The main reason(s) Dimitri is so heavily effected by the tragedy of duscar is because he was their and witnessed the death of his father and loved ones. He has survivors guilt, ptsd, and a plethora of other mental illnesses (especially in three houses), that in addition to his self sacrificing nature he really feels personally responsible for what happened and making up for it (despite being a child when it happened). I think his reaction being so different and intense compared to everyone else is valid, since he was their and witnessed it first hand.
I feel like you’d really need to know Azure Moon’s story before Azure Gleam’s as it shows how characters like Felix, Dedue and Rodrigue are really supportive and not having Dimitri’s mentality solely up to Byleth. And that Eldritch horror of Edelgard. Kind of felt like fanservice ngl. And yes, Edelgard’s mother Anselma (Patricia) did turn on Lambhert and Dimitri and work with Cornelia. Azure Moon (from the first game) covers a lot of things that are new to players who have played Gleam only not Moon. Such as the player knew a lot earlier of Ingrid’s engagement to Glenn (and explains why Ingrid is in a paralogue about Duscur with Dedue and Felix having their own reasons) and especially how Dimitri was affected by the Tragedy of Duscur, that he literally believes he sees the spirits of the dead and believe they force the burden of vengeance onto him. I guess Felix’s support with Dimitri is as good as you’re getting with an insight into Dimitri there With why Caspar chose to side with the Empire, he said something along the lines of “Adrestia’s not gonna hold put for long if that’s how our Emperor’s looking”, meaning he wasn’t aware of the Thales mind control thing, but knew at the very least something’s up. He even considered defecting to the Kingdom and points out that (if) Linhardt is recruited (nice touch), but I think he chose to stay with his father even despite him telling Caspar he was too young to die. 33:56 and that’s one of my biggest gripes with this game. This game really loves to assume you’ve played Three Houses as Mercedes and Constance do have a support there… but not here. Why? My guess is because the writers love to assume you know their history and use that as an excuse to write supports with new pairs like with Mercedes and Lysithea or Caspar.
Seems like I really should go back and play Azure Moon after I finish Edelgard's route. With Caspar I know he probably wouldn't be aware of Thales' mind control, but I still just don't believe he wouldn't switch sides even with his back against the wall, like I said in the video, that's not the Caspar I know at least.. Yeah, I know that not everyone should have supports with each other, but a big issue I have with this game is exactly what you said, some pairs that should have supports don't at all, and its really lame
@@Wrath9 honestly the funny thing about that is in hopes if you recruited Casper pre-time skip he's one of those units who auto joins you post time skip (Lorenz and Ashe are the only ones who don't I believe) and he actually will straight up tell you that the reason he is not on edelgards side is because he doesn't agree with what the empire and her are doing so it's weird that he can't be recruited in hopes given that houses made it clear that Casper was one of those characters (through his supports too) who was about justice and doing what was right. In crimson flower he like the others questions a lot of their doing the right thing during the route (I think scarlet blaze has this happening again but I havent played that route yet)so it's weird that he doesn't/can't be recruited they could have even locked him behind lindheart and needing him be alive/on the map to add weight on the recruitment requirements
@@Wrath9 also not just Mercedes and Constance, but another big offender is Bernadetta and Yuri. From a Three Houses perspective, you know their history, but not if you haven’t played Three Houses. Just thought i’d bring that up
Jeralt's complications with Rhea have Everything to do with Byleth and their mother Sitri. Rhea was the midwife when Sitri gave birth. Because Sitri at the time was the latest of Rhea's attempts to revive Sothis, she was the best equipped to handle any complications. But alas, Byleth arrived Stillborn. In order to Save them, Rhea at Sitri's behest, removed Sothis Crest stone and transplanted it into Byleth. Saving them, but killing Sitri in the process. Additionally, the crest stone had its own adverse effects on Byleth. Depriving them of a beating heart and presumably of emotions. He didn't have the whole picture, but the after effects were more than enough to cause Jeralt to freak out and leave the knights of Seiros with an infant Byleth in tow even in spite of his apparent 300 years of service.
The problem with Claude's reasons for why he hates the church is that all of them are contradicted by the game itself: *1)* Holst is the heir to house Goneril despite his sister Hilda carrying a Crest, so clearly the church doesn't care whether a Crest-bearer is put in charge or not. *2)* Mercedes was given _sanctuary_ by the church to specifically escape a forced marriage, so it's blatantly untrue that the church are the ones forcing Crest-bearers to marry. *3)* The isolationism part doesn't make sense when you consider that outside regions have been in contact with Fódlan for years, and there's no record of the church ever caring. In-fact, they outright help Dimitri with aiding Duscur despite him openly planning on making them independent again. There's also the fact that most of their neighbours have tried invading Fódlan, so obviously Fódlan would have a bad relationship with them. And like you said, if two out of three nations can openly declare war on Rhea without any repercussions from the populace, then clearly Rhea doesn't have that much power in Fódlan to begin with, thus making Claude's vendetta against her entirely pointless.
Honestly out of three (regardless of whether its this game or Three Houses) Claude always has the weakest motivations of the three, and I feel like its purely because he's probably always the afterthought when writing the conflict between Edelgard and Rhea/Dimitri, though I don't agree that his vendetta is *entirely* pointless, it definitely is not anywhere near as justifiable as Edelgard's
@@Wrath9 That's true, I honestly think that the story would have worked better if Claude's path was removed altogether, and instead Dimitri and Edelgard's routes got more focus. Aside from the fantastic final chapters, I can't think of a single thing in VW that really puts it above the other routes. I'm in the camp that doesn't believe Edelgard was very justified either, but I can at least _understand_ her motives, which do make sense from a ruthlessly pragmatic perspective (basically seize other nations to strengthen your own empire, and kill anyone in your way). With Claude in GW, his actions seem so contradictory to his end goal of ending xenophobia that I can't even understand how he rationalizes all the shit he does. In Houses he's a good guy, but he's also just kinda... there. Like, Dimitri does a better job of fighting racism than he does, and the story focuses more on it too, so Claude just ends up feeling pretty bare-bones and pointless imo. Ironically VW was my favorite route the first time I played the game, though in hindsight I think the fantastic endgame and Claude being charming kinda blinded me to how weak the rest of the route is lol.
@@dobadobadooo Sorry I can tell you're white by how you're making this argument. Anyways, Claude has the same vendetta as Edelgard. VW is meant to be the happy version of Silver Snow which is meant to be the true route of the game. VW is a Silver Snow where Claude's influence is deeply felt by Byleth and influences how they rule and the ending. It's called Verdant Wind because it's meant to be a Claude and Byleth route where Claude helps uplift Byleth (which is in stark contrast to Byleth lifting up Dimitri and Edelgard in their routes) Notice how Byleth's focus at the end of Silver Snow is on reconstruction because they never picked up an ideology. In VW, Byleth and Claude grew a relationship and Byleth's focus isn't just on reconstruction but on helping Claude create a world free of oppression and accepting of everyone. That's because of Claude's influence. Verdant Wind is actually the only route where everything gets a real clean slate between the Church, Faerghus, Leicester and Adrestia being torn down and the history of the world revealed. They say as much in the ending narration which is a stark contrast to the Silver Snow ending narration. It's the actual dawn of a new world unlike the other routes hence Byleth's title in that route is "Ruler of Dawn" whereas in the rest Byleth is either "Guardian of Order"(AM), Wandering Flame (SS) or Wings of the Hegemon (CF) That's why people call Silver Snow a first draft or don't play it because Verdant Wind does everything better than Silver Snow besides the Edelgard betrayal but that's not done well in SS either so it barely matters anyway. And no, Dimitri doesn't do a better job of fighting racism than Claude does if we're comparing House. In AM, Dimitri's story doesn't focus at all of Duscur. It focuses on his atonement after he gets worse. In VW, Claude makes efforts in-story to get people to meet and have Almyra join forces with Leicester to build camaraderie between the forces. Claude never stops talking about the racism angle Hopes is meant to be cut content for Houses which is why AG actually focuses on addressing the Duscur stuff and TWSITD more because that was ignored in AM and why GW focuses on Claude's conflict with the Church and an alliance with Edelgard and a hostile half-sibling because that stuff was seeded in Hoouses. Anyways, the beauty of Claude is meant to be in how flexible and his range. Claude can go anywhere from attacking the Empire to attacking the Church to attacking Faerghus because ultimately Claude is an opportunist but a rare version of a reactive one.
@@star-kittlesandrenbows2851 Okay dude, you really want to make this a race thing? I'm gonna try to be nice here, but that is legit one of the worst ways to open a conversation I think I've ever seen. I don't hate VW for the record, like I said it was my favorite route for a good while. But in hindsight it's just not a very interesting story, and Claude's way of ending racism just boils down to "let both sides meet" (which is hilariously naivé), especially considering all the shit Almyra has done and never apologized for. By comparison Duscur is treated with a lot of solemnity by the BL-cast, and even by the end it never gets forgotten or handwaved away, though AG definitely does a better job focusing on it. Despite its flaws I'd still say VW is probably the second-best route in Houses, because at least it doesn't try to glorify imperialism and tyranny like CF does, and it doesn't feel as half-assed as SS. But overall it just kinda feels like an afterthought when compared to the other routes. GW feels more unique, but it also suffers from making Claude much worse so Edelgard can look good in comparison. Like, hearing _her_ try to talk _Claude_ out of a violent solution is so hilariously ooc it could almost be a skit.
@@dobadobadooo it seems to me yours, and everybody’s problem with edelgard is her alleged betrayal, but you can’t betray somebody you were never really worth in the first place or is it more so that she started a war, which yes, I can agree. War is bad we all can, but even if she didn’t start, the war twisted would’ve started the war them damn selves. at the end of the day, there was a shit ton of killing on every side, especially in the original game rhea was wiping out villages and people. Dimitri was slaughtering children and women but it’s just crazy how because Dimitri apologize it makes it all better.
Regarding Dimitri's Stepmom, she wasn't an Agarthan. She was manipulated by Cornelia into thinking that king Lambert (Dimitri's dad) kept Edelgard away from her. So the whole "she helped kill the king to see Edelgard again" is actually true. And the whole Edelgard monster thing is a form she takes at the end of Azure Moon called Hegemon Edelgard. In that game she does it to herself willingly cause she is losing the war. It's to show that she is so determined to reach her goal, she is willing to turn herself into an inhuman monster.
That does make sense that Cornelia manipulated her, I just didn't want to jump to that conclusion. Interesting, she can do that at will? I need to play Azure Moon now 😂
@@Wrath9 Not so much do it at will, more she let's herself get corrupted, like Miklan, on purpose, because the kingdom army is right outside the palace. It's the final boss instead of Rhea or Nemesis.
@@Wrath9 there's enough application that those that slither in the dark actually did get their promise to Edelgard Mother.... but in the worst way possible.. I forgot the source.. but in order For Edelgard to survive the crest implant/Ritual.. They sacrifice Edelgard Mother needing Her Blood. That could be one of the reasons why Edelgard lost her memories.. it's possible that she's saw her mother get butchered.. Imagine The Cruel and Tragic irony Tragic.. She Betrayed Her Husband and Step Son... Arghtneas Bring her to Edelgard... Only To Kill Her as soon as she's reunited with her Daughter. Based on the scenes on TH-cam Dimtri battle conversation with Thales Gets You thinking on The Theory.. there could be more hints and evidence but I'm not sure
@@Wrath9 Like, yeah, no, I have to disagree with the entire premise. Azure Gleam is clearly the route that was more of an afterthought and the less developed, which can be seen by how the plot basically just drops massively in quality and consistency from the midway point onward, because the entire setup of 3 Hopes gives the Blue Lions little in terms of win conditions, Claude siding with Edelgard by default for example and Rhea being much more unambigiously a Villain who Dimitri ends up abandoning in the other routes. Like, the entire second half of the game just stops making sense, as its just not really believable that Aegir and Thales could just willy nilly take over the empire, considering them having been already fully exposed at the start of the game. The route also suffers under not making any sense anymore in the case you recruit Byleth, looking at how they just glossed over the implications of Rhea being united with Byleth as well as Dimitri learning that Edelgard has been mindcontrolled in the Zahras Chapter, which is glossed over and ignored afterwards. Like, I know its shit for people who prefer the Blue Lions, but the entire games alternative universe was clearly written to benefit the Black Eagles Route the most, Edelgard saving Monica and rebelling against Thales immediately being the central differenciation, which drops her entire villainous role which 3 Houses was strongly build upon. There is a case to be made for Claudes Golden Wildfire Route being the closest to a Golden End of the Route, was Claude decides to overthrow the Church but afterwards focus on being a mediator between Empire and Kingdom. There is also the issue of Azure Gleams final Cutscene framing it as the worst ending. The entire continent of Fodlan is now again under Rheas firm control, who never underwent the character development she would have in the Silver Snow Ending where she has A-Support with Byleth, and the final shot makes it clear that Claude does feel hostility towards her and that at some point, he will start the war again to overthrow her. Due to 3 Hopes unambigiously framing Rhea as a villainous character, her being the default final boss of the game, supporting Rhea to supress Edelgard and Claudes Rebellion is also a strong push to reestablish the entire status quo of Fodlan. And its a shame. The first half of Azure Gleam was good, but its clear that they ran out of ideas and had no clue how to make Dimitri win afterwards, so they just went the most lazy and flat route possible, while throwing alot of shades against the Blue Lions as a whole.
In regards to your thoughts on Claude and Dimitri's differences in the secret chapter and how the people of Faerghus may or may not care about the church, I think it's important to be aware of the cultural differences between Leicester and the Kingdom. Because good lordy are they VAST. In GW, it works out for Claude that Leicester seems okay with taking out Rhea because the nation is honestly quite removed from the religion. Their church is nothing like the Western or even the Southern variants. They don't even have thoughts about Rhea...the ARCHBISHOP. That should speak volumes. Faerghus is an entirely different can of worms. The Church, be it Western or Central, has played an integral part in its history: whether it's the country's very own independence or any sort of diatribe/religious war they've gone through (Looking at you Duscur and Sreng.). A King's legitimacy can be questioned if the church doesn't okay it. That's major imo. I'm not saying Dimitri or Claude are right/wrong per se. After all, it's not really much of an argument when both sides fundamentally agree. I just think that Dimitri's caution/more surgical approach of slowly pulling the Church's influence out of the Kingdom is more mindful of his people. Claude's methods are like a sledgehammer to the whole thing that would turn the people's lives on their heads IF his country was anything like Dimitri's. Same endgame goals, different road maps.
More like a junkie stopping, cold turkey. The Empire, despite being the country where the Central Church was founded, no longer needs the Central Church. The Federation (not to be confused with the Alliance) was never on that drug, while the Kingdom is like the one who addicted that getting rid of it will cause possibly lethal withdrawal convulsions. Dimitri himself admits that the right of kinghood in the Kingdom is based purely on the Archbishop's pleasure. In other words, in theory, the Archbishop can remove that approval. That makes the Kingdom the Central Church's puppet.
@@DarkAdonisVyers I wouldn't go to that extreme. If the Kingdom is the Central Church's so called "puppet", they're doing a terrible job of pulling the strings. To just use Claude's arguments as an example, the foreign relations talking point simply does not work. Not only are you talking to the man who chose to make a man of Duscur his vassal, but is actively working to repair relations while also helping them be independent. The "Crest-forced obligations" doesn't hold a lot of water either. Dimitri is not only working over the two years to reshape the social structure of the Kingdom, but his personal army is captained by a Crest-less commoner, as was his wish. I doubt he's going to stop with just that. Forced marriages? Kinda flimsy. Ingrid and Mercedes obviously come to mind, and yet here they are, risking their lives in the Kingdom Army DESPITE their father's wishes of just getting married off. This game really does not do a sufficient job of setting up the Church to be some evil, manipulating faction... if that's even the goal? Honestly, after playing all three routes, I'm just not convinced.
@@evansimpson8216 1. Dedue is a survivor of a nearly destroyed country, so that's not quite the best example. 2. A captain of a private army isn't that high of a position. It's basically a permanent merc job. 3. Regardless of how they do in said war, they're still getting married. I also said that the Central Church _can_ do so. This right exists, regardless of whether or not they exercise that right.
@@DarkAdonisVyers Hoo boy. I don't really wanna get in the weeds but here we go.. 1. Duscur's destruction was not the doings of the church but an organized coup of Western Lords, Empire/Argarthans, and SOME of those in Duscur. The Church stepped in when the Kingdom was in ruin, executed folks (some wrongly accused of the Tragedy) and left. DEFINITELY wrong for doing that, no argument there, but in doing so they stopped shit from getting even worse. They were the least involved party and if supports are anything to go off of, they're actively providing aid, even if they're not believers. (Dedue/Catherine supports) 2. I'd say the Captain of the KING OF FAERGHUS's own army is a pretty high position. Especially given how militant Faerghus is, for better or for worse. Dimitri knew when he offered Shez the position that it would send ripples down the social system and show that things are changing. 3. Except when they don't? Are we disregarding the ending cards of these characters in Three Houses? Unless you lose them pre-timeskip, I don't think there's a single character that abides by this forced marriage concept. "Still getting married" needs a bit more nuance. It almost sounds like you're saying that paired endings are a bad thing? "Can" doing something vs "would" is a different kind of argument here. I get what you're saying, and I agree to an extent. It's a theory that can be true in a vaccuum, but you'd be ignoring any sort of context and past history of the game to make a claim. Rhea COULD make all of her Knights of Seiros be heavily religious and make anyone who receives her aid bend to the doctrine of the church, but she wouldn't/doesn't, just to give an example.
@@evansimpson8216 1. I'm just talking about the fact that the only reason that Dedue ended up serving Dimitri is because of said Tragedy. Without that, he would have probably worked with his father as a blacksmith. 2. Well, it is an individual's private army, not the public army of the Kingdom. Paramilitary and all that. 3. I meant that barring specific endings clarifying otherwise, it's implied that the political marriages still go through. That's why Ingrid is still worrying about that, even as she is in the Kingdom army. 4. "I have a gun to the back of your head. Don't worry. I won't ever pull the trigger." doesn't sound very good, does it?
I started off with GW and was disappointed halfway through. I was in particular, disturbed with Claude’s decision to align with the Empire - just after they invaded Leicester. It is akin to Russia aligning with Germany in WW2 after being invaded by them. If they wanted to stick to the Claude’s anti church narrative, they could have let Claude align with the Kingdom first, and slowly towards the end, once the Kingdom and Empire had worn each other down, Leicester enters the fray, taking out the church and the empire in one fell sweep.
@@GoldenRose116 Because he fights against the church, when in Houses he already hates the church, as it is the primary villain of the game behind every single characters trauma and suffering.
I actually loved seeing a review of this route from someone who hasnt experienced azure moon! Its so nice seeing a completely fresh take on these characters and their stories!
