Characters / Fire Emblem: Three Houses – Those Who Slither in the Dark

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

Those who slither in the dark

A mysterious faction manipulating everything within Fódlan for some unseen purpose, only that they are an enemy of the Church of Seiros. While the Flame Emperor Army is allied with them to achieve their goals, at the same time those are seemingly at odds with their own.

In General

• Abusive Precursors: Overlapping with Villainous Legacy. They are the descendants of the technologically advanced civilization of Agartha, which developed a god complex and tried to kill Sothis to conquer Fódlan. This didn't work as expected, considering the organization is comprised of the descendants of the remnant that survived Sothis' retaliation.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: To The Enclave, particularly their East Coast branch. Both are the remains of once mighty nations that are now all but forgotten in the aftermath of a war that devastated the world who emerge from an underground base centuries later to wipe out the new human civilizations that have emerged from the ashes of the old. Both factions have also undergone radicalization that stems from centuries of self-imposed isolation and indoctrination making them believe they are superior and/or more genetically pure than the surface dwellers.
• Always Chaotic Evil: The Agarthan descendants seen in the game do not paint a positive picture of their race as a whole, to put it lightly.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: All members of the group openly identified as Agarthans have ghastly white skin. Considering that they've spent most of their lives hiding underground, it's fairly likely that this is due to their lack of exposure to sunlight.
• Ambiguously Human: They're clearly human in form, and consider themselves to be the only "true" humans in the setting with perhaps some legitimate backing, as it's implied the humans on the surface were "remade" by Sothis during her efforts to restore the continent after the cataclysmic destruction of their war, which would make the Agarthans the last descendants of the original human race at least in Fódlan, but they have ghost-white skin and have access to dark magic otherwise unknown to the rest of the world. A throwaway line in Arval's Paralogue from Three Hopes also has them namedrop Thales, one of TWSITD's higher-ranking members. Said paralogue takes place during the War of Heroes, implying they're also very Long-Lived.
• Badass Normal: They're the only relevant faction native to Fódlan lacking crest bearers in their ranks^note (the people of Duscur may also lack Crests, but they have little influence over the course of the game outside of Dedue being one of them), choosing to rely instead in their highly advanced weaponry, Demonic Beasts, and their Titanus. That said, it's implied that their most important members also enhance their own bodies with their technology, mitigating the "normal" part, which manifests with the personal ability Agarthan Technology.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Downplayed on the Golden Wildfire route. In a roundabout way, their actions pave the way for Edelgard to trigger a continent-spanning war that ultimately gets Rhea/Seiros killed. They might not have conquered Fódlan yet, but given that Claude fails to defeat them the Agarthans ultimately come out ahead on this route. It's even worse in the normal ending, as Shez unwittingly kills their mortal enemy Sothis and doesn't manage to kill any of their commanders.
• Beyond the Impossible: Invoked and used to their advantage. From the perspective of the people of Fódlan, the ways in which the Agarthans use dark magic is beyond what they know to be possible using magic they understand. In particular their ability to take on the appearance of other people works so well (despite how poor many are at impersonating the behavior of these people) simply because that kind of shapeshifting is not even conceived of as possible. In Three Hopes Hubert also specifies that their warping magic is unlike the White or Faith magic normally used for teleporting, and unlike this magic they do not know how to disrupt or stop its use.
• Blood Magic: Their spells and rituals often require blood in some manner, as do many of their experiments.
• Casting a Shadow: They have many dark mages among their ranks. Since dark magic is associated with science in this game, it's natural that darkness and technology would go hand in hand.
• The Corruption: Not just as a politically corruptive force. As a bit of Gameplay and Story Integration, the only playable characters who naturally have access to dark magic are people who Those who slither in the dark have experimented on: Edelgard, Lysithea, Hapi, and Shez or been in close contact with: Monica, Hubert, and Jeritza. The fact that this extends to the latter three suggests that even regularly being around them is corruptive.
• Create Your Own Hero: On the Crimson Flower route, their experiments are what turn Edelgard into the second coming of Nemesis. She takes everything that they gave her and kills them with it. (They are still responsible for her creation on the other routes, but she never gets the chance to get revenge on them directly before Byleth kills her.)
• Dark Is Evil: Their imagery includes the most usage of black of any faction, they're the most prominent dark magic users in the game, they literally live under the ground in the dark, and they're the worst faction morality-wise by far. In Three Hopes on the Scarlet Blaze route, Hubert goes so far as to state that the dark magic they specialize in, compared to the white and black magic used by most, is one steeped in the heretical territory.
• Decapitated Army: On the Azure Moon route, as a result of Cornelia and a disguised Thales' death, they're essentially left without any remaining leadership other than Myson, who can meet the same fate, which results in whatever troops he's commanding deciding to turn tail and run.
• Deliberately Bad Example:
  • The various factions are knee-deep in Grey-and-Gray Morality, as they have their own moral failings and blood on their hands, but also redeeming qualities and moral limits. By contrast, those who slither in the dark have zero qualms or remorse over mass murder and deadly experimentation with innocent people, making the flawed lords look like saints regardless of story path.
  • They are also this in the context of Seiros/Rhea's deliberate halting of scientific and technological progress. While not a good look for that character, the Slitherers serve to demonstrate exactly why it was implemented in the first place by developing weapons of mass destruction capable of destroying entire cities and deploying them when they think they can get away with it, performing unconscionable experiments in eugenics and Crestology, and generally deploying every advanced technological marvel and revolutionary scientific breakthrough they came up with in the service of pure evil.
• Didn't See That Coming: With Three Houses, it largely depends on the route but for the most part they get to play the manipulators for a long period of time, and it takes a lot to even hope to try to deal with them to any degree. In Three Hopes, the mere existence of Shez and Arval completely and utterly throw all of their plans into disarray by causing alternate outcomes all around. This doubles down when it turns out Arval is an Agarthan creation that hosts Epimenides, an ancient Agarthan Lord that should be leading them. And even if Epimenides does support them, it's his power — Agarthan power — in Shez's hands that undoes them regardless.
• Divide and Conquer: One of their key overarching plans is to manipulate Edelgard and Dimitri into instigating a major continent-wide war against each other with the hope that they would take the Church of Seiros and the vast majority of Fódlan's power structure down with them, at which point they can emerge from their hiding place and easily reconquer the continent. This plan is made most explicit on the Azure Moon route, where members of the group like Cornelia and Arundel/Thales keep urging Dimitri and Edelgard to go kill each other.
• Dungeon Punk: They fit the bill of the aesthetic as a secret society utilizing both Magitek and Blood Magic in tandem with each other.
• Everyone Has Standards: Surprisingly enough, those who slither in the dark have exactly one line they are not willing to cross. The Scarlet Blaze route reveals that due to the group's hostility towards the Church of Seiros, they were vehemently opposed to the idea of having the Southern Church rebuilt in the Empire regardless of the reasoning or motive. It's only after Edelgard manages to exile the Agarthans from Adrestia with a suprise coup that she is able to rebuild it.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Implied in one of the books located in the Shadow Library, which narrates the Agarthans' conflict with the Children of the Goddess from their point of view. In it, it's mentioned that the "False God" (Sothis) will bring ruin to the "children of men" (Agarthans) due to them having spilled too much blood, all while never trying to justify nor defend themselves over it. Judging by the Agarthans seen in the present day, it's likely that the narrator never dwells on it because they simply don't see anything wrong with that.
• Evil Smells Bad: Downplayed to the extent that it's not noticeable to most people, but to Jeritza, whose skills make him a Scarily Competent Tracker, they and people tainted by them carry "the stench of maggots."
• Fantastic Racism:
  • They despise the Children of the Goddess, to the point of repeatedly trying to wipe them out, in particular their mother, Sothis (and by extension Byleth), just to set humanity "free".
  • Their racism toward the rest of the humans in Fódlan is also fantastical in nature, given the repeated assertions that unlike the Agarthans, the current people of Fódlan are in some way creations of or descended from Sothis, as they near-always refer to them by some variant of "beasts".
• Freaky Electronic Music: In contrast to the rest of the soundtrack's orchestral sound with a light EDM touch, they are associated with electronic genres such as Dubstep.
• Fun with Acronyms: TWSITD, which looks a lot like the word "twisted".
• Gone Horribly Right: They performed Crest experiments on people in order to create a supersoldier that would help them destroy the Church of Seiros and the Children of the Goddess. They succeeded in that, and the soldier did help them with accomplishing their goal. But they didn't account for the possibility that this soldier would be able to turn against them and use her new powers to better take them down.
• Hate Sink: An entire faction of them. Most of the game's factions are neither truly good nor evil, but those who slither in the dark are turbo-racists, deeply unpleasant, totally without ethics and directly or indirectly to blame for most of Fódlan's problems throughout the millennia.
• He Who Fights Monsters: The Nintendo Dream interview states that their ancient ancestors originally were simply people who hated that Sothis and the Children of the Goddess held positions of power over them at the time, and they wanted humans to rule themselves (though they also wanted access to Sothis' powers). By the time of the game, they have become a race alien to the surface of Fódlan who seek to rule over it while despising every other human as a savage beast to be experimented on, used, or killed; worse than the Children of the Goddess who at least acted out of a desire to benefit and advance humanity.
• Hidden Elf Village: So well hidden that not even the Flame Emperor, their erstwhile ally on the surface, knows where their home base is until very late on certain routes. Shambhala, the last known surviving city of the Agarthan empire, is an Advanced Ancient Acropolis located deep underground. Sure enough, its buildings and corridors are highly advanced and many of their defences are automated, from the Viskam turrets to the Titanus golems.
• Humanity Is Superior: Due to their ancestors' war with the Children of the Goddess, they long to erase them off the face of the earth to ensure human dominance. Though by "human", they really mean themselves, regarding the rest of humanity as little more than simple animals to be used, experimented on, or destroyed.
• Humiliation Conga: Inevitably, they are subjected to this on all routes to various degrees. They never come out on top no matter what route they are on and they are more or less destroyed by the end of the game.
  • At the end of Silver Snow and Verdant Wind, their last major base is raided and destroyed, all their major figureheads are slain, and the Church rebuilds itself with the land united under more peaceful terms. In the Silver Snow route, not only Rhea can survive if A-ranked with Byleth but the Church ends up becoming the ruling power in Fódlan, making all their work All for Nothing, while on the Verdant Wind route, their trump card, a revived Nemesis, is slain along with their remaining army, with Cornelia being the only known survivor.
  • By the end of the Azure Moon route, they've lost Edelgard and the Empire, their infiltrators in Faerghus and Garreg Mach are all slain, their role in the tragedy of Duscur is revealed by Cornelia, Thales is killed while still disguised as Arundel, and Dimitri is planning to investigate them in the future. Furthermore, Hapi's solo ending and some of her paired endings confirm they were destroyed.
  • Although they succeed in stripping the Church of its political power on the Crimson Flower route, Edelgard proceeds to turn on them, with it being strongly implied that she eventually wipes them out completely, as both Byleth's S-support with Jeritza and Balthus's solo ending confirm that the Empire manages to bring the battle all the way to their last stronghold of Shambhala.
• Inevitable Mutual Betrayal: Their relationship with the Flame Emperor. Edelgard hates the Agarthans' guts for the horrible experiments they put her through while the Agarthans only see her as a tool to be used to destroy humanity, but they have to work together to defeat the Church of Seiros. Afterwards, they fully intend to kill each other, and Edelgard makes good on it personally in Crimson Flower, and posthumously in Silver Snow and Verdant Wind.
• Ironic Name: Their namesakes among the Seven Sages are known to be some of the wisest men in Greek history. These guys are evil and malicious instead.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Downplayed on the Azure Moon route. They lose several of their most important leaders and their plans are thwarted for the time being, but they manage to slip back underground without Dimitri fully catching wise to the fact that there was another faction trying to trigger a war in Fódlan for their own ends. Notably, they retain control of Shambhala and the javelins of light, and there's no indication that they aren't fully capable of recovering and threatening Fódlan once again. If Hapi is recruited, this is subverted in her solo ending as well as her paired endings with Dimitri and with Byleth, as all involve them defeating or learning more of the Agarthans.
  • Played straight on the Golden Wildfire route. Claude's main focus is on Rhea and the Church of Seiros, and with the possible exception of one high-ranking Mad Scientist he never manages to kill any of their commanders or expose their influence on Fódlan.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: On the Crimson Flower route. While they remain at large at the end of the game, Edelgard has every intention of wiping them out after the Church is dealt with and many of the ending slides make mention of the conflict between them and the Empire (for example, Balthus' solo ending mentions a battle in Shambhala took place sometime after the end of the story, and Byleth's S-support with Jeritza actually takes place during said battle).
• Kill and Replace: This is the modus operandi for most of the high-ranking members in the present. Tomas and Three Houses' Monica were both real people that they murdered to disguise themselves as, and the same is implied to have been the case for Cornelia and Arundel. In Three Hopes, Edelgard and Monica's B-Support chain reveals they need to perform a dark ritual with their intended target first, suggesting they quite literally impersonate people via their victim's corpses. Cleobulus also hints at this when they are slain in Azure Gleam, with their words implying they are in some way wearing/using the real Cornelia's body. It's for this reason that Edelgard mentions that she finds them terrifying in the Scarlet Blaze route, as they could be just about anyone.
