You are the one reducing now. The church route isnt like that
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Fire Emblem: Three Houses Plot, Characters and routes discussion thread (Open Spoilers)
- Thread starter Xavi
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If they somehow manage to redeem nemesis then I'mma raise my hat because damn they make that fucker look like a filthy monster. I mean they did it with Edelgard and Rhea too but them making some justification for him going into Sothis tomb, killing her and then using her bones and blood to make super weapons would be some work.
The game opens with Edelgard's attempt to assassinate her fellow class leaders. Things were doomed long before Byleth even met them.
Her ideals doesnt change, I am talking about her actions. Byleth has a big impact on them
Ehhhh I could write them getting over that without too much difficulty. Again, their differences and flaws and, yes, Edelgard's actions present an obstacle - but not an insurmountable one absent outside interference.
Uhhhhh yes you were.
She not mentioning her ideals doesnt mean that they are different, meanwhile Edelgard acts very different if Byleth sides with her.
The point being made was that it's reductionist - Claude and Dimitri have similar goals and take dissimilar actions, but Edelgard doesn't really get into why she does what she does outside of a few hugely reduced bits. Claude is the most consistent, I think, Dimitri looks the worst in his route, Edelgard looks the worst in all the others, but while the other two are very clear on why they do the things they do, Edelgard basically ends up playing the generic conqueror even though we know that there's more to it.
And Rhea acts very different if Byleth sides with her. Your point being?
Free education is a great place to start, but it's primarily her rhetoric that has me concerned about the motivations behind her planned policies. She's violently crushing systems of emotional support for many people without any immediate replacements in sight, and as a result there will be many people feeling lost, helpless and weak in the world she creates. There's also a great deal of potential for corruption and nepotism, something I'd argue Edelgard veers dangerously close to with Linhardt. She promises him a cushy job with unlimited vacation time and the right to research whatever he wants. That's an opportunity I don't imagine many of the people who aren't personal friends with Edelgard are going to find themselves afforded.
Actually my reason for siding with her was that her and Hubert were two of my best units, and I didn't like Rhea enough to sacrifice them. Rhea doesn't really come off that well in the start of the BE route either, and Flayn is a simpering little girl who I sidelined early. So that's why i ended up playing through Church second.
You have to get more of the info out of Edel's supports with the other teammates on how she intends the post war society to be, and that can be missed easily (I couldn't adjutant everyone up to A ranks with her)
I do think the devs made a mistake in not giving that route full development resources. It should have been just as many chapters as the rest, and had you deal with TWSITD finally in gameplay, not a story after the fact.
As to the first, I would agree that she'll need a replacement for the church - but she also agrees with that, in her supports. I don't see any reason to think she wouldn't also plan to eventually have that replacement in other routes, unless there's something I've missed. Hell, I think the replacement might just be the church, just without Rhea and with some doctrinal updates. As to the second... Well, now we're dealing with the real world implications of the fantasy world policy. I agree completely that meritocracy as a system generally fosters corruption and nepotism and other bad things, but on the flip side, it's kind of ridiculous to say that she should know that. And hey, maybe the "genius researcher with lots of vacay" thing is just policy anybody who can get up to Lin-tier brilliance gets. It's a job you can secure in our world right now.
All of that's to say, cast plenty of aspersion on her actions, but I don't really see a good reason to question her motives for doing it. All her ideas are foundational to the character, and set before Byleth even enters the story.
Never got her A support, but plan to now that I have more time in Silver Snow. Guessing from her B support, I'd bet it's adoptive father issues more than anything.
Shitty fathers seems to be the running theme for a lot of supports, now that I think about it.
The vibe I got off Marianne was always more that she was desperately trying to pray away her Crest (or, to be more precise, the self-loathing that came with her Crest) but that she wasn't really a believer . She just felt like she was out of options other than divine assistance.
Fair enough. Edelgard is certainly doing what she thinks is the right thing for Fodlan, no matter the route.
This game deffo likes daddy issues.
Pretty much all the Black eagles have straight up awful dads lol.