I actually feel it works against the review. Azure moon was drastically different than the other route because the main lord went thru the largest transformation. I think both dimitri routes are the best three houses/hopes has to offer, and both for their narrative reasons.
9:04 yeah Dimitri definitely voices his disdain for the crest system in 3 Houses as well, but it’s only alluded to in a story scene in part 1, maybe a couple supports, and in some endings
That's something that I really like about him. He makes it clear under no uncertain terms that he hates the current system and fully supports Edelgards reforms. He completely agrees with the world she wants to build, he just disagrees on the means by which she is building it. He believes in long-term, systemic reform, not the violent revolution she has instigated
Ferdinand is implied dead, so he never saw what happened regarding his father (even if he was alive, he's still missing/gas been missing for a while by this point). Hubert is outright expressed by Randolph to be dead (killed by the Alliance apparently).
The Faerghus citizenry in the East will want Claude’s head precisely because it was the Central Church that helped support them when Dimitris uncle ruled. Most of the bandit attacks we saw in White Clouds were in the Kingdom, and it was the Church that dealt with them. That’s why one NPC on GW speculates if they aren’t consumed by the Western Church due to how racist and xenophobic the West Church are, they’ll create a Northern Church to continue Rheas legacy. And that’s not even touching on the implied inevitable Religious wars that will follow over what Church will claim Garreg Mach and thus be the “True” Church, which is why Edelgard has the S. church stationed there.
When Dimitri told Claude in AG/SB that he agree with him on a personal level that he wants to get rid of the Church of Seiros, but can't because he's king and have a duty toward his people, who are deeply reliant on Seiros' teachings, i feel bad for him. He also told Claude that had he not be King, they could have been good friends. I mean, you really have to feel for Dimitri. He even admit to Rodrigue and the others that, personally, he agrees with Edelgard's ultimate goal. But because he's King, and that the kingdom and it's subjects are deeply reliant on the Archbishop to function normally, he have no choice but to endure.
I kinda feel like it really shows that Dimitri, while being a good and moral man, is kind of a weak king. He really can't follow his own convictions and instead remains a pure slave of tradition and the traditional institutions of the Kingdom, which also includes the aristocracy and the crest system, while Edelgard and Claude have the bravery of sailing into uncharted water and chose the maybe risky route into something that can be better over the safe and well-known bad status quo.
@@4wheal It doesn't though. It is the most church alligned state in Fodlan and it seems to be the most backwards one, Adrestia already having an advanced bureaucracy and centralized state and Leicester seems to be basically a mercantile nobles republic, that in Hopes is about to transition into a democratic Monarchy, Claude stating that his sucessor will be elected by the people. Azure Gleam is objectively the worst outcome in Hopes, if you value modernity, because Dimitri is ultimately opposed to any hard reforms, touching the crested nobility or diminishing the influence of the church. Generally two out of three routes in Hopes makes it clear that while ugly, Rheas death is a necessity to enforce change in Fodlan. Not to forget that with Faerghus deeper lore, we can only wonder whether or not an adrestian genocide and displacement may take place, as this seems to be Faerghus common tactic of war.
@@shizachan8421 Adrestia is heavily impilled and is sexist as seen that females are far less likely to inherit power and there family's will be destroyed if there are only female heirs and the lord is dead. Examples of this are Constance and Mercedes' original nobel family's that were removed when they were the last heirs. It is also the most corrupt with the most backwards system that Edelgard doesn't actually change as Hopes shows she still favours the nobility, and Houses had lords still keep there postions and titils and pass them along there blood lines. And even if you do believe that Edelgard changes will happen, they will take a long time by her own words and who is to say her successors will resect what she wanted to do. Claude claims that I one surport, but his actions in his route show the opposite as when he hints down and kills people that decide they didn't want him as their king. Basically, he says one thing, but his actions show him doing the opposite. Faerghus was actually changing under Dimitri rule, and it was actually moving at a faster rate than the Empire as more commoners were entering higher postions he was moving to create free education to give the commoners more of a voice. He was working on limited the need of Crests and they are plenty of surports talking about the changes happing. This was also done with Rhea surport, and the church were not against them at all, just like how she didn't get involved with Edelgard reforms. This makes sense as the Church openly preaches equality and tries to teach this at the Academy, and their faith is actually anti Crest abuse, aka the so-called crest system.
@@shizachan8421 I 1 hundred percent agree and this is why I also feel like the hate for el is for the most part just is surface level hate yes el started the war but it was a necessary evil. All the lords are in agreement that the land needs to change, but it seems like everybody just couldn’t do it, or didn’t want too or was too afraid to, but as you can see all the Lords agree that Rea needs to go down. She literally has people thinking the goddess is still alive and technically she’s not, even more so after byleth merges with her, and even if he didn’t merge with her, she’s in a state where she can’t talk to people, answer, prayers, or do anything for the people. They are affectively just wasting their lives away praying to her The church is literally designed or rather it was made and designed to hide her mom‘s corpse. and to trick people into worshiping her
Playing Azure Moon in houses would definitely help fill a lot of holes for you. A lot of the story and lore revelations that surprised you were already touched on before, like the stepsibling thing, Ingrid and Glenn, and Sylvain’s change of character. And yeah I’m a bit upset about the lack of supports as well. I’m happy Annette and Constance got some and that we got the paralogue, but Constance lacking supports with Mercedes AND Emile is just blasphemy. Those 2 are huge parts of her character development and childhood. Not to mention how important her supports with Edelgard and Ferdinand in Houses were as well. She does still have unique dialogue with all these people but it still kinda stings. No Yuri and Bernie supports either 🥲
Yeah I think after I finish all three routes I should go back to Three Houses and play Azure Moon. But that all kinda makes sense, because I used Ingrid in Silver Snow and I think I remember her talking about Glenn once or twice but I don't think I ever got the context of Glenn being Felix's brother. I agree its super weird, that Constance is missing so many supports, I think her and Hapi have the least out of all of them, it feels like Yuri is literally the only one out of the Ashen Wolves who has a bunch of supports, and Yuri is still lacking a handful of important ones that I think he should have, mainly with Dorothea. When I noticed that he didn't have one with her in Scarlet Blaze it made me really upset. P.S. I'm glad I'm not the only one who's bothered by no Yuri and Bernie supports 😂
Hey if it makes you feel any better about the Caspar part he doesn’t actually have to die. If you hold off on fighting him until after Count Bergliez spawns in he will order Caspar to retreat to which he complies. I agree with his unrecruitability in this game not really fitting his character as he has his own very strong sense of justice. It’s made especially weird by the fact that Caspar is pretty much an essential recruitment for Azure Moon in Three Houses as you need him to get Mercedes’ paralogue which has the most relevance to that route and actually unlocks a special scene between Mercedes and Emile.
Yeah this is another element that makes me like the Blue Lions route the most. There are no mandatory student deaths unlike scarlet blaze where you have to kill Ingrid at the very least which sucked.
Finally, someone calls out this. I was super confused when he said Caspar dies, as I accidentally triggered the “spare Caspar” mechanic, so didn’t know he even could die
People seem to shit on Azure Gleam because of Edelgarde being turned into a puppet. It seems people are either disgusted at it because it looks like someone's sick fantasy of a fat guy (Duke Aegir) controlling the cute/sexy girl AND/OR they claim it invalidates Edelgarde's character. IMO this story makes a lot of sense as TWSITD don't come into the story until Edelgarde is actually about to lose to Dimitri. Then they turn her into the Hedgemon Husk to nuke both armies and use it as blackmail while also mind controlling Edelgarde because now they see her as a failure. It's why they hand over the Empire to Duke Aegir because he will follow their orders. They don't ruin her character, it's more like it is her punishment for starting this war. I do think some improvements could be made to the route like having Hedgemon Husk be an actual boss and have the rest of the Black Eagles react to the mind controlled Edelgarde. Still it beats the nightmare of a story that Golden Wildfire has.
Honestly Edelgard is my favorite leader out of the 3 of them, and seeing her like that didn't make me feel like any of those things, it just made me feel bad for her/wanna protect her and hate Duke Aegir/Thales more, more than anything 😂 And yeahhhh, it feels weird because I did my review for Golden Wildfire first, and after finishing Azure Gleam, and now that I'm playing Scarlet Blaze, I dislike the second half of Golden Wildfire more and more than I did originally, because as you said its just a nightmare, I don't understand how they managed to get a greenlight for that mess
For all the love I have for character development and all the character relationship's progression in AG, It has one of the most disapponting ending and story progression especially in the 2nd part of the game. Why? COZ NOTHING change. Rhea didn't even get to have any chara development! You can make the character address the Crest problems all you want. Saying radical change will cost riot all you want but the truth is barely anything change in the end of AG aside from the decline of the empire. As the Church's savior, Dimitri could have demanded more reformation of the religion at least regarding crest-less inheritance but he just has to be a good boi to the point I'm starting to root for Claude post-AG route to get rid of the Chruch which is less likely to happen considering his millitary strength. Personally, Edelgard getting mind -controlled is actually refreshing. But how they made Ferdinand, Hubert implied dead offscreen then proceed give the empire unjust, chaotic governance to justify the kingdom's invasion is annoyingly anticlimatic Oh and in case you forgot this. Making Edelgard temporarily regain her mind during the jointed Zahras chapter and then conveniently turn back to a doll after that has to be the sloppiest writing of FEW3H. Want more? For a person who willingly unwisely ready to sacrifice himself in order to keep his citizens safe (despite the fact that it will bring more chaos to The kingdom if he die) and keeping Rufus alive even after multiple attempted assasinations from the guy coz he is one of Dimitri's last kin, There is NO WAY he's going to walk out on Edelgard on the last cutscene. It's SO effing OOC especially with so many hints she might be under mind-control throwing at him.
Honestly, I've only seen those complaints come from Edelgard's fans who can't accept her losing prominence. Edelgard being controlled makes a lot of sense and allows Thales to become the villainous protagonist for once. I also tell you that people exaggerate with how good Edelgard was as an antagonist in AM (she barely has any involvement in the route).
@@DarkAdonisVyers so would you also agree that a shez that says "hardly, I came to reigan territory expecting steady work from your house " (Shez when regarding the lack of work in GW, which is a good thing considering it means the allaince is peaceful) and "hey , I just work here --but youre gonna make a good trophy for the emperor" (to Claude, Scarlet Blaze) is better than a shez that actively supports and shows concern over their friends in AG - not only in supports but also cutscenes Also Dimitri, Felix and even Ashe knows about how chivalry is a sham (as seen in Dimitri-Ashe support) so shez aint special .
@@reversequeen838 Funny, because in SB, Shez talks about how the Empire pays the most, while in GW, Shez talks about how the Alliance always pays on time. Meanwhile, Shez says nothing of the sort in AG. Apparently, chivalry somehow can make up the difference from a lacking or overdue payment.
@@DarkAdonisVyers once again tho, chivalry has nothing to do with it. I , in my person opinion, view it more of Shez growing more attached to the lions as people and friends. The fact of the matter is Shez isn’t a knight- they’re a valued general of their own right. As such, I do think they do get paid but never really mention it as often because they’re constantly moving (since they had to help stop constant skermishes and bandit attacks). Also if you don’t believe that Shez has grown to care about the lions- they still get paid (as shown in the seteth - flayn paralogue where they mentioned that they can’t take too long since their actual employers will need them). Additionally , even if the general job isn’t paying them well- Shez offered their own service to Ingrid despite knowing Galatea isn’t known for their resources.
you must have never done blue lions in the og 3h if you don't know what that is edelgard turns into. Also, I don't get why people keep saying rhea and the church are the ones enforcing the "crest system", I'm PRETTY sure it's the nobles creating a system out of it, Rhea just places crests in high regard and nobles created a class out of it in order to gain special treatment from the church in exchange for crest users. Idk why everyone is so determined to kill rhea, or tempted to betray her either.
Thats simple. The church is against trade or even peace with any of the territories outside of Fodhlan, which is contrary to Claude's goal, as so he opposes it. Edelgard also seems to think that the church was directly involved with the civil wars which created the kingdom and the alliance, and a bunch of other stuff which she provides no source or evidence for, so she wants to kill them. Edelgard's motivations for opposing the church feel asinine and the least justified of any of the cast, but that's just my opinion.
@@eugene9211 I agree with the edelgard one. Claude's issue seems to mainly be a diversity thing like you said. Still don't think Rhea deserves it though.
@@Lordlos9 Agreed. People are oversimplifying the church. Within three houses at least, unless you're playing crimson flower the church only ever acts in self defense. Sure, there's some immoral stuff they do like Rhea performing human experimentation which would ultimately result in at least one innocent woman's death, but they still actively shelter homeless children, fight off brigands, and maintain the peace. They're not purely good or purely evil, and pretending otherwise is dumb.
@@eugene9211 I mean, Edelgards motivations are supported by basically everything we learn about the church in three houses through dialogues with various NPCs and ingame books. Like, the Abyss is an entire Ghetto established by the church to force their undesirables to live underground. Its more that Rhea fans chose to ignore every bit of information that paints the church as bad and people not being able to grasp that a corrupt religious institution can still be presented as nuanced. Claude basically confirming every accusation against the church by Edelgard should be enough to show that her position seems to not come out of nowhere, but through the experiences of somebody living in Fodlan.
@@shizachan8421 Most of the information demonizing the church came out in DLC and three hopes. The worst that the church does in the base game outside of Crimson Flower is execute people who tried to kill their leader, and be involved in Rhea's inhumane experiments to recreate her mother. Even then the church is shown as morally grey in that it goes out of its way to shelter children who had lost their homes in wars while employing knights who protect the demesnes of Fodhlan while asking, presumably, nothing in return from those they protect. But that's not why I dislike Edelgard's motivations. Edelgard's entire thing is that she was tortured as a child by those who slither because of her crest. And that somehow makes her believe that the crest system, and the church as a whole, is evil. And that somehow motivates her to lead an entire war against the rest of Fodhlan which kills countless people while working with the people that tortured her and are abjectly evil. Instead of just, you know... Hunting and killing those who slither, who were actually responsible for most of what's wrong with the continent now. Her motivations are contrived and silly.
Pretty much this: Azure Gleam >Blue (Azure Gleam aka Blue Fire) is the color of FE good guys, Red (Scarlet Blaze) are bad guys, and Yellow (Golden Wildfire) are alternate bad guys. >Lord character promotes to Great Lord >Avatar Character is basically “the Robin” to Dimitri’s “Chrom”. >Byleth originally came from Church of Seiros while being the reincarnation of Sothis and Jeralt is a Son of Faerghus who was a Knight of Seiros >Able to recruit almost literally every single recruitable character (almost all of Golden Deer are given to you without the need for recruitment) including all the Church units. >You retain the highest amount of route exclusive characters. >Mercedes can even bring over the Death Knight to your side. >Claude never betrays you, despite his hatred for Rhea >Get some Wilhelm and Saint Lore from Rhea >You don’t have to kill Caspar, he can retreat safely; only Ferdinand and Hubert “disappear” off screen. >Edelgard is spared, and reverts back to her innocent El >Dimitri absolutely destroyed those that Slither in the Dark, and Rhea lives. >The combined might of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, the Leicester Federation and the Church of Seiros leads to a forgone conclusion that the war will end soon with Adrestian Empire in shambles. The one route that gains the most clarity of the lore, the Blue Lions retain standard FE story and is by far the best ending for Fódlan. Dare I say: Blue Lions is the Golden route. No DLC needed.
The way this ending treats Edelgard is so depressing. It’s obvious by that point that Thales’ spell changed her mind in some way back into what it was when her and her real uncle were hiding away in Faerghus and Edie and Dimitri were friends. Current Edelgard almost completely blocks out her past and that Dimitri was that friend growing up, but while under the spell, she knows full well who that is and even calls him “Dee”. And then Dimitri just WALKS AWAY. He deactivated his weapon after she said that but after that we have no clue what becomes of her. Is the spell broken soon after? Is she imprisoned, let go, or executed? Is she just left under the spell to keep her innocence? Is she able to rule the empire anymore? Does Dimitri just keep her with her mind in that state to keep her from her trauma?
I think its implied that after he leaves Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude end up conquering the rest of the Empire, so I think she just gets promoted to citizen, because he has no reason to kill her and especially doesn't at that point, or probably is just left to rule Hresvelg territory. And I'm pretty sure she would just be left in that new mindstate, I don't think Dimitri would do it on purpose, more for the lack of them having any way to remove it, but I didn't even notice that she was reverted to a younger self or something actually, thank you for pointing that out. But yeah it is pretty depressing, but I'm just glad she's alive 😂
@@Wrath9 Tbh, Azure Gleam seems pretty much like the downer ending of Three Hopes. For people who like all three Lords, Golden Wildfire seems to be supposed to be the Golden Ending, as Rheas grip on Fodlan ends, but Claude makes the choice to not conquer the Kingdom and instead use his position to negotiate peace between the three nations. Scarlet Blaze is more if a continuation and improvement on Crimson Flower, which was the secret unlockable happy ending of Three Houses in which Byleth regains their humanity, by getting to deal with both central antagonists of the Duology, Thales and Rhea, at once and overcoming both the church and those who slither in the dark. Meanwhiole, Azure Gleam ends with Edelgard being emotionally crippled and the ending outright stating, that Dimitri will go on destroying the empire, which as we know from the greater Lore of Faerghus will probably mean the slaughter of its citizens and resettling it with people from Faerghus, as was done with Sreng and Duscur. Not to forget that it ends with Dimitri having fully become Rheas pawn who now rules supreme over Fodlan, which might indicate that we will see her continueing her schemes to revive Sothis as she never went through her development in Silver Snow and the strong implication that Claude will go on to betray them at the end, as he is the only one free from Rhea standing.
@@shizachan8421 woah, I rarely meet people who consider CF to be a happy ending. To me it has always been a bad ending or genocide-ish run as most people you love die in this route and the agressor who started an unprovoked war wins. It's also created a country where I personally wouldn't want to live in politically-wise. As for Byleth, it's true but I play Byleth as being me and I would glafly sacrifice my life or happiness for the future and citizen of my country, so I consider this to be nothing but a selfish desire. I personally was happy with the end of AG as even Edelgard is alive though in a bad state, but ist her own fault as she sided with evil people for selfish reasons
@@loyal_dogs Which spects of Edelgards Ideals makes it a country where you wouldn't want to live in? Like, do you assume that if you were born in Fodlan, you would be a member of the crested upper class? What if you wouldn't be? What if you were like Dorothea, who was kicked out on the streets for not having a crest? I don't know man, the fact that you consider not having an eugenics based feudal state under the control of an authoritarian fake church in which a genocide was allowed to happen in Faerghus with nobody ever caring about who perpetrated it makes you look like a bad person. Also the ending cards of CF are kind of better. You can compare them, in multiple endings in CF point out how the main characters kids are free of their parents inheritance to forge their own destiny, how true peace has been archieved, Alois gets to be a farmer and family man never to touch his sword again, Fodlan is so safe that there is no mercenary work left to do outside of tavern security and monster hunting and Manuela & Hanneman starting to teach kids practical subjects in Garreg Mach, instead of just fighting and killing. Like, I really don't know. It just sounds really shocking to me that you rather live in a system in which ones rank in society is based on chance and genetics instead of one, where everyone gets education and everybody gets the chance to become what they want. Like Edelgard even invents disability-friendly work culture, creating a position tailor made for Linhardt so that he can put his talents to use to his best ability, for the best of society. Considering how ADHD or autism coded Linhardt is, I feel like that should be something we should have in real life even. Creat work environments that benefit neurodiverse people and allow them to be productive under their own conditions and comforts.
