@@GigiBranconi exactly why are you here? Sothis isn't the only child looking character in fire emblem. They've been here since the start Tiki. Myrrh. Nowi. Sothis veyle etc. Sounds like you got a problem but continue to stay somewhere you can have issues with. If I was you in a situation Sao was around I'd just leave and not you know keep getting annoyed by it. But that's just me
@@ivanbluecool To joke about purging Lolis. I thought that was pretty obvious, I thought that anyone who could read could understand that. Should I have added some flavour of "Begone Thot", wasn't I clear enough? 🤔
Nemesis never actually fought Sothis, he just broke into her tomb and stole her remains. In other words, he's a Thief that reclassed into a Brigand. And because Three Houses lets you use any weapon, he's not sub 30% hit rate axe-locked anymore.
Dimitri stans: "No, your waifus and husbando are the biggest war criminals!" Claude stans: "No, your waifus and husbando are the biggest war criminals!" Edelgard stans: "No your waifu and husbandos are the biggest war criminals!" Rhea stans: "Damn straight my waifu is the biggest war criminal!" Yuri stans: "Mine's just a regular criminal."
Nah, more like: Dimitri: "His insanity is justified." Claude: "Moral complexity makes my head hurt, I like my Mary Sue ending." Edelgard: "Joined for the cute leader. Stayed for the World Conquest." Rhea: "Normally I hate any church in video games, but she does have big..." Yuri: "What do you mean he isn't deep? Every FE game needs a ladyboy character." In all seriousness, most "fanboys" for anything tend to cling to the most superficial things about a character. Meanwhile... Agarthans: "Yea, I know they suck. Though I want a villain route." Nemesis: "The guy might die in the first minute of the game, but the dude sings his own boss music."
@@aliastheabnormal kinda dragon-cist if you ask me. Not every dragon with green hair is related Also no that's wrong. Sothis came from the sky and we know where naga was originally from to meaning they weren't the same thing especially when naga goes around helping heroes by giving them weapons or blessings Sothis was more of a knowledge goddess like Mila and duma who affect their land differently as true gods while Sothis was more an alien like being. Course she could have been a different dragon species too since we have many in earth divine fire etc and evolutions of them in dark fell and such. Sothis could have easily been one like anakos that has their own species
@@ivanbluecool I've actually seen an interesting theory that dragons like Sothis or Anankos/the Fates dragons came from Elibe through the Dragon Gates, since in those stories they all seem to come from somewhere else. A cool idea at the very least.
@@TheHearthGuy well technically they are all from different continents and legends making their powers distinct. Naga has a load of things and can even reincarnate herself if tiki falls and the falchion is lost. Grima is even stronger than a god as a baby when he was experimented on with divine dragon blood rising above even a dark dragon. Anakos is from a mythical land as chrom mentioned so it's kinda true they all hail from unique Universes
@@ivanbluecool grima being experimented on is simply a retcon via echoes. that wasn't its background story for awakening. grima was just a fell dragon in the default game.
Wouldn't she be the Tiki (young dragon thrust into war) since according to Hopes Wilhelm just peaces out after his son's death (or at least in the background of Fodlan history).
@@bubbles784 Nah, she's a Dragon Lord, her Kingdom was wrongfully destroyed, her mom died, she has no dad. And she had to assemble a ragtag group of allies including former enemies to fight a crazy powerhungry king with her go to weapon being that of a sword. Also her Seiros fit screams of Promoted Great Lord.
The game frustrates me cuz instead of giving reasons why the students should swap sides in the war, they all simply say "my professor blah blah." Imagine if real world students betrayed their home, friends or family cuz their favorite school professor was cool lmao
@@Sunnysunkern but Petra never really says that post war. on SS, AM, and VW, Petra discusses her country's tragic fate in several support conversations but she does not make direct mention in like exploration monastery dialogue. almost every student in monastery dialogue just says the vague, bland "I believe in my professor so I don't regret my choice." it makes just about every student except for Dedue and Hubert look as tho they have no morals or loyalties xD
@l.n.3372 I mean, the monastery dialog, in my opinion, was trash except for every few instances, so I don't really count the monastery as a way to look at them for anything of significance.
A few things: The Church’s co-opting of Nemesis’ narrative was not that he fell to dark gods, but that he SLEW dark gods, but was corrupted by his absolute power. These dark gods are the Nabateans he massacred. Nemesis had been around for so long that the narrative around the Nabateans being evil had been so engrained it was impossible to remove, so she reworked it. While we can’t be sure with the 4 Apostles, we can be somewhat sure with Aubin’s nature. Aubin was able to GIVE yuri his crest, so either he was an ex agarthan who was familiar with the secrets of crest transplanting or he was a Nabatean who could give his blood to grant it to someone else (this second one means Yuri is gonna live for centuries btw, so we get a semi-immortal sewer twink) Some dialogue from hopes heavily implies that it’s not just crest blood House von Hresvelg inherited from Seiros, but genes too: Rhea: “I care not if we shared blood countless generations ago-I will not permit anyone to defile Mother's resting place.” (Japanese and Translation I got; だからこそ、容赦はできません。たとえ血を分けた遠い遠い裔であっても..... That's why we cannot tolerate it. Even if they are distant descendants with shared blood.) let me know if you can get a better translation. Edelgard also says: “By the covenant between the red blood and the white sword that crowns the double-headed eagle...” when signing that pact with Claude. Covenants tend to be a term to refer to an agreement (typically of religious nature) yes, but it also has a tendency to refer to Marriage. There is also a great deal of narrative symbolism in Seiros being married to Wilhelm. It represents the bringing of religious doctrine as a power in politics, a marriage of the secular state and the spiritual organization, which sees Fodlan being made into its current state, where the church meddles with political affairs and the nobles meddle with religious affairs, for the two have been joined together, married. Also, in the shadow library, there is a banned book which has an actor playing emperor Wilhelm and an actor playing Seiros kissing each other. It could be Seiros and Wilhelm were lovers, making Lycaon I their son and Edelgard Seiros’ distant descendant. (Fun thing about that play, it mentions that it has northern swordsmen dueling for Emperor Lycaon III’s entertainment. In the Japanese translation, the term they use is Northern Gladiators. This probably gives us a massive hint as to why faerghus revolted, their people were literally being used for blood sport for the entertainment of the Imperial Nobility. Perhaps Lycaon III WAS the emperor that King Loog slew in the other Battle of Tailteann) nemesis didn’t bring the elites with him to Zanado. Based on the text in the shadow library, the elites didn’t know why Seiros hated them, and where Nemesis got the crest blood was a mystery to them. Nemesis could have brought his own bandit group with him, but he probably mostly leaned on the indomitable power of the crest of flames and sword of the creator along with some agarthan mages From what we can tell, Sothis believes she outright destroyed all agarthans. Non agarthan Humans as we know them on Fodlan and the lands outside of it are her recreation of the species (we can tell due to the lack of knowledge of the war between Sothis and the agarthans in outside cultures, who would most certainly have carried on myths of it, but since they don’t it’s highly likely that they were created by Sothis too. Is it kinda dumb on some level? Yes. But is it what’s likely canon? Probably. But at least it’s better than the one theory I heard that posits Fodlan is IRL earth’s distant future. With Fodlan being a shattered Europe (western Adrestia is northern France, the Brigid archipelago is a shattered Iberia, Duscur is Denmark, Deirdriu is Konigsburg/Gdańsk, the Peninsula Enbarr is on is Italy, etc) Many of the Nabateans we know of seem to have been created after the war with the agarthans, however, it is possible the Old Gods the Perdition book in the Shadow Library is in reference to an older form of the Nabateans (with Sothis remaking them after the war with them, like she did with humanity). These older Nabatean were likely wiped out by the Agarthans and used to create a form of immortality via crest stones. We know Agarthans havé crest stones in them because Solon rips a crest stone from Kronya’s chest in the forest in houses. we know they’re immortal because Thales was alive for the War of Heroes. The crest stones are also likely how they body snatch: they put their own soul in the stone, then stick the stone in a body, like with Rhea did to byleth. But here, they’re more informed on its mechanics, so they manage to outright possess the body (either that or the soul is removed from the body and the crest stone doesn’t need to fight another soul for control) Furthermore, we see in the stuff with Arval that agarthan tech litters Zaharas (that void dimension). From what I’ve analyzed, Zaharas is some sort of afterlife or a place where souls exist. We see that Sothis’ throne is IN zaharas when Solon throws byleth in there and Arval/Epminedes also exists in Zaharas. This leads me to believe that the Agarthans basically cracked the code for immortality by creating crest stones for themselves and gaining access to Zaharas. There, with access to that realm, they probably gained a bunch of power, and disturbed Sothis, as from what we see of the forbidden spell of Zaharas, it requires a crest stone to be destroyed in order to open it, meaning they were sacrificing people on the regular to go to and from Zaharas. Honestly though, there are so many other possibilities that I could go on for hours, so I’ll add them later when I have the time.
Aubin was fully human, as all the Apostles were, the ritual Rhea attempted with them wouldn't work with Nabateans. The circumstances regarding him being able to transfer his Crest to Yuri are likely due to the unique nature of the ritual he participated in. The ritual involved the transfer of blood, so it's not a stretch to assume the Apostles know a bit more about Crests than the average person and Rhea swore them to secrecy. Additionally, the Apostles directly received their respective Crests, rather than gaining them through birth, which is why they lived so long. Remember that Jeralt received his Crest directly from Rhea, so he's lived much longer than he should and he's also fully human. The secrets behind Crests are just that: secrets. Anyone can make use of them if they have the know-how, they don't have to be Agarthan. Not to mention Rhea would've *never* trusted an Agarthan with such vital information. She barely trusts Shez in 3 Hopes and only warms up to him (to an extent) after you do Flayn and Seteth's paralogue. Also, I doubt that Rhea was referring to the Nabateans when she said "dark gods". Indech and Macuil fought in the War of Heroes as well, and Seiros would've likely used her draconic powers in the fight as well. The secret that Rhea, Seteth and Flayn are children of the goddess has been known to the Empire since its inception and was passed down from emperor to emperor, starting with Wilhelm himself. Rhea likely spun that narrative because she establishes that Crests and their weapons are gifts from the goddess. Nemesis would've had to face a powerful, evil foe in order to have been bestowed such a blessing as the Sword of the Creator itself, so vague evil gods makes the perfect foe.
@@LAZERAK47V2regarding Aubin, i haven’t seen it be stated that all the Apostles were human. Do you remember where it says that? The lore for the apostles has always annoyed me so having some answers would be great! Regarding the Nabateans. I never said Seiros created the narrative of Nemesis slaying Dark Gods, I’m saying that Nemesis created the narrative of him slaying dark gods. The Nabateans and Zanado would have been known to the people of ancient Fodlan, but would be mysterious. Nemesis slaying them all would be the stuff of legend, and we have to recall that Nemesis and the Elites all lived for centuries, so nemesis would have had a great deal of time to enforce and propagate this narrative until it was so engrained that Seiros wasn’t willing to put up the effort to remove it, so instead, she reworked it to fit her own uses. with nemesis and the elites starting out as a heroes, the origin of crests remains heroic and remains as gifts from the goddess to battle evil in the narrative. Oh, and just to clarify, the Nabateans themselves aren’t directly named in said narrative, but the genocide of them is the origin of the story of nemesis slaying dark gods.
Seiros being Edelgard's ancestor just made everything in CF 10x funnier because that means the route is just a rebellious granddaughter going againts her grandmother's old traditions in a nutshell
@@scion513 I'm pretty sure the details regarding the ritual and requiring humans were mentioned at some point in the DLC, though it's been ages since I've played it. As for the Nabateans and the dark gods, that wasn't ever really established, because the Ten Elites themselves question why Seiros is on a rampage against them. Considering it is known (at that point in history by the Empire) that Seiros is a Nabatean, it wouldn't make sense to call the Nabateans "dark gods". Remember, Wilhelm sided WITH Seiros AGAINST Nemesis, and the latter's followers either scattered or were destroyed and the Agarthans fled back underground. So it makes no sense that the established authority would label the Nabateans as "dark gods". In fact, Rhea does the complete OPPOSITE of this and labels her draconic form as the "Immaculate One" (how full of yourself can you get?), while also describing Nabateans as Divine Beasts, rather than Demonic Beasts and naming the surviving Nabateans (again including herself in this) as the 4 Saints. Also, I'd like to point out that, while the church of Seiros worships Sothis, it is called the Church of Seiros, NOT the Church of Sothis, further cementing Rhea's hubris and her ultimate belief that only she can rule Fodlan (until Sothis returns). No, it was just another twisted narrative to push the idea that Heroes Relics were blessings from Sothis, rather than the remains of Nabateans in order to prevent people from experimenting with Crests. After all, if they're blessings from the goddess, there's nothing you can do if you want one. Although I'm surprised she didn't shut Hanneman down, considering his curiosity regarding them. Seteth was probably keeping a close eye on him and she would've spun a line about blasphemy if he discovered the truth.
What i like about how 3H handles the evil church trope is that never was created to do any evil thing but is in the nature of every institution to become a problem when íts original values dont alaing any more with the modern values
@@endikaaspeurrutia1013 let's not underestimate humanity's ability to f@#$ shit up and abuse even miniscule ammount of power. Without Rhea it would've been a lot worse.
The funny thing is when you actually bother to explore the monastery and read the books in the library you'll find that you'll find that the church doesn't really support crest culture but as pointed out by both Lorenz and Ferdinand the nobles just don't give a shit. Not to say the church is perfect but it's far from being an evil organization.
The church started off as something good, and helpful. But their motives and goals got corrupted along the way. And instead of a faction trying to keep the peace, they treated themselves AS THE PEACE. Follow us or be destroyed
@@Yarharsuperpirate They kinda are the faction keeping the peace the hilarious thing though is that complaints that Edelgard had with the church were going to end because Rhea was planning on stepping down anyway.
Like how Traditional Christians no longer align with the Modern values of Transkids. Very Sexualized Sex Education beyond Reproduction and even Drag Queen Story hour but are required to participate in something they do not agree with.
8:30 "Almost everyone has had issues in their lives due to the church/crest system." "Lysithea" "Caspar" Those two are bad examples. Lysithea wasn't really the fault of the church/crest-*SYSTEM*. Her family was on the wrong side of an insurrection, and she got experimented on by Agarthans. Caspar doesn't mention his lack of a crest, merely that he's a second-son.
Not to mention Marianne, who only suffered because people mistook those who bear her crest for the monster Maurice. The fact that her crestless foster father was able to supplant House Daphnel on the Leicester roundtable through sheer merit without the church lifting a finger to stop him makes you wonder if they're really bent on enforcing crest supremacy.
If may have missed a support convo, or dialogue from the main story, or even both, but I sort of believe Rhea fabricating Nemesis and the Elites as the heroes that went astray, was something she would’ve changed/admitted the truth to, yet never came to it and as Dimitri put it simply, should the people’s belief be taken away from them, in this case shattered, it wouldn’t be worth the risk. And a lot of players forget, that Rhea for literally a thousand years, has praised the man who slaughtered her people and mother and made sure that lie practically goes on for eternity and most likely will never out the truth. That takes some serious, selfless guts
The reason Rhea fabricated the story of Nemesis was for 2 major reasons 1. Nabateans have a history of being targeted by power hungry would-be tyrants. Rhea is not the only Nabatean that is still alive. She wanted to protect what little family she had left from being victims to power hungry monsters like Nemesis. 2. Nemesis was outright revered by humans. By the time Rhea killed him, she needed an excuse to do so. Telling the truth would’ve led to a massive war.
@@pickcollins9910 ah right, I do remember the 2nd point. Believe it was in Houses or just a video essay before Hopes released. But yeah, I do remember Rhea had to really persuade Wilhelm and Adrestia to ally with her, when Nemesis was a champion of the people
@@pickcollins9910Nemesis wasn’t revered by humans, I’m not sure where you got that. The game tells us he was the leader of a group of thieves that got employed by TWSIND. Nobody was going to start a war over this guy, he was just a bandit before TWSIND approached him. What you’re saying is the hero story that Rhea made up. So no, she didn’t have to make an excuse
@@Beebok_Beebop That's heavily implied by Edelgard's convo with Byleth in Ch 14 and straight up confirmed in a developer interview: "Why did Seiros (Lady Rhea) appropriate Nemesis and the Ten Elites as heroes in her history? Kusakihara: Because from humanity’s perspective, Nemesis and the Ten Elites were thought of as heroes. She can’t create a history that completely ignores the feelings of humans upon ruling over humanity. So while preserving them as heroes, she was able to rewrite other parts of history to her advantage. It goes without saying, however the reason for Seiros tampering with history was not so she could rule over humanity-it was to minimize war and preserve peace across the land. And as it says in the Shadow Library, she even restricted the growth of civilization when it began progressing too quickly for her. There’s an answer as to why… but that’s a secret for now. (Laughs)" Source's Nintendo Everything's translations of 3H' developer interviews.
@@moltz4866 Edelgard has a warped perception of the story as she is heavily biased towards Rhea and is being fed fake information by TWSITD, not to mention Rhea was the one who actually witnessed everything. if this developer really said that, then they’re straight up contradicting what the game tells us. Nemesis was just a leader of bandit group before given the offer of sneaking into the holy tomb etc. She most likely made the story so that there would be a reason behind the war and not just some revenge mission that Seiros wanted. So she made the story to make it seem like she had to put down a misguided hero so that the humans could have someone to revere
I always saw Rhea as like a grim outcome of Tiki. The youngest(though succeeded by Nowi/Flaynn), divine by blood, incredibly powerful, left all on her own in the world of man, her Mar Mar/Wilhem long dead and Bantu/Seteth is nowhere to offer counsel, what's a sad little divine dragon to do? I might be misremembering but wasn't one of the first things Tiki did when awoken was ask for her mother? 10 out of 10 times i side with the church, and I'll do it again too.
I’m not gonna lie, I’d probably trust Rhea more if she stopped dropping phrases like “This mission should prove useful in demonstrating to the students how foolish it would be to ever turn their blades on the Church” and “We must punish any sinner who may inflict harm upon believers, even if those sinners are civilians”. Like, between that, Jeralt’s caginess around her, and her doctrines about Crests and Relics, you can’t tell me that 3H wasn’t deliberately trying to get the player to be suspicious of the Church of Seiros.
I’d say that this is more due to how Rhea perceives humans. She’s long since seen how useful religion and hierarchy is as a tool for shepherding humanity, so she frames all her public actions around that. Remember that she sees humans as more or less one step away from turning on her at all times, so it’s not that far out that she will default to her oldest and best method of making humans listen I.e, overwhelming power combined with religious zeal. Jeralt is cagey because of what he saw of Byleth and Sitris situation, he has long since figured out that they were experimented on and is naturally wary. As for Crests… I don’t really think that’s Rheas fault, crests are a human invention and do objectively make you superhuman, so church or no church they would be favoured in any feudal society. All rhea did was tie this system to the church in order to prevent the rise of a competing power structure.
@@rakshithanand8262So essentially she wants to be an Overlord to humanity because she sees them all as animals just one step away from getting rabies at any point. Yeah, I see that as a VERY good reason to get rid of her and not trust her.
@@GigiBranconi If that’s your opinion, but events make clear that Rhea is neither the instigator nor the enabler of violence. Nemesis decided to carve up Sothis and oppress people himself. The agarthans attacked Sothis first and then genocided Zanado. If Rhea should be compared to anyone, it is Magneto. Yes, she think humans are barely leashed beasts… but the world has proven her right time after time. The fact that she didn’t just make herself the god-empress of mankind says a lot about her commitment to humanity even if she can’t actually move past her grief wholly.
@@Treasure_hunter_21 As opposed to the immortal, human experimenting fem Dragon Pope? I'll take humans. At least a human dies within like, 80 years or so.
Plus the fear that not preserving the status quo will lead another Zanado and “War of Heroes” probably doesn’t help Rhea’s questionable mental state. If there is one thing Edelgard is 100% wrong about, it’s the idea that Rhea and the Nabateans lack humanity. It’s their humanity that is, like so much else, their greatest strength and flaw.
I mean how would you feel if your mother turned into a spine sword and your siblings along with it. The fact rhea held it together this long is pretty good especially compared to the step siblings
@@ivanbluecoolTbh, actually, I think she should have gotten over it. People can get over worse trauma in about a decade. She had 1000 years. At some point, who tf would even remember it anymore? It actually proves that she is nuts that she is still hung up on it a full millennium later. That's like someone today being mad at Turkey, not because of anything they did in the last few CENTURIES even, but because that person is still mad about the Fall of Rome. Absolutely everyone would call them insane, beyond a shadow of a doubt.
