#black eagle house

[chisaka57]

[scarlet-fennec]

The FE3H furrification saga continues with the black eagle house, with Edelgard the eagle, Hubert the black panther, Ferdinand the horse, and Linhardt the maine coon cat

[moltz23]

How a Concealed Route-split Cut the Black Eagle House in Two [Fire Emblem: Three Houses Analysis/Essay]

(This wasn't meant to be a repost but tumblr doesn't allow me to edit titles so...)

A long while ago, I did an analysis of each of Three Houses’ routes and all the minutia involved in them that plays a part in each one’s difficulty (level scaling, unit availability, available equipment, enemy composition, etc.). One thing that struck me about it that I failed to mention back then, is that, of the four paths available, two - Silver Snow and Crimson Flower - feel lacking in terms of content and resources compared to the remaining half, a notion which has been brought up by the Fire Emblem fandom multiple times in the past by now.

The thing is though, data shows there’s room to argue this was done on purpose.

For those who are out of the loop on what I’m yapping about; Fire Emblem: Three Houses features four main routes/storylines: Crimson Flower, Azure Moon, Verdant Wind, and Silver Snow (which even serve as the basis for the game’s japanese subtitle: Wind Flower Snow Moon). In spite of this though, the game presents three paths at the start of the game: Black Eagles, Blue Lions, and Golden Deer. The game handles this by having Azure Moon and Verdant Wind be the second half of the Blue Lions and Golden Deer routes respectively, and by having Black Eagles split into two different branches right before the second half of the plot starts: the Silver Snow branch (where the player sides against Edelgard); and the Crimson Flower branch (where the player sides with Edelgard). Black Eagles, according to developer interviews, was chosen to get this route split during early stages of development, and was not supposed to be directly advertised:

–On top of that, [Black Eagles] also had a hidden story branch.

Yokota: We kept it hidden, but the idea to have a story branch was there since the creation of the Black Eagle route.

–Did you have plans to implement a story branch for the other houses?

Yokota: No. We only decided it for the Black Eagle house and to keep it a secret. Edelgard is a character with a unique position, but we thought it would be more interesting to have two stories here, then we implemented the triggers for it.

Has anyone ever wondered how important this decision was from a design standpoint? If it feels shoehorned in? Or, if it’s impossible to divorce Black Eagles from it? 

Well, for those who just wanna skip to the end of this whole analysis, the answer I’ve reached is the last one: Black Eagles does not feel complete when only one of its branches are considered, unlike Blue Lions and Golden Deer, which from the start were designed as more straightforward and standalone packages.

Thus, this analysis seeks to dwell further on the unique effects Black Eagles’ route-split caused to its design, how it’s expressed in various of its areas, and why the whole idea ran into some problems down the road that made this whole idea become ignored and forgotten. Just for this post, I also worked on a brief comparison document that highlights vital areas in which Black Eagle content was split (click here to see that breakdown for those interested). But for those seeking a more thorough analysis, I invite you to accompany me ‘till the end.

Before moving on, I feel it’s important to stress that, while I’ll be focusing mainly on gameplay-related factors, a few story elements will be brought up as well. Given the genesis of Black Eagles’ branching paths lie firmly in the story, this was inevitable.

1. Parallel War Arcs.

One of the first things that become apparent when you compare both Black Eagle branches, is  that each more or less does its own thing after Chapter 11. 

For the sake of this comparison, I’ll be focusing on factors like:

Average Enemy Level between Chapters (+ their Suggested Level, which is directly related to the AEL).

Available resources, and the timing in which new ones are unlocked and/or lost.

When the game stops using Intermediate Classes for enemies (in a more conventional Fire Emblem context, this would be like saying “when the game stops throwing Unpromoted Enemies at you).

On one hand there’s Silver Snow, the path that has you be the underdog fighting the invading Empire. In it:

The Average Enemy Level almost always increases by 2 per Chapter, regardless of the chosen difficulty. The only exception of this is the transition between Chapter 16 and 17, as the average level difference of enemies between both maps is 4.

