Hey there, everyone, stay safe from this summer heat! I just posted chapter 143 of my fanfic, On Black Wings :)
It’s a ludicrously in-depth retelling of the Crimson Flower storyline of Fire Emblem Three Houses, focusing on character moments, tactics and strategy, and the day-to-day life at Garreg Mach.
The Black Eagle Strike Force and their Agarthan allies race against time to save Shambhala and all of eastern Fodlan from Thales's spiteful last gasp…
I've only played Awakening, Fates, 3H and Engage, but of the FE games I haven't played yet, do any of them have majorly important female characters (whether protagonists or antagonists) who aren't misogynistic caricatures? The impression I have of Celica, Eirika, and Micaiah is that they're naive little girls who wind up getting sidelined in favor of the male protagonist, but I still haven't played their games myself yet, so that might just be my cynicism talking and I'd love to be proven wrong.
Micaiah absolutely not, if anything she's very cynical and tends to be pragmatic unless someone needs saving in front of her. People overhype Ike's role in the story.
Eirika has an issue with Ephraim saving her a couple of time which does suck, but if you choose her route over his she retains importance over him. You could argue she's naive, but Ephraim's an idiot too, so it's a wash, there.
Celica, I can't speak of the original Gaiden, but Shadows does her hugely dirty.
Hope you're all enjoying your Memorial Day weekend! I'm here with chapter 142 of my fanfic, On Black Wings :)
It’s a ludicrously in-depth retelling of the Crimson Flower storyline of Fire Emblem Three Houses, focusing on character moments, tactics and strategy, and the day-to-day life at Garreg Mach.
With time running out, Luna delivers a plea to her people…
I like how Fewix tried to use Mandate of Heaven to prove Edelgard is a bad leader/Rhea and everyone else good when it made her a better one in my eyes: Because by his logic, the heavens found themselves wanting with Rhea keeping things stagnant, so they set Edelgard and Byleth into each other’s paths to fix things in CF.
So, I feel like the general consensus when it comes to Edelgard’s claims that the church deliberately divided the Empire as a means of control is that she’s reading malice into Rhea’s apathy, but I’ve been playing Three Houses again and just came across *this* explore dialogue: “Although... When the monastery was built, the Kingdom and the Alliance weren't even around yet. But look how cleverly it was placed right in the middle of the Empire, Kingdom, and Alliance. That's weird, right?”
So… Was Edelgard actually dead on with that accusation? Does Rhea, or anyone else for that matter, actually *deny* that claim? I suppose the other possibility is Sothis time fuckery, but that seems like more interest than she ever otherwise shows about present-day Fódlan.
Nah, at least on that one, I think that was just a coincidence. Garreg Mach is at the center of Fodlan because the Holy Tomb (and Zanado) were also built at the center of Fodlan. If Fodlan splits from there, it's only natural that Garreg Mach would remain in the middle of the split territories.
While I agree Rhea likely didn't intend for Fodlan to break up, it's hard to deny she benefited from it, especially where Faerghus is involved.
Do you know where the pervasive claim that the Western Church is particularly xenophobic comes from? I’m on my fourth 3H play through, and the closest I’ve come to anything like that is one of Rhea’s spies effectively saying that “some people won’t think kindly of you for associating with students from Brigid and Duscur,” and then handing over some documents on the Western Church.
Like, I understand how that implies the Western Church is xenophobic, but it seems pretty flimsy ground on which to claim they’re *worse* about it than the central church, given some of the hugely racist explore dialogue out of that lot, much less that the Western Church’s *main* point of disagreement with the Central Church is that the latter isn’t racist enough for their taste, which is what I’ve seen some people claim.
Yeah, people have concocted a bizarre narrative based on a single quest from the early game which doesn't make a lick of sense (some random student says "some people in Fodlan are racist" and she's taking about the Western Church? Seteth of all people is trusting Byleth early on to meet with a church spy?)
We know why the Western Church hates Rhea: they think she's a false prophet, of which they're ironically correct.
Part EX-1: You ought to read Fewix's testimony. He never even heard of Archbishop Rhea!
Nobody's going to get that reference :(
Admit it, you all needed another fix of Fewix showing off his credentials, didn't you? Well luckily for you fine folks, just because there's nothing really to do with his Silver Snow playthrough yet doesn't mean there's nothing to say about him, because an anon on his account gave us a gift: a provocation to get him to show his poor understand of the game one more time!
Back to the Table of Contents!
First, the anon post. I'm mostly going to just let them go without comment, because there isn't much to hit on, though they did make one crucial error, and I'll explain in depth afterward:
On [Fewix's, anon is talking to Fewix] analysis of Silver Snow on crests falls flat on the Church of Seiros teaching that crests are a divine blessing by the goddess and the game being very obvious about them being treated as a divine mandate to rule.
The game somewhat intermixes divine right of kings into the nobility in general, but the role of the nobility in the Fodlan games is consistently inspired by the european feudal hierarchy of the middle ages, that was thought to be divinely ordained. Up to the role of the nobility being justified as a martial one, in which they are the defenders of the faith and the people.
Rheas role in all of it is also kind of similar to the medieval church. The church did creat guidelines to attempt to curb abuses of power while also backing the system up ideologically by framing earthly hierarchies as a reflection of gods heavenly hierarchy. Thats why the french revolution targeted the church so heavily by the way.
