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butwhatifidothis · 2 years

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Why GW!Claude Isn't Interesting: A Checklist

got long lmao under the cut it goes (edit: FOR REAL THIS TIME WHOOPS LMAO)

-> Why is it uninteresting for GW!Claude to be someone who manipulates those around him into thinking he's doing good things as he does actions that are inarguably evil?

Because that's just Edelgard.

-> Why is it uninteresting for GW!Claude to be someone who grew up in a country known to want to expand its power through violent conquest, and who is thusly influenced to do the same himself because of that?

Because that's just Edelgard.

-> Why is it uninteresting for GW!Claude to be someone whose actions are meant to be surprising because he ends up being just as bad and manipulative and dangerous as his initial appearance made him out to be?

Because that's just Hubert.

-> Why is it uninteresting for GW!Claude to be completely uninterested in looking into the Church's supposed crimes and letting his (at this point) willful ignorance drive him to extremely violent acts?

Because that's just Edelgard.

-> Are GW!Claude's actions the result of a character being gradually driven to become the very thing they hate, through a steady degradation of their core morals and values?

No. GW!Claude very suddenly drops any core aspects of his character so that he is willing to do what he does. The callout of his route (sacrificing Randolph) is set before he does something infinitely worse with little to no reaction from his allies whatsoever (invading the Kingdom, Sreng), erasing any "steady degradation" of morals as the decline in them is not treated properly.

-> Are GW!Claude's actions the result of desperation - or rather, is that possibility properly shown off in his route?

No. GW!Claude unquestionably holds his own amazingly well against the Empire, especially considering the general nature of the Alliance that made it exceptionally weak in a military campaign. Even when forced to retreat from the battle with Bergliez - which was going well before the retreat, even with Jeralt’s Mercenaries there - due to Shahid, Claude not only handles Shahid’s invasion to near perfection, but he left the battle with Bergliez in such a way that him pursuing Claude would've ultimately hurt him more than it was worth (as it would destroy the fields of the breadbasket of the Empire/Fodlan) - meaning, the Empire couldn’t even make use of the forced retreat without making things ultimately worse for themselves. The narrative tries to say that Claude was barely holding his own against the Empire, but the actual story events fail to properly portray that as Claude has success after success fighting against them and as the Empire never once succeeds (without it quite literally being part of Claude’s plan for them to, in any case).

-> Are GW!Claude's actions the result of (properly portrayed) heroism?

No. Not only are his actions fundamentally villainous, not only are the justifications for doing them faulty at best, but he ultimately doesn't even accomplish what he set out to do, making them completely pointless and unnecessary. At best, any attempt to portray him as heroic fail due to moral bankruptcy and general incompetence.

-> Are GW!Claude's actions the result of (intentional) villainy?

No. The narrative portrays GW!Claude as only doing what he feels he must, with his friends blindly placing their faith in him and thus narratively encouraging his decisions. The developers also stated that they wanted Claude to be seen as someone who encompasses noble leadership and whose story is heart-touching - where, despite his "harsh actions" in the name of his ambition, his allies still support him. Both inside and outside of the game, GW!Claude is not meant to be seen as a villain, despite his villainous behavior and actions.

-> Is him facing off against Rhea as his final boss given any proper build up in his route?

No. Through all of Chapters 4-8 (as in Part 1 of GW as an individual route, during the war phase) Claude's thoughts and feelings towards the Church are not just completely ignored, they are flat out unstated in its entirety; he mentions nothing of the Church on a personal level, and in fact only mentions it in any capacity a handful of times. Every chapter he states that is it specifically and only the Empire (+ Shahid, once) that he is fighting, and that is because it is specifically and only the Empire (+ Shahid, once) that is fighting the Alliance. To say that it is Rhea that ends up becoming the final boss of his route and not either the Empire or Almyra, it is nonsensical that for the entirety of Part 1 Rhea is never mentioned to be any sort of threat to Claude; if Claude truly always thought of her as so dangerous as to need to be killed, and to be killed by any means necessary, it obviously makes more sense for him to bring it up at any point of his route beforehand, but he does not.

