#what I'm saying is that a Claude who didn't have enough time in Fodlan after coming there from his own life in Almyra

[dmclemblems]

an extremely lengthy and massive deduction of Hopes Claude, feat. Faerghus politics and why Hopes Claude saw a slippery slide with its water on full blast and jumped on it without his summer Heroes alt or his swimsuit, causing all kinds of pain and suffering and grief, brought to you by i have nothing else to do except play more Hopes anyway.

so as some of you probably know I’m not a fan of Hopes Claude, but it does prove to me some things: Claude would only ever side with Edelgard in a world where he lacked proper knowledge about Fodlan.

the only chance in the entire world that he would even somewhat align with her goals is a world where he didn’t know what the fuck he was even actually getting himself into, was too young (19 versus 23), and had no idea how to handle foreign politics.

in a world where he does understand Fodlan, is not too young and is far more knowledge about the land’s politics, he sides with Dimitri (AM and intended to do so in all other routes) and does not want Rhea dead.

people are arguing that Claude entertained the idea of Rhea being dead in Houses; however, this only happened very briefly and during an earlier time in the Academy arc. He was 17/18, had not been in the Academy for a whole year yet, and was still extremely iffy and lacked knowledge about Fodlan’s politics and how the Church was part of them.

in a world where Claude grew into adulthood in Fodlan and was able to learn its culture and customs, he also understood that killing Rhea was not the answer and that no amount of bloodshed was going to solve the greater levels of problems.

it’s also worth noting that his trust in Dimitri between both games proves these points. in Hopes, we’re basically dealing with a stunted Fodlan growth Claude who was taken in by Edelgard’s bullshit because he was stressed out and tired of playing defensive against the Empire. he basically surrendered to her by making an alliance with her and just took her concepts about the Church and ran with them because he was tired.

he didn’t have the same trust in Dimitri because he didn’t know him as well, which is shown when he says he doesn’t understand what’s going on in  Dimitri’s head, versus in AM where he very, extremely understands Dimitri’s mindset to the most sensitive aspects of Dimitri’s behavior. how did he know that Byleth could talk to Dimitri and get him to listen? how did he know that Dimitri clung to the dead in the ways that he did? he knew those things because he knew Dimitri significantly better.

I see people saying that not having Byleth with Claude was why he ended up like this. that’s completely incorrect as proven by all three other routes in Houses. the main factor was his lack of being at the Academy for a full year and being able to have five years instead of two to learn and understand Fodlan’s political landscape.

the issue with Claude in Hopes is that he was basically thrown into a defensive war way sooner than he could handle. remember, Claude came from a life where he was a target for assassination repeatedly since for as long as he had any memories. he’s coming from a bad personal environment. on its own Almyra isn’t as bad as people in Fodlan see it as, but Claude’s own life was pretty terrible. couple that with literally running away from home without a word (only his mother knew about it as confirmed in Hopes with both Shahid and their father having no idea where he went and his father being distraught about it enough that he didn’t care that Shahid was causing mayhem in Fodlan) and the fact that he ran away to Fodlan and only had a few months at the Academy before things got messy enough that Rhea had to send everyone home.

then, take him running away from that horrible environment he lived in and couple it with the fact that he had two years there before Edelgard forced him into a war when he and the other lords of the Alliance did nothing whatsoever to her. he had, say, a total of two and a half years tops to get used to Fodlan before he got forced into a defensive war as a 19 year old. on top of that, whether or not you like Shez as a character, it’s not untrue that Shez is the one who planted the idea of overthrowing the Alliance into his head. even though they talked about it at the roundtable, Lorenz stated it was a VERY long discussion and from the sounds of it, it took a whole shit ton of convincing for Claude to be able to become its singular leader.

all of that culminated in what was essentially Claude’s bad ending, leading to him wanting to overthrow Fodlan and “take it for himself”, which as we know is nothing like Claude in Houses. imo all of these factors basically drove Claude to his worst mindset, where he would literally trap their supposed allies (Randolph’s army) and leave them to die, then only a bit more time passing before he declares war on the entirety of Fodlan.

