#like... it's the same Dimitri at his core. Edelgard is the same person at her core and she strives for the same goals

[dmclemblems]

Just some examples below of characters at camp in GW not being okay with what Claude does (mainly to reiterate past points I’ve made about him/the route):

Mind you, the game forces all characters to cooperate with Claude in GW, even though a lot of them disagree (Marianne adamantly is against everything Claude is doing and expresses it regularly. Her excuse for not leaving or doing anything about is that she hopes the war ends quickly, but she still repeatedly expresses that she doesn’t believe what they’re doing is the right thing to do).

Lorenz repeatedly questions Claude’s decisions, as he should, but due to it being the GW route, all the characters have to follow what he does and just deal with it. There’s no “hey this is bullshit I’m out”, when realistically at this point a good handful of characters would’ve walked out.

This proves the writer’s are totally aware of what they’re writing and know the nuance to it! It’s just that... because Claude is the main character of this route, he’s swept up in the story and has to be adjusted to fit the story accordingly.

There’s no happy ending for the Kingdom and Alliance unless Sylvain (who is a major player in Faerghus politics) can agree to it, which is highly unlikely after he openly expresses his hatred for Claude/the Alliance (as he puts it, the “invaders”, which... were Claude/the Alliance).

Also, I have another post with the camp part of Hapi saying that it’s scummy of the Alliance/Federation that the only reason she and Constance are alive is because they surrendered. In other words, she finds the “surrender or die” thing to be scummy. Then we have Yuri, who notices the same issue:

This point proves that Claude is pretty cold hearted in this route. He not only forces Ashe to surrender (or die, as is implied by his dialogue when he says “Dimitri would be sad if you died” and thus urging him to surrender), but then he even has Ashe fight against his own people.

While this is a recruit mechanic issue and is a problem in all routes generally speaking, it’s not highlighted upon by other characters about other characters. That is to say, Petra for example in AG will express relief that they didn’t have to kill Dorothea, but she doesn’t mention anything about Dimitri forcing them to fight the Empire (which Petra decides to do entirely by her own will). Dorothea expresses some reluctance at first in her own camp dialogue, but it’s never mentioned that Dimitri is forcing anyone to fight against their will.

The fact that other characters are commenting on it means other characters are seeing and understanding what’s going on (which is more than a lot of players can say apparently, like the ones who blindly send hate to people who didn’t enjoy GW/SB lol). They recognize that everything Claude is doing is just shitty and shouldn’t be what they’re doing.

So... why do they keep fighting with him? Because... bad writing. That’s honestly it. Because they’re all forced, by the writing and route’s story, to keep fighting for Claude even though probably a good half of his camp doesn’t agree with his actions. Even though, if this were a better story even somewhat, and if Claude still did what he’s been doing here in this somewhat better story, the story would be made better by the disagreeing characters defecting to the Kingdom. Mind you, three background lords did try to defect to the Kingdom... and were promptly shut down from defecting.

If this were a good story, Claude wouldn’t have had his morals flipped on their head. If this were a decentish story, Claude would have lost a good chunk of his allies who defected after being fed up with his behavior and decisions. If this were a bad and lazily written story, it would look like it does.

ALSO I ran out of tags to explain my last point BUT

the irony of all this is that when he killed Shahid, he was trying not to cry and got drunk over it. This guy who had been trying to kill him and would’ve done so without batting an eye (and probably would’ve told everyone and bragged about it), this guy who has been presumably among his siblings trying to kill him his entire life, and this is who he feels guilty about killing. Then he goes marching to Faerghus, invades them and says he just wants to talk while forcing one of their royal knights to surrender or die.

Apparently Claude would rather feel sad about the brother of his that tried to murder him than the innocent people who never wronged him.

#Three Hopes #Three Hopes Spoilers #and the thing is it's hard for Claude fans to stomach this in general like #this isn't dominantly Claude haters who hate GW. it's people who love Claude who don't like the story #it's people who loved the guy they knew in Houses being like wtf is this writing #why is Claude so different when Dimitri and Edelgard aren't different #Dimitri is just the same as he'd be post Gronder in AM but a bit younger and with more supportive friends #and didn't have to be on the run for five years all by himself with a super bad mental illness #like... it's the same Dimitri at his core. Edelgard is the same person at her core and she strives for the same goals #Claude has some personality alterations that make sense in that he didn't attend school for the whole year #so his friendships weren't formed the same way and he spent less time with Dimitri to get to know him #so when he says ''I still have no idea what's going on in Dimitri's head'' that's a 180 contrast from AM Claude #who Byleth can point out Claude knows/understands very well #so yeah his general uncertainty about people he didn't know as well makes sense #but changing his morality and his views on war and bloodshed and how far he's willing to go isn't the same #Claude would take any available means to resolve something peacefully. if this were happening with Houses Claude #he would have sent a letter to Dimitri asking to meet with him to talk first so they could figure things out #because WHAT DO YOU KNOW in the secret chapter when they talk it proves that's all he even needed to do to get some answers #it just makes Claude look dumb despite Houses pointing out that he's very intelligent and the opposite of a typical #person raised in Almyra because they're similar to Faerghus in that they value strength #Claude isn't super powerful and instead has a good head on his shoulders which makes him feel even more different and an outsider in Almyra #GW Claude is just swept along and molded to fit the story as needed and not allowed to be his own character properly #even though VW and SS were practically the same thing Claude was still Claude you know? #this just feels like they didn't know what to do with Claude bc they wanted to try something new with him #like since they didn't get to utilize a less casual/relaxed Claude in Houses they did it in Hopes #they didn't get to make him as cynical as they wanted to... and so they did it in Hopes. they just... went overboard and didn't do it right? #bc I can easily see Claude being more cynical and stuff /to the right people and to his enemies/ #which would mean in a direct way Thales and co and the Empire/Edelgard. not Faerghus just minding their business #As a Lorenz fan I ate like a god in this route. As a Claude fan... I lost about 180 years on my life from his 180!

[vilonnie]

in contrast to claude who fittingly is a very contemporary protagonist in a couple of ways, dimitri and edelgard can both be seen as interpretations of classic hero king protagonists. dimitri is pretty obvious, but I think edelgard is actually an interesting twist - she's a literal knight in shining armor, she's this game's "chosen one" who bears the fire emblem, she's the self-sacrificial crown of adrestria, and she's even a genuine dragonslayer. so it's curious to think that her desire to act as a savior is what leads her to impose on the other countries' wills and be treated as an antagonist in all but her own route, resulting in a tragic end on the eagle's wings of her very own hamartia. I wonder if she might've reminded dimitri of some of faerghus' stories of martyr kings and knights - I wonder how she would have felt about that?

I also like to think about dimitri's chemistry with marianne and edelgard's chemistry with claude in the context of her role in verdant wind

specifically I think that marianne becomes a very important golden deer particularly in regards to the way claude contrasts against the other two lord's lack of value for their own lives. dimitri won't think twice about dying of rage or grief at the command of his ghosts, edelgard speaks consistently about her willingness to die for her cause and her greater good and will even discard the peaceful life she explicitly wants for herself at her core, and marianne just wants to die, but claude is famously the lord who can survive in every route - he is the only lord that demands that his soldiers not lay their lives on the line, he plans for a tactical retreat in all scenarios, and it never even occurs to him that the dream he loves so much could ever be worth more than his life or those around him. this, of course, is because his life has been regarded as forfeit and unnatural since the moment he was born, so it only makes sense that he is defensive (in general and) about the idea that a person's ability to live a full and fulfilling life is something precious to protect (also why lysithea is a golden deer, part of why ignatz is a golden deer, and may contribute to verdant wind as the route where byleth gets the most spotlight). for this reason I think mari and claude's dynamic is especially fascinating to me as a central contrast between the temptation of death versus the stubborn insistence on the value of living, and the same can be said for what their relationships with dimitri and edelgard highlight :)

#btw if you see me reuse these exact words for fanart thats bc I wanna draw a comic right now but have no time rip :') #my guy so full of life. my girls (didi included) so full of death. equality /j #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #imb going to hell goodnight #espposts

[derekscorner]

Could Crimson Flower have worked?

I mean, yeah, the title is easy to answer if you “yes if the devs focused on one story and not four” but I feel like I should add a bit more than that after my long Blue Lions post from the other day.

In that other post I claimed Dimitri is set up as the ultimate focal point to tackle the major story and mystery beats of Fodlan’s setting but it is possible to argue that Edelgard is even more worthy of that spot.

Her ancestor, the first emperor of Fodlan, was an ally of Rhea when she acted as Saint Seiros and even shared blood giving the royal line her crest.

It was her ancestors who passed down the knowledge that Rhea and those secretly keeping Fodlan’s status quo were not human.

The founding of the church and the Adrestian empire coincide with one another.

‘Those Who Slither in the Dark’ (hereon Agarthans) had long since infested the empire and swapped out key figures with their agents.

The top six nobles set Edelgards dislike for the aristocracy into motion.

She had to watch her siblings die horribly in the palace dungeons as the Agarthans experimented on all of them.

She has personal ties to Dimitri, the prince of another kingdom the Agarthans are trying to destroy, due to her mother marrying it’s king.

Edelgard herself was living in the kingdom a short while which may have reinforced her views on crests and nobility due to the Faerghus kingdom being even more strict on those and religious topics.

And this is only a few of the things you could list in her backstory. Whether you learned it in 3 Houses, DLC, or 3 Hopes.

In a sense, you can say that Edelgard begins the “story right in the thick of it” vs Dimitri who’s “drawn into it” by his families assassination.

Yes splitting a Fire Emblem story is a bad idea

The issue with it all was the execution. The same for Dimitri or Claude. Splitting the story into routes seems to just not work for a Fire Emblem game. Perhaps if they’d leave it at two routes or just one with alternative endings it’d be fine but they tend to get over ambitious from what I can tell after playing Fates, 3 Houses, and 3 Hopes.

And while I think Fates had the worst story due to this decision I do think this decision hurt Crimson Flower quite badly. Edelgard’s story needs a great deal of context and lack of it is what causes the intense debates on the legitimacy of her actions.

The story route is too short, you never once turn on the Agarthans which left it feeling unfinished, and Edelgard has a very iron fist approach hoping to push her ideals at the cost of burning the world down.

I won’t get into the debate of what’s right or wrong with her actions. If anything, I find Edelgard and Rhea great parallels because they’re essentially the same in many areas. Women who are good at heart but will do cruel or evil things. Contradictory if you will and marred by their traumas.

You would need Shez for this to work

To get to the point, before I slip into mindless rambling again, I do think Edelgard could’ve worked quite well. Better than the Blue Lions in fact. Crimson Rose just needed proper focus and some explanation of Edelgard’s actions.

You shouldn’t change what she does or her ideals since that’s core to her route but it would be best to have as much insight into why she’s doing it as possible.

Above all, I believe her story only works under those conditions if you do what Shez did in 3 Hopes. You do not need Shez themselves but you do need a similar play to what they domino into effect.

And I say this because Edelgard’s plans and work makes the most sense in 3 Hopes. Shez caused the Agarthans to appear early which let her run them out of the empire and seize it. That act was very crucial to me buying her route and it’s possibilities at all.

Since I find it hard to swallow as a player in her other routes to work alongside ‘Those who slither in the dark’. It makes no sense to me that she wouldn’t jump at the first chance to oust them and 3 Hopes played on that same notion.

