one of my favourite weirdly specific Claude things from FE3H is how he rocks up late to tea time. like on a surface level 'is it because he's brown' yes but specifically in a 'this is an over-capacity 17 year old POC trying to save the world' way. he is busy. he is juggling. he is schmoozing and networking and scheming. Sylvain does the same 'sorry I'm late' thing but his extracurriculars are like Susan and Bridgette and his thinly veiled suicidal tendencies manifesting in midday naps
finished Silent Hill 3 yesterday, some quickfire thoughts in no particular order [spoiler warning / content warning]
immediately understand why every queer person that talks about SH3 is Like That
talked a lot during my streams about how SH3 represented the horrors associated with womanhood and the womb without ever becoming "pregnancy horror", transphobic or singularly fixated on sexualising the trauma and violence of womanhood, as womb-themed horror often is. I also talked a lot about how it depicted the horrors of patriarchy without centring men, in fact depicting a corrupted matriarchy that analysed women with the same level of complexity as we often analyse - and thus humanise - men. off the back of that, I realised today that the culmination of these two points is that it accomplished this by never being heteronormative. we just never centre a heterosexual worldview ever.
in fact, bizarrely, it created a world just awful and recognisable enough to clearly but safely explore the many, many ways that people are born into violence; the many ways we encounter violation; the horrific, brutal burden of being alive - and the will to live despite all of it! it managed to strike a precise balance to process in
in fact due to the complete dismissal of biological processes, we have a game that is more about an alchemist than a mother, and a process of birth so detached from the idea of biological reproduction that it ends up looping back around to be pro-choice and gender affirming LMAO and the beautiful test tube philosophers stone baby they create is not only capable of love but capable of being loved
also technically. women in STEM. in game, there are constant depictions of Heather doing sciencey shit that fall between the lines of witchy and sciencey - or, in other words, alchemical principles. I love that James Sunderland had an incredibly emotional journey through SH defined by his romantic love. Heather's is not as emotional, and her journey is defined by vengeance and power in a game that is thematically scholarly, mathematical, making it pleasantly subversive and very progressive.
genuinely emotional every time I think about the underlying principle of this game being entirely internal for Heather. she has to defeat the part of her that says the world would be better off if she died. quite literally a singing endorsement for the idea that life is worth living, not because it's good but because it's yours, in all its imperfection for as long as you have it. once again Silent Hill knocks it out of the park by being so much about Love
I'm going to have to write a whole post about how the confessional scene with Claudia impacted me as someone with my own religious trauma bc Shit, Dude
I need to make. youtube vids. and campaign for Konami to make these games more accessible bc this is Literature to me, this is Art History
comparing Heather to Edward Elric briefly to analyse the difference between how characters hold and wield power, and the role of resurrection/transformation
ugh found family wugh ough ugh
MORE TO COME...... I HAVE SO MANY NOTES watch my stweams maybe. I Must Sleep LATERS
smiles unsettlingly over my Silent Hill f playthrough. hey, chat? what do you mean you could sit through an entire game unpacking a white man's psyche when it comes to his feelings about [redacted] but you can't extend empathy towards a teenage girl experiencing the cosmic horror of being perceived as a woman in a world that hates women?
