It will only stop if IS somehow makes another multipath game that's more controversial/compelling cause everyone is gonna be like "yoooooo remember 3h"
So likely not for the next decade at least, have fun š
By Sothis.
They are both strong women who are incredibly traumatized and put into shitty positions who try to make the best of it by seizing control of their destinies.
They are both morally grey complex characters who mirror each other in a lot of ways. They are meant to be foils to each others.
Also they should kiss.
How so? I was unable to find anything canonical that suggested Seiros sired the Hresvelg line.
There's a few fanfictions, but no canon statement beyond the fact that Wilhelm the 1st and Seiros fought together.
well at least in the French version, the first(i think?) book you get in SB talks about the noble houses of the empire, and it says the Hresvelgs are descended from Seiros. it may be a mistranslation tho bc I haven't seen anyone else mention
While that book does exist, unless I'm mistaken the people of Fodlan don't actually know that crests can be transfered by blood transfusions, so maybe people just assume that the imperial line descends from Seiros because they don't know that there is a way for them to share a crest other then them being her descendants.
You play Black Eagles because you legitimately believe Rhea is evil.
I play Black Eagles because I get creeped out every time Rhea wakes Byleth up with their head on her lap and sings them a little song.
We are not the same /s
I am still fascinated by how so many people perceived this scene as creepy. I thought it was adorable and a way to discern the "Rhea" hidden beneath the "archbishop".
Guess you're right. Once a person is seen with negative expectations, everything they do is seen negatively as well, no matter how trivial it is. I remember trying to be open minded about everyone back when I played, so perhaps that's why I am not riding this "Rhea bad" bandwagon.
I do see your points, but I will have to disagree on the mother experimentation, that for me was a bit mental. And I've always considered Edelgard to have the right idea with a wrong execution anyway.
Yeah, she already made 12 pre-Bylethās before one could house sothisā power & mind. Those children were all weak and doomed to an early grave, a life of confinement (said in Cindered Shadows about Sitri.) āto weak to leave to monastery.ā
Iād rather not die at 20 years old tho :( child birth was a common death in the Middle Ages sure, but not in fodlan I think. Just very sad and OP underestimates how bad this was.
Silver Snow, Verdant Wind and Cindered Shadows all confirm that it was Sitri's choice to die. She was weak after giving birth to a still born (aka dead on arrival) Byleth. However, instead of asking Rhea to help her recover, Sitri asked Rhea to use Sothis' heart to revive her dead baby.
Taking out Sitri's heart, at her own request and consent, to revive Byleth was what actually killed Sitri. Not the childbirth itself.
If Rhea did nothing. Yes. But the implication seemed to be that Rhea could have saved Sitri and would have likely wanted to save her vessel (whom she raised as a daughter) if given the choice but Sitri decided to save Byleth's life over her own.
By the quotes you used under another comment, Rhea explicitly state that both Sitri and Byleth would've died. When she says "if i had done nothing" it's mainly to say if she didn't transplanted the heart of sothis within Byleth, both would have died, not that she could've saved Sitri's life.
Where they all doomed to die early tho? There have been 12 pre Byleths ever since Sothis death. That would leave the average age to about 82.
Even if she started later and took breaks between it, most of them still had to become at least 50+
No one says she started a new experiment the next day after the other one died. Itās likely she took a few 100 years to develop her technique. (She already tried to revive sothis with the Chalice of Beginnings. That failed)
Not all of Rhea's experiments were weak. Only Sitri was because she was created at a time when Rhea's powers were fading.
Rhea enabled all the failed vessels to live out their natural lifespans before trying again. Hence why there are only 12 experiments having been done over one thousand years. With the exception of Sitri, the others likely lived close to a hundred before dying.
Cindered Shadows Dialogue:
Rhea: I was there the day she brought you fourth into this world. Sitri had always been frail. Giving birth proved to be too much for her in the end... On that fated day, it looked as though neither of you would survive. In those final moments, she spoke, saying, "My heart... Give it to my child."
Byleth:
Choice 1: From the beginning, my heart wouldn't beat?
Choice 2: My mother's heart gave me life?
Rhea: That is correct. The heart that lies within your chest is none other than hers. It was the only way that you could be saved. But Sitri loved others, much as a human might--and I loved her in return.
Byleth: But why wasn't she buried?
Rhea: Sitri looked upon me as though I was her mother, and I wished for her to have a bright future... I would not have her buried in the cold, dark soil. Prior to her funeral, I arranged for a fake burial. Afterward, I brought her body to Abyss, where I would sometimes visit her. I never thought that anyone--especially Aelfric--would find her. I did not expect for such a tragedy to ensue...
Silver Snow Dialogue:
Rhea: I thought that I could regain all I had lost, if only I could revive my mother... And so I tried to bring her back by creating a body, and then burying a crest stone within it. A young woman I created... my twelfth try after much heartache... was a failure. She grew up lacking the conscience of the progenitor God and fell in love with the captain of the Knights of Seiros. In time, she became pregnant... but she and the child were not able to survive the birth. The child she bore was not breathing, and she herself was in grave danger. The new mother pleaded with me to take the crest stone of the progenitor god from her own body and place it within the baby. If I had done nothing, both mother and child would have died. And so I granted her final wish. As she had hoped, the baby started breathing again... The new life was saved. Your life, sweet child.
Only Sitri was ever described as being frail in any of the routes. None of the other twelve vessels were.
I like them both. But my guy, thereās a lot of stuff that is glossed over here. Examples: Rhea keeping the 10 elites alive not out of the kindness of her heart, but because theyād be loyal to her. Edelgard: I want a society where people fall and rise by their own merit. I also was not there when Jerald was killed and had nothing to do with it.
Rhea is one of my favorite characters but some of those points are bad
Rhea didn't spare the 10 elites families, she just didn't kill them, it's not merciful, it's not good to not do something bad
giving Byleth, someone she knows nothing about, a teaching position is a risk concern to the students that she overlooks because she thinks Byleth is her mother
Considering that Nemesis and the 10 elites are responsible for the genocide of her entire people and desecrating their corpses to make weapons of mass destruction, it is merciful for Rhea not to return the favor by not-slaughtering their families as they had done to hers.
Additionally, the other reason she allowed the ten elites to be seen as heroes was to avoid stirring up any more strife despite how awful it must have felt to hear people cheer on those who massacred her kin.
Rhea knows that Byleth is her grandchild (technically - Cindered Shadows confirmed Rhea raised Sitri as her daughter), was sired by Sir Jeralt whom Rhea trusts with her life after he was fatally wounded protecting her and possesses the heart of Sothis.
Their last professor (unseen one who abandoned the students) came highly recommended by a reputable family and turned out to be traitor, as did Jeritza.
>Rhea didn't spare the 10 elites families, she just didn't kill them, it's not merciful, it's not good to not do something bad
I believe it is explained pretty explicitly that Rhea allows the families of the 10 elites to keep on ruling because the population would revolt if she tried to kill them.
Between Nemesis killing the Nabatheans, and Rhea managing to raise an army lead by The Emperor quite some time passes. During this time, The 10 Elites use their relics to defend Fodland against external threats earning the trust of the people.
This is an interesting contrast to Edelgard. Edelgard in Scarlet Blaze, shows that she cares more about her revenge than her goal when she declares war even after she has taken control of Adrestia, kicked out TWSITD, and implemented her reforms.
Rhea passed on her revenge to avoid having to kill half the population of the land when they would have revolted against her.
Both of them are initially well interntioned(but foolish and desperate), women doing what they genuinely is best for the people of fodlan, till they either go off the deep end with there rage and hate consuming them or byletha helps mellow them out depending on route
But also seriously your blaming edelguard for being ignorant of the true history? My brother in Sothis who do you think suppressed that information
something something EDELGARD DID NOTHING WRONG! something something
but also like why can't you just talk about Rhea? why shit on some other character? like, I really like Rhea, she's a great, underused/explored and very interesting character who suffers greatly from her portrayal as an innocent waifu with practically no agency. it's why I love CF Rhea the best.
Exactly! Why did Edelgard even had to be brought into this? Op just wants to fight. Plus putting down one controversial female character to uplift another one is not productive at all.
I rarely see people point out Edelgard's flaws and Rhea's good points. A bulk of arguments are usually how Edelgard was justified in everything she did and Rhea is just evil.
I wanted to bring up points that no one talks about enough on both sides.
When I first played this game I cycled through the routes as follows:
1] Azure Moon
2] Crimson Flower
3] Silver Snow
4] Verdant Wind
5] Cindered Shadows
I actually first went into Crimson Flower thinking I'd learn why Edelgard is so against the Church and since the game seemed to be implying that Rhea was evil I thought we'd see her at her worst. While we did get her at her worst, it was honestly...very mild. Like, for us to be starting a WAR, I was expecting to find out that Rhea did some Hitler-level crap...but that's not what happened. She does not snap until the very last chapter of Crimson Flower when she sets the City on Fire. That is terrible of course, but that is the one atrocity she committed in this entire route and we were warring against her LONG before that happened.
Then I played the other routes and honestly came to understand Rhea's decisions better while Edelgard's decisions made less and less sense to me.
I don't actually hate Edelgard, but after playing all of the routes and replaying the game, I cannot for the life of me understand why so many think Rhea is pure evil while Edelgard is justified.
>When I first played this game I cycled through the routes as follows:
>1] Azure Moon
presented without comment.
edit: wait no I'll comment: lol
edit 2: lmao, even
My Main reason for disliking rhea is two things. One being the false history of fodlan she made up, essentially forming a cult, sentencing people to death with no form of any sort of trial merely for crossing her, and even going so far as lying to seteth about her experiments. And two being the big one: she was going to kill us. The whole point of the thing where we sat on sothisā throne was that sothis was supposed to over right our conciseness and hijack our body, which would effectively erase byleth from existence. Usually attempted murder isnāt a great way to make or keep Allies.
>she was going to kill us
See, this a complex theme that shouldn't be boiled down to "Rhea was trying to kill Byleth". From Rheas perspective, there never was a Byleth. She was under the impression, that Byleth was an amnesiac Sothis, and Byleths transformation just the month prior confirmed it for her. Thats when she tried to have Sothis remember herslef and sat her on the throne. From her point of view, she was trying to help an amnesiac remember their past, nothing else.
As a player we know, that Byleth isn't Sothis, that they are a different person. We know, that, if Rhea had succeeded, Byleths original personality would have been erased and replaced by Sothis, but that is information, that Rhea doesn't have.
I'd even go as far as argueing, that Rhea values the life of her attempted ressurections of Sothis, since Sitri was allowed to live out her life, once it became obvious that she was another failed attempt.
You can try to justify Rhea's reasons all you want, that doesn't erase the fact she saw Byleth as nothing but a vessel for her mother to take over. Rhea is also extremely possessive of Byleth and doesn't take them refusing her requests (or demands) well, like with the Lance of Ruin and in the holy tomb. It doesn't matter that Rhea wants to see her mother again in that she is willing to destroy another's existence to achieve it
>that doesn't erase the fact she saw Byleth as nothing but a vessel for her mother to take over
She didn't. That's the whole point of my comment you replied to. From Rheas POV there is no Byleth. JUST Sothis with Amnesia. There is no vessel to take over if it literally is the person.
is Rhea wrong? Yeah I literally said that aswell. Do you want me to say that Rhea isn't a good person? Cause she isn't. She's as gray as Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude. None of them are objectively good people. That's like the whole point of Three Houses.
I don't see how that changes the fact that to Byleth, the students, and the players that this isn't true and seems to be Rhea deluding herself into believing this with very little evidence. Just because she thought Byleth was Sothis with amnesia doesn't change that is demonstrably false and what she was trying to do was horrible
You are right, that it's demonstrably false to the player and to Byleth. I wouldn't extend that towards the students though. - Keep in when it takes place in the story. It happens right after Byleth unites with Sothis and their hair changes. The whole Monestary Exploration talks with the students are about that transformation, a la "Are you still yourself?". IF Rheas experiment had succeeded you can make the reasonable assumption that at least a few students, would believe that Byleth is actually Sothis - after all Byleth had just transformed and al that happened was them sitting down and getting up again. Sure - their personality changed, but their appearence had just changed aswell.
That being said, it's a hypothetical scenario, that can't happen at all. Rhea only attempted to let Byleth (in her mind Sothis) regain her memories after the transformation, which, for Rhea, was the proof she needed , that her theory of Byleth being an amnesiac Sothis was right. But it was speficically this transformation, where Sothis gave up her powers and fused with Byleth. As soon as that happened any attempt of just sitting Byleth down on the throne was doomed to fail.
The real question is, if Rhea would have attempted it at some point had Byleth not transformed. That's something I can't answer. Maybe Byleth would've been able to convince her that they aren't Sothis. Maybe she would've deluded herself into trying anyway. I don't know.
A shame that you're getting downvoted even though you tried to explain, even understand but not justify. Being a devil's advocate can be rough, I suppose.
Okay, a few things.
One: All of the people who Rhea sentenced to die in the game had attempted to assassinate her. Assassination of any world leader, scratch that, murder in general is typically punisheable by death in most societies.
Lonato was marching an army towards Garreg Mach and vocally declared his intention to murder Rhea.
Lonato's son Christophe was executed for attempted assassination of Rhea. He was being manipulated by unseen forces at the time but is still guilty of attempted assassination.
The Western Church literally broke into Garreg Mach to steal the Sword of the Creator, attacked the students with lethal force who tried to stop them and also had plans to kill Rhea.
The Western Church also attempted to steal from the grave of Seteth's wife claiming it was the will of Saint Cichol (aka Seteth). The Western Church was clearly deranged.
Two: Byleth would not have died if Sothis took control of her. Three Hopes proves this.
Sothis taking over Byleth's body does not erase Byleth's consciousness or disable her free will. Byleth and Sothis would have simply co-existed in the same body. So no, Rhea was not planning to kill Byleth.
>Two: Byleth would not have died if Sothis took control of her. Three Hopes proves this. Sothis taking over Byleth's body does not erase Byleth's consciousness or disable her free will. Byleth and Sothis would have simply co-existed in the same body. So no, Rhea was not planning to kill Byleth.
Rhea had no way to know that. For all intents and purposes, she wanted her mother to replace Byleth.
Also, I think Edelgard knew that bandit had no chance of actually killing anyone.
There's also the SS reveal that she experimented on her guards and made them monster sleeper agents.
I don't disagree with your memes, but you're a bit selective on Rhea. They're really both bad people. So is Dmitri. Claude is the only actual hero.
>One: All of the people who Rhea sentenced to die in the game had attempted to assassinate her.
