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#dude also made a ss and vw one that i really liked but the cf one was...
trarioven · 3 years
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FE3H Favorite Characters
Just recently finished all Fire Emblem Three Houses Paths (plus the Cindered Shadow part). 
Yesterday i discussed the game with some of my friends (who replaying again), bout the story, the motives, and especially talk about our favourite characters. I doodle this in the middle of the voice call~ 
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THIS WILL BE LOOONG THAT’S WHY I HIDE IT.
So these are my top 5 favourite male and female in 3H and the reasons why i like them! After playing the game for second time, some character that i don’t really care become my favourite and some still my favourite. Ashen Wolves are almost like sitcom character that never fail make me laugh with their interaction (Heck they even kinda joking around in the middle of danger)
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1. Yuri (MALE) - Hilda (FEMALE)
Yuri is really interesting, my only disappointment is how little he got involved in the main story. He is this rough, smart, a bit jerk, mysterious, flirty, distrust kind of dude but deep down is good natured and honourable dude who made some bad decision in his past (life is just so unfair to him). He regret for what he did but try to act tough like he doesn’t care. I feel bad for Yuri and if his story is another path, I definitely choose him over the other three house leader. Because i trust that Yuri will always choose to protect his people first rather than following his ambition or ego or revenge. Also that makeup. Shame on you Trarioven, he even put better lipgloss than you! Oh and what the piip, IntSys, with YURI AND ASHE GOT NO SUPPORT?!
Hilda is a character that i truly feel connected XD Some people i know, really hate her for being lazy bitch, but hey, that’s rude. She is lazy yeah but that happen because when she was a kid, she learn how her big brother is too perfect that whatever she did will end up being disappointment (but i heard that she is being doted to much too). I really understand that position. But hey that doesn’t make Hilda grow up less than anyone. She really shine in timeskip, especially part that she stay for Claude in Crimson Flower, protecting him like a true friend. And when she defeated, her last word is... “It’s been fun Claude....sorry to go so soon”. FEEELS. That moment truly make me love Hilda. Also i always like the type character who is smol, pretty, petite but can kick your ass with weapon.
2. Dimitri (MALE) - Constance (FEMALE)
Ah Dimitri, tragic character in every route except his own route. In SS, he died and you see his ghost (what). In VW, died by some random soldier killed. In CF, Edelgard kill him with no hesitation, saying Dimitri is beyond saving (is he, El?). What the heck Dimitri... Well at least Dimitri got his happy ending in Azure Moon. From some polite prince, becoming crazy slowly due to betrayal and people die around him, and boom, he is totally crazy in the beginning of timeskip. I really like the part where he is technically a total jerk and talk with himself (or illusion). Annoying but that’s the charm, nobody perfect. He is too depressed and no one really guide him, resulting Dimitri pushing his own friends and death seeker. Glad he realise his mistake and that’s why he always my top 5. Also, please do not eat the weeds. Btw Azure Moons ending gave me so much feeling T_T
Constance. Well sometimes i hate “ojousama” type of character, because mostly they treat people like crap. Constance is different. Constance is ojousama that pulling her own weights, study harder to fulfil her dream (even it mean licking boots but not before change the said boot to licorice). There’s haughtiness but she is treat everyone equally (well she kind of always mad at Balthus but even Hapi got low tolerance with the dude ). She knows that following Edelgard will make her reclaim noble title faster, but when she knows Edelgard wrong, she not hesitate to challenge her in duel. Also i just love her student attire. Long noble skirt with some elegant frill in her dress. Ooooh~ always love that kind of clothes.
3. Felix (MALE) - Lysithea (FEMALE)
Felix is a meme for me back then and still a meme even now. He act so so tsundere, jerk to almost everyone, only love battle, rude. He is realistic tsundere that care for others with his own way or belief, and i like that. How he clash with Dimitri, how he rudely told Ingrid to stop being idealist too much, how he see his brother death is understandable. Everyone around him is kind of “HOO I’M GOING TO DIE AND KILL KID IN THE NAME OF KING” “HOO I’M GOING TO BECOME A IDEAL KNIGHT LIKE MY OLD BOYFRIEND”, although i know the one that said that will never done that too dumb act (Dedue and Ingrid are not stupid). But bruh, really? Like you guys have that mind deep down, that you will throw away life easily without even thinking what other think after you die? So i listen what Felix say about that, and i...mostly agree with his way of thinking. Well only mostly. Now Felix is just both my favourite and my meme character. His friendship with Dimitri, Sylvain and Ingrid, his support with Annette and Ashe, is really make him shine as a character.
Lysithea is this “I NOT A CHILD” trope. I never like that trope, but Lysithea really grow on me. She want to achieve as many as possible before she die. Yes, Lysithea got short lifespan due to experiment, that’s why she want to learn much, achieve much and being respected. But yes of course, she still a young girl deep down. She lost her temper a lot, she loves cake, she act like a brat a lot. But rather than annoyance, i smile at her. And you know how she care for her parents and her parents said Lysithea is a pride? Gawd, it warms my heart. All her ending, whether she survived or not, always warms me.
