Analysis / Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Spoilers are unmarked!

The use of colour in Three Houses

Three Houses has a lot of thought put into the symbolism, and the use of colours is no exception. While at least some of this analysis is pareidolia, it's pretty clear that a good deal of thought has gone into how colour is used and assigned.

Nintendo introduced a green/red/blue common colour motif in The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Fantasy. Green, red, and blue are the colours of the tunics Link can obtain in the game; many future games would retain those three colours of tunic, and also use them for at least some of the collectibles he must obtain. This motif was also used in Genealogy of the Holy War - blue and red were used to identify player-controlled and enemy units (a convention established by Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light), with green for neutral units.

However, there is a more common and more extensive colour motif which was introduced with the SNES. No, not SNES games - it was introduced with the actual SNES. Look at the SNES controller and see that the four face buttons come in red, green, blue, and yellow. These same colours also make up the SNES and N64 logos, as well as the button colours of the N64 and GameCube controllers. This colour motif is readily apparent in many Nintendo games; Super Mario World uses it for the colours of the ! blocks and the Yoshis, Doshin the Giant uses it for the four villages, Fox McCloud and Captain Falcon both wear those colours, and the original four F-Zero racers and their craft are each associated with one of them. While Captain Falcon wears all four, blue is the most prominent of his colours, and it's also the colour of the Blue Falcon. Dr. Stewart and Pico are obviously yellow and green, as are their craft. Samurai Goroh seems to break the trend, but he wears a hachimaki patterned after the Japanese flag, which is prominently red; his craft is pink, which Nintendo appears to consider a shade of red for the purposes of colour motifs (this will be relevant later). We can also see this motif in the original Pokémon games - they started with Red and Green, and then got a remake in the form of Blue. Blue and a complementary variant of Red are the ones the were released internationally, and they were later joined by Yellow. Each of these is also the colour of one of the starters, and indeed Pokémon seems to use Zelda's Green/Red/Blue motif for the starters and a Blue/Red/Yellow motif for the legendary trios. Curiously, Zelda seems to have stuck to the Green/Red/Blue motif and never really embraced yellow; while some important things are yellow in that series, they tend to be things outside of the GRB triad (rather like how Pikachu falls outside the original starter trio, come to think of it). Indeed, in Four Swords, which had four different Links, they were coloured green, red, blue, and... purple of all colours. (Interestingly enough, Eternal Darkness used the same motif for the Ancients, with the red Chattur'gha, green Xel'lotath, and blue Ulyaoth forming a power triangle, and purple Mantorok being neutral.)

Fire Emblem started using the Zelda motif in Genealogy of the Holy War, in which characters controlled by the player are blue, enemies are red, and neutral characters are green. Full Nintendo colours were first used in Path of Radiance, which used yellow for allied units. Radiant Dawn used the same scheme, but the next few games dispensed with yellow units, using green for both allies and neutrals as appropriate (and thus keeping to the Zelda motif). Warriors, which was developed by Koei Tecmo, brought back yellow units, but this time as additional enemies in three-way battles (green was still used for neutral units). This same system carries over to Three Houses, which was mostly developed by Koei Tecmo with assistance from Intelligent Systems and oversight from Nintendo.

Now, let's look at how the Nintendo colours are assigned. Each colour belongs to one of the parties in the conflict. The Holy Kingdom of Faerghus is obviously blue, since its flag is blue, Dimitri dresses in blue, its House is the Blue Lions, and its route is called Azure Moon. The Leicester Alliance is almost as clearly yellow - its flag is predominantly yellow, Claude dresses in yellow, and its House is the Golden Deer. The Alliance's route is called Verdant Wind for some reason, but otherwise yellow is the Alliance's colour. The Adrestian Empire, meanwhile, is red - its flag is red, Edelgard dresses in red, the route is Crimson Flower, and though its House is the Black Eagles, their emblem is still red.

The Church of Seiros is assigned both green and also silver. Specifically, silver is the colour of the knights while green represents the dragons (and by extension the Church leadership). Sothis, Rhea, Seteth, and Flayn all have green hair and eyes, a fact which has attention drawn to it - Seteth mentions it's rare at tea parties, and Flayn specifically comments on it when Byleth merges with Sothis, at which point they gain the green hair and eyes themselves. Sothis is the deity worshipped by the Church faithful, Byleth is spiritually and also physically bonded to her, and Rhea, Seteth, and Flayn were involved in its founding; Rhea also runs the Church, and Seteth administers its day-to-day functions. This association of the dragons and the Church with the colour green is even used for foreshadowing - if you ask Edelgard if she's afraid prior to the Battle of the Red Canyon, she responds "Ha! Do I look green to you?" At first blush (particularly if the player chose Edelgard for their first run) this just looks like Edelgard is boasting about how she has experience; knowing what is to come, it doubles as an indication of her opposition to the dragons and the church they run. The dragons also wear blue on their clothing (Seteth's trousers and blazer, Rhea's shawl, and the bow on Flayn's back), alluding to their status as friends and allies in most of the routes, and their opposition to the red-coloured Edelgard.

