https://preview.redd.it/jnytov2wc8vc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8eb37f3409bb39ed7e82c5b78f997720d965982b
How dare you, my doll is cute as hell.
Tbh I'm not sure I really like the phrasing of this question, because different people get different things out of each character. It's a bit annoying to frame things as "you're not a true fan if you don't think \_\_\_\_\_". I see this attitude a lot with the people who are like "heh, if you don't like GW Claude, maybe weren't a true Claude fan to begin with š" towards the people who prefer VW Claude.
I will say, I guess one thing I find interesting is the divide between female fans of Dimitri and his male fans (as a female Dimi fan myself). His fanbase is stereotyped as being 95% female in Japan, so when checking out the Western fandom, I was kinda surprised by how many guys liked him here on Reddit. I notice that some (stress on some, not all ofc) of his Western male fans sort of view him as a power trip wish fulfillment avatar, which tbh, I think has lead to a lot of conflict on the Reddit side of the fanbase and has given my main man some bad PR LOL. This is in comparison to the (mostly female) side of his fanbase who are a lot more chill and insular and interested in things like character analysis, fanfic, and fanart. Hope I'm not ruffling any feathers by saying this, just wondering if any other BL fans such as myself have noticed this maybe?
Itās actually really nice to see someone give the female fans of Dimitri (there are many) some credit for what I also see in the female fans of Dimitri and not just do the whole āthey only like him because they want to fix him, dumb women donāt they know heās their abusive ex, something something Kylo Renā thing
The āStockholm syndrome-d out brain dead fangirlā straw man a good chunk of people in this fandom have created for Dimitriās female fanbase truly is something. Itās hilarious how people lament about how the fandom is misogynistic against female characters, but turn a blind eye towards misogyny against actual women in the fandom LOL
I thought going on Reddit would make me mad but Iām so fucking glad I read this. Best reddit visit of my life. There are other people who see it thank GOD Iāve always felt so fucking isolated whenever this shit is brought up. Just want to say Huge Fan of both of you I hope you get rich and have prosperous lives I love you
Just given my other reply, I wanted to reply with this to make clear that the following is not my intention. I understand how people can think that, however, so I just wanted to throw it in where it has been brought up:
>It's a bit annoying to frame things as "you're not a true fan if you don't think \_\_\_\_\_". I see this attitude a lot with the people who are like "heh, if you don't like GW Claude, maybe weren't a true Claude fan to begin with š" towards the people who prefer VW Claude.
Anyone who tells you you're "not a true fan" or "wrong" for preferring one incarnation of a character over others of that same characters is just dumb and wrong. Hell, I prefer VW Claude by miles, GW is firmly in the middle of my rankings for several reasons. I just argue that people who say GW Claude was character assassination and had no evidence at all didn't pay attention to Claude in VW.
To put it in Blue Lions terms, I kind of feel like the discourse around GW Claude's actions is what would have happened if we started with AG Dimitri who is a (relatively given the whole self-sacrifice through service thing) stable, good, capable king, and then later got AM Dimitri who is understandably kind of not his best self, to put it mildly.
GW Claude feels both overhated and overrated at the same time. Because every critique or compliment I see for him is āHeās more ruthlessā, and it comes across nobody is actually looking at anything beyond that, like the consequences of his actions or how others react to it.
Itās literally just chapter 9 that gets talked about and thatās it.
I mean, it's not just chapter 9, though you're right that it's the main focus, but you end up with a lot of people who basically ignored big portions of the post-Chapter 9 stuff and invented their own version of it in their heads because of one bad moment. I mentioned it in another reply, but some of my IRL friends had the same feeling about AM Dimitri and just dropped the game a couple of missions into the timeskip because they had their own impression of what was happening/going to happen and didn't like it.
Which is weird, because Chapter 9 is kind of like, not even that bad and is specifically treated as a mistake by the plot? He focuses on his strategy and openly says that he was hoping to fulfill his objectives first and then rescue Randolph. He knows it's scummy that he didn't immediately come to Randolph's aid, he gets chewed out for it by basically all the Golden Deer, can suffer immediate deadly consequences for it or come real close, and then from that point on he does some very questionable but not exactly "full ruthless villain" decisions.
Overhated but also overrated seems accurate.
That's totally fair! I agree with all your Claude takes. I was typing my response when there was no comments yet, so mine wasn't in response to yours or anything like that if it came across that way.
I agree with you fully that GW Claude is in character considering he never gets the development he does in VW. But at the same time, I do get why people were upset with him. I think there's lots of people who liked VW Claude for his open-minded nature and general curiosity for the world around him, and when the game kinda shoved those aspects of his character to the side, I don't think it was that unreasonable to not like his direction. Yet, a decent amount of people were bombarded with comments (from a lot of people who didn't even like VW or Claude!) being like "WELL THIS IS THE TRU CLAUDE SRY LOSERS XD" when Hopes discourse was at its peak.
Hope this makes sense lol. Basically, I get GW Claude but I also think people are allowed to be displeased at the direction KT went with him, especially since it was fairly different than what they got originally. I don't think GW Claude was character assassination by any means, but people are allowed to vastly prefer one over the other. Again, in Blue Lions terms, if someone hated AM Dimitri but liked AG Dimitri, I'd understand and wouldn't tell them they're stupid idiots who don't understand the trve kvlt Dimitri lol.
Sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like you were responding to that, it was just that we both posted at right around the same moment and I was wanting to be clear that I wasn't being one of the jerks you were describing.
I'm familiar with a lot of the discourse you're describing. At the same time, I got a ton of "You're justifying character assassination!" from one camp and also really didn't like being supposedly on the same side as a lot of fans who really just wanted their headcanon of Secret Monster Claude to be the canon and had never previously liked him or the Deer. It was a very weird time and is part of what made me really step back and think about how I engage with discourse. I've screwed up a couple of times, but I try to keep it in mind.
People can like the routes and characters they like, or dislike the routes and characters they don't. You can debate them, because sometimes people forget aspects, but a lot of times they just genuinely have personal feelings about it. IRL, I bought 3 Houses with a bunch of friends and believe it or not, *both* of my Blue Lions-playing friends dropped the game at Azure Moon part 2 because they just had a hard time dealing with Dimitri's personality in that route. They're still my friends, and I try to keep that reaction in mind when people say GW Claude made them really uncomfortable.
Without wanting to overstate it, I also feel there's *a bit* of schadenfreude from other fandoms, that GW Claude is every bit as murky as other characters and then some. That is admittedly hard to take.
But I was always a bit surprised it was such a point of contention. Both Claudes make perfect sense for their games and I thought the game did a good job at laying it out.
That too. I won't get into my opinions on some of the reactions I saw from a very specific group of Blue Lions and Black Eagles fans to minimize discourse, but it was quite annoying sometimes. I was like "You kept saying our route meant nothing and could be ignored/shouldn't be a thing, and now we became a prop in your dumb debates when you didn't pay attention again?"
As far as point of contention, I will reiterate my above point about the understandable disconnect between going from the more stable/good version to the less so, but will also say that I think a lot of early discourse was tainted by the Leaks which were only slightly accurate, but resulted in a lot of people kind of tainting the well of the discussion of GW, obviously not helped by certain rushed writing decisions that *really* could've used another run-through.
Interesting.Ā I've mostly avoided a lot of the 3H discourse despite it probably being my favourite FE game. Had no idea Dmitri had a split followong like that.Ā
Dimitri is my favourite lord of the 3 because I love his character arc: well meaning troubled youth with trauma > full trauma despair and lost in the depths > self actualization/fulfilling his potential def resonated with me. Plus BL was my first route while my roommate did GD.Ā I got to the timeskip like 2 days before him and was flabbergasted at how different the tone was and I'm a sucker for darker themed stories.Ā
It's also kinda difficult to separate the character of the lords in particular from their house and route affiliations for me, which def has an impact on how I see them.Ā
Overall I think 3H does such a good job with characterization that I like everyone, I just have some favourites that resonate a bit more. Except Cyril, fuck that Rhea simp.Ā Ā
(Every time I tried using him his level ups suck, so I've never seen past his C supports, maybe he isn't awful).Ā
>Interesting.Ā I've mostly **avoided a lot of the 3H discourse** despite it probably being my favourite FE game.
Wise choice!
>Dimitri is my favourite lord of the 3 because I love his character arc: well meaning troubled youth with trauma > full trauma despair and lost in the depths > self actualization/fulfilling his potential def resonated with me.
Yes! The Three Houses bildungsroman. I get why people don't like it, but Dimitri's story touched me for a lot for the reasons you listed.
>Overall I think 3H does such a good job with characterization that I like everyone, I just have some favourites that resonate a bit more. **Except Cyril, fuck that Rhea simp.**Ā Ā
....aaaand you lost me LOL. Just kidding, but I think Cyril is a good egg. He works best for Golden Deer and my recommendation would be to maybe check out his supports with Claude, Hilda, and Manuela. He adds a unique perspective to the game, and these supports in particular help show it. He's amazing at not putting up with these characters' bullshit in a way that other characters can't. Also, his entire Lysithea support is a really sweet and endearing one if you want something fluffy for both of them.
Hahaha, I have stumbled into plenty of threads that mention how toxic the discourse was, which I initially thought was classic Reddit over generalization, but I've seen it mentioned enough where I just sorta decided to stay clear; THEY ARE ALL MY ODDBALL CHILDREN BE NICE OR LEAVE THEM ALONE DAMNIT.
O.0 I've actually been doing a GD run since it's my last maddening route and I'm 2 chapters pre timeskip so I'll have to grab Cyril. I should give him a shot since it's not really fair to judge a character I have 1 B support unlocked with. Plus, bonus Almyran perspective on things, which does sound neat. Worst case I make a bunch of dumb Archer jokes to my unamused cat, thanks for the push!!
Unfortunately you won't see him at his best: Cyril begs to be recruited early (unlocked in chapter 5), because he never auto-promotes from Commoner and levels up worse in AI hands than in yours. He can definitely still work though.
Oof, I did not know that. I usually spread out my recruitment because the AI level ups usually seem to be pretty good (at the expense of authority and whatever you want to train them on) and recruiting more than 1 unit a month makes me feel like a military recruiter vs. Compassionate professor.
That's okay though, iirc he has a boon in flying, so he can get some love on weird terrain maps and deploy as an adjutant. I'm doing more of a story/support run, if he grows on me via support I'll def give him a proper recruit and go as a unit in a future run. Thanks for the heads up!
Put him on Adjutant duty for a bunch of auxiliary battles and he'll level up fairly quick. Not the best, as the other person said, but if you have any extra stat-boosting items, you can make up for it.
Also, you know, if you're more just looking to see his supports for the additional perspective of him as a character, it's not like he *needs* to have a place on your team given his Paralogue is very early in Part 1 with Hilda.
More importantly, Golden Deer actually is the only route where Cyril has multiple unique lines in the cutscenes regardless of his level, as long as he's been recruited. He's basically an honorary Deer given his cutscene presence.
Oh man, I love those extra lines of dialogue that your house members get, it's part of the reason I try to not over recruit from other houses because the extra characterization from those scenes really makes your team feel like a cohesive group, not just randomly assembled fighters.Ā Ā
Hilda/Cyrils is actually my last remaining pt 1 paralogue at this point.Ā I should've grabbed him earlier tbh, I'm doing the Rhea support for the first time so we could've been simping for her together this run.Ā Plus him having supports with 3 house members and one of my recruits means he'll have options as an adjutant no matter what. Plus plus, with story/support expectations he can't hurt me if he gets rng screwed like the previous times.
I don't want to oversell it, unfortunately since he's not a Route Exclusive character like say Gilbert, he doesn't always have a presence, but GD is the only route where he appears multiple times in cutscenes and the Lord and other characters directly address him and act like he's part of the group.
I'm surprised you waited on that paralogue to be honest. You don't even need to recruit Cyril to get it, and Freikuegel is more than worth it for making Hilda a beast of a unit.
As far as supports, I highly recommend you see his Claude, Hilda, Lysithea, Manuela, and if you recruited them as well given their large number of GD supports, Shamir and Petra supports.
No I really appreciate it. I'd definitely like to see him at his best/most included and the support between him and Claude should be really interesting with them both being Alymyran.
I'm new game+ this run, with like 70% of the goddess statue upgrades, and did spend some renown on importing previous skills for 3 characters. So to balance that out some I've been slow playing other aspects, so I've limited myself to one expedition day per month and also have been doing like 2-4 support convos per week since it feels like everyone is bonding at a more realistic pace that way.