Btw in Felix and Lysithea non AM ending, where Felix saw Lysithea made most of her short life with her family and made Felix realise how precious life is.... (sob) sure Lysithea die in the end but that is one of my favourite ending
4. Claude (MALE) - Edelgard (FEMALE)
Claude... i like how he is the most open minded from all the house leader. I like most of his support (once again, he is open minded so he is really friendly). I just wish HE GOT MORE ROLE THAN JUST FOLLOWING TEACH. I really feel dumb when he just gone to Almyra and leaving Byleth to charge Fodlan, while for me Claude can be more than just “oh i’m curious with Fodlan history and lol Fodlan got dumb system so i’m pushing you to change the whole Fodlan Teach” role. I wish the writer put his more scheming personality in story. But if there’s one thing i truly feel bout Claude, is he always consider everything ,even himself, in a best way, unlike Dimitri revenge seeker that drag people around him, Edelgard too drastic way in changing the world become better place, Rhea manipulation in order to keep peace and Yuri selflessness that kind of put himself in bottom place. Claude got my respect a lot.
Edelgard is where i love her as a character and villain. As a protagonist? For some reason i feel a bit guilty following her. But if there’s one thing that i want to say, without Edelgard, story of Fire Emblem Three House and change that happen there will not happen. Sure her way is.... too drastic and bloodshed. But lessay if Edelgard is doing peaceful way, do you think Rhea will change her way? I don’t think so lol (hey i do not hate Rhea). Everything come to light because Edelgard are brave to make change (but she twisted a bit of truth too, so i dunno). And she is so... queen. I love Edelgard with her red queen dress theme. 
5. Ashe (MALE) - Petra (FEMALE)
I dunno if i like Sylvain more or Ashe more. In the end Ashe won. Not only because of his cinnamon roll personality, but there’s something more about being pure and overly idealist in Ashe’s character. He is conflicted with the death of Lonato and Christopte, and trust me, if i were in his position, i will be like him too. Questioning and feeling guilty with not realise the change in his family, but at the same time understand why Lonato didn’t tell him anything. And he is feel guilty with his life back then as a thief, but he is not overly blame himself since he understand he and his family need to stay alive. At first i don’t really like Ashe, but now i like him much.
Petra is really trying hard to learn all things in Fodlan, do everything in the best of her ability and so earnest, with hoping that one day she can achieve her dream, to make Empire recognise her country as an equal. Her broken English is cute and i like her timeskip design a lot. Btw one of my favourite part when playing this game, is when she says to Claude that there’s this guy that she like and she will drag him home even tie him if he refuse (lol). And next, she reach another support with Ashe where she really really want him to visit Brigid ,even promise him, making a knight order in Brigid simply for Ashe. And i was imagining Petra tying Ashe and drag him home lol. 
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And that’s it, my favourite characters in Three Houses~ 
Actually writing these make me happy XD 
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airlock · 4 years
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so, while I believe I’ve made my stance reasonably clear wrt defending edelgard, I also rapidly find myself annoyed by the slice of the Fire Emblem Three Houses fandom which is bent on swinging that pendulum the other way and accrediting her character far below all proper merits. perhaps it’s high time I dedicate that concentrated manic/spiteful energy to another long analytical text post
thus, the topic of today’s blathering on this blog shall be this: the ending of Crimson Flower, the frequent interpretations on the ways it’d secretly suck for everyone, and, without claiming that it wouldn’t suck (because it would), which of these interpretations simply don’t hold up to less motivated scrutinity
-Thesis: Edelgard can’t/won’t actually purge Such Individuals Who Carry A Snakelike Stride To Negotiate Spaces That Are Void Of Light
one of Edelgard’s most notorious points of discussion is her alliance with Fódlan’s baddest, flattest dudes. more charitable readings register it as either a means of playing her enemies against each other, or as a matter she initially has little say over, but can overturn by building up her power base. less charitable readings may register all of Edelgard’s reservations about the alliance as mere theatre -- includingly when she’s not addressing anyone other than them, apparently -- or cast suspicion on the idea that she really did sever her ties with them in the postgame, being that this crucial event is relegated to offscreen and acknowledged only in the epilogue text, which, on all routes, is notoriously difficult to take at face value
the matter with the former is that, just because Edelgard isn’t always honest with her allies, some of the fandom has gotten obssessed with this idea that anything that comes out of her mouth is passible of decanonization, as though one can only ever be 100% honest all the time or a pathological liar. sometimes Hubert also gets hit with some of it, including colorful theories that he’s secretly working with agartha on a deeper level than Edelgard and ultimately intends to usurp her for the ultimate evulz. it’s almost as if one’s not engaging with the same characters at all anymore. but hey, if we must deal in characterization absolutes, let’s go with this: Edelgard and Hubert are both very pragmatic characters -- why, then, produce so much blatantly unecessary theatre? like, there’s an entire paralogue dedicated to Hubert sowing the seeds of a future St. Patrickening; going through so much more trouble than they’re getting worth isn’t how these two operate
the latter issue will give us a little more to chew on, though, because there have been a variety of arguments made to sustain the idea that, despite the epilogue text, Edelgard cannot or will not hunt down the Dudes Who Do The Worm At The Club once the chips are down. a popular one is that Edelgard wouldn’t have enough resources at her disposal to pursue that purge due to having a fucktonne of fresh annexations to deal with; another frequent customer roots itself in archetypal allusions, arguing that, as Edelgard is a blatant second coming of Arvis from Genealogy of the Holy War, her regime should be expected to be headed for the same ignobile end
on the matter of whether Edelgard can wipe out agartha, I’m moved to ask: are the people who push this angle forgetting everything we do see onscreen of agartha? in VM and SS, one month is all it takes between realizing they exist and ending them; in AM, they’re smothered into dust as unintentionally as Dimitri destroys every sewing needle he picks up, largely because Thales somehow figured it was a good idea to stand squarely between the two factions he’d been trying to play against each other.
