Some people have theories that the dragons are still alive, but can’t regenerate properly since they keep being used which makes sense because throughout the FE series, dragons heal by falling into a long slumber. If they are somehow still alive and just want to rest, I feel bad for them.
Edelgard: The Crest system is EVIL and we must kill RHEA for subjecting us all to the tyranny of crests! Ones who Slither in the Dark: haha yeah. She did that... it was her...go kill Rhea haha.
Rhea: **thousands of years later** Okay, I regret encouraging the crest system. Probably a bad idea take something made by an obviously corrupt organization and just unleash it onto mainline society just to- **Byleth "betrays her** I WILL RECLAIM MOTHER AND RIP OUT YOUR HEART!
@@XellosNi Eh, Rhea's motivations are still WAY more justified than Edelgard's. Edelgard: "WAAAH! I lost my immediate family and was experimented on! The crests are to blame!" Rhea: "Cool, I lost nearly all my species, spent a gajillion years trying to make the world less shitty, and this was my best effort, a system that brings stability, albeit a bit of inequality, which is not exactly terrible, but not perfect, but better than people killing each other to near extinction. But sure, blame the crests." Seriously, those who think Rhea's reaction to Byleth's betrayal was unreasonable are unreasonable themselves. Rhea's gone through shit and did her best, and more than most have. She's far from perfect, but by god, she's one of the unsung heroes of this damn story.
OptimalTT Plus, if you think about it, promoting Crests is in part a way of honoring her lost siblings. Each Crest is a sigil of the power that was carried by a specific Child of the Goddess. If the human bloodlines now carrying that power are placed into high positions, as her siblings once were as demigods, then it probably feels to Rhea like she's reclaimed at least a shadow of what she had lost.
@@optimaltt6070 You misunderstand. It is not only Edelgard who was affected by this. Everyone in Fodlan was. Moreover, Rhea's not been doing such a good job of leading, is she? She is indiscriminately killing everyone who questions her fake religion and names anyone who says anything against it heretics to the goddess. The Crest system divided Fodlan, prevented progress and favored only those with Crests even if they are unfit for their role. Do you remember the Dark Ages? Fodlan is, quite literally, facing the Dark Ages during the Church's regime. That is what Edelgard is fighting against; she is by no means against the religion as she says so herself. What she is against is the system that perpetuated the Fodlan society and the perpetrators of inequality: the fascist rulers of the Church.
@@akaneriyun4774 The only one who misunderstands here is you, rhea hasn't been doing a good job at keeping the peace not leading, the church has tremendous influence on the continent but rhea does not lead the continent, there's literally an emperor, a king, and an elected Duke all leading their own respective parts of the continent, the entire reason rhea build the church was to prevent another world war, and I see everyone blame the crest system for everything when that's not even the case even without the crests the nobles would still be above the common people moreover the ones really at fault are the people themselves and not the crests, sure the crest system is harmful and encourages an unhealthy societal behavior but at the end of the day the truth is more simple than anything, some people are just pieces of shit others aren't, bernadetta father would be an asshole to her regardless if she had a crest or not because he only cares about money her crest just just reinforces his assholish behavior it did not create it in the first place, then you have nobles like rodrigue who cared about Glenn because he was his son if he had a crest or not is irrelevant, same with someone like holst it is implied that he doesn't have a crest yet he still loves Hilda and is loved by her regardless, at the end of the day the final say is on the individual not the system as edelgard believes
I kinda find it hard to watch the opening cutscene with the huge fight between nemesis, when she gets sword and says to her mother he's gone knowing know that she was talking to the sword 😦😦😦
Yeah, I'm honestly suprised she kept the sword in the catacombs since you would think shes want to keep that last part of her mother close to her since she misses her so much
@@GhostWulf70792 wait, but was there a purple ranger at any point? I actually am gonna check that. If not, it is a dark enough purple... Update: quick Google search shows there actually was one, in Dino Charged!
He *doesn't.* Not at the time. Edelgard doesn't either, but at the time she says it, she knows more than him. She doesn't know that TWSITD created all of it, but she does have more details than Claude, and she knows that the Church uses the idea of the Goddess to justify a lot of actually atrocious shit, rewrites history on a whim, and glorifies and maintains the system of Noblilty that is hyper-obsessed with Crests. Given how much plotting, scheming and backstabbing and generally horrific behavior among nobility from all three territories is motivated entirely by Crests, and the horrifying experiments her (and Lysithea) were subjected to, it's pretty understandable that she would want to abolish *all* of that. There's merit to her goals. And the way Rhea reacts to Byleth choosing to side with Edelgard certainly does *nothing* to make her look good.
@@Blazieth I just wish they expanded Black Eagles and Blue Lions to also dealing with the TWSITD. I know it's to make it so the routes look really different, but a casual coming in might think the Edelgard inadvertantly aided TWSITD to finally take over the surface world if they didn't read the relationship endings. Even in Blue Lions, unless you had specific paired endings (Dimitri x Hapi), you won't really know if you fully dealt with all the remaining TWSITD left.
@@jamesvalkyrie7469 100% Black Eagles should have been longer. It's the shortest route and my fave. Blue Lions was long enough for me personally so putting it in the ending cards would have been just fine. Black Eagles should have had the fights with TWSITD because it is constantly mentioned how much Edelgard and Hubert hate them and plan to conquer them after they take down the church. It also would probably help visualize her goals and she could hint at who she planned on making her successor. It's really a shame that she's "the villain" in 3 routes but her route is the shortest. Most of the characters are complex and have a lot of trauma. Think Edelgard getting revenge and defeating the ones who were manipulating her from the start would be awesome.
Neither does edelgard tbh. If she knows it, why tf did she made compliance with TWSITD instead of asking rhea and/or the entire monastery for help defeating TWSITD? Like, why did she go for rhea instead? Edelgard is fucking stupid
@@Blazieth Gee, I wonder why Rhea would react so poorly to her grandchild containing her mother essentially betraying her. How is that a bad look exactly?
You know, the fact that we're able to have such complex debates on whether or not Edelgard or Rhea did the best thing is a testament to this game's stellar writing. Both lost their family because of Those who Slither in the Dark, and both take it in different ways. Rhea tried to get back what she lost. She constructed the crest ruling system to try to bring those she lost back to a place close to her. As it appears that those naturally bearing crests may tend to have traits of those associated with the original bearers (Bernadetta has a minor crest of Indech, who was also a reserved archer), and this may also be the reason behind the creation of the Officer's Academy, to bring those with the crest properties (who, as nobles, would be highly likely to go) closer to Rhea, and we already know what she did to try to bring back Sothis. Edelgard never fully let go of what happened to her siblings, but she accepted them as gone. She wished to make sure that what happened to her and her siblings, and, with a shortened lifespan, she could not do it with a slow, diplomatic process, though it would probably be the best option to reduce casualties, so she opted for war. She believed that the Crest system was corrupt (which it was at that point), but she didn't know the whole story (because Rhea never told it). When it comes to her pre-timeskip actions, I do not believe that she was involved with the plan to neutralize the "Fell Star" Byleth. When interacting with Monica (Kronya), I believe that she was trying to find out her plans, but Those who Slither really like going behind her back (if Remire was to be taken as an example). She believes that the Church of Seiros has to be destroyed because they reinforce "Crests are absolutely necessary to rule." It should be noted that while she does work with Those who Slither in the Dark, she and Hubert are preparing to destroy them as soon as the war is over. I'm not actively trying to totally excuse their unethical actions, rather trying to understand them. Edelgard is pointing her axe at the wrong person, however, that is because Rhea, trying to bring back her lost family while taking action against any who disagree with the church, didn't make the true bad guys clear, and did a terrible job at making herself (as well as her system) look truly in the right. As the initiator, Edelgard is not excusable, but she had good reason why.