The Ashen Wolves at first appear to violate the Nintendo colours, but look closer. The dominant colour of their uniforms, as well as Yuri's half-cape, is grey (like ashes). Grey is also the colour of the plastic used for the SNES and N64 controller casing. Their uniforms also include purple prominently, and purple is also the colour of the cutscene borders in Cindered Shadows - purple is not only the default colour of the GameCube controller casing, it is the colour used in for the fourth Link in Zelda: Four Swords and the fourth Ancient in Eternal Darkness. These factors serve to mark the Ashen Wolves as something underneath the officially-sanctioned factions, at once similar to yet set apart from them.

Now let's analyse the first battle. Outside of Cindered Shadows, this is the only time that Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude fight together. This battle immediately establishes the convention of highlighting PCs in blue, enemies in red, and allies in green. Jeralt is the green ally here, and we soon learn he has an illustrious history with the Church. Dimitri is blue, the colour of friends; Byleth's Mercenary icon is also blue in this battle, reinforcing the idea that Dimitri is a friend. Edelgard, in contrast, is red, the same colour as the bandits; this suggests that Edelgard is an enemy, as she is on every route except her own. Claude, meanwhile, is yellow, a colour which isn't assigned to any army on the map. Yellow is also the colour that isn't part of the Zelda triad. It's also worth noting that Claude comes in armed with a bow, while Dimitri has a lance, Edelgard an axe, and Byleth a sword. This doesn't mean much when Three Houses is viewed in isolation, but veteran Fire Emblem fans will recognise that swords, axes, and lances form the traditional weapon triangle (and, indeed, have associated Weaponbreaker skills that replicate the triangle to an extent in Three Houses), while bows are neutral (except in Fates); having a colour outside the Zelda motif and a weapon outside the triangle both reinforce Claude's status as an outsider. Indeed, this is further reinforced by the animal that represents the Leicester House. The Black Eagle, the Blue Lion, the Ashen Wolf, and the silver dragon on the Church's seal are all predators, while the Golden Deer is a herbivorous prey animal.

The colour motif extends interestingly to the Battle of the Eagle and Lion. On an Azure Moon playthrough, the Blue Lions, being player-controlled, are the blue army and begin the battle in the north. The Black Eagles are the red army and start in the southwest, while the Golden Deer are the yellow army and begin in the southeast. Thus, if each fighting group is given their lord's colour, the three start the mock battle in positions corresponding to the geography of Fódlan, with the Kingdom in the north, the Empire in the south and west, and the Alliance in the southeast. It's also interesting to note that on a Verdant Wind playthrough, the Black Eagles are still the red forces while the Blue Lions become yellow, reflecting how Edelgard will become the enemy of both Dimitri and Claude, while the boys are never really enemies of each other. The deployment pattern also puts Byleth and their lord on the western side of the northern section, nudging them toward fighting Edelgard rather than the other boy in a subtle indication that Edelgard will be their primary foe in the battles to come.

Things are slightly different on a Black Eagles run. This time around, the Black Eagles are the blue army while the Blue Lions are red; the Golden Deer remain yellow. As before, Byleth and Edelgard are on the eastern side of the starting position, nudged toward attacking Dimitri. This positioning, coupled with the colour coding, points to Dimitri as the foremost of Edelgard's rivals, with Claude a mere distraction.

Even abstract colour theory appears to inform the choice of how colours are chosen. The first act of the game, which plays out the same on every route (except right at the end if you choose to side with Edelgard) and has everyone together in the same setting is called White Clouds. White does not fall anywhere on the electromagnetic spectrum; rather, it is a combination of all colours of the rainbow. However, due to the way our eyes understand colour, we perceive as white overlapping lights of red, blue, and... green (Zelda colours once again). So the Empire, the Kingdom, and the Church make up the whiteness of the White Clouds, leaving the Alliance as an extra party. And indeed the central conflict in the story is between Edelgard on one side, and Dimitri and Rhea on the other; Claude, again, is the outsider.

