Fire Emblem Three Houses (Spoiler Thread)

I feel nothing when Leonie calls me out.

Am i a bad person?

Enemies calling out the player doesn't mean much in a vacuum. Shin megamit tensei loves having the law faction call you out for your actions that are anything but siding with them and they're still pretty consistently the assholes.

Yes, a lot of ennemies are sympathetic here, but there's nothing preventing you from reading it as a situation where there's no villain, only two factions with different ideas of how to be good. Which I seem to remember is one he things the story comes pretty close to say outright. When two strong ideals collide, the only thing one can do is fight and see which one is standing at the end, or something to that effect.

Same goes for the scene you mention about Arianhrod. Yeah, it's questionnable, but that's not enough to make the entire story a villain route. You could take them as signs of a villain route, or you could take them as a sign the story is on the cynical end of the cyncisim vs idealism scale, and that the game is trying to say a ruler has to be pragmatic and play Real Politik to succeed. Which matches with the fact she works with the slitherers. I guess straight laced heroic is a bit of hyperbole on my part, but it doesn't really change my point that stories have depicted people we'rei ntended to regard as heroic being much shadier than this.

Most of what makes CF a villain route is that other routes exist and we get to see where exactly the writing stands on the idealism scale and it's much higher than CF. That you don't actually need to ally yourself with the mole nazis to make the world a better place and so on. If CF was the only route in three houses, would it still be called the villain route ?

And none of this do anything ot invalidate the notion CF ends in a way that presents itself as equally as happy and morally okay as the other two.

Edited by Yumil on Aug 1st 2020 at 10:55:20 AM

It's not your fault. Why would you feel bad about it?

Happy for you, anyways.

Edited by mariovsonic999 on Aug 1st 2020 at 8:36:12 AM

It's like technically Leoni has the best case against me for telling me off for working with the Slithers who killed Jeralt, but it's Leonie. Like the most annoying character in this game who won't shut up about Captain Jeralt, is super annoying and is on Hana level of shittyness. Not to say she doesn't have her good moments but goddamn.

Like people think i hate Rhea but nope, it's only Leonie who has my outright hatred and despite her good case, i find a psychopathic glee in killing her on CF.

Or if i did recruit her, giving her a paired ending with Jeralt's debts courtesy of Alois.

I feel more guilt killing Flayn, Seteth, Claude, Dimitri and all the other units than i did Leonie. There is only joy in killing her. Pure Joy.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Aug 1st 2020 at 8:40:13 AM

Also before i take my nap.

Emperor Edelgard is a better ruler than Pope Byleth because at least Edelgard actually knows about Fodlan, doesn't need basic lore explained to her, and actually has a formal education in ruling unlike Byleth who's crest and connection to Sothis is the SOLE reason why Seteth and Rhea want them to lead. Which is pretty racist if you think about it since that means they have such a low opinion of humanity that a mercenary who has no formal education and barely any common knowledge of politics deserves to rule humanity without even asking the other mortal rulers or people of Fodlan because Byleth is connected to THEIR creator Goddess through their crest and thus better than stinky humans. Thus proving Edelgard's arguments that the Church is enabling the Crest caste system.

Crimson Flower truly is a better future than SS. Meritocracy for all it's flaws is better than a ruler who has godhood but is not at all raised to lead or handle it and only lead a life of killing for money. And i say this as having played both SS and CF. P.S Flayn should have been the MC of SS.

Change my mind. Ciao.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Aug 1st 2020 at 8:58:18 AM

By that logic, CF is a better future than any of the other routes, since El is the only one who knows what she is doing? Which is kind of the problem, since the game supposedly isn't meant to be biased towards a specific path. And I'm still not convinced about that last part thanks to CF having that "true end" flavor.

Counterpoint, King Dimitri rules in AM. At least him and Edelgard actually have a formal education unlike Byleth so that makes them more qualified rulers IMO. Claude just buggers off to Almyra to claim his birthright.

That's what puts it above VW in the pecking order IMO.

I personally think King Dimitri actually handles the administrative duties that keep Fodlan afloat while Byleth looks pretty in Pope robes to hide the fact they have no fucking clue what's going on. Then eventually gives Dimitri their crest so that Dimitri may rule as God savior king of Fodlan for the true Golden ending.

Okay, now i need to sleep.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Aug 1st 2020 at 9:13:28 AM

So it's okay for Edelgard to say "I should rule the continent because I'm special", but wrong for Byleth to do so? What about the fact that Byleth having Sothis' power isn't an empty boast to legitimize power, but an actual provable reality?

Meritocracy is important, so the continent should be ruled by the noble who was groomed to rule rather than the filthy peasant who didn't have a formal education?

And how does Edelgard demonstrate she's actually a good ruler? She never shows anything in the way of actual political savvy or policy insight, some of her plans go comedically wrong, she constantly works with horrible people she thinks she can rein in but never does (Hubert, Emile, The Slitherers), and the lessons she gets from CF are "Violence will solve your problems" and "the people you hate really are evil, you don't ever need to try to understand or respect them".

