Constance and House Nuvelle ramblings -
We know House Nuvelle started when Noa, after promising Seiros she won't pass her crest, went to a place near the Fangs of Fodlan, and apparently fucked sufficiently enough to create her own house.
(GG on that "do not pass on your crest" promise!)
Nuvelle people, according to Constance's Supreme support, don't marry in other houses to not bring their Noa crested blood to other families :
Saint Noa was apparently super duper good at "magic" and her descendants are also super duper good - let it be because of their crests or because they focus and research "magic" - happens what happens :
The Emperor appointed the leaders of House Nuvelle were "well versed" in magic, and muhritocracy happening, means they were appointed to important posts...
However, House Nuvelle cheered on Ionius after he terminated Hrym, and threw its lot with the Imperial household, effectively losing influence when Ionius was defanged :
JP version makes it more explicit that they were casted away from the "inner circle" of Imperial authority... but what is this inner circle? They weren't part of the great noble families, and given how Constance was set up to marry the crested heir of House Bartels (even if it would have implied Emile would leave House Bartels and his mama/sis to live with the Nuvelles, so what kind of benefit Baron Bartels would gain from this union?) but not, say, Ferdie or Linhardt, I wonder how close to the great noble families they were.
Or maybe we had some faction war going on, with House Vestra in the middle, like Ionius and his pals (the Nuvelles amongst others) vs the other noble families, and they were supposed to act as some sort of check and balances system to make sure the Emperor wouldn't be all powerful and ignore his nobles, but at the same time, the nobles wouldn't be able to run the country?
(But then Ionius did his thing, and everything fell apart)
Anyways, Nuvelle sided with Ionius, and lost the power struggle.
House Nuvelle was used as sacrificial pawn to stop Dagda'n'Brigid when they invaded the Empire - and in Nopes, we see the former Nuvelle territory was absorbed by Gerth.
However, what kind of bollocks decision was it to send scholars/mages to fend off against a joint army, when Leopold "my loincloth is a holy relic from Cichol himself" von Bergliez, famed and reknown general out there, leading the Imperial Army and Minister of War himself, was around?
Was it, like Constance suggests to Billy, a dick move made up to punish the Nuvelles from having joined Ionius, fueled by some resentment some Houses might have had - interestingly enough, in her Supreme support, Constance says it was something House Nuvelle brought upon itself by wanting to keep on preserving Noa's secret and ultimately not making any bonds or alliances with the other houses (which is, hilarious in hindsight, given how this support is supposed to be obtained in CF, aka, the route where you set to get rid of pointy ears for presumably lying about history - much like the Nuvelles did - and we're left to wonder that if Rhea opened up to more people, maybe, just like House Nuvelle, she would have had more allies to rely on in her direst time of need?).
Supreme Leader wonders if the Six great Houses, aka the ones who deposed Best Dad (tm) weren't the one to blame for House Nuvelle's destruction, given how she believes they were eager to see it fall !
Gerth, a member of the Six Great Houses, feels like trash for what happened to Constance in their paralogue, and confesses he owes much to Constance and to her parents so much that he is willing to shit on his role as "Minister of Foreign Affair" and abandon a card he could use against the Church - aka hoarding Rhea's sibling's remains - to repay his debt to the Nuvelles.
Does he sound like someone who was eager to see House Nuvelle fall?
Still, the thing is House Nuvelle was supposed to defend Adrestia against the Dagda'n'Brigid invasion, they failed and their heads were killed, the House was disbanded and Constance ended up in Faerghus. So while we can wonder what the fuck Leopold "my major crest is a retcon" von Bergliez was doing with the Imperial Army while the Nuvelles died, well, they still died without any backup from the Imperial Army, aka, the largest army on the continent.
Should Constance have had some support or at least lines with Leopold in Nopes, or Caspar in both games? For sure, but hey, we can't have interesting things in those games, so enjoy your teatime I guess.
Of course, and this is a given whenever I write anything about Constance :
HC obsessed me read the "passed down something of great importance from our progenitor" as a ref to Sothis, the progenitor god - but thinking more rationally, the progenitor Constance is refering to isn't Sothis, but Noa, and the "something of great importance" is... her crest? No, that wouldn't end with her generation, dragon blood would pass on Constance's children and so on, so as long as her bloodline exists, the crest of Noa will.
But what if that "something of great importance" isn't just the crest, but Noa's talent, affinity and study of magic?
Lizard or not, Noa's magical prowesses were apparently sufficient enough to fool the Empire for generations - starting with the first (I'd say post Willy departure) but, like, those first guys most likely were taught magic by Macuil himself, so was Noa's magic as potent as his or something? Their crests - even if the devs would rather sell spoons and umbrellas than reveal what are the effects of crests in this verse in a watsonian sense - were confused!
So, Noa was a very powerful magician, and her descendants pursued the tradition of being scholars, Constance herself designs new spells!
However, too much honey for today means I'm pretty sure the devs meant "crest of Noa" as the "something of great importance" and not the love and tradition to research and develop magic, which would have been more interesting but w/c.
House Nuvelle is interestingly - for something hidden behind a paywall - the most developped House from Adrestia, and paints a pretty messy picture of what happens in the Empire, from its dawn (again, post Willy departure) to the events happening during the game.