The Armory/Vendor/Battalion Guild stock is updated a third and last time in Ch. 14 (it’s previously updated first in Ch. 3 and Ch. 8 for those curious).

Part 1 ends in Ch. 12 with a Suggested Level of 23.

The game stops throwing Intermediate Class enemies by Ch. 18 for main story maps.

The most number of bosses you’re forced to take down to clear main story missions is 4 in Ch. 16 once (3 if you play carefully), and then 2 for Chapter 18.

The difference in enemy levels between successive story missions is 1.

And finally, the route ends in Ch. 21 with a Suggested Level of 42.

On the other hand, the Crimson Flower campaign has you support the Empire and undo everything the Church holds dear. In it:

The Average Enemy Level almost always increases by 2 per Chapter, regardless of the chosen difficulty. The only shake-ups in terms of differences in average enemy level difference between story missions lie in the 2 Chapters which are done back to back:

Ch. 11 to Ch. 12: 4 in Normal & Hard, and 3 in Maddening.

Ch. 17 to Ch. 18: 2 in Normal & Hard, and 3 in Maddening.

The Armory/Vendor/Battalion Guild stock is updated one last time in Ch. 12.

Part 1 ends in Ch. 12 with a Suggested Level of 25.

The game stops throwing Intermediate Class enemies by Ch. 14 for main story missions.

The most number of bosses you’re forced to take down to clear story missions is 4 in Ch. 15 (3 if you play carefully), and then 5 for both Ch. 16 & Ch. 17.

And finally, the game ends in Ch. 18 with a final Suggested Level of 37.

If we dig a little deeper into other facets of the routes, it also comes to light how little maps - and in turn, plot beats - are shared between both branches, being the story each branch follows the key culprit behind the lack of overlap. The most we get between CF and SS are 3 shared locations (2 Garreg Mach maps and the Bridge of Myrddin), but besides this, the similarities end there.

In this regard, I’ll say the developers did a good job in making BE’s route-split drastically change the player’s experience. 

2. Available Resources.

Every resource involving Black Eagles & the Empire (characters, equipment, weapons, you name it) was distributed between both branches, splitting things in a way no Black Eagles path will ever be able to get everything.

For starters, Black Eagles locks you access to Cyril, Catherine and Seteth pre-Chapter 12. Afterwards, everything depends on whatever side the player picks:

Crimson Flower’s side lets the player keep Edelgard & Hubert, recruit Jeritza after the timeskip, and obtain all of their associated resources and boons. This is due to: 1. Edelgard and Hubert leaving the party after Chapter 11 for story-related reasons, and 2. Their associated content being locked to CF’s half of the story (Hubert’s even the only House Leader’s retainer with this distinction).

From the paid-DLC side of things, while Anna is playable in both Black Eagle routes, her paralogue and its rewards are locked to Crimson Flower’s post-timeskip.

Silver Snow’s side meanwhile, gets to keep Flayn, gives you access to Seteth, Catherine and Cyril, makes Ferdinand and Caspar’s associated resources available, and provides you access to Dorothea’s battalion, as well Rhea’s paralogue and its rewards. In Ferdinand and Caspar’s case, their paralogues rely on context absent in Crimson Flower; Dorothea’s dancer battalion is only obtainable during a story mission not available in CF; and Rhea’s paralogue hinges on her assisting Byleth after choosing to oppose Edelgard.

It’s worth noting that Ferdinand and Caspar’s paralogues, unlike Edelgard and Hubert’s, requires recruiting two out-of-house students to play them (Lysithea and Mercedes respectively).

One curious detail about the Silver Snow’s exclusive cast though, is that most of their resources are not locked behind the Church Route’s branch: 

Seteth and Flayn’s paralogue is doable pre-timeskip with just Flayn (thus making Seteth briefly playable). Incidentally, Ferdinand and Linhardt happen to have matching crests for their Sacred Weapons as well, ensuring Black Eagles will always have units which can make the most use of them.

