"I am Circus, Clown of Clowns."

So this, I think, in three houses, choosing to give up her second chance at life in order to save Byleth was her redemption for her past. I like to think that she was not a good ruler when she was alive. If anything, I actually think this would have been an interesting thing to explore in your hypothetical Silver Moon route.

I think in a sense you are right but I don't really view her as a tyrant. I think its more that she is ultimately really a god and subverts the very pacifist loving mother goddess archetype or the love and redemption new testament idea of a god and instead feels more like a very classical godlike figure. In the western context the best comparison would be the god of the old testament, but I think it also fits the classical idea of creator deities across mythologies as well.

She is certainly a loving goddess because she created the nabateans as her children and gave herself up twice, one time to restore the life in Fodlan and the second time to safe Byleth. But she also has a vengeful side, the side that flooded the land after the agarthans waged war against her and that will cause death and destruction for Byleths sake. And the overarching theme with Sothis darker side is vengeance, not tyranny. The fallen Byleth alt in Heroes is after all called the Vengeance Vessel.

After all, contrary to some interpretations we can assume that the ancient agarthans provoked Sothis wrath. Their own text in the shadow library has them admit that they were destroying life and that Sothis was bringing salvations to the beasts of the land, the sea and the sky. So I think the question would be less if Sothis was right in bringing down the agarthans and more if she went too far in her vengeance. As a goddess she also seems to represent nature in this context, as opposed to the agarthans who represent unchecked technological progress. Which is a common enough trope in japanese media. Think Princess Mononoke and Mononoke. If anything the conflict never ended because it lacked a mediator, like Ashitaka and San in Princess Mononoke were able to mediate between man and nature or Aerith in FF7 who protected the planet but spared mankind. Thats how I read her, her evil side is unrestricted vengeance.

Like, already nice job being kinda racist about Theodora? But I guess it kinda shows that the negative feedback of Engage hit hart more than anything else? After all, 3 Houses had fairly morally grey leads and it was popular and its just what seemingly appeals to people.

But the funny part is making it immediately about Fates again, which is just so telling and kind of evidence that the core issue behind 3 Houses was misogyny against Edelgard. They like Nohr because Xander and Leo being the main princes there with the women taking a step back and they hate Adrestia because a woman takes the lead. And its so silly because Nohr has no redeeming qualities from a moralistic level. Like the manipulation doesn't even matter, every single person in authority we see is a horrible evil person who commits war crimes for fun or because a good prince follows orders. And even most of the non-Awakening isekai'd retainers aren't really good people compared to their hoshidian counterparts?

People don't pick Nohr because its good, they pick it because Conquest is a superior game with superior maps and superior units and because the nohrian royals and their retainers are more fun.

But in general this ask is very telling, I would assume fewix either send it to himself or its from this princejudeofnohr character. Who is a pedophile by the way. Like for real, I'm the bad one for saying shit about colonialist settlers but being a pedophile seems to be ok.

Poor Rhea, all we get are supports, and I don't think they actually show her in the best light. We don't actually see the positive sides to her character, really, which is why, if you've been involved in the fanfiction community, she isn't really liked by Claude or Dimitri fans either. I actually think, if you think about it, Rhea, out of all the female characters in Three Houses and Hopes, I think has the most misogynistic treatment of any of them because a genocide survivor is basically treated worse than any character, and the player isn't given any reason to support her other than being sexually attractive. Let's be real, she would have no fan base at all if she wasn't an attractive character. Rhea deserved better then being a plot device in 5 out of the seven routes she's featured in.

Its a weird one because yeah sure, Edelgard is the Flame Emperor and worked with TWSITD who killed Byleths father, but the Flame Emperor already made it clear that he doesn't condone them and offered an alliance before which you can outright accept, even though this amounts to nothing instead of just placing the route split there. But other than that, yeah, we spend the year with Edelgard, understand her point of view and why she would do that and up until this point the two people who we as Byleth would be trusting the most, Jeralt and Sothis, led us towards viewing Rhea as untrustworthy.

So I wanted to go through the recent FW news but this is something I wanted off my chest for a long time. Recently I came around Rhea and started to appreciate her alot more, but her role in the game is still one that frustrates me. And one issue I have is that Rhea is, besides being forced into the role of a passive and non-present damsel in distress for most of the routes, always being forced into the role of being the defender of the crested nobility and the status quo build on the genocide of her people.

