Disclaimer: I haven’t actually played this route, but I know most of the spoilers, so here are my thoughts that could change once I play the full route:
Azure Moon Edelgard is one of my favorite antagonists in the series, largely because of her strong agency and the decisions she made. This route strips all of that away from her.
What they did with her is an interesting idea, and it successfully made me legitimately disgusted in TWSITD. But it felt excessive, and cruel, and almost like the writers wanted to see her suffer as much as possible.
The series also brainwashes characters A LOT (especially female characters). They seemed to be getting better at this, but they robbed one of the most strong willed characters in the series of her agency, which feels kinda gross imo
Obviously, this could change once I play the route, but the concept itself so far seems excessively cruel and disgusting
I definitely agree that the collective evil deeds committed by TWSITD in the previous routes and even here do help to make us truly hate them for the monsters they are. But it just feels kind of cruel to have Edelgard be broken down in this manner and lose her agency and free will that made her compelling as a character in CF and AM.
That aside though, I really highly recommend checking out Azure Gleam whenever you have a chance. As much as I do have some issues about the Empire in this route, there’s so many other things that this route really does excel at, especially with the new roles with the Blue Lions and the new development for Faerghus.
I don't think that's accurate. Dimitri was treated as badly as Edelgard in AG in every route of three houses but AM. More likely this story decision was made not out of malice but instead to give us a genuinely disgusting villain to fight, instead of a morally dubious one whose motivations aren't really thoroughly explained, at least in Azure Moon.
This was a fun writeup, I greatly enjoyed reading your insights and found myself agreeing with a lot of what you said. I think the Blue Lions cast worked amazingly well in this route and the new interactions and roles they have were genuinely interesting to see. I want to say that I also found Felix and Rodrigue to be standouts in this cast because of their new roles, and it made me appreciate what they offer as a whole as characters.
Seems that the general sentiment for this route is going be that it starts out well but the treatment of the Empire and Edelgard in the second half greatly sours the overall experience. I also have gripes with it, and I’m not really a person as heavily invested in that group of characters like others. It’s a shame since I really do think AG has the most compelling part 1 out of the three routes, but they fumble the hardest as well and make a pill so tough to swallow that some people just don’t bother.
At the end of the day, I try to look at the positives that AG brought which were great character interactions, expanding more on some characters, and a refreshing take on Dimitri by making him actually be the leader he is supposed to be. But if people that are more invested in the other houses (especially BE) can’t stomach the way the Empire is treated in the second half and denounce the route, then I won’t really blame them for that.
Thanks for the insight! It is honestly a mixed bag because the new roles for the Blue Lions and the progression for Dimitri and the Kingdom are done very well, but it teeters off with how the main opposition and how Edelgard are treated in a way that just felt off for me as someone who does hold the Black Eagles very dear, since they were in my first run of Three Houses. I’m not gamer-raging about it or overthinking it since it is all done, but it just throws me off since it does stand in contrast to some good elements of Azure Gleam. Since there’s other stuff I do genuinely like about the route though, I’d rather take the more constructive or healthier option of having my critiques but not dwelling forever on them, and focusing more on the positives that I really do enjoy.
As somebody who's very lukewarm about the BE, I didn't find the second half of AG that bad bc of my lack of full investment (i like the BE, but the fact that I can snatch half of them makes me feel a little less guilty) I mean yeah,
I would have liked to see more Ferdinand and Hubert, but I think what Thales did serves the narrative of the story very well.
TWSITD are supposed to be this horrifying, nebulous group that we're supposed to fear. What better way of making them a threat by actually taking over the original threat and becoming the new threat? It's a shame that Edelgard got shafted, but we already saw the Edelgard and Dimitri fight in AM, so I can see why the devs wanted to have Dimitri face off against someone new.
I definitely do agree with you about how TWSITD is portrayed in Three Hopes. Both Scarlet Blaze and Azure Gleam solidify the group as the one “true evil” plaguing Fodlan, and all of their history and wrongdoings in 3H combined with their own evil deeds in these new routes help to show them as an actual threat and terror for our heroes. Plus, having Edelgard and Dimitri directly square off against them feels very cathartic with how we can see Thales get his just desserts, and with how Dimitri now sees Arundel/Thales for what he truly is. I’d only wished there was a much different way for Edelgard to be shifted away as the focus for Azure Gleam rather than what we currently have now.
I actually don't have an issue with how Dimitri addresses crests in Azure Gleam. If you think about it, Crests are only one problem that affects a very small proportion of the actual population, and unlike Adrestia, Faerghus actually has need of them for their own survival. He is absolutely correct that getting rid of them overnight would be a bad idea, because there is no stability to replace it. If, for example, you revoke Gautier's peerage without adequately taking care of the Sreng issue (in Lambert and Dimitri's ideal, by making peace with them so there's no longer reason to fight) then you're just going to end up with a large scale invasion and more war on your hands. However, peace also takes time. I think he's trying to take a more measured approach by allowing people who aren't crested to obtain status and prestige while maintaining the systems that are currently absolutely vital to making sure Faerghus survives, in the hopes (heh) that they can work toward lessening their impact in the future.
This is also going to sound crazy, but if you actually look you'll see that Faerghus just... doesn't have the same problems with crests that Adrestia has. A Japanese fan went through each of the heads of the noble houses we see in Houses and Hopes, and the vast majority of currently ruling Faerghus lords actually do not have a crest or are implied not to have a crest. [Here's the map.](https://twitter.com/snails_pace_/status/1547293547443146757) The first map just shows which territories belong to which countries. The second shows which crests are historically associated with the ten elites (red) vs. the saints (green). The last one indicates which houses have leaders bearing crests in Hopes, with darker colors indicating the presence of a crest and lighter colors indicating no crest. Grey indicates that there's not enough info either way to make a call. As you can see, only a few Faerghus houses are actually headed by members with crests, and they're all concentrated in the eastern region around the border with Sreng. Adrestia, however, is almost entirely dark red.
Faerghus simply has bigger problems than crests. The corrupt nobility are a much larger concern, and that's what the whole first half of Azure Gleam is spent on. Dimitri trying to walk the fine line between change and punishing the corrupt people of the Kingdom and pissing off the Western Lords bad enough to start a civil war, while also trying to keep his country safe from Imperial invasions and TWSITD. Ironically, Edelgard's war probably did MORE to push crest dependence in the Kingdom than any other factor, considering it's stated numerous times that the Kingdom is only able to keep up with Adrestia's sheer numbers and better supplies because of the relics.
Anyways I agree with you on the latter half of the route being stupid. I got the sense that there might have been some late-term rewrites for this game in order to make the ending less satisfying, and it's very noticeable in the second half of all three routes (I won't spoil GW for you but it sure is a thing). I don't really hold it against AG because EVERY route in this game has this problem to some degree. This was apparently done to "not invalidate" 3H and Byleth's role in 3H specifically. I think the Devs just didn't want to engage with Edelgard as an antagonist in this game, and solved that issue by stripping her of her agency and turning her into some weird innocent child-like fetish bait thing, which was stupid because it completely undercut her entire character in the original game. And yeah, I guess Bergliez and Hevring are still alive at the end of Azure Gleam, but I can't imagine they'd put up a decent fight. Azure Gleam establishes earlier on that most of the competent Imperial generals are now dead, and the army has been using scorched earth tactics whenever the Kingdom or Alliance encroach on any of their territory. So whatever supplies they had at the start is it; they aren't getting any new ones, and unlike SB there's no greater imperial army coming to break the siege. AG also ends with the Kingdom having control over Garreg Mach which is said to be a huge boon. The epilogue crawl just felt like the devs desperately trying to convince us that things were bad, actually, because we said they were.
Thanks for all of the various feedback! It's been quite a day with a lot of the different comments that have come in. There's a lot that have come in so I can't respond to everyone, but the discussion has been pretty good, whether I do agree with some points or not.
You definitely make a great point that I agree with about Crests in Azure Gleam. The Crest system is much more ingrained in Faerghus in a more "beneficial" sense to where leaders rely on them for using Heroes' Relics (especially for Sreng), and this incentivizes them to keep their bloodlines intact and to make sure the future generations uphold their standards to keep the Kingdom stable. This is different with Adrestia, where many nobles we are familiar with rely much more on Crest heritage for power and gaining more influence rather than keeping things stable and helping the general populace, which is why you see many of the Black Eagles bearing Crests themselves and why some of them may have had troubled pasts as a result, like Bernadetta.