these guys are jobbers. they’re some of the most weaksauce major villains in the history of Fire Emblem. furthermore, CF concludes with them down several key members and stuck on the endlag of their nukes, which also tipped Hubert off to the location of Shambhala, because I guess it was that important to throw a nuclear tantrum over Cornelia. why would Edelgard be the only one of the three lords who supposedly can’t vamoose these dudes with a sneeze? is it just because she’s the only one who didn’t do it onscreen? and because offscreening it alerts us more readily to what a risible anticlimax the whole thing is, I guess?
as for archetypes -- it’s entirely correct to claim that Edelgard draws heavily from Arvis, and her tentative allies, from the less completely incompetent (but still really poorly written) loptyrous cultists. it’s also correct to claim that the secret spotlight-stealing squad of doom outplayed Arvis and took over his government. still, what sort of logic is this, where an archetypal resonance means everything will play out the exact same way? Perceval is heavily based on Camus and his other imitators, but you can recruit that dude. Jill is heavily based on Minerva and her other imitators, but she can defect back to nation she’d left, if the player is sufficiently incautious. there’s absolutely nothing to obligate Edelgard to follow the same script as her predecessor, least of all to such a point it’d contradict existing canon
(sometimes the ending tapestry also plays into this, because it features a dark bishop behind the crowd, carrying a dagger behind his back. supposedly, he’s threatening the crowd to stay in line. with the dagger that he’s not holding to them. please, rub those last two brain cells together and figure out who that guy is probably trying to kill in that tapestry.)
-Thesis: Dimitri has a secret unidentified heir who’s going to become the new Seliph and make Edelgard his Arvis properly
in a cutscene in ch17, Dimitri tells Rhea that he’s not too worried about getting himself into a straight deathmatch with Edelgard, because even if that ends poorly for him (as it does), there’s another who will carry on the Blaiddyd bloodline in his stead. the fandom has been scrambling for a while now to figure out just who the hell he’s referring to when he says as much
playing off the whole thing with how Edelgard surely must be a carbon copy of Arvis on all aspects, an ascending theory is that Dimitri went and spawned a secret offscreen baby, who will grow up to become Seliph 2.0, and thus, the blade on which Edelgard’s empire ends
the thing is, Dimitri did not spawn a secret offscreen baby. lo, by the combined forces of occam’s razor and conservation of detail, I give you the true identity of the secret remaining Blaidyyd: it’s just Rufus
remember Rufus? Lambert’s brother, was regent when Dimitri wasn’t old enough to be king, wasn’t much of any good at it? you may have written him off because he was murdered in AM, VW, and SS. you know who else was murdered in AM, VW and SS, but not CF? one of Dimitri’s eyes. and that’s not just a crack at Dimitri, either! the reason why he gets to keep both eyes in CF is because the coup d’etat that nearly killed him -- and did fully kill Rufus -- never came to be.
(sidebar -- canon implies that this difference occours because Byleth cast the elusive Summon Conscience spell on Edelgard; I’d say there’s a much more reasonable reading in that, with Rhea alive and relocated to the Kingdom, wiping out the royal family is a lot of trouble just to give her a pretext with which to rule the roost herself. still, see, we can interpret that reasonably without creating another stupid ass Edelgard Totally Lied spot!)
now, I do have to concede that Rufus isn’t explicitly confirmed to be the remaining Blaidyyd that Dimitri was referring to, and it’s also not totally impossible for Seliph 2.0 to be the product of Rufus’s grand royal womanizing. it’s just, at this point, the supposedly clear-cut archetypal resonance is now nothing more than unsubstantiated fanon direly clinging to that last cliff of technically being possible
-Thesis: Almyra will sweep into the wartorn Empire and crush it like a bug
maybe, if they did, we’d finally learn anything canon about them at all-
but see, that throwaway joke is a fantastic starting point. whenever almyra gets brought up in terms of FE16 endings, it seems to be under this unspoken agreement that they’re able, willing, and intent on unleashing a colossal invasion of Fódlan, effective soon enough to take advantage of the depleted and unstable society left in the continent at the game’s end.
why should we start from that assumption, though? it’s not rooted on anything other than the fact that Almyra at one point in the past was all of able, willing and intent on unleashing an invasion of Fódlan that was fierce enough to force international cooperation. what little we’re told of Almyra at the time of the game consistently indicates that this is no longer the case.
in CF alone, Almyra does attack, twice: once as Claude’s reinforcements, and then again when the usual noncomittal border raid meets the new leadership. Edelgard’s forces trounces them both times. note how that’s just Edelgard’s forces, too, and not the continental coalition that was previously required. but that should figure, shouldn’t it? after all, after the Locket was built, Leicester alone kept any new Almyran offensives from getting that serious. and Claude himself points out to Lorenz, in their supports, that Almyran raids dropped a lot in frequency around the time of the game; that may be just pre-timeskip, but all in all, the increasingly clear picture is that, even if Fódlan stirs itself for a bunch of years, Almyra doesn’t seem to be able, willing, and intent on squeezing that opportunity for another major invasion.