was exposed to the Lilo and Stitch live action against my will
somehow worse than expected. actively felt like a hate crime. nauseatingly bad propaganda writing. bonus: also technically bad
a movie fighting for its life to be coherent between trying to be a tourism ad and pro-US propaganda, all while dashing its own source material to smithereens
whoever wrote the recurring joke about Nani becoming a Marine can rot in hell along with the rest of the writing team
gentrified concept of ohana cant hurt you because it isn't even incorporated into the film that gentrified it in the first place
a hilarious point in history to re-introduce 'queer-coded villain duo' into the Disney vernacular. also possibly the worst movie to re-introduce that dynamic, thematically. lucky it didn't have any consistent themes
just really ugly to look at. like bizarrely ugly. Disney Channel Original Movie quality
you might think it's strange that Stitch treated a bowl of punch like a jacuzzi despite being mortally afraid of water but that part of the movie was actually an ad for wedding venues and not canon-compliant
I know someone thought they were doing something with a Hawaiian woman saying "we are all American" in order to appeal to a CIA agent but personally I think they should shit themselves repeatedly
want to learn how you can dress US state violence as a Hawaiian woman and a Black man and hope no one notices? keep watching! if you let your guard down you'll forget about the concept of lateral violence
not sure who to curse for the experience of watching a little Hawaiian kid be racially harrassed by the voice of Zach Galifianakis but you can rot with the rest
big fan of Nani saving her sister's dog so Lilo has some company when she's feed into the state foster care system
I love the traditional Hawaiian concept of abandoning your home, family and responsibilities to community in order to escape to greater opportunities overseas [I peel back the cover to reveal US Colonial Handbook and Self Care Tips from White TikTok Users After Protests] wait-
only watchable if you pretend it's a horror movie with Nani going through some Midsommar type shit despite her best efforts. panning to the Hawaiian state flag during these scenes was so Jordan Peele
left me with a seething bitterness that only a sovereign Pacific free of imperialism could solve
anyway please go watch some Haunani Kay-Trask and purge that movie from memory, mahalo
my current brainworm's name is "Edelgard And Claude's Ambitions And How They Accomplish Them" and it's just a long and spieling metaphor about how to thrive as a predator vs. how to thrive as prey, the Eagle vs the Deer, the hacking force of an axe vs the precise aim of the arrow
Edelgard's plans hurtle forward with a startling momentum. it's said constantly: she carves her own path. part of the effectiveness of Edelgard's style is that it is a constant barrage of power, both political and *holds up axe* literal. add a Hubert and she's nigh unstoppable.
while she lays her path covertly, once it's out there it's a straight line, and marching that line is about being so strong and mighty that those who don't move out of the way have no choice but to join the march or be mown down. she's an axe toppling trees to navigate the woods.
compare this to Claude. a deer doesn't knock down trees, it works out the best way to navigate them. it knows all the ways to escape. it winds trails through familiar territory, confuses its predators, lies in wait. it doesn't have the power nor intention to hunt - only survive.
except of course this deer's survival is attached to an ambition. Claude makes his territory familiar through research, and by asking questions. he observes, understands and ultimately uses people to navigate a terrain that he knows he can't face alone - tactically speaking.
Edelgard's plans are intricate and rigid. they rely on her being a powerful, constant, active force at the helm. Claude's plans depend on him staying alive, carefully playing his cards. patience. waiting for the bullseye to reveal itself before letting loose an arrow.
the thing about a straightforward plan is that it has a straightforward end. Edelgard's path relies on power and once you start to overwhelm that power (see: by having Byleth) it falls apart when she falls. her carved path becomes the straight line you follow to her demise.
and the thing about an adapting, evolving plan like Claude's is that it always has an out because it's not set in stone - his contingencies have contingencies. Claude can survive all the routes because this is how he plans, it's in the best interest of his end goal to stay alive.
fun fact (spoilers ahead) in my playthrough of Crimson Flower, I didn't know you could spare Claude. I got overwhelmed by Lysithea so I sent the Black Eagle Strike Force around the other side of the map, charged through the defences, and sent Ferdinand ahead to kill Claude.
... thus illustrating that the only way to stop the unstoppable tactician with his multiple outs was to hurl a javelin at him before he could fly away, while Hilda and Judith all hurried in vain to stop me. the most achingly appropriate way I could have played Crimson Flower.
but otherwise, if Claude survives, he still hasn't failed his grand plan. he still has his purpose. undoubtedly one of his paths has been drenched in blood and quashed by Edelgard but is he trapped? is it the end of his road? nope. he just jumps ship to a new one.