Catherine’s paralogue can be accessed in Part 1 with only Ashe recruited (meaning Catherine also gets Seteth’s treatment), and her Thunderbrand is available in both Black Eagles branches, even if in Crimson Flower it’s in a limited - yet perfectly timed - fashion.

While there are three Church battalions which can’t be purchased from the Battalion Guild in Crimson Flower (ie. Holy Knights of Seiros, Indech Sword Fighters and Macuil Evil Repelling Co.), it’s still possible to obtain at least one copy of them through doing Alois, Hanneman, and Manuela’s paralogues with all of them recruited.

One final detail worth mentioning surrounding the cast available in Black Eagles is that, by default, both branches happen to allow players to obtain a minimum of 16 units (or 15, if playing as Male Byleth) assuming they’ve not been actively trying to recruit other units:

“Number 16? Can I get the number sixteeeeen?”

It is worth noting though, that this coincidental number is possible thanks to Jeritza being added to the game in the 1.1.0. update. Because of this, there’s solid grounds to claim Crimson Flower was missing content at launch due to Jeritza’s conspicuous absence (which is potentially[?] corroborated by datamining the game, not unlike how Rhea’s Tea Time data remained unfinished in the cutting room floor up until the version 1.2.0. update).

3. Miscellaneous differences/similarities Involving Black Eagles

Beyond the game design angle, Black Eagles and its two split branches noticeably stands out in many ways compared to Blue Lions and Golden Deer:

A. Event - Coronation.

The story event named “Coronation” in Black Eagles is the pivotal scene from Chapter 11 which decides whether the player can access the Crimson Flower branch after Chapter 11’s story mission or not. Not only is it very easy to miss (ie. ignoring the monastery during that chapter is enough), it can also play differently according to how many support points Byleth has with Edelgard.

The peculiar thing about it is that this story event is only present on the Black Eagles route. For contrast’s sake, Blue Lions and Golden Deer instead get an event called “Deep Underground”, which is unmissable and always takes place before “The Holy Tomb“.

The story events’ internal IDs, taken from fedatamine.com

B. Part 2’s Chapter Introduction logo

Starting Part 2, all routes feature the logo of your chosen House’s faction in a blazing background when a new chapter is introduced.

The Silver Snow route (and by proxy, also Azure Moon and Verdant Wind’s) has the faction’s icon colored yellow, while Crimson Flower has it painted red. As a result, Black Eagles is the only path in which your faction’s chosen emblem can be seen in both colors.

C. Light/Darkness Juxtaposition in the War Arc’s Beginning/Ending Cutscenes.

It’s been pointed out that many of the introductory and closing cutscenes from Part 2 make heavy use of light and darkness for simbolism’s sake. In terms of execution, Silver Snow and Crimson Flower’s light/dark motifs are notable in the sense both could be argued to be parallels of one another: 

In Silver Snow, the reunion cutscene between Edelgard’s Byleth (which is more of a Cutscene Boss than anything, but I digress) shows both characters bathed in moonlight as they fight. As for the ending, Garreg Mach is briefly depicted in darkness just before the sun’s light bathes the whole area after Rhea ends her berserk rampage.

In Crimson Flower, the reunion event between Byleth and Edelgard shows both embracing one another while light and dark are blended, casting shadows at the scene. The ending movie meanwhile, has Byleth and Edelgard finish off Rhea while the showdown happens entirely during night, illuminated only by the fire of the battlefield.

D. The first post-timeskip meeting with Edelgard.

On a related note, the first post-timeskip meeting with Edelgard starts very similar in both Black Eagle routes: Edelgard arrives at the Goddess Tower reminiscing of the past, and is caught off guard at Byleth’s sudden return. Then… stuff happens depending on whether you’re in Silver Snow or Crimson Flower.

Azure Moon and Verdant Wind by comparison have no build-up whatsoever. After Byleth wakes up, they go to the Goddess Tower and… The route’s respective movie plays out immediately.