sometimes, the centerpin of this theorama is Claude, and specifically, his fate in Deirdriu. supposedly, there’s a catch-22: if he survives, he’s taking his ambitions and schemes back to Almyra in order to come back to Fódlan a few years later with a vengeance, and if he dies, the vengeance will instead come from his grieving parents. now, I know that correctly interpreting Claude’s character isn’t really in vogue yet, but both of those scenarios fundamentally misunderstand him, his development, and his circumstances.
let’s say he survives -- would he be eager to come back with an army behind his back? he might have all of his ambitions, but he’s a guy who rarely holds grudges, loves being alive, and just found out he doesn’t like war very much at all. and let’s say he dies -- sure, his parents aren’t going to like it, but is that all it takes? think back to Claude’s backstory, and to the amount of people who tried to kill him; didn’t these people just finally get what they wanted?
in fact, if Edelgard wants Claude -- and/or his parents -- off her back, accomplishing such is possibly just as simple as entreating with their enemies inside the country. remember, the paralogue where she fights off an Almyran charge also ends with her expressing a desire to reach across the Throat diplomatically, where previous authorities of Fódlan failed to do so because of their strict adherence to xenophobic dogmas. chalk that up to Edelgard’s naïveté or overconfidence all you might want; the long and narrow of it is that the possibility of exploiting inner Almyran politics to Fódlan’s favor is new ground that she breaks by herself.
of course, when it comes down to it, she might not even have to do any such heavy lifting, because it’s just not a given that Claude and/or his parents would be able to enact this vengeance that’s being expected of them, or would even want such a thing. this is, in fact, the breaking point of a lot of other smaller theses about someone who would hypothetically raise the flag of revenge against Edelgard’s regime. y’see...
-Thesis: any number of polities in Fódlan will never accept being violently subjugated by Edelgard
over the course of Edelgard’s march, a bunch of people die, and a bunch of territories get conquered. any number of the families that lose something in the process will then be assumed by fans to be plotting to retaliate against Edelgard for it. this, despite that the exact opposite of it happens over and over again in canon.
and do note, I’m not even just talking about CF. on all of the other routes, you spend a significant amount of the post-timeskip fighting your own country-of-choice’s forces, because a whole bunch of Fódlan folded to Edelgard without a second thought and another whole bunch is just going to stay on the fence unless you demonstrate enough force to draw them to your side.
in the Alliance, about half of all the most influential families side with Edelgard immediately, to the point of being willing to fight the other families over it. furthermore, it seems that Goneril, one of the families that isn’t a part of this pro-imperial bloc, often gets cast as as a focus of post-CF imperial opposition, because they’re very protective of their baby girl who probably died in the war -- nevermind that they don’t seem to be at all uncomfortable with asking for their dutiful new overlords to take care of the Locket while Holst is having another sick/poisoned fit. as it turns out, Hilda can keep her responsibility for choosing to give her life in that battle (against explicit orders, even), and warrior families can get over the fact that war gets people killed sometimes
the Kingdom is the same story; an entire territorial half of it will fold to the Empire on all routes. outside of CF, this requires a little coup, but if none of the western lords ever stood up to Cornelia, what would make them any sort of eager to stand up to Edelgard? hell, AM shows us Annette’s uncle having to give up his own life just so Cornelia doesn’t so much as get the impression that he’s colluding with Dimitri. and then, in CF, there’s no coup, but that same half of the Kingdom flips like a yugioh card as soon as Edelgard gets past Arianrhod, despite that the Kingdom, with the church’s help, is still exhibiting roughly enough military strength to keep pushing the Empire back.
in case you missed it, that’s Edelgard’s whole strategy: she tries to take the fight straight to the people who would never surrender to her -- because once she’s dealt with those, then everyone else surrenders. most of the authority in Fódlan is held by scattered people who put their own individual interests first, and happily base the side of the war that they support only on where they see the best odds of not getting killed, as opposed to any manner of loyalty or loftier value. this aspect of Fódlan gets called out a lot in the game, too
regardless, though, it sounds like there’s a lot of the fandom that’s still constantly projecting a specific type of loyalty onto these people. some sort of devotion to king and country, an appeal to a sovereignity which none of these countries, not even the Empire, probably really have. most of the nobles in Fódlan don’t actually give a flying shit what government they’re currently operating under, and haven’t given one since Adrestia was whole. even the ostensibly tidy three little country arrangement that we’re presented at the onset of the game is actually historically recent.
