Untitled

Like, I feel like IS sort of couldn't find a good way to justify siding with Edelgard to the player beyond liking her as a character and the only way the could sort of doing it was by reducing Rhea to near Duma levels of insane, but even then while I won't condone her actions I can understand why she lost it, from her perspective she just saw someone she allowed into her home, break into the burial site of her dead siblings with the intention of desecrating them and robbing their graves and then watched what is, from her sad, broken perspective, her own mother choose to side with the person trying to take all she has left of her family away from her, I too would lose it under those circumstances. And then there's Edelgard not even being very smart, like, does she really believe her troops would hear "the church has nukes" and not either, question why they only dropped the one on the one location and why only now or just....lose all morale??? And then there's the battle at the Tailtean plains and the good old conversation between Dimitri and Edelgard, "must you continue to conquer?continue to kill?!" "Must you continue to re-conquer? Continue to kill in retaliation?" Like.....it's like even she realises she has no moral high ground over him and is just trying some desperate redirection to not be the villain she knows she is. And also the entire "king of delusion" scene where Dimitri, in his final moments, swears to avenge everyone who died for her, who she killed, to avenge all his fallen friends and family who died because of her and her ambitions and she basically just calls him a nut job.

First off I would say, its very obvious looking at the state of discourse that you're not the only one (but you at least don't make entire posts trying to frame Edelgard as some sexual seductress, lol. That person exists!), but I think its also more of a you issue. Not in that you do something wrong, but that Edelgard and her route are simply not for you, because as is clear with the large popularilty Edelgard enjoys, thats not the experience all people have with Crimson Flower. In the end, its a game about different perspectives and values and chosing your side when those ultimately come to a clash. It would be boring if this doesn't spark discourse and fundamentally different perspectives of what is right and whats wrong. For all of its flaws, the fact that 3 Houses sparks this amount of Discourse even years after its release is a testament to what it does right.

For example my perspective in all of this, when I played the game on Crimson Flower Route first, was that I came to broadly agree with Edelgards point of view during Part 1. She shares alot of her perspectives during it and as I saw early on, how the entire social structure of Fodlan is heavily inspired by the three estates of the realm feudal structure of medieval europe, I was naturally inclined to by sympathetic towards her viewpoints, as I will usually prefer to side against feudalism in a narrative that allows and encourages me to do so. I got bad vibes from Rhea from the start and tended to believe Jeralt, who as the father of my character I was prone to believe, in not trusting her, especially since very early on, we see more of the oppressive and tyranical nature of the church and the evils of the crest system. In my personal first playthrough, I came to suspect that the Flame Emperor is more nuanced than it appears at first, while Rhea became more and more creepy after Sothis awakening, so when it came to the holy tomb, I did a leap of faith and trusted in Edelgard, as I agreed that the church must be destroyed.

For me, the reactions towards Rheas turn in Crimson Flower feel very similar to the outrage people expressed in the recent Elden Ring DLC, when a certain character as was expected didn't turn out to be as noble as they would have assumed, because by that point they were set in their headcanons of him being a benevolent and purely good figure. Rhea in Crimson Flower is consistent. She is consistent with the bloodthirsty side of hers we saw during the games first cutscene and her cruel and vengeful attitude whenever somebody challenges her during White Clouds. Silver Snow is textually not a validation of Rhea as we saw her in part 1, what it does is offering a potential redemption for her under the condition that Byleth forms an especially strong bond with her. She herself admits her wrongdoings and expresses guilt in the following S-Support. What Crimson Flower shows is that at this stage of the story, Rheas love and adoration for Byleth is conditional, as not long before she literally tried to mind erase them to revive Sothis in full, and that Rhea is prone to immediately devalueing and dehumanizing them if they disobey her. After all, at this point Byleth hasn't even taken arms against Rhea, they are just standing against outright killing their student. I would also say that for me personally, Rheas entire demeanor during part 1 comes off heavily like grooming and love bombing, which is why I personally tend to dislike her.

When it comes to Arianrhod, I personally tond like this part of the story. For me it is one of the flaws in it, as it is left without any lasting consequences, and feels very much like the writers just forcefully inserting it into it to remind us of TWSITD still being there and inform Crimson Flower players of the Javelines of light. What I will say is, that it is not the only such forced inclusion just for the sake of it. I can see the rationale of Edelgard though. Edelgard took a gamble with killing Cornelia in Arianrhod and was punished by it for Thales and reacting to it prematurely would them losing momentum and the Kingdom successfully launching a counter offensive, as well as further interventions by TWSITD if she openly revolts against them now, so she has to lure Thales for the moment into a false sense of security, that she falls back in line again. I don't like it, but I will also say that if thats the dealbreaker, then the route probably wasn't for one to begin with.

When it comes to Dimitri and Edelgard, the whole 'must you continue to kill' exchange is quite a mistranslation compared to the original text, where Edelgards point is to ask him if he will be satisfied, once he takes back, tramples back. This changes the entire context of the exchange honestly:

Though I will also say, I don't have personal issues with this exchange myself, as, what most people leave out, its followed by Edelgard also expressing her determination that she will not stop and do everything necessary to creat a new future for Fodlan. Initially I also took the line as Edelgard being sassy which I'm like...okay with? I'm a feminist, I like it when the queer female lead doesn't owes your typical male protagonist turned villain respect and in crimson Flower, Dimitri himself dragged his Kingdom into war by siding with the church and for the sake of Dimitris delusional desire for vengeance. Which is, again, delusional. Dimitri rants and blames Edelgard for things she had no control over and which she didn't do. He is completely obsessive over her and she has the right to be apalled by him. Again, as a feminist, I like that. She doesn't owe a guy who obsessed over her and wants to brutally murder her any respect, he himself is the one who chose to throw away any semblance of dignity he had.

I would also say that other people will feel as you do towards Rhea and Dimitri. With Rhea I already laid it out why I don't get why people love her so much and consider her heroic and good. With Dimitri, I was initially kinda excited to play Blue Lions after CF. Dimitri was, ultimately, a cool villain in my opinion, I liked his Post Timeskip Design more than his Pre-Timeskip one and I wanted to see where his route leads into and whats his perspective is. I ended up not liking it. Like, I played it before I went into all this discourse with high hopes and I just ended up not liking it or him. He seems very flat to me, with people conflating a character focussed story and a character going through a a redemption arc with deep storytelling, when for me it just seemed comical how he jumps in personality, especially when he just immediately snaps from somebody who sadistically glees like he's some dark isekai self-insert about torturing a man and then immediately jumps into being the enlightened and redeemed savior king. I didn't like how afterwards there were zero consequences for his actions. The parley also didn't sold me, it seemed for me like him engaging in ad hominems and framing him as morally superior because he got people who carry him, it had some very unfortunate implications of how abusers irl might act. Ultimately, I also found his whole position rather pessimistic and miserable, that humans can't rise above themselves when they are given the opportunity and that they should be kept reliant because its safe. Thats how he came off to me. Many of his scenes also come off to me like trauma dumping and him being somewhat self-centered, only relating to others by making them fit into his personal perspective.

But on Edelgard and her attitudes towards Dragons, that a community spread misconception to frame her as some kind of racist and fascist, predominantly by the kinds of people who, in a game where people of color exist and are opressed, make pale-skinned dragon gods their chosen racial allegory. I could be wrong but please correct me, but to my knowledge Edelgard never learns that the Heroes Relics are made out of Dragons. I'm not even sure if Silver Snow Byleth does learn that, it could be actually just Claude. What she knows is that the heroes relics are manmade and the history the church propagates, that Nemesis became corrupted and evil later on, was a lie propagated by the church. Though Edelgards also doesn't seem to care much about Heroes Relics outside of their immediate use and the fact, that the church is controlling them.

Edelgard and Hubert hold negative views on the Nabatheans as inhuman, but that is predominantly out of their limited perspective, where they only know them as immortals who hide among humans to control them and falsify history. Though they also don't seem to see them as a race and more as a divine family of self-appointed gods, which is the role the Nabatheans did play in the past. I think here its kinda messy because outside of the few nabateans alive, there aren't really any other intelligent non-human races and humans don't know anything about Nabateans outside of their myths about the children of the goddess. And ultimately, what they hold against the Nabatheans is their deception and their misrule over humanity. And Rhea does express very supremacist attitudes against humans and considers themselves to be unfit to govern themselves without her guidance, despite herself being as flawed as humans and misusing her power the same they do, with Seteth being an active accomplice.

Ultimately, she doesn't even want to kill the Nabateans, she just wants their control over humanity to end. She expresses herself very harshely with terms like obliterate and striking her down, which I think are supposed to be taken as her exaggerating when talking about her ideals, but otherwise she does express a preference to sparing Rhea. She does give Rhea a chance to surrender before Fhirdiad and even before that shows a genuine interest in capturing instead of killing her.

So she prefers stripping Rhea of power and keep her away from politics and is neutral towards turning the church into an imperial institution, which is to say, a state institution, while actively disliking the idea of killing her if she surrenders. This is consistent with the fact that she does keep Rhea as a prisoner over the 5 years, where Seteth does confirm after finding her that she is left unharmed

Hopes confirms this notion, as during Edelgards support with Claude, she treats capturing instead of killing Rhea as the natural course of action and even questions Claude, if it isn't enough to subdue her enemy and remove her from power. Which is consistent with Edelgard usually giving her enemies a chance to surrender after the battle, as seen in her conquest of the Alliance, which is highly unusual compared to other Lords where routing missions and giving their enemies no quarter is the usual outcome. In VW and SS, Count Bergliez has to sacrifice himself for his soldiers to be spared. And here is how Seteth reacts to the notion of not killing Edelgard.

So yeah. Edelgard does not want to kill the Nabateans, she just views them negatively due to her limited knowledge of them and perceiving them through Rheas actions at the expense of humanity. 3H in general goes a different way of humanizing the Dragons, by emphasizing their human flaws. It subverts the notion, that immortal divine beings are better, wiser or more intelligent than humans.

Personally, I kinda dislike the fact that Flayn doesn't stick along or at least is re-recruitable in Crimson Flower, really. Its one of the flaws of the game I see, especially since I've heard that there are datamines that hint at Crimson Flower Flayn being a consideration at one point. I care less so about Seteth because I like him less, but I also see more of a case where the game may benefit from him not being recruitable, but in Flayns case I feel like it strips Crimson Flower, but also Flayn, of possibilities. I would have liked Edelgard and Hubert to react of the notion of a child of the goddess siding with their ideals, but also how Flayn could develope if she was faced with Rheas deceptions.

I would also agree with the notion that at its core its really Edelgard vs Rhea, but I think it also plays into the weakness of 3 Houses, that it doesn't really do much to make the ambitions and goals of Dimitri and Claude stand out very much. But I will disagree with your notion on what both want and think your personal bias talks again, because Edelgard very much cares about those who are left out by the current system. She is the one who feels empathy towards Miklan, who expresses care about those who are left out or wronged by the system and cares about creating a place for everyone in her new world, as seen for example in her Linhardt support.

Rhea is the one who refuses to truly learn about humanity and to put trust in others. She does regularily express alienation from others and her incapability of connecting with those around her. The issue with Rhea is, that she does not respect humans and looks down to them, having a very supremacist and paternalistic outlook on them as being reliant on her rule.

The issue is, that Rhea had a thousand years to solve the issues in Fodlan. She has the means to do it, she has the power. She just doesn't wants to, because she prefers the control and illusio nof peace she created for herself. She does uphold the crest system and hides away those who are harmed and cast out by it into the Abyss, which is basically just an underground ghetto.

Like, ultimately she just does nothing to make things better for anyone? When the tragedy of Duscur happened, she didn't do anything despite showing with her scapegoating and executing Christophe for it. When Loog started a TWSITD backed up Revolt against the Empire, something the church at least suspected looking at the Abyss library, she ended up rewarding him by splitting up the Empire and creating the church as her loyal vassal. She did nothing in turn to support Leicester when they revolted against the Empire, nor when they were annexed by the Kingdom. We know that she actively suppresses technological advancements, especially those that could hurt the authority of the church or threaten the nobility system. Hopes has even very strong indications that Rhea withheld aggracultural knowledge from the Kingdom until the point it has to harbor her and she suddenly drops it, something Shez can be suspicious of and that I will go further into. Rhea had every opportunity and all the means in the world to creat a better world, she just does not want to do that. She wants to revive Sothis against her wills, so that she can rule over humanity and fix things.

Actually, regarding Thales, I hope you don't mind me going on a short tangent, but after hopes came out and showed us Epimenides I actually began to view the Agarthans a little differently, not as in, I began seeing them as if they were good people, but rather I saw them as being reflections of the one who holds their reigns. Epimenides after all is pretty much the exact opposite of Thales within Agartha, Thales doesn't give a damn about his subordinates and will happily leave them to die just to save his own skin, Epimenides actively risks his own life to save Nemesis, who he doesn't even like. Thales wouldn't even hesitate to rob someone of their free will, which is not a good thing for Edelgard if Azure gleam is anything to go off of, but Epimenides actively shows remorse for taking Arvals and Shez's bodies and wills from them, and even the game even states that his....core, whatever that means, is to be inherited, not implanted, like it probably is for the other Agarthans, but instead passed down, showing he likely despises such things, hell, he even states in the Arval/Epimenides paralouge in hopes "I know Thales has his methods, but they don't sit right with me". I also find it really interesting that Epimenides, going off his paralouge, is much more of an upfront fighter then an in the shadows schemer, to the point of having fought the imperial army, Seteth/Cichol, Flayn/Cethleann and Rhea/Seiros to a stand still almost entirely on his own, meanwhile Thales....gets smacked around by literally everyone at least once. We also have the fact that Epimenides doesn't seem to hate non-Agarthans like....literally every other named Agarthan, but by his own admission, pities them.

What was the point of this tangent again?.....oh, right, Epimenides was basically the moral backbone of Agartha and once he died it took after Thales instead.

When it comes to Edelgard, I think it boils down to my position which I mentioned when it comes to her vs Dimitri, that every approach will end uo leaving somebody out and cause suffering. Though I have to admit, that my biggest problem is actually how the whole conquest works in Azure Moon. Not necessarily when it comes to Adrestia, as this is basically similar to the reverse and we should assume that people would be very unhappy with him coming in and re-introducing the status quo and the rule of the Central Church to the nation, but Leicester, how it just ends up falling in line and submit to Faerghus rule, when their history is how Faerghus backstabbed and annexed them when they tried their own revolt against the Kingdom and had to fight a war against Faerghus to win their independence, as well as the Kingdoms meddling with House Daphnel. When it comes to Rhea, the rationale behind it is there, but it is still ag reat betrayal of the Empire, which helped her to begin with and basically yet another example of Rhea making bad compromises and choices that end up biting her, and all of Fodlan, in the ass. When it comes to her trauma, it is understandable, but it is also her putting all of humanity on a collective burden for the crimes of very few people.

But the Thales and TWSITD topic is much more interesting, lol. And I agree with you. I really like Epimenides because he is the one nuanced agarthan we ever get. He is outright heroic, he just happens to be on the opposing side, which I think is always interesting and I like how he is singlemindedly dedicated to save his people. It puts the agarthans in a very different light, the implications where already there, but its different when somebody who seems somewhat noble puts them forward. I also generally like him as this counterpart to Rhea and Sothis, despite his godlike power being adamant of being a mere human and taking pride in his humanity. I just generally love this kind of character, who reject the megalomania of calling themselves gods and taking pride in their archievements as humans. I also like how apologetic he is about sacrificing Solon. It creats a sense of human connection, that he is not viewed as this mad evil villain by his own people.