not only is he basically exactly the same as Edelgard by this point, with both of them waging war on every single political power on the continent outside their own country, but Dimitri is the only one who wants nothing to do with it and is just trying to fix his own country while having to deal with the Church pressuring him (Rhea more specifically, because Seteth is far more mellow in his approach. Rhea is more along the lines of “we have to defeat them and kill these heathens” and Seteth is more along the lines of just wanting to make sure Rhea, Flayn and the Church are safe). Dimitri ends up with pressure on every single possible side: the Church, the Empire, the Alliance, and the civil wars in Faerghus that Cornelia and Rufus effectively caused. and, well, on top of all that, he’s got TWS to deal with, so... imo Claude really helped cause a bad ending/future for Fodlan by doing this. he’s basically assisted in helping destroy Fodlan.

what I’m saying is that TWS basically has Edelgard and Claude dancing on strings and helping them completely rip Fodlan apart. a younger version of Claude with less emotional attachment to Fodlan and less understanding of its inner workings is basically no better than Edelgard in being perfect bait for TWS to use and abuse.

tbh, TWS might have actually succeeded in wiping out Fodlan entirely if not for Faerghus and how loyal and emotional its leaders are. while the Alliance and Empire are having a vicious war that leads to Claude descending into the mess we saw in Hopes, Dimitri is stuck between dealing with the Empire and Cornelia, gets captured and is about to give up his life so his people don’t get killed (because Cornelia was using them as mass hostages essentially and was going to kill as many of his people as possible with TWS’ weaponry).

the only reason that didn’t happen is because Felix, who is in charge of the army in Dimitri’s absence, and everyone assisting him drop what they’re doing in the war, leave the defenses to Miklan and head out to save Dimitri. in GW/SB we don’t hear much from the Kingdom because for a chunk of chapters they’re dealing with their own issues, which also reduces the time Claude is exposed to seeing what Faerghus is like and learning that things are not as bad in Fodlan as Edelgard made them out to be. Faerghus is forced to be wrapped up in their own affairs and have no communication with the outside world because they have no chance to be.

the Faerghus part of Claude’s lack of knowledge that was extremely important and what Claude needed to know but didn’t that caused him to go down a slippery slope he couldn’t come back from:

“oh no crests and the system have taken over fodlan aaaaa” Faerghus has been trying to solve that for years and has been steadily and peacefully working to manage that, and it’s very clearly expressed in this game. while they were doing this in Houses too, it was less clear just how deeply into the subject they were going with it within their own leaders/powers. not only does Sylvain’s support with Dimitri discuss very in depth that they’ve been working on it and are still trying to in the middle of a war because it means so much to them, but the fact that Dimitri hired a non-Crest bearer to be a commander in his army is enough proof that they’ve made progress.

now while there was a minor shitshow of boo hoo how could you hire a former bandit as a commander, that had nothing to do with Crests! people were more concerned that Dimitri wasn’t being careful enough in who he hired because of background and history, but Dimitri’s decision was actually, wait for it, the correct answer. hiring someone who was disinherited for not bearing a Crest as a commander in his army was the proof that he hired based on strength, merit and potential. he also was willing to give people second chances and the only people who were aware of this internal concern were people more closely related to the Faerghus Four’s territory.

Seteth, in particular, has a good deal of faith in Miklan’s abilities as expressed at camp in chapter eight. as an outsider to the drama the Faerghus Four know about, all Seteth (the second highest power in the entirety of the Church system) is seeing is a non-Crest bearer with potential and capability leading a unit and being loyal to Dimtiri. while Miklan prefers to act like he’s not really all that loyal and had no choice (as discussed when Miklan is officially established as part of the army and at camp), he could have turned tail and left (especially during chapter nine), but he decided to lay down his life for this and died with more or less a smile/smirk, indicating he was satisfied with his decision and didn’t lament his fate the way he did in Houses when Dimitri didn’t have the chance to save him.