  Cornelia: So this body has reached its end. How pitifully frail you all are...
• Leitmotif: "Those Who Sow Darkness" plays whenever a member of those who slither in the dark is around.
• Locked Out of the Loop: In Three Hopes:
  • Shez' interactions with the various high-ranking Agarthans make clear they're just as confused of their ability to wield Epimenides' powers as much Shez is. How they react towards this however differs: Myson in Azure Gleam suspects Shez might have Epimenides' core in their body and later becomes convinced they turned coat; Solon theorises Shez could've come from Shambhala; and Thales in Scarlet Blaze quickly notices something is up with Shez' powers, before deciding by the endgame that whoever they are meant to be is irrelevant and are now a threat.
  • It's also heavily implied none of them (besides Epimenides himself) are aware of Arval's existence.
• Long-Lived: They refer to themselves as mortal, but via undisclosed means (perhaps magic, technology, or a mix of the two) at least some of them have become able to live very long lives. Three Hopes establishes Thales as having been alive for over a thousand years. For comparison's sake, the other oldest known human in the setting would be Aubin, one of the Four Apostles and a first-generation Crest Bearer, and even he succumbed to old age a few years before the events of the story while Thales is still going strong. It's implied their perseverance into the modern day can be attributed to their continued body-snatching, as Solon notes in Three Hopes that his current body is wearing thin and needs to be replaced. Keep in mind Solon's current body is the elderly Tomas.
• Mad Scientist: They are dedicated to pushing the boundaries of magic and science, but have absolutely zero moral scruples in how they do so. Putting Remire village under a Hate Plague, performing horrific experiments on Edelgard and Lysithea to empower them with Crests at the cost of drastically reducing their lifespans, manipulating Nemesis into murdering Sothis and her children and making weapons out of their corpses, and these are just the things we know about.
• The Man Behind the Man: Justified Trope given their current situation in the game's plot. As a result of losing Agartha, concealing their existence from the outside world, and having highly destructive weapons that can't be abused freely without compromising their location, those who slither in the dark are essentially forced to manipulate others and rely into other nations' armies to carry out their plans while also ensuring their survival.
  • They attempt to invoke this trope with Edelgard. They're responsible for implanting her with the Crest of Flames, provide her rare weaponry like her relic Aymr, the Death Knight's Scythe of Sariel and the Arrow of Indra, troops of their own and even demonic beasts so she may fight against the Children of the Goddess as well as the people of Fódlan in their stead. However, how much control they actually have once Part II rolls around can wildly vary depending on the route.
  • They are implied by the Shadow Library to be this to Loog's Rebellion, as not only did Loog have numerous Relic-like weapons just like Edelgard's Aymr or the Evil Knockoff of the Heroes' Relics from Verdant Wind, his famed strategist was named Pan after a Greek figure, fitting into the Agarthans' Theme Naming. Other tidbits imply but don't directly state they were behind the separation of the Kingdom into three nations, Leicester's Archduke's illness leading to their own rebellion against the Kingdom, and are even implied to have been behind Claude's uncle Godfrey's death rather than House Gloucester.
  • Yuri & Constance's paralogue in Three Houses, and Three Hopes as a whole show the group is no stranger to hiring bandits to do their dirty work for the sake of keeping their direct involvement hidden on the surface world.
• Master Race: They consider the people of Fódlan to all be savages at best and insects at worst. While motivated by their extreme sense of superiority, in general, they seem to hate the surface humans simply for being able to live lives they believe they were denied.
  Thales: You're nothing but animals performing tricks in the hopes of pleasing the goddess.
• Meaningful Name: The actual name of their civilization, Agartha, is a Hindu word for the underworld that would later be the name for a mythical dwelling believed to be located in the core of the earth—fitting for a race that was banished to live underground. Shambhala, the name of its only stronghold, is sometimes said to be Agartha's capital.
• Mole Men: Highly implied to be this by the time of Three Houses and Three Hopes' stories if Thales's Motive Rant in the Silver Snow/Verdant Wind routes about being banished to the underground is any indication.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: With a name like those who slither in the dark, you'd think they were some kind of cult or assassin ring. You'd be right, except they're worse.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: They're turbo-racists who consider individuals outside their own race to be subhuman. Their dominant colour is black, and they have strong influence over and association with the Adrestian Empire, a nation whose colour is red and whose iconic animal is a double-headed eagle. They're really into eugenics and torturous human experimentation on unwilling subjects, and despite their contempt for the Children of the Goddess they're proud of the technology they'd developed from the knowledge the "Fell Star" freely shared with them. Plus, they have a thing for Indic names.
• Necromancer: On the Verdant Wind route, they bring Nemesis and his Liberation Army back from the dead, which happens to comprise the Ten Elites as well.
• Nicknaming the Enemy: "Those who slither in the dark" is a nickname for the organization used by Hubert, who indirectly refers to them as such on certain occasions (also collectively referred to as "the threat that slithers in the dark"). The official name of the group is the "Agarthans", which Thales uses on numerous occasions.
• Orbital Bombardment: Their 'Javelins of Light' are this. They are magitek-enhanced tungsten rods launched from orbit, and records say one of them hit a region long ago and turned it into a hellish, blasted wasteland known as the Valley of Torment today.
• Out-of-Character Alert: Discussed in Chapter 10 of Three Houses. Those who slither in the dark forgo their usual modus operandi of laying in the shadows and make their presence known in the Sealed Forest purely because Kronya going out of her way to kill Jeralt gives the group the perfect chance to lure and kill whom they see is Sothis reborn (AKA "The Fell Star"). This move is so blatant that Rhea and the three house leaders are convinced it has to be a trap, but choose to take the bait as it's the only chance they have to get rid of them.
• Out of Focus: The organization as a whole takes a backseat during Part II as a result of the Adrestian Empire waging war against the Church of Seiros and the rest of Fódlan, though they retake the spotlight in the Silver Snow and Verdant Wind routes.
• Outside-Genre Foe: Fire Emblem has always been a fantasy SRPG locked in medieval-era tech level. These guys possess advanced weapons and tech such as ballistic missiles and giant mechs, and their home base is full of Tron Lines.
• Playing Both Sides: As part of their plan to Divide and Conquer Fódlan, their agents have been infiltrating and manipulating both the Adrestian Empire and Kingdom of Faerghus to cause both internal and external strife. In the past, they assisted the Decadent Courts of both nations to enact the Insurrection of the Seven in the Empire and subsequent crest experimentation on the imperial siblings as well as the Tragedy of Duscur in the Kingdom. In the present, while the bulk of their forces ally with the Empire, a contingent led by Cleobulus (disguised as Cornelia) resides in the Kingdom to manipulate said nation accordingly.
• Pyrrhic Victory:
  • On Crimson Flower, they achieve their goals of exterminating the Children of the Goddess and placing the world under human rule thanks to Edelgard. However, they don't live to enjoy their victory - they are soon killed by Edelgard and the Empire through a shadow war.
  • In Three Hopes, if Shez chooses to get revenge on Byleth, they use Arval's power to kill the Ashen Demon and Sothis along with them. On the Scarlet Blaze route, Rhea is killed as well. However, the Agarthans do not get to enjoy this victory on the Scarlet Blaze and Azure Gleam routes as they are destroyed by Shez, and in the Golden Ending, Shez allies with Byleth and destroys Arval/Epimenides as well.
• The Remnant: Even on the routes where their last known stronghold, Shambala, is destroyed, enough of them survive to rise back up and continue causing problems for Fódlan. Many of Hapi's character endings, as well as Byleth and Claude's paired ending, make note of how those who slither in the dark return some years later and have to be defeated once more. Even before losing Shambala, the Agarthans are a mere remnant of what they were in ancient history, hanging on underground and in hiding, desperate for vengeance over a war they lost thousands of years ago. Lacking the numbers and resources to take on the continent on their own, they focus on manipulating larger and more expendable forces, be it Nemesis and his people, the Kingdom, or the Empire. While they hold some aspirations of returning to their former power, they also are fine with outright destroying themselves and simply ruining the world around them if it can accomplish their vengeance against Sothis and the people of Fódlan.
• The Reveal: The Verdant Wind route eventually reveals what their deal is. The truth is, they are in fact descendants of a race called the Agarthans, a technologically advanced civilization that was helped by Sothis and the Children of the Goddess to its rise by the dragons sharing their knowledge with them. However, they tried to kill her in order to conquer Fódlan. Sothis promptly destroyed them for their hubris, but the survivors became a cult, manipulating Nemesis into murdering the sleeping Sothis and her children for use of their body parts to create the first Crests and the Heroes' Relics. Their master plan is to resurrect Nemesis and use him to dispose of Seiros and the church by using Edelgard, who also seeks to depose the church for her own reasons, in order to "save humanity".
• Revenge Myopia: Sothis and her children helped them develop advanced technology and shared their knowledge with them. They responded by having repeated wars with orbital Weapons of Mass Destruction, against Sothis' teachings, eventually culminating in them turning their weapons on Sothis herself. It didn't end well for them, with Sothis striking back in a war that devastated the land and left most of the humans dead, then fixing the land they ruined. Instead of admitting any fault, they blamed her and her children for all of it. This then created a huge Cycle of Revenge that ravages Fódlan (the remnants using Nemesis and the Ten Elites to kill the sleeping Sothis and her children, Seiros and the Four Saints rightfully slaying them in the War of Heroes, the remnants from that time dividing the land and later being responsible for the Tragedy of Duscur that haunts Dimitri and the horrible experiments on Lysithea, Hapi, and Edelgard with the last being the most notable attempt to attack the Children of the Goddess with varying degrees of success depending on the route) to the time Byleth comes to Garreg Mach Monastery.
• Tautological Templar: Ignatz notes that they truly believe themselves to be righteous saviors out to "free humanity", and so they'll commit any act to liberate mankind from the Goddess.
  Ignatz: They were trying to wipe out the goddess and her followers in hopes of taking back the surface. That's why they called themselves saviors. To their mind, they were.
• Theme Naming: All of their names are Greek in origin, and in particular, six of them share names with an equivalent number of the Seven Sages of Greece: Thales, Solon, Myson, Chilon, Bias, Pittacus, and Cleobulus. Meanwhile, Kronya herself is likely named after an ancient Greek harvest festival, and Odesse's name comes from the root word "odessa", meaning "long journey".
• This Was His True Form: Averted in that every time one of them dies while still in disguise (Thales as Arundel, Cleobulus as Cornelia), the disguise stays on even in death.
• Unknown Rival: Downplayed in general. While most characters do learn of their existence, they never truly grasp what exactly they are sans in Silver Snow and Verdant Wind. With that said, the trope gets played straight in Azure Moon, where Thales gets wiped out while he's still disguised as Arundel.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • Sothis and the Children of the Goddess helped them develop advanced technology and shared their knowledge with them. They respond by having repeated wars with orbital Weapons of Mass Destruction, against Sothis' teachings, eventually culminating in them turning their weapons on Sothis herself. It didn't end well for them, with Sothis striking back in a war that devastated the land and left most of the humans dead, then fixing the land they ruined. Instead of admitting any fault, they blame her and her children for all of it.
  • On the Crimson Flower route, the mooks you're forced to save in Hubert's paralogue will express disgust over the idea of being saved by surface-dwellers. Meanwhile, this can be subverted by Arundel/Thales, as he can congratulate you for the job as long you managed to save all of them.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight:
  • Zigzagged example depending on the route. After the timeskip, observant players can notice some soldiers from the group aiding the Adrestian army during key battles the game doesn't bring attention to, namely; the Battle at Gronder on Azure Moon and Verdant Wind, as well as the invasion of Enbarr and the Imperial Palace's infiltration on the Silver Snow/Verdant Wind routes. While on the Silver Snow route, the trope is played straight, on the Azure Moon and Verdant Wind routes, this is eventually averted, as during the former's final battle, Ingrid/Gilbert will bring attention to the fact that the Empire is fighting alongside an unknown party, while in Verdant Wind, Lysithea will mention after the battle at Gronder that there were some mysterious mages fighting on Adrestia's side, which remind her of the same people who experimented on her and her siblings.
  • Discussed in Lysithea's A-Support with Byleth, in particular in non-Verdant Wind routes. She mentions that, during the time Ordelia territory was governed by the Adrestian Empire as a result of them helping House Hrym revolt, multiple mages with "skin pale as death" came along with the Adrestians meant to replace the killed staff and experimented on her house's children while under supervision of the Empire. This suggests both sides openly collaborated during the ensuing process, which is corroborated further as the people who fled to Hrym to avoid intervention were forced to return, at a time said territory's governance was managed by Duke Aegir.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Although not outright confirmed, it's noted by several characters that while the group may have the same overarching goal, they don't seem to keep much track of (or care) what each individual is doing at all times, unless it negatively affects them as a whole. As a result, several members put their own plans into effect - Solon using Remire Village for 'research', Kronya drawing Demonic Beasts into the monastery's chapel, etc - without telling the others.
• Would Hurt a Child: They perform Crest experiments on anyone they see as too weak to retaliate, and this includes children. And even if they don't die from said experiments and come out with something like two crests - an impossibility by current understanding - they will be left with a shortened lifespan, something the mages don't give a hoot about.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In the Crimson Flower route, their assistance is considered a necessary evil by Edelgard and Hubert, as they can use the extra help taking on the powerful Church of Seiros. At the end of the war, Edelgard follows through with wiping them off the face of the earth, ending their threat.