This colour symbolism carries over into the other route names. Edelgard's route is Crimson Flower, naturally because crimson is a shade of red; this further reinforces that this is the (anti-)villain route (the flower part is a reference to spring). Dimitri's route is Azure Moon, azure being a shade of blue (the moon part is a reference to autumn). Dimitri's route is the most character-driven, with an overall arc of Dimitri overcoming his inner darkness and becoming the hero Fódlan needs. Indeed, Dimitri's story is structurally similar to that of Marth, who is also associated with blue.

Claude's route for some reason is called Verdant Wind. The wind fits the seasonal theme, representing summer. Claude himself is associated with the wind, and wind magic tends to be coloured green, but the choice of green rather than yellow is obscure. One possibility is that, under the CMYK colour scheme, green is formed by combining yellow and cyan, which results in red and blue being subtracted, and Verdant Wind is indeed the route in which both Edelgard and Dimitri are removed from the story. Alternatively, Verdant Wind is the only route in which allied units, in this case the Almyran army, take to the field and play a significant role in the story. Indeed, Claude's ultimate choice to return to Almyra rather than remain in Fódlan paints him as an ally rather than a member of the culture, and allies are coloured green on the maps.

Byleth's route is called Silver Snow. Silver fits as the colour of the Church's brand, as well as the armour worn by Alois and Catherine. Snow is a reference to winter, completing the seasonal theme; snow is also normally white, which may be a reference to how Silver Snow has no exclusive characters.

Yuri's route is Cindered Shadows, which does not fit with the seasonal or colour themes of the others; however, this does make sense, because Cindered Shadows is a side story falling outside of and alongside the main plot.

Now let's consider the other characters' colour motifs, those colours they wear after the timeskip and which are used to distinguish them in different classes. Among the Black Eagles, Ferdinand, Dorothea, and Petra wear red prominently, much like Edelgard; Constance, who has a strong connection to the Empire and supports with Edelgard, Ferdinand, and Linhardt, wears pink, which is a form of red as established by F-Zero. Hubert and Jeritza, of course, wear black. Linhardt wears green, the colour of the dragons; he is also the only one who by default has an affinity in Faith, and bears the Crest of Cethleann, with whom he has a support conversation in which she tries clumsily to hide her identity. Bernadetta's hair and clothes are purple, the same colour as the Ashen Wolves; like the Wolves, she lives life sealed away from the outside world, though in her case it is due to debilitating social anxiety rather than a consequence of her own actions. Finally, Caspar wears brown, which does not appear to be at all significant.

The Blue Lions have a prominent blue motif. Dimitri, Felix, Annette, and Ashe all wear some blue all the time, and Dedue also wears blue in his personal clothes (but his class outfits are brown). Of the remainder, Sylvain wears black but his red hair contrasts with Ingrid's green motif, marking them as this game's Christmas Cavaliers. Ingrid's green theme also echoes Palla, who like her is kind of the mother of her group. Mercedes' class colour is grey, which is close to the silver that represents the Church; her uniform and personal outfit include significant amounts of yellow, the colour of the outsider, and indeed she comes from an Imperial noble house but had to move to the Kingdom at a young age.

The Golden Deer's personal outfits follow a very particular scheme. Claude, obviously, wears yellow, the colour of his House and country. But consider everyone else's dominant colour:

• Hilda: red (well, pink, but as we've established, pink is a form of red)
• Leonie: orange
• Raphael: yellow
• Ignatz: green
• Marianne: blue
• Lysithea: indigo
• Lorenz: violet

Yes folks, instead of a single dominant colour the Golden Deer form a rainbow. Rainbows are a common symbol of diversity; while today they are mostly associated with LGBTIA+ issues, they are also used to represent racial diversity and multiculturalism. In this context, the rainbow motif reflects both the Alliance's lack of unity and diffuse leadership, as well as Claude's goal of a multicultural society, not to mention the Golden Deer's greater mix of social classes.

While the colours most prominently evoke a rainbow, the specific characters to which each is assigned does suggest additional meanings. Ignatz is green, and like Linhardt, he has a support with Flayn in which he points out her similarities to Saint Cethleann; he's also one of the more religious members. Marianne, who is the most religious, is associated with blue, a colour also loosely associated with the Church leadership. Moreover, blue is the colour of friends and allies, and Marianne never appears as an enemy outside of the Battle of the Eagle and Lion. Leonie's orange is clearly intended to link her to Jeralt, who is also associated with orange. While Lysithea wears indigo in her normal clothes, her class colour is grey, like Mercedes. Lysithea's seminar subjects are Reason and Faith (like Mercedes), and the grey evokes the mixing of white and black magic.