Once 3 Hopes got Edelgard’s story going I found it much easier to go along with compared to Crimson Flower. If 3 Houses had done this and spent the game focusing on just that I could see it being better than even a hypothetical game focused solely on the Blue Lions.

Rather than solving the mysteries of Fodlan, Edelgard could expose them.

Rather than cooperate with Shambala she could make it a priority.

You could focus on the parallels between Edelgard and Rhea and even have Edelgard recognize this.

It’d be interesting to watch Edelgard realize her ideals are a bit too idealistic. Let’s be honest, they are, but that doesn’t make them unworthy of pursuing. In 3 Hopes Dimitri was the only leader to display the wisdom that change can’t be rushed. He too seeks it but knows it has to be done slowly.

Imagine if Edelgard took this lesson to heart. Imagine if her friends refined her ideas over the story like that one random support in which Ferdinand unintentionally offered up the idea of a regulated public school system. He did so after hearing Edelgards own idea to teach more than just the noble class.

That one support could’ve been a great theme to apply to more of her supports. Her friends helping her build her ideals.

I would still leave the moral quandaries of her and the war she starts but you can give what she intends to do more depth.

How will she replace aristocracy?

Will she even decide to do so by the end?

How will she help the common man?

How will she rectify a honest church when her own Southern Church is just a political tool?

How does she plan to offset corruption in her new system? The noble and crest system is very corrupt but so is our own alternatives in the real world. No governing system is perfect.

Does Edelgard even realize this in the heat of her revolution?

Will Edelgard spare the Leicestor Alliance or conquer it?

All fun things you could build on if you just focused on her story alone. There is potential there and I’d be very inclined to see it should they ever decide to make another 3 Houses spin off.

Byleth

The question of how to kick this possible branch off would also lie with Byleth I think. I earnestly believe Edelgard’s story works so well in 3 Hopes because she does the smarter decision of ousting the Agarthan infestation. She has more time to plot her war and reform her nation.

That really works in her favor as a story lead in my opinion but we still need someone to help her kick those events off. It would be easy to reuse Shez here but I think Byleth is a more intriguing option.

As the vessel of the goddess of which the Church of Seiros worships it offers a unique realization for Edelgard. Rhea may have founded the faith on lies and warped history with half truths but the goddess herself is very much real.

How does Edelgard rectify this truth? Especially if Byleth is the teacher she admires and the reason she’s able to reveal Arundel as an imposter?

Edelgard even wonders in 3 Hopes if her attraction to Byleth is due to her cest of Seiros resonating with the crest of flames.

How does Byleth help her dethrone Arundel and the Noble Six? Depends on you. You can do what they did in 3 Hopes with Shez or you can do a slower alternative with the class set up from 3 Houses. In either case it’s doable and a bit more compelling.

Conclusion

No I do not know how to conclude or expand on this route more. The point I hoped to make was that Edelgard could’ve been a great route. There is a lot there and it offers so much to work with had the developers and writers chose too.

I doubt we’d ever see a genuine focus on her but one can hope. If not her at least Azure Moon. Heck, despite my lost posts I do still prefer Claude and the Golden Deer so I’d even take a focus on them.

That’s a rant for another day however. Bye now.

================================

Editors Note: This is a second spin-off from my traditional: Fiery Opinions posts. You’ll find the rest in that link if you’re curious about my trip through Fire Emblem.

#fe #fe3h #fe3wh #fire emblem #fire emblem three hopes #fire emblem three houses #edelgard von hresvelg #fiery opinions #someone said to add #edelgard discourse #so there ya go kids

[fantasyinvader]

I’ve been trying to figure out what happened to the symbolic lighting of the endings in Hopes, and I ended up feeling like an idiot.

In Houses, the lighting is tied to Rhea and the Nabeteans. This makes sense considering Byleth’s connection to them. Either Rhea getting some form of salvation in SS, Dimitri being led back to the light in AM, or Claude and Byleth stepping up to continue Rhea’s work in VW. It’s only when Byleth sides with Edelgard and by extension the Agarthans that a route ends in darkness.

In Hopes, the route that ends in darkness is Azure Gleam. You know, the one route where you’re working with the Church and by extension Rhea. In SB and GW, Rhea dies and there is some light. So, what’s the answer here? What smacked me in the face hard?

Shez. Shez houses an Agarthan, someone who shares TWSITD’s beliefs and goals rather than housing a goddess. Shez, who Sothis identifies as descended from Agartha and whose personal masterclass is Asura. Asura, as in the beings the Bodhisvatta cast down into Agartha when they became drunk on their own power, and from there they wage an endless was against the benevolent devas in Buddhist tradition (Hindu tradition is a whole other story). Not only that, but Shez’s transformation abilities is said to be the same as TWSITD’s.

Which would imply that Tomas, Monica, Cornelia and Arundel are technically still alive, just that the Slithers put their souls into their bodies and took over leaving them powerless to do anything else.

The mysterious Shez didn’t just luck out into have this power. He got Epimenedes’ “core” put into him somehow. He is, in essence, a lost Slither.

in SB and GW, when Rhea dies the Agarthans accomplish their goal. That is the light. It is the light symbolically returning to them as the dragon dies. Doesn’t matter that Thales is dead in SB, as he has already been shown willing to sacrifice himself for Agartha in SS/VW. With this in mind, the amount of sunlight makes sense:

SB sees the Agarthans plan working. Edelgard and the Empire, who they forged into their weapons, have led to Rhea’s defeat. They got what they wanted out of her, so full sunlight. Claude defeats Rhea in GW, unaware of the Agarthans (outside of Solon). Someone else came in and did the job for them. Meanwhile, Dimitri sides with the Church and Rhea doesn’t die, meaning the Agarthans failed in the mission.

And considering how Dimitri gets positive character growth during AG, not killing Edelgard despite setting out to do so at the beginning of the last chapter therefore going past his belief that he has to avenge those lost with the deaths of those responsible... it just goes to show how the Church is meant to be a force for good in Fodlan. That, and having his friends (which includes Shez) support him.

Azure Gleam is the good route of the game.

[faroreswinds]

The Eastern and Western fanbases are so unhappy, I’m baffled over how any of these decisions were greenlit. On Twitter especially the way people are reacting is so split. There are sooooo many fans upset. For GW on one hand you have people upset they took away core aspects of Claude’s personality and then you have people who are mocking those upset saying they never understood Dimitri’s character. On AG? It’s even more split. No one’s happy about Edelgard. Sylvain fans are also understandably upset. Dimileth fans and just Dimitri fans in general are so upset that this Dimitri is so hollow and never learns to live for himself. His character arc was his biggest appeal so for him to never actually learn to live again, ESPECIALLY with his friends there to be his support, it left a bitter taste in many people’s mouths. The only ones even remotely happy are Dimitri and Felix shippers (which is fine I don’t want to make it sound like I’m judging them!!) Edelgard’s route is generally seen as underwhelming and boring and there’s a small amount of fans REALLY upset that Edelgard didn’t ACTUALLY get to defeat her final boss. And that’s not counting how many Byleth fans are upset that they were used to market the game because no one would have bought it without Byleth on the cover and in the trailers. It’s just a mess :( I feel I didn’t get my $60 worth

It was greenlit because honestly, these sidestory musous have been very successful. AoC sold over 4 million units. For this niche genre, that is insane.

This type of gameplay lends itself well to a setting like FE, due to it literally being a war setting. What better way to emulate a war than have units run around a map and kill a bunch of people?

But making it a "canon" story to the original game was their first mistake. Their second mistake was replacing Byleth. Their third mistake was not telling one single giant story and just letting it end tragically.

and then you have people who are mocking those upset saying they never understood Dimitri’s character.

Huh? Why? I haven't been seeing anything of that.

No one’s happy about Edelgard. Sylvain fans are also understandably upset. Dimileth fans and just Dimitri fans in general are so upset that this Dimitri is so hollow and never learns to live for himself. His character arc was his biggest appeal so for him to never actually learn to live again, ESPECIALLY with his friends there to be his support, it left a bitter taste in many people’s mouths.

Edelgard I understand. It ruins Dimitri's story imo. But... Dimitri being hollow? I've heard complaints about him being boring without THE BOAR but being "hollow" is certainty not one of them. In fact, I rather like Dimitri here.

This is a Dimitri down a different path and we get to see him actually act like a king. I actually find it quite interesting, especially since we get to see Dedue and Felix really shine. AM was all about Dimitri. We don't need that same story again.

And... tbh, I've always liked Dimitri best when he's suffering. Him not learning to live for himself feeds my "he's still suffering" soul. I can imagine all the ways Felix and Dedue can eventually lead him out of that path. I don't need to imagine Byleth being the only one to do that.

Edelgard’s route is generally seen as underwhelming and boring and there’s a small amount of fans REALLY upset that Edelgard didn’t ACTUALLY get to defeat her final boss. And that’s not counting how many Byleth fans are upset that they were used to market the game because no one would have bought it without Byleth on the cover and in the trailers.

So far... yeah, her route is boring. I'm not even close to being done yet but it's certainly underwhelming. It started off so great too. But I actually find it HILARIOUS Edelgard doesn't actually beat Rhea or Thales. I can't explain why... I just do.

But marketing Byleth as important and then sidelining them was a major mistake. I'm hoping that maybe DLC will... adjust this a bit.

But I don't feel like I wasted money. I'm having fun picking apart the story, talking about FE again. Plus, I like musous, and from a gameplay perspective this is VERY well done. I get to see some character I love get involved.

My perspective may change as I get farther along, but sometimes I enjoy train wrecks as train wrecks.

#Three Hopes #anon asks

[semi-imaginary-place]

fe3h claude and edelgard talks adapted from discord (discussion was before three hopes' release)

claude and edelgard have complimentary personalities, they cover each other's weaknesses and enhance their strengths, a friendship between them would help them both grow as people. I have rambled extensively on the subject if anyone wants to hear about it. also you know if they teamed up they'd be too powerful. they had to be nerfed for the sake of having a game to play.

it hard to imagine them ever teaming up in three houses exactly because those trust issues run so deep. edelgard has control issues shes very much my way or the highway although claude isn't the type to be controlled which forms an unstoppable force v. immovable wall paradox. it would sure take them some character development to become friends in the canon timelines. so i actually made up a whole college au a few years back because it'd be easier if those two didn't have quite as much baggage.

in fe3h its implied that the revelations with byleth were what pushed her to speed up her plans from the recovery of the sword of the creator and byleth's crest to rhea allowing people into the holy tomb and in few3h we do see that with edelgard starting her plans 2 years later.

i don't think dimitri would have made things better, if anything he's make things worse. for one he's so caught up in his own head that he can't see anyone else's problems. he would have just put the two on edge. dimitri's obsession with edelgard is also very one sided because he's projected all his complicated feelings about patricia/anselma and the tragedy of duscar on to her. ex: on yeah the 12 year old locked in a dungeon and tortured totally orchestrated the assassination and coverup of a foreign monarch. dimitri also very much runs on emotions while edelgard and claude run on logic with an idealistic core. while claude and edelgard are easily on the same wavelength, there's an inherent communication gap between them and dimitri which claude would be willing to cross because he's rather friendly and sociable but edelgard would not. they would both be so bad at it. you remember how it went with bernadetta and marianne? sure they got there but i was a very very rocky road. they're both so clumsy and dimitri is very sensitive (and murder-y)