Claude being a more passive presence in his own plans is deliberate - likewise, Edelgard is a more active presence. and the success and failure of each plan hangs on the edge of a knife (Claude just set himself up with a LOT of knives whereas Edelgard gave herself a GIANT knife)
the two of them are similarly driven by their ambitions, and see themselves as catalysts for necessary change. the major difference: bloodshed. so it makes sense that Edelgard's focus is on military power overhaul, while Claude's focus depends more on sociopolitical juggling.
it's reflected in their skills. Edelgard is a dignified and inspiring leader. in lieu of religious motivation, her transparency of intent gives the people a purpose - they're willing to fight for her cause. as an Emperor with a clear voice and mission, she is a call to action.
how do you motivate someone to fight for you? how do you inspire the masses? Edelgard does it by being Emperor (tapping into an established power), stripping power from those who may oppose her (also murder, thanks Hubert), and giving purpose to the rest (spiritual motivation).
meanwhile, I'm towards the end of Verdant Wind and people are STILL questioning Claude. he deferred that spiritual leadership role to Byleth so he could keep moving freely. he's managing people and expectations through careful manipulation so as to avoid doing so with violence.
and remaining under the radar in such a way gives him the invisibility he requires to do what he needs - to keep his secrets (which permit him to navigate terrain freely as well as being his tactical wildcards) and to manage the mayhem of war without spilling (as much) blood.
one can't operate like the other or the whole MO goes out the window. Claude can't be transparent about his intent and Edelgard can't be secretive about hers. Claude needs his evasive manoeuvres and tactics the way Edelgard needs her ability to strike and kill in one fell swoop.
one of Claude von Riegan's underrated qualities? patience
not just the patience to see his plans come to fruition (which is usually seen as scheming, but also misconstrued as laziness/doing nothing) but patience with the people around him - allowing them to adapt and change at their own pace, and on their own terms.
patience has its tactical advantages and disadvantages, for sure - there's a reason his plans don't start to really blossom until after a five year wait - but it says something about his nature that he chooses patience and is able to actually implement it at all.
usually Claude sees right to the heart of things, be it the issues that cause conflict and suffering between/within nations, or the true nature of his allies - his enemies, too. compassionate insight is a survival tactic but it also facilitates understanding and thus, patience.
when you see Claude getting stroppy in canon it's often when he grows impatient. Marianne is hiding something. Byleth is hiding something. Rhea too. people other than him having secrets means he can't be patient because he can't tell who they are and if they're a threat or not.
that's an important tidbit because to me it indicates that Claude's efforts to be patient are indeed efforts, not just an idle passive 'kind' nature but a part of his MO from the top down - personality, strategies, relationships, all marked by this pragmatic life philosophy.
not to say that he isn't 'kind', just that Claude isn't particularly concerned with patience as a virtue but patience as a function. incorporating that across the board is a testament to his introspection and I reckon it's what keeps him on track when everything goes to hell.
patience is essential in his being a tactician and a leader, and is an invaluable part of having Claude as an ally. combined with confidence it permits him to navigate conflict in a way that aligns with his morals both on a personal scale and on a widespread one.
it becomes very obvious when you compare to Edelgard and Dimitri, who are both quite impatient, but Edelgard's is as thoroughly incorporated into her methodologies as Claude's, whereas Dimitri is very much at the mercy of his as a side-effect of something large and unchecked.
Claude's functional patience. People-watching, biding time, talking points, diplomatic juggling.
Edelgard's functional impatience. Laying tracks, pushing allies quickly towards their better potential, staging a war.
Dimitri's dysfunctional impatience... just... :(
but back to the point! there's a level of understanding, wisdom and acceptance in that sort of patience, and a strong sense of conviction in maintaining that quality throughout the events of the game. Claude is holistically equipped to achieve his goals, and I think that's neat.
copied over from twitter - written circa 3H, prior to starting 3Hopes
kinda love that Claude is like "I'm as close as you get to a pacifist route, I like to avoid bloodshed" and his right hand man can kill you six ways from Sunday and left hand lady has a giant axe and can KO u in one hit and his named retainer is a war hero and –
not to get into it but imho this is actually a pretty accurate way of how “pacifism” tends to operate. Claude is the ideological focus but the pragmatic approach demands violence. and there's something to look into re: how Hilda, Lorenz, Judith and Nader carry violence in his stead
I think people get into this when they assess Claude bouncing his ideology off Edelgard's violence because that's essentially it - it doesn't mean Claude facilitates this violence, but of course a pacifist angle doesn't exist without something to oppose. so they work in tandem.
