#xenofan19

[raxistaicho]

Fantasy Invader gets a disciple!

Recently @diaphin93​ went into it with @xenofan19​ in this post. I had a few points to add, though I refrained from just reblogging it because the post is already hella long.

Lonato was a minior lord who had mabey a couple hundred people who he multiplied into getting killed for his “revange” hardly a popular uprising but yay lie if you want.

He still quite clearly had the ardent support of his people on his march. I believe “multiplied” is meant to be “manipulated”, but there’s no evidence of this in the game.

Further down, Xeno says:

We actually see that he used and his people in his goal and gained surport from the westen church whitch was working with the Agarthans and Edelgard. Hell its impilled that Edelgard set this whole thing up just to have a look at Serios tomb showing how little she values the lifes of the common people.

The Western Church were working with the Agarthans? Where’s the evidence of that?

And yes, Edelgard did all that to get into the tomb of Seiros - to prove it’s empty. Edelgard knows Seiros is actually alive because she’s Rhea (she says that Thales that the bones not being there are “news”, suggesting that she allowed him to believe the plan was just to grab more Nabatean bones). The Sword of the Creator being there was what surprised her.

That said, we don’t know whether involving Lonato specifically was Edelgard’s intent. The WC Bishop takes credit for involving him in Ashe and Catherine’s paralogue,

In any case, the last point has been addressed many many times; Edelgard is killing a few now to spare another millennia of suffering in the future. The bandage has to be ripped off.

Edelgard ending shows that Hubert hunts down and get rid of uprisings and rebellions showing off Edelgard oppressive nature.

Wow, Elincia’s a fuckin’ tyrant then, isn’t she? Part 2 of Radiant Dawn is all about her getting rid of an uprising and a rebellion that unfortunately had support from the common people.

But seriously, suppressing rebellions before they can start is tyrannical? C’mon, snap out of it. Also,

Damn boy, VW Byleth’s such an oppressor.

Now I’m sure the defense here is going to be that Edelgard was suppressing civilian revolts against her while Byleth is stopping uprisings from Imperial nobility or the remnants of the military, but there’s no evidence for either. The Hubert ending that Edelgard’s detractors like to get upset about states,

In reality, their nights were filled with fierce combat against rebels, assassins, and those who slither in the dark.

Which is pretty vague, and really just seems to be a catch-all for various people who would want to break the post-war peace.

One member of the church thinks Dedue might be responsible not because of his race but because he is from a nation that was believed to have killed King Lambert. This in no way shows the church is xenophobic, just that one guy doesn’t trust Dudue because of past events. 

It’s not just one guy, and it’s not even just Duscur.

From chapter 4:

Also from chapter 4:

From Chapter 6:

Claude makes claims about the church that are never actually proven in game and he even says in VW that the teachings of the church are not xenophobic. Claude and Dimitri surport in Hopes makes no sense and is even disproved by the games own lore as well 90% of Claude claims come out of nowhere and have zero evidence. 

Yeah but here’s the thing, in VW it’s Lorenz, who knows Fodlan and the church better than Claude, who says it. Now yes, Claude disagrees with him, but the circumstances in VW are night and day from GW. In VW, Claude is rather brazenly looking to use the church’s influence and the Knights of Seiros, through Byleth, for his benefit. It’s natural then that he would be interested in brushing aside the worst of the church’s excesses: not only does he want them on his side, he has the perfect person to take over and fix the church’s problems.

Dimitri and Claude surport is poorly written in a secret chapter that ignores the canon all of the routes so sorry if I don’t take it with any facts definitely when Claude says nonsense that he never mentions before or after the event. 

Honestly this just reads to me like you don’t like what Hopes had to say about the church so you’re refusing to listen to it...

Edelgard  is willing working with that force and has shown a clear preference for the nobility system you claim she is trying to take down so much that Hopes shows she gives them special treatment and works ageist the common people.

