(SS Spoilers) I was really disappointed when I found out Seteth couldn't turn into a dragon anymore. Like really? 🥺 No dilf dragon dick? Not even a little...?
This is something I have discussed before, but I wanted to dedicated a post to it because I was thinking about it today.
As the title states, I believe Seteth is actually younger than Rhea.
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Thank you for coming to my Ted talk, please pick up the trash on the way out.
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What, not enough? Oh, all right.
Many fans, including myself for a time, believe that Seteth is an older brother to Rhea. It makes a lot of sense. There are Crests from the Children of the Goddess, and Seteth looks and acts older than Rhea at many times. Not only that, but Rhea specifically says that she is the youngest of the Children of the Goddess.
I bring up the Japanese version because the English version states that “she is the last of the children of the goddess” which implies she is the last surviving one, when in reality Rhea is the youngest of the Goddess’ children.
But this statement may seem weird to you, no? What about Flayn? Flayn, after all, is part of the Child of the Goddess. It is, after all, what many call the Nabateans, such as Edelgard. And Flayn is no doubt younger than Rhea.
But Flayn is not the Child of THE Goddess. She was born to Seteth and some woman who we know nothing about, only that they met at a Church in Enbarr long before the establishment of the Empire.
And Edelgard also calls Seteth a Child of the Goddess as well.
Rhea herself also calls Nabateans “Children of the Goddess” as well, albeit a slightly different way.
As well as Seteth:
This tells me there are two meanings to the phrase “Children of the Goddess”. The first meaning is how Edelgard and Seteth means it- the race of Nabateans. The second is the literal meaning, the actual Children of the Goddess, as Rhea is.
The Dynamic Between Seteth, Flayn, Byleth, and Rhea
One thing to note early on is how the last remaining Nabateans regard themselves, one another, and their relationship to Sothis, the progenitor god. In the case of Rhea, she literally calls Sothis “Mother” and calls herself a “Child of the Goddess”.
But this does not extend to Seteth and Flayn. Neither one of them never call Sothis “Mother” (especially Flayn, since we already know that Sothis isn’t her mother). In fact, Seteth, strictly only refers to Sothis as either the goddess, the progenitor god, or by her name:
This doesn’t necessarily exclude the possibility of Sothis being Seteth’s mother, but it would seem odd for him, in private moments or in moments of extreme emotion, to never, not even once, refer to Sothis as “Mother” if this was the case.
Furthermore, the relationship between Seteth, Flayn, Byleteh, and Rhea is often muddied by the language from the game itself. Seteth repeatedly refers to the remaining Nabateans as “like family”:
“Like family”. But you aren’t actually family to any of them, not really. Seteth knows this too. You were born from a Nabatean homunculus and a human man. But to be “like family” is to show that you are still close to them. You are related to them as in being of a similar race to them, of Nabatean blood.
Furthermore, Seteth never refers to Rhea as anything more than “like family”. In fact, he holds great reverence for her. Rhea respects him too, but it is Seteth who shows devotion.
He never calls her sister, just like he never calls Sothis “Mother.”
Of course, it could all be an act. He does put up an act with Flayn, after all, with them pretending to be brother and sister instead of father and daughter. But even in private moments, the act is never dropped. And as shown in an earlier image, when he is attacking Rhea in Silver Snow, he states “I will inherit the pride of Nabatea”. The implication is that Rhea was upholding the pride of Nabatea, not him.
Of course, none of this is truly a nail in the coffin regarding their relationship to each other.
Flayn also doesn’t necessarily help matter. In the game, there are two paralogues where the player can fight two other surviving Nabateans: The Wind Caller (Macuil) and The Immovable (Indech). When Flayn is brought into battle with them, we can see that she calls the both of them “Uncle”.
(To note here, The Immovable’s dialogue implies he has never met Flayn before, while the Wind Caller has).
Flayn calls them both Uncle, and it is often thought in the fandom that both the Wind Caller and the Immovable are Sothis’ Children. If they are truly Flayn’s uncles, then that would make them Seteth’s brothers. But, like Seteth, they do not call her “Mother”:
Rude.
Furthermore, in a support with Bernadetta, history remembers Indech and Seteth as “close friends”:
This does not necessarily exclude the possibility of Incech and Seteth being siblings. Siblings CAN be friends. But history did also remember Cethleann (Flayn) as Cichol’s (Seteth) daughter. Per her own statue:
“A statue of Saint Cethleann, one of the Four Saints. It is said that she was a beautiful and kind soul who was beloved by all for her empathy and her ability to heal severe wounds. She is the daughter of Saint Cichol.”
—Saint Statue placard
Why would it not remember Indech and Cichol as brothers too?