Thales

Thales

Class: Agastya

Voiced by: Masaki Terasoma (Japanese), Christopher Corey Smith^note Credited as "Chris Smith" (English)

A major figure of those who slither in the dark and Solon and Kronya's boss. In order to carry out his master plan, he acts in the shadows of Fódlan.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: In Three Hopes, with Monica stating that Tomas (really Solon) was her kidnapper, Edelgard decides to oust Arundel from the Empire. Thus, in the Scarlet Blaze route, he appears fairly early in the game compared to Three Houses when defeated. Notably, Thales never appeared at all in Crimson Flower after the timeskip, at least as himself.
• Armor and Magic Don't Mix: Averted. He wears black armor and he's primarily a spellcaster.
• Beard of Evil: He sports a notable goatee and is one of the main antagonists of the game.
• Big Bad: One of the key villains of Three Houses and Three Hopes, thus making him this for every Fire Emblem game which takes place in Fódlan.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Shares this role alongside the Flame Emperor in Three Houses' Part I, though he also wavers between this and the Greater-Scope Villain depending on the route. As the leader of those who slither in the dark and the one with the closest connection with Edelgard's past, he's directly responsible for Edelgard's ambitions and resources, thus making her Thales' main agent of Fódlan's destruction.
• Big Bad Ensemble:
  • In both Crimson Flower and Scarlet Blaze, he's one of the main antagonists alongside Lady Rhea. To what extent however is where both paths differ:
    • In Crimson Flower, even though Thales is technically on your side, it's made abundantly clear he is far and away the more malevolent character of the two, to the point even Edelgard recognizes he's a threat that must be stopped after defeating the Church and unifying Fódlan, even choosing to purposely weaken his forces during her campaign despite their team-up.
    • In Scarlet Blaze, due to Edelgard breaking her alliance with Thales, he and his goons remain a looming threat to the Empire for most of the route while the Church and their allies act as the immediate enemy, and it isn't up until the lategame when he begins showing his cards once more.
  • In Part I of Azure Gleam, he's one of the main threats of the story alongside Edelgard herself. By Part II however, he unquestionably becomes the main antagonist once he manages to mind control Edelgard into becoming his Puppet Queen while he rules the Empire from the shadows.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Ends up falling into this in Three Houses. Thales is responsible for most of what happens late into Part I, played a key role in both Edelgard and Dimitri's backstories, and had infiltrated the Empire and allied himself with Duke Aegir, its de facto ruler, all which would give him the markings of the game's main antagonist. In practice however, a combination of Edelgard's coup against Duke Aegir and subsequent surprise coronation halfway into the game, as well of his heavy reliance on the Empire's army due to his group lacking the means to wage war and conquer Fódlan by themselves, means Thales ends up pushed to the sidelines while the main antagonist of Part II takes center stage. It also doesn't help that in spite of the feats Thales pulls off in Part I, he ends up swiftly taken care off in the routes where he's caught by surprise, while in Crimson Flower, both of his efforts with setting the Empire and Edelgard on a leash fail completely, and various character endings mention the Empire eventually took care of his group sometime after ending the war.
• Blank White Eyes: Unlike the other Agarthans, Thales' eyes have no pupils whatsoever.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: When he saves Kronya from Byleth after she kills Jeralt, he states it's because she still has another role to play. He later clarifies it was to keep the nature of their bodies a secret, only for Solon to reveal later the actual "role" prepared for her.
• Character Death: He will always die in some form through the default routes of Three Houses; In the Silver Snow and Verdant Wind routes, he ends up being crushed alive as Shambhala collapses over him, with one shot even focusing on his lifeless body. In Azure Moon, he's killed by Dimitri during the Empire's assault on Derdriu under the appearance of Lord Arundel. Crimson Flower, meanwhile, does not make his final fate clear, but his chances of survival are slim given that Byleth and Jertiza's S-support, as well as Balthus' ending, confirm that the Empire's war with those who slither in the dark is taken all the way to Shambhala. As for Three Hopes, he always ends up dead by the end of Azure Gleam as a result of being impaled by Dimitri's lance. He also suffers a Disney Villain Death in Scarlet Blaze after seemingly falling to his doom along with Rhea, though his demise isn't confirmed for sure.
• The Chessmaster: Thales' machinations and overall influence under his public identity as the current Lord Arundel can be seen in many of Fódlan's current conflicts, which he seeks to fully take advantage of as much as possible:
  • His experiments on the Hresvelg family is one of the mayor catalysts driving Edelgard to reunify Fódlan and remove the Crest system by force, which he is more than happy to assist in as it allows him to expand those who slither in the dark's influence on the surface world, despite being well aware that Edelgard is planning to get rid of him once his assistance is no longer needed. This is more blatant on the Silver Snow and Verdant Wind routes, as he essentially has Edelgard wage war and destroy as much of Fódlan as possible in his stead while ultimately outliving her, and the only reason he doesn't get away with it is because Hubert leaves a note to Byleth and their allies post-mortem disclosing the location of his hideout.
  • His part in the Tragedy of Duscur resulted in most of the Blaiddyd family line being wiped out sans Dimitri and his uncle Rufus, leaving both survivors not only at the mercy of Cornelia's future manipulations, but also inducing in Dimitri a desire for revenge towards those responsible for the slaughter and their allies. By Edelgard's own admission in her route, this was a deliberate move on his part, since it ultimately provided another source of conflict that his group could take advantage of, which is seen on the Azure Moon route as both Cornelia and a disguised Thales attempt to encourage Dimitri to kill Edelgard. Abyss records also indicate that in addition to plunging the Kingdom into instability and chaos, the fallout from the Tragedy of Duscur drew a deeper wedge between the Central and Western churches, paving the way for Thales to use the Western church in his own plans and increase his group's influence on the Kingdom.
• Climax Boss:
  • In Three Houses, on Silver Snow and Verdant Wind, he's the last opponent fought in the story before the path's respective final boss.
  • In Three Hopes, he is the last boss faced during the prologue/academy phase, but only in the Black Eagles route.
• Cool Sword: Ridill, a sword crafted by archaic methods which possesses a double-ended design near the tip of the sword. It is left unused in Three Houses, but it can be purchased in Three Hopes in New Game Plus with enough renown.
• Cold Ham: He tends to be very cold and collected while speaking in a very dramatic and imposing fashion, all without raising his voice. Should he be caught by surprise by having Shambhala invaded, however, Thales will begin to shout orders like a madman as he demands the death of those who oppose him.
• Combat Pragmatist: In Three Hopes, his final fight in the Scarlet Blaze route has shades of this. Thales briefly feigns defeat at one point just so Edelgard's army can take care of Rhea for him, and once the latter's been weakened enough, then he makes a surprise return and tries sucker punching both.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: By having access to the Commander skill, Thales boasts multiple resistances other than just preventing instant death and reducing damage from gambits.
• Curtains Match the Window: His white hair and beard match his Prophet Eyes.
• Dead Person Impersonation: It's heavily implied that his group killed Arundel and that he has been impersonating him ever since Imperial Year 1174. It's confirmed in Three Hopes.
• Dying Curse: Thematically, his dying moment has him deliver one, accompanied by the BGM 'The Curse'. The reality is more mundane, but a whole lot more destructive.
• Evil Counterpart: To post-timeskip Dimitri. Both leaders of their respective groups dedicate themselves to avenging the deaths of their people. They're willing to sacrifice themselves and their allies ruthlessly pursuing their enemies (the Church, Rhea, and Children of the Goddess for Thales, and Edelgard for Dimitri), and they tend to refer to said enemies as "beasts". They differ, however, in that Dimitri was personally affected by the truly senseless Tragedy of Duscur, while Thales obsesses over a "crime" that happened because his people provoked Sothis out of hubris. Additionally, Dimitri mourns the deaths of his companions even in his most psychotic moments. Thales, meanwhile, couldn't care less about who or what he has to defile or kill to further his plans.
• Evil Sorcerer: He's a Guru (per his class' description) with mastery in dark magic and wants his organization to rule the surface world through any means necessary.
• Fantastic Racism: As the leader of the Agarthans, he shares the same sentiments towards the Children of the Goddess and the surface-dwelling humans created by Sothis, referring to them as beasts and other derogatory names in a contemptuous manner.
  Thales: Your eyes, hair, ears and blood... we remember it all! We remember how you ruined us. How you stole our light and condemned us to eternal darkness!
• A Father to His Men: Subverted. It's clear Thales only values his troops as long they're useful to him in some form. While he goes out of his way to save disguised Kronya from Byleth, he also makes clear he did so only because he still had something in mind planned for her. Also, under Arundel's guise on Azure Moon, he insults a dead Cornelia for having the Faerghus Dukedom snatched away by Dimitri, while in Crimson Flower, it becomes obvious that behind his calm composure, he's absolutely livid over Cornelia's "accidental" death at the hands of Edelgard's army, as she had been slain before getting the chance to sabotage the Kingdom army.
• Final Boss: He's the last boss of the Azure Gleam route in Three Hopes. In Scarlet Blaze, he shares this with Rhea.
• Foil: To Rhea and Byleth. Both are Magic Knights using a Cool Sword, lead a religion, have Mysterious Past and are The Stoic, unless they reach the Rage Breaking Point. However, Rhea is generally Light Is Good and a benevolent figure unless her buttons are pressed in the worst way, and seeks to do right by Fódlan, while Thales is very much Dark Is Evil and a malicious figure who only cares about power and revenge. In addition, Rhea focuses more on the "Knight" part of the Magic Knight equation, using swords as her primary weapon and magic as a backup, while Thales focuses almost exclusively on the "Magic" part of the equation, using magic as his primary weapon while his sword skills are an Informed Attribute.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Every single instance in Three Houses where it's hinted Lord Arundel is being impersonated by Thales becomes this in Three Hopes, as the end of the Black Eagles' prologue and the lategame of the Azure Gleam route confirms that's indeed the case.
  • In Three Houses, if both Bias and Pittacus are defeated in Verdant Wind and Silver Snow's Shambhala map, a brief exchange happens between Thales and Rhea where both recognize each other and Rhea directly points to everyone he's the group's head honcho. Three Hopes reveals both have been essentially arch-enemies ever since the War of Heroes.
• Fluffy Fashion Feathers: Sports some mahogany colored feathers around his collar, which happen to be connected to his armor's pauldrons.
• Gone Horribly Right: His main plan in the years leading up to the game's events was to imbue Edelgard with the Crest of Flames and turn her into a weapon to take revenge on the Children of the Goddess and all of humanity. On the Crimson Flower route, she does use that power to take out their arch-enemy Seiros… before turning on him and wiping his group to the last, just as she said she would.
• Greater-Scope Villain: On the Azure Moon route. He is directly responsible for driving Edelgard to villainy and providing many of the resources she uses, but she is the focus villain of the route and Dimitri unceremoniously kills him without ever truly learning his role in the plot.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: He's the only enemy in game capable of using Quake Σ, a dark magic spell hitting every non-flying character on the map. And unlike previous area-of-effect attacks in the series, this one can kill your units if they're weakened.
• Hero Killer: Downplayed on non-Crimson Flower routes. By pushing Byleth into a canyon with a blast of dark magic during the the Empire's invasion of Garreg Mach, Thales essentially leaves Byleth M.I.A. for 5 whole years.
• Informed Attribute:
  • Thales' unique class and sword in Three Houses allude to him being an important religious figure for the Agarthans, but this area of his is never truly explored in the game.
  • Thales having a personal sword is an Informed Attribute, as he always uses magic exclusively in battle.
• Irony: For all the association with darkness he has alongside his organization, even practicing dark magic, Thales longs for the light. His vendetta is motivated by a desire to embrace the light once more, and in his guise as Arundel, he finally finds peace when dying in the light on the Azure Moon route. His obsession with the light leads his entire nation to its downfall on the Silver Snow and Verdant Wind routes. He uses the last of his strength to launch "javelins of light" onto Shambhala both to kill his enemies and shine light upon the underground city at last (quite literally, since its earth ceiling collapses around it).
