Characters / Fire Emblem: Three Houses – Rhea

Fire Emblem: Three Houses characters index
Main Characters: Byleth | Edelgard | Dimitri | Claude | Rhea | Other Main Characters
Houses: The Black Eagles (Part One, Part Two) | The Blue Lions (Part One, Part Two) | The Golden Deer (Part One, Part Two)
Garreg Mach Factions: The Ashen Wolves | The Church of Seiros | Officers Academy Instructors and Staff
The Three Nations of Fódlan: The Adrestian Empire | The Holy Kingdom of Faerghus | The Leicester Alliance
Other: Historical Figures | The Flame Emperor Army | Those who slither in the dark | Other Characters

Rhea

Class: Archbishop

Age: ?? (1/11)

Crest: Seiros (Major)

Voiced by: Kikuko Inoue (Japanese), Cherami Leigh (English)

^{Click here to see Rhea in Fire Emblem Heroes}

^{MASSIVE spoilers} The Immaculate One

Loving Matriarch

"Do mind that as you are appraising your students, they are appraising you as well."

The current archbishop of the Church of Seiros, who has been serving since Jeralt's days in the knighthood. She connects with people like a calm, affectionate mother, but dispenses strict judgement upon enemies of the Church.

Her personal skill, Sacred Power, increases damage dealt and reduces damage taken by adjacent allies. She bears the Major Crest of Seiros, which has a chance to increase her Might when using Combat Arts.