There is a tragedy about it for sure and it fits into her role as a villain in crimson flower. Having lost her path, to the point where she can't even see the will of the goddess and the gift she gave Byleth as well as her lashing out as her house of cards is ripped apart to the point where she will burn the world down.

But its just disappointed that this is basically all we get of her as a proactive person. In SS she will be apologetic about her wrongdoings but there isn't really any change and never an opportunity for Rhea to actually put aside this system or fight against it. A Rhea route where you fight all three nations would have been the answer, where Rhea sees what the crest system she curated brought forth and personally dismantles it in Faerghus and Leicester before facing Edelgard and the hostile Adrestian Empire, whose downfall in such a route would be the consequence of her actions, bittersweet but a step for her to also free herself of the past when she unravels the truth of the agarthans and how they (in the context of such a route) corrupted what was once dear to her because she abandoned it.

But another issue I have is also, that we never learn Rheas true feelings. About the church she created, the system she curated and the crested nobles who continued to cause harm in their entitled obsession with power and prestige. Rhea is apologetic about her lies, but it is never acknowledged who those lies truly served and how it enabled the elite families to continue to reap the benefits of their crimes against the nabateans. And in a sense it also feels like this is done to shield the Blue Lions and Golden Deer aristocrats from the unjust roots of their station and live and to have to overthink their position in life. AM after all plays the noble heroic bloodlines who face down a dark empire straight and VW reveals the truth but never interacts with it.

And here is the part where I will come to my own personal headcanon and interpretation of Rhea. Which is, that she resents it. The whole system, the greedy nobility but also the corrupt clergy that taints every attempt she makes to preserve peace and the teachings of her mother with which she tries to guide humanity. I think she is somebody who forces herself to preserve the peace and becomes entrapt in the ever growing pile of lies and comrpomises she has to accept to preserve it, starting with the compromise of accepting the elites false justifications for their crimes and greed, which served nothing but their own power, just to allow for peace. I interpret Rheas mortal flaw as her not believing in herself to take her mothers place and forcing herself into becoming the arbiter of a peace in which she became the sacrificial lamb of humanities sin, just to ensure sin. And I see her true authentic self, as many other Rheagard fans seem to do, as the warrior saint Seiros, which she suppresses because she believes she has to meet impossible expectations from her mother.

This is also why I will criticize CF for not giving Rhea the sympathy she deserves, which in my opinion weakens the story alot more then minor nitpicks like not having an onscreen final showdown in Shambhala. Edelgards narrative is about the victims of the world crests created. "The crests are to blame". It lends Dimitri the sympathy of being such a victim, but it falls short in not noticing how Rhea is the first and greatest victim of this world and of the crests. Rhea lost everything through humanities greed for crests and she sacrificed everything in her doomed attempts at preserving a peace crested aristocracy made impossible. The story would have been a stronger one if Rhea wasn't just depicted as the fanatical saint and raging dragon, but if it had noticed how Rhea, as a god and a saint, became the ultimate sacrificial lamb for the sins of humanity. How her final destiny is the result of the taint and sins humanity loaded up on her to preserve their peace and comfort, until she became a monster that will burn it all down.

I feel like if I could rewrite CF this is an angle I would strongly center and make the final tragic conclusion of the story, in making Rhea a tragic villain who is as much of a victim of the world. In this vein I probably also would have handled the final stage differently. The Golems are cool, but thematically the white beasts would have fit more and I probably also would have included some demonic beast enemies who transformed as the crested nobility. Let Rhea not just burn down a city, but actually burn away the clergy and nobility obsessed with her peoples crests. Have the final stage one where in the end Rhea is the one who does what Edelgard set out to do, burn down the crested world, for Edelgard to be left with putting out the flames and rebuild from the ashes.

I don't think I should react to that or give it any credence, but it pissed me off and this covert zionist freak seems like he can't stop so here is what somebody showed me

Like I've seen this guys interpretations and analysis posts and he doesn't even have the media literacy I would expect from a highschool graduate and he is uneducated on any topic that isn't contemporary american centrist talking points and how to frame himself as woke. As seen here. Its like the most confused faux progressive reaction that will always react to zionist accusations of antisemitism on instinct, because thats what shitlibs do. But for transparencies sake, here are the posts I'm replying to within these screens.