@@GigiBranconi that's just wrong there by a mile. Trauma doesn't "get better" and it wasn't one scene it was a whole ton of them seeing her family get first offed then their bodies ripped apart and turned into weapons to then off the rest of them who stayed with Rhea and the very guy who did it being seen as a hero for overthrowing the very god that gave them this knowledge and technology. Tell me you'd "get over it" if you saw your mother used as a sword and I'll call you a monster for seeing that as normal being "ok it happens to the best of us" Course that could be said by the entire cast calling them Evil by that logic. Edegard "should have gotten over it" when she was experimented on and caused the entire war to resurface giving rise to those who slither in the dark to be allowed to do whatever they want. She sure got over it so much she switched sides to the people who caused it. Demitri "should have gotten over it" when his entire life was destoryed snd constantly getting worse through every reveal seeing hat his revenge is just a mess on his step family being root causes to his world being destoryed. Claude should have "gotten over" racism. How about lythithia? Sylvain? Did the time skip not give them enough time to "get over it"? Sorry but there are some things you can't get over. Trauma stays with you forever and especially in a game set in the past made by japanese people who fear the word therapy you got little to no options. Her only real problem is not letting Sothis rest and trying to revive her constantly being her obsession but even the well adjusted dragons have trauma they can't forget like tiki missing Marth and seeing him in her dreams(she's 2000 btw) and nowi still wanting to find her parents after losing them(she's 1000 btw) Feels like you wish everyone could be Morgan and emmeryn who get amnesia and forget about it but even Morgan says how she wants those memories as good is in even the bad. You don't get over stuff. You live with it. Living a longer life just makes it worse especially on Rhea since Sothis and co could have still been around by dragon years.
@@GigiBranconi thanks for proving my point 100 percent without even trying to make one. You don't wake up one day and suddenly you're ok. That's not how trauma works. You are thinking of a physical injury and funny enough even those can come with scars if you get a deep enough one like you know mental trauma from a bad experience that relapses at times if certain conditions are met. War. S Assault. PTSD. Sounds like you think everyone should be 100 percent ok with one session of therapy and a clock spinning enough times as each treatment has a time limit to "be ok". Therapy is there to help you learn to process the trauma and be able to keep moving forward in life not "get over it" as trauma isn't something that goes away easily if at all. If you told anyone to get over it right after a traumatic event you'd get a red health bar instantly. It really sounds like you are the problem and need the very help you say Rhea doesn't need as "time heals all wounds" except for you know mental trauma and scars time doesn't heal those they will always be apart of you in some way.
I think the idea of Rhea not knowing Sothis when she was still awake really explains a lot of her behavior and I'm surprised I didn’t consider that before
Rhea knew Sothis when she was awake, but was likely just a child when the war against Agartha broke out. She sings the same song Sothis used to sing to her when she was young, and she wouldn't be so desperate to revive her mother if she never knew her, when her older siblings (Macuil and Indech) can't be bothered with trying. It would also explain why she came to view the Agarthans as greedy, power-hungry murderers when they attacked the Nabateans. A child would likely draw that conclusion from such a traumatic experience and not even consider that the Agarthans were already present and living in their own society (as hinted at by their already established pantheon, something that does not exist without a stable society) and regarded Sothis as an invader who usurped their lands and sovereignty and threatened them by creating monsters (her children). That's why Rhea's account of what happened during the conflict can't be trusted to be the whole truth. She is likely telling HER truth when she recounts the events, but again, she was just a child and only had her own perception of the events. The fundamental truth is that Sothis was not the "progenitor god", "mother of all life" and the "arbiter of every soul" (at least, not where humans are concerned). Fodlan was NOT a wasteland before her arrival (which she was not present for and the existence of human life and society directly contradicts this) and Sothis was NOT an all good and loving goddess (as evidenced by the events in 3 Hopes, where she does NOT lose her memory and becomes far more authoritarian and ruthless, even preying on Byleth's emotional state if/when Jeralt dies to take full control of their body, essentially killing them). In other words, the Agarthan war was not a case of "good vs evil", but a native people being threatened and usurped by a powerful outside force that spawned a host of strange and frightening creatures. Now, modern Agarthans are unquestionably evil, no mistakes. But centuries of being reduced to mole people and feeling betrayed by fellow humans (when Wilhelm sided with Rhea) will do that to a society.
@LAZERAK47V2 I don't think we should keep 3hope against Sothis. Imagine you awoke after a slumber and find yourself not in your own body, but in the body of a human, and you can sense seerhat your children were massacred and their bones were turned into weapons while their blood was infused in humans. It's kinda upsetting, no? Plus, Agartans are the last who should be trusted.
@@Treasure_hunter_21 Modern Agarthans, yes. But ancient Agarthans were a different people entirely and we have very little to go on with regards to their history. What we do have, however, is evidence that they existed before Sothis "went to sleep", because that's the war that caused her to use her power to heal the land from devastation. As such, they existed before the events of the Red Canyon Massacre and the War of Heroes. They call her "Fell Star" and would not know her origins if they hadn't be present when she arrived in Fodlan. If they were truly created by her, they would not label her in such a way. Also, remember Sothis's own words when chastising Byleth after they resist her control: "A glove does not defy the hand." Meaning she sees them as nothing more than a meat suit for her to wear.
@@LAZERAK47V2 you're unreasonably harsh. You're forgetting kronya, and the rest were present during the war of heroes, so we're did you get "modern" Agartans? Agartans are people who nuked the planet or, at the very least, Fodland and then created crests and bloodlines from corpses of her children. In this case, Sothiss animosity is 100% justified.
@@Treasure_hunter_21 I'm positive that Kronya was not present during the events of the War of Heroes, considering her attitude and terrible acting as Monica. She's the only one with that kind of attitude and exhibits youthful tendencies. The other female high-ranking members of Agartha speak in a more refined and dignified manner (Bias). What I mean by Modern Agarthans is what they devolved into. They didn't start out as comically evil, they became comically evil after losing to Sothis. Additionally, it's implied that only the highest ranking Agarthans possess longevity (by creating avatars to transfer their consciousness into, similar to how Rhea created Sitri. It's why they refer to their bodies as "this flesh", because they've disassociated their minds and bodies and view them as vessels, rather than a part of them). This allows them to rule in perpetuity (similar to Rhea). If the technology was widely available, there is literally no reason for them to hide from the world, they could easily abduct countless people and replace them without anyone being the wiser. They're meant to be the dark mirror to the Nabateans, even Arval and Shez are to Agarthans what Byleth and Sothis are to Nabateans. If you notice, I never actually defended them, I just stated that Rhea was not telling the whole truth and that there are aspects of Fodlan's history that are taken out of context because we only have Rhea's (biased) view on it. Their war against Sothis and the Nabateans was unjustified, but it wasn't without precedent. They could've easily just asked Sothis to leave if they didn't want her around, but it's highly likely they felt threatened by her and her children and thought diplomacy was pointless. Now, if she refused, then they are ABSOLUTELY justified. Fodlan was their home and Sothis is an invader. She could have easily picked a different planet that was uninhabited and started from there.
Regarding Rhea's true name. It seems the names given by Sothis are the names of the dragon forms. So her real name is The Immaculate One. And thus both Seiros and Rhea are identities she assumed to blend in with humans.
There's no way Sothis gave her own child the most absurd and self-centred name imaginable: The Immaculate One. Why give one baby dragon the immaculate one and another one "The Vigorous"?
@@frostbite_1244i dont remember if this was headcanon or actual lore, but names like Seiros' Immaculate One and Cethleann's Benevolent One aren't granted at birth, as they grow up the parent Nabatean assign them a name most fitting to their disposition. Ehhhh idk about this chief, probably headcanon.
On the perspective of who started the war between the nabateans and Agarthans, the Nabateans perspective seems more likely since the church has been neutral through Fodlan and usually ends up meditating and the few Nabateans still alive are not ruling in secret, they are just sleeping in desolate places. The Agarthans on the other hand have been nothing but awful and are directly the one responsible for most of the conflicts in Fodlan.
Or, it could have been that the survivors became reclusive after the War of Heroes and learning that ruling from the shadows is very dangerous if they get caught. After all it gave rise to Nemesis, and 2/3rds of the people of Fodlan rallied to him under the belief he was liberating them from beasts and false gods. As for the Agarthans, yea. They were badly written one dimensional villains. However: Imagine today aliens invaded, and deemed that you must change to fit the way they want humanity to live. Your leaders say no, and so the aliens decide it means total war. Not just a war of conquest, a war to wipe out the other species entirely. In that war, Agathan (humanity) basically lost and was thought to be wiped out to the last. So the aliens created new humans to inhabit the world and rule over. Now imagine knowing all that, as the real humans hiding underground for generations. Would you not also want revenge against the aliens who reduced your world, your civilization, and your history to ashes.
It could have been that the survivors became reclusive after the War of Heroes and learning that ruling from the shadows is more dangerous. After all, it gave rise to Nemesis. 2/3rds of the people of Fodlan rallied to him under the belief he was liberating them from beasts and false gods. Which isn't wrong, but his motivations for doing so were questionable at best due to allying with the Agarthans. As for the Agarthans, yea. They were badly written one dimensional villains. However: Imagine today aliens invaded, and deemed that you must change to fit the way they want humanity to live. Your leaders say no, and so the aliens decide it means war. Not just a war of conquest, a war to ____ out the other _____ entirely. In that war, Agathan (humanity) basically lost and was thought to be _____ out to the last. So the aliens created new humans to inhabit the world and rule over. Now imagine knowing all that, as the real humans hiding underground for generations. Would you not also want revenge against the aliens who reduced your world, your civilization, and your history to ashes?
Gotta love having to _____ what I am saying because of the ______ that ____ now has. No more ____ to talk about games because naughty _____s that could means something else in a different context.
@@techpriest6962 The Agarthans actually destroyed most of their species. They were waging war on every other civilization and that's why Sothis stepped in. It's basically like if 1940s Germany got a bunch of nukes and glassed half the planet right before the aliens showed up then glassed the rest while fighting the aliens.
Of all the characters in 3H Rhea was probably the least horrible person and yet she was the cause of a lot of what happens. She was honestly a good person and wanted what was best for everyone, but she was so scared of letting people make mistakes that like a mother who hovers over her child she never let the continent grow. It made her dangerous not because she was actively trying to hurt people, but because she couldn't imagine them thinking for themselves; she was scared of another Nemesis rising up.
If you've seen House of the Dragon and played some other fantasy games, the trend of "good person, HORRIBLE ruler" is very common in dark fantasy stuff.
One JRPG series that seems to (mostly) avoid the Evil Church trope is the Dragon Quest/Warrior series. While there are certainly evil (or at least humanly fallible) individual priests, and even the angels can be jerkasses, the religion itself is usually on the side of the good guys, with god themself willing to actively aid the heroes in some cases. The few cases where the churches turn evil are when they have been hijacked by the BBEGs pretending to be the good-guy-god, and the only time I can remember off the top of my head when the main god was an asshole, there was another more benevolent deity to stop him from wiping out humanity because he deemed them unworthy.
I love Cherami Leigh's voice work, so I was locked into Rhea's route from the beginning. Yeah, she's a mess, but she's a hot mess. That can also turn into a dragon.
I feel that you missed a great opportunity to address the Book of Seiros Volume II's claim that the Crest system is so bad that it's the reason Sothis distanced herself from the world. The church's official doctrine is that the Crest system is horrible, literally the reason god doesn't talk to Fodlan anymore, yet Rhea tries to balance having a kind of moral authority through the church with letting humans still govern themselves. The Church of Seiros is an intriguing organization in how it (mainly) left Enbarr after the War of Heroes and situated itself in Garreg Mach. If Rhea wanted to, she could have kept the church operating from the capital of Fodlan and had it be closely tied to the government throughout history. The opportunity to be an extremely hands-on, even iron-fisted ruler was there, yet Rhea instead established a degree of separation and placed her HQ in a spot where anyone at the distant reaches of Fodlan would only have to travel roughly the same distance for aid. The Church of Seiros also seemingly intervened for the sake of Adrestia after the War of the Eagle and the Lion, convincing Loog to found his own nation rather than sweeping south to take over all of Fodlan. The only condition seemed to be that this new nation, governed by the Ten Elites' descendants, would acknowledge and adhere to the moral teachings of the faith, presumably to prevent a second Nemesis and the resulting massacres. IIRC, we don't know what stance the church took on the Leicester Alliance's founding and Faerghus' conquest of it before Leicester finally became free. Rhea appears to be someone who doesn't want to wield governmental power, whether because she respects any autonomy Sothis might have desired for humanity or because she thinks only Sothis is qualified to govern all people, particularly in regard to matters like confronting an apocalypse. In contrast to this rather hands-off approach, the other bearer of the Crest of Seiros, Edelgard, advocates for ruling with an iron fist, making sure that nothing can possibly happen to her land or her without her first knowing all about it and either causing or approving of it. Rhea and Edelgard are very similar in their personalities and traumas but have drastically different solutions, and Silver Snow, the first route written, was probably created on the basis of assessing and defeating these two extremes to create a better, balanced answer. I also find it interesting how Sothis' revival might be an unspoken necessity for the Nabatean population to recover. With the Nabateans reduced to five people, they're especially vulnerable to genocide, and the true origin of the Crests and Relics can incentivize such atrocities, hence one of the major reasons why the Church of Seiros concealed that detail. Slowly rebuilding the population could increase the odds of a Nabatean being discovered as a non-human, thus opening them up to prejudices. Rhea's homunculi are so flawed that they keep on dying, so this suggests Rhea can't just restore the population in a lab. Short of inbreeding, any spouse for a Nabatean would have to be a human, and said spouses and resulting families would also have to prove trustworthy enough to conceal the Nabateans' genetic identities for generations until the population could establish its own resilient society. Even then, the spouses having to be human could potentially cause the Nabatean race (perhaps more like a species) to still dwindle away regardless. For the Nabateans to ever properly recover, let alone not have to hide their racial identities, reviving Sothis might be seen as the one viable option, since she could create a Nabatean population from scratch again. The fact that Sothis does exist as a character in Three Houses and the Crest of Flames works might also indicate that she is still alive, so restoring her is more like healing her and finishing the process that began at Zanado before Nemesis' attack, along with giving justice and gratitude to the person who kept the world inhabitable. The Church of Seiros' suppression of technology is a major detail, but something highly relevant is that in Three Houses' setting, humanity apparently did destroy the world with their technology in the past. Sothis spent ages painstakingly healing the planet so as to prevent extinctions, a process that devastated her, and then the Agarthans and Nemesis seemingly tried to restart the apocalyptic behaviors and mentalities in record time. To Rhea, humanity proved that it can't be trusted with unfettered technological growth since that led to violent and, based on Agartha's prejudices, oppressive mind sets. The books in the DLC library note that autopsies in general were banned, mentioning white magic as an alternative overall, so Manuela's comments (and the model in her office) imply that the ban was lifted at some point. The same goes for telescopes, since devices in Garreg Mach and letters from the students indicate that astronomy is studied there and the vast distances of space are known. In particular, Edelgard notes how long it would take for Sothis to travel from the Blue Sea Star to Fodlan. Books are also sold in the markets around the monastery, and despite Byleth's secretive, isolating upbringing as a mercenary, he or she can read them, so the improved printing press was likely unbanned too. As further evidence of this, Raphael's family wasn't too well-off yet he sends some of his books to his sister, implying that she can also read them. Leonie is literate as well despite being a subsistence hunter (IIRC) in need of her entire village's support and major loans to attend Garreg Mach. The only thing that might still be banned is crude oil, and considering how real-life humanity still hasn't saved itself from destroying the environment with that, the writers might not have wanted to treat the topic as solved when it's certainly not in our world. No one is dethroning Agartha as the war crimes grand champion in Three Houses and Hopes' setting, or Edelgard as the individual with the most war crimes that can be attributed to her in the games' events. Their Nightcore Nuremberg and Hegemon Hague trials have way too much documented evidence on other channels. Rhea and the others have tried, but they're not nearly competitive enough in that regard. Thanks for this video and the others you've made on Three Houses' factions! As a setting inspired by Three Kingdoms China and the wars of medieval Europe, Fodlan is especially designed to have no clear good answer, and its nations are likely to crumble. Even the Agarthans and Nabateans' wars still persist, so the conflicts within Fodlan and even those of outside lands are liable to rage on for ages to come. A series of videos that addresses these elements for every group in the setting is greatly appreciated and, IMO, best explores the themes of the stories.
the church being corrupt and secretly evil is almost expected in video games nowadays. what i would like to see is a shady looking religion who turned out to be saints.
I love your humor in this series I was waiting for you to talk about it but it didn't come up. And that's everyone's feelings towards the goddess and how Rhea's plans don't really agree with like half the population's view of her. Rhea's central motivation is doing everything in her power to bring her mother back. The way she handled the Tragedy of Duscur is emblematic of her "sweep it under the rug" policy of ruling but that's only because she considers herself the interm authority of the Church. When Sothis returns, none of what she does matters because Sothis is going to put everything right again. But even if Rhea succeeded, how many people would've been cool with that? Lorenz mentions in chapter 2(?) monastery dialogue that most nobility worship the goddess out of obligation, not devotion. And the way nobles react to Crests illustrates that. Everyone has read the Book of Seiros and, therefore, the verse that criticizes the use of Crests to establish nobility. They do the Rite of Rebirth every year, hoping the goddess will finally return when they've been devoted enough. But the nobility does not let that stop them from being noble, in spite of also claiming to be devout. Disregarding Rhea's tacit endorsement of nobility, the leaders of Fodlan are not really invested in the goddess despite what they say. Not really. Edelgard believes Sothis to be a false goddess. Dimitri believes the goddess to be disinterested in people and only tolerates her because the people of Faerghus are invested in her. What if Rhea's weird plan to manufacture the goddess actually worked? Would the people of Fodlan be accepting of her? We know half would welcome her with open arms like Mercedes, Marianne, and Ignatz but what about others like most of the Empire or Dimitri or Claude? Rhea seems to believe that this is what's best for Fodlan, but does everyone else?
Deep down, Rhea never actually cares for humans, and she displays this through her actions on multiple occasions. She sided against the Empire during the Loog's War for Independence, siding with the rebels (hypocritically in the future, when Edelgard does the same with her establishment, she demands that they all be slain) and supporting the creation of the Kingdom, but ONLY with the stipulation that HER religion be made the official religion, further increasing her political power and control over Fodlan, placing her authority above that of the king of Faerghus, while the Empire loses a ton of territory and populace. A fact that she takes full advantage of in Edelgard's war, fleeing to the Kingdom in Crimson Flower and in all routes in 3 Hopes. Dimitri has no issue allying with her in 3 Houses because of his mental state and delusions that Edelgard is responsible for the Tragedy of Duscur (she was literally HIS age when it happened and her father had been overthrown with the Insurrection, so way to take the gold in mental gymnastics Dimitri!). However, in 3 Hopes, Dimitri is FAR more reluctant to offer them sanctuary because it would drag Faerghus into the war (remember, Edelgard declares war on the Church of Seiros *specifically*, Faerghus only enters the war when they side with Rhea) but he knows that his hands are tied because his legitimacy as king is under the auspices of the Church (just as Rhea planned), so he has no choice in the matter. Her callous disregard for the toxic society she, herself created further proves her disdain for humans, only ever directly intervening if they threaten her power and slaying any dissenters or challengers without trial, using her ultimate authority over every nation in Fodlan to do whatever she wants without repercussion. As long as the humans are scheming against each other, it doesn't matter how many children suffer atrocities as long as the Crest-based nobility and the narrative that they are gifts from Sothis is upheld. Finally, we come to her completely losing her mind when Byleth refuses to kill Edelgard. Let me put that into perspective: Byleth REFUSES to KILL Edelgard. She doesn't hear them out or question why they would stand against her. Byleth might not have even been siding with her to begin with, maybe they simply didn't agree with the decision to KILL her. Instead, she declares them a failure and decides to kill them as well, going straight to murder, essentially FORCING Byleth to fight against her and the church. This action also explains why many devoted church-aligned characters side against her if Byleth recruits them (like Mercedes and Marianne). Due to the game's mechanics, you can only deploy a number of units, and only class-based units will be present in cutscenes, but the events that happen in the Tomb are witnessed by ALL of Byleth's students: Rhea becoming completely unhinged and bloodthirsty and transforming into a monstrous dragon (paralleling the events of the Agarthan war). THAT is what causes them to side against Rhea and is why the non-recuitable units in Crimson Flower (Hilda, Dimitri, Dedue, Claude and to a lesser extent, Catherine and Cyril) do not side with Byleth, they don't witness this event. Flayn and Seteth are already firmly on Rhea's side and know the truth about her origins. Speaking of, Seteth himself questions her actions, both prior to the events of the war and becomes far more concerned with her mental state during it, even abandoning the war totally if he and Flayn are spared. Finally, Rhea demands that her soldiers set a town full of innocent people ablaze, shocking even Catherine, who is her most loyal knight. Something that Edelgard NEVER does, in fact, Edelgard even goes so far as to compromise her own campaign for the sake of Lonato in 3 Hopes, and Shamir comments on this, saying that the Knights of Seiros would've left him to die and how she respects Edelgard for her decision (on a side note, Claude does exactly that in his route, abandoning Randolf and his Empire allies for the sake of victory, and is immediately reprimanded by his friends, whereupon he vows to do better. Rhea would've just told them to shut up or be executed for questioning her). Her charity towards Cyril is likely a result of her own experience as a child where she was left an orphan, and she saw herself in him and it was not motivated purely for the sake of generosity, something Byleth can comment on during their support with Cyril. So its highly likely that her acts of charity are to establish a front of benevolence (a tactic used by many companies and people to put up a favorable look while hiding their true selves). She's not irredeemably evil like the Agarthans, but she's definitely a villain. Her redemption comes after she has been imprisoned by the Empire, where she finally gives up her power after centuries of ruling unquestioned and retires to a quiet life.