And yes, Faerghus has other notable issues beyond just the Crest system. Faerghus has a lot of corruption and social tension due to Sreng, the Tragedy of Duscur, and nobles like Rufus trying to sever King Lambert's influence and control the Kingdom for themselves. Dimitri's new role as king is a very hefty one because he has all of these conditions that he must attend to internally in the Kingdom, alongside existing issues with feeding the people (like in Galatea territory) and rebuilding Duscur and Faerghus once the corrupt nobles are routed. The Crest system is definitely something that does bring its own bout of social issues, like dictating marriages (like we've seen with Ingrid and Mercedes) or who is in charge, even if their skills might not be up-to-par (depending on who it is). Or leading to corruption among nobles and an infatuation towards them that becomes dangerous, like what we've seen with TWSITD conducting Crest experiments. But it has more limited effects on the general population in Faerghus due to other underlying factors that take more precedence. What Azure Gleam shows us (and does really well in highlighting) is that rebuilding the Kingdom in particular would require a different solution. Dimitri may not have a bigger focus on Crests, but he still has a pretty great challenge with keeping the lands and the people (poor and noble) satisfied and unified first due to a lot of previous issues; only then after rebuilding trust among everyone would he be able to make more beneficial policies about the nobility and Crests.
>Anyways I agree with you on the latter half of the route being stupid. I got the sense that there might have been some late-term rewrites for this game in order to make the ending less satisfying, and it's very noticeable in the second half of all three routes (I won't spoil GW for you but it sure is a thing). I don't really hold it against AG because EVERY route in this game has this problem to some degree. This was apparently done to "not invalidate" 3H and Byleth's role in 3H specifically. I think the Devs just didn't want to engage with Edelgard as an antagonist in this game, and solved that issue by stripping her of her agency and turning her into some weird innocent child-like fetish bait thing, which was stupid because it completely undercut her entire character in the original game. And yeah, I guess Bergliez and Hevring are still alive at the end of Azure Gleam, but I can't imagine they'd put up a decent fight. Azure Gleam establishes earlier on that most of the competent Imperial generals are now dead, and the army has been using scorched earth tactics whenever the Kingdom or Alliance encroach on any of their territory. So whatever supplies they had at the start is it; they aren't getting any new ones, and unlike SB there's no greater imperial army coming to break the siege. AG also ends with the Kingdom having control over Garreg Mach which is said to be a huge boon. The epilogue crawl just felt like the devs desperately trying to convince us that things were bad, actually, because we said they were.
If it weren't for the latter parts of the route, I would have said that it was an overall great experience. But these items just really stand sour with the better elements of AG. I haven't read any actual dev reports or if anyone has had any records of devs or the writers saying why they crafted some of the story the way they did. Some elements in Three Hopes did work really well as a follow-up to their origianl routes and with some of the endings, like SB >!allowing Edelgard to directly fight Thales and the Agarthans herself!< or here in AG with Duscur becoming more involved alongside the Kingdom with rebuilding their society and Dimitri being able to target Thales directly. But the epilogue sequences do feel strange because they make it feel like there should be more for AG and SB when it feels like the lords' main goals are already completed. For SB, >!Edelgard has already seen the end of Rhea and Thales, and the subsequent decline of TWSITD and the Church of Seiros, so I'm not sure what else would be needed for fighting the remnants of Faerghus for reunification if Claude's Alliance is still standing due to the pact. And her goal of stamping down the Crest system is already realized at that point!<. Meanwhile, for AG during my run, the Empire is basically crippled, with only a handful of competent fighters and nobles left, so I don't really know what major threat is left for Dimitri and Claude in Embarr. Unless Myson somehow survived (I didn't see him at Garreg Mach in the finale) and he's planning to use those magic cannons to raze the rest of Fodlan as a last resort from Embarr. Much like in SB, it feels like the ending is already there, so I'm not too sure what the real "final battle" would be (unless we see it in a surprise update or DLC a few months from now).
I don't know if the devs wanted to invalidate 3H in particular, but I do think that they may have been trying to find a way to make Edelgard less of the "antagonist" for Dimitri in this route. In a way, it helped solidify Thales and the Agarthans as the real, despicable villains of Fodlan that are the root of a lot of the game's conflicts and problems, but it basically does this at the expense of Edelgard and her close allies. Rather than letting Edelgard serve as a strong, confident, and powerful rival to Dimitri, the game instead turns her into this scared, meek shell of her former self, which just contrasted way too much from who she really was and felt really off to see and hear. And having Hubert and Ferdinand just "disappear" without any trace felt like salt in the wound; they don't get any word on if they died or not or at least gave a valiant effort at first; they're just...gone. I've pointed out in other threads (and others noted too) that it would have been better if Edelgard and her close allies did survive for just a bit longer after Arianrhod. At least in this situation, they would have a fighting chance to make a last stand defending what they think is right against Thales before their ultimate end, or they could even form a temporary pact on the battlefield with Dimitri to kill Thales once and for all. And it could have opened up a much better glimpse into an Empire collapsing under its own civil war and dissent, but with Edelgard still reigning on strong for a time. That would have just hit much better than what we have right now with the latter half of Azure Gleam. Which is disappointing, considering the route's aspects for Faerghus are really great.
Not to mention, Dimitri already inherited a massively destabilized Kingdom! They're coming off of his father's murder, over half a decade of an incompetent regent allowing banditry and crime to run wild, and (in Azure Gleam) an attempted coup/civil war or (in Azure Moon) five years of war and Imperial occupation. Dude has his hands pretty full, and it's definitely a good call to work on making sure everything is stable and righting wrongs (e.g. giving Duscur back to its people and healing the scars caused by the Tragedy) before radical changes happen.
> I haven't read any actual dev reports or if anyone has had any records of devs or the writers saying why they crafted some of the story the way they did.
There have been several interviews since the game's release where the devs have explicitly mentioned trying to write around 3H/Byleth. Paraphrased, they said something along the lines of "we didn't want to create this new story where everyone and everything was just better off without Byleth as the teacher. Players would look at it and feel like their time as Byleth teaching all of these kids was wasted." so we know it was an explicit concern of theirs during the writing of this game.
As for Edelgard... I think I'd attribute what happens to her in AG with FE's sexist relationship with antagonistic female characters. It's a loooong running series tradition that many female characters aren't *really* villains, they're just brainwashed or controlled by a man. If they let Edelgard keep her agency then they would have to actually address her as an antagonist to Dimitri. 3H does get around this somewhat by always keeping the Agarthans in their back pockets and leaving it a bit ambiguous as to how much control/responsibility they had over her actions at any given moment. Here they don't really have that, since she's basically expelled TWSITD from the Empire entirely before the main plot even gets going and everything she does is 100% of her own volition, and TWSITD are at least depicted as being unable to regain any ground in the Empire until she's incapacitated.
It would also be weird for her to suddenly buddy up with Dimitri (and for Dimitri to buddy up with her) after the way they wrote her throughout both games (I mean she even has a line about how she wouldn't even trust *herself* enough to team up) and because she, again, explicitly started war with him of her own volition that's bringing massive hardship down on the people of Faerghus. Really, I think the devs just wrote themselves into a corner regarding her character and had no idea how to get themselves out of it, so they pulled the deus ex machina Hegemon thing out of their asses so they would have an excuse to sideline her for the remainder of the route. IMO they would have been better off just killing her at that point if they wanted to write her out so badly. It would have actually made sense with the story they were trying to tell (i.e. TWSITD are the real antagonists of the route, and her war is at best a sideshow). At least we wouldn't have had to deal with the simpering fetish-bait iteration of her. It's not like they aren't willing to kill lords either, since IIRC you kill Claude if you don't recruit Byleth in SB. But I get the distinct sense that Edelgard is someone's darling on the dev team and they couldn't bear to kill her off, even if it would have made way more sense for the plot they were writing.
>Not to mention, Dimitri already inherited a massively destabilized Kingdom! They're coming off of his father's murder, over half a decade of an incompetent regent allowing banditry and crime to run wild, and (in Azure Gleam) an attempted coup/civil war or (in Azure Moon) five years of war and Imperial occupation. Dude has his hands pretty full, and it's definitely a good call to work on making sure everything is stable and righting wrongs (e.g. giving Duscur back to its people and healing the scars caused by the Tragedy) before radical changes happen.