Then there's almost everyone else having dad issues of some kind:
Felix, Annette, Marianne, Ashe and to a lesser extent Mercedes and Ingrid.
I mean, even before that - she's not exactly exuding a peaceful, comforted atmosphere when she's in the cathedral like, say, Mercedes does.
I am talking about how the other routes dont make edelgard any disservice
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She straight out tells you in the A support that she wanted to die. But due to your help she now has hope for the future.
Yea I know, that's why I was questioning the earlier responses, guess I wasnt clear about that
That's part of Edelgard's character I've come to respect. She thinks she knows what's right for everyone, but the other routes expose how inherently flawed her ideology is. On a macroscale her plan is fine I guess. But once you take more than a passing glance at it you see how nonsense it is. She's intentionally a very flawed character.
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Edelgard just executes Dimitri. This game is so dark compared to Awakening (the only other FE game I've played).
I need her in Smash!
I need her in Smash!
I think one of the biggest issues I have with Edelgard's route is that it really feels unfinished compared to the others, despite being pushed the most in marketing. Not only is it the shortest, but it leaves you without any resolution for Those who Slither in the Dark, simply deciding to say they were dealt with in the epilogue. This is pretty important, because how do they actually stop Thales when he still has an unknown amount of magic ICBMs left at his disposal, and you're left without a manakete to conveniently sacrifice themselves to stop?
Not only that, but Edelgard's route would actually feel worth it if it had any significant change on Fodlan itself compared to the other routes. However, the existence of the other three endings that basically deal with all the issues she had in the first place while also not destabilizing the continent by way of destroying its religion effectively undermines her own ending because for all that blood and misery you inflicted on people, you really didn't end up any better than the other routes! Granted it's more personal for Byleth since they become 'human' again, but otherwise it doesn't really stand out.
Edelgard as a character is already insanely divisive in the fandom, with those who played BE as their first route tending to think more highly of her. Even though she has good intentions, her ideology and methods leave a lot to be desired and her being uncompromising in so many ways means that a 'Golden Route' is very unlikely. Hell, when you attack her with Claude on the GD route, she outright says that Claude's ideals are almost entirely similar to her own, but she dismisses the idea of working with him because he's a foreigner. Working with the other leaders is completely out of the question because she seeks to conquer their lands outright -- there's no point in parlaying there. She's as ruthless as they come.
...it also doesn't help that her character is fairly inconsistent. On every single route she has varying degrees of going "s-sensei uwu" which feels entirely out of place for her considering she doesn't even know you that well in BL and GD. (Seriously, the cutscene when you kill her in GD makes no sense and it seems like they only copied it over from the Church route).
I think the lore we get, piecemeal as it is, does help to explain some of her actions, but they also humanize Rhea and everything she's gone through, which helps to explain why she's keeping Fodlan in constant stagnation. Edelgard's route simply doesn't even delve into that so they can simply make here a screeching, unhinged villain, which really does both of them a disservice.
Not only that, but Edelgard's route would actually feel worth it if it had any significant change on Fodlan itself compared to the other routes. However, the existence of the other three endings that basically deal with all the issues she had in the first place while also not destabilizing the continent by way of destroying its religion effectively undermines her own ending because for all that blood and misery you inflicted on people, you really didn't end up any better than the other routes! Granted it's more personal for Byleth since they become 'human' again, but otherwise it doesn't really stand out.
Edelgard as a character is already insanely divisive in the fandom, with those who played BE as their first route tending to think more highly of her. Even though she has good intentions, her ideology and methods leave a lot to be desired and her being uncompromising in so many ways means that a 'Golden Route' is very unlikely. Hell, when you attack her with Claude on the GD route, she outright says that Claude's ideals are almost entirely similar to her own, but she dismisses the idea of working with him because he's a foreigner. Working with the other leaders is completely out of the question because she seeks to conquer their lands outright -- there's no point in parlaying there. She's as ruthless as they come.