Its just a shame that the church sidelines Rhea so much and we never really get to know her perspective on all of it. Its probably an interesting one, as she fights to uphold the status quo but at the same time tries to revive Sothis against her own wishes to make things right. I think thats one of the biggest issues in the games story, we never truly get Rheas perspective, all she is allowed to do is offer exposition. It also seems like the writers did alot of world building after the game was released or at least couldn't include it in the games initial release. Silver Snows story reads like the writer at the time didn't even knew what Edelgards deal is supposed to be.
Another issue is also Rhea being obviously in the wrong with her actions and methods for the majority of the game but not getting a real resolution, arc to correct or mistake or anything outside of briefly acknowledging her mistakes in one support conversation. One would assume that the natural conclusion for Rheas character would be to accept Sothis death finally and accept openly becoming the protector and goddess for Fodlan, considering how most of the issues in the game she directly creats are the results of her secrecy. And I get why all of this leads to people defending the church and hating lore that frames it in a worse light, the only things Rhea has going on are being the founder and leader of the church, being a Damsel in distress or being an insane crusader dragon. None of which being scenarios where she is the hero like Edelgard gets to be in her routes.
Tldr: The game lacks a Rhea route and that makes things shittier.
So as I said, mostly nothing bad here, I disagree with the idea that Rhea openly taking power would in any way be good for Fodlan, but I do absolutely agree that Silver Snow in particular and Three Houses in general was hurt by Rhea being such a non-entity after White Clouds outside Crimson Flower. IntSys's writing weaknesses showed through there, given Silver Snow was the route they put the most work on.
Anon, however, made the crucial mistake of mentioning Divine Right of Kings. Semantics and pretending Japanese writers are utterly ignorant of western things is a key weapon of the Edelcrits, and Fewix is going to target it right away.
Anyways, now for Fewix's turn:
Ehhh, but see, here's the thing. This only applies by the very assumption that we're working with the Divine Right of Kings in the first place.
It's a philosophy with a belief structure given legitimacy through the dynamics between the powerful and the powerless. It abides by rules of strict hierarchy deeply tied to hereditary succession.
That was some wild word salad.
Okay, so what Divine Right of Kings actually is is the notion that monarchs derive their authority from God, and thus are bound by no earthly laws, only God's law.
Fodlan nobles originally derived their positions through their Crests, Rhea more or less created the original Adrestian nobility, and certainly created the Hresvelg dynasty through her gift of the Crest of Seiros. She also directly created the dynasty of Faerghan kings through crowning Loog. Fewix is essentially arguing that it might look and sound like a duck, but since nobody called it a duck it can't be a duck.
But we know, through the text in the Book of Seiros (and further implied by words of developers) that this is not what Rhea did, nor intended to do.
Rhea's intent means dick all. Whatever she intended to do, she's more responsible for the Fodlan of 1180 than anyone else, which she eventually comes to admit in her S support ending.
Fewix then posts this:
So, just as anon said:
The church did creat guidelines to attempt to curb abuses of power while also backing the system up ideologically by framing earthly hierarchies as a reflection of gods heavenly hierarchy.
Rhea after the fact tried to ask nobles not to abuse the fantastic powers she gave them, evidently not predicting what kind of thing absolute power absolutely does.
Through her doctrine, we see that her lie regarding the origins of Crests and relics pertained to the extremely standard Fire Emblem affair: evil bad guys were doing evil bad things and the humans needed power and weapons to survive, so the benevolent goddess gave those things to them to help.
Yeah, Three Houses deconstructs that usual trope and turns it into a lie.
But what's important is the absence of appointing right to rule by way of these Crests and weapons. Rhea wrote it like this for a reason, because that's not what she wanted. She didn't want rule by stolen blood and bones of her people, because of course not, that's crazy.
And yet, that's exactly what she did. If Rhea didn't expect Wilhelm and the progenitors of the Varley, Bergliez, and Hevring houses (just to name a few) to take power then she's an idiot. She made them the commanders of her holy war, of course they'd become fabulously influential people.
Hell, even the note in another Book of Seiros stating that kings and emperors are crowned before Seiros? The only reason Wilhelm was crowned is because Rhea herself needed legitimacy and a large united force to oppose Nemesis. And she only did this many, many years after Nemesis and the Elites were causing havoc, passing down powers and forcing their own hierarchy by way of power, control and militarism. She merely fought fire with fire.
Exactly, she fucked about and around 1200 years later she finally found out. Can't say I expected Fewix to agree without realizing it.
And after she won, because that mindset was so entrenched in the people at the time, she couldn't just reverse course. She had to hide the origins and causes of the conflict behind a lie that the masses could be comfortable with, not out of wanting control, but because she thought it'd be the best long term solution for peace.
Fewix is downplaying Rhea's part in actively supporting the nobility and maintaining her lie even after it was hurting Fodlan. She wanted Fodlan not necessarily to be peaceful, but to be calm, and she needed the church intact because it served as a powerbase for her experiments in reviving Sothis. She wasn't about to ever just live quietly, even if it would be in her and Fodlan's best interests, because she'd taken it upon herself to bring Sothis back to life.
Her mistake was thinking that this could last. Her mistake was having so much faith in people.
She doesn't have faith in people, that's the problem:
Your kind are frail, ignorant creatures, incapable of accomplishing anything without the guidance of the goddess.
She refuses to accept that Fodlan can truly be peaceful without Sothis. It's not that she thought it could last, it's that she thought she could hold the line long enough for her mom to take care of everything, that's why she didn't try to enact reform or improve Fodlan on her own, she thought her mommy could fix everything once she totally had her second coming was alive again.
It's yet again another FE staple that humans fuck things up for their own selfish gain, only this time played straight.
I'm sorry, what? Was it not "played straight" when Marth and friends won the war and lost the peace in Fe3? Or when Sigurd fucked everything up in Fe4?