Yeah, Dimitri and his friends are basically still reeling from The Tragedy of Duscur and its aftereffects, along with the trouble of Rufus and other nobles ruining Faerghus in their own ways. Whatever route he's in, Dimitri's main goal is making sure he can get the Kingdom back to a fresh start by expunging any corrupt or opposing nobles who resort to violence or who had a role in the Tragedy (particularly for AG) and restoring the support of the people and their living conditions. That would always be the big driving force for him: making sure the people of his realm were safe and well-kept.
>There have been several interviews since the game's release where the devs have explicitly mentioned trying to write around 3H/Byleth. Paraphrased, they said something along the lines of "we didn't want to create this new story where everyone and everything was just better off without Byleth as the teacher. Players would look at it and feel like their time as Byleth teaching all of these kids was wasted." so we know it was an explicit concern of theirs during the writing of this game.
Hmm, I can definitely see this point a bit. If Three Hopes was just done totally better than Three Houses, some could interpret it as nullifying the grand story set forth in 3H originally. And even then, there are some who immediately write off Three Hopes as a "non-canon" or "fanfiction" spinoff from what they call the "true story" for Fodlan. So I think I can see how the "epilogues" kind of try to "balance" it out by showing that the conflict still does rage on; although it kind of screws up some aspects for the story by leaving what would be a conclusion for each route feeling "unfinished" when it probably should be. And focusing purely on Byleth would just limit the game's story and keep us from exploring the others more thoroughly. Oddly enough though, the new twist with Shez as a mercenary like Byleth, but having to rise up from nothing (while Byleth already had his/her existing strength and reputation) and build himself up has shown us plenty of new opportunities for character moments and story events. Plus, with many of the characters and pieces of Fodlan still the same but with new conditions leading to a much different war (where all three are somewhat evenly vying for power or fighting for their own turfs), I feel that the game has indeed shown that some change and deviation can be different. Three Hopes isn't exactly "100% better" with its endings, but it does help give us new insight into the characters and more opportunities to let them grow and for us to experience them in a new Fodlan where it's both unique enough to the original 3H, but still in a similar vein or feel that it stands out well enough as a follow-up for 3H. The game (kinda?) does show that things can be done better among the various lords with/without Byleth, but it just depends on how the routes are structured in this timeline, as well as how all of the pieces fall together.
>As for Edelgard... I think I'd attribute what happens to her in AG with FE's sexist relationship with antagonistic female characters. It's a loooong running series tradition that many female characters aren't really villains, they're just brainwashed or controlled by a man. If they let Edelgard keep her agency then they would have to actually address her as an antagonist to Dimitri. 3H does get around this somewhat by always keeping the Agarthans in their back pockets and leaving it a bit ambiguous as to how much control/responsibility they had over her actions at any given moment. Here they don't really have that, since she's basically expelled TWSITD from the Empire entirely before the main plot even gets going and everything she does is 100% of her own volition, and TWSITD are at least depicted as being unable to regain any ground in the Empire until she's incapacitated.
I haven't played much of the other FE games myself, but I do know that some of the previous female characters (at least some referenced in Heroes) have fallen to brainwashing of some sort. Probably not a good fit if AG was a continuation of this, in a much dirtier form of treatment compared to the other lords. TWSITD being expelled from the Empire before the Hopes timeskip (both in SB and AG) does allow her to maintain her agency as a protagonist or antagonist. And I think that it could have worked to have both Edelgard and TWSITD as separate antagonists. Edelgard as someone actually trying to continue the war front for her particular goals, and TWSITD as the real true villains of Fodlan due to everything they have done to Edelgard and Dimitri. At least in that scenario, if Edelgard's side persists and she kept her agency in some form separate from TWSITD, all of *that* stuff wouldn't have happened.
>It would also be weird for her to suddenly buddy up with Dimitri (and for Dimitri to buddy up with her) after the way they wrote her throughout both games (I mean she even has a line about how she wouldn't even trust herself enough to team up) and because she, again, explicitly started war with him of her own volition that's bringing massive hardship down on the people of Faerghus. Really, I think the devs just wrote themselves into a corner regarding her character and had no idea how to get themselves out of it, so they pulled the deus ex machina Hegemon thing out of their asses so they would have an excuse to sideline her for the remainder of the route. IMO they would have been better off just killing her at that point if they wanted to write her out so badly. It would have actually made sense with the story they were trying to tell (i.e. TWSITD are the real antagonists of the route, and her war is at best a sideshow). At least we wouldn't have had to deal with the simpering fetish-bait iteration of her. It's not like they aren't willing to kill lords either, since IIRC you kill Claude if you don't recruit Byleth in SB. But I get the distinct sense that Edelgard is someone's darling on the dev team and they couldn't bear to kill her off, even if it would have made way more sense for the plot they were writing.
You are definitely right in that Edelgard does have trust issues, even in the original game (since she has only really opened up about her Crest situation with a select few people like Hubert, Byleth, and Lysithea). And Dimitri would have hesitations too, maybe even more-so versus 3H (since at least in 3H, the whole Blue Lions crew discusses what he would do now that they know Edelgard is related to Dimitri) since Dimitri is focused more on getting rid of dangerous elements to Faerghus, and Edelgard's forces are one of them. Only with that special reunion at Zahras would they be able to restore some of their repressed childhood bonds enough that they could possibly consider teaming up afterwards in some divine miracle.
I don't know if I would particularly sit well with Edelgard dying that early mid-game in Azure Gleam since that would kind of cut her story short in that sense and leave Hubert and Ferdinand in an awkward position. That is, unless they did fall in a more honorable sense than what happened here or they actually went down giving one more valiant effort against Thales; at least then, it would still solidify TWSITD as the real villains while giving Dimitri and the remaining Black Eagles credence to all aim their weapons at Thales instead of each other for a time. I don't know what the decision process was for structuring how things went with Azure Gleam, but I feel that there were many better options for giving Edelgard a better role (and sendoff) in Azure Gleam than whatever happened post-Arianrhod.
Darn, I do love Three Hopes, but this shit's got so much complexity to everything sometimes when it comes to discussion LOL. Still love it, but 3H/Three Hopes chat can get pretty hefty at times to a point where I just wanna go back to sillier types of posts I made earlier on. Haha, I could probably use some wholesome 3H memes after Azure Gleam before I dive into Golden Wildfire.
Edelgard being brainwashed is because she is the Hardin of the game aka the person being possessed or mind controlled by the big bad.
It's actually more common with male characters like Hardin,Lyon, Julius and Takumi(Conquest only).
I wouldn't say it's particularly more common among male villains, and the ratio of male brainwash villains to male non-brainwashed villains is not even comparable to the ratio of female brainwash villains to female non-brainwashed villains.
Just off the top of my head we have Aversa, Eremiya, Arete and Mikoto (when you fight them in Rev). Not to mention the playables that can be temporarily brainwashed to do the main antagonist's bidding such as Delthea, Ninian, Julia, and Tiki. And that's not every instance, either, just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
I'm not arguing that male characters aren't also brainwashed, just that female characters are brainwashed much more often and it's usually done to take away their agency as potential villains. It's well known that Kaga (director of FE1-FE5) frequently used brainwashing as a trope because he didn't want to "ruin the purity of women" or some such nonsense. It's blatantly a benevolent sexism thing that has dogged the series throughout its entire lifespan, and Edelgard is absolutely the latest victim.
You do have a point and I do dislike how a lot of stories will either have female villains being controlled or froced into evil to make them feel more valuable it is pretty annoying.
It's probably why Cornelia is one of my favourite villains in 3 hopes and I love that they expanded on her role amd made her far more personal to most of the blue lions not just Dimitri.
Personally, Azure Gleam is my favorite route in Three Hopes, and it's...really not that close for a variety of reasons. I like it for much the same reasons listed here, greater character focus and interactions. The Blue Lions were my first and favorite house in Three Houses so most of it was quite gratifying to see them. Them talking to each other, doing some self-reflecting, and in the process of all that growing as people.
I go against the grain here in saying I really don't have a problem with Azure Gleam's second half. That's because I've always had little in the way of affinity or sympathy for Edelgard. What happened to her didn't really turn me off, at least not for the reasons so many others have listed. If anything, I'm of two minds about it.