what this means for Claude is that there was an entire mess going on in Faerghus all that time that he was struggling and starting to question how to handle the war on his end. everything Claude lost all faith in was happening elsewhere in Fodlan, and had he had the time at the Academy to see what it was like there, he would have had more time to realize that Dimitri (and thus the future of Faerghus) was someone who was going to turn the Crest system on its absolute head if given the time to do so (and Sylvain is very much a pioneer in fixing that system in BOTH games, which again circles back to Miklan in part of why Sylvain is so deeply part of that change).

tbh I think the biggest loss for Claude here is that he didn’t get to meet Miklan and find out that Dimitri had given him such a prominent station in the Faerghus army (and mind you, his absolute trust and Sylvain’s. they left a good chunk of trust in the soldiers left to handle the Empire when they had to rescue Dimitri, which means they all also trusted they wouldn’t be turned on and have anyone betray them for the Empire). that would have been the first crack in his concerns with the Crest system and would have led him with his more curious nature to look more into what was going on in the Faerghus army, and thus, destroying any perception he had that the Crest system was really destroying Fodlan.

ultimately yeah, you could say the Crest system had become an issue... but if Claude had more time to realize people were working on it, peacefully and without bloodshed, he would have sided with those people instead of becoming a huge warmonger, equal to the scale of Edelgard.

what I’m saying is that yeah, I don’t like how Claude turned out in GW/SB, but I can see where it came from and how fucked up it made him that he didn’t spend that time at the Academy. again, Byleth being by Claude’s side had zero bearing on Claude’s maturity. in AM Byleth was never with Claude, but Claude ceded the Alliance to Dimitri and trusted him to care for Fodlan and Claude’s people while giving him the Alliance’s most important possession (Failnaught). he didn’t need Byleth at his side to mature. he needed time and understanding. Byleth did help somewhat by being there because he knew Byleth for a whole year, knew Byleth’s influence on Dimitri on a personal scale in AM (proven in AM chapter 19), and because Byleth naturally had a large part in the turn of events, but Byleth was not a singular reason for Claude to go in one direction or another.

you know at this point im more inclined to say tl;dr miklan’s appointment as a commander in the army could’ve saved fodlan’s future if claude had only met him and learned about his background because claude’s perception of the crest system and edelgard’s nonsense would've been shattered in a heartbeat.

so you know what, i think im gonna say tl;dr dimitri and miklan should’ve been the real mvps but we were robbed because miklan deserved so much more having finally turned his life around no thanks to matthias

...real tl;dr tho, hopes claude (particularly non AG) is literally bad ending claude while houses claude (AM/VW) is good ending claude (CF ending claude varies between dead claude and status unknown claude bc we don’t really learn what happened with him after the game. we just know he went back to Almyra and not if he ever bothered forging relations with an Edelgard conquered Fodlan). ss ending claude is just a big ol’ ??? but i’d assume things worked out in the end bc byleth took over as the leader of fodlan in ss which is exactly what happened in vw so if vw led to good ending claude, i assume ss did too.

#Three Houses #Three Hopes #Three Hopes Spoilers #what this is: A Very Lengthy Post About Two Claudes #(by very lengthy i mean kinda massive) #what this also is: a comprehensive look into why Edelgard and Claude's motives in Hopes are a total failure #what this also also is: why is Claude had had more exposure to Faerghus' politics that he NEVER signed on with Edelgard's war #and THEN made his own war so there were basically two mass declarations of war going at once #and mind you the fact that Claude declared war on Faerghus too further proved that Claude didn't even have basic knowledge of Dimitri #getting cozy with Faerghus would have allowed him to properly assess the Church and talks things out with them #and if that failed he would be able to take it from there but with the help of the lords from Faerghus #and with that he would've had security in that if Rhea tried to harm him that Dimitri could intervene #what I'm saying is that a Claude who didn't have enough time in Fodlan after coming there from his own life in Almyra #is a Claude who was emotionally and politically stunted in his growth in Fodlan and expressed stress and confusion very often #what this also also also is: Faerghus was handling the Crest system anyway and Edelgard ruined everything #and Claude got swept up in Edelgard's bullshit in Hopes #honestly I think the tl;dr of this is that Miklan is kind of the center of proof that Faerghus was doing the right thing #and that Faerghus was the most progressive nation in Fodlan. they were just doing it quietly and internally #and they couldn't have changed anything outside of Faerghus without first fixing Faerghus itself #also I rly hate the whole ''THE CHURCH IS BAD" concept bc like wtf did Seteth and Flayn ever do to y'all... #I hate how so many characters boil down whatever Rhea does to being the fault of EVERYONE in the Church #as if they all knew about everything/had a say in everything bc even Seteth wasn't privy to what happened with Byleth in Houses #even if characters hate Rhea there's no reason to blame the entirety of the Church for that #you'd think people would realize that's discrimination but even a lot of fans just go along with it. siiiigh