But yes, Fire Emblem is (or at least was), at its core, a series about human conflict. The dragons and the fantastic creatures are less characters and more living obstacles for mankind to prove their worth by standing against.
It was the human descendents of Elites that took Rhea's doctrine-one meant to serve as an example that being a Hero meant using powers to drive back evil-and used it to abuse each other; to hoard wealth, land and power.
Yeah, shame Rhea didn't reveal the truth of where their power came from! Short term benefit with long term misery.
And if this was something she could course correct, then Fodlan wouldn't look like it does in the game. In trying to maintain peace, she ended up giving an out for human's to continue griveing each other.
More like she provided an outlet for the worst aspects of human nature to express themselves. It's like I said before: you can't change human nature, but you can limit our ability to do our worst.
This goes back to the Divine Right of Kings. It's the nobles and aristocracy that are propping up this idea, but not Rhea herself.
Also seriously, Fewix is arguing that Rhea's an imbecile. What are people going to do when you say they have a quantifiable sign that the goddess loves them in their blood?
Humans abuse each other by saying "I have Crests, therefore what I'm doing is good as said by god." What we see in game is Rhea not backing this up, but actually often deferring to this.
Is Fewix trying to argue for Rhea's removal? The best he can say is that she's Fodlan Chuck Schumer.
She can't even enforce non-discriminatory housing by class at her own monastery!
We only know Seteth disapproves of that. Rhea, frankly, has pretty grotesque opinions of the Uncrested (which includes commoners 99% of the time):
And yes, Miklan was scum. Doesn't matter that Rhea only ever condemns him for being Crestless and not the horrid things he actually did.
She has to give back the Lance of Ruin to house Gautier.
The Empire kicked out her southern church and she didn't do shit about it.
She doesn't have to, the Empire still has churches in it that preach the same faith, one of their most powerful nobles oversees religion in the territory, and she still oversees Adrestian coronation.
Rhea truly lacks hard power to do anything, and that matters.
Notice he has to switch to hard power, because yes, Rhea can't just easily declare war on the Empire and invade Enbarr. That doesn't mean her influence in Fodlan isn't enormous; Dimitri gets into a war that's not about his country in Crimson Flower in order to support her.
And to put the cherry on top, there's the fact that this is still a Japanese game made and written by very specific companies. Particularly, IS and Koei draw from Chinese philosophy frequently, A LOT more than what can actually be said of Catholicism.
Oh god, are we going to hear about the five elements again?
I've gone into this before, but there's a lot of similarities between Sothis and the portrayal of the Judeo-Christian god in the Old and New Testament. Symbolism of water and fire, a second coming, a local tribal focus of worship being spread after its demise by those who followed it in its first life.
This is also the painfully familiar notion that the Japanese are wholly unaware of western philosophy and unable to portray it in their works, as if Japan doesn't have history with the Catholic church.
3H may seem like many of its primary characters align with the Divine Right of Kings, but in actuality, the natural development is the story ending aligned with the Chinese doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven; that if a ruler was deemed unworthy and corrupt, then it was just to depose them as they had lost the mandate bestowed by the heavens. It heavily invoked the right of rebellion against injustice, and the mandate remained with virtuous rulers.
Realistically it can be both. Three Houses deconstructs the apparent notion of DRoK by showing how fragile and unlasting the Church of Seiros's legacy really is.
Byleth, Claude and especially Dimitri were written to embody this,
Ah, yes, Dimitri, who maintains the status quo and who everyone puts up with in the depths of his misanthropy only because he's the rightful heir to the throne, shows that you should depose unworthy rulers.
Let me guess, Edelgard is the unworthy ruler, even though the Blue Lions aren't her subjects.
the latter two starting entrenched in the hereditary rule but going against that by fostering ideals that benefit not their rule, but the people around them. Byleth furthermore embodies this because, while they hold the goddess in their heart, they are not quite directly descended from Sothis, and they identify with a commoner origin at the beginning of the game. These three display virtue and merit worthy of the mandate's blessing.
True, Byleth doesn't need hereditary rule when they can just rule in perpetuity in SS and VW! That's definitely an improvement :)
Also, Byleth doesn't bear the Mandate of Heaven, they decide where it goes. Byleth chooses the winner of the war, even if they choose themself in Silver Snow.
In contrast, and likely intentional irony, while Edelgard claims to be about merit, she frequently cites her claim as Fodlan's leader by way of being the hereditary successor of the Adrestian throne.
Fewix argues this just based on some dramatic statements she makes mostly in supports, not realizing that Edelgard's succession, at least in any way that would give her meaningful power, was not a certainty and she needed to work for it. And also that she ends birthright succession with her.
She gets her legitimacy in CF by way of the goddess' incarnation sacrificing their virtue (eventually losing Sothis' powers, and therefore their mandate/enlightenment/nirvana)
Oh boy, lost Nirvana again.
Yeah, somehow I don't think CF Byleth loses the goddess's favor.
and being crowned by an an angel in her mural
Symbolic of how Byleth, the goddess's successor and ultimate decider of the Mandate of Heaven, has chosen Edelgard to lead the people for a time.
rather than being uplifted by the people like the other three lords are in theirs.
Those are some shabbily-dressed nobles!
Clergy and a bunch of people following with trumpets, where's the commoners? Are they the ones with the trumpets?
Knights, nobles, foreign diplomats, where's the commoners?
And CF is the route with the most mentions of rebellions in its unique epilogue cards, hinting that there is no mandate left; that the people are unsatisfied and don't agree with her claims to power.