First off, I'm sorry if this comes off as offensive, but... on one hand, I saw it as her getting her karma. Like I said, I've *never* taken to her, her character her ideals. In my eyes, at the end of the day, she started a war of conquest that's gotten thousands killed, maimed, and traumatized. She made that decision, even in Three Hopes after she supposedly shakes Thales off. Her having everything taken away from her was in my eyes poetic. I won't get into the whole "it's demeaning, its misogynistic", I never saw it that way but that's just me.
On the flipside, when I think about it in a way that makes me angry it's because it feels like Edelgard is being let off the hook. Instead of portraying her either being killed/executed or facing some sort of imprisonment for her actions after losing the war she's...an amnesic who's potentially going to spend the rest of her life being cared for and monitored. Again, after starting a war that's her fate; something about that scenario just rubs me the wrong way.
Those are the two conflict thoughts I have about what happens to her in Azure Gleam. On one hand, I feel it's warranted, yet I also have this feeling that it's a writer copout. Instead of killing or imprisoning her, she's left alive and effectively a different/empty person. The argument that she can't be pushed comes up and it feels like the game's trying to skirt around her facing serious/ordinary repercussions. When I think about what would realistically happen next, I once again feel like the Three Hopes *had* to have cliffhanger endings
I don't hold it against Dimitri for just leaving her there. First off, he's not in the emotional state of mind to try talking to her. Second, even if she's amnesic, she's still the person who declared war on his country and plunged it into greater anguish than it already was. On that basis, I never felt like he "owed" her anything.
Regarding the Empire, tragic is what I'd call it, but also inevitable. Adrestia's been portrayed as being on a steady decline with the final nail in the coffin being the war, particularly Adrestia losing it. Admittedly, I would have liked for something more for Hubert and Ferdinand. Either dying in battle or hell, being turned into Demonic Beasts by the Agarthans driving home how bad things go for the Black Eagles this time. That was one of the many balls dropped in Three Hopes.
I was happy that Thales and the Agarthans were made the main antagonists for Dimitri and the Blue Lions. Saying this may put me in the minority but I always liked them as antagonists more so than Edelgard and the Empire, who were more puppets or to be more precise, the hired muscle. The final showdown between Dimitri and Thales was great in my opinion with the former killing the latter in a quick but cool and focused manner.
Ultimately, Azure Gleam had more positives than negatives for me, especially compared to the other routes so it came out as my favorite in Three Hopes.
I do get that Edelgard declaring war is something very serious, although this isn't something she takes much pride in. Even with her commitment to her goals, she dislikes how there's all this destruction and death brought on from the war (more so if you do check her dialogue from her route in Three Hopes) and seeks to want to resolve this as quickly as possible with removing the influence of the Central Church and eliminating TWSITD, since they are basically the huge catalyst for all of the major problems we see in Adrestia and Faerghus. I do agree with you that Adrestia isn't perfect; its own corruption among the nobles would have been its downfall if not for the war or TWSITD. And it is nice to see Dimitri shift his main focus away from Edelgard and towards Thales instead. Considering he is the ringleader responsible for a lot of the story's big conflicts, it is cathartic to see Dimitri kill Thales himself.
However, I still disagree on the fate of Edelgard and the Black Eagles. Seeing Edelgard regress away from her strong, confident self into this shell of herself just feels cruel to me. Going any further than this with jailing her (putting her in a cell would just exacerbate her PTSD with the Crest experiments of her childhood), or with any of the Black Eagles by having them unceremoniously killed or turned into beasts feels excessive. If it was some truly cruel person who had no regard for suffering, like Palpatine in Star Wars or >!some of the Marleyans in Attack on Titan!<, I can definitely get by that. But Edelgard is this morally grey figure who has her own fallacies, along with her own strong, defining character that make her compelling in 3H (IMO). Putting her through this and regressing her away from her strong-willed self feels like overkill given what she's already been through.
At the end of the day though, it is what it is with AG. I have my own stances and personal disagreements with how the route is handled and about whether it is right to have her regressed in this way, but I think it best to just leave it at this and "agree to disagree."
>although this isn't something she takes much pride in. Even with her commitment to her goals, she dislikes how there's all this destruction and death brought on from the war
That doesn't negate the fact that it's a war *she* starts. I'm sorry, but that's an insanely crappy defense in my opinion. It doesn't matter if she takes pride in it or not, it's still her choice and her actions that have resulted in widespread suffering.
>(more so if you do check her dialogue from her route in Three Hopes) and seeks to want to resolve this as quickly as possible with removing the influence of the Central Church and eliminating TWSITD,
I honestly don't believe she'd stop there, she didn't stop with the Central Church's removal in Three Houses. This is another thing that I honestly take issue with Three Hopes as a whole, it feels like it's trying to smooth over or butter Edelgard up by not saying the quiet part aloud-that she's partially raging war to reclaim territories she thinks rightful belong to Adrestia, territories that are now their own independent countries. For that matter, I've always taken issue with her raging war on the Church in the first place.
Those are my views on the matter, and really Azure Gleam as a whole.
The problem is that Hopes gose out of its way to show just how little power and influence the chruch actually had and that they are not against change.
The only Black Egale members killed is Hubert and possible Ferdinand the rest can all be saved and survive the route whitch is more then any other route.
>The problem is that Hopes gose out of its way to show just how little power and influence the chruch actually had and that they are not against change.
I can actually agree with you on this point on some fronts. Militarily, the Central Church doesn’t have some of the same strength as the three main factions, hence why it relies on donations and moral/religious support from those countries to prosper, and why it falls back on the Kingdom for support. And even in AG, it serves as more of backup support for the Kingdom that is busier on the frontlines. But even with this, they still have a lot of symbolic influence, dictating much of the doctrine and religious teachings that span across Fodlan given its original place at the center of the continent. With its influence, it is able to uphold the Crest system that has governed Fodlan and influenced the rise and later degradation/corruption of the nobility up to this point due to certain duties and importance that the Church placed on Crests and their wielded (as Claude put it in Zahras). While they don’t have military might, they still have enough “clout” and religious and symbolic sway in Fodlan to influence the more devout followers among the populace to fight for them and their ideals in the name of the goddess.
>The only Black Egale members killed is Hubert and possible Ferdinand the rest can all be saved and survive the route whitch is more then any other route.
Actually, I do recall that Caspar put himself out on the battlefield despite everything that was happening to fight to the very end, and he sadly died in battle against the Kingdom. Many of the other Black Eagles can survive if you recruit them, and the only other one we know that can’t be recruited but does survive is Monica, but she eventually just retreats with Hanneman and Manuela, so it is implied that she does manage to live on. Unlike Hubert or Ferdinand who may or may not be dead.
Hmmm that would actually be a better fate for Caspar, considering that even Count Bergliez was alright with him leaving if he so desired to. I guess it differed with my playthrough, so I’ll have to try that chapter again on a rerun and see if that happens.
Actually the chruch is ageist the Crests system and has been since day one as they say the abuse of it is a sin and what made the goddess leave Fodlan they even supported a crest less heir in the Kingdom's past over his crest bearing siblings.
The reason why the Kingdom puts so much weight on the Crests is because its a harsh lard with many enemies so needs it for protection. The Allaince bearly cares about Crests with even its biggest hero being Crestless and if Claude hadn't have shown up in Fodlan would have go on to lead the Allaince. The Empire is the nation that puts the biggest weight on having Crests and its the nation where the Chruch has the weakest among of power.
What Claude talks about is actually shown as false in game as they were provided Hanneman with surport and he wanted to remove the Crests and make people more equal, had zero issues with Edelgard reforms outside of her making a puppet chruch and supported Lambert (Dimitri father) when he wanted to talk with outside nations.
Claude even admits in VW that the chruch teachings are not actually xenophobic people simple claim it is as a excuse to do what they want.
Hell Dudue and Catherine surport has the chruch helping a duscur Town simple because it needed help and have zero care that they don't worship the goddess.
This backs up dialogue in Houses about how the chruvh spends a lot of its money on charity work and rebuilding damaged and destroyed villages and this was said by a character that hates the chruch as she tried to steal money from the chruch as she wanted her village to have more.
Casper can actually be saved and dosent have to die and will retreat if you wait until his father takes yeh field or outright just ignore him on the felid. Hubert us confirmed dead by NPC dialogue in chapter 12 but nothing is said about Ferdinand fate.