So this really generally leads me to some of my frustrations with the games, like how Hopes itself feels very unfinished and abandoned. Like Hopes introduces very interesting implications, combined with the Shadow Library document for example the idea, that the original Sothis might not have been fully good and much more cruel and ruthless than we would have assumed, as seen in her more vengeful and ruthless demeanor in Hopes. Some hate it, but I kinda like the idea of the Goddess Sothis not being as good as Rhea makes her out to be. It adds relationship to the way Byleth shaped Sothis through their shared experiences and more nuance to the background of the world. Though I also kinda feel like Epimenides and Arval were somewhat of a largely aborted story for Hopes? Its basically handled inside a bonus chapter that has no lasting consequences to the ending of the game and we never gain more clarity on Shez Background and origins, which are implied to be agarthan. We know that Hopes ends more open ended so to not devalue Byleths involvement in Houses, but I can't stop but feel like they also held really back on the entire concept of Byleth & Sothis being villains in Hopes, which was what the game originally advertised itself as, which could have had Epimenides take a bigger role in the story and show us the agarthans in a different light. Then there is also how the game feels pretty much aborted to move towards Engage, when it just feels like it was created with at least some story DLC in mind.

But generally the agarthans and them being one-dimensionally evil inside the games is my big criticism. The world building, informations from interviews and ingame documents feel like the entire concept was imagined to be more nuanced, but then they ended up being really flat. And with the way they are presented as and handled, there are some messy implications due to the choice of making them not some ancient evil cult, but actually a human race of people and seemingly also the original inhabitants of Fodlan. Like to they have civilians? Do they have children? Its super messy and I feel like the game would have done better by giving us at least an agarthan recruit. You know, basically a Tharja, who gives us more insights and depth to the agarthans as a people and offers a route of redemption and survival for them through their ending, instead of us just wiping them out or be stuck in an eternal gridlock with them. Though I guess its a good place for headcanons, rpgs and fanfic though, where I love to expand on the agarthans more for myself, giving them more depth and purpose. I think offers the potential of an interesting circle of hatred narrative, being more critical of Sothis just wiping them out with a flood and effectively commiting a biblical genocide on them, which forced them into the dark and turned them vengeful and evil, in turn enacting their own cruel and unjust collective punishment on all Nabateans for the sins of their mother. Though I personally just like the idea of a narrative, where there are nuanced agarthans and that offers a story about how agarthans and nabateans have to learn to share the world with each other and with the current humans inhabiting it as equals, instead of one side trying to wipe the other out for eternity, with humans being their puppets in all of it.

Like, who is Shez's mother? What is Agarthan society like? Are they all similar to Kronya, Solon, Cornelian and Thales, or is the average Agarthan more similar to Epimenides? How did Arval end up with Shez? Did they wind up together on accident? Is Shez some kind of homonculus clone body Epimenides had planned for his return? If so, how did they end up not only getting out of Shambala as, very likely, a baby and getting raised in Fodlan?

So many questions, and the only way we might ever get any answers is through.....fire emblem heroes, and even then, that'll probably only be the case if Shez ever wins CYL.

When it comes to Shez mother, I kinda assume she might have been an agarthan who came to save them from Shambhala and whatever experiments had them end up with Arval, but it is really never answered. Its quite a shame, as the game just was brimming with potential and there was lots of potential for fun DLC. I would have loved Nemesis and the Agarthans as unlockable units just for record keeper, as this would have been fun gameplay wise and opened the door for some fun non-canon interactions, see Edelgard and Rhea being deployed together.

I feel like Shez has a much stronger dynamic with Edelgard than she ever shares with Dimitri, where they feel somewhat generic and replaceable, but my favorite house for Shez personally is GD, where they just feel like completing the Deers in a way Byleth never could. Though seriously, I feel like people give Golden Wildfire alot of shit undeserved, which feels like a situation where many people didn't really like Claude to begin with, they liked a boiled down Silver Snow Headcanon of Claude. Like I love Scarlet Blaze because its basically a perfect route that gives the Eagles everything they could have asked for, but Golden Wildfire just left the strongest impression for me. Its the Claude I hoped for when I first started 3 Houses and considered joining the Deer before the Eagles, the morally grey scheming Master Tactician. I just genuinly feel like people who want Claude to be this nice golden boy are the most boring people imaginable. I want him to be the rogueish Lord who smiles at you and lures you into believing he's a friendly little fella, just to shoot first. Its just fun and the cast gets to shine alot during the Route. And honestly, it feels the closest to a golden route we will ever get. Dimitri and Edelgard both survive without their nations being fully conquered and there is a chance, that the three Lords might make peace.

In regards to Claude, I did sort of feel he was out of character, but not because he was scheming and conniving, I honestly loved that, but because he just seemed to.....accept everything he was told about the church by Edelgard during that little peace talk. Claude was designed to be a truth seeker in houses yet he never really does that, at all in hopes, and it just made him feel a bit....dumb I guess is the best way I can put it. It's like they couldn't figure out a way for him to be both a schemer and a truth seeker at the same time and just decided to give us one or the other. Also, in regards to the idea of Claude playing the role of villain....I don't think it makes any sense for him, he's shown in every route making the decisions most likely to keep Leicester alive, no matter what, because its the smallest country with the weakest army, his schemes can only carry them so far, if he tried to take on the kingdom and the empire at the same time he'd be crushed.

Also I think this is yet again your bias speaking, sorry. Like, Claude was always established to be against the church himself and in 3 Houses, he effectively used Byleths connection to it to destroy it within itself. In Hopes he does not have this luxury, but he also gets to show his skills as a tactician better because we see that with the right set up, he is capable of taking on the Empire or the Kingdom. And why are you assuming that what Edelgard is telling Claude about the church is not backed by elements and documents? Don't forget that at this point, Edelgard was able to take Garreg Mach Monestary already and therefore has access to the churches dirty secrets. Not to forget that Claude has its own gripes with the Church, which he lays out in his support with Dimitri, which are never questioned by Dimitri, for example Rhea prohibiting official relations with outside regions. In general the Game kind of confirms outright that the Church is not good and that even Dimitri hates them, but has to play a facade to uphold good relations with them, he agrees with all of Edelgards and Claudes ideas on a personal level and opposes them due to what he perceives as his duty as king. Like I mentioned, the game hints at Rhea deliberately starving the Kingdom until the has to rely on them providing for her army. Like I think there are alot of misinterpretations and misinformation floating along in the community because, lets be real, there are alot of people really obsessed with church apologism here on tumblr, the FE3H community seems to have the weirdest form of conservative elements in it.

And yeah, but SB has Shez teaching Edelgard high five, which is really much more of a dynamic than she ever developes with any of the Lions. And honestly, for me the whole Blue Lions dynamic with Shez kinda felt emblematic with the house, as it was kind of a nuffingburger. And I kinda feel like Hubert and Edelgard being the most suspicious to Shez is realistic, they are the most experienced in identifying their abilities as Agarthan, but when Shez turned, it was basically just Hubert seeing his paranoia confirmed, but even him not wanting to resolve the situation violently? Dimitri is the one who is prepared to kill Shez immediately, because they already confessed their fears to him and its what he promised them to do in this case. I think the Golden Deer had unambigiously the best scene there, they constantly call Shez their friend and while Lorenz is the onle suspicious, Hilda and Claude immediately suspect an imposter. And in general I think the relationship in Golden Deer comes off the most like Shez just being a part of them and having a real effect on the story and their Lord, fascilitating Claudes character development. With AM I never really got this feeling, like Shez being part of the Blue Lions has alot less of an effect on the story than Edelgard being mindcontrolled. When it comes to the Blue Lions, yeah they are friendly, but it never feels that deep or something that developed and has an unique dynamic. And I never really got the impression Shez has much of a reason to fight for Dimitri and the Lions, though this could be due to Dimitri being somewhat of the least inspiring leader. In contrast to Edelgard and Claude, he kinda feels like you have Che Guevara on one side, Nelson Mandela on the other and you vote for Angela Merkel.

In regards to Dimitri, I honestly find him the most inspiring of the three leaders, a man who's country is the worst off on almost all fronts, defending off attackers from almost every angle, even within his own kingdom, but still working his hardest to protect his people, ensure his friends survival and to remain kind, but that's purely my personal view of it and you are perfectly entitled to your own opinion on the matter, though I would love to hear your reasons why you find the other leaders more inspiring.

Regarding Claude, correct me if I'm wrong, but during Golden wildfires peace talk scene, I don't think Edelgard actually offers any real evidence against the church to Claude except her word, nor does Claude ask for any. Even accounting for his dislike of the church, the fact he doesn't actually try and get more concrete evidence out of Edelgard feels....off, especially considering that her first move in the war was to attack Leicester just so she could reach the church faster by taking the great bridge. The whole situation just doesn't come off quite right to me.

And on Dimitri, I just feel like his very centrist attitude just doesn't inspire me to follow him, as he generally doesn't really act out of his own convictions and believes. We learn after all that Dimitri does agree with Edelgards and Claudes believes and goals, he basically just acts as a contrarian out of fear of rapid change and to placate the church, which Hopes really hammers home on being corrupt. Like damn, Rhea is literally implied to wilfully starve the Kingdom when she knows aggracultural techniques that could help it, which she only shares when its about having her people fed. I think there is a general issue in AG, where the Rest of the game clearly contextualizes Rhea as a villain, but Dimitri to the end keeps on being subservient to her, which makes AG come off a bit like a villainous route. In SB, Rhea outright proposes throwing her followers into the meatgrinder by calling for a crusade into Garreg Mach, which Dimitri has to sugarcoat Rhea and Seteth against enacting, which shows how fanatical those two really are. Sorry to go on a tangent here, but yeah, I really dislike how Dimitri really never truly comes to stand up against Rhea.

On why I find the other leaders more inspiring, for me its simply them being more charismatic but also holding stronger convictions. With Edelgard, I think its also just her being the better house leader. In Houses she tried to put her distance towards others due to knowing what she has to do and her fear that nobody would follow her, but she is still trying to help and care for everyone. I think she has a very revolutionary air to her, being willing to fight and also lay down her life for what she believes is right. I also think its also very inspiring that when she suffered so much trauma and torture, she never falls into the trappings of vengeance and instead turns her suffering into conviction, to never allow anyone else to suffer as she did, not only in the specific way of undergoing crest experimentations, but to stop every all suffering because of crests. And there is a strong humanist element to her, her just believing in the capabilities of the common people. And there is her deep seated appreciation for others. Like, in their support Edelgard expresses nothing but appreciation for the way Shez changed her, similarily to Byleth. I think there is just something much more inspiring about somebody who cares deeply about others but is also willing to shoulder the costs necessary to push forward into the future.

And when it comes to Claude, I also think that he is somebody with much more honest and heartfelt convictions than Dimitri. Like, he is obviously the most charismatic leader out there, thats his entire shtick, but I think for me it creats excitement to see the big dreamer beneath the pragmatic schemer. He has this Tyrion Lannister vibes, framing himself as a scoundrel while having very heartfelt dreams. And in Hopes, you could just feel this side of him much more, where he could take the actual central role and had a route written just for him. I also generally enjoy his political finesse and tactical mind. He proofs that he isn't just the third wheel who is crushed underneath the mass of Edelgard and Dimitri, but shows how Leicester genuinly has the potential to win this, all by themselves. I also generally love how he is able to use setbacks to his advantage and come out of it as a winner, which is a very inspiring quality. And finally, there is him being open towards pushback and taking it deeply to heart, changing his entire outlook on everything. The final battle in GW is entirely build on his development after sacrificing Randolph and seeing how much this has shaken Shez trust in him, so now he stands true to his allies. I also really, really love how as a leader, he is capable of lighten the mood whenever things seem dark, again a quality I think in its own way. Edelgard is somebody I feel like could inspire me to preservere through hardship, Claude meanwhile is somebody who could make me believe that things aren't that bad and make me go through it with a chuckle.

And during both Peace Talk scenes, there isn't really much discussion about the Church, in Golden Wildfire there is reference to a letter she send Claude though. So we don't know what exactly she wrote him and what evidence was attached to hit, though we know that Claude does take it with a grain of salt and just considers it more potential reasons for why the Central Church needs to be abolished. Thats what she says on the topic in the scene after:

Like what he actually mentions as his opposition towards the Central Church and his prime reasoning to want to destroy it are not some secret knowledge, but just how the system operates. This isn't claude being manipulated and tricked by Edelgard, this is him as an outsider coming to the same conclusions about the Central Church as her.

Like, I feel like IS sort of couldn't find a good way to justify siding with Edelgard to the player beyond liking her as a character and the only way the could sort of doing it was by reducing Rhea to near Duma levels of insane, but even then while I won't condone her actions I can understand why she lost it, from her perspective she just saw someone she allowed into her home, break into the burial site of her dead siblings with the intention of desecrating them and robbing their graves and then watched what is, from her sad, broken perspective, her own mother choose to side with the person trying to take all she has left of her family away from her, I too would lose it under those circumstances. And then there's Edelgard not even being very smart, like, does she really believe her troops would hear "the church has nukes" and not either, question why they only dropped the one on the one location and why only now or just....lose all morale??? And then there's the battle at the Tailtean plains and the good old conversation between Dimitri and Edelgard, "must you continue to conquer?continue to kill?!" "Must you continue to re-conquer? Continue to kill in retaliation?" Like.....it's like even she realises she has no moral high ground over him and is just trying some desperate redirection to not be the villain she knows she is. And also the entire "king of delusion" scene where Dimitri, in his final moments, swears to avenge everyone who died for her, who she killed, to avenge all his fallen friends and family who died because of her and her ambitions and she basically just calls him a nut job.

First off I would say, its very obvious looking at the state of discourse that you're not the only one (but you at least don't make entire posts trying to frame Edelgard as some sexual seductress, lol. That person exists!), but I think its also more of a you issue. Not in that you do something wrong, but that Edelgard and her route are simply not for you, because as is clear with the large popularilty Edelgard enjoys, thats not the experience all people have with Crimson Flower. In the end, its a game about different perspectives and values and chosing your side when those ultimately come to a clash. It would be boring if this doesn't spark discourse and fundamentally different perspectives of what is right and whats wrong. For all of its flaws, the fact that 3 Houses sparks this amount of Discourse even years after its release is a testament to what it does right.

For example my perspective in all of this, when I played the game on Crimson Flower Route first, was that I came to broadly agree with Edelgards point of view during Part 1. She shares alot of her perspectives during it and as I saw early on, how the entire social structure of Fodlan is heavily inspired by the three estates of the realm feudal structure of medieval europe, I was naturally inclined to by sympathetic towards her viewpoints, as I will usually prefer to side against feudalism in a narrative that allows and encourages me to do so. I got bad vibes from Rhea from the start and tended to believe Jeralt, who as the father of my character I was prone to believe, in not trusting her, especially since very early on, we see more of the oppressive and tyranical nature of the church and the evils of the crest system. In my personal first playthrough, I came to suspect that the Flame Emperor is more nuanced than it appears at first, while Rhea became more and more creepy after Sothis awakening, so when it came to the holy tomb, I did a leap of faith and trusted in Edelgard, as I agreed that the church must be destroyed.

