linhardt simp

Here are some character arts I drew to celebrate!

(If you’re interested, you can get ‘em here!)

From the top of the central hill, Linhardt could appreciate just how chaotic the battle had become. Claude’s forces had lost control of the east side of Gronder Field while Edelgard’s beasts dominate the west. The Kingdom army fought both sides, which was idiocy. Then again, the Alliance was also fighting both Kingdom and Empire troops. This fog was making fools of all of Fódlan. 

Beside him, Felix scowled down at everything. Linhardt thought the Professor stationing them up here was genius-- Linhardt could see anyone who needed healing without having to fight himself, and Felix could use the ballista to pick off anyone giving them trouble. 

Felix clearly didn’t see this the way Linhardt did. “Something’s wrong,” Felix finally said. 

“You probably want to be down there yourself, don’t you?” Linhardt sighed, ready to complain about how much he hated smelling blood on Felix every night.

But Felix shook his head. “That’s not it. Why isn’t the Empire trying to take the hill back from us?”

Linhardt gestured to the south. “They’re smart enough to know they won’t get through Dedue. Honestly, I don’t know how we won anything without him.”

The scowl persisted. Linhardt flung out a hand to heal the Professor, who had taken a hit for Sylvain. Just as he lowered it, Felix seized the hand and pulled hard. “We have to more.”

“What--”

“Move, Linhardt!”

Felix dragged Linhardt down the hill to the west. A rider from the Alliance gave pursuit up from the eastern side-- then they disappeared behind a wall of flame. Linhardt’s eyes widened in horror before Felix threw him to the grass. Heat exploded behind them, but Linhardt didn’t feel any a pain, only Felix’s body over his. Protecting him. Always protecting him.

After a moment, he felt Felix slowly sit up. He shook Linhardt’s shoulder. “Are you alright? Linhardt? Look at me.”

Linhardt rolled over ungracefully. A bonfire blazed where the central hill had once been, smoke and flames completely obscuring the ballista platform.

Fingers on his chin gently turned Linhardt to look at Felix again. “Are you alright?” He repeated. His face had softened, eyes narrowed in concern rather than suspicion.    

Smoke curled off a burnt lock of Felix’s hair. Linhardt gulped and reached up with healing magic on reflect, though logically he knew the singed hair couldn’t cause Felix harm. “I think so,” Linhardt said. In truth he felt numb all over. He and Felix could be desperately grasping horrid wounds right now. They could be killing themselves trying to get to safety, soot covering them head to toe and ash stinging their eyes and lungs.

Felix took that hand, cutting off the spell. He kissed the knuckles. “It was a trap,” Felix said, almost apologetically. 

“I see that now.” Linhardt squeezed Felix’s hand. “Thank you.”

“We can’t stay here, that demonic beast will be nearby.” Felix stood up, pulling Linhardt with him. Linhardt nodded absently. “Let’s go south and meet up with everyone. Hopefully those idiots didn’t panic and turn back to look for us.”

Linhardt nodded again. The sound of wings flapping grew close and they looked around to find an Empire flier closing in. Felix dropped Linhardt’s hand, stepping in front of him with his sword drawn. “Get in the bushes,” he ordered. 

“No.”

“What?”

Linhardt moved to stand beside Felix. “I’ll help keep you safe. Goddess knows you’ve protected me enough. At the very least I can heal you quicker if I’m here instead of hiding.”

Felix stared like he had never met Linhardt in his life-- which was ridiculous, of course, they’d shared a bed for nearly six years. Then he smirked and readied his sword. Linhardt’s hands lit with magic.

what I take to be the game’s theme is “our perception of the truth is influenced by bias and perspective”, or more generically, “there’s two (or four) sides to every story”. Edelgard being a straightforward villain - especially when other flat villains already exist in the game? - wrecks that theme entirely. 

this take is so foreign to me because from a narrative standpoint, Edelgard is the best character in Three Houses. Sure, the writing quality is spotty at times, and some parts of her own route needed fleshing out. But it’s all there - you just have to be physically capable of sympathizing with female trauma and trauma responses that are not “nice”. She’s not neatly laid out for you. You get her backstory in her C supports, but there’s also her precarious position with Thales, how she fits into the Seiros-Nemesis conflict, the Insurrection of the Seven and all that entailed, the characters she parallels - all of this creates a richer tapestry of who Edelgard is and why she chooses the methods she does to get what she wants. There are a million angles and perspectives to analyze her from - and the game knows this. It’s why even when she’s not the main villain, she’s a major part of each route. And that’s so fucking cool! The idea of not wanting to analyze this character is so completely foreign to me that I ended up writing a whole paragraph about it on this two-sentence post. 