Oh christ, don’t listen to Fantasy Invader. I mean it. Other sources of anti-Edelgard takes will say correct things on occasion, but he specifically doesn’t ever seem to have a clue what he’s talking about.

I’ve gone over his source on the point you’re making, he completely misinterpreted the line and forgot which character even said the offending sentence in question.

More here.

Like Edelgard own ending shows that she doesn’t make the changes you speak off 

What?

As the new Adrestian emperor, Edelgard dedicated her life to reshaping the delicate political structure of Fódlan. With tireless work and great sacrifice, she reformed the class system to ensure a free and independent society for all. In her later years, she entrusted her life's work to a worthy successor before finally vanishing from the public eye. 

It’s rather broadly spoken, yes, but it says she did the reforms.

Duscur was a flause flags operation carried out by Edelgard own allies and only the westen lords with most of the Kingdom not being involved.

It doesn’t matter that only a few of the Kingdom Lords were involved; they still conspired in regicide. The important point here is that since they did with it Lambert, they’d do it again with Dimitri if necessary.

Edelgard also never tried to help the people of Duscur and has zero plans or goals to help them simple because they are not form Fodlan so don’t matter to her.

Like Edelgard comes off worse in that situation then either the Kingdom or Church as unlike them she never even tries to help the people of Duscur.

How would she help the people of Duscur? She’s an Adrestian princess/emperor. It was the Faerghans who committed a genocide. To help the people of Duscur she’d have to take over the country first. You know, that thing you get mad at her about.

Or what, do you think she’d have any success by going, “actually, I know the people of Duscur didn’t kill King Lambert, and I know this because the actual perpetrator told me! N-no, I can’t actually support this claim...”

People didn’t listen to Dimitri when he said the people of Duscur were innocent, and he was there at the time. Who on earth is going to listen to the princess of another country who was on the other side of the continent at the time?

Lastly, on the point about her having no plans to help them, just because nothing is said of the people of Duscur in CF or SB doesn’t mean Edelgard has no plans for them. They, too, are part of the oppressed peoples she hopes to uplift. Only AM and AG focus on Duscur, because it’s intrinsically tied to Dimitri’s character plot. Much like how the Faerghan and Leicesterian routes don’t really have much to say about Brigid.

And lastly, yes, the Tragedy of Duscur was the assassination attempt planned by the Agarthans and instigated with the support of the Western lords. But the tragedy of Duscur was when the people of Faerghus went full Faerghan Revenge mode and launched a genocide of the people of Duscur. The Agarthans didn’t mind-control the people of Faerghus to do that, they did it on their own.

And yet neither Dimitri’s fans nor AM or AG seem interested in addressing the point. Dimitri only ever seeks to punish the nobles who were behind the Tragedy, but there’s never any word of any actual repentance from the Faerghan troops who did the tragedy. It’s bizarre how it seems like the two events cannot be decoupled in the minds of the writers or Edelgard’s detractors, as though the Faerghans going full Revenge Brain Mode and genociding an entire people because they think they killed their king was just the inevitable outcome of Lambert being assassinated. It was like mud slides just naturally following a fierce rainstorm due to the physics involved, rather than the result of Faerghus’s culture of honoring and avenging the dead over the living.

But then again AM, AG, and most of all Edelgard’s detractors, are not interested in criticizing the flaws of Faerghus’s culture.

Lol you do know it could be argued that Edelgard starts a war of faith in Hopes as she wants her new state church to become the main one whitch would grant her more religious power in Fodlan whitch is actually brought up in AG. 

Oh yeah, you’re definitely listening too much to Fantasy Invader...

Hey, did you know Fantasy Invader thinks this banner:

Is symbolic for this banner:

Despite them clearly looking completely different?

Anyways, yeah, the only thing we hear about the Southern Church in AG is that Gilbert and Gautier just vaguely don’t like the sounds of what they’re preaching, and seriously fuck both those men. If they think it’s bad, it can only be good. Their stopped clock had its minute hand ripped off.