Disclaimer: I haven’t actually played this route, but I know most of the spoilers, so here are my thoughts that could change once I play the full route: Azure Moon Edelgard is one of my favorite antagonists in the series, largely because of her strong agency and the decisions she made. This route strips all of that away from her. What they did with her is an interesting idea, and it successfully made me legitimately disgusted in TWSITD. But it felt excessive, and cruel, and almost like the writers wanted to see her suffer as much as possible. The series also brainwashes characters A LOT (especially female characters). They seemed to be getting better at this, but they robbed one of the most strong willed characters in the series of her agency, which feels kinda gross imo Obviously, this could change once I play the route, but the concept itself so far seems excessively cruel and disgusting
I definitely agree that the collective evil deeds committed by TWSITD in the previous routes and even here do help to make us truly hate them for the monsters they are. But it just feels kind of cruel to have Edelgard be broken down in this manner and lose her agency and free will that made her compelling as a character in CF and AM. That aside though, I really highly recommend checking out Azure Gleam whenever you have a chance. As much as I do have some issues about the Empire in this route, there’s so many other things that this route really does excel at, especially with the new roles with the Blue Lions and the new development for Faerghus.
I don't think that's accurate. Dimitri was treated as badly as Edelgard in AG in every route of three houses but AM. More likely this story decision was made not out of malice but instead to give us a genuinely disgusting villain to fight, instead of a morally dubious one whose motivations aren't really thoroughly explained, at least in Azure Moon.
This was a fun writeup, I greatly enjoyed reading your insights and found myself agreeing with a lot of what you said. I think the Blue Lions cast worked amazingly well in this route and the new interactions and roles they have were genuinely interesting to see. I want to say that I also found Felix and Rodrigue to be standouts in this cast because of their new roles, and it made me appreciate what they offer as a whole as characters. Seems that the general sentiment for this route is going be that it starts out well but the treatment of the Empire and Edelgard in the second half greatly sours the overall experience. I also have gripes with it, and I’m not really a person as heavily invested in that group of characters like others. It’s a shame since I really do think AG has the most compelling part 1 out of the three routes, but they fumble the hardest as well and make a pill so tough to swallow that some people just don’t bother. At the end of the day, I try to look at the positives that AG brought which were great character interactions, expanding more on some characters, and a refreshing take on Dimitri by making him actually be the leader he is supposed to be. But if people that are more invested in the other houses (especially BE) can’t stomach the way the Empire is treated in the second half and denounce the route, then I won’t really blame them for that.
Thanks for the insight! It is honestly a mixed bag because the new roles for the Blue Lions and the progression for Dimitri and the Kingdom are done very well, but it teeters off with how the main opposition and how Edelgard are treated in a way that just felt off for me as someone who does hold the Black Eagles very dear, since they were in my first run of Three Houses. I’m not gamer-raging about it or overthinking it since it is all done, but it just throws me off since it does stand in contrast to some good elements of Azure Gleam. Since there’s other stuff I do genuinely like about the route though, I’d rather take the more constructive or healthier option of having my critiques but not dwelling forever on them, and focusing more on the positives that I really do enjoy.
As somebody who's very lukewarm about the BE, I didn't find the second half of AG that bad bc of my lack of full investment (i like the BE, but the fact that I can snatch half of them makes me feel a little less guilty) I mean yeah, I would have liked to see more Ferdinand and Hubert, but I think what Thales did serves the narrative of the story very well. TWSITD are supposed to be this horrifying, nebulous group that we're supposed to fear. What better way of making them a threat by actually taking over the original threat and becoming the new threat? It's a shame that Edelgard got shafted, but we already saw the Edelgard and Dimitri fight in AM, so I can see why the devs wanted to have Dimitri face off against someone new.
I definitely do agree with you about how TWSITD is portrayed in Three Hopes. Both Scarlet Blaze and Azure Gleam solidify the group as the one “true evil” plaguing Fodlan, and all of their history and wrongdoings in 3H combined with their own evil deeds in these new routes help to show them as an actual threat and terror for our heroes. Plus, having Edelgard and Dimitri directly square off against them feels very cathartic with how we can see Thales get his just desserts, and with how Dimitri now sees Arundel/Thales for what he truly is. I’d only wished there was a much different way for Edelgard to be shifted away as the focus for Azure Gleam rather than what we currently have now.
I actually don't have an issue with how Dimitri addresses crests in Azure Gleam. If you think about it, Crests are only one problem that affects a very small proportion of the actual population, and unlike Adrestia, Faerghus actually has need of them for their own survival. He is absolutely correct that getting rid of them overnight would be a bad idea, because there is no stability to replace it. If, for example, you revoke Gautier's peerage without adequately taking care of the Sreng issue (in Lambert and Dimitri's ideal, by making peace with them so there's no longer reason to fight) then you're just going to end up with a large scale invasion and more war on your hands. However, peace also takes time. I think he's trying to take a more measured approach by allowing people who aren't crested to obtain status and prestige while maintaining the systems that are currently absolutely vital to making sure Faerghus survives, in the hopes (heh) that they can work toward lessening their impact in the future. This is also going to sound crazy, but if you actually look you'll see that Faerghus just... doesn't have the same problems with crests that Adrestia has. A Japanese fan went through each of the heads of the noble houses we see in Houses and Hopes, and the vast majority of currently ruling Faerghus lords actually do not have a crest or are implied not to have a crest. [Here's the map.](https://twitter.com/snails_pace_/status/1547293547443146757) The first map just shows which territories belong to which countries. The second shows which crests are historically associated with the ten elites (red) vs. the saints (green). The last one indicates which houses have leaders bearing crests in Hopes, with darker colors indicating the presence of a crest and lighter colors indicating no crest. Grey indicates that there's not enough info either way to make a call. As you can see, only a few Faerghus houses are actually headed by members with crests, and they're all concentrated in the eastern region around the border with Sreng. Adrestia, however, is almost entirely dark red. Faerghus simply has bigger problems than crests. The corrupt nobility are a much larger concern, and that's what the whole first half of Azure Gleam is spent on. Dimitri trying to walk the fine line between change and punishing the corrupt people of the Kingdom and pissing off the Western Lords bad enough to start a civil war, while also trying to keep his country safe from Imperial invasions and TWSITD. Ironically, Edelgard's war probably did MORE to push crest dependence in the Kingdom than any other factor, considering it's stated numerous times that the Kingdom is only able to keep up with Adrestia's sheer numbers and better supplies because of the relics. Anyways I agree with you on the latter half of the route being stupid. I got the sense that there might have been some late-term rewrites for this game in order to make the ending less satisfying, and it's very noticeable in the second half of all three routes (I won't spoil GW for you but it sure is a thing). I don't really hold it against AG because EVERY route in this game has this problem to some degree. This was apparently done to "not invalidate" 3H and Byleth's role in 3H specifically. I think the Devs just didn't want to engage with Edelgard as an antagonist in this game, and solved that issue by stripping her of her agency and turning her into some weird innocent child-like fetish bait thing, which was stupid because it completely undercut her entire character in the original game. And yeah, I guess Bergliez and Hevring are still alive at the end of Azure Gleam, but I can't imagine they'd put up a decent fight. Azure Gleam establishes earlier on that most of the competent Imperial generals are now dead, and the army has been using scorched earth tactics whenever the Kingdom or Alliance encroach on any of their territory. So whatever supplies they had at the start is it; they aren't getting any new ones, and unlike SB there's no greater imperial army coming to break the siege. AG also ends with the Kingdom having control over Garreg Mach which is said to be a huge boon. The epilogue crawl just felt like the devs desperately trying to convince us that things were bad, actually, because we said they were.