@@gladiatordragon9219 It would be an interesting scenario. A non canon alternative universe where at least Edelgard and Rhea talked to each other...and Edelgard with Seteth. Believe me when I say that Seteth will surprise her with his view on the Crest. Seeing them as nothing but a connection to someone from long ago and doesn't fully define you as a person.
Dimitri's route plays into that theme as well. He lost all of his family and closest friends during the duscar revolt. He lets their loss control him, leading him into madness. He believes he has to kill everyone who has wronged the dead as a sort of tribute. It's interesting how each leader faces their loss.
Can we talk about how shitty life was for sothis? Like she leaves her home, wherever that is, (she might be a divine dragon like gods in the series usually are, she might be an actual goddess for once idk) she decides to help the natives because she's a kind individual and then she has children to help her with this goal, then those very people who she helped use that power against her and destroy the continent, she exhausts herself reviving the continent for those few descent Humana instead of just fucking off to find a new home. She then goes to sleep and is murdered, having her bodies ravished for her murderer's gain
Legends told early on in the game say that Sothis descended from a sacred star, but she seems to have arrived on Fodlan's world with a purpose in mind. I'd say she is some form of goddess (there are a lot of hints that suggest she is eternal in some ways, having power even after her true form was killed and her heart destroyed), and it is her children who fill in the divine dragon trope for this game.
This game’s whole storyline seems like one big misunderstanding that could have been solved with proper communication and sitting everyone the hell down. So many lives would have been saved and the true enemy would have been targeted and killed
@Gabriel Thesken both of you are incredibly naïve yes its like our world in the sense that every and each party is both truly a victim and also at the same time a self interested asshole, if any of those characters actually truly cared about you they wouldn't jump to killing you the moment you don't join their side, this presumption of goodness is the source of all evil if we lived in unforgiving world were people were obsessed with finding the truth and thoroughly punishing the guilty nobody would do evil because they would know the whole f humanity would be against them no matter who they are, but like in our world we let ourselves be corrupted and inevitable conflict is the one end of this road
The problem I have with Els route is that you NEVER learn any of this. You (Byleth) go through the entire campaign without knowing the details of your connection to Sothis or Rhea, and when Rhea dies the Crest stone disappears, and Byleth has absolutely no idea. You don't learn anything about the Nabateans or their connection to Crests, you don't learn anything about the Agarthans or their connection to TWSitD. It's just a linear war campaign devoted to making you feelsbadman about killing your friends. IMO Claudes route did the best job of fleshing out the lore and the world, and overall tells the most coherent, satisfying story.
This is the main reason I am struggling to play BE route. I want to finish all routes but so far I only finished GD/VW route. I'm in pre time-skip BE route now, the progress seems sooo slow I want to drop it and might turn to Church route to learn more about the lore instead of finishing CF.
You have a good point. Since none of this is revealed, it makes Edelgard seem like a bad person, even in her own route. This one and SS are really the only ones where she gets her redemption, really.
I think part of it comes from how the routes were developed. The BE route was developed first, from my understanding. Based on the dates in the game files, Verdant Wind was the final route in development, so it likely cannibalized some of the story beats. I could be wrong about this, as I haven’t read about it in a while. Feel free to correct me if anything’s incorrect!
She's not entirely wrong. She can deal with them at any time (and supposedly, she does/will succeed at dealing with them). While they caused everything, the Church has committed countless horrible acts in the name of reviving the Progenitor/Creator god, and purging the truth from history (which while standard for war... I mean eesh). The fact the Church is made up of effectively immortal beings in their higher up rankings speaks volumes to how much they manipulate the world. To make things worse, Rhea is prone to mental instability (a common trait amongst FE Dragons/Manakete), which only makes her far less reliable (and is the cause of her death in the Church Route - because she knows she can't be trusted to lead much longer either way). The ultimate truth is, Edel's just as right. The church has created a class system that promotes inequality and elitism, which hurts the entire continent, and has lead to many pointless wars and power struggles. And this was all on Seiros/Rhea. "Even thought I had to do some... questionable things to achieve that goal, I wished to see Sothis... my mother... once more." - Rhea. 8:43. This alone is her admitting to her doing the countless experiments and tortures upon people, creating homunculi (Byleth's mother being one of such, and implied there are 11 or 12 more before her), torturing innocents, probably causing multiple people to become beasts through the "10 Elites" weapons, etc etc. All that matters to Rhea is Sothis. And as long as Byleth plays good, she is hurt but sees Byleth as Sothis (seen in church route), and hence for the most part she don't care what happens as long as you live as you as her substitute for her mother. When you join Edelgard on her route, Rhea's emotionally hurt, and refuses to accept you and Sothis are one being once you deny her. She doesn't think rationally and is quick to want to kill you, because she doesn't want to think her mom disagrees with what she's doing to the world. She thinks she can just take the Crest back, and done, she'll start anew. I'm not too certain here-in but you get the point.
@@katomamundara8106 I mean yeah she does have reasons for her motives of getting rid of the crest system but who knows maybe those who slither in dark had to do something with edelgards past and why she has those motives just saying
@@chipalo1413 She considered the Slitherers - a small organization in comparison - a lesser threat than the Church which had the backing of 2 Zealous countries that relied on the church for their power. Without the aide of the Slitherers she felt confident they wouldn't be able to win. For most purposes - she was right. She used an evil to crush an evil, believing she could crush that 'lesser' evil. I'd agree with her assessment. The church aides you in the other 3 routes against the Edel-Slitherer forces, and two sides are STILL wiped out in the process (Edel's and the third house/army). If I remember right (I'm still looking over every video), the Church takes out the Slitherers (sans Nemesis force), and the three kingdoms in the Church route. That goes to show how much Edel was being pragmatic to use the Slitherers. Edel made the right call - destroy the church, free the world from their machinations, then gather the continent under her and crush the slitherers. Having the entirety of three nations and the church's less zealous members would result in a far higher chance of dealing with the Slitherers after-the-fact. And we know this ultimately was her aim from her ending.
@@haisex3 yes there are 5 routes get church route u side with church and don't betray rhea u stay at church instead of going with eldelgard and keep rhea alive u need s rank support her supposedly
So this means that Rhea is an emotional mess Edelgard was a tool Dimitri was a victim and Claude was a weaking Each of these cases Byleth was used as a device to save each of these characters from their flaws. Pretty awesome use of an avatar I'd say
Nah what are you talking about Claude is a Bae, golden Boi, master memer(and whatever other positive title you want to call him by) and while yeah he isn't the strongest physically or a natural born leader or the most charimastic, he is the only one who isn't dumb and he sees his job through the end 10/10 would deer again
Poor rhea, living with a double personality must be hard. If one S supports her in the church route, she manages to survive when defeated, and regains control of herself.