She is even more obsessed over Byleth then Rhea but never actually opens up to them and right up to the end of the game lies to control Byleth. You can try and lie and claim how Dimitri and Rhea would be worse but the game shows how Edelgard is far more toxic partner. 

Yeah, get back to me when Edelgard steals an unconscious Byleth away into her room for an indeterminate period of time to give them a lap pillow treatment and then comes just shy of sexually assaulting them...

Edelgard doesn’t tell Byleth what to think or what to believe. In fact she frequently just asks questions of Byleth throughout White Clouds to try to get them to consider the world and their place in it more clearly.

Dimitri spent 5 years defending his people from being slaughtered by Edelgard as she was wiping out entire villages simple because they refuse to bow to her 

Gonna need evidence of that, chief.

[randomnameless]

Hi I was was wondering do you have any thoughts on Sylvain interest towards Shez wepon definitely when compared to Linhardt and possibly Hanneman lack of interest.

Oh!

As opposed to the GD shaft, Nopes really explored more on the BL gang!

It's very interesting and in character with his "evolution" tbh, Sylvain resents his position as the crested heir and the importance of his crest - but also understands his crest (and his ability to use it!) is needed in Gautier because Gautier is a march and it needs protection from the Srengese raids.

So him being interested in Barney's weapons - apparently super powerful like relics (which raises the question of wtf agarthans slaughtered lizards to make weapons if they could make weapons as powerful as lizard-made weapons??) - goes in his general arc, if people can become as powerful as crested people with a relic by using Barney's weapons, it would alleviate the burden placed on crest bearers!

IIRC Sylvain also expresses interest in a firearm protoype iirc?

It's again relative to his mindset of developing weapons that don't need crests to use, and would be as efficient as Relics -

And we could link this to Rhea's ban of "black water" extraction - for sure it gives everyone an access to "powerful" weapons, but is it really a good thing if you want a peaceful land?

(Which is also why I like the Nopes mention that fwiw, the Gautier "tried" to foster peace with Leif, the Srengese grandson of the guy Macul yeeted away, but in the end it doesn't work that well and Clout adds Almyran oil on the fire)

Of course we will never know because Agartha is never developped what Barney's weapons are, and if anyone, bar Barney, can use them or if they are "as strong" as relics lore-wise...

But it was a fun idea the writers gave us (and obviously never developed)!

Hanneman and Linhardt's interest in crests is... not as practical, Lin wants to study for Science ! and Hanneman, despite his backstory (even if his endings mention progress and development of tech not needing crests?) is very elusive on the question - he is supposed to be the head honcho on crestology, but the one who was getting closer to "the truth" is a random monk who stopped researching and left a note in the Abyss rather than said head honcho...

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

@xenofan19 replied:

I find it funny how Dimitri is able to use Miklan as a military asset, beacon for creatless people, and as a story of redemption for those who walked a life of crime it's honestly one of the most brilliant political moves in the game and yet people still try to claim he is the dumb lord

"dimitri bad, meritocracy good! let the ppl at the bottom rise to the top!"

dimitri: oh sure -does this-

"dimitri BaD! how dare he put someone like miklan in such a high and important position! dimitri DumB!"

[fantasyinvader]

@xenofan19

"I'm just confused that people can look at that image and think it's meant to be heroic and that Edelgard is the hero."

Because they're human. They're people who are used to the gratification gaming provides, telling them that they're a hero who has done good. Houses uses that against them. That it takes that masturbatory need for the player to feel good about themselves to try and turn them into the villain through that, with the player either unwilling to accept that their lord was a villain all along or are unable to see past her self-serving narrative.

Sometimes, doing the right thing can be painful and not always easy. Truth can get in the way of your own desires, ends don't always justify the means. I find for many people it's easier to look away from the distasteful parts, much like how Edelgard herself is said to do, and instead focus only on the parts you want to see. There are many people out there who want to reject the realities of the other routes, decrying them all as lies and Flower as the one truth. It's even to the point where Flower isn't enough for some of them, instead championing fanfiction as the best means to understand what the game is trying to say while muting the game's own creators. The fact that the game relies on a bunch of symbolism that people may or may not understand, as well as had it's text altered in the translation thus muddying it's meaning, only furthers this.