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# — E

• 11th-Hour Ranger: On the Azure Gleam route of Three Hopes, she accompanies you for the final battle against Thales and Edelgard as an allied NPC unit.
• Abdicate the Throne: At the end of the Azure Moon route, Rhea, weakened from five years in captivity in the Imperial capital Enbarr, resigns from being archbishop and formally gives leadership of the Church of Seiros to Byleth. This also happens if she survives the Silver Snow route but isn't S supported by Byleth.
• Adaptational Heroism: Compared to Three Houses, Rhea in Three Hopes never ends up going insane by being betrayed at her most delicate moment, or for succumbing to injuries and unresolved trauma. As a result, both Edelgard and Claude end up opposing her mainly for political and ideological reasons.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In Three Hopes, Rhea is never made aware of Byleth's existence due to Shez taking their place as the one to save the house leaders and lords. She only becomes aware in Scarlet Blaze and Golden Wildfire's alternate routes where Byleth and Jeralt are recruited and is shocked to learn Sitri's child is still alive and opposing her. In the alternate path of Azure Gleam, Dimitri does his best to limit Jeralt and Byleth's interactions with the church and places them in separate units as part of his agreement with Jeralt for recruiting his mercenaries, Jeralt explaining he wants to avoid Rhea as much as possible due to his complicated past with her.
• Alien Blood: In the routes where she's visibly damaged in her Immaculate One form, it's possible to see green blood coming out from her wounds.
• All-Powerful Bystander: Played straight in Azure Gleam. In spite of being an important ally to Dimitri and the Kingdom, Rhea never gets involved in the power struggles Faerghus faces early on at the hands of Cornelia and the western lords.
• Ambiguously Evil: The more one delves into her backstory, the more one discovers a lot of skeletons in her closet. On the other hand, those who describe her as an out-and-out villain (Edelgard, Aelfric, the Agarthans) are not ironclad sources of the truth themselves.
• Ambiguous Situation: Rhea's plan to revive her mom in Byleth's body ultimately turns out to be this. While it's eventually revealed she sees Byleth both as their own person and a vessel carrying Sothis' consciousness, and that, per her words in her S-Rank support, she wanted them to become Sothis, in the long run it's left unclear what this would've implied for Byleth's self had her "experiment" worked as intended (as in, if Sothis was meant to take over their body or simply share it with them). Not helping matters is that the whole ordeal remains rife with speculation on her part to begin with, given that Byleth turning out to be her only relatively successful attempt so far means she's more or less walking into uncharted waters. And in a related vein, it's also ambiguous if Rhea's view of Byleth's own self remained consistent during the story prior to revealing her intentions (as in, if there was a point where she saw them as an extension of Sothis, or some kind of false identity).
• Ancestral Weapon: The Sword and Shield of Seiros are hers, having been passed down between Archbishops for generations and both perfectly synergizing with her Major Crest of Seiros. Considering that she is Seiros, it naturally makes sense that she keeps these on her person. On all routes that aren't Crimson Flower, Edelgard will steal the Sword of Seiros for personal use,^noteShe'll only potentially use it during the Gronder Field rematch on the Azure Moon and Verdant Wind routes, however, and it's unlikely this will happen and she'll ditch the sword when fought at Enbarr. On Silver Snow, it's only used once in a cutscene. and is otherwise not obtainable to the player; however, the Seiros Shield will be free for Byleth and company to take if they do Rhea's Paralogue. On the Crimson Flower route, Rhea will use both weapons during the siege of Garreg Mach on Chapter 12, and during the battle at Tailtean where you also fight Dimitri on Chapter 17.
• Anti-Hero: In most routes, while Rhea is a major case of Good Is Not Nice due to her tendency towards deceit and merciless actions, she will always be on your side as long your chosen faction never opposes her directly.
• Anti-Villain: Despite her good intentions, she is still partly responsible for a significant amount of problems in the story. By propagating a false history, encouraging the Crest system by rewriting Crests and Relics as divine weapons and promoting isolationism through Church tenets, she has played a part in the unequal society that is Fódlan, and motivates the actions of Dimitri, Edelgard, and Claude to change the system. In the first half of the story, her primary reason for hiring Byleth is to test and prepare them as a vessel to revive Sothis, possibly at the cost of their individuality. Additionally, she had every intention of keeping her secrets until the return of Sothis, and thus has been letting these lies fester for over a millennium. No matter if people view her as a hero or a villain, one constant in all of Three Houses' routes is that the church is reformed to help repair the problems caused for the last millennium.
• Arch-Enemy: Ironically enough, despite Edelgard being the instigator of the conflict, Rhea has a personal level of rage and hatred towards Byleth should you play the Crimson Flower route and side with Edelgard. All the underlying resentment and hatred Rhea carried over the millennia towards Nemesis for killing her mother and family gets projected over onto Byleth to the extent that, amidst her Sanity Slippage, Rhea outright convinces herself Byleth is Nemesis reborn. As such, she decides to leave Edelgard to Dimitri, while she deals with Byleth herself.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Her dragon form, the Immaculate One, gives her incredible power, and makes her one of the most powerful beings on the continent without question. However, on the Crimson Flower route, it's speculated that she cannot use her powers often due to some manner of limitation, which is confirmed on the Silver Snow route, as overusing it causes her to lose control of her power and go into a berserk rampage. It's also implied that her own health is a contributing factor in using it, as she is unable to use it when captured on the non-Crimson Flower routes due to being nearly starved to death, and when she uses it on the Verdant Wind route to save the group from the Javelins of Light, she is gravely wounded and weakened and later dies (possibly), albeit she survives the events on the Silver Snow route (if Byleth A or S supports her).
• Ax-Crazy:
  • On the Silver Snow route, overuse of her powers combined with possibly other factors causes her to lose control, wherein she becomes completely feral and achieves a transformation that even Seteth hasn't seen her use before.
  • On the Crimson Flower route, should you side with Edelgard in the Holy Tomb, by the end of the game she's degenerated into a violent maniac who is perfectly willing to burn Fhirdiad to the ground in order to exact her revenge and gleefully screams about how she wants to rip your heart out.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: This kindly old church head is one of only two Faculty Training options to teach Brawling.
• Becoming the Mask: If Byleth S-supports her, she admits that her interest in them has extended beyond their potential as a vessel for her mother, and she's genuinely fallen in love with Byleth themself. Along with this S support on the Silver Snow route, she becomes a genuinely virtuous archbishop, no longer bound by hidden and selfish agendas.
• Benevolent Boss: All flaws aside, Rhea is pretty chill and kind to those who are on her side, gathering a lot of admiration and loyal followers at the monastery. On the Crimson Flower route, should Byleth spare Seteth and Flayn, the former will send Rhea a letter explaining how they’re no longer in any state to keep fighting against the Empire and that they'll go into hiding. She handles the news pretty well, all things considered.
• Big Bad:
  • In Three Houses, on the Crimson Flower route, she takes this role. Removing her influence on Fódlan is Edelgard's primary goal, and the conflict quickly turns personal when Byleth refuses to execute Edelgard, driving Rhea insane from this perceived betrayal.
  • In Warriors: Three Hopes, she has a role as a major opponent on two of the three routes, moreso on Golden Wildfire where Claude sees removing her as a necessity for his vision of Fódlan to happen, but downplayed on Scarlet Blaze where Edelgard sees the systems of Fódlan and the Central Church as a bigger issue than Rhea specifically. Another notable difference is that Rhea does not go insane or commit any atrocities during the story of Three Hopes.
• Big Bad Ensemble: On Crimson Flower and Scarlet Blaze, she serves as one of Edelgard's main enemies alongside Thales. In both paths, while the latter is the far more malevolent character of the two, it's the crusade against Rhea's influence and legacy on Fódlan that claims the bulk of her route.
• Big Good: Although an Anti-Hero and major source of Good Is Not Nice that can become the Big Bad under specific conditions, she is still the largely benevolent leader of the Church, and has opposed those who slither in the dark since ancient times, who by the time of the game, are behind several problems that plague the Monastery and Fódlan.
• Black-and-White Insanity: One of her darker aspects is that she refuses to acknowledge any sympathetic aspect of her enemies. She paints Lonato as a dangerous rebel and unreasonable, when many others testify that he was a good man and a victim of the Church, and Rhea knows his son was executed for attempted assassination and covered it up herself. She considers Miklan to be wholly evil and deserving of his horrific transformation into a black beast, despite being disinherited by his family for something outside of his control. And if Byleth sides with Edelgard in Crimson Flower, Rhea goes totally off the deep end from the idea that the host of her mother's soul would turn against her.
• Blow You Away: She has this power by virtue of being a Sky Dragon. Unlike her relative Macuil, who's a Wind Dragon, her power is more strongly associated with cold wind, as her Staggering Blow attacks in the Crimson Flower and Silver Snow routes are themed after snow and auroras (and are thus fittingly called Aurora Breath and Hoarfrost, respectively).
• Body Horror: On the Silver Snow route, Rhea’s dragon form slowly starts to deteriorate the more power it gathers, to the point her entire body ends up looking like it’s burning from the insides and starting to get engulfed in what appears to be brambles coming out from within her body.
• Book Ends: As far as the cinematic scenes go, Rhea's story from the start of the game to the end of Silver Snow features this. The game's opening cinematic ends with Rhea cradling the Sword of the Creator (what is left of her mother's body) in her arms, blood smeared across her cheek as she says in a daze "he's gone now mother". The game's ending cinematic has her cradled in Byleth's (i.e. the vessel for her mother's heart) arms, blood smeared across her cheek as she looks up in a daze and says "mother, you're here." Narratively, the opening cinematic depicts the start of Rhea's obsession with bringing her mother back, while the ending cinematic is her at last finding some kind of peace regarding her mother as she dies (or, if A or S-ranked, finds the closure and peace to finally move on). This peace is elaborated on in her S-rank where she reveals the reason she thought her mother was there when she looked at Byleth in a daze was because she had been speaking with Sothis during what was essentially a near-death experience.
• Breath Weapon: In her Immaculate One form, she has this. Rather than fire breath, she is able to shoot a blast of hot, destructive energy from her jaws that can outright disintegrate a human in full armor with ease.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • She became this to Jeralt as a result of him doubting her explanation of the circumstances of Sitri's death, and questioning why Byleth did not cry or laugh after being born, and also lacked a heartbeat (he found out the latter in secret and did not ask Rhea about it).
  • On the Crimson Flower route, she becomes this to the more religious students as well to some of the populace, as the revelation that the Immaculate One and the Archbishop are the same person effectively contradicts Seiros' teachings and leads many of them to believe she's been abusing her power for her own agenda. Mercedes, for example, believes that Sothis would be very disappointed with Rhea if she knew what she had done with the Church of Seiros, while Marianne finds herself disgusted with the lengths she goes to.
• Character Death: She will always die at the end of the Crimson Flower and Golden Wildfire paths by being your faction's main antagonist and choosing to go down fighting in one last attempt to destroy her enemies. In the Silver Snow path, she will die due to the events of the final chapter unless Byleth obtained her A support before Part II of the game. Verdant Wind implies she dies of her wounds off-screen. Finally, in Scarlet Blaze she ends up sacrificing herself by clashing with Thales' magic to ensure his demise, potentially dying in the process as well.