AG is by far the best written route after playing all paths, SB is my 2nd fav while GW is last. AG shows the entricate relationships between childhood friends unlike other paths where the characters are not connected at all to each other, the dads/senior generals in the kingdom are very involved & have great characterization, the inner politics of the kingdom are very interesting to learn & we get a deep dive into them, so many things happen at once while Dimitri smartly navigates through them & trying to keep citizens safe, Dimitri's character is deep & very likeable, probably also has the best supports between the lords. AG has the most recruitable characters, most paralogues & coolest cutsceness, it is the only path to actually kill the real problem in Fodlan; Thales so yeah it is the best ending in game. Ofc there's the traditional blue kingdom fights evil red empire invasion while hunting the cult truly responsible for the evil in continent while also showing religion/church is not all good nor all bad but can be reformed, so it is basically similar to all past FE games with blue lords. Not to mention it is the only path that set the most reforms on ground: - free education, social & health supports - allows commoners/crestless ppl to attain high positions & to participate in the government - gives independance to Duscur Last thing I'll say is the few ppl hating on AG are literally 99.9% Edelgard stans who think she has to be a focal point in other paths & hate how she became a puppet which is stupid. The main focal point in AG other than the actual kingdom & its characters, is the Slitherers/Thales not Edel. I loved what happened to Edel here & think it was done really well considering how she never allied with the Slitherers so they bite her in the ass since in AG she has noone; not Shez or Alliance or Slitherers, so her hubris caught up to her. Also the whole point about Edel losing her memory is integral to her plot/experimentation & her mother as well, since both characters Cornalia & Thales say Edrlgard killed her mother while Edel says she doesn't remember but if we follow the timeline then it is kinda confirmed that Edel killed her mother while under Slitherers magic/experimentation: - Edelgard gets taken into experimentation sometime after leaving the kingdom - Duscur tragedy happened when she was 14 & her mother was one of the ppl who participated in the tragedy - After Duscur tragedy Anslema went back to see Edelgard only for her to see her daughter experimented on , then husk Edel killed her mother without knowing or remembering - that's why Cornalia said Edel killed her mom & Thales also says Anselma was killed by the "flames of their ambition" & we know "flames of ambition" meaning from Houses = crest of flames implanted on Edel to burn the Nabateans. So it's really a twist of karma for Anselma/Patricia, she killed Lambert & Dimitri (he survived) to go back to her daughter only to go back & get killed by her daughter who was experimented on by the Slitherer.
Honestly very well said, and thank you for taking the time to type that comment! One thing I have noticed is that in AG they definitely have the biggest cast (playable characters and non-playable alike) compared to the other routes, and it makes it actually feel like a living breathing nation with all the lords we see/half the supports taking place in different little villages and towns, where with GW it never really gets that treatment at all, and I'm about halfway through SB and I've yet to see much of that as well. Also, I loved Edelgard infinitely more than Claude and Dimitri going into this game, (which is why I saved her route for last) and I don't get how some Edelgard stans can hate on AG, one of the things that I disliked the most about Edel was that she worked with TWSITD, and since that seems to be the one major change of this game, them turning her into a puppet feels like not only the obvious choice, but a more natural one if she isn't willing to work with them. Not to mention playing through AG, seeing her like that made me feel bad for her, and save her more than anything, getting pissed at the writing/situation she's in was never even a thought in my mind.
After playing all three routes (with nearly 400 hours) I can definitely say with confidence... Azure Gleam is the best route of the three. Scarlet Blaze and Golden Wildfire really left a bad taste in my mouth, personally. Edit: thanks for the heart, mate. It means a lot.
I kinda have to agree, in retrospect I'm sorta glad I played Golden Wildfire first, because it really falls flat compared to the other two routes. I still really like Scarlet Blaze (despite how heartbreaking it was), but that's mostly just because I'm a Black Eagle at heart, but Azure Gleam is probably gonna sit at my favorite, mostly because it's the most complete(?) of the three. No problem, btw!
@Wrath9 fair enough, my friend. We all have our favourite houses, in the end. I'm definitely a Blue Lion at heart, as well as a big fan of Rhea in spite of everything, so that explains my bias, lol. Thanks for your videos as well, by the way. I found them really insightful.
I love azure gleam ! Sure, it may have some problems but honestly azure gleam is a personal and compelling story especially during part 1. Plus idk about you, it feels like a more unique perspective especially since it has a more defensive especially against both the empire and western lords.
It's because among the 3 powers, the Kingdom is the weakest. Sure, it has more land than the Alliance, but less of that land is farmable, so they actually have fewer resources. Losing the Silver Maiden would have been just a minor inconvenience to the Empire had Thales not essentially replaced control of the Empire from El to Duke Aegir, which, in turn, made the Empire less marketable to the Alliance and having less discipline overall.
@@DarkAdonisVyers true! No complaints here regarding the resources of the kingdom; Duke Aegir really screwed the empire over in AG. Though I don’t think it’s a minor inconvenience to not gain the silver maiden since it has been stated plenty of times that it is a vital step in conquering the kingdom - as it borders the western territories therefore not gaining the silver maiden would also cut off the empires main connection with the western lords.
@@DarkAdonisVyersActually from military point they are the strongest they have the best trained soliders and more relic weapons. The silver maiden is actually important to both the Empire and Faerghus as its the only major Fort on the westen side mostly because its the most peaceful. The empire is basically just the largest army and seems to have the weakest tactics and just results in throwing men at a problem. The Allaince/Federation is the richest so can buy more manpower or weapons.
@@4wheal Ah, yes, the classic "a few heroes who can overthrow a large army" blunder. Would be awful, if those "few heroes" died, due to flukes, huh? That's exactly what happened to Shu Han in 3 Kingdoms. Sure, the author of Romance of the 3 Kingdoms won't STFU about the "heroic feats" of Zhuge Liang and Liu Bei's brothers, but as soon as they die, Shu Han collapses. Turns out that chivalric ideals and ancient relics don't mean much when you're outnumbered 15 to 1.
@@DarkAdonisVyers Well, those relics in lore can slaughter hundreds of people with a single attack, so being outnumbered by a mere 15 isn't going to do much. There is also the fact that without an Avater, Edelgard is unable to take on the Kingdom without help, such as Houses, where she only gained territory because of the Agarthans and not her army. Hell, both AG and GW show Edelgard Stonewall in Faerghus and are unable to take it even with Claude attacking it on the easten side, showing that the Kingdom has better army.
Hello again, Wrath. Hope you're doing well. I wanted to add something. Apologies if this was already covered. Even if Dimitri didn't grant the Church asylum, the Empire would have invaded Faerghus anyway. Case in point, Leicester. They were never involved with Faerghus or the Church, but Edelgard invaded them, regardless. At least by aiding Rhea, Dimitri would gain the Church as allies and maintain his legitimacy as King. The alternative was to flat out accept Imperial rule. Which was out of the question. Faerghus is a sovereign nation (as is Leicester). They have every right to defend their independence (which was established to maintain peace and make the best out of a bad situation, even if Rhea didn't handle it perfectly), especially if Edelgard is going to take said independence by force. Matthias Gautier points out that heavy taxation would have awaited the Kingdom had they submitted. Especially with a corrupt Southern Bishop like Count Varley.
About the whole Adrestia in chaos bit, it’s implied that Aegir as the Regent had executed many of the people who loyal to mostly with Edelgard. I believe this is the case as Ferdinand and Hubert are not seen after the 6 month timeskip at all. And, while I don’t have the greatness memory, I recall an NPC saying “the late Marquis Vestra”, and when Edelgard ascends the throne, he becomes Marquis Vestra. So why would an NPC call him “the late Marquis” if he wasn’t dead? (Also I know there are holes, as I don’t remember if the fight with Monica appears in is before or after the timeskip but I’m pretty sure it’s after, and if it is, makes no sense to me. Why would Aegir execute his son and Hubert only and leave Monica alive, who is basically Edelgard’s version of Cyril? Again, not the greatest memory when it comes to gameplay details, but I do remember lore stuff.)
Yeah there was an NPC that implied they both were dead, and I don't think we see Monica after that 6 month timeskip? But if we do honestly I think she could be Kronya in disguise if anything. (I don't remember if we personally kill Kronya in AG or not, so its possible 🤷🏻♂️)
@@Wrath9 Maybe? And no, we don’t kill Kronya in AG, but we also don’t kill Monica cuz I’m pretty sure she retreats in the battle she appears in (at least I’m pretty sure). But then we never see her again either. So if the Monica battle happens after the 6 months, then retreats, and Duke Aegir could’ve executed her after her failure? 🤷
Azure gleam is the best path in the game clearly and the one that best varies from the original game (for the better). Scarlet Blaze is Crimson Flare 2.0 and Golden Wildfire is also Scarlet Blaze 2.0 (but with more inconsistencies and worse writing). The end of Azure Gleam is the most hopeful for Fodlan
So you want Rhea to rule forever. Got it. She only ever considers stepping down, if she believes that she will be replaced by Byleth, preferably possessed or influenced by Sothis.
@@DarkAdonisVyers Considering that she is engaged in social work and does not interfere in any reform of the lords, yes. I have no problem with her as head of the Church (not that she has even real power).
@@rbggsc6719 Except a standing army... With superpowers. And the ability to excommunicate. And the power to legitimize countries. And to have her religion so deeply rooted in a country that she de jure gives the king right to rule Faerghus. I mean, I could keep going, but I don't want to fall for this trap: th-cam.com/video/d87VIQZeppA/w-d-xo.html So just drop it with the harmless clergy act.
I really do like the version of Dimitri from Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes because he's a lot handsome, friendly and not vengeful like his original version from Fire Emblem Three Houses. Plus this Blue Lions - Azure Gleam story is a lot better than the Fire Emblem Three Houses :Azure Moon (Blue Lions route) as well as Black Eagles - Scarlet Blaze and Golden Deer - Golden Wildfire story with Lady Rhea not the villian in this story.
But the only thing that I dislike is that Byleth doesn’t get to be part of the lives of this Dimitri and the rest of the Blue Lions. I don’t mind Shez, but I’ve spent years being Byleth and caring to save every student I could. In this game, and in this route, Byleth is so disposable that it hurts. Besides that, I do love everything abour Azure Gleam, specially Dimitri’s and Felix’s relationship development.
But Rhea is the central villain of Three Houses. Because Crimson Flower exists, we know that Rhea was always secretly cruel and power hungry and never considered Byleth as more than a pawn.
Wow. You REALLY should’ve played AM. Even though I don’t like Edelgard I still played her route simply so I could play all of them and get the full story. The fact that you didn’t know a lot of stuff that is revealed in the first game really speaks for itself!
Bro you need to play Azure Moon. Dimitri and Byleth straight up talk about crests during the whole Miklan thing and Dimitri understands crests have helped defend his country from outside invasions (the Lance of Ruin was their main defense to the north) but that people shouldn’t be tossed aside if they don’t have a crest, we should appreciate everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, crest or no crest. So yeah this isn’t new to his character. Play Azure Moon, he’s fantastic in that game as well. This game just reiterates it. I love that we learn how Dimitri lost his eye in this game. I just wanna cry. 😭 27:10 - That “cute scene” is almost exactly like the last scene in Azure Moon *SPOILERS AHEAD* where Edelgard is defeated and on the floor, and Dimitri is standing over her and offers her his hand. She throws a knife at him and he is forced to kill her. It is an entirely silent scene, no dialogue, but it says a lot. In AG she actually takes his hand. It’s just a fantastic call back.
I do have a few problems with it mainly the Edelgard and the empire like imagine if Hubert, Caspar and Ferdinand joined you with a sort of mutual enemy in Thales and Prime minister Aegir to try and rescue Edelgard. Overall though I’m glad to see a new take on Dimitri’s character
@@Wrath9 or they got lost in a serious plothole… I do agree with most of what you said in the video. Loved the analysis on the characters. And Sylvain is a beast on the battlefield. I’d say most overpowered but also fun to use. I loved Felix’s character. On one hand I didn’t like we get to recruit Byleth so late in this route. But on Black Eagles she seemed to disappear for a few chapters (ignoring the support conversations etc.) and then be back. On AG that gap was smallest. I also think there’s no explanation that Edelgard is an ally in the secret chapter and an enemy again. That was really bad and could have done better. Still overall I really enjoyed this route and the character cast.
@@Wrath9 something that came to mind on my final route with Claude. You fight an illusion of Hubert. If he was assasinated that would make for an even more serious plothole. Correct me of I am wrong but we fight illusions of characters that survive on each path. Hubert seems to disappear from Claudes route as well. I haven’t done the final battle yet. On this route I am less bothered by it. At least we get to fight Dedue and the rest of the main cast from Dimitri. While I love how tight Shez becomes with Dimitri’s people, I cannot overlook the 2nd part of this route. We don’t get to fight Edelgard in that transformed state. The plotholes and the final chapters also Byleth joins up way too late. Sylvain makes up for that, he was so much fun to use. I made him a mortal servant. That way with a few hits he is Sephiroth 🤣
Ik it can't be helped but sometimes you'll say smth like "there's probably an earlier version of the game where dimitri holds more animosity towards edie" and I'll be like... Yes... Like the entirety of azure moon... Anyway, I'd love to know if you went back and played azure moon after this! They were my first house and my absolute favorite. I'd love to know your thoughts!
I've been wanting to do a retrospective of each Three Houses route, mostly so I can see which version of each route I like better, especially since I haven't played them all, but I haven't had the time to do it unfortunately. I have only managed to finish my playthrough of Crimson Flower, but I do plan on playing Azure Moon next though, so one day soon I'll get to it! 😭
Personally, I feel myself preferring GW as the route closest to an ideal ending, and this is despite how I prefer Edelgard as a character. GW ends with the Federation managing to kill Rhea and remove the Central Church as a result. The Empire and Kingdom are still more or less at a standstill. Claude calling an armistice is good because he has many cards to play. He saved Edelgard, thus putting her in his debt. Dimitri can get assurance, or feels, that Claude isn't out to have the Kingdom be taken down, which is true. Claude also knows information about TWSITD now thanks to Edelgard confiding in him about it. This means Claude can tell Dimitri about the threat they pose, and Edelgard might tell Dimitri of Thales being responsible for Lambert's death. In essence, GW has the best chance to get all three lords to again consider joining forces. Rhea might be dead, but there's a better chance for all three nations to restore the balance and avoid unification, which sadly, AG and SB are where it heads towards.
I tend to agree that GW's ending (despite how I feel about the second half of the route) is more ideal up to a point, because yes it *could* lead to exactly what you say, but that also fully depends on Edelgard. Because if she decided to call the war quits with Claude confirming that Rhea is dead then most definitely, it leads to the ideal ending, but if she says "Nah, we're gonna conquer Faerghus" then I would stand on my current opinion that AG's ending is slightly better for all parties concerned. And I mean literally just slightly. Which is also why as I said in the video I don't love how GW ended, because either the game finishes at the halfway point of war or there's a ceasefire but the game doesn't choose an actual ending
@@Wrath9 Hence why Edelgard owing a debt to Claude comes into play. Not to mention, Edelgard is making no real headway into conquering the Kingdom, and the last thing Edelgard wants is to have the Alliance now become her enemies because Claude has made an invasion to the Empire that likely would have turned badly if Almyra hadn't made its invasion once again. Yes, it depends on Edelgard, but Edelgard is certainly not unreasonable, and Edelgard has lost the source of her moral argument for the war. It will definitely look bad for her if she keeps pressing the war. Claude can act as an intermediary to convince Dimitri and Edelgard to stand down and handle the power structure of Fodlan now that the Central Church is gone. SB and AG both have a very unlikely chance of avoiding unification because the Empire/Kingdom will very likely annex the other. And as Claude mentioned in GW, if that happens, the odds are, Leicester will become a vassal to the much larger nation as a result, and thus the continent is unified.
Your video was very interesting to watch, but it did make me realise how much of the game's more subtle side and back stories are pretty much locked behind Three Houses exclusive knowledge. For example, the thing with Rhea and Jeralt : as you surmised, Jeralt has a complicated relationship with Rhea because of Byleth's mother ; when Byleth was born, Rhea helped Sitri (their mother) with giving birth, but Sitri died and in the following weeks, Jeralt noticed that his child never laughed nor cried and assumed that Rhea had done something to them to make it so, which is why he caused a fire to cover his escape from the Church. Jeralt was right, but lacked a few details, mainly the fact that Byleth was still-born and Sitri begged Rhea to use her heart (Sothis's Crest Stone) to save her child. So Rhea killed Sitri to let Byleth live, but (this part is just my assumptions and theories) because the Crest Stone was a /stone/ literally doing the job of Byleth's heart, including beating, it heavily restrained their emotions, which is why the baby never laughed nor cried. This is what we know of from canon events and dialogues, but we can surmise a few more things thanks to, again, Three Houses exclusive knowledge, but also Three Hopes. Jeralt assumed Rhea was responsible for his child's lack of emotions and caused a fire to fake their deaths and run away ; that would seem pretty extreme if we didn't know, thanks to Three Hopes, that Jeralt had known Rhea for 300 years and, thanks to Three Houses, that he had the opportunity to see Rhea do quite a few questionable things (banning scientific progress such as the long view, the use of a "thick black liquid" as fuel, heavily limiting medical research outside of white magic, banning the printing press by arguing it could be used to spread misinformation, but at the same time would be useless to commoners because they can't read... And that's for the more "public" decisions ; Sitri was Rhea's 12th attempt at bringing back Sothis, so it's entirely possible that Jeralt met one or two previous vessels and/or knew of Rhea's human experiments to bring back her mother. If that's the case, he might have feared that his child would just be one more test subject and decided to flee because of that) On Azure Gleam having a good/bright ending though... Maybe for Shez, but for Fodlan as a whole... The Empire was tainted red with blood for 6 months, Edelgard may or may not recover fully from Thales's magical control over her and even if she does, she will likely have to face judgement and repercussions for the war while also having to deal with what was done to her country under Aegir's reign and even beyond that, Claude is still determined to destroy the Church and Rhea to make it possible to bring change to the country, something that, if Dimitri had his way, would take decades and might not even be finished by the time he dies. I think there are brighter endings in this game. Edit : oh, and about Anselma and Edelgard ! From Hapi's supports in There Houses, we know that Anselma was never replaced by TWSITD because she heavily opposed the way Cornelia treated Hapi ; instead, it seems that, after Edelgard was brought back to the Empire by Thales/Arundel, Cornelia "let it slip" in front of Anselma that her daughter had spent the last three years in the Kingdom and she tells Anselma that the King, Lambert, her husband, was the one who did everything he could so Anselma couldn't see her (obviously that's a lie). She used Anselma's despair to have her help the western lords in killing Lambert in Duscur, presumably in hope that she could see her daughter again afterwards. Of course, Edelgard never knew something like this happened to her mother ; she didn't even know, before the end of Azure Moon in Three Hopes, that Dimitri and her were step-siblings because her memories of her childhood were affected by the experiments she suffered in the Empire.