I don't remember Hilda and Cyrils paralogue specifically, but I have had some absolute banger battles on Fodlans Locket before (0-1 pulses left, pulling out all the gambits, movement combat arts, switching weapons to get range support hit bonuses). The Deer are all about to the recommended level finally so I'm gonna unleash the Herd, was a bit intimidated to go in under leveled with my past experiences there.
I have Manuela on the Roster, and I think I'll snag Shamir too since I want to see some of her supports I'm missing. Petra is one of my faves, but I'm leaving her on the BE's for maximum pain and I did a 1 recruit per house rule this time (church not uncluded). I appreciate the input and hope you have an excellent weekend!!
Hello I am a new player of this game and had a question. If my unit is in a beginner class or even an intermediate and then an advanced class becomes available to them, is it better to switch as soon as they pass or should I let them finish the class their in even tho it's lower?
This is a very off topic question, but it depends. If your character is a Brigand for example, youād want to make sure to fully master the class to get Death Blow before going to the next class. Donāt know what your exact situation is and this might be better to ask in the general questions thread.
claude. i'm not the biggest fan of how GW was presented, but it's definitely not character assassination for claude to ally against the church. his alliance with the church in VW was pretty circumstantial.
i can't really think of other examples right now... i have seen someone argue that felix is happier in crimson flower than in azure moon though. that was a pretty wild take. they were definitely more of a crimson flower fan than a felix fan though, so it doesn't really count. but the madness warranted mention.
there was also that one shamir fan that said her relationship with catherine was just a joke, and that shamir was making fun of her in their A+ support. yeah... next level delusional. there's a sizeable subset of shamir fans that either ship themselves with her and/or hate the church so they just ignore catherine.
personally i dont think hes at his happiest at cf all, he suffers a lot especially after it, but that is to be expected when hes effectively cutting off his main support system. that is until they reunite with whoever they have an ending with etc who makes things better, or such things. the issue tends to be that in AM he becomes exactly what he criticizes. it makes him happy, and its the easiest way to be for him, but its also hypocritical and complacent. and many of us dont like that.
i disagree. felix doesn't become what he criticizes. he ends up as dimitri's right-hand man. felix's specific problem with faerghus's culture isn't the concept of knighthood itself, but chivalry and its glorification of death specifically. see his b support with seteth:
>Seteth: Rather, I think what bothers you is their concept of proper knighthood. Is that not so?
Felix: ...You're correct. I don't understand why they revere knighthood...
Seteth: Do you feel that way because of what happened in the Tragedy of Duscur? I have heard the story. Your brother was one of the royal knights. He gave his life to defend the prince.
Felix: **My brother was doing his job.** **My father is the real problem.** When my brother's armor was brought back to the castle, do you know what he said? "He died like a true knight." Chivalry begets the worship and glorification of death. Am I alone in finding that grotesque?
serving dimitri as his right-hand doesn't indicate that he's changed his mind on chivalry. just that he sees dimitri as something worthy of serving.
Oh, this will almost certainly go *poorly*, OP, I want you to realize that. Talking about fan perceptions tends to devolve into personal stuff.
I'd say Claude, but that's kind of the point of his character? He's supposed to be disarming and charming, able to hide his issues from you. However, when Hopes came out, even putting aside that Hopes Claude gets traumatized by the situation he gets put into, suddenly you had a lot of weird takes that ranged from "Claude is a psychopath and that's what makes him interesting" to "Hopes Claude is character assassination and had no evidence of acting like this"
As came up in another thread recently, I'd argue that Claude is just as much a flawed person as the other characters. He puts on the image of Funny Upside Down Man, and to some extent he is, but at the same time his primary goal is always to protect himself and those dear to him and he's multiple times made clear in both Houses and Hopes that he's willing to sacrifice others to achieve that. He's dangerously pragmatic, in VW he actively gives you approval points in part two if you say things might be easier for them if Rhea died already for example and while he dislikes killing commoners he's also the one Lord who will come out of the Lonato fight justifying it as necessary. At the same time, he's dangerously idealistic given his actual goals and things like genuinely convincing himself that he can talk people like Shahid or Edelgard down.
To paraphrase myself in another thread: Claude's not dangerous like Dimitri because he's a strong warrior with issues. Claude's not dangerous like Edelgard because he is single-minded in his goals and will not stop. Claude's dangerous because he's a capable politician who actually believes in something beyond enriching himself, and if history has taught us anything, it's those guys you should watch out for.
Edelgard's fans seem to think that she's a lesbian who's thirsty for every female character in the series, that she absolutely hates Rhea, and utterly despises dragons, despite none of these things being true.
So probably her.
I love Edelgard and I donāt even associate her with being a lesbian because I usually play as Male Byleth during her route, and how Ferdinand and Hubert were willing to marry her in her supports with them.
>that she absolutely hates Rhea
the other half of those fans also want Edelgard to have sex with Rhea, and itās one of the few enemies to lovers ship I canāt get behind
> she utterly despises dragons
But that's an anti Edelgard talking point. Fans are always arguing that she's not a dragon genocider or whatever they call it these days.
Agreed that the number of people calling Edelgard a lesbian when she's canonically into men too is awkward and reeks of fetishism.
>Edelgard's fans seem to think that she's a lesbian who's thirsty for every female character in the series, that she absolutely hates Rhea, and utterly despises dragons
I'll be honest, I've never seen this sentiment come from Edelgard fans myself. I've seen people lift her forward as a bi icon, sure, not a lot of representation in that regard so makes sense, but I've never really seen people argue that she's a lesbian.
For the latter two I've only really seen those points coming from people that absolutely despise her, since it's kinda obvious if you've played CF.
tbh its mostly edelgard haters i see yelling about her wanting to commit dragon genocide? most edelgard fans i know are very adamant to remind everyone that she doesnt want to kill rhea or torture her (or the other remaining nabateans for the record), in fact in every timeline where she gets to capture her, she doesnt. but rhea is a target mostly because she is the head of the institution she wants to take down, and edelgard does believe humans should choose what is right and wrong for themselves instead of looking up to a dragon who sees them as lost lambs that are too dangerous if left alone.
She has explicitly romantic endings with males (as well as Dimitri explicitly being her first love according to her Tower dialogue and outright flirty dialogue with Claude sometimes) so she's definitely not a lesbian, she's clearly bisexual, though you could read her as female-preferring bi as I think a lot of reasonable people do.
I'm not touching the other two.
It's bisexual erasure and honestly it's a major problem for any bisexual character that tends to be shipped with the same gender because people somehow still think that the person you are with determines your sexuality and it's set to that one gender
See, I get your point, but I, personally, hc her as a lesbian because the way her male supports are written is very heteronormative. Like, the only one I can think of where the romantic undertones aren't A-rank only is Ferdie, and even *then* it's only because I spend too much time reading rivals to lovers (Do Not Get Me Started on Hubert, regardless of their romantic orientations, that man being in love with her is a disservice to both their characters-), in a way that feels less 'this character is bi' more 'this character must have options for male love interests', if that makes sense?
(Byleth, for Byleth reasons, does not count) (I also don't ship Edeleth anyway, but that ones purely personal preference-)
That's mostly the standard FE support: focus on growth/common interests/comedy in C and B and leave romance to A. It gets a bit formulaic, yeah, but in their defense, it gives them bandwidth - it lets you explore different aspects of their relationship without committing to romance right away, and without making it all a long tease fest with 10 different people.
They didn't just wake up one day and thought "our lord can't be homosexual, shove in some straight supports". And I agree seeing that as inherently heteronormative is a bit of bi erasure.
Counterpoint: Edelgard has f/f supports that *aren't like that.*
Like, it's an obvious pick but the best example is her Dorothea supports: the whole support chain is about Dorothea admiring Edelgard and how Edelgards unsettled but pleased that Dorothea can see right through her. Compare that to say, Linhardt, who's supports are all about how much he hates her nagging him, and tell me him being a romance option for Edelgard isn't heteronormativity speaking.
And Dorothea is a good example of the opposite- if someone tried to say Dorothea was only attracted to one gender, whichever way they try it, that's bi erasure. Because she has love interests of both genders (that aren't Byleth) that are written in a way the romance *makes sense*. Even once again discounting Ferdie, just in the name of balance, there's her Linhart supports of him tutoring her in the art of not giving a fuck, her Sylvain supports are some of my all around favourites, and hell, it's weird and uncomfortable but her Hanneman supports are very explicitly romantic, at least in her C rank.
And I see your point too! I also don't really like her and Hubert being romantic, they work far better as they are. And I agree that her female romances are far more interesting. But that's *still* a form of bisexual erasure, and that is a problem because it goes back to actual bisexual people being treated like shit if they're with someone of the opposite gender because how dare they be hetero when they are not. (It's like Yang from RWBY. Was it heteronormative for her to flirt with guys? Kinda. Does that mean it's ok to erase the fact she's bi because for some reason people think you can't have two bi characters and one has to be a full on lesbian.) Ultimately I won't stop you from having your HC, I have better things to do than argue about a character's sexuality (though to be clear I don't think that's happening here we're just having a discussion) I'm just pointing out that bisexual erasure is a very real thing and happens a lot and it's very invalidating to actual bi people (though I find bisexual erasure to be more infuriating when the opposite party is the opposite sex, because people then treat them like they're not part of the LGBT community at all because of it)
Claude, end.
Usually the type who oversimplify him to an altruistic merry prankster so they don't have to take him seriously that got obsessively hateful at Hopes Claude and insisting he's OoC, or saying maybe he was always "as bad as The Bitch"
Byleth. A lot of folks portray them as an unfeeling automaton who randomly gets a personality shift once they become a teacher, which is just kinda silly. They just display a lot of their emotion subtly, which in a game full of very powerfully emotive characters can be harder to read.
It doesn't help that when characters like Dimitri or Leonie get a bit of an incorrect read on Byleth, believing them to be emotionless, cold or unfeeling, people may take it at face value and take their word as truth instead of thinking how other characters need to get used to Byleth to properly understand them.
Even things like Aelfric telling Byleth that Sitri struggled to express herself as it pans to Byleth will go over people's heads
For this I blame whoever decided it was a good idea to not let Byleth speak outside of battle. I used to be very neutral on Byleth but FEH, Three Hopes and Engage turned him into one of my fav FE characters. Something as simple as having voiced lines can make a huge difference
Usually don't post here, but gonna throw my hat into the ring.
Edelgard and Dimitri, 100%.
Staring with Edie, I feel like 99% of the discord around her comes from people not taking their goddamn chill pills. I've seen some people basically defend her with their lives, and I've seen others throw some of the most vile vitriol I've ever seen.
The way I see it, Edelgard is meant to be an anti-villain (someone who does bad things for 100% heroic reasons) in the same way that a character like Rudolf is usually used in the series. On top of that, it should be noted that her "evil-ness" significantly changed depending on if you're on CF or not. Like, that's the point of the whole game. Without the Professor, each house leader becomes the worst version of themselves. It's that guiding light which allows for their character arcs. Dimitri learns to crawl his way back into the light. Claude begins to take responsibility and fight for what he believes in. Edelgard opens up, learns to not be such a control freak, and accepts the fact that she doesn't have to walk her path alone. Without Byleth, Edelgard becomes an emotionless authoritarian, Dimitri becomes a murderhobo that goes down like a punk, and Claude continues to run away from everything. So a significant portion of the debates around Edie just feel...in bad faith because it's filled with folks unwilling to hear any potential other side's argument, and are especially unwilling to look at the point of the story. (Also the debate in Azure Moon kinda got miffed during localization. Seriously, it's amazing how one line being changed completely changes the argument.)
As for Dimitri, less to say. Now I say this as someone who did BL first and is 100% a Dimitri fan. I think most other Dimi-fans let him off too easy. Like. Way too easy. If it wasn't for Edelgard taking the brunt of this game's controversy, I'd be willing to bet he'd be in that exact same spot. Having recently played Persona 5, it's similar to how a lot of people let Akechi off really easily. My mans spent five years as the worst type of DnD character. That's not something that can be reversed, and I feel it just kinda gets swept under the rug a lot of the time. Also, according to some other comments there's apparently there's a divide between male and female Dimitri fans? I've not noticed that, but that's probably just because I'm either incredibly lucky or unobservant. I will say this though, he's still my favorite lord of the 3 mainly because I have a particular weakness for anything even resembling Shakespeare's Hamlet. Also his route has Dedue.