I mean, the first part isn't even controversial among any actual anti-zionist, zionist jews are firmly integrated and of an elavated status inside the framework of white supremacy while the second one is more crass and I regret the wording, but it was something that was spoken out in frustration but a reaction to zionists like Hurwitz who complain because the lesson people took out of the holocaust is that genocide against anyone is bad instead of the zionist intended one, that israelis can do whatever they want because now they get the right to wear the boots.

And ultimately, I don't even think this guy is a conscious zionist because I don't believe he has the necessary intelligence to engage in actual covert zionism. I think he is zionist in the way it is ingrained into american liberal identity and that he can't unlearn it and instead engages in zionistic hasbara in an attempt to win fandom points.

Another one that is just funny is this one:

Like sorry, not all Dimitri fans but Groyper Ingrid is probably bigger and has a wieder reach than any of these antisocial tumblr types combined, lol. And a friend of mine informed me that some of those edelcrit accounts who engage in zionist libel to win fandom wars actually follow this user, who gained notoriety for making a racist post about Petra...and seemingly denying a massacre.

Sincerely from a south lebanese fe3h player :))

Hi! Thanks for your ask and I hope you are doing well and are save at the moment, considering the current situation in Lebanon?

And I agree fully with you and what you describe are observations I personally also already made. The anti-Edelgard position and attacks on the Edelgard fandom often border on horseshoe theory and are build on the liberal equation of communism and fascism. I think there is also a very america-centric viewpoint involved in it, that strongly fetishizes peaceful reconciliation and respectability politics. This isn't surprising for a culture that white washed its own revolution, which was primarily one of white aristocratic settler colonialists rebelling against taxation and imperial oversight instead of a genuine class struggle.

I think we all agree that violence historically always was a necessity to combat oppression. It is not nice but the rejection of violence as a means for liberation and overcoming class struggle is a very liberal pacifist delusion. Plus Edelgards revolution is also one of national unification, which has been often a necessity for wider progresse in feudally fragmented nations, the core inspiration behind the 3 Houses conflict was Romance of the 3 Kingdoms which is a story of national fragmentation and re-unification.

I think besides the overt liberal pacifist sentiments there is also the very historically illiterate and more reformist rejections of Edelgards core believes in empowerment and that "all will rise and fall by their own merits". Meritocracy is of course a loaded term because capitalist meritocracy serves as a justification for the capitalist class system but also western capitalist imperialism, but it falls apart by acknowledging its circular reasoning, but meritocracy was also always something socialist movements engaged with. But I also assume it ruffles alot of feathers because it expresses the necessity of socio-economic upwards and downwards mobility. There is after all a subsection of more liberal leftists who only engage with utopian leftists ideas instead of actual marxist thought and politics. Think of the type whose engagement with leftism begins and ends at the slogan of fully automated luxury space communism, instead of acknowledging the needs for revolutions and transitionary stages towards the endgoal of realized communism.

I'm not going to lie, my head canons for Rhea have kind of made it impossible to read a lot of fanfiction with her as an antagonist. I've written her so long as a sympathetic character that is tragic that I just cannot bring myself to view her as 100% evil. Believe me, I used to hate the character, but I cannot bring myself to now after writing my own fanfictions.

Hi, thanks for the ask. I think its an interesting headcanon, though I don't know how much I personally would HC William to be like Byleth. Primarily because Byleth is the way they are for very specific reasons. But I can see Willhelm being similar in his role for Seiros, the way she described how he saved and supported her.

But I don't think that Rhea has much in common with Nemesis. Nemesis from what we know about him was very obsessed with strength and having power. He made promises of liberation, but as his song shows, it was all so that they serve and praise him above all. I don't think rhea cares much about strength and power, because she is a being born strong and powerful. She cares more about protecting Fodlan and preserving peace, but her folly is how she lacks the will or trust in herself to actually lead Fodlan into being a better place, instead preserving an illusion of peace. The irony that binds her to Nemesis is less, that she became like him and more, that she made herself the protector of his legacy. She shackled herself to the rule of crests and even uplifted a descendants of the elites as a king over supporting her old allies. She fights to preserve the system he created, while Edelgard has to cooperate with the people of Agartha to destroy it.