As to the Ashen Wolves, Yuri's personal colour is purple, the colour associated with the Ashen Wolves as a whole; as their house leader, this fits, and matches the precedent set by Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude. Constance is pink, and is most closely linked to the Empire. Hapi is green, the colour of the dragons - this may reflect how she shares Timotheos' ability to summon beasts, but is most likely just intended to evoke the forest, with which she is associated. Green also contrasts with Constance's pink, reflecting how their personalities are exact opposites yet they are the best of friends. Balthus gets brown; as with Caspar, this likely doesn't have any particular significance and was just assigned as a leftover colour, though it's interesting that Balthus and Caspar both enjoy fighting.

Aelfric, interestingly, is red. This serves to foreshadow that he is an enemy, and indeed one who secretly collaborates with the subordinates of the also-red Edelgard to obtain the Chalice of Beginnings (even if Edelgard herself acts counter to him).

Lastly, those who slither in the dark are all associated with black. Black tends to be associated with darkness and evil, and in the case of those who slither in the dark this is particularly resonant - they choose to live in darkness, out of the light, trapped their by their own poisonous and toxic hatred for all other people. Turning to abstract colour theory, black is a lack of reflected light - in RGB it is produced by a complete lack of colour, while in CMYK it is the result of mixing the other colours and everything being subtracted. Those who slither in the dark are the only faction none of whom can be recruited, and the only forces who all the characters oppose - in that sense, they truly lack the red, the blue, the yellow, the green, the silver, the grey, and the purple.

Religious and mythological references and parallels.

While Fire Emblem games often sprinkle in random names from real-world mythology, Three Houses puts in extra effort to include actual parallels, the developers putting as much effort into meaningful mythological references as they did with colours.

Let's start with the deity. Sothis is the Greek form of Sopdet, an aspect of Isis specifically associated with Sirius. In Fódlan mythology, Sothis is associated with the Blue Sea Star, which disappears from the sky for a period every year; its return to the sky marks the New Year. This directly mirrors the role of Sirius in Ancient Egyptian culture. Sirius, at a declination of nearly of -17°, vanished from the sky for 70 days each year, and the star's heliacal rising coincided with the annual flooding of the Nile and thus Egyptian New Year. This association of Sirius with planting of food and the renewal of the land parallels Sothis' role as the progenitor and mother goddess, the origin of all life. Sopdet was also known for guiding the akhs of the deceased to the afterlife. Furthermore, Sirius was given canine associations by many ancient cultures; in particular, it was known at the Heavenly Wolf Star (Tiān Láng) in China, which Three Houses reflects by the Blue Sea Star being guarded by divine wolves, from which the Ashen Wolves derive their house name.

Seiros' name comes from the Greek Σείριος. from which we actually get the Latin and thus English Sirius. It is interesting to note that Sothis and Seiros are the only non-Agarthans with directly Greek names. The song Seiros sings on the night of the ball is even called Gazing at Sirius. Seiros does seek to continue Sothis' legacy and even tries her hand at creating life with the intention of reviving her mother; while she is able to create life to an extent, she fails in her ultimate goal of reviving the dead.

In both Greece and China, Sirius had rather more negative associations than in Egypt. In China, Tiān Láng was associated with invasion and plunder, as well as the heavenly dog Tiangou, who ate the sun and the moon during eclipses. In Greece, the presence of Sirius in the sky corresponded with the harsh summer; Homer describes it as "an evil portent, bringing heat And fevers to suffering humanity". This is reflected in the game by the fact that the Agarthans, all of whom have Greek names, are the enemies of Sothis and Seiros, viewing them as evil, subhuman beasts who suppress humanity and cut them off from the sun. In a parallel to Greek mythology, just as Persephone lives in the underworld while Sirius is in the sky, so the Agarthans live underground as long as Seiros reigns and Sothis is worshipped in the overworld.

Solon addresses Byleth/Sothis as "fell star", a term with translation issues attached. In the Japanese version, he calls them/her kyousei, or calamity star; apparently, this is a concept in Chinese astrology that Sirius and three other stars bring bad luck. Since this doesn't really translate into English, the translators instead went with fell star. This brings to mind Satan, the fallen angel who in Christianity is associated with Venus as Lucifer Morningstar; while Lucifer in the Bible is actually the king of Babylon, the name has for centuries been associated with Satan, and Venus is associated with deities falling from Heaven in Sumerian (Inanna), Babylonian (Ettana), Canaanite (Attar), and Greek (Phaethon) mythology. Zahras, the shadow realm to which Solon banishes Byleth/Sothis, is reminiscent of Zohra, a woman in Islamic theology also associated with Venus who inspires the angels Harut and Marut to engage in shirk, murder, adultery, and alcohol consumption.

