#kronya

[myosotis-arts]

Finally able to post this too,,,, drawn as a secret santa gift for @/meltypancake of her gorgeous OC Eliane and Dimitri in a Beauty and the Beast setting but with reversed roles✨️

And a Kronya being chased by a swan for no reason💥

[doyoulikethischaracterdesign]

Kronya from Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Do you like this character design?

Yes

No

It's Complicated

Voting ended onJun 3

[anjiedromeda]

💂👑"May I have this dance?"🩰🍬

[raxistaicho]

Chapter 136 jump out!

I didn't screw up this time, and I posted chapter 136 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.

Dawn breaks across Fodlan, but the shadows are not yet ready to retreat…

[icarus-mp3]

[darthmarth-commissions]

Lysithea casting a nuke!

By pinecone.fanbox.cc

[adayinthelife-feh]

Comic by: Hayase Reku

[moltz23]

Darkness Absent of Focus – An Essay about Fire Emblem: Three Houses' "those who slither in the dark"

A while ago, I wrote an essay about Fire Emblem: Three Houses’s Agarthans a while back in which I argued the slithering fellas were – on general terms – miscasted narratively, when it came to the role the story’s writers set them up to fulfill. Even though that essay provides an explanation as for why the Slitherers lose plot relevance as the story goes on, it doesn’t address everything else.

To elaborate on what I mean: the fan reception of “those who slither in the dark” has always fascinated me. Conceptually, hubris, xenophobia and entitlement incarnate should be a recipe for a perfect antagonist players can’t wait to dunk on hard. And yet, TWSITD is proof that having those qualities just isn’t enough, as it’s easy to find the belief within players that the slitherers: “are underwhelming”; “a missed opportunity”; “feel shoe-horned in”; etc.

So, what went wrong? What is exactly the “everything else” that hurts their reputation? With the benefit of hindsight, I’ll argue that the other reason the group is unpopular - as far as Fire Emblem Antagonists go - stems from how their darkness, their malice, is absent of focus.

Goes without saying that by this point there will be spoilers, so thread carefully.

To start things, I want to raise the following question:

Who is THE Archenemy of “Those who slither in the dark”?

Just think about it.

An antagonist can’t be called one if they don’t act in direct opposition of someone, more often than not; the story’s protagonist (whose Point of View is followed on). When talking about the Agarthans, however, this gets tricky. The group’s nature should put them in opposition with anyone quite easily, butthe reality shows this isn’t straightforward.

Who is their group’s nemesis, then? Who does Thales, the head honcho of TWSITD, perceive as HIS archenemy? Whom does Thales need to vanquish at all costs? And as a bonus; who can reciprocate these feelings?

The answer to that question SHOULD be Sothis, the god-like dragon that once purged his civilization in the far distant past. But… Uh…

She can’t quite do that anymore.

So naturally, he moved on for the next best thing. And what better archenemy for a millennia-old fart full of hate… than the last daughter of Sothis, Seiros.

Also known as Rhea.

After all, by virtue of Seiros founding the Adrestian Empire alongside Willhelm the 1st and instigating a +50-year-old war against Nemesis - the man that slaughtered her people and harvested their bodies for power -, Seiros indirectly and successfully foiled TWSITD’s plan for using Nemesis as a pawn for taking over Fódlan. Sure, the Slitherers did succeed with largely removing the Nabateans/Children of the Goddess out of the equation. But this wasn’t enough to give them rulership over the land like they wanted.

By present times (as in, at the start of the games’ story), Thales’ actions have been focused on setting up Rhea’s downfall: He has heavily crippled the main faction guaranteed to deliver Rhea support in times of war – The Holy Kingdom of Faerghus – through the Tragedy of Duscur; He collaborated with Duke Aegir to create a super-soldier with the Crest of Flames within House Hresvelg, with the Crest being chosen specifically so this soldier could “burn even the gods” not unlike Nemesis once did; And in the main story, he oversees his underlings’ experiments in Garreg Mach, aiming to perfect the Demonic Beasts planned to be used by the Empire to level down Rhea’s Keep and finish her off.

Unfortunately, here’s where the problem shows its ugly face. Because as much hatred there is between both Thales and Seiros…

(Rare exchange of Thales and Rhea face-to-face. The dialogue can only be seen if all minibosses in the Shambhala mission have been defeated in 3H).

…She’s not a protagonist in the Fódlan games. Heck, not even a deuteragonist, or being playable in any story-canonical way outside of Heroes.

Rhea’s role, across both Fódlan games – Fire Emblem: Three Houses & Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes – can be summed up as follows:

Being Byleth’s boss during most of the Academy arc of Three Houses.

Needing to be rescued by Part 2 of Azure Moon, Verdant Wind and Silver Snow.

Setting up (alongside Thales) the Final Boss of Verdant Wind and Silver Snow.

Acting as the main and final antagonist of 3H’s Crimson Flower, and Three Hopes’ Scarlet Blaze and Golden Wildfire.