E. Differences between shared Part 2 Paralogues.

Even though Bernadetta & Petra, and Linhard & Leonie’s paralogues are the only BE-adjacent side missions available in both story branches, both have some noticeable differences depending on whether they're being played on Crimson Flower or not:

Bernadetta & Petra’s paralogue outside Crimson Flower features Hubert as the main boss as well various enemy Assassins and Dark Bishops in its enemy line-up. In contrast, Crimson Flower’s take of it has Catherine as the main boss and contains enemy Holy Knights and Warlocks instead.

Linhard & Leonie paralogue works like any normal paralogue outside Crimson Flower. Within CF itself however, the player is given 2 handicaps:

1. Edelgard and Hubert can’t be deployed on the map.

2. If Seteth and Flayn die during Chapter 15’s story mission, the player is given only one month to do it.

F. The Final Boss.

Black Eagles’ Final Boss is always Rhea, regardless of the direction each story branch goes and who was and was not fought to get there.

Each version of Rhea’s fight also deviates with the set of skills used too, with Silver Snow’s version pulling a fake-out on the player before focusing on making the enemy explode with long range AoE attacks and Miracle hax, while Crimson Flower’s more strategic by silencing spellcasters after combat, targeting the enemy’s lower defensive stat, and consistently buffing nearby Armored Golems as the battle drags on.

G. Ending Themes

Silver Snow & co., plays the song “Edge of Dawn” during the game’s credits, while Crimson Flower uses a piano arrangement of its melody called  “Color of Sunrise” instead. Similar to the second point, this means only Black Eagles can play two different songs for this instance.

…There’s probably a ton more differences I’m missing, but I really don’t wanna drag things further.

So now’s the perfect time to talk about-

4. How everything went wrong.

In hindsight, I don’t think it should be a controversial take that giving Black Eagles a route-split was a shortsighted decision.

I mean, if you see it in a vacuum, Black Eagles’ succeeds in making each branch different. And yet, that is where the problem stems from.

The Black Eagles Route does not exist in isolation.

As a whole, Black Eagles has - arguably - content on par with Blue Lions and Golden Deer (heck, perhaps even more). If one sees all four routes separately though, Silver Snow and Crimson Flower suddenly end up in a fight they cannot win on their own. All thanks to the erroneous misconception that all four routes were meant to be equals.

In spite of the evidence at hand saying otherwise:

Q: Can you tell us which route was made first in order to expand and explore the world?

Kusakihara: The first and second parts of the Empire route.. which is called by the userbase as the “Church Route”, Silver Snow. The progression of Class Leader Edelgard to become the antagonist… that is what we initially decided upon. It was from there, that every route’s story and the progression of other Lords as characters were expanded by the Koei Tecmo Scenario Team. As the Class Leader would leave, the Black Eagles were initially decided to be the most difficult route as imagined (gameplay difficulty).

Yokota: Ahh, this is about losing access to the most powerful unit that you would be raising, right? This is pretty bad, yeah.

Kusakihara: In my personal opinion, I think that some cruelty from the parts of developers is necessary. This is because if we weren’t cruel/callous in any way, then, just like pre-established harmony where everything only interacts with itself, it would be easy for readers/players to predict everything that will happen. A scenario that would completely be predicted by the reader/player is not something that feels attractive. And that’s why we went all out that way, but the wish to walk with Edelgard was incredibly strong even in the development team. Walking with Edelgard in “Crimson Flower”, or rather known as the, “Supreme Ruler Route” is something we honestly meant to be much more difficult to enter. [...]

There’s something ironic in how Silver Snow, for being the very first route and having a clear advantage over Crimson Flower in quantity, was the Black Eagle branch which got the short end of the stick. The full extent of it can be grasped in my appropriately named document “No House Stands Equal - 3H's Difficulty from a Design Perspective“, but to give everyone a quick rundown:

Azure Moon and (mainly) Verdant Wind cannibalized Silver Snow’s story missions and plot beats while building over it’s foundation, mainly through: exclusive characters which mostly never ditch your side (and even then, the one that does can return later), and a new shared chapter (Blood of the Eagle and Lion, which canonically happens in Silver Snow but goes unseen due to the Church’s underdog status in the plot); This by itself stripped much of Silver Snow’s novelty beyond the theme of betrayal and loss having an impact in the gameplay.