You know what is REALLY ironic about Edelgard? Don't get me wrong, I LIKE Edelgard. Black Eagles are my chosen faction/house. But it's still kind of ironic that Edelgard is extremely hypocritical in one aspect. Just about anyone who has beaten the Black Eagles Edelgard route knows what happened to Edelgard's siblings and how that event is what drives Edelgard. They were experimented upon by Those Who Slither in the Dark because the nobility wanted to create the perfect Emperor for Adrestia. But look at it from this way, as far as the nobles were concerned, their actions were not based on For the Evulz. They legitimately wanted a Major Crest-bearing heir to the Empire because they thought it would be what was best for the Empire and they sacrificed Edelgard's siblings to achieve that in. In other words, THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS. And what does Edelgard allow Those Who Slither in the Dark to do? That's right.Conduct experiments on students in the school (The Chapter where Jeralt dies) and learn how to transform people into monsters so that she could use those monsters in her army (Hubert confirms in one of his paralogues that Edelgard is aware of Those Who Slither in the Dark's crimes but tolerates them for the tactical advantage it gives her). Edelgard KNEW about them and didn't tell anyone. And she even could have done so anonymously. But chose NOT to because she wanted that power in order to fulfill her ambitions. In other words, THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS. I love Edelgard. I really do. But the sad part is, even before the time skip, Edelgard has become EXACTLY like the nobility she hated. She allowed Those Who Slither in the Dark to experiment on and kill people for her advantage. She sees people's lives as being worth less than her ambition and goals. If Edelgard had been one of the nobles who experimented on her siblings, Edelgard would have allowed it for the sake of her ambitions. Edelgard is exactly what she hates. And THAT is what is REALLY sad about Edelgard. Not her understandable ambitions and goals, but the fact that she doesn't understand that her attitude is the very same attitude that caused all of the problems in her life.
Edelgard specifically states she would've stopped the experiment in Remire and it's never stated she new of Kronya's plan. It's much more likely she believed Kronya was meant to capture Flayn as Solon attempted to do with the help of the Death Knight. As for her "Ends justify the means" approach, I'd say it depends heavily on the end whether or not such thinking is justified.
@@wyveriusblackfire3834 Of course she would have stopped what happened in Remire, because none of that benefited her or her plan. Now if it would have had some tangible benefit to her ambitions? I'm pretty sure she would have greenlighted it. Probably reluctantly. Because Edelgard ISN'T a monster. But she most likely would have. As for Kronya's plan. It's true that is never specifically stated, but it's repeatedly shown that "Monica" was attached to Edelgard the whole damn time she was around. I doubt Edelgarde didn't know what she was up to. And even if Edelgard didn't, she still capitalized on Those Who Slither in the Dark's ability to turn people into monsters for her benefit. More importantly, she still allowed the situation to escalate that far when she could have stopped it. Edelgard could prevented that entire incident with Monica just by warning others about Those Who Slither in the Dark. But Edelgard chose not to because she wanted them to provide her army with monsters. As for me, I don't really believe that the ends justify the means. Primarily because I prefer to innovate. Instead of just giving up and resorting to a brute force method or an unsavory one. Honestly, humanity is capable enough without having to resort to deplorable means to achieve our goals. It's just easier to use the nastier methods. That's, generally, how I see it.
@@aarongoosby5532 Good luck innovating a way to discredit the world order set up by a totalitarian demigod without any violence breaking out. With the way Rhea was pre-timeskip, she would have never allowed any attempts Edelgard made to discredit the Church and crests. She only changes due to events during the war forcing her to realize she was in the wrong. And if you doubt that, just remember her response to Byleth turning against her. Also, in Edelgard's route, TWSITD are never used, merely kept as reserve forces, which is why the state of the war is so different from the other routes in Crimson Flower.
@@wyveriusblackfire3834 Rhea isn't totalitarian though. Like, at all. By any stretch of the imagination. The Emperor rules the Adrestrian Empire. The Alliance is full of a bunch of nobles who do whatever the hell they want. Fearghus is ruled by its King. How in the hell can Rhea be classified as Totalitarian with that many rulers who she does not have absolute authority over and has made no attempt to exert absolute authority over? Also, the Church isn't really a problem at all. I mean, they commit the least amount of atrocities throughout the game. They only fawk with people who fawk with them first. The Crests are NOT their fault. Since they were created by Those Who Slither in the Dark, and given to the Ten Elites by Nemesis. And the Ten Elites' families became the nobility of today Fodlan. Whether the Church existed or not, that would have still happened. It actually happened BEFORE the Church existed. So the Crests are not even the Church's fault and the reason they're associated with nobility isn't even the Church's fault. Rhea just capitalized on it. Not caused it. Honestly, the Crests don't even cause problems. Humans do and blame it on the Crests. People being discriminated against for not having a Crest is no different from the discrimination that Dedue, Shamir, Cyril, and Claude face just for being foreigners. The Crest Experimentation was carried out by Those Who Slither in the Dark. Not the Church and of course not the Crest themselves. The Crests are not the source of social inequality either. Caspard doesn't have a Crest but is STILL a noble. He is a noble because of his family. Which would not change with or without his Crest. Neither the Crests nor the Church can be blamed for social equality in Fodlan. It's just an excuse to mask human nature. Edelgard was correct about wanting to establish a Meritocratic society. But the most egalitarian and meritocratic place in Fodlan is Garegg Mach Monastery. Which provides religious freedom (Rhea doesn't care if you're a non-believer, others may though), social equality (Rhea treats commoners and nobles equally), and doesn't give a damn how much money or status you have. Anyone can join the Church of Seiros or Knights of Seiros without a fuss. Even foreigners like Cyril and Shamir. So it's kind of far fetch to say that it's necessary to take down Rhea to usher in social equality when Rhea's institution is the most socially equal institution in Fodlan.
@@aarongoosby5532 Rhea is the one who created the social structures that put those who bear crests in power. Those structures would have existed if Nemesis was not stopped, but even though Rhea stopped him, she still falsified a history that saw crests and those who bear them glorified, resulting in inequality for centuries. And while Rhea doesn't directly control the countries, she doesn't need to. She controls the masses through scripture she concocted, and strikes down any who oppose her. Remember when she sends students to a war zone to teach them what happens to those who oppose the church? If Edelgard had moved to discredit crests, Rhea would've opposed her to preserve the peoples faith in the church. She even says people can't be allowed to know what happened to Miklan because they would lose faith in the crests and the nobles who bear them.
Ya know, I was confused by comment section until I realized lot of people in comment section played Crimson Flower first and believed Adrestian Empire's account of events. The account of events that is basically a centuries long telephone game and imperial propaganda :P
@@HappyPotat Eh, context of what she says isn't particularly flattering to church and isn't too contradictory to other facts. She might have left something out like "I was personally in charge of attacking Agarthans". Either way, calling it church propaganda is weird when what she basically tells you is that church is based on lizard people covering up what mole men did.
@@ShadowoftheMask She speaks solely from a subjective point of view. Yes she is entirely justified in seeing Nemesis as a monstrous man filled with nothing but evil but at the same time, that's how she, as a victim, saw the events. It's not a very substantial and reliable account. When Nemesis returns he is fixated on nothing but killing Seiros, not the destruction of the world or anything like that, just Seiros. And Edelgard's account contradicts nothing of what was said, only citing that from an objective viewpoint, Nemesis no longer wanted to be ruled over by the Children of the Goddess and wanted to control his own fate. Either way, the whole thing is done in a way that makes it easy to create an argument on either side: You can say Edelgard is given false information and Rhea is telling the truth or that Rhea is lying to you as she always has and Edelgard's account is true.
