#dimitri....and...rhea...did nothing wrong

[carcosa-commune]

im having uncontroversial opinions lately

[curse-d-owl]

The common opinion that Edelgard takes the fastest path to reforming Fodlan while Dimitri goes at a snails pace cause he's risk averse. That is an incorrect statement that's born out of bias and willful ignorance.

The exact opposite is true. Before he was even crowned as the next king he immediately risked civil wars for the sake of Duscur and exposing the crimes of Rufus even when Gilbert protested against that.

In the 2 years he was king he kicked Kleiman out of Duscur, helped the natives ( who previously had no aid in any form ) reclaim their home and fought hard to give Duscur it's independence back.

He also allowed social mobility to be in Faerghus by allowing commoners to achieve the ranks of knights and nobles should they have the skill for these positions.

And lastly he wants to move away from the dependance on crests and allow Faerghus to be governed by merit. Even with his best efforts he isn't perfect but that doesn't mean he isn't open to criticism to do better highlighted in his support with Yuri.

And none of this gets hindered by Rhea and infact she supports Dimitri in his efforts. In the 2 years she was still in control of garreg mach she has not hindered Dimitri.

He right the wrongs of Fodlan by getting rid of nationalism, nepotism, forced obligations for those that don't want to and a crest based society. They achieve all but one of Edelgard's goals which is conquering Fodlan for herself and Adrestia.

Meanwhile Edelgard in the 2 years she's been an emperor has done absolutely nothing to mend the relationship between Brigid and Adrestia nor undo the imperialism that Brigid suffers from. The most she did was promise that she'll put an end of the vassalage after Petra officially becomes queen. They're the ones scared of righting their wrongs cause they're afraid of risks. And the only problem that Fodlan faces is Edelgard's unjustified war and desire for conquest.

And quite frankly it's bizarre that the author's even put this decision in when this is the same story that has Leicester immediately became bossom buddies with Almyra cause their renowned generals had a good drink.

One last thing i want to talk about is the extreme differences between the oppression of Duscur and Brigid.

Brigid was forced into vassalage and had their crown princess kidnapped into enemy territory as a hostage. Which is extremely horrifying do not get me wrong.

Duscur on the other hand suffered from an unjust genocide, forced expulsion from their homeland, got their land colonized and received no aid from anyone.

Dimitri has more things to set right than Edelgard and he did all of it while Edelgard hardly did anything for Brigid.

[ask-the-abyss-keeper]

Hear me out…

There is nothing wrong with liking Edelgard as a character. There is nothing wrong with agreeing with Edelgard’s manifesto. But there is something you have to admit if you’ve played through all four routes in FE3H…

(Spoilers below the cut, and also Edelgard critical, but in a fair way)

In 3 out of the 4 routes, Edelgard is clearly written as an antagonist. Crimson Flower involves trusting her over the church (but my head canon is that Byleth as a character has other reasons not to forsake her) and it’s only then that you realize she was more of a political pawn to a greater evil. I always compare her to Magneto- yeah, he’s the villain most of the time, but he’s got a good reason to do what he does; he’s a villain you empathize with. Edelgard is the same right down to her color scheme. Edelgard isn’t a Hitler, she’s more of a Napoleon; she wants to dismantle the old and usher in the new.

Within the game itself, other people have pointed out that Edelgard’s goals aren’t that different from Claude’s and that beyond potential border disputes, they should have few reasons to wage war against each other. Honestly? Of all the house leaders, Claude seems the least ruthless or bloodthirsty (although he’s no pacifist either) but perhaps that has more to do with Claude not being coerced by Thales as Edelgard was. And choosing Edelgard’s side over Rhea’s means you get to experience Rhea’s darker side. But look, it’s a tragedy no matter which route you choose. Each faction has its grievances and each of the three house leaders ends up with blood on their hands in the end. Saying that Edelgard is any worse than the others seems fair up until you play through her route completely. One might assume the same of Dimitri without playing through Azure Moon first (“Kill every last one of them!”) There is a large contingent of the fandom that takes it to heart and aims its vitriol at other players, which seems like a waste of time and energy to me. Moral complexity is the point and if you wanna hate on a certain FE3H character, that’s your business. But at the end of the day, we’re all fans of the same game.