For me, the reactions towards Rheas turn in Crimson Flower feel very similar to the outrage people expressed in the recent Elden Ring DLC, when a certain character as was expected didn't turn out to be as noble as they would have assumed, because by that point they were set in their headcanons of him being a benevolent and purely good figure. Rhea in Crimson Flower is consistent. She is consistent with the bloodthirsty side of hers we saw during the games first cutscene and her cruel and vengeful attitude whenever somebody challenges her during White Clouds. Silver Snow is textually not a validation of Rhea as we saw her in part 1, what it does is offering a potential redemption for her under the condition that Byleth forms an especially strong bond with her. She herself admits her wrongdoings and expresses guilt in the following S-Support. What Crimson Flower shows is that at this stage of the story, Rheas love and adoration for Byleth is conditional, as not long before she literally tried to mind erase them to revive Sothis in full, and that Rhea is prone to immediately devalueing and dehumanizing them if they disobey her. After all, at this point Byleth hasn't even taken arms against Rhea, they are just standing against outright killing their student. I would also say that for me personally, Rheas entire demeanor during part 1 comes off heavily like grooming and love bombing, which is why I personally tend to dislike her.

When it comes to Arianrhod, I personally tond like this part of the story. For me it is one of the flaws in it, as it is left without any lasting consequences, and feels very much like the writers just forcefully inserting it into it to remind us of TWSITD still being there and inform Crimson Flower players of the Javelines of light. What I will say is, that it is not the only such forced inclusion just for the sake of it. I can see the rationale of Edelgard though. Edelgard took a gamble with killing Cornelia in Arianrhod and was punished by it for Thales and reacting to it prematurely would them losing momentum and the Kingdom successfully launching a counter offensive, as well as further interventions by TWSITD if she openly revolts against them now, so she has to lure Thales for the moment into a false sense of security, that she falls back in line again. I don't like it, but I will also say that if thats the dealbreaker, then the route probably wasn't for one to begin with.

When it comes to Dimitri and Edelgard, the whole 'must you continue to kill' exchange is quite a mistranslation compared to the original text, where Edelgards point is to ask him if he will be satisfied, once he takes back, tramples back. This changes the entire context of the exchange honestly:

Though I will also say, I don't have personal issues with this exchange myself, as, what most people leave out, its followed by Edelgard also expressing her determination that she will not stop and do everything necessary to creat a new future for Fodlan. Initially I also took the line as Edelgard being sassy which I'm like...okay with? I'm a feminist, I like it when the queer female lead doesn't owes your typical male protagonist turned villain respect and in crimson Flower, Dimitri himself dragged his Kingdom into war by siding with the church and for the sake of Dimitris delusional desire for vengeance. Which is, again, delusional. Dimitri rants and blames Edelgard for things she had no control over and which she didn't do. He is completely obsessive over her and she has the right to be apalled by him. Again, as a feminist, I like that. She doesn't owe a guy who obsessed over her and wants to brutally murder her any respect, he himself is the one who chose to throw away any semblance of dignity he had.

I would also say that other people will feel as you do towards Rhea and Dimitri. With Rhea I already laid it out why I don't get why people love her so much and consider her heroic and good. With Dimitri, I was initially kinda excited to play Blue Lions after CF. Dimitri was, ultimately, a cool villain in my opinion, I liked his Post Timeskip Design more than his Pre-Timeskip one and I wanted to see where his route leads into and whats his perspective is. I ended up not liking it. Like, I played it before I went into all this discourse with high hopes and I just ended up not liking it or him. He seems very flat to me, with people conflating a character focussed story and a character going through a a redemption arc with deep storytelling, when for me it just seemed comical how he jumps in personality, especially when he just immediately snaps from somebody who sadistically glees like he's some dark isekai self-insert about torturing a man and then immediately jumps into being the enlightened and redeemed savior king. I didn't like how afterwards there were zero consequences for his actions. The parley also didn't sold me, it seemed for me like him engaging in ad hominems and framing him as morally superior because he got people who carry him, it had some very unfortunate implications of how abusers irl might act. Ultimately, I also found his whole position rather pessimistic and miserable, that humans can't rise above themselves when they are given the opportunity and that they should be kept reliant because its safe. Thats how he came off to me. Many of his scenes also come off to me like trauma dumping and him being somewhat self-centered, only relating to others by making them fit into his personal perspective.

But on Edelgard and her attitudes towards Dragons, that a community spread misconception to frame her as some kind of racist and fascist, predominantly by the kinds of people who, in a game where people of color exist and are opressed, make pale-skinned dragon gods their chosen racial allegory. I could be wrong but please correct me, but to my knowledge Edelgard never learns that the Heroes Relics are made out of Dragons. I'm not even sure if Silver Snow Byleth does learn that, it could be actually just Claude. What she knows is that the heroes relics are manmade and the history the church propagates, that Nemesis became corrupted and evil later on, was a lie propagated by the church. Though Edelgards also doesn't seem to care much about Heroes Relics outside of their immediate use and the fact, that the church is controlling them.

Edelgard and Hubert hold negative views on the Nabatheans as inhuman, but that is predominantly out of their limited perspective, where they only know them as immortals who hide among humans to control them and falsify history. Though they also don't seem to see them as a race and more as a divine family of self-appointed gods, which is the role the Nabatheans did play in the past. I think here its kinda messy because outside of the few nabateans alive, there aren't really any other intelligent non-human races and humans don't know anything about Nabateans outside of their myths about the children of the goddess. And ultimately, what they hold against the Nabatheans is their deception and their misrule over humanity. And Rhea does express very supremacist attitudes against humans and considers themselves to be unfit to govern themselves without her guidance, despite herself being as flawed as humans and misusing her power the same they do, with Seteth being an active accomplice.

Ultimately, she doesn't even want to kill the Nabateans, she just wants their control over humanity to end. She expresses herself very harshely with terms like obliterate and striking her down, which I think are supposed to be taken as her exaggerating when talking about her ideals, but otherwise she does express a preference to sparing Rhea. She does give Rhea a chance to surrender before Fhirdiad and even before that shows a genuine interest in capturing instead of killing her.

So she prefers stripping Rhea of power and keep her away from politics and is neutral towards turning the church into an imperial institution, which is to say, a state institution, while actively disliking the idea of killing her if she surrenders. This is consistent with the fact that she does keep Rhea as a prisoner over the 5 years, where Seteth does confirm after finding her that she is left unharmed

Hopes confirms this notion, as during Edelgards support with Claude, she treats capturing instead of killing Rhea as the natural course of action and even questions Claude, if it isn't enough to subdue her enemy and remove her from power. Which is consistent with Edelgard usually giving her enemies a chance to surrender after the battle, as seen in her conquest of the Alliance, which is highly unusual compared to other Lords where routing missions and giving their enemies no quarter is the usual outcome. In VW and SS, Count Bergliez has to sacrifice himself for his soldiers to be spared. And here is how Seteth reacts to the notion of not killing Edelgard.

So yeah. Edelgard does not want to kill the Nabateans, she just views them negatively due to her limited knowledge of them and perceiving them through Rheas actions at the expense of humanity. 3H in general goes a different way of humanizing the Dragons, by emphasizing their human flaws. It subverts the notion, that immortal divine beings are better, wiser or more intelligent than humans.

Personally, I kinda dislike the fact that Flayn doesn't stick along or at least is re-recruitable in Crimson Flower, really. Its one of the flaws of the game I see, especially since I've heard that there are datamines that hint at Crimson Flower Flayn being a consideration at one point. I care less so about Seteth because I like him less, but I also see more of a case where the game may benefit from him not being recruitable, but in Flayns case I feel like it strips Crimson Flower, but also Flayn, of possibilities. I would have liked Edelgard and Hubert to react of the notion of a child of the goddess siding with their ideals, but also how Flayn could develope if she was faced with Rheas deceptions.

I would also agree with the notion that at its core its really Edelgard vs Rhea, but I think it also plays into the weakness of 3 Houses, that it doesn't really do much to make the ambitions and goals of Dimitri and Claude stand out very much. But I will disagree with your notion on what both want and think your personal bias talks again, because Edelgard very much cares about those who are left out by the current system. She is the one who feels empathy towards Miklan, who expresses care about those who are left out or wronged by the system and cares about creating a place for everyone in her new world, as seen for example in her Linhardt support.

Rhea is the one who refuses to truly learn about humanity and to put trust in others. She does regularily express alienation from others and her incapability of connecting with those around her. The issue with Rhea is, that she does not respect humans and looks down to them, having a very supremacist and paternalistic outlook on them as being reliant on her rule.

The issue is, that Rhea had a thousand years to solve the issues in Fodlan. She has the means to do it, she has the power. She just doesn't wants to, because she prefers the control and illusio nof peace she created for herself. She does uphold the crest system and hides away those who are harmed and cast out by it into the Abyss, which is basically just an underground ghetto.

Like, ultimately she just does nothing to make things better for anyone? When the tragedy of Duscur happened, she didn't do anything despite showing with her scapegoating and executing Christophe for it. When Loog started a TWSITD backed up Revolt against the Empire, something the church at least suspected looking at the Abyss library, she ended up rewarding him by splitting up the Empire and creating the church as her loyal vassal. She did nothing in turn to support Leicester when they revolted against the Empire, nor when they were annexed by the Kingdom. We know that she actively suppresses technological advancements, especially those that could hurt the authority of the church or threaten the nobility system. Hopes has even very strong indications that Rhea withheld aggracultural knowledge from the Kingdom until the point it has to harbor her and she suddenly drops it, something Shez can be suspicious of and that I will go further into. Rhea had every opportunity and all the means in the world to creat a better world, she just does not want to do that. She wants to revive Sothis against her wills, so that she can rule over humanity and fix things.

Actually, regarding Thales, I hope you don't mind me going on a short tangent, but after hopes came out and showed us Epimenides I actually began to view the Agarthans a little differently, not as in, I began seeing them as if they were good people, but rather I saw them as being reflections of the one who holds their reigns. Epimenides after all is pretty much the exact opposite of Thales within Agartha, Thales doesn't give a damn about his subordinates and will happily leave them to die just to save his own skin, Epimenides actively risks his own life to save Nemesis, who he doesn't even like. Thales wouldn't even hesitate to rob someone of their free will, which is not a good thing for Edelgard if Azure gleam is anything to go off of, but Epimenides actively shows remorse for taking Arvals and Shez's bodies and wills from them, and even the game even states that his....core, whatever that means, is to be inherited, not implanted, like it probably is for the other Agarthans, but instead passed down, showing he likely despises such things, hell, he even states in the Arval/Epimenides paralouge in hopes "I know Thales has his methods, but they don't sit right with me". I also find it really interesting that Epimenides, going off his paralouge, is much more of an upfront fighter then an in the shadows schemer, to the point of having fought the imperial army, Seteth/Cichol, Flayn/Cethleann and Rhea/Seiros to a stand still almost entirely on his own, meanwhile Thales....gets smacked around by literally everyone at least once. We also have the fact that Epimenides doesn't seem to hate non-Agarthans like....literally every other named Agarthan, but by his own admission, pities them.

What was the point of this tangent again?.....oh, right, Epimenides was basically the moral backbone of Agartha and once he died it took after Thales instead.

When it comes to Edelgard, I think it boils down to my position which I mentioned when it comes to her vs Dimitri, that every approach will end uo leaving somebody out and cause suffering. Though I have to admit, that my biggest problem is actually how the whole conquest works in Azure Moon. Not necessarily when it comes to Adrestia, as this is basically similar to the reverse and we should assume that people would be very unhappy with him coming in and re-introducing the status quo and the rule of the Central Church to the nation, but Leicester, how it just ends up falling in line and submit to Faerghus rule, when their history is how Faerghus backstabbed and annexed them when they tried their own revolt against the Kingdom and had to fight a war against Faerghus to win their independence, as well as the Kingdoms meddling with House Daphnel. When it comes to Rhea, the rationale behind it is there, but it is still ag reat betrayal of the Empire, which helped her to begin with and basically yet another example of Rhea making bad compromises and choices that end up biting her, and all of Fodlan, in the ass. When it comes to her trauma, it is understandable, but it is also her putting all of humanity on a collective burden for the crimes of very few people.

But the Thales and TWSITD topic is much more interesting, lol. And I agree with you. I really like Epimenides because he is the one nuanced agarthan we ever get. He is outright heroic, he just happens to be on the opposing side, which I think is always interesting and I like how he is singlemindedly dedicated to save his people. It puts the agarthans in a very different light, the implications where already there, but its different when somebody who seems somewhat noble puts them forward. I also generally like him as this counterpart to Rhea and Sothis, despite his godlike power being adamant of being a mere human and taking pride in his humanity. I just generally love this kind of character, who reject the megalomania of calling themselves gods and taking pride in their archievements as humans. I also like how apologetic he is about sacrificing Solon. It creats a sense of human connection, that he is not viewed as this mad evil villain by his own people.

So this really generally leads me to some of my frustrations with the games, like how Hopes itself feels very unfinished and abandoned. Like Hopes introduces very interesting implications, combined with the Shadow Library document for example the idea, that the original Sothis might not have been fully good and much more cruel and ruthless than we would have assumed, as seen in her more vengeful and ruthless demeanor in Hopes. Some hate it, but I kinda like the idea of the Goddess Sothis not being as good as Rhea makes her out to be. It adds relationship to the way Byleth shaped Sothis through their shared experiences and more nuance to the background of the world. Though I also kinda feel like Epimenides and Arval were somewhat of a largely aborted story for Hopes? Its basically handled inside a bonus chapter that has no lasting consequences to the ending of the game and we never gain more clarity on Shez Background and origins, which are implied to be agarthan. We know that Hopes ends more open ended so to not devalue Byleths involvement in Houses, but I can't stop but feel like they also held really back on the entire concept of Byleth & Sothis being villains in Hopes, which was what the game originally advertised itself as, which could have had Epimenides take a bigger role in the story and show us the agarthans in a different light. Then there is also how the game feels pretty much aborted to move towards Engage, when it just feels like it was created with at least some story DLC in mind.

But generally the agarthans and them being one-dimensionally evil inside the games is my big criticism. The world building, informations from interviews and ingame documents feel like the entire concept was imagined to be more nuanced, but then they ended up being really flat. And with the way they are presented as and handled, there are some messy implications due to the choice of making them not some ancient evil cult, but actually a human race of people and seemingly also the original inhabitants of Fodlan. Like to they have civilians? Do they have children? Its super messy and I feel like the game would have done better by giving us at least an agarthan recruit. You know, basically a Tharja, who gives us more insights and depth to the agarthans as a people and offers a route of redemption and survival for them through their ending, instead of us just wiping them out or be stuck in an eternal gridlock with them. Though I guess its a good place for headcanons, rpgs and fanfic though, where I love to expand on the agarthans more for myself, giving them more depth and purpose. I think offers the potential of an interesting circle of hatred narrative, being more critical of Sothis just wiping them out with a flood and effectively commiting a biblical genocide on them, which forced them into the dark and turned them vengeful and evil, in turn enacting their own cruel and unjust collective punishment on all Nabateans for the sins of their mother. Though I personally just like the idea of a narrative, where there are nuanced agarthans and that offers a story about how agarthans and nabateans have to learn to share the world with each other and with the current humans inhabiting it as equals, instead of one side trying to wipe the other out for eternity, with humans being their puppets in all of it.

Like, who is Shez's mother? What is Agarthan society like? Are they all similar to Kronya, Solon, Cornelian and Thales, or is the average Agarthan more similar to Epimenides? How did Arval end up with Shez? Did they wind up together on accident? Is Shez some kind of homonculus clone body Epimenides had planned for his return? If so, how did they end up not only getting out of Shambala as, very likely, a baby and getting raised in Fodlan?

So many questions, and the only way we might ever get any answers is through.....fire emblem heroes, and even then, that'll probably only be the case if Shez ever wins CYL.

