korean fanbase said "she tricked me" back when it was revealed she was the most hated character there.

[dentos-wife]

Since you say Chrobin is inferred what else is inferred and canon in FE?

Disclaimer this is just my option from the stance of an aromantic asexual who only follows the text and what they do with the characters and what I see pushed in side material. But here's what I see and with just the lords

FE1/3/11/12: Marth and Caeda canon, there's no arguing it, all the side material confirms it it's blatant canon

FE 2/Echoes: Alm and Celica canon same reasoning as Marth and Caeda

FE 4: Sigurd and Deirdre canon, Deirdre and Arvis is canon too but it's never pushed not like the former that's the FE4 ship they want you to remember. Seliph as far as I'm aware doesn't have a pairing, his siblingship with Julia is his important relationship and it's platonic

FE 5: I know nothing about this game except what I see in FEH. I think Leif and Nana canon, could be wrong, would be willing to hear someone out who knows that game, if not canon they are definitely inferred

FE 6: Roy and Lilina implied I think like his dad's game Roy can pick anyone to be his wife, IS seems to favor Lilina the most in side material

FE 7: Eliwood and Ninian highly implied this is the one I'd compare Chrobin to the most, Eliwood can marry Ninian but he doesn't have to he can marry anyone else if he wishes, in side material though and FEH they're pushed a lot to the point when I looked it up I was surprised it wasn't canon

FE 8: I...don't think anything is canon or even inferred here. Open season

FE 9: I'm going to get so much hate for this but here we go. It's heavily implied I don't think it's been stated, Soren has feelings for Ike. And I 100% believe that. However...Ike comes off as very ace to me so I don't think Ike can ever love Soren as much as Soren loves him. That said they could easy have a queerplatonic relationship I don't see the two ever separating it just wouldn't be a traditional relationship

FE 10: Micaiah Sothe canon I personally wish it wasn't and don't like it but you can't argue it's not canon, and the side material continues to agree with the game, just ignore it (I sure do)

FE 13: As I said Chrom Sumia was originally implied, but they dropped it now Chrom Robin is heavily implied Lucina has no one, protecting her dad is her character.

FE 14: Gender split. In the game one could argue for MCorrin Azura was slightly implied due to her having a different support per route. For FCorrin due to popularity Leo got a drama Cd and a manga which slightly implied Leo Corrin. That time has passed, Corrin has no implied pairings anymore Corrin just cares about family, everything is platonic

FEH: Yes this is a mainstream game. Almost everyone loves the summoner (because it's you) Fjorm outright is in love with them, Alfonse and Veronica could be implied due to Lif and Tharsir's relationship. Everything is canon here and nothing is canon here at the same time.

FE16: So this one is interesting because of how hard it splits between MByleth and FByleth

Edelgard is heavily implied not just with Byleth but MByleth in particular. In the game the portrait she's drawing is of MByleth if you look close enough, MByleth is also usually for advertisement purposes put with the Black Eagles, Edelgard's house. Because her crush on Byleth is such a part of her character they didn't write it out for FByleth yes, but it was made in intention to MByleth (aka the male players)

Dimitri is implied with FByleth. Her material has her with Blue Lions the same way MByleth's material has him with Black Eagles. It's not as blatant as Edelgard, nothing would be but it's still there (to cater to female players)

Claude: Ha you think they'd care about the character who is a copy paste route? They don't. Poor Claude, nothing is implied or canon with him

FE17: No one but due to Alfred's circumstances changing if you S support him, I might lean to Alear Alfred implied it will all depend on what the side material tells us

[adamantineheart]

my final three hopes thoughts

AG >>>>>> SB >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> GW

anyway

The Good

AG is basically just dimilix fanfic. like we are either psychics or INTSYS/KT owes us royalties.

The character work in AG was phenomenal. They way they adjusted the characters for their situation but still made them feel like who they are? Fucking ace. SB went a little differently, where certain characters feel much different but I can forgive it because the eagle kiddos were always weird for characterization due to the route split. Which version of these characters you consider canon is up to you.

Whoever wrote the Duscur and Sreng paralogues… I love you. The Duscur paralogue is just so so so emotionally moving and really lets Dedue grieve as he usually isn't allowed and gave Ingrid a lot of closure she desperately needed. Meanwhile Felix gets to just really show what kind of person he is and drive home that what he needs is the present aka Dimitri to feel satisfied (instead of clinging to the past). Sreng was wonderful for the lore, political situation, and all that character work, especially between Sylvain and Matthias.

Monica is the character I didn't know I wanted. I love her…. I've already added background Monigard to two dmlx fics. She's just the perfect amount of unhinged. <3

Playable Rodrigue is one of the best parts of this game. THANK YOU!!!! It also means his optional death is the most impactful of the game, aided by it being centered around dimilix and not Shez.

Voiced Shez is an improvement, as is voiced Byleth. I also appreciate that Shez isn't anyone important and is a student instead of a teacher. Also thank you for only making some characters make romantic overtures toward Shez instead of almost all of them.

There are a lot of excellent paralogues in the game and most of them had a lot of thought put into their setup (which characters were chosen, the premise, the writing, etc).

Making my blorbos uber powerful is a lot of fun 💙Also Felix is such a fun unit (I loved the sword units the most tbf).

Supports are generally amazing. A lot of improvements to some original chains or new versions that add something to the relationship. All new chains altogether that fleshed out relationships we were denied before. Also a lot of ships I hate had reduced supports or had them removed altogether :) No one won as hard as me in the shipping department tbh. 🫡

A great OST again even if nothing hit quite as hard as some of the original final boss themes.

I actually love the setup of the story even if I take issue with individual routes or moments. But it was nice getting out of the academy setting and exploring Fódlan instead. 

Did I mention Dimitri and Felix? His Majesty and Duke Fraldarius? They are perfect and I love them.

The Bad

No fucking snow maps in Faerghus.

Edelgard's reunification scheme is 10x worse here than Three Houses because Rhea is willing to ally with her against TWSITD. As usual, Edelgard is stuck in her assumptions on what she thinks is true and refuses have an open dialogue with the Church and Dimitri, choosing violence because she believes she knows what's best for everyone. I've accepted this about her but it's still a hard pill to swallow that dangled her talking to Rhea and Dimitri above our heads and then took it away.