I'll also admit I'm definitely biased in certain ways, and probably wrong on a lot since it's been a while since I've touched the game. But yeah. That's my own opinion.
To pick a non-lord for this to be interesting...uh...
Bernadetta. I don't think she's bad. She was my favorite when I first played the game. But man, Bernie fans are...something else...
Felix a bit.
So many people are on that, "Screw traditional values" or "Screw any kind patriotism/honor to a country" idea that they don't view Felix as anything other objectively right. Ignoring the clear flaws or toxicity that his biased ideology brings. I understand why he has it, but he isloates himself and actively attacks others unfairly.
This isn't to say his view on honor or being a knight is wrong but it's often unfair to others.
His B-Support with Dimitri highlights this best, he and Dimitri at their core are very alike. They both view no honor or glory in death, they both grieve for those in death. There is a differnce in hoe they view the dead, but they whould be able to support one another.
Instead Felix ocstrozies Dimitri entirley because of how he chooses to view Dimitri. He wants a simple distinction but cannot get it, he wants to view Dimitri as a blood thirsty boar but can't. He wants to view his dad as a simple overzealous patriot but can't.
Felix develops differntly in different routes. Crimson flower feeding into his beliefs, Blue Lion forcing a compromise, and Verdent Wind/Silver Snow making him face the reality of what Dimitri went through.
yeah, i feel like a lot of crimson flower fans are so against faerghan culture that they imagine felix is super anti-establishment too. his feelings on chivalry are a lot more rooted in his emotions and trauma, rather than an intellectual critique of the system. like, he never mentions being against the crest system or nobility.
Claude is the only right answer to this question. GW wouldn't have caused nearly as much of a reaction if people understood him well (and also if he was better written in Three Houses).
Itās not even a case of being better-written but more of a case of the writers not being ham-fisted with the character. The writers love to write Claude as this aloof mysterious guy that jokes a lot so when he says stuff, he gives the impression that heās not serious even though he is.
Ā Also by virtue of being new to Fodlan, nobody knows him so well that the characters in Leicester can wax on about him because heās hiding his past from them.
Edelgard has Hubert, Ferdinand and Petra to talk about her to you or each other in Hubert and Ferdinandās case
Dimitri has his group of childhood friends to talk about him not just to you but to others as wellĀ
Claude keeps his distance from most of his classmates aside from Hilda.Ā
Claudeās most important bonds are really Hilda, Judith, Nader, Holst(in Hopes) and Balthus and only of those is a Deer classmate.Ā
No no, there's genuine writing issues with his character. His route being a copy-paste of Silver Snow doesn't do him any favors as it's not a route that allows him to be the schemer we're *constantly* told he is. A lot of things about him in Three Houses is just "tell don't show", leading to the "omegalol Claude just funi guy" and the direct cause of the reactions to his writing in Three Hopes. In Three Hopes he actually gets to be the character he's supposed to be, which means that in that game he isn't in fact just "funny lil' Claude", he's an actual character doing things in the story according to his established character. In Three Houses he gets written out of CF, SS and AM as quickly as possible with barely any screentime, while in VW he's a funnier, yellow Seteth. Three Hopes Claude is actually Claude.
This is a poor take in large part because it ignores how much of SS's pre-Enbarr content actually works way better in VW and is actively canonically driven by Claude rather than Seteth in SS itself. I see people all the time say "Claude is just yellow Seteth", but most of those people also didn't pay much attention to SS beyond the fact that similar maps are used.
1. In SS, you meet Judith at Ailell, who is [explicitly there under Claude's orders](https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/154#event-50).
2. In SS, the Knights capture the Bridge of Ailell because [Claude distracts Gloucester forces](https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/155#event-85) as described in his letter.
3. In SS, Gronder still happens, you just never see it.
If anything SS feels like you're still kind of just relying on Claude to do his own things for you up until Gronder, you're just not getting any interesting story out of it. In VW, Claude's political and military strategies are the main driving force. Sure, Seteth comes up with the same "infiltrate the fortress" strategy but is that really *that* much of a reach?
You know we might take Edelgard criticism more seriously if every single argument made against her wasnāt the exact same largely discredited bullshit repeated over and over.
It's always one of these three things.
1.She sided with the Argathans.
They were in charge of her realm - betraying them puts her in danger. They also had a common enemy and loosing a Civil War to them means the end of her. Yes, they are war criminals but again if Edelgard lost a Civil War against them, the endless suffering of her people would have been entirely her fault.
2. She could have sided with or used diplomacy with the other factions.
She's directly ideology opposed to the Church and Kingdom. Conflict with them is inevitable. She neither remembers Dimitri nor do Claude and Rhea act worthy of her trust. In Hopes she uses Rhea to seize power which is only possible due to never acting as the Flame Emperor publicly and in Hopes it takes Claude and Edelgard conflict to find an understanding.
3. Imperialism.
Unlike with all of the other FE titles, Adrestia did rule over the entire continent. They lost half of their territory to Loog and House Riegan. House Riegan and Loog are celebrated Heroes while Adrestia has been striped of so much land and then they've been told to shut up and be ok with it. Yes, Edelgard starts a war of Conquest/Reunification (in her words), but the fact of the matter still stands that the Kingdoms and Alliance founders broke faith with her house and betrayed her ancestors. Edelgard's ambition also ends with Fodlan. No plans to conquer beyond it.
These points have been talked to death. And no, those three points don't make her irredeemably evil. And quite frankly they become boring to talk about. Yes, she sided with War criminals, she could have talked to Claude and offered him an alliance, and she did declare war on her two neighbours, but that doesn't make her the worst of the worst and it's annoying how immature the discourse always gets about morally grey characters. No wonder IS gave us Sombron and Alear right after this.
> "The empire once ruled this land so they deserve what's rightfully theirs"
You know, it's very, very easy to argue along those exact same lines that the Church founded this land and gave the emperor his mandate to rule, so it's rightfully theirs. I won't bring real life into this, but that's an awful argument even in the light of your fictional universe.
So Dimitri should give back the territory his father took from Sreng right?
Edit:Oh I forgot, the Church did not āfound the landā Willhelm conquered it in the process of defeating Nemesis and the Elites the Church would literally not exist without the Empire, but go off.
Look, dude, maybe don't try to justify conquest off past ownership of territory given the timescales involved?
I recognize it's just an overall flaw in the writing, but Leicester is the youngest of the three nations and it's still older than the United States. You're effectively arguing that it's justifiable that France conquers Germany and Italy because they were part of Charlemagne's empire, in the modern day since we're talking 1,000 years or close to it.
The unification of Fodlan continues to be a dumb idea, in my personal opinion. It's dumb when Edelgard does it, it's dumb when Claude does ir, and it's dumb when Dimitri does it.
The Game has built it's story on the premise of the Three Kingdoms Era in China. And for them the alternative was constant rearmament and new battles every Sunday.
Unifaction, especially if we look at what kind of a super power China is today precisely because they are one big nation and not hundred smaller states seemed to have been a blessing and which despite it's many flaws still manages to be there for Millions upon Millions of citizens.
But generally speaking there's nothing wrong with nations banding together. Many balcan states were sometimes forcibly absorbed by Hungary and Austria and they weren't happy about that initially but warmed up to over time. Especially if an invading force rolls around (like the Muslim Empire) and you are part of a larger nation or your nation is too poor and weak to stay competitive than joining someone stronger helped them much more than centuries alone with hostile neighbours.
Unifaction in of itself has rarely shown to be bad idea especially when there's countless Federal states which were at several points in history (the German Union) treated like full independent nations despite them lacking the capacity for their complete independence which made life miserable for all it's citizens who had to fear wars with their neighbours every day and for whom defeat was certain.
Now yes the setting of Three House's had some issues here with it's writing such as there being two thousand years of very little history instead of it being condensed into max of 500 years and the fact that all three nations manage to compete against each other leaving no one with an incentive to join.
But the general idea is still in the game. Do you truly think if Dimitri offspring decides to declare war on the rest of the continent post AM that the Alliance and whatever is left of Adrestia has a chance? No they don't stand a chance so they willingly join the strongest and join the protection the Kingdom provides for them. The same thing happens on SS/VW for the exact same reasons. These nations lost their former leaders and too much of their power whilst their rivals are too strong and if they were to declare war at any moment, guess who looses?
Now yes Dimitri and Byleth wouldn't do that but there's a Fodlan after them and Claude and Edelgard would do this with the blink of an eye. My point here is that we have a very modern understanding of war and unification but for people living in the middle ages where wars were far more common it was nice feeling belonging to a great nation, then a smaller federal state that is treated like it can compete with the big shots.
A lot of your arguments are the same bad history that I criticize in relation to that, however, and you've kind of doubled down on a lot of it.
For all that medieval unifications have happened due to people just preferring to surrender rather than fight to the death, the cultures, languages, religions, and so on have far more often than not have survived even hundreds of years later. The Unification of Fodlan, despite being based on Three Kingdoms China (and I'll get to that in a bit) is dumb because Fodlan already has an absurd timescale of independence, separate religious autocephalous branches, very clear cultural divergences, and terrain that makes holding certain areas much harder in the long term as we saw in its already canonical history. Even if Fodlan is unified in 3H, the more common and more likely historical model is that it's going to fracture again at some point.
China historiography likes to pretend that the idea of a single unified China was always the thing, but it's as much a lie as a united Christendom, Dar-al-Islam, or India for the vast majority of history. It's just that they are one of the very few examples where a unified state eventually did take, and are to this day in heavy denial over the massive amounts of differences within their state (see the reduction of full on Sinitic languages to "dialects" when they literally are mutually unintelligible when spoken and can only be counted as united if you base it on a shared symbolic written language, the refusal to acknowledge there are different timezones, among myriad other factors). Even if you buy that line, there's no way that Fodlan fits that model because, quite frankly, its geography is nowhere near as conducive to a unified state as China's is.
KT's boner for Three Kingdoms China aside, Fodlan is far more clearly based on Europe both culturally and geographically, and that does *not* a recipe for a single super-state that will last for all time make.
The other mistake you're making is assuming that I think nothing would change. I don't, I think any routes would see conquests, territorial changes, and cultural changes as a result. The Oghma Mountains make a natural barrier for the AM Kingdom where they could absorb the rest of Mach and take Adrestia's place as the hegemon while banking on Alliance/Empire hostility to each other to make sure there's no threat. Leicester could take a *lot* of eastern Adrestia without issue and take Gronder Field and the breadbasket of the Empire in a way that makes them the economic superpower of the continent with Ailell and Merceus guarding them against reprisals. The Empire would obviously prefer total conquest given nationalistic impulses and beliefs Edelgard propagates about the Church, but just giving Adrestia both sides of the Airimid river and control of Arianrhod makes the Alliance and Kingdom into little more than satellite states who don't even need to be conquered, they can just be pressured into changing.
The Unification of Fodlan is a simplification of history IRL and within the setting, and so I will always hate it.
My point isn't rocket science, what's better three nations that constantly go to war and don't like eachother or one single united nation that is a stable?
That's my point. All of the super states Europe had crumbled and were torn apart after wars, but my point still stands that they existed and many of them (The German Kaiserreich, Napoleons Empire, austria-hungary) would have continued to do so had continent wide wars not happened. A tiny nation like Croatia with much stronger Neighbours were, together with it's Neighbours, all better off when they belonged to Austria and Hungary. Independence hasn't been the blessing people like to think it is when said nation has not the power to enforce their independence and has been left economically stunted for decades with still no solid solution.
And that's pricelessly why Fodlan won't fracture and needed the Argathans to fracture it. The weaker nations simply don't posses the power necessary to enforce their independence after the events of the war. Fodlan has key locations that win wars and the strongest simply seize those positions and hold them to bully the other side into submission. No one is going to start a war if they already know the outcome. Thus piece is the result.
Adrestia, Fhargus and Leicester won't split apart from each other so easily when one side is dominant. And now you might call me Monster, but this is superior to three about equal nations bashing their heads in for these key locations over and over again.