@LAZERAK47V2 I disagree on a few of your points. Primarily Rhea's motivations, Dimitri's reasoning, and the events of Houses chapter 11. Regarding Rhea, while she never truly forgave humanity for the events of the Red Canyon, I can't in good faith say she doesn't care about people at all. After the War of Heroes, the Adrestian Empire had the Ten Elites dead to rights. Rhea would've been well within her rights (in terms of total war) to wipe out all of their kin after Nemesis's defeat. And then this Crest system would never be a topic of conversation at all. But she didn't. A note from one of the Ten Elites found in the abyssal Library says how even though they are being hunted to the ends of the earth, some of his clanmen are being spared. Now, if she didn't care at all, then her response should've been total bandit death, but she held back. Another reason is that in chapter 12 of non-CF routes is that she gives her reasoning for choosing to participate in the Battle of Garreg Mach. She says she refuses to allow Garreg Mach to become another Red Canyon. That in itself says a lot because the Red Canyon was where her family died. Meaning she holds the monastery and those within it in just as high regard. Her monastery help request says that she genuinely wants to connect with people but just can't and the ending of Verdant Wind has her admit that while she never truly forgave humanity for the events of the Red Canyon, she did try. She took in the refugees of Remire Village, even though that lays in Empire territory and, therefore, should've been the Empire's responsibility. Rhea doesn't care at all? That's a lot of extra trouble that Rhea is just living with for someone who doesn't care. Regarding Dimitri's mania, it's mania. I mean, once you start yelling at ghosts living in your head, it's a lot harder to claim you have a salient point to make. But it's not like that he's entirely disconnected from reality. It's more like he takes all the punishment from a lack of information. I mean, it's not like he blamed Edelgard for no reason. He actually was fine with Edelgard up until chapter 10 and thought highly of her. He actually went to Garreg Mach to investigate her uncle, Volkart Arundel. The Insurrection of the Seven made the church look at him differently, and Dimitri was following up on that lead, reviewing his financial records, hoping that would point him in the right direction. Technically, it did, but not in the way he thought. I mean, he did stumble onto Thales and "the Flame Emperor" who are business partners even if begrudgingly. Dimitri only gets to look bad because the truth is somehow more insane than the story he came up with. "Ah yes Arundel ceasing his donations to the church and taking part in a political coup before taking his niece just before our own political disaster was clearly the machinations of an underground cabal of shape-shifting molemen in their shadow war against shape-shifting lizard people. Classic misdirection." It's not like he's angry at Edelgard for the Tragedy of Duscur exclusively. It's not like the Flame Emperor was a good guy. Framing him for murder and then taking 75% of his country is considered a social faux pas at least. The only people who could ever tell him the truth are captured, dead, or conspiring against him. But then everyone laughs at him when he starts jumping up his own conclusions. If Edelgard were truly motivated by righting the wrongs inflicted upon the people of Fodlan, then why not just tell Dimitri what happened to his family? It's not like he wouldn't help her crush the wicked skulls of those responsible. Instead of just laughing at him for being an ignorant ape who doesn't know what's going on. Regarding chapter 11, I've always found it weird that people say Rhea should've pulled her punches. Garreg Mach is functionally The Vatican. It's a centralized religious power with both political and military influence. If a neighboring state went and shot up The Vatican tomorrow, Italy would demand their heads. Metoadey was going on about how he wanted to eat the defenders of the Holy Tomb. I feel like most people wouldn't see a murderous robber in their home and decide to consider the socioeconomic factors that created him before deciding what to do. It mostly comes down to optics. Rhea in Crimson Flower is legally insane. The stuff she does there, she's never done in her 1000+ years of life or at least nothing we have records of. Scapegoating dissidents is a far cry from torching a city. If the burning of Fhirdiad is representative of her true character then does that also mean the Hegemon Husk is representative of Edelgard's true character? In Verdant Wind, Edelgard uses the citizens as human shields but I don't think most would argue that Edelgard isn't doing all of this for them. And that's not even touching on the horror that is the Demonic Beasts. Point being that I don't think extreme circumstances should be used as a gotcha for what these characters want. Or if they are then it should be applied evenly. The rest of what you said I totally agree with.
@@elevate07 The reason Edelgard didn't inform Dimitri of her plans is *precisely* because he's to be king of Faerghus. Due to the king being given legitimacy by the Church, Dimitri would've been obligated to stop her. This is exactly how it unfolds in 3 Hopes. Dimitri himself says that he agrees with a lot of what Edelgard is trying to do, but believes she is being too rash and that change like that should come gradually. However, it's entirely possible Edelgard saw war as the only solution because her circumstance was similar to Lysithea: She is living on borrowed time. She can't afford to take the long way, she has to act while she's still healthy. It's never clarified whether or not she will suffer from a reduced lifespan, but it's entirely possible, she never divulges that information. Given what she went through, locked in a dungeon (and not even the "nice" ones, Ferdinand expresses surprise at how well his father is being treated, saying that he expected dungeons with chains and torture devices, to which Edelgard somberly comments that "they have those too" implying that's where she was kept), experimented on and watched her entire family die while her father was reduced to a shadow of his former self. It's a miracle she, herself did not go insane. Also, when does Edelgard use civilians as human shields in Verdant Wind? Are you referring to the battle in the city before the fight against her? That's not using civilians as meat shields. That's a city being invaded. Civilian casualties are a part of war, no matter how much you try to avoid them and it's not like they had shelters to run and hide in. The best they could hope for is to hide in their homes and hope they don't get hit by a stray shot or something. As for Hegemon Edelgard, think about the circumstances. Dimitri being victorious would ensure that the status quo remains, that the Church remains in power, and that's exactly what happens (though with Byleth in charge, which is something Edelgard likely didn't consider, because they were fighting for Dimitri, not leading the Church). If she loses in that circumstance, everything she will have fought for will have been for nothing, so she was willing to do anything to prevent that outcome. Anything to herself, that is. Transforming into Hegemon Edelgard is NOT a pleasant experience and anyone else who would have attempted it (as seen in the battle against Dimitri in Crimson Flower, when Dedue and Faerghus Knights transform) would've become a Demonic Beast and completely lost their minds. Edelgard would NOT allow that to happen to any of her soldiers. She was determined to shoulder the burden all on her own, regardless of the cost. The reason she doesn't see the need to resort to it in Verdant Wind (and Silver Snow, which is basically the same route) is because the outcome is different: Claude or Byleth being in charge is an acceptable outcome. Her entire purpose in starting the war was to depose Rhea. The war was explicitly declared against the Church of Seiros, not the Kingdom or the Alliance, those got involved because of circumstances. Claude would depose the Central Chuch's authority and Byleth would claim it. Becoming Hegemon Edelgard was an act of desperation, but she wanted to ensure she would be the only who suffered for it.
@@LAZERAK47V2Dimitri choosing to side with the Church and offer them safe harbor is predicated on the church being the legitimate lynchpin of Fodlan society. Forcing rapid change based on his personal beliefs is not an option because... well... his father King Lambert did that. And the Western Lords saw him as a tyrant and they committed regicide because of it. Granted it was a move pushed by Those Who Grind in the Night but the Faerghus nobles who took part didn't know that. Point being it was a lesson Dimitri learned. But what happens if Dimitri learns of the shadow war between the last Naabateans and Those Who Vape in the Grey? Edelgard chooses to ally herself with the molemen because she considers the Church of Seiros too powerful for the Empire to fight on its own. And thus Edelgard has to sign off on literal kidnapping, slavery, and human transmutation. If Edelgard walks up to Dimitri and says "Hey I know it wasn't Duscur who killed your family. It was the same people who kidnapped me the day I left Fhirdiad. Fodlan is a secret battleground for 2 factions of shapeshifters and your family was caught in the middle." While it's up in the area whether he'd turn on the church, he'd 100% mulch Thales and his ilk without question. It's not like it'd be hard, he bulldozed their entire surface operation on accident. I guess my general point is that Edelgard doesn't get to wag her finger at Dimitri for reacting wrong to mass murder when she's holding all the answers. Regarding the hostages, Claude seems Shamir ahead to scout Enbarr. And Shamir remarks that although the Empire knows for a fact the Alliance army is on her doorstep, she's locked the civilians inside the city. And Claude puts 2 and 2 together to realize Edelgard is putting the civilians between himself and her. Also the claim that Edelgard is exclusively targeting the Church of Seiros kind of doesn't work. In non-CF routes Dimitri is allegedly executed for Rufus murder and the Empire takes most of the country as the Faerghus Dukedom anyway. No Rhea required. In Crimson Flower it's worse because the war stalls between Adrestia and Faerghus due to the Ohgma Mountains between them. And so Edelgard and Hubert decide to invade and take Leicester to clear a path into the Kingdom. In Azure Gleam, Mathias remarks that the conflict doesn't end if they just hand over Rhea. Since then they will have publicly kowtowed to the Empire and basically declared themselves a vassal state. So no, we can't say Edelgard was only targeting the Church of Seiros.
@@LAZERAK47V2 did TH-cam stealth delete my comment. Dang it Dimitri choosing to side with the Church and offer them safe harbor is predicated on the church being the legitimate lynchpin of Fodlan society. Forcing rapid change based on his personal beliefs is not an option because... well... his father King Lambert did that. And the Western Lords saw him as a tyrant and they committed regicide because of it. Granted it was a move pushed by Those Who Grind in the Night but the Faerghus nobles who took part didn't know that. Point being it was a lesson Dimitri learned. But what happens if Dimitri learns of the shadow war between the last Naabateans and Those Who Vape in the Grey? Edelgard chooses to ally herself with the molemen because she considers the Church of Seiros too powerful for the Empire to fight on its own. And thus Edelgard has to sign off on literal kidnapping, sl*very, and human transmutation. If Edelgard walks up to Dimitri and says "Hey I know it wasn't Duscur who killed your family. It was the same people who kidnapped me the day I left Fhirdiad. Fodlan is a secret battleground for 2 factions of shapeshifters and your family was caught in the middle." While it's up in the air whether he'd turn on the church, he'd 100% mulch Thales and his ilk without question. It's not like it'd be hard, he bulldozed their entire surface operation on accident. I guess my general point is that Edelgard doesn't get to wag her finger at Dimitri for reacting wrong to mass murder when she's holding all the answers. Regarding the hostages, Claude sends Shamir ahead to scout Enbarr. And Shamir remarks that although the Empire knows for a fact the Alliance army is on her doorstep, she's locked the civilians inside the city. And Claude puts 2 and 2 together to realize Edelgard is putting the civilians between himself and her. The point about Edelgard exclusively targeting the Church just doesn't hold up. The Empire choosing to invade the Kingdom in Crimson Flower makes sense since the archbishop is there. But in every other route, Rhea is captured immediately. And the Empire invades them anyway. Rufus is [unalived] and Dimitri framed for his [unalivement]. And the Empire claims most of Faerghus as the Faerghus Dukedom. No Archbishop required. In Crimson Flower it's worse. The Leicester Alliance will always manufacture internal conflict to stay out of the war. But the Empire and Kingdom reach a stalemate because the Ohgma Mountains separate the north and south halves of Fodlan and neither country can get enough troops across to actually fight one another. So the Empire invades and takes Leicester to clear a path into the Kingdom. And yeah I feel like I can see why some people argue that this war is more about reunification than ending the shadow war. Neither Dimitri nor Claude know about the shapeshifters so how are they supposed to react when Edelgard starts marching until their home with a giant army at her back? Just give up?
i dont like that in rpgs churches always turn shit. even happens when the organisation itself is fine that some background shenanigans are happening to benefit said zealot lunatic.
May I suggest Dragon Quest? The church isn’t evil in any of the games… it doesn’t even play a huge role in the story. It’s just part of the world building
@@theshinypeliper8813 glad to hear. it jsut really is that if the church is more then just the thing in town that it goes to shit. even in infinite wealth it went to shit
@@Flutterdark_you know what, props to dragon quest for not turning the Chirch evil because at this this point it has been an overused trope in jrpgs to portray religion as freaking evil. Do a lot of the authors for these video games and manga really have a hate boner for religion or is it just an easy plot device?
I mean… religion is cool, but organized religion is pretty malicious. I think there are many wonderful Christians, but I still oppose the church. One is an individual, another is a business designed to make money and influence human thought.
Local Blue Lion speaking: It's been very cool to hear your takes on all of the different factions within Fodlan. I especially appreciate you covering details from Hopes as well. I haven't seen many videos covering it in detail alongside Houses like you have. With all the different, thought-provoking ideas Houses/Hopes offers, and the varying perspectives/interpretations of those ideas that come from each player, I'm honestly not sure if I'm ever going to stop thinking about Fodlan.
Three houses has great writing and is so complex. Seiros can easily be the protagonist or the antagonist of the story. Just like the playable lords, except she’s not really playable. Seiros is very interesting because yes you can blame her for a lot that happens but a lot of it isn’t directly her fault and is more indirect. Like I’m pretty sure the wars and stuff would happen regardless of if she was in charge. And also the crests weren’t her invention really and it’s not her fault that crests make people turn into power hungry tyrants or that they are in fact helpful to have in battle. It’s just the nature of humans in this feudalistic setting.
someone did an anaysis on Nemesis' song: God Shattering Star, and found that it gives a very intersting acount of events from Nemesis pov. " This is basically Nemesis' war song, a call to arms for his soldiers. As a general note, while this isn't as archaic as the Spirit Dais, it's still using older speech. There's a bunch of things I want to touch on, but I guess the easiest place to start is with "artifacts". Those are probably what end up becoming the Heroes' Relics, but they can't be called by that name in the song - they're not the Heroes just yet. If you're wondering why it's bolded, it's because it's written in katakana, which is used very rarely in the dialogue in this game. It's typically used for loan words like the names of people and places, but it's also used extensively at the end of Verdant Wind for Nemesis, in order to communicate a robotic speech pattern. Here, it's probably calling attention to how otherworldly or foreign these artifacts are. edit: It has occurred to me that "artifacts" is probably singular, since Nemesis' skill is "Heaven's Fall"; he might just be talking about the Sword of the Creator instead of the relics in general. I also want to comment on the grammatical pattern "x called y". This usage can imply that y is like a misnomer for x. As in, they're called gods, but they're actually beasts. Or this is called a rebellion or treason, but it's actually a battle or struggle. Relatedly, I find the fact that Nemesis literally calls this a "counterattack" interesting. According to the Nintendo Dream interview, Nabateans were scattered around Fodlan ruling as gods in their dragon forms. While Zanado itself might've been peaceful, like both Sothis and Rhea claim, it seems like their overall rule might not have been. Possibly supporting that idea is the "embodiment of fury" line. I'm pretty sure this is a reference to his namesake, the Greek goddess Nemesis. One of her epithets, "Erinys" means fury; you might recognize the plural of this, Erinyes, as "the Furies", the Greek deities of vengeance. Funnily enough, her other epithet, a goddess that she's often conflated with, is "Adrestia" - "she who cannot be escaped", the goddess of revolt, just retribution and sublime balance between good and evil. Anyway, going back to Nemesis herself, she is the goddess that enacts retribution against those who succumb to hubris, or arrogance before the gods. Now, why exactly would Nabateans have hubris...? Maybe because they weren't actually gods themselves, but were acting the part. I'll also point out that "powerful like a lion" is probably a nod to how Nemesis was the original king of Faerghus. You can trace most of its customs back to him, like living for strength, or kings introducing themselves for a fair fight. However, despite him calling Fodlan the motherland, I think it's possible that Nemesis actually originated from "the desert where stars fall", since he calls himself a star. Claude has his paralogue set in a desert, where Macuil has taken up residence - it's located in Sreng, to the north of Faerghus. Relatedly, in the Traveler's Journal, Issue 2, it's called a wasteland. The word "wasteland" in these lyrics can also be translated as "wilderness", but I think given this context, the former is the better choice, especially since they share a kanji (荒涼 - "desolate" vs. 荒野 - "wasteland; wilderness; desert"). Anyway, moving on to the more miscellaneous things, the "shatter" in "god shattering star" is actually "to slaughter; to vanquish" in the more literal sense. Not sure if there was a reason they went for "shatter" when that's a pretty abstract way of describing it, but I figured I'd point out the discrepancy. I think the line about not looking back on the corpses of your comrades is also interesting when you have Nemesis' friend greeting in Fire Emblem Heroes: [Friend]ハ、 ウヌヲ好マシク思ッテオルヨウダガ、 捨テ置ケ…馴レ合イナド、クダラヌワ。 [Friend] seems to view you favorably, but leave them alone... Cozying up to each other, how foolish. I think the morning sun dyeing the Oghma Mountains is probably another instance of the "dawn" motif, and I guess the wind is just overtly namedropping Verdant Wind. My intuition says that we should cross-reference these with the narration that appears for each month, but I said I'd keep this post brief(???) so I'll leave that for someone else to explore." www.reddit.com/r/FireEmblemThreeHouses/comments/lu9h1r/translated_lyrics_for_the_spirit_dais_and_god/ Dev interveiw: nintendoeverything.com/fire-emblem-three-houses-interview-part-2-byleth-dimitri-eyepatch/3/
More interesting parallels with Nemesis/Stars/Desert/Claude, is that the crest of Reigan can be given to anyone by using the "Star Dragon Sign" in NG+. This heavily implies that the Nabatean that Reigan killed and stole power from had some sort of power or significance over stars. Consider that you only fight Nemesis and hear "God Shattering Star" if you ally with Claude, the one who bears the "Star dragon"s blood. I feel like there's a whole lot more room for speculation with a symbolic coincidence like that. And that's not even mentioning that Claude's paralogue takes place in the same desert that you're speculating that Nemesis is originally from...
Always glad to see analysis from someone who took the time to understand all 4 routes. I really do like how 3H gave side we could join very human motivation and flaws. It's also refreshing to see a church organization truly have noble intentions but gets corrupted and distorted overtime though human flaws rather then be secretly evil from the get co.
Some comments on the church of Seiros: The church has a lot of eastern philosophy that is lost on western fans who blindly view it as the catholic church. But we can't just ignore the Japanese/eastern roots just because we are all inherently biased against real world catholicism. That's also imposing our western world view where the Japanese devs did not intend for it. Those devs aren't western and they're not catholic, and a church in fiction isn't always about catholicism either. a few examples of how 3H has eastern philosophy and inspiration: - Byleth's personal class, the enlightened one is Buddhist - the magic lance: the arrow of Indra is Buddhist named - four saints of Seiros represent the Four Gods with Rhea as the Yellow Dragon - Shamballa is a mythical place from Tibetan Buddhist myth, and Agartha has connections too - in 3 Hopes, Shez personal class is Asura Rhea as a character works as a great red herring in white clouds. She seems very sus and that's intentionally. She's meant to be the red herring on purpose. Silver snow was the original written route in 3H and Rhea as the red herring works perfectly for a route where your own lord is secretly going to betray you.
Silver Snows Rhea S-Support ends with Rhea admitting her wrongdoings and question whether or not she even deserves to stay alive. Its her redemption route, not one that validates the church. And people who spread that the church is actually based on eastern philosophy make themselves the issue to assume that japanese creators aren't incredibly aware and knowledgeable about the catholic church, when it has quite the presence in Japan despite not having many followers. The devs clearly intended for the Church of Seiros to be interpreted as an allegory for the catholic church, as the aesthetic and doctrine of it are clearly derived from the catholic church and the crest system in general is inspired from the feudal european three estates of the realm.