I wonder if it's worth fact checking this one. Maybe in another post, the only endings where I can recall mention of rebellion or anything adjacent are in Hubert's because... yeah, spymaster does spymaster stuff.
To bring it back to Rhea, she didn't have a hand in any of this. She lied because her hands were tied, and people took that lie and used it to benefit themselves, a repeat of how humans listened to the Slithers and slaughtered the Nabateans.
First off, the Agarthans are human, why does he keep acting like they aren't?
Second, she didn't have to stay the course, she could have fought or run when Fodlan apparently became something she didn't approve of. That she didn't proves it hasn't. It's not a good thing to uphold a miserable peace.
Also, she lied because she wanted revenge. It came back to bite her. Rhea's story, as I mentioned, is about finding out and see where she goes from there.
I agree that if she wasn't sidelined (if she was in a better written game) that she would've gotten proper closure on this, perhaps with an actual arc and satisfactory resolution. But the writers don't care about Rhea beyond having her loredump. It's sad.
Fire Emblem would never sideline important motherly figures!
(And no, I'm not arguing that Fates and Engage are better-written, but I bet Fewix thinks they are).
That said, I don't disagree that sidelining her at least in Silver Snow was a boneheaded decision by the writers. Just another nega-feather in that route's moldy cap.
So in other words, Rhea did nothing wrong, apparently. Even burning Fhirdiad down was someone else's fault, I guess!
That's all for this week, catch you folks the next time Fewix says something stupid :)
Part Thirteen: Fewix runs out of things to whine about in Crimson Flower.
We're at Tailltean! Almost free, folks!
Back to the Table of Contents!
He's mad about Edelgard and Dimitri's boss conversation at Tailltean, because Edelcrits have no new arguments..
"But Edelgard's lines were mistranslated?"'
And? Her original lines in Japanese were not any better.
Stop with the machine translation, you goddamn imbecile, here's a better translation:
You... Will you take [everything] again? Will you trample [everything] again? And if you take back…and trample back, will you be satisfied?
Her original lines still show Edelgard is a malicious idiot, just a different flavor.
"Oh would taking your land back and trampling us in return satisfy you then?"
Yes, you fucking moron! Yes!
That's a bad thing, why's he acting like it's just?
Getting your rightful home back after it has been brutally beaten down by atrocities that another country has caused for a long period of time would satisfy fucking anyone!
Okay, so no, he doesn't realize taking and trampling back would mean taking and trampling the Empire, extending the war for nobody's benefit save to satisfy Faerghan revenge.
God it's sad how terrible this guy is at parcing the fiction he supposedly learned to analyze.
She's aware that Dimitri will just invade the Empire to get revenge if she falls to him. Giving up the war at this point won't bring peace, it'll only usher in further bloodshed, she knows what Faerghan culture of avenging the dead entails.
To anyone who sees this post, this is still by far the absolute worst exchange and most embarrassing group of lines in the history of Fire Emblem, from the standpoint of character writing, story, common fucking sense and respect for the intelligence of the player.
Some will try to convince you otherwise, but this (and Crimson Flower as a whole) will never be beaten for such blatant and foul stupidity.
Oh really?
Sakura: Corrin! Are you r-really gonna fight me right now? What did I ever do to you? All I wanted was to l-love you!
Corrin: Sakura, I'm so sorry for all this. You didn't do anything wrong, I promise. It's difficult to explain, but I just need you to...um, take a little nap right now.
"Yeah I'm going back to the country that kidnapped and abused me and just murdered your adopted mother and plans to violently invade your home. I'm gonna knock ya out because explaining would be hard."
Maybe he no longer sees the virtue in fighting fair anymore because the people trying to trample and conquer his home never fought fair in the first place 🤔
If you forsake your ideals because they're inconvenient, they were empty ones to begin with.
Also, "bad red lady isn't fighting fair T_T" fuck off, you child, lol. This is war, not spots.
Maybe his anger has something to do with this 5 year long war you started that resulted in many, many people dying and being killed by you, and not necessarily because of his past, ever thought about that? Of course, that'd be the logical way of thinking, and the writers couldn't have that, so they confirm Edelgard's biases later in his standard death scene.
No, no, it's about him thinking she killed his family. It's what he accuses her of in the "king of delusion" scene. No matter the route, Duscur is Dimitir's central focus until he recovers, and Crimson Flower Dimitri is NOT the same as post-Gronder AM Dimitri.
You can elect to never talk to any of these schmucks when you aren't forced to and pick a class they never were a part of, and still they have mixed feelings at worst about Byleth.
The devs were obviously not assuming the player would send the first 40 or so hours completely ignoring all the students. That isn't the kind of series Fire Emblem is, you're supposed to invest yourself in the lives of all the characters, especially since you can recruit the students.
The irony is Fewix's fans will talk and talk and talk about that very point in order to argue people who criticize Fates aren't giving it a fair enough shake, but suddenly once it's convenient to criticize Three Houses he's fine with not caring about anything, interesting.
Never let anyone convince you that the "worship" that Corrin or Alear got in their games was worse than this.
I'm sorry, "it's too bad I have to kill you" is worship now?
Dimitri at the start of the story earnestly hoped Byleth would help him to save Faerghus, he's recognizing that if Byleth had chosen the Blue Lions, Faerghus could be winning the war.
Dedue is wishing the same thing, because he always thinks of Dimitri.
Sylvain's joking.
The only one who's truly sad because it's Byleth is Mercedes, and that's absolutely in character for her.
Anyways, get back to me when Byleth has two entire families nipping after her heels, starts ordering people to jump off cliffs, or has people literally falling over in worship.