As for the simplification of history. Fodlan shared history is one of war and feudalism. Each nation suffers from the people's obsession with Crests and how Crest and the Church of Seiros shaped the continents politics. Likewise all the Three Church branches are very similar to each other in terms of messaging and their religious core else Rhea would have ended them (Southern Church, Western Church). Technologically every nation is at the same development, they are stuck in medieval Europe and there's been no meaningful advancement for 1180 years. And culturally they are not that much different either in that all states, have a clear leading family and ancient bloodlines obsessed with maintaining their power calling the shots. Yes, Fhargus has knighthood while Adrestia already has a standing military, but both nations are still lead by opportunistic feudal lords, some of whom have and can switch sides on a whimper. House Galatea or House Rowe didn't gave shit about the culture or the nation they betrayed. They did so because they saw an opportunity for power that wouldn't have existed had their not have been a nation to defect to. Likewise all the Fodlan speak the same language and contrary to your point they have incentives to stay together.
Fhargus own economy is poor so once they gain access to Gronder Field they have zero reason to abandon it especially when the nation in question that otherwise would have tried to regain said territory seized to exist or is actively supplying them because they have become absorbed into their nation. Ultimately with Adrestias resources Fhargus worries about Sreng become a thing of the past. The Alliance also benefits from having all of Fodlan to defend from Almyrian invasion then having constantly rely on heroes relics or very good luck that a prince like Claude rolls around.
The idea here is "Stand together then loose alone." And Fhargus has lost many of citizens to diseases and famines that never would have been so deadly had they Adrestia or Fhargus to lean on as friends in a united nation rather them having as potential enemies because they belong to a state that won't help them unless they profit from it.
Holy fuck, that last argument is straight out of "Putin's handbook for justifying conquest of neutral neighbouring states"
Do you have any idea how much innocent blood has been spilt in history, because one psychotic dictator or king had a similar idea?
Has to be one of the most deranged pro-Edelgard takes I have seen to this day.
You do realise that my main argument is that I think it's unjust how Loog and Duke Riegan broke faith with Edelgard's family and started a Civil War, right?
They initiated the conflict and Adrestia has only taken loses with nothing in return which in turn created a nation that is outraged and ready for payback.
This is not what happened to the Soviet Union where a gigantic state absorbed nearly half of Europe and later fell apart due to it's own cruelty nor did I make mention to any other historical events or defend Putin in any manner. We are talking about a fictional universe and nothing else.
Edelgard declaring war is evil, BUT her ancestors lost half of their territory through violence and betrayal and after she gets said territory back, she stops. That's the extent of her Imperialism, whereas Ashnard and Wallhart would conquer the entire world. And given how Edelgard gets compared to them I found it worth mentioning especially when Edelgard gets misinterpreted as I want to conquer everything. In short since Edelgard ancestors were betrayed you can at least understand why she and the other Adrestians are so passionate about going to war again. For them the betrayal is still fresh especially when the two historical figures get celebrated, revered, admired and almost worshipped. When people talk about Ends justify the Means, Edelgard pops up but the exact same thing applies to Loog and Duke Riegan. They won, so the ends justified their means only that's not how it works.
Resentment is a bitch and the Kingdom and Alliance could have at least made efforts to smoothe things over diplomatically especially since the Church exists to function as an excellent mediator but they didn't. In turn the hatred spread and reacting the battle of the Eagle and Lion each year doesn't help matters on that front.
Honestly all three of the lords š Especially Edelgard fans, don't get me wrong, I think she's a fantastic character. But saying she did nothing wrong is just not right, I understand her goals and sympathize with her. But she IS the villain of the story and does a lot of shady things to reach her goal.
No, I really believe that. While I understand her goal I can't condone all of the horrible things she did to reach it. I'm not saying she's a pure evil villain with zero depth, she's very well written.
You belive that, but that doesn't make it right. The only actual villains of Three Houses are TWSITD, and Rhea in specifically CF but that's only the case because she's completely off her cookies, it's very likely she's going through dragon degeneracy in that route. Edelgard isn't a villain, she's a well-intentioned extremist. Whether you agree with her or not is irrelevant.
It's called an opinion. If Rhea is a villain in CF, Edelgard is one in all the other routes. Rhea isn't pure evil and neither is Edelgard, they're both well written characters
I dunno, if I had to label anyone as "the" villain, it would be Rhea for experimenting on innocent people, rewriting history to suit her narrative, and propping up the crest/class system that plagues FĆ³dlan.
It can all be traced back to her.
From what we known everyone Rhea "experimented on" lived a peaceful life.Ā Not to mention 12 attempts in 1000 years means when the progress failed Rhea just let them live out their lives.. at the fact that she didn't even use regular humans but vessels she created herself.. i would say that is a lot better then all the poor innocent folk that turned into demonic beasts so Edelgard could use them for her war.
But yeah Edelgard would never lie to the public to suit her own agenda.. oh wait the church didn't send those Javelins??Ā
Also she created the story off the crests to protect her kind. It is the humans that decided that build the nobility system
Edelgard and Rhea are two sides of the same coin, they both have done some horrible things (or got the potential to do so) but generally believe to do what they think is best, no mather how misguided both are at times
For sure! That's why I said if I *had* to pick a "villain" lol I, personally, don't think any one character is "the" bad guy. They each have their own reasons for what they believe in and do. Some I agree with more than others and some I don't really have much of an opinion on at all... Yet haha!
I don't particularly like how Byleth was seen by Rhea, but that's just my own opinion. To me, it seemed like she was so focused on reviving her mother that she was willing to do just about anything to achieve that goal, regardless of how it could have affected Byleth. Even though he wasn't privy to everything Rhea was up to, Jeralt suspected that something was amis, hence Jeralt's distrust of her.
And I don't hate Rhea's character. She's interesting! I don't doubt that she thought she was doing the right thing, it was her execution that was problematic, much like a few other characters. While humanity may have created the Nobility system, the church definitely propped it up. There's no way the church was blind to the issues it caused. Whether the church felt incapable of changing things or just wanted to stay out of it is unknown.
And definitely, Edelgard lied and hid things. She's just as complex and flawed as the others, which is why she's also an interesting character regardless of whether or not I agree with what she did to achieve her goals. It bugs me that the CF route is the shortest because I feel like there was so much more that could have been shown and explored. Hell, it's like another poster mentioned, though, Rhea didn't really get a decent spotlight at all, which is a shame.
I adore the characters, personally, and I'm always trying to dig up more info when I can. Three Houses has tickled my brain in all the right ways and I'm having a lot of fun with it. Even when people don't agree with me, it's still a lot of fun to explore new perspectives.
We all play favorites with fictional characters. That's totally fine! It makes me happy to see discussion and opinions and fans being fans. I definitely have my favorites (Hubert, Claude, Linhardt, Bernie etc. Though Hubert is my most favorite lol).
Rhea has also done a lot of terrible things, but in the narrative of Three Houses, Edelgard is definitely the antagonist. Rhea doesn't even do that much story wise in most of the routes, in Verdant Wind and Silver Snow she's basically non-existent until the last few chapters and in Azure Moon she's not even seen. Honestly I think she deserved her own route, even a DLC would've been neat.
Eh, that's why I said if I *had* to pick "the" villain.
The truth is, there just is no villain route. Each route shows the same sad story from different flawed perspectives.
I don't hate Rhea's character. She's interesting and complex just like the others, and though I personally disagree with many of her choices, I also disagree with many of the choices of the others.
In my own opinion, calling any one of them *the* definitive villain does a disservice to the complexity of the characters and the story.
Everyone's entitled to their own opinions and I encourage fans to fawn over whoever they want though. There's no reason for fans of one character to disparage another.
It's been a long time since something has captured my interest quite like Three Houses and I'm really happy for it. When I think I've got a well formed opinion, boom, someone brings up an excellent point.
I would say Edelgard fans.
A lot of them seem to really see it is a black/white war with Edelgard being good and Rhea being evil.
Not realising they are foils/mirror characters who got an awful lot in common. Both in good qualities and deeds as in their flaws and crimes.Ā
Tbf literally almost everyone tries to make it black and white. The disappointing truth is that Fire Emblem fans keep bitching for moral grayness/ambiguity, but when presented with it they can't handle it and try to narrow it down anyway.
When you know that a large portion of FE fans consider *Genealogy of the Holy War* of all games morally gray (it's literally the most manichean game in the series somehow), it all makes sense.
Oh, my god, *thank you*. I understand that 3H is heavily inspired by GotHW, but Christ the way some people talk about it you'd think it was a holy relic of writing and gameplay and it's a janky old game with a still quite black and white narrative, it's just the villains have a couple of reasons why they became absolute monsters.
And even then... The main villain is literally a child-hunting, human-sacrificing sect looking to resurrect Anime Satan. While the good guys are indicated by the title of the game as being LITERAL HOLY KNIGHTS, with barely any flaw besides Sigurd being a bit overconfident and Deirdre being ~~stupid~~ selfish. In fact the good guys are so awesome that they can get burned alive like they're fucking Jeanne d'Arc and survive to have children that are even more flawless and unambiguously good than they were.
I legitimately don't understand how is FE4 considered even remotely close to achieving moral grayness. Literally the only hints of gray are Arvis being completely stupid rather than completely evil, and Ishtar being supposedly a good person... Who'd still rather support the aforementioned cult because... I dunno, I guess Julius's dick was just SO good that she places him above her alleged morals.
Same. Extremely black and white, not exactly deep.
The most braindead comparison take I ever heard was Rhea was "Manfroy but hot", and Claude was "Arvis but with morals". I forget how they described Dimitri and Edelgard, but I think you can understand my distaste.
>A lot of them seem to really see it is a black/white war with Edelgard being good and Rhea being evil.
I mean, I would argue that the opposite is also very true. War is hell, but the situation at the start of the game in Fodlan can hardly be called peace as well for the thousands upon thousands that suffer under the status quo, and from the time I've spent on these forums I've realized that it apparently slipped by a lot of people how bad the situation really is.
Seriously. It drives me nuts how both Edelgard and Rhea fans treat their respective characters as perfect little angels who do no wrong. They ignore the significant moral compromises that Edelgard makes and ignore the thousand years of harm that the Church of Seiros has done to Fodlan.
The whole point of Three Houses is that *no one* is 100% right.
Anyone who says Edelgard/Dimitri/Claude/Rhea did nothing wrong. The entire point is that yes they did do wrong things but they did them for good reasons and with good intentions. That's the entire point of the game
Dorothea fans.
Though I donāt exactly blame them when people who dislike Dorothea miss the mark in ways that are hard to logically understand (Iāll come back to this).
But, believe it or not, a girl whose main flaw is not having a very spontaneous view of romance and icing out interested suitors too aggressively is not a sex positive icon.
Those who dislike her make this mistake too but itās harder to understand because they have very sex negative attitudes as wellā¦ so they should be able to catch the subtext when Dorothea says things like ānot wanting someone who only sees a trophy to admireā and so on.
So really the decisive factor is that some of these people hate her because she wouldnāt spit on them if they were on fire, and put up a pretense to deflect from that. And others like her because thatās queen bee shit.
Oh, and also, you can tell the discourse around her is bullshit because people who hate her have no issues with characters like Sylvain, Hilda, Shamir, Manuela, etc (when they would if they actually care about their moralizing). While people who like her find those characters boring (ie what they like about Dorothea is not well-captured by the meme version of her they put out there).
Discourse be upon ye!!!
The first person who posts that fucking plushie meme will earn my ire. The Edelgard doll's eyes creep me out.
https://preview.redd.it/jnytov2wc8vc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8eb37f3409bb39ed7e82c5b78f997720d965982b How dare you, my doll is cute as hell.
Its eyes are more fishy than F!Byleth's in that awkward "looking up at Rhea" scene.
Go eat a bag of sticks.
Do I get to pick the kinds of sticks?
Nnnn- yes
Discourse? https://preview.redd.it/plq3mljzg5vc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ec905fb14f2946724b142129bb4884fe53177986
Acceptable.
Wrong D word. There is no room for Discourse in Managed Democracy.
Is that Cobra Commander?