@@pippastrelle Edelgards Route hammers home that the Rhea we have at the start of the game is not a good person and shows us the violent, spiteful side of hers targeted at Byleth. All the other routes force Rhea into introspection and facing the consequences of the system she created and only in Silver Snow if a S-Support is archieved we do see her being redeemed. Hopes Hammers home that base Rhea is a bad person by focussing more on her as a leader, instead of being a Damsel in Distress.
@@pippastrelle I am not glad for the CF route cuz it was poorly written, but a better written route would have been awesome lol. alas, that's just not what we got. I am gonna counter you here. I think that white clouds is actually what hurt Rhea/church of Seiros perception the most. players saw the trailers for the game, then they played part 1, and they think "wow this archbishop is sus as fuck." and that's what the game wants cuz Rhea is a red herring. but THAT hurts Rhea more than anything else: she is built up as a sus red herring thru the entirety of part 1 of the game. if you picked the Black Eagles, then by the time that the player needs to choose between CF and SS, most players are already gonna dislike Rhea anyway cuz of white clouds. Edelgard stans foam at the mouth about Rhea cuz they blindly defend their waifu at all costs, and to them, this includes bashing Rhea to defend Edelgard. but Rhea being more evil in CF does not really matter, b/c Edelgard is the protagonist in CF: of course Rhea is painted in a much worse light in the ONE route where Edelgard is the main character. and the same is true in the other 3 routes, as well, where Edelgard is painted in a worse light as one of the villain/antagonists to the hero/protagonist of Dimitri, Claude, and Byleth. of course, some people will pick SS if they are curious about this path, but they probably don't like Rhea anyway; they just pick SS to complete all 4 routes or b/c they dislike CF for various reasons. I actually like SS much better than most people, but I recognize that it's a flawed route, too. by contrast, while Blue Lions/Golden Deer players don't necessarily like Rhea either, again after playing part 1, the difference here is that AM never sees Rhea again in part 2 cuz she's trapped in Enbarr, while VW saves Rhea and finally has her participate in the plot again to explain the history lore dump. VW players probably appreciate Rhea most of all, cuz of that lore dump to understand Fodlan history, while AM players kinda forget about Rhea cuz the plot of this particular route focused so heavily on Edelgard, the empire, Cornelia, and Arundel instead. thus, VW and AM fans come off with a much better appreciation of Rhea because VW gives Rhea something useful to do (she explains lore and she saves them from the missiles), while AM removes Rhea entirely from the route focus instead.
@@shizachan8421 A) I've put over 800 hours into this game. I know what the Rhea/Byleth S support says. idk why you are telling me what I already know, especially when I did not mention it at all. and I am not anti Rhea at all: I like her and I like her full arc. I am just stating facts that people are biased against her after playing white clouds where she is meant to become the sus red herring. B) you are projecting your own bias here. 100% you are projecting to say "the devs CLEARLY did X, Y, Z" without any reason to claim such. here is an easy as fuck counter to your BS claim: the catholic church has 0 female popes or archbishops. church of Seiros is lead by a woman, Rhea, and has many prominent female members in the knights (Catherine, Shamir), and teachers (Manuela, plus female Byleth). the church of Seiros also follows the teachings of the female goddess Sothis. it's VERY female based and NOT male focused, unlike the real catholic church and religious doctrine. so to claim it's so heavily inspired by catholic church is just wrong at base b/c a church with a female goddess and a female archbishop is a direct 180 to the catholic church as much as possible. the catholic church is anti gay, too. meanwhile Rhea can S support a female Byleth, and Rhea/Catherine is practically canon is AM, too, with Catherine's solo unpaired ending. C) the crest system was inspired by FE4, genealogy of the holy war. D) the game 3H is literally inspired by romance of the 3 kingdoms, a Chinese story, NOT a western story. get your facts right. stop claiming shit that isn't true.
In the events of 3H, Byleth… Crimson Flower: Achieves victory for the Adestrian Empire and dismantles the Church of Seiros Verdant Wind: Reforms the Church of Seiros while she serves as adviser for the Leicester Alliance. Silver Snow: Rebrands the Church of Seiros and does away with a ton of the old teachings … Azure Moon: Does absolutely nothing about the church. I guess we can see which route is the worst :)))))))) (Disclaimer: this is satire and should be treated as such.)
I should note that we don't know whether Flayn's mother was human or Nabatean. That question actually has bigger lore-implications for whether the Nabateans could replenish their numbers.
Agreed, that and if Byleth is needed just to get the job done of actually winning the war then it just feels right for them to lead. I just can’t trust anybody else.
There’s a lot I could say about Rhea and the church. From I can understand to some extent why Rhea did what she did and why the church is what it is to you guys are stupid and not necessarily evil but definitely bad guys. The Fodlen games in general I think have wasted potential with moral grayness. There is some and I think to an extent it’s done well but they could’ve done so much more with it. The church is the best example of this. They could’ve had it be a good organization that actually tried to help make the people’s lives better, but because of the circumstances of crests and relic weapons existing, and TWS existing its way too cautious and holds onto a system that while very flawed has led to relative stability. Add to that humans not being perfect and this corruption happens. The things about the tenets of the faith being basically the Ten Commandments with the added lines of “this stuff is ok to do if it’s against those who aren’t apart of the church” and I realized this game won’t do something remanded or interesting with it. Probably because if they did make the church more sympathetic then more people would feel bad about siding with Edelgard and we can’t have that. I’m just sick of the “religion, church, &/or deity(ies) are corrupt and bad” troupe. It’s tired and overused. Granted Japan seems to handle the troupe FAR better than any western dev i’ve seen.
Ah yes, more houses/hopes analysis. We eating good tonight bois. Not enough good Fodlan lore videos out there, especially ones that account for three hopes! Thanks for the good work on this!
All of Serios/Rhea's flaws become apparent when you realise that while she had a Mother... She does not have a father. Some real fatherlessness behaviour.
She should be more like Hubert. He had a father! Or maybe Dimitri. He also had a father! Or better yet, Bernie! I'm sure she has some good memories of her father. Or perhaps Lorenz! Or even Edelgard! That's how you behave when you have a father. Like perfectly healthy people!
@@jk-2053 They weren't arguing against having a mother, they were pointing out the lack of a father. Having two (responsible) parents makes raising children easier (though it's always difficult). People need to stop acting like pointing out a lack of father is an attack on mothers. It's a logistical issue, and both men and women contribute their skills to raising a child. Single mothers who choose to raise their child should be applauded, but that doesn't mean they aren't struggling without help.
I am a bit more sympathetic toward edelgard than most are. Many see her as a war criminal however seeing the darkness she had to go through she is somewhat justified in are views. imagine if you will you grew up in a noble house, you are sudden removed from your home to the kingdom where your mother married the king but was not allowed to say anything about where you was from, your uncle drags you back home, your mother is killed, you get wrapped up in experiments that will shorten your lifespan by creepy guys in black cloaks, all the while the church does nothing at all. Someone that has gone through that would be far easier to trick with some half truths and tbh some what far more believable than others. The church was in fact evil under rhea who only truly cared for her mother and the rest of the people she could care less about probably because in her mind humans are what took her mother away in the first place. Despite founding the empire it was the first place she rejected first with advocating for the kingdom's separation and later a separation of the kingdom into the leister alliance. To those in the kingdom especially to edelgard this is clear betrayal taking more and more from the empire which was supposed to be great monument of the church's stand toward evil. In the end unless you are playing edelgard's route she will suffer blamed for murders like dimitri's dad and many other things all the while she just wanted peace and to free the world from what she saw as the injustice of the church in fact that is the point. The only two lords that notice the injustice was claude and edelgard with edelgard taking the reins of removing the church from power to free others from the injustice of the crest system that Rhea needs to keep Fodlen in check. She could of done a better job at it but her heart was at least in the right place.
I can't consider anything hopes says about the church of seiros in good faith because that game badmouths the church and nabateans endlessly yet refuses to explore their side of the story in-depth. Claude doesn't even try to check the accuracy of Edelgard's accusations and sounds like a second hubert because of it. Rhea was underutilized in houses; in hopes she's treated even worse narrative wise.
@@Novarcharesk Because everyone interprets stories differently. I saw it as one where no one has the perfect outcome and you just go with the one that you feel is least harmful for the world.
@@Twilight5007except the one route where you deliberately causing the most harm to the world than the other routes by literally siding with the character who started the war
Honestly I don’t understand how people like Rhea or think that she’s like a good person. She’s understandable as a character. She is built upon possible some of the most traumatic events possible, but I think in a way, Rhea might be the true Villain of the game. Twsitd are bad (and certainly more evil), but they’re out here trying to take over. Rhea has all of the power and chooses to use it in some of the worst ways possible.
I literally discovered you today with the Leicester video, I watched the whole series and lo and behold I saw just now that you posted a new part of this series.
This type of storytelling kind of makes me want to do the old, “Wipe my memory and read again.” Play, take notes with reactions, Collect an ending, notes/react, wipe, repeat. Every few endings, I reflect and look at my own lore and how easy it is for me to fall to propaganda and hate, or overcome it through compassion or pure spite. Also which waifu is for lifeu? No better way to find out than to go in blind 15 times and see who I picked the most!
Regarding the crest system, a lot of the characters have noble ideas and intentions in wanting to change it but honestly I think they’re dreaming about a reality that will never come to pass and placing too much blame on the church since they’re an easy scapegoat. Crests DO make you objectively superhuman and superior to normal humans. In any society really that would become valued and eugenics (whether above or below board) would begin. Even looking at our world today with various democracies and republics among other governmental systems, the wealthy do pretty much whatever they want and get away with it. Imagine if we had something like crests, it’d be almost no different from Fódlan. Additionally, I don’t entirely understand why people get so hung up about the fact that the church’s history and god are ‘fake’. First off Sothis is a very real god, and while the church may overplay her omniscience, it’s very true that she basically created the modern world and all the life on it after the war with ancient agartha. Yes she can die (debatably since her body yes but not her soul), yes she’s not onnipowerful, but what even is a god? A god is honestly just a being or idea, real or not, that people give importance to and decide to worship. Gods can die, they can bleed, they can have flaws. Christianity has kind of tainted the idea of what it means to be a ‘god’ but Sothis certainly fits the bill. I mean come on, there are millions of gods that humans have created and worshipped and unless you’re a believer, then those millions of gods are fake. There isn’t really any ground to stand on and call someone’s entire belief system wrong, when it’s all relative. A very similar argument can be made about history. It’s written by the victors. Look at a textbook today and tell me how much of it you think is the unilateral truth. The answer is almost none of it. There are multiple sides to every story and entire realities can be rewritten and fabricated. Now, to play devil’s advocate we can look at something like Japanese people not really learning about their involvement in WW2. To pretty much everyone else it’s an objectively wrong and bad thing, but to the Japanese they’re doing just fine being none the wiser. Now think about the fact that no one in Fódlan really knows what happened back then. The only sources are really the remaining Nabateans and agarthans, and their knowledge is both heavily skewed and still doesn’t go back far enough to really understand the root cause of these feuds. So there’s really no right answer and at the end of the day why would anyone care about stuff that happened thousands of years ago. Yes it’s cool to learn about and it can be good study material for the human condition, government, technological advancement and all that stuff but in reality, the people of Fódlan knowing the truth isn’t that big a deal imo. My main point is that while these things are ideal in a perfect utopia, the world is not that and will never be. Yet, it will keep spinning and people will keep living. Players like to act like knowing the history and truth of Sothis is the end all be all when it’s not and never will be.
Loved all of the videos on Fodlan's factions thus far. Will you be covering the Agarthan faction? (or Those who slither in the dank, as you called them)
I just started Three Houses on a whim because my old roommate bought it on my switch when it came out, before he had his own. I've already sank 100 hours into it since last week... then I stumbled across some of your vids and now I get some great fresh content about a 5 year old game. Thanks for giving me some feeling of being there when it came out by stoking my hype about it haha.
I wonder what would be the best place to be born in this god forsaken land. My take, probably a remote village far enough that political squabbles won't affect me, and hopefully, lucky enough that the slitherers won't stick their noses
from what I can remember, Sothis gave her life for what she believed in, even if it resulted in her passing, and that she wished not to be revived, Rhea on the other hand, who was like a total mommy's girl, chose to go against her mother's wishes, by going through all those experiments of hers, all because she wanted to cling to her mother once more.
I just love Byleth, and if he is the center of the story, that is my fave story. My last route is Silver Snow, i am playing it right now, and i don't care, it is the best route for me.
Rhea is an interesting character that sets up everything that happens in Three houses with her ambitions and her negligence. That whole game had a lot of potential that wasn't really executed on very well unfortunately. That said, I still enjoyed it a lot. Just wish it didn't become so much of a slog to replay the first half of the game to get to the fun branching paths in the narrative.
Sir take this subscription. I have been saying these points for ages. Also as this is my first video of yours that i an watching, i really enjoy that outro
@TheHearthGuy Also, The Dubsteppers who groove in the Dank won't get any sympathies from me, since we'll most likely never get a straight answer as to why they did what they did. They're so cartoonishly and mustache twirlingly evil, they what ever injustices they claim to have suffered is completely overshadowed by their evulz. And, they are so strategically dumb that they probably can't even tie their own shoes. Also, unexisting entire peoples is bad.
0:04 A lot of it is Final Fantasy being anti-religion (anarchist in general?) and Japnese often being against religion. There's a history in Japan of the Shinto or Buddhist bodies and the state undermining each other.
Going off your very end point, I'm actually making a DnD campaign for my friends set after the Azure Moon ending of Three Houses. Since TWISTD are never immediately defeated they will actually bring back Nemesis for the party to have to deal with during another war
Byleth has Little To No Reason Siding With Edelgard..Her Goal is Decent. But Short Sided and Methods Are Evil.. Having Good intentions Does Not Make You Good Person. Being Nice Does Make You Good Person...She Did Not Kill Jeralt Directly..But Her Silence Did. She was Not Responsible For The Agthenas Kidnapping Flayn and using her Blood Experimenting on The Students and Turning Into Demonic Beast, and What Happeded To Remure Village..But Guess What? She Did Nothing and Stayed Silent..Her Silence and Working With The Argathneas Did More Harm in The Long Run. She Knew Kronya Was disguised as Monica. Her Silence Indirectly got Jeralt Murdered. She Did Nothing To Prove That She was Worthy of Earning Byleth Trust..For Example if Edelgard Saved Jeralt From Kronya Then That Would Change everything and Byleth anf Jeralt Would Have Small Reason To be Greatful To Edelgard and Try Convince Rhea To Spare Edelgard..
Pretty much my main reasoning why byleth joining the empire made little to no sense. That and what history of fodlan edie is heavily tainted by the mole ravers. Which is what makes edelgard such a great character imo.
Become god emperor. Tell the people the truth rebuild the church from the ground up and lead your new empire with all the new technology from those who twerk in the void and erase Nemesis as soon as he wakes up with the power of god and anime
To be fair to Rhea she’s a criminal with a lot of motive, and did a surprisingly good, almost reasonable job despite her severe baggage for the last thousand years.
My question is does Sothis even have any power? They talk about praying to the goddess and the goddess watching over but has she ever actually done anything?
She blatantly does. The Ability to rewind time (and pause it in three hopes) comes from Sothis. She also supposedly created the Nabateans and recreated most life on the world. The issue is that she’s presently just a soul stuck in a crest stone
@@scion513 I forgot about Divine Pulse. But I mean Sothis is dead with her spirit being attached to Byleth. I'm just wondering if she answers prayers since her death. She has been worshipped for however long, but there has to have been something that would make people still follow her instead of just relying on old stories. Otherwise, she's not much of a goddess.
@@davidgiegerich7716 I think in Rhea's S-Support she talks to her‚ but the validity is up in the air for me. Other than that‚ I don't think she does anything post-death that isn't related to Byleth. Though I think I'm confusing this with something else‚ I think Eastern gods (irl) can die it's just that Rhea believes that she can be brought back that the faith in Sothis never dies so everyone is praying to a "dead" goddess.
In current day? Most likely not. When she was alive? Most likely. In Heroes, she just randomly questions if that world is a thing she created at some point and just making something up like that on the spot does not seem particularly in character for her. While that game itself is not canon, it generally tries to expand on legitimate lore, so it has been a thing for a few years that she is legitimately omnipotent. Just not immortal, which is why she was stabbed while sleeping.
Clyde is my favorite character in the game and I don’t appreciate your statement about him. That said I would appreciate it. If his route explored his Almyren heritage more.
This all started because a first map brigand got a lucky crit on god.
Not lucky enough, the Loli came back.
Actually if she was always a Loli, gg Nemesis, would have fought with him, purge the Plague
@@GigiBranconi exactly why are you here? Sothis isn't the only child looking character in fire emblem. They've been here since the start
Tiki. Myrrh. Nowi. Sothis veyle etc. Sounds like you got a problem but continue to stay somewhere you can have issues with. If I was you in a situation Sao was around I'd just leave and not you know keep getting annoyed by it. But that's just me
@@ivanbluecool To joke about purging Lolis.
I thought that was pretty obvious, I thought that anyone who could read could understand that.
Should I have added some flavour of "Begone Thot", wasn't I clear enough? 🤔
Nemesis never actually fought Sothis, he just broke into her tomb and stole her remains.
In other words, he's a Thief that reclassed into a Brigand. And because Three Houses lets you use any weapon, he's not sub 30% hit rate axe-locked anymore.
guys I think op meant kostas
Dimitri stans: "No, your waifus and husbando are the biggest war criminals!"
Claude stans: "No, your waifus and husbando are the biggest war criminals!"
Edelgard stans: "No your waifu and husbandos are the biggest war criminals!"
Rhea stans: "Damn straight my waifu is the biggest war criminal!"
Yuri stans: "Mine's just a regular criminal."
Everyone the true culprit is the loli, it always is the loli
@@Apt23-v8u
That's also technically Rhea's Mom
Definition of cringe
Nah, more like:
Dimitri: "His insanity is justified."
Claude: "Moral complexity makes my head hurt, I like my Mary Sue ending."
Edelgard: "Joined for the cute leader. Stayed for the World Conquest."
Rhea: "Normally I hate any church in video games, but she does have big..."
Yuri: "What do you mean he isn't deep? Every FE game needs a ladyboy character."
In all seriousness, most "fanboys" for anything tend to cling to the most superficial things about a character.
Meanwhile...
Agarthans: "Yea, I know they suck. Though I want a villain route."
Nemesis: "The guy might die in the first minute of the game, but the dude sings his own boss music."
@@techpriest6962I mean edelgard just wanted to fuck with rhea,she doesn’t even want the church dead,just specifically the crazy dragon bitch
How dare you call them lizards. They are robot alien lizards that came from the sky with their magic technology gravitational force shifter device.
They are Manaketes. Space Manaketes. And yes i legitimately believe that they came from Arachnea.
@@aliastheabnormal kinda dragon-cist if you ask me. Not every dragon with green hair is related
Also no that's wrong. Sothis came from the sky and we know where naga was originally from to meaning they weren't the same thing especially when naga goes around helping heroes by giving them weapons or blessings
Sothis was more of a knowledge goddess like Mila and duma who affect their land differently as true gods while Sothis was more an alien like being.
Course she could have been a different dragon species too since we have many in earth divine fire etc and evolutions of them in dark fell and such. Sothis could have easily been one like anakos that has their own species
@@ivanbluecool I've actually seen an interesting theory that dragons like Sothis or Anankos/the Fates dragons came from Elibe through the Dragon Gates, since in those stories they all seem to come from somewhere else. A cool idea at the very least.
@@TheHearthGuy well technically they are all from different continents and legends making their powers distinct.
Naga has a load of things and can even reincarnate herself if tiki falls and the falchion is lost.
Grima is even stronger than a god as a baby when he was experimented on with divine dragon blood rising above even a dark dragon.
Anakos is from a mythical land as chrom mentioned so it's kinda true they all hail from unique Universes
@@ivanbluecool grima being experimented on is simply a retcon via echoes. that wasn't its background story for awakening. grima was just a fell dragon in the default game.
Rhea is what happens when you leave the Lord alone to clean up after the story.
Wouldn't she be the Tiki (young dragon thrust into war) since according to Hopes Wilhelm just peaces out after his son's death (or at least in the background of Fodlan history).