(fun fact: did you know that, when Leicester first became its own thing, Faerghus was also two separate countries? those two got back together, but Leicester decided not to get back together with them and they made a whole war about it. I feel like that’s a little less than the stark sense of nationality that folks keep projecting on these territories)
so yeah -- there are still lots of fair accusations to make of whether Edelgard’s regime would be a good thing, and whether it would survive. but here’s some that ought to be discarded, at least for those of us who aren’t in the edelhating bubble
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fe3h blogging 6 because organizational skills are for losers
oh hey yuri get to join chess club[3:24 PM]balthus DID go to the officers academy twice I’ve been trying to reconcile the route differences... it should be that everything that happens in a different route is also possible in the route you are looking at which ever one that may be. Now all there is is figuring out why those differences exist. or alternately to come up with a probability model to explain those differences. Let’s take the major difference of CF vs VW, AM, and SS. In CF unlike the other routes, Rhea is not captured, she organizes the knights and joins with Faerghus. In CF unlike other routes Byleth chooses to side with Edelgard and Rhea attacks them in the Holy Tomb, this is the only difference. Rhea is incredibly entitled when it comes to Byleth and so takes Byleth’s choice as a deep betrayal as the one who was supposed to be on her side chose not to be. In the battle of Garreg Mach, Rhea then also doesn’t entrust the Church to Byleth. Now how does this connect to Rhea avoiding capture in the battle? It could be she was more on guard after the Holy Tomb in BE, it could be that overall Rhea is likely captured but there is a chance she isn’t. Either way because she isn’t captured, she is there to rally and organize the knight’s of Seiros. In the other routes why didn’t Seteth do it? idk man. The Knights and Faerhgus together are better able to fend off the Empire and with the added security, keep Cornelia, the Agarthans, and Edelgard from framing Dimitri with assassination. Thus in CF Faerghus is in a more unified and powerful position with Rhea running the show. Never quite got why Garreg Mach was abandoned by all the sides given how much the characters talk about its strategic location etc. etc. In SS Rhea degenerates and causes the church to become a rampaging hivemind. Rhea is assumedly also in the palace in AM, but we do meet her in VW. This leads to a few possibilities, either she also dragon degenerated in those routes but the credits roll before we get to see that or she doesn’t. Either way she hold the potential to do so. This is probably the strongest probability argument in the game as we are shown no reason why she does in SS but does not in VW. Rhea is like a ticking time bomb. Maybe they should have blood minstrated like half the church. And then the Agarthans, are they just chilling around underground in AM? yeah, probably. They’re probably back to biding their time just like they have the past 1000 years.
I would like to talk about the three categories by which I evaluate how much I like a character in a series. 1. Personal preference: how much does the character's personality appeal to me on a personal level. Would I want to be friends with this person in real life. Do I just really wish they were real and want them in my life? 2.  Character writing: how well written is the character. How good is their character arc? What is the grade of execution? 3. Role in the story: what do they bring to the series as a whole. If they are a villain, are they a good villain? Comic relief. The Bro character. No matter the archetype, how well is it done. What is their narrative and thematic significance.
Let's look at the 3 Lords of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Please note that due to the branching story line and the ability of the player to choose the cast, I will not be focusing on a character's role in story as much as I usually do. Edelgard Personal preference: low. Her personality clashes with mine Character writing: high. Three Houses characters in general are well written. Edelgard feels like a person, her behavior is internally consistent, she's always herself. One of her main flaws explored in the game is how Edelgard will tunnel-vision and double down on a decision, a path even when it is no longer the best option. Role: high. In Crimson Flowers and to a lesser extent Silver Snow Edelgard acts as the central character, she drives the story. As the villain in 3/4 routes, Edelgard is incredibly interesting, acting as a counter point to the other Lords as well as to Byleth in Silver Snow.
Dimitri Personal preference: low. At first I didn't care, and then he was just annoying. He was solidly #2 on my to-punch-list in Azure Moon after Gilbert. Character writing: high. Dimitri has the easiest to notice character arc in the game as it is the main focus of Azure Moon. As such the most time is spent on his arc and it is very strong. The journey Dimitri goes on as he struggles with himself and his trauma is well written, its only weakness being that it hinges on the player (me) caring about him (which I do not). Role is the story: medium high. the overarching story of the rightful king reclaiming his throne nicely parallels the story of Dimitri reclaiming himself. Thus the external journey mirrors the internal one. Azure Moon most strongly brings the human element to Three Houses and this is both a strength and a weakness.
Claude Personal preference: very high. I wish I had a Claude in my life. His personality meshes well with mine and my life would be enhanced with the addition of his company. When I say Claude is my favorite, this is the category I am usually talking about. Character writing: high. Claude has the subtlest characterization and character arc of the Lords, this is further obscured due to mischaracterization by the English localization team and English voice actor. The characters in Three Houses in general are brilliant and Claude is no exception. He's complex and multifaceted as any real person is, and seeing him grow in to his own in Verdant Wind is a beautiful thing. Role in story: high. Claude's role in the Three Houses is also very interesting, his objectives especially in White Clouds turns the game into a mystery thriller which is breaking edge for a Fire Emblem Game. Claude's background is also a bit different from the others and so following along his story, you are able to gain perspective and see all of Fodlan for what it really is.