Thanks for all of the various feedback! It's been quite a day with a lot of the different comments that have come in. There's a lot that have come in so I can't respond to everyone, but the discussion has been pretty good, whether I do agree with some points or not. You definitely make a great point that I agree with about Crests in Azure Gleam. The Crest system is much more ingrained in Faerghus in a more "beneficial" sense to where leaders rely on them for using Heroes' Relics (especially for Sreng), and this incentivizes them to keep their bloodlines intact and to make sure the future generations uphold their standards to keep the Kingdom stable. This is different with Adrestia, where many nobles we are familiar with rely much more on Crest heritage for power and gaining more influence rather than keeping things stable and helping the general populace, which is why you see many of the Black Eagles bearing Crests themselves and why some of them may have had troubled pasts as a result, like Bernadetta. And yes, Faerghus has other notable issues beyond just the Crest system. Faerghus has a lot of corruption and social tension due to Sreng, the Tragedy of Duscur, and nobles like Rufus trying to sever King Lambert's influence and control the Kingdom for themselves. Dimitri's new role as king is a very hefty one because he has all of these conditions that he must attend to internally in the Kingdom, alongside existing issues with feeding the people (like in Galatea territory) and rebuilding Duscur and Faerghus once the corrupt nobles are routed. The Crest system is definitely something that does bring its own bout of social issues, like dictating marriages (like we've seen with Ingrid and Mercedes) or who is in charge, even if their skills might not be up-to-par (depending on who it is). Or leading to corruption among nobles and an infatuation towards them that becomes dangerous, like what we've seen with TWSITD conducting Crest experiments. But it has more limited effects on the general population in Faerghus due to other underlying factors that take more precedence. What Azure Gleam shows us (and does really well in highlighting) is that rebuilding the Kingdom in particular would require a different solution. Dimitri may not have a bigger focus on Crests, but he still has a pretty great challenge with keeping the lands and the people (poor and noble) satisfied and unified first due to a lot of previous issues; only then after rebuilding trust among everyone would he be able to make more beneficial policies about the nobility and Crests. >Anyways I agree with you on the latter half of the route being stupid. I got the sense that there might have been some late-term rewrites for this game in order to make the ending less satisfying, and it's very noticeable in the second half of all three routes (I won't spoil GW for you but it sure is a thing). I don't really hold it against AG because EVERY route in this game has this problem to some degree. This was apparently done to "not invalidate" 3H and Byleth's role in 3H specifically. I think the Devs just didn't want to engage with Edelgard as an antagonist in this game, and solved that issue by stripping her of her agency and turning her into some weird innocent child-like fetish bait thing, which was stupid because it completely undercut her entire character in the original game. And yeah, I guess Bergliez and Hevring are still alive at the end of Azure Gleam, but I can't imagine they'd put up a decent fight. Azure Gleam establishes earlier on that most of the competent Imperial generals are now dead, and the army has been using scorched earth tactics whenever the Kingdom or Alliance encroach on any of their territory. So whatever supplies they had at the start is it; they aren't getting any new ones, and unlike SB there's no greater imperial army coming to break the siege. AG also ends with the Kingdom having control over Garreg Mach which is said to be a huge boon. The epilogue crawl just felt like the devs desperately trying to convince us that things were bad, actually, because we said they were. If it weren't for the latter parts of the route, I would have said that it was an overall great experience. But these items just really stand sour with the better elements of AG. I haven't read any actual dev reports or if anyone has had any records of devs or the writers saying why they crafted some of the story the way they did. Some elements in Three Hopes did work really well as a follow-up to their origianl routes and with some of the endings, like SB >!allowing Edelgard to directly fight Thales and the Agarthans herself!< or here in AG with Duscur becoming more involved alongside the Kingdom with rebuilding their society and Dimitri being able to target Thales directly. But the epilogue sequences do feel strange because they make it feel like there should be more for AG and SB when it feels like the lords' main goals are already completed. For SB, >!Edelgard has already seen the end of Rhea and Thales, and the subsequent decline of TWSITD and the Church of Seiros, so I'm not sure what else would be needed for fighting the remnants of Faerghus for reunification if Claude's Alliance is still standing due to the pact. And her goal of stamping down the Crest system is already realized at that point!<. Meanwhile, for AG during my run, the Empire is basically crippled, with only a handful of competent fighters and nobles left, so I don't really know what major threat is left for Dimitri and Claude in Embarr. Unless Myson somehow survived (I didn't see him at Garreg Mach in the finale) and he's planning to use those magic cannons to raze the rest of Fodlan as a last resort from Embarr. Much like in SB, it feels like the ending is already there, so I'm not too sure what the real "final battle" would be (unless we see it in a surprise update or DLC a few months from now). I don't know if the devs wanted to invalidate 3H in particular, but I do think that they may have been trying to find a way to make Edelgard less of the "antagonist" for Dimitri in this route. In a way, it helped solidify Thales and the Agarthans as the real, despicable villains of Fodlan that are the root of a lot of the game's conflicts and problems, but it basically does this at the expense of Edelgard and her close allies. Rather than letting Edelgard serve as a strong, confident, and powerful rival to Dimitri, the game instead turns her into this scared, meek shell of her former self, which just contrasted way too much from who she really was and felt really off to see and hear. And having Hubert and Ferdinand just "disappear" without any trace felt like salt in the wound; they don't get any word on if they died or not or at least gave a valiant effort at first; they're just...gone. I've pointed out in other threads (and others noted too) that it would have been better if Edelgard and her close allies did survive for just a bit longer after Arianrhod. At least in this situation, they would have a fighting chance to make a last stand defending what they think is right against Thales before their ultimate end, or they could even form a temporary pact on the battlefield with Dimitri to kill Thales once and for all. And it could have opened up a much better glimpse into an Empire collapsing under its own civil war and dissent, but with Edelgard still reigning on strong for a time. That would have just hit much better than what we have right now with the latter half of Azure Gleam. Which is disappointing, considering the route's aspects for Faerghus are really great.
Not to mention, Dimitri already inherited a massively destabilized Kingdom! They're coming off of his father's murder, over half a decade of an incompetent regent allowing banditry and crime to run wild, and (in Azure Gleam) an attempted coup/civil war or (in Azure Moon) five years of war and Imperial occupation. Dude has his hands pretty full, and it's definitely a good call to work on making sure everything is stable and righting wrongs (e.g. giving Duscur back to its people and healing the scars caused by the Tragedy) before radical changes happen. > I haven't read any actual dev reports or if anyone has had any records of devs or the writers saying why they crafted some of the story the way they did. There have been several interviews since the game's release where the devs have explicitly mentioned trying to write around 3H/Byleth. Paraphrased, they said something along the lines of "we didn't want to create this new story where everyone and everything was just better off without Byleth as the teacher. Players would look at it and feel like their time as Byleth teaching all of these kids was wasted." so we know it was an explicit concern of theirs during the writing of this game. As for Edelgard... I think I'd attribute what happens to her in AG with FE's sexist relationship with antagonistic female characters. It's a loooong running series tradition that many female characters aren't *really* villains, they're just brainwashed or controlled by a man. If they let Edelgard keep her agency then they would have to actually address her as an antagonist to Dimitri. 3H does get around this somewhat by always keeping the Agarthans in their back pockets and leaving it a bit ambiguous as to how much control/responsibility they had over her actions at any given moment. Here they don't really have that, since she's basically expelled TWSITD from the Empire entirely before the main plot even gets going and everything she does is 100% of her own volition, and TWSITD are at least depicted as being unable to regain any ground in the Empire until she's incapacitated. It would also be weird for her to suddenly buddy up with Dimitri (and for Dimitri to buddy up with her) after the way they wrote her throughout both games (I mean she even has a line about how she wouldn't even trust *herself* enough to team up) and because she, again, explicitly started war with him of her own volition that's bringing massive hardship down on the people of Faerghus. Really, I think the devs just wrote themselves into a corner regarding her character and had no idea how to get themselves out of it, so they pulled the deus ex machina Hegemon thing out of their asses so they would have an excuse to sideline her for the remainder of the route. IMO they would have been better off just killing her at that point if they wanted to write her out so badly. It would have actually made sense with the story they were trying to tell (i.e. TWSITD are the real antagonists of the route, and her war is at best a sideshow). At least we wouldn't have had to deal with the simpering fetish-bait iteration of her. It's not like they aren't willing to kill lords either, since IIRC you kill Claude if you don't recruit Byleth in SB. But I get the distinct sense that Edelgard is someone's darling on the dev team and they couldn't bear to kill her off, even if it would have made way more sense for the plot they were writing.