I do think there is some limited potential for edelgard and claude in the fe3h like they both like boardgames. there's the questions of whether edelgard would be able to overcome her initial wall of seeing claude as a threat and instead see him as a potential asset and ally. you see this in most of her supports where she's evaluating her classmates as potential allies in her dream. a proactive approach if you will. while claude is always playing defensive trying to interact with other while deflecting about himself. a reactive approach. this is the base foiling aspect of their dynamic where edelgard is proactive and direct but bullheadedly stubborn and one she decides on something she will continue to pursue it to the end even when situations change and that original plan is no longer the ideal one. where as claude is constantly changing his plans in reaction to new information which makes him incredibly flexible and unpredictable but because he holds his cards so close to his chest theres a good chance that all his scheming will fall through and amount to nothing because he dosen't allow any of the work behind the scenes to be shown. Edelgard and Claude are at their cores very similar! its what makes them very compatible! different approaches but same heart.

as we see in edelgard's supports with manuela and others she doesn't necessarily hate all religion. at the beginning of their support she doesn't really get religion but her goal isn't to destroy all religion. she just hates how the central church has enabled and supported various injustices in fodlan and the unlimited power it and rhea wield. coupled with her buying into some agarthan propaganda about how monsters (nabateans) are secretly controlling the continent with no care for actual humans. Claude similarly is like agnostic, he doesn't really care about the personal beliefs of people, actively encourages a diversity in belief systems but he hates the central church for how it has enabled and supported various injustices in fodlan. Both don't really mind religion but want the central church gone and rhea dead. i read someone else's analysis a while back about how cf and vw are similar in that in both edelgard and claude must ally with a force they would rather be rid of (central church/agarthans) because they require their power for a greater purpose.

at heart claude and edelgard really are similar. both of them are dreamers and idealists who wish for a better more just and equitable world. which is the tragedy of it all, if only they'd talked they'd find that their dreams are quite compatible with each other. I think they'd even get along too since both are rather appreciative of both intellectual and cultural pursuits. In each others lives as friends edelgard wouldn't tunnel vision as much, claude brings a wider perspective to edelgard's drive and ambitions. edelgard brings a conviction and determinination, and while claude isn't necessarily lacking those i do think sometimes it'd do him good to pick a direction and stick with it openly. they compliment each other!

when it comes to trust edelgard has one big wall and claude has many smaller walls in layers like an onion. with edelgard its pretty cut and dry you're in or you're out. you see this in her byleth supports where after some initial distrust, after she left byleth in she relies on them quite a bit. oh and then there's her lapdog hubert. with claude its like he'll let you get a glimpse to deflect from something else. claude's actually very insecure. i think tina has brought it up before but if you saw claude among a normal group of people you be like wow what he went through was messed up and you'd see that he's hurting. its just that edelgard and dimitri are both so.... yeah... that claude looks well adjusted in comparison. they're ... mmm not loud... but more obvious with their trauma so its not quite as easily to see claude's insecurity and how many of his actions can be explained by it. its like edelgard with block an attack head on and claude will keep evading forever. neither know how to be open and emotionally intimate so they're clumsy as hell about it.

while claude isn't dead outside of his route like dimitri and edelgard are, he doesn't get off as scott free as a lot of people think. he more or less lost everything he had spent the last ~7 years building. and as i said he does all his scheming behind the scenes unlike edelgard who does more in the open, when he fails like this he has nothing to show. claude tried just as hard a edelgard he bet it all in the end and lost it all. (claude's habit of making increasingly risky bets the more dire it is another discussion). he lost most if not all his potential allies between gronder, myrdin, and derdriu, he lost his chance to be the head of change in fodlan, and he returns to a home that hates him with nothing to show for his efforts. that's crushing, he staked everything he had on his dream and he failed. because that wasn't just a literal battle for claude it was a test of his ideals, could a world free of hate like he dreamed really exist? and in addition in those 7 years he was in fodlan, he enemies have been amassing their power basses and expanding their connections and he comes back without any of that. claude outside of vw might have his life but he doesn't have much else, he's back to square 1. and can you imagine the strength it takes to keep smiling through that pain to get up again and not give up

oh yeah hubert is totally a bad influence and enabler in my (informed) opinion. he encourages all of edelgard's ego driven tendencies and ideas of grandeur like that she's special and chosen and fated to bring revolution to the world and be its Great Just Benevolent ruler. nevermind that the agarthans are likely encouraged some of those ideas as well. that she's the only one that can do this which drives her to never back down, never listen to anyone else opinion. because of course she is always 100% right and can never be wrong. not to mention all the stuff he does behind her back in her name. "he gave in completely to the idea of being her protector and hidden hand. ". hubert wants what's best for her but he too is only human and can only see things from his perspective

claude only knows how to interact with people in terms of exchanges so he feels that he has to give something. or like in marianne's support he offers up a secret of his in apology for prodding too much and oversteppingahh the long hard road of communication and mutual understanding~! claude's very well intentioned it says something that so many of his supports are about him trying to help people. even if he does it in a roundabout or clumsy way or like leonie's supports where he tries to help washing dishes even though he doesn't know how (one of the first signs he's someone important. i initially though he was from a hidden border town like balthus, but why does some commoner not know how to do dishes? and why would he have a personal battle instructor?). he's both scared of being vulnerable and yet also really wants to connect with people i think this part of him is interesting. "Hilda shatters that belief [that people only interact because they want thing out of him or to harm him] by sacrificing herself for him, since death is the ultimate end of anything being 'helpful' to you." yup and that claude failed to grasp that is very painful and very good. that he didn't realize how much he meant to others until it was too late. since judith and potentially others do the same. "if you think about how he sees 'connection' as asymmetric: he needs others to put trust in him while (as he thinks) they cannot really love him, while he can love but not trust. Vulnerability is something you'd be willing to show people that truly care for you, and he's worried about whether anyone really cares"

#fe3h #claude von riegan #edelgard von hresvelg #fire emblem three houses

[miraculous-ninjabird]

Thinking a lot about how after everything Edelgard has done, after all the suffering she’s caused and all the horrible decisions she’s made, Dimitri is still willing to forgive her. They’ve finally won, ending her life is all that’s left. But when presented with that opportunity, Dimitri’s first response is to offer his hand. The very same person who spent nearly five years on a bloodthirsty quest for revenge, instead turns towards towards forgiveness.

I like to think this is because she has done many unforgivable things. Just like he had. And it was because he had been offered a guiding hand, because someone was willing to show him that ‘you may have done horrible things but you CAN change’ that he had been given the chance to change. He feels driven to offer her the same hand that had been offered to him at the moment he needed it most. After all, if someone like him had been worthy of forgiveness, then shouldn’t she be offered the same chance?

And I think their individual responses speaks volumes to both Dimitri and Edlegard’s motives and core values. It shows that while they may be similar in many many ways, they are still so different that they’ll never be able to truly understand each other.

To me, Dimitri at his core is someone who values people above all else. He had to go through a lot of suffering and make many many mistakes to reach that point. Edlegard on the other hand, is someone who’s ideals matter to her more than anything else. She’s so committed to them that she is willing to sacrifice anything to get there and she also went through a lot of suffering to reach this point. This is what truly divides them. And I think it’s so interesting to see how those two ideas come a head in that scene. When Dimitri offers a hand and what he gets in return is a knife, it tells you everything you need to know about why they two of them would never really have been able to see eye to eye.

Anyways. Dimitri is my boy and he deserved so much more than suffering but he would not have become who he was without it

#fire emblem #fe3h #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #edelgard von hresvelg #fire emblem ramblings #this is not ment to be commentary about wether or not edlegard was a good or bad person #so like #don’t even go there #fire emblem three houses #edelgard discourse #edelgard critical #<- since the anon asked #this is mostly able Dimitri tbh but I guess I can see how it my comments could be a hot take

[sinical-boar]

Miscellaneous headcanons

(These might be a bit of a blend with modern au headcanons oops)

Edelgard

She's got claustrophobia and its nearly impossible for her to look at pictures of cave diving.The idea of getting stuck somewhere so far away from civilization or help scares her to her core.

Despite her fear of rats, shes comfortable guinea pigs and ferrets. Though shes usually got a towel because she doesn't trust them to not pee on her without warning.

She has tried to cut her hair herself once. Hubert found her panicing in the bathroom trying to hold it together. She's never tried it since.

Dimitri

He is the worst at flirting. Dimitri blushes too hard whenever he tries and it makes him feel quite silly. Sylvain can't help but pity him whenever he sees Dimitri try.

Small acts of affection for him is like giving sugar to someone with a sweet tooth. Holding hands, forehead kisses, cheek kisses, hugs from behind are all acts that make his chest feel warm. Dimitri has been touch starved for a long time so giving/receiving these gestures with his beloved is a favorite pass time.

He has a fondness for animals but he was scared as a child that he would hurt one by accident. As an adult, he's been able to learn how to control it and found out hes a natural with cats.

Claude

When doing research he'd accidentally find himself lost in a new book for hours. It wasn't often but his time management skills weren't always up to par.

He isn't a conspiracy theorist but he revels in listening to someone with batshit theories. Flat earthers are one of his favorites, especially when Lorenz tries to argue with one. Claude rarely intervenes he just watches the flawed logic get flung by the theorist.

Claude looks like he'd be a procrastinator but he excels in getting assignments done within the last few days before the due date. He says he works best under those conditions.

Bernadetta

Her anxiety makes it hard for her to feel comfortable being touched. It doesn’t help that she is somewhat repulsed by certain types of touching, but she does yearn for friendly gestures from time to time.

Despite her self care not being the best in some avenues, her clothes are almost always kept in nice shape. Any tears or holes are quickly fixed by her so she won’t have to leave her room to buy more clothes. She has considered maybe helping other people with their clothes but she freezes up when initially trying to offer her help.

Her favorite way to unwind is the hottest of baths. Flowers are sometimes mixed with her bath water to help her really calm down. She usually picks the flowers herself rather than actually as anyone to get them for her. The flowers Bernie uses the most are lavender and peach blossoms. 

Ingrid

The Idea of having children terrifies her if she thinks about it too hard. She thinks about the changes that she would have to make with herself and how she won’t be the same person after that. Ingrid doesn’t rule out the possibility of having children one day, but wishes it could be her own choice and not out of obligation.

If given the choice, her attire might be a little more gender non conforming. When she was younger she’d often try her friend’s clothing on as “dress up” but deep down she just felt nice in them. Ingrid still identifies as a woman but just not the traditional things that is expected of those assigned of her gender. 

She does find women very pretty but hasn’t found one she’s fully attracted to, beyond their aesthetic. The idea of being with a woman hasn’t been ruled out in her mind but she hasn’t exactly pinned down her taste as of yet. Felix jokes that she wants a damsel in distress to save and it gets Ingrid in a flustered rage every time.

Marianne

Her favorite kind of weather is either cool Autumn weather or rainy afternoons. Sometimes she might stand outside in the rain in something she doesn’t care if it gets wet. Marianne knows getting sick in the rain is a myth, but even if it wasn’t it wouldn’t stop her. Feeling the rain on her skin helps give her sensations that remind her that she’s really alive.

At first she didn’t like Hilda doting on her, once Hilda found out the extent of Marianne’s struggles. She kept thinking on how it felt pointless and that Hilda could have better things she could be doing. It wasn’t until Hilda protected her one day that it sunk in just how much Hilda truly cared. Marianne then started to slowly do things for Hilda too, to show just how thankful she is for Hilda sticking by her side.