Nemesis is much more of a foil to Edelgard. Edelgard mirrors him. Nemesis used deception to frame himself as a liberator, while he only wanted power for himself. Edelgard wishes to liberate the people of fodlan in earnest, but the deception she feels forced to use make her look like a tyrant. In AM we see Edelgard being focussed on feeling like she has to be powerful to make this a reality.

I think the majority of anti-Edelgard accounts are faux-progressive liberals with some more conservative and rightwing leaning people as well. At least here on tumblr, on twitter there is also a whole groyper base that is anti-Edelgard.

This is one of the funny contradictions which they have to deal with and that they either ignore or lean into zionist tropes to cope with, because the political extremes of the Edelgard fanbase are tankie types with the worst ones being some self-important brocialists who I franky dislike myself.

Like, Tumblr is in general already an extremely performative community. It loves to dress itself in the veneer of being some form of progressive aventgarde, but if you poke deeper its mostly a very sheltered, privileged and liberal to centrist leaning community.

Edelgard is already a character who just triggers this kind of lliberals who love to hide behind pacifist moralism and have highly anti-revolutionary attitudes. And there is a strong tendency among them to interpret Rhea and the Nabateans as a very jewish allegory. This lends itself to a very zionist bias because the allegory only works from a zionist lense, where everything Rhea does is justified by the fact that she suffered a genocide and that can reconcile Rheas political association and alliance with her former oppressors. Especially since centering the racial allegory of the game into this direction does obviously satisfy a very white-bias among this kind of audience. Thats by the way also a reason why so many of them are so defensive of Dedue, because he satisfied a very liberal reconciliation focussed view of racism that allows audiences to view themselves in the role of a white savior and ally who uplifts minorities through acceptance without having to suffer any personal responsibility or consequence for their oppression.

I think thats a bad interpretation, though I also reject the whole white colonizer perspective when it comes to serious discussions about interpreting the story at this point. I think there is of course the possibility of a jewish readong of Rhea. She is from a people with a very special connection to the goddess and she exists under conditions that force her and her family into a state of alienation from their cultural heritage and national identity. But it also stops by them actually coming from a position of divine heritage and privilege, where they originally acted as guardians, rulers and deities of humanity. That is were any allegory ends because they are quite literally minor gods or angels whose heritage was to lead humanity under divine rule and Rheas flaws are informed both by trauma but also her flawed attempts at acting as a preservationist of the land until the goddess will be forced into rebirth.

So, for something more lighthearted, that one is for @naruko-hyuga I received two comments I wanted to answer but I didn't feel like making due with the tumblr comment section

Honestly, I think this would have been pretty interesting for a potential Rhea-centric route. Especially if the goal is to have Rhea fight against all the three Lords. The western church already weaponized accusations of being behind the Tragedy of Duscur against Rhea, which the game just never did something about despite the potential. The western church should be what TWSITD hide behind in a Rhea centric route, the ultimate attack where they steal the only thing that Rhea had left for the last thousand years. So I could see a scenario with a Rhea on the run and TWSITD possibly trying to play all sides in the war against each other, where a church infiltrated by them weaponizes Dimitri against Rhea. And it would be like generally neat to see a route where Rhea is put against descendants of the 12 Elites and recollects the heroes relics to put them t o rest in the Holy Tomb. So it would probably be nice, a route where Rhea collects all the 12 relics to bury them with the rest of the remains of her family. Hell, something cool could come out gameplaywise, what if instead you receive the sacred weapons of the Nabateans who were used for the relics?

Honestly, I thought about AG some time ago and the route is a mess. The first half is actually good. Despite his flaws we see Dimitri acting as a king, get more insight into his thoughts and there is even kind of a neat plot, where it feels like Dimitri is putting his own personal values and ideals behind the expectations of others. The beginning is after all Dimitri being defined by how others perceive him. It starts with his uncle whose dehumanization and paranoia against Dimitri becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where in the end Dimitri has to actually kill him, which I always thought should have haunted him more.

But then there is also Dimitri agreeing with Edelgards ideals but putting them behind out of fear how the people of Faerghus would react to radical reforms and then he is dragged into a war by his royal obligation to the church and his advisors reactionary rhetoric. And I liked how the first half dealt greatly with Dimitri uncovering the truth about the Tragedy of Duscur and TWSITD, to the point it finally leads him into the direction of Edelgard as the last missing piece. Just that the plot then just ends.