Jeralt personal preference: meh writing: good role: dad
wait. wait. so are the 4 apostles are called saints in the intro, but were they also children of the goddess?  so i can see indech and macuil dipping after the war of heroes and cethalenn went into a regenerative coma so that takes her and cihol out of the picture, but where were the 4 apostles during the war?  and why does balthus' pants have a specially colored patch for his crotch.  ... did balthus go to the academy twice?  dimitri really went “i’d be nice to just sink into the earth you know” huh. i just started cindered shadows so i can't really comment but... the whole "abyss is necessary for garreg mach" is such horse shit. like oooohhhhh we must have an oppressed underclass to maintain our standard of living.  why do the ashen wolves even exist. its not like there's a school down there and yet a bunch of people have uniforms.  its not like they took some of the officer's academy uniforms either. why waste resources making custom uniforms? oh hey yuri get to joisn chess club. balthus DID go to the officers academy twice. I wonder what happened to Constance. Also hello??? Intsys you have a kidnapping and torture as backstory problem, especially when its happening to female characters. Hapi get’s kidnapped, tortured and then imprisoned, no wonder the life has left her eyes. Also I don’t trust this Aelfric dude. He set up the ashen wolves “house”, but wouldn’t those resources be better spent on food and medicine. nepotism ho! your parent were good so you must be too
anyone else find Jeralt and Sitri's relationship a little weird. Hundreds of years old dude romances incredibly sheltered 19 year old with little life experience. and she and alfric idolized Jeralt when they were young. sitri was born in 1139 and died 1159 from childbirth.  I mean yeah Sitri's an adult and totally consenting and loving, and the relationship is pretty cute and sweet, but.... its kinda weird.... Like when you hear about a 30 year old dating a 60 year old, everyone's well into adulthood, they're consenting adults who can do whatever they want,  i have no objections,... but its still kinda weird. WHAT'S WORSE IS THAT THEY DEVS HAD LITERALLY NO REASON TO DO THIS they could have made her any age they wanted to. She could have been 35. but nooooo they didn't do that
the part that bothered me about maneula's writing. Is how the writers talk down on her for having emotions. You see this strongly in the hanneman+manuela paralogue. Where they make her do something impulsive which has negative consequences, which is fair. But then the game punishes her for being too emotional. "being too emotional" now where have i heard that critique before. This is especially in contrast to the game praising hanneman's intellectual rationality. how do i say this... whenever hanneman and manuela argue the game always takes hanneman's side and is overly harsh on manuela.  Oh hanneman is right that she should not have run off after a rumor about the death knight like that, but its the framing of the scene that bothers me.
the way people talk about the abyss reminds me of the goldfish bowl metaphor. the abyss provides sanctuary, but in it thye are also trapped. huh so edelgard doesn’t recognize dimitri. people sure do like aelfric, reminds me of a cult of personality, but it seems so genuine... A great rhea’s golems are back. they talk!! I was just joking about people’s souls being bound in there!!! aelfric is one of the cardinals!!!!! I've been trying to find these dude for months!!!!! you hear these lines going on and on about the cardinals. oh. he’s part of the seiros hivemind then. hey kids. if he’s a cardinal than the church probably already knows. this don’t tell the church stuff sounds like a trap. that letter is suspicious af. yuri clearly wants something, but what is he up to,,,
Yeah.. it really sounds like the 4 apostles were nabateans, but if that were so are constance, hapi, balthus, and yuri really descended from them? the 4 saints bloodlines in adrestia are from those gifted blood by the saints. yet i do believe the 4 apostles fled to different corners of fodlan, what remains in question is only if there in their new homes they gave blood (like rhea did to save jeralt), or actually did have kids.
i cant believe balthus got put on the bus via giant bird. ah so aelfric and yuri are cooperating with the agarthans. thats what they were up to. wow yuri really is fandom claude, i can still hear those idiots complaining that claude wasn’t up to anything and that he didn’t betray byleth. huh so yuri is struggling with split loyalty and the solution he came up with was to help aelfric but give byleth hints. 
constance calling the holy mausoleum a wretch hovel in on par with sylvain calling the dining hall filthy. huh so that was what yuri was planning. wasn’t expecting the double agent ploy.
so this does not take away from aelfric's decisions, but if rhea hadn't been a coward and just buried sitri instead of keeping her is storage where anyone could find her, this never would have happened. who know's maybe aelfric would have still made horrible decisions, but not this one horrible decision.
wait wait wait. rhea, what happened last time you used the chalice to try and resurrect sothis. what beast was created then? wait wait. nemesis dies and sothis’ heat and bones were retrieved in 91. the blood chalice ritual happened in 185. That’s enough time for rhea to have conducted her first experiment implanting the creststone into someone and having them live out their full life.
 prior to cindered shadows i thought claude had 2 given names much like many real world people of dual identity do (multiracial people, chinese americans, japanese americans, etc.), so claude is his name but he also has an almyran name. now though I am leaning towards the idea that claude is a name he took up upon entering fodlan given what he says to balthus at first and the presence of a claudia riegan in the past. from the feast of decadence: where is boramas? and i hope the bit about watching northern swordsmen ripped apart by wild animals at dinner was a play or something. why do books end up in the abyss anyways. why not burn them throughly. rhea certainly knows people have been living down there.  i wonder who built abyss. its older than garreg mach for sure.  real ironic how the blue lions idolize loog when he was an agarthan pawn not unlike edelgard.  rhea's choice contributed to the power imbalance between sreng and duscur compared to faerghus chevalier became village elder and gave everyone blood during wars. half got crests half turned into demonic beasts. that solves that. 1/4 down
i can’t believe aubin almost died in a ditch before yuri’s mom saved them. well that’s one more person with a really long life span
balthus: describing "bashbros" me: its called a life partner. "Balthus became son-in-law to the great commander, Nader" ... what. also why is the balthus yuri pairen ending the only one balthus ends up broke and on the street in. also where's my holst supports. scratch that. WHERE IS HOLST. oh yeah and you all were crying about byleth potentially outliving everyone, well yuri does too
ashen wolves supports that should have happened. Balthus: Manuela. Yuri: Mercedes. Hapi: Ignatz, Petra, Claude. Constance: Lorenz
Also let judith be a playable character. Claude and balthus already have like half a support with her.