And no, "but Alear's a god, so it makes sense that they get worshiped!" is not an excuse. Alear's not a god because the writers wanted to explore matters of faith and divinity (because they very seldom do), Alear's a god to justify the avatar worship in Engage.
Imagine invading someone's country, relentlessly killing their people and then having the gall to condescend to them like this. She talks like a fucking troll.
Hahahah, I love how angry Edelgard haters get at this line, it's epic how Edelgard just isn't humoring Dimitri's raving with a serious response, because it doesn't warrant one.
Fewix seems to forget that he's accusing her of murdering her own mother, who Edelgard hasn't seen since she was a child, in this scene. If somebody hit me with that I'd probably write them off as deranged, too.
Times of peace very much could've come if you didn't do the shit you did, Edelgard. You're a joke.
Fewix thinks Fodlan was at peace before chapter 12.
you're working with your uncle and have been since before you enrolled at the monastery
And? Does Fewix think that makes her culpable for Duscur?
Dimitri's desire to take his home back is also a huge part of his revenge, dickbag
No, his revenge is chiefly about Duscur. That's Edelgard is talking about, she's aware she started a war.
"he lost sight of his path as king" Fucking HOW? This is the first and only time we fight Dimitri in this route. He's been holed up in Faerghus this entire time, more reserved than in any other route in the game. This route is quite literally the only time this perception of his character is false, and makes no sense to accuse him of. Or does "losing sight of his path as king" mean he failed to submit to your grand ambitions?
Fewix got the scene where Dimitri goes full boar and doesn't realize Dimitri is not in a healthy mental place.
Fucking credentials, how do they work?
Dimitri bled his country dry fighting on behalf of the church in a war that wasn't about Faerghus. Fuck about and find out was in effect.
I'm gonna have a migraine at this rate.
I wonder if he thinks he'll never have to analyze fiction he doesn't agree with? He'll be a shitty fictional analyst if he doesn't (but then again he'll probably be a shitty one no matter what kind of work he focuses on).
Anyways, next we're getting to the scene with Thales-as-Arundel and Edelgard before the gates of Fhirdiad.
No matter how much she hates the Slithers, it's no doubt she picked up the language and views from them. Referring to Sothis specifically as a "false goddess" is not a coincidence from two separate characters.
It's almost like the Church of Seiros has a false account of its goddess!
"Unlike you, I have no desire to unleash wicked atrocities upon the world!"
"Damn it, Rhea. There really is no depth you wouldn't sink to."
Edelgard, a few days ago:
"There is nothing I would not sacrifice to cut a path to Fodlan's new dawn!"
"Rules for thee, but not for me", I see. Classic!
It's fascinating how Edelcrits never stop and realize the only thing they ever have to draw on with Edelgard is her words, never her actions, because despite how harsh Edelgard is with her rhetoric, she's a lot softer in practice. Right in this very scene she's trying to avoid one last bout of bloodshed despite knowing her enemy would never agree with it.
Also, a lot of it is the localization at work:
I won’t stop. I must make sacrifices to cut open the future!
Also, get back to me when Edelgard sets a city full of innocent people on fire.
Ma'am there's a city on fire right next to you, and this is the ONE time you don't lament warfare and death? Is it crack, is that what you smoke? You smoke crack?
Fair point, this is a pretty weird moment from Dorothea. Maybe she's trying to cope, but this is a pretty standard main party gets their points in before the dramatic final battle moment.
Top is Japanese, bottom is English.
Sigh...
"Isn't this hikkikomori character so uwu and useless and cute, you should save her with the power of your love! She'll never let you forget what makes her adorable, even as a city burns right next to her, tee-hee!"
Priorities, the writers have them.
How is that her being uwu? She's hyping herself up in a Bernie-esque goofy way. A character being silly doesn't make them a weakling.
Like so!
Gameplay stuff: Never understood why there are chests in these final maps when there's no post-game. Were they really that worried that players wouldn't have that many weapons left???
Yeah that is weird, lol. Random side objectives, I guess.
Again, I NEVER INTERACTED WITH YOU FREAKS, you have no reason to have mixed feelings for Byleth, this glazing is insane!
Again, the devs didn't anticipate you not giving a shit about anything, you dumbass. Don't go into the Genocide Route of Undertale and then get upset when people treat you poorly.
See, these two get it!
Stanning for the arsonists, I see.
At least this line from Ashe is raw as fuck.
It is pretty good. Shame he doesn't realize a lot of Faerghus's problems are self-inflicted, but the point of facing other characters as enemies is that they're usually at their worst.
Turns out when you press a genocide survivor's trauma buttons enough, they go a little crazy.
And that makes what she did okay? Is that what he's suggesting? All Edelgard did was expose the ugliness underneath the saintly mask.
By the way Edelgard, how are the Remire children faring? Remire's an imperial territory after all. Last I heard, they were taken in through the generosity of... oh dear...
And at least one of them wound up in Abyss, charming, Rhea :)
Now if only he stayed dead, that'd be somethin'.
Sour grapes.
This shit was hokey as fuck.
Stunning critique, Fewix, 10/10, I've got nothing to say.
And of course it's male Byleth, lol.
To the end, she still has negative feelings about the church, the faith and its followers;
Okay so he didn't get her support with Manuela.
still is racist to Nabateans;
No.
still is judgmental and arrogant;
Broskie somehow watched all those late supports showing Edelgard growing out of this, learning to stop projecting her issues onto others and instead see things from their perspective, and he thinks she did the opposite. Incredibly fiction analysis, Fewix.
still looks forward to delegating her responsibilities to others;
That's what a good leader does.
and only now considers Byleth an equal.