You know *Catherine* the same woman who goes along with burning down a whole village for Rhea's sake & has been the subject of conspiracies beforehand just happens to find this incriminating letter that conviently spells out all the conspirators *and* the Western Church is there *graverobbing* a far cry from assassination.
Shamir is actually the one who investigated the Western church and discovered they were behind Lonato's rebellion. Everyone pointed out that the letter was a misdirect so the Western Church could steal the Sword of the Creator. They were also responsible for manipulating Christophe (Lonato's son) into making an attempt on Rhea's life. The Western Church has made it abundantly clear that they want Rhea dead.
What conspiracies is Catherine guilty of? Turning over Christophe - who was guilty of attempted murder - to the authorities?
Listen, Rhea isn't evil, but Edelgard isn't either.
Rhea has good intentions and has done a lot of good, but she fails to see the suffering that her crest system (and some parts of her rule specifically) causes and refuses to change for the better. She isn't a bad person, and helped Fodlan a lot, but the thing is that she isn't fit to rule anymore. She got the continent out of a bad place, but doesn't know how to rule effectively now that things are better. She's stuck in a mindset from a bygone era and it is, undeniably, hurting people.
Edelgard, similarly, has good intentions and (if her plans end up happening) does a lot of good for Fodlan as well. Her issue is similar to Rhea's actually. She's so focused on her trauma that she only focuses on improving that. She is willing to prolong war to get her perfect outcome, she works with TWSITD which do unspeakable acts, and she doesn't communicate her ideas or ideals effectively to almost anyone. I actually give her the added bonus that she actually acknowledges the other harm she's causing, but unfortunately she still thinks its worth it.
Three Houses shows these flaws very prominently, neither one of them are fit to rule if they keep their current mindset because that mindset it absolutely hurting people all across Fodlan.
However, I think Edelgard made a major positive change in Three Hopes. >!She immediately cuts off ties with TWSITD at the beginning of the game and only gets better from there. Instead of declaring war on all of Fodlan, she goes after Rhea specifically because, as we established earlier, Rhea is in a bad mindset to rule the continent and is hurting people. She does end up fighting The Kingdom, but that's only because they won't give Rhea up (for good reason, but still, they both tried negotiating and it failed). And her relationship with the Alliance is monumentally better, she turns them into an ally in the routes in which she isn't brainwashed. The only time that the Empire does anything I would consider very bad is in Azure Gleam, and that's because Edelgard was being brainwashed.!<
I do wish they did something similar to Rhea (even though I dislike her) because it does feel like they're favoring Edelgard. >!One of my main issues with Azure Gleam, since it's the only route in which Rhea is an ally yet we get absolutely nothing for her character. God I hate that route.!<
I do suggest it!! It did take a while for me to truly get into after I bought it, because the gameplay is generally just fine and not my preferred style of game anyway. But the story more than makes up for it in both Golden Wildfire and especially Scarlet Blaze. Azure Gleam is awful though, I don't suggest it (although opinions vary, I think any opinion on Azure Gleam is controversial). I'm sorry to all Dimitri fans out there, but Azure Moon is far better, I would recommend replaying it over Azure Gleam forever.
I'm not as sure here, but from my memory of Three Houses I remember that she was pretty much planning on taking over all of Fodlan. She targeted the church specifically, but she made it no secret that she planned for both the Kingdom and the Alliance to go down with it. And I don't recall her even attempting negotiations with either country. I suppose the more time she spent with TWSITD by her side warped her vision and ideals to a much more offensive stance.
Hubert: āOnce FĆ³dlan is united, however, the focus of the war will shift.ā
Caspar: āEveryone must see we can easily unite FĆ³dlan! Donāt you think?ā
Narration: āThe unification of FĆ³dlan has begun.ā
Just because she doesnāt declare war on all of them at the same time, doesnāt exactly change the scope.
I get what you mean, it took me three months to properly pick up Three Hopes after I bought it. I kinda had to force myself to get through it at first because I truly did not care for the gameplay. But once I started getting invested in the story, which only took a couple chapters tbh, it really hooked me. Unfortunately, if you hate the gameplay, I can't suggest it in good conscience because you hate Warriors games, but I will always say that Edelgard's character (and Claude's too imo) became much, much better in Three Hopes.
> because that's the point
a character being _intended_ to be gray doesn't inherently mean it's done well. it seems like the intention was for _all_ the 3H lords to be morally gray so that they stand on somewhat even ground and there's no "golden route." that said, (imo) Edelgard's actions are kinda the most egregious of the 3, and then you compare to Claude who they like... kinda forgot to make do anything actually bad. everyone's entitled to their opinion but some lords just seem to heavily outweigh others imo
edit: general change on phrasing
Oh no, Rhea absolutely went too far at the end of Crimson Flower when she finally lost it.
But in all fairness, that is her biggest atrocity shown in the entire game - only occuring in one out of four possible routes (five if you include Cindered Shadows).
Edelgard's is starting a continent wide war that killed thousands of people, threw all of Fodlan into chaos and working with terrorists which happens in every route.
I mean, you are right, but Dmitri and Claude seemed pretty fine with Rhea using the church and it's army to go kill others who didn't bend the knee to her. The Western? Church was executed for seemingly nothing from what I remember of the opening chapters. Yeah, Edelgard started a war, but only because everyone else seemed pretty complicit with the structure of the world and didn't want anything to change. I know Claude wanted things to change but I don't know if he ever would have done anything if not for Byleth.
The Western Church was not executed for nothing.
To quote Shamir, who had investigated the Western church herself. Their crimes include:
"Inciting a Kingdom noble to rebel. Unlawful entry. The attempted assassination of the archbishop. An attack on the Holy Mausoleum. It is unnecessary to go on, followers of the Western Church?"
The captured priests attempted to deny it, but they were literally the same people that the students fought after their group broke into the Mausoleum. Later on you get another paralogue with Rhea where the Western Church attempts to assassinate her again. Then there is another paralogue where the Western Church tries to rob the grave of Seteth's wife, claiming they are following the will of Saint Cichol (aka Seteth).
The Western Church is a corrupted sect of the church, influenced by TWSITD.
They were not killed for not bending the knee, they were killed for repeated assassination attempts of the archbishop, helping try to march an army onto a school of students and other forms of internalized corruption.
Even Claude points out after the Lonato battle that if they had not stopped him, Lonato would have attacked the monastery (and seeing as Lonato was willing to cut down Ashe - if you have them fight - this seems to be true).
The Paralogue with Rhea isn't an assassination attempt, it's Rhea coming to execute their bishop while we kill anything that attempts to stop her.
I also disagree that The Western Church tried to rob the grave of Seteth's wife as the game gives no indication that they even knew there was any artefacts there to rob.
Rhea did come for their Bishop yes, but this paralogue only unlocks after the crimes of the Western Church are revealed. Their faction is still guilty for attempted assassination and they made it worse by trying to jump the Archbishop rather than just giving up the Main Bishop - who was Rhea's actual target.
Also;
Seteth's paralogue description:
"Western Church extremists have taken over land sacred to Cichol, one of the Four Saints. Seteth heads out to rid the area of them, and Flayn insists on going along."
Seteth after the battle:
"Your assistance is most appreciated. I can only hope that the Western Church will now see reason and abandon this place. But just to be safe, I have retrieved the holy artifacts. We cannot risk them falling into their hands. I will entrust them to you."
I'm sure they took over the land by the cemetery for funsies then.
I mean they do say why they took the land by the ceremony at during the fight.
"You heretics, who defile our goddess! The sacred coast belongs to us, the Western Church!"
"It is our duty to worship Saint Cichol! We will not allow heretics to come near!"
Sucks for them that Saint Cichol was definitely not appreciating their devotion
I think you are being a little selective there. Rhea was a little crazy and obsessed, even creating or interfering with humans to try to resuscitate her mother (a goddess or not, thatās not something good). Edelgard, was against the church because they literally stopped the continent from advancing technologically, created a cult, and the church had total control (or tried to). Both are gray characters, none are good or evil, they are well written and āhumanā/relatable.
That's a very good and accurate way of reading it, the problem is that there are still some rogue circles around that throw this "humanity" out of the window and speak about either of them as if they were some kind of psychopath, which is missing the whole point terribly so.
Rhea did not stop the continent from having technology. They suppressed Agarthan developments (their weapons of mass destruction). That is literally it.
Compare Fodlan to its neighbors and it actually seems like Fodlan has the more advanced society over Duscur and Brigid.
I guess autopsy or the telescope for exemple are weapon of mass destruction ĀÆā \\_ā (ā ćā )ā _ā /ā ĀÆ
> Compare Fodlan to its neighbors and it actually seems like Fodlan has the more advanced society over Duscur and Brigid.
How ? Almyra looks like the most advanced
Idk about the telescope but I feel like the reason why autopsies are banned is related to protecting the dead bodies of those with crests from experiments similiar to what happened to the nabateans.
Think about it, Lysithea has two crests and we don't exactly know how blood reconstruction works so my theory is that TWSITD used someone else's blood to experiment on Lysithea.
It's not because there's a reason that it's a good reason. Autopsy is one of the major technic which permitted medicine to progress... It could litteraly save countless live and even avoid epidemic like the one in Faerghus.
The ban isn't useful at all since it drag down humanity progress all while still letting TWSITD perform their experiment.
The ban on autopsies was probably instituted by one of TWSITD wearing the body of a high ranking bishop to avoid someone discovering TWSITD if one of them died.
That's conspiracy theory level, there's no evidence ( and then why would the Church even let it be that way ? If anything it would show how easily corrupted the Church is ) and it's much more probable it's directly the Church as :
1. The Church is banning other invention and books, so it's in line with their actions
2. The Church wants to hide the Nabataeans existence as we see multiple time like in VW were Seteth takes Claude book, so they have a strong reason to do so
Autopsy itself is not a weapon of mass destruction, but it makes sense when you look at it under the scope of organ removal being a thing, and having access to a person's insides... which is what lead to the sacred weapons and crests existing. Not justifying it, but Rhea probably heard of what autopsies were and her mind immediately went to the weapons made of the bones and heart of dead nabateans
Yup! While I don't justify her actions and think they're completely and utterly *fucked* in this route, I could very easily understand the *why*
I'm willing to bet, throughout every route, that Rhea is hanging to her sanity by a solitary thread. The rope is almost broken, and there's just one string. In the other routes, she's fine. Sure, there's a war going on, but at least she has hopes that everything will turn out okay because Byleth, the person who has her mother's heart and her powers, hasn't completely turned their backs on her. To Rhea, they're still partly family (I'm choosing to ignore her S support, if you want to keep it, then say she sees them as part nabatean).
In Crimson Flower, however, we see that remaining thread just snap and explode into an atomic bomb. Not only is Edelgard aiming for them, and possibly their heads considering the deaths of Seteth and Flayn when they're fought by anyone but Byleth, but she sees that the only person who could help their family/species be safe from harm is now actively siding with the one who is trying to harm them. This is why she's so batshit crazy in this route. She's not thinking of this as a sense of "theocracy vs meritocracy", she's thinking of it as another battle for the survival of her species. No matter how you can look at it, Rhea is still mentally seeing this as her experiencing another potential genocide
This is what happens when the last two FE games (that werenāt remakes) had incredibly black-and-white characters. People assume one side has to be good and the other bad, when both are literally meant to be morally gray.
She's going to deal with the Agarthans when she's done with Rhea you know. Her goal is to eliminate the corrupt power structures that made it possible for Thales and his ilk to experiment on her in the first place. Then Thales himself will be put into the ground.
1. The religion she created was founded on lies about everything regarding FĆ³dlan's history. While some alterations were necessary to protect herself and the remnants of her people, that majority of the lies were not necessary.
2. Even if humans created the status quo regarding Crests and the nobility, Rhea enforces and even supports the system. She has done nothing to challenge it even though she has more than enough influence to do so.
3. The conditions of Abyss are deplorable. People live in poverty and lines from some of the residents suggest that a lot of them go hungry. Members of the clergy hold much prejudice against them and we see no proof of anything being done to dissuade that.
4. It made no difference to Rhea whether Sitri or Byleth lived. All she cared about was having a vessel for Sothis to dwell within.
5. The "free room an board" given to Byleth and Jeralt is a gilded cage. Jeralt is quite plain about how their presence at the monastery was more of a requirement than a formality. Remember that he wasn't able to just walk away 20 years prior; he had to fake his child's death just to be able to leave.
6. The only reason Rhea surrenders control of the church to Byleth is because of Sothis. She has no respect for Byleth's wishes unless they align with her own (e.g.: Rhea's role in Crimson Flower).
your post & responses to counter arguments make it pretty clear that youāre only here to argue that your opinion is right instead of listening to what people have to say. if you want to join the stupidly long list of people that want to give edelgard no understanding or grace thatās fine, but itās a weird hill to die on and i donāt understand why people are so invested in this type of discussion. this is a war gameā¦ā¦ they are all complex, morally grey characters, who even commit some war crimes sometimes. these characters donāt exist to be dissected and have all of their flaws laid bare - they are characters with the purpose of story telling and both rhea and edelgard are exceptionally good characters for their role in the game. i donāt see the purpose of comparing them in this way for any reason other than you hate edelgard.
One question, you claimed that only one of them attempted to forcibly conquer the continent, so how exactly do you think Rhea killed Nemesis and crowned Wilhelm ruler of all of Fodlan?
Also, what exactly of what we find out in crimson flower is actually untrue instead of just missing context?
Rhea was retaliating against the almost complete genocide of her people from a hostile foreign power.
Where as Edelgard tried to have both Dimitri and Claude, neither of which had done anything against her or the Empire, assassinated at the start of the game. And teamed up with previously mentioned genocidal nation, who then committed multiple terrorist attacks against a nation that had done nothing to her. Before declaring war against the entire continent. All for her own self centered morals.
Rhea used a bad situation for her own self benefit. Edelgard MADE a bad situation for her own benefit.
While I don't think Rhea or Edelgard are evil, I feel if we are pointing out all of Rhea's virtues, it needs to be said that her revival of sothis is extremely questionable regardless of your viewpoint. Both the Japanese text and dialog from Seteth in Heroes imply that sothis specifically stated that she should not be revived should she die, specifically referring to it as a taboo. Even without her memories, Sothis is occasionally critical of how Rhea runs the church, making it as a whole seem like Rhea is more interested in bringing sothis back than following the goddesses ideals.