• Jack of All Stats: In contrast to Solon and Kronya, Thales' stats are balanced all around, even having similar prowess in attack and magic despite the latter being his main means of offense. ^note Thales was originally intended to have a unique sword, named Ridill, but it got Dummied Out of Three Houses and repurposed as a New Game Plus reward in Warriors: Three Hopes.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Subverted on the Azure Moon route. While he definitively seems to be this at first, his death at the hands of Dimitri under his Arundel guise essentially means that the former avenged his family and the Duscur people without even realizing it.
  • Played straight on the Golden Wildfire route. He manages to personally stay off of Claude's radar for the entire game and is never punished for his crimes against Fódlan.
• Large and in Charge: Datamining the game reveals his height is 186 cm, meaning he towers over his underlings Solon (176 cm), Cleobulus (168 cm), and Kronya (157 cm).
• Last Stand: While some remnants of his people always survive to cause problems years later, Thales in Three Houses considers the battle in Shambala to be this in terms of a realistic opportunity for his people's vengeance to be realized. In his orders to his forces, he tells them to "activate all that remain" in terms of their advanced technological weapons, implying that he is putting everything they have left into this battle.
• The Leader: All members of the organization answer to him, and his class' description all but states that he's the member with the highest rank. On the Crimson Flower route, Hubert's declaration that Lord Arundel is the boss of the organization is another hint that he and Thales are the one and the same.
• The Man Behind the Man:
  • In Scarlet Blaze, Thales' stratagems in Hrym Territory allow Ludwig von Aegir to take over Fort Merceus in an attempt to overthrow Edelgard, even providing the former duke Agarthan troops and Viskams to fortify his forces further.
  • In Azure Gleam, Thales manages to become this to Edelgard once her defeat in Arianrhod at the hands of the Kingdom army gives him the chance to brainwash her into his puppet, thus giving him complete control of the Adrestian Empire.
• Meaningful Name: His unique class is named after Agastya, a famed Indian sage which mirrors the overall Seven Sages of Greece Theme Naming as many other named Agarthans. "Agastya" is also another name for Canopus, the second brightest star in the sky after Sirius, which both Sothis and Seiros are named after.
• Mind-Control Device: In Three Hopes' timeline, it's implied that after Edelgard forced him to escape from the Empire, Thales had the Crest Stone used for the Aymr repurposed into this for the idea of potentially making Edelgard submit to his will should the ideal chance for it present itself (which only comes to pass in the Azure Gleam route).
• Motive Rant: Delivers one on Silver Snow and Verdant Wind once the party arrives into Shambhala.
  Thales: For thousands of years, we have existed underground, living on only that we might someday see our vengeance realized.
• Not Me This Time: In Crimson Flower Chapter 17, when Kingdom soldiers start turning into Demonic Beasts, Hubert briefly questions whether Thales was responsible. It wasn't him; it was Dedue, driven to desperation by the Imperial army breathing down their necks.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: If he hadn't decided to experiment on Edelgard and her siblings, nobody would have known his faction existed. In the long run, this leads to his whole group getting wiped out in three routes and their leadership being destroyed in the fourth (and that's assuming Hapi doesn't fight for the Kingdom).
• Out-Gambitted: Unfortunately for Thales, his plans are always eventually derailed in some form.
  • In Silver Snow and Verdant Wind, Hubert's letter revealing Shambhala's location to Byleth and co. essentially turns Thales and his whole group into a sitting duck once they're invaded, forcing Thales to fight them on his home turf without the assistance of the Adrestian Empire, which he heavily relied on in order to carry out his revenge.
  • In Azure Moon, by choosing to fight on the front lines while disguised as Arundel in Derdriu, he pretty much solidifies Edelgard's status as the Big Bad once he's unceremoniously killed by Dimitri, forcing his minions to rally behind her by proxy of Myson in order to achieve their agenda, being no longer able to threaten her with their "javelins of light". And even then, they can leave her to die should Myson fall during the Final Battle.
  • In Crimson Flower, Edelgard makes efforts to distance herself from Thales and her forces as early as Chapter 12, which leads to Rhea being able to escape the battle and Dimitri being able to go to Faerghus to be crowned king, and after the timeskip, she turns more to Byleth for guidance than to Thales. She then arranges to remove some of his undercover agents like Cornelia in the process. He attempts to dissuade her from doing so by obliterating a recently-captured Arianhrod, which proves to be pointless as he's dealt with after the war is over anyway.
  • Three Hopes' timeline as a whole happens because Thales' plans are reduced to smithereens early on because Edelgard seized an unlikely chance to get rid of him and his group in the Empire, to the point he's more or less forced to start from scratch. And while Thales manages to eventually salvage the situation in Azure Gleam, he never manages to recover from the setback in both Scarlet Blaze and Golden Wildfire.
• Opportunistic Bastard: Thales lives and breathes by this trope, as most of his influence on Fódlan's current events stem from his involvement and abuse of both Adrestia and Faerghus's own political turmoils, which, as mentioned above, can be felt in both the Insurrection of the Seven and in the Tragedy of Duscur. As for specific examples:
  • Three Hopes' Scarlet Blaze route reveals Thales' Evil Plan for Part I of Three Houses (and by proxy, his involvement in Garreg Mach) was to perfect his group's experimental Demonic Beasts into viable war assets which would be used later on by Edelgard to secure a decisive victory against the Church once she and the Imperial Army were ready to invade Garreg Mach. As a result, his decision to use Kronya as both a bait and sacrifice for Solon's banishing spell against Byleth is implied to have been just him seizing an opportunity his minion created to kill who he deems is most likely Sothis reborn.
  • At the end of Azure Gleam's Part I, Thales wastes no time capitalizing on Edelgard's defeat in Arianrhod at the hands of Dimitri by using a mind control Crest Stone on the weakened Emperor, thus gaining full control of her actions.
• Out of Focus:
  • He has very little personal prominence on the Azure Moon route, having two brief appearances in Part I and being unceremoniously killed off in his Lord Arundel disguise without Dimitri ever finding out his true role in Fódlan's woes.
  • He makes no appearances whatsoever in Three Hopes' Golden Wildfire route.
• Pointy-Haired Boss: While this is not really seen in Three Houses, Three Hopes has people like Cleobulus, Anaximandros, and Epimenides show clear disdain for his leadership and would much prefer to do things their own way. However, no one seems willing to overthrow his leadership, so presumably he's good enough that they would rather have him be the figurehead than themselves.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
  "Do not stand in my way!"
  "A waste of life!"
  "Behold my revenge!"
  "You cannot stop me!"
• Prophet Eyes: His eyes are a solid white hue without pupils.
• Psychotic Smirk: During the end of Chapter 12 in non-Crimson Flower routes, Thales can be seen smirking for a brief moment right as he blasts Byleth away into a canyon with a sphere of dark magic.
• Really 700 Years Old: Arval's paralogue in Three Hopes reveals Thales has been around in Fódlan at the very least since the War of Heroes, meaning he's over 1100 years old at the start of the events of both Fódlan games, and their comments suggest he achieved this via his group's advanced technology. Interestingly, this retroactively means Thales' internal age in Three Houses (48) is merely his physical age.
• Recurring Boss: In Three Hopes on the Scarlet Blaze route, he's given repeat appearances as a boss — his first being in Chapter 3 as Arundel, and his second in the final chapter as one of the two Final Bosses.
• Recurring Element: He's basically a classical take of the Gharnef archetype: an unnaturally ugly dark mage that manipulates events in his favor and even moreso, on Silver Snow and Verdant Wind, he attempts to resurrect a powerful figure with godlike powers (Nemesis) from the past to help his cause. To be more precise, he takes the most influence from Manfroy, an embittered Dark mage obsessed with the past oppression of his people, a hatred of the surface dwellers of the continent, and forces an influential noble with grand ambitions for the continent to ally with him in a Teeth-Clenched Teamwork position. Ironically, the primary target of his hatred, Rhea, takes influence from the more modern Gharnef archetypes.
• Revenge: This is essentially his whole motive behind throwing Fódlan into chaos and desiring to kill the Children of the Goddess. As far as Thales is concerned, Sothis and her children purged Agartha and exiled his kin from the surface when they "rightfully" attempted to impose their hegemony over them, so in his eyes, he's merely avenging his people and trying to reclaim what he believes should have been rightfully theirs; the world of the surface.
• Salt the Earth: Employs this strategy a few times. Not only Thales' access to the Javelins of Light give him the means to do exactly that to both Fort Merceus and Arianrhod in Three Houses, Three Hopes also reveals the Empire's plan in non-Crimson Flower routes of laying waste to Garreg Mach Monastery via his group's Demonic Beasts at the end of Part I was his idea.
• Shadow Dictator: Becomes this to the Adrestian Empire by Part II of Azure Gleam, as very few people in the Empire besides Edelgard, Duke Aegir and a few nobles close to Ludwig's inner circle know that he exists and that he's the one issuing orders to both.
• Smug Snake:
  • During his meeting with the Flame Emperor after Jeralt's death, when the former gives him an Implied Death Threat for their actions, Thales chooses to ignore his co-worker's warnings entirely and focuses instead on claiming that all of his group's actions have been for the Flame Emperor's sake.
  • Should Claude confront him during battle, Thales will show amusement over the very idea of a creature like him being capable of even scratching his body.
• The Stoic: Downplayed. While Thales isn't that expressive for the most part, he's not afraid to flaunt his superiority when things go his way.
• Story-Breaker Power: Thales has the ability to deploy the "javelins of light" towards whatever location he desires, making him one of the most powerful characters in the setting. It's implied this doesn't come without drawbacks, however, as not only do Claude and Hubert speculate that there must be something preventing their frequent use, as Thales seems to be deliberately preventing himself from abusing them (save for when he's being pushed into a corner and has nothing left to lose), because of their absence in the Azure Moon route as a result of his premature death as Lord Arundel, it's also implied that he's the only member of the group capable of activating them.
• Taking You with Me: Spitefully tries to obliterate Byleth, Rhea, and Shambhala off the face of Fódlan once he's defeated in battle. He's willing to destroy not only himself, but the last stronghold of his own people, just on the off-chance it achieves his vengeance.
  Thales: You will never... get to enjoy your victory.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: Averted in Three Hopes. When he sheds his disguise as Arundel, Edelgard takes the opportunity to go for his head. However, there is nothing keeping Thales from moving as he transforms and he simply warps out of the way while the transformation is happening.
• Undignified Death: Downplayed on the Azure Moon route. When he dies in his Lord Arundel disguise, there's no epic confrontation between him and any of the people whose lives he ruined befitting the story's Greater-Scope Villain. He's just unceremoniously killed in action on the streets of Derdriu in the guise of a high-ranking enemy general, with no further fanfare attached beyond his belittling Dimitri by refusing to answer his questions as he dies.
• The Unfought:
  • On the Crimson Flower route, you never actually fight him, since his group is technically working for you at that point. Instead, the closing text says that Edelgard's new empire went to war with his group and took them down after defeating the Church of Seiros.
  • Subverted on the Azure Moon route, as while you don't fight Thales specifically, you instead kill him under his guise as Lord Arundel.
  • Played straight on the Golden Wildfire route where you never directly encounter him.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • Once Byleth enters Shambhala, his mostly stoic contempt drops, and he immediately barks orders to overload the stronghold's defense sentries and release the Titanus' inhibitors, all while he rants about the coming vengeance, and contemplating destroying Shambhala just so his enemies are vanquished.
  • In Three Hopes' Azure Gleam's ending, he visibly panics after being defeated and cornered by Shez and Dimitri, desperately flinging his magic at the latter, who simply tanks the blows before running him through.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In the Crimson Flower and Azure Moon routes, he makes no story appearances after Part I. Ultimately subverted, given it's heavily implied he still reappears in the story later but under the identity of Lord Arundel; in the latter route, he's killed while still disguised.