Claude deals in violence too, though I think he manages to avoid too much of it - but the necessary violence doesn't go away, and I'm interested in how it then becomes the responsibility of those in his immediate vicinity. some would call that cowardice. and they do!
on the flipside they could call it a sort of moral integrity that's difficult and must be protected. Claude distancing himself from the violence keeps Claude afloat, and they need Claude to keep his clear leadership. so protecting his integrity by violence is... good, then?
in any case I just love the dynamic of compassionate scheming diplomatic leader sitting at the centre of like five murder machines all willing to throw their lives on the line to protect his vision of peace whew yeah that's the good shit
and the best bit is that Claude is under no illusions, so if you consider that Claude always offers an out, and never wants bloodshed, and sees the inherent value of all people, then you gotta wonder whether he's withering away every time someone dies for his cause. aha! eek!
tis a moral conundrum, no?! he needs to empower people to fight for him even if he's morally opposed to the subsequent fighting. Claude doesn't deal in cognitive dissonance so you can rest assured that the violence he inspires is just as internalised as the violence he commits.
how do you sleep at night when you believe whole-heartedly that violence isn't the answer but have to choose that answer anyway? all the lords say "it's necessary" but the other two seem more inclined to say "and it's right" (whether they believe it fully or not) - Claude doesn't
also interesting to me that Lorenz prefers to avoid bloodshed and Hilda just hasn't really thought about it, because I think both of them need that guidance from Claude to avoid falling into that "necessary righteous violence" angle that war-faring Fodlan has BUT IN DOING SO…
they become frightfully powerful allies for Claude that are capable of all the violence, and also, all the sacrifice. so proximity to Claude's pacifist outlook bolsters your willingness to die for Claude, if you wanna look at it that way. damn LMAO that's rough buddy
Claude inspires you to live! and in doing so inspires you to! uh! die. for him, this time. whew. lucky Claude spent most of his upbringing fortifying himself mentally otherwise this spiritual predicament might just kill a guy's spirit haha hee hoo
and I haven't even started on Byleth, where Claude dumps the task of violence AND leadership. he doesn't feel good about it though. and the cool thing there is that Byleth is arguably not into the idea of needless death either, and is OP enough to handle it... which Claude knows.
I guess this is all surmised by the "yet you participate in society! curious!" comic where just because Claude doesn't like a thing doesn't mean he won't utilise every aspect of that thing because that's the resourceful, productive thing to do when faced with unbelievable odds.
addition: this is coming up a lot in the early chapters of Golden Wildfire where Claude is forced to not only respond with violence but facilitate violence among the unwilling Alliance as retaliation to impending war, which is a little moral paradox that really shows how difficult it is to match up ideals and practice.
similarly, I’m keen to get into the idea that an anti-war outlook is also just tactically sound from where Claude stands in the world, regardless of how he might feel about it. of course an Empire will see war as their tactically sound option, whereas an Alliance cant afford that sort of behaviour. it’s an interesting and ongoing exploration of the strength of moral imperative vs. tactics, and where they intersect, falter, thrive, etc.
really chuffed about this and figure I’ll have more to say about it when we reach the end - but it’s early days! Shez is a fascinating addition to this as the ‘merc that needs violence to thrive’ and I’m primed and ready for more intrigue to come.
started streaming Golden Wildfire! gonna reflect on the route as it unfolds, courtesy of your resident Claude enthusiast.