Funny how you mention that there is unused content left over from class, character text, and graphics character, for story is unknown, but there might be more later.
I did not know one can recruit Byleth in this route 😩. I thought it was only possible in Golden Wind. I have only played AG and I’m in the middle of SB. I’m so glad that it is possible that I think I won’t finish SB and I’ll replay AG asap.
I always thought that TWSITD killed Ferdinand and Hubert, as neither of them would have stood by and kept them do what they did to both Edelgard and the Empire.
tbh i have yet to play through Golden wildfire and Azure gleam since i went with Scarlet blaze (even though the black eagles were my second pick back in three houses) but hearing you talk about this route makes me want to play it although the game guilt tripping you by forcing you to kill off the units/students you cant recruit is a bit of a pain but i digress
@@Wrath9 yeah i loved most of the Blue lions and only Sparing Felix (since Demitri and Dedue don't count) but killing off ingrid and Slyvain was brutal since i wanted to have ingrid as my main peg knight since none of the others can do it better than she can and i would have loved CF felix
@@BestVicePrez Well in terms of playable characters, if you recruit everybody along the way, you can actually play the whole story without killing any playable characters. Every other character death scene that is not mentioned in the review are Gwendall, Ladislava, Randolf, Fleche and Duke Aegir if I remember correctly.
I played until Thales strikes Edel into a monsters then I got so confused. I felt like I only played the game for the sake of playing even tho I really wanna understand the story😭😭maybe it because English is not my first language and I forgot half of the characters' names from the previous game....total loss of plot...
You're a wonderful analysis please keep in mind that some characters would technically develop differently in this timeline.. I can understand Casper's personality but Shez lacks the professor's Charisma and the academy ended much shortly... Keep in Shez is just One of The Students/Apart of Circle of Friends.. While Byleth is More Mentor/Authorive Figuire That Is approachable That Has Known Them For Nearly A Year.
@@Wrath9that makes sense as you need some context in azure moon to understand some motivation in azure gleam hence why Dimitri seems kinda self loathing as it dosent really explain his background and thought processe as hope assumes you already played houses so it doesn’t explains more than it needs to
When I hear other people’s opinions on all the routes and read the comments about their experiences and what they did…………… I now realize I’m a horrible person with how I approached scarlet blaze as It was my first run
It really just depends on your level of attachment to the characters, idk if you played Fire Emblem Three Houses, but Three Hopes is basically just an alternate version of that game. And Three Houses was my favorite Fire Emblem game until Three Hopes, so I personally just really love all of the characters in this game (and most of the people who commented probably have similar attachments to these characters as I do), so I don't think you not having a similar feeling during your playthrough makes you a bad person... you just had a more normal experience than the rest of us 😂
@@Wrath9 If you play any Dynasty Warriors game, you're no stranger to offing officers that you became "attached" with when playing their side in a previous run. If anything, I find FE players to be such fucking drama queens in this FE game that has multiple playable sides.
My favorite part of 3 Hopes is when Dimitri is like “yeah I agree with you but starting a world war is the wrong way to go about it” and Edelgard is just like “nah you don’t get it.” Edelgard sympathizers forget there was a reasonable solution and she chose to team up with the evil mole people to murder the continent because she’s the worst lord
sorry if my english is bad but I would like to give my opinion about azure gleam. Personally I didn't like the route very much because of four different things: 1. I Hate the church. Being allies with them in this route was something I disliked very much. I loved that dimitri didn't agree with them but I think that the story would be more intresting If the kingdom betrayed them at some point and dimitri wasnt afraid of a quick change to society. 2. The knight concept. It is mentioned in petra and hubert's support conversation that the knight concept comes from fantasy books that became legends, which lead to people from the kingdom to believe it was something VERY real and important, dedicating their life to chievalry and knighthood. Basically, calling the knight concept something """"dumb"""" and that it shouldn't be followed since in the end its kind of pointless. I saw this support BEFORE playing azure gleam, so when I saw a lot of characters speaking high of the knight concept I thought they were """"dumb""" for following a concept without cuestioning it first, and would also make sense why ashe is troubled when he tries to become a knight, because the concept is so easy to "throw down" that nobody actually knows what a true knight is. 3. Dimitri is a little bit toxic. I love dimitri but there were sometimes that I hated his character. This because of his way of looking at things and being very hard to persuade or change his mind. I say he is "toxic" because in some of his supports like Shez's A support he tells her/he that he wont change his ways and you(shez) would have to drag him out of the battlefield, which shez responds with "yeah sure no problem friend i will always be by your side dragging you out of a problem"(not actually what he/she says but similar) And I hated that, personally I wont drag him out of a battlefield he put himself in despite all his friends telling him to STOP doing that and taking care of himself. Apart from that I cannot follow a leader who focuses too much on the past and even though he helps his people and the kingdom a lot which I respect, there are things that are too much. When taking the Azure gleam route it feels as if im following someone who cant get their things together and would probably take me to MY doom if HE were to take a wrong turn. Also felix told him something I thought would shake him which was "Do you think the people that loved you and died protecting you would come back to torture you?" But in the end he said "Yes, BUT I am sad and thats my problem and something something about not forgiving himself". I was so disapointed when I heared that beacause even with an amazing agurment he still thinks THE SAME. 4. We finish a war knowing another one is coming. In other routes since both of them are fighting the church and the kingdom, once that is over peace would come. But in azure gleam once we finish fighting the empire and thales WE KNOW that another war is coming because of the same reason as the first one THE CHURCH. What I am trying to say is that in the other routes the church disappears and once the war ends fodlan will meet true peace faster. However, in Azure Gleam fighting the allience is something that will happen sooner or later because claude dislikes the church just like edelgard, so we would be fighting the same war AGAIN just because dimitri didn't want a fast change. And I do understand that due to the kingdoms relationship with the church its not that easy, But In the video it mentioned that dimitri Had the possibility to kick to church...so yeah. I did like playing this route but I don't believe its canon. I am sorry if it is hard to understand my point of view I may have explained myself wrong since I am not the best with english but I tried my best. I really like your videos and I hope to see more of them.
Your comment wasn't hard to understand, and thank you for the comment! You do have some fair points! I don't care for the church either which was the whole reason why I never played the Blue Lions route in Three Houses, so I was happy to see that Dimitri didn't blindly follow the church. Dimitri's mindset is definitely toxic, so I can understand how you sometimes didn't care for his character, but personally I forgive it because its mostly just trauma.
I'd argue it's actually the worst ending since the central church and Rhea get to stay in power meaning the status quo, which was the whole reason Edelgard started the war remains pretty much unchanged Sure,it seems like Dimitri will make some progress but what's stopping Rhea from just undoing it all after he passes away?
Rhea greatly respects Dimitri, like even in the ending she’s looking up to him in respect. With the way she gushes about Wilhelm it’s pretty clear she’ll do anything for those she respects wish, including stealing stuff from her fellows like Seteth, which Seteth forgave her…eventually.
Rhea does not interfere with the reforms of Dimitri and the rest of the lords in the game (nor did she interfere with Lambert). So she is no problem for Fodlan's change.
Rhea only kept the crest system because coming clean about what really happened would be outing the survival of her, Seteth, and Flayn to TWSITD. She didn’t like the crests, they were literally formed from a betrayal against her own race after all.
Bernadette is adorable in all her ships . I think the dev team is biased towards Dinitri and thus his route . Pretty wild how they just abandon Edelgard or take her as a prisoner of war at least.
The devopment team is far more biased towards Edelgard as they go out of there way to try and make her seem better then she is and that Conquest is a good thing. Claude is definitely the lord they hate the most as he gets the worse routes
@@4wheal you say that and yet there’s so much time and effort placed into the blue lion’s routes throughout both games. Yes she has a route however, her route was complete trash. Her route literally should’ve been the route that we got to take care of those to slither in the dark and got way more Lore and backstory, but her route barely was animated and left out so much so much shit it was embarrassing so I say no you’re wrong
Honestly I hated azure moon, however azure gleam shocked me buy how surprisingly good, congrats three hopes you actually got me to like dimitri, I didn’t think that was possible
Did you seriously play SS, CF, and VW in 3H but never AM? I cannot understand why you would go 3/4 but not 4/4 of those routes. You're missing so much from AG by playing it without AM. So many Easter eggs and character arcs coming full circle that you wouldn't have noticed.
Yeah, I played all of SS and CF but stopped after playing most of VW, I just didn't really have the time to finish VW (because life) and other games I wanted to play more had released by the time that I did have time 😭 I'm still trying to finish the other two because I hate that I'm missing out on a lot with both VW and AM
@Wrath9 I mean I cannot blame a person for not playing the entire FE3H game but you played every single 3 Hopes route. Makes it very weird to know that you never even played through the default routes of 3 Houses beforehand. Also AM is considered by many to be the best 3H route and since you enjoyed AG, it makes it even stranger that you never played AM.
The problem is that Dimitri wants to make everyone happy and that is not possible, true that slow changes have a better base but you don’t know what could happen in the future, sadly humanity is not that good, look our human history as example, at the end faster changes are the ones that end working even if you have to resolve problems afterwards.
The other problem with even the slow changes for Fodlan is Rhea. We have to remember that Rhea has a strong messiah complex, believing that humanity NEEDS her as they will make foolish mistakes without her guidance. And Rhea hasn't had her 3H redemption in non-CF routes where her imprisonment and realization of failures made her amend her ways. And Edelgard's war definitely didn't make Rhea exactly have a positive growth. If anything, it's more than likely to make Rhea keep a tighter leash now. Slow and steady changes is not bad at all. But mix that with a nigh-immortal dragon that doesn't trust humanity, and we are gonna have problems.
@@0axis771 Also I have a problem with Rhea and is that a lot of people defend her talking about the contradictions like Cyril, the comunicación with the outsiders and all of that is poor writing is obvious that the writers didn’t want to make Rhea a good person but they didn’t write well the dark side of the church so for example in 3 hopes new players that haven’t played 3 houses will be confused and even in 3 houses the things about the church aren’t explained well.
5:50 Shez was never preoccupied with getting Revenge period, NONE of the Routes even support this, so it’s not that surprising. 9:06 Dimitri had these same thoughts in the Blue Lions after killing Miklan, so no, it’s nothing new this Game did, other than make it more obvious. 19:08 Oh you didn’t know, we’ll let me tell you, Monica, Hubert, and Ferdinand are killed OFFSCREEN, Thales even alludes to having Hubert assassinated, and even dialogue in the Base Camp alluded to Hubert and Ferdinand being dead. Caspar is the ONLY Black Eagle that isn’t killed offscreen, or recruitable. Thus a reason why TWSITD in this route, is the WORST aspect of the Route. 20:40 Okay, with you saying that, I HAVE to ask, how much of Three Houses have you actually played? The fact that you said you didn’t play Azure Moon was already a Red Flag for me, but the fact that you don’t know about Jeralt’s Past, despite it being alluded to in the Chapter after Jeralt dies, but it’s also answered as to WHY Byleth has Sothis in his Head in Silver Snow and partially in the Cindered Shadows storyline. So if you only played Verdant Wind and then jumped into Three Hopes, I would probably be not so Negative in my comment.
Okay, I had no idea How I played this route, because I got a different ending. I guess is because I never recruited Byleth. I’ve auto spoiled this game very badly. I’m leaving now.
@@GoldenRose116 Nah, in 3houses His part 2 has no cohesion with part 1 and essentially explains nothing not related with Dimitri. CF and even VW manage to give characterization and development to the respective lord while also giving time to Byleth, the other students, world building and answering the questions set up in part 1
For Three Houses I think I read somewhere that Silver Snow is intended to be the "true route"? Honestly I don't think either game has a true route by any means, I mostly just dubbed it the true route for the video, and because it has the least amount of carnage (player deaths, etc) out of all the routes
Azure Gleam is my Fire Emblem Fates Revelation. I get why for some is the best outcome, but is my least favorite, it really bores me. I understand the feeling that recruiting Byleth in this route is more natural, but I didn't notice major changes, it feel like the same ending but with extra steps and I really didn't like that, I prefer the ""bad"" ending. Also, I'm not the biggest Edelgard fan, but it is frustrating how she ended up in AG, I prefer the OG Azure Moon, yeah sure, she died, but at least she gave her best, she died fight for what she believes, in Azure Gleam she ends up as a puppet from her worst enemy. Also, glad that you are giving Sylvain another chance, most people won't try because he is/was a womanizer, when actually is a pretty smart guy, probably smarter than Annette (shown in their 3Houses supports) he just doesn't bother to be someone, because he thought that no matter what he does, he would just be reduce as a trophy husband, to marry some woman who just wants him for power and have "crest babies" as Sylvain would say. He's also a really good unit
I totally understand what you mean, it isn't exactly an "exciting" ending, but I think personally its the best for all parties concerned you know? Even though I'm not done with Scarlet Blaze just yet, SB may end up being my actual favorite route depending on how it ends, but I still think my head canon route will still be Azure Gleam regardless lol. Sylvain's an insane unit, his Gordain Stroke ability is absolutely my favorite in the game too, hands down
@@Wrath9 I mean, is it though? AG ends with Edelgard being mentally degraded into a childlike state of mind and the empire in an absolute state of ruin. I feel like if anything, GW is probably the closest to an golden ending, especially since from the DLC onwards, it probably should be clear that even more than TWSitD really, Rhea has been the true villain of Fodlan.
Yeah I… just can’t like Azure Gleam what it did to the Black Eagles and Edelgard was crazy disrespectful imo and overall I just don’t support Dimitri and his ideals as much as the other lords. Faerghus is a pretty shitty kingdom and place to live that’s basically being attacked by all sides and imploding within itself from revolts. Realistically I don’t see it winning any wars and I don’t think it should be fighting them either.
@@Wrath9 Chivalry in theory vs. chivalry in practice. Loog's "chivalry" was Agarthan superweapons, while Klaus's "chivalry" was lying to the Leicester lords.
3 Houses/Hopes was never meant to be a conventional FE game. Azure Gleam is essentially: You want a conventional FE game? We'll give you a conventional FE game and then proceeds to squeeze in the already unconventional elements into the mold of convention, which, in my opinion, removed that which differentiated it from other FE games.
I don't know what it is, but when it comes to the blue lions, their Routes just feel the most boring to me in both games I always liked Edelgard's route more, especially in this game. That still doesnt mean i hate this one, i just didnt find it as interesting. That being said i am also strongly against the church, so maybe thats it.
The main reason(s) Dimitri is so heavily effected by the tragedy of duscar is because he was their and witnessed the death of his father and loved ones. He has survivors guilt, ptsd, and a plethora of other mental illnesses (especially in three houses), that in addition to his self sacrificing nature he really feels personally responsible for what happened and making up for it (despite being a child when it happened).
I think his reaction being so different and intense compared to everyone else is valid, since he was their and witnessed it first hand.
Yeah I feel like this is vitally important to know to understand Dimitri’s character. 😂
I feel like you’d really need to know Azure Moon’s story before Azure Gleam’s as it shows how characters like Felix, Dedue and Rodrigue are really supportive and not having Dimitri’s mentality solely up to Byleth. And that Eldritch horror of Edelgard. Kind of felt like fanservice ngl. And yes, Edelgard’s mother Anselma (Patricia) did turn on Lambhert and Dimitri and work with Cornelia.
Azure Moon (from the first game) covers a lot of things that are new to players who have played Gleam only not Moon. Such as the player knew a lot earlier of Ingrid’s engagement to Glenn (and explains why Ingrid is in a paralogue about Duscur with Dedue and Felix having their own reasons) and especially how Dimitri was affected by the Tragedy of Duscur, that he literally believes he sees the spirits of the dead and believe they force the burden of vengeance onto him. I guess Felix’s support with Dimitri is as good as you’re getting with an insight into Dimitri there
With why Caspar chose to side with the Empire, he said something along the lines of “Adrestia’s not gonna hold put for long if that’s how our Emperor’s looking”, meaning he wasn’t aware of the Thales mind control thing, but knew at the very least something’s up. He even considered defecting to the Kingdom and points out that (if) Linhardt is recruited (nice touch), but I think he chose to stay with his father even despite him telling Caspar he was too young to die.
33:56 and that’s one of my biggest gripes with this game. This game really loves to assume you’ve played Three Houses as Mercedes and Constance do have a support there… but not here. Why? My guess is because the writers love to assume you know their history and use that as an excuse to write supports with new pairs like with Mercedes and Lysithea or Caspar.
Seems like I really should go back and play Azure Moon after I finish Edelgard's route.
With Caspar I know he probably wouldn't be aware of Thales' mind control, but I still just don't believe he wouldn't switch sides even with his back against the wall, like I said in the video, that's not the Caspar I know at least..
Yeah, I know that not everyone should have supports with each other, but a big issue I have with this game is exactly what you said, some pairs that should have supports don't at all, and its really lame
@@Wrath9 honestly the funny thing about that is in hopes if you recruited Casper pre-time skip he's one of those units who auto joins you post time skip (Lorenz and Ashe are the only ones who don't I believe) and he actually will straight up tell you that the reason he is not on edelgards side is because he doesn't agree with what the empire and her are doing so it's weird that he can't be recruited in hopes given that houses made it clear that Casper was one of those characters (through his supports too) who was about justice and doing what was right. In crimson flower he like the others questions a lot of their doing the right thing during the route (I think scarlet blaze has this happening again but I havent played that route yet)so it's weird that he doesn't/can't be recruited they could have even locked him behind lindheart and needing him be alive/on the map to add weight on the recruitment requirements
Exactly! I just don't understand that, and I think locking him behind needing Lindhart would be an interesting thing to do
@@Wrath9 I had hope, and I get screwed over. When I see Jeritza as recruitable, it gave me hope
@@Wrath9 also not just Mercedes and Constance, but another big offender is Bernadetta and Yuri. From a Three Houses perspective, you know their history, but not if you haven’t played Three Houses. Just thought i’d bring that up
Jeralt's complications with Rhea have Everything to do with Byleth and their mother Sitri. Rhea was the midwife when Sitri gave birth. Because Sitri at the time was the latest of Rhea's attempts to revive Sothis, she was the best equipped to handle any complications. But alas, Byleth arrived Stillborn. In order to Save them, Rhea at Sitri's behest, removed Sothis Crest stone and transplanted it into Byleth. Saving them, but killing Sitri in the process. Additionally, the crest stone had its own adverse effects on Byleth. Depriving them of a beating heart and presumably of emotions. He didn't have the whole picture, but the after effects were more than enough to cause Jeralt to freak out and leave the knights of Seiros with an infant Byleth in tow even in spite of his apparent 300 years of service.