Those among the Black Eagles who would side with Edelgard over the church would likely do so because they’re scared of what might happen if they don’t. Most of the Black Eagles (with the exception of Hubert and “Monica” who isn’t playable in FE3H) will go along with Byleth no matter which choice they make. I made this list because if they were real people with real agency over their lives, they might make different choices than what we see in canon if you don’t recruit them (It’s worth noting to newer players that seldom will units actually leave your party in Part 2 of the game)

Byleth would not likely take Edelgard’s side because as shady as the church may be, Edelgard colluded with the people who kidnapped Flayn, experimented on Remire Village, and murdered their dad. My head canon is that Byleth is smitten with Edelgard and that’s why they choose to protect her… but that’s just me.

Ferdinand would be one of the first to defect; he would not so easily forgive the empire for what it did to his father’s reputation.

Petra would also defect if Byleth is in the picture and she is reasonably assured that Brigid will be free from the empire’s grip.

Caspar says himself that he’s got nothing coming to him as a noble and would stand with Byleth due to his strong sense of justice. (But honestly he could go either way, and he does depending on your decision)

Bernadetta might seem cowardly, but Byleth does embolden her and she has as little reason to side with the empire as Ferdinand does, only her father is a much worse pile of shit.

Linhardt is more interested in studying crests than he is in fighting, so the scholarly part of him would likely go along with his professor over his house leader… but much like Caspar, he could be swayed to either side.

Hubert canonically stays at Edelgard’s side in every route.

Dorothea is likely the only other who would choose Edelgard over Byleth, because Dorothea has the most reason to support Edelgard’s cause. A world without nobles… why wouldn’t she support that idea? Also, Dorothea is probably the closest thing Edelgard has to an actual friend.

So that’s where I officially weigh in on The Discourse. I love this game, and I love most of the characters. I also love the fandom. However, that doesn’t mean I have to think that any of the three house leaders is more morally pure than the other two, or more faultless than the church. I can appreciate Edelgard as a character without agreeing with everything she does. That’s a part of fiction- you decide for yourself.

[bronanlynch]

unpopular opinion ask: 💚

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

just barely resisting the urge to write yet another essay abt char bc I feel like I am always doing that. so it's claude time instead

my reading of claude (and fe3h in general) is super shaped by the fact that I started with hopes and golden wildfire specifically. so my first experience of claude involved seeing him fighting against the church and allying with edelgard and talking abt how much they agreed on (though obviously they have some points of disagreement and he's not thrilled abt her attacking leicester but they do broadly agree on the direction they want fodlan to go and what the current main problems are). and then I go into the fandom and I see people talking abt how that's so ooc and he would never do that and actually he's a centrist (framed as though that's a good thing lmao) who actually supports rhea & the church. and I'm like, ok, maybe there's something I'm missing bc I haven't played houses yet. and then I play houses and get through verdant wind and see him talking abt how he's only working w the church bc by then that's his only option and that he would leave rhea to die if he didn't want to get information out of her. and I'm like. oh! ok then! I guess the fandom is just wrong abt him!

anyway it's this very frustrating thing where the majority of the fandom (if they remember he exists at all) just think of him as ~the silly meme guy; plenty of edelgard fans will call him a centrist (derogatory) for not taking action before she did even which I just think is a pretty unfair critique considering he had been in fodlan for like a year at that point, was still in the process of gathering information abt what the situation even was, and had absolutely no resources or support with which to begin making any major moves; a significant amount of the content abt him involves reducing him to dimitri's supportive bf in order to frame dimitri as The One True King; and many people who claim to like him will call hopes ooc and/or act like he's some kind of enlightened ~middle ground between edelgard & dimitri and call him a centrist as though it's a good thing (even though, y'know, it isn't and he isn't one). so it feels like very few people are willing to actually take him seriously as a character in his own right and listen to the things he actually says. which I'm sure has nothing at all to do with race, 🙃

[luaminesce]

Edelgard did nothing wrong.

Dimitri did nothing wrong.

Claude/Khalid did nothing wrong.

No one did anything wrong.

Except Rhea and Nemesis. But that's subjective.

[arkus-rhapsode]

Just wanted to say thank you for the Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn recruitment graphic. I have ADHD and have always found visual aids easier to comprehend.

Radiant Dawn is my favorite game in the FE franchise and I wanted to know your opinion on it. Did you like the game? What do you think of Micaiah? Should it be remade?

Wow I am honored that my little project was so helpful. I myself have always preferred big image based lay outs, much more pleasing to the eye for me. And my intent was to hopefully have this reach people who might be like me. So thank you.

Wow wow I could talk about Radiant Dawn forever and Tellius as a whole. If you want my TLDR, I really like Radiant Dawn, I think it is the best Fire Emblem story (not necessarily the best gameplay) and I can think of very few FE games that live up to the sense of scale that this has.