...it also doesn't help that her character is fairly inconsistent. On every single route she has varying degrees of going "s-sensei uwu" which feels entirely out of place for her considering she doesn't even know you that well in BL and GD. (Seriously, the cutscene when you kill her in GD makes no sense and it seems like they only copied it over from the Church route).
I think the lore we get, piecemeal as it is, does help to explain some of her actions, but they also humanize Rhea and everything she's gone through, which helps to explain why she's keeping Fodlan in constant stagnation. Edelgard's route simply doesn't even delve into that so they can simply make here a screeching, unhinged villain, which really does both of them a disservice.
It's ... complicated.
The way I understand it, she's more of an alternate "good guy" persona of Seiros (which is ruthless, arrogant, etc, even before all the shit that happened to her which doesn't help her "get better").
In a way, she's kind of the Homura of Hikari in Xenoblade 2 (if Hikari was more of an homicidal maniac).
But it's not easy to get the full picture given you need to play multiple routes to grasp it, and she herself shows on various occasions that not all of her words should be taken at face value.
Pretty sure it's literally just her. In Church route all she says is "I am Seiros"
I think she's literally Seiros. She says she's like 1000 in the Golden Deer stuff near the end.
Going from his supports, I think Sylvain has a pretty clear motive to oppose the Crest system, even if he doesn't necessarily articulate that in the main story.
IIRC, his B(?) support (BE route recruit, if that changes anything) makes it pretty clear he resents what happened to his brother, and points his ire at the whole crest nobility bullshit.
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What i don't really understand ... maybe because i've not seen/read everything about it ... but Jeralt is literally over 100 years old. Outside of Seteth, Flayn and Rhea ... how did this not raise questions to begin with? Solon for example was at Garreg Mach long enough to might have been able to notice this.
Which ... btw. is funny. We know he's after Flayn because of her blood. But Rhea should have the same blood, and so should Jeralt.
Still, the other endings are flawed "Happy Endings" (i don't think there's a single happy ending really).
As long as the Crests exists, there will be people who will try to use them for their own advantage, no matter who's in charge of the church, and if there even is a church.
Basically, three endings leave the player like "Hope they don't fuck this up again".
Which ... btw. is funny. We know he's after Flayn because of her blood. But Rhea should have the same blood, and so should Jeralt.
Still, the other endings are flawed "Happy Endings" (i don't think there's a single happy ending really).
As long as the Crests exists, there will be people who will try to use them for their own advantage, no matter who's in charge of the church, and if there even is a church.
Basically, three endings leave the player like "Hope they don't fuck this up again".
That's why it's so weird that fans have lined up to be like 'YUP SHE WAS RIGHT AND HER METHODS ARE JUSTIFIED', oftentimes before even playing any of the other paths but sometimes AFTER playing all of them.
Like, you can sympathize with a flawed villain and understand his or her motivations without immediately jumping to "SHE WAS RIGHT" territory. That's part of the reason why Suikoden II's story worked - the player understands WHY Jowy felt he had to take the route he did to free Highland, even if they disagree with his methods and spend the whole game wanting him to just see reason and step back from the edge of the abyss.
Just because she's really good in combat doesn't mean she's a good person. :|
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I believe going after Rhea, inside the monastery, would be way harder than going after the "little girl"
As for Jeralt, maybe he wasn't a pure blood? Since Rhea just transfused enough to save him.
Oh I haven't completed my Golden Deer run yet so that explains why. I just assumed that Rhea got taken over or something in her Black Eagles route.
I don't really think it is, though. Her ideology is fine unless you bring real world political science into it. Her methods are questionable, though I would argue less questionable than people think, given the history and perspectives involved, but that's distinct from her ideology. It's not like she prizes making hard choices, you really get the sense from a lot of her dialogue (and the Flame Emperor's) that she hates "having" to do this. But she's set on her course, so do them she must.
I think people overvalue "peace" in a setting like this. Rhea/Seiros' peace isn't like... harmony. It's stasis, or worse. Generations of people ground down under strict bloodline rule so an ancient dragon can try over and over to bring back her mother. That's not a peace worth fighting for.