• Character Development: In Three Houses outside Crimson Flower, after being rescued from the Imperial Palace in Enbarr where she was imprisoned for 5 years after the fall of Garreg Mach, she comes to accept not just that Byleth is not and never will be Sothis, but also that even so, they are still worthy of leading the Church, or even Fódlan as a whole (depending on route), and willingly steps aside to allow major reforms to take place. On Verdant Wind and Silver Snow, she becomes willing to trust humans with Fódlan's true history, and comes to regret her manipulation of said history (expressed most explicitly in her S rank on Silver Snow). If S-ranked, she at last is able to move past her grief, letting go of the past and her self-imposed solitude, recognizes her actions might have contributed to the war having taken place, and becomes a reformist in her own right, working with Byleth in changing Fódlan for the better in ways that people describe as miraculous. On the Azure Moon route (and, potentially in Silver Snow as well), she steps down and quietly lives her life in Zanado Canyon, implying she finally found peace after years of grief over the massacre.
  Rhea: Somehow I feel as though your acceptance alone is my salvation.
• Climax Boss: Three Houses only:
  • If you are a Black Eagle and defect to Edelgard's side in the Holy Tomb, she is the final boss of Part I.
  • On the Crimson Flower route, she's fought on the Tailtean Plains wearing her Saint Seiros garb alongside the Kingdom forces right before the Final Boss.
• Consummate Liar: Rhea seems to have an impulsive need to hide the truth from people that prevents her from handling her feelings. Instead of talking to anyone she piles lie after lie on top of each other for 995 years. It's so bad that the one time Claude loses his temper in the entire game is when she keeps hiding things when everything she lied about is falling down on their heads. If she had just been able to open up to someone about her pain and loneliness, many issues might have been avoided.
  • Her explanations to Byleth on their status as Sothis's reincarnation are very much this, via omission of information and being methaphorical about it. Her story changes depending on who listens, as with Byleth, Rhea repeatedly implies that they are in some sense an amnesiac Sothis who will soon regain their memories. Meanwhile, when Seteth presses Rhea for answers in private, she explains further and says Byleth is, more specifically, a vessel containing her power, and that once both become one, "the progenitor god" will have finally returned. It's only on VW and SS that she admits she knew the entire time that Sothis's consciousness was awake in Byleth, and that she wanted them to become Sothis.
  • By her own admission in the Verdant Wind route, Rhea fostered the Empire's foundation just to build an army strong enough to defeat the man who genocided her race and killed her mother. The fact that Wilhelm I's account of the War of Heroes –Adrestia's first emperor and Rhea's greatest ally of that era– completely neglects to mention Seiros's personal vendetta in his records and assumes the war happened due to Seiros clashing ideologically with Nemesis over which species deserved to rule mankind, heavily implies she never disclosed him her true intentions. What Wilhelm knew of the Children of the Goddess at the very least involved the knowledge she could transform into a dragon to come to such conclusion, as it is recorded that the Immaculate One was a huge asset to Seiros against her enemies back in the War of Heroes.
• Control Freak:
  • Her need to control knowledge of Fódlan's past and influence the people to accept Sothis as their goddess (preparing for her hoped-for return to power) is part of what drove her to contribute to the absolute mess that became Fódlan's society and lie to everyone about the history of Sothis. Her obsessive need for control is what she has most in common with Edelgard. Their actions born from this trait are likewise part of what brings them into conflict with each other to begin with.
  • Her interactions with Byleth can be seen in this light. Rhea has very exact expectations for how Byleth as the vessel of her Mother should act, and she disapproves if Byleth isn't willing to return the Lance of Ruin once it has been recovered from Miklan or if they're unaware of details that Sothis would definitely know, such as the name of the goddess, the significance of Zanado, and the appearance of her throne in the Holy Tomb. On the Crimson Flower route, she is furious when Byleth defies her orders in the Holy Tomb and refuses to execute Edelgard for her crimes, and immediately labels them a failure for it.
  • In Three Hopes, Rhea does not take well that Edelgard rebuilt the Southern Church for the purpose of eroding the Central Church's legitimacy in the Empire and twisted its teachings to promote her own reforms, which is why she starts censuring Count Varley shortly after she confirmed him to the office of Bishop of the Southern Church, and even sends assassins to claim his head. In Golden Wildfire, Rhea also doesn't approve the Leicester Alliance becoming a federation without her explicit approval, and is (arguably understandably) unwilling to abide by Claude's belief that the new Fódlan he seeks to make requires the dissolution of the Central Church and for her to either die or leave the continent.
• Cool Crown: Rhea says that while it is elaborate, it has been passed down through generations of archbishops.
• Create Your Own Hero: On the Crimson Flower route, her experiments are what led to Byleth becoming Sothis' mortal vessel. Byleth takes all the power she gave them and kills her with it. (She's technically still responsible for creating Byleth in the other routes, but isn't a villain on any other route.)
• Creating Life: On the Silver Snow route, Rhea reveals that during her long life, she created multiple human vessels and implanted them her mother Sothis’ Crest Stone in an attempt to resurrect her, all of which turned up to be failures as none manifested her consciousness. The last vessel she created was Sitri, Byleth’s mother.
• Curtains Match the Window: Her eyes are the same shade of mint green as her hair.
• Damsel in Distress: In most of the Three Houses' storylines, she is captured by the Empire after the battle at Garreg Mach and imprisoned in the Empire's capital, Enbarr. Rescuing her is part of the reason to go to Enbarr on those routes (the other part being, naturally, defeating Edelgard).
• Death Glare: Performs an utterly terrifying one to Byleth in Three Houses should they choose to protect Edelgard instead of executing her on the spot during the moment of fate on the Black Eagles route.
• Death of Personality: The real reason Rhea in Three Houses hired Byleth as a professor for the Officers Academy was to observe and test them to see if they would prove her belief that they are a successful vessel to revive Sothis, her mother. Given her words to Seteth about Byleth's status as a vessel, and how, in her S-Support with Byleth, admits she wanted them to "become the progenitor god", it's all but stated Rhea possibly intended to invoke this trope by having Byleth sit on Sothis' throne in the Holy Tomb under the pretext they would "receive a revelation from the goddess".
• Defiant to the End: In the final chapter of the Crimson Flower route, Edelgard offers to spare her and her soldiers if they surrender, but Rhea doesn't have any of it. She intends to kill your party no matter the cost.
• Demoted to Extra: On the Azure Moon route, the last time we see Rhea onscreen is after she turns into a dragon right before Byleth falls off the cliff and into a coma. Post timeskip, we learn Rhea has been taken captive by the Empire and spends the rest of the game in captivity. We don't even see her after Edelgard's army has been put down, the ending narration just states that Rhea steps down from being archbishop of the church to allow Byleth to take her place.
• Developers' Desired Date: Much like the three lords in their respective routes, Rhea can be considered this to Byleth in Silver Snow. Rhea is unique in that she is the only character capable of achieving an A-Rank support with Byleth prior to the timeskip, implying that their bond with Rhea can be considered the strongest of any bond. And despite Byleth being a Heroic Mime player avatar, most of their dialogue choices during the Silver Snow route leans more towards their desire to specifically rescue Rhea.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Rhea's penchant for dealing with major problems in Fódlan, that being with excessive force against enemies and stacking secrets upon secrets, is a major reason why the Flame Emperor is hellbent on opposing the Church. Even knowing that those who slither in the dark are abusing her vendetta against Rhea for their own purposes, Edelgard has a hard time seeing Rhea as anything other than a tyrannical Control Freak, and despite Rhea's care for Fódlan being genuine, her doubling down on her methods in recent days does a spectacularly poor job at proving Edelgard wrong. The ultimate example of the trope comes if you side with Edelgard in Crimson Flower, which causes Rhea to snap and become exactly what Edelgard believed she was.
• Dirty Coward: On the Crimson Flower route, after Dimitri falls in battle, Edelgard paints her as this for seeking asylum in Faerghus and then manipulating him and his army to fight to the death to protect her. On the other hand, the fact that she shows some concern for Dimitri in the opening of Chapter 17 and questions having the King directly intercept Edelgard's army makes it plausible that she didn't intend to do this and simply fled a losing battle.
• Disc-One Final Boss: On the Crimson Flower route, she is the final enemy you fight before the timeskip, and must be defeated to win the level. Defeating her causes her to transform into her dragon form in a rage before attacking Byleth and causing them to fall into a coma for five years, beginning the last half of the game.
• Disney Villain Death: In the final cutscene of the Scarlet Blaze route Rhea clashes with Thales's last ditch effort attack, resulting in an explosion that causes the bridge they were fighting on to collapse. It's implied they both fell to their death as Edelgard mentions there is no way they could have survived. Notably Rhea was established in the fight prior to no longer be able to maintain her Immaculate One form which would explain why she couldn't simply transform to save herself. Despite this the ending narration only says that they went missing.
• Dissonant Serenity: She retains her calm and gentle manner of speaking even as she sentences the surviving dissidents from the Western Church to death for encouraging Lonato's rebellion, invading the monastery, attempting to assassinate her, attacking students, and desecrating Seiros' tomb, which prompts some of the students to note just how terrifying she can be. However, siding with Edelgard on the Crimson Flower route causes her to drop this serenity completely, to an incredibly terrifying degree.
• Dying as Yourself: On the Silver Snow route, if Byleth didn't get her A rank support before the Time Skip, after defeating her berserk Immaculate One form, she turns back into her human self and gets to see Byleth one last time before calling them "mother" and passing away.
• Establishing Character Moment: The intro cutscene retroactively serves as one. She initially fights Nemesis with grace and courage, but the mood changes after she pins him, at which point she brutally kills him by stabbing him repeatedly into a bloody pulp while cursing him for destroying everything she loved. The scene showcases both her heroism and her murderous rage and grief hiding under the surface.
• Et Tu, Brute?:
  • On all routes, she is disgusted that Edelgard would spit on the legacy of her ancestors and declare war on the Church. She's generally fairly composed about her betrayal, however, and her tone of voice when fighting her in Crimson Flower Chapter 17 is more mournful than anything else.
  • On the Crimson Flower route, she handles Byleth's defection to the Empire very, very badly. The idea of the person who carries the soul and spine of her mother turning their blade against her drives her completely insane, and she becomes obsessed with ripping their heart out.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Not evil per se, but she has trouble understanding why her mother merely gave Byleth her power and vanished, as if implying that she expected Sothis to overtake Byleth in the process without any reservations.
• Evil Is Hammy: On the Crimson Flower route, after she snaps following Byleth's betrayal, she screams most of her lines towards Empire-aligned characters at the top of her lungs.
• Exhausted Eye Bags: Her portrait sports these when she reappears in the Silver Snow and Verdant Wind paths; five years of captivity weren't exactly kind to her.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: In the Cindered Shadows DLC, she informs a priest that there is no need to worry about the Chalice of Beginnings since it requires the blood of the Four Apostles in order to be used. Upon saying that, something troublesome dawns on her and she immediately orders the priest to look into the Ashen Wolves enlistment papers to search for any forgeries in them. This leads her to realize that the Ashen Wolves bear the Crests of the Four Apostles, and she immediately tries to stop Aelfric from using the Chalice.
• Expy: In an interview, Rhea's English voice actress Cherami Leigh stated that Rhea's character was heavily influenced by Albus Dumbledore, and before she began speaking her lines, her director told her to "Channel your inner Dumbledore" in regards to Rhea's characterization. Leigh thought this was really cool and recalled driving home repeating to herself "I'm Dumbledore!".