When days get really rough for her, she often goes on solitary walks through the woods or spend hours at a time with the local animals. It isn’t an uncommon sight to see her quietly enjoying the company of a bird, cat or horse.

Linhardt

Despite his best efforts, he’s extremely poor with anything involving skating. He’d much prefer to watch Caspar rather than almost bust his ass or fall onto another pair of skaters.

His ADHD can often make conversations with people ‘interesting’. Often times he might drift away from making eye contact with them, not out of disinterest, but out of restlessness. He can still fully pay attention to the conversation, he can just get restless if it doesn’t particularly interest him or just because his brain decided to be restless.

Caspar harps on him whenever he forgets to eat during his research sessions, so Linhardt often finds random snacks like dried peaches or sweet buns if he hasn’t left his desk in a while. Caspar tries to get him to do some stretches with him and Linhardt usually agrees once his knees start acting up.

Sylvain

He’s the type of guy who has a patchwork quilt of knowledge. If you aren’t careful you might find out he’s got trivia about random topics tucked away in his brain. His closest friends are the ones who see it the most, since he doesn’t really like strangers seeing how his mind works.

To everyone’s surprise he genuinely likes aerobics and will often do them by himself if he has access to it. He was caught once by Felix and Sylvain could never live it down.

Sylvain actually rarely speaks to his father. His dad was aware of the abuse Miklan gave to Sylvain but it seemed more like his dad was guarding an asset rather than a child. When Miklan left, it became more clear to Sylvain and he did anything to be out of the house.

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #edelgard von hresvelg #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #claude von riegan #bernadetta von varley #ingrid galatea #marianne von edmund #linhardt von hevring #sylvain jose gautier #headcanons #I was gonna do a golden deer boy but i lost steam #rip #enjoy these ig

[fallintosanity]

So my partner and I are nerds (surprise surprise) and on the way back from our wedding we got to talking about Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Specifically, whether the game can or should have a “true” ending, a “golden path” that sits above the four possible canon endings a la FE: Fates’ Revelation DLC. The answer is no - for a variety of reasons that I might go into in another post, FETH absolutely should not have a “true” ending, since that would ruin just about every core theme the game tries to convey. 

That said, since we still had about five hours of driving ahead of us, we decided to map out what a “true” ending might look like anyway. 😅

There’s a million fics out there already that explore variations on everybody-lives or similarly “happy” endings; we weren’t trying to rehash those. We had a few parameters / restrictions as we worked this out. First: we have only played Verdant Wind and Azure Moon - we have not played Crimson Flower or Silver Snow, nor have we been spoiled on most parts of either route, meaning we don’t know the full extent of those plots and can only guess at some elements of them. Second, in order to count as a “true” ending, everybody has to get what they want, or as close as possible. (So no “Claude and Dimitri team up to overthrow Edelgard and ‘reform’ her”, and likewise no “the three houses kill Rhea and everyone’s happy”.) Third, we wanted to keep it as close to something that could be achieved within the current plot and mechanics as possible - i.e., it could theoretically be made as a DLC, the same way Revelation was. 

With all that said, here’s what we came up with (under a cut bc LOOOOONG): 

The “true ending” path has to happen via the Verdant Wind route, for a number of reasons. Claude is key to the true ending thanks to his desire to uncover mysteries, his overall diplomatic skills, his personal motivations, and - most importantly - his relative neutrality to the state of Fódlan compared to Dimitri, Edelgard, and Rhea/the Church. So you start the True Ending path by picking the Golden Deer at the beginning of the game. 

The first half of the game happens more or less as it usually does in the Verdant Wind route. However, before the timeskip, you have to get Byleth to the maximum possible pre-timeskip support level with all of Claude, Dimitri, Edelgard, and Rhea. You also cannot recruit anyone from any of the other houses, including the Church/Silver Snow group. (Yes, this is incredibly difficult. You didn’t think the True Ending was going to be easy, did you?) 

After the timeskip, chapters 13 and 14 (Reunion at Dawn [Hunting by Daybreak] and The Alliance Leader's Ambition [Protecting Garreg Mach]) proceed as usual for the Verdant Wind route. Byleth wakes up and returns to the monastary, reunites with Claude and the other Golden Deers, and sets up shop in Garreg Mach, fighting off an attack by the Empire. 

Chapter 15 (Valley of Torment [Ambush at Ailell]) also plays largely as normal, except that during the fight, you must not defeat Ashe. You must also have increased your support to the highest possible levels with Hilda, Lorenz, Lysithea, and Marianne before the final battle of the chapter. If you do that, and have met all the previous requirements, this is where things begin to change. 

After the fight, a discussion with Claude and Judith covers the state of the Kingdom of Faerghus. Judith mentions hearing rumors that the lost Prince of Faerghus, presumed dead since his execution shortly after the fall of Garreg Mach, has resurfaced and begun to gather troops for a suicide march on the Empire. Byleth at this point can suggest a new plan: reach out to Dimitri and convince him to join forces with the Alliance. 

Thanks to Byleth’s A-rank support with Claude, Claude decides he likes this plan and begins scheming during Chapter 16 (The Rose-Colored River [The Great Bridge Coup]). He’s well aware that it won’t be as simple as merely convincing Dimitri to combine his troops with the Alliance’s. Rumor and Claude’s own spies say that Dimitri has gone insane with his desire for vengeance against the Empire. On top of that, Faerghus has long since been turned into a puppet territory of the Empire, its nobles fallen or fled. The Kingdom would need to be rebuilt, and Dimitri brought back as its sane king, before it can be of any use in a partnership. 

During the month, Claude is frequently away from the monastary, and his spies are even busier than usual. In the brief moments when Byleth is able to talk with him, he says he’s looking for something that can help them convince Dimitri to join them. 

Finally, the week before the battle on the Great Bridge of Myrddin, Claude meets in secret with Byleth, Judith, Hilda, Lorenz, Lysithea, and Marianne. Given the high risks involved with the plan, he doesn’t dare tell more people, but he needs the support of the Golden Deer nobles in particular. Claude tells them that he’s uncovered some vital information about the Tragedy of Duscur, and hands Byleth a sealed folio containing the details. 

Next, Claude outlines his plan: The Alliance will throw the battle at the bridge, putting on the best show they can of both making a serious attack, and being completely overwhelmed. It will be up to Byleth to keep casualties to the bare minimum, but Claude accepts that some troop deaths will be unavoidable, just as they would be if the Alliance fought to win. 

After the failed attack on the bridge, Claude and Byleth will have a very public fight in which Claude declares his intent to cede the Alliance to the Empire, and Byleth defects from the Alliance to join the remnants of the Faerghus soldiers. This is where Hilda, Lorenz, Lysithea, and Marianne come in: they must work with their families to ensure the entire Alliance agrees to join the Empire. Initially, all four are reluctant, but thanks to their high support with Byleth, they decide to trust in Claude’s plan, and agree. 

The day of the battle at the bridge arrives, and everything proceeds as planned. Byleth’s win condition for the fight includes a maximum allowable number of casualties before a turn limit is reached; in addition, Ferdinand must not be defeated. The Alliance retreats, but not so far that the Imperials on the bridge can miss Byleth and Claude’s heated falling-out and Byleth’s defection to the Kingdom. 

Starting in Chapter 17, the viewpoint shifts away from the Golden Deer, following Byleth instead. The Alliance banishes Claude to Almyra, withdraws from Garreg Mach as part of its surrender, and folds into the Empire. Meanwhile, Byleth sends a request to Dimitri for a meeting. Because of their high support, Dimitri agrees, and he and Byleth reunite at the monastary. 

From here, the game follows an abbreviated version of Azure Moon’s Chapters 13-18. Dimitri is still the feral boar driven mad with the desire for vengeance on Edelgard, and his small army takes over the monastary and fights off an Imperial incursion. The remnants of the Blue Lion house join them, except for Dedue, who is presumed dead after sacrificing himself to save Dimitri from execution five years ago. As in Azure Moon, the group meets up with Rodrigue Fraldarius, who has been gathering a secret rebel army of ex-Faerghus soldiers.

As the months pass, however, Byleth must increase support with Dimitri to the maximum possible level, prior to the next battle on the bridge. This involves sharing the information Claude dug up: the existence of Those Who Slither in the Dark, and the part they played in the Tragedy of Duscur. Claude hasn’t yet found all the details, but he’s given Byleth enough that Byleth is able to redirect Dimitri’s rage from Edelgard to where it belongs: squarely with the Slitherers. Between that, Dedue’s unexpected return, and Rodrigue’s sacrifice to protect Dimitri after the battle on the Bridge of Myrddin, Dimitri finds his way back out of his madness. With Byleth’s support, he and the growing Kingdom army retake Fhirdiad, and Dimitri is restored to his rightful place on the throne. 

After Fhirdiad, the route diverges once again. Now that Dimitri can be trusted to lead his army, Byleth fills him in on Claude’s plan. The next step is the Kingdom’s attack on Fort Merceus. This battle proceeds largely as normal - except that Byleth appears to fall during battle, and is captured by Imperial forces. Additionally, the Kingdom’s forces are driven back at the last moment by the javelins of light which normally show up in the Verdant Wind route. Dimitri retreats back to Fhirdiad to regroup after the loss of Byleth and the unexpected, terrifying javelins. 

Here again, the viewpoint shifts to stay with Byleth. Held prisoner within the dungeons of the Imperial Palace in Enbarr, Byleth receives a visit from Edelgard. They discuss Edelgard’s plans and goals, and Byleth must take this opportunity to increase support with Edelgard to the max. (Note: this is where things get handwave-y due to our lack of knowledge of the Crimson Flower and Silver Snow paths.) Byleth pretends to be (or is) at least partially swayed by Edelgard’s arguments, and offers some advice regarding an upcoming battle. 

After Edelgard leaves, Byleth, alone in the dungeons, uses the first week of the month to investigate, and manages to make contact with the imprisoned Rhea. Rhea, of course, is thrilled to learn Byleth is alive, but Byleth has some very pointed questions for her about the whole “you put your dead mother’s heart in me and tried to resurrect her using my body” thing. Byleth must successfully negotiate this conversation to increase support with Rhea to the max and continue with the true ending. 

In the second week, Edelgard returns to speak with Byleth again. Although Edelgard’s overall takeover of Fódlan is going well, she’s frustrated by her continued reliance on the Slitherers. Byleth hints at the possibility of helping Edelgard defeat the Slitherers and bring about her ultimate goal of a unified Fódlan free of the Church’s - and the Slitherers’ - influence; thanks to their high support, Edelgard is intrigued. Carefully, Byleth folds Edelgard into Claude’s plan, giving her advice about how to eliminate the remaining corrupt Imperial nobles by setting them up in battle (this may or may not be similar to what happens in the actual Crimson Flower route; again, we haven’t played that one yet). Equally cautious, Edelgard agrees to try the plan. 

Byleth spends the third week coordinating with Rhea and providing more advice to Edelgard from within prison. In the fourth week, Byleth, Rhea, and Edelgard enact the next step of Claude’s plan. Edelgard positions the remaining corrupt nobles, as well as some Slitherers she needs out of the way, in and around the dungeons as guards. With the power of Rhea’s dragon form, she and Byleth stage a prison break, killing Edelgard’s chosen targets and making their escape. 