Needing to be protected 24/7 in Azure Gleam.

If you’re heavily invested in the narrative of the surviving Nabateans’ predicament and Seiros/Rhea, chances are you’ll appreciate the Agarthans a lot for what they represent. If not, it’s unlikely you’ll find TWISTD interesting or even worth having in the stories.

If I had to pinpoint a particular cause for this, it would be that, as the story puts little focus on Rhea, so, too, it does to Thales and the Agarthans. That way, their darkness becomes absent of focus. Thales’ main enemy just isn’t whom the Fódlan games want to follow, and he suffers in turn.

But wait! You might ponder:

What about everyone else? Why couldn’t Thales be [3H lord]’s archenemy instead?

In theory, an argument can be raised that they could be an effective replacement. In practice, however, you quickly run into issues that weaken their potential, many of which are highlighted on their stories already.

To provide a clearer picture, let’s tackle each candidate one by one, and examine why they could and do not work as Thales’ new nemesis:

Byleth Eisner:

The King Without a Kingdom

Pros for Thales as an Archenemy:

They’re Sothis’s reborn, even having some emotional carryover from their past life as seen in Chapter 2 of 3H, after dealing with Kostas’ gang in Zanado. Their status even leads Thales to quickly put them on his radar (as long he’s got a way to learn of this, that is), which should be cemented in the case Rhea exits the picture entirely.

Thales assists Kronya when she kills Jeralt in 3H, briefly leading the latter into a revenge spree.

In Silver Snow, Azure Moon and Verdant Wind, Thales sucker punches Byleth into falling to a 5-year slumber at the worst possible moment.

In Silver Snow, Thales played a pivotal role in the past of Byleth’s chosen and former house leader: Edelgard. The ideology that sprung from it leads Edelgard to drag Fódlan into a war and fight Byleth on this path, causing further tragedy.

Cons for Thales as an Archenemy:

Byleth and Thales lack shared screentime. And what little exchanges they get in battle is hurt by Byleth’s lack of knowledge about Sothis’ past, more so as some routes don’t explore it (and when they do, it’s once Thales’ already dead).

Byleth’s revenge against Kronya is short lived and defused by another lackey of Thales, who sacrifices Kronya in a ploy to kill Byleth. Beyond this, Byleth’s hatred for Jeralt’s death is never visibly extended to Thales, leaving their antagonism ultimately one-sided from Thales’ end.

Silver Snow never really focuses on Thales’ pivotal role in Edelgard’s backstory, despite its importance in the whole Byleth vs Edelgard angle the route’s plot is aiming for.

Edelgard von Hresvelg:

The Flame Emperor

Pros of Thales as an Archenemy:

Thales’s experiments on Edelgard and her family killed her siblings, drove some mad, and ruined her life.

Thales body-snatched and replaced her maternal uncle, Lord Arundel, and used his identity to further his group’s agenda.

Thales and Edelgard share substantial (if small) interactions together. As allies, Thales barely tries to hide he’s using Edelgard to achieve his goals, with Edelgard responding in kind. And their scenes together in Crimson Flower’s post-timeskip ooze passive-aggressiveness.

Due to 1 in a 1,000,000 chance, Edelgard seeks payback towards Thales at the start of Warriors: Three Hopes’ Scarlet Blaze route. Thales later openly retaliates against Edelgard during her war campaign and ends up serving as one of the two Final Bosses of her story.

Cons of Thales as an Archenemy:

From Edelgard’s Point of View, Thales is a minor link on the chain of factors that caused her (and others’) misfortunes, merely being an enabler of a social system of which Seiros (under the name of Rhea) sits at the very top (For those struggling to wrap their heads around this train of thought, I’ve made a resource which explains the logic behind Edelgard’s mindset). In practice, it means Thales figures very low on Edelgard’s radar, more so given…

In Three Houses, Edelgard and Thales need one another to achieve their goals: Thales lacks a proper army to fight Rhea on her home turf and would be quickly decimated in a proper war without one’s backing (see Silver Snow/Verdant Wind); conversely, Edelgard needs Thales’ resources to deliver a successful offensive against Rhea, the Kingdom and Alliance at the same time. In a worst-case scenario, Thales’ assets are needed to hold her ground (see Crimson Flower before Byleth returns), and without them (Part 1 of Three Hopes), the logistics of fighting two factions on her own would quickly overwhelm her, extra preparation time be damned.

As allies in Part 2 of Three Houses, Thales cannot successfully control nor threaten Edelgard. In Crimson Flower, his show of power is neutralized with success, and the unveiling of his trump card is rendered moot through a cover up; in other routes, Edelgard uses a captured Rhea as leverage against him, and her second-in-command shows he can trace back the location of Thales’ hideout, which is not good for him in the long-term in any storyline.

In Three Hopes, Thales is heavily cripped by Edelgard’s surprise attack in the prologue. It takes him 2+ years of preparation, an opening sparked by someone else’s attack, and bona fide luck for Thales to recover ground.