-> So in a nutshell, why is GW!Claude uninteresting?

When he is not being a blatant copy of Edelgard (with a sprinkle of Hubert), GW!Claude's actions are a jumbled mess, both thematically and practically. His complete 180 in drives from wanting to take down the invading Empire to wanting to kill the doing-nothing-wrong Rhea is given no justifications deeper than "someone told Claude that Rhea was Bad," and is thus not given any more effort than that to justify his horrendous actions. These horrendous actions, which we the player are told is part of a "heart-touching" story of a man who ruthlessly and cruelly takes advantage of a border conflict to weaken an already struggling Kingdom so that he may more easily invade it, even though he personally knows the residual horrors that border conflicts can inflict on the people on both sides. The ramifications of his actions are not treated with the correct weight, as his sacrifice of an Imperial general is treated as narratively worse than his invasion of a struggling Kingdom and his worsening of a border conflict for his own gain. This of course erases any possibility for the player to truly feel genuinely culpable as a result of the story wishing for them to feel that way, as priority is clearly given to named characters over nameless concepts - you know Randolph, big brother of the little girl Fleche, and you should feel more bad for him than "the people of Faerghus," who are little more than lines of dialogue on the screen. Knowing of this prioritization saps the story of any true meaning behind it, as it clearly only wants the player to care about individual characters and not all who are truly affected by characters' actions. After all, it's not Claude's invasion of Faerghus itself that can cause Judith to die, nor is it him tampering with Sreng: it is specifically Claude sacrificing Randolph that is ultimately the catalyst of Judith's (potential) death. Narratively speaking, sacrificing Randolph is worse than causing the death of countless innocents in the name of a pointless invasion, that in itself is in the name of a pointless hunt for Rhea's death. GW!Claude is uninteresting because he has no cohesion, no logic, nothing that connects his actions to any rational sense - both referring to strictly 3Hopes and especially when factoring in his 3H counterpart. GW!Claude is uninteresting because he isn't a villain, as both the story and writers don't view him that way, and yet he fails to be a hero due to both his completely amoral actions and the story itself being uncaring of all GW!Claude is able to accomplish with his meager resources in Part 1; he thus falls into an area in which his heroic actions (keeping out the Empire as well as he does) aren't given the credit they're due and his villainous actions (invading the Kingdom, Sreng, the killing of Rhea) aren't given the weight they deserve. GW!Claude is uninteresting because, most damningly, he is woefully inconsistent; he's at the complete whim of the plot, changing on the drop of a hat when it calls for him to. While 3H!Claude was completely underutilized, he was still consistent and whose character makes sense given his circumstances, and he also holds a unique place in the cast with his personality, drives, ambitions, beliefs and ideals, actions, etc.. None of which can be similarly said for GW!Claude, hence his complete and utter uninteresting appeal as a character

#Clyde discourse #Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes spoilers #Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes spoilers #Like. I've seen a lot of people say that GW is like a ''dark version'' of Claude. That this is like a ''bad end'' route for the entirety #of Claude's character #and if you enjoy GW like that that's fine more power to you - think that's about the ONLY way to enjoy GW even potentially #but that kinda falls flat when most of the time Claude's character just... isn't here #Claude inexplicitly moonwalks offstage to be replaced with Clyde halfway through the route #there's no justification for Claude acting like this; he simply Is and the story wants the player to accept that no questions asked #and as other have pointed out there are times when Claude is LITERALLY Just Edelgard #from motivations to wants to LITERALLY WHAT THEY'RE LITERALLY SAYING it is just copy+pasted with no effort at all #except now it's Edelgard that wants to keep Rhea alive and Claude who is willing to do anything to kill her #which isn't so much a ''this is a bad end route for Claude'' as much as it is ''Claude pretending to be Edelgard - The Route''#in the second half of GW #and the less said about SB the better #But yeah I just can't find GW!Claude to be interesting because I don't find copy + paste character to be interesting 🤷‍♀️#He isn't a unique character anymore he's Just Edelgard which is... lame lol

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morningmask27 · 1 month

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I do sometimes find it really annoying that most of the things I do right now are At Least tangentially related to a trauma I lived through.