They flee to Garreg Mach, which the Kingdom’s forces have left behind now that they’ve retaken Fhirdiad. With Rhea’s return, the remnants of the Church of Seiros (the Silver Snow route units) reconvene at the monastary, uniting under Rhea’s banner. Additionally, one more person shows up: Claude, returned from his apparent banishment. While officially he was in Almyra this whole time, in actuality he secretly gathered a joint Alliance-Almyran army, which includes the Golden Deer students and is led by Judith and Nader. He’s also been investigating the Slitherers, and has located the Slitherers’ base, Shambala, and uncovered their plot to resurrect Nemesis - everything which is normally revealed in the Verdant Wind route. 

Here at last, the many pieces of Claude’s plan begin to come together. In secret, Edelgard and Dimitri travel to Garreg Mach for a meeting with Claude, Rhea, and Byleth. Claude lays out everything he’s learned about the secret history of Fódlan, and Rhea confesses to her own true identity and the part she played. With this new information, Rhea cedes control of the Church to Byleth and retires; while Edelgard and Dimitri agree to set aside their differences and work together with the Church’s forces and Claude’s secret army to defeat the Slitherers and Nemesis once and for all.

At this point, all four core armies from all four routes are in play: Edelgard’s Black Eagles, Dimitri’s Blue Lions, Claude’s Golden Deer, and the Church’s faithful. (It would be possible to do some interesting things mechanically with this - instead of commanding individual units, Byleth may need to command the four armies around a continent-wide battlefield as they make their way to Shambala.) 

The four groups collapse on Shambala, tackling the fight as in the Verdant Wind route, but dealing a sound defeat to the Slitherers and preventing them from using the javelins of light again. Dimitri and Edelgard face off against Thales, defeating him and laying to rest the villain of both their pasts. However, the heroes aren’t fast enough to prevent Nemesis’s resurrection, and the final grand battle of the true ending is the four armies united against Nemesis’s forces. 

When the battle is over, the house leaders, a few key representatives from each faction, and Byleth gather once more to discuss the future of Fódlan. Lorenz is the one negotiating for the Alliance, while Claude acts as a relatively neutral mediator as well as represents the interests of Almyra. After much discussion, the group agrees that the Empire, the Kingdom, and the Alliance will each remain independent nations, under Edelgard’s, Dimitri’s, and the Lords’ rule respectively. Almyra agrees to ally with both the Alliance and the Kingdom, turning their warlike ways to Fodlan’s advantage by helping defend the continent from attacks by outside nations. 

Additionally, the Heroes’ Relics will be destroyed/laid to rest under Rhea’s guidance, giving her the closure to her grief which she had been denied. Without the Relics, the usefulness of Crests will significantly diminish, helped along by official policies in all three nations meant to break up the current Crest systems. Canonically, Crests were already on the decline, and these changes will dramatically reduce or eliminate the practice of breeding for Crests, until in just a few generations, Crests will be all but non-existant. Every few decades a child might still be born with one, but the goal is to make such a birth impossible to predict, plan for, or influence. This will further provide closure to Rhea and the Nabateans, as well as fulfil one of Edelgard’s goals by eliminating Crests as an artificial, arbitrary measure of worth. 

Finally, the Church of Seiros agrees to give up most of its political machinations, as well as stop hindering technical progress across the continent. While it will remain as a faith-based organization to provide support to its faithful, it will no longer act as a political or martial center of influence. Byleth will remain in the Church as its leader until a new archbishop can be appointed, and then step down to avoid any perceptions of undue influence caused by Byleth’s actions in the war or relationships with the leaders of each nation. 

It’s not a perfect ending, of course - a perfect ending isn’t possible, given all the different characters’ and factions’ conflicting goals. But it gets as close as possible within the game as-is (and, again, taking into consideration our lack of knowledge of Crimson Flower and Silver Snow). Rhea gets vengeance for her people, and peace for those whose bodies were turned into Relics. Dimitri gets to work through his personal demons and kill the man responsible for the Tragedy of Duscur, as well as save his people and restore his kingdom. Edelgard gets the destruction of the Crest system and (mostly) the takedown of the Church of Seiros, as well as revenge against the Slitherers. Claude gets a Fodlan united under diplomatic alliances if not a single ruler, and is able to lay the groundwork for additional alliances with other nations. Byleth can have any one of several endings, depending on supports and player-selected romance options. The only main goal left unfulfilled is the unification of Fódlan as a single entity. 

Again, we don’t actually think FETH should have a canonical “true” ending, due to the themes it’s trying to convey. But it was fun to come up with this anyway.

(just don’t ask me to write it oh my GOD TT_TT )

#fire emblem three houses #fanfiction #sanity talks a lot #this post is dedicated to my feth fandom friend #who yells with me about feth

[dmclemblems]

Claude calling the people of the Kingdom and Empire monsters and rallying people under the promise of their deaths and only giving half of a shit for his own people, on top of being willing to worsen foreign relations and refuel fighting on the border wrt Sreng for the same reasons. Hm wow that sure sound like someone who sees outsiders as less than human and only as threats to his own people (who are the only ones deserving of peace and safety). You know, that mindset that Claude fundamentally hates and literally came to Fodlan to wipe out so that people can live in harmony with each other?

Fuck this game and the absolutely horrific treatment it gave to Claude's entire character. Literally nothing anyone says can possibly explain why such a core aspect of Claude's character is not just not present, but actively replaced with its perfect opposite - and this game doesn't even bother to give a HALF-HEARTED explanation, he Just Is like this now. This game can actually suck my ass.

I like the game generally speaking (and AG was written really well), but I'm definitely not fond of how Claude was handled.

Like you said, and one of the biggest things that bothers me that I mentioned in another post is how he basically tells people to surrender or die, yet he says he wants to minimize casualties. It doesn't even make sense that he wants that but attacked the Kingdom without so much as a letter being sent to speak to Dimitri personally talk to to him about the Church and whatnot. Plus, if he did, he might have been made aware that all his perceptions of the Church were wrong.

The whole Sreng thing bugs me because they informed Sreng about the war and whatnot so that they'd invade, but later Claude tries to... not get them involved? He used them when it was convenient and then suddenly didn't want to after that.

One of my biggest gripes is that Claude has no consistency. You know how in CF they kept doing this back and forth trying to be like Edelgard is a bad person who started the war, oh wait no she's just a good person with strong views, etc etc? They really did that with Claude here except at least Edelgard was always consistent with her character. Claude's writing here is just like... they're trying to make him the anti-war person he is in Houses but they wrote him to be the exact opposite. When it starts going too far they pull him back again and have him keep iterating this nonsense about not wanting the war to keep going because people are dying.

Also, Nader saying he couldn't wait to rampage in the Kingdom REALLY bothered me (and he says this at camp so it's missable if he wasn't spoken to). After all the shit they said about Almyrans not being barbarians and whatnot, he's planning to go nuts with attacking the Kingdom? All that would do is make the Kingdom more unwilling to make any kind of relationship with Almyra.

There was definitely a lot of "we're doing this for Leicester" and not... any bit of care for any other land. I've been goofing about it a lot and trying to be mellow about it but just in general I find the things Claude does and the things he says to be absolutely abhorrent in this game. The way he manipulates people with the politely worded "surrender or die" is seriously awful and isn't much better than Edelgard's behavior.

I really doubt there would be any true harmony after this war. Even if the Kingdom lost and ceased to exist (and became just Adrestia and Leicester), I can guarantee there would be civil wars and uprisings all over the place. The people in the Kingdom would never, ever settle for that. Honestly, I could see Sylvain rallying troops and launching an attack on Leicester. I feel like even though he acts mostly calm during the story, he still has that in him because of the way Dimitri didn't want his emotions to get the better of him in battle. It's pretty clear to me that Sylvain despises Claude and the Alliance in GW.

Literally the whole thing with the Kingdom just sits so wrong with me. They were just minding their own business and suddenly everyone is trying to invade. In fact, they're trying to do good things within their borders and fix their society, but they can't because everyone around them just wants to go to war. Even the Church kind of forced them to get involved by asking for their aid. I'd put the least blame on them honestly because they really don't do anything bad at all here/in this game, but the war forced Dimitri's hand in so many ways when all he wanted to do was make a better society for the Kingdom.

By the end of the game I'd say Claude is really just... marginally better than Shahid, and that is not a high bar. It just served to keep the theme going that Almyrans just want war and fighting. Claude had other options and he chose invasion and killing. He chose to do what Shahid did to Leicester.

I honestly feel really bad for the Kingdom. Nobody will leave them alone and the worst part is that they're all so loyal to each other and so tight knit that like... once you've fucked with one of them you've fucked with all of them. They're not just gonna let it go and be like oh yeah okay we'll just stop the Kingdom from existing and give up on it. Dimitri also just wants to keep his people safe and Claude abuses that fact to make Dimitri let him get past him to get to Rhea. Basically, Claude is saying either I kill your people or let you me pass by and kill Rhea. Seeing as Rhea has always supported Dimitri and has never tried to obstruct any part of his rule, it's really shitty to be like oh hey you know this person who has done right by you and has been super chill with you? Let us kill her or I'm gonna kill your people and make you feel like shit about it. He uses people's emotions to make them stop fighting, and what he said to Ashe really bugged me.

There's a lot of stuff at the camp in GW that I saw (I'll end up posting some of it later, it's just that my posts are totally out of order for when I actually post them compared to when I'm playing so that I don't end up posting tons of stuff all at once, flood people's dashboards and then just have nothing to post lol) that really highlight how awful all of this is. Several characters are unhappy with all of it, and then you have the dumbass types who don't give a fuck like Raphael and Leonie (which is BEYOND me, especially with Raphael. He's supposed to be the gentle, kindhearted one and he's like 150% okay and happy with invading and fighting people and just knocking them flat. He gets excited for it. Hopes Raphael just ain't the one for me lol), and they only care about a good fight no matter who they have to kill.

Only a few people regularly question the morality of Claude's army, like Yuri, Hapi, Lorenz and Ashe. Most of them just... do not care. They'd kill good people for a good fight or because they just happen to like Claude so they'll ruin other people's lives.

I know it's just a video game, but... I just hate everything about the second half of GW lol. I love the early Almyran lore and it helps a lot for the missing pieces in Houses, but the story is just... disgusting. I've always hated Edelgard's actions in Houses and I'm not gonna justify Claude's behavior and actions in Hopes just because I like him in Houses. Just like her, he's a huge warmonger in this game. I guess it's because I just... don't like war and I have a very strong mindset on people who do things like that, especially when they attack people who are just living their lives and doing their own thing. Even though I've always been a Kingdom girl, I don't think my feelings would change on any of this if I was more bias toward Leicester. I don't think I'd be comfortable seeing the Kingdom being trampled for literally no reason whatsoever. We can't even blame Cornelia or other TWS members in this game for a lot of what happens to them. It's Edelgard and Claude doing a lot of it.

There's just... a lot of really awful things happening in this game and Claude spearheads a whole ass lot of it.

Claude von Deserved A Lot Fucking Better.