​​Zahras is badly written independent of route, just like Gronder Field. The desire to make the lords interact even when it’s nonsensical just needs to stop. It sucked every time.

IT’S SO EXPENSIVE TO UPGRADE STUFF (like weapons). LIKE REALLY EXPENSIVE.

Every route had issues, especially toward the end but the worst for me was GW. There was a lot of bad character shit, not just for Claude, though he was the plot instigator of everyone else being out for blood.

Almyra is a joke now I guess. Actually, it flip flops being a joke and completely awful. It’s true they were never great in FE3H but Cyril existed as a contrast. Him not being playable sucked. 🙁

Scarlet Blaze’s convient ending…….. Edelgard’s main enemies just kill each other……….. it just felt like “Why were we even there?” We accomplished nothing.

How dare I not be able to making Dimitri and Felix marry :( WHERE IS THE DIMILIX WEDDING DLC!

[gascon-en-exil]

Why do you think the devs doubled down on Edelgard not wanting Rhea dead anymore in Hopes (while making Claude kill Rhea)? And why do you think Hopes doubled down even harder than Edelgard wants to fuck over Faerghus (with new invader Claude invading yet simultaneously somehow not wanting to destroy Faerghus)? I'm super confused cuz both Edelgard and Claude come off poorly here: it's not like either comes off better. Either you want to murder Rhea or you wanna destroy a country full of innocent.

I think there were multiple factors at play, most of them tying into the desire to keep or increase Edelgard's marketability. That's why she's got a shorter skirt and never kills anyone in a cutscene (contrast CF where Rhea's death is arguably the goriest scene in Three Houses) and never willingly becomes the Hegemon and in the one route where you invade the Empire she's been replaced with two flat villains doing flat villain things. Wanting to keep Rhea alive could technically be called a holdover from Houses although it makes less sense here, since in that game it's implied she was doing so because she could use Rhea as a bargaining tool with the Agarthans, and her insistence on crushing the Kingdom doesn't really matter when that never happens onscreen...and doesn't happen at all unless Byleth is at her side. Got to keep that all-important self-insert romance angle.

Claude, on the other hand, is less important as a character and is also male, so the developers had less issue with framing his actions as darker and less morally sound* with the confrontation with Rhea even implying that he's become a second Nemesis via obvious cutscene symbolism. Rhea dies onscreen, so his desire to kill her matters in a way that Edelgard's destruction of the Kingdom doesn't, and as such he gets the big dramatic killing blow in this game whereas over in SB Rhea and Thales take each other out. You could additionally look at Hopes's more villainous Claude from a racial angle, and I know that some people have, but I honestly don't believe the developers thought enough about Almyra to even consider the implications here.

*Although someone else pointed out that the only times in Hopes where Claude is called out for his actions and potentially punished are when he defies Edelgard or the Empire: allowing Randolph to die in GW, and betraying the Empire in the non-Byleth version of SB. Make of that what you will.

[prodgermmath]

Some Fire Emblem Three Houses Thoughts.

Alright, my Fire Emblem Three Houses plot thoughts and suspicions so far. I've just beaten the plot battle in Chapter 8 (the one in the Village) on the Black Eagles route, and I've beaten the DLC side story. These are thoughts based on the info from that stuff, and all the various supports and stuff I've gotten. I'll be honest, a large motivator for this post is just that I'm going to start Pokémon, so it might be a while until I get back to FE3H, and this way I have my thoughts stored somewhere.

Firstly, Jeralt. He's immortal or something, real old. I feel like I hit a point where this went from "Being hinted at" to "A bit on the nose". My suspicion is that he's Nemesis, which would certainly explain how we came to have the Crest of Flames; though since Rhea mentioned knowing him since he was too young to grow a beard, that suspicion has lessened a bit. I still think that he's immortal, and that Rhea is too. But I just don't think that the way Nemesis exists in the story would allow for Rhea (who I think, but am not certain is Seros) to describe him like that. Is Byleth even his kid? The game has been hinting at no, but I think that's a Red Herring. The side story confirms that we're his wife's kid, and while that doesn't confirm that we're his, I think we are. It's mentioned that Byleth's Mum's Blood had a special crest, so assuming that's the Crest of Flames, and Jeralt isn't Nemesis, he's just a different imortal guy. In the intro battle thing, when Byleth did a Divine Pulse to save Edelgard, he seemed to recognise it. Probably saw it in long past battles

Edelgard and Lysthea both have two crests, they both have white hair, and it's confirmed that Edelgard didn't have white hair when she was younger. So there's a link between white hair and two crests! Is this important? Maybe. I dunno. Is Ashe's hair white or grey? I'm not really sure. One thing it sure does tell us is that hair colour is important. So the fact that Rhea and Flayn have the same hair is important. On a similar note, we know that both Edelgard and Lysthea got their extra crests from evil experiments. The thing that "Tomas" says at the end of the village battle, about Flayn's blood, suggests to me that blood itself can be used for the implantation of the crest, which somewhat changes the way that they're in the world. Characters who Know Things™, always refer specifically to Blood as the source of crests. Which sounds like it means bloodlines, but now I'm thinking more specifically it's the actual blood itself. Does this mean anything? Again, I don't know.

It brings me to this next point, though! Crests and the Nobility system, and the Church. Crests are super important in the way the world is described. They're part of the whole basis for the system of Nobility and Commoners, and the Church reveres them as being proof of a connection to God and all that. But, like, the Crests themselves are super not that great. By which I mean that the effect they have is really mild, for how the church treats them. The Crest of Flames is the one I see most benefit from, and that's just in the form of the mild lifesteal it sometimes has. They're all like "Occasionally makes something a little bit stronger", and generally have less impact than abilities. I think this is (or at least is going to be) an important point. Like, the biggest thing the Crests really do is just allow you to wield the relics, are they really from God at all? Did god grant them, or did the people in the past just get some stuff in their blood to let them use magic weapons? It feels like the Church is pushing them so hard precisely because it's an excuse to enforce class stuff. Also, like, the Church is... I don't want to say Evil. I don't think that's right. But it sure ain't good! Rhea's whole stuff about teaching the kids not to point their swords "at heaven" and stuff. The Church seems to deliberately make themselves the focus, rather than the Goddess. And running the school seems to mostly be a way of making sure that they have influence over all generations of the most notable people in society.