Solon

Solon

Class: Dark Bishop

Voiced by: Shinya Fukumatsu (Japanese), Joe Ochman^note Credited as "Joseph Whimms" (English)

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

Church Shadow

A man with the appearance of a mage. Suitable for his appearance, he uses cunning schemes and tricks. A highly dangerous individual.

---

• Adaptational Early Appearance: In Three Hopes, thanks to the real Monica outing him, or rather his Tomas disguise, as her kidnapper, he's forced out of his false identity much earlier than in Three Houses.
• Asshole Victim:
  • In Three Houses, after his role in the tragedy in Remire Village, no one sheds any tears for him after Byleth kills him after returning from Zahras.
  • In Three Hopes on Scarlet Blaze and Golden Wildfire, after putting a spell over the Hrym and Ordelia territories that made the inhabitants go berserk, you won't feel sorry for him if you've recruited Byleth and Jeralt, where he will be used by Epimenides to open the gates of Zahras.
• Batman Gambit: He's described as someone who relies on cunning schemes and tricks. Notably, he makes use of Kronya's presence (who had just killed Jeralt) in the Sealed Forest as a way to lure a very angry Byleth into a trap, conveniently omitting to Kronya what exactly such a trap entails for her.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: His eyes are differing shades of yellow with black sclerae, and he's referred to as highly dangerous.
• Character Death:
  • In Three Houses, Solon is slain by Byleth in the Sealed Forest after failing to kill them via the Forbidden Spell of Zahras.
  • In Three Hopes good endings, Solon attempts to ambush Shez' chosen faction but is forced to retreat, and ends up impaled by Epimenides from behind in a ritual to summon the Forbidden Spell of Zahras.
• The Cameo: He pops up in Byleth's reveal trailer for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, is shocked when Byleth escapes his trap by running off to Smash, and freaks out when Byleth gains all four of the protagonists' Heroes' Relics.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: He bears the Unsealable Magic skill on all of his appearances.
• Dark Messiah: A very dark take on the trope. Solon proclaims himself "the savior of all" just as Remire Village burns around him and the villagers he infected are trying to kill each other.
• Dead Person Impersonation: It's heavily implied his group killed Tomas sometime after he left the Monastery and that he has been impersonating him ever since his "return".
• Defiant to the End: When Byleth returns from what should have been their Fate Worse than Death sporting Sothis' power and a Death Glare, Solon realizes how screwed he is, but chooses to go down fighting to the end with the last of his troops and fell beasts.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In Three Hopes good endings, Solon ends up sacrificed by Epimenides in order to summon the Forbidden Spell of Zahras, the very same spell he himself performs in Three Houses by sacrificing Kronya.
• Evil Genius: Those who slither in the dark's resident Mad Scientist who performs experiments to turn people into monsters.
• Evil Gloating: He engages in this right after discarding his disguise as Tomas in Remire Village.
• Evil Old Folks: Having a bent back and needing a walking stick doesn't hinder his ability to be a bastard. Datamining the game even reveals he's physically 73 years old.
• Evil Cripple: Concept art reveals his big right eye is actually a prosthetic made from advanced technology.
• Foreshadowing: His response to Byleth escaping the realm of Zahras in Three Houses proved to be foreshadowing of the existence of Arval and Epimenides. He makes it clear that he did not believe the "Fell Star" could get out of the dimension, ominously saying "the only being that can withstand that darkness is..." but not finishing his sentence. The being he speaks of proved to be Arval/Epimenides, a being Solon and other Agarthans knew about but believed had been lost to them long ago.
• For Science!:
  • The reason he caused chaos in Remire. It brought absolutely no benefit to the group's goals (and in fact, given he had to abandon his disguise as Tomas as a result, actively hurt them if anything), but he wanted to see what would happen. That said, the DLC-exclusive paralogue for Yuri and Constance hints that he was trying to perfect a way to turn humans into Demonic Beasts for the Flame Emperor's army, as an uncontrollable fit of rage is depicted as the first symptom of the transformation.
  • He abandons his usual Agarthan superiority complex in Heroes when talking to the Summoner because he's fascinated by the Breidablik and offers to work with the Summoner to study its secrets.
• Gravity Master: In Heroes, his Banshee Θ spell debuffs and induces the Gravity status to any foes 5 spaces near him during turns 3 & 4.
• Karma Houdini: If the player didn't recruit Byleth and Jeralt in any of the routes in Three Hopes, then Solon doesn't die, and walks away scot-free from all of his actions.
• Karmic Death: At the climax of White Clouds, he uses Kronya as a Human Sacrifice for the Spell of Zahras to trap Byleth. Come Three Hopes, in each route's Golden Ending he winds up being sacrificed by Epimenides to open a gate to Zahras for the final showdown.
• Kick the Dog: In Chapter 8, if the player fails to save any villager before Solon reveals his true form, he will declare the "experiment" has been finished right before having every villager not driven mad killed on the spot.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: In Three Hopes, Solon decides to discard his Tomas disguise and quickly escapes from Garreg Mach earlier than anticipated once Monica identifies him as her kidnapper.
• Life Drain: Thanks to his Lifetaker skill, Solon can replenish his health every time he defeats an enemy unit.
• Lone Wolf Boss: In Golden Wildfire, as Those Who Slither in the Dark take a backseat, Solon becomes the only member who is fought in that route, and has otherwise no relation to Claude's fight against the Church.
• Long Game: Discussed in his level 40 quote from Heroes. Solon expresses the wish to have Kiran team up with the Agarthans, and states how "time is of no concern" for his group should they be unable to (and given TWSITD's usual course of action, he's not bluffing).
• Magic Staff: In Three Houses he wields the Circe Staff, which for all intents and purposes is also his walking stick.
• Manipulative Bastard: In the Golden Deer route, it's implied that under his Tomas disguise, Solon deliberately made Claude more antagonistic towards the Church of Seiros. He casually discloses to Claude that the church has been covering up the dark nature of the Heroes' Relics and Crests for quite some time, even suggesting that the Sword of Creator could've been what corrupted Nemesis to begin with.
• Master of Disguise: In-universe, Solon is the only Agarthan who manages to successfully pose as someone else without raising any suspicions, and when he willingly chooses to discard his Tomas disguise, it comes as a legit shock to many. ^note By contrast, Dimitri finds it odd how Arundel suddenly stopped donating to the Church, and Hanneman and Lysithea comment there's something off about him; Hilda and some NPCs find it weird that the recently rescued "Monica" is so happy despite having been kidnapped and trapped underground for a whole year, and Dimitri can't quite understand how Cornelia's personality shifted so drastically, to the point where even her likes and dislikes changed.
• My Brain Is Big: His forehead is big and veiny, fitting for a character described as cunning.
• Obviously Evil: Pale, veiny forehead, black eyes, and a sinister expression all point to him being no good.
• Oh, Crap!: He freaks out when Byleth escapes from Zahras, and even more when he realizes how they did it.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
  "This is the end!"
  "Beasts! All of you!"
  "Beg for mercy!"
  "Die!"
• Promoted to Playable: He makes his playable debut in Fire Emblem Heroes as a Grand Hero Battle unit.
• Recurring Boss: In Three Houses, he's fought in Chapters 8 & 10.
• Recurring Element: Solon is a downplayed version of the Smug Minister archetype, as he is rather competent as The Mole, and rather than being a Dirty Coward or Smug Snake, he goes out fighting.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Has a black and red robe, and is one of the most morally-corrupt villains in the game, being the Mengele to Thales' Hitler.
• Red Right Hand: His right eye is open abnormally far, has a different color than his left eye, and has unusual markings around it.
• Right Hand Versus Left Hand: In Chapter 15 of Three Hopes, he attacks Shez unaware that they have been possessed by the ancient Agarthan mage Epimenides and are busy trying to complete the ultimate objective of those who slither in the dark by killing Byleth and Sothis with them.
• Small Role, Big Impact:
  • In Three Houses, he only shows up in two chapters, but he plays an essential role in getting Byleth to fuse with Sothis.
  • In Three Hopes' prologue, him kidnapping Monica which leads to his exposure is what allows Edelgard to drive Thales and the other Agarthans out of the Empire and make swift changes to the war she's gonna start. After the prologue however, Solon disappears from the plot altogether, only showing up in one chapter in two of the three routes and one of the secret chapters.
• Sole Survivor: If the normal path is taken in Scarlet Blaze or Azure Gleam in Three Hopes, then Solon becomes the only one of the highest ranking Agarthans who survives the story^note Though it is unclear if Cleobulus survives the former route. And if the good path is taken in Golden Wildfire, then this is inverted, as it turns Solon into the only Agarthan who dies in the story.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In Three Hopes, if Byleth and Jeralt aren't recruited, Solon will be one of the few important members who survives the game's events, potentially even outlasting Thales himself.
• Squishy Wizard: Solon has a sky-high magic stat but pitiful physical defense and speed, leaving him prone to get one-shotted by strong physical attacks.
• Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Even Byleth seems shocked when Solon suddenly betrays Kronya and kills her off to perform the ritual for the Forbidden Spell of Zahras.
• Tron Lines: His gloves and staff have lines that glow dark blue.
• Turns Red: Once Solon's in a pinch, his Defiant Magic skill increases his magic stat to dangerous degrees.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: His Circe Staff cannot be wielded by any of the playable characters.
• Villain Ball: The Remire Tragedy progresses none of his faction's goals. He even drops his disguise, revealing that Tomas has been replaced and that there is a faction in direct opposition to the church. This from a man who's described as a cunning schemer. Yuri and Constance's DLC-exclusive paralogue implies that he was conducting research on turning humans into Demonic Beasts for the Flame Emperor's army, as the berserk rage appears to be the first symptom of the transformation.
• Villainous Valor: After his plans are thwarted, he makes a last stand against Byleth and their house.
• We Need a Distraction: With Edelgard not cooperating with them in Three Hopes, Those Who Slither in the Dark need the war to continue to strengthen the chances they have of conquering Fódlan. So when she and/or Claude starts to win in their respective routes and bring the war to an end, Solon unleashes a spell upon the people of the Hrym and Ordelia territories to make their armies abandon their current process to go and help the people in need, delaying the war's end.
• What Is This Feeling?: After Byleth frees themselves from the Forbidden Spell of Zahras thanks to their Fusion Dance with Sothis, Solon openly admits to Byleth that they have become The Dreaded to him... and because he does not like the feeling one bit, he decides he has to kill Byleth for it, because according to him, "fear" is not an emotion that should have a place within him.