She thought Byleth was above her for much of the story.
It's almost as if...
Fewix was more interested in confirming his priors than he was in analyzing the story in good faith?
she never actually developed as a character, and this entire route was just about satiating her desires and ambitions with no change or growth to be found.
Yeah, the usual bad faith stupidity.
But thank god it's over.
Nah, worse routes lay ahead. Silver Snow. Thankfully, Fewix's pace flatlined after this, so maybe he'll never finish so I'll never have to review his review. Wouldn't that be magical? :D
Now for one more BONUS ROUND!
From Megafan1993 (funny guy btw, he has a Gamefaqs account in which he tried to deny being on Tumblr, I tricked him into making an argument on Gfaqs that he'd made on Tumblr almost word for word):
What would have been incredibly funny is that after the "touching" moment of Edelgard and Byleth hugging they look up and see tons of arrows of light falling on their location Funny thing is Edelgard blaming the past ones on the church would even let them explain it away as the final actions of a destroyed church but of crouse not as we cant have the Agarthans ever be smart on screen
He's so mad that he'd rather the Agarthans win. The surface people of Fodlan being enslaved is a small price to pay for the Bad Red Lady losing!
To which Fewix replied:
if Thales had a brain instead of an ego, he wouldve waited to shoot the missiles when everyone was at fhirdiad, but as you say, the slithers can never be smart lol
Hubris is the classic villain blunder. If Veyle just killed Alear's party right away in Destinea instead of screwing around, Sombron would win, Gharnef didn't leave at Khadein, he would win, if Garon just executed Corrin, Anankos would win.
wingsofhcpe said:
I love how Edelgard shits on the goddess and the Nabateans, and yet the ONLY reason Byleth survives the final battle is because of Sothis' heart, saving her vessel one final time. Poetic irony!
I don't quite know what they're talking about, Byleth loses the Crest Stone at the end of that battle.
To which Megafan replied:
Hell Edelgard only wins the war because she has the Goddess vessel on her side aka she was using divine power to help her win but she still insults it. It's also kind of funny as Edelgard's only real success in the war on any route is thanks to non-human power either the Agarthans or Nabateans/Goddess yet sherries to talka bout the power and strength of humanity
The Agarthans are humans T_T
And Byleth's true power isn't their Crest or Relic, but their ability to draw people together, Edelgard herself says it early in the story.
And that's it for Crimson Flower, the first part of Fewix's all-routes breakdown (in the sense that he crashes out a lot, not that he breaks down the story) of Three Houses! Hopefully he stays stalled on Silver Snow, but I doubt I'll be so lucky. See you around, folks!
probably still deeply scarred by the traumatic experiences they endured but at least their home village was rebuilt considering Alois was able to settle there after the war and live a pretty happy life
but hey as our Doctor of Media Literacy pointed out pushing a genocide victim's buttons makes them go a bit crazy so imagine how it was for Solon, who saw an alien being of immense power assert itself as the god of his people and eventually, as the price of rebellion, genocided most of them with the few survivors forced to live underground having completely lost their cultural identity beyond an unshakable need for vengeance must've felt to see surface dwellers worship the very same goddess which inflicted such a fate on his people so I'm sure those kids well understand that according to our esteemed Doc. Med. Lit. they simply had it coming for worshipping the Fell Star and thus triggering him
Fewix: *Doesn’t interact with anyone outside his chosen house to bash dialogue in a game that’s designed for you specifically to interact with characters in and outside your faction for both recruitment and just plain storytelling purposes*
Fewix: “Why are all these characters acting like we’re friends!?”
I really appreciate your dedication to analyzing just about everything in Three Houses, especially Edelgard and Crimson Flower. In fact, when I played Azure Moon, I had to keep going back to your blog to remind myself that I wasn't crazy for finding obvious faults with Dimitri's politics. I still like him as a character, but that route feels like driving your cousin to his therapy sessions while he yells his bad takes from the back seat.
You're very welcome, I'm glad you found my essays useful to read! ^^
Hey everyone, just posted chapter 140 of my fanfic, On Black Wings :)
It’s a ludicrously in-depth retelling of the Crimson Flower storyline of Fire Emblem Three Houses, focusing on character moments, tactics and strategy, and the day-to-day life at Garreg Mach.
The trap is sprung, and the Battle of Shambhala begins…
Part Thirteen: Fewix runs out of things to whine about in Crimson Flower.
We're at Tailltean! Almost free, folks!
Back to the Table of Contents!
He's mad about Edelgard and Dimitri's boss conversation at Tailltean, because Edelcrits have no new arguments..
"But Edelgard's lines were mistranslated?"'
And? Her original lines in Japanese were not any better.
Stop with the machine translation, you goddamn imbecile, here's a better translation:
You... Will you take [everything] again? Will you trample [everything] again? And if you take back…and trample back, will you be satisfied?
Her original lines still show Edelgard is a malicious idiot, just a different flavor.
"Oh would taking your land back and trampling us in return satisfy you then?"
Yes, you fucking moron! Yes!
That's a bad thing, why's he acting like it's just?
Getting your rightful home back after it has been brutally beaten down by atrocities that another country has caused for a long period of time would satisfy fucking anyone!
Okay, so no, he doesn't realize taking and trampling back would mean taking and trampling the Empire, extending the war for nobody's benefit save to satisfy Faerghan revenge.
God it's sad how terrible this guy is at parcing the fiction he supposedly learned to analyze.