#Three Hopes Spoilers #I'm torn for my next Houses run bc I AM technically in the middle of a GW run #but I miss AM. but also I am not ready to have to see Rodrigue and Miklan die again lol #I mean Miklan technically seems to survive in GW and... I guess in SB? I don't remember well on that one but #at least in AG he died having gotten better and being a commander! #but also I just miss the good writing LOL I miss AM and wanna play it but #my data/progression would end up being split off into two playthroughs and that just bugs me #I am sad and miss Dimi's accidental flirting!!! I miss the pure lil cutie who got to be at least #a lil happy at the Academy and WAS ACTUALLY FRIENDS WITH CLAUDE #this game gave me many good things... all of which were isolated to AG lmao #I got a lot of things I rly wanted in this game but LIKE. AT WHAT COST #DCB Reply

[iturbide]

the fact that edelgard is the villain in 3/4 routes and yet intsys STILL glorifies her to no end enrages and annoys me. no other villain has been given that perspective of “well actually maybe they arent so bad” except for the hypocritical tyrant. even when she has *literally become an inhuman monster* intsys is still like “oh no dont worry she was right actually!” and it upsets me deeply

It upsets me, too, friend.  IntSys seems to really like glorifying people who don’t deserve it, especially in recent games (Walhart in Awakening, Rudolf in Echoes -- I can’t say if his whole ‘orchestrating a plan to have his son murder him’ thing is carry-over from Gaiden or not, but it definitely exists in the recent remake so I’m including it), but Edelgard actually ends up as a bit of a weird case. 

(I have a lot of thoughts about this, so I’m just going to cut preemptively.)

Now, I’m actually not opposed to Edelgard being the protagonist of the fourth route in Three Houses.  Anyone who’s been here a while knows that I generally see Grima, a figure that IntSys generally tries to paint as a rote villain, as at least a sympathetic villain (and possibly even a secret hero in the events of Awakening itself); it’s entirely possible for someone that’s a villain in most of their appearances to have legitimate reasons for what they’re doing and why, and revealing that in their personal route could be incredibly powerful if done well. 

And here’s the thing: Edelgard really is a compelling character, in large part because of her moral ambiguity.  I actually agree with her when she says that the Church of Seiros is corrupt at its core and the system needs to change.  She’s right about that!  While Seiros might have had decent reasons for establishing things this way, over the past thousand years human societies have changed while the church itself remained stagnant -- something potentially exacerbated by her selfish ambition to restore her mother -- and this has led to a structure that once served an important purpose becoming a toxic and destructive mess for humanity at large.  Edelgard has a completely valid point there, and it’s something that I could absolutely get on board with if she had gone about achieving change in some other way, because she does have other methods available to her that she writes off without real reason -- and even that can relate back in part to her deep trauma and difficulty trusting people after the betrayals she faced at the hands of her “uncle” and her own father’s powerlessness to stop the nightmare she and her siblings suffered through. 

IntSys probably could have crafted a narrative that showed from her perspective why she believed war against the Church was the only valid option available to her.  The issue is that she undercuts her own argument by targeting all of Fodlan, rather than specifically going after the Church: she doesn’t give the Kingdom and Alliance a “stay out of my way or else” warning, she literally turns her sights on the Kingdom as soon as the monastery falls and attempts to fully annex it once Cornelia sets up Dimitri’s fall, leaving the Alliance only because she has her hands full with Faerghus.  She didn’t have to take Cornelia up on her offer of making the Kingdom into the Dukedom of Faerghus and sending troops to finish the job: she could have just left the woman to her own devices, forcing the Twisted to utilize their own people to maintain and secure full control of the region while she worked on addressing the systemic issues, which would have had multiple benefits:

The Imperial Army doesn’t get overwhelmed and exhausted fighting in conditions they’re not equipped to deal with, leaving them stronger overall while the Twisted forces are potentially weakened by the same

Hubert is able to better assess the threat they’re dealing with, including learning their capabilities and possibly even where they’re coming from before Merceus

Edelgard actually puts her money where her mouth is and ends up helping the people she claims to be doing this for, rather than just using them as fodder for the war to grind up

Unfortunately, the way she’s written ends up just making her an imperialist.  She’s not just going after the corrupt core of the Church, she’s trying to forcibly unite the continent and return Fodlan to some long gone ideal where it was all united under the Imperial banner because she refuses to believe that Adrestia could have split by natural causes.

Crimson Flower ultimately ends up being a particularly egregious example of this glorification phenomenon in action because they give her a personal route that makes no effort to critically examine her actions and make her face consequences for them.  This, I think, does her a massive disservice as a character, because that aforementioned moral ambiguity that makes her so interesting could have been utilized to great effect -- and the proof is actually there already, because they do it in Dimitri’s route.

Dimitri is himself another interesting character, and outwardly presents as Edelgard’s polar opposite: he recognizes that he doesn’t have all the answers, struggles to figure out the correct course of action when presented with difficult subjects that have  no clear-cut answer -- like the fact that reliance on the Crest system is toxic for noble families, but it’s those very Crest-bearers and their Relics that help keep Faerghus safe from invasion by Sreng -- possesses incredible strength but specifically refrains using it in most cases to avoid harming others, and generally takes everyone’s problems onto himself to his own detriment.  He’s also deeply traumatized and was never given a chance to deal with it in a healthy manner, which contributes to how he snaps -- and Azure Moon starts with Dimitri being so far out of reach that you can’t unlock any of his supports and can’t even engage with him in the weekly discussions.  He’s lost himself to his survivor’s guilt and need for vengeance, considers himself to be nothing more than a monster, and has no qualms about killing if it helps advance his quest; as the story progresses, he faces a direct consequence for this murderous inclination in the form of Fleche who attempts to exact vengeance for her brother’s sake in the same way that he’s attempting to claim it for his family and friends -- only to lose Rodrigue, and have his dying words be a plea for Dimitri to live for himself rather than those who died before him, at which point Dimitri sets his sights on opposing Edelgard rather than killing her and seeing to atone for the crimes he committed.  While I think the game made the change a little too abrupt, it’s handled well overall, and shows a real development arc complete with both actions and their associated consequences that directly relate to Dimitri’s growth as a person.

Contrast this to Edelgard in general and Crimson Flower as a route.  Edelgard believes that she has all the answers despite not trying to engage with anyone outside her own House, decisively chooses what she believes to be the right and proper course of action regardless of how difficult the subject matter, possesses great strength (both physically and of sheer will) that she uses to dominate others, and forces others to join her in addressing what she sees as problems -- such as her line about making her own people into “worthy sacrifices” for her “higher cause.”  Crimson Flower is the only route where her attack on the monastery fails to capture Rhea, but once Byleth returns she sets her sights on attacking and subjugating a territory that has remained entirely neutral through the past five years, turns on the Twisted while she’s still in a vulnerable position which ultimately causes the deaths of at least a third of the forces she left at Arianrhod once they fire their warning shot, lies to her friends and allies about what happened there, murders her step-brother, and allows a city full of trapped civilians to burn unchecked while she deals with what she considers to be the “real” threat on the opposite side of the Faerghus capital -- and all of this is capped off with her never dealing with the Twisted, and cute little endcards that talk about how everything worked out fine and there were no problems ever, The End.  Edelgard doesn’t get a development arc in her route: she’s never challenged, she never faces real consequences (and the one she does face she literally lies about to her friends and then leaves as a problem to deal with later), and she pretty much ends the game exactly where she started it: completely assured that she made the right choices.  The moral ambiguity inherent in her character is instead cast as “of course she’s in the right, she’s so great and there’s nothing at all wrong with what she’s doing or how she’s going about it, isn’t she wonderful?”

At least in the main game, Hegemon Husk Edelgard is treated with real gravity, shown as the pinnacle of her drive to see her ambition come to fruition and the tragic consequence of her inability to change course and find another path.  The Forging Bonds event just takes the CF brush and paints her actions as the right ones, even though what made her so compelling is that her reasons were right while her methods were horrific.  Edelgard really could have been wonderful.  The potential is right there in her character.  But IntSys completely botched the execution of it, so that her route feels rushed, incomplete, and at best unsatisfying (or, if you’re me, utterly disgusting for how it glorifies imperialistic conquest), and her Heroes appearances only make it worse.

#answered #anonymous #fire emblem: three houses #edelcourse #look i really do find edelgard to be interesting #i just find intsys' execution of her character to be utterly terrible #and fandom at large has kind of made it worse #i'm just going to keep the nuance and explore the real consequences #and write a ton of fanfiction to that effect

[n04s]

For the character asks: Edelgard and/or Dedue?

YESS okay let's start with DEDUE:

Sexuality Headcanon: Bisexual! But I do like the gay headcanons as well

Gender Headcanon: Haven't thought too much about it but I always love trans headcanons

A ship I have with said character: Ashe/Dedue is god tier, Mercedes/Dedue is also sooo good. THEIR ENDING 😭 I love the Dedue endings where he gets to go back to his homeland and help things there!!

A BROTP I have with said character: I know I already said them as romantic relationships but I also love Ashe and Mercedes as friends with him! Also, Byleth and Dedue being friends that are both silent is great. I also have a crack broship of Dedue and Bernadetta. Let them meet!

A NOTP I have with said character: Dedue/Dimitri ... I do not like master/servant relationships :||||

A random headcanon: For any of the endings where he leaves working as a knight, he definitely grows out a big soft beard and his hair gets long as well.

General Opinion over said character: Ah, Dedue, probably the character that was done the dirtiest by the narrative bar none. It's honestly sad that he spends his life dedicated to Dimitri until the very end and it's never really seen as a flaw or a problem--even Cyril has characters commenting on his unhealthy attachment to Rhea! The only character that comments on this is Felix, which only comes off as Felix being an offensive asshole (which he was).

I wish there was more given to Duscur as people or as a culture. Considering that they play such a big role in the game and it's backstory, it's really empty. The only supports that really tell anything of Dedue's life and culture are few and far between. Dedue's life seems to begin with Dimitri intervening in his life--did he have wants or needs before meeting Dimitri? Goals? It's hinted that his devotion to Dimitri stems from needing to use him in order to change Faerghus, but even that goes above and beyond pragmatism and fully into the white savior trope. Perhaps it would've been better if Dedue's place as the main retainer wasn't snatched in the second half of the story, or if he had even a few more possible A supports.

Overall? Dedue did not deserve this :(

EDELGARD

Sexuality Headcanon: Bisexual but she's extremely repressed

Gender Headcanon: woman perhaps

A ship I have with said character: Edelgard/Byleth is my favorite ship in the game, but I pretty much love almost every Edelgard ship except for... (see NOTP section)

A BROTP I have with said character: HUBERT HUBERT HUBERT!!!! Also Byleth!! And really all of the Black Eagles, what can I say except the Black Eagle route really is a lot about Edelgard making new friends (and possibly losing them if you side with the church)! Let me especially say Caspar though, I think he stands out as one of the characters to tell it to her straight without any worries of poise or tact 😂 but she definitely appreciates that.

A NOTP I have with said character: Edelgard/Hubert, for the same reasons as Dimitri/Dedue. I'm just really not a fan of the master/servant relationships.

A random headcanon: After she retires as Emperor, she spends a lot of time very slowly learning how to swim.

General Opinion over said character: Oh god. A fire emblem lord that's a woman AND a revolutionary? Say no more. I loved her from the beginning, and playing all the routes only solidified her position as my favorite character of the game.

Now, I will say--the biggest flaw in her writing is the game does make her seem a little clingy if you aren't planning on romancing her. It wasn't a problem for me (because I did), but I can see why it's not great for some people. Personally, I can explain it away with saying she's an incredibly lonely person at her core, but it doesn't change the fact that the game does pander a bit to the audience with how much she seems to be smitten with Byleth.