Furthering this allusion to Satan, Byleth is named after a king of Hell in the Ars Goetia; their mother, Sitri, is named after a prince of Hell in the same work. Sitri is associated with love and lust, and indeed the love she inspired in Jeralt and Aelfric motivates all of both men's actions.

In modern times, Seiros is known as Rhea. As well as a moon of Saturn, Rhea in Greek mythology was the daughter of Gaia, the earth goddess, and Uranus, the sky god. This, interestingly, has an Egyptian parallel; Isis (who, as you will remember, is associated with Sirius) is one of the five children of Nuit, the sky goddess, and Geb, the earth god. (It might be relevent that Nuit was cursed by Ra, the sun god, to never give birth in any day of the month; Thoth, the god of wisdom, was sympathetic to Nuit and won some light by gambling with Khonsu, the moon god, for enough light to make five extra days. Since those days were not part of any month, Nuit was free to give birth then). It is interesting to note that in Duscuran mythology, the world came into existence as a result of an argument between the gods of Earth and Sky.

Now let's consider the other surviving dragons. Cichol, Cethleann, and Indech are all named after Fomorians; while the Fomorians are antagonistic in Irish mythology, they are for the most part friendly in Three Houses. Macuil is named after Mac Cuill, who co-reigned with his brothers Mac Cecht and Mac Gréine as joint high kings of Ireland, and was the last of the Tuatha Dé Danann to rule Ireland before the arrival of the Milesians. Macuil is the only one not named for a Fomorian; being the odd name out fits with him being the only one who never passed on his Crest to a human. In a reversal of their respective mythological portrayals, the dragons named after Fomorians are friendly, while the one name for the Tuath is outright antagonistic.

But more than that, the dragons are a deliberate and obvious example of the Sì Xiàng. Indech, most obviously, takes the form of a giant black tortoise in the north, and clearly corresponds to Xuánwǔ. Macuil, meanwhile, lives in the south; while he is a griffin rather than a true bird, he is still avian, and so corresponds to Zhūquè. Zhūquè is associated with fire and summer in the Wu Xing, which matches with Macuil's presence in the desert. Seiros, meanwhile, corresponds to Huánglóng. She is the first and greatest of the surviving dragons, the founder of the Empire, and through the Church exerts influence over all of Fódlan, plus she takes the form of a European dragon. This association with Huánglóng role in the foundation of Adrestia also connects Seiros to Huangdi, the mythological first Emperor of China. Huánglóng is also associated with Saturn in Chinese astrology, a fact referenced by Rhea sharing her name with a moon of Saturn.

Cichol's daughter, Cethleann, has a number of associations with Qīnglóng. She youngest of the surivivng dragons and coming from a generation after the rest, echoing Qīnglóng's association with spring and rebirth. Qīnglóng is also associated with water; Flayn is known for her love of fish, she also spent much of her childhood living by the sea, and she compared Byleth to the ocean in their supports.

This leaves Cichol as the embodiment of Báihǔ. Báihǔ is associated with autumn, which is reflected in most of Seteth's battle quotes referencing his advanced age. His very serious, stoic, and stable personality contrasts with Flayn's excitable flightiness, and this contrast between Báihǔ and Qīnglóng is a common trope in Japanese media.

The name Cichol uses in the present, Seteth, has two possible origins. It resembles Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve in the Abrahamic faiths, whose name means appointed one. More likely, however, it is a reference to Set, another Egyptian god and the fourth child of Nuit and Geb, thus the younger brother of Isis. Just as the names of the antagonistic Fomorians are used for the friendlier dragons in Three Houses, so the name Set is also assigned to a character with opposite personality. In Egyptian mythology, Set played a key role in defending Ra's solar barge from Apophis as he sailed through the underworld every night. However, he was best known as a god of chaos and storms, but Seteth in Three Houses is the most calm and reasonable of the dragons.

As has already been mentioned, the Agarthans all have Greek names, and the spells associated with them all end with a Greek letter. The men are named after the Seven Sages of Greece, and Kronya appears to be derived from Kronia, an agricultural festival venerating Kronos (identified with Saturn by the Romans). This extends into the past, as the Agarthan advisors of Loog were named Pan, after the Greek god of countryfolk and wilderness, and Kyphon, whose name is derived from kyphosis or the condition of being a hunchback. Interestingly, Solon appears to have kyphosis; perhaps the Agarthans are themselves immortal.