why do feel like yuri and sylvain would be a disaster. and disaster in that they'd hurt each other's feelings
claude whenever balthus opens his mouth: shut up shut up shut up. shut up and go away. goddess. please. no. i enjoy seeing claude annoyed more than i probably should
me taking the fe3h developers by the shoulders and shaking them furiously: WHY DON'T CLAUDE AND HAPI GET A SUPPORT. THEY EVEN BOTH HAVE CELESTIAL MOTIFS!  claude would also empathize with hapi as an outsider of sorts, as well as both sharing a desire to explore the world.  i think the riegan crest and timotheus crest got mixed up in development. in tarot readings the moon is associated with darkness, an unclear mind, madness, creativity etc. it suits "dark dragon" far more than "star dragon". but that doesn't explain why claude gets the unique combat art Fallen Star me one again taking the fe3h developers by the shoulders and shaking them furiously: WHY DON'T YURI AND ASHE HAVE A SUPPORT!! THE APPARENTLY ALREADY KNOW EACH OTHER. THEY HAVE SIMILAR BACKGROUNDS. THEY'RE BOTH FROM FAERGHUS. THEIR BATTLE DIALOG SAYS MEANS THEY WANT TO BE FRIENDS
No bathus/manuela support either LET THEM MAKE POOR LIFE CHOICES TOGETHER. Balthus can have a little milf, as treat
...  yuri is very pretty in part 2
Edelgards biggest flaws are her desire for control and her stubborness or the way she will double down on a decision and refuse to budge. Claude's biggest flaws are his inability to trust, and showing his hand too late. A bit more on that last part. A large part of Claude's strategies involve downplaying his side and biding his time. This strategy is especially weak though to an aggressive opponent like Edelgard who can bulldoze him before he has time to play out his plan. Part of the problem is that Claude is very reactive but not very proactive (its one of the reasons I like pairing him with Edelgard and Petra). He won't just go for something the way Edelgard does, he's wait for the right opportunity. This difference you can also see in how the deal with the Church. Edelgard declares war on them because she thinks they are the root of Fodlan's social problems and need to be taken down. She makes a decision she believes in and readies herself for the consequences. Claude actually believes much of the same (The Church is the root of Fodlan's problems) but would much rather avoid those consequences (fall out with the Church). You see in Verdant Wind he will make use of the Church because the are useful. He's even willing to spout Church rhetoric and propaganda (Byleth as a Church symbol) if it suits his end goal of transferring power to an individual who will shape Fodlan's future to his liking (he does have an altruistic and humanitarian goal much like Edelgard). However in doing so he risks empowering the Church even more. In short Claude will put up a facade that he doesn't agree with on an ideals level and so is always in danger of that facade becoming real and failing his goals. yeah so claude character development has him learning to trust and being more proactive in his goals. so i like pairing him with characters that put him on a similar growth trajectory
wait how are the Fetters of Dromi (Aubin) and Vajra-Mushi (Chevalier) around simultaneously with Aubin and Chevalier. Aubin was last seen 20 years ago and the tales of elder giving blood don’t seem ancient, so were they recently killed?
ok if the vajra-mushi is a replica, what’s it a replica of? that implies an original. and its still able to turn people into demonic beasts. how????
unpopular opinion: I hate seteth. his face pisses me off and every time he opens his mouth I want to punch him. please die.
You know... i'd expected someone to have written a modern au of felix and sylvain being roommates with unresolved sexual tension.... but no its been 9 months and I haven't seen anything. Oh I've seen roommates where its like the new and uncomfortable experience of sharing space with someone you dont know and I've seen modern au where they are childhood friends. But i seriously have not seen the specific scenario where they are childhood friends AND roommates. Like... uuugh its just sylvain. But also uuggh its just sylvain?!? Maybe I'll just have to do it myself... but im no good at writing... 
What if glenn was 160cm but the kids never noticed (except sylvain) because they're so much younger
I want a spin off fighting game starring ferdinand and caspar. Honestly i just wanted to see ferdinand get into a fistfight with someone like in his support
On a fandom level I think the golden deer are the least popular for a number of reasons:
1. some of the characters only reveal their depth in supports and paralogues. Or in other words you must seek out these character to get to know them. Ex: Lorenz, Leonie, Ignatz. I mean without doing their supports you'd never know that Ignatz is the smoothest out of the Golden Deer the the most likely to get a date. If Sylvain is a poser, Ignatz is the real deal 2. Related to the above the writing sometimes relies too heavily on a character gimmick. Ex: Raphael, and Lysithea to a degree 3. Compared to other houses there are less established dynamics. Other characters (Linhardt and Caspar, BL childhood friend squad, etc.) can play off of each other and this can make them more emotionally accessible to a player. In the beginning especially the golden deer act more like co-workers than friends, they are the least cohesive as a house (which means their growth is that much more delicious). 4. the golden deer route in general is less popular and some characters don't appear in other routes so the sheer amount of exposure these characters get is less than other houses. a lot of people in the "fandom" have only played one or 2 routes and those usually include either azure moon or crimson flower/silver snow. people will also just delete or add things to characters.