@@HappyPotat I mean, Nemesis was a bandit, I don't think he ever was trying to destroy the world, just kill and plunder like bandit tutorial bosses like to do :p
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is the game that brought old and new players together. Edelgard supporters: EdelGard iS INnocent!1!1!1 Non-Edelgard supporters: ShE EvIL!1!1!1 And now the community is divided yet again...
I love this part of comment section where we neutrally says that Edelgard started a wrong war against the wrong person. Kinda understand her point of view yet I still think that is self-righteous. Nobody asked for it. It's not Rhea who values or says that only those with Crests shoul rule. Nobles do. They are the one to blame. Edelgard supporters say that it's because of the Crest that people like Sylvain or Ingrid suffer. For f*CK sake: it's their own parents fault not the Crests. And about the meritocratic politicy that she wants to apply. Why not apply it firstly in your own territories and then SUGGEST others to do the same instead of forcing your way to other with war. There's no need to conquer all Fodlan for that reason...
@@user-pp3tn2lt3q She is treated like a goddess, though. She has her own religion as well. Tactical Stampede is correct. Near the end of White Clouds, before , if I'm correct, chapter 9, Rhea will say "May the goddess Sothis protect you" and Sothis goes crazy about it. If you were correct and Tactical Stampede was wrong, you would have proved yourself wrong.
You know. A lot of people give Rhea shit for what she did to Byleth and I agree that it's kinda crappy that she did it. But at least she is admitting guilt and clearly regrets doing it. Ya know what I mean? Dimitri came out of his insanity after losing Rodrigue and talking to Byleth, Claude never rly had a moment of instability. And Rhea at least admitted she was wrong. I can't think of Edelgard ever admitting to doing something wrong, and I can think of a LOT of wrong things she's done.
@@pickcollins9910 fodlan belongs to them they were there first, if possible in game I'd help nemesis slaughter everyone but utinfortunately that option is not available 😭
@@pickcollins9910 it's heavily referenced in the story. At one point if you fight Solon with anyone that is not byleth he refers to you as beasts, and says he is the savior of agarthians this coupled with the records in the monestary library insinuate agarthians preceded sothis as the residents of fodlan
So this cutscene confirms that the Church DID NOT CREATE the Crest system which Edgelord was supposed to get rid of. Another 10 points to Slither in the Dark!
@@joeyrodriguezthethird2137 According to his wiki page he is the progenitor god's child along with Indech and Macuil. The only grandchild is Flayn. Again this is going by the wiki. I don't know where you get this info within the game itself.
Still it's kinda cool how Claude and Edelgard each get to right the wrongs of their respective ancestors in their routes - Claude's descended from one of Nemesis' henchmen so he deals with them whereas Edelgard is related to the guy who helped Seiros take power so her story's mainly focussed on taking her out.
@@lapniappe He's a descendant of the 10 Elites (As are most of the non-empire nobles). Those worked for Nemesis back in the day. Claude gets to beat up their zombified selves while awesome music plays.
@@KendrixTermina LOL i had read that before i had breakfast. I didn't see the "henchman" part i just saw "descended from Nemesis" and i was like. wow. did i every miss something
After finishing Blue Lions and Golden Deer, I can never understand Edelgard's butthurt motivation. And I finished Crimson Flower first, I chose to not kill Edelgard solely because I want to know what she wants to do if I followed her. If it wasn't for that, I would side with Rhea even back then because I find it highly rude to raid a holy resting place and also what she said after killing Lonato's militia made me feel uncomfortable with her ideals. Yes she was a victim of the Crests system but then the ones who truly caused the Crests problem was Those Who Slither in the Dark. Annihilating the entire Church organisation will not totally solve the problem because it will only create an internal instability with the people of Fodlan. Edelgard is probably an atheist but some people in Fodlan needs their faith as can be seen from various conversations you had with the NPC at the monastery and some even planned to rebuild the Church from within the Empire. In the long run, these people will be the death of Edelgard or her Empire because they might rise up to stand for what they believe in. Plus, by defeating the Church of Seiros, the Alliance, and the Kingdom, Edelgard will only satisfy herself and her revenge on the organisation she thought was the reason of her suffering eventhough all those vengeance should be on TWSITD instead. But yeah, she chose to work with them and let them wreck havoc on various occasion for her benefit because for some reason, they are the only help she can seek from how convenient, also just by saying "I don't agree with you blah blah blah" once in a while does not redeem the fact that you chose the people who work in the dark for help, Edelgard! In comparison to how the other Lords dealt with the issues in Fodlan, it became a win win situation to everyone both the Church and the people of Fodlan. So yeah. But hey, it's just an opinion, a game opinion... lmao jk
This XD played Edelgard's route first and then the Church before finally doing BL and GD, and while Edelgard's ideals aren't evil I did find them to build quite tunnel vision (which left her route sorely lacking for me personally considering how short it was) . More than anything Edelgard reminds me more of Lelouch XD
I’m pretty sure edelgard wages was with twsitd at the end. She just used them first to take down the church, which greatly influenced the crest system, and took them down. I have no idea why they didn’t include that for gameplay. I mean, without Hubert they wouldn’t have been able to know about them or shambala (if that’s how you spell it lol)
I finished both golden deer and blue lions and am finally playing crimson flower. I’ve already seen parts of the story from all the paths and do agree with most people here that the actions El took weren’t completely right. I just killed Judith and usually killing the characters doesn’t get me as upset as they usually do. It’s because they are defending themselves from a war they didn’t want a part in that is pretty much unjustified. Edelgard could have taken many other plans of actions but decided to go to war so she could see it through her life time. The only reason I’m playing crimson flower is because I want to complete all routes. It pained me to side with Edelgard because what she was doing was a bit wrong. It’s sad what happened to her but her past doesn’t completely justify everything she is doing. Even though what Rhea did is a bit controversial and a bit wrong morally like lying to society about the past and “ruling” over fodlan as well as altering a child to resurrect her mother, she is ultimately more in the right then Edelgard is. Rhea slowly has given up hope over the years. She even tried a more humane way which is seen in the DLC where she used the chalice of beginnings and used the blood of 4 of her relatives who were willing and didn’t require their lives to be forfeited to achieve her end goal. It didn’t work in the end but it shows she tried to get things back to the way they were more peacefully which Edelgard didn’t one try to achieve. She started a way killing thousands which is kind of hypocritical when she started this because her siblings died
Fact. Edelgard wanted peace but she started a pointless war by targeting the wrong person. If she declares war to TWSITD instead from the very beginning and asked the church to help her, she would've been a really good character. After all the one who made her suffer are TWSITD and not rhea by any direct mean. She's a fucking hypocrite (FE warrior 3H spoiler) If anything, i feel like claude's motive to kill rhea in golden wildfire is more justified than whatever the fuck edelgard is doing in 3 houses. Rhea is a dictator in fodlan, she doesn't let any diplomatic relationship with neighboring countries (which led to xenophobia, racism, and civil war), her teaching is too one sided and believes any form of mockery has to be resulted in death sentence. Claude feels that way because his brothers sees him as a coward and an outsider because his mother tiana is from fodlan, these are the results of rhea not allowing neighboring countries to have relationship with fodlan. He didn't kill rhea because of the crest system but because she's legitimately a dictator and he just want to reshape fodlan into a better country without having rhea ruling all the laws and systems in it. That's why in 3 houses ending he ask byleth to be the archbishop instead
Why does everybody treat the 10 elites like heroes? Why would Rhea rewrite history to make good guys out of the people who killed her kind and stole their power?