Kronya

Kronya

Class: Assassin

Voiced by: Marika Kouno (Japanese), Colleen O'Shaughnessey (English)

^{Three Houses Spoilers}
In disguise as "Monica von Ochs"

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

Gleaming Blade

One of those who slither in the dark. She looks like a happy young woman, but she acts like a child and exhibits a brutal disposition.

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• Action Initiative: In Heroes, her Athame allows her counterattack before the opponent as long they're not at full HP.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: In Three Houses, she isn't introduced into the plot until Chapter 10 under her own identity - she comes to the monastery disguised as Monica in Chapter 6. In Three Hopes, she is the boss of Chapter 2.
• Advertised Extra: Her unique design, as well as some early pre-release material and her appearance in Heroes suggested she'd be a major antagonist in Three Houses. While she is the one who kills Jeralt, she herself ends up getting killed midway through the next mission, when Solon uses her as a sacrifice to take out Byleth.
• Alas, Poor Villain: She may deserve her fate in Three Houses, but even Byleth seems somewhat shaken by the cruelty in her death, particularly in how it came from someone she trusted completely.
• Animal Motifs: Scorpions. Concept art reveals the three sharp "tails" attached to Kronya's leotard are meant to invoke the image of one.
• Asshole Victim: When Solon uses her as fuel for his ritual to seal Byleth away in Three Houses, she falls to the ground and reaches her hand out to Byleth as she begs for help. It's a sad, miserable end for her, but given that she's the one who killed Jeralt and taunted the player with that fact, it's easy to say that many didn't feel too bad about seeing her go out as a Human Sacrifice.
• Ax-Crazy: This woman is not right in the head. Practically her every line has her saying something about killing, asking if she can kill something, or revelling in killing.
• Beat Still, My Heart: Solon sacrifices Kronya by plunging his hand through her chest, slowly ripping out what's implied to be her heart and crushing it to activate the Forbidden Spell of Zahras. Kronya is still alive and screaming in pain while the entire scene unfolds.
• Blood Knight: She has an insatiable desire for bloodshed and killing.
• Body Snatcher: Three Hopes reveals that Kronya indeed took the original Monica's body through dark rituals. In fact, in that game it is possible to save the original.
• Character Death:
  • In Three Houses, Kronya is ritually sacrificed by Solon in the Sealed Forest to summon a spell which vanquishes both Byleth and her body into the realm of Zahras.
  • Meanwhile in Three Hopes', she ends up slain in battle on the lategame of Scarlet Blaze and Azure Gleam routes.
• Dead Person Impersonation: In Three Houses, Kronya uses the late Monica's body to impersonate her and grant her the means of infiltrating the Monastery.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In Three Hopes, Kronya ultimately ends up slain in battle, a far cry from the agonizing and ceremonial death Solon gives her in Three Houses.
• Didn't Think This Through: In Three Houses, her self proclaimed "brilliant plan" to release a handful of demonic beasts into the Monastery, which appeared to serve no purpose and would have almost certainly been easily been cleaned up by the knights even if Byleth and Jeralt hadn't intervened. Not only does it gain her nothing and end up blowing her cover, it forces Thales to step in to save her life after Byleth almost kills her.
• Dirty Coward: In Three Houses, after all her bluster and cruel taunting of Byleth, once they have her cornered she books it, visibly terrified. And when Solon begins to kill her, she spends her last moments pathetically begging for Byleth to save her.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Inverted. If you sic Leonie on her during her boss fight in Three Houses, she is enraged when Leonie refers to her by her alias Monica.
• Evil Feels Good: She isn't subtle in the slightest about how much she enjoys killing and such.
• Fragile Speedster: Kronya has respectable offenses and high speed and avoidance, but any connecting blows will bring her down pretty quickly.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: It's made clear early on that neither Solon or Thales can stand her. In Three Houses, the latter tells her to her face she was saved from death because she still was useful to him, only for said "use" being to serve as fuel for Solon's ritual.
• Hate Sink: In the midst of many complex characters in Three Houses, Kronya stands out for her screentime, as she spends all of it making you really hate her. Between killing Jeralt via cheap shot, reveling in taunting the hell out of Byleth, and being a considerably less complex character, it is very difficult for players to feel sorry for her when she's begging for help as she lays dying. She certainly fulfills the necessity of a character the audience can genuinely hate, while the majority of the cast of characters are morally gray, and while this could apply to all of those who slither in the dark, she also lacks Thales' cunning and Solon's Villainous Valor.
• Hidden Depths: Believe it or not, she does get some in Heroes:
  • Kronya believes that deep down, humans love causing carnage as much as she does in spite of their preachings of peace.
  • It's also implied that Kronya has an Inferiority Superiority Complex, as she throws temper tantrums every time she gets a bad level-up while stating she's not pathetic, and wants Thales to be impressed by her prowess. The fact that she belongs to a group who honestly believe to be superior to everyone else does not help.
  • In spite of her constant insults, death threats, and her casual Fantastic Racism, Kronya willingly admits during her level 40 quote that she has grown twistedly fond of Kiran to some extent.
    "Fighting alongside you, sharing our victories and defeats... I'm beginning to feel attached to you. I don't know why. I'm an Agarthan, and you're just a pathetic little worm. It's unthinkable. It's repulsive! But that's how I feel. So if you won't let me kill you, you'll have to agree to be my plaything. Forever. All right?"
• Human Sacrifice: In Three Houses, Solon uses her as one to cast the Forbidden Spell of Zahras which almost sentences Byleth to a Fate Worse than Death.
• Jerkass: Big time. It's even more pronounced in Heroes, as she threatens to kill Kiran/the Summoner if they interact with her, in a game where Zephiel, Gharnef, Grima (of all characters!), and even fellow co-worker Solon are able to show restraint and some degree of respect.
• Karmic Death: In Warriors: Three Hopes, she can die at the hands of Monica (on Scarlet Blaze) or Jeralt (on Scarlet Blaze or Azure Gleam), both of whom she murdered in Three Houses.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In Three Houses, the sadistic and cruel Kronya who relishes in killing receives "help" from Solon that ends with her becoming a Human Sacrifice begging to live.
• Magically Inept Fighter: She's the only member of "those who slither in the dark" who doesn't use magic or wield magic-based weapons, even as a Trickster in Three Hopes.
• Monster Clown: The pale-white skin and eyeliner give off that kind of motif.
• Ms. Fanservice: Her outfit is very revealing, showing off her curves quite well.
• Optional Boss: In Three Hopes, she's one of the bosses of Jeralt, Catherine and Shamir's paralogue.
• Out-of-Character Alert: With Three Hopes showing what the real Monica acts like, Kronya's impersonation of her makes her out to be much more extroverted and cheerful than what the real Monica is like, though Hilda believes that she is just pretending to be okay about her kidnapping. One key difference Kronya gets wrong about Monica is that she keeps on calling Edelgard "Edel" like they were close friends, when the real Monica is simply really devoted to Edelgard and uses the formal "Lady Edelgard" to refer to her.
• Perky Female Minion: She's a youthful and childlike 18-year-old girl with a sadistic steak on a team led by men.
• Pre-Final Boss: On the Azure Gleam route, she's the last line of defense before Thales himself.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
  "Just a nuisance!"
  "Guess you wanna die?"
  "You fool!"
  "You're in my way!"
• Promoted to Playable: She makes her playable debut in Heroes as a Grand Hero Battle unit.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Kronya embodies the worst aspects of this, being very hyperactive, lacking any sort of restraints, incapable of understanding basic empathy, and being a Sore Loser when things don't go her way.
• Psycho Knife Nut: Kronya is a completely unhinged Psychopathic Womanchild, and her weapons are as close as the game can get to knives (While there aren't any actual daggers in the game as usable weapons, Athame is more of a dagger than a sword and is even named after a type of ceremonial blade. Heroes adapts her into a Dagger unit using Athame).
• Recurring Element: She is basically the first female take of the Kempf archetype, with her being the closest those who slither in the dark have to a psychotic attack dog whose rank is in the middle between leaders such as Thales and Solon and glorified mooks like Myson and Odesse, as well as having a tendency to mock and taunt those beneath her. As part of those who slither in the dark and their modus operandi, she is similar to many Dark Ladies who 'used to be virtuous in the past', but with a twist: Kronya and Monica are not the same person, it's shown in Three Hopes that Monica is a nice person by default, thus has no bearing on Kronya's Misanthrope Supreme nature, making Kronya a throwback to thoroughly unsympathetic dark ladies such as Jugdral's Hilda and Elibe's Sonia.
• Sadist: In Heroes, she tells Fallen Edelgard one of the reasons she enjoys being in Askr is that since the Order of Heroes are constantly at war, she can kill to her heart's content and the Summoner will keep her alive.
  "They say we're working for peace, of course, but the killing never ends in this world... It's wonderful! Not only that, but if you're wounded, the Summoner will make sure you're healed every time. You can kill all you want and you can't be killed! Ahaha! Why would I question a great situation like this?"
• Smug Snake: She loves to taunt inferior beings and mock them for being unable to harm her. Not only does she quickly turn into a Dirty Coward when easily outmatched, whining about how unfair it is, she only succeeded with killing Jeralt thanks to Thales intercepting Byleth.
• Stripperiffic: The things coming out of her back seem to cover more surface area than her Leotard of Power, which also includes Cleavage Window, Underboobs, and exposed midriffs.
• Summon Bigger Fish: In Chapter 2 of Three Hopes, after she's been beaten by Shez and their house, Kronya calls in a Demonic Beast as a last shot at victory. She's in disbelief when they manage to kill it.
• Traitor Shot: While in her alias as Monica, she's briefly seen during the battle at the chapel, giving a "..." line as Jeralt deals with the monsters. By the end of the mission, she reveals herself as a spy by stabbing Jeralt In the Back.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: In Three Houses, her Athame cannot be wielded by any of the playable characters. In Three Hopes, you can get it as a New Game Plus reward.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: In Three Hopes, she escapes when defeated in Chapter 2 and in the paralogue "Evil's Bane and Love's Protection".
• Villains Want Mercy: Has the gall to beg Byleth, whose father she just killed a chapter ago, to save her when Solon uses her as a human sacrifice. Whether Byleth would have been willing to grant it (given their horror at her fate) or not, they weren't in a position to do anything about it.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: In Three Houses, she's killed off in the same chapter where she is formally introduced as Kronya. Averted somewhat in Three Hopes, where she does appear a bit more because of changed events.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In the Golden Wildfire route of Three Hopes, she exits the plot after Chapter 2 and is never seen again.
• Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: In Three Houses, Kronya takes Monica's identity in order to infiltrate the Officers Academy.
• You Have Failed Me: In Three Hopes, after Shez and their house infiltrate the TWSITD base and free Monica, multiple Dark Mages come out to try and stop them, with one explicitly mentioning that if they don't recapture the rescuee, Kronya will kill them for failing.
• Your Size May Vary: Athame is consistently depicted as a dagger, except during combat where it is upscaled to be as big as a sword.