Which, sort of, brings me to Edelgard. She does not like the Church, that much is clear. I know the time skip goes in to the war stuff, I'm pretty certain the war will be based around her going against the Church, and also what the Church stands for, that being the Crest and Nobility system. I mean, she has first hand experience of the fact that crests can be implanted and stuff. But, the thing I'm more specifically thinking about with her is a dialogue choice that happened where she asked if we thought that all the stuff going on around Gareg Mach was related, and saying yes resulted in a negative reaction from her (as in, support level dropping). Which leads me to think that some of it was related to her aims. So, we've got the Flame Emperor and his goons, right? The Death Knight being the most notable goon. They're often the ones we're fighting. But "Tomas"'s team listing in the battle at the village was "The Creepy Shadow Guys", or something. Which, you know, doesn't sound very Flamey. I thought for a bit that Edelgard might turn out to be the Flame Emperor, what with and Emperorship in her future, but now I don't think it's that. I think it's that the Flame Emperor's goons are largely mercenaries, and capable of working for many different teams. I think that they're sometimes working for the Slimy Shadow Boys, and that that's unrelated to when they were working for the Western Church, who I think were working for Edelgard. She has the Crest of Flames, so she can also wield the Sword of the Creator. I think the whole tomb attack thing was done with the intent of getting the sword, though the Western Church probably didn't know that.

So, yeah. Those are some thoughts of mine for now. I'm enjoying the types of intrigue that FE3H is putting in front of me. Please do not spoil any later stuff for me.

[fireemblems24]

Azure Moon - Final

Of all the routes I'm finishing, this one is by far the hardest to say goodbye too. Which is why I saved it for last. Also, Three Hopes and the DLC, so it's not really over yet!

More in-depth reviews and etc coming later. Below is just my thoughts while I played the last two chapters of AM.

Ok, so this is different from the other routes. I had another week AND I picked who I married before any cut scenes.

Also different in that Byleth, here at least, is allowed to say something negative about Edelgard. A breath of fresh air.

I will get to still pick who I marry, right? I didn't miss that. Because by God if I missed that for Dimitri . . .

It's been a while Edelgard.

I still can't believe Dimitri really went and is trying to solve this with diplomacy and understanding. We stan a King, guys.

Holy, shit, yes, Dimitri, preach "there had to be a way to change things in your territory without so many senseless casualties."

Edelgard - War leads to the least amount of casualties, duh. I mean, who wouldn't agree. It's not like war is literally the worst.

Did she seriously just say - ah, yes, the least bloody way to fix the Empire is conquering everyone else and war.

I get that her argument is that the longer she didn't put everyone under her control, the more people would've died, so her war killed less in the long run. Someone doesn't know much about war.

Edelgard really out here playing God, hunh.

Dimitri ain't wrong that Edelgard is a bit too gung-ho about her war. And, of course, she's deaf to the victims. If it's anything like CF, there isn't any acknowledgement of any victims. They might as well not exist except to make Edelgard the main victim of the war.

"You cannot change the cycle of the strong dominating the weak with a method like that."

Preach, Dimitri.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good "conqueror the world for it's own good" character, but damn it's nice to see the hypocrisy pointed out. Those characters are only ever interesting and good if there's a counterpoint and not CF's sanctification of Edelgard.

I think Edelgard really means to destroy the bad systems. I think she honestly believes she's the only one who can make those changes. I also think she's dumb as a box of rocks if she doesn't realize her "boostraps" like mentality isn't just going to increase her divide, and that the world she's creating will have just as many victims and not be conducive to a true post-war recovery.

Holy shit, Edelgard sounds like Fox News. "If after all of this you believe the weak will still be weak, that is only because they are too used to relying on others instead of on themselves."

That really is truly only two steps away from "welfare queens" and the poor are poor because they "don't work hard enough" and the rich are rich because "they just work that much harder."

"But you cannot force that belief onto others." Is really the crux of my issue with Edelgard's plan.

"There are those who cannot live without their faith . . . and those who cannot go one once they have lost their reason for living." - It's too bad he didn't just straight-up say - "What about mental illness, Edelgard? Or physical handicaps? Or people born uber poor? What are they supposed to do in your world?"

I'm betting Edelgard fans hate this conversation lol. It's the only time in the whole game so far that challenges Edelgard's convictions and points out all the problems with it.

"It is the path of the strong and could only benefit the strong." - 100% true.

Honestly, the BEST combination would be Edelgard + Dimitri, where she's busting big bad systems up, and he's there to make sure the new government takes care of its people rather than uses them.

I don't think Edelgard understands the importance of faith to a lot of people. It's not really about "the goddess" answering your problems. Most religions are very specific that they can't treat prayer/meditation/etc as a wish machine. It's more about finding comfort in the idea that there's a system to this universe, that there's someone or something out there dictating what's right and wrong, that there's something after death. It's not really about expecting everything you pray for to be answered the way you want, but about finding some way to accept that "everything happens for a reason" to help you get through rough things. That, if you're suffering, that there's a larger point to it all.

Interesting how she claims she's fighting for the silent and weak too. I don't see how though, since she expects them to magically not be weak anymore.

"The ones who can truly change the way of the world are not the rulers, but the people." - I firmly 100% believe the only stable change is one that's wanted by the majority and is often generational.

"Pushing your own sense of justice and your own ideals onto even one other person is nothing more than self-righteousness." - Again, 100% agree with Dimitri here.

Edelgard's not wrong either that for things to change, someone has to take action. But why THAT action?

It's really too bad there's no ending where these two meld their ideals together. But I'm betting Edelgard isn't willing to work with anyone else (unlike Rhea, Claude, and Dimitri who have all worked together in one route or another).

Why is Edelgard talking about high borns vs the poor??? Dimitri was just talking about people in general. And didn't he live on the run for like 5 years? Edelgard's way more removed from the poor than he is.

Like, why is she still going to fight him? Why not just work WITH him?

Ohhhh is this the dagger?

Yep, guessed it right.

So she's remembering him now.

Aww, baby Dimitri and Edelgard are so cute.

If only Rhea got this treatment in CF that Edelgard's getting in AM. It would've made CF soooooo much better.

Dimitri gonna regret those words he told Edelgard when she decides the future she's cutting through involves killing him lamo.