F — I

• Face–Monster Turn: On the Silver Snow route, the injuries sustained in Shambhala drive her into a berserk rampage as the Immaculate One, forcing you to either incapacitate her (if you A-supported her) or put her down (if you didn't) as the Final Boss.
• Fallen Hero: On the Crimson Flower route, Byleth's betrayal in the Holy Tomb triggers a psychotic breakdown. By the end of the game, she's degenerated from a Big Good who takes in orphans and tries her best to maintain peace in Fódlan to a deranged and vengeful psychopath who would rather let innocent people die when pushed into a corner, just because she's that desperate to kill Byleth and Edelgard.
• False Prophet: Downplayed. Rhea does not act in accordance with Sothis's will, the latter is nowhere near as omniscient and far-reaching as her Seiros faith claims her to be, and her goals, while benevolent in their intentions, are ultimately based on selfishness and self-preservation. At the end of the Verdant Wind route however, she admits to have once played this trope straight given she gathered followers through her church and "miracles" with the sole intention of raising an army that could let her avenge the Children of the Goddess and kill Nemesis.
• Fantastic Racism: While her personal opinion is ambiguous given her care for Cyril and tendency to treat all students equally, the Church doctrine Rhea has written preaches against interacting with foreign nations (considering that some of their neighbors attack Fódlan quite often, she has a reason for it) and causes social inequality by stating the Crests are gifts from the Goddess and thus putting Crest Bearers above non-crest bearers (however, Church officially opposes this inequality).Additionally, Rhea fervently believes that humanity cannot lead itself to peace and prosperity without the influence of the Church and the rule of Sothis, which fuels her goal to use Byleth as a vessel for Sothis. She softens her views in most routes, acknowledging that Byleth does not need to become Sothis and that it is who they are and their accomplishments that make them fit to rule, blessing them as sole ruler, or co-ruler with Dimitri in Azure Moon (Dimitri governing the continent, Byleth governing the church).
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Her tendency for ruthless retribution on people who attempt violent action against her or support those who do so, making even people who would be devoted wary of her as she does it all with an unhealthy level of Dissonant Serenity. Per her English's voice actress' words, this is because Rhea has a Hair-Trigger Temper, and even if she seems calm on the surface, she will not be satisfied until whatever angered her is completely destroyed. Defying her in this state, as Byleth learns, will only make her angrier. In Three Hopes, it's hinted that this behavior also manifests for any slights against the land's peace, as such is (in her mind) an insult to Sothis's hard work restoring the land and its people.
  • Her inability to trust others, usually manifesting as needing to be Metaphorically True when others ask for information. As a result, even people personally close like Seteth or loyal like Jeralt have questioned or defied her actions. Consequently, she comes across as shady to those who have reason to distrust the Church, and thus keeps them from getting to know her and possibly the other side of the story better. Her unwillingness to trust and open up to others about her inner torments, keeping even her few remaining family members at a certain distance, leads to some of her questionable decisions. And the more morally-questionable things her Church has done throughout Fodlan's history are rooted in the betrayal her family and species suffered at humanity's hands and the atrocities she witnessed humanity commit in the pursuit of progress, leaving her struggling to trust humans with self-rule or unfettered scientific and technological advancement. These things make potential and even actual allies wary of her in a way that actively interferes with her own goals and plans, and turn her into an outright obstacle on several routes.
  • Due to her trauma, Rhea has an unhealthy fixation with Sothis's prior work and values (or rather, what she sees as such) and will do anything to keep them alive in her name, along with treating anyone/anything that goes against them as irredeemable. In Three Hopes, the reason she cannot condone the Empire's war against the Central Church is precisely because her mother worked so hard to bring the continent's land/people back, and disturbing the peace is an affront to those efforts and her memory. When fighting to reclaim Garreg Mach, she fights with the phrase "Return the land you stole from us!", with 'us' all-but-stated to be referring to her mother.
• The Fatalist: In her A-Support, Rhea confides Byleth that she believes both were destined to establish a bond of sorts with the other eventually. She suspects this is because both of their souls share a common link with the progenitor god.
  Rhea: As souls blessed by a connection to the progenitor god, the bonds between us are truly unbreakable. Just as the goddess blessed you with her own power... I, too, received her divine protection. Long, long ago. Though different, our fates are entwined.
• Final Boss:
  • In Three Houses she is the final boss of the Crimson Flower and Silver Snow routes, fought as the Immaculate One, her Sky Dragon form.
  • In Three Hopes she is the final boss of the Golden Wildfire route, being first fought as Seiros before she transforms into the Immaculate One for the final portion. In Scarlet Blaze, she shares this role with Thales.
• First-Name Basis: In Heroes, she, while paired with Byleth, addresses Byleth by name, rather than her title of "Professor." Byleth in return calls her "Lady Rhea."
• Foil:
  • She and Seteth contrast with each other: Rhea is the serene, friendly, and motherly head of the church who has a brutal and merciless side if crossed, while Seteth is a stern, cold, and distrusting bureaucrat who has a warmer side once an individual gains his trust. They both are survivors of a horrific near-genocide of their species, but both deal with their grief differently, Rhea cannot escape her past, and longs to revive her mother, while Seteth is able to move on and find peace by raising his daughter. This continues into Crimson Flower, where Rhea is blinded by rage and passion and will kill anyone to get her revenge, but Seteth sees the bloodshed around him and, if given the chance, chooses to flee. Rhea sees herself, first and foremost, as her mother's daughter, but Seteth instead sees himself as his daughter's father.
  • Rhea also serves as a contrast and parallel to Edelgard in many ways. Both of them were traumatized by events in their past that involved the deaths of most of their family and both are willing to engage in morally questionable acts to prevent such things from ever happening again. The key difference between the two, and why they are opposed to one another, is that Rhea looks back and wants to restore what she has lost and return Fódlan to the golden age of the rule of Sothis, while Edelgard looks forward and wants to shed outdated traditions, like the nobility system, to create a brighter future.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Her faculty training skills include Swords, Reason, Faith and, oddly enough, Brawling. The latter doesn't make much sense with her as a character, until it's revealed she is Seiros herself. The opening cutscene of Seiros fighting Nemesis and using her fists shows she ended up not giving that ability up.
  • Her birthday happens to fall onto Saint Seiros day.
  • Her Leitmotif "Staring at Sirius" is a One-Woman Wail version of "Song of the Nabateans". This hints at her real identity as Seiros.
  • In the Shambhala map from Three Houses' Verdant Wind/Silver Snow routes, a brief exchange happens between Rhea and Thales if two of the latter's minions (Bias and Pittacus) were defeated, where both recognize each other and Rhea tells everyone to kill Thales as he's the boss of "those who slither in the dark". Three Hopes reveals both have been arch-enemies ever since the War of Heroes, which not only explains their mutual familiarity, but also why Rhea prioritizes killing him over Edelgard in the final battle of Scarlet Blaze.
• Freak Out: If you betray her for Edelgard after she is revealed to be the Flame Emperor, she completely and utterly snaps, and she spends the next five years degenerating into a violent maniac obsessed with killing Byleth.
• Freudian Excuse: Much of Rhea's character is rooted in her inability to move past her mother's death. Anything that is viewed as coming between her and Sothis immediately provokes strong emotions, typically furious rage.
• Gay Option: She can be married by a Byleth of either gender, but only on the Silver Snow route.
• Genocide Survivor: Alongside Seteth, Flayn, Indech, and Macuil, Rhea is one of the only Children of the Goddess who are still alive after Nemesis and the Elites wiped out her race at Zanado.
• Gold and White Are Divine: As the archbishop of the Church of Seiros, she's the premiere religious figure on the continent and wears a long white robe, has gold accents in her cloak, and her headdress is primarily gold. And as she's Seiros, she's the Semi-Divine creation and daughter of the goddess Sothis herself.
• Good Counterpart: Outside of the Crimson Flower route, she's this towards previous games' Medeus and Gharnef archetypes.
  • Like the original Medeus, she and her race suffered a grave injustice by humanity, but instead of lashing out like Medeus, Rhea still sought to guide Fódlan despite the flaws in her methods and still accomplishes quite a lot of good with the Church, in particular raising Cyril and saving the life of Catherine, and in the Verdant Wind/Silver Snow routes, risks her life to save Byleth by Taking the Bullet.
  • In the case of the Gharnef archetypes, like Lyon, she practices forbidden magic to attempt to resurrect her dead parent, as she feels her mother was more suited to lead Fódlan, to morally dubious results, and like Sephiran, she's a long-lived religious figure who has watched over humanity for centuries and believes a goddess's divine intervention is needed to save humanity. However, unlike most Gharnef archetypes, the deity she seeks to resurrect is actually benevolent, she never sinks to the depths of other Gharnefs (for example, triggering a war), and if S-supported on Silver Snow, she directly acknowledges that she went a little too far in trying to restore her.
• Good Is Not Soft: She's a major figure in the church, and while she acts like a mother hen, she shows no mercy to the church's enemies. Ultimately, this is deconstructed when her lack of mercy makes her come off as an uncompromising zealot, feeding into the Flame Emperor's desire to remove her from power by any means necessary.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: According to her English voice actress, Rhea's anger can be provoked by even the slightest things, and once she IS angry, she is almost impossible to stop or calm down until whatever upset her is completely annihilated. The actress jokingly said that she would not want to meet Rhea in road rage. That said, in the actual story, her temper seems rather specific in what triggers it, as she quite patiently deals with questions and criticism even from her servants, provided that they heed her when she states the discussion is over. On the other hand, any hint of violent defiance against her or intent to harm her followers or support those who do is another matter.
• Has a Type: In her A-Support conversation, she practically swoons upon seeing that Byleth has the same type of eyes and hair that she does. Played with, however, because in her eyes, it's a sign that Byleth is progressing towards becoming Sothis. That cannot be the only reason for her reaction, though, because her interest is explicitly shown to be sexual attraction.
• Hereditary Homosexuality: She is bisexual just like her mother Sothis and her (from a certain point of view) grandchild Byleth.
• Hero Antagonist: In both the Scarlet Blaze and Golden Wildfire routes of Hopes, she is one of the main antagonistic forces, but she's never shown to commit any atrocities during the war.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • In the default version of chapter 12, she will attempt one against the Empire's forces, fully intending to die holding them off in her dragon form. However, they seek to capture her alive (since Edelgard wants her in reserve as insurance against those who slither in the dark) and do so using a horde of Demonic Beasts to restrain her.
  • On the Verdant Wind route, she is mortally injured stopping Thales' javelins of light from turning Byleth and the Alliance forces into a smoking pile of ash, either dying or being rendered comatose some time later. On Silver Snow, the injuries themselves don't kill her, but do cause her to lose control of her powers and thus force Byleth and company to kill her (unless Byleth reaches at least A rank support with her).
• Hidden Buxom: Her figure is curvy, but well covered by her outfit. This is especially the case when dressed as Seiros, though this may be due to the armor she's wearing suppressing her chest. Then Heroes puts her in a bikini, and it shows she's got a chest to rival Byleth.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Assuming the story is true, Rhea has substantial engineering knowledge.^note Before the attack on Enbarr, an NPC in the monastery will relate to Byleth how it is said that the canal that runs through Enbarr "was constructed under the guidance of Saint Seiros before the empire was even formed." Said canal has been a lifeline for the capital's development ever since.
  • One of her lost items added in version 1.2.0 (the Faded Star Chart) suggests Rhea has an interest in astronomy.
• Hide Your Otherness: Rhea by all appearances is just an exceptionally beautiful human woman with a rare hair and eye color. In reality, she is a Child of the Goddess, a species of Weredragons who can almost fully pass for human aside from their green hair, shining green eyes, and Pointy Ears which are hidden in her hair. She (and others like her) are arguably correct to hide their true nature, as shown when the Flame Emperor uses The Reveal to state that the Church is run by "monsters". In her S-Support, Rhea asks Byleth if they can still accept her after seeing her other form, and when the answer is yes, Rhea proposes to Byleth shortly thereafter.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: The Crimson Flower route is basically all about Rhea's lies and plots coming back to crash everything she's built. First, Byleth, the one she spent most of the first half preparing to become Sothis's vessel, turns against her in part due to her lying to Jeralt about the full truth of Sitri's death, and partly because they became attached to the students, namely Edelgard, she encouraged them to get connected to. Byleth's prowess and weaponry are thanks to Rhea giving them the sword and crest stone, and now they've turned it against her in this route. The students she indirectly trained for a year? Turned against her. The book of Seiros that states murder and thievery are wrong unless done in the name of the goddess? Whoops, not so hot when Byleth (who has the goddess with them) is on the side of your enemies.
• Hypocrite: Despite representing the Church of Seiros, she doesn't actually follow all of the teachings of the Church. Unlike the majority of the characters in the game, Rhea doesn't even believe in quite the same goddess that is taught by the Church of Seiros, because she knows that the Sothis described is a fictionalized version of the original Sothis. ^note The main distinctions include that the real Sothis did not empower the Elites and Nemesis (willingly, that is), nor did she abandon her physical form and leave Fódlan due to sorrow over the people's sins (rather, she was killed). Lastly, the real Sothis, while possessing supernatural levels of awareness and truly being the "one who watches over Fódlan", still isn't omniscient.
• I Have Many Names: While she is currently known as Rhea, she is also Saint Seiros and The Immaculate One, as well as presumably many others due to her being implied to serve as all the previous archbishops. It is unclear which, if any of these, is her original name.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Her counselor box notes and some of her dialog show that she wishes she could form normal friendships and relationships with the people around her, and that she is deeply lonely in general for a number of reasons, most of all her trust and anger issues. Byleth (the only person who can support with her) can fulfill these hopes by becoming her friend, lover, and full confidant if they S-support with her.
• Immortality Bisexuality: Though not really immortal, she’s over a thousand years old, and she can be S-Ranked by Byleth of either gender.
• Immortal Ruler: As a thousand-plus-year-old Long-Lived dragon, she has led the church ever since she founded it under the identity of Seiros centuries ago, and continues to lead it through various identities. Through the church, she also directly and indirectly influences the entire continent and its culture. Whether she is a benevolent example or not depends on one's perspective of her actions. Downplayed in the sense that she doesn't want to be a Immortal Ruler, seeing herself as merely being a proxy until Sothis can be restored and return to power.
• Inadequate Inheritor: How she sees herself compared to the goddess of the Church of Seiros, Sothis. Rhea admits at one point that while she has tried to guide Fódlan as Sothis would have, ultimately she is only a proxy; she believes only Sothis can do the job properly, and she would be happy to give up her position to them. This is one reason she is so desperate to believe that Byleth is transforming into Sothis. She also remarks that Fódlan is a "wayward land," which suggests that Rhea is aware of the myriad of issues facing Fódlan, despite the influence of the church and sees the divine guidance of Sothis as the solution. Ironically, it's this inferiority complex and grief over Sothis' death that led her to make such terrible leadership decisions in the first place.
• In a Single Bound: On the Silver Snow and Verdant Wind routes, during one cutscene, she shows she can leap superhuman distances, rebounding off one rock wall to another to reach a much higher position before transforming.
• Irony:
  • According to the Church, Nemesis was granted power by the Goddess to fend off evil invaders, but then was corrupted by his power and had to be defeated by Seiros. Rhea is actually Seiros, the Goddess's own daughter, complete with the power to transform into the Immaculate One, and she played a key role in saving Fódlan from Nemesis. Afterwards, Rhea used her authority as Archbishop to cover up the truth about Nemesis, the Crests, and even the true nature of the Goddess. On the Crimson Flower route, she goes mad and is ultimately killed by Byleth and Edelgard, two people who bear the same Crest as Nemesis.
  • Around a millennia before the events of the story the Adrestian emperor managed to unify Fodlan with the help of Saint Seiros (who is actually Rhea) which means that she was responsible for empowering a nation that ends up becoming her greatest foe after Edelgard's rise to power and results in Rhea's death on the Crimson Flower and (potentially) Silver Snow routes.
• It's Personal: While it would have enraged her regardless, Rhea in Three Houses notably takes Edelgard's reveal as the Flame Emperor and her actions in the Holy Tomb very personally, due to having been close to Edelgard's ancestor Wilhelm (noting he saved her and supported her) and taking her actions as an insult to him. Even moreso if Byleth, the one carrying her mother's heart and who she had placed all her hopes for the future on, betrays her as well.