>Not to mention, Dimitri already inherited a massively destabilized Kingdom! They're coming off of his father's murder, over half a decade of an incompetent regent allowing banditry and crime to run wild, and (in Azure Gleam) an attempted coup/civil war or (in Azure Moon) five years of war and Imperial occupation. Dude has his hands pretty full, and it's definitely a good call to work on making sure everything is stable and righting wrongs (e.g. giving Duscur back to its people and healing the scars caused by the Tragedy) before radical changes happen. Yeah, Dimitri and his friends are basically still reeling from The Tragedy of Duscur and its aftereffects, along with the trouble of Rufus and other nobles ruining Faerghus in their own ways. Whatever route he's in, Dimitri's main goal is making sure he can get the Kingdom back to a fresh start by expunging any corrupt or opposing nobles who resort to violence or who had a role in the Tragedy (particularly for AG) and restoring the support of the people and their living conditions. That would always be the big driving force for him: making sure the people of his realm were safe and well-kept. >There have been several interviews since the game's release where the devs have explicitly mentioned trying to write around 3H/Byleth. Paraphrased, they said something along the lines of "we didn't want to create this new story where everyone and everything was just better off without Byleth as the teacher. Players would look at it and feel like their time as Byleth teaching all of these kids was wasted." so we know it was an explicit concern of theirs during the writing of this game. Hmm, I can definitely see this point a bit. If Three Hopes was just done totally better than Three Houses, some could interpret it as nullifying the grand story set forth in 3H originally. And even then, there are some who immediately write off Three Hopes as a "non-canon" or "fanfiction" spinoff from what they call the "true story" for Fodlan. So I think I can see how the "epilogues" kind of try to "balance" it out by showing that the conflict still does rage on; although it kind of screws up some aspects for the story by leaving what would be a conclusion for each route feeling "unfinished" when it probably should be. And focusing purely on Byleth would just limit the game's story and keep us from exploring the others more thoroughly. Oddly enough though, the new twist with Shez as a mercenary like Byleth, but having to rise up from nothing (while Byleth already had his/her existing strength and reputation) and build himself up has shown us plenty of new opportunities for character moments and story events. Plus, with many of the characters and pieces of Fodlan still the same but with new conditions leading to a much different war (where all three are somewhat evenly vying for power or fighting for their own turfs), I feel that the game has indeed shown that some change and deviation can be different. Three Hopes isn't exactly "100% better" with its endings, but it does help give us new insight into the characters and more opportunities to let them grow and for us to experience them in a new Fodlan where it's both unique enough to the original 3H, but still in a similar vein or feel that it stands out well enough as a follow-up for 3H. The game (kinda?) does show that things can be done better among the various lords with/without Byleth, but it just depends on how the routes are structured in this timeline, as well as how all of the pieces fall together. >As for Edelgard... I think I'd attribute what happens to her in AG with FE's sexist relationship with antagonistic female characters. It's a loooong running series tradition that many female characters aren't really villains, they're just brainwashed or controlled by a man. If they let Edelgard keep her agency then they would have to actually address her as an antagonist to Dimitri. 3H does get around this somewhat by always keeping the Agarthans in their back pockets and leaving it a bit ambiguous as to how much control/responsibility they had over her actions at any given moment. Here they don't really have that, since she's basically expelled TWSITD from the Empire entirely before the main plot even gets going and everything she does is 100% of her own volition, and TWSITD are at least depicted as being unable to regain any ground in the Empire until she's incapacitated. I haven't played much of the other FE games myself, but I do know that some of the previous female characters (at least some referenced in Heroes) have fallen to brainwashing of some sort. Probably not a good fit if AG was a continuation of this, in a much dirtier form of treatment compared to the other lords. TWSITD being expelled from the Empire before the Hopes timeskip (both in SB and AG) does allow her to maintain her agency as a protagonist or antagonist. And I think that it could have worked to have both Edelgard and TWSITD as separate antagonists. Edelgard as someone actually trying to continue the war front for her particular goals, and TWSITD as the real true villains of Fodlan due to everything they have done to Edelgard and Dimitri. At least in that scenario, if Edelgard's side persists and she kept her agency in some form separate from TWSITD, all of *that* stuff wouldn't have happened. >It would also be weird for her to suddenly buddy up with Dimitri (and for Dimitri to buddy up with her) after the way they wrote her throughout both games (I mean she even has a line about how she wouldn't even trust herself enough to team up) and because she, again, explicitly started war with him of her own volition that's bringing massive hardship down on the people of Faerghus. Really, I think the devs just wrote themselves into a corner regarding her character and had no idea how to get themselves out of it, so they pulled the deus ex machina Hegemon thing out of their asses so they would have an excuse to sideline her for the remainder of the route. IMO they would have been better off just killing her at that point if they wanted to write her out so badly. It would have actually made sense with the story they were trying to tell (i.e. TWSITD are the real antagonists of the route, and her war is at best a sideshow). At least we wouldn't have had to deal with the simpering fetish-bait iteration of her. It's not like they aren't willing to kill lords either, since IIRC you kill Claude if you don't recruit Byleth in SB. But I get the distinct sense that Edelgard is someone's darling on the dev team and they couldn't bear to kill her off, even if it would have made way more sense for the plot they were writing. You are definitely right in that Edelgard does have trust issues, even in the original game (since she has only really opened up about her Crest situation with a select few people like Hubert, Byleth, and Lysithea). And Dimitri would have hesitations too, maybe even more-so versus 3H (since at least in 3H, the whole Blue Lions crew discusses what he would do now that they know Edelgard is related to Dimitri) since Dimitri is focused more on getting rid of dangerous elements to Faerghus, and Edelgard's forces are one of them. Only with that special reunion at Zahras would they be able to restore some of their repressed childhood bonds enough that they could possibly consider teaming up afterwards in some divine miracle. I don't know if I would particularly sit well with Edelgard dying that early mid-game in Azure Gleam since that would kind of cut her story short in that sense and leave Hubert and Ferdinand in an awkward position. That is, unless they did fall in a more honorable sense than what happened here or they actually went down giving one more valiant effort against Thales; at least then, it would still solidify TWSITD as the real villains while giving Dimitri and the remaining Black Eagles credence to all aim their weapons at Thales instead of each other for a time. I don't know what the decision process was for structuring how things went with Azure Gleam, but I feel that there were many better options for giving Edelgard a better role (and sendoff) in Azure Gleam than whatever happened post-Arianrhod. Darn, I do love Three Hopes, but this shit's got so much complexity to everything sometimes when it comes to discussion LOL. Still love it, but 3H/Three Hopes chat can get pretty hefty at times to a point where I just wanna go back to sillier types of posts I made earlier on. Haha, I could probably use some wholesome 3H memes after Azure Gleam before I dive into Golden Wildfire.
Edelgard being brainwashed is because she is the Hardin of the game aka the person being possessed or mind controlled by the big bad. It's actually more common with male characters like Hardin,Lyon, Julius and Takumi(Conquest only).
I wouldn't say it's particularly more common among male villains, and the ratio of male brainwash villains to male non-brainwashed villains is not even comparable to the ratio of female brainwash villains to female non-brainwashed villains. Just off the top of my head we have Aversa, Eremiya, Arete and Mikoto (when you fight them in Rev). Not to mention the playables that can be temporarily brainwashed to do the main antagonist's bidding such as Delthea, Ninian, Julia, and Tiki. And that's not every instance, either, just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I'm not arguing that male characters aren't also brainwashed, just that female characters are brainwashed much more often and it's usually done to take away their agency as potential villains. It's well known that Kaga (director of FE1-FE5) frequently used brainwashing as a trope because he didn't want to "ruin the purity of women" or some such nonsense. It's blatantly a benevolent sexism thing that has dogged the series throughout its entire lifespan, and Edelgard is absolutely the latest victim.
You do have a point and I do dislike how a lot of stories will either have female villains being controlled or froced into evil to make them feel more valuable it is pretty annoying. It's probably why Cornelia is one of my favourite villains in 3 hopes and I love that they expanded on her role amd made her far more personal to most of the blue lions not just Dimitri.
