#for the most likely many other innocents claude has killed because they annoyed him | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dmclemblems · 1 year

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most annoying thing for me about Hopes Claude is the like. narrative confusion surrounding him. ohhh look at him killing innocent people for his greater good, siding with Gardy Wardy, killing Rhea and destroying the Central Church, vying for an expansion of his territory/influence, isn't that interesting since that's so different from what did in 3H? except no because he literally doesn't like. grow at all. if anything he outright degenerates as a character, but it's like the narrative isn't even sure if it wants to acknowledge that's happening. how am i supposed to give a shit about Hopes Claude if the game isn't even completely sure what it wants to do with him or how it wants to portray him lmao

3H Claude had his writing flaws sure but his overall consistency makes him waaaay better than Hopes Claude could ever hope (lol) to be

Yeah, I got that feel from it as well. I’m not surprised though because they did that with CF too. They wrote Edelgard a certain way, couldn’t commit to it and it came out feeling like a half-hearted attempt. They keep trying to use the concept that TWS are the main villains, but there can be more than one villain/villain group. As it is the narrative constantly pushes that Rhea and co are evil and it’s sad how many people in the fandom take that and run with it even though we’re always shown otherwise.

I feel like CF and GW both suffered from the fact that so, so many people do not think for themselves when it comes to what we’re told outright. People hear a narrative, regardless of whether or not it’s accurate, and immediately believe what’s being said without considering the other side of things. This is true irl all the time. People don’t often contest what’s told to them and say what they’ve seen otherwise with their own eyes. Since the game pushes the idea that Rhea is suspicious through Jeralt as early as WC (so even before Edelgard’s reveal as the Flame Emperor), people immediately believed that and when Edelgard and Claude were also suspicious of her, people assumed it had to be true.

Unfortunately this is a case of majority mentality, where when people hear about something that most people believe, they assume it must be correct when that’s not always the case. GW also goes through that, where it pushes the idea that Claude is doing a righteous thing for Fodlan and trying to do good by everyone. Ironically, this mob mentality that people have is exactly the kind of thing Edelgard hates, and yet her stans will just take anything she says at face value simply because it’s her who said it. It’s a case of not caring what the other side’s story is and just saying “this is the person I like more so I’m going to side with them and believe what they say” even when there’s either no proof or the facts are proving themselves to be the opposite of the belief.

It’s like if you said “why do you believe this” and someone said “I don’t know/I have no idea what the truth is but I believe this side more, even though I don’t have any idea why or any proof to take a side”. They’re just taking the side that either benefits their mentality more or they’re siding based on their own feelings, truth be damned.

Sadly GW and CF follow this pattern within the fandom. CF also does in game, but GW at least has many characters who aren’t on board with Claude’s behavior or plans. The game is trying to tell us that what he’s doing isn’t okay, but at the same time it’s pushing the idea that it’s “for a good cause”. Anyone can say anything they do is “for a good cause” whether it is or not. Someone could kill a person for their money and say “I have kids I have to feed so I killed this rich person for my children, and I’m going to donate tons of the money to homeless kids. It’s for a good cause”. Is it though, when you murdered an innocent person just because they had money when they did nothing wrong? GW has a lot of that attitude, where they treat invasion like it’s Just Okay because Claude Only Wants To Talk (with weapons in hand???), and since Rhea is The Cause of Everything, they can excuse killing any number of Faerghus’ people if it means getting to her to kill her.

The worst part of it is that a lot of people just agree with his idea of killing Rhea, so what he does to reach that goal often doesn’t matter to people. Since so many people hate Rhea in the fandom, they cheer him on at the idea of him killing her and want him to, but to get to that point he’s killing hundreds if not thousands more people just to kill one person who he personally deemed not good for Fodlan (which really is none of his business ngl. He lived outside of Fodlan his whole life and all of a sudden walks in and two years later decides he knows what’s best for Fodlan and decides who has to die and who gets to live? Erwin Was Right and that’s really all you need to know to understand that Houses Claude would never have done all that lol. Also, Houses Claude not only didn’t do that but he knew Fodlan a lot longer by the end of VW).

I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to look at GW and be like “wow, Claude is doing so many good things!”.