Blue Lions and Golden Deer also need to recruit Caspar and Ferdinand respectively to access paralogues associated with their cast. In practice, this means playing through Silver Snow isn’t required to see Caspar and Ferdie’s share of Black Eagles’ content. Similarly, Rhea’s paralogue, as well Dorothea’s battalion, is also accessible outside Silver Snow.

Finally, Edelgard’s route stealing all the stuff Silver Snow can’t get for story reasons leaves the latter, in terms of exclusive content, only with: Edelgard and Hubert being temporarily in the party during most of Part 1; Its last Chapter, Following a Dream (+ everything surrounding it, like the White Beasts and Funeral of Flowers); and Rhea’s S-Support.

Meanwhile, Crimson Flower doesn’t escape unscathed from the allegations that it is incomplete either, given its stunt of avoiding Silver Snow’s story beats means it ends up 3 to 4 Chapters short of the other paths, misses a few paralogues (including half of the Black Eagles’ resources) and can’t recruit the pro-Church cast due to story reasons. Besides those shortcomings, it’s whole shtick did give it some significant positives:

First, Crimson Flower takes advantage of its different plot in order to keep Edelgard & Hubert for the 2nd half of the game, recruit Jeritza, and also gain access to their resources.

Speaking of which, it also ends up being the only Black Eagles branch which gets to keep access to Anna’s paralogue and its bonuses, seemingly because… the devs wanted Jeritza to be along for the ride in it???

And second, Azure Moon and Verdant Wind sharing much of Part 2’s content with Silver Snow makes stand out more how Edelgard’s route has its own set of exclusive Chapters between Ch. 12 to Ch. 18 and all they entrail, like: Ch. 12’s golems (normally unseen outside the Cindered Shadows DLC story); multiple exclusive battle conversations; ally NPCs from other routes being mandatory bosses; a few story events changing based on whether the player completed the map’s objective in certain ways or not; various unique monster weapons used in Chapter 17 & 18; and so on and so forth.

When all’s said and done, while the whole route-split of Black Eagles is a fun idea on paper, in practice, it ended up leaving one of it’s branches more or less neglected altogether for reasons beyond its control, while the other one got to stand out for all the right and wrong reasons, and for being given double duty of being a parallel to also another route of the game:

5. Post-Mortem & Closing Thoughts

I’ve been very much fascinated by this game’s Black Eagles route ever since I first got the game back in 2019. As I played the routes under an order of my own design (Crimson Flower > Verdant Wind > Azure Moon > Silver Snow), I heard many comments from other players that Silver Snow “was the Black Eagles branch which was always meant to be in the game”, causing me a ton of intrigue. So when I finally got to try that path myself, after finishing it, my feelings about it were something akin to… confusion and bafflement.

“What happened here? Why is Black Eagles as a whole like this?” - were my driving questions at the time.

Thus I began to dig in further into the game. I joined The Cutting Room Floor and examined the game’s datamine, then discovered fedatamine.com and used it to explore even more stuff, and then I focused on the developer interviews that were coming out at the time about the game. All for the aim of finding the answer to these questions I asked for myself, whatever those ended up being.

And honestly? Reaching conclusions such as “Edelgard was heavily advertised pre-release just to trick players into doing the Silver Snow route”, “Crimson Flower doesn’t feel like it was ever meant to get more than 18 Chapters”, and now, that “both BE branches feel incomplete because the faction’s content was split in half” were not the stuff I ever expected I would find at the end of my road.

Writing this whole document also drove me to the realization that, much of how Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes’s content - Three Houses’ Warriors spinoff -  seems to have been distributed, appears to be based on common criticism and feedback obtained from Three Houses and how Black Eagles was handled in it:

That game has only 3 routes, having no proper counterpart for 3H’s “Church route” in favor of keeping an Empire (Scarlet Blaze), Kingdom (Azure Gleam), and Alliance (Golden Wildfire) routes with relatively equal content and story chapters.