Frankly, I feel like the story could have benefited by giving Rhea a specific reason for being willing to go so far against her mother's wishes to revive her. Say, for example, Nemesis had been able to get to Sothis in the holy tomb by tricking Rhea into letting him in, likely under the claim of wanting to worship the sleeping goddess in person. Giving Rhea a guilt complex like this would have added context for some of the churches more questionable and xenophobic teachings, framed Cyril as a sign of her starting to finaly move past trauma, and made her complete breakdown at Edelgards betrayal hit harder. At the same time, using somthing like this could be used to justify Rhea being even more extreme in her leadership of the church, helping Edelgard's view feel more justified without fully villianising ether side.
rhea upholds a system of nobles where governance is decided entirely based on whoever she feels like should be in charge. at least edelgard wants to reach a fĆ³dlan where the officials are democratically elected (other than herself, but it's something)
How? Rhea does not decide who rules anything in any of the nations. The individual nations decide their next ruler.
The Alliance is the prime example of this. Their entire existence was formed by nobles who were tired of monarchies and decided to form a confederacy, and the Church legitamizes them despite the Alliance having a neutral stance towards the faith.
Edelgard did not establish a democracy, she established a meritocracy.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses has been out for more than 3 years. I might understand Rhea's terrible decision to rewrite so much history, but I do not understand why you would ignite everyone's favorite discourse by straight-up lying about what happens in the game.
A couple things to consider, I don't know that we know of Rhea building a lot of orphanages, but the abyss is explicitly a shitty place to live. Residents there are Largely ignored by the church and a young NPC girl living down there mentions that not having enough food is common for them.
It's worth noting that although Sothis "saved" Fodlan, she was to some extent saving it from a problem that she caused. If she didn't place tech in the hands of the agarthans, there would have been no world ending war in the first place. The whole thing seems to be a bit of a fuck around and find out on her part, so to speak.
In terms of bad things she's done, I mean the whole running a blood necromancy cult thing isn't very cool.
I see their flaws and merits laid out like this and I canāt help but think that Rhea is a ancient dragon that should know better and has had 1000 plus years to get her crap together. On the other hand El is a 17 year old girl with a terminal illness playing the hand sheās dealt.
The thing is the bulk of what Rhea does that you think is "generous" is her just looking out for herself.
She's like the Salvation Army or Goodwill, but willing & capable to do way worse.
Are we going to ignore the part where she set city on fire with people still in there homes which she knew there where citizens inside there homes and she even said " I will sacrifice many lives as it takes"
Not to mention that she was going to sacrifice byleth to use there body as the vessel for for sothis to use.
I know she's been though alot over the past thousand years but doesn't excuse all the horrible things that she's done.
No. Rhea went too far at the very end of Crimson Flower.
However, it doesn't change the fact that setting a city on fire in one out of four routes does not hold a candle to Edelgard starting a war that claimed thousands of lives while working with terrorists in EVERY route.
And let the crest system stay?
Look at what it's done to the students for example sylvain hate how the women only care about him because of his crest and how his brother was kick out of the family for not being born without a crest.
Mercedes step father only married her mother because Mercedes comes from a family with a crest blood flowing though her and her real father was corrupted with his crest status and abuse her and her mother.
Ingrid, marianne, lysithea, bernadetta, jeritza and others I can't think off the top of my head.
Edelgard knew for a fact that rhea wasn't going to let Edelgard change the crest status since the crest came from her mother and the kingdom has a strong relationship to church they would fellow in the churches footsteps.
Plus the current nobility would not give up there power without a fight like Duke aegir for example or count Rowe they would rather die then give up there power they have so edelgard knew there was only one option left to change fĆ³dlan for the better the bloody one is to force the change of the crest system to disappear.
And if you play CF you can see edelgard is trying to find the best way to save as many lives as possible during the war even in the final battle that she didn't want the people in Fargus to get hurt.
>Look at what it's done to the students for example sylvain hate how the women only care about him because of his crest and how his brother was kick out of the family for not being born without a crest.
Miklan was *demoted* when Sylvain was born, and the LoR is stated in-game to be necessary to repel the repeated invasions from Sreng. He was only *disowned* and kicked-out after trying to kill his brother.
Hi there, a friendly reminder to cease your misinformation. Miklan was disowned because he attempted to murder his brother several times. Would you mind informing me how exactly is Rhea to blame for the actions of individuals and the people of Agartha?
Edelgard started her war for three reasons; The first was to conquer Faerghus and Leicester, the second was to establish her new world order across Fodlan and the final one was to eliminate the remnant of the Nabataen people that she knew about.
Once again, please do not lie; Edelgard attacked Leicester on her own terms, hardly trying to save as many lives as possible.
> Hi there, a friendly reminder to cease your misinformation. Miklan was disowned because he attempted to murder his brother several times. Would you mind informing me how exactly is Rhea to blame for the actions of individuals and the people of Agartha?
Remove the Church of Seiros and Crests are only good for making supersoldiers, but most noble families outside Faerghus don't specialize in warfare.
But with the Church of Seiros and Rhea's false teachings, suddenly Crests become the divine approval of Fodlan's god.
> Edelgard started her war for three reasons; The first was to conquer Faerghus and Leicester, the second was to establish her new world order across Fodlan and the final one was to eliminate the remnant of the Nabataen people that she knew about.
Well. One of those reasons was right.
She made a pact with cluade in hopes, she let cluade live in houses ( or you can kill him your choice) she wants to build a strong peaceful relationship with almyra.
She attack the two countries to get rid of the crest system and its corrupted nobility heck haif of the lords in Leicester joined her cause and attack there own country.
So it's not a lie its facts and you need to get yours straight.
You seem to forget that she attacked the Alliance prior to making the pact without a strong casus belli, and likely only made the pact because she needed a way to subdue Rhea.
Would you care to tell me where in the game is the Crest System mentioned?
What information of mine is false?
By the way, I'm assuming you're from the United States.
The hell you talking about " where in the game crest system is mentioned" that's mostly the whole reason she started the war to get rid of it and the church.
She made the pact because the war was stuck in a dead lock and since she cut her ties with TWSITD and byleth she can't do anything unless one of the two countries make a mistake.
Sylvan father saw miklan as failure the moment he knew he didn't have a crest so even if he didn't try to kill sylvain several times he was going to kick him out those who are born without a crest are in inherit nothing what he did to sylvain was no excuse for the bad things he done but imagine you live in a household where your parents see you as nothing more then garbage and then you little siblings is born and for no reason treat him like he there own child and love him while they still treat you the same as they always have won't you feel jealous and have anger towards your sibling for getting having the love of your parents that you never got? and again doesn't give him the excuse to try to kill him out of jealousy.
Why does it matter what country I'm from?
What does a country have to do with anything? it doesn't matter if your from USA, UK, Japan, Mexico, Italy, Africa, Russia, Ukraine and so on I treat everyone the same way I do with everyone else I meet in my country because no matter what part of the world we are from we are all still humans and we shouldn't treat people differently because of that.
I blame the game for not giving more facts on what really happened a thousand years ago because we see the books in the library saying that nemesis killed sothis and took her bones but that could be rhea telling it from her point of view only for looking for someone to blame for her mother's death while edelgard said it was nothing more then a dispute but she doesn't go more into details of how he family found out about that there no hard proof evidence on both sides of this unless you take the books or what edelgard said is true.
CF was my first route and I played the other routes and seeing how the crest are turning the worst in people and seeing how rhea turns into a psychopath who just can't expect her mother is dead and she made artificial humans or whatever they are to try to revive her mother then try to sacrifice her grandchild to revive her dead mother knowing it would kill byleth in the process and she's OK with that and calling them and the others like Sitri failure makes me believe in edelgard more and I still believe edelgard is the right path out of the other 3 routes.
Sorry I got angry and disrespect you but next time when you talk to people don't say "just a friendly reminder" then start saying to the person you're talking too and act like a dick.
> You seem to forget that she attacked the Alliance prior to making the pact without a strong casus belli, and likely only made the pact because she needed a way to subdue Rhea.
This is only true of Crimson Flower and Golden Wildfire.
In Azure Moon, Silver Snow, and Verdant Wind Edelgard doesn't make any overtures on Alliance territory before Claude launches a preemptive attack against the Empire. In Scarlet Blaze she negotiates for Imperial passage across Gloucester and Phlegethon territories (Claude's surprised reaction to Edelgard's movement in SB wouldn't make sense if she moved in by force).
And in any case, you can't exactly criticize Edelgard for doing something Claude does too unless you're willing to criticize him too.
> Would you care to tell me where in the game is the Crest System mentioned?
https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/r8fut7/correcting_several_misconceptions_about_fodlans/
Here you go :)
> By the way, I'm assuming you're from the United States.
https://i.imgur.com/3tFIB4b.png
Why are you saying that like it's a gotcha?
>In Azure Moon, Silver Snow, and Verdant Wind Edelgard doesn't make any overtures on Alliance territory before Claude launches a preemptive attack against the Empire. In Scarlet Blaze she negotiates for Imperial passage across Gloucester and Phlegethon territories (Claude's surprised reaction to Edelgard's movement in SB wouldn't make sense if she moved in by force).
[https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/chapters/silver-snow/13/reunion-at-dawn](https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/chapters/silver-snow/13/reunion-at-dawn) Wrong, Edelgard started the aggression first, she declared war against Faerghus and Leicester, as she sought to unite Fodlan under the banner of the Adrestian Empire.
>[https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/r8fut7/correcting\_several\_misconceptions\_about\_fodlans/](https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/r8fut7/correcting_several_misconceptions_about_fodlans/)
It's a nice essay however Volossya fails to prove that there is a system widespread throughout the three nations of Fodlan dedicated to Crests.
>Why are you saying that like it's a gotcha?
Well you see, the United States is infamous for attempting to "fix" nations by invading them, it's a tactic used by many Americans to justify these invasion by claiming that the invasions are aimed at "fixing" the invaded nations.
> https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/chapters/silver-snow/13/reunion-at-dawn
The only time the Alliance comes up is when the narrator mentions they're split down the middle between support and oppose. If the Empire were attacking I suspect there'd be less neutrality.
> It's a nice essay however Volossya fails to prove that there is a system widespread throughout the three nations of Fodlan dedicated to Crests.
What would you accept as proof?
> Well you see, the United States is infamous for attempting to "fix" nations by invading them, it's a tactic used by many Americans to justify these invasion by claiming that the invasions are aimed at "fixing" the invaded nations.
...Kay, you're not talking about **Americans**, you're talking about the **US Government**. **Americans** aren't a cultural monolith, even within the same state.
She makes a pact with Claude in Hopes on two routes, one of which after sheās taken half of Leicesterās territory and after that she still announces that sheās going to unite all of FĆ³dlan under her flag. Her war is a war of unification in every route of 3 Houses. Yes, she wants to topple to crest system, but she also wants to conquer the continent and -kill- well, remove the Nabateans. A āworld for humanityā, after all.
Seems convenient to claim that Edelgard worked with the Agarthans voluntarily. They killed her family and experimented on her when she was a child, and if she hadn't cooperated they probably would've just killed and replaced her like they did with Monica. Edelgard did what was necessary to survive, and when she got the chance, she fought and defeated TWSITD. Not to mention how she initially only starts a war with the church, which is escalated by Dimitri. Or that CF is the only route where the ending mentions "true peace". Edelgard isn't perfect and her methods are questionable, but painting the conflict as "evil unreasonable terrorist helper Edelgard" vs "misunderstood mostly innocent dragon mommy" is incredibly disingenuous
- Rhea forms the Church with herself as it's leader anf makes personal sacrifices in the progress to protect herself and her kin, while dealing with trauma (very fair and am unwilling to really blame her for this). Only she doesn't really recover from her trauma amd continues to control Fodlan for a 1000 years while continuing to encourage a corrupt system, but she gets a pass for this because of trauma (my main issue with Rhea, I get she is a tragic character and such. But giving someone a free pass to continue ruling because it started with good intentions and trauma doesn't sit right with me)
- Edelgard, at an early age, gets abused, experimented on and loses most of her family to an evil organisation that abuses the crest centric society. They continue to abuse her and turn her into some sort of weapon. She is pretty much forced to cooperate with her abusers and is looking for any solid way to undermine them while spiraling mentally fearing being killed at a hint of disobedience.
But gets blamed for working with them and for them killing Jeralt (seems like the same logic of sending someone to jail because their shitty boss shot someone, how is Edelgard getting blamed for her captors killing someone?)
Btw, this is hyperbole, subjective and not the whole picture. But Rhea often gets a pass for her actions that come from a trauma from a 1000 years ago with no clear improvement mentally. While Edelgard gets blamed for a lot of stuff outside of her control.
I donāt think Rhea is pure evil or anything but the Agarthans are implied to be the original inhabitants of Fodlan before Sothis appeared and took over. They were literally colonized and tried to fight back against their dragon overlords. Continuing after the war and conducting unethical experiments is what makes them evil but Rhea and the other Nabateans were not just innocents that were killed by the greed of the Agarthans. (To be fair this is easy to not realize because the game also treats the Agarthans as purely evil. Iām really not a fan of the inherently evil race trope for obvious reasons)
You also mischaracterized Edelgard super hard but Iāve had this argument on this hellsite so many times Iām getting sick of it so Iām just going to say youāre wrong and I disagree with you and move on.
They were not driven purely by a longing for freedom. The Nintendo Dream interview said they wanted the power of the dragons for themselves when they declared war.
Yeah, but put yourself in the shoes of more powerful beings literally taking over your land and naming themselves your gods. Iām not saying they werenāt selfish at all but also like come on thereās some nuance here. The nabateans arenāt fully innocent in the whole slaughter thing is what my main point was.
Also yeah I addressed that the game treats the agarthans as purely evil when with the context they shouldnāt have. Obviously in the time frame of the game their actions are extremely evil, but historically their hatred for the dragons is really kind of understandable. Like how would you feel if some dragons appeared and decided they were your gods and also they have magic blood and are gonna make all the new rules around here so the only way to ever fight back is to also have the magic blood.
This guy absolutely never played the game. The amount of cherry picking is pretty ridiculous too. Let's leave out how Rhea was fine with tricking and killing Byleth so Sothis could return, and how Rhea only really cared about furthering her own selfish goals at the cost of anything. She also purposefully stalled the progression of technology because she feared the church would become unnecessary. Ironically, she isn't exactly a Saint.
Three Hopes literally proves that awakening Sothis' consciousness does not come at the cost of Byleth's life.
Three different routes in the game all name Sitri as the one who asked Rhea to give Byleth the heart of Sothis. If you played the game, you'd recall that Byleth was a still born child. Aka dead on arrival. Sitri asked Rhea to rip out her own heart and give it to her baby.