In Scarlet Blaze, the vitriol is very much one sided from Thales’ end. Edelgard meanwhile just sees him as a steppingstone and a ticking time bomb at best, or a roadblock at worst.

Edelgard shares little to no thematic parallels with Thales compared to Rhea, who is her de facto Archenemy.

 Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd:

The Savior King

Pros of Thales as an Archenemy:

Thales’ involvement as the Agarthan brain behind the Tragedy of Duscur ruined Dimitri’s life and affected most of his friends’. Dimitri in turn acquired a strong desire to bring the Tragedy’s true culprits to justice and avenge all its victims, direct or otherwise.

Thales killed and body snatched Lord Arundel – Dimitri’s step uncle – to accomplish his goals, and by proxy of Cleobulus/Fake Cornelia, used his stepmother to instigate the Tragedy of Duscur before disposing her with none the wiser.

Exploration of parallels: both Dimitri and Thales share an all-consuming desire for revenge against those that wronged them.

TWSITD are the main antagonists of Azure Gleam, with Thales even becoming the shadow ruler of the Empire and the story’s final boss.

Cons of Thales as an Archenemy:

Azure Moon’s story rejects the notion of revenge being righteous, the latter being the core idea that Dimitri’s story seeks to answer. Likely due to this, Thales’ defeat in this story (as Lord Arundel) is given little fanfare and the full extent of his vileness is never explored, cementing Edelgard’s position as the main antagonist.

Dimitri and Thales lack substantial shared screentime, even under the latter’s disguise as Arundel. Not only does this hurt Dimitri’s interactions with Thales, he also never finds out what exactly is the deal behind him and his group’s ilk, beyond their involvement in the Tragedy.

At no point are the parallels with Dimitri and Thales explored upon, save for two throwaway lines from Dimitri in Azure Gleam.

The vitriol is largely one-sided from Dimitri’s end, as Thales sees Dimitri and his Kingdom as just a steppingstone for a far greater goal.

Claude von Riegan:

The Master Tactician

Pros of Thales as an Archenemy:

Claude’s ideology of a unified world without barriers nor racism goes in direct opposition of everything Thales and his organization stand for.

Thales’s downfall being caused by a character that has little ties to TWSITD is very ironic. Conversely…

The death of Claude’s uncle in Three Hopes is revealed to not have been caused by Count Gloucester – but rather, someone issuing orders under his name – , the identity of the culprit being left unknown. Should the story hint strongly – or heck, openly state even– that Thales was behind it, it would add a layer of irony in which Claude’s involvement in Fódlan –his role on Thales’ defeat in Verdant Wind – would be a direct result of the latter’s actions.

The potential for schemer vs schemer action. A glimpse of this is explored in Golden Wildfire when Myson uses Claude’s own plans and disregard for his allies’ lives to set Fleche against him.

Cons of Thales as an Archenemy:

Irony aside, Claude is by far the lord with the least ties to Thales and TWSITD overall. In turn, any conflict involving him lacks any substantial vitriol between both parties and is treated as a formality.

The true culprit behind the death of Claude’s uncle being never revealed means that any potential attribution of the deed being handled to Thales is filled with uncertainty and unsatisfaction, more so within the context of Warriors: Three Hopes, given…

The Agarthans are irrelevant to Golden Wildfire, Claude’s story in Three Hopes. Thales does not even show up in it.

BONUS: Shez.

The Wandering Mercenary

Pros of Thales as an Archenemy:

Shez is the only protagonist with potential direct blood ties to TWSITD… maybe.

They’re hinted to have been subject to experiments with Agarthan technology, which is how they ended up with Arval’s core in them (the Slitherers’ “Soul Heart”).

Thales as Shez’s archenemy could be used to explore Shez’s past in greater detail, as well as the mystery surrounding their deceased adoptive mother.

Cons for Thales as an Archenemy: It’s heavily implied TWSITD did not experiment on Shez (or at least, none of their current members did…). Thales doesn’t even know who Shez is, and all his underlings that encounter Shez react with either surprise, curiosity, or bafflement. Solon is certain Shez must have come from Shambhala, but…

In Conclusion

Thales and “those who slither in the dark” are set up as the Seiros/Rhea and the Church’s perfect enemy and honestly, they’re quite competent when it comes to that. Force Thales and co. to deal with someone else though, and the conflict that ensues just doesn’t quite have enough spice for him and TWSITD to leave a good impression, or heck, to feel like they needed to be there.

Or at least, that’s half the reason why I believe their reputation is so low fandom-wise. The other half, as alluded early on, is explored further on my first essay.

Who knows if a 3H prequel involving Seiros will ever happen honestly. It’s the scenario where this spiteful evil geezer and his slithery gang can legit shine brilliantly as the hateable, unsympathetic black holes of evil they were crafted as. But like most things in writing, it’s the execution that matters.

But enough blabbering from my end. What do you guys think?