@@bubbles784 Nah, she's a Dragon Lord, her Kingdom was wrongfully destroyed, her mom died, she has no dad. And she had to assemble a ragtag group of allies including former enemies to fight a crazy powerhungry king with her go to weapon being that of a sword. Also her Seiros fit screams of Promoted Great Lord.
@@trulymrword You're right. I forgot that was an archetype.
@@trulymrword so true 👍
@@bubbles784 Tiki is just gives people advice and sleeps.
This game really amuses me by instead of giving reasons why you should join each side it gives reasons why you shouldn’t.
Thaaaaaaaat’s politics!
The game frustrates me cuz instead of giving reasons why the students should swap sides in the war, they all simply say "my professor blah blah." Imagine if real world students betrayed their home, friends or family cuz their favorite school professor was cool lmao
@@l.n.3372 well for some like petra they actually have reasons such as freedom from the empire
@@Sunnysunkern but Petra never really says that post war. on SS, AM, and VW, Petra discusses her country's tragic fate in several support conversations but she does not make direct mention in like exploration monastery dialogue. almost every student in monastery dialogue just says the vague, bland "I believe in my professor so I don't regret my choice." it makes just about every student except for Dedue and Hubert look as tho they have no morals or loyalties xD
@l.n.3372 I mean, the monastery dialog, in my opinion, was trash except for every few instances, so I don't really count the monastery as a way to look at them for anything of significance.
Edelgard's burner account
A few things:
The Church’s co-opting of Nemesis’ narrative was not that he fell to dark gods, but that he SLEW dark gods, but was corrupted by his absolute power. These dark gods are the Nabateans he massacred. Nemesis had been around for so long that the narrative around the Nabateans being evil had been so engrained it was impossible to remove, so she reworked it.
While we can’t be sure with the 4 Apostles, we can be somewhat sure with Aubin’s nature. Aubin was able to GIVE yuri his crest, so either he was an ex agarthan who was familiar with the secrets of crest transplanting or he was a Nabatean who could give his blood to grant it to someone else (this second one means Yuri is gonna live for centuries btw, so we get a semi-immortal sewer twink)
Some dialogue from hopes heavily implies that it’s not just crest blood House von Hresvelg inherited from Seiros, but genes too: Rhea: “I care not if we shared blood countless generations ago-I will not permit anyone to defile Mother's resting place.”
(Japanese and Translation I got;
だからこそ、容赦はできません。たとえ血を分けた遠い遠い裔であっても.....
That's why we cannot tolerate it.
Even if they are distant descendants with shared blood.) let me know if you can get a better translation. Edelgard also says: “By the covenant between the red blood and the white sword that crowns the double-headed eagle...” when signing that pact with Claude. Covenants tend to be a term to refer to an agreement (typically of religious nature) yes, but it also has a tendency to refer to Marriage. There is also a great deal of narrative symbolism in Seiros being married to Wilhelm. It represents the bringing of religious doctrine as a power in politics, a marriage of the secular state and the spiritual organization, which sees Fodlan being made into its current state, where the church meddles with political affairs and the nobles meddle with religious affairs, for the two have been joined together, married.
Also, in the shadow library, there is a banned book which has an actor playing emperor Wilhelm and an actor playing Seiros kissing each other. It could be Seiros and Wilhelm were lovers, making Lycaon I their son and Edelgard Seiros’ distant descendant. (Fun thing about that play, it mentions that it has northern swordsmen dueling for Emperor Lycaon III’s entertainment. In the Japanese translation, the term they use is Northern Gladiators. This probably gives us a massive hint as to why faerghus revolted, their people were literally being used for blood sport for the entertainment of the Imperial Nobility. Perhaps Lycaon III WAS the emperor that King Loog slew in the other Battle of Tailteann)
nemesis didn’t bring the elites with him to Zanado. Based on the text in the shadow library, the elites didn’t know why Seiros hated them, and where Nemesis got the crest blood was a mystery to them. Nemesis could have brought his own bandit group with him, but he probably mostly leaned on the indomitable power of the crest of flames and sword of the creator along with some agarthan mages
From what we can tell, Sothis believes she outright destroyed all agarthans. Non agarthan Humans as we know them on Fodlan and the lands outside of it are her recreation of the species (we can tell due to the lack of knowledge of the war between Sothis and the agarthans in outside cultures, who would most certainly have carried on myths of it, but since they don’t it’s highly likely that they were created by Sothis too. Is it kinda dumb on some level? Yes. But is it what’s likely canon? Probably. But at least it’s better than the one theory I heard that posits Fodlan is IRL earth’s distant future. With Fodlan being a shattered Europe (western Adrestia is northern France, the Brigid archipelago is a shattered Iberia, Duscur is Denmark, Deirdriu is Konigsburg/Gdańsk, the Peninsula Enbarr is on is Italy, etc)
Many of the Nabateans we know of seem to have been created after the war with the agarthans, however, it is possible the Old Gods the Perdition book in the Shadow Library is in reference to an older form of the Nabateans (with Sothis remaking them after the war with them, like she did with humanity). These older Nabatean were likely wiped out by the Agarthans and used to create a form of immortality via crest stones. We know Agarthans havé crest stones in them because Solon rips a crest stone from Kronya’s chest in the forest in houses.
we know they’re immortal because Thales was alive for the War of Heroes. The crest stones are also likely how they body snatch: they put their own soul in the stone, then stick the stone in a body, like with Rhea did to byleth. But here, they’re more informed on its mechanics, so they manage to outright possess the body (either that or the soul is removed from the body and the crest stone doesn’t need to fight another soul for control)
Furthermore, we see in the stuff with Arval that agarthan tech litters Zaharas (that void dimension). From what I’ve analyzed, Zaharas is some sort of afterlife or a place where souls exist. We see that Sothis’ throne is IN zaharas when Solon throws byleth in there and Arval/Epminedes also exists in Zaharas.
This leads me to believe that the Agarthans basically cracked the code for immortality by creating crest stones for themselves and gaining access to Zaharas. There, with access to that realm, they probably gained a bunch of power, and disturbed Sothis, as from what we see of the forbidden spell of Zaharas, it requires a crest stone to be destroyed in order to open it, meaning they were sacrificing people on the regular to go to and from Zaharas. Honestly though, there are so many other possibilities that I could go on for hours, so I’ll add them later when I have the time.
Aubin was fully human, as all the Apostles were, the ritual Rhea attempted with them wouldn't work with Nabateans.
The circumstances regarding him being able to transfer his Crest to Yuri are likely due to the unique nature of the ritual he participated in. The ritual involved the transfer of blood, so it's not a stretch to assume the Apostles know a bit more about Crests than the average person and Rhea swore them to secrecy.
Additionally, the Apostles directly received their respective Crests, rather than gaining them through birth, which is why they lived so long. Remember that Jeralt received his Crest directly from Rhea, so he's lived much longer than he should and he's also fully human.
The secrets behind Crests are just that: secrets. Anyone can make use of them if they have the know-how, they don't have to be Agarthan.
Not to mention Rhea would've *never* trusted an Agarthan with such vital information. She barely trusts Shez in 3 Hopes and only warms up to him (to an extent) after you do Flayn and Seteth's paralogue.
Also, I doubt that Rhea was referring to the Nabateans when she said "dark gods". Indech and Macuil fought in the War of Heroes as well, and Seiros would've likely used her draconic powers in the fight as well.
The secret that Rhea, Seteth and Flayn are children of the goddess has been known to the Empire since its inception and was passed down from emperor to emperor, starting with Wilhelm himself.
Rhea likely spun that narrative because she establishes that Crests and their weapons are gifts from the goddess. Nemesis would've had to face a powerful, evil foe in order to have been bestowed such a blessing as the Sword of the Creator itself, so vague evil gods makes the perfect foe.
@@LAZERAK47V2regarding Aubin, i haven’t seen it be stated that all the Apostles were human. Do you remember where it says that? The lore for the apostles has always annoyed me so having some answers would be great!
Regarding the Nabateans. I never said Seiros created the narrative of Nemesis slaying Dark Gods, I’m saying that Nemesis created the narrative of him slaying dark gods. The Nabateans and Zanado would have been known to the people of ancient Fodlan, but would be mysterious. Nemesis slaying them all would be the stuff of legend, and we have to recall that Nemesis and the Elites all lived for centuries, so nemesis would have had a great deal of time to enforce and propagate this narrative until it was so engrained that Seiros wasn’t willing to put up the effort to remove it, so instead, she reworked it to fit her own uses. with nemesis and the elites starting out as a heroes, the origin of crests remains heroic and remains as gifts from the goddess to battle evil in the narrative.
Oh, and just to clarify, the Nabateans themselves aren’t directly named in said narrative, but the genocide of them is the origin of the story of nemesis slaying dark gods.
Seiros being Edelgard's ancestor just made everything in CF 10x funnier because that means the route is just a rebellious granddaughter going againts her grandmother's old traditions in a nutshell
@@scion513 I'm pretty sure the details regarding the ritual and requiring humans were mentioned at some point in the DLC, though it's been ages since I've played it.
As for the Nabateans and the dark gods, that wasn't ever really established, because the Ten Elites themselves question why Seiros is on a rampage against them. Considering it is known (at that point in history by the Empire) that Seiros is a Nabatean, it wouldn't make sense to call the Nabateans "dark gods".
Remember, Wilhelm sided WITH Seiros AGAINST Nemesis, and the latter's followers either scattered or were destroyed and the Agarthans fled back underground. So it makes no sense that the established authority would label the Nabateans as "dark gods". In fact, Rhea does the complete OPPOSITE of this and labels her draconic form as the "Immaculate One" (how full of yourself can you get?), while also describing Nabateans as Divine Beasts, rather than Demonic Beasts and naming the surviving Nabateans (again including herself in this) as the 4 Saints. Also, I'd like to point out that, while the church of Seiros worships Sothis, it is called the Church of Seiros, NOT the Church of Sothis, further cementing Rhea's hubris and her ultimate belief that only she can rule Fodlan (until Sothis returns).
No, it was just another twisted narrative to push the idea that Heroes Relics were blessings from Sothis, rather than the remains of Nabateans in order to prevent people from experimenting with Crests.
After all, if they're blessings from the goddess, there's nothing you can do if you want one.
Although I'm surprised she didn't shut Hanneman down, considering his curiosity regarding them. Seteth was probably keeping a close eye on him and she would've spun a line about blasphemy if he discovered the truth.
Hey that's a lot of words. To bad I'm not reading them. 😎
I’ll never get old of ur unique nicknames for TWSITD or as I like to abbreviated: twisted
Thats exactly what i call them too wtf
@@liaminator4950 most people say it cuz it's a simpler to type/say name
But Rhea’s hips don’t lie 😢
THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYING
@@okGM013 That body doesn't quit.
My mind's telling me noooo...
But my body...
MY BODY'S TELLING ME YE-HE-HE-HE-HE-HEEEEEESSSS!
I lied to you Professor... These hips DO lie...
Shakira Shakira ~
What i like about how 3H handles the evil church trope is that never was created to do any evil thing but is in the nature of every institution to become a problem when íts original values dont alaing any more with the modern values
@@endikaaspeurrutia1013 let's not underestimate humanity's ability to f@#$ shit up and abuse even miniscule ammount of power. Without Rhea it would've been a lot worse.
The funny thing is when you actually bother to explore the monastery and read the books in the library you'll find that you'll find that the church doesn't really support crest culture but as pointed out by both Lorenz and Ferdinand the nobles just don't give a shit. Not to say the church is perfect but it's far from being an evil organization.
The church started off as something good, and helpful. But their motives and goals got corrupted along the way. And instead of a faction trying to keep the peace, they treated themselves AS THE PEACE. Follow us or be destroyed
@@Yarharsuperpirate They kinda are the faction keeping the peace the hilarious thing though is that complaints that Edelgard had with the church were going to end because Rhea was planning on stepping down anyway.
Like how Traditional Christians no longer align with the Modern values of Transkids. Very Sexualized Sex Education beyond Reproduction and even Drag Queen Story hour but are required to participate in something they do not agree with.
8:30 "Almost everyone has had issues in their lives due to the church/crest system." "Lysithea" "Caspar"
Those two are bad examples. Lysithea wasn't really the fault of the church/crest-*SYSTEM*. Her family was on the wrong side of an insurrection, and she got experimented on by Agarthans.
Caspar doesn't mention his lack of a crest, merely that he's a second-son.
Not to mention Marianne, who only suffered because people mistook those who bear her crest for the monster Maurice. The fact that her crestless foster father was able to supplant House Daphnel on the Leicester roundtable through sheer merit without the church lifting a finger to stop him makes you wonder if they're really bent on enforcing crest supremacy.
@@gabrielrussell5531 Heck, Caspar is Leopold's favorite kid.
If may have missed a support convo, or dialogue from the main story, or even both, but I sort of believe Rhea fabricating Nemesis and the Elites as the heroes that went astray, was something she would’ve changed/admitted the truth to, yet never came to it and as Dimitri put it simply, should the people’s belief be taken away from them, in this case shattered, it wouldn’t be worth the risk.
And a lot of players forget, that Rhea for literally a thousand years, has praised the man who slaughtered her people and mother and made sure that lie practically goes on for eternity and most likely will never out the truth. That takes some serious, selfless guts
The reason Rhea fabricated the story of Nemesis was for 2 major reasons
1. Nabateans have a history of being targeted by power hungry would-be tyrants. Rhea is not the only Nabatean that is still alive. She wanted to protect what little family she had left from being victims to power hungry monsters like Nemesis.
2. Nemesis was outright revered by humans. By the time Rhea killed him, she needed an excuse to do so. Telling the truth would’ve led to a massive war.
@@pickcollins9910 ah right, I do remember the 2nd point. Believe it was in Houses or just a video essay before Hopes released. But yeah, I do remember Rhea had to really persuade Wilhelm and Adrestia to ally with her, when Nemesis was a champion of the people
@@pickcollins9910Nemesis wasn’t revered by humans, I’m not sure where you got that. The game tells us he was the leader of a group of thieves that got employed by TWSIND. Nobody was going to start a war over this guy, he was just a bandit before TWSIND approached him. What you’re saying is the hero story that Rhea made up. So no, she didn’t have to make an excuse
@@Beebok_Beebop That's heavily implied by Edelgard's convo with Byleth in Ch 14 and straight up confirmed in a developer interview:
"Why did Seiros (Lady Rhea) appropriate Nemesis and the Ten Elites as heroes in her history?
Kusakihara: Because from humanity’s perspective, Nemesis and the Ten Elites were thought of as heroes. She can’t create a history that completely ignores the feelings of humans upon ruling over humanity. So while preserving them as heroes, she was able to rewrite other parts of history to her advantage. It goes without saying, however the reason for Seiros tampering with history was not so she could rule over humanity-it was to minimize war and preserve peace across the land. And as it says in the Shadow Library, she even restricted the growth of civilization when it began progressing too quickly for her. There’s an answer as to why… but that’s a secret for now. (Laughs)"
Source's Nintendo Everything's translations of 3H' developer interviews.
@@moltz4866 Edelgard has a warped perception of the story as she is heavily biased towards Rhea and is being fed fake information by TWSITD, not to mention Rhea was the one who actually witnessed everything. if this developer really said that, then they’re straight up contradicting what the game tells us. Nemesis was just a leader of bandit group before given the offer of sneaking into the holy tomb etc. She most likely made the story so that there would be a reason behind the war and not just some revenge mission that Seiros wanted. So she made the story to make it seem like she had to put down a misguided hero so that the humans could have someone to revere
I always saw Rhea as like a grim outcome of Tiki. The youngest(though succeeded by Nowi/Flaynn), divine by blood, incredibly powerful, left all on her own in the world of man, her Mar Mar/Wilhem long dead and Bantu/Seteth is nowhere to offer counsel, what's a sad little divine dragon to do? I might be misremembering but wasn't one of the first things Tiki did when awoken was ask for her mother?
10 out of 10 times i side with the church, and I'll do it again too.
I’m not gonna lie, I’d probably trust Rhea more if she stopped dropping phrases like “This mission should prove useful in demonstrating to the students how foolish it would be to ever turn their blades on the Church” and “We must punish any sinner who may inflict harm upon believers, even if those sinners are civilians”.
Like, between that, Jeralt’s caginess around her, and her doctrines about Crests and Relics, you can’t tell me that 3H wasn’t deliberately trying to get the player to be suspicious of the Church of Seiros.
I’d say that this is more due to how Rhea perceives humans. She’s long since seen how useful religion and hierarchy is as a tool for shepherding humanity, so she frames all her public actions around that. Remember that she sees humans as more or less one step away from turning on her at all times, so it’s not that far out that she will default to her oldest and best method of making humans listen I.e, overwhelming power combined with religious zeal.
Jeralt is cagey because of what he saw of Byleth and Sitris situation, he has long since figured out that they were experimented on and is naturally wary.
As for Crests… I don’t really think that’s Rheas fault, crests are a human invention and do objectively make you superhuman, so church or no church they would be favoured in any feudal society. All rhea did was tie this system to the church in order to prevent the rise of a competing power structure.
@@rakshithanand8262So essentially she wants to be an Overlord to humanity because she sees them all as animals just one step away from getting rabies at any point.
Yeah, I see that as a VERY good reason to get rid of her and not trust her.
@@GigiBranconi If that’s your opinion, but events make clear that Rhea is neither the instigator nor the enabler of violence. Nemesis decided to carve up Sothis and oppress people himself. The agarthans attacked Sothis first and then genocided Zanado.
If Rhea should be compared to anyone, it is Magneto. Yes, she think humans are barely leashed beasts… but the world has proven her right time after time. The fact that she didn’t just make herself the god-empress of mankind says a lot about her commitment to humanity even if she can’t actually move past her grief wholly.
@@GigiBranconi you clearly underestimate humanity's ability to f*** shit up and abuse even miniscule ammount of power.
@@Treasure_hunter_21 As opposed to the immortal, human experimenting fem Dragon Pope?
I'll take humans.
At least a human dies within like, 80 years or so.
Plus the fear that not preserving the status quo will lead another Zanado and “War of Heroes” probably doesn’t help Rhea’s questionable mental state.
If there is one thing Edelgard is 100% wrong about, it’s the idea that Rhea and the Nabateans lack humanity. It’s their humanity that is, like so much else, their greatest strength and flaw.
I mean how would you feel if your mother turned into a spine sword and your siblings along with it. The fact rhea held it together this long is pretty good especially compared to the step siblings
@@ivanbluecoolTbh, actually, I think she should have gotten over it.
People can get over worse trauma in about a decade. She had 1000 years.
At some point, who tf would even remember it anymore?
It actually proves that she is nuts that she is still hung up on it a full millennium later.
That's like someone today being mad at Turkey, not because of anything they did in the last few CENTURIES even, but because that person is still mad about the Fall of Rome.
Absolutely everyone would call them insane, beyond a shadow of a doubt.
@@GigiBranconi that's just wrong there by a mile. Trauma doesn't "get better" and it wasn't one scene it was a whole ton of them seeing her family get first offed then their bodies ripped apart and turned into weapons to then off the rest of them who stayed with Rhea and the very guy who did it being seen as a hero for overthrowing the very god that gave them this knowledge and technology. Tell me you'd "get over it" if you saw your mother used as a sword and I'll call you a monster for seeing that as normal being "ok it happens to the best of us"
Course that could be said by the entire cast calling them Evil by that logic. Edegard "should have gotten over it" when she was experimented on and caused the entire war to resurface giving rise to those who slither in the dark to be allowed to do whatever they want. She sure got over it so much she switched sides to the people who caused it. Demitri "should have gotten over it" when his entire life was destoryed snd constantly getting worse through every reveal seeing hat his revenge is just a mess on his step family being root causes to his world being destoryed. Claude should have "gotten over" racism. How about lythithia? Sylvain? Did the time skip not give them enough time to "get over it"?
Sorry but there are some things you can't get over. Trauma stays with you forever and especially in a game set in the past made by japanese people who fear the word therapy you got little to no options.
Her only real problem is not letting Sothis rest and trying to revive her constantly being her obsession but even the well adjusted dragons have trauma they can't forget like tiki missing Marth and seeing him in her dreams(she's 2000 btw) and nowi still wanting to find her parents after losing them(she's 1000 btw)
Feels like you wish everyone could be Morgan and emmeryn who get amnesia and forget about it but even Morgan says how she wants those memories as good is in even the bad. You don't get over stuff. You live with it. Living a longer life just makes it worse especially on Rhea since Sothis and co could have still been around by dragon years.
@@ivanbluecool What a toxic and anti-healing mindset to think you can't get over trauma.
Why does therapy even exist, then?
@@GigiBranconi thanks for proving my point 100 percent without even trying to make one.