Maybe making the crest seem like Noble things made them desired, and being positively affiliated with the church's history in this way made it easier for Rhea to control the continent?
^ This and it is to make people to not dig further at the origin of Crest since Church defined the Crest as the 'gift from gods'. Church kinda promoted Crest-centered-nobility as well to seal the deal since it is easier to control Crest-wielder who feel indebted by the Church (with their raise of social rank to Nobility). If we flipped it and the Church is in the different side of Crest-wielder while we know that Crest is god-killer-weapon, there is a chance that people will use Crest-wielder to destroy the Church. If the Church is destroyed, Rhea will lose her base of operation and can't do her project to revive Sothis.
For control. It makes the crests out to be something created by the goddess vs. something made to oppose her by evil but undsoubtedly powerful humans. Compare RL religious arguments about how the devil is only a tool of god. You end up with a cosmology where all power was deliberately given out by Sothis and/or Seiros... and of course a world where those "divine gifts" are prized above all else hence half the characters' effed up backstories.
Because aside from all the other reasons that the guys in the comments pointed out, if humans knew that crests could be obtained simply by drinking dragon blood then she and her remaining siblings would be hunted down for their power
I don't get the people who say she is evil. I mean, yeah if you betray her in Edelgard route she become crazy but normally she's not. Edelgard hate her for the Crest system BUT IT WASN'T RHEA WHO MADE THE CRESTS IMPORTANT, THEY ALREADY EXISTED BY THEIR OWN, the nobles who value and worships the crests are to blame, not the crests themselves nor the goddess who bestowed humanity with them. The pain and suffering Edelgard and her siblings went through are by the hands of those who slither in the dark, yet she hate the church for it when the church teaching are actually good. And she started a f*cking war against the whole continent just for that. She hates Rhea? Ok, just kill her, why you need to capture her? And why continue the war against the Kingdom and Alliance if your primary objective (the fall of the church) has already been accomplished? Rhea is not totally the nicest person herself, she executes the heretics of western church without letting them explain (that they were manipulated by those who slither in the dark probably), but it's still comprehensible: those people came to steal in the holy tomb and try to kill her, I mean if there were assassins who try to kill the empress Edelgard, Edelgard would do the same goddammit. I think that beetween Edelgard and Rhea, the first one is WAY MORE IN WRONG. She just caused a war when nobody asked for. Of course they were people who are discriminated and suffered for bearing or lacking crests but it's not the church fault. Beside even if she eliminate the crest system people will always find a way to discriminate each other. The best ending of all is the GD one. Claude idea is similar to Edelgard but he would never ally himself with those who slither in dark and cause such tragedy for his dreams and goals.
Rain Blue Eastman totally agree. Even Seteth doesn’t understand why human value the crest so much in the support conversation with Ingrid. Those who claim Rhea is evil clearly didn’t play the entire route. Otherwise, they are just simply waifu defenders.
The problem with "Just kill Rhea" is that it would still end with war is she went that route. Not only would she be considered a terrorist for killing a major political and religious figure, she'd be seen as a threat to the safety of all. Yes, Edelgard's approach to the situation was too extreme. But you do have to remember that not only was she under the thumb of those that slither, she was attempting to dismantle a political system that would cause many to lose power, land and wealth. Even if she had supporters, most of the nobles, especially those in the Kingdom and Alliance, would not be willing to dissolve their hold. Neither is perfect, and neither is completely wrong. Which is a shame. If the two had the chance to come together and worked things out, there could have been a world in which Edelgard never had to declare war against the continent.
The power of perspective... Lots of people mistrusted Rhea due to RPG genre savviness and Rhea’s genuine shadiness didn’t help things either You could say that this is deconstruction of RPG religions that were popularized by SMT and Final Fantasy While the religion is corrupt, simply destroying it and its god really wasn’t helping anyone
@@WaxingName edlegard was pretty sane in my golden deer playthrough, she was never vengeful, she kept her emotions and she was very logical until the very end
To be honest everyone, except maybe Dimitri, is sane and can think normally. Rhea is in the border of insanity but much more stable in all route except Edelgard. Edelgard in GD is a possible ally but her distrust to other after her horrible past made her unable to take Claude's hand in fear of betrayal. This is the reason why Claude can end up living in all route, he know how to compromise and he believe in Edelgard/Dimitri/Byleth enough to bring peace in Fodlan and join in on his goal to open Fodlan's border to other country in much peaceful way.
No matter what comment section your in, all the debates about Edelgard and Rhea point to the both of them being really bad people. Everything about them both is morally grey and that is the best part. You can pick one or the other and you'd not really be incorrect depending on your perspective. As for me, I'd side with Claude in a heartbeat because he essentially wants the same thing Edelgard does, but doesn't go to the extreme that she does. He just wants to break down the barriers of Fodlan to the other countries like Almyra so that discrimination no longer exists. Plus not only does Jeralt tell you to watch out for Rhea, but a lot of part 1 notes of Claude's suspicions of Rhea. That she has to be hiding something and he doesn't like being kept in the dark, he did intend to find out what she was hiding eventually. It was able to naturally happen in this route because of her capture by the empire and Byleth wanting to find her to get answers.
Yeah, they looks really cook. But nowadays, whenever I see them up-close, I cringe as I realize which body part the weapons come from. Like Hilda and El's axe are most likely made from wings with the bone and muscles still attached together. And the Sword is definitely Sothis's spine.
They probably didnt make rhea playable because you could make her wield her siblings bones and that would be severely messed up. Then again, you can do that for seteth and flayn. Probably shouldve stopped that somehow
@@azureaether1661 “Is… is something the matter?” “No, no. Of course not. Why would any part of this be wrong, I’m holding the blessings of the goddess in my hands. This is the most… spiritually uplifted I’ve ever felt.”
I have to wonder why the Smash developers are so hesitant to add actual guns now, considering Byleth is literally swinging around someone's FUCKING SPINE.
I think Edelgard and Claude Roads are the roads that explains more about the history and give us more details, blue lions was disappointed for me, no more information and nothing about Rhea, it's a shame :(
Each route summed up in a few words Black Eagles Crimson Flower: Church of Seiros sucks, Edelgard is awesome Black Eagles Silver Snow: Whoops why did we trust Edelgard at first? Blue Lions: Love/hate relationship between Dimitri and Edelgard Golden Deer: Boo Those Who Slither in the Dark
It bothers me how this revelation is never really followed up. “So you’re the prophet of this world’s religion and also the powerful weapons we’ve been using are actually the skeletons of your people. That’s neat, let’s leave it at that.”
Maybe if they expanded on this more people would have understood better without the need for hundred page long debates like that one thread here. …or not.