Speaking of Loog, his name is a mistranslation of Lugh, a warrior king in Irish mythology who led the Tuatha Dé Dannan in overthrowing Fomorian oppression. Similarly, Loog led the people of Faerghus to freedom from the Adrestian Empire, and in doing so established the Church of Seiros as the state religion of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. Edelgard would interpret this as placing his people under the legal dominion of the dragons, who as we have already established are named after Fomorians.

The other Irish mythological names are Ogma, Fódla, Dagda, and Brigid, all Tuatha Dé Dannan. Ogma just seems to have been thrown in for the sake of Celtic mythology, and Fódla is sometimes used as a poetic name for Ireland. Brigid is a deity reimagined as a Christian saint associated with spring and rebirth, and Dagda is her father. Celtic paganism to this day exerts such a strong influence on Irish culture, and even on Catholicism as practised in Ireland, that the seasons start a month ahead of the rest of the northern hemisphere. Relevant to this discussion, Spring in Ireland starts on Saint Brigid's Day, on 1st February. Autumn formally starts on Lúnasa, Lugh's festival, on 1st August; Lúnasa is also the Irish name for the month of August.

Nemesis is the other major figure with a Greek name. In Greek mythology, Nemesis was a deity who carried out divine retribution against those guilty of hubris. Nemesis in Three Houses is the direct opposite; he killed the goddess at the behest of her enemies, whose entire culture is built on hubris and the idea that humans must destroy the gods. In Seiros' revised history, Nemesis is retconned into himself being first an agent of divine retribution, and later one who himself succumbs to hubris and must be defeated for the crime of defying the goddess.

Rounding out the Greek names, we have Lord Acheron and House Charon. Acheron is named after a real river in Greece that, in mythology, was said to flow into Hades, and was one of the five rivers of the underworld, Tartarus, and forms the boundary between the worlds of the living and of the dead; accordingly, Acheron himself derives his wealth and power from controlling the most important river crossing in Leicester, one which divides the Alliance from the Empire. The River Acheron is known as the River of Woe, and Lord Acheron always comes to a bad end.

House Charon is named after the psychopomp of Greek mythology, who would ferry the souls of the departed across the Acheron into Hades. Catherine von Charon isn't particularly associated with carrying the souls of the dead, but she is associated with death, eager to strike down Rhea's enemies; her critical quote, "Repent from the grave!", reflects this. It is interesting that her real name is Cassandra; Cassandra in Greek mythology was an oracle who was cursed for her prophecies to never be believed, while Cassandra von Charon inverts this, being intentionally deceptive and vague about her own identity.

The Agarthans also have a number of Indic names associated with them. Agartha itself is a name from European esotericism associated with Shambhala. Agartha is said to be a wondrous kingdom located at the centre of the Earth, reflected in how the Agarthans live underground. It is said that the secrets of Agartha will be revealed when humanity attains enlightenment, a creed the Agarthans follow in a particularly twisted and evil way. Their city, meanwhile, it called Shambhala, named for a spiritual kingdom possibly located in Shambal, Uttar Pradesh. In Tibetan Buddhist mythology, Shambhala was founded by a group of sun woshippers who were exiled by the barbarian king Manjuśrīkīrti for refusing to embrace Buddhism and will one day be the birthplace of Maitreya Buddha; in Three Houses, the Agarthans are a group of sun-worhippers who condemn Sothis as a false deity and flee underground to found Shambhala when the followers of Seiros emerged victorious in the war. Interestingly, Romance of the World's Perdition, which describes the war from the Agarthans' point of view, describes Sothis as arising in the land of Thinis; Thinis is the now-lost first capital of Egypt, and we know Sothis herself is rooted in Egyptian mythology.

The Church of Seiros is directly modelled on the Catholic Church. Rhea has the title archbishop, just as the pope is, among other things, the archbishop of Rome. Below the archbishop are the cardinals, who to attain their positions must drink the blood and ingest a fragment of the Crest Stone of Seiros, in a rather more direct version of the sacrament of Communion. Moreover, the deity woshipped by both Churches begat children through virgin birth. In a reversal of Catholic theology, it is the deity herself who is dead in Fódlan while her offspring survives. Seiros' efforts to revive Sothis thus echo the story of Jesus, the son of God who died and returned to bring salvation to humanity, and one day will rise again to banish the forces of Satan just as Maitreya Buddha will bring an army from Shambhala to defeat the forces of darkness; Jesus is portrayed similarly in Islam, but is a great prophet rather than the son of God.