People get close to characters, especially in this franchise, but Houses is telling them that sometimes you need to walk a different path from them. And, again, these people are human. They think they're fighting for humanity, not realizing how much of a cage that actually is and how liberating Enlightenment is supposed to be. Rather than purging yourself or your lord of one of the three poisons/flames Flower is meant to be the animal path, representing ignorance/delusion, hatred/aversion and greed/attachment. These players are attached to Edelgard, they choose to remain ignorance and even believing falsehoods about the game in their aversion to the other routes and hatred towards certain characters.

Houses encourages us to be better than just human.

[p5x-theories]

@xenofan19 Good news, he is! We got to see a bit of actual gameplay with Leo in the first trailer for the second beta, so I'm fully expecting we'll get to see even more of him once the second beta actually opens.

More green boy content

[randomnameless]

@xenofan19 replied to your post “Now that I can play with the Nopes datamine”:

Hay, how dare you hold Edelgard to the same standardised that we hold other characters to don't you know she is pure of heart and is the magical girl of Adrestia.

​I swear at this rate we can turn Fodlan in a super sentai AU :

Supreme Leader heard about the legend of Adrestia's magical girl who defeated a great evil and united Fodlan under her banners ; ushering an era of great prosperity and peace for The World.

Sadly, the evil returned (or has never been truly defeated) so, as the current heir of Adrestia (Hans 2 disappeared after a skiing accident), it is her duty to unite Fodlan to defeat the great evil!

Sadly, Fodlan became divided and Sailor Faerghus (a dumb blond barbarian!) refuses to join forces to defeat the great evil (apparently he has some other things to do, like taking care of his people, puh-lease, who cares??) and Sailor Leicester has been missing for years, instead there is a new sailor senshi who uses a power that is definitely not from Fodlan.

Supreme Leader manages to, more or less, convince the Leicester sailor senshi to join her cause, and raid a secret cache of weapons held by an inhuman who pretends to be on their side, but is inhuman and has several robot/zords in her basement.

Obviously, Sailor Faerghus, that moron, sides with the inhuman and says instead of killing each other, they could side together against the "great evil".

Supreme Leader refuses, this inhuman is, duh, not-human! Maybe she's in the cahoots with the evil ones, who are also, non humans!

The inhuman reveals she was the first Adrestian magical girl (but refuses to be called as such, she was a holy warrior! Not a Sailor Senshi!) but Sailor Leicester kills her, because why not.

Looting her weapons while coming to the realisation that, no, Willy wasn't the first Adrestian Magical Girl, Supreme Leader leads the newfound coalition - ditched by Sailor Faerghus that traitor - against the great evil : the Mole People.

However, since they killed the inhuman lady who might have taught them how to pilote her robots/zords against the agarthan giant robots, Supreme Leader's forces are defeated.

the end /

[randomnameless]

@xenofan19 replied to your post “I saw your post about dumb points people make so...”:

@randomnameless Thanks I completely forgot and couldn't find it anywhere

​No pbs!

[p5x-theories]

@xenofan19 Could be! If it is sin-themed again, he may also be pride, or "Vanity" like Madarame (which would fit in with the general P5 counterparts pattern so far). I only saw his first appearance in the game tonight (in a stream), which is very brief and doesn't show much of how he acts as a person, but it looks like he's part of some kind of TV show (or other filmed media) that seems to visit restaurants, so I wouldn't be surprised if we find out he's "secretly" incredibly vain or whatever. Wrath might work if he's doing it to sabotage other restaurants' reputations (no idea if he ran/runs his own) or something, though...

The first image assets I'm finding of the second Palace in the data! (Having found the guy's Shadow now, I do actually already have his cut-ins (not the Shadow's, his real self's) as well.)