This is why black Eagles is the most non sensical route in this game. and is just there for the "bad guys" perspective. I know that some Fire emblem villains are not pure evil and just following their gut feeling on making a world a better place. Edelgard is one of them but the way the solve everyone`s problem always involve plunging their worlds into utter chaos.
Dr. Green Banana because then the route would be a 100% carbon copy of the GD route. They had to rewrite it somehow, even if it leaves massive plot holes.
@@AquaLantern What Aqua Lantern said, but if I had to come up with a lore reason, the church raid shambhala one chapter (one month) earlier because they missed out on the Gronder party. Maybe nemesis' hibernation wasnt complete when shambhala got blown to shreds
Question; never understood if Rhea dies in thid path cause I never interacted with her and in the end it was Seteth who changed the church for better and also the one who directed it before leaving and finding Flay yet again
One question I have is that if the monastery was destroyed, then how the hell is it still in-tact when you choose to explore it and even teach your students?
“I know you didn’t ask for me to use you as a proxy to revive my dead mom and land you with a ton of responsibility you didn’t ask for leading to your dad getting killed but can you go and kill this ancient enemy now?” “....Sure. Why not.”
Claude's route focused heavily on Fodlans history and relics. Intelligent System also wanted to provide a difference between each of the story routes as well.
After playing red and blue routes, and watching golden playthrough i came with one theory. I dont know do old FE have routes in their games or not, but in this new FE existence of routes only hurts the game and her logic. I can perfectly see how it wouldbe as whole: 1 part of the game\beginning - full year of education and the beginning of timeskip. 2 part of the game\middle - we dealing deal with empire and kingdom war, with small hints and church and those who lies in the dark, while alliance have feud and claude tries to unite all parts of it. 3 part of the game\finita - the end of war between Edelgard and Dimitri, finding out whole truth about Rhea, heroes, saints and Nemesic. Everyone unites against common enemy and wins\lose in the end. Thats all.
@@alekzan5249 To answer your question: No, classical FE till recently (Radiant Dawn) has quite a linear story. There are certain routes/character branches but they have the same overall plot story, just different point of view from different main characters.
What a coincidence; that's the order I played them in. I personally think that Black Eagles is best done first. After all, the twist in which Edelgard turns out to be the Flame Emperor has the greatest impact if she's the Lord you chose to fight with.
Hmmm I don't agree, the reveal in BL makes it feel like its the one you're supposed to start with. You really lose out on its effect in the other routes. BL BE SS GD feels like the order to me
Rewatching this after being done with the Church route and finally completing all routes I can say that if I only could choose one route to play it would be the golden deer one, which is by far the route where you get the most straight answers, the only thing that isn't touch here is the origin of Byleth's mother,
It's possible that the red blood also came from the other normal humans who lived together with the Nabateans in Zanado. That place is big enough for both kinds.
@@nintenbotgacha5517 The devs said that Sothis is not just a mother to Rhea, but a Creator as well. If Sothis were to be revived, she could easily recreate the fallen Nabateans and undo the damage Nemesis and the Agarthans caused.
so rhea admits that she did 'questionable things' experimenting on humans to bring back her mother... buuut she did see the geniside of her own race. well done writers, theres no black and white, its all gray
@@AquaLantern Who said this contradicts the validity of my question. We know from Binding/Blazing Blades that inter dimensional travel is in fact a possibility, even if we count out FEH.
Something I really like is that neither Rhea's account or Edelgard's account on Nemesis contradict each other. We know Nemesis committed Genocide against the Children of the Progenitor God and we know he desired domination, both Edelgard and Rhea attest to this but in different ways. Rhea sees him as a monster that simply killed her family for power and Edelgard's entire bloodline saw Nemesis as a man who simply wanted to control his fate and nothing more. Another factor to this is that Nemesis never states anything outright monstrous outside of this. He makes no big "End of the World" speech or "annihilation of humanity" claim, he simply wants to kill Seiros. He's definitely a piece of shit but neither account contradicts each other. So my interpretation is that the game gives you these two accounts and doesn't say which is right and which one is wrong so that the player can choose. They can decide whether Rhea is telling the truth and Edelgard was somehow given false information or whether Rhea is bullshitting and censoring history and that the account passed down by Edelgard's ancestor is true.
@@arnowisp6244 This coming from the route that focuses on Rhea lying about all of history to control Fodlan more than any other route? You're going to believe this psycho?
@@HappyPotat You just admitted earlier on how the game wants you to decide on which route you want to believe so it's that. Also she is dying here, lying is least beneficial thing she can do right now.
@@arnowisp6244 I do, from an objective stand point the game makes sure both accounts don't contradict each other but also makes sure that neither tells the full story. So you can choose to say one is right and the other is wrong how you please. Rhea is a liar, she has always lied and if Crimson Flower is any indication, she doesn't give two shits about you, just her mother, that's how I see it. She's also not dying here.
@@HappyPotat Crimson flower is about as representative as any route where the character isn't with Byleth. With the exception of Claude everyone goes mad and becomes the worst version of themselves. And yes she is if her words on the fact she doesn't have much time left are any indication she obviously would tell them seeing she is nearing her end. If anything her fate is ambigious in this route with claude hinting that she may have died.
Remember when two dragons hailed as gods almost brought ruin to all of Valentia. While I feel really bad for Rhea, I can understand the motive of those that slither in the dark, Nemesis = Rudolf/Alm, while the children of the PG are like Mila/Duma & the Duma Faithfull.
Rhea/Seiros is equivalent to Tiki in the sense that she's the daughter of a divine dragon. There's a decent chance this game takes place in the same world as SD/SOV/Awakening and Sothis came to Fodlan much like how Mila and Duma went to Valentia when Naga cast them out. Given how the legendary weapons are made from the remains of Dragonkin it still follows the lore of Falchion being a fang of Naga hence the Dragons themselves becoming weapons. Plus there are crests present in SoV and Awakening's main stories. Alm and Celica both have royal crests of Mila and Duma, and in Awakening Chrom has the Brand of the Exalt which is the crest of Naga. Hell even Robin has the Mark of Grima which is Grima's crest. Also Nemesis is called the Fell King in this game due to his blood mixing with the blood of Sothis which links back to Grima's origin where he was born of the blood of a Human and a divine Dragon.
@@r.r815 Well, Rhea other self the Immaculate One is Dragon and it isn't the first time Dragon has time related power in this franchise so there is a high chance that Sothis herself is also a Dragon. Even if she isn't a Dragon, it is visible that Sothis isn't omnipotent since her influence can't reach the other country except I missed my reading about Almyra, Dagda, and Brigid's religious text. At most Sothis would be Deity turned as Goddess figure by Church. The original poster has a nice idea since it is a nice call back to Archanea series anyway with the Mark and Crest stuff being rather similar.
Except that the children of the Progenitor God weren't doing anything and were just peacefully living out their lives at Zanado until Nemesis attacked them.
Ppl be hating on Edelgard for not having the full story either, but it's not like she could really doublecheck the tale she got from her ancestors since *the church purged all records* It's actually kinda cool that you need to play all 4 routes to really get the full story. Also Claude's route also makes it very obvious that Rhea and the church are evil? He just deals with them via manipulation and subterfuge (which is simply what he's good at / has at his disposal), and takes a bunch of gambles for the sake of extracting information whereas Edelgard is more focussed on making sure she's removed, and also has her own situation to contend with. Also while this makes you understand why Rhea was so nuts (her whole civilization was killed) that doesn't excuse how she basically subjugated the next 30 generations for the actions of like 12 evil humans. She might not have created the crests and relics but she's the one who set up a sociopolitical system based on them.