The second half of AG is bad. The Edelgard mind control with this very gross infantilization of her is fucked up and of course some of the reactionary or fascistic elements of the AG fandom enjoy it. But it also stops making sense. AG is the route where the hidden chapter just flat out breaks the story, where the ending feels truly like a bad end and Dimitri having become his worst self, turning away from a confused and helpless El, and the plot just loses any semblance of consistency. It flat out doesn't make sense that everyone is just following around with Thales taking the control over Adrestia and Aegir being reinstated when Thales already has been revealed to all of Adrestia and Aegirs collaboration with him with it.

The route feels like running into the issue that the plot lead more into Edelgard and Dimitri teaming up against Thales but they somehow didn't want it and instead just stopped it right in its tracks and replaced the Adrestian Empire with aflat agarthan empire in all but name. My suspicion is that AG was written around appeasing the church fans, as they didn't get a route this time around.

I don't think I would have made Rhea a villain in AG, or at least I'm not sure about it, but I think I would have made Dimitri and Edelgard at least team up. It probably could be done after Edelgards forced transformation. You don't need mind control, just write that seeing the emperor transformed and maybe afterwards missing allowed Aegirs coup which happens in SB to succeed and take over Enbarr, under the control of Thales and Aegir. Dimitri finds Edelgard and they form an alliance to stop Thales. At the same time you have Dimitri managing Edelgard and Rheas conflict and maybe a larger character arc of him learning to become a King who stands for his own convictions.

Though honestly, I also would have enjoyed a fourth church route with Rhea, yet again. There is potential, with Shez being inhabited by an ancient agarthan, where we could delve deeper into the true story of the agarthans and nabateans.

There is a certain progressive, especially liberal progressive, disconnect and confusion about zionism because it operated for the longest time within identity politics and had itself spread out within progressive and conservative spaces. Combine that with an attitude towards majority muslim populations where it is fairly acceptable to throw them under a bus.

What I personally noticed, and where some of my crass and more compatitive posts come from, is also a habit even among anti-zionist voices to prioritize jewish feelings when the ongoing genocide against the palestinian people is discussed. I also say that minorities within the west are not immune to western chauvinist and imperialist attitudes.

A buddy send me a great example by Emblemxeno who I already called out who got send an ask by some arab anon and had the audicity to just ignore, deflect and make it about some fucked in his head battlefield where he will attack anti-zionism to dunk on Edelgard fans. Freak of Nature, he's the guy who fakes a literature degree while failing to display any basic level of education that goes beyond orientalism ramblings and america-centrism. I know he agreed in the past with some post filled with zionist dogwhistles and then backtracked immediately when called out.

So. This wasn't necessarily a post I wanted to make, but somebody already told me, that the typical suspects are already trying to stir hate and push a very zionist agenda by conflating anti-zionism with antisemitism to win some stupid fandom war. It seems like Emblemxeno is pushing hard on this one and here, some guy who fakes having a literature degree to give his lack of media literacy and reading comprehension some credence. I know that he already agreed with anon asks that used zionist dog-whistles before backpaddling when called out.

There is generally a very zionist vibe with the church fandom. Alot of them use very zionist-esque talking points to defend their positions about nabateans.

But yeah, it all started with some twitter drama by this account, who tried to stirr some fandom drama using somebodies tier list to bring forward accussations of racism and when called by yours truly started posting out of context screenshots of be argueing against zionist to accuse me of antisemitism. Funnily enough, it seems like on X people tend to agree with me while on tumblr they seem to see the tweets as somewhat problematic? It just confirms my suspicion that tumblr is a particularily zionist dominated side.

Thanks for the ask but sheesh, I already wrote the reply and then forgot to send it before going offline yesterday, that one is on me -.-

I considered doing a fanfic on it but I ultimately prefer playing RPGs where I can go back and forth with other people and let the story unwind. I'm also not that confident with my english for prose tbh. But yes, more recently I got more and more frustrated with Rheas treatment in the games. She has so much potential but she remains underdeveloped, when the more interesting story hidden beneath the game is this conflict between two powerful and traumatized women who in very opposing ways feel the burden of saving Fodlan from itself.

Claude is frustrating in his own right. I personally like Golden Wildfire but I acknowledge that you need to read between the lines to grasp Claudes motivations and that the story jumps alot too quickly due to the short runtime. It also still lacks what I would have wanted from GD, which is more political thriller, which the Alliance kinda advertises itself as.