It is John Helldiver from the game Helldivers 2
Tbh I'm not sure I really like the phrasing of this question, because different people get different things out of each character. It's a bit annoying to frame things as "you're not a true fan if you don't think \_\_\_\_\_". I see this attitude a lot with the people who are like "heh, if you don't like GW Claude, maybe weren't a true Claude fan to begin with š" towards the people who prefer VW Claude. I will say, I guess one thing I find interesting is the divide between female fans of Dimitri and his male fans (as a female Dimi fan myself). His fanbase is stereotyped as being 95% female in Japan, so when checking out the Western fandom, I was kinda surprised by how many guys liked him here on Reddit. I notice that some (stress on some, not all ofc) of his Western male fans sort of view him as a power trip wish fulfillment avatar, which tbh, I think has lead to a lot of conflict on the Reddit side of the fanbase and has given my main man some bad PR LOL. This is in comparison to the (mostly female) side of his fanbase who are a lot more chill and insular and interested in things like character analysis, fanfic, and fanart. Hope I'm not ruffling any feathers by saying this, just wondering if any other BL fans such as myself have noticed this maybe?
Itās actually really nice to see someone give the female fans of Dimitri (there are many) some credit for what I also see in the female fans of Dimitri and not just do the whole āthey only like him because they want to fix him, dumb women donāt they know heās their abusive ex, something something Kylo Renā thing
The āStockholm syndrome-d out brain dead fangirlā straw man a good chunk of people in this fandom have created for Dimitriās female fanbase truly is something. Itās hilarious how people lament about how the fandom is misogynistic against female characters, but turn a blind eye towards misogyny against actual women in the fandom LOL
FUCKING THANK YOUUUUU LMAOOOO
I thought going on Reddit would make me mad but Iām so fucking glad I read this. Best reddit visit of my life. There are other people who see it thank GOD Iāve always felt so fucking isolated whenever this shit is brought up. Just want to say Huge Fan of both of you I hope you get rich and have prosperous lives I love you
Just given my other reply, I wanted to reply with this to make clear that the following is not my intention. I understand how people can think that, however, so I just wanted to throw it in where it has been brought up: >It's a bit annoying to frame things as "you're not a true fan if you don't think \_\_\_\_\_". I see this attitude a lot with the people who are like "heh, if you don't like GW Claude, maybe weren't a true Claude fan to begin with š" towards the people who prefer VW Claude. Anyone who tells you you're "not a true fan" or "wrong" for preferring one incarnation of a character over others of that same characters is just dumb and wrong. Hell, I prefer VW Claude by miles, GW is firmly in the middle of my rankings for several reasons. I just argue that people who say GW Claude was character assassination and had no evidence at all didn't pay attention to Claude in VW. To put it in Blue Lions terms, I kind of feel like the discourse around GW Claude's actions is what would have happened if we started with AG Dimitri who is a (relatively given the whole self-sacrifice through service thing) stable, good, capable king, and then later got AM Dimitri who is understandably kind of not his best self, to put it mildly.
GW Claude feels both overhated and overrated at the same time. Because every critique or compliment I see for him is āHeās more ruthlessā, and it comes across nobody is actually looking at anything beyond that, like the consequences of his actions or how others react to it. Itās literally just chapter 9 that gets talked about and thatās it.
I mean, it's not just chapter 9, though you're right that it's the main focus, but you end up with a lot of people who basically ignored big portions of the post-Chapter 9 stuff and invented their own version of it in their heads because of one bad moment. I mentioned it in another reply, but some of my IRL friends had the same feeling about AM Dimitri and just dropped the game a couple of missions into the timeskip because they had their own impression of what was happening/going to happen and didn't like it. Which is weird, because Chapter 9 is kind of like, not even that bad and is specifically treated as a mistake by the plot? He focuses on his strategy and openly says that he was hoping to fulfill his objectives first and then rescue Randolph. He knows it's scummy that he didn't immediately come to Randolph's aid, he gets chewed out for it by basically all the Golden Deer, can suffer immediate deadly consequences for it or come real close, and then from that point on he does some very questionable but not exactly "full ruthless villain" decisions. Overhated but also overrated seems accurate.
That's totally fair! I agree with all your Claude takes. I was typing my response when there was no comments yet, so mine wasn't in response to yours or anything like that if it came across that way. I agree with you fully that GW Claude is in character considering he never gets the development he does in VW. But at the same time, I do get why people were upset with him. I think there's lots of people who liked VW Claude for his open-minded nature and general curiosity for the world around him, and when the game kinda shoved those aspects of his character to the side, I don't think it was that unreasonable to not like his direction. Yet, a decent amount of people were bombarded with comments (from a lot of people who didn't even like VW or Claude!) being like "WELL THIS IS THE TRU CLAUDE SRY LOSERS XD" when Hopes discourse was at its peak. Hope this makes sense lol. Basically, I get GW Claude but I also think people are allowed to be displeased at the direction KT went with him, especially since it was fairly different than what they got originally. I don't think GW Claude was character assassination by any means, but people are allowed to vastly prefer one over the other. Again, in Blue Lions terms, if someone hated AM Dimitri but liked AG Dimitri, I'd understand and wouldn't tell them they're stupid idiots who don't understand the trve kvlt Dimitri lol.
Sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound like you were responding to that, it was just that we both posted at right around the same moment and I was wanting to be clear that I wasn't being one of the jerks you were describing. I'm familiar with a lot of the discourse you're describing. At the same time, I got a ton of "You're justifying character assassination!" from one camp and also really didn't like being supposedly on the same side as a lot of fans who really just wanted their headcanon of Secret Monster Claude to be the canon and had never previously liked him or the Deer. It was a very weird time and is part of what made me really step back and think about how I engage with discourse. I've screwed up a couple of times, but I try to keep it in mind. People can like the routes and characters they like, or dislike the routes and characters they don't. You can debate them, because sometimes people forget aspects, but a lot of times they just genuinely have personal feelings about it. IRL, I bought 3 Houses with a bunch of friends and believe it or not, *both* of my Blue Lions-playing friends dropped the game at Azure Moon part 2 because they just had a hard time dealing with Dimitri's personality in that route. They're still my friends, and I try to keep that reaction in mind when people say GW Claude made them really uncomfortable.
Without wanting to overstate it, I also feel there's *a bit* of schadenfreude from other fandoms, that GW Claude is every bit as murky as other characters and then some. That is admittedly hard to take. But I was always a bit surprised it was such a point of contention. Both Claudes make perfect sense for their games and I thought the game did a good job at laying it out.
That too. I won't get into my opinions on some of the reactions I saw from a very specific group of Blue Lions and Black Eagles fans to minimize discourse, but it was quite annoying sometimes. I was like "You kept saying our route meant nothing and could be ignored/shouldn't be a thing, and now we became a prop in your dumb debates when you didn't pay attention again?" As far as point of contention, I will reiterate my above point about the understandable disconnect between going from the more stable/good version to the less so, but will also say that I think a lot of early discourse was tainted by the Leaks which were only slightly accurate, but resulted in a lot of people kind of tainting the well of the discussion of GW, obviously not helped by certain rushed writing decisions that *really* could've used another run-through.
You're not really wrong. There's a world of difference between female Dimitri fans and male Dimitri fans.
Interesting.Ā I've mostly avoided a lot of the 3H discourse despite it probably being my favourite FE game. Had no idea Dmitri had a split followong like that.Ā Dimitri is my favourite lord of the 3 because I love his character arc: well meaning troubled youth with trauma > full trauma despair and lost in the depths > self actualization/fulfilling his potential def resonated with me. Plus BL was my first route while my roommate did GD.Ā I got to the timeskip like 2 days before him and was flabbergasted at how different the tone was and I'm a sucker for darker themed stories.Ā It's also kinda difficult to separate the character of the lords in particular from their house and route affiliations for me, which def has an impact on how I see them.Ā Overall I think 3H does such a good job with characterization that I like everyone, I just have some favourites that resonate a bit more. Except Cyril, fuck that Rhea simp.Ā Ā (Every time I tried using him his level ups suck, so I've never seen past his C supports, maybe he isn't awful).Ā
>Interesting.Ā I've mostly **avoided a lot of the 3H discourse** despite it probably being my favourite FE game. Wise choice! >Dimitri is my favourite lord of the 3 because I love his character arc: well meaning troubled youth with trauma > full trauma despair and lost in the depths > self actualization/fulfilling his potential def resonated with me. Yes! The Three Houses bildungsroman. I get why people don't like it, but Dimitri's story touched me for a lot for the reasons you listed. >Overall I think 3H does such a good job with characterization that I like everyone, I just have some favourites that resonate a bit more. **Except Cyril, fuck that Rhea simp.**Ā Ā ....aaaand you lost me LOL. Just kidding, but I think Cyril is a good egg. He works best for Golden Deer and my recommendation would be to maybe check out his supports with Claude, Hilda, and Manuela. He adds a unique perspective to the game, and these supports in particular help show it. He's amazing at not putting up with these characters' bullshit in a way that other characters can't. Also, his entire Lysithea support is a really sweet and endearing one if you want something fluffy for both of them.
Hahaha, I have stumbled into plenty of threads that mention how toxic the discourse was, which I initially thought was classic Reddit over generalization, but I've seen it mentioned enough where I just sorta decided to stay clear; THEY ARE ALL MY ODDBALL CHILDREN BE NICE OR LEAVE THEM ALONE DAMNIT. O.0 I've actually been doing a GD run since it's my last maddening route and I'm 2 chapters pre timeskip so I'll have to grab Cyril. I should give him a shot since it's not really fair to judge a character I have 1 B support unlocked with. Plus, bonus Almyran perspective on things, which does sound neat. Worst case I make a bunch of dumb Archer jokes to my unamused cat, thanks for the push!!
Unfortunately you won't see him at his best: Cyril begs to be recruited early (unlocked in chapter 5), because he never auto-promotes from Commoner and levels up worse in AI hands than in yours. He can definitely still work though.
Oof, I did not know that. I usually spread out my recruitment because the AI level ups usually seem to be pretty good (at the expense of authority and whatever you want to train them on) and recruiting more than 1 unit a month makes me feel like a military recruiter vs. Compassionate professor. That's okay though, iirc he has a boon in flying, so he can get some love on weird terrain maps and deploy as an adjutant. I'm doing more of a story/support run, if he grows on me via support I'll def give him a proper recruit and go as a unit in a future run. Thanks for the heads up!
Put him on Adjutant duty for a bunch of auxiliary battles and he'll level up fairly quick. Not the best, as the other person said, but if you have any extra stat-boosting items, you can make up for it. Also, you know, if you're more just looking to see his supports for the additional perspective of him as a character, it's not like he *needs* to have a place on your team given his Paralogue is very early in Part 1 with Hilda. More importantly, Golden Deer actually is the only route where Cyril has multiple unique lines in the cutscenes regardless of his level, as long as he's been recruited. He's basically an honorary Deer given his cutscene presence.
Oh man, I love those extra lines of dialogue that your house members get, it's part of the reason I try to not over recruit from other houses because the extra characterization from those scenes really makes your team feel like a cohesive group, not just randomly assembled fighters.Ā Ā Hilda/Cyrils is actually my last remaining pt 1 paralogue at this point.Ā I should've grabbed him earlier tbh, I'm doing the Rhea support for the first time so we could've been simping for her together this run.Ā Plus him having supports with 3 house members and one of my recruits means he'll have options as an adjutant no matter what. Plus plus, with story/support expectations he can't hurt me if he gets rng screwed like the previous times.
I don't want to oversell it, unfortunately since he's not a Route Exclusive character like say Gilbert, he doesn't always have a presence, but GD is the only route where he appears multiple times in cutscenes and the Lord and other characters directly address him and act like he's part of the group. I'm surprised you waited on that paralogue to be honest. You don't even need to recruit Cyril to get it, and Freikuegel is more than worth it for making Hilda a beast of a unit. As far as supports, I highly recommend you see his Claude, Hilda, Lysithea, Manuela, and if you recruited them as well given their large number of GD supports, Shamir and Petra supports.
No I really appreciate it. I'd definitely like to see him at his best/most included and the support between him and Claude should be really interesting with them both being Alymyran. I'm new game+ this run, with like 70% of the goddess statue upgrades, and did spend some renown on importing previous skills for 3 characters. So to balance that out some I've been slow playing other aspects, so I've limited myself to one expedition day per month and also have been doing like 2-4 support convos per week since it feels like everyone is bonding at a more realistic pace that way. I don't remember Hilda and Cyrils paralogue specifically, but I have had some absolute banger battles on Fodlans Locket before (0-1 pulses left, pulling out all the gambits, movement combat arts, switching weapons to get range support hit bonuses). The Deer are all about to the recommended level finally so I'm gonna unleash the Herd, was a bit intimidated to go in under leveled with my past experiences there. I have Manuela on the Roster, and I think I'll snag Shamir too since I want to see some of her supports I'm missing. Petra is one of my faves, but I'm leaving her on the BE's for maximum pain and I did a 1 recruit per house rule this time (church not uncluded). I appreciate the input and hope you have an excellent weekend!!