When it comes to Shez mother, I kinda assume she might have been an agarthan who came to save them from Shambhala and whatever experiments had them end up with Arval, but it is really never answered. Its quite a shame, as the game just was brimming with potential and there was lots of potential for fun DLC. I would have loved Nemesis and the Agarthans as unlockable units just for record keeper, as this would have been fun gameplay wise and opened the door for some fun non-canon interactions, see Edelgard and Rhea being deployed together.

I feel like Shez has a much stronger dynamic with Edelgard than she ever shares with Dimitri, where they feel somewhat generic and replaceable, but my favorite house for Shez personally is GD, where they just feel like completing the Deers in a way Byleth never could. Though seriously, I feel like people give Golden Wildfire alot of shit undeserved, which feels like a situation where many people didn't really like Claude to begin with, they liked a boiled down Silver Snow Headcanon of Claude. Like I love Scarlet Blaze because its basically a perfect route that gives the Eagles everything they could have asked for, but Golden Wildfire just left the strongest impression for me. Its the Claude I hoped for when I first started 3 Houses and considered joining the Deer before the Eagles, the morally grey scheming Master Tactician. I just genuinly feel like people who want Claude to be this nice golden boy are the most boring people imaginable. I want him to be the rogueish Lord who smiles at you and lures you into believing he's a friendly little fella, just to shoot first. Its just fun and the cast gets to shine alot during the Route. And honestly, it feels the closest to a golden route we will ever get. Dimitri and Edelgard both survive without their nations being fully conquered and there is a chance, that the three Lords might make peace.

In regards to Claude, I did sort of feel he was out of character, but not because he was scheming and conniving, I honestly loved that, but because he just seemed to.....accept everything he was told about the church by Edelgard during that little peace talk. Claude was designed to be a truth seeker in houses yet he never really does that, at all in hopes, and it just made him feel a bit....dumb I guess is the best way I can put it. It's like they couldn't figure out a way for him to be both a schemer and a truth seeker at the same time and just decided to give us one or the other. Also, in regards to the idea of Claude playing the role of villain....I don't think it makes any sense for him, he's shown in every route making the decisions most likely to keep Leicester alive, no matter what, because its the smallest country with the weakest army, his schemes can only carry them so far, if he tried to take on the kingdom and the empire at the same time he'd be crushed.

Also I think this is yet again your bias speaking, sorry. Like, Claude was always established to be against the church himself and in 3 Houses, he effectively used Byleths connection to it to destroy it within itself. In Hopes he does not have this luxury, but he also gets to show his skills as a tactician better because we see that with the right set up, he is capable of taking on the Empire or the Kingdom. And why are you assuming that what Edelgard is telling Claude about the church is not backed by elements and documents? Don't forget that at this point, Edelgard was able to take Garreg Mach Monestary already and therefore has access to the churches dirty secrets. Not to forget that Claude has its own gripes with the Church, which he lays out in his support with Dimitri, which are never questioned by Dimitri, for example Rhea prohibiting official relations with outside regions. In general the Game kind of confirms outright that the Church is not good and that even Dimitri hates them, but has to play a facade to uphold good relations with them, he agrees with all of Edelgards and Claudes ideas on a personal level and opposes them due to what he perceives as his duty as king. Like I mentioned, the game hints at Rhea deliberately starving the Kingdom until the has to rely on them providing for her army. Like I think there are alot of misinterpretations and misinformation floating along in the community because, lets be real, there are alot of people really obsessed with church apologism here on tumblr, the FE3H community seems to have the weirdest form of conservative elements in it.

And yeah, but SB has Shez teaching Edelgard high five, which is really much more of a dynamic than she ever developes with any of the Lions. And honestly, for me the whole Blue Lions dynamic with Shez kinda felt emblematic with the house, as it was kind of a nuffingburger. And I kinda feel like Hubert and Edelgard being the most suspicious to Shez is realistic, they are the most experienced in identifying their abilities as Agarthan, but when Shez turned, it was basically just Hubert seeing his paranoia confirmed, but even him not wanting to resolve the situation violently? Dimitri is the one who is prepared to kill Shez immediately, because they already confessed their fears to him and its what he promised them to do in this case. I think the Golden Deer had unambigiously the best scene there, they constantly call Shez their friend and while Lorenz is the onle suspicious, Hilda and Claude immediately suspect an imposter. And in general I think the relationship in Golden Deer comes off the most like Shez just being a part of them and having a real effect on the story and their Lord, fascilitating Claudes character development. With AM I never really got this feeling, like Shez being part of the Blue Lions has alot less of an effect on the story than Edelgard being mindcontrolled. When it comes to the Blue Lions, yeah they are friendly, but it never feels that deep or something that developed and has an unique dynamic. And I never really got the impression Shez has much of a reason to fight for Dimitri and the Lions, though this could be due to Dimitri being somewhat of the least inspiring leader. In contrast to Edelgard and Claude, he kinda feels like you have Che Guevara on one side, Nelson Mandela on the other and you vote for Angela Merkel.

In regards to Dimitri, I honestly find him the most inspiring of the three leaders, a man who's country is the worst off on almost all fronts, defending off attackers from almost every angle, even within his own kingdom, but still working his hardest to protect his people, ensure his friends survival and to remain kind, but that's purely my personal view of it and you are perfectly entitled to your own opinion on the matter, though I would love to hear your reasons why you find the other leaders more inspiring.

Regarding Claude, correct me if I'm wrong, but during Golden wildfires peace talk scene, I don't think Edelgard actually offers any real evidence against the church to Claude except her word, nor does Claude ask for any. Even accounting for his dislike of the church, the fact he doesn't actually try and get more concrete evidence out of Edelgard feels....off, especially considering that her first move in the war was to attack Leicester just so she could reach the church faster by taking the great bridge. The whole situation just doesn't come off quite right to me.

Like, I feel like IS sort of couldn't find a good way to justify siding with Edelgard to the player beyond liking her as a character and the only way the could sort of doing it was by reducing Rhea to near Duma levels of insane, but even then while I won't condone her actions I can understand why she lost it, from her perspective she just saw someone she allowed into her home, break into the burial site of her dead siblings with the intention of desecrating them and robbing their graves and then watched what is, from her sad, broken perspective, her own mother choose to side with the person trying to take all she has left of her family away from her, I too would lose it under those circumstances. And then there's Edelgard not even being very smart, like, does she really believe her troops would hear "the church has nukes" and not either, question why they only dropped the one on the one location and why only now or just....lose all morale??? And then there's the battle at the Tailtean plains and the good old conversation between Dimitri and Edelgard, "must you continue to conquer?continue to kill?!" "Must you continue to re-conquer? Continue to kill in retaliation?" Like.....it's like even she realises she has no moral high ground over him and is just trying some desperate redirection to not be the villain she knows she is. And also the entire "king of delusion" scene where Dimitri, in his final moments, swears to avenge everyone who died for her, who she killed, to avenge all his fallen friends and family who died because of her and her ambitions and she basically just calls him a nut job.

First off I would say, its very obvious looking at the state of discourse that you're not the only one (but you at least don't make entire posts trying to frame Edelgard as some sexual seductress, lol. That person exists!), but I think its also more of a you issue. Not in that you do something wrong, but that Edelgard and her route are simply not for you, because as is clear with the large popularilty Edelgard enjoys, thats not the experience all people have with Crimson Flower. In the end, its a game about different perspectives and values and chosing your side when those ultimately come to a clash. It would be boring if this doesn't spark discourse and fundamentally different perspectives of what is right and whats wrong. For all of its flaws, the fact that 3 Houses sparks this amount of Discourse even years after its release is a testament to what it does right.

For example my perspective in all of this, when I played the game on Crimson Flower Route first, was that I came to broadly agree with Edelgards point of view during Part 1. She shares alot of her perspectives during it and as I saw early on, how the entire social structure of Fodlan is heavily inspired by the three estates of the realm feudal structure of medieval europe, I was naturally inclined to by sympathetic towards her viewpoints, as I will usually prefer to side against feudalism in a narrative that allows and encourages me to do so. I got bad vibes from Rhea from the start and tended to believe Jeralt, who as the father of my character I was prone to believe, in not trusting her, especially since very early on, we see more of the oppressive and tyranical nature of the church and the evils of the crest system. In my personal first playthrough, I came to suspect that the Flame Emperor is more nuanced than it appears at first, while Rhea became more and more creepy after Sothis awakening, so when it came to the holy tomb, I did a leap of faith and trusted in Edelgard, as I agreed that the church must be destroyed.

For me, the reactions towards Rheas turn in Crimson Flower feel very similar to the outrage people expressed in the recent Elden Ring DLC, when a certain character as was expected didn't turn out to be as noble as they would have assumed, because by that point they were set in their headcanons of him being a benevolent and purely good figure. Rhea in Crimson Flower is consistent. She is consistent with the bloodthirsty side of hers we saw during the games first cutscene and her cruel and vengeful attitude whenever somebody challenges her during White Clouds. Silver Snow is textually not a validation of Rhea as we saw her in part 1, what it does is offering a potential redemption for her under the condition that Byleth forms an especially strong bond with her. She herself admits her wrongdoings and expresses guilt in the following S-Support. What Crimson Flower shows is that at this stage of the story, Rheas love and adoration for Byleth is conditional, as not long before she literally tried to mind erase them to revive Sothis in full, and that Rhea is prone to immediately devalueing and dehumanizing them if they disobey her. After all, at this point Byleth hasn't even taken arms against Rhea, they are just standing against outright killing their student. I would also say that for me personally, Rheas entire demeanor during part 1 comes off heavily like grooming and love bombing, which is why I personally tend to dislike her.

When it comes to Arianrhod, I personally tond like this part of the story. For me it is one of the flaws in it, as it is left without any lasting consequences, and feels very much like the writers just forcefully inserting it into it to remind us of TWSITD still being there and inform Crimson Flower players of the Javelines of light. What I will say is, that it is not the only such forced inclusion just for the sake of it. I can see the rationale of Edelgard though. Edelgard took a gamble with killing Cornelia in Arianrhod and was punished by it for Thales and reacting to it prematurely would them losing momentum and the Kingdom successfully launching a counter offensive, as well as further interventions by TWSITD if she openly revolts against them now, so she has to lure Thales for the moment into a false sense of security, that she falls back in line again. I don't like it, but I will also say that if thats the dealbreaker, then the route probably wasn't for one to begin with.

When it comes to Dimitri and Edelgard, the whole 'must you continue to kill' exchange is quite a mistranslation compared to the original text, where Edelgards point is to ask him if he will be satisfied, once he takes back, tramples back. This changes the entire context of the exchange honestly:

Though I will also say, I don't have personal issues with this exchange myself, as, what most people leave out, its followed by Edelgard also expressing her determination that she will not stop and do everything necessary to creat a new future for Fodlan. Initially I also took the line as Edelgard being sassy which I'm like...okay with? I'm a feminist, I like it when the queer female lead doesn't owes your typical male protagonist turned villain respect and in crimson Flower, Dimitri himself dragged his Kingdom into war by siding with the church and for the sake of Dimitris delusional desire for vengeance. Which is, again, delusional. Dimitri rants and blames Edelgard for things she had no control over and which she didn't do. He is completely obsessive over her and she has the right to be apalled by him. Again, as a feminist, I like that. She doesn't owe a guy who obsessed over her and wants to brutally murder her any respect, he himself is the one who chose to throw away any semblance of dignity he had.

I would also say that other people will feel as you do towards Rhea and Dimitri. With Rhea I already laid it out why I don't get why people love her so much and consider her heroic and good. With Dimitri, I was initially kinda excited to play Blue Lions after CF. Dimitri was, ultimately, a cool villain in my opinion, I liked his Post Timeskip Design more than his Pre-Timeskip one and I wanted to see where his route leads into and whats his perspective is. I ended up not liking it. Like, I played it before I went into all this discourse with high hopes and I just ended up not liking it or him. He seems very flat to me, with people conflating a character focussed story and a character going through a a redemption arc with deep storytelling, when for me it just seemed comical how he jumps in personality, especially when he just immediately snaps from somebody who sadistically glees like he's some dark isekai self-insert about torturing a man and then immediately jumps into being the enlightened and redeemed savior king. I didn't like how afterwards there were zero consequences for his actions. The parley also didn't sold me, it seemed for me like him engaging in ad hominems and framing him as morally superior because he got people who carry him, it had some very unfortunate implications of how abusers irl might act. Ultimately, I also found his whole position rather pessimistic and miserable, that humans can't rise above themselves when they are given the opportunity and that they should be kept reliant because its safe. Thats how he came off to me. Many of his scenes also come off to me like trauma dumping and him being somewhat self-centered, only relating to others by making them fit into his personal perspective.

But on Edelgard and her attitudes towards Dragons, that a community spread misconception to frame her as some kind of racist and fascist, predominantly by the kinds of people who, in a game where people of color exist and are opressed, make pale-skinned dragon gods their chosen racial allegory. I could be wrong but please correct me, but to my knowledge Edelgard never learns that the Heroes Relics are made out of Dragons. I'm not even sure if Silver Snow Byleth does learn that, it could be actually just Claude. What she knows is that the heroes relics are manmade and the history the church propagates, that Nemesis became corrupted and evil later on, was a lie propagated by the church. Though Edelgards also doesn't seem to care much about Heroes Relics outside of their immediate use and the fact, that the church is controlling them.

Edelgard and Hubert hold negative views on the Nabatheans as inhuman, but that is predominantly out of their limited perspective, where they only know them as immortals who hide among humans to control them and falsify history. Though they also don't seem to see them as a race and more as a divine family of self-appointed gods, which is the role the Nabatheans did play in the past. I think here its kinda messy because outside of the few nabateans alive, there aren't really any other intelligent non-human races and humans don't know anything about Nabateans outside of their myths about the children of the goddess. And ultimately, what they hold against the Nabatheans is their deception and their misrule over humanity. And Rhea does express very supremacist attitudes against humans and considers themselves to be unfit to govern themselves without her guidance, despite herself being as flawed as humans and misusing her power the same they do, with Seteth being an active accomplice.

Ultimately, she doesn't even want to kill the Nabateans, she just wants their control over humanity to end. She expresses herself very harshely with terms like obliterate and striking her down, which I think are supposed to be taken as her exaggerating when talking about her ideals, but otherwise she does express a preference to sparing Rhea. She does give Rhea a chance to surrender before Fhirdiad and even before that shows a genuine interest in capturing instead of killing her.

So she prefers stripping Rhea of power and keep her away from politics and is neutral towards turning the church into an imperial institution, which is to say, a state institution, while actively disliking the idea of killing her if she surrenders. This is consistent with the fact that she does keep Rhea as a prisoner over the 5 years, where Seteth does confirm after finding her that she is left unharmed

Hopes confirms this notion, as during Edelgards support with Claude, she treats capturing instead of killing Rhea as the natural course of action and even questions Claude, if it isn't enough to subdue her enemy and remove her from power. Which is consistent with Edelgard usually giving her enemies a chance to surrender after the battle, as seen in her conquest of the Alliance, which is highly unusual compared to other Lords where routing missions and giving their enemies no quarter is the usual outcome. In VW and SS, Count Bergliez has to sacrifice himself for his soldiers to be spared. And here is how Seteth reacts to the notion of not killing Edelgard.

So yeah. Edelgard does not want to kill the Nabateans, she just views them negatively due to her limited knowledge of them and perceiving them through Rheas actions at the expense of humanity. 3H in general goes a different way of humanizing the Dragons, by emphasizing their human flaws. It subverts the notion, that immortal divine beings are better, wiser or more intelligent than humans.