Edelgard's like WTF, this guy I've been trying to kill since the paralogue is that guy who inspired me to keep going?

Mannnn imagine an alternative storyline where she realizes who he is earlier on. The conflict and character development she missed out on :(

Man, this shit is tragic. I don't know how the same people who wrote this route wrote all the other ones.

I love how Byleth and Hubert just stood there saying nothing lamo.

OH THANK GOD, I get to pick who to marry.

This is the EASIEST choice of them all lol. Dimitri. 100%, Dimitri.

PRE-BATTLE & BATTLE #1

Maaan I'm so worried about how long this will get. Anyone who reads the whole thing, I'm amazed at your thoroughness.

Time to blast Enbarr's door down again lol.

LAMO Hubert again? I love him, but facing him is a meme at this point. How many times have I already toasted his ass?

Ugh, no, they split up my units again :( whyyyyyy Though is any route is suited for this, it's AM because Dimitri can take a whole area by himself.

Oh, I see Petra's back :( Bummed about killing her.

I really gotta question Edelgard here. A combined force of the Kingdom, Alliance, and Church is invading her innermost city area, but she still won't work with Dimitri and would rather keep trying to fight him? Even after she heard him out?

Why did Hubert call Dimitri the Savior King? I love that title though.

God, I love Hubert. He just owns it, you know?

Alright - time to fight.

Ingrid is such a queen - no one can touch her + mages can't hurt her anyways. She's like Dedue, but for mages.

"War is for the wealthy. We don't even have enough to eat." - when the random enemy thief's line about war hits harder than all of CF.

Petra was NOT easy to kill. All the fast ones (Dimitri, Petra, Catherine, pegasus knights, assassins) are the hardest to kill in this game.

Dimitri can one-shot Hubert. And by that I don't mean "single turn" I mean single hit.

Dimitri gave Hubert a chance to surrender :(

Why did Hubert say Dimitri had a "silver tongue?"

Man, Dimitri went into overkill with a crit. Poor Hubert.

Dimitri MVP. Not surprised.

POST BATTLE & BATTLE 2

See it's lines like this "there is to be no needless killing or pillaging, understand?" That made me wonder if one route mentions that sentiment more than another or if there's a different vibe or what not.

See, THIS is what was missing from CF. A place where the whole trope stands around and says their lines, even if they don't contribute much, it just feels so epic, you know?

I just love this group all so much: Dedue (swearing to Dimitri), Annette (being so chiper), Ingrid (being the badass knight she is), Mercie (praying for everyone), Ashe (awww, he's so proud to be a citizens of Faerghus in AM and CF, I think I'm over his stunt in VW and SS now. I love you), Sylvain (encouraging everyone, and I don't think I've mentioned this much but he's so fucking hot),

FELIX 😭 supporting Dimitri 😭😭 He even called him a "boar" but it's not an insult anymore 😭😭😭

Dimitri and the Blue Lions are just so 😭😭😭

Oh, so here's Edelgard - "It's far too late to second guess." Edelgard, I'm 100% sure if you surrendered now, Dimitri would make peace with you. It's actually not too late.

It's that hellbeast from FEH. I have PTSD from that thing. This version is wayyyy uglier. Not surprised. I got so tired of that in FEH.

Man, I love these images in between chapters. They all look so cool.

I'm betting we're not fighting TWSITD in this route either? But I think we accidentally already killed their leader so . . .

This route didn't have that giant bomb go off too. Does anyone know why? Like is it just "because plot" or some actual reason?

Edelgard HAS to know she's going to lose. Is it really just "kill everyone or die?" for her??

More Blue Lions imput 😭😭

Dedue is so loyal. I love him 😭😭😭 Felix being so supportive.

Guys we're so spoiled. Everyone gets two pep talks to say their bit.

Yep, it's that FEH thing.

"There can only be one ruler of the world." LAMO Edelgard. She is a bit of a my way or death kinda person.

That awful dubstep again though, make it go away.

Alright, guys, time for my last chapter in this whole thing. Let's go!

Holy shit! What is that range Edelgard has????

I take it Myson is TWSITD? And WTF is with that spell he has? How come I never got that. Anyways, Stride + Dimitri's a bitch and he's gone.

By "beasts" does he mean humans, Nabeteans, or all of the above?

OMG they all retreated LAMO. That makes things easier. Well, not all of them, but a few, nice. And mostly mages too, that makes my life easier.

Yikes, that first hit blasted poor Mercie hard.

Did Edelgard really just say "Facing you, I grow weak?" To Byleth?? They really went hard core pandering with her, hunh. Anyways, she had a 0, 0, 0 on Byleth so I'm far less intimidated.

Alright guys, Edelgard's going down. First Felix took one of her lives out, then Sylvain, then Byleth, now Dimitri for the final. She's going out in one round, though I think only SS took me longer? Maybe CF, but that's because I had no crutch characters there.

Yo, Dimitri telling Edelgard she deserves no compassion because she would rather turn herself into a demon than compromise. Seems a bit at odds with the rest of what he's said, tbh, but I get the sentiment.

He did a critical and took her out in one blow.

And we're done! Only 11 turns. Lol, Everyone just really loves their criticals in the Blue Lions. I also think those dudes retreating helped.

Dimitri MVP. No surprises there.

POST BATTLE & Wrap-Up

Cut scene, for some reason, I always forget lol.

So Edelgard's back to her legendary unit self.

Dimitri's giving her ANOTHER chance to surrender? He's wayyy more forgiving than I'd ever be.

And . . . she threw her dagger at him. Kinda a dick move there.

Byleth not letting Dimitri look back 😭😭😭 That's kinda sweet.

Alright, let's see the final picture for Dimitri.

Ugh, whhyyy the unification. But Rhea! Lives! Good!

I think I see Byleth and Dedue in that ending mural 😭😭😭

I love that mural. It's so happy after everything.

S-Support time!! Let's see if Dimitri can prove me wrong that the men won't be as lovey dovey as the women.

Two insomniacs in love (seriously, who sleeps a healthy amount in this game??)

He's apologizing for making Byleth work so much 😭😭😭 Did anyone else? I'd have to check.

"Do no worry about me" - a summary of Dimitri.

And yikes, that hit left Dimitri numb? Like permanently? Can't this game cut him ANY slack??