However, there are also some Buddhist and Hindu attributes to the Church of Seiros, particularly to do with reincarnation and rebirth. In Hindu tradition, souls have a separate, discrete existence, and after death enter new bodies to live again. Buddhist views, in contrast, hold that each soul has an evolving essence that enters a new body after death, but there is no eternal soul. The common analogy is that Hindu reincarnation is like pouring water from one vessel to another - the container is different, but the contents are the same. Buddhist rebirth, meanwhile, is like using a candle to light another candle; there is a deep, fundamental connection between the two flames, but they are not the same.

Seiros' attempts to reincarnate Sothis have instead resulted in her being reborn. Each person she creates has Sothis' soul, but is still their own person, at last until Byleth comes along. Byleth's unique nature results in Sothis being both reborn and also reincarnated; Sothis and Byleth share an essence, but Byleth is their own person with Sothis' mind also hanging around in their brain. But, when they are trapped in Zahras, Sothis must extinguish herself, fully merging with Byleth and granting them all her power. In this, Sothis is fully reborn as her own consciousness ceases; she also achieves Nirvana, extinguishing her own self and apparently releasing herself from the cycle of rebirth to whcih Seiros has subjected her.

This is reflected in the fact that, just after this happens, Byleth gains the Enlightened One class. In the Japanese version, Enlightened One is called Nirvana, the Buddhist state of perfect enlightenment achieved by the extinction of the self, as Sothis just did. Enlightened One, is a direct translation of the Sanskrit buddha, one who has achieved Nirvana while alive on Earth. And, indeed, the Professor's Guidance and Sacred Power skills, the former exclusive to Byleth and the latter associated with the Enlightened One class, depict a seated figure designed after Guutama Buddha. While Maitreya Buddha will march forth from Shambhala to defeat the forces of darkness, Byleth Buddha leads their army into Shambhala to defeat those who slither there in the dark.

To finish, let's look at the Hero's Relics and Sacred Weapons.

The Sword of the Creator is, of course, the sword made out of the creator god. In Japanese, it is the Sword of the Heavenly Emperor, a title given to Yù Huáng, the primordial deity in Chinese mythology. Yù Huáng came down to Earth, vanquished the monsters rampaging across the world and made it more hospitable for humans; his story is strongly parallel to that of Sothis.

The Lúin, Spear of Assal, Tathlum Bow, and Aréadhbair all reference weapons wielded by Lugh. The Lúin is named for the Lúin of Celtchar, a mightily powerful spear originally belonging to Celtchar mac Uthechar, while the Spear of Assal was a magic spear obtained from the children of Tuirill Piccreo that would always hit its mark and could also return to Lugh's hand. Tathlum is a special type of magic stone Lugh used in a sling to kill his grandfather, the tyrant Balor. The Aréadhbair was another spear owned by Lugh, which originally belonged to Shah Pisear of Iran. Aréadhbair, also called Slaughterer, thirsted for blood, and would massacre people independently, without even being wielded; it was also on fire. This certainly reflects Dimitri's state of mind in the war phase.

The Aegis Shield is named after something valuable and protective in the Iliad; the original aegis sounds like a shield, but it's never really described.

The Rafail Gem appears to be named for the angel Raphael, whose name means "God has healed".

The Ochain Shield is another reference to Irish mythology, this one specifically to the Ulster Cycle. In Scéla Conchobair mac Nessa, there is a passage describing the shields of 18 Ulstermen, beginning with one named Ochain.

The Swords of Moralta and Begalta both come from Irish mythology, in which they were wielded by Diarmuid Ua Duibhne of the Fianna; their names mean great fury and little fury.

The Caduceus Staff comes from Greek mythology, in which it was borne by various heralds, most notably Hermes/Mercury, and strongly associated with healing.

The Axe of Ukonvasara is Finnish for Ukko's Hammer, a weapon reminiscent of Mjolnir; Ukko was a pre-Christian Finnish thunder god.

Aymr comes from Ugaritic mythology; it is an axe which Ba'al Hadad wields against Yam to prevent him from becoming king of the gods. Ba'al Hadad was a storm god, and Aymr grants the Combat Art Raging Storm.

Failnaught is the name of the bow wielded by Sir Tristan, one of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table. As its name suggests, Tristan's Failnaught always hits its target; in Three Houses, its Combat Art, Fallen Star, grants a huge bonus to range and accuracy, and also prevents the wielder from being hit on the next turn.

The Fetters of Dromi come from Norse mythology, and are used to bind Fenrir.