Personally, I kinda dislike the fact that Flayn doesn't stick along or at least is re-recruitable in Crimson Flower, really. Its one of the flaws of the game I see, especially since I've heard that there are datamines that hint at Crimson Flower Flayn being a consideration at one point. I care less so about Seteth because I like him less, but I also see more of a case where the game may benefit from him not being recruitable, but in Flayns case I feel like it strips Crimson Flower, but also Flayn, of possibilities. I would have liked Edelgard and Hubert to react of the notion of a child of the goddess siding with their ideals, but also how Flayn could develope if she was faced with Rheas deceptions.

I would also agree with the notion that at its core its really Edelgard vs Rhea, but I think it also plays into the weakness of 3 Houses, that it doesn't really do much to make the ambitions and goals of Dimitri and Claude stand out very much. But I will disagree with your notion on what both want and think your personal bias talks again, because Edelgard very much cares about those who are left out by the current system. She is the one who feels empathy towards Miklan, who expresses care about those who are left out or wronged by the system and cares about creating a place for everyone in her new world, as seen for example in her Linhardt support.

Rhea is the one who refuses to truly learn about humanity and to put trust in others. She does regularily express alienation from others and her incapability of connecting with those around her. The issue with Rhea is, that she does not respect humans and looks down to them, having a very supremacist and paternalistic outlook on them as being reliant on her rule.

The issue is, that Rhea had a thousand years to solve the issues in Fodlan. She has the means to do it, she has the power. She just doesn't wants to, because she prefers the control and illusio nof peace she created for herself. She does uphold the crest system and hides away those who are harmed and cast out by it into the Abyss, which is basically just an underground ghetto.

Like, ultimately she just does nothing to make things better for anyone? When the tragedy of Duscur happened, she didn't do anything despite showing with her scapegoating and executing Christophe for it. When Loog started a TWSITD backed up Revolt against the Empire, something the church at least suspected looking at the Abyss library, she ended up rewarding him by splitting up the Empire and creating the church as her loyal vassal. She did nothing in turn to support Leicester when they revolted against the Empire, nor when they were annexed by the Kingdom. We know that she actively suppresses technological advancements, especially those that could hurt the authority of the church or threaten the nobility system. Hopes has even very strong indications that Rhea withheld aggracultural knowledge from the Kingdom until the point it has to harbor her and she suddenly drops it, something Shez can be suspicious of and that I will go further into. Rhea had every opportunity and all the means in the world to creat a better world, she just does not want to do that. She wants to revive Sothis against her wills, so that she can rule over humanity and fix things.

Actually, regarding Thales, I hope you don't mind me going on a short tangent, but after hopes came out and showed us Epimenides I actually began to view the Agarthans a little differently, not as in, I began seeing them as if they were good people, but rather I saw them as being reflections of the one who holds their reigns. Epimenides after all is pretty much the exact opposite of Thales within Agartha, Thales doesn't give a damn about his subordinates and will happily leave them to die just to save his own skin, Epimenides actively risks his own life to save Nemesis, who he doesn't even like. Thales wouldn't even hesitate to rob someone of their free will, which is not a good thing for Edelgard if Azure gleam is anything to go off of, but Epimenides actively shows remorse for taking Arvals and Shez's bodies and wills from them, and even the game even states that his....core, whatever that means, is to be inherited, not implanted, like it probably is for the other Agarthans, but instead passed down, showing he likely despises such things, hell, he even states in the Arval/Epimenides paralouge in hopes "I know Thales has his methods, but they don't sit right with me". I also find it really interesting that Epimenides, going off his paralouge, is much more of an upfront fighter then an in the shadows schemer, to the point of having fought the imperial army, Seteth/Cichol, Flayn/Cethleann and Rhea/Seiros to a stand still almost entirely on his own, meanwhile Thales....gets smacked around by literally everyone at least once. We also have the fact that Epimenides doesn't seem to hate non-Agarthans like....literally every other named Agarthan, but by his own admission, pities them.

What was the point of this tangent again?.....oh, right, Epimenides was basically the moral backbone of Agartha and once he died it took after Thales instead.

When it comes to Edelgard, I think it boils down to my position which I mentioned when it comes to her vs Dimitri, that every approach will end uo leaving somebody out and cause suffering. Though I have to admit, that my biggest problem is actually how the whole conquest works in Azure Moon. Not necessarily when it comes to Adrestia, as this is basically similar to the reverse and we should assume that people would be very unhappy with him coming in and re-introducing the status quo and the rule of the Central Church to the nation, but Leicester, how it just ends up falling in line and submit to Faerghus rule, when their history is how Faerghus backstabbed and annexed them when they tried their own revolt against the Kingdom and had to fight a war against Faerghus to win their independence, as well as the Kingdoms meddling with House Daphnel. When it comes to Rhea, the rationale behind it is there, but it is still ag reat betrayal of the Empire, which helped her to begin with and basically yet another example of Rhea making bad compromises and choices that end up biting her, and all of Fodlan, in the ass. When it comes to her trauma, it is understandable, but it is also her putting all of humanity on a collective burden for the crimes of very few people.

But the Thales and TWSITD topic is much more interesting, lol. And I agree with you. I really like Epimenides because he is the one nuanced agarthan we ever get. He is outright heroic, he just happens to be on the opposing side, which I think is always interesting and I like how he is singlemindedly dedicated to save his people. It puts the agarthans in a very different light, the implications where already there, but its different when somebody who seems somewhat noble puts them forward. I also generally like him as this counterpart to Rhea and Sothis, despite his godlike power being adamant of being a mere human and taking pride in his humanity. I just generally love this kind of character, who reject the megalomania of calling themselves gods and taking pride in their archievements as humans. I also like how apologetic he is about sacrificing Solon. It creats a sense of human connection, that he is not viewed as this mad evil villain by his own people.

So this really generally leads me to some of my frustrations with the games, like how Hopes itself feels very unfinished and abandoned. Like Hopes introduces very interesting implications, combined with the Shadow Library document for example the idea, that the original Sothis might not have been fully good and much more cruel and ruthless than we would have assumed, as seen in her more vengeful and ruthless demeanor in Hopes. Some hate it, but I kinda like the idea of the Goddess Sothis not being as good as Rhea makes her out to be. It adds relationship to the way Byleth shaped Sothis through their shared experiences and more nuance to the background of the world. Though I also kinda feel like Epimenides and Arval were somewhat of a largely aborted story for Hopes? Its basically handled inside a bonus chapter that has no lasting consequences to the ending of the game and we never gain more clarity on Shez Background and origins, which are implied to be agarthan. We know that Hopes ends more open ended so to not devalue Byleths involvement in Houses, but I can't stop but feel like they also held really back on the entire concept of Byleth & Sothis being villains in Hopes, which was what the game originally advertised itself as, which could have had Epimenides take a bigger role in the story and show us the agarthans in a different light. Then there is also how the game feels pretty much aborted to move towards Engage, when it just feels like it was created with at least some story DLC in mind.

But generally the agarthans and them being one-dimensionally evil inside the games is my big criticism. The world building, informations from interviews and ingame documents feel like the entire concept was imagined to be more nuanced, but then they ended up being really flat. And with the way they are presented as and handled, there are some messy implications due to the choice of making them not some ancient evil cult, but actually a human race of people and seemingly also the original inhabitants of Fodlan. Like to they have civilians? Do they have children? Its super messy and I feel like the game would have done better by giving us at least an agarthan recruit. You know, basically a Tharja, who gives us more insights and depth to the agarthans as a people and offers a route of redemption and survival for them through their ending, instead of us just wiping them out or be stuck in an eternal gridlock with them. Though I guess its a good place for headcanons, rpgs and fanfic though, where I love to expand on the agarthans more for myself, giving them more depth and purpose. I think offers the potential of an interesting circle of hatred narrative, being more critical of Sothis just wiping them out with a flood and effectively commiting a biblical genocide on them, which forced them into the dark and turned them vengeful and evil, in turn enacting their own cruel and unjust collective punishment on all Nabateans for the sins of their mother. Though I personally just like the idea of a narrative, where there are nuanced agarthans and that offers a story about how agarthans and nabateans have to learn to share the world with each other and with the current humans inhabiting it as equals, instead of one side trying to wipe the other out for eternity, with humans being their puppets in all of it.

Like, who is Shez's mother? What is Agarthan society like? Are they all similar to Kronya, Solon, Cornelian and Thales, or is the average Agarthan more similar to Epimenides? How did Arval end up with Shez? Did they wind up together on accident? Is Shez some kind of homonculus clone body Epimenides had planned for his return? If so, how did they end up not only getting out of Shambala as, very likely, a baby and getting raised in Fodlan?

So many questions, and the only way we might ever get any answers is through.....fire emblem heroes, and even then, that'll probably only be the case if Shez ever wins CYL.

When it comes to Shez mother, I kinda assume she might have been an agarthan who came to save them from Shambhala and whatever experiments had them end up with Arval, but it is really never answered. Its quite a shame, as the game just was brimming with potential and there was lots of potential for fun DLC. I would have loved Nemesis and the Agarthans as unlockable units just for record keeper, as this would have been fun gameplay wise and opened the door for some fun non-canon interactions, see Edelgard and Rhea being deployed together.

I feel like Shez has a much stronger dynamic with Edelgard than she ever shares with Dimitri, where they feel somewhat generic and replaceable, but my favorite house for Shez personally is GD, where they just feel like completing the Deers in a way Byleth never could. Though seriously, I feel like people give Golden Wildfire alot of shit undeserved, which feels like a situation where many people didn't really like Claude to begin with, they liked a boiled down Silver Snow Headcanon of Claude. Like I love Scarlet Blaze because its basically a perfect route that gives the Eagles everything they could have asked for, but Golden Wildfire just left the strongest impression for me. Its the Claude I hoped for when I first started 3 Houses and considered joining the Deer before the Eagles, the morally grey scheming Master Tactician. I just genuinly feel like people who want Claude to be this nice golden boy are the most boring people imaginable. I want him to be the rogueish Lord who smiles at you and lures you into believing he's a friendly little fella, just to shoot first. Its just fun and the cast gets to shine alot during the Route. And honestly, it feels the closest to a golden route we will ever get. Dimitri and Edelgard both survive without their nations being fully conquered and there is a chance, that the three Lords might make peace.

In regards to Claude, I did sort of feel he was out of character, but not because he was scheming and conniving, I honestly loved that, but because he just seemed to.....accept everything he was told about the church by Edelgard during that little peace talk. Claude was designed to be a truth seeker in houses yet he never really does that, at all in hopes, and it just made him feel a bit....dumb I guess is the best way I can put it. It's like they couldn't figure out a way for him to be both a schemer and a truth seeker at the same time and just decided to give us one or the other. Also, in regards to the idea of Claude playing the role of villain....I don't think it makes any sense for him, he's shown in every route making the decisions most likely to keep Leicester alive, no matter what, because its the smallest country with the weakest army, his schemes can only carry them so far, if he tried to take on the kingdom and the empire at the same time he'd be crushed.

Like, I feel like IS sort of couldn't find a good way to justify siding with Edelgard to the player beyond liking her as a character and the only way the could sort of doing it was by reducing Rhea to near Duma levels of insane, but even then while I won't condone her actions I can understand why she lost it, from her perspective she just saw someone she allowed into her home, break into the burial site of her dead siblings with the intention of desecrating them and robbing their graves and then watched what is, from her sad, broken perspective, her own mother choose to side with the person trying to take all she has left of her family away from her, I too would lose it under those circumstances. And then there's Edelgard not even being very smart, like, does she really believe her troops would hear "the church has nukes" and not either, question why they only dropped the one on the one location and why only now or just....lose all morale??? And then there's the battle at the Tailtean plains and the good old conversation between Dimitri and Edelgard, "must you continue to conquer?continue to kill?!" "Must you continue to re-conquer? Continue to kill in retaliation?" Like.....it's like even she realises she has no moral high ground over him and is just trying some desperate redirection to not be the villain she knows she is. And also the entire "king of delusion" scene where Dimitri, in his final moments, swears to avenge everyone who died for her, who she killed, to avenge all his fallen friends and family who died because of her and her ambitions and she basically just calls him a nut job.

First off I would say, its very obvious looking at the state of discourse that you're not the only one (but you at least don't make entire posts trying to frame Edelgard as some sexual seductress, lol. That person exists!), but I think its also more of a you issue. Not in that you do something wrong, but that Edelgard and her route are simply not for you, because as is clear with the large popularilty Edelgard enjoys, thats not the experience all people have with Crimson Flower. In the end, its a game about different perspectives and values and chosing your side when those ultimately come to a clash. It would be boring if this doesn't spark discourse and fundamentally different perspectives of what is right and whats wrong. For all of its flaws, the fact that 3 Houses sparks this amount of Discourse even years after its release is a testament to what it does right.

For example my perspective in all of this, when I played the game on Crimson Flower Route first, was that I came to broadly agree with Edelgards point of view during Part 1. She shares alot of her perspectives during it and as I saw early on, how the entire social structure of Fodlan is heavily inspired by the three estates of the realm feudal structure of medieval europe, I was naturally inclined to by sympathetic towards her viewpoints, as I will usually prefer to side against feudalism in a narrative that allows and encourages me to do so. I got bad vibes from Rhea from the start and tended to believe Jeralt, who as the father of my character I was prone to believe, in not trusting her, especially since very early on, we see more of the oppressive and tyranical nature of the church and the evils of the crest system. In my personal first playthrough, I came to suspect that the Flame Emperor is more nuanced than it appears at first, while Rhea became more and more creepy after Sothis awakening, so when it came to the holy tomb, I did a leap of faith and trusted in Edelgard, as I agreed that the church must be destroyed.

For me, the reactions towards Rheas turn in Crimson Flower feel very similar to the outrage people expressed in the recent Elden Ring DLC, when a certain character as was expected didn't turn out to be as noble as they would have assumed, because by that point they were set in their headcanons of him being a benevolent and purely good figure. Rhea in Crimson Flower is consistent. She is consistent with the bloodthirsty side of hers we saw during the games first cutscene and her cruel and vengeful attitude whenever somebody challenges her during White Clouds. Silver Snow is textually not a validation of Rhea as we saw her in part 1, what it does is offering a potential redemption for her under the condition that Byleth forms an especially strong bond with her. She herself admits her wrongdoings and expresses guilt in the following S-Support. What Crimson Flower shows is that at this stage of the story, Rheas love and adoration for Byleth is conditional, as not long before she literally tried to mind erase them to revive Sothis in full, and that Rhea is prone to immediately devalueing and dehumanizing them if they disobey her. After all, at this point Byleth hasn't even taken arms against Rhea, they are just standing against outright killing their student. I would also say that for me personally, Rheas entire demeanor during part 1 comes off heavily like grooming and love bombing, which is why I personally tend to dislike her.

When it comes to Arianrhod, I personally tond like this part of the story. For me it is one of the flaws in it, as it is left without any lasting consequences, and feels very much like the writers just forcefully inserting it into it to remind us of TWSITD still being there and inform Crimson Flower players of the Javelines of light. What I will say is, that it is not the only such forced inclusion just for the sake of it. I can see the rationale of Edelgard though. Edelgard took a gamble with killing Cornelia in Arianrhod and was punished by it for Thales and reacting to it prematurely would them losing momentum and the Kingdom successfully launching a counter offensive, as well as further interventions by TWSITD if she openly revolts against them now, so she has to lure Thales for the moment into a false sense of security, that she falls back in line again. I don't like it, but I will also say that if thats the dealbreaker, then the route probably wasn't for one to begin with.