J — O

• Judge, Jury, and Executioner: In Three Houses:
  • At the end of Chapter 4, Rhea orders the Western Church soldiers to be immediately executed and refuses to hear any of their attempts to defend themselves, Shamir and Seteth explaining that enough is already known about their crimes for their punishment to be unchanged regardless of their reasons. In Ashe and Catherine's paralogue, she even personally travels to the Western Church's headquarters along with Catherine to execute their Bishop.
  • If you're a Black Eagle or Golden Deer, after the Empire's Holy Tomb raid in Chapter 11 is thwarted, Rhea orders Byleth to execute Edelgard on the spot for leading it in the first place. Unfortunately for Rhea, Edelgard always gets to escape before anything can happen, and if you've met the prerequisites, Byleth can outright turn coat instead.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: She might be willing to do questionable things, but if something proves on a fundamental level that it does not work, she will back down and cut her losses. The first Rite of Rising went so poorly that she refused to use the Chalice of Beginnings ever again, not only sealing it away with the intent that no one would ever claim it, but even had the Apostles vow to never pass on their Crests to prevent such a dangerous artifact from being used.
• Kubrick Stare: In Three Houses, she gives a reversed one if Byleth sides with Edelgard in the Holy Tomb, by lifting her head up and staring down at them with her eyes.
• Lady of War: Rhea is about as strong as Seiros was in the War of Heroes, as shown in her stats and how she's proficient in all of Seiros' weapons. All of this is, of course, because she is Seiros. It gets more blatant on the Crimson Flower route, where her endgame battle garments make her the spitting image of Seiros' attire in the prologue.
• Lap Pillow: After Chapter 10, Rhea holds Byleth gently in her lap and sings to them when the latter regains consciousness.
• Large Ham: On the Crimson Flower route, after Byleth's betrayal triggers her psychotic breakdown, she becomes fond of screaming at the top of her lungs about how she's going to kill them.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: In Heroes, all available versions of Rhea so far unceremoniously reveal she can transform into The Immaculate One.
• Leitmotif: "Staring at Sirius" is hers in Three Houses when she shows up in cutscenes. It hints at her true identity as Seiros, as it's a One-Woman Wail version of "Song of the Nabateans".
• Life Drain: Her trademark weapon, the Sword of Seiros, drains half of the damage it deals back into her health. She also has Nosferatu in her spell pool, although she rarely uses it.
• Like a Son to Me: Played With.
  • Within the upper ranks of the Church of Seiros, Rhea is implied to have built a sort of pseudo-family of sorts for herself by giving people pieces of her Crest Stone and her blood. This grants them her Crest and in at least some cases quite long lives. In Cindered Shadows, she explains that she considers people like Aelfric to be among her "many" children (we see just how many at the end of Silver Snow), likely referring to everyone she has done the Crest Stone ritual with (as Aelfric has a Crest of Seiros). She is quite protective of them; however, she is still emotionally distant even from them, and they in turn may not really understand her, nor know many of her secrets. In effect, she is more of a spiritual mother to them than a familial one, and their existence seems to do little to help Rhea's loneliness, as they still treat her mostly as a superior rather than a loved one, and in cases like Aelfric, may even come to lose faith in and reject her.
  • In Cindered Shadows, Rhea states that Sitri looked at her as if Rhea were her mother. However, Rhea never states she returned this sentiment, beyond stating that she saw Sitri just as she did the rest of her spiritual children and that she wanted her to have a bright future. Given Sitri's special origins and the fact that Rhea didn't want to bury and never see her again, it can be argued their relationship was more intimate than what she had with the likes of Aelfric, but the game doesn't actually delve deeper into the matter more than what Rhea tells Byleth.
• Light Is Not Good: Played with. Rhea is a morally dubious character, but on most routes in Three Houses and on Azure Gleam in Three Hopes, she remains as the Big Good (if not a major ally). However, in Crimson Flower in Three Houses as well as Scarlet Blaze and Golden Wildfire in Three Hopes, she is the Big Bad (if not a major antagonist), and this trope remains in full effect.
• Like Parent, Like Spouse: Byleth, as the only potential partner for Rhea, can fit this to a rather literal degree. Subverted in her S-Support dialogue, however, as she says that she has given up on her hope that Byleth will become the progenitor god and actually loves them for themselves.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Downplayed. She is very feminine in appearance and can be romanced by a Byleth of either gender which makes her bisexual.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • Downplayed. While Rhea is fully aware there's a mysterious group of enemies who have conspired against the Church of Seiros for over a thousand years, she's not aware that said enemy happens to be the remnants of the Agarthan civilization from an even earlier era. On the Verdant Wind and Silver Snow routes, she realizes who they are only after she travels to Shambhala with Byleth and co. and sees their technology and the city's architecture.
  • Shez in Three Hopes doesn't disclose any information about Arval, which is notable as Rhea probably would have remembered who Epimenides was.
  • In Azure Gleam this is invoked per Jeralt's request if he and Byleth are recruited, as he asks the Kingdom army to keep their presence hidden from Rhea while they work for them. Although in Chapter 11 before their potential recruitment, Seteth does inform Shez of rumours pertaining to Byleth (as someone in the Adrestian army with powers similar to theirs) and that this has Rhea’s concerned attention, although nothing comes of this otherwise.
• Lonely at the Top:
  • Despite her position and devoted followers, Rhea is incredibly lonely, with several of her advice box questions having her admit she wants to interact and eat meals with the students, enjoy tea parties with people despite her distaste for hot beverages, and finds she has little to no time to relax in peace. Her loneliness and longing for the past connections she once had plays a major part in her desire to revive her mother, as even amongst her fellow Children of the Goddess she feels isolated from Seteth and Flayn, believing that she can finally find the inner peace she desires by regaining what she lost in the past.
  • Much like Edelgard, Rhea's interactions with Byleth are all about this trope. She repeatedly insists to Byleth throughout their supports to not think of her as Rhea the Archbishop, but just Rhea.
• Long Game: Deconstructed. Rhea's plan to save Fódlan from its woes consists of creating vessels carrying Sothis' Crest of Flames in secrecy, and have them grow over the years with the hope one will eventually manifest her consciousness, thus giving the reborn Sothis the chance to fix everything herself. The deconstruction comes from: 1. The fact Rhea has spent almost an entire millenium on it without getting results before Byleth came along by mere happenstance; 2. Her desire to revive Sothis heavily stems from Rhea's inability to move on from her past, and from her own insecurities as a leader; and 3. In the eyes of those aware of Rhea's long-lasting lifespan, her inaction towards Fódlan's issues can come off as straight malice at worst, this take being the one Edelgard reaches and leads her to conclude Fódlan would be far better off without Rhea.
• Love Redeems: Reaching S-Support with Byleth and marrying them is the only way for Rhea to actively play a part in reforming the church and Fódlan on the Silver Snow route, where she also goes on to become the benevolent archbishop. As getting to S-Support is only available on that route, all the other options end with her either dying or abdicating her position.
• Madden Into Misanthropy: On the Crimson Flower route, Byleth's betrayal and the repeated victories of the Empire in the war against the Church drive her insane, and by the end of the game she's ranting about humans constantly turning against her and her mother.
• Made of Iron: The woman is absurdly tough when she is fighting seriously. Repeated direct hits from magitech ballistic missiles after five years of imprisonment and possible experimentation/starvation may be enough to fatally wound her, but only maybe — and even then, it takes a long time for it to be fatal. Manuela outright marvels at how she can still be alive after the injuries she sees her with in human form. On Crimson Flower, it takes the combined strike of two Relic Weapons to her brain to kill her.
• Magic Knight: In the instances where she's seen on the battlefield, Rhea's Strength and Magic are almost at the same level, with the latter edging out the former slightly. She is able to wield swords, reason magic, and faith magic in equal measure, with brawling one rank below despite her not having any gauntlets in her inventory.
• Manipulative Bastard: Rhea is often selective with the truth and keeps most of the people around her in the dark regarding her true intentions. The main and most obvious example is her recruiting Byleth in Three Houses as a professor due to them being the fledgling vessel of Sothis to keep them within sight. In what is approximately a year between then and the Time Skip, Rhea never explains this to them, and once she does, the words she uses imply they are an amnesiac reincarnation of sorts, when in reality, her plan for having Byleth "receive a revelation" in the Holy Tomb was all but stated to have been the final step in her attempt to revive Sothis.
