i was bored and decided to scroll the fe3h reddit for claude posts and it was so bad. i regretted it instantly. so many so called "claude haters" are actually just perpetuating racist stereotypes and xenophobia. it sucks that people fundamentally dont understand his character because they refuse to engage with him, but somehow are able to do this with all the white characters easily??? it pisses me off so bad,
Reddit in general isn't a good place to have genuine conversations. It has a toxic mob mentality where people gang up on anyone who dares to go against the herd.
I have noticed that a lot of people in this fandom have an issue engaging with Claude's character as he is because they have to face the fact that he's objectively a better person and leader than most of FE3H's cast. I think that rubs a lot of fans the wrong way, especially fans of Edelgard and Dimitri, who can't stand the fact that 1/3 of the lord trio is in a league of his own. That's probably why they feel the need to fill in the gaps with racist or xenophobic ideas to bring him down a notch.
Which is kind of funny because they don't have an issue whenever Claude's character gets the short end of the stick in terms of in terms of exposure, marketing, or narrative attention compared to the other two. But suddenly they care about "equal" treatment whenever he's shown in a more positive light than them.
That’s probably why so many people who aren’t actually Claude fans keep insisting that Hopes “fixed” his route or finally made him interesting, while actual Claude fans who care about his character know Hopes was a mess. It put him through the wringer, made him substantially more morally gray than he was in 3H and ultimately gave him far less to show for it, both in terms of personal accomplishment and lasting positive impact on the world they live in, but hey! He's more morally grey now, so I guess automatically that makes him more interesting since apparently that's the only way a character can be interesting.
I think that's why so many non-fans of Claude prefer it and think it no longer makes him boring, because it aligns more with the cynical, xenophobic reading of Claude they've always wanted to project onto him. It really boils down to them not wanting to experience the story through his lens as the main-character instead of the third-wheel to Dimitri and Edelgard who "dared" be a better ruler than either of them and had a route that tackled and resolved every aspect of the conflict that needed to be addressed more effectively than theirs. Only for that to be reversed and for him to go from being the only lord that defeated TWSITD (the true architects of Fodlan's suffering) in 3H to being the only one who didn't battle them in Hopes.
Again, probably because they're either too racist/xenophobic or because they're a butthurt stan.
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