When it comes to Dimitri and Edelgard, the whole 'must you continue to kill' exchange is quite a mistranslation compared to the original text, where Edelgards point is to ask him if he will be satisfied, once he takes back, tramples back. This changes the entire context of the exchange honestly:

Though I will also say, I don't have personal issues with this exchange myself, as, what most people leave out, its followed by Edelgard also expressing her determination that she will not stop and do everything necessary to creat a new future for Fodlan. Initially I also took the line as Edelgard being sassy which I'm like...okay with? I'm a feminist, I like it when the queer female lead doesn't owes your typical male protagonist turned villain respect and in crimson Flower, Dimitri himself dragged his Kingdom into war by siding with the church and for the sake of Dimitris delusional desire for vengeance. Which is, again, delusional. Dimitri rants and blames Edelgard for things she had no control over and which she didn't do. He is completely obsessive over her and she has the right to be apalled by him. Again, as a feminist, I like that. She doesn't owe a guy who obsessed over her and wants to brutally murder her any respect, he himself is the one who chose to throw away any semblance of dignity he had.

I would also say that other people will feel as you do towards Rhea and Dimitri. With Rhea I already laid it out why I don't get why people love her so much and consider her heroic and good. With Dimitri, I was initially kinda excited to play Blue Lions after CF. Dimitri was, ultimately, a cool villain in my opinion, I liked his Post Timeskip Design more than his Pre-Timeskip one and I wanted to see where his route leads into and whats his perspective is. I ended up not liking it. Like, I played it before I went into all this discourse with high hopes and I just ended up not liking it or him. He seems very flat to me, with people conflating a character focussed story and a character going through a a redemption arc with deep storytelling, when for me it just seemed comical how he jumps in personality, especially when he just immediately snaps from somebody who sadistically glees like he's some dark isekai self-insert about torturing a man and then immediately jumps into being the enlightened and redeemed savior king. I didn't like how afterwards there were zero consequences for his actions. The parley also didn't sold me, it seemed for me like him engaging in ad hominems and framing him as morally superior because he got people who carry him, it had some very unfortunate implications of how abusers irl might act. Ultimately, I also found his whole position rather pessimistic and miserable, that humans can't rise above themselves when they are given the opportunity and that they should be kept reliant because its safe. Thats how he came off to me. Many of his scenes also come off to me like trauma dumping and him being somewhat self-centered, only relating to others by making them fit into his personal perspective.

But on Edelgard and her attitudes towards Dragons, that a community spread misconception to frame her as some kind of racist and fascist, predominantly by the kinds of people who, in a game where people of color exist and are opressed, make pale-skinned dragon gods their chosen racial allegory. I could be wrong but please correct me, but to my knowledge Edelgard never learns that the Heroes Relics are made out of Dragons. I'm not even sure if Silver Snow Byleth does learn that, it could be actually just Claude. What she knows is that the heroes relics are manmade and the history the church propagates, that Nemesis became corrupted and evil later on, was a lie propagated by the church. Though Edelgards also doesn't seem to care much about Heroes Relics outside of their immediate use and the fact, that the church is controlling them.

Edelgard and Hubert hold negative views on the Nabatheans as inhuman, but that is predominantly out of their limited perspective, where they only know them as immortals who hide among humans to control them and falsify history. Though they also don't seem to see them as a race and more as a divine family of self-appointed gods, which is the role the Nabatheans did play in the past. I think here its kinda messy because outside of the few nabateans alive, there aren't really any other intelligent non-human races and humans don't know anything about Nabateans outside of their myths about the children of the goddess. And ultimately, what they hold against the Nabatheans is their deception and their misrule over humanity. And Rhea does express very supremacist attitudes against humans and considers themselves to be unfit to govern themselves without her guidance, despite herself being as flawed as humans and misusing her power the same they do, with Seteth being an active accomplice.

Ultimately, she doesn't even want to kill the Nabateans, she just wants their control over humanity to end. She expresses herself very harshely with terms like obliterate and striking her down, which I think are supposed to be taken as her exaggerating when talking about her ideals, but otherwise she does express a preference to sparing Rhea. She does give Rhea a chance to surrender before Fhirdiad and even before that shows a genuine interest in capturing instead of killing her.

So she prefers stripping Rhea of power and keep her away from politics and is neutral towards turning the church into an imperial institution, which is to say, a state institution, while actively disliking the idea of killing her if she surrenders. This is consistent with the fact that she does keep Rhea as a prisoner over the 5 years, where Seteth does confirm after finding her that she is left unharmed

Hopes confirms this notion, as during Edelgards support with Claude, she treats capturing instead of killing Rhea as the natural course of action and even questions Claude, if it isn't enough to subdue her enemy and remove her from power. Which is consistent with Edelgard usually giving her enemies a chance to surrender after the battle, as seen in her conquest of the Alliance, which is highly unusual compared to other Lords where routing missions and giving their enemies no quarter is the usual outcome. In VW and SS, Count Bergliez has to sacrifice himself for his soldiers to be spared. And here is how Seteth reacts to the notion of not killing Edelgard.

So yeah. Edelgard does not want to kill the Nabateans, she just views them negatively due to her limited knowledge of them and perceiving them through Rheas actions at the expense of humanity. 3H in general goes a different way of humanizing the Dragons, by emphasizing their human flaws. It subverts the notion, that immortal divine beings are better, wiser or more intelligent than humans.

Personally, I kinda dislike the fact that Flayn doesn't stick along or at least is re-recruitable in Crimson Flower, really. Its one of the flaws of the game I see, especially since I've heard that there are datamines that hint at Crimson Flower Flayn being a consideration at one point. I care less so about Seteth because I like him less, but I also see more of a case where the game may benefit from him not being recruitable, but in Flayns case I feel like it strips Crimson Flower, but also Flayn, of possibilities. I would have liked Edelgard and Hubert to react of the notion of a child of the goddess siding with their ideals, but also how Flayn could develope if she was faced with Rheas deceptions.

I would also agree with the notion that at its core its really Edelgard vs Rhea, but I think it also plays into the weakness of 3 Houses, that it doesn't really do much to make the ambitions and goals of Dimitri and Claude stand out very much. But I will disagree with your notion on what both want and think your personal bias talks again, because Edelgard very much cares about those who are left out by the current system. She is the one who feels empathy towards Miklan, who expresses care about those who are left out or wronged by the system and cares about creating a place for everyone in her new world, as seen for example in her Linhardt support.

Rhea is the one who refuses to truly learn about humanity and to put trust in others. She does regularily express alienation from others and her incapability of connecting with those around her. The issue with Rhea is, that she does not respect humans and looks down to them, having a very supremacist and paternalistic outlook on them as being reliant on her rule.

The issue is, that Rhea had a thousand years to solve the issues in Fodlan. She has the means to do it, she has the power. She just doesn't wants to, because she prefers the control and illusio nof peace she created for herself. She does uphold the crest system and hides away those who are harmed and cast out by it into the Abyss, which is basically just an underground ghetto.

Like, ultimately she just does nothing to make things better for anyone? When the tragedy of Duscur happened, she didn't do anything despite showing with her scapegoating and executing Christophe for it. When Loog started a TWSITD backed up Revolt against the Empire, something the church at least suspected looking at the Abyss library, she ended up rewarding him by splitting up the Empire and creating the church as her loyal vassal. She did nothing in turn to support Leicester when they revolted against the Empire, nor when they were annexed by the Kingdom. We know that she actively suppresses technological advancements, especially those that could hurt the authority of the church or threaten the nobility system. Hopes has even very strong indications that Rhea withheld aggracultural knowledge from the Kingdom until the point it has to harbor her and she suddenly drops it, something Shez can be suspicious of and that I will go further into. Rhea had every opportunity and all the means in the world to creat a better world, she just does not want to do that. She wants to revive Sothis against her wills, so that she can rule over humanity and fix things.

Actually, regarding Thales, I hope you don't mind me going on a short tangent, but after hopes came out and showed us Epimenides I actually began to view the Agarthans a little differently, not as in, I began seeing them as if they were good people, but rather I saw them as being reflections of the one who holds their reigns. Epimenides after all is pretty much the exact opposite of Thales within Agartha, Thales doesn't give a damn about his subordinates and will happily leave them to die just to save his own skin, Epimenides actively risks his own life to save Nemesis, who he doesn't even like. Thales wouldn't even hesitate to rob someone of their free will, which is not a good thing for Edelgard if Azure gleam is anything to go off of, but Epimenides actively shows remorse for taking Arvals and Shez's bodies and wills from them, and even the game even states that his....core, whatever that means, is to be inherited, not implanted, like it probably is for the other Agarthans, but instead passed down, showing he likely despises such things, hell, he even states in the Arval/Epimenides paralouge in hopes "I know Thales has his methods, but they don't sit right with me". I also find it really interesting that Epimenides, going off his paralouge, is much more of an upfront fighter then an in the shadows schemer, to the point of having fought the imperial army, Seteth/Cichol, Flayn/Cethleann and Rhea/Seiros to a stand still almost entirely on his own, meanwhile Thales....gets smacked around by literally everyone at least once. We also have the fact that Epimenides doesn't seem to hate non-Agarthans like....literally every other named Agarthan, but by his own admission, pities them.

What was the point of this tangent again?.....oh, right, Epimenides was basically the moral backbone of Agartha and once he died it took after Thales instead.

When it comes to Edelgard, I think it boils down to my position which I mentioned when it comes to her vs Dimitri, that every approach will end uo leaving somebody out and cause suffering. Though I have to admit, that my biggest problem is actually how the whole conquest works in Azure Moon. Not necessarily when it comes to Adrestia, as this is basically similar to the reverse and we should assume that people would be very unhappy with him coming in and re-introducing the status quo and the rule of the Central Church to the nation, but Leicester, how it just ends up falling in line and submit to Faerghus rule, when their history is how Faerghus backstabbed and annexed them when they tried their own revolt against the Kingdom and had to fight a war against Faerghus to win their independence, as well as the Kingdoms meddling with House Daphnel. When it comes to Rhea, the rationale behind it is there, but it is still ag reat betrayal of the Empire, which helped her to begin with and basically yet another example of Rhea making bad compromises and choices that end up biting her, and all of Fodlan, in the ass. When it comes to her trauma, it is understandable, but it is also her putting all of humanity on a collective burden for the crimes of very few people.

But the Thales and TWSITD topic is much more interesting, lol. And I agree with you. I really like Epimenides because he is the one nuanced agarthan we ever get. He is outright heroic, he just happens to be on the opposing side, which I think is always interesting and I like how he is singlemindedly dedicated to save his people. It puts the agarthans in a very different light, the implications where already there, but its different when somebody who seems somewhat noble puts them forward. I also generally like him as this counterpart to Rhea and Sothis, despite his godlike power being adamant of being a mere human and taking pride in his humanity. I just generally love this kind of character, who reject the megalomania of calling themselves gods and taking pride in their archievements as humans. I also like how apologetic he is about sacrificing Solon. It creats a sense of human connection, that he is not viewed as this mad evil villain by his own people.

So this really generally leads me to some of my frustrations with the games, like how Hopes itself feels very unfinished and abandoned. Like Hopes introduces very interesting implications, combined with the Shadow Library document for example the idea, that the original Sothis might not have been fully good and much more cruel and ruthless than we would have assumed, as seen in her more vengeful and ruthless demeanor in Hopes. Some hate it, but I kinda like the idea of the Goddess Sothis not being as good as Rhea makes her out to be. It adds relationship to the way Byleth shaped Sothis through their shared experiences and more nuance to the background of the world. Though I also kinda feel like Epimenides and Arval were somewhat of a largely aborted story for Hopes? Its basically handled inside a bonus chapter that has no lasting consequences to the ending of the game and we never gain more clarity on Shez Background and origins, which are implied to be agarthan. We know that Hopes ends more open ended so to not devalue Byleths involvement in Houses, but I can't stop but feel like they also held really back on the entire concept of Byleth & Sothis being villains in Hopes, which was what the game originally advertised itself as, which could have had Epimenides take a bigger role in the story and show us the agarthans in a different light. Then there is also how the game feels pretty much aborted to move towards Engage, when it just feels like it was created with at least some story DLC in mind.

But generally the agarthans and them being one-dimensionally evil inside the games is my big criticism. The world building, informations from interviews and ingame documents feel like the entire concept was imagined to be more nuanced, but then they ended up being really flat. And with the way they are presented as and handled, there are some messy implications due to the choice of making them not some ancient evil cult, but actually a human race of people and seemingly also the original inhabitants of Fodlan. Like to they have civilians? Do they have children? Its super messy and I feel like the game would have done better by giving us at least an agarthan recruit. You know, basically a Tharja, who gives us more insights and depth to the agarthans as a people and offers a route of redemption and survival for them through their ending, instead of us just wiping them out or be stuck in an eternal gridlock with them. Though I guess its a good place for headcanons, rpgs and fanfic though, where I love to expand on the agarthans more for myself, giving them more depth and purpose. I think offers the potential of an interesting circle of hatred narrative, being more critical of Sothis just wiping them out with a flood and effectively commiting a biblical genocide on them, which forced them into the dark and turned them vengeful and evil, in turn enacting their own cruel and unjust collective punishment on all Nabateans for the sins of their mother. Though I personally just like the idea of a narrative, where there are nuanced agarthans and that offers a story about how agarthans and nabateans have to learn to share the world with each other and with the current humans inhabiting it as equals, instead of one side trying to wipe the other out for eternity, with humans being their puppets in all of it.

Like, who is Shez's mother? What is Agarthan society like? Are they all similar to Kronya, Solon, Cornelian and Thales, or is the average Agarthan more similar to Epimenides? How did Arval end up with Shez? Did they wind up together on accident? Is Shez some kind of homonculus clone body Epimenides had planned for his return? If so, how did they end up not only getting out of Shambala as, very likely, a baby and getting raised in Fodlan?

So many questions, and the only way we might ever get any answers is through.....fire emblem heroes, and even then, that'll probably only be the case if Shez ever wins CYL.

When it comes to Shez mother, I kinda assume she might have been an agarthan who came to save them from Shambhala and whatever experiments had them end up with Arval, but it is really never answered. Its quite a shame, as the game just was brimming with potential and there was lots of potential for fun DLC. I would have loved Nemesis and the Agarthans as unlockable units just for record keeper, as this would have been fun gameplay wise and opened the door for some fun non-canon interactions, see Edelgard and Rhea being deployed together.

Like, I feel like IS sort of couldn't find a good way to justify siding with Edelgard to the player beyond liking her as a character and the only way the could sort of doing it was by reducing Rhea to near Duma levels of insane, but even then while I won't condone her actions I can understand why she lost it, from her perspective she just saw someone she allowed into her home, break into the burial site of her dead siblings with the intention of desecrating them and robbing their graves and then watched what is, from her sad, broken perspective, her own mother choose to side with the person trying to take all she has left of her family away from her, I too would lose it under those circumstances. And then there's Edelgard not even being very smart, like, does she really believe her troops would hear "the church has nukes" and not either, question why they only dropped the one on the one location and why only now or just....lose all morale??? And then there's the battle at the Tailtean plains and the good old conversation between Dimitri and Edelgard, "must you continue to conquer?continue to kill?!" "Must you continue to re-conquer? Continue to kill in retaliation?" Like.....it's like even she realises she has no moral high ground over him and is just trying some desperate redirection to not be the villain she knows she is. And also the entire "king of delusion" scene where Dimitri, in his final moments, swears to avenge everyone who died for her, who she killed, to avenge all his fallen friends and family who died because of her and her ambitions and she basically just calls him a nut job.