#DCE Ask

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agent-cupcake · 3 years

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Hey AC! I love your blog and was wondering if I could get your opinion on something. I've seen some people complaining that Ingrid and Hilda are treated by the fandom, with Ingrid stans saying that Hilda is also racist towards Almyrans (which, granted, she is) but doesn't get nearly as much hate about it as Ingrid does. But personally I feel like their attitudes and the way they react towards Dedue/Cyril are wildly different and Hilda generally seems less hateful/irrational about it. Thoughts?

This is... kind of a touchy topic... I like it though! It’s worth discussing, especially since I feel like it’s broke criticism to simply deflect blame onto a character in order to prop up another. Full and obvious disclosure: I very much dislike Ingrid and very much love Hilda. That said, I don’t think it’s fair to compare them for the sake of which is worse. I fall into the trap of character criticism through comparison far too often and it's not really valid unless you can fully explore each character in their own right beforehand. Which is why, while writing this, I came to the conclusion that the ways these two characters are interpreted and the reason people view their racist tendencies differently has far more to do with the characters themselves than their actual beliefs.

From first impressions to subsequent playthroughs, this is pretty much how I feel about Ingrid: she brings up her hatred of the Duscur people and Dedue unprompted and uncontested several times at the very beginning of the game, putting it front and center to her character. This is important, it sets a foundational component for how I could come to view her. According to her introduction, she is honorable and respectful, a model lady knight trope. But, as mentioned, she's really racist. Literally standing around thinking about how awful it is that Dimitri would trust a man of Duscur because they are all bad people. Yikes. And nobody calls her on it. Again, this is very important for perception. People judge Sylvain for his bad behavior in a much more harsh way than they do Ingrid for her vitriolic loathing for another classmate who we have seen as nothing but respectful. It's weird. And then, despite the fact that her close friend Sylvain was able to reason out that it’s not possible for the Duscur people to be at fault for the Tragedy, despite the fact that the prince of the country she supposedly hopes to serve with unwavering respect and loyalty has made it clear that he does not believe that Dedue or Duscar are responsible for the Tragedy, and despite the fact that Dimitri, her close friend and the one most affected by the Tragedy (seriously, she lost a guy she might have married and he lost his best friend, mother, and watched his father be killed in front of his eyes) continuously insists that neither Dedue nor Duscur are at fault, she loudly and openly believes that the ensuing massacre of Duscur was deserved and Dedue is inherently culpable simply because of his race. Her motivations for this hatred feel even more cheap considering her dogged hero worship for Glenn was born out of the fact that she was promised to him, making the fact that she’d use his death as reason enough for the destruction of countless innocent lives even more unsympathetic in my eyes. I mean, seriously, she was around 13 and he was older than her, how close could they have truly been? Dimitri says they were in love, but she was a child. Abandoning my modern sensibilities about age of consent or whatever, kids at that age don't have the emotional or mental capability. Maybe this is just nitpicking, but I have a very hard time caring about that relationship. But, if her actual justification is because of what happened to Faerghus as a result of the Tragedy and feels duty-bound as a knight to find justice through the systematic destruction of the Duscur people, then it just circles back to confusion considering the future leader of said country doesn't hold Duscur or Dedue responsible. The importance of perception comes in because despite these paper thin excuses and her seemingly willfully ignorant hatred, she is never challenged on her racist beliefs. The reason she seems to change her mind about Dedue and consider that maybe excusing a genocide is wrong stems from guilt that Dedue continuously comes to her aid in battle at the potential cost of his own life. I can understand, to a certain extent, why she might feel the way she does. But, again, I have such a hard time with any justification when nobody that she's close to is even nearly as hateful as her, there is plenty of evidence (evidence that the people close to her have found!) to provide a very reasonable counterclaim to Duscur's guilt, and that none of that even matters when it would require her to openly contradict the prince of her country to make the claim that Dedue was in any way complicit in the Tragedy. Which would be fine if she wasn't established as the model Lady Knight archetype, which also brings us into Ingrid's moral high horse. Admittedly, I hate the Lady Knight trope. I have a significant bias against these types of characters. However, I really do think that this moral crusade is where she lost me completely. Without even a shred of empathy or self awareness, she lectures Sylvain about his shitty behavior even though their circumstances are at least somewhat similar and he has his reasons (bad ones, maybe, but ones worth understanding if she actually cares about him), she lectures Felix about not being interested in knightly endeavors (an aspect of his character that is born of the trauma she has appropriated), and she lectures Claude about behavior that is befitting of a man in his position. Not because she cares about the girls Sylvain is hurting, not because she thinks there are any grave stakes from Felix choosing to do his own thing, and not because she knows that Claude's behavior affects his ability to lead, but because she doesn't like these behaviors and thinks they should be fixed. Yet, at the same time, she believes Dedue deserved to lose his family, country, and culture based on his birth and nobody ever does anything to morally correct her, it is something she eventually is forced to acknowledge on her own. It's frustrating, infuriating even, that the game lets her get away with being so grossly hypocritical. And, all the while, she is being painted as sympathetic. Again, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for her about Glenn, and I certainty don't feel sympathetic towards her issues about marriage because there's never any actual tension there. Of course she won't be forced to marry, she's a Lady Knight. Beyond being unsympathetic, I also find her massively unlikable. Awful design, poor voice direction, food-loving-as-a-personality-trait, the fact that she's written as one of those stock "feminist" characters who hate makeup and girly things until it benefits them, and constantly butting in on other characters to give her opinion without taking any criticism herself are all aspects that I just personally dislike. Ultimately, Ingrid being racist is only a symptom of the many reasons her character is one of my least favorites. Most of these points can be countered by someone who doesn't take issue with the things that annoy me and to point out that Ingrid DOES get over her racist beliefs. It's not fair to say that she doesn't change but, for me, the damage was already done by the time she became tolerable so I still have a hard time appreciating her. My assumption would be that there are a lot of other people who feel similarly to me regarding their dislike of Ingrid so they focus on one easy character flaw, her being racist at the beginning of the game, as a reason to validate their dislike of her overall.