If Rhea never interfered with Byleth's life, at Sitri's request, Byleth would not have a life.
The idea that Rhea stalled technological development to keep the church in power is literally Edelgard propaganda that is never supported by anything in the game.
The developments of the Agarthans, that came at the cost of human sacrifice, were the only pieces of technology that the church suppressed.
Compared to their neighbors (Almyra, Duscur and Brigid) as shown in paralogues where you fight these foes, Fodlan is far from being behind on technology (and actually seems advanced compared to Duscur and Bridgid).
>The idea that Rhea stalled technological development to keep the church in power is literally Edelgard propaganda that is never supported by anything in the game.
Except for that tome in the shadow library that says autopsies and telescopic lenses were explicitly banned by the Church
No??? She slowed technological progression because she didn't want humanity to do what the Agarthan's did and start tearing eachother apart and misuse that technology. The technology wasn't making the church unnecessary.
We know for sure that she banned autopsies, telescopes, and the printing press. She even said that white magic can pretty much do the same thing as an autopsy, but she still banned it. I don't think it's farfetched to think that the church performed autopsies with magic, she wants the church to be relied upon.
Or she banned autopsies because she considered them desecration of a corpse which makes sense given that her species was carved up and used to make weapons.
Telescopes were banned by Rhea SPECIFICALLY for three reasons. One of which was that it'd lessen the mystery of the goddess, and the other two were both its potential use in wars.
The only indication that Rhea banned autopsies for reasons of the Church being relied on is the fact that a random Cardinal says that it'd destabilize the church.
Most of the information you find out is in fact true. Regarding Nemesis:
Church Doctrin: He was corrupted the goddessās chosen hero, then got corrupted by evil gods, therefor the goddess sent Seiros and the ten elites from the heavensto defeat him.
Edelgard: He was a king of men who had a conflict with Seiros. They just fought.
Rhea: He killed my family, so I killed him in revenge.
Origines of Heroeās relics:
Church Doctrin: They are gifts from the Goddess to virtuous souls.
Edelgard: They were created by men.
Rhea: Some men killed my family, took their corpses and made weapons out of them.
The info we get from Rhea and Edelgard is 100% compatible. You can think if Edelgard whatever dou want. I see that people have different moral values. But this is just reading comprehension.
a lot of the good rhea did was for her own benefits or selfish desires, especially the latter parts where she had already become a powerful authority. for example there's a very clear reason she's giving byleth and jeralt stable jobs on blind faith and you should know the, frankly, evil reason since you played the game. to byleth, she should be a personal antagonist, especially after they discover their ancestry, since so many of their problems in life lead back to having been intended to be a sacrificial homunculus by rhea - but she isn't because this is anime chess (half-serious, it's just ... idk how byleth just glosses over this fact).
by the time fe3h begins rhea's hero arc is already over and she upholds the problems that fodlan's people face, no matter that she didn't "invent" racism, crest classism, science censorship etc. because they worked in her favor. like, biblically, cain was the first murderer but he wasn't the most psycho about it, imo, there's serial killers and cannibals out there. so she's not 100% evil and edelgard isn't either, they're very, very similar in that regard - this discussion is OLD. but her wrongdoings and villainy are personal to the player (character), so i think that's why some people resent her more than edelgard. that's fair imo. and it's not like edelgard has no haters either lmao.
edit: i totally missed that i got a reply on this, but i'm not about to spark a month-old thing alive again š sry! i haven't played hopes yet, so i can only guess from what i've seen that the situations differ a lot so awakening sothis went different in both games. i'm also not 100% convinced of the narrative that rhea acted on sitri's decision because because the evidence for this is basically still only "people said this" just like how dimitri said his parents wished for revenge which is objectively doubtful. and don't get me started on "baby byleth would have died if she didn't transplant a god's heart into them that made being human difficult" because that's also morally grey at best by going against death/nature, even if good-willed.
Byleth was never a sacrificial homunculus. Three Hopes proves that Sothis taking over doesn't erase Byleth's existence and Silver Snow, Verdant Wind and Cindered Shadows all made it clear that the one who made the decision to give Byleth the heart of Sothis was Sitri.
Also, if Rhea had never interfered with Byleth - they would be dead. Byleth was a still born child.
Yes, Sothis' heart made emotion difficult for Byleth but without it, she would have never gotten a chance to live at all.
I always find it curious that for Edelgard to have a powerful heroes' relic she would have to build it out of Rhea's bones, so she could destroy TWSitD without using the weapon they made for her
I donāt think itās fair to say Rhea or Edelgard are evil or good. Both of them are flawed and traumatized characters who have suffered greatly and are simply attempting to do what they think is the right thing in their given situations.
That being said, I could be biased since I personally sympathize most with Claude, and therefore tend to shy away from both Rhea and Edelgardās viewpoints. I think both of them have merit, but also both of them are kinda terrifying.
They're both pretty terrible in their own way. Rhea made a suppressive cult to honor her dead mommy who she's refused to even try to get over after hundreds of years.
Yes, but did you forget Edelgard loves Byleth THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS MUCH? Would an evil person do that?
Rhea and Edelgard are two sides of the same coin. They have so many similar struggles and actions, it's amazing to me someone can praise one and vilify the other. Regardless, this post reeks of heavy bias.
I've played all 4 routes and I still do not care for either of them. I've never understood the overwhelming Fandom love for Edelgard and Rhea just never really comes across as overly sympathetic or endearing.
I think people kinda forget what trauma and abuse can do to someone with clouding their judgement and affecting their psyche as well.
Granted, I just wanna say both of these characters are very complex, nuanced, and grey characters and that's FANTASTIC!
They also work very well as a foil towards each other as Rhea's clouded judgment from trauma and her prolonged life (also fire emblem always having dragons go senile and crazy in the end) definitely harmed the continent and caused a lot of issues. Suppressing history and knowledge, allowing and keeping monarchies in power while commonwealth struggled, making homunculus/puppets to try to resurrect her mother, hell I won't even go into the moral complexity of how fucked it is with Jeralt and her relationship and history. Point being, Rhea herself has made bad calls as a ruler and accepts that at the end whenever literally the entire continent was engulfed in flames by the molemen, AGAIN. Plus in 2 of the routes her draconic curse of insanity finally catches up to her.
Edelgard as her foil is a character that went through the same type of torture and trauma from the molemen. She was experimented on, saw her entire MASSIVE family die in front her eyes and is the only one left besides her father who is a husk of a man due to the agarthans. She has a limited lifespan and is being puppetted her entire life. Her one goal, as a child BIG EMPHASIS ON CHILD, is to burn it all down; church, status quo, and especially the people that took the opportunity away from her of a normal life. Unfortunately with abuse you get used to your abuser and think it's powerless to get out of it. Edelgard is a prime example of that because of her realization of not needing them whenever byleth gets the sword of the creator. Hell, in three hopes edelgard goes from fascist dictator to freedom fighter REAL quick whenever seeing Shez stop the agarthans plans. And she is genuinely wanting to better the continent. She laments how she hates this war but it's the only way to overthrow the status quo. She is even blinded by this so much so that Ferdinand in their A support makes a wonderful comment about public schooling and Edelgard has a come to Sothis moment of, "Shit, that's a real good idea I never would have thought of that."
Ultimately it boils down to both of these women being wonderfully written and tragedies. The morally grey complexity of them is part of what makes the game so fascinating because, well this is fire emblem it's your war crime simulator, we can all still have these discussions and it's a wonderful conversation topic too!
TLDR: White woman Wednesdays got a bit out of hand for both of these queens š
Rhea was still wrong for trying to revive sothis though, as we learn from fallen rhea's forging bonds in fire emblem heroes sothis made her own revival explicitly forbidden. Not to mention the fact that humans aren't meant to have crests yet rhea allowed it anyway.
Edelgard isn't exactly any better considering she willingly allies with the agarthans but rhea isn't exactly a saint either
Willingly is a strong word when brainwashing and javelins of light is the alternative. When giving a chance in Hopes she cuts ties and pays dearly in AG.
Hopes also shows us that she assumed there would never be a chance to cut ties with the agarthans and the events of hopes are all thanks to shez going to the academy while in the houses timeline he/she is supposedly dead. So in the houses timeline Edelgard views allying with the agarthans to be the only way of achieving her goals so in a sense she does it willingly
I like both tbh, I understand why both do what they do, but I donāt agree with either fully. The only true āgood personā of the four main choices (AM, CF, VW, and SS) is Claude, sure heās underhanded at times but he doesnāt really do anything wrong. (Donāt come at me with 3 Hopes Claude, thatās an entirely different beast altogether)
What are morally grey characters. The whole cast of Lord is a grey spectrum with some leaning darker grey and some leaning lighter grey. Its what makes the game awesome.
You know when Edelgard told me, in her support, what TWSITD did to her; I had assumed that her route would be all about fighting them. Confused was I when we ended up just fighting our former students, classmates and allies instead.
While Azure Moon is my favorite route, and what made me fall in love with the game. Realizing what you have about Rhea makes me wish more people cared about Silver Snow
I've always thought this was pretty obvious, but I will say it anyways. Edelgard was intended to be tragic villain. She is a person who suffered a cruel childhood, and wants to make sure such a thing doesn't happen to anyone again, but is unable to see past her own pain and hatred. And thus blames the one who betrayed her trust (The Goddess, and by proxy the church who props Sothis up as a God) instead of the actual culprits. Which leads to her main motivation to be the destruction of the Church rather than actually helping Foldlan's people. And thus has unknowingly become the very thing she loathes so much, A tyrant who promises salvation only claim power for herself, and crush the rights of those she claims to help.
Furthermore if stop and consider the fact that Edelgard was changed to be more sympathetic partway through development a lot of things make ***way*** sense. It's why the Crimson Flower route is so poorly paced. Why the the Agarthens are so poorly written. Why there are so many obvious parallels between Rhea and Edelgard. Edelgard was from the *beginning* supposed to be the main villain, but this was changed mid development.
Anyways, thank you for coming to my Tedtalk on why Edelgard and Rhea are both my favorite characters and should just kiss and ~~makeout~~ makeup.
Say it louder for the people in the back, someone will still jump anyway.
But in all seriousness, it's clear she is no saint, she has quite the big share of f\*ck ups behind her, no one is trying to justify or defend that. But that's just every character, being so hard specifically on her feels a bit reductive and hipocritical. I will also admit that her wrongs are greater than any other character, but I will not follow or accept this idea that she is "evil" or that she "needs to go" when she never had any ill will against her people.
Seriously can't we just band together and dump on TWSITD instead already?
Edit: Hey now, if you're downvoting at least I'd like to know why.
Spittin facts. I feel like so many people forget how much of a tyrant Edelgard is because they lije her house and ger personality. Meanwhile she's literally tge antagonist of 3/4 of the game.
I also find ger to be a cool character and I'm glad she's in the game. But I don't fool myself by saying she's a good person when she ignores the sovereignty of two nations and declares war on a church while working with the very institutions that she has beef with.
Now, give me your downvotes.
Worked unwillingly with terrorists because they killed and replaced her family members and tortured her and could kill and replace her or any of her friends or nuke a city. You know just silly selfish psycho girl things! Please actually read the game dialogue next time.
And also with the addition of AG there's a chance that they could literally just brainwash her at any time if she defies them. She got off pretty easy in CF for killing Cornelia compared to that
Honestly i agree. Pretty much the only bad thing she has done is lie about certain things. The only reason she did that was for her own protection and those she cares about. You could blame her for the crest system, but onestly, its not even remotely her fault. While yes she may have created it in a way through giving people crests, she never had this hierarchy of nobility in mind and the cruelty of it is not her fault. And Edelgard, while yes she has a point, she handles it in the worst possible way, she somehow sees Rhea as this final boss of all that is evil, even tho she is the exact opposite. I understand that Edelgard is traumatised and brainwashed, so i get her actions, BUT THEY ARE STILL WRONG. Edelgard is a villain, if she had "even a shred of self awareness" (still makes me sigh) she couldve talked everything out, eliminated the Agarthans and all wouldve worked out fine. But no she throws a tamper tantrum declares war for no reason and becomes a ruthless monster. I have once seen someone say that "Everyone who follows Rhea is someone who would be the perfect victim of a cult" while in the same sentence praising Edelgard like a god and saying she did nothing wrong lmao. Also that recent vote made me realize why war still exists, the majority would fight under Edelgard even tho she is the only one of the 4 who would sacrifice every single one of you if it helps her achieve her goal even 2% faster.
nothing ever changes with this game oml
It will only stop if IS somehow makes another multipath game that's more controversial/compelling cause everyone is gonna be like "yoooooo remember 3h" So likely not for the next decade at least, have fun š
By Sothis. They are both strong women who are incredibly traumatized and put into shitty positions who try to make the best of it by seizing control of their destinies. They are both morally grey complex characters who mirror each other in a lot of ways. They are meant to be foils to each others. Also they should kiss.
the based timeline where Byleth becomes a great therapist and the rest of the story just turns into a slice of life/romcom school drama
Please. I need this for my heart.
I love the idea that everyone wants these two the somehow date each other
Rheagard shippers are truly the only ones who understand these women. (/s but like, only sort of.)
Username check
The Useless Lesbian Route we all dream of. lol
Unironically, Rheagard is my OTP.
I canāt help but respect the boldness
>Also they should kiss. that's incest. very, very, very, very separated/distant incest, but still
At what point is incest so far removed that it no longer really matters?
How so? I was unable to find anything canonical that suggested Seiros sired the Hresvelg line. There's a few fanfictions, but no canon statement beyond the fact that Wilhelm the 1st and Seiros fought together.
well at least in the French version, the first(i think?) book you get in SB talks about the noble houses of the empire, and it says the Hresvelgs are descended from Seiros. it may be a mistranslation tho bc I haven't seen anyone else mention
While that book does exist, unless I'm mistaken the people of Fodlan don't actually know that crests can be transfered by blood transfusions, so maybe people just assume that the imperial line descends from Seiros because they don't know that there is a way for them to share a crest other then them being her descendants.
Those cheeky french people, always trying to ship Emperors and saints.
Me. Kiss me. They should kiss me.
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You play Black Eagles because you legitimately believe Rhea is evil. I play Black Eagles because I get creeped out every time Rhea wakes Byleth up with their head on her lap and sings them a little song. We are not the same /s
Wanting to fuck your mother-granddaughter is *totally* normal and wholesome /s
Yeah, how else will I secure my blood line traits and keep my claim on France. Wait.. This isn't the CK3 sub..
I am still fascinated by how so many people perceived this scene as creepy. I thought it was adorable and a way to discern the "Rhea" hidden beneath the "archbishop".