She's aware that Dimitri will just invade the Empire to get revenge if she falls to him. Giving up the war at this point won't bring peace, it'll only usher in further bloodshed, she knows what Faerghan culture of avenging the dead entails.
To anyone who sees this post, this is still by far the absolute worst exchange and most embarrassing group of lines in the history of Fire Emblem, from the standpoint of character writing, story, common fucking sense and respect for the intelligence of the player.
Some will try to convince you otherwise, but this (and Crimson Flower as a whole) will never be beaten for such blatant and foul stupidity.
Oh really?
Sakura: Corrin! Are you r-really gonna fight me right now? What did I ever do to you? All I wanted was to l-love you!
Corrin: Sakura, I'm so sorry for all this. You didn't do anything wrong, I promise. It's difficult to explain, but I just need you to...um, take a little nap right now.
"Yeah I'm going back to the country that kidnapped and abused me and just murdered your adopted mother and plans to violently invade your home. I'm gonna knock ya out because explaining would be hard."
Maybe he no longer sees the virtue in fighting fair anymore because the people trying to trample and conquer his home never fought fair in the first place 🤔
If you forsake your ideals because they're inconvenient, they were empty ones to begin with.
Also, "bad red lady isn't fighting fair T_T" fuck off, you child, lol. This is war, not spots.
Maybe his anger has something to do with this 5 year long war you started that resulted in many, many people dying and being killed by you, and not necessarily because of his past, ever thought about that? Of course, that'd be the logical way of thinking, and the writers couldn't have that, so they confirm Edelgard's biases later in his standard death scene.
No, no, it's about him thinking she killed his family. It's what he accuses her of in the "king of delusion" scene. No matter the route, Duscur is Dimitir's central focus until he recovers, and Crimson Flower Dimitri is NOT the same as post-Gronder AM Dimitri.
You can elect to never talk to any of these schmucks when you aren't forced to and pick a class they never were a part of, and still they have mixed feelings at worst about Byleth.
The devs were obviously not assuming the player would send the first 40 or so hours completely ignoring all the students. That isn't the kind of series Fire Emblem is, you're supposed to invest yourself in the lives of all the characters, especially since you can recruit the students.
The irony is Fewix's fans will talk and talk and talk about that very point in order to argue people who criticize Fates aren't giving it a fair enough shake, but suddenly once it's convenient to criticize Three Houses he's fine with not caring about anything, interesting.
Never let anyone convince you that the "worship" that Corrin or Alear got in their games was worse than this.
I'm sorry, "it's too bad I have to kill you" is worship now?
Dimitri at the start of the story earnestly hoped Byleth would help him to save Faerghus, he's recognizing that if Byleth had chosen the Blue Lions, Faerghus could be winning the war.
Dedue is wishing the same thing, because he always thinks of Dimitri.
Sylvain's joking.
The only one who's truly sad because it's Byleth is Mercedes, and that's absolutely in character for her.
Anyways, get back to me when Byleth has two entire families nipping after her heels, starts ordering people to jump off cliffs, or has people literally falling over in worship.
And no, "but Alear's a god, so it makes sense that they get worshiped!" is not an excuse. Alear's not a god because the writers wanted to explore matters of faith and divinity (because they very seldom do), Alear's a god to justify the avatar worship in Engage.
Imagine invading someone's country, relentlessly killing their people and then having the gall to condescend to them like this. She talks like a fucking troll.
Hahahah, I love how angry Edelgard haters get at this line, it's epic how Edelgard just isn't humoring Dimitri's raving with a serious response, because it doesn't warrant one.
Fewix seems to forget that he's accusing her of murdering her own mother, who Edelgard hasn't seen since she was a child, in this scene. If somebody hit me with that I'd probably write them off as deranged, too.
Times of peace very much could've come if you didn't do the shit you did, Edelgard. You're a joke.
Fewix thinks Fodlan was at peace before chapter 12.
you're working with your uncle and have been since before you enrolled at the monastery
And? Does Fewix think that makes her culpable for Duscur?
Dimitri's desire to take his home back is also a huge part of his revenge, dickbag
No, his revenge is chiefly about Duscur. That's Edelgard is talking about, she's aware she started a war.
"he lost sight of his path as king" Fucking HOW? This is the first and only time we fight Dimitri in this route. He's been holed up in Faerghus this entire time, more reserved than in any other route in the game. This route is quite literally the only time this perception of his character is false, and makes no sense to accuse him of. Or does "losing sight of his path as king" mean he failed to submit to your grand ambitions?
Fewix got the scene where Dimitri goes full boar and doesn't realize Dimitri is not in a healthy mental place.
Fucking credentials, how do they work?
Dimitri bled his country dry fighting on behalf of the church in a war that wasn't about Faerghus. Fuck about and find out was in effect.
I'm gonna have a migraine at this rate.
I wonder if he thinks he'll never have to analyze fiction he doesn't agree with? He'll be a shitty fictional analyst if he doesn't (but then again he'll probably be a shitty one no matter what kind of work he focuses on).
Anyways, next we're getting to the scene with Thales-as-Arundel and Edelgard before the gates of Fhirdiad.
No matter how much she hates the Slithers, it's no doubt she picked up the language and views from them. Referring to Sothis specifically as a "false goddess" is not a coincidence from two separate characters.
It's almost like the Church of Seiros has a false account of its goddess!
"Unlike you, I have no desire to unleash wicked atrocities upon the world!"
"Damn it, Rhea. There really is no depth you wouldn't sink to."
Edelgard, a few days ago:
"There is nothing I would not sacrifice to cut a path to Fodlan's new dawn!"
"Rules for thee, but not for me", I see. Classic!