[p5x-theories]

@xenofan19 Yeah, completely agree! It also seems a little weird to have apparently changed her whole design in the real world if they were just going to add her as a Phantom Idol...

The new Kayo Tomiyama introduction scene (and by "new", I mean literally, entirely identical as far as I can tell, except they completely changed her model and portrait art), as well as some other tidbits Fax has translated + one of Okyann's navigator skills in action.

Faz translates her Persona's name as Cleodora, and confirms that she comes from the gacha and is thus a Phantom Idol.

[p5x-theories]

@xenofan19 Ah, like I was saying in the post, Persona Central originally reported his real world identity as being this guy:

However, I've seen absolutely no evidence for this so far, and they've even edited the article since I saw it yesterday, and he's no longer listed as being Leo. I'm pretty sure it was a misunderstanding of something, rather than anything founded, and I'm not putting any stock in it until I see something in the files or game that suggests otherwise. Persona Central is good at gathering images, but as far as P5X goes, they've misreported things in the past, so I don't really trust what they say about game content, especially considering in this case they've now fixed their article.

Outliers Among Supporting Characters and Phantom Idols

So it seems that most supporting characters in this game will double as Phantom Idols.  However, there are a few new characters that haven’t been confirmed as one or the other:

Phantom Idols without counterparts: Seiji, Mont, Yuki

It’s not surprising to have characters that exist purely for gacha, but these guys were pretty prominent in early marketing, including an official cosplay of Mont.  And Yuki was apparently going to to have a major role back when this game was still called Code Name: X.  Are these guys leftovers from an earlier draft?

Supporting characters without counterparts: Kumi Katayama, Ena Kageyama, Long Black-Haired Girl

Are these characters going to be story members?  Have their Metaverse outfits not been designed yet?  Are they not going to Phantom Idols at all?

I’m probably just getting ahead of myself, but I thought this was worth pointing out.

No no, it’s definitely interesting to think about!

Seiji and Yuki both have traces of counterparts- Yukimi has a school uniform model in both beta’s files (though the first beta’s wasn’t quite assembling correctly for me, so I’m hoping the second’s will be better), and they both had confidant portraits in the first beta’s files:

Whether that means we’ll actually meet them or not is still debatable, but it seems to suggest they’re out there somewhere! Mont, however, we still have no sign of, and we also haven’t seen Leo’s anywhere as far as I’ve seen (I believe Persona Central reported this incorrectly).

I would be a little surprised if we didn’t get to meet every Phantom Idol’s counterpart in the supporting cast, though, because it’s a growing pattern that sort of explains where the Phantom Idols “come from”, or I suppose specifically, why Merope decides on those ones to create for Wonder. But it’s also true that the data for Yukimi’s uniform could just be leftover from Codename: X, and there’s no obvious indication either way. There were other remnants of things with her changing throughout development (Styx being called Portia, her having two slightly different sets of portraits and thief models), so the uniform could just be another addition to that list, and I can’t tell just from the file names.

As for the supporting characters without current counterparts, the list’s actually far longer, considering how many characters have portraits and thus could be a supporting character. Other teachers, the guitar girl, animal rights girl, and mascot by Shibuya station, the guy with the prominently curled hair in Shinjuku, the camera guy, the young boy (Kazuhiko Tsuda), etc… at the moment, none of them are confirmed confidants, much like Wonder’s teacher, Katayama, and the new coffee shop lady, both of which you listed above. So I’m not sure we can really narrow down who qualifies as a supporting character that “should” be a confidant yet? I think this is a little harder to speculate, though it would make sense if Katayama is a confidant to mirror Kawakami’s role as one in P5. I guess if you’re including the coffee shop girl as one to parallel Sojiro, then there might be some backing to the theory? But Wonder doesn’t live there, so I’m not sure she makes quite the same level of logical sense. I guess it remains to be seen.

And the girl with long black hair, again, is Riko Tanemura! We already know she’s going to join the team, almost certainly as a story teammate considering she’s on the title screen.