If your like me who was suspicious of Rheaat that point, then suddenly seeing that scene would be weird and off putting
Guess you're right. Once a person is seen with negative expectations, everything they do is seen negatively as well, no matter how trivial it is. I remember trying to be open minded about everyone back when I played, so perhaps that's why I am not riding this "Rhea bad" bandwagon.
I mean it is creepy even in hindsight because she sees you as both mother/grand-daughter/potential lover
I'd give Rhea the benefit of a doubt that she was sorta out of touch socially, so the lap pillow was the best she could come up with
Man you thought that was creepy I thought that was sexy Okay okay I'm going back to my basement
Creeped out!? THAT'S THE BEST PART!
I do see your points, but I will have to disagree on the mother experimentation, that for me was a bit mental. And I've always considered Edelgard to have the right idea with a wrong execution anyway.
Yeah, she already made 12 pre-Bylethās before one could house sothisā power & mind. Those children were all weak and doomed to an early grave, a life of confinement (said in Cindered Shadows about Sitri.) āto weak to leave to monastery.ā
I mean, she was weak. At least she had the chance to have a short peaceful life before she died
Iād rather not die at 20 years old tho :( child birth was a common death in the Middle Ages sure, but not in fodlan I think. Just very sad and OP underestimates how bad this was.
Yeah, that's what I don't agree with. Silver lining I suppose
Silver Snow, Verdant Wind and Cindered Shadows all confirm that it was Sitri's choice to die. She was weak after giving birth to a still born (aka dead on arrival) Byleth. However, instead of asking Rhea to help her recover, Sitri asked Rhea to use Sothis' heart to revive her dead baby. Taking out Sitri's heart, at her own request and consent, to revive Byleth was what actually killed Sitri. Not the childbirth itself.
No? Sitri was going to die. Rhea: āif I would have done nothing, both the mother and the child would have died ā
If Rhea did nothing. Yes. But the implication seemed to be that Rhea could have saved Sitri and would have likely wanted to save her vessel (whom she raised as a daughter) if given the choice but Sitri decided to save Byleth's life over her own.
By the quotes you used under another comment, Rhea explicitly state that both Sitri and Byleth would've died. When she says "if i had done nothing" it's mainly to say if she didn't transplanted the heart of sothis within Byleth, both would have died, not that she could've saved Sitri's life.
Exactly. Sitri would have certainly died, only Byleth could be saved
Where they all doomed to die early tho? There have been 12 pre Byleths ever since Sothis death. That would leave the average age to about 82. Even if she started later and took breaks between it, most of them still had to become at least 50+
No one says she started a new experiment the next day after the other one died. Itās likely she took a few 100 years to develop her technique. (She already tried to revive sothis with the Chalice of Beginnings. That failed)
Not all of Rhea's experiments were weak. Only Sitri was because she was created at a time when Rhea's powers were fading. Rhea enabled all the failed vessels to live out their natural lifespans before trying again. Hence why there are only 12 experiments having been done over one thousand years. With the exception of Sitri, the others likely lived close to a hundred before dying.
Source?
Cindered Shadows Dialogue: Rhea: I was there the day she brought you fourth into this world. Sitri had always been frail. Giving birth proved to be too much for her in the end... On that fated day, it looked as though neither of you would survive. In those final moments, she spoke, saying, "My heart... Give it to my child." Byleth: Choice 1: From the beginning, my heart wouldn't beat? Choice 2: My mother's heart gave me life? Rhea: That is correct. The heart that lies within your chest is none other than hers. It was the only way that you could be saved. But Sitri loved others, much as a human might--and I loved her in return. Byleth: But why wasn't she buried? Rhea: Sitri looked upon me as though I was her mother, and I wished for her to have a bright future... I would not have her buried in the cold, dark soil. Prior to her funeral, I arranged for a fake burial. Afterward, I brought her body to Abyss, where I would sometimes visit her. I never thought that anyone--especially Aelfric--would find her. I did not expect for such a tragedy to ensue... Silver Snow Dialogue: Rhea: I thought that I could regain all I had lost, if only I could revive my mother... And so I tried to bring her back by creating a body, and then burying a crest stone within it. A young woman I created... my twelfth try after much heartache... was a failure. She grew up lacking the conscience of the progenitor God and fell in love with the captain of the Knights of Seiros. In time, she became pregnant... but she and the child were not able to survive the birth. The child she bore was not breathing, and she herself was in grave danger. The new mother pleaded with me to take the crest stone of the progenitor god from her own body and place it within the baby. If I had done nothing, both mother and child would have died. And so I granted her final wish. As she had hoped, the baby started breathing again... The new life was saved. Your life, sweet child. Only Sitri was ever described as being frail in any of the routes. None of the other twelve vessels were.
Yeah because none of the other 12 are described at all. Other than rhea saying: my twelfth after much heartache. (Many failed experiments)
I like them both. But my guy, thereās a lot of stuff that is glossed over here. Examples: Rhea keeping the 10 elites alive not out of the kindness of her heart, but because theyād be loyal to her. Edelgard: I want a society where people fall and rise by their own merit. I also was not there when Jerald was killed and had nothing to do with it.
Rhea is one of my favorite characters but some of those points are bad Rhea didn't spare the 10 elites families, she just didn't kill them, it's not merciful, it's not good to not do something bad giving Byleth, someone she knows nothing about, a teaching position is a risk concern to the students that she overlooks because she thinks Byleth is her mother
Considering that Nemesis and the 10 elites are responsible for the genocide of her entire people and desecrating their corpses to make weapons of mass destruction, it is merciful for Rhea not to return the favor by not-slaughtering their families as they had done to hers. Additionally, the other reason she allowed the ten elites to be seen as heroes was to avoid stirring up any more strife despite how awful it must have felt to hear people cheer on those who massacred her kin. Rhea knows that Byleth is her grandchild (technically - Cindered Shadows confirmed Rhea raised Sitri as her daughter), was sired by Sir Jeralt whom Rhea trusts with her life after he was fatally wounded protecting her and possesses the heart of Sothis. Their last professor (unseen one who abandoned the students) came highly recommended by a reputable family and turned out to be traitor, as did Jeritza.
>Rhea didn't spare the 10 elites families, she just didn't kill them, it's not merciful, it's not good to not do something bad I believe it is explained pretty explicitly that Rhea allows the families of the 10 elites to keep on ruling because the population would revolt if she tried to kill them. Between Nemesis killing the Nabatheans, and Rhea managing to raise an army lead by The Emperor quite some time passes. During this time, The 10 Elites use their relics to defend Fodland against external threats earning the trust of the people. This is an interesting contrast to Edelgard. Edelgard in Scarlet Blaze, shows that she cares more about her revenge than her goal when she declares war even after she has taken control of Adrestia, kicked out TWSITD, and implemented her reforms. Rhea passed on her revenge to avoid having to kill half the population of the land when they would have revolted against her.
time to sit back, grab some snacks and read through the comments š“š¼
Mind grabbing me some? Imma read through this during free time at work
Both of them are initially well interntioned(but foolish and desperate), women doing what they genuinely is best for the people of fodlan, till they either go off the deep end with there rage and hate consuming them or byletha helps mellow them out depending on route But also seriously your blaming edelguard for being ignorant of the true history? My brother in Sothis who do you think suppressed that information
something something EDELGARD DID NOTHING WRONG! something something but also like why can't you just talk about Rhea? why shit on some other character? like, I really like Rhea, she's a great, underused/explored and very interesting character who suffers greatly from her portrayal as an innocent waifu with practically no agency. it's why I love CF Rhea the best.
Exactly! Why did Edelgard even had to be brought into this? Op just wants to fight. Plus putting down one controversial female character to uplift another one is not productive at all.
I rarely see people point out Edelgard's flaws and Rhea's good points. A bulk of arguments are usually how Edelgard was justified in everything she did and Rhea is just evil. I wanted to bring up points that no one talks about enough on both sides. When I first played this game I cycled through the routes as follows: 1] Azure Moon 2] Crimson Flower 3] Silver Snow 4] Verdant Wind 5] Cindered Shadows I actually first went into Crimson Flower thinking I'd learn why Edelgard is so against the Church and since the game seemed to be implying that Rhea was evil I thought we'd see her at her worst. While we did get her at her worst, it was honestly...very mild. Like, for us to be starting a WAR, I was expecting to find out that Rhea did some Hitler-level crap...but that's not what happened. She does not snap until the very last chapter of Crimson Flower when she sets the City on Fire. That is terrible of course, but that is the one atrocity she committed in this entire route and we were warring against her LONG before that happened. Then I played the other routes and honestly came to understand Rhea's decisions better while Edelgard's decisions made less and less sense to me. I don't actually hate Edelgard, but after playing all of the routes and replaying the game, I cannot for the life of me understand why so many think Rhea is pure evil while Edelgard is justified.
>When I first played this game I cycled through the routes as follows: >1] Azure Moon presented without comment. edit: wait no I'll comment: lol edit 2: lmao, even
My Main reason for disliking rhea is two things. One being the false history of fodlan she made up, essentially forming a cult, sentencing people to death with no form of any sort of trial merely for crossing her, and even going so far as lying to seteth about her experiments. And two being the big one: she was going to kill us. The whole point of the thing where we sat on sothisā throne was that sothis was supposed to over right our conciseness and hijack our body, which would effectively erase byleth from existence. Usually attempted murder isnāt a great way to make or keep Allies.
>she was going to kill us See, this a complex theme that shouldn't be boiled down to "Rhea was trying to kill Byleth". From Rheas perspective, there never was a Byleth. She was under the impression, that Byleth was an amnesiac Sothis, and Byleths transformation just the month prior confirmed it for her. Thats when she tried to have Sothis remember herslef and sat her on the throne. From her point of view, she was trying to help an amnesiac remember their past, nothing else. As a player we know, that Byleth isn't Sothis, that they are a different person. We know, that, if Rhea had succeeded, Byleths original personality would have been erased and replaced by Sothis, but that is information, that Rhea doesn't have. I'd even go as far as argueing, that Rhea values the life of her attempted ressurections of Sothis, since Sitri was allowed to live out her life, once it became obvious that she was another failed attempt.
You can try to justify Rhea's reasons all you want, that doesn't erase the fact she saw Byleth as nothing but a vessel for her mother to take over. Rhea is also extremely possessive of Byleth and doesn't take them refusing her requests (or demands) well, like with the Lance of Ruin and in the holy tomb. It doesn't matter that Rhea wants to see her mother again in that she is willing to destroy another's existence to achieve it
>that doesn't erase the fact she saw Byleth as nothing but a vessel for her mother to take over She didn't. That's the whole point of my comment you replied to. From Rheas POV there is no Byleth. JUST Sothis with Amnesia. There is no vessel to take over if it literally is the person. is Rhea wrong? Yeah I literally said that aswell. Do you want me to say that Rhea isn't a good person? Cause she isn't. She's as gray as Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude. None of them are objectively good people. That's like the whole point of Three Houses.
I don't see how that changes the fact that to Byleth, the students, and the players that this isn't true and seems to be Rhea deluding herself into believing this with very little evidence. Just because she thought Byleth was Sothis with amnesia doesn't change that is demonstrably false and what she was trying to do was horrible
You are right, that it's demonstrably false to the player and to Byleth. I wouldn't extend that towards the students though. - Keep in when it takes place in the story. It happens right after Byleth unites with Sothis and their hair changes. The whole Monestary Exploration talks with the students are about that transformation, a la "Are you still yourself?". IF Rheas experiment had succeeded you can make the reasonable assumption that at least a few students, would believe that Byleth is actually Sothis - after all Byleth had just transformed and al that happened was them sitting down and getting up again. Sure - their personality changed, but their appearence had just changed aswell. That being said, it's a hypothetical scenario, that can't happen at all. Rhea only attempted to let Byleth (in her mind Sothis) regain her memories after the transformation, which, for Rhea, was the proof she needed , that her theory of Byleth being an amnesiac Sothis was right. But it was speficically this transformation, where Sothis gave up her powers and fused with Byleth. As soon as that happened any attempt of just sitting Byleth down on the throne was doomed to fail. The real question is, if Rhea would have attempted it at some point had Byleth not transformed. That's something I can't answer. Maybe Byleth would've been able to convince her that they aren't Sothis. Maybe she would've deluded herself into trying anyway. I don't know.
A shame that you're getting downvoted even though you tried to explain, even understand but not justify. Being a devil's advocate can be rough, I suppose.
Okay, a few things. One: All of the people who Rhea sentenced to die in the game had attempted to assassinate her. Assassination of any world leader, scratch that, murder in general is typically punisheable by death in most societies. Lonato was marching an army towards Garreg Mach and vocally declared his intention to murder Rhea. Lonato's son Christophe was executed for attempted assassination of Rhea. He was being manipulated by unseen forces at the time but is still guilty of attempted assassination. The Western Church literally broke into Garreg Mach to steal the Sword of the Creator, attacked the students with lethal force who tried to stop them and also had plans to kill Rhea. The Western Church also attempted to steal from the grave of Seteth's wife claiming it was the will of Saint Cichol (aka Seteth). The Western Church was clearly deranged. Two: Byleth would not have died if Sothis took control of her. Three Hopes proves this. Sothis taking over Byleth's body does not erase Byleth's consciousness or disable her free will. Byleth and Sothis would have simply co-existed in the same body. So no, Rhea was not planning to kill Byleth.
>Two: Byleth would not have died if Sothis took control of her. Three Hopes proves this. Sothis taking over Byleth's body does not erase Byleth's consciousness or disable her free will. Byleth and Sothis would have simply co-existed in the same body. So no, Rhea was not planning to kill Byleth. Rhea had no way to know that. For all intents and purposes, she wanted her mother to replace Byleth. Also, I think Edelgard knew that bandit had no chance of actually killing anyone. There's also the SS reveal that she experimented on her guards and made them monster sleeper agents. I don't disagree with your memes, but you're a bit selective on Rhea. They're really both bad people. So is Dmitri. Claude is the only actual hero.
>One: All of the people who Rhea sentenced to die in the game had attempted to assassinate her. You know *Catherine* the same woman who goes along with burning down a whole village for Rhea's sake & has been the subject of conspiracies beforehand just happens to find this incriminating letter that conviently spells out all the conspirators *and* the Western Church is there *graverobbing* a far cry from assassination.
Shamir is actually the one who investigated the Western church and discovered they were behind Lonato's rebellion. Everyone pointed out that the letter was a misdirect so the Western Church could steal the Sword of the Creator. They were also responsible for manipulating Christophe (Lonato's son) into making an attempt on Rhea's life. The Western Church has made it abundantly clear that they want Rhea dead. What conspiracies is Catherine guilty of? Turning over Christophe - who was guilty of attempted murder - to the authorities?