CURRENTLY PLAYING: Chapter 4
[document version]
if Three Houses glossed over the sort of wild situation that Claude has to survive every day in Garreg Mach then this route has started with a bang by opening with conflict at the Fodlan-Almyran border. bold move! and I certainly am endlessly curious about this impending intrigue - in fact I have spent the last four years (four years!) since Three Houses musing about Claude’s relationship to his home nations, and the nations’ relationships to one another, and what that conflict means for Claude and everybody else.
do I trust the writers with it? not really. am I gonna try and play it in good faith anyway? evidently. so let’s get into it~ 🏹
right off the bat I can tell there’s stuff in this route that’s gonna make me uncomfortable, sometimes in the fascinating and deliberate way, and sometimes in the “oh I feel like an accomplice to/victim of a hate-crime” way. this is not really a surprise when it comes to Fire Emblem but it deserves a mention regardless, as I think Golden Wildfire’s going to be a rollercoaster that will frustrate me as much as it intrigues me. I’ll have the additional challenge of having to articulate how I feel about it off the dome, as a biracial POC playing to a mixed-bag stream audience. so, in short: occasional yikes are inevitable.
but such is the price I pay for Claude. ahh Claude, my beloved. when first I played Three Houses I was drawn to the game by him, not expecting him to be everything I enjoyed in a character. other than just being generally *chefs kiss* impeccable, he also conveyed some nuanced mixed-race experiences rarely expressed in a lot of media I’ve engaged with. that he sprouted from a game that frequently overshoots its own political intrigue and bungles character resolutions like FE3H surprised me, but I was happy to pluck the fluff and dirt off my darlings and make the best of what had been provided -- a bizarrely relatable, endlessly complex nice young man having a terrible, no good, very bad time.
I already got a whiff of this from playing Scarlet Blaze first, and it’s vindicating to see Three Hopes elaborate on something I’ve been clawing at walls trying to convey since the first game: Claude is light-hearted, but his situation is not. it always blew my mind to hear people say that Claude was the “good vibes house leader” in 3H only to play the game and find a character that would flippantly laugh about threats on his life, occasionally mention that he exists at the hostile junction of two warring nations, and ultimately find himself in the impossible position of an anti-war leader operating during a war. across two nations. both warring. yes, yes, he’s quite a funny guy, but his circumstances are abysmal, and a big part of that agony comes from the role he occupies -- that which he is saddled with, and that which he takes upon himself.
this was not a position easily occupied, and I was delighted to find that Claude was intelligently portrayed as a character whose ideals had to bend to the demands of leadership, resulting in morally-grey decisiveness, diplomatic juggling, and one of my favourite things to explore in fiction: the pragmatic, sometimes paradoxical pursuit of “non-violence” during war, and as a solution to war.
already in Three Hopes (I played SB first) I sense they’re leaning a little harder on showing Claude’s struggle with this, including some hints at the unbearably high bar he sets for himself. he doesn’t wear accountability like Dimitri or Edelgard in 3H - it’s always a little more cavalier, something you have to read between the lines to spot and understand. but this game is a tad more forthright with it, pulling back the disguise of “Master Tactician” to plainly show Claude in a perpetual state of, well... this:
and nothing exacerbates this like the situation they’ve started the game with. it’s dramatic irony that makes the first three chapters really sting: we know by now that Claude is Almyran, and are placed in an uncomfortable position of puttering around the camp listening to the people Claude calls his friends talking at length about the brutish Almyrans invading at Fodlan’s Throat.
this is technically good set-up. Claude is here to fix a problem, and this is our first experience of the problem -- lacking communication and education means that neither side knows who they’re fighting, or why, just that they have to. with the Church of Seiros already positioned as a questionable but overbearing presence in ch. 2 (“Why are we being sent here to fight? Church school said so.”) it begs to reason that showing the consequences of Fodlan’s intensely insulated culture starts with these uncomfortable scenes. they are, after all, born from the fear of not knowing. Claude as an antithesis to ignorance-based conflict makes a habit of overcoming fear by knowing everything.