You do know that the nobles existed even before nemesis died? Nemesis was already a king before rhea killed him and the elites were influential clan heads. You can find the diary of one of the elites on the abyss. He stated that rhea was hunting the elites but spared their people and that they have no idea why rhea is hunting them
@@jkarma3356 no. The nobles existed before already. The elis already had descendants even before rhea killed nemesis. They were nobles already. Read the books in the abyss
Here is what I think Rhea said: 1 Sothis created a race and gave technologies to humanity and when wars happened, and humans challenged Sothis she committed genocide in retaliation because of course that’s how you deal with ur enemies. 2. Then Sothis felt remorse and used her remaining energy to create new life and fell asleep 3. Nemesis basically used Sothis to make a sword and tried to commit genocide on her children, because that’s how he deals with his enemies, leaving Rhea. 4. Rhea managed to beat nemesis with the help of the empire. 5 Rhea began a series of experiments to implant Sothis in people’s bodies leading to fucked up shit. She plans on stealing byleths body to bring Sothis back but Sothis is a new person with no memories of her past self and she refuses to take over Byleth. 6. Meanwhile twsitd have decided to create a weapon to destroy the church ie Edelgard with some fucked up experiments. 7 twsitd help cause the tragedy of duscur and help incite racist nobles in the kingdom to massacre and brutalize the people of duscur. 8. Rhea builds the power of the church and is pretty brutal about it. Honestly people oversell her madness.A lot of the shit she does makes sense from the perspective of a person who thinks that the church should be the most powerful force in fodlan. (When she burns fihrdiad it’s just a tactic to reduce Edelgard’s mobility which is brutally pragmatic and rational) 9 The church does genuinely create peace of course it does that by crushing all rebellion and maintaining and strengthening the rule of nobility with crests and its own army etc which means it empowers feudal lords over the common folk. Just imagine feudal lords with super powers in our world and how horrible that would be. 10 Finally she hid Fodlan’s history and covered up all her crap Honestly Rhea is like the ultimate entitled noble. She clearly looks down on humanity and believes she should rule cuz her mom had powers. She sacrifices whoever she wants for her mom and to establish the church’s supremacy even though she can tell that she is unstable. Look I think Rhea is a badass but honestly she is a villain. Edit:made some changes due to comment below
You got some things wrong Sothis didn't create people, Sothis came from another planet and had shared her knowledge to the people that live in Fodland, for that reason the Agathans call her FallStar, the people that live there start to use they knowledge for war, growing arrogant and destructive, then they declared war on Sothis, Sothis for however reason couldn't go for another planet so she decided to fight back Because of the Agathans greed and violence the planet or at least Fodland was almost completely destroyed, Sothis then decided to use her power to heal the land and save the people that live there. Nemesis a bandits that had invaded Sothis home, killing her whe she was sleeping, cutting her into pieces and drinking her blood gain the Crest of Flames, then he gave her corpse to the Agathans that made the Sword of the Creator. Rhea actually created the Empire, Rhea made 12 experiments, now it's heavily implied that they were not originally human, Rhea say that she create Byleth mother and there's some NPC who gives some few information that Byleth mother was a nun "without a past", Rhea does want that Byleth become the vessel of Sothis, she wants her mother back to her and that she become the new leader of the Church. The Church is actually show to not be Brutal in any route other that Eldegard (there Rhea goes mad), we heard tons of accounts of the Church helping the population, maintain order, raising children, helping education and etc. The Church actually does not approve the Crest system, you can read about that in the library.
Centurionzo 12 You are right about the fact that that Sothis did not make people, instead she basically created a different race. I will however push back against the idea that Sothis needed to nearly wipe out humanity in the her conflict with the Agathans. The second thing that I have trouble with is that Rhea says people went to war with each other and turned against Sothis’ teachings. Humans have conflicts for all sorts of reason but I am uncomfortable in the way Rhea frames that as a betrayal of the goddess. It is probably the case that Agathans started a savage war but it’s not clear that a genocide was necessary. As for the crests, it’s clear that by linking the crests to the progenitor god in the church’s made up history it is absolutely the case that they are portrayed as desirable by the church. I agree with you that the church very much like the real world church provides social welfare for the poor but I will disagree with the idea that the church creates stability. Rhea’s power plays are too brutal and unjust, but she keeps going because she wants a powerful centralised church that can ensure that humanity will never hurt her. Her second problem is the church needs to keep pushing a censored form of history in part because if you suddenly change your tune people will lose their faith in you. So Rhea personally despises the crests but the story she sells that solidifies her legitimacy encourages the idea of crests being the goddess’s blessing. Finally I think it is unclear if Rhea made people or experimented on people but my guess is she experimented on them because I don’t think she has the power to just make people. But you are right it is ambiguous.
@@shahruknealam9832 She didn't nearly wipe out Humanity, she only wiped out the ones responsible for this, you are making it sound like as if they were the Native Americans, whoms lifes where ruined, they were more like the Nazis, who wanted to exterminate some imaginary oppressors and were wiped out for acting on it, it's more like Dresden than the Holocaust.
She is lying again though, she isn't the only survivor... Seteth and Flayn are also survivors of Zanado. Then again, I never trusted Rhea since the moment she just kept condemning people to die at a whim during first chapters. And "doing quiestionable things" is putting it pretty lightly, considering she mercilessly slaughtered anyone who dared to turn against the church(Or presumably tried to advance technology too much) for around 1000 years... people who seriously consider Edelgard is worse(Presumably without even playing Edelgard's route... or worse, just playing Blue Lions where Edelgard is supposed to look worse than Dimitri... who is a goddamn psychopath himself.), really should think about it in perspective...
Seteth and Flayn is in dark with Rhea's true motive unfortunately so maybe Rhea wanted to spare them from the judgement of people since they are brethren.
@@nyx_3210 Well I believe Edelgard, while not taking the most morally upstanding route, is probably the best ruler for Fodlan out of the possible outcomes(Not sure which routes you played, so I don't say who is where). As she has the skills, ambition and vision needed to make changes, at least with Byleth by her side, without them she would probably be pretty bad(And same can be said for Dimitri, who would be absolutely horrible ruler without Byleth, and with them he is at least alright.). And well she didn't have to explicitly say "Seteth and Flayn", she just had to bring up "Cichol and Cethleann"(And also the other two, who just stay in their non-human forms), which would keep them incognito as they want, but she says it as if she was the only survivor for some reason, which is kinda suspicious. Since in that route church won't be reformed too thoroughly like in Edelgard's(Since despite her claims to want to destroy it, Hanneman's and Manuela's epilogue actually reveals that in the end Edelgard just reformed and rehabilitated the church, presumably so that it didn't have political power anymore) so Saints will probably stay as they are.
@@Razor7557 If Rhea said that Cichol and Cethleann survived along with her, it would be easy to put two and two together and realize Seteth and Flayn's identities (they are *not* hiding very well). So making it seem like she's the very last one, stops the other 4 from being hunted down by greedy humans (like what happened to start all this in the first place). There were already people after Flayn's blood, there's no reason to give them extra ammunition.