Uh, oh, he just so awkwardly switched to romantic shit lamo.

"How many years has it been since I was kept awake by hopes for the future, rather than by nightmares of the past . . ." Dimitri stop..... 😭😭😭😭

He really has Survivor's Guilt 101 😭😭

Geeze, I can't imagine hearing voices in my head like that.

They're still there 😭😭😭 I guess that's more realistic, and better than Byleth made it go away.

It's actually . . . really cool, I think, that he didn't just get "cured." Like, he's still hearing those voices, but found a way to deal with them, and have hope and happiness anyways. That's pretty inspiring, actually.

"But I wish to change this world in my own way." Yes, we stan a King, guys.

Oh shiiiittt Dimitri let that "My beloved" slip didn't he. LAMO.

Ohhh I like this confidence on him, not getting all blushy. Good for him. He's grown up a bit lol.

Ah, he's giving me his ring too, isn't he. And NOW he's blushing. Good.

"If you do not wish to accept it, please just tell me." Absolutely no way I'd say no lol.

Ahahahah, she popped the ring too. Good for her. Just like Rhea.

It's so fucking cute when they both have rings.

Wow, that is not subtle "I love you, Dimitri. Marry me."

Yeah, ok, maybe just Claude's the most unromantic person in the game, because this shit's romantic.

And he's talking about her hands again 😭😭😭 Guys, I'm a sucker for shit like this. OMG

How did I end up adding Sylvix and Dimileth into my "I legitimately ship it now" in the last few chapters of different routes.

And his picture isn't half bad. Poor Edelgard, though, WTF was that? Rhea, Claude, and Dimitri all looked fine.

OMG it's almost done, now just for the MVP list and paired endings.

Lots of trading around at first, then Dimitri takes over. So far it's been: Dimitri, Ingrid, Sylvain, Felix, Byleth, and Dedue who all got MVP at least a few times. With Dimitri getting it the most by far. Towards the end, it was Felix only once, rest of the time Dimitri.

OK, paired endings, like for the others, not going to say much about ones I've gotten before.

So ones that were basically the same: Anna solo, Cyril solo, Alois solo, Manuela solo, Hanneman solo, Flayn solo, Lorenz Solo,

Shamir solo, she becomes a Robin Hood, I like it lol.

Catherine and Rhea became lesbians together. 😭😭 Good for them. Catherine finally scored.

Bernie Solo - poor girl regressed :(

Caspar Solo - he basically did the same thing, but without Linhardt :(

Linhardt Solo - so he did research for the rest of his life. It suites him.

Gilbert Solo - Dimitri has a baby 😭😭😭 And he managed to stay and serve the realm this time. Good for him.

Ferdinand and Dorothea - They had babies too 😭😭 So cute. And Ferdinand went on to be a good leader, and Dorothea got the power to help the common folk. Not a bad ending.

YES! Raphael and Marrianne - I wanted this one! OK, but that ending was kinda lame though. It's all about Raphael and Marianne just talks to birds in it. Though, at least she seems happy.

Ashe and Annette - That's a cute couple, not gonna lie. But again, it's alllll about the dude, though at least here Annette gets to help the realm and write a book.

Ingrid and Seteth - Aw yeah, she became a knight. Good for her. So they both helped out Fodlan (Faerghus and the Church) and married (I mean, they did) much later on. I'm glad Seteth found someone. And way to go Ingrid for getting equal billing in a paired ending, if not the ending being mostly her story and how Seteth was also there.

Does this mean Felix and Sylvain got together - AGAIN? And Mercedes and Dedue (pleaseohpleaseohplease)?

YESSSSS Mercie and Dedue. They are so cute together. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 OMG That ending. I can't. It's perfect. They open a school together and restore Duscur culture. 😭😭😭😭😭 This might be my favorite one of all of them.

But, shit, I don't want Felix and Sylvain to get together. The last time was HORRIBLE. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't EXTREMELY curious to see how this goes, since Felix's endings have been so depressing so far.

Yep, Felix and Sylvain, lol, 😭😭😭😭😭 That's SOOOOOO much better. OMG. That's fucking hurts after seeing how it went in CF with Sylvain bringing up that they were supposed to die together and then in AM they actually do 😭😭😭😭😭 OK, ok, I 100% get Sylvix now. I'm converted. OMG I'm so happy Felix got a good ending.

So now for Dimitri and Byleth. Dimitri has 524 victories lol. I abused that boy.

Their ending is pretty sweet, not gonna lie. I think it's funny they mentioned the separation of work and marriage life. I can almost see someone in the writer's room going - but people will shit on them for this! - and adding that. That part of them going riding together and being desperately in love. It hurts, guys. 😭😭😭😭

OMG! I'm done! I finally finished 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 I can play Animal Crossing again (I banned myself until I finished this lol) And the DLC!

I don't know when I'll get to the DLC, but I will. I'll probably wait a few weeks, but I know I'm going to want to come back to this game.

[shadowflash]

at this point in time i’m pretty sure most of us are aware that white hair is a sign that a character has gotten crest implants / cringe blood surgery in the 3houses universe and that arval is SUS™ for having, well, white hair in this context. the game explains few things about arval explicitly, but they definitely leave some compelling details out for us to make something out of what we have at the moment.

to really get into it i'm going to have to discuss a spoiler character from the bonus chapters as well as the spoiler paralogue. if you know, you know. i’ll also mention details from each route's ending so please be mindful of that.

Let's start with this: Having done the Arval paralogue*, I saw some pretty big similarities between Edelgard and Epimenides, as though they’re meant to occupy the same (or at least incredibly similar) roles in different eras of Fodlan’s history. They also both express disdain towards Thales and his methods. Given the emphasis on "cycles" in this title, it wouldn't be that surprising to learn that this was intentional. There's only so much to work with but the idea is that these two characters are working in direct opposition to what are essentially the same forces (Seiros' army / Rhea's church) for basically the same goal: Liberating humanity/Fodlan from the deceptions of a false prophet / the church in general.

With regard to this, some details of note is that one of Rhea’s lines as a boss unit in for the final battles of Scarlet Blaze:

“No matter how many years pass, you people will always be little more than fools.”

And in the cutscene preceding the final battle of Golden Wildfire, she claims:

“-In our absence, future generations are likely to repeat the foolish actions of their ancestors.”