[mysticdragon3md3]

Just noticed Rhea's archbishop headdress has hearts all over it. Plus, she has a little heart right on her chest.

A while ago, I wrote an analysis of all the hearts on El's costume, when I first noticed them all over her post timeskip outfit. She literally has her hearts in all the wrong places. Her hips, her back,…There's also a tiny heart on her forehead, but it is UPSIDE-DOWN. It's like the character designer went out of their way to symbolize that "her heart is in the wrong place". Though that is an English idiom, a "heart in the wrong place" (not in the chest) could still be universal enough to symbolize misguided intentions or misguided emotions. Kind of like the cliche of edgey anime antiheroes/villains with one monstrous eye, reflecting their warped perspectives. (I'll gladly accept that as true, even for characters I love, like Lelouch vi Britannia.) Even just being upside-down could still be universal enough to symbolize an inverted, "incorrect" state of emotions.

So now that I've just now noticed all these hearts all over Rhea's headdress, plus her chest, I'm inclined to wonder if that was a big hint that she wasn't a villain. I'll be the first to admit that Rhea gets too blindly zealous whenever anything involves her mother, and maybe she shouldn't be the sole leader of any standing army in that state. But for the rest of the time, first-hand observations of her, show what appears to be a fairly good person.

FE3H seems to have a lot of discord between people's reports/claims of how something is, versus observable facts: Fodlan's history, Claude's good nature vs his self-proclaimed suspiciousness, the Agarthan's claims about Rhea vs first-hand observations of her character/actions, etc. There's even a lot of misleading in characters' names, like "Claude" being a reference to a nefarious character in a Shakespeare play, versus Claude's actual good nature and benign intentions, as well as "Edelgard" literally meaning "noble guard", in contrast to her actually functioning as the villain or villain-protagonist. But despite all the misdirections, FE3H does ask the audience to judge their own direct observations of a character…in addition to using a lot of blatant direct symbolism in their character designs. For example, after the post timeskip, both El and Dimitri have multiple cliche antagonist elements to their character design: El's horns and almost fully red attire evoke the imagery of a traditional devil; Dimitri wears all black armor, an eyepatch, and has allowed his hair to grow wild and shaggy, like cliche villain/antagonist/anti-hero costume elements. It seems that FE3H not only wants the audience to judge a character "with their own eyes" but to also signal hints for a character's true function, through their visual costume.

So why does Rhea have hearts all over her head? Right-side-up hearts, at that. Given that Rhea appears to be a good person, willing to defend Garreg Mach, saying she didn't want a repeat of the Red Canyon tragedy, contrasting against the Agarthans who do not see humans as valid sentient beings… Given that Rhea seems benign in most White Clouds interactions… Given that Cyril feels so indebted and grateful to her, strongly implying that she helped him greatly… Given that Rhea seemed to treat her human experimental subjects well, by treating Sitri as family, even after she proved to be another "failed experiment" to resurrect Sothis… Rhea is probably a good person, and that will likely be reflected in the hearts on her costume. Unlike El's post timeskip hearts in "all the wrong places", Rhea does have her hearts in the "right places". Rhea has a heart in her center chest, where the Heart Chakra is. Then she has multiple hearts on her Archbishop headdress: 3 in her crown; 1 at her center forehead. Though, a heart is typically thought of in the (leftish) chest, since people consider the mind and head to be centers of the self, it feels like a good reflection on Rhea's character, for her to have multiple hearts around/on her head. It could imply that she is "thinking with empathy", and thus, kindness.