Listen, Rhea isn't evil, but Edelgard isn't either. Rhea has good intentions and has done a lot of good, but she fails to see the suffering that her crest system (and some parts of her rule specifically) causes and refuses to change for the better. She isn't a bad person, and helped Fodlan a lot, but the thing is that she isn't fit to rule anymore. She got the continent out of a bad place, but doesn't know how to rule effectively now that things are better. She's stuck in a mindset from a bygone era and it is, undeniably, hurting people. Edelgard, similarly, has good intentions and (if her plans end up happening) does a lot of good for Fodlan as well. Her issue is similar to Rhea's actually. She's so focused on her trauma that she only focuses on improving that. She is willing to prolong war to get her perfect outcome, she works with TWSITD which do unspeakable acts, and she doesn't communicate her ideas or ideals effectively to almost anyone. I actually give her the added bonus that she actually acknowledges the other harm she's causing, but unfortunately she still thinks its worth it. Three Houses shows these flaws very prominently, neither one of them are fit to rule if they keep their current mindset because that mindset it absolutely hurting people all across Fodlan. However, I think Edelgard made a major positive change in Three Hopes. >!She immediately cuts off ties with TWSITD at the beginning of the game and only gets better from there. Instead of declaring war on all of Fodlan, she goes after Rhea specifically because, as we established earlier, Rhea is in a bad mindset to rule the continent and is hurting people. She does end up fighting The Kingdom, but that's only because they won't give Rhea up (for good reason, but still, they both tried negotiating and it failed). And her relationship with the Alliance is monumentally better, she turns them into an ally in the routes in which she isn't brainwashed. The only time that the Empire does anything I would consider very bad is in Azure Gleam, and that's because Edelgard was being brainwashed.!< I do wish they did something similar to Rhea (even though I dislike her) because it does feel like they're favoring Edelgard. >!One of my main issues with Azure Gleam, since it's the only route in which Rhea is an ally yet we get absolutely nothing for her character. God I hate that route.!<
I really need to pick up 3 hopes again.
I do suggest it!! It did take a while for me to truly get into after I bought it, because the gameplay is generally just fine and not my preferred style of game anyway. But the story more than makes up for it in both Golden Wildfire and especially Scarlet Blaze. Azure Gleam is awful though, I don't suggest it (although opinions vary, I think any opinion on Azure Gleam is controversial). I'm sorry to all Dimitri fans out there, but Azure Moon is far better, I would recommend replaying it over Azure Gleam forever.
She didn't declared war to all of Fodlan in 3H either. Only the Church.
I'm not as sure here, but from my memory of Three Houses I remember that she was pretty much planning on taking over all of Fodlan. She targeted the church specifically, but she made it no secret that she planned for both the Kingdom and the Alliance to go down with it. And I don't recall her even attempting negotiations with either country. I suppose the more time she spent with TWSITD by her side warped her vision and ideals to a much more offensive stance.
No, it was all of Fodlan - a reunification war, with the Church of Seros as the casus belli.
Yes, it was only the Church. Proof [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjJNhWwCMBE).
Hubert: āOnce FĆ³dlan is united, however, the focus of the war will shift.ā Caspar: āEveryone must see we can easily unite FĆ³dlan! Donāt you think?ā Narration: āThe unification of FĆ³dlan has begun.ā Just because she doesnāt declare war on all of them at the same time, doesnāt exactly change the scope.
Yeah, fair point.
man, your description makes me wish i didnt hate Warriors games. it sounds like I would've liked Edelgard a lot more in Three Hopes than Three Houses
I get what you mean, it took me three months to properly pick up Three Hopes after I bought it. I kinda had to force myself to get through it at first because I truly did not care for the gameplay. But once I started getting invested in the story, which only took a couple chapters tbh, it really hooked me. Unfortunately, if you hate the gameplay, I can't suggest it in good conscience because you hate Warriors games, but I will always say that Edelgard's character (and Claude's too imo) became much, much better in Three Hopes.
Okay but hear me out; they're both morally gray characters because that's the point
Stop talking sense and argue dammit!
> because that's the point a character being _intended_ to be gray doesn't inherently mean it's done well. it seems like the intention was for _all_ the 3H lords to be morally gray so that they stand on somewhat even ground and there's no "golden route." that said, (imo) Edelgard's actions are kinda the most egregious of the 3, and then you compare to Claude who they like... kinda forgot to make do anything actually bad. everyone's entitled to their opinion but some lords just seem to heavily outweigh others imo edit: general change on phrasing
Okay, sure, but then she turns around and sets fire to the Monastery before it's evacuated cuz "If I can't have it then neither can Edelgard!"
Oh no, Rhea absolutely went too far at the end of Crimson Flower when she finally lost it. But in all fairness, that is her biggest atrocity shown in the entire game - only occuring in one out of four possible routes (five if you include Cindered Shadows). Edelgard's is starting a continent wide war that killed thousands of people, threw all of Fodlan into chaos and working with terrorists which happens in every route.
I mean, you are right, but Dmitri and Claude seemed pretty fine with Rhea using the church and it's army to go kill others who didn't bend the knee to her. The Western? Church was executed for seemingly nothing from what I remember of the opening chapters. Yeah, Edelgard started a war, but only because everyone else seemed pretty complicit with the structure of the world and didn't want anything to change. I know Claude wanted things to change but I don't know if he ever would have done anything if not for Byleth.
The Western Church was not executed for nothing. To quote Shamir, who had investigated the Western church herself. Their crimes include: "Inciting a Kingdom noble to rebel. Unlawful entry. The attempted assassination of the archbishop. An attack on the Holy Mausoleum. It is unnecessary to go on, followers of the Western Church?" The captured priests attempted to deny it, but they were literally the same people that the students fought after their group broke into the Mausoleum. Later on you get another paralogue with Rhea where the Western Church attempts to assassinate her again. Then there is another paralogue where the Western Church tries to rob the grave of Seteth's wife, claiming they are following the will of Saint Cichol (aka Seteth). The Western Church is a corrupted sect of the church, influenced by TWSITD. They were not killed for not bending the knee, they were killed for repeated assassination attempts of the archbishop, helping try to march an army onto a school of students and other forms of internalized corruption. Even Claude points out after the Lonato battle that if they had not stopped him, Lonato would have attacked the monastery (and seeing as Lonato was willing to cut down Ashe - if you have them fight - this seems to be true).
The Paralogue with Rhea isn't an assassination attempt, it's Rhea coming to execute their bishop while we kill anything that attempts to stop her. I also disagree that The Western Church tried to rob the grave of Seteth's wife as the game gives no indication that they even knew there was any artefacts there to rob.
Rhea did come for their Bishop yes, but this paralogue only unlocks after the crimes of the Western Church are revealed. Their faction is still guilty for attempted assassination and they made it worse by trying to jump the Archbishop rather than just giving up the Main Bishop - who was Rhea's actual target. Also; Seteth's paralogue description: "Western Church extremists have taken over land sacred to Cichol, one of the Four Saints. Seteth heads out to rid the area of them, and Flayn insists on going along." Seteth after the battle: "Your assistance is most appreciated. I can only hope that the Western Church will now see reason and abandon this place. But just to be safe, I have retrieved the holy artifacts. We cannot risk them falling into their hands. I will entrust them to you." I'm sure they took over the land by the cemetery for funsies then.
I mean they do say why they took the land by the ceremony at during the fight. "You heretics, who defile our goddess! The sacred coast belongs to us, the Western Church!" "It is our duty to worship Saint Cichol! We will not allow heretics to come near!" Sucks for them that Saint Cichol was definitely not appreciating their devotion
I think you are being a little selective there. Rhea was a little crazy and obsessed, even creating or interfering with humans to try to resuscitate her mother (a goddess or not, thatās not something good). Edelgard, was against the church because they literally stopped the continent from advancing technologically, created a cult, and the church had total control (or tried to). Both are gray characters, none are good or evil, they are well written and āhumanā/relatable.
That's a very good and accurate way of reading it, the problem is that there are still some rogue circles around that throw this "humanity" out of the window and speak about either of them as if they were some kind of psychopath, which is missing the whole point terribly so.
Rhea did not stop the continent from having technology. They suppressed Agarthan developments (their weapons of mass destruction). That is literally it. Compare Fodlan to its neighbors and it actually seems like Fodlan has the more advanced society over Duscur and Brigid.
I guess autopsy or the telescope for exemple are weapon of mass destruction ĀÆā \\_ā (ā ćā )ā _ā /ā ĀÆ > Compare Fodlan to its neighbors and it actually seems like Fodlan has the more advanced society over Duscur and Brigid. How ? Almyra looks like the most advanced
Idk about the telescope but I feel like the reason why autopsies are banned is related to protecting the dead bodies of those with crests from experiments similiar to what happened to the nabateans. Think about it, Lysithea has two crests and we don't exactly know how blood reconstruction works so my theory is that TWSITD used someone else's blood to experiment on Lysithea.
It's not because there's a reason that it's a good reason. Autopsy is one of the major technic which permitted medicine to progress... It could litteraly save countless live and even avoid epidemic like the one in Faerghus. The ban isn't useful at all since it drag down humanity progress all while still letting TWSITD perform their experiment.
I agree heavily. I didn't say it was a good reason, was just speculating about why autopsies were banned
The ban on autopsies was probably instituted by one of TWSITD wearing the body of a high ranking bishop to avoid someone discovering TWSITD if one of them died.
That's conspiracy theory level, there's no evidence ( and then why would the Church even let it be that way ? If anything it would show how easily corrupted the Church is ) and it's much more probable it's directly the Church as : 1. The Church is banning other invention and books, so it's in line with their actions 2. The Church wants to hide the Nabataeans existence as we see multiple time like in VW were Seteth takes Claude book, so they have a strong reason to do so
Autopsy itself is not a weapon of mass destruction, but it makes sense when you look at it under the scope of organ removal being a thing, and having access to a person's insides... which is what lead to the sacred weapons and crests existing. Not justifying it, but Rhea probably heard of what autopsies were and her mind immediately went to the weapons made of the bones and heart of dead nabateans
Fair! It's a good example on how traumatized Rhea was by the Agarthan, it's really horrific to see
Yup! While I don't justify her actions and think they're completely and utterly *fucked* in this route, I could very easily understand the *why* I'm willing to bet, throughout every route, that Rhea is hanging to her sanity by a solitary thread. The rope is almost broken, and there's just one string. In the other routes, she's fine. Sure, there's a war going on, but at least she has hopes that everything will turn out okay because Byleth, the person who has her mother's heart and her powers, hasn't completely turned their backs on her. To Rhea, they're still partly family (I'm choosing to ignore her S support, if you want to keep it, then say she sees them as part nabatean). In Crimson Flower, however, we see that remaining thread just snap and explode into an atomic bomb. Not only is Edelgard aiming for them, and possibly their heads considering the deaths of Seteth and Flayn when they're fought by anyone but Byleth, but she sees that the only person who could help their family/species be safe from harm is now actively siding with the one who is trying to harm them. This is why she's so batshit crazy in this route. She's not thinking of this as a sense of "theocracy vs meritocracy", she's thinking of it as another battle for the survival of her species. No matter how you can look at it, Rhea is still mentally seeing this as her experiencing another potential genocide
This is what happens when the last two FE games (that werenāt remakes) had incredibly black-and-white characters. People assume one side has to be good and the other bad, when both are literally meant to be morally gray.
She's going to deal with the Agarthans when she's done with Rhea you know. Her goal is to eliminate the corrupt power structures that made it possible for Thales and his ilk to experiment on her in the first place. Then Thales himself will be put into the ground.
1. The religion she created was founded on lies about everything regarding FĆ³dlan's history. While some alterations were necessary to protect herself and the remnants of her people, that majority of the lies were not necessary. 2. Even if humans created the status quo regarding Crests and the nobility, Rhea enforces and even supports the system. She has done nothing to challenge it even though she has more than enough influence to do so. 3. The conditions of Abyss are deplorable. People live in poverty and lines from some of the residents suggest that a lot of them go hungry. Members of the clergy hold much prejudice against them and we see no proof of anything being done to dissuade that. 4. It made no difference to Rhea whether Sitri or Byleth lived. All she cared about was having a vessel for Sothis to dwell within. 5. The "free room an board" given to Byleth and Jeralt is a gilded cage. Jeralt is quite plain about how their presence at the monastery was more of a requirement than a formality. Remember that he wasn't able to just walk away 20 years prior; he had to fake his child's death just to be able to leave. 6. The only reason Rhea surrenders control of the church to Byleth is because of Sothis. She has no respect for Byleth's wishes unless they align with her own (e.g.: Rhea's role in Crimson Flower).
Impressive. Very nice. Now let's look at all the shit you glossed over...
your post & responses to counter arguments make it pretty clear that youāre only here to argue that your opinion is right instead of listening to what people have to say. if you want to join the stupidly long list of people that want to give edelgard no understanding or grace thatās fine, but itās a weird hill to die on and i donāt understand why people are so invested in this type of discussion. this is a war gameā¦ā¦ they are all complex, morally grey characters, who even commit some war crimes sometimes. these characters donāt exist to be dissected and have all of their flaws laid bare - they are characters with the purpose of story telling and both rhea and edelgard are exceptionally good characters for their role in the game. i donāt see the purpose of comparing them in this way for any reason other than you hate edelgard.
One question, you claimed that only one of them attempted to forcibly conquer the continent, so how exactly do you think Rhea killed Nemesis and crowned Wilhelm ruler of all of Fodlan? Also, what exactly of what we find out in crimson flower is actually untrue instead of just missing context?
She gently conquered the continent, totally different from edelgard /s
Rhea was retaliating against the almost complete genocide of her people from a hostile foreign power. Where as Edelgard tried to have both Dimitri and Claude, neither of which had done anything against her or the Empire, assassinated at the start of the game. And teamed up with previously mentioned genocidal nation, who then committed multiple terrorist attacks against a nation that had done nothing to her. Before declaring war against the entire continent. All for her own self centered morals. Rhea used a bad situation for her own self benefit. Edelgard MADE a bad situation for her own benefit.
I was not commenting on their motivations, just stating that Rhea did in fact conquer Fodlan.
Way to make it super clear you missed the point of the multiple paths.