Part of that is the fact it is one of the only FE games to be a direct sequel. Not a prequel or midquel or set in the same universe but at a different time so disconnected it doesn’t matter. But another part of it is, as much as I love the FE tropes of ragtag heroes who save the world, games like Blazing Blade and Awakening always felt kinda lowkey for a continent spanning war and they both do ultimately end with a big final boss fight to save humanity, but it’s really rare to get something like RD where like just these countries of Daein and Crimea feel like their parts could’ve been one game almost on their own. And when we have the war of Laguz vs Begnion, it feels like this is bigger than just a bunch of skirmishes this is war. And it really helps the world of Tellius is so well detailed and so well defined in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn genuinely challenges and shakes up how we saw it.

Honestly if there was ever a Fire emblem anime or TV show and it has to be based on a game, I think it should be Tellius. Its story stands on its own with no gameplay.

There’s issues with RD, nothing is perfect. Gameplay is a big one, the lack of real supports, I’m not particularly a fan of Micaiah getting possessed by Yune, I wish Elincia got to do more (though her part is still really good), it’s a very big cast and I feel like to get the maximum enjoyment out of it you need to play PoR, and I think the blood pact could’ve been gone into more (I don’t hate it’s inclusion but I would’ve preferred Daein at least talking about it more than they did).

But like that’s all stuff I can deal with. Especially when it does so much right.

Micaiah in particular look I have a whole like post on my thoughts of Micaiah and I still like her even though it seems like shitting on Micaiah has persisted. Now to be fair, I think like the level of hate Micaiah gets is probably a lot smaller than some people may think it is. Like I’m not even talking about the people who mostly know her from Heroes and she’s popular there. I mean just like… objectively speaking the fire emblem fanbase was so much smaller when Radiant Dawn came out compared to now. Like with Edelgard and Dimitri and Rhea discourse, Three Houses came out when like the franchise is at like an all time high and extremely accessible to newcomers and has made much more of a mark on social media. As opposed to when this Wii game came out and people like me in a niche on GameFAQs would talk about Micaiah.

I still stand by my comments on that post, though I do think I’d add that I find some of the hate still perplexing because like in the narrative of the game, Micaiah is like functionally in the wrong. Like with Three Houses the game like has to be “everyone is right, but also everyone is wrong” because the lords have to functionally be both protagonists and antagonists depending on the route. Which is what kinda perpetuates the discourse, there’s no right answer. Whereas Radiant Dawn has Micaiah as a protagonist in her act, she serves as an opposing force to the Laguz Alliance for a big chunk of the story. And we know what Ike and Elincia are about, we know that they challenge injustices of Tellius, and characters like Sothe verbalize things the audience may believe like having served with Ike he knows that Ike’s invasion of Daein and vouches for him to Micaiah who doesn’t like him, Sothe as well is the one who tells her about Pelleas’s incompetence and yet Micaiah ignores this and pays for it. She pays for it most the game. And then Radiant Dawn ends with a big everyone comes together to save the world from the literal chosen corrupting/zealous members of the systemically unequal theocracy.

I’m not saying that Micaiah is a villain or dumb, I’m saying that Radiant Dawn isn’t the story of Ike vs Micaiah whose ideas of the future is the right one and the literal ending of the game can be molded based on whose side you fall on,like Three Houses. It’s a story of good intentions leading to more suffering, people challenging the need for gods, and confronting systemic injustices. But Y’know some people just still didn’t care for her even in a story where she is functionally in the wrong, but still ends up undergoing an arc which ends with her fighting side by side with Ike.

But that controversy could expand, if we ever did get a remake and we let more people experience Radiant Dawn for the first time. Speaking of, honestly I think graphically, RD could just need a remaster not a ground up remake. But I would want the maps fixed, I would want like full voice acting with the new cast, obviously I would kill to see those supports that were cut. So yeah I guess yeah I would want to see it remade at that point. Do I think Nintendo/InSys will do it? Ehhhhhh… Im not sure. We’re still waiting on the FE4 remake. But hopefully seeing the people show up for PoR makes Nintendo consider making RD available in some form.

But yeah, I care a lot about Tellius (as you can see I am very opinionated), and I’m so glad they exist flaws and all. Once again though, I am touched that my work had a tangible positive effect on others. Hopefully I can continue to do you right in the future.

[problematic-fodlan]

In the western side of things, people defend Rhea because edelgard and Byleth did indeed push her trauma bottoms and therefore did have it coming.