• Medieval Stasis: As revealed in the Abyss Library and developer interviews, she and her allies enforced a version of this on Fódlan after Nemesis was defeated, at least for some time. The records state she had banned autopsies, binoculars, metal block printing, and the use of oil.
• Metaphorically True: She has a habit of giving information in this form by leaving out the major details or not giving the full answer.
• Mirror Character: Rhea has a lot more in common with Edelgard than she would want to realize. Both women share the Crest of Seiros, had horrible tragedies in their lives which led them to develop heavy trust issues and lie to their allies, became obsessed with destroying those who had wronged them to the extend they forced themselves to assume leadership positions for the sake of this goal (in Rhea's case, she founded her own Church and supported the foundation of the Adrestian Empire), ignore the effects their actions have in the present (Rhea being obsessed with going back to the way things once were when Sothis was still alive and Edelgard being obsessed with building a new future for Fodlan) while being willing to go the extreme to see their goals completed, and ironically, both have Byleth as their Morality Chain and can be romanced by them regardless of their gender.
• Mission Control: Together with Seteth for Byleth in Part 1. This stops in Part 2 as she's either captured by the Empire or becomes Byleth's mortal enemy.
• Morality Chain: Downplayed on the Crimson Flower route. Her presence in Faerghus prevents Dimitri from being overthrown in a coup; as a result, while she doesn't rein in his hatred of Edelgard, her influence does ensure that he doesn't fall into the depths of insanity like he does on Azure Moon and Verdant Wind.
• Moral Myopia: Her Black-and-White Insanity causes her to slip into this at times. She wrote the commandments of the Church to forbid lying, killing, and stealing, unless it is the will of the Goddess, which, as Archbishop, Rhea ultimately gets to dictate. In Crimson Flower, Rhea will rant about humans constantly betraying her and her mother as she burns down Fhirdiad, the human city that had sheltered her for five years.
• Moveset Clone: As a playable character in Three Hopes, her Saint class is just a reskin of the Mortal Savant class, although she does learn abilities unique to her alone.
• Ms. Fanservice: In her Heroes summer variant, she walks around in a skimpy bikini that shows a voluptuous figure that rivals Byleth's.
• My God, What Have I Done?: If Byleth marries her, she looks back on all she's done — lying to and manipulating the people, causing Byleth so many problems, and possibly being a cause for the war — and realizes just how wrong she was. It's only Byleth's love and approval that lets her believe in a second chance.
  Rhea: I am not qualified to continue leading the people... Though my intention was to keep the peace in Fódlan, I still propagated a false history and deceived my faithful followers. I also took advantage of my position as archbishop to further my own selfish goal of seeing my mother again. If my foolish actions had anything to do with the war, I-
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • She and her allies may have had good intentions for distorting history, and rewriting the Crests and Relics as gifts from the goddess, but this eventually backfires when some of the results (i.e. a culture which prioritizes Crests and seeks their power to the detriment of other people) inadvertently provide opportunities for those who slither in the dark to infiltrate several parts of Fódlan society, and gives Edelgard motivation to declare war against the church. Additionally, covering up facts on several occasions alienates people who are otherwise aligned with and care for her: for instance, while she did save Byleth as a baby by implanting the heart of Sothis, the fact that she didn't tell Jeralt anything about the circumstances leads him taking Byleth away from the monastery, and Byleth discovering the journal potentially gives them reason to side against her on the Crimson Flower route.
  • Given that Wilhelm's account of the war leaves out Seiros's motive for revenge against Nemesis, Rhea's own secretive nature even among her allies, and that even Nemesis had no idea that she was a Red Canyon survivor, that much like Nemesis not informing his allies of the origins of the Crests and Relics, Seiros never told Wilhelm the truth about Red Canyon. This means that Rhea's secretive nature is partially responsible for Edelgard's version of history that is one of the reasons why Rhea and Edelgard come into conflict.
• No Hero to His Valet: While the figure of the archbishop is respected, loved and idealized among the believers of the Church's faith, a downplayed example can be found with both Seteth and Flayn. As her right hand man, Seteth questions Rhea's choices frequently during the game (in no small part due to Rhea's insistence in keeping her motives secret). In Flayn's case meanwhile, one of her potential comments during her and Byleth's B support heavily suggests she's aware of some of the experiments Rhea has performed over the years.
• Nostalgia Filter: Implied. Rhea's plan to resurrect her mother is partly due to her desire to have her rule Fódlan and set is straight like in the distant past, and her attempts at halting the land's modern-day progress oozes shades of this.
• Not Helping Your Case: On the Crimson Flower route, Rhea's downward spiral results in the portions of the faithful (including Mercedes, should you recruit her) defecting to the Empire as Rhea's sermons to the masses focus more on bloodshed and vengeance against Byleth and Edelgard, abandoning the kindness and compassion that the church was known for, with a former Knight of Seiros NPC mentioning that he fled because she had more or less snapped during the timeskip "laughing as if she were possessed and spouting complete gibberish". By the end of the route, with Fhirdiad burned to the ground and no one allowed to evacuate in a demented attempt to kill Byleth, not only does it look like Edelgard was right all along about what Rhea truly was, but Edelgard herself believes that Rhea/the Immaculate One never cared for humanity.
  Edelgard: So it's true. You don't value human life at all. Isn't that right, Immaculate One?
  Rhea/The Immaculate One: Nonsense! Fools who do not accept their own sins are undeserving of salvation! You humans are the ones who betrayed! You betrayed me, and you betrayed my mother!
• Not So Stoic: Rhea's voice actress was directly told not to emote too much with Rhea because Rhea was so powerful and so experienced that "Rhea doesn't have to try...Rhea simply is". That is... until she gets even marginally upset. Then, Rhea becomes absolutely terrifying.
• No Sense of Personal Space: She's very prone to touching and holding Byleth, to the point where you're given the option to be offended by it in her A support, after their hair and eyes and eyes turn green. It's because she thinks they're her mother.
• Older Than They Look: Since she was around when Jeralt was Captain of the Knights of Seiros, you'd expect her to have at least a couple of lines on her face by now.
• Omniscient Morality License: Deconstructed. Rhea herself means well and her actions only seek to keep Fódlan in harmony, but her tendency towards lies, lack of mercy against her enemies, and her general zealotry only causes her students, allies, and even her right hand man to suspect the worst out of her. This plays a huge factor in Edelgard's declaration of war against the Church of Seiros, as she believes that Rhea abuses the institution for the sake of power and control, and assumes she's more vile and inhumane than she actually is. This isn't helped by the fact that in some cases, Edelgard is completely right about some of Rhea's worst actions.
• One True Love: In her centuries of life, Rhea has been completely alone. The only person she is known to have fallen in love with is Byleth (if her S-Support is completed), and she sees them as her fated partner whom she will spend the rest of her life with.
• One-Winged Angel: On the Crimson Flower and Golden Wildfire routes, she transforms into her dragon form, the Immaculate One, for the final boss battle.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: On the Crimson Flower route, she develops an obsession with killing Byleth, and in a discussion with Dimitri, who has a similar obsession with Edelgard, Rhea tells him to leave Byleth to her. Then there's this lovely quote in the finale:
  Rhea: I have no patience for foolish questions. I shall sacrifice as many lives as it takes! That apostate who insists on taking everything from me WILL BE CRUSHED BY MY OWN HANDS!!!
• Only One Name: She’s only known as Rhea, when most characters in the cast have at least a last name revealed. Seteth and Flayn also lack last names, a clue to how the three are all related.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The only time in regular monastery exploration where you can find Rhea, outside of the upper floors that mark her chambers, is during the month when Flayn is missing and she has personally joined the search.
• Our Dragons Are Different: She transforms into a massive white dragon to fight off Edelgard's army during their invasion of the Garreg Mach Monastery at the halfway point of Three Houses. She does it again at the end of the Crimson Flower and Silver Snow routes, as well as in the month before the end of Silver Snow and Verdant Wind.
• Out of Focus: On the Verdant Wind and Silver Snow routes, due to being captured after the Adrestian Invasion of Garreg Mach, she’s absent for most of the story and doesn’t return until near the end of each route. In Three Hopes, while the Central Church's relationship with the three nations drives the plot, Rhea only appears in person in a handful of scenes, as she takes refuge in Faerghus very early on; even in Azure Gleam, she spends little time in the front lines, and the Church is represented by Seteth, Flayn, and Catherine instead. She does, however, play a major role in the final battles of each route, either as an ally or the Final Boss.