You don't wake up one day and suddenly you're ok. That's not how trauma works.
You are thinking of a physical injury and funny enough even those can come with scars if you get a deep enough one like you know mental trauma from a bad experience that relapses at times if certain conditions are met.
War. S Assault. PTSD. Sounds like you think everyone should be 100 percent ok with one session of therapy and a clock spinning enough times as each treatment has a time limit to "be ok". Therapy is there to help you learn to process the trauma and be able to keep moving forward in life not "get over it" as trauma isn't something that goes away easily if at all. If you told anyone to get over it right after a traumatic event you'd get a red health bar instantly.
It really sounds like you are the problem and need the very help you say Rhea doesn't need as "time heals all wounds" except for you know mental trauma and scars time doesn't heal those they will always be apart of you in some way.
I think the idea of Rhea not knowing Sothis when she was still awake really explains a lot of her behavior and I'm surprised I didn’t consider that before
Rhea knew Sothis when she was awake, but was likely just a child when the war against Agartha broke out.
She sings the same song Sothis used to sing to her when she was young, and she wouldn't be so desperate to revive her mother if she never knew her, when her older siblings (Macuil and Indech) can't be bothered with trying.
It would also explain why she came to view the Agarthans as greedy, power-hungry murderers when they attacked the Nabateans. A child would likely draw that conclusion from such a traumatic experience and not even consider that the Agarthans were already present and living in their own society (as hinted at by their already established pantheon, something that does not exist without a stable society) and regarded Sothis as an invader who usurped their lands and sovereignty and threatened them by creating monsters (her children).
That's why Rhea's account of what happened during the conflict can't be trusted to be the whole truth. She is likely telling HER truth when she recounts the events, but again, she was just a child and only had her own perception of the events.
The fundamental truth is that Sothis was not the "progenitor god", "mother of all life" and the "arbiter of every soul" (at least, not where humans are concerned). Fodlan was NOT a wasteland before her arrival (which she was not present for and the existence of human life and society directly contradicts this) and Sothis was NOT an all good and loving goddess (as evidenced by the events in 3 Hopes, where she does NOT lose her memory and becomes far more authoritarian and ruthless, even preying on Byleth's emotional state if/when Jeralt dies to take full control of their body, essentially killing them).
In other words, the Agarthan war was not a case of "good vs evil", but a native people being threatened and usurped by a powerful outside force that spawned a host of strange and frightening creatures.
Now, modern Agarthans are unquestionably evil, no mistakes. But centuries of being reduced to mole people and feeling betrayed by fellow humans (when Wilhelm sided with Rhea) will do that to a society.
@LAZERAK47V2 I don't think we should keep 3hope against Sothis. Imagine you awoke after a slumber and find yourself not in your own body, but in the body of a human, and you can sense seerhat your children were massacred and their bones were turned into weapons while their blood was infused in humans. It's kinda upsetting, no? Plus, Agartans are the last who should be trusted.
@@Treasure_hunter_21 Modern Agarthans, yes. But ancient Agarthans were a different people entirely and we have very little to go on with regards to their history.
What we do have, however, is evidence that they existed before Sothis "went to sleep", because that's the war that caused her to use her power to heal the land from devastation. As such, they existed before the events of the Red Canyon Massacre and the War of Heroes.
They call her "Fell Star" and would not know her origins if they hadn't be present when she arrived in Fodlan. If they were truly created by her, they would not label her in such a way.
Also, remember Sothis's own words when chastising Byleth after they resist her control: "A glove does not defy the hand."
Meaning she sees them as nothing more than a meat suit for her to wear.
@@LAZERAK47V2 you're unreasonably harsh. You're forgetting kronya, and the rest were present during the war of heroes, so we're did you get "modern" Agartans? Agartans are people who nuked the planet or, at the very least, Fodland and then created crests and bloodlines from corpses of her children. In this case, Sothiss animosity is 100% justified.
@@Treasure_hunter_21 I'm positive that Kronya was not present during the events of the War of Heroes, considering her attitude and terrible acting as Monica. She's the only one with that kind of attitude and exhibits youthful tendencies. The other female high-ranking members of Agartha speak in a more refined and dignified manner (Bias).
What I mean by Modern Agarthans is what they devolved into. They didn't start out as comically evil, they became comically evil after losing to Sothis.
Additionally, it's implied that only the highest ranking Agarthans possess longevity (by creating avatars to transfer their consciousness into, similar to how Rhea created Sitri. It's why they refer to their bodies as "this flesh", because they've disassociated their minds and bodies and view them as vessels, rather than a part of them). This allows them to rule in perpetuity (similar to Rhea). If the technology was widely available, there is literally no reason for them to hide from the world, they could easily abduct countless people and replace them without anyone being the wiser.
They're meant to be the dark mirror to the Nabateans, even Arval and Shez are to Agarthans what Byleth and Sothis are to Nabateans.
If you notice, I never actually defended them, I just stated that Rhea was not telling the whole truth and that there are aspects of Fodlan's history that are taken out of context because we only have Rhea's (biased) view on it.
Their war against Sothis and the Nabateans was unjustified, but it wasn't without precedent. They could've easily just asked Sothis to leave if they didn't want her around, but it's highly likely they felt threatened by her and her children and thought diplomacy was pointless.
Now, if she refused, then they are ABSOLUTELY justified. Fodlan was their home and Sothis is an invader. She could have easily picked a different planet that was uninhabited and started from there.
Regarding Rhea's true name. It seems the names given by Sothis are the names of the dragon forms. So her real name is The Immaculate One. And thus both Seiros and Rhea are identities she assumed to blend in with humans.
There's no way Sothis gave her own child the most absurd and self-centred name imaginable: The Immaculate One.
Why give one baby dragon the immaculate one and another one "The Vigorous"?
@@frostbite_1244i dont remember if this was headcanon or actual lore, but names like Seiros' Immaculate One and Cethleann's Benevolent One aren't granted at birth, as they grow up the parent Nabatean assign them a name most fitting to their disposition. Ehhhh idk about this chief, probably headcanon.
@@farisanwari777 Do you remember where you could've learnt this "Lore" per se?
@@frostbite_1244 unfortunately no 🙏
On the perspective of who started the war between the nabateans and Agarthans, the Nabateans perspective seems more likely since the church has been neutral through Fodlan and usually ends up meditating and the few Nabateans still alive are not ruling in secret, they are just sleeping in desolate places. The Agarthans on the other hand have been nothing but awful and are directly the one responsible for most of the conflicts in Fodlan.
The true evil is sothis, the little shit only cause problems
Or, it could have been that the survivors became reclusive after the War of Heroes and learning that ruling from the shadows is very dangerous if they get caught.
After all it gave rise to Nemesis, and 2/3rds of the people of Fodlan rallied to him under the belief he was liberating them from beasts and false gods.
As for the Agarthans, yea. They were badly written one dimensional villains. However:
Imagine today aliens invaded, and deemed that you must change to fit the way they want humanity to live. Your leaders say no, and so the aliens decide it means total war. Not just a war of conquest, a war to wipe out the other species entirely.
In that war, Agathan (humanity) basically lost and was thought to be wiped out to the last. So the aliens created new humans to inhabit the world and rule over.
Now imagine knowing all that, as the real humans hiding underground for generations. Would you not also want revenge against the aliens who reduced your world, your civilization, and your history to ashes.
It could have been that the survivors became reclusive after the War of Heroes and learning that ruling from the shadows is more dangerous.
After all, it gave rise to Nemesis. 2/3rds of the people of Fodlan rallied to him under the belief he was liberating them from beasts and false gods. Which isn't wrong, but his motivations for doing so were questionable at best due to allying with the Agarthans.
As for the Agarthans, yea. They were badly written one dimensional villains. However:
Imagine today aliens invaded, and deemed that you must change to fit the way they want humanity to live. Your leaders say no, and so the aliens decide it means war. Not just a war of conquest, a war to ____ out the other _____ entirely.
In that war, Agathan (humanity) basically lost and was thought to be _____ out to the last. So the aliens created new humans to inhabit the world and rule over.
Now imagine knowing all that, as the real humans hiding underground for generations. Would you not also want revenge against the aliens who reduced your world, your civilization, and your history to ashes?
Gotta love having to _____ what I am saying because of the ______ that ____ now has.
No more ____ to talk about games because naughty _____s that could means something else in a different context.
@@techpriest6962 The Agarthans actually destroyed most of their species. They were waging war on every other civilization and that's why Sothis stepped in. It's basically like if 1940s Germany got a bunch of nukes and glassed half the planet right before the aliens showed up then glassed the rest while fighting the aliens.
Of all the characters in 3H Rhea was probably the least horrible person and yet she was the cause of a lot of what happens. She was honestly a good person and wanted what was best for everyone, but she was so scared of letting people make mistakes that like a mother who hovers over her child she never let the continent grow. It made her dangerous not because she was actively trying to hurt people, but because she couldn't imagine them thinking for themselves; she was scared of another Nemesis rising up.
If you've seen House of the Dragon and played some other fantasy games, the trend of "good person, HORRIBLE ruler" is very common in dark fantasy stuff.
One JRPG series that seems to (mostly) avoid the Evil Church trope is the Dragon Quest/Warrior series. While there are certainly evil (or at least humanly fallible) individual priests, and even the angels can be jerkasses, the religion itself is usually on the side of the good guys, with god themself willing to actively aid the heroes in some cases. The few cases where the churches turn evil are when they have been hijacked by the BBEGs pretending to be the good-guy-god, and the only time I can remember off the top of my head when the main god was an asshole, there was another more benevolent deity to stop him from wiping out humanity because he deemed them unworthy.
Imagine forming a continent spanning theocracy and enforcing a restrictive magical bloodline succession model because you don't want to go to therapy.
To expensive
Have you tried getting therapy in the third world? That shit costs 5,000 pesos!
I love Cherami Leigh's voice work, so I was locked into Rhea's route from the beginning. Yeah, she's a mess, but she's a hot mess. That can also turn into a dragon.
To be fair to the children, Rhea has had 1100 more years to pile on those war crimes
I feel that you missed a great opportunity to address the Book of Seiros Volume II's claim that the Crest system is so bad that it's the reason Sothis distanced herself from the world. The church's official doctrine is that the Crest system is horrible, literally the reason god doesn't talk to Fodlan anymore, yet Rhea tries to balance having a kind of moral authority through the church with letting humans still govern themselves.
The Church of Seiros is an intriguing organization in how it (mainly) left Enbarr after the War of Heroes and situated itself in Garreg Mach. If Rhea wanted to, she could have kept the church operating from the capital of Fodlan and had it be closely tied to the government throughout history. The opportunity to be an extremely hands-on, even iron-fisted ruler was there, yet Rhea instead established a degree of separation and placed her HQ in a spot where anyone at the distant reaches of Fodlan would only have to travel roughly the same distance for aid.
The Church of Seiros also seemingly intervened for the sake of Adrestia after the War of the Eagle and the Lion, convincing Loog to found his own nation rather than sweeping south to take over all of Fodlan. The only condition seemed to be that this new nation, governed by the Ten Elites' descendants, would acknowledge and adhere to the moral teachings of the faith, presumably to prevent a second Nemesis and the resulting massacres. IIRC, we don't know what stance the church took on the Leicester Alliance's founding and Faerghus' conquest of it before Leicester finally became free.
Rhea appears to be someone who doesn't want to wield governmental power, whether because she respects any autonomy Sothis might have desired for humanity or because she thinks only Sothis is qualified to govern all people, particularly in regard to matters like confronting an apocalypse. In contrast to this rather hands-off approach, the other bearer of the Crest of Seiros, Edelgard, advocates for ruling with an iron fist, making sure that nothing can possibly happen to her land or her without her first knowing all about it and either causing or approving of it. Rhea and Edelgard are very similar in their personalities and traumas but have drastically different solutions, and Silver Snow, the first route written, was probably created on the basis of assessing and defeating these two extremes to create a better, balanced answer.
I also find it interesting how Sothis' revival might be an unspoken necessity for the Nabatean population to recover. With the Nabateans reduced to five people, they're especially vulnerable to genocide, and the true origin of the Crests and Relics can incentivize such atrocities, hence one of the major reasons why the Church of Seiros concealed that detail. Slowly rebuilding the population could increase the odds of a Nabatean being discovered as a non-human, thus opening them up to prejudices. Rhea's homunculi are so flawed that they keep on dying, so this suggests Rhea can't just restore the population in a lab.
Short of inbreeding, any spouse for a Nabatean would have to be a human, and said spouses and resulting families would also have to prove trustworthy enough to conceal the Nabateans' genetic identities for generations until the population could establish its own resilient society. Even then, the spouses having to be human could potentially cause the Nabatean race (perhaps more like a species) to still dwindle away regardless. For the Nabateans to ever properly recover, let alone not have to hide their racial identities, reviving Sothis might be seen as the one viable option, since she could create a Nabatean population from scratch again.
The fact that Sothis does exist as a character in Three Houses and the Crest of Flames works might also indicate that she is still alive, so restoring her is more like healing her and finishing the process that began at Zanado before Nemesis' attack, along with giving justice and gratitude to the person who kept the world inhabitable.
The Church of Seiros' suppression of technology is a major detail, but something highly relevant is that in Three Houses' setting, humanity apparently did destroy the world with their technology in the past. Sothis spent ages painstakingly healing the planet so as to prevent extinctions, a process that devastated her, and then the Agarthans and Nemesis seemingly tried to restart the apocalyptic behaviors and mentalities in record time. To Rhea, humanity proved that it can't be trusted with unfettered technological growth since that led to violent and, based on Agartha's prejudices, oppressive mind sets.
The books in the DLC library note that autopsies in general were banned, mentioning white magic as an alternative overall, so Manuela's comments (and the model in her office) imply that the ban was lifted at some point. The same goes for telescopes, since devices in Garreg Mach and letters from the students indicate that astronomy is studied there and the vast distances of space are known. In particular, Edelgard notes how long it would take for Sothis to travel from the Blue Sea Star to Fodlan.
Books are also sold in the markets around the monastery, and despite Byleth's secretive, isolating upbringing as a mercenary, he or she can read them, so the improved printing press was likely unbanned too. As further evidence of this, Raphael's family wasn't too well-off yet he sends some of his books to his sister, implying that she can also read them. Leonie is literate as well despite being a subsistence hunter (IIRC) in need of her entire village's support and major loans to attend Garreg Mach.
The only thing that might still be banned is crude oil, and considering how real-life humanity still hasn't saved itself from destroying the environment with that, the writers might not have wanted to treat the topic as solved when it's certainly not in our world.
No one is dethroning Agartha as the war crimes grand champion in Three Houses and Hopes' setting, or Edelgard as the individual with the most war crimes that can be attributed to her in the games' events. Their Nightcore Nuremberg and Hegemon Hague trials have way too much documented evidence on other channels. Rhea and the others have tried, but they're not nearly competitive enough in that regard.
Thanks for this video and the others you've made on Three Houses' factions! As a setting inspired by Three Kingdoms China and the wars of medieval Europe, Fodlan is especially designed to have no clear good answer, and its nations are likely to crumble. Even the Agarthans and Nabateans' wars still persist, so the conflicts within Fodlan and even those of outside lands are liable to rage on for ages to come. A series of videos that addresses these elements for every group in the setting is greatly appreciated and, IMO, best explores the themes of the stories.
the church being corrupt and secretly evil is almost expected in video games nowadays.
what i would like to see is a shady looking religion who turned out to be saints.
I love your humor in this series
I was waiting for you to talk about it but it didn't come up. And that's everyone's feelings towards the goddess and how Rhea's plans don't really agree with like half the population's view of her. Rhea's central motivation is doing everything in her power to bring her mother back. The way she handled the Tragedy of Duscur is emblematic of her "sweep it under the rug" policy of ruling but that's only because she considers herself the interm authority of the Church. When Sothis returns, none of what she does matters because Sothis is going to put everything right again.
But even if Rhea succeeded, how many people would've been cool with that? Lorenz mentions in chapter 2(?) monastery dialogue that most nobility worship the goddess out of obligation, not devotion. And the way nobles react to Crests illustrates that. Everyone has read the Book of Seiros and, therefore, the verse that criticizes the use of Crests to establish nobility. They do the Rite of Rebirth every year, hoping the goddess will finally return when they've been devoted enough. But the nobility does not let that stop them from being noble, in spite of also claiming to be devout. Disregarding Rhea's tacit endorsement of nobility, the leaders of Fodlan are not really invested in the goddess despite what they say. Not really. Edelgard believes Sothis to be a false goddess. Dimitri believes the goddess to be disinterested in people and only tolerates her because the people of Faerghus are invested in her.
What if Rhea's weird plan to manufacture the goddess actually worked? Would the people of Fodlan be accepting of her? We know half would welcome her with open arms like Mercedes, Marianne, and Ignatz but what about others like most of the Empire or Dimitri or Claude? Rhea seems to believe that this is what's best for Fodlan, but does everyone else?
Deep down, Rhea never actually cares for humans, and she displays this through her actions on multiple occasions.
She sided against the Empire during the Loog's War for Independence, siding with the rebels (hypocritically in the future, when Edelgard does the same with her establishment, she demands that they all be slain) and supporting the creation of the Kingdom, but ONLY with the stipulation that HER religion be made the official religion, further increasing her political power and control over Fodlan, placing her authority above that of the king of Faerghus, while the Empire loses a ton of territory and populace. A fact that she takes full advantage of in Edelgard's war, fleeing to the Kingdom in Crimson Flower and in all routes in 3 Hopes.
Dimitri has no issue allying with her in 3 Houses because of his mental state and delusions that Edelgard is responsible for the Tragedy of Duscur (she was literally HIS age when it happened and her father had been overthrown with the Insurrection, so way to take the gold in mental gymnastics Dimitri!). However, in 3 Hopes, Dimitri is FAR more reluctant to offer them sanctuary because it would drag Faerghus into the war (remember, Edelgard declares war on the Church of Seiros *specifically*, Faerghus only enters the war when they side with Rhea) but he knows that his hands are tied because his legitimacy as king is under the auspices of the Church (just as Rhea planned), so he has no choice in the matter.
Her callous disregard for the toxic society she, herself created further proves her disdain for humans, only ever directly intervening if they threaten her power and slaying any dissenters or challengers without trial, using her ultimate authority over every nation in Fodlan to do whatever she wants without repercussion. As long as the humans are scheming against each other, it doesn't matter how many children suffer atrocities as long as the Crest-based nobility and the narrative that they are gifts from Sothis is upheld.
Finally, we come to her completely losing her mind when Byleth refuses to kill Edelgard. Let me put that into perspective:
Byleth REFUSES to KILL Edelgard. She doesn't hear them out or question why they would stand against her. Byleth might not have even been siding with her to begin with, maybe they simply didn't agree with the decision to KILL her. Instead, she declares them a failure and decides to kill them as well, going straight to murder, essentially FORCING Byleth to fight against her and the church.
This action also explains why many devoted church-aligned characters side against her if Byleth recruits them (like Mercedes and Marianne). Due to the game's mechanics, you can only deploy a number of units, and only class-based units will be present in cutscenes, but the events that happen in the Tomb are witnessed by ALL of Byleth's students: Rhea becoming completely unhinged and bloodthirsty and transforming into a monstrous dragon (paralleling the events of the Agarthan war). THAT is what causes them to side against Rhea and is why the non-recuitable units in Crimson Flower (Hilda, Dimitri, Dedue, Claude and to a lesser extent, Catherine and Cyril) do not side with Byleth, they don't witness this event. Flayn and Seteth are already firmly on Rhea's side and know the truth about her origins.
Speaking of, Seteth himself questions her actions, both prior to the events of the war and becomes far more concerned with her mental state during it, even abandoning the war totally if he and Flayn are spared. Finally, Rhea demands that her soldiers set a town full of innocent people ablaze, shocking even Catherine, who is her most loyal knight. Something that Edelgard NEVER does, in fact, Edelgard even goes so far as to compromise her own campaign for the sake of Lonato in 3 Hopes, and Shamir comments on this, saying that the Knights of Seiros would've left him to die and how she respects Edelgard for her decision (on a side note, Claude does exactly that in his route, abandoning Randolf and his Empire allies for the sake of victory, and is immediately reprimanded by his friends, whereupon he vows to do better. Rhea would've just told them to shut up or be executed for questioning her).
Her charity towards Cyril is likely a result of her own experience as a child where she was left an orphan, and she saw herself in him and it was not motivated purely for the sake of generosity, something Byleth can comment on during their support with Cyril. So its highly likely that her acts of charity are to establish a front of benevolence (a tactic used by many companies and people to put up a favorable look while hiding their true selves).