It could also be inferred that Epimenides has something really important to do with crest science or whatever because his unique class, Avesta, has a skill called "Crestological Wisdom" which allows him to wield Hrotti (relic weapon - crest of timotheos) without taking damage. This brings to mind how Edelgard and Lysithea have white hair as a result of their cringe blood surgeries so.. Well.. And you know how people have also pointed out that Edelgard's hegemon form shares a concerningly similar silhouette with Epimenides' 'super' magic whatever stuff? Yeah. Epimedes, during his battle against Shez and Co., also has a line:

"Nothing I do is enough! How much more must I sacrifice?”

So uhhhh... Erm...

Another thing: The magic sword we see him wield in the opening cutscene / the one Shez comes to wield in their unique classes has an orange glow similar to that of relic weapons. Relic weapons glow orange around all the dragon people bone + crest stone stuff while epi/arv/shez’s sword glows orange in a pattern that resembles circuitry.

This one is a weaker thread to follow between Edie and Epi but it doesn't feel like a coincidence that Edelgard has a phobia of the ocean while we see a recurring motif of water and bubbles around Arval/Epimenides, and those clearly mean something. I cannot tell what though. Interestingly, we see bubbles from the opening cutscene (which was most likely from Arval's perspective**, something we learn from the bonus chapter) and at the very end of the bonus chapter, during Shez vs. Arval/Epimenides fight, we see bubbles fly across the screen while Shez rushes towards them. I don’t think this detail is indicative of Edelgard and Lysithea ‘being meant to house Epimenides as vessels’. I do think it has more to do with conveying, again, something about the nature of the abyssal depths of Zahras and why a character like Sothis (bearer of the flame crest / fire emblem™) is so afraid of it. Of course, there’s also the ‘flood’ (that could be metaphorical and/or literal) mentioned in the Shadow Library at Abyss.

We also see Epimenides responding to Arval’s earliest recollections with:

"That was an unforeseen accident. I was sure all had been lost to the waters.”

By the way: Arval’s secret skill from mastering Wyvern Lord is “Domineer” while ‘hegemon’ basically means “Having dominant / domineering influence over others” which has roots in ancient Greek that I’m just going to link to a wiktionary page for. Inch Resting. And “Domineer” grants Arval (and Jeritza) bonus damage to infantry units, not sure about the exact dmg calcs for this sort of thing but it’s a good skill by the looks of it. If you wanna make the strongest Arval imaginable you should probably invest in it #tbh #ToBeQuiteHonest.

* -> The Arval paralogue "Cycles of Nostalgia" is available to play if you have unlocked Arval with renown (NG+ only, 60 renown, you must've recruited Byleth in at least one of the preceding runs) AND you have chosen to kill Jeralt in the current run you intend to access it from. It unlocks right after you unalive Jeralt, so you don’t have to worry about accessing it in some later, later chapter.

People have walked away from it dissatisfied with the lack of answers as to who Arval and Epimenides are exactly, but I would ask to also pay attention to what Epimenides implies of the "truth" wrt to Seiros' teachings and what Thales claims to be fighting for in the final chapter battle of Azure Gleam (not sure if he says this in Scarlet Blaze as well). The exact details about it all are vague as is the case for the rest of the interesting shit in the game, but again, I think there's enough to make you go "Wait a minute.. WHAT THE HELL." if you’re invested in parsing what Those Who Slither are really fighting for.

** -> I say "most likely" just because what we see at the beginning of the game is Shez's dream. It could be argued that the water + bubbles memory actually belongs to Shez because of this, but it can be the case that this is an experience Shez and Arval share for whatever reason. I'm of the belief that this memory exclusively belongs to Arval/Epimenides though. What we see is Arval "initializing" / booting up(?) and what is definitely a vision into the past (as was the case with Byleth's dream in the beginning of 3Houses) that transitions to Epimenides' POV so you can see him get exploded by Seiros'/Rhea's super dragon form laser beam so, like, yeah.

speculation about shez continues in this post

[commanderfreddy]

ok it's the 24th here so i got my copy of Three Houses Two: Three More Houses and i figured before i started playing i'd write down my predictions but then it just turned into a wishlist, anyway here we are:

Arval

Artificial crest stone made by Agarthans - it was implanted in an Agarthan soldier during the war with the Nabateans and then ended up in Shez, so maybe the personality is the original mage's (or maybe all crest stones have personalities of their own even artificial ones [gross][cool])

Was definitely the dark mage in the opening cutscene

I want to see them get in a slap-fight with Sothis

Pre-demo I had the idea that they might also be an Original Nabatean From Space and I don't think that any more but I DO still hope that they know Sothis personally it Would Be Funny

Shez

Their adoptive mother will be important somehow

Definitely also experimented on as a baby - by Agarthans as a foil to Byleth being fucked up by Rhea

Their ability to control(? Or at least go in and out of) the Awakened state will be contrasted with Enlightened Byleth

Their whole Deal will help explain the mechanics of how crests work to the characters in-universe, they're like a missing link somehow

Church

Seteth and Flayn's hair colours being different earlier in the timeline but Rhea's staying the same is important (and the explanation will be dumb as hell)

Please please please let Claude tear down the church I am BEGGING

They know Arval exists but buried the lore along with all the sex-ed texts

There's probably some shit that Rhea and Seteth and Flayn legitimately do not know about their existence/heritage. I think if you told Flayn her foremother was an alien she would NOT believe you.

More Byleth lore (hopefully about Sitri and Jeralt, but most likely we're just gonna learn more about Sothis through Byleth)

Agarthans

Yeah there's gonna be a lot more of them (at least in terms of screentime).

Thales escaped so he's gonna show up again (and I think Kronya also escaped? Not sure though) and be a near-final boss of Scarlet Blaze

Please please please please Edelgard gets proper closure here. I know there's no way they could handle it effectively but I would like to see her explain to the Eagles what happened to her. Also can we please see what the BEagles thought about her siblings? Did they know they existed? What did they think happened?

Yo what if the Agarthans DID get to Monica at least somewhat. How funny would that be

I want to know the Jeritza + Agarthans lore. Arundel was the one who installed him as a professor at Garreg Mach, what the hell was THAT relationship like

Mechanics

You can recruit everyone to every route (just because it would be funny and I want to see Flayn off the shits)

New Game+ Golden Route (no not that one)

No church route lol

Milfs

Show them to me I know they're there the cast's genetics depend on them

PATRICIA LORE I NEED IT. SHOW ME.