The problem with Claude's reasons for why he hates the church is that all of them are contradicted by the game itself:
*1)* Holst is the heir to house Goneril despite his sister Hilda carrying a Crest, so clearly the church doesn't care whether a Crest-bearer is put in charge or not.
*2)* Mercedes was given _sanctuary_ by the church to specifically escape a forced marriage, so it's blatantly untrue that the church are the ones forcing Crest-bearers to marry.
*3)* The isolationism part doesn't make sense when you consider that outside regions have been in contact with Fódlan for years, and there's no record of the church ever caring. In-fact, they outright help Dimitri with aiding Duscur despite him openly planning on making them independent again. There's also the fact that most of their neighbours have tried invading Fódlan, so obviously Fódlan would have a bad relationship with them.
And like you said, if two out of three nations can openly declare war on Rhea without any repercussions from the populace, then clearly Rhea doesn't have that much power in Fódlan to begin with, thus making Claude's vendetta against her entirely pointless.
Honestly out of three (regardless of whether its this game or Three Houses) Claude always has the weakest motivations of the three, and I feel like its purely because he's probably always the afterthought when writing the conflict between Edelgard and Rhea/Dimitri, though I don't agree that his vendetta is *entirely* pointless, it definitely is not anywhere near as justifiable as Edelgard's
@@Wrath9 That's true, I honestly think that the story would have worked better if Claude's path was removed altogether, and instead Dimitri and Edelgard's routes got more focus. Aside from the fantastic final chapters, I can't think of a single thing in VW that really puts it above the other routes.
I'm in the camp that doesn't believe Edelgard was very justified either, but I can at least _understand_ her motives, which do make sense from a ruthlessly pragmatic perspective (basically seize other nations to strengthen your own empire, and kill anyone in your way). With Claude in GW, his actions seem so contradictory to his end goal of ending xenophobia that I can't even understand how he rationalizes all the shit he does. In Houses he's a good guy, but he's also just kinda... there. Like, Dimitri does a better job of fighting racism than he does, and the story focuses more on it too, so Claude just ends up feeling pretty bare-bones and pointless imo.
Ironically VW was my favorite route the first time I played the game, though in hindsight I think the fantastic endgame and Claude being charming kinda blinded me to how weak the rest of the route is lol.
@@dobadobadooo Sorry I can tell you're white by how you're making this argument.
Anyways, Claude has the same vendetta as Edelgard. VW is meant to be the happy version of Silver Snow which is meant to be the true route of the game. VW is a Silver Snow where Claude's influence is deeply felt by Byleth and influences how they rule and the ending. It's called Verdant Wind because it's meant to be a Claude and Byleth route where Claude helps uplift Byleth (which is in stark contrast to Byleth lifting up Dimitri and Edelgard in their routes)
Notice how Byleth's focus at the end of Silver Snow is on reconstruction because they never picked up an ideology. In VW, Byleth and Claude grew a relationship and Byleth's focus isn't just on reconstruction but on helping Claude create a world free of oppression and accepting of everyone. That's because of Claude's influence. Verdant Wind is actually the only route where everything gets a real clean slate between the Church, Faerghus, Leicester and Adrestia being torn down and the history of the world revealed. They say as much in the ending narration which is a stark contrast to the Silver Snow ending narration. It's the actual dawn of a new world unlike the other routes hence Byleth's title in that route is "Ruler of Dawn" whereas in the rest Byleth is either "Guardian of Order"(AM), Wandering Flame (SS) or Wings of the Hegemon (CF)
That's why people call Silver Snow a first draft or don't play it because Verdant Wind does everything better than Silver Snow besides the Edelgard betrayal but that's not done well in SS either so it barely matters anyway.
And no, Dimitri doesn't do a better job of fighting racism than Claude does if we're comparing House. In AM, Dimitri's story doesn't focus at all of Duscur. It focuses on his atonement after he gets worse. In VW, Claude makes efforts in-story to get people to meet and have Almyra join forces with Leicester to build camaraderie between the forces. Claude never stops talking about the racism angle
Hopes is meant to be cut content for Houses which is why AG actually focuses on addressing the Duscur stuff and TWSITD more because that was ignored in AM and why GW focuses on Claude's conflict with the Church and an alliance with Edelgard and a hostile half-sibling because that stuff was seeded in Hoouses.
Anyways, the beauty of Claude is meant to be in how flexible and his range. Claude can go anywhere from attacking the Empire to attacking the Church to attacking Faerghus because ultimately Claude is an opportunist but a rare version of a reactive one.
@@star-kittlesandrenbows2851 Okay dude, you really want to make this a race thing? I'm gonna try to be nice here, but that is legit one of the worst ways to open a conversation I think I've ever seen.
I don't hate VW for the record, like I said it was my favorite route for a good while. But in hindsight it's just not a very interesting story, and Claude's way of ending racism just boils down to "let both sides meet" (which is hilariously naivé), especially considering all the shit Almyra has done and never apologized for. By comparison Duscur is treated with a lot of solemnity by the BL-cast, and even by the end it never gets forgotten or handwaved away, though AG definitely does a better job focusing on it.
Despite its flaws I'd still say VW is probably the second-best route in Houses, because at least it doesn't try to glorify imperialism and tyranny like CF does, and it doesn't feel as half-assed as SS. But overall it just kinda feels like an afterthought when compared to the other routes. GW feels more unique, but it also suffers from making Claude much worse so Edelgard can look good in comparison. Like, hearing _her_ try to talk _Claude_ out of a violent solution is so hilariously ooc it could almost be a skit.
@@dobadobadooo it seems to me yours, and everybody’s problem with edelgard is her alleged betrayal, but you can’t betray somebody you were never really worth in the first place or is it more so that she started a war, which yes, I can agree. War is bad we all can, but even if she didn’t start, the war twisted would’ve started the war them damn selves. at the end of the day, there was a shit ton of killing on every side, especially in the original game rhea was wiping out villages and people. Dimitri was slaughtering children and women but it’s just crazy how because Dimitri apologize it makes it all better.
Regarding Dimitri's Stepmom, she wasn't an Agarthan. She was manipulated by Cornelia into thinking that king Lambert (Dimitri's dad) kept Edelgard away from her. So the whole "she helped kill the king to see Edelgard again" is actually true.
And the whole Edelgard monster thing is a form she takes at the end of Azure Moon called Hegemon Edelgard. In that game she does it to herself willingly cause she is losing the war. It's to show that she is so determined to reach her goal, she is willing to turn herself into an inhuman monster.
That does make sense that Cornelia manipulated her, I just didn't want to jump to that conclusion.
Interesting, she can do that at will? I need to play Azure Moon now 😂
@@Wrath9 Not so much do it at will, more she let's herself get corrupted, like Miklan, on purpose, because the kingdom army is right outside the palace. It's the final boss instead of Rhea or Nemesis.
@@Wrath9 there's enough application that those that slither in the dark actually did get their promise to Edelgard Mother.... but in the worst way possible.. I forgot the source.. but in order For Edelgard to survive the crest implant/Ritual.. They sacrifice Edelgard Mother needing Her Blood. That could be one of the reasons why Edelgard lost her memories.. it's possible that she's saw her mother get butchered..
Imagine The Cruel and Tragic irony Tragic.. She Betrayed Her Husband and Step Son... Arghtneas Bring her to Edelgard... Only To Kill Her as soon as she's reunited with her Daughter.
Based on the scenes on TH-cam Dimtri battle conversation with Thales Gets You thinking on The Theory.. there could be more hints and evidence but I'm not sure
That's awful if that's the case, I wouldn't want to remember that either
@@Wrath9 Like, yeah, no, I have to disagree with the entire premise. Azure Gleam is clearly the route that was more of an afterthought and the less developed, which can be seen by how the plot basically just drops massively in quality and consistency from the midway point onward, because the entire setup of 3 Hopes gives the Blue Lions little in terms of win conditions, Claude siding with Edelgard by default for example and Rhea being much more unambigiously a Villain who Dimitri ends up abandoning in the other routes.
Like, the entire second half of the game just stops making sense, as its just not really believable that Aegir and Thales could just willy nilly take over the empire, considering them having been already fully exposed at the start of the game. The route also suffers under not making any sense anymore in the case you recruit Byleth, looking at how they just glossed over the implications of Rhea being united with Byleth as well as Dimitri learning that Edelgard has been mindcontrolled in the Zahras Chapter, which is glossed over and ignored afterwards.
Like, I know its shit for people who prefer the Blue Lions, but the entire games alternative universe was clearly written to benefit the Black Eagles Route the most, Edelgard saving Monica and rebelling against Thales immediately being the central differenciation, which drops her entire villainous role which 3 Houses was strongly build upon. There is a case to be made for Claudes Golden Wildfire Route being the closest to a Golden End of the Route, was Claude decides to overthrow the Church but afterwards focus on being a mediator between Empire and Kingdom.
There is also the issue of Azure Gleams final Cutscene framing it as the worst ending. The entire continent of Fodlan is now again under Rheas firm control, who never underwent the character development she would have in the Silver Snow Ending where she has A-Support with Byleth, and the final shot makes it clear that Claude does feel hostility towards her and that at some point, he will start the war again to overthrow her. Due to 3 Hopes unambigiously framing Rhea as a villainous character, her being the default final boss of the game, supporting Rhea to supress Edelgard and Claudes Rebellion is also a strong push to reestablish the entire status quo of Fodlan.
And its a shame. The first half of Azure Gleam was good, but its clear that they ran out of ideas and had no clue how to make Dimitri win afterwards, so they just went the most lazy and flat route possible, while throwing alot of shades against the Blue Lions as a whole.
Btw, you don't have to kill caspar, if his father shows up before defeating Caspar, Leopold tells him to retreat and he doesn't die
In regards to your thoughts on Claude and Dimitri's differences in the secret chapter and how the people of Faerghus may or may not care about the church, I think it's important to be aware of the cultural differences between Leicester and the Kingdom. Because good lordy are they VAST.
In GW, it works out for Claude that Leicester seems okay with taking out Rhea because the nation is honestly quite removed from the religion. Their church is nothing like the Western or even the Southern variants. They don't even have thoughts about Rhea...the ARCHBISHOP. That should speak volumes.
Faerghus is an entirely different can of worms. The Church, be it Western or Central, has played an integral part in its history: whether it's the country's very own independence or any sort of diatribe/religious war they've gone through (Looking at you Duscur and Sreng.). A King's legitimacy can be questioned if the church doesn't okay it. That's major imo.
I'm not saying Dimitri or Claude are right/wrong per se. After all, it's not really much of an argument when both sides fundamentally agree. I just think that Dimitri's caution/more surgical approach of slowly pulling the Church's influence out of the Kingdom is more mindful of his people. Claude's methods are like a sledgehammer to the whole thing that would turn the people's lives on their heads IF his country was anything like Dimitri's.
Same endgame goals, different road maps.
More like a junkie stopping, cold turkey. The Empire, despite being the country where the Central Church was founded, no longer needs the Central Church. The Federation (not to be confused with the Alliance) was never on that drug, while the Kingdom is like the one who addicted that getting rid of it will cause possibly lethal withdrawal convulsions. Dimitri himself admits that the right of kinghood in the Kingdom is based purely on the Archbishop's pleasure. In other words, in theory, the Archbishop can remove that approval. That makes the Kingdom the Central Church's puppet.
@@DarkAdonisVyers I wouldn't go to that extreme. If the Kingdom is the Central Church's so called "puppet", they're doing a terrible job of pulling the strings. To just use Claude's arguments as an example, the foreign relations talking point simply does not work. Not only are you talking to the man who chose to make a man of Duscur his vassal, but is actively working to repair relations while also helping them be independent. The "Crest-forced obligations" doesn't hold a lot of water either. Dimitri is not only working over the two years to reshape the social structure of the Kingdom, but his personal army is captained by a Crest-less commoner, as was his wish. I doubt he's going to stop with just that.
Forced marriages? Kinda flimsy. Ingrid and Mercedes obviously come to mind, and yet here they are, risking their lives in the Kingdom Army DESPITE their father's wishes of just getting married off.
This game really does not do a sufficient job of setting up the Church to be some evil, manipulating faction... if that's even the goal? Honestly, after playing all three routes, I'm just not convinced.
@@evansimpson8216 1. Dedue is a survivor of a nearly destroyed country, so that's not quite the best example.
2. A captain of a private army isn't that high of a position. It's basically a permanent merc job.
3. Regardless of how they do in said war, they're still getting married.
I also said that the Central Church _can_ do so. This right exists, regardless of whether or not they exercise that right.
@@DarkAdonisVyers Hoo boy. I don't really wanna get in the weeds but here we go..
1. Duscur's destruction was not the doings of the church but an organized coup of Western Lords, Empire/Argarthans, and SOME of those in Duscur. The Church stepped in when the Kingdom was in ruin, executed folks (some wrongly accused of the Tragedy) and left. DEFINITELY wrong for doing that, no argument there, but in doing so they stopped shit from getting even worse. They were the least involved party and if supports are anything to go off of, they're actively providing aid, even if they're not believers. (Dedue/Catherine supports)
2. I'd say the Captain of the KING OF FAERGHUS's own army is a pretty high position. Especially given how militant Faerghus is, for better or for worse. Dimitri knew when he offered Shez the position that it would send ripples down the social system and show that things are changing.
3. Except when they don't? Are we disregarding the ending cards of these characters in Three Houses? Unless you lose them pre-timeskip, I don't think there's a single character that abides by this forced marriage concept. "Still getting married" needs a bit more nuance. It almost sounds like you're saying that paired endings are a bad thing?
"Can" doing something vs "would" is a different kind of argument here. I get what you're saying, and I agree to an extent. It's a theory that can be true in a vaccuum, but you'd be ignoring any sort of context and past history of the game to make a claim. Rhea COULD make all of her Knights of Seiros be heavily religious and make anyone who receives her aid bend to the doctrine of the church, but she wouldn't/doesn't, just to give an example.
@@evansimpson8216 1. I'm just talking about the fact that the only reason that Dedue ended up serving Dimitri is because of said Tragedy. Without that, he would have probably worked with his father as a blacksmith.
2. Well, it is an individual's private army, not the public army of the Kingdom. Paramilitary and all that.
3. I meant that barring specific endings clarifying otherwise, it's implied that the political marriages still go through. That's why Ingrid is still worrying about that, even as she is in the Kingdom army.
4. "I have a gun to the back of your head. Don't worry. I won't ever pull the trigger." doesn't sound very good, does it?
I was underwhelmed by Azure Gleam but after playing the other two routes, Azure Gleam and just Dimitri's stories in general are really the best ones!
That’s umm, not a good sign.
I started off with GW and was disappointed halfway through. I was in particular, disturbed with Claude’s decision to align with the Empire - just after they invaded Leicester.
It is akin to Russia aligning with Germany in WW2 after being invaded by them.
If they wanted to stick to the Claude’s anti church narrative, they could have let Claude align with the Kingdom first, and slowly towards the end, once the Kingdom and Empire had worn each other down, Leicester enters the fray, taking out the church and the empire in one fell sweep.
@@Saicofake So basically you are just bitter that Claude would allign with Edelgard over Dimitri, thats all.
@@shizachan8421no, it is because Claude makes zero sense in hopes
@@GoldenRose116 Because he fights against the church, when in Houses he already hates the church, as it is the primary villain of the game behind every single characters trauma and suffering.
This is a hidden detail but randolph mentioned hubert was assassinated off screen when talking to jeralt
I actually loved seeing a review of this route from someone who hasnt experienced azure moon! Its so nice seeing a completely fresh take on these characters and their stories!
I actually feel it works against the review. Azure moon was drastically different than the other route because the main lord went thru the largest transformation. I think both dimitri routes are the best three houses/hopes has to offer, and both for their narrative reasons.
@@lk5388 It means that we're getting a perspective we don't normally see, which *I* think is a good thing.
9:04 yeah Dimitri definitely voices his disdain for the crest system in 3 Houses as well, but it’s only alluded to in a story scene in part 1, maybe a couple supports, and in some endings
That's something that I really like about him. He makes it clear under no uncertain terms that he hates the current system and fully supports Edelgards reforms. He completely agrees with the world she wants to build, he just disagrees on the means by which she is building it. He believes in long-term, systemic reform, not the violent revolution she has instigated
@@nathanlane6668Yup whereas she thinks the ends justify any means. He does not and that’s why he’s the good one.
AM really gives good insight into many of the things that you mentioned not knowing, as well as giving a great contrast between AM and AG Dimitri.
Ferdinand is implied dead, so he never saw what happened regarding his father (even if he was alive, he's still missing/gas been missing for a while by this point). Hubert is outright expressed by Randolph to be dead (killed by the Alliance apparently).
Poor Ferdinand he deserved better 😭
Ferdinand von Aegir is Ferdinand von Dier.
@@eugene9211 Ferdinand never dies!
The Faerghus citizenry in the East will want Claude’s head precisely because it was the Central Church that helped support them when Dimitris uncle ruled. Most of the bandit attacks we saw in White Clouds were in the Kingdom, and it was the Church that dealt with them.
That’s why one NPC on GW speculates if they aren’t consumed by the Western Church due to how racist and xenophobic the West Church are, they’ll create a Northern Church to continue Rheas legacy. And that’s not even touching on the implied inevitable Religious wars that will follow over what Church will claim Garreg Mach and thus be the “True” Church, which is why Edelgard has the S. church stationed there.
Sounds like the Central Church is rather influential.
Your analysis of Three Hopes has been my favorite so far, and I would definitely luv another one on Egelgard's route!
Thank you, that means a lot! 💜 And I definitely will be making one for Edelgard's route!
When Dimitri told Claude in AG/SB that he agree with him on a personal level that he wants to get rid of the Church of Seiros, but can't because he's king and have a duty toward his people, who are deeply reliant on Seiros' teachings, i feel bad for him. He also told Claude that had he not be King, they could have been good friends. I mean, you really have to feel for Dimitri.
He even admit to Rodrigue and the others that, personally, he agrees with Edelgard's ultimate goal. But because he's King, and that the kingdom and it's subjects are deeply reliant on the Archbishop to function normally, he have no choice but to endure.