OK Jp audio thoughts: tiny grandma sothis Alois is gravelier and yells a lot  I've been replaying the line where claude giggles in the jp audiio. How do i record audio ignatz is such a BABY in the japanese version. Like a small bunny Edelgard sounds more princessy Claude is more light hearted, less sassy more... boyish? like that one old school boy character trope that used to be a main character thing and is now more a side character thing eng dimitri more yell-y and feral.  jp dimitri is a lot more subdued and dead inside. but the delivery of the lines makes what he is saying all the more disturbing. dissonant serenity.
your path lies across my grave is such a raw line
Why did yuri get a different part 2 sprite.  he should age the same rate jeralt did. And in his paired ending with byleth? He apparently looks about the same after decades
Hilda and catherine would be EXCELLENT war masters if the devs weren't sexist
So almyra's big. We don't know how big. Fodlan is 2/3 of europe and almyra is bigger so i imagine there's a diverdity of biomes. I imagine the south coast is mediterranian. But that hinges on how subtropical adrestia is. Medditerranian climates are most common at 30-40 lattitude. The map of almyra we can see on the map is the same lattitude as faerhgus. This could be the greenest part of Almyra. I imagine almyra has both hot and cold deserts with a large plain covering the center. The rest would be scrubland/chaperral. All we know is that claude grew up somewhere with no big trees. I imagine that almyran government is more meriocratic than fodlan but that may vary region to region. I have an idea for both a centralized and decentralized almyra. Each regions leader is like the strongest most organized person around. A bit of nepotism may be involved. The exception would be the coast region which is more sedentary (some parts of almyra are semi nomadic) and may have a republic. Decentralized almyra would work kinda like the eu or us with seperate nations and a mediator for when almyra needs to act as a whole. That mediator aids negotions between regions and keeps things together. Mediator would be a council/appointed position. In a centralized almyra there still wouldn't be a monarachy. The king would choose a sucessor. So the king's kid would have a better chance than anyone but its no garuntee. I like the idea that like the 30 closeat relatives has a last one standing system as part of the selection system. This would allow for a dynastic style if ruling where there's a ruling clan but not direct line of descent 
Everyone keeps drawing older felix with long hair but I'm half convinced that 3 years post game he just lops,it off one day or gets a buzzcut
So a lot of people including me have long suspected Claude had an Almyran name and the validation right now just feels so great. Khalid!  Given his dialog in cindered shadows I think its more likely Khalid is the name his parents gave him and Claude is the name he took up upon coming to Fodlan
Things have never been easy for Claude, he says in his s support that he's going, to do it (the whole game/war) all over again. It's heavily implied that things to not end well for Claude outside of VW. i don't think the Almyrans would value a surrender to a fodlander tho. Claude in VW proves his competence as a military commander and leader by controlling all of fodlan. Its stated in some of his paired endings that the current king has some say in who the next king is as Claude had to earn his father's approval to ascend the throne. Don't forget that the general Almyran populace hates Claude. He has to prove himself by their standards before any respect is given and in SS/CF/AM he doesn't do that. Remember that the Fodland stereotype is of cowards and that Almyra values spectacles of strength/fighting prowess over tactical efficiency (invading fodlan's throat isn't for the purpose of gaining land/etc. its for the warriors to show off how strong they are), so they wouldn't value strategically weakening your nation (leicester) to stave off imperial invasion, to them that just looks like cowardice and incompetance. not only that he endangered and wasted Almyran soldiers in fighting a foreign war. Remember that no one really knows about Claude's plans outside of VW, he keeps his cards (too) close to his chest, and in non-VW routes the facade of weakness becomes a reality and all his schemes crumble. and he has little to show for his time in fodlan. Claude is less likely to experience character growth outside of VW, but I think there is potential for Claude's character growth outside of VW. One reason for this I'm just not a fan of Byleth's dating sim powers where everyone just falls head over heels for them. For every character and especially the lords, Byleth acts as a catalyst for the character's growth, but Claude (of the lords) is the least dependent on Byleth so I do believe he could have found some of the connections seen in VW if not to that extent. (also I'm a sucker for found family)[4:22 PM]But Byleth does act as the heart and glue of the golden deer so things wouldn't be that great for Claude and co 
So we cam see both turkic and persian influences in almyra but I've always wondered at the balance. From the turkic side we have the warrior culture and horse riding. This is also where my speculations on a nomadic society and non monarchy forms of government come from. Also note turkic (central asia, like the mongols) and not turkish (one of the turkic ethnicities). On the other side is ancient persia which was a center of science, technology and learning, a materially wealthy empire with imperial dynasties. These are very different and so balancing headcanons has always been challenging to honor both sides. You can see people are all over the spectrum in fandom.
Me shaking dorothea by the shoulders: YOU ARE VALID. I AM PROUD OF WHAT YOU HAVE ACCOMPLISHED. EAT THE RICH
im a caught between the dual desires of seeing sylvain succeed at something and be really cool, and seeing sylvain publicly make a fool of himself. sylvain miserable for mundane reasons is such a good look. I pin Sylvain in a headlock and force 2 gallons of respect women juice down his throat
In any universe. Claude's weekly schedule would fill me with terror.
Leonie and dorothea both have "I know a guy" vibes
A while ago I complained that the fodlan calendar doesn’t make sense. Why does the year begin on month 4? Well I recently got around to reading through the abyss library and it confirms that fodlan used to be on the gregorian calendar with months 1-12 lining up with our january-december which in a lot of countries are just month/moon 1-12 and then seiros and the church brought in a new calendar system (imperial year and "___ Moon" naming system). so combined with the other hints from the agarthans (un symbol, ICBMs, etc.), pretty much confirms that fodlan is indeed a post apocalyptic modern world. So the weird calendar system DOES have an in universe justification!
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