Politics

I am actually pretty happy with how Scarlet Blaze started like "yeah Edelgard killing these motherfuckers in the government is the good timeline actually" but I am worried that golden route is gonna get on her ass about it

I cannot even begin to articulate how worried I am about the Almyran plotline.

If they actually get the Blue Lions to realise chivalry and obligation Bad Actually their entire house will be redeemed in my eyes (Azure Moon still sucks major ass but I Believe Azure Gleam Can Be Better)

At this point I'm just listing things I want. Can we get Anti Church Route where Seteth and Flayn take down Rhea themselves.

Fred Corner:

For the love of god if they don't do better by Bernadetta in playing her trauma for laughs I will start murdering people. They actually did a pretty good black comedy bit where she was disappointed they didn't arrest her dad but if I hear that goofy fuckin music in her supports its over

We are not getting paired endings :( I want to be wrong about this but it's just not that kinda game I dont think

[nakamatoo]

Some of the ways I think Byleth’s role in three hopes might play out.

They’ll be a protagonist you can play as:

I feel like as you progress through the game you'll be given the option to play as byleth and go through their pov during the story. How this will be implemented is the question. If you play as shez in one route, will you be given the option to choose from the other two routes as Byleth? I bring this up because from this games promotion and build up, it seems like they’re trying to set up Byleth as a character of equal importance to Shez, Either by having them face off in promotional art, or describing them as dual counters to each other that will inevitably clash. So i have a feeling that once get far enough into the game, you’ll be able to play as Byleth and choose a different path from there. Either that or you’ll be given the option to play as Byleth while still on the path of the route you were on before as Shez. The only issue with that is I don't know how having both byleth and shez in the same route to play as the pov character would work if you are already far into the route when you played as shez.

I also don’t think Byleth will be full antagonist, at least not throughout the full game anyway. Byleth’s like one of the most popular fire emblem characters in the series, so I’d be surprised if they just put them in a full on antagonistic role throughout each routes just so Shez could have a rival to go up against. It also would go against the themes of war and conflict that three hopes is known for. How  in war, the person you are fighting against is no different from you and how they have their own reasons fighting themselves.

Either that or Byleth will be a unit you can recruit but the pov will still be on Shez. If that happens then I’d be ok with that but I hope you’ll still be able have support conversations with the other characters as Byleth that goes beyond C supports. Like I’d be really bummed if support conversations between other characters are limited and only go up to C. Gimme my full A support with edelgard and F byleth pleaaaase

[lochnessies]

ok here’s a dissection of a post an anon sent me the link to and bc i have the worst time management possible and i completely forgot i had it lol so sorry anon here you go ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

I am constantly thinking about how Edelgard just doesn’t seem designed to appeal to cishet men.

i hate to be the one to break this news to you op but just because a character doesn’t show skin like charlotte fire emblem doesn’t mean she isn’t designed to pander to men. she’s very much designed to pander to the (majority straight male) player base with her ‘uwu i only trust you professor omg did u see that rat? pls don’t look at my painting of you uwu’.

then there’s the whole edelgard c support in japanese where byleth makes reference to having come to her room for ‘yobi’ which is

there’s also the scene where byleth can make an unsolicited comment about edelgard’s breast size. which is… uhh… gross.

edelgard also has cipher cards that go from slightly fanserviceie to full on suggestive

and also her breast armor that my sister relentlessly mocked lol

and here’s a chart from the 3h subreddit about gender/sexually in regards to edelgard and edeleth. it’s extremely straight male. op might have just overlooked this since they probably don’t go on reddit and stay on tumblr (which unlike reddit is mostly female and has a high lgbt demographic).

Like the joke is that Bleagles is the Gay House, but everything about her feels deliberately non-hetero.

i don’t like where this is going…

She’s dressed in sharp outfits covering her upper body, with proportions that don’t seem exaggerated.

so women who cover up must be lgbt because straight women are naturally more revealing? oh y i k e s

Her poise and the way she effortlessly flourishes her axe exhibits an air of coolness. While titties out =/= character of no substance, Edelgard being dressed more modestly suggests that she wasn’t designed with male-centred fanservice in mind.

“titties don’t equal no substance but here’s my post on how she has more substance because she doesn’t show titties” ok

And she still looks absolutely stunning in her more modest attire (like seriously, I haven’t felt the need to return to cosplay in years but I want to do her academy look so bad). 

yes she does. amazing design 10/10. i have a feeling this is the only part i’m going to agree with

Edelgard is intense. She does not mince her words and she is constantly evaluating you. Though she tries, she has a difficult time understanding her peers initially. Early on, she talks about how she would sacrifice herself and others in the name of some greater good. She is terrible at communicating with her peers. She has to be seen as infallible. Her heart has been hardened for years and she assumes she has to stay that way. She also assumes everyone mourns the same way she does - which is why she (kind of insensitively) insists you move on when Jeralt dies. Because to her, grief has to be channeled towards action, or else you’ll get lost in it. This attitude is demonstrated time and time again as she presses on. It can make her come off as cold and unfeeling - but look closer, and she’s anything but.

don’t really have anything to say at this part. it is pretty on the nose though i would slightly disagree with that last sentence a bit. i wouldn’t say she’s as i feeling as hubert is but all of her talks of the war boil down to how she feels and never her victims.

Her story is ultimately about her realizing that to achieve her goals, she needs to let people in and allow herself to want things like cakes and tea parties and lazy days in peace. 

????? what ????? her goals include imperialism, ethnic and religious targeting. her story is about having a set of beliefs and mowing down anybody who stands in her way. that has nothing to do with tea, friends, and lazy days. also am i supposed to be sad that she has to get up everyday and work? i do that and i didn’t start a war and only throw a pity party for myself

The game leaves the player guessing as to how involved the Flame Emperor was in each Part I event, makes you feel hurt by her betrayal, and leaves you with a choice: do you follow the orders of the woman who tried to make you a god without your consent, or a young girl with questionable morals about to throw the world into upheaval?

this isn’t an ideal situation but i think i’m going to stick with the woman who tried to make me a god since i’m not selfish and i know it’s not only my desires and life at stake here. plus the green hair slaps ngl

Choosing her of your own volition (not for completionist reasons) requires the basic ability to sympathize with a woman’s pain. It also requires the player to read beyond her unwavering will and dubious methods to get a sense of how deep that pain goes and how the theme of humanity relates to her differently in each route.

i’m not going to touch this since @nilsh13 made a post on it that i’ll link here. i agree with everything he said so to repeat it would be redundant.