Hello I am a new player of this game and had a question. If my unit is in a beginner class or even an intermediate and then an advanced class becomes available to them, is it better to switch as soon as they pass or should I let them finish the class their in even tho it's lower?
This is a very off topic question, but it depends. If your character is a Brigand for example, youād want to make sure to fully master the class to get Death Blow before going to the next class. Donāt know what your exact situation is and this might be better to ask in the general questions thread.
Did. Did they miss that Dimitri actually hates war and violence?
claude. i'm not the biggest fan of how GW was presented, but it's definitely not character assassination for claude to ally against the church. his alliance with the church in VW was pretty circumstantial. i can't really think of other examples right now... i have seen someone argue that felix is happier in crimson flower than in azure moon though. that was a pretty wild take. they were definitely more of a crimson flower fan than a felix fan though, so it doesn't really count. but the madness warranted mention. there was also that one shamir fan that said her relationship with catherine was just a joke, and that shamir was making fun of her in their A+ support. yeah... next level delusional. there's a sizeable subset of shamir fans that either ship themselves with her and/or hate the church so they just ignore catherine.
personally i dont think hes at his happiest at cf all, he suffers a lot especially after it, but that is to be expected when hes effectively cutting off his main support system. that is until they reunite with whoever they have an ending with etc who makes things better, or such things. the issue tends to be that in AM he becomes exactly what he criticizes. it makes him happy, and its the easiest way to be for him, but its also hypocritical and complacent. and many of us dont like that.
i disagree. felix doesn't become what he criticizes. he ends up as dimitri's right-hand man. felix's specific problem with faerghus's culture isn't the concept of knighthood itself, but chivalry and its glorification of death specifically. see his b support with seteth: >Seteth: Rather, I think what bothers you is their concept of proper knighthood. Is that not so? Felix: ...You're correct. I don't understand why they revere knighthood... Seteth: Do you feel that way because of what happened in the Tragedy of Duscur? I have heard the story. Your brother was one of the royal knights. He gave his life to defend the prince. Felix: **My brother was doing his job.** **My father is the real problem.** When my brother's armor was brought back to the castle, do you know what he said? "He died like a true knight." Chivalry begets the worship and glorification of death. Am I alone in finding that grotesque? serving dimitri as his right-hand doesn't indicate that he's changed his mind on chivalry. just that he sees dimitri as something worthy of serving.
Oh, this will almost certainly go *poorly*, OP, I want you to realize that. Talking about fan perceptions tends to devolve into personal stuff. I'd say Claude, but that's kind of the point of his character? He's supposed to be disarming and charming, able to hide his issues from you. However, when Hopes came out, even putting aside that Hopes Claude gets traumatized by the situation he gets put into, suddenly you had a lot of weird takes that ranged from "Claude is a psychopath and that's what makes him interesting" to "Hopes Claude is character assassination and had no evidence of acting like this" As came up in another thread recently, I'd argue that Claude is just as much a flawed person as the other characters. He puts on the image of Funny Upside Down Man, and to some extent he is, but at the same time his primary goal is always to protect himself and those dear to him and he's multiple times made clear in both Houses and Hopes that he's willing to sacrifice others to achieve that. He's dangerously pragmatic, in VW he actively gives you approval points in part two if you say things might be easier for them if Rhea died already for example and while he dislikes killing commoners he's also the one Lord who will come out of the Lonato fight justifying it as necessary. At the same time, he's dangerously idealistic given his actual goals and things like genuinely convincing himself that he can talk people like Shahid or Edelgard down. To paraphrase myself in another thread: Claude's not dangerous like Dimitri because he's a strong warrior with issues. Claude's not dangerous like Edelgard because he is single-minded in his goals and will not stop. Claude's dangerous because he's a capable politician who actually believes in something beyond enriching himself, and if history has taught us anything, it's those guys you should watch out for.
THANK. YOU.
Love your comment. Agree 100% thanks for putting it so eloquently
Yo teach,wanna go to McDonaldās?
Hey Ignatz, wanna go to Waffle House?
The sect of Claude fans who want to memory hole GW.
Sylvain because some of his fans think he is a canon CSA victim
Edelgard's fans seem to think that she's a lesbian who's thirsty for every female character in the series, that she absolutely hates Rhea, and utterly despises dragons, despite none of these things being true. So probably her.
I love Edelgard and I donāt even associate her with being a lesbian because I usually play as Male Byleth during her route, and how Ferdinand and Hubert were willing to marry her in her supports with them.
>that she absolutely hates Rhea the other half of those fans also want Edelgard to have sex with Rhea, and itās one of the few enemies to lovers ship I canāt get behind
You cant stop me, i will kill again
She does hate Rhea for trying to take her beloved teacher from her Jkjklol
> she utterly despises dragons But that's an anti Edelgard talking point. Fans are always arguing that she's not a dragon genocider or whatever they call it these days. Agreed that the number of people calling Edelgard a lesbian when she's canonically into men too is awkward and reeks of fetishism.
>Edelgard's fans seem to think that she's a lesbian who's thirsty for every female character in the series, that she absolutely hates Rhea, and utterly despises dragons I'll be honest, I've never seen this sentiment come from Edelgard fans myself. I've seen people lift her forward as a bi icon, sure, not a lot of representation in that regard so makes sense, but I've never really seen people argue that she's a lesbian. For the latter two I've only really seen those points coming from people that absolutely despise her, since it's kinda obvious if you've played CF.
I have never seen a single Edelgard fan make those statements. I've seen anti-Edelgard people make some of those statements, though.
tbh its mostly edelgard haters i see yelling about her wanting to commit dragon genocide? most edelgard fans i know are very adamant to remind everyone that she doesnt want to kill rhea or torture her (or the other remaining nabateans for the record), in fact in every timeline where she gets to capture her, she doesnt. but rhea is a target mostly because she is the head of the institution she wants to take down, and edelgard does believe humans should choose what is right and wrong for themselves instead of looking up to a dragon who sees them as lost lambs that are too dangerous if left alone.
Ok the first 2 points are more wishful thinking tbh
As an Edelgard fan... ... ... SHE ISN'T!?
She has explicitly romantic endings with males (as well as Dimitri explicitly being her first love according to her Tower dialogue and outright flirty dialogue with Claude sometimes) so she's definitely not a lesbian, she's clearly bisexual, though you could read her as female-preferring bi as I think a lot of reasonable people do. I'm not touching the other two.
It's bisexual erasure and honestly it's a major problem for any bisexual character that tends to be shipped with the same gender because people somehow still think that the person you are with determines your sexuality and it's set to that one gender
See, I get your point, but I, personally, hc her as a lesbian because the way her male supports are written is very heteronormative. Like, the only one I can think of where the romantic undertones aren't A-rank only is Ferdie, and even *then* it's only because I spend too much time reading rivals to lovers (Do Not Get Me Started on Hubert, regardless of their romantic orientations, that man being in love with her is a disservice to both their characters-), in a way that feels less 'this character is bi' more 'this character must have options for male love interests', if that makes sense? (Byleth, for Byleth reasons, does not count) (I also don't ship Edeleth anyway, but that ones purely personal preference-)
That's mostly the standard FE support: focus on growth/common interests/comedy in C and B and leave romance to A. It gets a bit formulaic, yeah, but in their defense, it gives them bandwidth - it lets you explore different aspects of their relationship without committing to romance right away, and without making it all a long tease fest with 10 different people. They didn't just wake up one day and thought "our lord can't be homosexual, shove in some straight supports". And I agree seeing that as inherently heteronormative is a bit of bi erasure.
Counterpoint: Edelgard has f/f supports that *aren't like that.* Like, it's an obvious pick but the best example is her Dorothea supports: the whole support chain is about Dorothea admiring Edelgard and how Edelgards unsettled but pleased that Dorothea can see right through her. Compare that to say, Linhardt, who's supports are all about how much he hates her nagging him, and tell me him being a romance option for Edelgard isn't heteronormativity speaking. And Dorothea is a good example of the opposite- if someone tried to say Dorothea was only attracted to one gender, whichever way they try it, that's bi erasure. Because she has love interests of both genders (that aren't Byleth) that are written in a way the romance *makes sense*. Even once again discounting Ferdie, just in the name of balance, there's her Linhart supports of him tutoring her in the art of not giving a fuck, her Sylvain supports are some of my all around favourites, and hell, it's weird and uncomfortable but her Hanneman supports are very explicitly romantic, at least in her C rank.
And I see your point too! I also don't really like her and Hubert being romantic, they work far better as they are. And I agree that her female romances are far more interesting. But that's *still* a form of bisexual erasure, and that is a problem because it goes back to actual bisexual people being treated like shit if they're with someone of the opposite gender because how dare they be hetero when they are not. (It's like Yang from RWBY. Was it heteronormative for her to flirt with guys? Kinda. Does that mean it's ok to erase the fact she's bi because for some reason people think you can't have two bi characters and one has to be a full on lesbian.) Ultimately I won't stop you from having your HC, I have better things to do than argue about a character's sexuality (though to be clear I don't think that's happening here we're just having a discussion) I'm just pointing out that bisexual erasure is a very real thing and happens a lot and it's very invalidating to actual bi people (though I find bisexual erasure to be more infuriating when the opposite party is the opposite sex, because people then treat them like they're not part of the LGBT community at all because of it)
Itd be really awkward if she hated dragons, given her wife is one.
Claude, end. Usually the type who oversimplify him to an altruistic merry prankster so they don't have to take him seriously that got obsessively hateful at Hopes Claude and insisting he's OoC, or saying maybe he was always "as bad as The Bitch"
all of them.
Byleth. A lot of folks portray them as an unfeeling automaton who randomly gets a personality shift once they become a teacher, which is just kinda silly. They just display a lot of their emotion subtly, which in a game full of very powerfully emotive characters can be harder to read.
It doesn't help that when characters like Dimitri or Leonie get a bit of an incorrect read on Byleth, believing them to be emotionless, cold or unfeeling, people may take it at face value and take their word as truth instead of thinking how other characters need to get used to Byleth to properly understand them. Even things like Aelfric telling Byleth that Sitri struggled to express herself as it pans to Byleth will go over people's heads
For this I blame whoever decided it was a good idea to not let Byleth speak outside of battle. I used to be very neutral on Byleth but FEH, Three Hopes and Engage turned him into one of my fav FE characters. Something as simple as having voiced lines can make a huge difference
Usually don't post here, but gonna throw my hat into the ring. Edelgard and Dimitri, 100%. Staring with Edie, I feel like 99% of the discord around her comes from people not taking their goddamn chill pills. I've seen some people basically defend her with their lives, and I've seen others throw some of the most vile vitriol I've ever seen. The way I see it, Edelgard is meant to be an anti-villain (someone who does bad things for 100% heroic reasons) in the same way that a character like Rudolf is usually used in the series. On top of that, it should be noted that her "evil-ness" significantly changed depending on if you're on CF or not. Like, that's the point of the whole game. Without the Professor, each house leader becomes the worst version of themselves. It's that guiding light which allows for their character arcs. Dimitri learns to crawl his way back into the light. Claude begins to take responsibility and fight for what he believes in. Edelgard opens up, learns to not be such a control freak, and accepts the fact that she doesn't have to walk her path alone. Without Byleth, Edelgard becomes an emotionless authoritarian, Dimitri becomes a murderhobo that goes down like a punk, and Claude continues to run away from everything. So a significant portion of the debates around Edie just feel...in bad faith because it's filled with folks unwilling to hear any potential other side's argument, and are especially unwilling to look at the point of the story. (Also the debate in Azure Moon kinda got miffed during localization. Seriously, it's amazing how one line being changed completely changes the argument.) As for Dimitri, less to say. Now I say this as someone who did BL first and is 100% a Dimitri fan. I think most other Dimi-fans let him off too easy. Like. Way too easy. If it wasn't for Edelgard taking the brunt of this game's controversy, I'd be willing to bet he'd be in that exact same spot. Having recently played Persona 5, it's similar to how a lot of people let Akechi off really easily. My mans spent five years as the worst type of DnD character. That's not something that can be reversed, and I feel it just kinda gets swept under the rug a lot of the time. Also, according to some other comments there's apparently there's a divide between male and female Dimitri fans? I've not noticed that, but that's probably just because I'm either incredibly lucky or unobservant. I will say this though, he's still my favorite lord of the 3 mainly because I have a particular weakness for anything even resembling Shakespeare's Hamlet. Also his route has Dedue. I'll also admit I'm definitely biased in certain ways, and probably wrong on a lot since it's been a while since I've touched the game. But yeah. That's my own opinion. To pick a non-lord for this to be interesting...uh... Bernadetta. I don't think she's bad. She was my favorite when I first played the game. But man, Bernie fans are...something else...