Also, do people not play the other routes and realize that Dimitri and Claude view her as a complex person? Azure Moon made me like her more?? In Verdant Wind, you can literally tell Claude that you don’t want to kill Edelgard, and he says he doesn’t want to do it either?? 

Like, we accept people blindly following and forgiving Dimitri for literally going apeshit for several years (and it’s a great story, I love AM, not the point, please don’t take this out of context), we don’t question people following Claude who might not otherwise do so if not for Byleth, but suddenly when people are following Edelgard it’s a big deal that ‘were it not for Byleth, no one would follow her in her own route, because too many people would never agree with her opinions’. Like, Byleth is the self-insert, people follow them regardless of the route is just the wish fulfilment - Lorentz literally ditches Claude in every route other than VW, Felix is actively critical of Dimitri at every turn and has a cut story where he outright abandons Dimitri in his own route, but no too many of Edelgard’s classmates should hate her and it’s out of character that any of them stick around for her post time skip in any route, and especially CF where they go around killing people. 

It’s tiring, because I love this character and there are aspects of her which I heavily relate to. I want one route where she doesn’t die, and I don’t want it to be a ‘villain route’, because she isn’t the villain! She has her own ideals and they are complicated and they should have been explored better, yes, but she’s compassionate and she wants to make things better and I don’t see those qualities as someone who wants to be a villain - and we see her hyper aware of this fact that people will see her this way, and she’s ready to accept that if it means making things better, which I think is admirable.  

All of this.

Wanting Edelgard to be the villain because she’s otherwise a complex female character is exactly it.

the empire/nation is named adrestia, the child of ares and aphrodite, whose patronage is vengeance. she is also called nemesis.

Adrestia (Ancient Greek: Ἀδρήστεια) in Greek mythology was a goddess of revolt, just retribution and sublime balance between good and evil. She was the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite. In other sources, she was identified as the Goddess of Vengeance, Nemesis, as her name was an epithet for Nemesis,[1] or an alternative spelling of Adrasteia, who acted as a nurse to the infant Zeus.[2][3] Her name means “she who cannot be escaped”

the devs clearly did this on purpose, so the whole ‘knowledge passed down through emperors’ thing means that the empire was founded knowing the secrets of the church, keeping it secret while providing lip service to the church (having the crest of seiros on certain regalia).

i’d also like to point out that adrestia being the child of the god of war and the goddess of love/beauty is so fucking awesome and very edelgardesque. also, peep that bit about the goddess of revolt, just retribution, and sublime balance between good and evil. all of this put together is important contextual info for how the empire functions and what edelgard’s characterization is based on.

Anytime I try animating things I remember why I don’t animate things

-”Why does Edelgard not try to find a peaceful solution?” Edelgard’s father tried to use politics to move power away from the rest of Adrestian nobility. Doing so directly led to him being basically deposed and instated as a puppet, as well as, yknow, all that trauma Edelgard went through. Not only does it handily explain why Edelgard thinks maybe just politic’ing in a meritocracy may not work and, also, is good proof that she’s right.

-”Why does no one care about or talk about what happened to the Hresvelg family?” Because the people who have direct contact with them and would notice if all of them disappeared at once… are the ones that did it. Also… yknow… there was a successful insurrection against the Hresvelg family. “The nobles rebelled against the Emperor and now he only has a single daughter” really is not a huge puzzler.

Edelgard has her nightmares and her Flame Emperor gig, and she also spends time in the library at night, as she had a conversation with Claude and Byleth there. Dimitri has his ghosts and his investigation about the Duscur massacre, and Dedue was trying to convince him to get some sleep and stop doing all-nighters. And Claude also spends a lot of time in the library after hours to investigate the secrets of the church and the relics. In fact, in his supports with Lysithea, he’s the one that convinces her to go to sleep instead of researching into the night. 

Almost the entire plot could have been avoided if Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude has seen each other in the library at ass o’clock for several nights in a row and decided to make an investigation group and share information. Add Lindhart and Lysithea too, because those two also pull research fueled all nighters often. Hubert too, for obvious reasons. All of them are in the “coffee (with varying degrees of sugar) is my lifeblood” club.