The player must be able to see a young woman’s desperate resolve to change the world so it stops exploiting people and ruining lives. They must be able to accept the fact that women can make the same morally wrong and ambivalent decisions that complicated male characters get to make all the time and still be the one to root for.

literally the same reason i love rhea lol her goddess experiments are dubious at best but her reasons are the same you mentioned. i would say that i like this quality in edelgard too if her ending, while bloody, actually ended in a good outcome for fodlan.

This is not unique to LGBT+ people, but this population is likely to understand why Edelgard feels so strongly about why she has to change the system. 

i understand wanting to change a system, i really do. like edelgard, i’m an opinionated bisexual woman (who’s also physically disabled) so yeah i get it. and change can be good but it can also be terrible. even if the church was the boogeyman edelgard treats it as she still replaces it with her own shit regime. so it’s the same circus just with a new conductor.

I don’t think “Edelgard gets undue criticism because she’s a woman” captures the full picture. An important aspect of her treatment by certain parts of the fandom is that she’s a radical woman.

or maybe she does some pretty fucked up shit and it goes unacknowledged in her own route. and yeah she’s radical but in all the worst ways.

Her hatred of the Church and the Crest system resonates way harder with people who have been hurt by institutions that are deeply engrained in our society. 

and what about people who have been hurt by systems where their ‘merit’ didn’t measure up and they were left behind? what about people from nations that experienced imperialism?

Siding with her means siding against the Church - which, while different from real world religious institutions, still invokes language about “sin” and “punishment.

yeah the ‘sins’ and ‘punishments’ are used in relation to attempted murders which i think everybody can agree is a bad thing that needs to be condemned.

Choosing Edelgard will likely hit different if homophobic and transphobic Christians used that rhetoric against you.

it has literally nothing to do with ‘sins’ and ‘punishments’ in regards to being gay or trans. that’s you projecting. especially since the church has 2 canon gay characters and two coded ones.

like i can understand why having a church condemn you can be uncomfortable but i’m begging you to please look at the context of what’s happening.

I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that the reason F/F Edeleth is the more popular iteration of that ship because most people who would choose to S-support Edelgard are LGBT+ themselves. This is not a revelation. To anyone in the community, it’s fairly obvious. 

i was talking to nilish and he said

so yeah… while there is definitely sapphic femleth shippers out there, there’s still a whole lot of weird fetishizing going on from straight men about edelgard.

Crimson Flower was my first route. I went into the game knowing absolutely nothing. I played it during the last week of 2020 and hoo boy was it cathartic. 

i can tell. this wasn’t supposed to be a dig but it came out that way and i’m not taking it out.

I felt like I was living out a gay revolution power fantasy, where I could truly change systems of oppression while fighting alongside a group of troubled students I’d shaped the lives of.

so a gay revolution power fantasy (cringe) goes hand in hand with imperialism and installing a dictatorship? also the war had nothing to do with sexuality.

Through your unwavering support, Edelgard learns that she needs to be human, that she must listen to her friends, and that she’s allowed to enjoy the world she’s creating.

edelgard gets to learn how to be human all while hunting those who don’t. and she doesn’t listen fo her friends. she doesn’t even trust them. she’s willing to talk to byleth but keep the people who’s been by her side for five years in the dark about everything. and yeah she gets to enjoy her new words since she’s on top. hate to be a commoner under her rule after she burned down my village in her war.

I love this character so much.

clearly. and i honestly don’t care if somebody likes her. i do as well even if my sometimes scathing words can make it seem otherwise.

It has been six months since I first played and I am still analyzing her,

me too. please help me escape i’m losing my mind

because there’s so much depth. Yet so many people fail to see that depth and dismiss her as evil,

i mean, she does some fucked up shit that goes beyond any of the less than desirable actions of the other main characters and does an extremely poor job in trying to make herself seem innocent. i personally don’t think she’s pure evil but i completely understand where the people who say she is are coming from.

because they never had the will to understand complicated women in the first place. 

that’s big talk from somebody who implies that a gay pope is comparable to homophobic and transphobic irl religions and that leads an oppressive regime all because she uses the vague terms of sin and punishments that you have to gay power fantasy your way out of

[dragongutsixofficial]

For the ask game: FE3H ( or Amphibia if someone already asked ) 💖

No one has done fe3h yet but you can guess where this is going I'm sure XD I'll keep amphibia in mind for next time !!

Honestly I love all of my students so much, they're all so unique and quirky in their own way, but I'd have to say Ferdinand cause he tries so hard to be a good person all the time and to challenge his worldview and that makes me so happy 🧡

Need i even say it. Ofc it's Edelgard. She was something I needed and still need and she inspires me a ton to keep doing my best and assert myself and do what I think is right❤️

Rhea is the character i dislike the most in terms of what she does (even though she's had it incredibly hard herself of course and I understand that) but she's a very good character still so there's that... I wrote a whole post about the patterns of abusive behavior between her and byleth sometime ago which sum up a lot of the unease I feel towards her (though her fans are totally valid, keep stanning the cool dragon lady ! 🐲). Also. Thales. Bitch.

Edeleth. Two people who were made for someone else's goals/to be someone else/to be tools rising above their circumstances and breaking out of their respective abusive relationships thanks to the power of the found family trope ? All of that while being deeply morally grey which makes it all the more interesting ? Count me the fuck in

Favorite friendship ? Mmmmmh.... I love Ferdie and Bernie's friendship but also Ingrid and Ashe's but also Raphael and Marianne- they're all so pure in their own way !

"When humanity stands strong and people reach out for each other, there's no need for gods." or "I didnt betray you or her. I never believed in you from the beginning" simply because of how SAVAGE the line is

I always do my best to spare everyone but Edelgard dying sends me crying because once I get attached to a character to that point it's over

Same answer because while the other routes are cool and totally valid, Edelgard just represents something huge and very important to me ❤️