so there are some pretty ick conversations happening around camp, and that’d honestly be something I’d be fine to reckon with as a narrative choice -- if not for the visceral discomfort and sharp drop in faith that came in the form of Shahid’s introductory scene.
let’s get this out the way: I did not spend four years mopping my tears about all these Lords and Royals to see Shahid and not immediately think “bratty king? I can fix him, and/or make him worse.” especially as a foil to Claude, it’s interesting to see a foolish heir working towards the throne in a way that Khalid, and perhaps even the King of Almyra, would oppose. I’m bracing myself for his justifications, for his humanity, because he occupies an interesting political position and he’s the first family of Claude’s that we’ve seen on screen. and yes, he could just be shallowly evil, but that wouldn’t be anywhere near as fun as it being complicated and ugly, the way all the other Lords and Leaders are afforded.
alas, it is difficult to have faith that GW is gearing up to say something interesting when they introduce such a caricature of the ‘evil desert guy’ that I feel like I’m watching a Disney movie. especially when a scene shows a narrow-eyed, ashy-but-darker-skinned ‘evil’ sibling in contrast with our bright-eyed, lighter-skinned mixed-Fodlanian Claude. it’s these sort of artistic choices that threaten to undercut the same cross-cultural intrigue that this route is constructing.
the Three Hopes sprites are a bit awkward, proportionally (shout out to Margrave Gautier’s bizarrely wide mouth) but it’s a long and yucky history with depicting MENA people that makes this particularly egregious. I’m Samoan so not personally affected by this, but it is nevertheless going to take an active effort to just try to look past the way his character is drawn. I spare a wince of sympathy for my viewers that are more personally affected: it sucks, and it’s such a simple fix that it becomes even more frustrating.
he does look slightly less like a hate crime in the animated cut scenes though. “the only one who can beat me is me!” type rizz.
I actually like that his features might deviate from the typical proportions of most of our main cast, the way Hubert’ or Lorenz’s do. it is a shame to have it pushed just into the realm of caricature when there is something workable there.
nevertheless, 3H optics have betrayed themselves before (shout out, woman-enjoyers). so again, I’m going to try and brute-force past this icky design choice and try and find my bliss, which is thus: sibling drama, please, I beg. I love the garbage mish-mash of family dysfunction and political drama that happens in royal families, and it was high time that we saw a glimpse at what Claude’s other side is going through. I swear the British monarchy convinced people that wild dysfunction is reserved only for the English, but where there is power there is corruption, and where there is hereditary power struggle, by jove do you get problems -- it’s just a matter of flavour.
all that to say: I am hoping that we will be compensated for that abysmal talk-sprite with enough royal family intrigue to write home about. I would like to see Almyran politics that are just as complex as everywhere else, but culturally diverse and interesting without leaning lazily on the same fear-mongering racist rhetoric that Claude’s entire character exists to debunk. that’s my hope. my three hope. ha ha. look I’m not holding out hope for a diamond, I just kinda want a gem-shaped rock that I can polish up myself.
anyway, new spite-induced meow meow aside, let’s get back to Claude.
my god! his life fucking sucks!
thinkin about this scene just before the timeskip where Claude expresses his thanks to House Goneril, and apologises for not being of more assistance. it makes my skin crawl knowing that Claude is not just thanking Holst but saying sorry to him after all the micro-and-macro aggressions he’s been weathering, but it makes a lot of sense; Claude is representing House Riegan and his grandfather, not Khalid of Almyra, and not even Claude himself. and what that shows is an important feature of diplomacy: the ability to make connections, and say what needs to be said in order to maintain good relations with his new allies.
better than that, it shows how damn good Claude is at it, despite having every reason in the world not to be. he is, in this moment, House Riegan. and with foresight, this is an interview, and this humble apology operates twofold as a promise, setting the tone for his eventual leadership and securing House Goneril as an ally.
