Fortune's Weave trailer and release date, I have some thoughts.
(Long, unstructured rambling below cut.)
The story seems interesting, if a bit trope-y. I'm trying to be optimistic on that front, since I remember the fandom reaction to the first proper Three Houses trailers and we all kinda thought the whole school plotline sounded like shit but then it actually turned out to be quite good, so I'm keeping an open mind about the arena thing!
I do feel the character designs in Fortune's Weave have many of the same problems that Engage's designs had, just on a smaller scale. A lot of the colors just feel... Off, to me at least.
In terms of the main lords, Cai and Leda stand out to me as very promising characters! I do hope Leda's revenge quest arc is distinct enough from Dimitri's, as I worry they could end up doing something a bit too similar. I think it could be cool for Leda's arc to be an inversion of Dimitri's, even, like perhaps in her situation, revenge is actually the right course of action? Fire Emblem has never been a series where violence is never the answer, after all. I like Leda's design, too. The colors are nice! It's definitely a bit more fanservice-y than I would like, but she kinda has an excuse because she's a performer so it could just be part of her art. I hope it's justified in character, instead of just being an "all women must show titty" situation.
Cai intrigues me, I really hope there's more to him than meets the eye. Fire Emblem has plenty of ray-of-sunshine paragon lords already, but something tells me Cai is gonna be a bit more complicated than that. I can't decide if I'm rooting to see him have a fall from grace, or to see him remain hopeful despite everything? Either could be interesting if played right. Also, what's up with his eyes? They change color throughout the trailer, yellow and red. My first thought is a possession situation, as Fire Emblem has used eyes as a signifier in the past. If that is what they're doing, I'm very interested! Fire Emblem keeps accidentally doing possession as plurality, so... I'm not saying Cai is gonna be a system, but I'm also not ruling it out? Byleth was very system coded. It could be literally anything, though, we really just don't know what's up with that yet. Also, textured hair? In my Fire Emblem? More of that, please!
As for the other two... Dietrich might be from Fódlan, which is interesting? He doesn't particularly stand out to me, though. He looks like a Nohrian, like he looks like he walked straight out of Fates and I don't know how to feel about that.
Theodora... I'm open to the fact that she could end up being a fascinating character, but her design is not doing her any favors whatsoever. Her skin tone is extremely ashy, I really thought Fire Emblem as a series had moved past that. And her whole outfit is just... So fanservice-y, so impractical, it feels like it belongs in Heroes, not a modern mainline Fire Emblem. I feel like Three Houses really moved away from that style of design, and it made the characters in Three Houses who did have more sexualized designs feel like they were actually made with characterization in mind, like they dress that way because that's what makes sense for the character. But now it appears we've moved back to every woman must have an extremely revealing outfit, dreaded boob armor and all. It's disappointing.
All that said, if someone asked me to pick a route right now, with only the information we have from this trailer, I would pick Leda. I'm a sucker for bards and I'm a sucker for revenge quests, what can I say? Cai is my second pick, then Dietrich, then Theodora. Theodora's design is just a big nope for me.
I know some folks didn't want it, but I am happy to see we're getting another game with a route split. I personally think it just suits Fire Emblem as a series. I hope the avatar character takes after Robin or Shez in being their own actual character instead of trying to be a blank slate. My ideal would be dropping the avatars entirely, but it seems like that's not happening, so the next best thing is just letting them be full characters.
I'm happy it's set in Dagda, but simultaneously I'm nervous about how Dagda's culture is going to be handled. Fire Emblem has never been the best at handling, well, anyone who isn't white? The series has been gradually improving, but with cracks already showing, like Theodora's extremely ashy skin tone, I'm not... Particularly optimistic.
Also, I expected Dagda to have more Celtic influence given its name. The Dagda is a major god in Irish folklore, so I suppose I was just expecting to see more Irish influence? I'm not surprised they didn't go that route, as it wouldn't be a particularly unique setting among Fire Emblem games, and it's more likely named after the guy from Thracia 776 anyway, but I do still wonder if they'll be drawing on Irish mythology at all, especially given the mention of gods plural at the start of the trailer.
On that note! The setting is polytheistic! We're no longer just doing Sothis! That's really interesting to me just from a lore perspective. Three Houses pretty explicitly did not have other gods, at least not in Fódlan. So who are these other gods? Do they really exist, or are they purely mythological? Are they other dragons, like Sothis, or something else entirely? Maybe they have control over different forces of nature, like how Sothis controls time. I'm very interested to see what this means for the Fódlanverse lore!
On Sothis, I'm pretty excited to see how her character has changed in the 300 years since Three Houses. Her vibe is VERY different now, she seems very intense, a lot more like what one would think of a goddess as being like. I was weirdly happy to see her wielding an axe, too. No further notes there, I just think it's cool.
I'm curious if the routes in this game are going to converge a lot more than they diverge? The vibes I'm getting are that the first part of the game, the arena arc, is going to vary wildly depending on who you side with, but the second half... I wonder if after whatever crisis they show in the latter part of the trailer, maybe the four lords will have to team up? They don't seem to have as much reason to fight EACH OTHER as the house leaders did, and that also just doesn't seem to be what they're going for this time around. Maybe this story is more about a bunch of folks from disparate backgrounds uniting against a common enemy, despite their differences? That could be cool.
I know a lot of folks are afraid that this game being a sequel will mean that they're confirming a specific route in Three Houses as "canon," but I think there are plenty of ways they could avoid doing that, especially given that we're not even in Fódlan. My one question is how this game will account for Crimson Flower. Crimson Flower makes it pretty explicit that Sothis will not be coming back, what with the ending cutscene where Byleth is completely freed from Sothis's influence and all. So I'm nervous that even if this game does not canonize a specific route, it may have to explicitly decanonize CF, as it seems to be the only Three Houses route that directly conflicts with anything we've seen in the game.
Overall, while I have many, many problems with what we've seen so far, I am cautiously optimistic. I'm excited for a return to the Fódlanverse, as Three Houses is probably still my favorite game in the series, despite its many flaws.
Hope you enjoyed the extremely unstructured yapping 👍
