#this is midnight stream of consciousness nonsense whoops

[houseaegir]

Thoughts on Ferdinand’s contrasting character arcs in CF vs other routes? 👀

Ah, jeeze, I’m not sure I have anything new to add? People more eloquent and thoughtful than me have already written about this, but I shall do my best

He’s certainly at his lowest in non CF routes, perfectly encapsulated by his unique dialogue with Hubert in Enbarr “It does not matter what I think, those are my orders.” But I also find the preceding line extremely interesting, where even now Ferdinand wants Edelgard to leave and live on rather than stay and fight a losing battle to the death. I find it hard to believe Ferdinand’s orders are anything but “take the capital and the palace and kill/capture the Emperor”, so in a way he’s defying orders by urging Hubert to take Edelgard and retreat. But then Billy Kametz does such a good job of making Ferdinand sound so dead inside for those two lines and it breaks my heart, especially when Hubert is still being his typical dramatic self. (I am curious about the original Japanese script for those lines, since the localization flubbed so much around Edelgard I can’t trust these lines to be a completely accurate translation :/)

As much as I dislike the Edelgard+Ferdinand support chain for being totally meh in execution, their B and A supports are, I think, integral to Ferdinand’s CF character arc. He needs Edelgard to kick his ass so he can finally focus on something other than trying to outdo her. And he needs her to acknowledge his contribution and also state plainly that she values him as a friend regardless of his usefulness. Because someone’s got to. I don’t think anyone else ever actually says to Ferdinand’s face that they care about him for him and not just what he can do for them. (Side note: I can’t bring myself to like Hilda/Ferdinand as presented in the game. They’re kind of terrible for each other, with Ferdinand giving in and doing things for her and enabling her laziness, and Hilda seeming to only like him because he’s so easy to convince to do her work for her. The Hilda+Ferdinand support chain is the antithesis of the Edelgard+Ferdinand chain, rather fittingly seeing as they can’t coexist on the same route.)

There’s also the fact that Ferdinand is never abandoned in CF. When recruited, he spends the five years of the war on his own, with no one from the academy around to help. While in CF he’s always part of the BESF, he has a place among his friends for the whole five years and is never left adrift without a support network. (side note #2: When the heck is the BESF even formed? Edelgard comes up with the name in a cutscene shortly before the invasion of Garreg Mach at the end of WC, but then in the CF war phase everyone’s personal history says “1185: Reassigned to Garreg Mach when the Black Eagle Strike Force is formed.” So did Edelgard wait 5 years to actually put the name to use or??? This isn’t super relevant to Ferdinand’s character development, but I was referencing FEDataMine bc my memory is shit and getting confused.)

This is a rambly mess and I think I made about 0.5 of the points I was trying to make. I’m gonna refine this tomorrow and make the Edelgard vs Hilda supports thing my thesis