if Claude were more selfish, more proud, more emotional or less wise, he wouldn’t be able to say things like that. it is the humility that makes people underestimate him, but it’s also what makes him so pivotal in creating and maintaining peaceful circumstances. sometimes, peace-keeping means pacifying the people in power. and especially for Claude operating in the alliance, managing expectations is key for a leader. he’s clever, this is strategic, and I’m excited to see Claude juggle the egos and roles of all the nobles around him.
but it’s tough, right? this is a situation that rewards Claude for not behaving like a human ought to. I like to imagine the way his smile falters when the Almyrans are spoken of like barbarians, agitation ticking along in the back of his mind while he forces himself to speak the niceties that will benefit everyone in the long-run. he’s only seventeen. we hear a lot about noble obligation, but there is no greater pragmatic noble obligation in Leicester than managing the other nobles, and Claude has that skill in spades -- hard won, but effective, with an eventual payoff to make all that juggling worthwhile. sometimes. maybe.
speaking of noble obligations, good lord that bit where Lorenz snaps that they must execute Tomas and Claude has to remind him that dead men don’t talk... I’ll inevitably end up talking plenty about Lorenz as the game goes on because he is a fascinating foil, so remind me later to talk about the things that make Lorenz a good noble, bad leader, and eventual good ally later.
and on the topic of fascinating foils...
man. I was not expecting Shez.
for those unaware, my read of Claude in 3H was that he mostly saw Byleth as a curiosity pre-timeskip, then brought them on as a means to an end post-timeskip. room for interpretation about how they develop after that, but generally most of my Byleth and Claude interactions boiled down to this thinly-veiled hostility and how it evolved into apologetic manipulation and mutual care.
Shez is different, right off the bat. I can see Claude working them over, but there’s something very new about the vibes of Claude approaching a peer he finds suspect. it has the same echo of how he treated Byleth, and even Marianne, but there’s a difference that I can’t quite put my finger on, and I suspect it comes from Shez just being a much more talkative character, plus the dramatic irony of vaguely knowing where Shez’s story might be heading. they’re not harbouring the goddess, nor a cursed beast, but a secret third thing :’l (and god I’m so excited to see what’s up with Shez, they’ve been impressing me as a protag since I started this game, I don’t think I’ve liked a FE avatar this much since Robin)
the way I characterised Shez has him coming off a little arrogant and brash, compared to my previous Shez, who seemed mostly daft and down-to-earth and is currently committing girlboss crimes in Adrestia in an alt timeline. I’m so used to overlooking the avatar character that I hardly realised just how much potential Shez holds in this route, as a sellsword brought onto the squad of the guy that wants to avoid bloodshed. honestly I’m pretty astounded by the raw fire of intrigue it’s set alight in my brain. Shez thrived under Edelgard because they always had work. and now they’re struggling under Claude, and we’re seeing just how vile the war machine is that it will make peace an inconvenience to the merc economy.
just before I finished the stream, I played the opening scene of the timeskip: where Shez is struggling to make ends meet by being a mercenary in a peaceful alliance. therein lies the intrigue of this pair-up. Claude wants peace. Shez needs to fight to live. so how do we reconcile this?
already it seems that Claude mmmiiight have just deliberately forced scarcity on Shez in order to easily manipulate them into a) not moving into a different nation when Claude still doesn’t know what’s up with him and b) taking up his first offer of becoming a commander, which is exactly the morally dubious pragmatism that I love to see in my Alliance leader - but who’s to say? it’s not as if it’s the same method he used to flush out Bergliez’s army in the SB route, forcing their hand by starving their troops with hopes they’d choose surrender...
guess we’ll find out next time, eh? but oh, is my spotlight shining on these funny little guys.
and quickfire round: Nader’s still lookin’ handsome, love that Claude’s opinion of Shez rises every time I side-eye the church, and Arval continues to enthrall my entire brain.
and. yeah. that’s a majority of my first impressions of the GW route. not even all of them but this is like an entire essay and I’m only just past the prologue. tl;dr more of the same Claude goodness, something new and tense in Almyra lore, and then something new and unexpected in Shez. and we’ll see where the rest takes us.
thanks for reading, all the best!
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