P — Z

• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • As with the other Children of the Goddess, evidently the only thing keeping people from realizing she is not human is the way she wears her hair. Judging by a remark from Thales, all Children of the Goddess share the same ear shape, eye and hair color (as well as magical blood), making them easy to recognize. Of course, pretty much no one in Fódlan knows this, so the paper thin disguise works fairly well.
  • Rhea strongly resembles Seiros as seen in the opening, sharing the eye color and using flowers as hair decs, with the main difference being that, unlike Seiros, Rhea has deep green hair instead of blond. Luckily for her, no humans in the present day were alive to see exactly what Seiros looked like, and thus Rhea's Secret Identity as Seiros is unknown to them despite the flimsiness of the disguise. Concept art reveals that when she was living as Seiros, Rhea dyed her green hair blond to help hide her identity as a Child of the Goddess, and Three Hopes reveals the other saints did the same.
• Passing the Torch:
  • After Chapter 12 in non-Crimson Flower routes, once the Imperial Army summons their reserve troops and can be seen marching straight towards Garreg Mach, Rhea leaves Byleth in charge of the Church as she attempts to stop the upcoming army by transforming into her dragon form, the Immaculate One. Sadly for Rhea, Byleth's Chronic Hero Syndrome leads them to try to help her, causing them to vanish for five years and the Church to fracture without a leader.
  • At the end of the Azure Moon route, she declares Byleth her successor as Archbishop of the Church before peacefully retiring to Zanado.
• Pay Evil unto Evil:
  • In Chapter 4, she sentences the surviving dissidents from the Western Church to death for defiling the Holy Mausoleum. In Ashe and Catherine's paralogue she executes the Bishop of the Western Church and oversees a purge of the rest of the corrupt leaders. While brutal, the Western Church are shown to be very corrupt and power-hungry, manipulating Lord Lonato and his son into trying to assassinate Rhea, trying to break open the tomb where Sothis's remains are supposedly buried and in general doing everything as part of a power grab, so this isn't unreasonable.
  • In the backstory, she also killed Nemesis and the Ten Elites. Given they a) killed her mother, b) massacred her kin at Zanado leaving her the only survivor and c) used the bodies and blood of her kin to steal power and weapons for themselves, they more than earned it.
• Pet the Dog:
  • As shown in Cindered Shadows, she's revealed to feel genuine sympathy for the Ashen Wolves, and the entire plot is kicked off by her getting disturbed by rumors of them in danger.
  • In Azure Gleam, it's also mentioned Rhea visits a few orphanages in the Kingdom during her time under their asylum to cheer up their kids.
• Playing with Fire: Her spell list consists of all Fire spells. Though oddly, despite Ragnarok being listed among her spell list, it doesn't appear in-game. Fittingly, her calm demeanor hides deep rage once angered, and she is the only Child of the Goddess in the game we see in both humanoid and draconic form.
• Pointy Ears: Concept art and a CG artwork in Silver Snow and Verdant Wind reveals she has these. Her hair usually hides them well, if not her headdress. Fitting, given she can transform into a dragon.
• Poor Communication Kills: The tragedy of Rhea is centered around her refusal to open up to anyone or tell anyone the complete truth. Throughout the plot, the wall of lies she has built her entire religion around comes crashing down and (depending on the route) can cause everyone, including Byleth, to turn against her.
• Power Echoes: Her voice gains a noticeable distortion effect when she assumes the form of the Immaculate One.
• The Power of Love: The only thing that prevents Rhea from dying in the Silver Snow route is her Support level with Byleth. After being fought in the final battle, she will either die or somehow survive her wounds thanks to the bond between her and Byleth.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Rhea has a quote for being selected on the map, but it is not able to be heard in normal gameplay.
  "As you wish."
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
  "This is the end!"
  "Know your place!"
  "You have been judged!"
  "In the name of the goddess!"
• Promoted to Playable:
  • In Heroes, she started off as the secondary unit to Summer Female Byleth in a Duo Unit pairing before getting her own playable unit in the Halloween 2021 banner. And then, her original version became playable in the April 2023 New Heroes banner. However, she had already been made playable under her Seiros identity before that point.
  • She also becomes a playable character in Three Hopes in her Seiros outfit in New Game +.
• Put on a Bus: On the Azure Moon route, she makes no physical appearances after the timeskip and is simply mentioned to have been rescued offscreen, retiring in the aftermath of the war.
• Pygmalion Plot: Technically applies if Byleth S-ranks her on the Silver Snow route. Before the final chapter, Rhea tells Byleth that she considers them her creation by proxy of one of her failed attempts at bringing Sothis back to life (Sitri) falling in love with Jeralt and consequently bearing a child soon after.
• Rage Breaking Point: If Byleth betrays her for Edelgard, Rhea goes completely off the deep end and only gets worse through the course of the Crimson Flower route.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Not only is she the Archbishop of the Church of Seiros, she's also easily their strongest fighter, to the point Dimitri on the Blue Lions route believes she must have an extensive military background judging by her movements alone. Since she's Saint Seiros under a different alias, this makes sense.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Perhaps surprising given some of the extremes she can be pushed to. When she does mete out punishments, they are often harsh; however, provided they don't oppose her with violence, she is quite accommodating and tolerant regardless of someone's race, social status, nation of origin, or whether they have a Crest or not. She even accepts it if they don't actually believe in the Church of Seiros. As such, she employs quite a diverse assortment of people.
• Recurring Boss: On the Crimson Flower route she’s a boss in Chapters 12, 17, and 18.
• Recurring Element:
  • Rhea is the Nyna Archetype in all routes, being the Big Good whose kingdom, in this case the church, is constantly under attack and needs to be defended by the protagonists. Unlike most of the Nyna Archetypes, she can be Demoted to Extra on the Azure Moon route or become the Big Bad and the Medeus Archetype as the inhuman tyrannical dragon type on the Crimson Flower route. Like the original Medeus, Rhea is embittered by injustices inflicted on dragons by humankind, loss of most of their race, but performed heroic actions in spite of that. Medeus was one of the few earth dragons to turn into a Manakete despite most his tribe pridefully refusing to take human form, thus sparing him degeneration and was trusted by Naga to watch the seal over the Earth dragons, while Rhea takes human form to watch over Fódlan and manipulate its politics and beliefs in order to facilitate Sothis's return to power; which creates a socially unequal Fódlan. Both turn malevolent over crimes done by humanity in the present day, the persecution of manaketes by humanity spurs Medeus to create the Dolhr empire, while Edelgard raiding the Holy Tomb and Byleth's refusal to kill her drives Rhea insane and turns her into a bloodthirsty psychopath.
  • She has some elements of the Gharnef archetype. Her ultimate goal is explicitly the revival of her dragon mother, she spends the entire game setting up significant parts of the plot in motion to achieve this goal, is a bishop like some characters of the archetype such as Gharnef, Jedah, Manfroy, and Validar, and like the latter two, she has a hand in the birth of the vessel of the dragon and is the leader of the religious organization who worships the dragon she seeks to revive, and like Jedah, she fervently believes that the ability and teachings of their deity is the only way to a better future, and misinterprets the actual desires of said deity. She is more in line with the more modern and sympathetic members of this archetype such as Lyon and Sephiran with the benevolent intent of both. Like Lyon, she is broken by the death of her parent and seeks to revive them, but is potentially driven insane in her attempts. Like Sephiran, she is a long-lived religious figure with multiple names who attempts to maintain peace for the benefit of a divine deity. While Thales and Solon are the dark mages with the malicious intent, Rhea has the motivation, position, and methods of the Gharnef.
• Redemption Earns Life: If Byleth S-supports Rhea, the Silver Snow route ending will have her survive, free of her insanity and grief and allowed to start her proper atonement for the questionable things she's done over the years with the person she now sees as their own individual instead of an extension of/host for her mother. If A-ranked, she will still survive, but instead retire to live quietly in Zanado after giving Byleth authority over the church.
• Revenge: A subtle facet of Rhea's character is that she can be quite vengeful against those who oppose her directly once she's set on fighting back, which she believes it's a fitting punishment for their actions.
• Revenge Before Reason: Once Rhea has been pushed far enough, she'll do everything in her power to ensure those who have wronged her receive their punishment. This is best shown at the end of the Crimson Flower route; after being defeated on the Tailtean Plains and having lost Dimitri, Rhea's wrath consumes her and she orders Catherine to set the city of Fhirdiad on fire just so the Imperial Army may end up wiped out in the process should they seize it. Not only does this compromise the people of Faerghus trapped in the city as well, this also happens right after Edelgard offers Rhea the chance to surrender and Catherine suggests she abandon Fódlan for the time being in order to prepare a future counterattack.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: In Three Houses, she is only an antagonist to Edelgard, while Claude is ambivalent towards her but ends up allied with her due to circumstance. In Three Hopes, she is Claude's Final Boss, even if she has little actual direct influence on events beyond her existence and influence on Fódlan being one of the things that motivates Claude's actions.
• Route Boss: In Three Houses, she's a Recurring Boss in Crimson Flower and Silver Snow’s Final Boss. In Three Hopes, she's fought on the Scarlet Blaze route and on Golden Wildfire.
• Sanity Slippage: On the Crimson Flower route, the strain of multiple attacks against the church, her family and their remains, combined with Byleth siding with Edelgard (who was involved in several of those things), causes her to snap and then sends her into a downward spiral to the point that five years later, Seteth can't deny that she has irrevocably changed. While she continues to show a composed face at times, she lives in constant mental torment, a former Knight of Seiros NPC relating that they left her ranks because of how out of it she had become, "laughing as if she were possessed and spouting complete gibberish". It gets even worse when Flayn and Seteth die or go into hiding, Rhea becoming convinced that Byleth is the second coming of Nemesis. This culminates in her ordering that Fhirdiad be burned in an ill-conceived attempt to kill Edelgard and Byleth, not caring who else gets killed in the process, as she is too consumed in her rage and madness to value life anymore.
• Sealed Good in a Can: Downplayed, but this is Rhea's fate for Part II of Three Houses' non-Crimson Flower routes, as she ends up jailed in a secret chamber somewhere in Enbarr's Imperial Palace after the fall of Garreg Mach.
• Secret Character: Rhea is an unlockable character in Three Hopes on a New Game Plus file for 60 Renown points.
• Secret Identity:
  • Rhea, as archbishop of the Church, is actually a front for Seiros herself. It's implied she faked her death to hide her nature as a Long-Lived Child of the Goddess, to enable her to continue to guide/lead Fódlan over the centuries under various aliases, and to make it easier for her to continue her plans to revive her mother.
  • In Fódlan's mythology, there is a being known as the Immaculate One, a great white sky dragon of incredible power. It was said to have aided Seiros and her army with the power of the winds its wings produced. It turns out that the Immaculate One is indeed real, but is the same being as Rhea/Seiros, just transformed.
• Seeks Another's Resurrection: Silver Snow and, to a lesser extent, Verdant Wind as well, reveals this is Rhea's end goal: bring back her mother Sothis back to life, both to finally put her own grieving heart at ease, and to have her assume Fódlan's leadership like she once did in the distant past.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Every fear that has motivated her in her life and has served as a motivation to keep the existence of the Children of the Goddess secret, alter the history of the Church, Adrestia Empire, and Nemesis, and twist/add to the Sothis worshiping religion to protect her kin, ends up creating problems and enemies for her during her reign. Namely, her shady actions along with being open to people outside Fódlan convinced the Western Church that she is a liar and a witch and gave fuel for their own corrupt elements to try to seize power; and to Edelgard, her actions in trying to keep the continent peaceful ends up making her look like a tyrant in Edelgard's eyes and motivates her war.
• Self-Serving Memory: On the Crimson Flower route, she accuses Byleth of stealing her mother away from her, calling them a thief and a second Nemesis, conveniently forgetting that she was the one who implanted the heart of Sothis into them as a baby and spent the entire first half preparing them as a vessel so Sothis may be revived.
• Shipper on Deck: In Catherine's paired endings with Lorenz and Ashe where she also retires to Zanado with Rhea, it's noted that Rhea encourages and persuades her to accept their respective marriage proposals.