Edited by MisterTambourineMan on Aug 1st 2020 at 9:37:26 AM

But what does having a goddess in you prove? That you have divine right over all of its people despite showing so few leadership? And leading an army is different from leading people.

Edited by mariovsonic999 on Aug 1st 2020 at 9:42:19 AM

Byleth is the one who was leading the resistance army. It's not like they're just popping up at the end and saying "I have glowhair power plz"; they've proved themselves as a leader of at least some kind.

People say that Seteth should've taken over the church instead of Byleth, but is Seteth more qualified to lead the entirety of Fodlan?

It's funny, though. On SS, Byleth essentially ends up leading Fodlan because everyone is dead (unless Rhea survives, and Seteth evidently doesn't count), and they have the Crest of Flames.

Kind of like how El became the emperor because all of her siblings died and she got the Crest of Flames...

So they're great at leading an army, fantastic. That doesn't necessarily mean they're also great at running a country. Those are two entirely different things.

The Loghain Principle.

I'm not sure what that is. Is that a Dragon Age: Origins reference?

Yep.

Kotaku writer asserts that Byleth is canonically non-binary.

Okay, so, this is a really delicate subject. I'll start be saying that I think the author has a point about the limited representation of NB people in video games (the only character I can think of that's actually human is Subaru from Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love), and I from reading the article I do see how you argue for Byleth being applicable to NB people, but I also think some of their arguments simply don't hold up.

They says that Byleth is not meant to be a player avatar like Robin or Corrin. The argument for this seems spurious; They assert that to be a player Avatar must necessarily have a bland everyman personality and be beloved by all characters at all times, and that Byleth doesn't fit because, basically, some characters make remarks to Byleth that could be construed as rude. This is not an actual distinction between Byleth and their predecessors, though; some characters were rude to previous Avatars (see: Hana), and Byleth is as important to everyone around them as previous Avatars were. They also use Byleth showing their own emotions as proof they aren't a player Avatar, even though previous Avatars did as well.

Some of their arguments are factually incorrect, such as claiming Byleth was traumatized by the way they were treated by the other mercenaries. I do not know of any evidence of this from the game.

Some of their arguments point out how Byleth's experience could parallel the experience of a NB person, but are used to say that Byleth must necessarily be NB when that doesn't logically follow (pointing out that some people are awkward around Byleth and people were awkward around them when they were younger).

Some of their arguments seem inconsistent with their other arguments (claiming Byleth is NB because Sothis is part of their gender identity, while also saying that Rhea identifying them with Sothis is misgendering, implying that Sothis isn't part of their gender identity).

There is actually is at least one scene in the game that does touch on the idea of Byleth not identifying with their biological sex: Flayn's S-support, where she asks if Byleth identifies as male or female. The author of the article was most likely unaware of this, as it isn't mentioned in the article. I can't fault them for this, as most people only see a few of the S-rank scenes.

And to clarify; while I know I have a reputation here as a hothead, I'm not angry about this at all. Byleth is supposed to be a character you identify with, and they are interpreting Byleth in a way that they identify with. They're hardly the first person to discuss the idea of NB Byleth; there were quite a few fics on AO 3 that characterized them thusly. I respect them wanting good examples of NB people in video games, but I don't feel like this is really a definitive interpretation of Byleth.

Any questions/comments/thoughts/castigations?

Whenever I see Kotaku write an opinion piece, I tend to disagree with them, and this is no different.

I think the biggest issue is that Byleth is a Silent Protagonist whose gender you can choose and the game's Gender Neutral Writing writing of them is in service of that first and foremost. Basically it serves the game mechanics, rather than being an integral part of the character during its creation.

There are moments in the game that hint at non-binary Byleth, but those aren't really focused on or developed that much. So this article positing that this was a genuine characterization decision planned from the start feels...awkward.

I don't mean to take this away from non-binary people who want to see themselves in the media they love. The author of this article says they're non-binary, and I'm all for people headcanoning characters as like them using evidence from the work itself. But this feels like giving a bit too much credit to the creators and the game itself for what's mostly a mechanical decision.

My run of this game is in Hard / Casual. I wonder how you Maddening / Classic people even manage.

There's a lot of really busted stuff in the game that players can abuse to give themselves huge advantages over the enemies. My channel has footage of whole maps where my army barely gets touched because they're almost always attacking from outside of enemy counterattack range and ending Player Phase outside of enemies' reach.

Being at a distant is practically necessary for combat in Maddening. Bow is great for a reason as they have actual combat art to use when Lance and Axe can only use combat arts at direct.

I think what puts me off Maddening isn't the difficulty, but the amount of time it can take to beat a map.

I agree that Mx. Jiang is reaching with their assertion that Byleth is necessarily nonbinary. Avoiding pronouns is much more likely a necessity to save money (though Byleth is referred to as "they" a couple of times). That said, it is perfectly reasonable to play Byleth as nonbinary if one so chooses, and enbies evidently identify with them and get something out of it, which is good.

One of the comments makes a good point:

Clearly they ar elike Flayn and cant tell if Byleth is male or female.