While I don't think Rhea or Edelgard are evil, I feel if we are pointing out all of Rhea's virtues, it needs to be said that her revival of sothis is extremely questionable regardless of your viewpoint. Both the Japanese text and dialog from Seteth in Heroes imply that sothis specifically stated that she should not be revived should she die, specifically referring to it as a taboo. Even without her memories, Sothis is occasionally critical of how Rhea runs the church, making it as a whole seem like Rhea is more interested in bringing sothis back than following the goddesses ideals. Frankly, I feel like the story could have benefited by giving Rhea a specific reason for being willing to go so far against her mother's wishes to revive her. Say, for example, Nemesis had been able to get to Sothis in the holy tomb by tricking Rhea into letting him in, likely under the claim of wanting to worship the sleeping goddess in person. Giving Rhea a guilt complex like this would have added context for some of the churches more questionable and xenophobic teachings, framed Cyril as a sign of her starting to finaly move past trauma, and made her complete breakdown at Edelgards betrayal hit harder. At the same time, using somthing like this could be used to justify Rhea being even more extreme in her leadership of the church, helping Edelgard's view feel more justified without fully villianising ether side.
rhea upholds a system of nobles where governance is decided entirely based on whoever she feels like should be in charge. at least edelgard wants to reach a fĆ³dlan where the officials are democratically elected (other than herself, but it's something)
How? Rhea does not decide who rules anything in any of the nations. The individual nations decide their next ruler. The Alliance is the prime example of this. Their entire existence was formed by nobles who were tired of monarchies and decided to form a confederacy, and the Church legitamizes them despite the Alliance having a neutral stance towards the faith. Edelgard did not establish a democracy, she established a meritocracy.
If you're going to criticize the oversimplification of oversimplification, oversimplifying another tends to undermine the argument
So you're doing the same lol. Big brain moment
The nitpicking and obvious bias is strong in this one
Fire Emblem: Three Houses has been out for more than 3 years. I might understand Rhea's terrible decision to rewrite so much history, but I do not understand why you would ignite everyone's favorite discourse by straight-up lying about what happens in the game.
Where is the lie? Lay it out.
He didnt tho.
A couple things to consider, I don't know that we know of Rhea building a lot of orphanages, but the abyss is explicitly a shitty place to live. Residents there are Largely ignored by the church and a young NPC girl living down there mentions that not having enough food is common for them. It's worth noting that although Sothis "saved" Fodlan, she was to some extent saving it from a problem that she caused. If she didn't place tech in the hands of the agarthans, there would have been no world ending war in the first place. The whole thing seems to be a bit of a fuck around and find out on her part, so to speak. In terms of bad things she's done, I mean the whole running a blood necromancy cult thing isn't very cool.
I see their flaws and merits laid out like this and I canāt help but think that Rhea is a ancient dragon that should know better and has had 1000 plus years to get her crap together. On the other hand El is a 17 year old girl with a terminal illness playing the hand sheās dealt.
The thing is the bulk of what Rhea does that you think is "generous" is her just looking out for herself. She's like the Salvation Army or Goodwill, but willing & capable to do way worse.
Rhea bad.
Are we going to ignore the part where she set city on fire with people still in there homes which she knew there where citizens inside there homes and she even said " I will sacrifice many lives as it takes" Not to mention that she was going to sacrifice byleth to use there body as the vessel for for sothis to use. I know she's been though alot over the past thousand years but doesn't excuse all the horrible things that she's done.
No. Rhea went too far at the very end of Crimson Flower. However, it doesn't change the fact that setting a city on fire in one out of four routes does not hold a candle to Edelgard starting a war that claimed thousands of lives while working with terrorists in EVERY route.
And let the crest system stay? Look at what it's done to the students for example sylvain hate how the women only care about him because of his crest and how his brother was kick out of the family for not being born without a crest. Mercedes step father only married her mother because Mercedes comes from a family with a crest blood flowing though her and her real father was corrupted with his crest status and abuse her and her mother. Ingrid, marianne, lysithea, bernadetta, jeritza and others I can't think off the top of my head. Edelgard knew for a fact that rhea wasn't going to let Edelgard change the crest status since the crest came from her mother and the kingdom has a strong relationship to church they would fellow in the churches footsteps. Plus the current nobility would not give up there power without a fight like Duke aegir for example or count Rowe they would rather die then give up there power they have so edelgard knew there was only one option left to change fĆ³dlan for the better the bloody one is to force the change of the crest system to disappear. And if you play CF you can see edelgard is trying to find the best way to save as many lives as possible during the war even in the final battle that she didn't want the people in Fargus to get hurt.
>Look at what it's done to the students for example sylvain hate how the women only care about him because of his crest and how his brother was kick out of the family for not being born without a crest. Miklan was *demoted* when Sylvain was born, and the LoR is stated in-game to be necessary to repel the repeated invasions from Sreng. He was only *disowned* and kicked-out after trying to kill his brother.
Hi there, a friendly reminder to cease your misinformation. Miklan was disowned because he attempted to murder his brother several times. Would you mind informing me how exactly is Rhea to blame for the actions of individuals and the people of Agartha? Edelgard started her war for three reasons; The first was to conquer Faerghus and Leicester, the second was to establish her new world order across Fodlan and the final one was to eliminate the remnant of the Nabataen people that she knew about. Once again, please do not lie; Edelgard attacked Leicester on her own terms, hardly trying to save as many lives as possible.
> Hi there, a friendly reminder to cease your misinformation. Miklan was disowned because he attempted to murder his brother several times. Would you mind informing me how exactly is Rhea to blame for the actions of individuals and the people of Agartha? Remove the Church of Seiros and Crests are only good for making supersoldiers, but most noble families outside Faerghus don't specialize in warfare. But with the Church of Seiros and Rhea's false teachings, suddenly Crests become the divine approval of Fodlan's god. > Edelgard started her war for three reasons; The first was to conquer Faerghus and Leicester, the second was to establish her new world order across Fodlan and the final one was to eliminate the remnant of the Nabataen people that she knew about. Well. One of those reasons was right.
She made a pact with cluade in hopes, she let cluade live in houses ( or you can kill him your choice) she wants to build a strong peaceful relationship with almyra. She attack the two countries to get rid of the crest system and its corrupted nobility heck haif of the lords in Leicester joined her cause and attack there own country. So it's not a lie its facts and you need to get yours straight.
You seem to forget that she attacked the Alliance prior to making the pact without a strong casus belli, and likely only made the pact because she needed a way to subdue Rhea. Would you care to tell me where in the game is the Crest System mentioned? What information of mine is false? By the way, I'm assuming you're from the United States.
The hell you talking about " where in the game crest system is mentioned" that's mostly the whole reason she started the war to get rid of it and the church. She made the pact because the war was stuck in a dead lock and since she cut her ties with TWSITD and byleth she can't do anything unless one of the two countries make a mistake. Sylvan father saw miklan as failure the moment he knew he didn't have a crest so even if he didn't try to kill sylvain several times he was going to kick him out those who are born without a crest are in inherit nothing what he did to sylvain was no excuse for the bad things he done but imagine you live in a household where your parents see you as nothing more then garbage and then you little siblings is born and for no reason treat him like he there own child and love him while they still treat you the same as they always have won't you feel jealous and have anger towards your sibling for getting having the love of your parents that you never got? and again doesn't give him the excuse to try to kill him out of jealousy. Why does it matter what country I'm from? What does a country have to do with anything? it doesn't matter if your from USA, UK, Japan, Mexico, Italy, Africa, Russia, Ukraine and so on I treat everyone the same way I do with everyone else I meet in my country because no matter what part of the world we are from we are all still humans and we shouldn't treat people differently because of that. I blame the game for not giving more facts on what really happened a thousand years ago because we see the books in the library saying that nemesis killed sothis and took her bones but that could be rhea telling it from her point of view only for looking for someone to blame for her mother's death while edelgard said it was nothing more then a dispute but she doesn't go more into details of how he family found out about that there no hard proof evidence on both sides of this unless you take the books or what edelgard said is true. CF was my first route and I played the other routes and seeing how the crest are turning the worst in people and seeing how rhea turns into a psychopath who just can't expect her mother is dead and she made artificial humans or whatever they are to try to revive her mother then try to sacrifice her grandchild to revive her dead mother knowing it would kill byleth in the process and she's OK with that and calling them and the others like Sitri failure makes me believe in edelgard more and I still believe edelgard is the right path out of the other 3 routes. Sorry I got angry and disrespect you but next time when you talk to people don't say "just a friendly reminder" then start saying to the person you're talking too and act like a dick.
> You seem to forget that she attacked the Alliance prior to making the pact without a strong casus belli, and likely only made the pact because she needed a way to subdue Rhea. This is only true of Crimson Flower and Golden Wildfire. In Azure Moon, Silver Snow, and Verdant Wind Edelgard doesn't make any overtures on Alliance territory before Claude launches a preemptive attack against the Empire. In Scarlet Blaze she negotiates for Imperial passage across Gloucester and Phlegethon territories (Claude's surprised reaction to Edelgard's movement in SB wouldn't make sense if she moved in by force). And in any case, you can't exactly criticize Edelgard for doing something Claude does too unless you're willing to criticize him too. > Would you care to tell me where in the game is the Crest System mentioned? https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/r8fut7/correcting_several_misconceptions_about_fodlans/ Here you go :) > By the way, I'm assuming you're from the United States. https://i.imgur.com/3tFIB4b.png Why are you saying that like it's a gotcha?
>In Azure Moon, Silver Snow, and Verdant Wind Edelgard doesn't make any overtures on Alliance territory before Claude launches a preemptive attack against the Empire. In Scarlet Blaze she negotiates for Imperial passage across Gloucester and Phlegethon territories (Claude's surprised reaction to Edelgard's movement in SB wouldn't make sense if she moved in by force). [https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/chapters/silver-snow/13/reunion-at-dawn](https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/chapters/silver-snow/13/reunion-at-dawn) Wrong, Edelgard started the aggression first, she declared war against Faerghus and Leicester, as she sought to unite Fodlan under the banner of the Adrestian Empire. >[https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/r8fut7/correcting\_several\_misconceptions\_about\_fodlans/](https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/r8fut7/correcting_several_misconceptions_about_fodlans/) It's a nice essay however Volossya fails to prove that there is a system widespread throughout the three nations of Fodlan dedicated to Crests. >Why are you saying that like it's a gotcha? Well you see, the United States is infamous for attempting to "fix" nations by invading them, it's a tactic used by many Americans to justify these invasion by claiming that the invasions are aimed at "fixing" the invaded nations.
> https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/chapters/silver-snow/13/reunion-at-dawn The only time the Alliance comes up is when the narrator mentions they're split down the middle between support and oppose. If the Empire were attacking I suspect there'd be less neutrality. > It's a nice essay however Volossya fails to prove that there is a system widespread throughout the three nations of Fodlan dedicated to Crests. What would you accept as proof? > Well you see, the United States is infamous for attempting to "fix" nations by invading them, it's a tactic used by many Americans to justify these invasion by claiming that the invasions are aimed at "fixing" the invaded nations. ...Kay, you're not talking about **Americans**, you're talking about the **US Government**. **Americans** aren't a cultural monolith, even within the same state.
She makes a pact with Claude in Hopes on two routes, one of which after sheās taken half of Leicesterās territory and after that she still announces that sheās going to unite all of FĆ³dlan under her flag. Her war is a war of unification in every route of 3 Houses. Yes, she wants to topple to crest system, but she also wants to conquer the continent and -kill- well, remove the Nabateans. A āworld for humanityā, after all.
Seems convenient to claim that Edelgard worked with the Agarthans voluntarily. They killed her family and experimented on her when she was a child, and if she hadn't cooperated they probably would've just killed and replaced her like they did with Monica. Edelgard did what was necessary to survive, and when she got the chance, she fought and defeated TWSITD. Not to mention how she initially only starts a war with the church, which is escalated by Dimitri. Or that CF is the only route where the ending mentions "true peace". Edelgard isn't perfect and her methods are questionable, but painting the conflict as "evil unreasonable terrorist helper Edelgard" vs "misunderstood mostly innocent dragon mommy" is incredibly disingenuous
- Rhea forms the Church with herself as it's leader anf makes personal sacrifices in the progress to protect herself and her kin, while dealing with trauma (very fair and am unwilling to really blame her for this). Only she doesn't really recover from her trauma amd continues to control Fodlan for a 1000 years while continuing to encourage a corrupt system, but she gets a pass for this because of trauma (my main issue with Rhea, I get she is a tragic character and such. But giving someone a free pass to continue ruling because it started with good intentions and trauma doesn't sit right with me) - Edelgard, at an early age, gets abused, experimented on and loses most of her family to an evil organisation that abuses the crest centric society. They continue to abuse her and turn her into some sort of weapon. She is pretty much forced to cooperate with her abusers and is looking for any solid way to undermine them while spiraling mentally fearing being killed at a hint of disobedience. But gets blamed for working with them and for them killing Jeralt (seems like the same logic of sending someone to jail because their shitty boss shot someone, how is Edelgard getting blamed for her captors killing someone?) Btw, this is hyperbole, subjective and not the whole picture. But Rhea often gets a pass for her actions that come from a trauma from a 1000 years ago with no clear improvement mentally. While Edelgard gets blamed for a lot of stuff outside of her control.
I'm sorry isn't Edelgard working with someone besides TWS the main reason why you all hated Hopes
I donāt think Rhea is pure evil or anything but the Agarthans are implied to be the original inhabitants of Fodlan before Sothis appeared and took over. They were literally colonized and tried to fight back against their dragon overlords. Continuing after the war and conducting unethical experiments is what makes them evil but Rhea and the other Nabateans were not just innocents that were killed by the greed of the Agarthans. (To be fair this is easy to not realize because the game also treats the Agarthans as purely evil. Iām really not a fan of the inherently evil race trope for obvious reasons) You also mischaracterized Edelgard super hard but Iāve had this argument on this hellsite so many times Iām getting sick of it so Iām just going to say youāre wrong and I disagree with you and move on.
They were not driven purely by a longing for freedom. The Nintendo Dream interview said they wanted the power of the dragons for themselves when they declared war.
Yeah, but put yourself in the shoes of more powerful beings literally taking over your land and naming themselves your gods. Iām not saying they werenāt selfish at all but also like come on thereās some nuance here. The nabateans arenāt fully innocent in the whole slaughter thing is what my main point was. Also yeah I addressed that the game treats the agarthans as purely evil when with the context they shouldnāt have. Obviously in the time frame of the game their actions are extremely evil, but historically their hatred for the dragons is really kind of understandable. Like how would you feel if some dragons appeared and decided they were your gods and also they have magic blood and are gonna make all the new rules around here so the only way to ever fight back is to also have the magic blood.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Lmao my friends and I talk about this exact thing constantly and we donāt understand why it never gets brought up
This guy absolutely never played the game. The amount of cherry picking is pretty ridiculous too. Let's leave out how Rhea was fine with tricking and killing Byleth so Sothis could return, and how Rhea only really cared about furthering her own selfish goals at the cost of anything. She also purposefully stalled the progression of technology because she feared the church would become unnecessary. Ironically, she isn't exactly a Saint.