• Statuesque Stunner: Although her height is not revealed in-game, datamining reveals her to be 172 cm tall, and in fact ties with Manuela for the second-tallest female character with a recorded height. It doesn't detract from her attractiveness in the slightest.
• Story-Breaker Power: Rhea's ability to transform into the Immaculate One easily makes her one of the strongest characters of the setting, to the extent the Flame Emperor avoids confronting her head on without a countermeasure secured. It's all but stated this power contains drawbacks though, as their overuse and even attempting to use it while being in poor health risks her losing control over it. On Crimson Flower, Bernadetta infers that Rhea can't stay in "her spooky beast form" forever, and Dorothea concurs, noting that if she could, she'd have come back to attack the monastery.
• Super-Empowering:
  • On the Crimson Flower route during the final battle, Rhea as the Immaculate One is able to empower the Golem enemies with her roars.
  • Her blood can be used to grant the Crest of Seiros to humans. The finale of the Silver Snow route shows that when she loses control of her powers, said power influences her followers who received the blood (along with pieces of her Crest Stone as part of a ritual), turning them into monsters who instinctively protect her.
• Supporting Leader: On the Azure Gleam route, she is the leader of the Church of Seiros and one of Dimitri's biggest allies in the war.
• Talking Animal: In her dragon form, Rhea is still able to communicate with others via telepathy. Her voice is distorted in this state.
• Tarot Motifs: The reversed High Priestess, represented by the crest of Seiros. The Reversed High Priestess represents secrets and lack of personal harmony. Despite her good intentions, Rhea distorting history to hide the truth of the origin of the Heroes' Relics and Nemesis gradually backfired on her when it gave Edelgard a reason to start a war against the church and how the crest system ended up causing more harm to the society of Fódlan than good. Her inability to, [[spoiler:trust anyone in the aftermath of the Red Canyon massacre or let go of her past made her feel even more isolated from people around her, and telling people half-truths also ended up causing people who once trusted her to lose faith in her like Jeralt (who was given little explanation about Sitri's death and the truth about Byleth's oddities as a baby, which led to his losing what trust and admiration he once had for her and leaving the monastery, taking his child with him along the way to protect them. This made her seem far more shady to those who had a reason to distrust the church and her authority, leading to a lack of personal harmony.
• Theory Tunnel Vision:
  • Her opinion of Byleth is noticeable tampered by this, in particular during Part I. At the end of the Verdant Wind and Silver Snow routes, Rhea admits she knew Byleth held within them the conscience of Sothis, yet some of her dialogue (in particular, her idea of a failed vessel) and actions during the first half of the game opens the possibility she initially believed they were closer to an amnesiac reincarnation of sorts.
  • One of the reasons that drove her to attempt to revive her mother for almost an entire millennium is the belief only she and she alone can fix Fódlan in its current state, which she states to Seteth and Flayn at the start of Chapter 12 in non-Crimson Flower routes. Similarly, it's heavily implied her attempts at restricting Fódlan's technological progress comes from her knowledge of what became of the ancient civilization of Agartha after her mother shared her wisdom with them.
• Tough Leader Façade: Her support chain with Byleth suggests Rhea sees her job of being Fódlan's Archbishop as this, revealing a far more affectionate facet of hers that she believes is unfit for her position.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: The Crimson Flower route is caused by Rhea's anger and disgust at Edelgard's betrayal. She tries to order Byleth to kill their own student and, if Byleth refuses and allies with Edelgard instead, Rhea reaches her Rage Breaking Point and completely loses her mind.
• Tragic Dream: Zigzagged. Unlike most examples, the nature of Rhea's dream is bilayered:
  • As far the angle of reviving the "Progenitor God" as a power figure in Fódlan is concerned, it becomes tragic only in Crimson Flower as a result of Byleth defecting to the Empire and, in turn, opposing the Church of Seiros and Rhea's millennial legacy. Otherwise, it's averted in the other paths given Byleth either becomes Fódlan's ruler by the end of the story (Verdant Wind and Silver Snow), or supports Dimitri's unified governance of it as the new Archbishop (Azure Moon).
  • On the other hand, Rhea's dream of bringing the person called the "Progenitor God" — as in, Sothis — back to life ultimately ends up in failure no matter the route. Not only is it hinted (and outright confirmed by Word of God) that Sothis was brought back in an incomplete state inside Byleth's mind, thus explaining her small physique and lack of memories, after her Fusion Dance with Byleth, Sothis ends up relinquishing her presence on the mortal plane altogether. Interestingly, while in most routes Rhea is eventually forced to move on and abdicate the spot she had saved for her mom to Byleth, in Fire Emblem Heroes, Fallen Rhea's Forging Bonds reveals that, in Silver Snow, Rhea's subconscious refusal to abandon her dream causes her to become consumed by grief and, in turn, trigger the transformation that makes her go berserk.
• Tragic Hero: She genuinely means well and wants to maintain peace in Fódlan, but her inability to let go of the past, her inability to trust in people, her tendency to get carried away by her emotions and her borderline zealotry leads, both directly and indirectly, to the destruction of everything she's built up and her own probable death.
• Tragic Monster: On the Silver Snow route, she has a draconic degeneration-induced breakdown and becomes the Final Boss, and you have to put her down. If you A- or S-supported her, though, she survives and makes a full recovery.
• Tragic Villain: In Crimson Flower. She goes to great lengths to avenge what she sees as unjustified betrayal and get her mother's heart back, going so far as to burn down a city with its citizens in it, while they are offering her and her army refuge. At the same time, she's a traumatized woman symbolically reliving the death of her mother and the genocide of her people.
• Tranquil Fury: In Three Hopes during the aftermath of the Empire's victory at Garreg Mach on Chapter 5 of Scarlet Blaze, Rhea keeps a calm tone throughout reassuring her allies as they make their escape from the battlefield, but her voice drops to a venomous level as she mutters about how Edelgard should enjoy this small victory before they return and inflict a horrific death in retaliation.
• Trauma Button: The Holy Tomb contains whatever Crest Stones and bones remain of long lost Children of the Goddess, so Edelgard raiding and robbing said Tomb pushes Rhea's button firmly. Byleth siding with Edelgard immediately afterward smashes that button beyond repair and leads to Rhea's permanent Sanity Slippage.
• Turns Red: As an enemy, Rhea can have access to the abilities Defiant Strength, Vantage, and Wrath.
• Uncertain Doom:
  • At the end of Verdant Wind, Rhea is severely injured by the Agarthans' Javelins of Light. It's never explicitly said whether she dies or falls into a Convenient Coma to heal, just that she won't be a factor in Fódlan's political landscape going forward.
  • In Three Hopes on the Scarlet Blaze route she and Thales vanish in the wake of a giant explosion caused by their clash that also destroys the bridge they are on over a large chasm. While Edelgard invokes No One Could Survive That!, the ending narration regards Rhea and Thales as "missing." Of note, surviving a magic blast and the drop to the bottom of a huge chasm is something Three Houses showed a Child of the Goddess (or someone with their abilities) could easily survive via a few years of dormancy to heal, i.e. Byleth's case.
• Ungrateful Bastard: On the Crimson Flower route, Faerghus gives her shelter for five years when she flees from Edelgard, and she and Dimitri appear to sympathize with each other over their desire for revenge. Dimitri dies in the penultimate battle, causing the populace to throw their support behind her instead. As a result, their capital is being invaded because of her. Rhea's response to their loyalty? Setting Fhirdiad on fire and trapping the citizens inside.
• Unreliable Expositor: An in-universe example happens at the beginning of chapter 12 in non-Crimson Flower paths. Rhea tells Byleth she believes them to be Sothis's amnesiac reincarnation, that they will soon recover all their memories, and that's why they should take over the Church in case anything would happen to her in the upcoming fight. Meanwhile, once they leave and Seteth questions her on the matter, Rhea explains to him instead her belief that while Byleth is in a sense Sothis, at the same time, they're also a vessel hosting her consciousness, and that by helping them, Sothis will eventually awaken and lead Fódlan to salvation.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: Or NPC equipment, in her case. During Chapter 12 and Crimson Flower Chapter 17, she wields Seiros' Sword, which normally cannot be obtained or wielded by any playable character. Likewise, in the Crimson Flower route, there's no way to obtain her Seiros' Shield.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • In the Cindered Shadows storyline, her act of keeping Sitri's corpse hidden in the Abyss and faking her burial ended up causing Aelfric's discovery of it later, which made way for his plan of sacrificing the Ashen Wolves in an attempt to bring her back to life with the Chalice of Beginnings.
  • On the Crimson Flower route, her saving Byleth from death by implanting a Crest Stone inside their heart when they were a baby results in them siding with Edelgard which eventually results in Rhea's death, the destruction of the Church of Seiros' ability to wield influence on the nations of Fodlan, and Fodlan being forcibly unified under the banner of the Adrestian Empire.
• Vicariously Ambitious: Regardless of what appearances might suggests, Rhea's efforts for keeping the Church of Seiros relevant and influential in Fódlan are ultimately for the sake of her mother Sothis. Per her words in Chapter 12 outside of Crimson Flower, she's been filling in for her and has been setting up Fódlan's stage so Sothis can take over her duties and lead all the people of Fódlan upon her revival.
• Villainous Breakdown: On the Crimson Flower route, the death or desertion of Seteth and Flayn, the Kingdom and Church’s defeat at the Tailtean Plains, Dimitri’s death, and getting surrounded by the Imperial Army in Fhirdriad eventually catches up to her and shreds away what little sanity Rhea has left, to the point where she refuses to strategically evacuate for the time being, sets the kingdom capital on fire, and demands the remaining forces to fight to the death and obliterate the Black Eagle Strike Force.
• Voice of the Legion: After transforming into the Immaculate One, her voice is duplicated and pitched down to the depths of hell.
• Walking Spoiler: If you couldn't tell from the amount of spoilered entries, details about her are crucial to the plot.
• Watching Troy Burn: At the end of the Crimson Flower route, having walled herself up inside Fhirdiad, the capital of Faerghus, and gone completely deranged, she orders Catherine and Cyril to torch the city, intending to invoke this trope as the Black Eagle Strike Force prepare to storm it.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: All her shady actions — including manipulations and secretiveness, half-truths and open lies, supporting (half-heartedly) the Crest-based inequality and enforcing Medieval Stasis upon Fódlan, ruthless retributions towards enemies and clinging to power — were not borne for the sake of power in its own. Rather, Rhea was driven by the desires to protect herself and her kin from attacks by hostile humans, to maintain peace and harmony (in her understanding) in the land she reigned over, and to keep it for the eventual return of her mother, Sothis. However, it takes over five years of imprisonment for her to fully realize the extent to which she misguided herself and Fódlan. Moreover, if Byleth sides with Edelgard, Rhea will start to gradually lose the 'well-intentioned' part, will see them as the next Nemesis and will fight them to death — theirs or her own.
• Weredragon: As a Child of the Goddess, Rhea is capable of transforming into the Immaculate One, an extremely powerful dragon.
• Who Dares?: If Byleth chooses to join Edelgard in the Holy Tomb, Rhea will let out a shocked and furious, "You... How dare you!"
• Womanchild: Downplayed, but revelations about her true nature make it clear that at her core her decisions are those of an oversized child who never outgrew the "mommy will fix everything" mentality.
• You Are in Command Now: On the Crimson Flower route, once Dimitri bites it in battle against Edelgard and co., Rhea becomes the de facto head of state in Faerghus and the remaining Kingdom soldiers follow her lead in the final battle.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Rhea is normally calm and detached, but when her imperious veneer breaks, Rhea becomes an absolute terror. She will not hesitate to order anyone who threatens her or the Church to death, and in the Crimson Flower route, does not react to Byleth betraying her to side with Edelgard well — immediately turning into her Immaculate One form to kill them personally. As she only grows angrier and desperate over the years on this route, her actions only grow more monstrous. And while she maintains her sanity and never gives into rage to such an extent on the other routes, she always gives an epically rage-filled "The Reason You Suck" Speech directed at Edelgard after she reveals she is the Flame Emperor and raids the Holy Tomb.
  Rhea: To flee is futile, wicked girl. The Church of Seiros will raise its entire army against you until you have been captured and punished! You have defiled the Holy Tomb, dishonored the goddess, and humiliated your brethren. That crime will never be erased, even if you burn in the eternal flames and spill all of your blood into the goddess's soil!

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