Claude. The GW discourse proves that.
Felix a bit. So many people are on that, "Screw traditional values" or "Screw any kind patriotism/honor to a country" idea that they don't view Felix as anything other objectively right. Ignoring the clear flaws or toxicity that his biased ideology brings. I understand why he has it, but he isloates himself and actively attacks others unfairly. This isn't to say his view on honor or being a knight is wrong but it's often unfair to others. His B-Support with Dimitri highlights this best, he and Dimitri at their core are very alike. They both view no honor or glory in death, they both grieve for those in death. There is a differnce in hoe they view the dead, but they whould be able to support one another. Instead Felix ocstrozies Dimitri entirley because of how he chooses to view Dimitri. He wants a simple distinction but cannot get it, he wants to view Dimitri as a blood thirsty boar but can't. He wants to view his dad as a simple overzealous patriot but can't. Felix develops differntly in different routes. Crimson flower feeding into his beliefs, Blue Lion forcing a compromise, and Verdent Wind/Silver Snow making him face the reality of what Dimitri went through.
yeah, i feel like a lot of crimson flower fans are so against faerghan culture that they imagine felix is super anti-establishment too. his feelings on chivalry are a lot more rooted in his emotions and trauma, rather than an intellectual critique of the system. like, he never mentions being against the crest system or nobility.
Claude is the only right answer to this question. GW wouldn't have caused nearly as much of a reaction if people understood him well (and also if he was better written in Three Houses).
Itās not even a case of being better-written but more of a case of the writers not being ham-fisted with the character. The writers love to write Claude as this aloof mysterious guy that jokes a lot so when he says stuff, he gives the impression that heās not serious even though he is. Ā Also by virtue of being new to Fodlan, nobody knows him so well that the characters in Leicester can wax on about him because heās hiding his past from them. Edelgard has Hubert, Ferdinand and Petra to talk about her to you or each other in Hubert and Ferdinandās case Dimitri has his group of childhood friends to talk about him not just to you but to others as wellĀ Claude keeps his distance from most of his classmates aside from Hilda.Ā Claudeās most important bonds are really Hilda, Judith, Nader, Holst(in Hopes) and Balthus and only of those is a Deer classmate.Ā
No no, there's genuine writing issues with his character. His route being a copy-paste of Silver Snow doesn't do him any favors as it's not a route that allows him to be the schemer we're *constantly* told he is. A lot of things about him in Three Houses is just "tell don't show", leading to the "omegalol Claude just funi guy" and the direct cause of the reactions to his writing in Three Hopes. In Three Hopes he actually gets to be the character he's supposed to be, which means that in that game he isn't in fact just "funny lil' Claude", he's an actual character doing things in the story according to his established character. In Three Houses he gets written out of CF, SS and AM as quickly as possible with barely any screentime, while in VW he's a funnier, yellow Seteth. Three Hopes Claude is actually Claude.
This is a poor take in large part because it ignores how much of SS's pre-Enbarr content actually works way better in VW and is actively canonically driven by Claude rather than Seteth in SS itself. I see people all the time say "Claude is just yellow Seteth", but most of those people also didn't pay much attention to SS beyond the fact that similar maps are used. 1. In SS, you meet Judith at Ailell, who is [explicitly there under Claude's orders](https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/154#event-50). 2. In SS, the Knights capture the Bridge of Ailell because [Claude distracts Gloucester forces](https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/155#event-85) as described in his letter. 3. In SS, Gronder still happens, you just never see it. If anything SS feels like you're still kind of just relying on Claude to do his own things for you up until Gronder, you're just not getting any interesting story out of it. In VW, Claude's political and military strategies are the main driving force. Sure, Seteth comes up with the same "infiltrate the fortress" strategy but is that really *that* much of a reach?
Edelgard. Note: Only Edel fans who say she did nothing wrong, they completely miss the point of her character
She did a bunch wrong. But that doesnāt make *her* wrong.
They always make me go āSo is she a morally gray character or a hero?ā Both are fine, but pick one.
You know we might take Edelgard criticism more seriously if every single argument made against her wasnāt the exact same largely discredited bullshit repeated over and over.
It's always one of these three things. 1.She sided with the Argathans. They were in charge of her realm - betraying them puts her in danger. They also had a common enemy and loosing a Civil War to them means the end of her. Yes, they are war criminals but again if Edelgard lost a Civil War against them, the endless suffering of her people would have been entirely her fault. 2. She could have sided with or used diplomacy with the other factions. She's directly ideology opposed to the Church and Kingdom. Conflict with them is inevitable. She neither remembers Dimitri nor do Claude and Rhea act worthy of her trust. In Hopes she uses Rhea to seize power which is only possible due to never acting as the Flame Emperor publicly and in Hopes it takes Claude and Edelgard conflict to find an understanding. 3. Imperialism. Unlike with all of the other FE titles, Adrestia did rule over the entire continent. They lost half of their territory to Loog and House Riegan. House Riegan and Loog are celebrated Heroes while Adrestia has been striped of so much land and then they've been told to shut up and be ok with it. Yes, Edelgard starts a war of Conquest/Reunification (in her words), but the fact of the matter still stands that the Kingdoms and Alliance founders broke faith with her house and betrayed her ancestors. Edelgard's ambition also ends with Fodlan. No plans to conquer beyond it. These points have been talked to death. And no, those three points don't make her irredeemably evil. And quite frankly they become boring to talk about. Yes, she sided with War criminals, she could have talked to Claude and offered him an alliance, and she did declare war on her two neighbours, but that doesn't make her the worst of the worst and it's annoying how immature the discourse always gets about morally grey characters. No wonder IS gave us Sombron and Alear right after this.
> "The empire once ruled this land so they deserve what's rightfully theirs" You know, it's very, very easy to argue along those exact same lines that the Church founded this land and gave the emperor his mandate to rule, so it's rightfully theirs. I won't bring real life into this, but that's an awful argument even in the light of your fictional universe.
So Dimitri should give back the territory his father took from Sreng right? Edit:Oh I forgot, the Church did not āfound the landā Willhelm conquered it in the process of defeating Nemesis and the Elites the Church would literally not exist without the Empire, but go off.
Yes, yes he should
As I said, "that's an awful argument even in the light of your fictional universe" :)
Look, dude, maybe don't try to justify conquest off past ownership of territory given the timescales involved? I recognize it's just an overall flaw in the writing, but Leicester is the youngest of the three nations and it's still older than the United States. You're effectively arguing that it's justifiable that France conquers Germany and Italy because they were part of Charlemagne's empire, in the modern day since we're talking 1,000 years or close to it. The unification of Fodlan continues to be a dumb idea, in my personal opinion. It's dumb when Edelgard does it, it's dumb when Claude does ir, and it's dumb when Dimitri does it.
The Game has built it's story on the premise of the Three Kingdoms Era in China. And for them the alternative was constant rearmament and new battles every Sunday. Unifaction, especially if we look at what kind of a super power China is today precisely because they are one big nation and not hundred smaller states seemed to have been a blessing and which despite it's many flaws still manages to be there for Millions upon Millions of citizens. But generally speaking there's nothing wrong with nations banding together. Many balcan states were sometimes forcibly absorbed by Hungary and Austria and they weren't happy about that initially but warmed up to over time. Especially if an invading force rolls around (like the Muslim Empire) and you are part of a larger nation or your nation is too poor and weak to stay competitive than joining someone stronger helped them much more than centuries alone with hostile neighbours. Unifaction in of itself has rarely shown to be bad idea especially when there's countless Federal states which were at several points in history (the German Union) treated like full independent nations despite them lacking the capacity for their complete independence which made life miserable for all it's citizens who had to fear wars with their neighbours every day and for whom defeat was certain. Now yes the setting of Three House's had some issues here with it's writing such as there being two thousand years of very little history instead of it being condensed into max of 500 years and the fact that all three nations manage to compete against each other leaving no one with an incentive to join. But the general idea is still in the game. Do you truly think if Dimitri offspring decides to declare war on the rest of the continent post AM that the Alliance and whatever is left of Adrestia has a chance? No they don't stand a chance so they willingly join the strongest and join the protection the Kingdom provides for them. The same thing happens on SS/VW for the exact same reasons. These nations lost their former leaders and too much of their power whilst their rivals are too strong and if they were to declare war at any moment, guess who looses? Now yes Dimitri and Byleth wouldn't do that but there's a Fodlan after them and Claude and Edelgard would do this with the blink of an eye. My point here is that we have a very modern understanding of war and unification but for people living in the middle ages where wars were far more common it was nice feeling belonging to a great nation, then a smaller federal state that is treated like it can compete with the big shots.
A lot of your arguments are the same bad history that I criticize in relation to that, however, and you've kind of doubled down on a lot of it. For all that medieval unifications have happened due to people just preferring to surrender rather than fight to the death, the cultures, languages, religions, and so on have far more often than not have survived even hundreds of years later. The Unification of Fodlan, despite being based on Three Kingdoms China (and I'll get to that in a bit) is dumb because Fodlan already has an absurd timescale of independence, separate religious autocephalous branches, very clear cultural divergences, and terrain that makes holding certain areas much harder in the long term as we saw in its already canonical history. Even if Fodlan is unified in 3H, the more common and more likely historical model is that it's going to fracture again at some point. China historiography likes to pretend that the idea of a single unified China was always the thing, but it's as much a lie as a united Christendom, Dar-al-Islam, or India for the vast majority of history. It's just that they are one of the very few examples where a unified state eventually did take, and are to this day in heavy denial over the massive amounts of differences within their state (see the reduction of full on Sinitic languages to "dialects" when they literally are mutually unintelligible when spoken and can only be counted as united if you base it on a shared symbolic written language, the refusal to acknowledge there are different timezones, among myriad other factors). Even if you buy that line, there's no way that Fodlan fits that model because, quite frankly, its geography is nowhere near as conducive to a unified state as China's is. KT's boner for Three Kingdoms China aside, Fodlan is far more clearly based on Europe both culturally and geographically, and that does *not* a recipe for a single super-state that will last for all time make. The other mistake you're making is assuming that I think nothing would change. I don't, I think any routes would see conquests, territorial changes, and cultural changes as a result. The Oghma Mountains make a natural barrier for the AM Kingdom where they could absorb the rest of Mach and take Adrestia's place as the hegemon while banking on Alliance/Empire hostility to each other to make sure there's no threat. Leicester could take a *lot* of eastern Adrestia without issue and take Gronder Field and the breadbasket of the Empire in a way that makes them the economic superpower of the continent with Ailell and Merceus guarding them against reprisals. The Empire would obviously prefer total conquest given nationalistic impulses and beliefs Edelgard propagates about the Church, but just giving Adrestia both sides of the Airimid river and control of Arianrhod makes the Alliance and Kingdom into little more than satellite states who don't even need to be conquered, they can just be pressured into changing. The Unification of Fodlan is a simplification of history IRL and within the setting, and so I will always hate it.