On the other hand, Hilda's racism isn't a main trait of her character. It's related to her overarching character flaws, but she doesn't bring it up unprompted and can actually be pretty much missed without the Cyrill supports. Like you said, Hilda does seem less hateful and irrational, it doesn't take willful malice and an active rejection of reason for Hilda to dislike the Almyrans, they pose a genuine and provable threat to her family and territory, seemingly senselessly testing the borders and throwing away lives for the sake of conquest. To be clear, her "you're not like those OTHER Almyrans" schtick is legitimately nasty. Her behavior is gross and condescending and it really underscores the fact that Hilda is ignorant, lazy, inconsiderate, and incredibly comfortable in her privilege. She accepts what she's been told at face value because she's too lazy to look into it further. Cyrill does tell her she's stupid to think that way, though. Which is satisfying because Hilda in those supports is insufferable, it really highlights the worst aspects of her character, dismissive, manipulative, and very selfish. However, for me, she's also very likeable. I'm not interested in going over my opinions on her like I did with Ingrid as I don’t feel it’s as important to my point but a few reasons I really like her is because I think Hilda has a fantastic design, cute supports, amazing voice work, and is secretly sweet in a way that absolutely tickles my fancy. I am sure many people do not agree with me, which is fine. Additionally, just as Ingrid grows out of her racist beliefs, so does Hilda. They both end the game as more tolerant and caring people. Still, for the same reason a person could argue that Ingrid is actually great and I'm being unfair, they could argue that Hilda is terrible and I'm too biased. That's fair and true..... but I think the fact that Hilda is more generally appealing in conjunction with the less obvious nature of her racist attitude makes people less likely to dismiss her as a racist in the same way they do Ingrid. Unless they dislike Hilda, in which case, it’s all fair game.

Anyyyways, a main takeaway from this is that I highly doubt people are truly arguing on the individual basis of who's more racist, but that they're engaging in the age old waifu war. As with many characters in this game, it's easier to argue moral superiority when you can't quite articulate what you like or don't like about a character. Or, even worse, when you're arguing opinion. Even now, as is clear by reading this, I am arguing my opinion of why I don't like Ingrid. Not because she's racist, but because of the character traits and writing choices that make her unlikable to me. I like Hilda because, flaws and all, I find her to be compelling and enjoyable. From the people that I know, at least, that is basically how the Ingrid stans v Hilda racism argument is structured, even if they dress it up in different language.

By the by Hilda never talks about how the Almyrans deserve to be wiped out. I think that probably sours a lot of people's opinions of Ingrid no matter what happened afterward but that’s fine we can just pretend that didn’t happen

#fe3h #fire emblem three houses #mmmm i am sorry if she is your fave #you are valid but i feel like she was the bully volleyball player in highschool and i can't get over it

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