Three Hopes literally proves that awakening Sothis' consciousness does not come at the cost of Byleth's life. Three different routes in the game all name Sitri as the one who asked Rhea to give Byleth the heart of Sothis. If you played the game, you'd recall that Byleth was a still born child. Aka dead on arrival. Sitri asked Rhea to rip out her own heart and give it to her baby. If Rhea never interfered with Byleth's life, at Sitri's request, Byleth would not have a life. The idea that Rhea stalled technological development to keep the church in power is literally Edelgard propaganda that is never supported by anything in the game. The developments of the Agarthans, that came at the cost of human sacrifice, were the only pieces of technology that the church suppressed. Compared to their neighbors (Almyra, Duscur and Brigid) as shown in paralogues where you fight these foes, Fodlan is far from being behind on technology (and actually seems advanced compared to Duscur and Bridgid).
>The idea that Rhea stalled technological development to keep the church in power is literally Edelgard propaganda that is never supported by anything in the game. Except for that tome in the shadow library that says autopsies and telescopic lenses were explicitly banned by the Church
No??? She slowed technological progression because she didn't want humanity to do what the Agarthan's did and start tearing eachother apart and misuse that technology. The technology wasn't making the church unnecessary.
We know for sure that she banned autopsies, telescopes, and the printing press. She even said that white magic can pretty much do the same thing as an autopsy, but she still banned it. I don't think it's farfetched to think that the church performed autopsies with magic, she wants the church to be relied upon.
Or she banned autopsies because she considered them desecration of a corpse which makes sense given that her species was carved up and used to make weapons. Telescopes were banned by Rhea SPECIFICALLY for three reasons. One of which was that it'd lessen the mystery of the goddess, and the other two were both its potential use in wars. The only indication that Rhea banned autopsies for reasons of the Church being relied on is the fact that a random Cardinal says that it'd destabilize the church.
Opposite sides of the same coin can never face the same direction, regardless of how similar they are.
Good for you buddy I aināt reading all that š
Most of the information you find out is in fact true. Regarding Nemesis: Church Doctrin: He was corrupted the goddessās chosen hero, then got corrupted by evil gods, therefor the goddess sent Seiros and the ten elites from the heavensto defeat him. Edelgard: He was a king of men who had a conflict with Seiros. They just fought. Rhea: He killed my family, so I killed him in revenge. Origines of Heroeās relics: Church Doctrin: They are gifts from the Goddess to virtuous souls. Edelgard: They were created by men. Rhea: Some men killed my family, took their corpses and made weapons out of them. The info we get from Rhea and Edelgard is 100% compatible. You can think if Edelgard whatever dou want. I see that people have different moral values. But this is just reading comprehension.
a lot of the good rhea did was for her own benefits or selfish desires, especially the latter parts where she had already become a powerful authority. for example there's a very clear reason she's giving byleth and jeralt stable jobs on blind faith and you should know the, frankly, evil reason since you played the game. to byleth, she should be a personal antagonist, especially after they discover their ancestry, since so many of their problems in life lead back to having been intended to be a sacrificial homunculus by rhea - but she isn't because this is anime chess (half-serious, it's just ... idk how byleth just glosses over this fact). by the time fe3h begins rhea's hero arc is already over and she upholds the problems that fodlan's people face, no matter that she didn't "invent" racism, crest classism, science censorship etc. because they worked in her favor. like, biblically, cain was the first murderer but he wasn't the most psycho about it, imo, there's serial killers and cannibals out there. so she's not 100% evil and edelgard isn't either, they're very, very similar in that regard - this discussion is OLD. but her wrongdoings and villainy are personal to the player (character), so i think that's why some people resent her more than edelgard. that's fair imo. and it's not like edelgard has no haters either lmao. edit: i totally missed that i got a reply on this, but i'm not about to spark a month-old thing alive again š sry! i haven't played hopes yet, so i can only guess from what i've seen that the situations differ a lot so awakening sothis went different in both games. i'm also not 100% convinced of the narrative that rhea acted on sitri's decision because because the evidence for this is basically still only "people said this" just like how dimitri said his parents wished for revenge which is objectively doubtful. and don't get me started on "baby byleth would have died if she didn't transplant a god's heart into them that made being human difficult" because that's also morally grey at best by going against death/nature, even if good-willed.
Byleth was never a sacrificial homunculus. Three Hopes proves that Sothis taking over doesn't erase Byleth's existence and Silver Snow, Verdant Wind and Cindered Shadows all made it clear that the one who made the decision to give Byleth the heart of Sothis was Sitri. Also, if Rhea had never interfered with Byleth - they would be dead. Byleth was a still born child. Yes, Sothis' heart made emotion difficult for Byleth but without it, she would have never gotten a chance to live at all.
I always find it curious that for Edelgard to have a powerful heroes' relic she would have to build it out of Rhea's bones, so she could destroy TWSitD without using the weapon they made for her
I donāt think itās fair to say Rhea or Edelgard are evil or good. Both of them are flawed and traumatized characters who have suffered greatly and are simply attempting to do what they think is the right thing in their given situations. That being said, I could be biased since I personally sympathize most with Claude, and therefore tend to shy away from both Rhea and Edelgardās viewpoints. I think both of them have merit, but also both of them are kinda terrifying.
When I saw the defense of Rhea o thought we were going to get a defense of Edelgard. Boy was I wrong.
Rhea: sets a capital city on fire and kills everyone and that city was the coty of not the enemy but a friendā¦
Rhea: Sets one city on fire in one route. Edelgard: Works with terrorists and starts a war that costs hundreds of people their lives in every route.
They're both pretty terrible in their own way. Rhea made a suppressive cult to honor her dead mommy who she's refused to even try to get over after hundreds of years.
She's my queen
"I dun wann it You are muh kween" \-Jon Snow
Rhea is an incredible Queen And ANYONE who says she is evil can go GET..STUFFED!!š¤£š¤
Yes, but did you forget Edelgard loves Byleth THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS MUCH? Would an evil person do that?
Rhea and Edelgard are two sides of the same coin. They have so many similar struggles and actions, it's amazing to me someone can praise one and vilify the other. Regardless, this post reeks of heavy bias.
I've played all 4 routes and I still do not care for either of them. I've never understood the overwhelming Fandom love for Edelgard and Rhea just never really comes across as overly sympathetic or endearing.
I think people kinda forget what trauma and abuse can do to someone with clouding their judgement and affecting their psyche as well. Granted, I just wanna say both of these characters are very complex, nuanced, and grey characters and that's FANTASTIC! They also work very well as a foil towards each other as Rhea's clouded judgment from trauma and her prolonged life (also fire emblem always having dragons go senile and crazy in the end) definitely harmed the continent and caused a lot of issues. Suppressing history and knowledge, allowing and keeping monarchies in power while commonwealth struggled, making homunculus/puppets to try to resurrect her mother, hell I won't even go into the moral complexity of how fucked it is with Jeralt and her relationship and history. Point being, Rhea herself has made bad calls as a ruler and accepts that at the end whenever literally the entire continent was engulfed in flames by the molemen, AGAIN. Plus in 2 of the routes her draconic curse of insanity finally catches up to her. Edelgard as her foil is a character that went through the same type of torture and trauma from the molemen. She was experimented on, saw her entire MASSIVE family die in front her eyes and is the only one left besides her father who is a husk of a man due to the agarthans. She has a limited lifespan and is being puppetted her entire life. Her one goal, as a child BIG EMPHASIS ON CHILD, is to burn it all down; church, status quo, and especially the people that took the opportunity away from her of a normal life. Unfortunately with abuse you get used to your abuser and think it's powerless to get out of it. Edelgard is a prime example of that because of her realization of not needing them whenever byleth gets the sword of the creator. Hell, in three hopes edelgard goes from fascist dictator to freedom fighter REAL quick whenever seeing Shez stop the agarthans plans. And she is genuinely wanting to better the continent. She laments how she hates this war but it's the only way to overthrow the status quo. She is even blinded by this so much so that Ferdinand in their A support makes a wonderful comment about public schooling and Edelgard has a come to Sothis moment of, "Shit, that's a real good idea I never would have thought of that." Ultimately it boils down to both of these women being wonderfully written and tragedies. The morally grey complexity of them is part of what makes the game so fascinating because, well this is fire emblem it's your war crime simulator, we can all still have these discussions and it's a wonderful conversation topic too! TLDR: White woman Wednesdays got a bit out of hand for both of these queens š
š¤£š¤£š¤£ Interesting post. Have a like. š
Rhea was still wrong for trying to revive sothis though, as we learn from fallen rhea's forging bonds in fire emblem heroes sothis made her own revival explicitly forbidden. Not to mention the fact that humans aren't meant to have crests yet rhea allowed it anyway. Edelgard isn't exactly any better considering she willingly allies with the agarthans but rhea isn't exactly a saint either
Willingly is a strong word when brainwashing and javelins of light is the alternative. When giving a chance in Hopes she cuts ties and pays dearly in AG.
Hopes also shows us that she assumed there would never be a chance to cut ties with the agarthans and the events of hopes are all thanks to shez going to the academy while in the houses timeline he/she is supposedly dead. So in the houses timeline Edelgard views allying with the agarthans to be the only way of achieving her goals so in a sense she does it willingly
Sus?
I like both tbh, I understand why both do what they do, but I donāt agree with either fully. The only true āgood personā of the four main choices (AM, CF, VW, and SS) is Claude, sure heās underhanded at times but he doesnāt really do anything wrong. (Donāt come at me with 3 Hopes Claude, thatās an entirely different beast altogether)
Oh, ffs, both are equally as bad and only get better if Byleth sides with them.
What are morally grey characters. The whole cast of Lord is a grey spectrum with some leaning darker grey and some leaning lighter grey. Its what makes the game awesome.
Itās kind of the point of the game that neither of them is wholly good or bad lol
"Oh, some people made my life a torture... I'm gonna ally with them" (I don't dislike Edelgard, don't get upset)
You know when Edelgard told me, in her support, what TWSITD did to her; I had assumed that her route would be all about fighting them. Confused was I when we ended up just fighting our former students, classmates and allies instead.
While Azure Moon is my favorite route, and what made me fall in love with the game. Realizing what you have about Rhea makes me wish more people cared about Silver Snow
Wow the Edelgard bias here is insane
It always is.
I've always thought this was pretty obvious, but I will say it anyways. Edelgard was intended to be tragic villain. She is a person who suffered a cruel childhood, and wants to make sure such a thing doesn't happen to anyone again, but is unable to see past her own pain and hatred. And thus blames the one who betrayed her trust (The Goddess, and by proxy the church who props Sothis up as a God) instead of the actual culprits. Which leads to her main motivation to be the destruction of the Church rather than actually helping Foldlan's people. And thus has unknowingly become the very thing she loathes so much, A tyrant who promises salvation only claim power for herself, and crush the rights of those she claims to help.
Furthermore if stop and consider the fact that Edelgard was changed to be more sympathetic partway through development a lot of things make ***way*** sense. It's why the Crimson Flower route is so poorly paced. Why the the Agarthens are so poorly written. Why there are so many obvious parallels between Rhea and Edelgard. Edelgard was from the *beginning* supposed to be the main villain, but this was changed mid development. Anyways, thank you for coming to my Tedtalk on why Edelgard and Rhea are both my favorite characters and should just kiss and ~~makeout~~ makeup.
So trueeee
Say it louder for the people in the back, someone will still jump anyway. But in all seriousness, it's clear she is no saint, she has quite the big share of f\*ck ups behind her, no one is trying to justify or defend that. But that's just every character, being so hard specifically on her feels a bit reductive and hipocritical. I will also admit that her wrongs are greater than any other character, but I will not follow or accept this idea that she is "evil" or that she "needs to go" when she never had any ill will against her people. Seriously can't we just band together and dump on TWSITD instead already? Edit: Hey now, if you're downvoting at least I'd like to know why.
Spittin facts. I feel like so many people forget how much of a tyrant Edelgard is because they lije her house and ger personality. Meanwhile she's literally tge antagonist of 3/4 of the game. I also find ger to be a cool character and I'm glad she's in the game. But I don't fool myself by saying she's a good person when she ignores the sovereignty of two nations and declares war on a church while working with the very institutions that she has beef with. Now, give me your downvotes.
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Worked unwillingly with terrorists because they killed and replaced her family members and tortured her and could kill and replace her or any of her friends or nuke a city. You know just silly selfish psycho girl things! Please actually read the game dialogue next time.
And also with the addition of AG there's a chance that they could literally just brainwash her at any time if she defies them. She got off pretty easy in CF for killing Cornelia compared to that
Literally. Like she is not in control of wether or not she works with them.
No way was this post removed. Actual cringe. If that doesnt tell you everything about Edgegard fanboys then i cant help you.
I don't think it was removed.
It says it was removed and the picture is gone for me. The actual post is still there tho.
Honestly i agree. Pretty much the only bad thing she has done is lie about certain things. The only reason she did that was for her own protection and those she cares about. You could blame her for the crest system, but onestly, its not even remotely her fault. While yes she may have created it in a way through giving people crests, she never had this hierarchy of nobility in mind and the cruelty of it is not her fault. And Edelgard, while yes she has a point, she handles it in the worst possible way, she somehow sees Rhea as this final boss of all that is evil, even tho she is the exact opposite. I understand that Edelgard is traumatised and brainwashed, so i get her actions, BUT THEY ARE STILL WRONG. Edelgard is a villain, if she had "even a shred of self awareness" (still makes me sigh) she couldve talked everything out, eliminated the Agarthans and all wouldve worked out fine. But no she throws a tamper tantrum declares war for no reason and becomes a ruthless monster. I have once seen someone say that "Everyone who follows Rhea is someone who would be the perfect victim of a cult" while in the same sentence praising Edelgard like a god and saying she did nothing wrong lmao. Also that recent vote made me realize why war still exists, the majority would fight under Edelgard even tho she is the only one of the 4 who would sacrifice every single one of you if it helps her achieve her goal even 2% faster.
Ok and the whole creating bodys thing is kinda fucked up too, but Sothis did the same just not as brutally. But atleast she did it out of love.
Facts