So new FEFW character dropped and boy has that gotten the speculation mill running. We have learned a member of Eshmel’s Savior Army is Hong Hua. Whose name means Crimson Flower and looks like this.
A crimson flower, with a shoulder mantle, potentially eagle feathers, and Violet Eyes-It’s Edelgard. It’s Edelgard.
Well okay not literally. But the signs are very much pointing at Edelgard and Hong Hua being related in some way. The name is Crimson Flower!
However, many are wondering what this means. Especially given the two different blurbs given by Nintendo’s advertising. Here on the Left is from the official FE JP twitter translated by Serenes Forest and on the right is from Nintendo Today app.
As you can see Japan is clearly willing to drop more little nuggets of information in a while Nintendo America is really holding off on it. Claiming that the character is trying to atone for some type of sin they committed in the past and that has gotten a lot of peoples minds racing.
If there is a predominant theory as to regards to Hong Hua is that they are an ancestor of or a reincarnation of Edelgard.
I’m gonna be perfectly honest I don’t believe that Hong Hua is a reincarnation of Edelgard. In fact, I don’t even believe this is as significant as some believe.
First things first, what you believe Hong Hua is relies heavily on if you believe that FW is a sequel or prequel. A thing that FEFW really wants to avoid saying. Yes the calendar says 1440s which is three centuries after 3H’s 1100s timeline. But notice the calendar system is different in how the denote months. Seteth is here but with blond hair like in 3Hopes in the past with no beard. House Lamine exists a house not talked about in 3H, but Sothis exists despite being killed by Nemesis yet the church of Seiros also exists. So there is some things that people can extrapolate for themselves.
Now I’m no Fodlan lore hound, but I will say personally, I really hope that FW isn’t a sequel at all. Not because continuity but because to me I think that the strength of three houses whether you like all the routes or not is that it is a game built around the fact that there are four viable choices for Fodlan. Everyone has a point but also a flaw, there is no “the right answer.” And for me personally the idea that we get to the future and regardless of what choice you made it all results in the current timeline or even even worse that there was a potential wrong choice really takes away from the game and it’s message to me.
So that’s why I’m personally against this concept of reincarnation. I’m also against it because I don’t really know what the story would gain like what does Edelgard being reincarnated as a character to fight off the demon lord army with the savior really do for this story as much as I wince at the trailer calling Eshmel the true protagonist, it’s still very clear that this is a story about them and the four lords this is not about the house layers and their conflict and I think dragging them into this just doesn’t really make sense or at the very least wouldn’t it be all that satisfying.
I do have one other piece of evidence that could suggest Hong Hua and Edelgard aren’t the same person/incarnation. Their VAs. With Sothis and Fortuna sharing the same VA in both English and Japanese, it’s pretty clear there is a big deal there and that they have a close connection. We can clearly see see that it’s not the case with Hong Hua and Edelgard.
So she’s Edelgard ancestor right? this must be super important! well maybe not. Look I have no doubt that making a character look similar and be a reference to Crimson flower isn’t insignificant but as I said previously this isn’t really this character story and in fact it may be closer to say FE awakening where the character exists more as a reference to a different title than necessarily having a large impact on the plot. Like Fates straight up has kid characters who look like characters from awakening with no real connection beyond references despite the fact that literally awakening characters are in fates. This could even be a premium situation where he has never really been expanded upon despite being apparently the descendent of Ike and neither awakening or FEH has gone out of its way to support or disprove who they are in their almost 10 years of existing.
I don’t say all of this to be a negative Nancy. it’s all speculation at the end of the day, it’s just that I don’t really think it is as significant as some may think and quite frankly I don’t really think it needs to be. for all we know this savior‘s army is going to have references to all the other lords as characters in fact we even see that apparently each monolith that’s used to connect to the four champions is named after the house animals except deer so does this mean that they’re the inspiration for the three houses actually or is it just a reference? as of right now we don’t know but I would argue it’s not that big a deal.
There’s also the fact that there’s this brand new nation that seemingly hinted at that might be our first ever Chinese inspired fire emblem which man this game is just making me want to fe set in different cultures more so we don’t even know what this nation is going to look like/roll it will play in the story and the fact that they are significantly having this character with the full traditional Chinese name tells me that it bares some significance.
But that’s really all that I think I could very much be wrong and if I am I am but as of right now I really am left hoping that this is a reference and not reincarnation.