In contrast, we have character designs like El, who has one of her misplaced hearts on her forehead, in the same place as Rhea, but El's heart is upside-down and partially overlapped by a sharp 4-pointed star, which I discussed in another post, might symbolize a character's past trauma "scars". Though I find it curious that Rhea wouldn't have a similar "scar" symbol overlapping one of her costume's hearts, since she has similar trouble moving on from her past trauma, just like El.

Though, now looking closer at Rhea's Archbishop costume, she actually as a LOT of these 4-pointed "star"/scar symbols, many of them seeming to emanate from or surrounding her costume's hearts. Rhea has 3 pointed "scars" above her center-chest heart, gold pointed "scars" above each of her headdress's hearts, perhaps even more pointed "scars" if you also count the white stars above the sides of each heart on her headdress too, pointed "scars" in her flared collar, one pointed "scar" on each side of her mini cape's/cowl's front. Looking at the back of her costume, she has another pointed "scar" on her back---as well as another heart at the back of her headdress! The back of her headdress has even more pointed "scars". I know Sothis, and thus Nabateans are associated with stars, since Sothis came from space, but with these pointed "scars" also being on the costumes of the House Lords' after the timeskip, and coincidentally symbolically reflective of how they handle their past traumas, I am inclined to think the pointed "scars" on Rhea's costume are also more than just a reference to stars. I only just now noticed the additional hearts on the fronts of her mini cape/cowl, but these are also beside pointed "scars", which seem to emanate from the hearts. It's almost like a direct symbol of how past pain/trauma has emanated from Rhea's emotional centers. Her emotions of caring and kindness are the bases from which these pointed "scars" spring from. Maybe she was too sensitive, too intense in her emotions, which is why she went to such extreme reactions after Nemesis killed her mother and the other Nabateans. It would be normal to seek revenge, to get sad, or angry. But Seiros's reaction to Nemesis killing Sothis, was to build an Empire, so she could build an army to take him on. Even during FE3H's very first cutscene, Seiros is shown to be so focused on her revenge, that she doesn't even spare a look for the comrades fighting and dying for her. Similarly, when on the battlefield in 3Hopes, Rhea has no response to Cyril's death, even after his final words are only about her. Whatever kindness/compassion that Rhea has, it can also convert into just pure expressions of pain, trauma, and anger, once she is triggered. Maybe that's why the pointed "scars" emanate from her costume's hearts.

One curious thing about the hearts on Rhea's costume is that she does have ONE upside-down heart, dangling on the front of her dress, between her hips and thighs. Now, because Rhea only has one upside-down heart, as opposed to El's multiple misplaced/misaligned hearts, even one misaligned heart on Rhea's costume seems less ominous. It doesn't seem to mark her as an antagonist/villain, like El, but it does seem to hint that there is something wrong with Rhea. Fittingly, this upside-down heart is covered by another element of her costume: a decorative panel of fabric, connecting the mini cape/cowl at its front. Rhea is literally covering up the warped, misaligned parts of her symbolic emotions. Instead of coming to terms with her mother's death, she misguidedly, repeatedly tries to resurrect Sothis…which is not a healthy coping mechanism! She keeps such experiments in secret, and thus, it seems fitting that the warped results of her emotionally warped aspects are also hidden on her costume.

I will admit, that hearing the full Silver Snow explanation for what happened during Byleth's birth, does make me inclined to read Rhea with more leeway towards benevolence. She wasn't just kidnapping people to torture with human experiments, like what the Agarthans did with Lysithea and El. I don't recall if it was ever confirmed that Rhea was creating these human experiments from scratch or not. But the important fact is that she treated these experimental beings as family, with kindness, as valid individuals, even AFTER they proved to be failures towards her goals. And number one rule of mad sciencing: if you're treating your experiments with compassion, then you can't be that bad of a mad scientist.