Rhea acting messy in a way that female characters aren't allowed to is only brought up in response to this fandom's hypocrisy when it comes to her. They are the ones who say they want complicated women in fictions, and that that's a huge reason why they like edelgard so much. But when it comes to Rhea, another complicated woman, they shift gears, because Rhea's anger and messiness is directed towards the did nothing wrong sacred cow that is edelgard (and Byleth too, because at that point people have internalized that they're Byleth and when Rhea insults him, she's insulting them) This also comes with the downplay of edelgard's horrible actions to make Rhea seem more unreasonable, calling them a mere provocation.

But even after all this, like I've said: this is only in the western side of things. You wanna know what the real kicker is? Rhea being as angry as she is in the english dub is a localization fabrication. In the japanese version of the game, Rhea is far more composed and well put together, in both dialogue and emotions. When she does express emotions, there is anger, but there's much more sadness.

Rhea is more in line with Riza and the other adults in FMA than with Roy in the japanese, original version, meaning that Rhea is going about things "in the right mindset" for the most part, until the localization team that has had a huge bias against Rhea came along. The one who's more in line with Roy is Dimitri (And like Roy, Dimitri gets over the toxic mindset, while edelgard is as dead as Envy)

Whether in the western version of the game or in its original Japanese version, Rhea's 100% valid and justified in wanting to kill the red emperor and the failure.

-

[fantasyinvader]

If you look at what happened at Duscur, like really look at it, the whole thing really undercuts Edelgard's narrative.

"But Edelgard says Duscur had nothing to do with her."

This is what she says in the Japanese.

"What's the use of repeating the same words over and over again? Shut up and fight, you petulant little buggers."

She's basically telling Dimitri to stop bringing it up all the time. And the whole scene in Azure Moon isn't that Edelgard didn't cause it, but rather there may have been a mastermind connected to the Empire and the likes of Kronya and Solon. The game is implying that Edelgard was manipulated, but at the same time she's turned a blind eye to those she's trampled in pursuit of her goals while the prisoner is about how people can commit atrocitious acts and STILL believe they are in the right.

Hell, the reason why the Western Kingdom nobles assassinated Lambert undermines Edelgard's claims that if she didn't act the world would claim more victims as it wouldn't change. Here we have attempts at reform snuffed out not by the Church but by the nobility. Nobility that then turn around and side with Edelgard during the war with Hopes explaining that Edelgard will protect their positions by them doing so rather that pushing through reforms that elevate the commoners.

But then again, Edelgard's reforms are about her using her power to force her beliefs on others.

But then you look at those Western lords. Kleiman was made a viscount for the subjugation of Duscur, given the former nation as his personal territory by Rufus. Hard not to compare this to Edelgard promising Caspapa control of the former Alliance territory in exchange for his support during the war, no? But Kleiman was in on the conspiracy to kill Lambert, he knew the truth, but instead massacred innocent people for his own benefit and was given a title for it. Lonato was given a title by Rufus in exchange for his service, and the game makes it clear that him taking his people to attack Rhea while attacking villages along the way is a sign he wasn't fit for the role. Even Rufus, who had a title despite not having a Crest, simply wanted more power when he had his brother killed.

They did horrible things, causing innocents to suffer, just for power.

"But Lambert was made a king because of magical dragon blood when Rufus was the oldest son, he should have been king if it wasn't for Crests."

Rufus was still a duke, had his own territory, and simply wanted more power. When he got that power, he ran the kingdom into the ground and tried to have his nephew assassinated multiple times. Same thing with Miklan, who only got kicked out of his family over multiple attempts to kill Sylvain, not because he didn't have a Crest. And if anything, Rufus shows how dangerous a meritocracy can be because it all depends on who is giving out lands and titles. A shit leader appoints shitty officials. Hell, in Romance of the Three Kingdoms Cao Cao hands out titles and stuff all the time when people please him (and when they piss him off, he has to be convinced not to have them killed), and all he did was create a system where ambitious people backstabbed each other for power. Just like what we see with the Western nobles.

Meanwhile, the people of Duscur were falsely acccused, slaughtered like animals, the survivors oppressed and made out to be the real villains by those who actually were responsible for the chaos that ensued and profitted off of it by putting themselves in charge. Really hard not to see Rhea and Dedue bonding after the war over experiencing the same bullshit.

But people try to make it sound like the Nabatean genocide was okay, and that Dimitri is the real racist despite trying to get justice for Duscur and that Dedue should totally join the person who knows the truth about the Tragedy but keeps her mouth shut in order to further her own goals. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with this fandom?