Ferdinand and Caspar in that game became exclusive to Scarlet Blaze (thus making their old and newer resources exclusive too), while Dorothea’s battalion was also locked behind SB in spite of herself being recruitable in Azure Gleam and Golden Wildfire.

Finally, Scarlet Blaze itself took cues from both Crimson Flower and Silver Snow through:

Exiling the pro-church cast into Azure Gleam and Golden Wildfire (with Shamir being recruitable the only common ground), similar to Crimson Flower.

Having a key decision in the story change how a late-game story mission plays out, turning it into a battle between the Empire, Alliance and Kingdom armies during the post-timeskip (a plot beat which in 3H was not available in Black Eagles).

Incidentally, this change makes SB the only route in which it’s possible for Claude to die, much like in CF.

Incorporate fighting TWSITD into the main story, which in Black Eagles itself was largely present only in Silver Snow (even if it amounts to just one Chapter there).

And finally, it has a remixed version of Silver Snow’s final map theme - Funeral of Flowers - play during Scarlet Blaze’s final battle.

As for my closing thoughts, I think Three Houses currently sits at a fascinating middle point in the Fire Emblem timeline. 

Before it, the previous non-remake entry was Fire Emblem Fates: a 3-route 3DS game that got so big in content, that each of its paths were chosen to be sold separately, and both its story’s concept and implementation was outsourced to various people. As for the game which came after, Fire Emblem Engage, it notoriously scaled down its ambition to an 1-route experience, and per development interviews, went on its way to avoid 3H’s conventions to the point the story was made in service of the gameplay, and not the other way around. Then, it’s kinda fitting that Fire Emblem: Three Houses ended up becoming the awkward middleground of the two: while even more ambitious in terms of scope, it also notoriously tried to both exploit Silver Snow’s material while also being heavily constrained by it, thus forcing it to base the 4 narratives stemming from it to revolve heavily under the unifying theme of perspective.

Perspective is such a fickle thing. Based on the information at hand, it can greatly change how we understand certain ideas and situations. And while I would love to say a ton about how 3H milks it for all that is worth, at this point, that is a tale for another day…

So what do you guys think? What's your take on Black Eagles (and only Black Eagles) getting a routesplit? Should the idea be revisited in the future? Or 3H and 3 Hopes showed it's doomed to fail?

[dragonsarecats]

golden deer appreciation post. you guys are so fucking normal i love that for you <3

[givemeafish]

[ah-kill-es]

ok but can we please talk about the fact that one of dorothea's battle quotes pre-timeskip is "all roses have thorns" and when you meet her post-timeskip it changes to "only thorns left on this rose"

[quillfulwriter]

Ferdinand:  There's something sweet, and almost kind But he was mean and he was coarse and unrefined

And now he's dear, and so unsure I wonder why I didn't see it there before

Dorothea: Well, who'd have thought?

Bernadetta: Well, bless my soul!

Edelgard: Well, who’d have known?

Linhardt: Well, who indeed?

Edelgard: And who'd have guessed they'd come together on their own?

Petra: It’s so peculiar!

Black Eagles: We'll wait and see, a few days more There may be something there that wasn't there before

Edelgard:  You know, perhaps there's something there that wasn't there before.

Caspar: What?

Dorothea:  There may be something there that wasn't there before.

Caspar: What’s there, Lin?

Linhardt: I’ll tell you when you’re older.

I got carried with this idea, but it wouldn’t leave me alone until I threw this mess together (emphasis on mess). Feel free to art/write/creatively run with this in whatever manner you see fit! I’m sure I’m not first who’s had the idea, haha. (But also tell me if you do because I want to see it.)

[edie-of-the-empire]

Dorothea: -it’s all part of my master plan, you see?

Caspar: Master plan, for what?

Dorothea: Why, to get Edelgard to admit her feelings to the professor, of course!

Caspar: Oh.. that plan..

Dorothea: Yes, but I require some assistance ironing it all out.

Hubert: I shall fetch the chloroform.

Dorothea: ...Hubie, no. Just...no.