Every route is designed as some form of tragedy, if only with regard to Edelgard's fate. Either she's killed when she was just someone who whished to defeat the big bad dragon (like, you know, pretty much every Fire Emblem hero did to this day). Or she manages to kill the big bad dragon, which, in fact, was an utterly traumatized individual which, no matter how brutal her crimes were, could probably have been redeemed if the circumstances were way different (like, way different) (*).
One thing they nailed in BE-E is the feeling that all the shit that's happening is your doing (and you feel bad for it), yet it had to happen for change to occur (something which is true in all in other routes, even if Edelgard's not the one ending up "saving the world").
(*) And that's, of course, not even counting the victims of the war, named characters or not.
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I simply ignore everyone that says "Edelgard did nothing wrong", they either didnt play other routes or they are trolling to make fans of other routes angrier.
Edit: DP, I forgot this thread doesnt move as fast as the normal one
That's why i always think of the brigand attack in the prologue mission as some diversion. At the point of the game where Flayn gets kidnapped, it's suicide to try getting a hit on Rhea, agreeing here.
But at the time of the prologue, the only "worthwhile" members of the church at Garreg Mach were Rhea, Seteth and Flayn, and Manuela and Hanneman. Catherine, Shamir and Gilbert were off on missions, Alois and a bunch of the Knights were after the missing students. Jeralt and yourself were obviously minding the own business. And for the bad guys, Solon and DK were at the monastery during that time. Maybe even Kronya.
For me, it makes more sense than Edelgard building her plan of getting rid of Dimitri and Claude on "Don't get killed before the others". ^^
Can't remember, but didn't Rhea said that the person who was going to be professor, the one that ran away, had been a suggestion of the Empire?
Nope, just her flipping at the thought that her plan failed yet again, but this time it failed even harder because her "mom" is even trying to get rid of her.
Of course she did some stuff that was wrong. We know that if she'd gone to Claude and maybe Dimitri, she wouldn't have had to launch a war on the rest of the continent (though I'm fairly convinced that war would've broken out anyway).
That's distinct from thinking she was right and justified, though, which is what PlanetSmasher said. I stand by that take.
Well I think there is a difference between right and justified. I dont think she is right(maybe in her route only), but you can argue that she is justified because of her context.
I mean, the definition of a justified action is one that was the right thing to do. It could be an ugly necessity, but still. Unless you mean morally right, in which case, it's more route dependent.
How so? I could see the argument in the Church and Blue Lions routes, where you're siding with people who are first and foremost opposed to her, personally or ideologically, but if she wasn't so... well, driven, and frankly untrusting, she could've joined Claude in the Deer route as the token ruthless teammate. And in her own route she makes a fine protagonist.
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This is true. I wonder what happened to them? Most likely killed for running away.
Edelgard is way too driven(for blood) and uncompromising to ever work with Dimitri/Claude or Rhea. I just can't see it.
There really aren't many examples in human history of "I want to rule all of y'all so lemme conquer your asses through a massive, bloody, costly, continent-spanning war" actually working. Even the British Empire mostly got to where it was at its peak through colonization, NOT rapid military expansion filtered through a cult of personality.
That whole (well, small) part is the one I can't really wrap my head-on.
The fact that's (IIRC) it's not touched upon later doesn't help obviously, but the whole plan hardly makes any sense.
I mean either it's a legit attempted murder and then it's like REALLY STUPID on her part as she almost got killed and litteraly only got saved by divine intervention. I mean why not. Plans don't always come together. But come on. Later in the game the same idiotic girl can kick Rhea out of her monastery? That's one hell of a stretch.
And if it was intended as a diversion then I don't see how Jeralt/Byleth changes much to the plan. She'd have planned to defeat the bandits anyway. So why didn't anyone attack the monastery?
It just makes no sense (except providing the mandatory "kill the bandits" first FE mission). Unless the diversion was so that they could infiltrate someone? But it's never explained so 🤷♀️