[p5x-theories]

@xenofan19 So far I haven't seen any indication as to whether Kii, Okyann, and Leo are Phantom Idols or real teammates (I think that's what you're asking?), but we do have it confirmed that Kotomo and Rin are Phantom Idols, and Soy is a real teammate.

New thieves in-game, confirming their types!

Okyann is a navigator, Leo is nuclear, Kii is fire, Rin is curse, Kotomo is psy, and Soy is ice.

[p5x-theories]

@xenofan19 Honestly, still no idea! I'm keeping an eye out for whether anyone figures out if she's an idol or a real teammate, so I'm still not sure whether she'll get an arcana (assuming they're even doing that in this game, because we still haven't been seeing those?). Though given that her thief outfit is very clearly a gyaru, I'm not entirely sure she'll be the wise/old parent/guardian figure type that the P3-P5 Hierophants are, haha?

First look at Okyann's 3D model and portrait, from a tweet from Faz!

[randomnameless]

Well,

It's almost as if the kingdom values crests because of the power boost, but the empire has a "crust system" to... Make a distinction between haves and haves not, even if they don't give a fuck about what their crest do.

🤔

Hi I was was wondering do you have any thoughts on Sylvain interest towards Shez wepon definitely when compared to Linhardt and possibly Hanneman lack of interest.

Oh!

As opposed to the GD shaft, Nopes really explored more on the BL gang!

It's very interesting and in character with his "evolution" tbh, Sylvain resents his position as the crested heir and the importance of his crest - but also understands his crest (and his ability to use it!) is needed in Gautier because Gautier is a march and it needs protection from the Srengese raids.

So him being interested in Barney's weapons - apparently super powerful like relics (which raises the question of wtf agarthans slaughtered lizards to make weapons if they could make weapons as powerful as lizard-made weapons??) - goes in his general arc, if people can become as powerful as crested people with a relic by using Barney's weapons, it would alleviate the burden placed on crest bearers!

IIRC Sylvain also expresses interest in a firearm protoype iirc?

It's again relative to his mindset of developing weapons that don't need crests to use, and would be as efficient as Relics -

And we could link this to Rhea's ban of "black water" extraction - for sure it gives everyone an access to "powerful" weapons, but is it really a good thing if you want a peaceful land?

(Which is also why I like the Nopes mention that fwiw, the Gautier "tried" to foster peace with Leif, the Srengese grandson of the guy Macul yeeted away, but in the end it doesn't work that well and Clout adds Almyran oil on the fire)

Of course we will never know because Agartha is never developped what Barney's weapons are, and if anyone, bar Barney, can use them or if they are "as strong" as relics lore-wise...

But it was a fun idea the writers gave us (and obviously never developed)!

Hanneman and Linhardt's interest in crests is... not as practical, Lin wants to study for Science ! and Hanneman, despite his backstory (even if his endings mention progress and development of tech not needing crests?) is very elusive on the question - he is supposed to be the head honcho on crestology, but the one who was getting closer to "the truth" is a random monk who stopped researching and left a note in the Abyss rather than said head honcho...

[p5x-theories]

@xenofan19 Yeahhh, having just seen the awakening myself, he seems very much in line with Madarame's vanity, I'd say. Not that "Vanity" is usually given as one of the seven sins (as opposed to pride), but since that's what P5 used, I'm suspecting that's what he'll be as well.

The first image assets I'm finding of the second Palace in the data! (Having found the guy's Shadow now, I do actually already have his cut-ins (not the Shadow's, his real self's) as well.)

[p5x-theories]

@xenofan19 Okay cool! That's a good point, though. I'm keeping an eye out for if anyone confirms the Personas' names anywhere, or if the data itself has it (which it probably does somewhere, there's just 199 foldes and I'm on 003 haha)

New thieves in-game, confirming their types!

Okyann is a navigator, Leo is nuclear, Kii is fire, Rin is curse, Kotomo is psy, and Soy is ice.