She's not irredeemably evil like the Agarthans, but she's definitely a villain. Her redemption comes after she has been imprisoned by the Empire, where she finally gives up her power after centuries of ruling unquestioned and retires to a quiet life.
@LAZERAK47V2 I disagree on a few of your points. Primarily Rhea's motivations, Dimitri's reasoning, and the events of Houses chapter 11.
Regarding Rhea, while she never truly forgave humanity for the events of the Red Canyon, I can't in good faith say she doesn't care about people at all. After the War of Heroes, the Adrestian Empire had the Ten Elites dead to rights. Rhea would've been well within her rights (in terms of total war) to wipe out all of their kin after Nemesis's defeat. And then this Crest system would never be a topic of conversation at all. But she didn't. A note from one of the Ten Elites found in the abyssal Library says how even though they are being hunted to the ends of the earth, some of his clanmen are being spared. Now, if she didn't care at all, then her response should've been total bandit death, but she held back. Another reason is that in chapter 12 of non-CF routes is that she gives her reasoning for choosing to participate in the Battle of Garreg Mach. She says she refuses to allow Garreg Mach to become another Red Canyon. That in itself says a lot because the Red Canyon was where her family died. Meaning she holds the monastery and those within it in just as high regard. Her monastery help request says that she genuinely wants to connect with people but just can't and the ending of Verdant Wind has her admit that while she never truly forgave humanity for the events of the Red Canyon, she did try. She took in the refugees of Remire Village, even though that lays in Empire territory and, therefore, should've been the Empire's responsibility. Rhea doesn't care at all? That's a lot of extra trouble that Rhea is just living with for someone who doesn't care.
Regarding Dimitri's mania, it's mania. I mean, once you start yelling at ghosts living in your head, it's a lot harder to claim you have a salient point to make. But it's not like that he's entirely disconnected from reality. It's more like he takes all the punishment from a lack of information. I mean, it's not like he blamed Edelgard for no reason. He actually was fine with Edelgard up until chapter 10 and thought highly of her. He actually went to Garreg Mach to investigate her uncle, Volkart Arundel. The Insurrection of the Seven made the church look at him differently, and Dimitri was following up on that lead, reviewing his financial records, hoping that would point him in the right direction. Technically, it did, but not in the way he thought. I mean, he did stumble onto Thales and "the Flame Emperor" who are business partners even if begrudgingly. Dimitri only gets to look bad because the truth is somehow more insane than the story he came up with. "Ah yes Arundel ceasing his donations to the church and taking part in a political coup before taking his niece just before our own political disaster was clearly the machinations of an underground cabal of shape-shifting molemen in their shadow war against shape-shifting lizard people. Classic misdirection." It's not like he's angry at Edelgard for the Tragedy of Duscur exclusively. It's not like the Flame Emperor was a good guy. Framing him for murder and then taking 75% of his country is considered a social faux pas at least. The only people who could ever tell him the truth are captured, dead, or conspiring against him. But then everyone laughs at him when he starts jumping up his own conclusions. If Edelgard were truly motivated by righting the wrongs inflicted upon the people of Fodlan, then why not just tell Dimitri what happened to his family? It's not like he wouldn't help her crush the wicked skulls of those responsible. Instead of just laughing at him for being an ignorant ape who doesn't know what's going on.
Regarding chapter 11, I've always found it weird that people say Rhea should've pulled her punches. Garreg Mach is functionally The Vatican. It's a centralized religious power with both political and military influence. If a neighboring state went and shot up The Vatican tomorrow, Italy would demand their heads. Metoadey was going on about how he wanted to eat the defenders of the Holy Tomb. I feel like most people wouldn't see a murderous robber in their home and decide to consider the socioeconomic factors that created him before deciding what to do. It mostly comes down to optics. Rhea in Crimson Flower is legally insane. The stuff she does there, she's never done in her 1000+ years of life or at least nothing we have records of. Scapegoating dissidents is a far cry from torching a city. If the burning of Fhirdiad is representative of her true character then does that also mean the Hegemon Husk is representative of Edelgard's true character? In Verdant Wind, Edelgard uses the citizens as human shields but I don't think most would argue that Edelgard isn't doing all of this for them. And that's not even touching on the horror that is the Demonic Beasts. Point being that I don't think extreme circumstances should be used as a gotcha for what these characters want. Or if they are then it should be applied evenly.
The rest of what you said I totally agree with.
@@elevate07 The reason Edelgard didn't inform Dimitri of her plans is *precisely* because he's to be king of Faerghus.
Due to the king being given legitimacy by the Church, Dimitri would've been obligated to stop her.
This is exactly how it unfolds in 3 Hopes. Dimitri himself says that he agrees with a lot of what Edelgard is trying to do, but believes she is being too rash and that change like that should come gradually.
However, it's entirely possible Edelgard saw war as the only solution because her circumstance was similar to Lysithea: She is living on borrowed time. She can't afford to take the long way, she has to act while she's still healthy. It's never clarified whether or not she will suffer from a reduced lifespan, but it's entirely possible, she never divulges that information.
Given what she went through, locked in a dungeon (and not even the "nice" ones, Ferdinand expresses surprise at how well his father is being treated, saying that he expected dungeons with chains and torture devices, to which Edelgard somberly comments that "they have those too" implying that's where she was kept), experimented on and watched her entire family die while her father was reduced to a shadow of his former self. It's a miracle she, herself did not go insane.
Also, when does Edelgard use civilians as human shields in Verdant Wind? Are you referring to the battle in the city before the fight against her?
That's not using civilians as meat shields. That's a city being invaded. Civilian casualties are a part of war, no matter how much you try to avoid them and it's not like they had shelters to run and hide in. The best they could hope for is to hide in their homes and hope they don't get hit by a stray shot or something.
As for Hegemon Edelgard, think about the circumstances. Dimitri being victorious would ensure that the status quo remains, that the Church remains in power, and that's exactly what happens (though with Byleth in charge, which is something Edelgard likely didn't consider, because they were fighting for Dimitri, not leading the Church). If she loses in that circumstance, everything she will have fought for will have been for nothing, so she was willing to do anything to prevent that outcome.
Anything to herself, that is. Transforming into Hegemon Edelgard is NOT a pleasant experience and anyone else who would have attempted it (as seen in the battle against Dimitri in Crimson Flower, when Dedue and Faerghus Knights transform) would've become a Demonic Beast and completely lost their minds.
Edelgard would NOT allow that to happen to any of her soldiers. She was determined to shoulder the burden all on her own, regardless of the cost.
The reason she doesn't see the need to resort to it in Verdant Wind (and Silver Snow, which is basically the same route) is because the outcome is different: Claude or Byleth being in charge is an acceptable outcome. Her entire purpose in starting the war was to depose Rhea. The war was explicitly declared against the Church of Seiros, not the Kingdom or the Alliance, those got involved because of circumstances. Claude would depose the Central Chuch's authority and Byleth would claim it.
Becoming Hegemon Edelgard was an act of desperation, but she wanted to ensure she would be the only who suffered for it.
@@LAZERAK47V2Dimitri choosing to side with the Church and offer them safe harbor is predicated on the church being the legitimate lynchpin of Fodlan society. Forcing rapid change based on his personal beliefs is not an option because... well... his father King Lambert did that. And the Western Lords saw him as a tyrant and they committed regicide because of it. Granted it was a move pushed by Those Who Grind in the Night but the Faerghus nobles who took part didn't know that. Point being it was a lesson Dimitri learned. But what happens if Dimitri learns of the shadow war between the last Naabateans and Those Who Vape in the Grey? Edelgard chooses to ally herself with the molemen because she considers the Church of Seiros too powerful for the Empire to fight on its own. And thus Edelgard has to sign off on literal kidnapping, slavery, and human transmutation. If Edelgard walks up to Dimitri and says "Hey I know it wasn't Duscur who killed your family. It was the same people who kidnapped me the day I left Fhirdiad. Fodlan is a secret battleground for 2 factions of shapeshifters and your family was caught in the middle." While it's up in the area whether he'd turn on the church, he'd 100% mulch Thales and his ilk without question. It's not like it'd be hard, he bulldozed their entire surface operation on accident. I guess my general point is that Edelgard doesn't get to wag her finger at Dimitri for reacting wrong to mass murder when she's holding all the answers.
Regarding the hostages, Claude seems Shamir ahead to scout Enbarr. And Shamir remarks that although the Empire knows for a fact the Alliance army is on her doorstep, she's locked the civilians inside the city. And Claude puts 2 and 2 together to realize Edelgard is putting the civilians between himself and her.
Also the claim that Edelgard is exclusively targeting the Church of Seiros kind of doesn't work. In non-CF routes Dimitri is allegedly executed for Rufus murder and the Empire takes most of the country as the Faerghus Dukedom anyway. No Rhea required. In Crimson Flower it's worse because the war stalls between Adrestia and Faerghus due to the Ohgma Mountains between them. And so Edelgard and Hubert decide to invade and take Leicester to clear a path into the Kingdom. In Azure Gleam, Mathias remarks that the conflict doesn't end if they just hand over Rhea. Since then they will have publicly kowtowed to the Empire and basically declared themselves a vassal state. So no, we can't say Edelgard was only targeting the Church of Seiros.
@@LAZERAK47V2 did TH-cam stealth delete my comment. Dang it
Dimitri choosing to side with the Church and offer them safe harbor is predicated on the church being the legitimate lynchpin of Fodlan society. Forcing rapid change based on his personal beliefs is not an option because... well... his father King Lambert did that. And the Western Lords saw him as a tyrant and they committed regicide because of it. Granted it was a move pushed by Those Who Grind in the Night but the Faerghus nobles who took part didn't know that. Point being it was a lesson Dimitri learned. But what happens if Dimitri learns of the shadow war between the last Naabateans and Those Who Vape in the Grey? Edelgard chooses to ally herself with the molemen because she considers the Church of Seiros too powerful for the Empire to fight on its own. And thus Edelgard has to sign off on literal kidnapping, sl*very, and human transmutation. If Edelgard walks up to Dimitri and says "Hey I know it wasn't Duscur who killed your family. It was the same people who kidnapped me the day I left Fhirdiad. Fodlan is a secret battleground for 2 factions of shapeshifters and your family was caught in the middle." While it's up in the air whether he'd turn on the church, he'd 100% mulch Thales and his ilk without question. It's not like it'd be hard, he bulldozed their entire surface operation on accident. I guess my general point is that Edelgard doesn't get to wag her finger at Dimitri for reacting wrong to mass murder when she's holding all the answers.
Regarding the hostages, Claude sends Shamir ahead to scout Enbarr. And Shamir remarks that although the Empire knows for a fact the Alliance army is on her doorstep, she's locked the civilians inside the city. And Claude puts 2 and 2 together to realize Edelgard is putting the civilians between himself and her.
The point about Edelgard exclusively targeting the Church just doesn't hold up. The Empire choosing to invade the Kingdom in Crimson Flower makes sense since the archbishop is there. But in every other route, Rhea is captured immediately. And the Empire invades them anyway. Rufus is [unalived] and Dimitri framed for his [unalivement]. And the Empire claims most of Faerghus as the Faerghus Dukedom. No Archbishop required. In Crimson Flower it's worse. The Leicester Alliance will always manufacture internal conflict to stay out of the war. But the Empire and Kingdom reach a stalemate because the Ohgma Mountains separate the north and south halves of Fodlan and neither country can get enough troops across to actually fight one another. So the Empire invades and takes Leicester to clear a path into the Kingdom. And yeah I feel like I can see why some people argue that this war is more about reunification than ending the shadow war. Neither Dimitri nor Claude know about the shapeshifters so how are they supposed to react when Edelgard starts marching until their home with a giant army at her back? Just give up?
i dont like that in rpgs churches always turn shit.
even happens when the organisation itself is fine that some background shenanigans are happening to benefit said zealot lunatic.
May I suggest Dragon Quest? The church isn’t evil in any of the games… it doesn’t even play a huge role in the story. It’s just part of the world building
@@theshinypeliper8813 glad to hear. it jsut really is that if the church is more then just the thing in town that it goes to shit. even in infinite wealth it went to shit
@@Flutterdark_ fair enough! Still recommend the series as istg it’s really underrated in the west
@@Flutterdark_you know what, props to dragon quest for not turning the Chirch evil because at this this point it has been an overused trope in jrpgs to portray religion as freaking evil. Do a lot of the authors for these video games and manga really have a hate boner for religion or is it just an easy plot device?
I mean… religion is cool, but organized religion is pretty malicious. I think there are many wonderful Christians, but I still oppose the church. One is an individual, another is a business designed to make money and influence human thought.
Edelgard speech bubble
You gonna cover the cult of dubstep too?
I too would like a video on Those who Rave in the Dark.
Local Blue Lion speaking: It's been very cool to hear your takes on all of the different factions within Fodlan. I especially appreciate you covering details from Hopes as well. I haven't seen many videos covering it in detail alongside Houses like you have.
With all the different, thought-provoking ideas Houses/Hopes offers, and the varying perspectives/interpretations of those ideas that come from each player, I'm honestly not sure if I'm ever going to stop thinking about Fodlan.
Three houses has great writing and is so complex. Seiros can easily be the protagonist or the antagonist of the story. Just like the playable lords, except she’s not really playable. Seiros is very interesting because yes you can blame her for a lot that happens but a lot of it isn’t directly her fault and is more indirect. Like I’m pretty sure the wars and stuff would happen regardless of if she was in charge. And also the crests weren’t her invention really and it’s not her fault that crests make people turn into power hungry tyrants or that they are in fact helpful to have in battle. It’s just the nature of humans in this feudalistic setting.
someone did an anaysis on Nemesis' song: God Shattering Star, and found that it gives a very intersting acount of events from Nemesis pov.
" This is basically Nemesis' war song, a call to arms for his soldiers. As a general note, while this isn't as archaic as the Spirit Dais, it's still using older speech. There's a bunch of things I want to touch on, but I guess the easiest place to start is with "artifacts". Those are probably what end up becoming the Heroes' Relics, but they can't be called by that name in the song - they're not the Heroes just yet. If you're wondering why it's bolded, it's because it's written in katakana, which is used very rarely in the dialogue in this game. It's typically used for loan words like the names of people and places, but it's also used extensively at the end of Verdant Wind for Nemesis, in order to communicate a robotic speech pattern. Here, it's probably calling attention to how otherworldly or foreign these artifacts are. edit: It has occurred to me that "artifacts" is probably singular, since Nemesis' skill is "Heaven's Fall"; he might just be talking about the Sword of the Creator instead of the relics in general.
I also want to comment on the grammatical pattern "x called y". This usage can imply that y is like a misnomer for x. As in, they're called gods, but they're actually beasts. Or this is called a rebellion or treason, but it's actually a battle or struggle. Relatedly, I find the fact that Nemesis literally calls this a "counterattack" interesting. According to the Nintendo Dream interview, Nabateans were scattered around Fodlan ruling as gods in their dragon forms. While Zanado itself might've been peaceful, like both Sothis and Rhea claim, it seems like their overall rule might not have been.
Possibly supporting that idea is the "embodiment of fury" line. I'm pretty sure this is a reference to his namesake, the Greek goddess Nemesis. One of her epithets, "Erinys" means fury; you might recognize the plural of this, Erinyes, as "the Furies", the Greek deities of vengeance. Funnily enough, her other epithet, a goddess that she's often conflated with, is "Adrestia" - "she who cannot be escaped", the goddess of revolt, just retribution and sublime balance between good and evil. Anyway, going back to Nemesis herself, she is the goddess that enacts retribution against those who succumb to hubris, or arrogance before the gods. Now, why exactly would Nabateans have hubris...? Maybe because they weren't actually gods themselves, but were acting the part.
I'll also point out that "powerful like a lion" is probably a nod to how Nemesis was the original king of Faerghus. You can trace most of its customs back to him, like living for strength, or kings introducing themselves for a fair fight. However, despite him calling Fodlan the motherland, I think it's possible that Nemesis actually originated from "the desert where stars fall", since he calls himself a star. Claude has his paralogue set in a desert, where Macuil has taken up residence - it's located in Sreng, to the north of Faerghus. Relatedly, in the Traveler's Journal, Issue 2, it's called a wasteland. The word "wasteland" in these lyrics can also be translated as "wilderness", but I think given this context, the former is the better choice, especially since they share a kanji (荒涼 - "desolate" vs. 荒野 - "wasteland; wilderness; desert").
Anyway, moving on to the more miscellaneous things, the "shatter" in "god shattering star" is actually "to slaughter; to vanquish" in the more literal sense. Not sure if there was a reason they went for "shatter" when that's a pretty abstract way of describing it, but I figured I'd point out the discrepancy. I think the line about not looking back on the corpses of your comrades is also interesting when you have Nemesis' friend greeting in Fire Emblem Heroes:
[Friend]ハ、 ウヌヲ好マシク思ッテオルヨウダガ、 捨テ置ケ…馴レ合イナド、クダラヌワ。
[Friend] seems to view you favorably, but leave them alone... Cozying up to each other, how foolish.
I think the morning sun dyeing the Oghma Mountains is probably another instance of the "dawn" motif, and I guess the wind is just overtly namedropping Verdant Wind. My intuition says that we should cross-reference these with the narration that appears for each month, but I said I'd keep this post brief(???) so I'll leave that for someone else to explore."
www.reddit.com/r/FireEmblemThreeHouses/comments/lu9h1r/translated_lyrics_for_the_spirit_dais_and_god/
Dev interveiw: nintendoeverything.com/fire-emblem-three-houses-interview-part-2-byleth-dimitri-eyepatch/3/
Weren't the Calendar images with each chapter depicting the world/Nemesis before the war of Heroes?
Just pointing this out that it legit isn't even Nemesis's point of view but rather what he wanted people to believe.
More interesting parallels with Nemesis/Stars/Desert/Claude, is that the crest of Reigan can be given to anyone by using the "Star Dragon Sign" in NG+. This heavily implies that the Nabatean that Reigan killed and stole power from had some sort of power or significance over stars.
Consider that you only fight Nemesis and hear "God Shattering Star" if you ally with Claude, the one who bears the "Star dragon"s blood. I feel like there's a whole lot more room for speculation with a symbolic coincidence like that.
And that's not even mentioning that Claude's paralogue takes place in the same desert that you're speculating that Nemesis is originally from...
Always glad to see analysis from someone who took the time to understand all 4 routes. I really do like how 3H gave side we could join very human motivation and flaws. It's also refreshing to see a church organization truly have noble intentions but gets corrupted and distorted overtime though human flaws rather then be secretly evil from the get co.
I blame the green hair conspiracy of the space alien lizard illuminati.
Epic reference in the wild was not on my bingo card. Mr. Jalapeño should be proud he's started a movement.
"Strong in her faith, Rhea is. But also is her torment about the past"
-Yoda
Some comments on the church of Seiros:
The church has a lot of eastern philosophy that is lost on western fans who blindly view it as the catholic church. But we can't just ignore the Japanese/eastern roots just because we are all inherently biased against real world catholicism. That's also imposing our western world view where the Japanese devs did not intend for it. Those devs aren't western and they're not catholic, and a church in fiction isn't always about catholicism either. a few examples of how 3H has eastern philosophy and inspiration:
- Byleth's personal class, the enlightened one is Buddhist
- the magic lance: the arrow of Indra is Buddhist named
- four saints of Seiros represent the Four Gods with Rhea as the Yellow Dragon
- Shamballa is a mythical place from Tibetan Buddhist myth, and Agartha has connections too
- in 3 Hopes, Shez personal class is Asura
Rhea as a character works as a great red herring in white clouds. She seems very sus and that's intentionally. She's meant to be the red herring on purpose. Silver snow was the original written route in 3H and Rhea as the red herring works perfectly for a route where your own lord is secretly going to betray you.
Silver Snows Rhea S-Support ends with Rhea admitting her wrongdoings and question whether or not she even deserves to stay alive. Its her redemption route, not one that validates the church. And people who spread that the church is actually based on eastern philosophy make themselves the issue to assume that japanese creators aren't incredibly aware and knowledgeable about the catholic church, when it has quite the presence in Japan despite not having many followers. The devs clearly intended for the Church of Seiros to be interpreted as an allegory for the catholic church, as the aesthetic and doctrine of it are clearly derived from the catholic church and the crest system in general is inspired from the feudal european three estates of the realm.
That's a really good point. I'm glad for the Edelgard route but it's amazing how much it's probably changed the perception of Rhea.