It's fascinating how Edelcrits never stop and realize the only thing they ever have to draw on with Edelgard is her words, never her actions, because despite how harsh Edelgard is with her rhetoric, she's a lot softer in practice. Right in this very scene she's trying to avoid one last bout of bloodshed despite knowing her enemy would never agree with it.
Also, a lot of it is the localization at work:
I won’t stop. I must make sacrifices to cut open the future!
Also, get back to me when Edelgard sets a city full of innocent people on fire.
Ma'am there's a city on fire right next to you, and this is the ONE time you don't lament warfare and death? Is it crack, is that what you smoke? You smoke crack?
Fair point, this is a pretty weird moment from Dorothea. Maybe she's trying to cope, but this is a pretty standard main party gets their points in before the dramatic final battle moment.
Top is Japanese, bottom is English.
Sigh...
"Isn't this hikkikomori character so uwu and useless and cute, you should save her with the power of your love! She'll never let you forget what makes her adorable, even as a city burns right next to her, tee-hee!"
Priorities, the writers have them.
How is that her being uwu? She's hyping herself up in a Bernie-esque goofy way. A character being silly doesn't make them a weakling.
Like so!
Gameplay stuff: Never understood why there are chests in these final maps when there's no post-game. Were they really that worried that players wouldn't have that many weapons left???
Yeah that is weird, lol. Random side objectives, I guess.
Again, I NEVER INTERACTED WITH YOU FREAKS, you have no reason to have mixed feelings for Byleth, this glazing is insane!
Again, the devs didn't anticipate you not giving a shit about anything, you dumbass. Don't go into the Genocide Route of Undertale and then get upset when people treat you poorly.
See, these two get it!
Stanning for the arsonists, I see.
At least this line from Ashe is raw as fuck.
It is pretty good. Shame he doesn't realize a lot of Faerghus's problems are self-inflicted, but the point of facing other characters as enemies is that they're usually at their worst.
Turns out when you press a genocide survivor's trauma buttons enough, they go a little crazy.
And that makes what she did okay? Is that what he's suggesting? All Edelgard did was expose the ugliness underneath the saintly mask.
By the way Edelgard, how are the Remire children faring? Remire's an imperial territory after all. Last I heard, they were taken in through the generosity of... oh dear...
And at least one of them wound up in Abyss, charming, Rhea :)
Now if only he stayed dead, that'd be somethin'.
Sour grapes.
This shit was hokey as fuck.
Stunning critique, Fewix, 10/10, I've got nothing to say.
And of course it's male Byleth, lol.
To the end, she still has negative feelings about the church, the faith and its followers;
Okay so he didn't get her support with Manuela.
still is racist to Nabateans;
No.
still is judgmental and arrogant;
Broskie somehow watched all those late supports showing Edelgard growing out of this, learning to stop projecting her issues onto others and instead see things from their perspective, and he thinks she did the opposite. Incredibly fiction analysis, Fewix.
still looks forward to delegating her responsibilities to others;
That's what a good leader does.
and only now considers Byleth an equal.
She thought Byleth was above her for much of the story.
It's almost as if...
Fewix was more interested in confirming his priors than he was in analyzing the story in good faith?
she never actually developed as a character, and this entire route was just about satiating her desires and ambitions with no change or growth to be found.
Yeah, the usual bad faith stupidity.
But thank god it's over.
Nah, worse routes lay ahead. Silver Snow. Thankfully, Fewix's pace flatlined after this, so maybe he'll never finish so I'll never have to review his review. Wouldn't that be magical? :D
Now for one more BONUS ROUND!
From Megafan1993 (funny guy btw, he has a Gamefaqs account in which he tried to deny being on Tumblr, I tricked him into making an argument on Gfaqs that he'd made on Tumblr almost word for word):
What would have been incredibly funny is that after the "touching" moment of Edelgard and Byleth hugging they look up and see tons of arrows of light falling on their location Funny thing is Edelgard blaming the past ones on the church would even let them explain it away as the final actions of a destroyed church but of crouse not as we cant have the Agarthans ever be smart on screen
He's so mad that he'd rather the Agarthans win. The surface people of Fodlan being enslaved is a small price to pay for the Bad Red Lady losing!
To which Fewix replied:
if Thales had a brain instead of an ego, he wouldve waited to shoot the missiles when everyone was at fhirdiad, but as you say, the slithers can never be smart lol
Hubris is the classic villain blunder. If Veyle just killed Alear's party right away in Destinea instead of screwing around, Sombron would win, Gharnef didn't leave at Khadein, he would win, if Garon just executed Corrin, Anankos would win.
wingsofhcpe said:
I love how Edelgard shits on the goddess and the Nabateans, and yet the ONLY reason Byleth survives the final battle is because of Sothis' heart, saving her vessel one final time. Poetic irony!
I don't quite know what they're talking about, Byleth loses the Crest Stone at the end of that battle.
To which Megafan replied:
Hell Edelgard only wins the war because she has the Goddess vessel on her side aka she was using divine power to help her win but she still insults it. It's also kind of funny as Edelgard's only real success in the war on any route is thanks to non-human power either the Agarthans or Nabateans/Goddess yet sherries to talka bout the power and strength of humanity
The Agarthans are humans T_T
And Byleth's true power isn't their Crest or Relic, but their ability to draw people together, Edelgard herself says it early in the story.
And that's it for Crimson Flower, the first part of Fewix's all-routes breakdown (in the sense that he crashes out a lot, not that he breaks down the story) of Three Houses! Hopefully he stays stalled on Silver Snow, but I doubt I'll be so lucky. See you around, folks!