First off I would say, its very obvious looking at the state of discourse that you're not the only one (but you at least don't make entire posts trying to frame Edelgard as some sexual seductress, lol. That person exists!), but I think its also more of a you issue. Not in that you do something wrong, but that Edelgard and her route are simply not for you, because as is clear with the large popularilty Edelgard enjoys, thats not the experience all people have with Crimson Flower. In the end, its a game about different perspectives and values and chosing your side when those ultimately come to a clash. It would be boring if this doesn't spark discourse and fundamentally different perspectives of what is right and whats wrong. For all of its flaws, the fact that 3 Houses sparks this amount of Discourse even years after its release is a testament to what it does right.

For example my perspective in all of this, when I played the game on Crimson Flower Route first, was that I came to broadly agree with Edelgards point of view during Part 1. She shares alot of her perspectives during it and as I saw early on, how the entire social structure of Fodlan is heavily inspired by the three estates of the realm feudal structure of medieval europe, I was naturally inclined to by sympathetic towards her viewpoints, as I will usually prefer to side against feudalism in a narrative that allows and encourages me to do so. I got bad vibes from Rhea from the start and tended to believe Jeralt, who as the father of my character I was prone to believe, in not trusting her, especially since very early on, we see more of the oppressive and tyranical nature of the church and the evils of the crest system. In my personal first playthrough, I came to suspect that the Flame Emperor is more nuanced than it appears at first, while Rhea became more and more creepy after Sothis awakening, so when it came to the holy tomb, I did a leap of faith and trusted in Edelgard, as I agreed that the church must be destroyed.

For me, the reactions towards Rheas turn in Crimson Flower feel very similar to the outrage people expressed in the recent Elden Ring DLC, when a certain character as was expected didn't turn out to be as noble as they would have assumed, because by that point they were set in their headcanons of him being a benevolent and purely good figure. Rhea in Crimson Flower is consistent. She is consistent with the bloodthirsty side of hers we saw during the games first cutscene and her cruel and vengeful attitude whenever somebody challenges her during White Clouds. Silver Snow is textually not a validation of Rhea as we saw her in part 1, what it does is offering a potential redemption for her under the condition that Byleth forms an especially strong bond with her. She herself admits her wrongdoings and expresses guilt in the following S-Support. What Crimson Flower shows is that at this stage of the story, Rheas love and adoration for Byleth is conditional, as not long before she literally tried to mind erase them to revive Sothis in full, and that Rhea is prone to immediately devalueing and dehumanizing them if they disobey her. After all, at this point Byleth hasn't even taken arms against Rhea, they are just standing against outright killing their student. I would also say that for me personally, Rheas entire demeanor during part 1 comes off heavily like grooming and love bombing, which is why I personally tend to dislike her.

When it comes to Arianrhod, I personally tond like this part of the story. For me it is one of the flaws in it, as it is left without any lasting consequences, and feels very much like the writers just forcefully inserting it into it to remind us of TWSITD still being there and inform Crimson Flower players of the Javelines of light. What I will say is, that it is not the only such forced inclusion just for the sake of it. I can see the rationale of Edelgard though. Edelgard took a gamble with killing Cornelia in Arianrhod and was punished by it for Thales and reacting to it prematurely would them losing momentum and the Kingdom successfully launching a counter offensive, as well as further interventions by TWSITD if she openly revolts against them now, so she has to lure Thales for the moment into a false sense of security, that she falls back in line again. I don't like it, but I will also say that if thats the dealbreaker, then the route probably wasn't for one to begin with.

When it comes to Dimitri and Edelgard, the whole 'must you continue to kill' exchange is quite a mistranslation compared to the original text, where Edelgards point is to ask him if he will be satisfied, once he takes back, tramples back. This changes the entire context of the exchange honestly:

Though I will also say, I don't have personal issues with this exchange myself, as, what most people leave out, its followed by Edelgard also expressing her determination that she will not stop and do everything necessary to creat a new future for Fodlan. Initially I also took the line as Edelgard being sassy which I'm like...okay with? I'm a feminist, I like it when the queer female lead doesn't owes your typical male protagonist turned villain respect and in crimson Flower, Dimitri himself dragged his Kingdom into war by siding with the church and for the sake of Dimitris delusional desire for vengeance. Which is, again, delusional. Dimitri rants and blames Edelgard for things she had no control over and which she didn't do. He is completely obsessive over her and she has the right to be apalled by him. Again, as a feminist, I like that. She doesn't owe a guy who obsessed over her and wants to brutally murder her any respect, he himself is the one who chose to throw away any semblance of dignity he had.

I would also say that other people will feel as you do towards Rhea and Dimitri. With Rhea I already laid it out why I don't get why people love her so much and consider her heroic and good. With Dimitri, I was initially kinda excited to play Blue Lions after CF. Dimitri was, ultimately, a cool villain in my opinion, I liked his Post Timeskip Design more than his Pre-Timeskip one and I wanted to see where his route leads into and whats his perspective is. I ended up not liking it. Like, I played it before I went into all this discourse with high hopes and I just ended up not liking it or him. He seems very flat to me, with people conflating a character focussed story and a character going through a a redemption arc with deep storytelling, when for me it just seemed comical how he jumps in personality, especially when he just immediately snaps from somebody who sadistically glees like he's some dark isekai self-insert about torturing a man and then immediately jumps into being the enlightened and redeemed savior king. I didn't like how afterwards there were zero consequences for his actions. The parley also didn't sold me, it seemed for me like him engaging in ad hominems and framing him as morally superior because he got people who carry him, it had some very unfortunate implications of how abusers irl might act. Ultimately, I also found his whole position rather pessimistic and miserable, that humans can't rise above themselves when they are given the opportunity and that they should be kept reliant because its safe. Thats how he came off to me. Many of his scenes also come off to me like trauma dumping and him being somewhat self-centered, only relating to others by making them fit into his personal perspective.

But on Edelgard and her attitudes towards Dragons, that a community spread misconception to frame her as some kind of racist and fascist, predominantly by the kinds of people who, in a game where people of color exist and are opressed, make pale-skinned dragon gods their chosen racial allegory. I could be wrong but please correct me, but to my knowledge Edelgard never learns that the Heroes Relics are made out of Dragons. I'm not even sure if Silver Snow Byleth does learn that, it could be actually just Claude. What she knows is that the heroes relics are manmade and the history the church propagates, that Nemesis became corrupted and evil later on, was a lie propagated by the church. Though Edelgards also doesn't seem to care much about Heroes Relics outside of their immediate use and the fact, that the church is controlling them.

Edelgard and Hubert hold negative views on the Nabatheans as inhuman, but that is predominantly out of their limited perspective, where they only know them as immortals who hide among humans to control them and falsify history. Though they also don't seem to see them as a race and more as a divine family of self-appointed gods, which is the role the Nabatheans did play in the past. I think here its kinda messy because outside of the few nabateans alive, there aren't really any other intelligent non-human races and humans don't know anything about Nabateans outside of their myths about the children of the goddess. And ultimately, what they hold against the Nabatheans is their deception and their misrule over humanity. And Rhea does express very supremacist attitudes against humans and considers themselves to be unfit to govern themselves without her guidance, despite herself being as flawed as humans and misusing her power the same they do, with Seteth being an active accomplice.

Ultimately, she doesn't even want to kill the Nabateans, she just wants their control over humanity to end. She expresses herself very harshely with terms like obliterate and striking her down, which I think are supposed to be taken as her exaggerating when talking about her ideals, but otherwise she does express a preference to sparing Rhea. She does give Rhea a chance to surrender before Fhirdiad and even before that shows a genuine interest in capturing instead of killing her.

So she prefers stripping Rhea of power and keep her away from politics and is neutral towards turning the church into an imperial institution, which is to say, a state institution, while actively disliking the idea of killing her if she surrenders. This is consistent with the fact that she does keep Rhea as a prisoner over the 5 years, where Seteth does confirm after finding her that she is left unharmed

Hopes confirms this notion, as during Edelgards support with Claude, she treats capturing instead of killing Rhea as the natural course of action and even questions Claude, if it isn't enough to subdue her enemy and remove her from power. Which is consistent with Edelgard usually giving her enemies a chance to surrender after the battle, as seen in her conquest of the Alliance, which is highly unusual compared to other Lords where routing missions and giving their enemies no quarter is the usual outcome. In VW and SS, Count Bergliez has to sacrifice himself for his soldiers to be spared. And here is how Seteth reacts to the notion of not killing Edelgard.

So yeah. Edelgard does not want to kill the Nabateans, she just views them negatively due to her limited knowledge of them and perceiving them through Rheas actions at the expense of humanity. 3H in general goes a different way of humanizing the Dragons, by emphasizing their human flaws. It subverts the notion, that immortal divine beings are better, wiser or more intelligent than humans.

Personally, I kinda dislike the fact that Flayn doesn't stick along or at least is re-recruitable in Crimson Flower, really. Its one of the flaws of the game I see, especially since I've heard that there are datamines that hint at Crimson Flower Flayn being a consideration at one point. I care less so about Seteth because I like him less, but I also see more of a case where the game may benefit from him not being recruitable, but in Flayns case I feel like it strips Crimson Flower, but also Flayn, of possibilities. I would have liked Edelgard and Hubert to react of the notion of a child of the goddess siding with their ideals, but also how Flayn could develope if she was faced with Rheas deceptions.

I would also agree with the notion that at its core its really Edelgard vs Rhea, but I think it also plays into the weakness of 3 Houses, that it doesn't really do much to make the ambitions and goals of Dimitri and Claude stand out very much. But I will disagree with your notion on what both want and think your personal bias talks again, because Edelgard very much cares about those who are left out by the current system. She is the one who feels empathy towards Miklan, who expresses care about those who are left out or wronged by the system and cares about creating a place for everyone in her new world, as seen for example in her Linhardt support.

Rhea is the one who refuses to truly learn about humanity and to put trust in others. She does regularily express alienation from others and her incapability of connecting with those around her. The issue with Rhea is, that she does not respect humans and looks down to them, having a very supremacist and paternalistic outlook on them as being reliant on her rule.

The issue is, that Rhea had a thousand years to solve the issues in Fodlan. She has the means to do it, she has the power. She just doesn't wants to, because she prefers the control and illusio nof peace she created for herself. She does uphold the crest system and hides away those who are harmed and cast out by it into the Abyss, which is basically just an underground ghetto.

Like, ultimately she just does nothing to make things better for anyone? When the tragedy of Duscur happened, she didn't do anything despite showing with her scapegoating and executing Christophe for it. When Loog started a TWSITD backed up Revolt against the Empire, something the church at least suspected looking at the Abyss library, she ended up rewarding him by splitting up the Empire and creating the church as her loyal vassal. She did nothing in turn to support Leicester when they revolted against the Empire, nor when they were annexed by the Kingdom. We know that she actively suppresses technological advancements, especially those that could hurt the authority of the church or threaten the nobility system. Hopes has even very strong indications that Rhea withheld aggracultural knowledge from the Kingdom until the point it has to harbor her and she suddenly drops it, something Shez can be suspicious of and that I will go further into. Rhea had every opportunity and all the means in the world to creat a better world, she just does not want to do that. She wants to revive Sothis against her wills, so that she can rule over humanity and fix things.

Actually, regarding Thales, I hope you don't mind me going on a short tangent, but after hopes came out and showed us Epimenides I actually began to view the Agarthans a little differently, not as in, I began seeing them as if they were good people, but rather I saw them as being reflections of the one who holds their reigns. Epimenides after all is pretty much the exact opposite of Thales within Agartha, Thales doesn't give a damn about his subordinates and will happily leave them to die just to save his own skin, Epimenides actively risks his own life to save Nemesis, who he doesn't even like. Thales wouldn't even hesitate to rob someone of their free will, which is not a good thing for Edelgard if Azure gleam is anything to go off of, but Epimenides actively shows remorse for taking Arvals and Shez's bodies and wills from them, and even the game even states that his....core, whatever that means, is to be inherited, not implanted, like it probably is for the other Agarthans, but instead passed down, showing he likely despises such things, hell, he even states in the Arval/Epimenides paralouge in hopes "I know Thales has his methods, but they don't sit right with me". I also find it really interesting that Epimenides, going off his paralouge, is much more of an upfront fighter then an in the shadows schemer, to the point of having fought the imperial army, Seteth/Cichol, Flayn/Cethleann and Rhea/Seiros to a stand still almost entirely on his own, meanwhile Thales....gets smacked around by literally everyone at least once. We also have the fact that Epimenides doesn't seem to hate non-Agarthans like....literally every other named Agarthan, but by his own admission, pities them.

What was the point of this tangent again?.....oh, right, Epimenides was basically the moral backbone of Agartha and once he died it took after Thales instead.

When it comes to Edelgard, I think it boils down to my position which I mentioned when it comes to her vs Dimitri, that every approach will end uo leaving somebody out and cause suffering. Though I have to admit, that my biggest problem is actually how the whole conquest works in Azure Moon. Not necessarily when it comes to Adrestia, as this is basically similar to the reverse and we should assume that people would be very unhappy with him coming in and re-introducing the status quo and the rule of the Central Church to the nation, but Leicester, how it just ends up falling in line and submit to Faerghus rule, when their history is how Faerghus backstabbed and annexed them when they tried their own revolt against the Kingdom and had to fight a war against Faerghus to win their independence, as well as the Kingdoms meddling with House Daphnel. When it comes to Rhea, the rationale behind it is there, but it is still ag reat betrayal of the Empire, which helped her to begin with and basically yet another example of Rhea making bad compromises and choices that end up biting her, and all of Fodlan, in the ass. When it comes to her trauma, it is understandable, but it is also her putting all of humanity on a collective burden for the crimes of very few people.

But the Thales and TWSITD topic is much more interesting, lol. And I agree with you. I really like Epimenides because he is the one nuanced agarthan we ever get. He is outright heroic, he just happens to be on the opposing side, which I think is always interesting and I like how he is singlemindedly dedicated to save his people. It puts the agarthans in a very different light, the implications where already there, but its different when somebody who seems somewhat noble puts them forward. I also generally like him as this counterpart to Rhea and Sothis, despite his godlike power being adamant of being a mere human and taking pride in his humanity. I just generally love this kind of character, who reject the megalomania of calling themselves gods and taking pride in their archievements as humans. I also like how apologetic he is about sacrificing Solon. It creats a sense of human connection, that he is not viewed as this mad evil villain by his own people.

So this really generally leads me to some of my frustrations with the games, like how Hopes itself feels very unfinished and abandoned. Like Hopes introduces very interesting implications, combined with the Shadow Library document for example the idea, that the original Sothis might not have been fully good and much more cruel and ruthless than we would have assumed, as seen in her more vengeful and ruthless demeanor in Hopes. Some hate it, but I kinda like the idea of the Goddess Sothis not being as good as Rhea makes her out to be. It adds relationship to the way Byleth shaped Sothis through their shared experiences and more nuance to the background of the world. Though I also kinda feel like Epimenides and Arval were somewhat of a largely aborted story for Hopes? Its basically handled inside a bonus chapter that has no lasting consequences to the ending of the game and we never gain more clarity on Shez Background and origins, which are implied to be agarthan. We know that Hopes ends more open ended so to not devalue Byleths involvement in Houses, but I can't stop but feel like they also held really back on the entire concept of Byleth & Sothis being villains in Hopes, which was what the game originally advertised itself as, which could have had Epimenides take a bigger role in the story and show us the agarthans in a different light. Then there is also how the game feels pretty much aborted to move towards Engage, when it just feels like it was created with at least some story DLC in mind.