Cleobulus

^{MASSIVE spoilers.}
In disguise as "Cornelia Arnim"

An important member residing in the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. Their entry can be found on the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus page.

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• Ambiguous Gender: "Cleobulus" is the name of a male Greek poet and Thales refers to Cleobulus with male pronouns. However this is only in the ENG localization as in the JP version, Thales doesn't use any gender pronouns when talking to the messenger, refering to them as "Cleobulus of the Kingdom".
• Unknown Character: Cleobulus is this in Three Houses, as while the current Cornelia being an impostor was heavily implied in that game, the identity of the implicated Agarthan was left unknown up until Three Hopes.
• The Un-Reveal: Despite Three Hopes revealing Cleobulus is posing as Faerghus' court mage during the game's events, the member's true form is left unrevealed.

Myson

Myson

Class: Warlock

Voiced by: Kirk Thornton (English)

A member of those who slither in the dark that appears more frequently than most of his compatriots. In Azure Moon, he shows up during the final battle between the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and the Adrestian Empire at the Imperial Palace. In the Silver Snow and and Verdant Wind routes, he is instead encountered alongside his compatriots within their headquarters. And if the Ashen Wolves DLC is completed, he also appears much earlier in all routes, as the boss of Constance and Yuri's Paralogue.

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• Ascended Extra:
  • Downplayed in Three Houses. Following the fourth wave of DLC, he has a paralogue dedicated solely to his activities within Adrestia, including experimentation with the various beasts. He's still not a major character — and even in the paralogue, Constance and Yuri get the lion's share of spotlight — but now he's more than just a random enemy that appears in three of the four routes.
  • Played straight in Three Hopes. Despite his somewhat generic appearance, Myson gets far more spotlight in this entry and even appears in various story scenes, putting him on equal ground with the likes of Solon and Kronya relevance-wise.
• Bad Boss: In "A Cursed Relic", it's implied that he experimented with the thieves he hired to steal Duke Gerth's relic in order for them to turn into Demonic Beasts, a process which left them experiencing a lot of pain.
• Beard of Evil: Unlike the generic Warlocks, his model sports stubble, befitting his seemingly high rank in those who slither in the dark and the atrocities he’s implied to have committed.
• Boss in Mook's Clothing: On the Azure Moon route, don't let his appearance as a generic Warlock fool you. He wields Bohr Χ, the strongest spell in the game, which reduces any unit's HP to One from a whopping range of 3-10. This is effectively a death sentence considering that Hegemon Edelgard is throwing fireballs around the map and that he has some demonic beasts guarding him.
• Casting a Shadow: He's notably the only enemy Warlock in the game capable of using dark magic.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Myson usually bears either the Unsealable Magic or the Inmune Status skills in battle.
• Dead Person Impersonation: In Golden Wildfire, it's implied he's impersonating a dead Imperial General when talking to Fleche after Randolph's death, as she notes that no Adrestians from Randolph's unit (which Myson claims to be from) reportedly survived the skirmish with the Knight of Seiros on Ailell.
• Decapitated Army: The moment he's defeated on Azure Moon, any remaining underlings on the map retreat to fight another day, leaving only Imperial soldiers and Demonic Beasts.
• Demoted to Extra: He appears in the penultimate battle of Silver Snow and Verdant Wind, but unlike his appearance in Azure Moon, he has no dialogue and essentially functions as an elite mook who happens to have a name.
• Dragon Their Feet: On the Azure Moon route, he outlives Thales (who was killed under Lord Arundel's identity in Derdriu) to lead a contingent of those who slither in the dark in the final battle.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • States rather succinctly his group's goals and feelings toward the Children of the Goddess when he first launches an attack on the Azure Moon route:
    Myson: We will return this world to mortal hands... May that filthy race of beasts wither and die...
  • He also shows off his people's disdain for non-Agarthans during Constance and Yuri's paralogue, referring to those he experimented on as "children of the beasts" and referring to their monstrous transformations as their "true nature".
• For Science!: In Constance and Yuri's paralogue he loses the relic he sought, as well as all his test subjects and a large number of Agarthan soldiers. Still, he is satisfied that his experiments on the thieves at least yielded results, remarking that ultimately that was all that mattered.
• HP to One: On Azure Moon, he comes equipped with the Bohr Χ spell, which reduces the target's HP to 1 from a long range, similar to the Hel spell from the Jugdral series.
• Karma Houdini: On the Crimson Flower route, he's never seen again after escaping the heroes in "A Cursed Relic". That being said, since Edelgard is implied to have successfully eliminated the Agarthans after winning the war, there's a good chance he ended up being killed offscreen anyways.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: On all routes other than Crimson Flower, he escapes punishment for his actions in "A Cursed Relic", only to be killed at the end of the war by Byleth and their companions.
• Manipulative Bastard: In Golden Wildfire, it's all but stated Myson sets up Fleche against Claude by simply taking the guise of an Imperial General to tell her the truth behind Randolph's death, leading her to hire many mercenaries and even Myson himself (under his true identity) to hunt Claude down while covering up his actual role on the attack.
• Optional Boss: Appears in Constance and Yuri's Paralogue, where he is performing experiments and attempting to steal the Hero's Relic of Aubin from Duke Gerth. In Three Hopes, he's also the boss of Bernadetta and Monica's paralogue, and one of the bosses of Jeralt, Catherine and Shamir's paralogue.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner
  "You’re finished!"
  "You're weak!"
  "Not so fast!"
  "Don't underestimate me!"
• Route Boss: Paralogues notwithstanding, in Three Houses he features as a boss in all routes save Crimson Flower; in Chapter 20 of Silver Snow, 21 of Verdant Wind, and 22 of Azure Moon.
• Skippable Boss: Myson can be circumvented during his mandatory encounters in the siege of Shambhala on Silver Snow and Verdant Wind or the final battle on Azure Moon.
• Tranquil Fury: "An Incurable Shut-In" has him seething in anger when Shez, Monica, Bernadetta and Duke Gerth interrupt his mission and drop in on his base, but he never expresses his anger any louder than sounding as if he where speaking through clenched teeth.
• Uniformity Exception: Myson's stubble is one of the very few things which make him stand out visually from other generic warlocks.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: Bohr Χ cannot be learned by any of the playable characters.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: He escapes when defeated in "A Cursed Relic" (Three Houses), and "An Incurable Shut-In" & "Evil's Bane and Love's Protection" (Three Hopes).
• The Voiceless: Myson has no lines of dialogue whatsoever when fought in Shambhala.

Chilon

Chilon

Class: Great Knight

A member of those who slither in the dark who can be found in Shambhala. Quiet and taciturn, he guards the main room within Shambhala.

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• Elite Mook: He's a slightly tougher enemy with a name and mildly important role on the map (namely, guarding Thales's room).
• The Generic Guy: Considering how the only thing special about him is the fact that he has a name, it would be more accurate to call him a normal enemy rather than a full-fledged boss.
• Magic Knight: Of a sort. While he uses a traditionally physically oriented class, he has a respectable magic stat which he can abuse with his Bolt Axe.
• Mighty Glacier: Literally, as he's blocking the entrance to Shambhala's main room and sports massive strength and physical defense at the expense of low speed and resistance.

Bias

Bias

Class: Gremory

Voiced by: Caitlyn Elizabeth (English)

A member of those who slither in the dark who can be found in one of Shambhala's hidden rooms. In Three Houses, she hides in a chamber and summons Titanus reinforcements.

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• The Beastmaster: In Three Houses she's in charge of constantly summoning Titanus reinforcements. Killing her is necessary to stop them from spawning.
• Elite Mook: She's a slightly tougher enemy with a name and mildly important role on the map (namely, summoning Titanuses).
• The Generic Guy: Considering how the only thing special about her is the fact that she has a name, it would be more accurate to call her a normal enemy rather than a full-fledged boss. She has more personality in Three Hopes, showing off her horrible racism towards the surface dwellers.
• Suddenly Voiced: She gets proper dialogue in Three Hopes.
• Squishy Wizard: Bias is a magic caster who specializes in fire magic.

Pittacus

Pittacus

Class: Gremory

A member of those who slither in the dark who can be found in one of Shambhala's hidden rooms. In Three Houses, She hides in a chamber and operates the Viskams within Shambhala.

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• Elite Mook: She's a slightly tougher enemy with a name and mildly important role on the map (namely, operating the Viskams).
• The Generic Guy: Considering how the only thing special about her is the fact that she has a name, it would be more accurate to call her a normal enemy rather than a full-fledged boss.
• Suddenly Voiced: She gets proper dialogue in Three Hopes.
• Squishy Wizard: Pittacus is a magic caster who specializes in offensive Faith magic.
• The Turret Master: In Three Houses she's in charge of keeping the Viskams operational. Once she falls, the turrets become as good as useless.

Odesse

Odesse

Class: Dark Bishop (Three Houses), Warlock (Three Hopes)

A member of those who slither in the dark. In Three Houses, he and some remaining Agarthan members appear in the final map of the Verdant Wind route supporting the Final Boss' forces.

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• Dragon Their Feet: On the Verdant Wind route, he outlives Thales and the other Agarthan commanders to lead the remnants of those who slither in the dark in the final battle. His defeat will stop reinforcements from coming, and any remaining Agarthans turn tail and leave.
• Elite Mook: He's a slightly tougher enemy with a name and a mildly important role on the map (namely, issuing a warning about the poison swamp, and summoning Demonic Beast reinforcements).
• The Generic Guy: Considering how the only thing special about him is the fact that he has a name, it would be more accurate to call him a normal enemy than a full-fledged boss.
• Last Stand: He and the rest of the Agarthans are this on the last map, as Shambhala, the main fortress of the Agarthans, has been destroyed.
• Odd Name Out: He's one of only two named Agarthans (the other being Kronya) who isn't named for one of the Seven Sages of Ancient Greece, though his name is still Greek in origin—even odder because without him the Agarthan leadership is missing a sage namesake.

Anaximandros

Anaximandros

Class: Dark Knight

Voiced by: Keith Silverstein (English)

A member of those who slither in the dark introduced in Three Hopes.

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• Fantastic Racism: Like his fellows, he's fond of referring to the people of Fódlan as "beasts".
• Meaningful Name: Anaximandros is named after the apprentice of the Greek philosopher Thales, in keeping with the Greek theme of the Agarthans.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Doesn't care for Thales much, mentioning that the only thing he's good for is barking orders.

Dolofonos

Dolofonos

Class: Assassin

A member of those who slither in the dark introduced in Three Hopes. He works under Kronya's squad after the timeskip.

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• Doppelgänger Attack: Dolofonos is always flanked by two or more copies.
• Fantastic Racism: Like his fellows, he's fond of referring to the people of Fódlan as "beasts".
• Meaningful Name: Dolofonos means "assassin" in Greek, which happens to be his class.

Epimenides (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Epimenides

Class: Avesta

Voiced by: Mutsumi Tamura (Japanese), Melissa Hutchison (English)

An ancient leader of the Agarthans (whose survivors and descendants would eventually go on to comprise those who slither in the dark) who waged war against those abominations who worship the beast. While he is physically long gone, his will has lasted to this day.