BACK TO THE LOVE: She is SOO refreshing in this genre. Her outfit rocks and isn't super sexualized, she's cold and badass and not emotional, she's tearing down the system of corruption... okay okay I can go on but I love her a lot. Edelgard is awesome. I wish I could BE her, y'know?

I can go on, but like with Claude, I can only say so much here 😅

#fire emblem #fe3h #long post

[msbluebell]

You know, you forgot to mention one very important person in the Dimileth Wedding. And he’s right over there standing near the altar with the proudest smile on his face as he watches his daughter walk towards her beloved, a tear slowly falling from his face after knowing he can now truly rest in peace .

The truth is, Jeralt wasn’t really ready to die when Monica, Kronya, whatever her name was, stabbed him.

He wanted to see his wife again, he wanted to so bad he couldn’t stand it. But Byleth…Byleth was the most important thing in his world. He loved that kid, more than life and breathing itself. He couldn’t leave her yet, crying in the rain. Goddess, it’s the first time she’s ever cried.

She’s a weird kid, always has been. She didn’t cry with skinned knees, or panic when she started puberty, she never even made an expression before coming to this school. He wonders if Rhea did something, added something to the kid to keep them numb without her. He hopes not.

Still, he doesn’t move on yet. His spirit lingers, unseen and unheard until he can make sure his kid is going to be okay.

She’s…not.

It’s like losing him stripped something from her core. Where before she never seemed to feel anything, suddenly her grief for him is the most obvious thing about her, the first thing someone would notice at a glance. He’s worried, Goddess he’s worried, but at the same time his no longer beating heart swells because she really did love him, didn’t she?

Sometimes…he sees glimpses of the green haired girl his daughter told him about. He can hear the echo of her voice. And suddenly, something about this is all starting to make sense. Whatever Rhea did, it involved that girl, and Byleth started feeling around the time those dreams started turning up. So maybe…

It’s weird to think about. Gives him a headache. And more than that, he hopes he’s wrong about Rhea.

Right now he focuses on how much people seem to be taking care of her right now. He’s glad. He’s so glad. He was worried as the eternal flames, but it seems like she’s going to be fine. That Dimitri boy in particular seems to be doing her some good, he’s being supportive and comforting.

He’s almost ready to move on when they track down Kronya.

He’s about ready to scream at the kid. Look, he’s proud, and happy Byleth loves him, but this is clearly a trap. And he hates to agree with Rhea, but he doesn’t want Byleth to get herself killed trying to avenge him. Dimitri, please stop her, she listens to you sometimes.

…Dimitri?…

Dimitri you’re supposed to stop her. Goddess damn it all, his kid is too young to join him in death. 

So Jeralt has no choice but to stick around a little longer to make sure his kid doesn’t die.

If he still had a body, he’s sure he would have died from a heart attack watching that wizard prick lock his daughter in an endless void. There’s a moment where he’s stuck next to the Blue Lion kids, watching with horror as they start to break down, realizing that their teacher is gone. Dimitri is twitching scarily, his body jerking unnaturally.  The others look ready to lose it too, either to tears or anger. They’re lucky they didn’t see just how horrible it was.

Then his daughter is ripping open a hole in the sky and walking out with green hair and eyes, glowing against a red sky like she was the Goddess’ divine wrath taken form, and all Jeralt can think is what in the flames did Rhea do to his kid?

He can’t leave now, he needs answers. Rhea is setting up a ritual, and things are getting strange, and he can’t leave her alone. Well…not alone, but he can’t leave.

Though she IS getting a little chummy with that Dimitri kid.

Still, he’s way more focused on spying on Rhea now that she can’t see or hear him. He watches Rhea and Seteth talk, and he’s never appreciated Seteth as much as he has when he’s demanding answers from Rhea about what was going on with Byleth.

…what is this about his kid being a vessel? 

He wishes he could reach Byleth and tell her not to sit on that throne. But she can’t hear him, no one can, so he can only watch.

The there’s invaders in the tomb, and one of the students is unmasked at that Flame Emperor guy…gal…and Dimitri loses his mind and goes very scary very fast. Even he’s a little unnerved and he’s seen some scary stuff in his day, and he’s suddenly not so sure about his daughter’s taste in men.

Then things somehow get worse, and the Empire is invading, and he hates the Church more than most, but he doesn’t approve of starting a war over the damn thing, because war is hell and there had to be a better way to do this.

He can’t help but hate Edelgard when he watches his kid go over a cliff.

He finds her body under the rubble, so mangled that he’d mistake her for dead if it wasn’t for the spark of life in her soul. He can’t…he can’t look at her like that. He can’t. He’s not strong enough. He’ll come back to her if she wakes up.

If. 

He sticks to that Dimitri kid because he might as well look over his daughter’s crush while he waits for her to be found, or wake up, or die. Whatever happens. 

He doesn’t expect things to somehow get worse, but they do. The kid is already in the middle of a breakdown, but it seems like life just wants to fuck with this kid in particular, because he’s suddenly framed, and chased, and on the run, and goddess damned if watching this kid go through a breakdown isn’t one of the hardest things he’s ever seen in his life. Kid is tormented by ghost either Jeralt can’t see or aren’t even really there, and he doesn’t know what taking care of himself means, and frankly, Jeralt doesn’t even know how this kid is alive at this point. Watching Dimitri is like watching a bridge fall apart and crash into the water below, but someone was standing on it and all you can do is stare as they hit the water and the rubble falls on top of them. He’s constantly torn between easy sympathy and disgust, and he’s almost glad Byleth hasn’t woken up yet.

Somehow Byleth does eventually wake up, five years later, and five years of war and spiraling out of control. Jeralt goes to be with her, because he loves her and wants her to be safe and watching Dimitri has become downright unbearable. But wouldn’t you know? Dimitri must be her damned soulmate or something, because he’s right there where he promised he’d meet her on the very day he promised it. And, privately, Jeralt thinks a part of Dimitri wanted her to be there as much as Jeralt wanted her to wake up.

The next few months are Jeralt wanting to grit his teeth and punch out Dimitri’s. That’s his little girl Dimitri is talking to, and if he were alive than he wouldn’t even stand a villain talking to her that way, much less a guy she wants to marry. And, fuck, he thinks she wants to marry him because she’s not giving up on the kid. And he has sympathy for the kid, he’s been through absolute shit, but he wishes she’d give up on him and go to someone, anyone, else. He’d settle for Sylvain and that kid is pretty sleazy at times.

It turns out to be worth the effort when Dimitri starts taking actual naps and getting his head straight though. Turns out he CAN see other ghosts, because that Rodrigue guy joins him right after a pretty horrible assassination attempt gone wrong. There they are, two old men, watching their kids have a meltdown in the rain, Dimitri revealing he doesn’t think he deserves to live. Rodrigue’s lip is quivering, and Jeralt has to take a cough because it’s pretty emotional after watching these two all these years. And then that Felix kid of Rodrigue’s is pretty furious about his father’s death, and he thinks Rodrigue is ready to cry, so Jeralt gives him a manly pat on the back that doesn’t even feel like one because neither of them have bodies.

Jeralt can’t help but be proud of his girl, because she’s setting herself up as a great adviser, and Dimitri getting his head straight and marching towards Faerghus might be one of the most satisfying things he’s seen in years, and he’s finally starting to remember why he first liked the kid again. Rodrigue can’t stop beaming.

Jeralt is watching Byleth and Dimtri finally get out on top after five years in the worst place they could be and he’s never been more satisfied. He’s never been more proud than watching them walk out of the theater hand-in-hand after ending the war.

Not until the wedding, anyway.

The proposal was hilarious enough, but he manages to convince Rodrigue to stick around just long enough to watch his little girl get married. It’s the most wild thing he’s ever seen, and he wishes he was over with Alois and Catherine having a drinking contest. He feels like it’d be a good excuse. The whole thing is hilarious though, and perfect for is girl, the now Queen of Faerghus, and man isn’t that weird? He loves it, even if Rodrigue is despairing beside him.

He thinks he can rest in peace now, so he and Rodrigue both let go once the wedding dies down. Their kids will be fine.

#fe3h #byleth eisner #jeralt eisner #dimileth #Dimileth Disaster Wedding #dimitri x byleth #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #rodrigue fraldarius #asks

[gascon-en-exil]

So this thought just occurred to me but do you think Dedue being default "dead" in AM is supposed to be Symbolic in the sense that the AM arc sees the return of Gustava's Prince Dimitri? Like without the tragedy of Duscar, Dedue and Dimitri would never meet or become friends. But Dedue's Dimitri was suicidal, expecting to die young trying to get vengeance for the dead. Hoping that in the course of his revenge, he could clear the people of Duscar. So Dedue had to "die" to free Dimitri...

Dedue being dead by default in AM is to accommodate Dimileth (and to a lesser extent Dedueleth). I know this because CF exists, wherein Dedue does not sacrifice himself for Dimitri during the timeskip and the two have a well-adjusted intimate relationship that only ends in tragedy because Edelgard smashes the Kingdom into dust.

Dedue’s sacrifice may be the catalyst for Dimitri’s full psychotic break in the other routes, but it’s not the focal point of his grief and lust for vengeance. That would be his father as well as his stepmother until he learns of her role in the Tragedy, which makes sense as we learn in Part 1 that it was the Tragedy that set Dimitri on the path to seeking revenge originally. Dedue’s potential death and later Rodrigue’s only add to that and trigger different stages of grief, with Rodrigue’s being the one that brings Dimitri back to himself. Not all of Dimitri’s arc is handled organically particularly where Dedue is concerned; their reunion is an emotional one but isn’t followed up on outside that scene since Dimitri is still “feral” for one more chapter, and Dimitri can’t fixate on Dedue’s death after that point because, well, he may have survived. However, there’s still a solid arc for the two of them underneath the self-insert romance mandate, thanks in large part to how their relationship is firmly established years before the game even begins.

Also, even though they share a desire for revenge we know that it’s not the core of their relationship. There’s the exploration dialogue from Dedue the chapter after Dimitri’s turnaround, where he explains that Dimitri is still fundamentally the same person he’s always been: too kind and sensitive to the pain of others, which is why Dedue admires him. The implication is that the revenge is only a manifestation of that sensitivity - a self-destructive one to be sure, but one that Dedue understands on a personal level based on his dialogue the chapter before the timeskip. Even with the extreme trauma bonding it’s not what defines them, and it’s interesting to see how that plays out in their interactions when Byleth’s not being shoved between them.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Dimidue #Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd #Dedue Molinaro

[incorrectsmashbrosquotes]

Okay so, I had a weird idea after watching “The Gentlemen” in theaters last weekend and I thought you guys might find this interesting.

If you want me to so into more detail on it, like the backstories of the individual characters, just tell me through comments and asks.

Three Houses: Gangster AU

The Church of Seiros is now the Police department, headed by Commissioner Rhea and her right hand man Captain Seteth. The police try to maintain order in a city divided up by gangs and dominated by fear, mainly due to the heroic efforts of Detective Catherine and her partner Shamir, as well as Lieutenants Alois and Gilbert. But even though the cops seem to be the voice of law and order, many can’t help but feel that Commissioner Rhea has her own agenda at play.