I kinda feel like it really shows that Dimitri, while being a good and moral man, is kind of a weak king. He really can't follow his own convictions and instead remains a pure slave of tradition and the traditional institutions of the Kingdom, which also includes the aristocracy and the crest system, while Edelgard and Claude have the bravery of sailing into uncharted water and chose the maybe risky route into something that can be better over the safe and well-known bad status quo.
@@shizachan8421Expect that Dimitri basically putting more work into there own goals and the Kingdom is moving forward faster with the church.
@@4wheal It doesn't though. It is the most church alligned state in Fodlan and it seems to be the most backwards one, Adrestia already having an advanced bureaucracy and centralized state and Leicester seems to be basically a mercantile nobles republic, that in Hopes is about to transition into a democratic Monarchy, Claude stating that his sucessor will be elected by the people.
Azure Gleam is objectively the worst outcome in Hopes, if you value modernity, because Dimitri is ultimately opposed to any hard reforms, touching the crested nobility or diminishing the influence of the church. Generally two out of three routes in Hopes makes it clear that while ugly, Rheas death is a necessity to enforce change in Fodlan. Not to forget that with Faerghus deeper lore, we can only wonder whether or not an adrestian genocide and displacement may take place, as this seems to be Faerghus common tactic of war.
@@shizachan8421 Adrestia is heavily impilled and is sexist as seen that females are far less likely to inherit power and there family's will be destroyed if there are only female heirs and the lord is dead. Examples of this are Constance and Mercedes' original nobel family's that were removed when they were the last heirs.
It is also the most corrupt with the most backwards system that Edelgard doesn't actually change as Hopes shows she still favours the nobility, and Houses had lords still keep there postions and titils and pass them along there blood lines.
And even if you do believe that Edelgard changes will happen, they will take a long time by her own words and who is to say her successors will resect what she wanted to do.
Claude claims that I one surport, but his actions in his route show the opposite as when he hints down and kills people that decide they didn't want him as their king. Basically, he says one thing, but his actions show him doing the opposite.
Faerghus was actually changing under Dimitri rule, and it was actually moving at a faster rate than the Empire as more commoners were entering higher postions he was moving to create free education to give the commoners more of a voice.
He was working on limited the need of Crests and they are plenty of surports talking about the changes happing.
This was also done with Rhea surport, and the church were not against them at all, just like how she didn't get involved with Edelgard reforms.
This makes sense as the Church openly preaches equality and tries to teach this at the Academy, and their faith is actually anti Crest abuse, aka the so-called crest system.
@@shizachan8421 I 1 hundred percent agree and this is why I also feel like the hate for el is for the most part just is surface level hate yes el started the war but it was a necessary evil. All the lords are in agreement that the land needs to change, but it seems like everybody just couldn’t do it, or didn’t want too or was too afraid to, but as you can see all the Lords agree that Rea needs to go down. She literally has people thinking the goddess is still alive and technically she’s not, even more so after byleth merges with her, and even if he didn’t merge with her, she’s in a state where she can’t talk to people, answer, prayers, or do anything for the people. They are affectively just wasting their lives away praying to her The church is literally designed or rather it was made and designed to hide her mom‘s corpse. and to trick people into worshiping her
Playing Azure Moon in houses would definitely help fill a lot of holes for you. A lot of the story and lore revelations that surprised you were already touched on before, like the stepsibling thing, Ingrid and Glenn, and Sylvain’s change of character. And yeah I’m a bit upset about the lack of supports as well. I’m happy Annette and Constance got some and that we got the paralogue, but Constance lacking supports with Mercedes AND Emile is just blasphemy. Those 2 are huge parts of her character development and childhood. Not to mention how important her supports with Edelgard and Ferdinand in Houses were as well. She does still have unique dialogue with all these people but it still kinda stings. No Yuri and Bernie supports either 🥲
Yeah I think after I finish all three routes I should go back to Three Houses and play Azure Moon. But that all kinda makes sense, because I used Ingrid in Silver Snow and I think I remember her talking about Glenn once or twice but I don't think I ever got the context of Glenn being Felix's brother.
I agree its super weird, that Constance is missing so many supports, I think her and Hapi have the least out of all of them, it feels like Yuri is literally the only one out of the Ashen Wolves who has a bunch of supports, and Yuri is still lacking a handful of important ones that I think he should have, mainly with Dorothea. When I noticed that he didn't have one with her in Scarlet Blaze it made me really upset.
P.S. I'm glad I'm not the only one who's bothered by no Yuri and Bernie supports 😂
Hey if it makes you feel any better about the Caspar part he doesn’t actually have to die. If you hold off on fighting him until after Count Bergliez spawns in he will order Caspar to retreat to which he complies.
I agree with his unrecruitability in this game not really fitting his character as he has his own very strong sense of justice. It’s made especially weird by the fact that Caspar is pretty much an essential recruitment for Azure Moon in Three Houses as you need him to get Mercedes’ paralogue which has the most relevance to that route and actually unlocks a special scene between Mercedes and Emile.
Yeah this is another element that makes me like the Blue Lions route the most. There are no mandatory student deaths unlike scarlet blaze where you have to kill Ingrid at the very least which sucked.
But Hubert dies off-screen and Ferdinand is MIA
@@ClaudevonRiegan_ Ferdinand Never dies!
@@ClaudevonRiegan_ oh snap I missed that. That’s sad :(
Finally, someone calls out this. I was super confused when he said Caspar dies, as I accidentally triggered the “spare Caspar” mechanic, so didn’t know he even could die
People seem to shit on Azure Gleam because of Edelgarde being turned into a puppet. It seems people are either disgusted at it because it looks like someone's sick fantasy of a fat guy (Duke Aegir) controlling the cute/sexy girl AND/OR they claim it invalidates Edelgarde's character. IMO this story makes a lot of sense as TWSITD don't come into the story until Edelgarde is actually about to lose to Dimitri. Then they turn her into the Hedgemon Husk to nuke both armies and use it as blackmail while also mind controlling Edelgarde because now they see her as a failure. It's why they hand over the Empire to Duke Aegir because he will follow their orders. They don't ruin her character, it's more like it is her punishment for starting this war. I do think some improvements could be made to the route like having Hedgemon Husk be an actual boss and have the rest of the Black Eagles react to the mind controlled Edelgarde. Still it beats the nightmare of a story that Golden Wildfire has.
Honestly Edelgard is my favorite leader out of the 3 of them, and seeing her like that didn't make me feel like any of those things, it just made me feel bad for her/wanna protect her and hate Duke Aegir/Thales more, more than anything 😂
And yeahhhh, it feels weird because I did my review for Golden Wildfire first, and after finishing Azure Gleam, and now that I'm playing Scarlet Blaze, I dislike the second half of Golden Wildfire more and more than I did originally, because as you said its just a nightmare, I don't understand how they managed to get a greenlight for that mess
The war was necessary. If your country runs on the Church giving your king "divine right to rule", then you don't really have a country.
The thing is,it just hurts to see Edelgard fail so hard in azure gleam and her efforts amount to nothing in the end
For all the love I have for character development and all the character relationship's progression in AG, It has one of the most disapponting ending and story progression especially in the 2nd part of the game.
Why? COZ NOTHING change. Rhea didn't even get to have any chara development!
You can make the character address the Crest problems all you want. Saying radical change will cost riot all you want but the truth is barely anything change in the end of AG aside from the decline of the empire.
As the Church's savior, Dimitri could have demanded more reformation of the religion at least regarding crest-less inheritance but he just has to be a good boi to the point I'm starting to root for Claude post-AG route to get rid of the Chruch which is less likely to happen considering his millitary strength.
Personally, Edelgard getting mind -controlled is actually refreshing. But how they made Ferdinand, Hubert implied dead offscreen then proceed give the empire unjust, chaotic governance to justify the kingdom's invasion is annoyingly anticlimatic
Oh and in case you forgot this.
Making Edelgard temporarily regain her mind during the jointed Zahras chapter and then conveniently turn back to a doll after that has to be the sloppiest writing of FEW3H.
Want more? For a person who willingly unwisely ready to sacrifice himself in order to keep his citizens safe (despite the fact that it will bring more chaos to The kingdom if he die) and keeping Rufus alive even after multiple attempted assasinations from the guy coz he is one of Dimitri's last kin, There is NO WAY he's going to walk out on Edelgard on the last cutscene.
It's SO effing OOC especially with so many hints she might be under mind-control throwing at him.
Honestly, I've only seen those complaints come from Edelgard's fans who can't accept her losing prominence. Edelgard being controlled makes a lot of sense and allows Thales to become the villainous protagonist for once. I also tell you that people exaggerate with how good Edelgard was as an antagonist in AM (she barely has any involvement in the route).
I also agree that AG!shez > Any route shez, theyre really cute with their concern over the lions ♡
Nah, I prefer GW Shez's comments with Claude about chivalry being stupid, rather than buying into that big lie here.
@@DarkAdonisVyers so would you also agree that a shez that says "hardly, I came to reigan territory expecting steady work from your house " (Shez when regarding the lack of work in GW, which is a good thing considering it means the allaince is peaceful) and "hey , I just work here --but youre gonna make a good trophy for the emperor" (to Claude, Scarlet Blaze) is better than a shez that actively supports and shows concern over their friends in AG - not only in supports but also cutscenes
Also Dimitri, Felix and even Ashe knows about how chivalry is a sham (as seen in Dimitri-Ashe support) so shez aint special .
@@reversequeen838 Funny, because in SB, Shez talks about how the Empire pays the most, while in GW, Shez talks about how the Alliance always pays on time. Meanwhile, Shez says nothing of the sort in AG. Apparently, chivalry somehow can make up the difference from a lacking or overdue payment.
@@DarkAdonisVyers once again tho, chivalry has nothing to do with it. I , in my person opinion, view it more of Shez growing more attached to the lions as people and friends. The fact of the matter is Shez isn’t a knight- they’re a valued general of their own right. As such, I do think they do get paid but never really mention it as often because they’re constantly moving (since they had to help stop constant skermishes and bandit attacks). Also if you don’t believe that Shez has grown to care about the lions- they still get paid (as shown in the seteth - flayn paralogue where they mentioned that they can’t take too long since their actual employers will need them). Additionally , even if the general job isn’t paying them well- Shez offered their own service to Ingrid despite knowing Galatea isn’t known for their resources.
@@reversequeen838 I mean, of course, they're getting paid, but it's just not as impressive as the employment of the other nations.
you must have never done blue lions in the og 3h if you don't know what that is edelgard turns into. Also, I don't get why people keep saying rhea and the church are the ones enforcing the "crest system", I'm PRETTY sure it's the nobles creating a system out of it, Rhea just places crests in high regard and nobles created a class out of it in order to gain special treatment from the church in exchange for crest users. Idk why everyone is so determined to kill rhea, or tempted to betray her either.
Thats simple. The church is against trade or even peace with any of the territories outside of Fodhlan, which is contrary to Claude's goal, as so he opposes it. Edelgard also seems to think that the church was directly involved with the civil wars which created the kingdom and the alliance, and a bunch of other stuff which she provides no source or evidence for, so she wants to kill them. Edelgard's motivations for opposing the church feel asinine and the least justified of any of the cast, but that's just my opinion.
@@eugene9211 I agree with the edelgard one. Claude's issue seems to mainly be a diversity thing like you said. Still don't think Rhea deserves it though.
@@Lordlos9 Agreed. People are oversimplifying the church. Within three houses at least, unless you're playing crimson flower the church only ever acts in self defense. Sure, there's some immoral stuff they do like Rhea performing human experimentation which would ultimately result in at least one innocent woman's death, but they still actively shelter homeless children, fight off brigands, and maintain the peace. They're not purely good or purely evil, and pretending otherwise is dumb.
@@eugene9211 I mean, Edelgards motivations are supported by basically everything we learn about the church in three houses through dialogues with various NPCs and ingame books. Like, the Abyss is an entire Ghetto established by the church to force their undesirables to live underground. Its more that Rhea fans chose to ignore every bit of information that paints the church as bad and people not being able to grasp that a corrupt religious institution can still be presented as nuanced. Claude basically confirming every accusation against the church by Edelgard should be enough to show that her position seems to not come out of nowhere, but through the experiences of somebody living in Fodlan.
@@shizachan8421 Most of the information demonizing the church came out in DLC and three hopes. The worst that the church does in the base game outside of Crimson Flower is execute people who tried to kill their leader, and be involved in Rhea's inhumane experiments to recreate her mother. Even then the church is shown as morally grey in that it goes out of its way to shelter children who had lost their homes in wars while employing knights who protect the demesnes of Fodhlan while asking, presumably, nothing in return from those they protect.
But that's not why I dislike Edelgard's motivations. Edelgard's entire thing is that she was tortured as a child by those who slither because of her crest. And that somehow makes her believe that the crest system, and the church as a whole, is evil. And that somehow motivates her to lead an entire war against the rest of Fodhlan which kills countless people while working with the people that tortured her and are abjectly evil. Instead of just, you know... Hunting and killing those who slither, who were actually responsible for most of what's wrong with the continent now. Her motivations are contrived and silly.
11:19 Glad I wasn’t the only one who noticed Felix wielding his sacred weapon *before* you can actually obtain it.
Pretty much this:
Azure Gleam
>Blue (Azure Gleam aka Blue Fire) is the color of FE good guys, Red (Scarlet Blaze) are bad guys, and Yellow (Golden Wildfire) are alternate bad guys.
>Lord character promotes to Great Lord
>Avatar Character is basically “the Robin” to Dimitri’s “Chrom”.
>Byleth originally came from Church of Seiros while being the reincarnation of Sothis and Jeralt is a Son of Faerghus who was a Knight of Seiros
>Able to recruit almost literally every single recruitable character (almost all of Golden Deer are given to you without the need for recruitment) including all the Church units.
>You retain the highest amount of route exclusive characters.
>Mercedes can even bring over the Death Knight to your side.
>Claude never betrays you, despite his hatred for Rhea
>Get some Wilhelm and Saint Lore from Rhea
>You don’t have to kill Caspar, he can retreat safely; only Ferdinand and Hubert “disappear” off screen.
>Edelgard is spared, and reverts back to her innocent El
>Dimitri absolutely destroyed those that Slither in the Dark, and Rhea lives.
>The combined might of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, the Leicester Federation and the Church of Seiros leads to a forgone conclusion that the war will end soon with Adrestian Empire in shambles.
The one route that gains the most clarity of the lore, the Blue Lions retain standard FE story and is by far the best ending for Fódlan. Dare I say:
Blue Lions is the Golden route. No DLC needed.
The way this ending treats Edelgard is so depressing. It’s obvious by that point that Thales’ spell changed her mind in some way back into what it was when her and her real uncle were hiding away in Faerghus and Edie and Dimitri were friends. Current Edelgard almost completely blocks out her past and that Dimitri was that friend growing up, but while under the spell, she knows full well who that is and even calls him “Dee”. And then Dimitri just WALKS AWAY. He deactivated his weapon after she said that but after that we have no clue what becomes of her. Is the spell broken soon after? Is she imprisoned, let go, or executed? Is she just left under the spell to keep her innocence? Is she able to rule the empire anymore? Does Dimitri just keep her with her mind in that state to keep her from her trauma?
I think its implied that after he leaves Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude end up conquering the rest of the Empire, so I think she just gets promoted to citizen, because he has no reason to kill her and especially doesn't at that point, or probably is just left to rule Hresvelg territory.
And I'm pretty sure she would just be left in that new mindstate, I don't think Dimitri would do it on purpose, more for the lack of them having any way to remove it, but I didn't even notice that she was reverted to a younger self or something actually, thank you for pointing that out. But yeah it is pretty depressing, but I'm just glad she's alive 😂
@Wrath9 Personally I'd rather be dead than having my life's work wiped away and mentally regressed to a 6 year old
@@Wrath9 Tbh, Azure Gleam seems pretty much like the downer ending of Three Hopes. For people who like all three Lords, Golden Wildfire seems to be supposed to be the Golden Ending, as Rheas grip on Fodlan ends, but Claude makes the choice to not conquer the Kingdom and instead use his position to negotiate peace between the three nations. Scarlet Blaze is more if a continuation and improvement on Crimson Flower, which was the secret unlockable happy ending of Three Houses in which Byleth regains their humanity, by getting to deal with both central antagonists of the Duology, Thales and Rhea, at once and overcoming both the church and those who slither in the dark. Meanwhiole, Azure Gleam ends with Edelgard being emotionally crippled and the ending outright stating, that Dimitri will go on destroying the empire, which as we know from the greater Lore of Faerghus will probably mean the slaughter of its citizens and resettling it with people from Faerghus, as was done with Sreng and Duscur. Not to forget that it ends with Dimitri having fully become Rheas pawn who now rules supreme over Fodlan, which might indicate that we will see her continueing her schemes to revive Sothis as she never went through her development in Silver Snow and the strong implication that Claude will go on to betray them at the end, as he is the only one free from Rhea standing.
@@shizachan8421 woah, I rarely meet people who consider CF to be a happy ending. To me it has always been a bad ending or genocide-ish run as most people you love die in this route and the agressor who started an unprovoked war wins. It's also created a country where I personally wouldn't want to live in politically-wise. As for Byleth, it's true but I play Byleth as being me and I would glafly sacrifice my life or happiness for the future and citizen of my country, so I consider this to be nothing but a selfish desire. I personally was happy with the end of AG as even Edelgard is alive though in a bad state, but ist her own fault as she sided with evil people for selfish reasons
@@loyal_dogs Which spects of Edelgards Ideals makes it a country where you wouldn't want to live in? Like, do you assume that if you were born in Fodlan, you would be a member of the crested upper class? What if you wouldn't be? What if you were like Dorothea, who was kicked out on the streets for not having a crest?
I don't know man, the fact that you consider not having an eugenics based feudal state under the control of an authoritarian fake church in which a genocide was allowed to happen in Faerghus with nobody ever caring about who perpetrated it makes you look like a bad person.
Also the ending cards of CF are kind of better. You can compare them, in multiple endings in CF point out how the main characters kids are free of their parents inheritance to forge their own destiny, how true peace has been archieved, Alois gets to be a farmer and family man never to touch his sword again, Fodlan is so safe that there is no mercenary work left to do outside of tavern security and monster hunting and Manuela & Hanneman starting to teach kids practical subjects in Garreg Mach, instead of just fighting and killing.
Like, I really don't know. It just sounds really shocking to me that you rather live in a system in which ones rank in society is based on chance and genetics instead of one, where everyone gets education and everybody gets the chance to become what they want.
Like Edelgard even invents disability-friendly work culture, creating a position tailor made for Linhardt so that he can put his talents to use to his best ability, for the best of society. Considering how ADHD or autism coded Linhardt is, I feel like that should be something we should have in real life even. Creat work environments that benefit neurodiverse people and allow them to be productive under their own conditions and comforts.