Flayn also has this to say:
Now, Flayn is putting up an act so Rhea and the others may be actual family, but she never calls Rhea “Aunt” and, in Japanese, the term “Uncle” and “Aunt” is simply a term to use for those who are older than you. It doesn’t necessarily mean a literal “Aunt” and “Uncle” as we know it in the west.
The Nabateans
To continue to illustrate my point, I want to turn my attention to the Nabateans and their history.
There is a lot about the Nabateans that we do not know. However, there are a few things we can note:
They have long lives
They have green hair
They can transform into dragon-like beings, and they can lose the ability to transform
They have second names, like “The Immovable” or “The Immaculate One”
They have Crests
They once lived in Zanado
They are also called the “Children of the Goddess”
Their bones and blood were used to make the Hero’s Relics and to give Crests to humans
They can go into long periods of hibernation
They have point ears
None of these things take much digging to figure out. Ultimately, they are powerful, superior beings to humans on average, with long life spans and great powers.
But where did they come from? Well, according to the lore, when Sothis descended upon what would become Foldan, she used her own blood to create her Children, the first Nabateans. Rhea is among this group for sure, as she directly refers to Sothis as her mother.
But it wasn’t just the ten or twelve Nabateans the game wants you believe only existed (estimated by the number of Crests you can come across in the base game). No, it was a whole society.
The DLC gifted us with more insight into the past and what may have happened. One example comes from the Shadow Library, and the book The Truth About Heroes’ Relics:
...Heroes’ Relics have been found that are not linked to the 10 Elites.
______the 10 Elites______ Could it be that others were gifted this power
by the goddess as well? Perhaps the disturbing___that the Relics were not
gifts from the goddess___ Additionally______the same Crest Stones_____
This little broken snippet tells us two things.
There were more weapons made from the same materials as the Heroes’ Relics (known to be made from Nabatean bones)
There is more than one of the same kind of Crest Stone
We are given evidence of this as well from the DLC pack, in particular the weapon Vajra-Mushti, Balthus’ gauntlet relic.
The original Heroes’ Relics required Umbral Steel to repair when damaged. Similarly, so does Vajra-Mushti. This tells me that it is made of Nabatean bones. For reference, Edelgard’s weapon Aymr was specifically made for her. It is not a Heroes’ Relic, and not made of Nabatean bones. It requires a different material, Agarthium. Agarthium is an ore required to make Those Who Slither in the Dark’s weapons, like the Death Knight’s scythe.
Vajra-Mushti also has two Crest Stones of Chevalier inside of them, one for each gauntlet. In the base game, we also got two Crest Stones existing at the same time: Crest Stone of the Beast. One for Marianne’s weapon Blutgang, and one in Aymr.
Now, Crest Stones are actually the hearts of Nabateans. They are literal body parts, necessarily for their life. A weapon without the Stone is basically powerless- its the Heart that powers the bones of the weapon. As stated by the Truth of the Heroes’ Relics:
I, a priest of______the findings of my investigation___ When a Crest
Stone was removed while its Relic was being wielded by a______all
movement within the Relic ceased. When the stone was returned,
the Relic once again___ It is beyond question that Crest Stones supply
their associated Relic with power of some kind. And the impetus of said
power is clearly related to the Crests that certain humans possess...
The odd thing about Vajra-Mushti is how it exists in the first place. Based on how many fans perceive the game, there is one Crest per Nabatean, that is always unique. However, Vajra-Mushti and the Crest of the Beast could imply the opposite. That there can be more individuals bearing the same Crest.
There are two alternative solutions. One is that we know that the Slithers make fake Crest Stones, so duplicates could be fakes. Another alternative is that a Nabatean could have multiple hearts. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough evidence to prove or disprove any of these possibilities.
However, I believe that Nabateans can share Crest types.
The second strange thing is that Nabatean bones were used to make Vajra-Mushti. Chevalier was an Apostle that was not killed by the Slithers, and history tells us that Saints (and by extension, Apostles) were Nabateans. However, there is nothing beyond patterns to suggest that Apostles were Nabateans too. Were they humans who were granted Crests, or were they Nabateans? The fact that one of the Apostles, Aubin, was still alive prior to the events the game and able to pass on his Crest to Yuri may suggest Nabatean. But we know so little about Nabateans and their abilities that Aubin could still be a human, as he died due to old age not long after saving Yuri. Again, we don’t know.
But if Chevalier was a Nabatean, how were the gauntlets made in the first place? Was he killed later and made into weapons? After all, Linhardt does state:
And made after the war:
This is support by the book in the Shadow Library, Burnt Remnants of a Report:
...the Faerghus Rebellion. I harbor doubts about the army Loog has
raised. How did he recruit soldiers without raising suspicions in the
Empire? How did he acquire those mysterious weapons, so like Heroes'
Relics?