When it comes to Rheas portrayal in AG, then there is the fact that the route is horrible to begin with and comes off like pure satire and a parody of Fire Emblem, where the honorable good guy blue kingdom is depicted as just the worst people. Like, it is the evil kingdom in this games setting, they're genocidal, have a very might makes right attitude until somebody stronger or smarter attacks them when they become just plucky underdog smol beans and there is this very conservative notions of honor and justice backed into it, with the Lord being a man who ultimately stands for nothing in the attempt of being as inoffensive and non-controversial as possible. At the same time Rheas portrayal in AG feels very pandering to the church fanbase, with me seeing the typical suspects who I already made blogs about praising her role in it.

In a way it feels like cope. There is a hugh church apologist base surrounding Rhea which feels like a strong reaction to her just not having much of her own outside of the status quo we are presented with at the beginning, so that has to be defended against Edelgard. I personally think the status quo is horrible and believe Rhea knows it, the problem is that she became complacent towards the people who murdered her family in a very obsessive persuit of peace at all cost and her just not believing in herself, not believing that she can become the guardian and dragon of Fodlan who leads humanity to become better.

So it has been months since I posted part 1 to this rambling and I constantly forgot to continue or procastinated on it, so sorry for the like 1? 2? 1? People interested. I think I won'tl go into as much detail of how I would have made a Rhea centric route and more how I feel like some of the Azure Moon beats would have fit better in with Rhea or could be used to a superior effect with her, while also what I think a direction for her as a character should be.

Starting with the whole being a rampaging Outlaw thing. I feel like instead of her being just imprisoned and turned into a Damsel in distress offscreen, this kind of story beat really would have served Rhea well in showing exactly why she was hiding her identity so much. After all, nobody is really that bothered by Rhea being a dragon in the actual game, people just accept it. Even Edelgard primarily despises her for her lies and masking her identity, which makes her believe the worst. Even if, and thats me saying this as an Edelgard megafan, we take her as racist against Nabatean, thats just her and the majority of characters don't care. It would be more interesting and serve her more, if Rhea would escape the battle of Garreg Mach but ended up being shunned and feared as a beast after revealing her true form. I'd personally probably made it so that in the meantime the remnants of the TWSITD infiltrated western church take leadership over the central Church. Instead of being an inconsequential minor enemy we fight and then forget, the western church could instead represent the monster Rhea created in the church biting her back, but also make her aware of the issues that festered in the faith once she is forced out of her ivory tower.

A Rhea centric plot probably should be her in the war phase being back where she once started as Seiros, having lost her home and being reviled as a monster while having to fight not only the empire but also against the church she created. I think a Rhea centric route works best ad a redemption arc. She is brought down and has to face the consequences of her own actions, including facing the way the system she guarded over hurts the common people, while also having a chance to start again and do it right this time. Including having to accept her mothers death and actually go through an arc where she learns to let the past go and move forward.

I personally don't really like the way SS handled Rheas endings. She either dies, becomes a hermit living in ruins for the rest of her existance or is basically back to where she began in an ending that is primarily centered on Byleth. She just doesn't really get enough of her own development and resolution and there isn't really any for the nabateans moving forward either, they continue living hidden. Instead, I think I would make the resolution of her arc more into coming to terms with her mothers death, but also accepting her nature as a child of the goddess and according to the game itself a god in her own right. I would make it end mirroring Tikis ending in the Awakening Xenologue: Her accepting to succeed her mother instead of reviving her and inheriting the role of becoming the new guardian goddess of Fodlan, becoming the new Divine Dragon of the land.

I started off this thought experiment with using Azure Moon as a baseline for how I would structure a Rhea Route and honestly, the way the parley dialogue is set up, it probably would make for a better conclusion for Rhea. After all, it is very much about empathizing with the weak and the people who need faith and have to cling to god for survival, but it doesn't really fit Dimitri either because while he is church alligned, he is very wishi-washi about it and faith isn't a strong theme of his. With Rhea meanwhile it would have more of the undertone of her accepting responsibility. Her accepting that by creating a false image of her goddess behind which the was hiding, she allowed suffering to happen and let down the people who cling to faith. And Rhea as god ultimately works better than Byleth as a god. It would make a good counter narrative to CF. CF is about creating a world of humanity without the need for gods, so Rheas route should be about Rhea taking her place as Sothis successor.