@@pippastrelle Edelgards Route hammers home that the Rhea we have at the start of the game is not a good person and shows us the violent, spiteful side of hers targeted at Byleth. All the other routes force Rhea into introspection and facing the consequences of the system she created and only in Silver Snow if a S-Support is archieved we do see her being redeemed.
Hopes Hammers home that base Rhea is a bad person by focussing more on her as a leader, instead of being a Damsel in Distress.
@@pippastrelle I am not glad for the CF route cuz it was poorly written, but a better written route would have been awesome lol. alas, that's just not what we got.
I am gonna counter you here. I think that white clouds is actually what hurt Rhea/church of Seiros perception the most. players saw the trailers for the game, then they played part 1, and they think "wow this archbishop is sus as fuck." and that's what the game wants cuz Rhea is a red herring. but THAT hurts Rhea more than anything else: she is built up as a sus red herring thru the entirety of part 1 of the game.
if you picked the Black Eagles, then by the time that the player needs to choose between CF and SS, most players are already gonna dislike Rhea anyway cuz of white clouds. Edelgard stans foam at the mouth about Rhea cuz they blindly defend their waifu at all costs, and to them, this includes bashing Rhea to defend Edelgard. but Rhea being more evil in CF does not really matter, b/c Edelgard is the protagonist in CF: of course Rhea is painted in a much worse light in the ONE route where Edelgard is the main character. and the same is true in the other 3 routes, as well, where Edelgard is painted in a worse light as one of the villain/antagonists to the hero/protagonist of Dimitri, Claude, and Byleth.
of course, some people will pick SS if they are curious about this path, but they probably don't like Rhea anyway; they just pick SS to complete all 4 routes or b/c they dislike CF for various reasons. I actually like SS much better than most people, but I recognize that it's a flawed route, too.
by contrast, while Blue Lions/Golden Deer players don't necessarily like Rhea either, again after playing part 1, the difference here is that AM never sees Rhea again in part 2 cuz she's trapped in Enbarr, while VW saves Rhea and finally has her participate in the plot again to explain the history lore dump. VW players probably appreciate Rhea most of all, cuz of that lore dump to understand Fodlan history, while AM players kinda forget about Rhea cuz the plot of this particular route focused so heavily on Edelgard, the empire, Cornelia, and Arundel instead. thus, VW and AM fans come off with a much better appreciation of Rhea because VW gives Rhea something useful to do (she explains lore and she saves them from the missiles), while AM removes Rhea entirely from the route focus instead.
@@shizachan8421
A) I've put over 800 hours into this game. I know what the Rhea/Byleth S support says. idk why you are telling me what I already know, especially when I did not mention it at all. and I am not anti Rhea at all: I like her and I like her full arc. I am just stating facts that people are biased against her after playing white clouds where she is meant to become the sus red herring.
B) you are projecting your own bias here. 100% you are projecting to say "the devs CLEARLY did X, Y, Z" without any reason to claim such. here is an easy as fuck counter to your BS claim:
the catholic church has 0 female popes or archbishops. church of Seiros is lead by a woman, Rhea, and has many prominent female members in the knights (Catherine, Shamir), and teachers (Manuela, plus female Byleth). the church of Seiros also follows the teachings of the female goddess Sothis. it's VERY female based and NOT male focused, unlike the real catholic church and religious doctrine. so to claim it's so heavily inspired by catholic church is just wrong at base b/c a church with a female goddess and a female archbishop is a direct 180 to the catholic church as much as possible.
the catholic church is anti gay, too. meanwhile Rhea can S support a female Byleth, and Rhea/Catherine is practically canon is AM, too, with Catherine's solo unpaired ending.
C) the crest system was inspired by FE4, genealogy of the holy war.
D) the game 3H is literally inspired by romance of the 3 kingdoms, a Chinese story, NOT a western story. get your facts right. stop claiming shit that isn't true.
In the events of 3H, Byleth…
Crimson Flower: Achieves victory for the Adestrian Empire and dismantles the Church of Seiros
Verdant Wind: Reforms the Church of Seiros while she serves as adviser for the Leicester Alliance.
Silver Snow: Rebrands the Church of Seiros and does away with a ton of the old teachings
…
Azure Moon: Does absolutely nothing about the church.
I guess we can see which route is the worst :))))))))
(Disclaimer: this is satire and should be treated as such.)
I should note that we don't know whether Flayn's mother was human or Nabatean. That question actually has bigger lore-implications for whether the Nabateans could replenish their numbers.
@gabrielrussell5531
if that's true then they will need to find people who willing to do with a giant turtle and griffin.
@@gabrielrussell5531 I always thought she was human, hence Flayn's ears.
I wasn't expecting an EPIC reference in a Fire Emblem video, but I'm glad it was there
No wonder why Rhea has issues
Rhi is someone to pity not condemn as evil or malicious. Her faults are her negligence and inability to move forward which is all just incredibly sad.
8:39 A RWBY reference that went unoticed ? Sylvain with Roman Torchwick's hat is hilarious
Silver Snow S rank Rhea is the best ending.
God Emperors is clearly the most fun choice.
Bloodline so pure it loops in on itself
Indeed.
Agreed, that and if Byleth is needed just to get the job done of actually winning the war then it just feels right for them to lead. I just can’t trust anybody else.
THAT EPIC: THE MUSICAL REFERENCE CAUGHT ME **SO** OF GUARD OMG
ME TOO
ME TOO
There’s a lot I could say about Rhea and the church. From I can understand to some extent why Rhea did what she did and why the church is what it is to you guys are stupid and not necessarily evil but definitely bad guys. The Fodlen games in general I think have wasted potential with moral grayness. There is some and I think to an extent it’s done well but they could’ve done so much more with it. The church is the best example of this. They could’ve had it be a good organization that actually tried to help make the people’s lives better, but because of the circumstances of crests and relic weapons existing, and TWS existing its way too cautious and holds onto a system that while very flawed has led to relative stability. Add to that humans not being perfect and this corruption happens. The things about the tenets of the faith being basically the Ten Commandments with the added lines of “this stuff is ok to do if it’s against those who aren’t apart of the church” and I realized this game won’t do something remanded or interesting with it. Probably because if they did make the church more sympathetic then more people would feel bad about siding with Edelgard and we can’t have that.
I’m just sick of the “religion, church, &/or deity(ies) are corrupt and bad” troupe. It’s tired and overused. Granted Japan seems to handle the troupe FAR better than any western dev i’ve seen.
Ah yes, more houses/hopes analysis.
We eating good tonight bois. Not enough good Fodlan lore videos out there, especially ones that account for three hopes!
Thanks for the good work on this!
All of Serios/Rhea's flaws become apparent when you realise that while she had a Mother... She does not have a father. Some real fatherlessness behaviour.
Not sure if this is a joke. What's wrong with single mothers in fiction? Not to say Sothis was a good mother tho
She should be more like Hubert. He had a father! Or maybe Dimitri. He also had a father! Or better yet, Bernie! I'm sure she has some good memories of her father. Or perhaps Lorenz! Or even Edelgard! That's how you behave when you have a father. Like perfectly healthy people!
@@jk-2053 It's surprising Byleth turned out so well, only having a father. Though it does explain Claude having both parents and being well-adjusted.
@@jk-2053 They weren't arguing against having a mother, they were pointing out the lack of a father.
Having two (responsible) parents makes raising children easier (though it's always difficult).
People need to stop acting like pointing out a lack of father is an attack on mothers. It's a logistical issue, and both men and women contribute their skills to raising a child.
Single mothers who choose to raise their child should be applauded, but that doesn't mean they aren't struggling without help.
@@jk-2053 you do realize Dimitri's Dad was butchered when Dimitri was still a child right? In front of him too, along with Dimitri's mother
I am a bit more sympathetic toward edelgard than most are. Many see her as a war criminal however seeing the darkness she had to go through she is somewhat justified in are views. imagine if you will you grew up in a noble house, you are sudden removed from your home to the kingdom where your mother married the king but was not allowed to say anything about where you was from, your uncle drags you back home, your mother is killed, you get wrapped up in experiments that will shorten your lifespan by creepy guys in black cloaks, all the while the church does nothing at all. Someone that has gone through that would be far easier to trick with some half truths and tbh some what far more believable than others. The church was in fact evil under rhea who only truly cared for her mother and the rest of the people she could care less about probably because in her mind humans are what took her mother away in the first place. Despite founding the empire it was the first place she rejected first with advocating for the kingdom's separation and later a separation of the kingdom into the leister alliance. To those in the kingdom especially to edelgard this is clear betrayal taking more and more from the empire which was supposed to be great monument of the church's stand toward evil. In the end unless you are playing edelgard's route she will suffer blamed for murders like dimitri's dad and many other things all the while she just wanted peace and to free the world from what she saw as the injustice of the church in fact that is the point. The only two lords that notice the injustice was claude and edelgard with edelgard taking the reins of removing the church from power to free others from the injustice of the crest system that Rhea needs to keep Fodlen in check. She could of done a better job at it but her heart was at least in the right place.
I can't consider anything hopes says about the church of seiros in good faith because that game badmouths the church and nabateans endlessly yet refuses to explore their side of the story in-depth. Claude doesn't even try to check the accuracy of Edelgard's accusations and sounds like a second hubert because of it.
Rhea was underutilized in houses; in hopes she's treated even worse narrative wise.
Good thing that since it's a warriors spinoff, it's not Canon. Just like Zelda Age of Calamity.
@LordThomasPassion it's too early to consider that for the age of calamity. If I recall correctly, only hyrule warriors aren't Canon.
Hopes just butchers Claude's character
Faint Rave music in the background "We still still RAVE!"
You ain't slick Edelgard
EPIC THE MUSICAL MENTIONED
You single handedly changed my mind about Rhea, good job!
Claude doesn't even have a chracter arc
ah yes, 3h where everyone is varying levels of suck and you just go with who sucks the least in your eyes.
Sounds like politics.
That’s totally not how Three Houses can be described 😂
@@Novarcharesk Because everyone interprets stories differently.
I saw it as one where no one has the perfect outcome and you just go with the one that you feel is least harmful for the world.
The entire situation could've been solved if they can just sit down and have a critical conversation
@@Twilight5007except the one route where you deliberately causing the most harm to the world than the other routes by literally siding with the character who started the war
Honestly I don’t understand how people like Rhea or think that she’s like a good person. She’s understandable as a character. She is built upon possible some of the most traumatic events possible, but I think in a way, Rhea might be the true Villain of the game. Twsitd are bad (and certainly more evil), but they’re out here trying to take over. Rhea has all of the power and chooses to use it in some of the worst ways possible.
I literally discovered you today with the Leicester video, I watched the whole series and lo and behold I saw just now that you posted a new part of this series.
I wonder if you are going to make a video on the TWISTD. I saw that you made videos on all the other major factions.
This type of storytelling kind of makes me want to do the old,
“Wipe my memory and read again.”
Play, take notes with reactions, Collect an ending, notes/react, wipe, repeat.
Every few endings, I reflect and look at my own lore and how easy it is for me to fall to propaganda and hate, or overcome it through compassion or pure spite.
Also which waifu is for lifeu? No better way to find out than to go in blind 15 times and see who I picked the most!
Regarding the crest system, a lot of the characters have noble ideas and intentions in wanting to change it but honestly I think they’re dreaming about a reality that will never come to pass and placing too much blame on the church since they’re an easy scapegoat.
Crests DO make you objectively superhuman and superior to normal humans. In any society really that would become valued and eugenics (whether above or below board) would begin. Even looking at our world today with various democracies and republics among other governmental systems, the wealthy do pretty much whatever they want and get away with it. Imagine if we had something like crests, it’d be almost no different from Fódlan.
Additionally, I don’t entirely understand why people get so hung up about the fact that the church’s history and god are ‘fake’.
First off Sothis is a very real god, and while the church may overplay her omniscience, it’s very true that she basically created the modern world and all the life on it after the war with ancient agartha. Yes she can die (debatably since her body yes but not her soul), yes she’s not onnipowerful, but what even is a god? A god is honestly just a being or idea, real or not, that people give importance to and decide to worship. Gods can die, they can bleed, they can have flaws. Christianity has kind of tainted the idea of what it means to be a ‘god’ but Sothis certainly fits the bill. I mean come on, there are millions of gods that humans have created and worshipped and unless you’re a believer, then those millions of gods are fake. There isn’t really any ground to stand on and call someone’s entire belief system wrong, when it’s all relative.
A very similar argument can be made about history. It’s written by the victors. Look at a textbook today and tell me how much of it you think is the unilateral truth. The answer is almost none of it. There are multiple sides to every story and entire realities can be rewritten and fabricated. Now, to play devil’s advocate we can look at something like Japanese people not really learning about their involvement in WW2. To pretty much everyone else it’s an objectively wrong and bad thing, but to the Japanese they’re doing just fine being none the wiser. Now think about the fact that no one in Fódlan really knows what happened back then. The only sources are really the remaining Nabateans and agarthans, and their knowledge is both heavily skewed and still doesn’t go back far enough to really understand the root cause of these feuds. So there’s really no right answer and at the end of the day why would anyone care about stuff that happened thousands of years ago. Yes it’s cool to learn about and it can be good study material for the human condition, government, technological advancement and all that stuff but in reality, the people of Fódlan knowing the truth isn’t that big a deal imo.
My main point is that while these things are ideal in a perfect utopia, the world is not that and will never be. Yet, it will keep spinning and people will keep living. Players like to act like knowing the history and truth of Sothis is the end all be all when it’s not and never will be.
that Epic reference made my day
Loved all of the videos on Fodlan's factions thus far. Will you be covering the Agarthan faction? (or Those who slither in the dank, as you called them)
I just started Three Houses on a whim because my old roommate bought it on my switch when it came out, before he had his own. I've already sank 100 hours into it since last week... then I stumbled across some of your vids and now I get some great fresh content about a 5 year old game. Thanks for giving me some feeling of being there when it came out by stoking my hype about it haha.
Geez, this game really is already 5 years old...
I wonder what would be the best place to be born in this god forsaken land. My take, probably a remote village far enough that political squabbles won't affect me, and hopefully, lucky enough that the slitherers won't stick their noses
So, Hapi? Didn't work out for her either.
@@TheHearthGuy Worked out for Shez.
Why I choose Edelgard.
Those who rave in the dank the dubsteppers of the deep and those who stalk in the backrooms😂
from what I can remember, Sothis gave her life for what she believed in, even if it resulted in her passing, and that she wished not to be revived, Rhea on the other hand, who was like a total mommy's girl, chose to go against her mother's wishes, by going through all those experiments of hers, all because she wanted to cling to her mother once more.
And because her people got genocided right in front of her at Zanado. That's some serious trauma.
@@IchHassePasswoerter it was something that she couldn't get over with.
I just love Byleth, and if he is the center of the story, that is my fave story. My last route is Silver Snow, i am playing it right now, and i don't care, it is the best route for me.
Just learned it was tales and not thales
7:17 I’m sure I’ve heard these lyrics on apex of the world before
Those who slither in the dark
more like those who stumble in the dark
Rhea is an interesting character that sets up everything that happens in Three houses with her ambitions and her negligence. That whole game had a lot of potential that wasn't really executed on very well unfortunately. That said, I still enjoyed it a lot. Just wish it didn't become so much of a slog to replay the first half of the game to get to the fun branching paths in the narrative.
Sir take this subscription. I have been saying these points for ages. Also as this is my first video of yours that i an watching, i really enjoy that outro
Excellent breakdown, Hearth.
Always glad to deliver
@TheHearthGuy Also, The Dubsteppers who groove in the Dank won't get any sympathies from me, since we'll most likely never get a straight answer as to why they did what they did. They're so cartoonishly and mustache twirlingly evil, they what ever injustices they claim to have suffered is completely overshadowed by their evulz. And, they are so strategically dumb that they probably can't even tie their own shoes. Also, unexisting entire peoples is bad.
*Sees title* Ah, shit. Here we go again.
0:04 A lot of it is Final Fantasy being anti-religion (anarchist in general?) and Japnese often being against religion. There's a history in Japan of the Shinto or Buddhist bodies and the state undermining each other.
Loved the random epic reference pfff
Going off your very end point, I'm actually making a DnD campaign for my friends set after the Azure Moon ending of Three Houses.
Since TWISTD are never immediately defeated they will actually bring back Nemesis for the party to have to deal with during another war
Yeah... Im Pro the Church of Seiros
You ain’t slick Edelgard get off the alt account
"No Telescopes?"
What?
Byleth has Little To No Reason Siding With Edelgard..Her Goal is Decent. But Short Sided and Methods Are Evil.. Having Good intentions Does Not Make You Good Person. Being Nice Does Make You Good Person...She Did Not Kill Jeralt Directly..But Her Silence Did. She was Not Responsible For The Agthenas Kidnapping Flayn and using her Blood Experimenting on The Students and Turning Into Demonic Beast, and What Happeded To Remure Village..But Guess What? She Did Nothing and Stayed Silent..Her Silence and Working With The Argathneas Did More Harm in The Long Run. She Knew Kronya Was disguised as Monica. Her Silence Indirectly got Jeralt Murdered.
She Did Nothing To Prove That She was Worthy of Earning Byleth Trust..For Example if Edelgard Saved Jeralt From Kronya Then That Would Change everything and Byleth anf Jeralt Would Have Small Reason To be Greatful To Edelgard and Try Convince Rhea To Spare Edelgard..
Pretty much my main reasoning why byleth joining the empire made little to no sense. That and what history of fodlan edie is heavily tainted by the mole ravers. Which is what makes edelgard such a great character imo.
Meanwhile in scarlet blaze.
@@espio329 The Agartgeneans and Corrpt Nobilty is the Problem
And byleth has to deal with the party of had the true culprit of everthing in it's soul
@@espio329 must of read the wrong comment. But yeah. I agree Byleth should not trust edelgard
Found Edelgard's youtube channel
It was probably a fell dragon
Become god emperor. Tell the people the truth rebuild the church from the ground up and lead your new empire with all the new technology from those who twerk in the void and erase Nemesis as soon as he wakes up with the power of god and anime
The only solution, Silver Snow is canon, Warhammer: Fodlan is inevitable.
To be fair to Rhea she’s a criminal with a lot of motive, and did a surprisingly good, almost reasonable job despite her severe baggage for the last thousand years.
Didnt know that i wasnt subscribed, fixed that
Well, considering I *just* hit 1,000 subscribers, I thank you specifically so much for that.
@@TheHearthGuyall in a day's work
Yeah no, Seteth sweep.
Wait is Epimenides even canon? Or is it just that his appearance in Three Hopes is non canon.
Three Hopes is canon
Virgins TWISTD and Church of Seiros vs Chads NATO and the Warsaw Pact
How dare you insult Claude like that 😭
Guess I've seen too many such groups as I though it was one I know. Not at all as it turns out as I've never played Fire Emblem.
Traveler jumpscare
Wait I thought flayns mom was a human
From Dimitri’s ending with Flayn, we know that Human + Nabatean results in entirely human children.
@@scion513it it could be that they are mostly human because she is half human in the first place
My question is does Sothis even have any power? They talk about praying to the goddess and the goddess watching over but has she ever actually done anything?
She blatantly does. The Ability to rewind time (and pause it in three hopes) comes from Sothis. She also supposedly created the Nabateans and recreated most life on the world.
The issue is that she’s presently just a soul stuck in a crest stone
@@scion513 I forgot about Divine Pulse. But I mean Sothis is dead with her spirit being attached to Byleth. I'm just wondering if she answers prayers since her death. She has been worshipped for however long, but there has to have been something that would make people still follow her instead of just relying on old stories. Otherwise, she's not much of a goddess.
@@davidgiegerich7716 I think in Rhea's S-Support she talks to her‚ but the validity is up in the air for me. Other than that‚ I don't think she does anything post-death that isn't related to Byleth.
Though I think I'm confusing this with something else‚ I think Eastern gods (irl) can die it's just that Rhea believes that she can be brought back that the faith in Sothis never dies so everyone is praying to a "dead" goddess.
In current day? Most likely not. When she was alive? Most likely. In Heroes, she just randomly questions if that world is a thing she created at some point and just making something up like that on the spot does not seem particularly in character for her. While that game itself is not canon, it generally tries to expand on legitimate lore, so it has been a thing for a few years that she is legitimately omnipotent. Just not immortal, which is why she was stabbed while sleeping.
Sothis was an idiot in life and death
Clyde is my favorite character in the game and I don’t appreciate your statement about him. That said I would appreciate it. If his route explored his Almyren heritage more.
Fire emblem 3 Houses/Hopes is probably the only FE game without a traditional happy ending despite what the games try to tell you.
Hehe alien blood aids go brrrr
We know it’s you edelgard.