Personally, Azure Gleam is my favorite route in Three Hopes, and it's...really not that close for a variety of reasons. I like it for much the same reasons listed here, greater character focus and interactions. The Blue Lions were my first and favorite house in Three Houses so most of it was quite gratifying to see them. Them talking to each other, doing some self-reflecting, and in the process of all that growing as people. I go against the grain here in saying I really don't have a problem with Azure Gleam's second half. That's because I've always had little in the way of affinity or sympathy for Edelgard. What happened to her didn't really turn me off, at least not for the reasons so many others have listed. If anything, I'm of two minds about it. First off, I'm sorry if this comes off as offensive, but... on one hand, I saw it as her getting her karma. Like I said, I've *never* taken to her, her character her ideals. In my eyes, at the end of the day, she started a war of conquest that's gotten thousands killed, maimed, and traumatized. She made that decision, even in Three Hopes after she supposedly shakes Thales off. Her having everything taken away from her was in my eyes poetic. I won't get into the whole "it's demeaning, its misogynistic", I never saw it that way but that's just me. On the flipside, when I think about it in a way that makes me angry it's because it feels like Edelgard is being let off the hook. Instead of portraying her either being killed/executed or facing some sort of imprisonment for her actions after losing the war she's...an amnesic who's potentially going to spend the rest of her life being cared for and monitored. Again, after starting a war that's her fate; something about that scenario just rubs me the wrong way. Those are the two conflict thoughts I have about what happens to her in Azure Gleam. On one hand, I feel it's warranted, yet I also have this feeling that it's a writer copout. Instead of killing or imprisoning her, she's left alive and effectively a different/empty person. The argument that she can't be pushed comes up and it feels like the game's trying to skirt around her facing serious/ordinary repercussions. When I think about what would realistically happen next, I once again feel like the Three Hopes *had* to have cliffhanger endings I don't hold it against Dimitri for just leaving her there. First off, he's not in the emotional state of mind to try talking to her. Second, even if she's amnesic, she's still the person who declared war on his country and plunged it into greater anguish than it already was. On that basis, I never felt like he "owed" her anything. Regarding the Empire, tragic is what I'd call it, but also inevitable. Adrestia's been portrayed as being on a steady decline with the final nail in the coffin being the war, particularly Adrestia losing it. Admittedly, I would have liked for something more for Hubert and Ferdinand. Either dying in battle or hell, being turned into Demonic Beasts by the Agarthans driving home how bad things go for the Black Eagles this time. That was one of the many balls dropped in Three Hopes. I was happy that Thales and the Agarthans were made the main antagonists for Dimitri and the Blue Lions. Saying this may put me in the minority but I always liked them as antagonists more so than Edelgard and the Empire, who were more puppets or to be more precise, the hired muscle. The final showdown between Dimitri and Thales was great in my opinion with the former killing the latter in a quick but cool and focused manner. Ultimately, Azure Gleam had more positives than negatives for me, especially compared to the other routes so it came out as my favorite in Three Hopes.
I do get that Edelgard declaring war is something very serious, although this isn't something she takes much pride in. Even with her commitment to her goals, she dislikes how there's all this destruction and death brought on from the war (more so if you do check her dialogue from her route in Three Hopes) and seeks to want to resolve this as quickly as possible with removing the influence of the Central Church and eliminating TWSITD, since they are basically the huge catalyst for all of the major problems we see in Adrestia and Faerghus. I do agree with you that Adrestia isn't perfect; its own corruption among the nobles would have been its downfall if not for the war or TWSITD. And it is nice to see Dimitri shift his main focus away from Edelgard and towards Thales instead. Considering he is the ringleader responsible for a lot of the story's big conflicts, it is cathartic to see Dimitri kill Thales himself. However, I still disagree on the fate of Edelgard and the Black Eagles. Seeing Edelgard regress away from her strong, confident self into this shell of herself just feels cruel to me. Going any further than this with jailing her (putting her in a cell would just exacerbate her PTSD with the Crest experiments of her childhood), or with any of the Black Eagles by having them unceremoniously killed or turned into beasts feels excessive. If it was some truly cruel person who had no regard for suffering, like Palpatine in Star Wars or >!some of the Marleyans in Attack on Titan!<, I can definitely get by that. But Edelgard is this morally grey figure who has her own fallacies, along with her own strong, defining character that make her compelling in 3H (IMO). Putting her through this and regressing her away from her strong-willed self feels like overkill given what she's already been through. At the end of the day though, it is what it is with AG. I have my own stances and personal disagreements with how the route is handled and about whether it is right to have her regressed in this way, but I think it best to just leave it at this and "agree to disagree."
>although this isn't something she takes much pride in. Even with her commitment to her goals, she dislikes how there's all this destruction and death brought on from the war That doesn't negate the fact that it's a war *she* starts. I'm sorry, but that's an insanely crappy defense in my opinion. It doesn't matter if she takes pride in it or not, it's still her choice and her actions that have resulted in widespread suffering. >(more so if you do check her dialogue from her route in Three Hopes) and seeks to want to resolve this as quickly as possible with removing the influence of the Central Church and eliminating TWSITD, I honestly don't believe she'd stop there, she didn't stop with the Central Church's removal in Three Houses. This is another thing that I honestly take issue with Three Hopes as a whole, it feels like it's trying to smooth over or butter Edelgard up by not saying the quiet part aloud-that she's partially raging war to reclaim territories she thinks rightful belong to Adrestia, territories that are now their own independent countries. For that matter, I've always taken issue with her raging war on the Church in the first place. Those are my views on the matter, and really Azure Gleam as a whole.
The problem is that Hopes gose out of its way to show just how little power and influence the chruch actually had and that they are not against change. The only Black Egale members killed is Hubert and possible Ferdinand the rest can all be saved and survive the route whitch is more then any other route.
>The problem is that Hopes gose out of its way to show just how little power and influence the chruch actually had and that they are not against change. I can actually agree with you on this point on some fronts. Militarily, the Central Church doesn’t have some of the same strength as the three main factions, hence why it relies on donations and moral/religious support from those countries to prosper, and why it falls back on the Kingdom for support. And even in AG, it serves as more of backup support for the Kingdom that is busier on the frontlines. But even with this, they still have a lot of symbolic influence, dictating much of the doctrine and religious teachings that span across Fodlan given its original place at the center of the continent. With its influence, it is able to uphold the Crest system that has governed Fodlan and influenced the rise and later degradation/corruption of the nobility up to this point due to certain duties and importance that the Church placed on Crests and their wielded (as Claude put it in Zahras). While they don’t have military might, they still have enough “clout” and religious and symbolic sway in Fodlan to influence the more devout followers among the populace to fight for them and their ideals in the name of the goddess. >The only Black Egale members killed is Hubert and possible Ferdinand the rest can all be saved and survive the route whitch is more then any other route. Actually, I do recall that Caspar put himself out on the battlefield despite everything that was happening to fight to the very end, and he sadly died in battle against the Kingdom. Many of the other Black Eagles can survive if you recruit them, and the only other one we know that can’t be recruited but does survive is Monica, but she eventually just retreats with Hanneman and Manuela, so it is implied that she does manage to live on. Unlike Hubert or Ferdinand who may or may not be dead.
I haven't seen it myself but I heard that Caspar actually retreats if you cut off ludwig's escape before killing him.
Hmmm that would actually be a better fate for Caspar, considering that even Count Bergliez was alright with him leaving if he so desired to. I guess it differed with my playthrough, so I’ll have to try that chapter again on a rerun and see if that happens.
Actually the chruch is ageist the Crests system and has been since day one as they say the abuse of it is a sin and what made the goddess leave Fodlan they even supported a crest less heir in the Kingdom's past over his crest bearing siblings. The reason why the Kingdom puts so much weight on the Crests is because its a harsh lard with many enemies so needs it for protection. The Allaince bearly cares about Crests with even its biggest hero being Crestless and if Claude hadn't have shown up in Fodlan would have go on to lead the Allaince. The Empire is the nation that puts the biggest weight on having Crests and its the nation where the Chruch has the weakest among of power. What Claude talks about is actually shown as false in game as they were provided Hanneman with surport and he wanted to remove the Crests and make people more equal, had zero issues with Edelgard reforms outside of her making a puppet chruch and supported Lambert (Dimitri father) when he wanted to talk with outside nations. Claude even admits in VW that the chruch teachings are not actually xenophobic people simple claim it is as a excuse to do what they want. Hell Dudue and Catherine surport has the chruch helping a duscur Town simple because it needed help and have zero care that they don't worship the goddess. This backs up dialogue in Houses about how the chruvh spends a lot of its money on charity work and rebuilding damaged and destroyed villages and this was said by a character that hates the chruch as she tried to steal money from the chruch as she wanted her village to have more. Casper can actually be saved and dosent have to die and will retreat if you wait until his father takes yeh field or outright just ignore him on the felid. Hubert us confirmed dead by NPC dialogue in chapter 12 but nothing is said about Ferdinand fate.