AG is by far the best written route after playing all paths, SB is my 2nd fav while GW is last. AG shows the entricate relationships between childhood friends unlike other paths where the characters are not connected at all to each other, the dads/senior generals in the kingdom are very involved & have great characterization, the inner politics of the kingdom are very interesting to learn & we get a deep dive into them, so many things happen at once while Dimitri smartly navigates through them & trying to keep citizens safe, Dimitri's character is deep & very likeable, probably also has the best supports between the lords.
AG has the most recruitable characters, most paralogues & coolest cutsceness, it is the only path to actually kill the real problem in Fodlan; Thales so yeah it is the best ending in game. Ofc there's the traditional blue kingdom fights evil red empire invasion while hunting the cult truly responsible for the evil in continent while also showing religion/church is not all good nor all bad but can be reformed, so it is basically similar to all past FE games with blue lords.
Not to mention it is the only path that set the most reforms on ground:
- free education, social & health supports
- allows commoners/crestless ppl to attain high positions & to participate in the government
- gives independance to Duscur
Last thing I'll say is the few ppl hating on AG are literally 99.9% Edelgard stans who think she has to be a focal point in other paths & hate how she became a puppet which is stupid. The main focal point in AG other than the actual kingdom & its characters, is the Slitherers/Thales not Edel. I loved what happened to Edel here & think it was done really well considering how she never allied with the Slitherers so they bite her in the ass since in AG she has noone; not Shez or Alliance or Slitherers, so her hubris caught up to her. Also the whole point about Edel losing her memory is integral to her plot/experimentation & her mother as well, since both characters Cornalia & Thales say Edrlgard killed her mother while Edel says she doesn't remember but if we follow the timeline then it is kinda confirmed that Edel killed her mother while under Slitherers magic/experimentation:
- Edelgard gets taken into experimentation sometime after leaving the kingdom
- Duscur tragedy happened when she was 14 & her mother was one of the ppl who participated in the tragedy
- After Duscur tragedy Anslema went back to see Edelgard only for her to see her daughter experimented on , then husk Edel killed her mother without knowing or remembering
- that's why Cornalia said Edel killed her mom & Thales also says Anselma was killed by the "flames of their ambition" & we know "flames of ambition" meaning from Houses = crest of flames implanted on Edel to burn the Nabateans.
So it's really a twist of karma for Anselma/Patricia, she killed Lambert & Dimitri (he survived) to go back to her daughter only to go back & get killed by her daughter who was experimented on by the Slitherer.
Honestly very well said, and thank you for taking the time to type that comment!
One thing I have noticed is that in AG they definitely have the biggest cast (playable characters and non-playable alike) compared to the other routes, and it makes it actually feel like a living breathing nation with all the lords we see/half the supports taking place in different little villages and towns, where with GW it never really gets that treatment at all, and I'm about halfway through SB and I've yet to see much of that as well.
Also, I loved Edelgard infinitely more than Claude and Dimitri going into this game, (which is why I saved her route for last) and I don't get how some Edelgard stans can hate on AG, one of the things that I disliked the most about Edel was that she worked with TWSITD, and since that seems to be the one major change of this game, them turning her into a puppet feels like not only the obvious choice, but a more natural one if she isn't willing to work with them. Not to mention playing through AG, seeing her like that made me feel bad for her, and save her more than anything, getting pissed at the writing/situation she's in was never even a thought in my mind.
After playing all three routes (with nearly 400 hours) I can definitely say with confidence... Azure Gleam is the best route of the three. Scarlet Blaze and Golden Wildfire really left a bad taste in my mouth, personally.
Edit: thanks for the heart, mate. It means a lot.
I kinda have to agree, in retrospect I'm sorta glad I played Golden Wildfire first, because it really falls flat compared to the other two routes.
I still really like Scarlet Blaze (despite how heartbreaking it was), but that's mostly just because I'm a Black Eagle at heart, but Azure Gleam is probably gonna sit at my favorite, mostly because it's the most complete(?) of the three.
No problem, btw!
@Wrath9 fair enough, my friend. We all have our favourite houses, in the end. I'm definitely a Blue Lion at heart, as well as a big fan of Rhea in spite of everything, so that explains my bias, lol. Thanks for your videos as well, by the way. I found them really insightful.
I love azure gleam ! Sure, it may have some problems but honestly azure gleam is a personal and compelling story especially during part 1. Plus idk about you, it feels like a more unique perspective especially since it has a more defensive especially against both the empire and western lords.
It's because among the 3 powers, the Kingdom is the weakest. Sure, it has more land than the Alliance, but less of that land is farmable, so they actually have fewer resources. Losing the Silver Maiden would have been just a minor inconvenience to the Empire had Thales not essentially replaced control of the Empire from El to Duke Aegir, which, in turn, made the Empire less marketable to the Alliance and having less discipline overall.
@@DarkAdonisVyers true! No complaints here regarding the resources of the kingdom; Duke Aegir really screwed the empire over in AG. Though I don’t think it’s a minor inconvenience to not gain the silver maiden since it has been stated plenty of times that it is a vital step in conquering the kingdom - as it borders the western territories therefore not gaining the silver maiden would also cut off the empires main connection with the western lords.
@@DarkAdonisVyersActually from military point they are the strongest they have the best trained soliders and more relic weapons.
The silver maiden is actually important to both the Empire and Faerghus as its the only major Fort on the westen side mostly because its the most peaceful.
The empire is basically just the largest army and seems to have the weakest tactics and just results in throwing men at a problem.
The Allaince/Federation is the richest so can buy more manpower or weapons.
@@4wheal Ah, yes, the classic "a few heroes who can overthrow a large army" blunder. Would be awful, if those "few heroes" died, due to flukes, huh? That's exactly what happened to Shu Han in 3 Kingdoms. Sure, the author of Romance of the 3 Kingdoms won't STFU about the "heroic feats" of Zhuge Liang and Liu Bei's brothers, but as soon as they die, Shu Han collapses. Turns out that chivalric ideals and ancient relics don't mean much when you're outnumbered 15 to 1.
@@DarkAdonisVyers Well, those relics in lore can slaughter hundreds of people with a single attack, so being outnumbered by a mere 15 isn't going to do much.
There is also the fact that without an Avater, Edelgard is unable to take on the Kingdom without help, such as Houses, where she only gained territory because of the Agarthans and not her army.
Hell, both AG and GW show Edelgard Stonewall in Faerghus and are unable to take it even with Claude attacking it on the easten side, showing that the Kingdom has better army.
Hello again, Wrath. Hope you're doing well. I wanted to add something. Apologies if this was already covered.
Even if Dimitri didn't grant the Church asylum, the Empire would have invaded Faerghus anyway. Case in point, Leicester. They were never involved with Faerghus or the Church, but Edelgard invaded them, regardless. At least by aiding Rhea, Dimitri would gain the Church as allies and maintain his legitimacy as King.
The alternative was to flat out accept Imperial rule. Which was out of the question. Faerghus is a sovereign nation (as is Leicester). They have every right to defend their independence (which was established to maintain peace and make the best out of a bad situation, even if Rhea didn't handle it perfectly), especially if Edelgard is going to take said independence by force. Matthias Gautier points out that heavy taxation would have awaited the Kingdom had they submitted. Especially with a corrupt Southern Bishop like Count Varley.
Surprised you didn't recognize Hegemon Edelgard is considering shes the final boss in Azure Moon and was pretty prevalent in Heroes for a whole
I haven't played Azure Moon yet, and surprisingly have never seen anything about Hegemon Edelgard so it was a huge surprise for me
About the whole Adrestia in chaos bit, it’s implied that Aegir as the Regent had executed many of the people who loyal to mostly with Edelgard. I believe this is the case as Ferdinand and Hubert are not seen after the 6 month timeskip at all. And, while I don’t have the greatness memory, I recall an NPC saying “the late Marquis Vestra”, and when Edelgard ascends the throne, he becomes Marquis Vestra. So why would an NPC call him “the late Marquis” if he wasn’t dead?
(Also I know there are holes, as I don’t remember if the fight with Monica appears in is before or after the timeskip but I’m pretty sure it’s after, and if it is, makes no sense to me. Why would Aegir execute his son and Hubert only and leave Monica alive, who is basically Edelgard’s version of Cyril? Again, not the greatest memory when it comes to gameplay details, but I do remember lore stuff.)
Yeah there was an NPC that implied they both were dead, and I don't think we see Monica after that 6 month timeskip? But if we do honestly I think she could be Kronya in disguise if anything. (I don't remember if we personally kill Kronya in AG or not, so its possible 🤷🏻♂️)
@@Wrath9 Maybe? And no, we don’t kill Kronya in AG, but we also don’t kill Monica cuz I’m pretty sure she retreats in the battle she appears in (at least I’m pretty sure). But then we never see her again either. So if the Monica battle happens after the 6 months, then retreats, and Duke Aegir could’ve executed her after her failure? 🤷
Azure gleam is the best path in the game clearly and the one that best varies from the original game (for the better). Scarlet Blaze is Crimson Flare 2.0 and Golden Wildfire is also Scarlet Blaze 2.0 (but with more inconsistencies and worse writing). The end of Azure Gleam is the most hopeful for Fodlan
So you want Rhea to rule forever. Got it. She only ever considers stepping down, if she believes that she will be replaced by Byleth, preferably possessed or influenced by Sothis.
@@DarkAdonisVyers Considering that she is engaged in social work and does not interfere in any reform of the lords, yes. I have no problem with her as head of the Church (not that she has even real power).
@@rbggsc6719 Except a standing army... With superpowers. And the ability to excommunicate. And the power to legitimize countries. And to have her religion so deeply rooted in a country that she de jure gives the king right to rule Faerghus. I mean, I could keep going, but I don't want to fall for this trap: th-cam.com/video/d87VIQZeppA/w-d-xo.html So just drop it with the harmless clergy act.
@@rbggsc6719 naw rhea is the cause of fodlan's problem and she does have complete control over fodlan.
@@jkarma3356 Nah, Three Hopes proves just the opposite.
I really do like the version of Dimitri from Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes because he's a lot handsome, friendly and not vengeful like his original version from Fire Emblem Three Houses. Plus this Blue Lions - Azure Gleam story is a lot better than the Fire Emblem Three Houses :Azure Moon (Blue Lions route) as well as Black Eagles - Scarlet Blaze and Golden Deer - Golden Wildfire story with Lady Rhea not the villian in this story.
AKA you can't handle a real final boss.
Azure moon is so much better though.
But the only thing that I dislike is that Byleth doesn’t get to be part of the lives of this Dimitri and the rest of the Blue Lions. I don’t mind Shez, but I’ve spent years being Byleth and caring to save every student I could. In this game, and in this route, Byleth is so disposable that it hurts. Besides that, I do love everything abour Azure Gleam, specially Dimitri’s and Felix’s relationship development.
@@Lyls456 Yeah literally in AG you only have Byleth for 3 chapters and two of them are one single battle, when you can recruit Byleth Is to late
But Rhea is the central villain of Three Houses. Because Crimson Flower exists, we know that Rhea was always secretly cruel and power hungry and never considered Byleth as more than a pawn.
Wow. You REALLY should’ve played AM. Even though I don’t like Edelgard I still played her route simply so I could play all of them and get the full story. The fact that you didn’t know a lot of stuff that is revealed in the first game really speaks for itself!
I know, I really need to go back and play it. Hopefully soon I can play through it fully 😭
Bro you need to play Azure Moon. Dimitri and Byleth straight up talk about crests during the whole Miklan thing and Dimitri understands crests have helped defend his country from outside invasions (the Lance of Ruin was their main defense to the north) but that people shouldn’t be tossed aside if they don’t have a crest, we should appreciate everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, crest or no crest. So yeah this isn’t new to his character. Play Azure Moon, he’s fantastic in that game as well. This game just reiterates it.
I love that we learn how Dimitri lost his eye in this game. I just wanna cry. 😭
27:10 - That “cute scene” is almost exactly like the last scene in Azure Moon *SPOILERS AHEAD* where Edelgard is defeated and on the floor, and Dimitri is standing over her and offers her his hand. She throws a knife at him and he is forced to kill her. It is an entirely silent scene, no dialogue, but it says a lot. In AG she actually takes his hand. It’s just a fantastic call back.
I just figured Hubert and Ferdinand were dead, especially Hubert. Likely he fought them and lost-no doubt monica is probably dead again
It is highly implied that Hubert and Ferdinand were assassinated by those who slither
Monica shows up alive later
These videos are fire, can't wait to see the last one! 🔥🤙🏾
Thank you! Once I finish the last route it'll be up!
I do have a few problems with it mainly the Edelgard and the empire like imagine if Hubert, Caspar and Ferdinand joined you with a sort of mutual enemy in Thales and Prime minister Aegir to try and rescue Edelgard. Overall though I’m glad to see a new take on Dimitri’s character
Also dark knight Dimitri !! Best class ♡
I may have missed something but essential characters seem to disappear in AG. Like what happened to Hubert?
According to some other comments Hubert and Ferdinand were implied to be assassinated at some point ☹️
@@Wrath9 or they got lost in a serious plothole… I do agree with most of what you said in the video. Loved the analysis on the characters. And Sylvain is a beast on the battlefield. I’d say most overpowered but also fun to use. I loved Felix’s character. On one hand I didn’t like we get to recruit Byleth so late in this route. But on Black Eagles she seemed to disappear for a few chapters (ignoring the support conversations etc.) and then be back. On AG that gap was smallest. I also think there’s no explanation that Edelgard is an ally in the secret chapter and an enemy again. That was really bad and could have done better.
Still overall I really enjoyed this route and the character cast.
@@Wrath9 something that came to mind on my final route with Claude. You fight an illusion of Hubert. If he was assasinated that would make for an even more serious plothole. Correct me of I am wrong but we fight illusions of characters that survive on each path.
Hubert seems to disappear from Claudes route as well. I haven’t done the final battle yet. On this route I am less bothered by it. At least we get to fight Dedue and the rest of the main cast from Dimitri.
While I love how tight Shez becomes with Dimitri’s people, I cannot overlook the 2nd part of this route. We don’t get to fight Edelgard in that transformed state. The plotholes and the final chapters also Byleth joins up way too late. Sylvain makes up for that, he was so much fun to use. I made him a mortal servant. That way with a few hits he is Sephiroth 🤣
Ik it can't be helped but sometimes you'll say smth like "there's probably an earlier version of the game where dimitri holds more animosity towards edie" and I'll be like... Yes... Like the entirety of azure moon...
Anyway, I'd love to know if you went back and played azure moon after this! They were my first house and my absolute favorite. I'd love to know your thoughts!
I've been wanting to do a retrospective of each Three Houses route, mostly so I can see which version of each route I like better, especially since I haven't played them all, but I haven't had the time to do it unfortunately.
I have only managed to finish my playthrough of Crimson Flower, but I do plan on playing Azure Moon next though, so one day soon I'll get to it! 😭
i didn't see the paart with solon and the 2 arvals was it because i didn't recruit byleth ?
Yeah, that's technically part of the "True Ending", and you need to recruit Byleth for the true ending
Personally, I feel myself preferring GW as the route closest to an ideal ending, and this is despite how I prefer Edelgard as a character. GW ends with the Federation managing to kill Rhea and remove the Central Church as a result. The Empire and Kingdom are still more or less at a standstill.
Claude calling an armistice is good because he has many cards to play. He saved Edelgard, thus putting her in his debt. Dimitri can get assurance, or feels, that Claude isn't out to have the Kingdom be taken down, which is true. Claude also knows information about TWSITD now thanks to Edelgard confiding in him about it. This means Claude can tell Dimitri about the threat they pose, and Edelgard might tell Dimitri of Thales being responsible for Lambert's death.
In essence, GW has the best chance to get all three lords to again consider joining forces. Rhea might be dead, but there's a better chance for all three nations to restore the balance and avoid unification, which sadly, AG and SB are where it heads towards.
I tend to agree that GW's ending (despite how I feel about the second half of the route) is more ideal up to a point, because yes it *could* lead to exactly what you say, but that also fully depends on Edelgard. Because if she decided to call the war quits with Claude confirming that Rhea is dead then most definitely, it leads to the ideal ending, but if she says "Nah, we're gonna conquer Faerghus" then I would stand on my current opinion that AG's ending is slightly better for all parties concerned. And I mean literally just slightly. Which is also why as I said in the video I don't love how GW ended, because either the game finishes at the halfway point of war or there's a ceasefire but the game doesn't choose an actual ending
@@Wrath9 Hence why Edelgard owing a debt to Claude comes into play. Not to mention, Edelgard is making no real headway into conquering the Kingdom, and the last thing Edelgard wants is to have the Alliance now become her enemies because Claude has made an invasion to the Empire that likely would have turned badly if Almyra hadn't made its invasion once again. Yes, it depends on Edelgard, but Edelgard is certainly not unreasonable, and Edelgard has lost the source of her moral argument for the war. It will definitely look bad for her if she keeps pressing the war. Claude can act as an intermediary to convince Dimitri and Edelgard to stand down and handle the power structure of Fodlan now that the Central Church is gone.
SB and AG both have a very unlikely chance of avoiding unification because the Empire/Kingdom will very likely annex the other. And as Claude mentioned in GW, if that happens, the odds are, Leicester will become a vassal to the much larger nation as a result, and thus the continent is unified.
Your video was very interesting to watch, but it did make me realise how much of the game's more subtle side and back stories are pretty much locked behind Three Houses exclusive knowledge. For example, the thing with Rhea and Jeralt : as you surmised, Jeralt has a complicated relationship with Rhea because of Byleth's mother ; when Byleth was born, Rhea helped Sitri (their mother) with giving birth, but Sitri died and in the following weeks, Jeralt noticed that his child never laughed nor cried and assumed that Rhea had done something to them to make it so, which is why he caused a fire to cover his escape from the Church. Jeralt was right, but lacked a few details, mainly the fact that Byleth was still-born and Sitri begged Rhea to use her heart (Sothis's Crest Stone) to save her child. So Rhea killed Sitri to let Byleth live, but (this part is just my assumptions and theories) because the Crest Stone was a /stone/ literally doing the job of Byleth's heart, including beating, it heavily restrained their emotions, which is why the baby never laughed nor cried.