But generally the agarthans and them being one-dimensionally evil inside the games is my big criticism. The world building, informations from interviews and ingame documents feel like the entire concept was imagined to be more nuanced, but then they ended up being really flat. And with the way they are presented as and handled, there are some messy implications due to the choice of making them not some ancient evil cult, but actually a human race of people and seemingly also the original inhabitants of Fodlan. Like to they have civilians? Do they have children? Its super messy and I feel like the game would have done better by giving us at least an agarthan recruit. You know, basically a Tharja, who gives us more insights and depth to the agarthans as a people and offers a route of redemption and survival for them through their ending, instead of us just wiping them out or be stuck in an eternal gridlock with them. Though I guess its a good place for headcanons, rpgs and fanfic though, where I love to expand on the agarthans more for myself, giving them more depth and purpose. I think offers the potential of an interesting circle of hatred narrative, being more critical of Sothis just wiping them out with a flood and effectively commiting a biblical genocide on them, which forced them into the dark and turned them vengeful and evil, in turn enacting their own cruel and unjust collective punishment on all Nabateans for the sins of their mother. Though I personally just like the idea of a narrative, where there are nuanced agarthans and that offers a story about how agarthans and nabateans have to learn to share the world with each other and with the current humans inhabiting it as equals, instead of one side trying to wipe the other out for eternity, with humans being their puppets in all of it.

Like, who is Shez's mother? What is Agarthan society like? Are they all similar to Kronya, Solon, Cornelian and Thales, or is the average Agarthan more similar to Epimenides? How did Arval end up with Shez? Did they wind up together on accident? Is Shez some kind of homonculus clone body Epimenides had planned for his return? If so, how did they end up not only getting out of Shambala as, very likely, a baby and getting raised in Fodlan?

So many questions, and the only way we might ever get any answers is through.....fire emblem heroes, and even then, that'll probably only be the case if Shez ever wins CYL.

Like, I feel like IS sort of couldn't find a good way to justify siding with Edelgard to the player beyond liking her as a character and the only way the could sort of doing it was by reducing Rhea to near Duma levels of insane, but even then while I won't condone her actions I can understand why she lost it, from her perspective she just saw someone she allowed into her home, break into the burial site of her dead siblings with the intention of desecrating them and robbing their graves and then watched what is, from her sad, broken perspective, her own mother choose to side with the person trying to take all she has left of her family away from her, I too would lose it under those circumstances. And then there's Edelgard not even being very smart, like, does she really believe her troops would hear "the church has nukes" and not either, question why they only dropped the one on the one location and why only now or just....lose all morale??? And then there's the battle at the Tailtean plains and the good old conversation between Dimitri and Edelgard, "must you continue to conquer?continue to kill?!" "Must you continue to re-conquer? Continue to kill in retaliation?" Like.....it's like even she realises she has no moral high ground over him and is just trying some desperate redirection to not be the villain she knows she is. And also the entire "king of delusion" scene where Dimitri, in his final moments, swears to avenge everyone who died for her, who she killed, to avenge all his fallen friends and family who died because of her and her ambitions and she basically just calls him a nut job.

First off I would say, its very obvious looking at the state of discourse that you're not the only one (but you at least don't make entire posts trying to frame Edelgard as some sexual seductress, lol. That person exists!), but I think its also more of a you issue. Not in that you do something wrong, but that Edelgard and her route are simply not for you, because as is clear with the large popularilty Edelgard enjoys, thats not the experience all people have with Crimson Flower. In the end, its a game about different perspectives and values and chosing your side when those ultimately come to a clash. It would be boring if this doesn't spark discourse and fundamentally different perspectives of what is right and whats wrong. For all of its flaws, the fact that 3 Houses sparks this amount of Discourse even years after its release is a testament to what it does right.

For example my perspective in all of this, when I played the game on Crimson Flower Route first, was that I came to broadly agree with Edelgards point of view during Part 1. She shares alot of her perspectives during it and as I saw early on, how the entire social structure of Fodlan is heavily inspired by the three estates of the realm feudal structure of medieval europe, I was naturally inclined to by sympathetic towards her viewpoints, as I will usually prefer to side against feudalism in a narrative that allows and encourages me to do so. I got bad vibes from Rhea from the start and tended to believe Jeralt, who as the father of my character I was prone to believe, in not trusting her, especially since very early on, we see more of the oppressive and tyranical nature of the church and the evils of the crest system. In my personal first playthrough, I came to suspect that the Flame Emperor is more nuanced than it appears at first, while Rhea became more and more creepy after Sothis awakening, so when it came to the holy tomb, I did a leap of faith and trusted in Edelgard, as I agreed that the church must be destroyed.

For me, the reactions towards Rheas turn in Crimson Flower feel very similar to the outrage people expressed in the recent Elden Ring DLC, when a certain character as was expected didn't turn out to be as noble as they would have assumed, because by that point they were set in their headcanons of him being a benevolent and purely good figure. Rhea in Crimson Flower is consistent. She is consistent with the bloodthirsty side of hers we saw during the games first cutscene and her cruel and vengeful attitude whenever somebody challenges her during White Clouds. Silver Snow is textually not a validation of Rhea as we saw her in part 1, what it does is offering a potential redemption for her under the condition that Byleth forms an especially strong bond with her. She herself admits her wrongdoings and expresses guilt in the following S-Support. What Crimson Flower shows is that at this stage of the story, Rheas love and adoration for Byleth is conditional, as not long before she literally tried to mind erase them to revive Sothis in full, and that Rhea is prone to immediately devalueing and dehumanizing them if they disobey her. After all, at this point Byleth hasn't even taken arms against Rhea, they are just standing against outright killing their student. I would also say that for me personally, Rheas entire demeanor during part 1 comes off heavily like grooming and love bombing, which is why I personally tend to dislike her.

When it comes to Arianrhod, I personally tond like this part of the story. For me it is one of the flaws in it, as it is left without any lasting consequences, and feels very much like the writers just forcefully inserting it into it to remind us of TWSITD still being there and inform Crimson Flower players of the Javelines of light. What I will say is, that it is not the only such forced inclusion just for the sake of it. I can see the rationale of Edelgard though. Edelgard took a gamble with killing Cornelia in Arianrhod and was punished by it for Thales and reacting to it prematurely would them losing momentum and the Kingdom successfully launching a counter offensive, as well as further interventions by TWSITD if she openly revolts against them now, so she has to lure Thales for the moment into a false sense of security, that she falls back in line again. I don't like it, but I will also say that if thats the dealbreaker, then the route probably wasn't for one to begin with.

When it comes to Dimitri and Edelgard, the whole 'must you continue to kill' exchange is quite a mistranslation compared to the original text, where Edelgards point is to ask him if he will be satisfied, once he takes back, tramples back. This changes the entire context of the exchange honestly:

Though I will also say, I don't have personal issues with this exchange myself, as, what most people leave out, its followed by Edelgard also expressing her determination that she will not stop and do everything necessary to creat a new future for Fodlan. Initially I also took the line as Edelgard being sassy which I'm like...okay with? I'm a feminist, I like it when the queer female lead doesn't owes your typical male protagonist turned villain respect and in crimson Flower, Dimitri himself dragged his Kingdom into war by siding with the church and for the sake of Dimitris delusional desire for vengeance. Which is, again, delusional. Dimitri rants and blames Edelgard for things she had no control over and which she didn't do. He is completely obsessive over her and she has the right to be apalled by him. Again, as a feminist, I like that. She doesn't owe a guy who obsessed over her and wants to brutally murder her any respect, he himself is the one who chose to throw away any semblance of dignity he had.

I would also say that other people will feel as you do towards Rhea and Dimitri. With Rhea I already laid it out why I don't get why people love her so much and consider her heroic and good. With Dimitri, I was initially kinda excited to play Blue Lions after CF. Dimitri was, ultimately, a cool villain in my opinion, I liked his Post Timeskip Design more than his Pre-Timeskip one and I wanted to see where his route leads into and whats his perspective is. I ended up not liking it. Like, I played it before I went into all this discourse with high hopes and I just ended up not liking it or him. He seems very flat to me, with people conflating a character focussed story and a character going through a a redemption arc with deep storytelling, when for me it just seemed comical how he jumps in personality, especially when he just immediately snaps from somebody who sadistically glees like he's some dark isekai self-insert about torturing a man and then immediately jumps into being the enlightened and redeemed savior king. I didn't like how afterwards there were zero consequences for his actions. The parley also didn't sold me, it seemed for me like him engaging in ad hominems and framing him as morally superior because he got people who carry him, it had some very unfortunate implications of how abusers irl might act. Ultimately, I also found his whole position rather pessimistic and miserable, that humans can't rise above themselves when they are given the opportunity and that they should be kept reliant because its safe. Thats how he came off to me. Many of his scenes also come off to me like trauma dumping and him being somewhat self-centered, only relating to others by making them fit into his personal perspective.

But on Edelgard and her attitudes towards Dragons, that a community spread misconception to frame her as some kind of racist and fascist, predominantly by the kinds of people who, in a game where people of color exist and are opressed, make pale-skinned dragon gods their chosen racial allegory. I could be wrong but please correct me, but to my knowledge Edelgard never learns that the Heroes Relics are made out of Dragons. I'm not even sure if Silver Snow Byleth does learn that, it could be actually just Claude. What she knows is that the heroes relics are manmade and the history the church propagates, that Nemesis became corrupted and evil later on, was a lie propagated by the church. Though Edelgards also doesn't seem to care much about Heroes Relics outside of their immediate use and the fact, that the church is controlling them.

Edelgard and Hubert hold negative views on the Nabatheans as inhuman, but that is predominantly out of their limited perspective, where they only know them as immortals who hide among humans to control them and falsify history. Though they also don't seem to see them as a race and more as a divine family of self-appointed gods, which is the role the Nabatheans did play in the past. I think here its kinda messy because outside of the few nabateans alive, there aren't really any other intelligent non-human races and humans don't know anything about Nabateans outside of their myths about the children of the goddess. And ultimately, what they hold against the Nabatheans is their deception and their misrule over humanity. And Rhea does express very supremacist attitudes against humans and considers themselves to be unfit to govern themselves without her guidance, despite herself being as flawed as humans and misusing her power the same they do, with Seteth being an active accomplice.

Ultimately, she doesn't even want to kill the Nabateans, she just wants their control over humanity to end. She expresses herself very harshely with terms like obliterate and striking her down, which I think are supposed to be taken as her exaggerating when talking about her ideals, but otherwise she does express a preference to sparing Rhea. She does give Rhea a chance to surrender before Fhirdiad and even before that shows a genuine interest in capturing instead of killing her.

So she prefers stripping Rhea of power and keep her away from politics and is neutral towards turning the church into an imperial institution, which is to say, a state institution, while actively disliking the idea of killing her if she surrenders. This is consistent with the fact that she does keep Rhea as a prisoner over the 5 years, where Seteth does confirm after finding her that she is left unharmed

Hopes confirms this notion, as during Edelgards support with Claude, she treats capturing instead of killing Rhea as the natural course of action and even questions Claude, if it isn't enough to subdue her enemy and remove her from power. Which is consistent with Edelgard usually giving her enemies a chance to surrender after the battle, as seen in her conquest of the Alliance, which is highly unusual compared to other Lords where routing missions and giving their enemies no quarter is the usual outcome. In VW and SS, Count Bergliez has to sacrifice himself for his soldiers to be spared. And here is how Seteth reacts to the notion of not killing Edelgard.

So yeah. Edelgard does not want to kill the Nabateans, she just views them negatively due to her limited knowledge of them and perceiving them through Rheas actions at the expense of humanity. 3H in general goes a different way of humanizing the Dragons, by emphasizing their human flaws. It subverts the notion, that immortal divine beings are better, wiser or more intelligent than humans.

Personally, I kinda dislike the fact that Flayn doesn't stick along or at least is re-recruitable in Crimson Flower, really. Its one of the flaws of the game I see, especially since I've heard that there are datamines that hint at Crimson Flower Flayn being a consideration at one point. I care less so about Seteth because I like him less, but I also see more of a case where the game may benefit from him not being recruitable, but in Flayns case I feel like it strips Crimson Flower, but also Flayn, of possibilities. I would have liked Edelgard and Hubert to react of the notion of a child of the goddess siding with their ideals, but also how Flayn could develope if she was faced with Rheas deceptions.

I would also agree with the notion that at its core its really Edelgard vs Rhea, but I think it also plays into the weakness of 3 Houses, that it doesn't really do much to make the ambitions and goals of Dimitri and Claude stand out very much. But I will disagree with your notion on what both want and think your personal bias talks again, because Edelgard very much cares about those who are left out by the current system. She is the one who feels empathy towards Miklan, who expresses care about those who are left out or wronged by the system and cares about creating a place for everyone in her new world, as seen for example in her Linhardt support.

Rhea is the one who refuses to truly learn about humanity and to put trust in others. She does regularily express alienation from others and her incapability of connecting with those around her. The issue with Rhea is, that she does not respect humans and looks down to them, having a very supremacist and paternalistic outlook on them as being reliant on her rule.

The issue is, that Rhea had a thousand years to solve the issues in Fodlan. She has the means to do it, she has the power. She just doesn't wants to, because she prefers the control and illusio nof peace she created for herself. She does uphold the crest system and hides away those who are harmed and cast out by it into the Abyss, which is basically just an underground ghetto.

Like, ultimately she just does nothing to make things better for anyone? When the tragedy of Duscur happened, she didn't do anything despite showing with her scapegoating and executing Christophe for it. When Loog started a TWSITD backed up Revolt against the Empire, something the church at least suspected looking at the Abyss library, she ended up rewarding him by splitting up the Empire and creating the church as her loyal vassal. She did nothing in turn to support Leicester when they revolted against the Empire, nor when they were annexed by the Kingdom. We know that she actively suppresses technological advancements, especially those that could hurt the authority of the church or threaten the nobility system. Hopes has even very strong indications that Rhea withheld aggracultural knowledge from the Kingdom until the point it has to harbor her and she suddenly drops it, something Shez can be suspicious of and that I will go further into. Rhea had every opportunity and all the means in the world to creat a better world, she just does not want to do that. She wants to revive Sothis against her wills, so that she can rule over humanity and fix things.

Actually, regarding Thales, I hope you don't mind me going on a short tangent, but after hopes came out and showed us Epimenides I actually began to view the Agarthans a little differently, not as in, I began seeing them as if they were good people, but rather I saw them as being reflections of the one who holds their reigns. Epimenides after all is pretty much the exact opposite of Thales within Agartha, Thales doesn't give a damn about his subordinates and will happily leave them to die just to save his own skin, Epimenides actively risks his own life to save Nemesis, who he doesn't even like. Thales wouldn't even hesitate to rob someone of their free will, which is not a good thing for Edelgard if Azure gleam is anything to go off of, but Epimenides actively shows remorse for taking Arvals and Shez's bodies and wills from them, and even the game even states that his....core, whatever that means, is to be inherited, not implanted, like it probably is for the other Agarthans, but instead passed down, showing he likely despises such things, hell, he even states in the Arval/Epimenides paralouge in hopes "I know Thales has his methods, but they don't sit right with me". I also find it really interesting that Epimenides, going off his paralouge, is much more of an upfront fighter then an in the shadows schemer, to the point of having fought the imperial army, Seteth/Cichol, Flayn/Cethleann and Rhea/Seiros to a stand still almost entirely on his own, meanwhile Thales....gets smacked around by literally everyone at least once. We also have the fact that Epimenides doesn't seem to hate non-Agarthans like....literally every other named Agarthan, but by his own admission, pities them.

What was the point of this tangent again?.....oh, right, Epimenides was basically the moral backbone of Agartha and once he died it took after Thales instead.