I am living in a university dorm right now, it's a very typical thing to do, but most people return to their family home during the weekends and only really stay in the dorms because they have classes in the week and having to go from their home to the classes, especially the 9 am classes, can be heavy if they live somewhat further away. I stay in my dorm the entire week. For Reasons I don't want to go back to my old home for longer than half a day to drop my laundry and leave with clean clothes, some food and a chat with my mother. I wouldn't feel good doing so anymore, but mentioning that is weird because most people (except internationals because going to a full on other country just for the weekend, every weekend, would be a bit dumb) return to their home (My dorm feels more like home to me right now than my old house did btw).

When I say I stay in my dorm people are somewhat confused, as it on its own already implies that something must not be that good at the familial home for me to not go there for the weekends. By the simple fact I don't go back it's already implied there is something wrong, and it's true, there Is something wrong, but I can't just start explaining the whole thing, it's not really appropriate for most conversations, and I simply don't want to open up about this part of my traumas. So I just have to quickly and very blatantly brush off that fact and the unpleasant implications to continue the conversation without making it awkward and it's so annoying.

Most of my weird trauma responses at least have the added thing that if I don't verbalize them nobody will really notice. I am good at hiding them, I kinda had to, but this dorm situation is such a blatant sign of something Weird (and not the good kind) that I cannot hide since my actions on their own imply a situation already.

I am somewhat good at dealing with all of these issues, brushing off The Problems is a typical part of normal conversations, but it does get frustrating sometimes when I get severely affected by something traumatic, and it's The Only reason that my problem happened, but I cannot talk about it in casual conversations because of how heavy and intense it is. I have to vaguely mention The Horrors (They Are Complex) and move on before I make my conversation partner uncomfortable. It happened when I had to miss a class because of a severe relapse in my mental health, it happens every time I mention I stay in my dorm the weekends, it happens whenever I get too jittery and weird because of stress (I don't even always know Why I am stressed) and I just cannot explain anything about the cause because it's too heavy for most people to hear. (I do understand that fact, it makes sense you're not going to tell classmates casually about the horrific stuff you went through in your personal life, but it fucking gets annoying when it is fully related to a situation and I have to Shut The Fuck Up anyway.)

It's just frustrating to me that I have to deal with all these Weird Things because of trauma, and everyone sees them, but I cannot explain where they come from truthfully because of how much they are. It's in this weird middle state where people See I am weird hurt, but they don't Know why. I do things differently for reasons they can assume are unpleasant, but I cannot ever truly explain everything to them.

#morningcries #yeah late night frustrations as I just thing about all my friends and such going back to their homes and the occasional somewhat awkward #Lull in a conversation whenever I say I don't return to my kot (so Every time I say that)#Honestly having such a shit childhood really set me apart. But not in a good way #I am weird in many ways. All related to traumas I had and I can't relate to most people #I don't want to return to my home. I don't know what I feel about my sister but it sure as hell isn't a normal sibling relationship.#I have severe attachment issues and fucking cut myself when I was 14 #This mutilation fucked up my brain in the long term too as I now just crassly mention them Like That. They don't mean anything to me anymor #School left me a lonely hurt mess filled with anger and resentment. I had no friends left during my last year there. I had no friends when #I began university. My childhood was horrible and I now have to build something new from the shattered pieces I have left #Some people do help me but in a way my childhood is and always will be lost. I can't relate to what most people got to enjoy #Yes some small moments I do. I went on vacation and stuff and it was fun But somehow something always showed up to make the memory taste ba #When I talk about my past I always have to choose very specific small stories and shave off every negative detail and the grander (bad)#Context

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