This is what we know of from canon events and dialogues, but we can surmise a few more things thanks to, again, Three Houses exclusive knowledge, but also Three Hopes. Jeralt assumed Rhea was responsible for his child's lack of emotions and caused a fire to fake their deaths and run away ; that would seem pretty extreme if we didn't know, thanks to Three Hopes, that Jeralt had known Rhea for 300 years and, thanks to Three Houses, that he had the opportunity to see Rhea do quite a few questionable things (banning scientific progress such as the long view, the use of a "thick black liquid" as fuel, heavily limiting medical research outside of white magic, banning the printing press by arguing it could be used to spread misinformation, but at the same time would be useless to commoners because they can't read... And that's for the more "public" decisions ; Sitri was Rhea's 12th attempt at bringing back Sothis, so it's entirely possible that Jeralt met one or two previous vessels and/or knew of Rhea's human experiments to bring back her mother. If that's the case, he might have feared that his child would just be one more test subject and decided to flee because of that)
On Azure Gleam having a good/bright ending though... Maybe for Shez, but for Fodlan as a whole... The Empire was tainted red with blood for 6 months, Edelgard may or may not recover fully from Thales's magical control over her and even if she does, she will likely have to face judgement and repercussions for the war while also having to deal with what was done to her country under Aegir's reign and even beyond that, Claude is still determined to destroy the Church and Rhea to make it possible to bring change to the country, something that, if Dimitri had his way, would take decades and might not even be finished by the time he dies. I think there are brighter endings in this game.
Edit : oh, and about Anselma and Edelgard ! From Hapi's supports in There Houses, we know that Anselma was never replaced by TWSITD because she heavily opposed the way Cornelia treated Hapi ; instead, it seems that, after Edelgard was brought back to the Empire by Thales/Arundel, Cornelia "let it slip" in front of Anselma that her daughter had spent the last three years in the Kingdom and she tells Anselma that the King, Lambert, her husband, was the one who did everything he could so Anselma couldn't see her (obviously that's a lie). She used Anselma's despair to have her help the western lords in killing Lambert in Duscur, presumably in hope that she could see her daughter again afterwards. Of course, Edelgard never knew something like this happened to her mother ; she didn't even know, before the end of Azure Moon in Three Hopes, that Dimitri and her were step-siblings because her memories of her childhood were affected by the experiments she suffered in the Empire.
Funny how you mention that there is unused content left over from class, character text, and graphics character, for story is unknown, but there might be more later.
I did not know one can recruit Byleth in this route 😩. I thought it was only possible in Golden Wind. I have only played AG and I’m in the middle of SB. I’m so glad that it is possible that I think I won’t finish SB and I’ll replay AG asap.
Yeah Byleth is recruitable regardless of the route, thankfully! Its just harder to recruit them in AG than in the other two.
I always thought that TWSITD killed Ferdinand and Hubert, as neither of them would have stood by and kept them do what they did to both Edelgard and the Empire.
tbh i have yet to play through Golden wildfire and Azure gleam since i went with Scarlet blaze (even though the black eagles were my second pick back in three houses) but hearing you talk about this route makes me want to play it although the game guilt tripping you by forcing you to kill off the units/students you cant recruit is a bit of a pain but i digress
I feel that, I don't like killing the other characters because I love them all, and its definitely the worst in SB 😭
@@Wrath9 yeah i loved most of the Blue lions and only Sparing Felix (since Demitri and Dedue don't count) but killing off ingrid and Slyvain was brutal since i wanted to have ingrid as my main peg knight since none of the others can do it better than she can and i would have loved CF felix
Lonato being angry is understandable, but Christophe deserved it considering he tried to assassinate Rhea.
So do any important main characters die in this route?
Define “important.”
@@T.M.S.O. the playable characters in different routes or anyone else significantly important to the story?
@@BestVicePrez Well in terms of playable characters, if you recruit everybody along the way, you can actually play the whole story without killing any playable characters. Every other character death scene that is not mentioned in the review are Gwendall, Ladislava, Randolf, Fleche and Duke Aegir if I remember correctly.
@@T.M.S.O. You cannot play as them.
@@T.M.S.O. Also how do you even recruit Manuela in this route?!
I played until Thales strikes Edel into a monsters then I got so confused. I felt like I only played the game for the sake of playing even tho I really wanna understand the story😭😭maybe it because English is not my first language and I forgot half of the characters' names from the previous game....total loss of plot...
So I replayed azure gleam and Caspar survived idk what I did differently but he ended retreating
You probably got leopard first
@@moelisboardmolina5428 Maybe I’ll try that because I have been testing it and he is still dying every time
You can completely ignore him and just go straight for Duke Aegir.
You're a wonderful analysis please keep in mind that some characters would technically develop differently in this timeline.. I can understand Casper's personality but Shez lacks the professor's Charisma and the academy ended much shortly... Keep in Shez is just One of The Students/Apart of Circle of Friends.. While Byleth is More Mentor/Authorive Figuire That Is approachable That Has Known Them For Nearly A Year.
Hubert is dead by chapter 12, so that’s why he doesn’t show up again. Ferdinand is likely not much better.
The pain 😭
Hold up, you didn't play through Azure Moon?
Nope! I've only played Crimson Flower, Silver Snow and like half of Verdant Wind.
@@Wrath9that makes sense as you need some context in azure moon to understand some motivation in azure gleam hence why Dimitri seems kinda self loathing as it dosent really explain his background and thought processe as hope assumes you already played houses so it doesn’t explains more than it needs to
The writers explicitly said there was no true route.
It's nice how this is a calculated opinion then.
When I hear other people’s opinions on all the routes and read the comments about their experiences and what they did…………… I now realize I’m a horrible person with how I approached scarlet blaze as It was my first run
It really just depends on your level of attachment to the characters, idk if you played Fire Emblem Three Houses, but Three Hopes is basically just an alternate version of that game.
And Three Houses was my favorite Fire Emblem game until Three Hopes, so I personally just really love all of the characters in this game (and most of the people who commented probably have similar attachments to these characters as I do), so I don't think you not having a similar feeling during your playthrough makes you a bad person... you just had a more normal experience than the rest of us 😂
@@Wrath9 If you play any Dynasty Warriors game, you're no stranger to offing officers that you became "attached" with when playing their side in a previous run. If anything, I find FE players to be such fucking drama queens in this FE game that has multiple playable sides.
My favorite part of 3 Hopes is when Dimitri is like “yeah I agree with you but starting a world war is the wrong way to go about it” and Edelgard is just like “nah you don’t get it.” Edelgard sympathizers forget there was a reasonable solution and she chose to team up with the evil mole people to murder the continent because she’s the worst lord
sorry if my english is bad but I would like to give my opinion about azure gleam.
Personally I didn't like the route very much because of four different things:
1. I Hate the church. Being allies with them in this route was something I disliked very much. I loved that dimitri didn't agree with them but I think that the story would be more intresting If the kingdom betrayed them at some point and dimitri wasnt afraid of a quick change to society.
2. The knight concept. It is mentioned in petra and hubert's support conversation that the knight concept comes from fantasy books that became legends, which lead to people from the kingdom to believe it was something VERY real and important, dedicating their life to chievalry and knighthood. Basically, calling the knight concept something """"dumb"""" and that it shouldn't be followed since in the end its kind of pointless. I saw this support BEFORE playing azure gleam, so when I saw a lot of characters speaking high of the knight concept I thought they were """"dumb""" for following a concept without cuestioning it first, and would also make sense why ashe is troubled when he tries to become a knight, because the concept is so easy to "throw down" that nobody actually knows what a true knight is.
3. Dimitri is a little bit toxic. I love dimitri but there were sometimes that I hated his character. This because of his way of looking at things and being very hard to persuade or change his mind. I say he is "toxic" because in some of his supports like Shez's A support he tells her/he that he wont change his ways and you(shez) would have to drag him out of the battlefield, which shez responds with "yeah sure no problem friend i will always be by your side dragging you out of a problem"(not actually what he/she says but similar) And I hated that, personally I wont drag him out of a battlefield he put himself in despite all his friends telling him to STOP doing that and taking care of himself. Apart from that I cannot follow a leader who focuses too much on the past and even though he helps his people and the kingdom a lot which I respect, there are things that are too much. When taking the Azure gleam route it feels as if im following someone who cant get their things together and would probably take me to MY doom if HE were to take a wrong turn. Also felix told him something I thought would shake him which was "Do you think the people that loved you and died protecting you would come back to torture you?" But in the end he said "Yes, BUT I am sad and thats my problem and something something about not forgiving himself". I was so disapointed when I heared that beacause even with an amazing agurment he still thinks THE SAME.
4. We finish a war knowing another one is coming. In other routes since both of them are fighting the church and the kingdom, once that is over peace would come. But in azure gleam once we finish fighting the empire and thales WE KNOW that another war is coming because of the same reason as the first one THE CHURCH. What I am trying to say is that in the other routes the church disappears and once the war ends fodlan will meet true peace faster. However, in Azure Gleam fighting the allience is something that will happen sooner or later because claude dislikes the church just like edelgard, so we would be fighting the same war AGAIN just because dimitri didn't want a fast change. And I do understand that due to the kingdoms relationship with the church its not that easy, But In the video it mentioned that dimitri Had the possibility to kick to church...so yeah.
I did like playing this route but I don't believe its canon. I am sorry if it is hard to understand my point of view I may have explained myself wrong since I am not the best with english but I tried my best. I really like your videos and I hope to see more of them.
Your comment wasn't hard to understand, and thank you for the comment!
You do have some fair points! I don't care for the church either which was the whole reason why I never played the Blue Lions route in Three Houses, so I was happy to see that Dimitri didn't blindly follow the church.
Dimitri's mindset is definitely toxic, so I can understand how you sometimes didn't care for his character, but personally I forgive it because its mostly just trauma.
I'd argue it's actually the worst ending since the central church and Rhea get to stay in power meaning the status quo, which was the whole reason Edelgard started the war remains pretty much unchanged
Sure,it seems like Dimitri will make some progress but what's stopping Rhea from just undoing it all after he passes away?
That is a fair point, I haven't really thought of that
Rhea greatly respects Dimitri, like even in the ending she’s looking up to him in respect. With the way she gushes about Wilhelm it’s pretty clear she’ll do anything for those she respects wish, including stealing stuff from her fellows like Seteth, which Seteth forgave her…eventually.
Rhea does not interfere with the reforms of Dimitri and the rest of the lords in the game (nor did she interfere with Lambert). So she is no problem for Fodlan's change.
You’d only have that idea if you don’t understand Fodlan lore at all and paid no attention to how 3 Hopes storyline transpired.
Rhea only kept the crest system because coming clean about what really happened would be outing the survival of her, Seteth, and Flayn to TWSITD. She didn’t like the crests, they were literally formed from a betrayal against her own race after all.
Bernadette is adorable in all her ships . I think the dev team is biased towards Dinitri and thus his route . Pretty wild how they just abandon Edelgard or take her as a prisoner of war at least.
The devopment team is far more biased towards Edelgard as they go out of there way to try and make her seem better then she is and that Conquest is a good thing.
Claude is definitely the lord they hate the most as he gets the worse routes
@@4wheal you say that and yet there’s so much time and effort placed into the blue lion’s routes throughout both games. Yes she has a route however, her route was complete trash. Her route literally should’ve been the route that we got to take care of those to slither in the dark and got way more Lore and backstory, but her route barely was animated and left out so much so much shit it was embarrassing so I say no you’re wrong
Honestly I hated azure moon, however azure gleam shocked me buy how surprisingly good, congrats three hopes you actually got me to like dimitri, I didn’t think that was possible
Did you seriously play SS, CF, and VW in 3H but never AM? I cannot understand why you would go 3/4 but not 4/4 of those routes. You're missing so much from AG by playing it without AM. So many Easter eggs and character arcs coming full circle that you wouldn't have noticed.
Yeah, I played all of SS and CF but stopped after playing most of VW, I just didn't really have the time to finish VW (because life) and other games I wanted to play more had released by the time that I did have time 😭
I'm still trying to finish the other two because I hate that I'm missing out on a lot with both VW and AM
@Wrath9 I mean I cannot blame a person for not playing the entire FE3H game but you played every single 3 Hopes route. Makes it very weird to know that you never even played through the default routes of 3 Houses beforehand. Also AM is considered by many to be the best 3H route and since you enjoyed AG, it makes it even stranger that you never played AM.
The problem is that Dimitri wants to make everyone happy and that is not possible, true that slow changes have a better base but you don’t know what could happen in the future, sadly humanity is not that good, look our human history as example, at the end faster changes are the ones that end working even if you have to resolve problems afterwards.
That's very true, I love his intentions, but who knows if the change will last or not
Realistically slow changes are better than fast changes, after the french revolution impropoer planning caused a lot of headchopping
The other problem with even the slow changes for Fodlan is Rhea. We have to remember that Rhea has a strong messiah complex, believing that humanity NEEDS her as they will make foolish mistakes without her guidance. And Rhea hasn't had her 3H redemption in non-CF routes where her imprisonment and realization of failures made her amend her ways.
And Edelgard's war definitely didn't make Rhea exactly have a positive growth. If anything, it's more than likely to make Rhea keep a tighter leash now.
Slow and steady changes is not bad at all. But mix that with a nigh-immortal dragon that doesn't trust humanity, and we are gonna have problems.
@@0axis771 Also I have a problem with Rhea and is that a lot of people defend her talking about the contradictions like Cyril, the comunicación with the outsiders and all of that is poor writing is obvious that the writers didn’t want to make Rhea a good person but they didn’t write well the dark side of the church so for example in 3 hopes new players that haven’t played 3 houses will be confused and even in 3 houses the things about the church aren’t explained well.
@@0axis771 doesn't edelgard have a messiah complex? since she started the war and refuse to trust dimitri and claude
5:50 Shez was never preoccupied with getting Revenge period, NONE of the Routes even support this, so it’s not that surprising.
9:06 Dimitri had these same thoughts in the Blue Lions after killing Miklan, so no, it’s nothing new this Game did, other than make it more obvious.
19:08 Oh you didn’t know, we’ll let me tell you, Monica, Hubert, and Ferdinand are killed OFFSCREEN, Thales even alludes to having Hubert assassinated, and even dialogue in the Base Camp alluded to Hubert and Ferdinand being dead. Caspar is the ONLY Black Eagle that isn’t killed offscreen, or recruitable. Thus a reason why TWSITD in this route, is the WORST aspect of the Route.
20:40 Okay, with you saying that, I HAVE to ask, how much of Three Houses have you actually played? The fact that you said you didn’t play Azure Moon was already a Red Flag for me, but the fact that you don’t know about Jeralt’s Past, despite it being alluded to in the Chapter after Jeralt dies, but it’s also answered as to WHY Byleth has Sothis in his Head in Silver Snow and partially in the Cindered Shadows storyline. So if you only played Verdant Wind and then jumped into Three Hopes, I would probably be not so Negative in my comment.
Okay, I had no idea How I played this route, because I got a different ending. I guess is because I never recruited Byleth. I’ve auto spoiled this game very badly. I’m leaving now.
You've mispronounced alot of the places that have been specifically said out loud.
Otherwise good video
Nah, having Edelgard lose all her agency just so Dimitri can look cool is a major turnoff
i get tired of people saying that demtri route is the true route in both games
Might not be the true route, but it is the best route
@@GoldenRose116 its a subjective opinion that its the best but whatever everyone is entitled to their own
@@GoldenRose116 Nah, in 3houses His part 2 has no cohesion with part 1 and essentially explains nothing not related with Dimitri.
CF and even VW manage to give characterization and development to the respective lord while also giving time to Byleth, the other students, world building and answering the questions set up in part 1
For Three Houses I think I read somewhere that Silver Snow is intended to be the "true route"?
Honestly I don't think either game has a true route by any means, I mostly just dubbed it the true route for the video, and because it has the least amount of carnage (player deaths, etc) out of all the routes
Yes. I also love the route where Dimitri is COMPLETLY out of character the entire route. That’s totally the true route.
Azure Gleam is my Fire Emblem Fates Revelation. I get why for some is the best outcome, but is my least favorite, it really bores me. I understand the feeling that recruiting Byleth in this route is more natural, but I didn't notice major changes, it feel like the same ending but with extra steps and I really didn't like that, I prefer the ""bad"" ending. Also, I'm not the biggest Edelgard fan, but it is frustrating how she ended up in AG, I prefer the OG Azure Moon, yeah sure, she died, but at least she gave her best, she died fight for what she believes, in Azure Gleam she ends up as a puppet from her worst enemy.
Also, glad that you are giving Sylvain another chance, most people won't try because he is/was a womanizer, when actually is a pretty smart guy, probably smarter than Annette (shown in their 3Houses supports) he just doesn't bother to be someone, because he thought that no matter what he does, he would just be reduce as a trophy husband, to marry some woman who just wants him for power and have "crest babies" as Sylvain would say. He's also a really good unit
I totally understand what you mean, it isn't exactly an "exciting" ending, but I think personally its the best for all parties concerned you know? Even though I'm not done with Scarlet Blaze just yet, SB may end up being my actual favorite route depending on how it ends, but I still think my head canon route will still be Azure Gleam regardless lol.
Sylvain's an insane unit, his Gordain Stroke ability is absolutely my favorite in the game too, hands down
@@Wrath9 I mean, is it though? AG ends with Edelgard being mentally degraded into a childlike state of mind and the empire in an absolute state of ruin. I feel like if anything, GW is probably the closest to an golden ending, especially since from the DLC onwards, it probably should be clear that even more than TWSitD really, Rhea has been the true villain of Fodlan.
It's very cringy to hear you say Aegir pronouncing the letter G because I'm so used to the English Dub that it's silent G. 😰
Yeah I… just can’t like Azure Gleam what it did to the Black Eagles and Edelgard was crazy disrespectful imo and overall I just don’t support Dimitri and his ideals as much as the other lords. Faerghus is a pretty shitty kingdom and place to live that’s basically being attacked by all sides and imploding within itself from revolts. Realistically I don’t see it winning any wars and I don’t think it should be fighting them either.
Definitely Faerghus as a nation is terrible, but its saving grace is all of the Blue Lions 😂 I think it'll be fine... eventually
@@Wrath9 Chivalry in theory vs. chivalry in practice. Loog's "chivalry" was Agarthan superweapons, while Klaus's "chivalry" was lying to the Leicester lords.
@@Wrath9 Dedue, Mercedes and Annette are absolutely precious! Sylvain is funny in a chaotic, problematic way.
Lol
Ah yes, the worst Route of the Game that couldn't decide whether to be the closest Route to a "True" Ending or not.
Pretty much yeah
3 Houses/Hopes was never meant to be a conventional FE game. Azure Gleam is essentially: You want a conventional FE game? We'll give you a conventional FE game and then proceeds to squeeze in the already unconventional elements into the mold of convention, which, in my opinion, removed that which differentiated it from other FE games.
Nope. Azure Gleam is the worst ending by far. It's got decent buildup for Dimitri but literally sidesteps most of the issues in the lore.
I don't know what it is, but when it comes to the blue lions, their Routes just feel the most boring to me in both games
I always liked Edelgard's route more, especially in this game.
That still doesnt mean i hate this one, i just didnt find it as interesting.
That being said i am also strongly against the church, so maybe thats it.
That could be it, I'm pretty indifferent with the church, most of my issue is just solely with Rhea and I like how complex Dimitri is so it helps lol
dust car