Then the Lance of Ruin, Crusher, Blutgang (blood path), Freikugel (free cudgel), Thyrsus, Thunderbrand, Inexhaustible, Sword of Seiros, Shield of Seiros, and Vajra Musthi (diamond fist, a type of knuckle duster) simply have descriptive names.

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Network analysis of the Three Houses support system

Tools and data

For the following study, we have used the yEd free graph editor. All files discussed below can be downloaded here.

We define the nodes/vertices of our social network as the set of all named characters of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, including the post-release ones (Jeritza, "Cindered Shadows "DLC), who have support conversations ("supports") with other characters. Excepted from this definition are Byleth, because they have supports with every other character and would therefore obscure the underlying structures of the relationship network; and Sothis and Rhea, who only have supports with Byleth and would therefore be isolated by their removal.

We define the connections/edges as the set of all supports between characters, weighted/labeled by the total number of support conversations between any pair of characters. We furthermore normalize the edge weights to the interval [0,1] where the weight of 0, by convention, stands for "no connection/edge", so that the support path C›B maps to the weight 0.33; C›B›B+ and C›B›A, to 0.67; and C›B›B+›A and C›B›A›A+, to 1.00. Furthermore, because yEd cannot process undirected graphs, each support is modeled as a pair of directed edges with the same weight/label connecting character X to character Y and vice versa.

The resulting raw data can be found in fe3h_supports_raw.tgf in the downloadable archive.

Analysis

For node sizes, we used yEd's centrality algorithm, specifically Tools > Centrality Measures > Page Rank (with the "Directed" and "Get From Edge Labels" options checked), which scales the nodes according to how "important" they are in the overall network. For node colors, we used a manual coloring according to their respective House/faction's preferred color scheme. For layout, we used yEd's Organic layout algorithm with the option for Clustering set to Louvain Modularity and the "Handle Cluster as Substructure" option checked.

We observe that Jeritza's node appears to confuse the clustering algorithm, having an outsized impact on the layout due to his out-group A-supports despite his overall peripheral position in the network. We have therefore opted to exclude him from further analysis; for the interested reader, the file fe3h_supports_jeritza.graphml contains the untrimmed network. We have also opted not to use yEd's built-in node grouping function to manually cluster members of the same House/faction, because not doing so produced more interesting results. For the interested reader, however, the grouped layout can be found in fe3h_supports_groups.graphml and fe3h_supports_groups_jeritza.graphml.

The final results are thus discussed based on the contents of fe3h_supports.graphml.

Results and discussion

Predictably, members of the same House have been clustered together even when not explicitly grouped, thanks to being fully connected within the respective in-group. The only exception is the Church of Seiros faction, which is not fully connected internally (e.g. Seteth has no supports with Alois). The House leaders (Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude, Yuri) all ended up on the periphery of their respective clusters and of the network as a whole, presumably because they have much fewer out-group supports than most of their rank-and-file House members. Their right hands (Hubert, Dedue) are likewise on the periphery, but have much lower Page Ranks, presumably because, unlike their superiors, they do not have any out-group supports at all (except with the Church).

The Church is the only faction (it is technically not even a House) whose nodes are scattered all over the network, indicating that they generally have more and stronger out-group ties than in-group ones. Shamir and Cyril, in particular, are so strongly associated with the Golden Deer house, they might as well be part of that particular cluster (which makes narrative sense, as their "foreign commoner" identities would pull them towards Claude's House over all others). The remaining Church members cluster around the Blue Lions, reflecting the Church's in-story association with the Kingdom of Faerghus; Gilbert, in particular, may just as well be a Lion (and, indeed, he is only recruitable on the Azure Moon route). Likewise, Alois and Catherine's strong association with the Lions makes sense given their status as Church Knights, whereas Hanneman and Manuela, being of Adrestian descent, gravitate more towards the Black Eagles. Finally, Seteth and particularly Flayn cluster with the Lions but lean towards the Deer — or rather, away from the Eagles, which makes sense when Edelgard's intentions for Children of the Goddess are considered.

Among the Black Eagles, Caspar is a surprising outlier, as he consistently ends up closer to the Lions than to his own House due to his A-supports with Ashe and Annette and an A+-support with Catherine (who, as noted above, clusters with the Lions). This somewhat reflects his brash, combative personality that rarely gels well with the rest of his House.

The DLC-only Ashen Wolves generally tend to cluster close to, but separately from the Eagles, largely because two out of four (Yuri and Constance) have two A-supports with that House each. Only one member (Balthus) is associated with the Deer, but because all of his out-group supports are with that House, he ends up as more-or-less as its honorary member, much like Shamir and Cyril.

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