So it is possible that Chevalier was caught and killed for his bones... But there is not enough evidence for that either.
If in-game evidence wasn’t enough, however, take this interview from the devs themselves. They stated:
In that world, the Nabateans, the people who could turn into dragons, were scattered across Fodlan and ruled over the land as both dragons and gods...
Nabateans being as gods is supported by the book Mysteries of the Calendar, Vol.2:
There is no way of knowing when the old calendar was created.
Any attempt to trace its origins leads only to the era of the gods
and more unanswered questions. All we know for certain is that
the calendar has existed for a nearly incomprehensible length
of time.
To change a civilization's calendar would inevitably cause great
confusion and unrest. Why, then, did Emperor Wilhelm—the first
leader of Adrestia—choose to abandon the original calendar in favor
of the Imperial calendar?
And the Nabateans beings scattered across Foldan and even the world is support by Petra’s description of legends in her country:
I almost wonder if the spirits of her religion are the dragon forms of Nabateans.
And finally, the ruins of Zanado suggest a civilization, much larger than a few individuals:
So why did I spend so much time proving my point that there were more Nabateans that like, 12? Because it directly ties back to the family of Seteth and Flayn and Rhea. The civilization was big. Were they all Sothis’ children? Flayn’s existence proves that no, not all of them were.
I also believe Flayn’s mother was Nabatean herself. Flayn implies as much in her support with Seteth:
“How you AND Mother” as a group, how Seteth and his wife lived as “ordinary people” with their comrades, the humans. “Even if it cannot last” implies her outliving her peers, as Seteth and his wife would have.
Because remember, Enbarr and the church Seteth and his wife met in actually existed before the human Empire. From the History of Foldan, Part 1:
- 41 Years Before the Founding of the Adrestian Empire -
Saint Seiros appeared in the land of Enbarr and, through the many
unfathomable miracles she performed, spread light across the land.
Now we don’t know how old Flayn actually is. Was she born after the founding of the Empire or before it? We don’t know how quickly Nabatean age, but its slow. Very slow.
Regardless, the point stands that Nabateans had their own children. So only some of them would have truly been originally Sothis’ children. Rhea has already stated that she was the youngest of Sothis’ children, so she was the last one made. And that the rest of the “Children of the Goddess” where possibly Sothis’ grandchildren and beyond.
Some Data Mining
While we do not have ages exactly for the surviving Nabateans, we do have some data mining that gives us estimates of what their equivalent human ages would be.
Flayn is coded as 17
Seteth is coded as 26
Rhea is coded as 28
Yeah, apparently Seteth became a father VERY young.
Ok, jokes aside, Seteth would have still been thousands of years old at the point of having Flayn and Nabateans clearly mature differently than humans.
But by the data mining standards, Rhea is older than Seteth.
And yet, the youngest Child of Sothis.
I think this all lines up very nicely with my conclusion on Seteth being younger than Rhea, and how he and Flayn relate to Rhea.
Nabatea was a vey old civilization, long before the Empire, as gods and leaders of humans.
Sothis made her Children, with Rhea being last. This would make Rhea a sort of demi-god, in a way.
Seteth is offspring to some degree of these Children. He is not brothers with Rhea or the other surviving Nabateans.
Since Rhea would be a higher being than Seteth, it would explain his reverence for her.
This would also explain why Seteth never calls her sister, or Sothis Mother, and why Flayn states only Seteth is her remaining family.
You may be wondering why I didn’t just start with the data mining? That’s because I had a point to prove first.
Final Thoughts
With Three Houses being... well, three houses, it is totally possible that this is way off the mark. Per the dev’s own words:
From the basic foundations of our setting, the development team’s passion and emotional investment snowballed and poured in such extensive data, more than we could’ve imagined, and as a result, I think we’ve made a game that’s like a living creature. Even among the development team, I don’t think there’s anyone who understands everything there is to know about the game in a comprehensive way.
Kusakihara: I think there’s a good ten thousand years’ worth in total. Though I’m also the kind of guy who wouldn’t put this chronology out there (laughs).
It’s like you’re telling theorists out there to form theories from the fragmentary information they see in the game and fill in the holes .
Kusakihara: Yeah. We actually start to forget this stuff, so I think the players might end up knowing more about it than us in the end (laughs).
Thanks. Assholes.
Anyways, if I missed something you have anything to add, please feel free. But I’m pretty confident in my stance! At least, more confident than the devs seems to be at times.
Seteth sucks because he's a selfish coward who abets or abides all of Rhea's worst impulses until she's well past the point of no return and would sooner kill countless people than make any sort of personal sacrifice.