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• Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear who held a superior rank between Thales and himself, although they may have simply been equals.
• Arch-Enemy: Like all Agarthans, he holds a deep hatred for Sothis and he will not stop until Sothis has been wiped off the face of Fódlan.
• The Archmage: When he was alive, Epimenides was strong enough of a magic wielder that he was able to hold back Seiros' forces, including Seiros herself, by his lonesome, only seemingly dying when she transformed into the Immaculate One in a later battle (not to mention his beams of dark magic from the sky could have actually taken her out had she not evaded them just in time), and even then he went on to continue existing, albeit without a body. When you face him in "Into the Chasm", he uses the tome Hrotti as his weapon. Even though he has no Crest, he is able to wield a Hero's Relic without suffering any damage.
• Arc Villain: Chapters 15 and 16 (with Byleth and Jeralt recruited) focus on Epimenides and his attempts to fully control Shez into killing Byleth and Sothis before deciding to strand Shez and the Three Lords in Zahras while he leaves the dimension to murder "the abomination" personally.
• The Bad Guy Wins: If you fail to recruit Byleth, his construct Arval and its host Shez succeed in his goal of killing Sothis.
• Beam Spam: In the intro, he floods the entire battlefield with massive purple pillars of Dark Magic from the sky, forcing the Immaculate One to actually have to dodge them rather than simply tank them.
• Been There, Shaped History: In the opening cutscene and in Arval's Paralogue, Epimenides participated in the War of Heroes, engaging Seiros and her forces to keep them at bay. In the opening cutscene, they're obliterated by Seiros as the Immaculate One.
• Benevolent Boss: Epimenides plays with this trope a bit. He apologizes to Solon while sacrificing him (though the man is undoubtedly an Asshole Victim), but in the past, he was more than willing to use his powers to protect his own forces against the Church of Seiros.
• Berserk Button: Loathes and despises Sothis with a passion, so much that not once throughout the entire game does he ever refer to her by name. Its implied that Shez's decision to spare Byleth in the alternate route was the catalyst behind his re-emergence and subsequently pissed that his vessel would rather work with Sothis' vessel instead of fulling their "destiny".
• Body Surf: Epimenides was very interested in mastering the means to "rehouse souls" in order to allow both him and his kin to cheat death. His experiments on the matter led to the creation of Arval, whom unintentionally ended up carrying his vestige and ultimately led him to end up on Shez's body.
• Climax Boss: If Byleth is recruited on any route, Epimenides takes control of Shez in the penultimate chapter and attempts to kill Byleth and Sothis. Defeating Shez frees them from the Agarthan Lord's control, at which point he pulls Shez and the House Leaders into another dimension to stamp them out for good, leaving nothing stopping him from killing the goddess once and for all. Thanks to Shez, he fails. Even after his downfall, however, one battle still remains against either Thales, Rhea, or both.
• Cool Sword: Shez's second sword that they can materialize anytime and somewhat resembles a Hero's Relic previously belonged to Epimenides, who is seen wielding it in the prologue cutscene while commanding his forces against Seiros and her allies. However, he's never seen using it after in present day, only shown to utilize standard dark magic attacks in both gameplay and cutscene.
• The Corruptor: Played with. While inactive within Arval, his influence pushes his creation to seek the Ashen Demon's demise, and Arval in turn tries to push Shez into claiming revenge. If Shez drops their grudge against Byleth, however, Arval goes along with them, which causes Epimenides to take matters into his own hands.
• Disappointed in You: In the alternate routes, Epimenides expresses cold disappointment towards Shez for sparing Byleth, disdainfully calling them a "failure" for refusing to carry out what he claims was their "duty" as his vessel.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Epimenides finds Thales' methods for winning the war to be distasteful (although whether this distate comes from a place of ethics, tactics, or something else is not made clear by the dialogue).
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Epimenides cares about Agartha and its descendants (regarding them as the planet's "true" people), wanting to "save" them by getting rid of Sothis and the beings she spawned. When he prepares to drag the three Lords and Shez into Zahras, he apologizes to Solon for sacrificing him.
• A Father to His Men: He orders his troops to fall back so that he may single-handedly force the entirety of Seiros's army (including Cethleann, Cichol and Seiros herself) to retreat before pulling back himself.
• Foreshadowing: His existence in Three Houses was implied by Solon, as he almost namedrops him in Chapter 10 when recalling the only being the Agarthans know of who was able to escape the darkness of Zahras.
• A God I Am Not: Despite the insane level of power he wields, Epimenides states that he was once "an ordinary man", explaining the god-like powers he gained were the product of knowledge and invention. He does not seek to be an object or worship and only desires to save his nearly extinct people.
• Greater-Scope Villain: An Agarthan Lord from the time of their war against the Children of the Goddess, Epimenides claims to have been using Nemesis (himself already an example of this trope) for his own purposes and will easily dispose of him when the need arises, implying that he is indirectly responsible for the events of the entire Fódlan timeline, although whether or not he holds a superior rank to Thales (who was also alive back then) is unclear. What is clear is that his power was on a whole different level compared to everyone else's, to the point where he created and became one with an artificial Progenitor God just so he could kill the Goddess himself.
• The Leader: One of the Agarthans' leaders from over a thousand years ago alongside Thales.
• Light Is Not Good: Has the ghastly color of his fellow Agarthans and dresses predominantly in white. He's also by far the most driven to destroy Sothis by any means necessary. For bonus points, his Unique Ability lets him swap between using Faith and Dark Magic.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Compared to other high-ranking Agarthans like Thales and Solon. While he shares the Agarthans' typical turbo-racism against anyone who isn't them he appears genuinely concerned with his people's well-being, even taking on Seiros by himself in his paralogue to cover his soldiers' retreat, while Thales and Solon are liberal practitioners of You Have Outlived Your Usefulness. He also seems genuinely remorseful about having to kill Solon, and despite everything actually came to value his bond with Shez.
• Living Memory: This is essentially how Epimenides survived his demise back in the War of Heroes, as even though his original body was destroyed by Seiros, a fully sapient remnant of his soul made its way into Arval's own, which may awaken only if his creation is exposed to Byleth and Sothis for far too long.
• The Man Behind the Man: Epimenides at least believes that he is this to Nemesis, speaking as though he has been pulling his strings from the start.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Following the Theme Naming of those who slither in the dark, Epimenides' name refers to the Greek prophet of the same name, said to have gained his prophetic abilities after sleeping in a cave sacred to Zeus for over 5 decades and offered prophecies of military importance to Sparta.
  • Epimenides' exclusive class of Avesta comes from the religious texts of Zoroastrianism, which fits into how ancient Agarthans are and him turning himself into an artificial deity to fight against Sothis.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Epimenides' personal weapon is a Hero's Relic called Hrotti, and can seemingly bring out its fullest potential despite lacking the corresponding Crest without any drawbacks or backlash like Miklan suffered in Three Houses when he attempted to use the Lance of Ruin.
• Noodle Incident: How exactly Epimenides ended up losing Arval is never outright explained beyond the fact it was an accident. Arval's words suggest someone or multiple people might have found and freed them behind Epimenides' back, but it's not elaborated upon.
• No Ontological Inertia: After Epimenides' projection is killed in Zahras in the secret routes, the battlefield made in the image of Arval's mental world quickly starts to collapse as well.
• One-Man Army: He held off Seiros' forces entirely by himself for long enough that they retreated, Epimenides retreating himself afterward and calling the battle a tie. In a later battle, he nearly wiped out her army completely using Beam Spam before she took him on as the Immaculate One.
• One-Winged Angel: He does this with both Shez and Arval's forms, and he is able to take control when Arval uses their Awakening skill in gameplay.
• Physical God: He is powerful enough to clash with the Immaculate One herself and force her to dodge his attacks, implying he could have easily killed her if she wasn't careful.
• Posthumous Character: Subverted in Three Hopes. While Epimenides' original body was vaporized by the Immaculate One's breath as seen in the opening cutscene, a vestige of his soul ended up surviving on Arval's core, which allows him to come back in the secret routes.
• Post-Mortem Comeback: Unintentional example if Byleth ended up recruited. Epimenides was unaware Arval contained a vestige of his soul, but is very pleased of the accidental development as it allows him to resume his goal of destroying his enemies.
• The Power of Hate: It's all but stated that Shez recruiting Byleth (whose hosting his archenemy's consciousness) in Three Hopes is what makes Epimenides' vestige awaken within Arval.
• Pre-Final Boss: He's the Climax Boss of "Into the Chasm" as well as the story arc centered around Shez, Byleth, Sothis and Arval in general (if Byleth and Jeralt have been recruited), but the main storyline still has one more battle to go before the credits roll.
• Professor Guinea Pig: When he began testing his "soul rehousing" technology, Epimenides deliberately used his own soul first to ensure the procedure would be safe for his fellow Agarthans and avoided secondary effects. This led to Epimenides creating Arval, and it's all but stated to be the reason they ended up looking almost exactly like him in appearance.
• Purple Is Powerful: Many of his magic attacks are colored purple, and he is so powerful that even the Immaculate One has to dodge his pillars of dark magic rather than tank them.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Referred to as Lord Epimenides by his subordinates, this implies that he may be equal to Thales in rank back in the day. He is powerful enough to hold off the entirety of Seiros' forces alone, including Cethleann, Cichol, and even Seiros herself consecutively.
• Reality Warper: Downplayed in the secret branches. It's implied Epimenides teleports Shez to Zahras for the sake of using the area's magical properties to project himself and Arval's mental world in it, giving him the ability to beat Shez into submission by himself so he's the only soul left in control of their body.
• Superpowered Evil Side: He has the ability to take over both Shez and Arval.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: It's implied that Epimenides does not think highly of Thales' leadership skills, stating that he finds the man's methods distasteful. The dynamic of their relationship is interesting, as Epimenides appears to be on a similar level to him in terms of hierarchical structure, and doesn't seem to care what happens to Thales and his followers except on principle and blood alone.
• Villainous Breakdown: As Shez and the Three Lords work together and overcome everything he throws at them, he voices his frustration aloud, wondering how much more he must sacrifice in order to finally kill "the abomination" that is Sothis.
• Walking Spoiler: Everything about him reveals not only massive lore details, but also spoils that Arval isn't what they seem.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Unlike every other Agarthan who wants Byleth/Sothis gone to fulfill their revenge against whom they deem is their mortal enemy, Epimenides' vendetta against them partly stems from the honest belief Sothis is a threat to "the cycle of this world", and his comments in the secret chapters heavily imply it stems from him witnessing firsthand the scale of her retaliation against Agartha for when they attacked her and her children.
• Worf Had the Flu: After Shez blocks Epimenides's teleporting attack from behind in Zahras, he wonders if his skills have dulled over time. He also doesn't have his signature sword (Shez has it), nor can he perform a Beam Spam like he did against the Immaculate One. Finally, Shez destroys his physical form by using his own power and weapon against him.
• World's Strongest Man: He's definitely a contender, given that he stood against the entirety of Seiros' army on his lonesome (including Cethleann, Cichol, and Seiros herself) and forced her to retreat before retreating himself. It took a full power attack from Seiros as the Immaculate One clashing against his own power in a later battle to even seemingly destroy him (otherwise he'd have single-handedly wiped out her entire forces by spamming massive purple lasers from the sky which even she had to work hard to dodge), and clearly that didn't fully work given he states the destruction of his physical body would not be enough to kill him (though then again, he admits he did not expect Arval's existence to allow his survival into the modern age). In Zahras, he is only stopped by the combined efforts of the three lords and a powered-up Shez who uses their Awakening transformation and Epimenides's own blade to shatter his barrier and slice through him.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Epimenides is a firm believer of fate, believing it's Shez's destiny to become his new vessel should he reawaken in Three Hopes.

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