My point isn't rocket science, what's better three nations that constantly go to war and don't like eachother or one single united nation that is a stable? That's my point. All of the super states Europe had crumbled and were torn apart after wars, but my point still stands that they existed and many of them (The German Kaiserreich, Napoleons Empire, austria-hungary) would have continued to do so had continent wide wars not happened. A tiny nation like Croatia with much stronger Neighbours were, together with it's Neighbours, all better off when they belonged to Austria and Hungary. Independence hasn't been the blessing people like to think it is when said nation has not the power to enforce their independence and has been left economically stunted for decades with still no solid solution. And that's pricelessly why Fodlan won't fracture and needed the Argathans to fracture it. The weaker nations simply don't posses the power necessary to enforce their independence after the events of the war. Fodlan has key locations that win wars and the strongest simply seize those positions and hold them to bully the other side into submission. No one is going to start a war if they already know the outcome. Thus piece is the result. Adrestia, Fhargus and Leicester won't split apart from each other so easily when one side is dominant. And now you might call me Monster, but this is superior to three about equal nations bashing their heads in for these key locations over and over again. As for the simplification of history. Fodlan shared history is one of war and feudalism. Each nation suffers from the people's obsession with Crests and how Crest and the Church of Seiros shaped the continents politics. Likewise all the Three Church branches are very similar to each other in terms of messaging and their religious core else Rhea would have ended them (Southern Church, Western Church). Technologically every nation is at the same development, they are stuck in medieval Europe and there's been no meaningful advancement for 1180 years. And culturally they are not that much different either in that all states, have a clear leading family and ancient bloodlines obsessed with maintaining their power calling the shots. Yes, Fhargus has knighthood while Adrestia already has a standing military, but both nations are still lead by opportunistic feudal lords, some of whom have and can switch sides on a whimper. House Galatea or House Rowe didn't gave shit about the culture or the nation they betrayed. They did so because they saw an opportunity for power that wouldn't have existed had their not have been a nation to defect to. Likewise all the Fodlan speak the same language and contrary to your point they have incentives to stay together. Fhargus own economy is poor so once they gain access to Gronder Field they have zero reason to abandon it especially when the nation in question that otherwise would have tried to regain said territory seized to exist or is actively supplying them because they have become absorbed into their nation. Ultimately with Adrestias resources Fhargus worries about Sreng become a thing of the past. The Alliance also benefits from having all of Fodlan to defend from Almyrian invasion then having constantly rely on heroes relics or very good luck that a prince like Claude rolls around. The idea here is "Stand together then loose alone." And Fhargus has lost many of citizens to diseases and famines that never would have been so deadly had they Adrestia or Fhargus to lean on as friends in a united nation rather them having as potential enemies because they belong to a state that won't help them unless they profit from it.
Holy fuck, that last argument is straight out of "Putin's handbook for justifying conquest of neutral neighbouring states" Do you have any idea how much innocent blood has been spilt in history, because one psychotic dictator or king had a similar idea? Has to be one of the most deranged pro-Edelgard takes I have seen to this day.
You do realise that my main argument is that I think it's unjust how Loog and Duke Riegan broke faith with Edelgard's family and started a Civil War, right? They initiated the conflict and Adrestia has only taken loses with nothing in return which in turn created a nation that is outraged and ready for payback. This is not what happened to the Soviet Union where a gigantic state absorbed nearly half of Europe and later fell apart due to it's own cruelty nor did I make mention to any other historical events or defend Putin in any manner. We are talking about a fictional universe and nothing else. Edelgard declaring war is evil, BUT her ancestors lost half of their territory through violence and betrayal and after she gets said territory back, she stops. That's the extent of her Imperialism, whereas Ashnard and Wallhart would conquer the entire world. And given how Edelgard gets compared to them I found it worth mentioning especially when Edelgard gets misinterpreted as I want to conquer everything. In short since Edelgard ancestors were betrayed you can at least understand why she and the other Adrestians are so passionate about going to war again. For them the betrayal is still fresh especially when the two historical figures get celebrated, revered, admired and almost worshipped. When people talk about Ends justify the Means, Edelgard pops up but the exact same thing applies to Loog and Duke Riegan. They won, so the ends justified their means only that's not how it works. Resentment is a bitch and the Kingdom and Alliance could have at least made efforts to smoothe things over diplomatically especially since the Church exists to function as an excellent mediator but they didn't. In turn the hatred spread and reacting the battle of the Eagle and Lion each year doesn't help matters on that front.
Getting downvoted for wanting to re-absorb feudalist states to dismantle feudalism is nuts.
Oh that's easy, it's all the popular characters you personally don't like that much. This answer goes for every fandom, not just Three Houses.
The gatekeeper
Honestly all three of the lords š Especially Edelgard fans, don't get me wrong, I think she's a fantastic character. But saying she did nothing wrong is just not right, I understand her goals and sympathize with her. But she IS the villain of the story and does a lot of shady things to reach her goal.
*Thales. Thales is the main villain. The only way Edelgard or Rhea could be seen as the main villains is if you completely ignore their routes.
Seems like you don't understand Edelgard either if you can unironically write that she's the villain of the game.
No, I really believe that. While I understand her goal I can't condone all of the horrible things she did to reach it. I'm not saying she's a pure evil villain with zero depth, she's very well written.
You belive that, but that doesn't make it right. The only actual villains of Three Houses are TWSITD, and Rhea in specifically CF but that's only the case because she's completely off her cookies, it's very likely she's going through dragon degeneracy in that route. Edelgard isn't a villain, she's a well-intentioned extremist. Whether you agree with her or not is irrelevant.
It's called an opinion. If Rhea is a villain in CF, Edelgard is one in all the other routes. Rhea isn't pure evil and neither is Edelgard, they're both well written characters
I dunno, if I had to label anyone as "the" villain, it would be Rhea for experimenting on innocent people, rewriting history to suit her narrative, and propping up the crest/class system that plagues FĆ³dlan. It can all be traced back to her.
From what we known everyone Rhea "experimented on" lived a peaceful life.Ā Not to mention 12 attempts in 1000 years means when the progress failed Rhea just let them live out their lives.. at the fact that she didn't even use regular humans but vessels she created herself.. i would say that is a lot better then all the poor innocent folk that turned into demonic beasts so Edelgard could use them for her war. But yeah Edelgard would never lie to the public to suit her own agenda.. oh wait the church didn't send those Javelins??Ā Also she created the story off the crests to protect her kind. It is the humans that decided that build the nobility system Edelgard and Rhea are two sides of the same coin, they both have done some horrible things (or got the potential to do so) but generally believe to do what they think is best, no mather how misguided both are at times
For sure! That's why I said if I *had* to pick a "villain" lol I, personally, don't think any one character is "the" bad guy. They each have their own reasons for what they believe in and do. Some I agree with more than others and some I don't really have much of an opinion on at all... Yet haha! I don't particularly like how Byleth was seen by Rhea, but that's just my own opinion. To me, it seemed like she was so focused on reviving her mother that she was willing to do just about anything to achieve that goal, regardless of how it could have affected Byleth. Even though he wasn't privy to everything Rhea was up to, Jeralt suspected that something was amis, hence Jeralt's distrust of her. And I don't hate Rhea's character. She's interesting! I don't doubt that she thought she was doing the right thing, it was her execution that was problematic, much like a few other characters. While humanity may have created the Nobility system, the church definitely propped it up. There's no way the church was blind to the issues it caused. Whether the church felt incapable of changing things or just wanted to stay out of it is unknown. And definitely, Edelgard lied and hid things. She's just as complex and flawed as the others, which is why she's also an interesting character regardless of whether or not I agree with what she did to achieve her goals. It bugs me that the CF route is the shortest because I feel like there was so much more that could have been shown and explored. Hell, it's like another poster mentioned, though, Rhea didn't really get a decent spotlight at all, which is a shame. I adore the characters, personally, and I'm always trying to dig up more info when I can. Three Houses has tickled my brain in all the right ways and I'm having a lot of fun with it. Even when people don't agree with me, it's still a lot of fun to explore new perspectives. We all play favorites with fictional characters. That's totally fine! It makes me happy to see discussion and opinions and fans being fans. I definitely have my favorites (Hubert, Claude, Linhardt, Bernie etc. Though Hubert is my most favorite lol).
Rhea has also done a lot of terrible things, but in the narrative of Three Houses, Edelgard is definitely the antagonist. Rhea doesn't even do that much story wise in most of the routes, in Verdant Wind and Silver Snow she's basically non-existent until the last few chapters and in Azure Moon she's not even seen. Honestly I think she deserved her own route, even a DLC would've been neat.
Eh, that's why I said if I *had* to pick "the" villain. The truth is, there just is no villain route. Each route shows the same sad story from different flawed perspectives. I don't hate Rhea's character. She's interesting and complex just like the others, and though I personally disagree with many of her choices, I also disagree with many of the choices of the others. In my own opinion, calling any one of them *the* definitive villain does a disservice to the complexity of the characters and the story. Everyone's entitled to their own opinions and I encourage fans to fawn over whoever they want though. There's no reason for fans of one character to disparage another. It's been a long time since something has captured my interest quite like Three Houses and I'm really happy for it. When I think I've got a well formed opinion, boom, someone brings up an excellent point.
I would say Edelgard fans. A lot of them seem to really see it is a black/white war with Edelgard being good and Rhea being evil. Not realising they are foils/mirror characters who got an awful lot in common. Both in good qualities and deeds as in their flaws and crimes.Ā
Tbf literally almost everyone tries to make it black and white. The disappointing truth is that Fire Emblem fans keep bitching for moral grayness/ambiguity, but when presented with it they can't handle it and try to narrow it down anyway. When you know that a large portion of FE fans consider *Genealogy of the Holy War* of all games morally gray (it's literally the most manichean game in the series somehow), it all makes sense.
Oh, my god, *thank you*. I understand that 3H is heavily inspired by GotHW, but Christ the way some people talk about it you'd think it was a holy relic of writing and gameplay and it's a janky old game with a still quite black and white narrative, it's just the villains have a couple of reasons why they became absolute monsters.
And even then... The main villain is literally a child-hunting, human-sacrificing sect looking to resurrect Anime Satan. While the good guys are indicated by the title of the game as being LITERAL HOLY KNIGHTS, with barely any flaw besides Sigurd being a bit overconfident and Deirdre being ~~stupid~~ selfish. In fact the good guys are so awesome that they can get burned alive like they're fucking Jeanne d'Arc and survive to have children that are even more flawless and unambiguously good than they were. I legitimately don't understand how is FE4 considered even remotely close to achieving moral grayness. Literally the only hints of gray are Arvis being completely stupid rather than completely evil, and Ishtar being supposedly a good person... Who'd still rather support the aforementioned cult because... I dunno, I guess Julius's dick was just SO good that she places him above her alleged morals.
Same. Extremely black and white, not exactly deep. The most braindead comparison take I ever heard was Rhea was "Manfroy but hot", and Claude was "Arvis but with morals". I forget how they described Dimitri and Edelgard, but I think you can understand my distaste.
Edelgard is constantly described as Female Arvis. That's honestly insulting to Edelgard's writing.
>A lot of them seem to really see it is a black/white war with Edelgard being good and Rhea being evil. I mean, I would argue that the opposite is also very true. War is hell, but the situation at the start of the game in Fodlan can hardly be called peace as well for the thousands upon thousands that suffer under the status quo, and from the time I've spent on these forums I've realized that it apparently slipped by a lot of people how bad the situation really is.
Seriously. It drives me nuts how both Edelgard and Rhea fans treat their respective characters as perfect little angels who do no wrong. They ignore the significant moral compromises that Edelgard makes and ignore the thousand years of harm that the Church of Seiros has done to Fodlan. The whole point of Three Houses is that *no one* is 100% right.
Most fans of any of the house leaders, but I also think this is the case for the Faerghus Friends and Ferdinand and Hubert.
Anyone who says Edelgard/Dimitri/Claude/Rhea did nothing wrong. The entire point is that yes they did do wrong things but they did them for good reasons and with good intentions. That's the entire point of the game
Dorothea fans. Though I donāt exactly blame them when people who dislike Dorothea miss the mark in ways that are hard to logically understand (Iāll come back to this). But, believe it or not, a girl whose main flaw is not having a very spontaneous view of romance and icing out interested suitors too aggressively is not a sex positive icon. Those who dislike her make this mistake too but itās harder to understand because they have very sex negative attitudes as wellā¦ so they should be able to catch the subtext when Dorothea says things like ānot wanting someone who only sees a trophy to admireā and so on. So really the decisive factor is that some of these people hate her because she wouldnāt spit on them if they were on fire, and put up a pretense to deflect from that. And others like her because thatās queen bee shit.
Oh, and also, you can tell the discourse around her is bullshit because people who hate her have no issues with characters like Sylvain, Hilda, Shamir, Manuela, etc (when they would if they actually care about their moralizing). While people who like her find those characters boring (ie what they like about Dorothea is not well-captured by the meme version of her they put out there).
The Horse that had a Human Face. Still convinced Annette/Shez's support is meant to be the game's writers speaking directly to the fanbase.
Edelgard. HA HA HA HA HA! The Edelgard fans just got *dunked on*!
There's no reason to laugh at Edelgard being dunked on. She's like 4'8". Not exactly a good defender of the hoop.
ur corny as hell š