The Blue Lions, or simply called “The Kingdom” by those in the know, are one of the oldest crime families in the city. An offshoot of the Russian Mafia, their previous leader was assassinated by some of his inner circle. Many thought and/or hoped that The Kingdom would collapse without it’s king, but teenage Dimitri stepped up to lead, aided by his core group of childhood friends, Felix, Ingrid, and Sylvain who were all born into the life like him. 

With the aid of his personal hatchet-man Dedue, Dimitri purged unsavory elements from the gang he never truly wanted to lead. Recruiting some fresh talent, professional thief Ashe, back-alley medic Mercedes, and flunked out scientist Annette, Dimitri rules his Kingdom with a firm but fair hand, despite his initial bloody take-over giving him the reputation of “The Blood-Thirsty Boar”.

The Black Eagles are another gang with history, referred to as “The Empire” by a lot of cops. Founded by German political refugees who fled the Fatherland during Hitler’s rise to power, The eagles went uncontested for the longest time. They are also involved in some of the most questionable shit you can imagine, and not even many of it’s members want to know the depths of the gang’s dirty dealings. Led by the ruthless Edelgard who seized control from her own parents at a young age, Edelgard has a gentler hand than many who came before, but the lurking presence of professional sadist Hubert is enough to dissuade any ideas of rebellion.

Commanding a powerful inner-circle, Edelgard has her hands in many pies, from up and coming politicians like Ferdinand, to entertainers like Dorothea. Others are straight-up hired muscle like Bernadetta, who can shoot the wings off a fly, and Caspar, a professional bone-breaker. Even weirder is mad-scientist for hire Lindhart and foreign personal assassin Petra who both work for “The Flame Empress”. Many believe that Edelgard wants to straight-up take over the city, and with the power she weilds, she may just be able to.

The Golden Deer are the new kids on the block. The up and comers. The crazy motherfuckers. No one saw them coming, but they’re here now and they’re here to stay. Unlike the Empire and the Kingdom, The Deer are not one single Crime family, but an Alliance formed from all the remaining independents and private contractors in the city to keep from being taken by the Kingdom or the Empire. They’re led by Claude, a half-Japanese half-Cheyenne professional bastard who exploded onto the scene like a millennial firework.

Aided by professional ass-kickers, Leonie and Raphael, crazy back alley scientists, Marianne and Lysithea, and assorted other scoundrels like Ignatz and Hilda, Claude has big plans for the city, mainly using up-and coming politician Lorenz to be their voice in government. The Alliance is loose and shaky, mainly held together by Claude and his inner-circle, but if he were to die the Alliance would almost certainly collapse, something Edelgard and Dimitri are very aware of.

In a city ravaged by crime and ruled by fear, a new face arrives...

Byleth. No one knows who he is or where he came from, though Rhea seems to have a pretty good idea. But they’ve gained a reputation as one hell of a private contractor, solving problems for any who can throw a few bucks his way. They’ve made an impact on the city in a very short time, gaining everyone’s attention, and everyone wants them on their side.

One things for certain, the City will never be the same.

#incorrect super smash bros #super smash bros #incorrect quotes #Fire Emblem #Three Houses #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Gangster AU #Byleth #Edelgard #Dimitri #Claude #Black eagles #Blue Lions #Golden deer #Church of Seiros

[crackimagines]

Child!Byleth going after Kronya? And maybe the student’s reactions to it?

Child!Byleth Post Masterlist here!

HOHO, I’VE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS! I NEVER GOT TO WRITE

LITTLE BYLTEH’S EVIL SIDE, THANKS FOR THE HELP ANON!

—-

Child!Byleth going after Kronya HC’s

Child!Byleth Professor AU

His students learn why Jeralt and his mercenary company called him ‘The Ashen Demon’ ‘The Mad Dog of Shimano’.

—-

- The students had barely caught up to Byleth now. He ran ahead, faster than all of them to get to the person who killed his father.

- At first, they were worried for Byleth, for the initial group they sent out to attack was massive.

- Now?

- There were corpses scattered about everywhere, with their Tiny Professor covered in blood.

- Everyone was shocked, not being able to say anything. Byleth only stopped to kill the last soldier, driving the Sword of the Creator into their chest. Once they looked up, several more soldiers came rushing in, but stopped themselves.

- They just realized that the students didn’t help him, it was just the child.

(Soldier) “W-What in the…?!”

(Byleth) “Like roaches to the slaughter…!”

- Everyone, including the students took a step back, hearing the child’s voice growing more raspy, and bloodthirsty.

(Byleth) “It’ll take more than A FEW BUGS TO STOP ME!”

- The soldiers sent as reinforcements wasn’t just a ‘few’. 

- They were a 20 man company.

(Soldier) “T-This kid’s got a screw loose! He’s crazy!”

(Mage) “Y-You don’t stand a chance, boy!”

(Byleth) “You fucks don’t even add to my body count…Now,

GET OUT OF MY WAY YOU MEATSACKS!”

I HEARD, IN MIDNIGHT

SOMEONE SCREAMED OUT INTO THE DARK

Class Reactions Under the Cut

Blue Lions

Dimitri -

- He couldn’t be any more proud of his Tiny Professor.

- For the crime of taking away his friend’s loved ones. There was to be no mercy, no respite.

- Seeing as his Professor was unleashed, it only made sense for the student to join him.

- He raised his lance and joined Byleth in the slaughter.

(Dimitri) “RIP THEM LIMB FROM LIMB!”

- He and Byleth became whirlwinds of death, killing everything that was in the general vicinity. 

- With those two, each soldier died a horrific and painful death.

Dedue -

- He was disappointed in both Dimitri and the Professor.

- The Professor was supposed to stop his majesty from having these violent outbreaks, not encourage them.

- Regardless, he didn’t have time to reflect, he rushed in with the two and began fighting off the enemies.

Felix -

- This wasn’t the professor’s true colors. He was just overcome with grief and anger, so he could slightly understand…

- But that did NOT justify unleashing the Boar Prince as well.

- Whatever, he’d have a very very serious talk with Byleth afterwards.

Sylvain -

- Fear. That’s all there was in Sylvain.

- He was aware that Byleth had been a mercenary but…This level of carnage? He didn’t think someone that small could hold so much rage in them.

- After the shock wore off, he eventually joined in the fray.

Ashe -

- He couldn’t exactly tell off Byleth for his actions, because he felt the same rage when he fought the Western Church members who had corrupted Lonato.

- If anything, he was kinda happy Byleth was getting his revenge as well, but it still scared him just how brutal he was.

- He prayed to the Goddess he’d never make Byleth mad if he were on the other side of the sword.

Ingrid - 

- She was scared for Dimitri and Byleth. She’d never seen either of them so vicious before, and she couldn’t move her pegasus to help for a while.

- It took Sylvain to get her out of the daze, but even then she couldn’t get the image out.

- She’d have to check in on them later, because this wasn’t right.

- It wasn’t them.

Mercedes & Annette -

- They could not move once they heard the Professor shout like that.

- All that time they had been babying him, it was then they truly realized he didn’t need any of that.

- He wasn’t a child, what was before them was a demon.

- Strangely enough, that only motivated them more to be there for the Professor and Dimitri. Both of them were surely just taken over by the grief. That couldn’t be the Professor in his right mind. 

- It couldn’t possibly be.

Black Eagles

Edelgard & Hubert -

- They were barely shocked, if at all.

- After Jeralt’s death, they knew he was just waiting for the chance to unleash everything he had at once, and whatever poor bastard was on the other side today…

- Well, they got what was coming.

- Wasting no time, they both immediately joined the Professor, though they were not nearly as sadistic as him.

Caspar -

- No time to care, there were enemies everywhere!

- Well, there used to be anyway.

- All Caspar wanted was to help his professor take revenge, to hell with these people!

Ferdinand & Dorothea -

- Genuine shock froze them in place. To think, their tiny Professor was capable of such bloodshed.

- Ferdinand gulped hard, barely able to process just how quickly Byleth was killing…No, slaughtering the enemy.

- This wasn’t just a battlefield for revenge, this was a massacre in his eyes.

- Dorothea felt something similar, tempted to take her hat off in respect. But in the end, they truly deserved none. She nudged Ferdinand in the shoulder, and moved forward. He quickly joined.

Bernadetta -

- She screamed once she saw the child kill all 20 of the soldiers with barely any help, and the fight only lasted about 10 seconds.

- Bernadetta wanted to run away, and honestly no one would’ve blamed her if she did. 

- But, this was the moment the professor needed her the most, to leave now would be a complete betrayal of his trust.

- Reluctantly, she grabbed her bow, took a deep breath, and joined the fight.

Petra -

- She was beside herself once the bodies started hitting the floor.

- She was no stranger to combat at this point, but this wasn’t even combat. The soldiers she saw didn’t even have a chance to fight back. This was what she did with animals.

- This was a hunter and a prey, but this hunter wasn’t killing for survival. It was for sport at this point.

- She shook her head, hoping that this would not be permanent, and helped out.

Linhardt -

- He was sicked, absolutely sickened by all this blood.

- He expected Edelgard or Hubert to be capable of this carnage, not their tiny professor.

- The fact that a mere child was performing such crimes made him sick to his stomach.

- At the same time, he couldn’t run. They were here because they had taken away Jeralt, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let them get away with it because of his personal distaste. 

Golden Deer

Claude -

- To think, after what he said after the graveyard would lead to this.

- He knew that in battle, Byleth was absolutely lethal but…this? This he couldn’t even fathom

- It was like some twisted joke.

- He sighed, drawing arrows from his quiver.

- It was time to help Byleth…Not that it looked like h needed any.

Leonie - 

- She didn’t care about how brutally the soldiers were dying. In fact, she started up a little competition with Byleth as she fought with him.

- How many kills could they get for Jeralt?

- They had taken someone dear from her to, and was she going to do all she could to help Byleth take revenge.

Lysithea, Lorenz & Hilda -

- They genuinely didn’t know what to do.

- From the look of things, Byleth could singlehanded slaughter the entire enemy force, and that wasn’t even including the help from Leonie.

- It absolutely terrified them, seeing a child killing with such hatred.

Raphael & Ignatz -

- They saw just how brutally Byleth was ripping them apart. They stood still, not believing their own eyes.

- The professor around Raphael, sure he wasn’t that emotive, but seemed so happy and easygoing!

- Seeing this side of him shook Raphael to the core. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to look at Byleth the same.

- Meanwhile with Ignatz, he was always so calm and collected, he had never seen the professor angry at the academy at all.

- Ignatz knew that if it were just them in a room, he’d start sweating.

Marianne -

- She was so confused.

- The professor was always so kind and patient with her, to see this side was jarring.

- She recalled all the moments when he helped her out so many times, and with a tiny smile on his face.

- That all seemed so distant now.

- She prayed to the goddess that this wasn’t permanent.

#child!byleth #fire emblem three houses imagines #fire emblem three houses headcanons #fe3h #fe16 #byleth #edelgard von hraesvelgr #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #claude von regan #dedue molinaro #felix hugo fraldarius #sylvain jose gautier #ashe duran #ingrid galatea #mercedes von martlitz #annette fantine dominique #hubert von vestra #dorothea arnault #bernadetta von varley #petra macneary #ferdinand von aegir #caspar von bergliez #linhardt von hevring #hilda valentine goneril #lysithea von cordelia #raphael kirsten #ignatz victor #marianne von edmund #leonie pinelli #lorenz hellman gloucester