So yeah, just like El, Rhea has a LOT of hearts hidden on her costume design. (And I haven't seen this many symbolic "scars" since Claude's post timeskip costume design.)

One final bit of speculation about heart shapes on costume designs, is that today I also began to wonder if the brooches pinning the House Leaders' Academy uniform capes might also count as symbolic hearts? And what would that mean? I've always drawn that brooch, as a heart, with a diamond on top. A much more blunted diamond shape, than the 4-pointed "scar"/stars, so I'll focus more on the heart (for today). It's interesting to note that the heart shaped portion of these brooches are much more obscured than the clearer heart shapes on Rhea's and El's costumes. But maybe that's fitting for the House Leaders during White Clouds. Before the war, Byleth still has no idea of the true nature of these characters. Byleth is still trying to get to know them. But El is hiding her true heart, by hiding her true intentions, plans for war, etc. Claude is hiding his true self so thoroughly, he offers multiple misdirects, including a few honest statements, mixed in with the misdirects, that it's often difficult to tell when he's being absolutely sincere or just joking. Dimitri is also hiding his true heart, by putting on the "perfect prince" facade, while actually fixated on avenging everyone killed/hurt by the Tragedy of Duscur, as well as fixated on his suppressed, unresolved Boar rage about it. None of the House Leaders are being fully honest about showing their hearts to Byleth during the Academy phase. It's no wonder that the heart-shaped symbols on their uniforms are obscured by lots of filigree.

#rambling #processing thoughts #speculation #symbolism #costume design #fe3hfuukasetsugetsu #samenamebutnotmysis #elredeaglescrit #claudeVRkhalid #dimamityaAB

[butwhatifidothis]

Raphael being a knight isn’t super weird. He entered the a academy to become one. I know Claude, and think Lorenz, says they’ll hire him as a knight after graduating. Plus his family probably lives close to/in Dierdriu if his parents were picked to go with Duke Reigan to Gloucester.

Yeah, that and the NPC general are why I said that while it's a bit of a stretch to outright say he's a knight for House Riegan, it's not off the table. Lorenz said he'd make Ignatz a knight for Gloucester though not Raphael lol.

The main reason for the note - combined with other notes - was to point out how it was mostly just an excuse to put Raphael in CF for no reason other than to kill him. He's deadass not someone you fight on CF if you don't recruit him, but for whatever reason Cap'n felt the need to slap him in an already inaccurate, nonsensical fight. And it wasn't to make the reader feel something for him - not only has Raphael had no presence in the fic at all before that point (outside of throwaway mentions of his name), but afterwards his death is given literally no attention placed on it. He's just there to make the death counter have another notch in it, regardless of whether it actually impacts anything - oh, and to make Claude the one at fault, can't forget that!

Did he reveal anything in the fight itself that was essential to themes of the fic? No - everything he said was said by others before him, which themselves were just as hand-waved away as his words were. Like, the words are true, Raphael is right in saying them, but the narrative Cap'n wants the reader to pick up on doesn't agree with that and so they're basically filler. What about the characters, does he impact them at all? Not really - Woobiegard has a bit of a :( about what he said to her before Marianne bibbidi-bobbidi-boo's all of his rightful criticisms away by reminding the reader that Woobiegard helped her so that means she's a good person. The plot? Nope, nothing he says relates to that at all, either.

You can literally completely cut out Raphael from the fic entirely and have nothing change whatsoever. Not just this scene! He contributes absolutely nothing to anything at all ever in any way. He's literally just death fodder to make the reader - who'd only even potentially care about him because of the game, not by any effort of the fic - feel kinda sad that someone with a name died. It's supposed to show off how much this war "takes away" from people... as they fight someone who is basically a stranger to anyone the reader would be familiar with. At least with Ignatz he's actually on the Great Bridge in the game even if he otherwise fits this description too (and even if, I'm just now noticing, he had his line about helping Claude build the future for Fodlan cut out entirely), but Raphael was thrown in for basically shits and giggles.

The Knight Raphael thing is a small band-aid on glaring hole in the overall fic: it wants to simultaneously make the reader feel bad for having the "good guy" characters kill off other known characters... without actually making the reader feel that bad about it, since Woobiegard still has to be right about everything. It's part of why Raphael didn't have any - and I can not stress this enough, any - presence in the fic up to that point, part of why he was just mentioned here and there, part of why there needed to be any explanation as to why he's there in CF at all when Cap'n could have very easily kept ignoring him. The reader is sorta kinda ish familiar-adjacent with the concept of a character with the name Raphael, but not enough to actually feel anything for him if something were to happen. The guy didn't even have speaking lines before this moment - hell, the man had only physically appeared at all in the fic a grand total of five times - and since he doesn't have Pretty Young Woman Girl privilege like Leonie and Hilda, he gets killed for cheap "emotional value" that just doesn't exist.

Where did him wanting to be a knight come from? The game, yes, but where in the fic? Why does Raphael want to be a knight? And why is it so important to him that he's willing to put his life in mortal danger to repay Claude for making him one? How does Lysithea know about Raphael having a sister? And what, a sister? Younger or older? What's her name? Why doesn't Lysithea mention his parents alongside his sister (obviously because they're dead, but there's no indication of that being the case from just the fic)? Why is focus being put on Raphael when we know nothing about him as a character? When the fic puts so much emphasis on the motivations of the characters (or at least wants to emphasize the motivations) seeing it rely so heavily on the game for a character to be cared about at all is... very jarring, if that makes sense

#ask #anon #o captain my captain #like Raphael being knighted is just a flimsy attempt at explaining why he's there since he's like. not there in canon lol #by itself it wouldn't be much of anything but #it's a small symptom of a big flaw in the overall fic #that flaw being ''the need for Woobeigard to always be right cuts into the emotional moments this fic can have'' #''because giving TOO much depth to the characters Woobiegard brutally kills would negatively affect the reader's opinion of her'' #''and so they have to basically be either evil crazy or little more than cardboard cut outs'' #hope i'm making sense lol

[dmclemblems]

Different anon, but I recall rhea in hopes confirms she does know about claudes heritage, she tells Dimitri that Claude isn't from Fodlan .

Headcanon but I think she knew the whole time and just decided not to say anything because

1. she knows how people will react to him being Almyran.

2. when Godfrey died House Riegan was left without an heir which would lead to chaos in the Alliance, Then an heir magically shows up and it brings back some semblance of order. Knowing Rhea she would prefer peace over chaos any day.

So I think her reasons for keeping his background secret is both out of compassion (as she was born a Nabatean that humans have attempted to genocide. she knows what its like to feel like an "outsider") and for practical reasons to keep the peace.

And the idea she knowingly accepted an almyran into her school and accepted that he would one day become the leader of the alliance is a fascinating prospect!

The idea that she's against fodlan forging foreign relations is so bizarre 😂

Well, everyone knows Claude isn't from Fodlan so I'm not certain Rhea knows he's from Almyra specifically. She does probably know that he's being treated as "different" though, similar to what Dedue deals with even if without the "your people murdered Faerghus' king" accusations.

I do think she kept quiet about any ideas she might've had because yeah, if she figured out he was from Almyra (which is probable because of Cyril, i.e. they both have Almyran fighting styles and Rhea has been around long enough to become familiar with that kind of thing), if she said anything then it would've definitely caused a lot of tension in Leicester. Gloucester and Goneril probably would've had the most issue with it, and both of them are the two most prominent names after Riegan, so that would be a mess.

As far as compassion, I do think no matter what she knew she wouldn't have done anything to cause Claude stress. If you notice, despite all the times Claude is caught doing something suspicious/acting somewhat shady, or whenever he gets annoyed/mad at her, she never gives him shit for it. He could slap her in the face and she would probably still respond gently and kindly to him. Remember, Seteth caught him with literal pictures of the Immaculate One and he was speculating about it. We don't know if Seteth told Rhea, because that could've been a dangerous leak of information, and we know Seteth was not happy to see those pictures having gotten out (even though they were planted by Solon and not Claude, they were still out there). What we do know is that Seteth was aggravated, but in comparison, Rhea has never become angry with Claude, even when Claude was being impatient and getting aggravated that she was still trying to hide some secrets.

Also, remember that Claude, aside from Byleth who would be obvious to learn about her secrets, is the only human she ever tells everything to. He's the only person who actually knows literally everything and the real history of Fodlan. The other Golden Deer were worried about Rhea after she was wounded and none of them reacted poorly to seeing her identity. Really, she could've told all of them and nothing bad would've happened. In a way, it might've also been a good idea to tell everyone when they were gathered together. It's not bad that she didn't or anything, but she easily could have done so without any bad reactions. Instead, the only human she tells everything to is Claude.

I think that says a lot about how she feels about Claude and the amount of trust she has in him, because the Church has always been close to Faerghus. She never tells Dimitri anything about her identity though. Of course, he never pressed her to whereas Claude did, but Dimitri wouldn't have judged her either. Nobody in Dimitri's most common company would've judged her either. In fact, if she told them, especially in CF, they may have been more inclined to protect her because she was the legendary Seiros, etc. Instead, the only person through every route in both games that she ever tells the whole truth to is Claude in VW.

Don't forget that she could have left things out, too. She could have made up a story that was believable, changed some details, etc. Claude couldn't have known if she did. She could have hidden some facts from him specifically and told only Byleth later. To me it's just very telling how much she trusts Claude and his goals and that he won't later grow into any sort of tyrant for her to have told him everything.

Honestly, as far as the school goes too, I think it makes sense to slowly start letting in some foreigners and not just open the school up to anyone and everyone. By doing it slowly, it allows for people like Claude and Dimitri to start change and garner acceptance for the smaller amount of foreigners first. If she just allowed a bunch of them in all at once, it might have caused more drama. For instance, the stereotypes between Almyra and Fodlan could have definitely caused fights to break out if they were enough people on both sides to take part in fights over that kind of thing. Instead, she has Cyril, who is both a good kid and very diligent as well as someone directly at her side. With Claude, people have met him first before realizing he's from Almyra, so they'd meet him before being able to judge him for his birthplace and upbringing.

Then you have Dedue, and progression with people's relationship toward Duscur is very slow in Houses. If she invited others in from Duscur, it would absolutely cause a fight because people would accuse them and they would react in defense of themselves. It would also cause a split between Faerghus and whoever was starting those fights because Dimitri wouldn't tolerate that happening to Duscur's people.

Petra is a political hostage, so Brigid's standing with the Empire isn't really that great yet. The relationship is still more strained than when Edelgard is emperor, because when she's in full power of her country she can let Petra come and go as Petra pleases. Prior to that, Petra was at the whims of Ionius and not really Edelgard. Many people from Brigid may have been so not okay with what was happening to their princess and Brigid's political standing that it could've caused fights. The best way to slowly integrate Brigid would be to have their princess there, treated well, and have her opinion be formed first so she can influence her people's opinion about Fodlan the way Claude wants to do with Almyra about Fodlan.

Dagda likely wants to stay out of Fodlan situations entirely because of the war, and they seem to keep to themselves now after all that. Shamir is a special case as a mercenary and not really considering anywhere in particular to be "home" for her. She stayed because of a debt to Rhea. Granted, I think her opinion of Rhea and the Church is good enough that she could vouch for them to other people from Dagda if asked.

So honestly, I think Rhea is doing the right thing by slowly integrating other nations into Fodlan and not just opening its gates to anywhere in a mass amount. First Fodlan has to accept others without judgement, and then they can start opening the gates to larger groups of other nations. Technically, she's not really forbidding people to come in, but it makes sense that we aren't seeing a larger number of people from other lands coming in at such a prominent military school.

Also, notice how the people she took in from other lands are mostly royalty or have a strong connection to royalty (i.e. Dedue being close to Dimitri). Definitely helps relations when their leaders will have good things to say about Fodlan.

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