Well they are her relatives and since her whole motivation is that she hates/mistrusts humans she probably feels like that would be akin to selling them out - Claude's totally got it figured out anyways and deduced that they're innocent way in part 1.
Rhea isn't entirely saying the truth but Adrestian Empire doesn't have the full truth either. She is saying the truth at the birth of the Crest although she divert the attention from her and Adrestian wrongdoing with their individual Crest Experiment to more about Nemesis' Crime in which she happily shared.
@@HadeaRin Rhea's only crime is the nobility system and manipulating the people of Fodlan. She did not experiment on live people. She had the technology to create homonculi which are artificial humans. Why would she turn around and use live humans like Edelgard if she could use homonculi like Byleths mother's. It was those who slither in the dark that killed edelgard's siblings. Probably because they couldn't create homonculi like Rhea.
I hate Rhea and i will be so happy to slain her white dragon head,manipulating people in following her,changing history to make Nemesis the evil...she will pay btw i followed Edelgard and hey i will be the next emperor #MarryageIsTheBest
SupperaLoL you are truly wicked if you think Nemesis was a good man, he and those before him were all consumed by hubris. He sought to gain the power of the gods despite wanting to get rid of them. What he did was absolutely atrocious and cannot be justified whatsoever.
@@odette5031 I saw the true self of Rhea and how she manipiulated everyone into following her i stay strong with the Empire by side of Edelgard and i going to rid the world of Rhea and her other beasts,once i decided to help edelgard she didnt even think about letting me explain she said im a failed experiment and tryed to kill me....so how holy is she realy if she experiments with a child? how holy is she realy when her true self is that of a White Beast?
The White Beast are those who have her blood. She is the Immaculate One, a Divine Dragon. The other Children are pretty cool. Even Flayn and Seteth don't know the terrible things she's done, or how insane her dark side is(To the point her going mad completely blindsides Seteth on Church).
@@BlackfangDragon yea and thats why i joined my dear edelgard first of all i want to me an emperor so marriage is going to happen;D second i want to open the worlds eyes,third i want to unify the country^^
SupperaLoL yeah but her belief it's somehow cause they aren't human that things are so bad isn'f accurate. It's one woman and her desperate obsession with her mother, and her unhinged dark side she can't control. And a cult of angry humans who hate dragons as much as they do the rest of humanity.
That explains what Hilda meant when she talked about how the relic weapon she got from her brother pulsed as if it were alive
The Lance of Ruin also has spikes that literally twitch when someone’s holding it..
Edelgard's axe also moves if you look closely.
Seeing them move after this makes the heros relics more disturbing
Some people have theories that the dragons are still alive, but can’t regenerate properly since they keep being used which makes sense because throughout the FE series, dragons heal by falling into a long slumber. If they are somehow still alive and just want to rest, I feel bad for them.
@@naeshaunedwards7731 its a game🙂
Edelgard: The Crest system is EVIL and we must kill RHEA for subjecting us all to the tyranny of crests!
Ones who Slither in the Dark: haha yeah. She did that... it was her...go kill Rhea haha.
Rhea: **thousands of years later** Okay, I regret encouraging the crest system. Probably a bad idea take something made by an obviously corrupt organization and just unleash it onto mainline society just to- **Byleth "betrays her** I WILL RECLAIM MOTHER AND RIP OUT YOUR HEART!
@@XellosNi Eh, Rhea's motivations are still WAY more justified than Edelgard's.
Edelgard: "WAAAH! I lost my immediate family and was experimented on! The crests are to blame!"
Rhea: "Cool, I lost nearly all my species, spent a gajillion years trying to make the world less shitty, and this was my best effort, a system that brings stability, albeit a bit of inequality, which is not exactly terrible, but not perfect, but better than people killing each other to near extinction.
But sure, blame the crests."
Seriously, those who think Rhea's reaction to Byleth's betrayal was unreasonable are unreasonable themselves. Rhea's gone through shit and did her best, and more than most have. She's far from perfect, but by god, she's one of the unsung heroes of this damn story.
OptimalTT
Plus, if you think about it, promoting Crests is in part a way of honoring her lost siblings. Each Crest is a sigil of the power that was carried by a specific Child of the Goddess. If the human bloodlines now carrying that power are placed into high positions, as her siblings once were as demigods, then it probably feels to Rhea like she's reclaimed at least a shadow of what she had lost.
@@optimaltt6070 You misunderstand. It is not only Edelgard who was affected by this. Everyone in Fodlan was. Moreover, Rhea's not been doing such a good job of leading, is she? She is indiscriminately killing everyone who questions her fake religion and names anyone who says anything against it heretics to the goddess. The Crest system divided Fodlan, prevented progress and favored only those with Crests even if they are unfit for their role. Do you remember the Dark Ages? Fodlan is, quite literally, facing the Dark Ages during the Church's regime. That is what Edelgard is fighting against; she is by no means against the religion as she says so herself. What she is against is the system that perpetuated the Fodlan society and the perpetrators of inequality: the fascist rulers of the Church.
@@akaneriyun4774
The only one who misunderstands here is you, rhea hasn't been doing a good job at keeping the peace not leading, the church has tremendous influence on the continent but rhea does not lead the continent, there's literally an emperor, a king, and an elected Duke all leading their own respective parts of the continent, the entire reason rhea build the church was to prevent another world war, and I see everyone blame the crest system for everything when that's not even the case even without the crests the nobles would still be above the common people moreover the ones really at fault are the people themselves and not the crests, sure the crest system is harmful and encourages an unhealthy societal behavior but at the end of the day the truth is more simple than anything, some people are just pieces of shit others aren't, bernadetta father would be an asshole to her regardless if she had a crest or not because he only cares about money her crest just just reinforces his assholish behavior it did not create it in the first place, then you have nobles like rodrigue who cared about Glenn because he was his son if he had a crest or not is irrelevant, same with someone like holst it is implied that he doesn't have a crest yet he still loves Hilda and is loved by her regardless, at the end of the day the final say is on the individual not the system as edelgard believes
Man tearing apart your entire family to use their bones and hearts to make legendary weapons to use against you, that's harsh.
I kinda find it hard to watch the opening cutscene with the huge fight between nemesis, when she gets sword and says to her mother he's gone knowing know that she was talking to the sword 😦😦😦
Yeah, I'm honestly suprised she kept the sword in the catacombs since you would think shes want to keep that last part of her mother close to her since she misses her so much
@@diabrog it like a pope carrying a spear of loginus or a whip or a hammer and vampire sharp wood or metal thumbtacks lol
That sounds exactly like what the hunters do in Monster hunter...
feeling bad yet? :P
@@yiranchia8683 monster lives matter lol one punch man garou
Man golden deer has a colorful array of students post-time skip. Almost like medieval power rangers!lol
Claude-Gold Ranger
Ignatz-Green Ranger
Raphael-Red Ranger
Hilda-Pink Ranger
Leonie-Yellow Ranger
Lorenz-Purple Ranger
Marianne-Blue Ranger
Lysithea-White Ranger
@@GhostWulf70792 Ignatz wears green, Lorenz purple, and Marianne blue though.
@@YourCrazyDolphin i got u fam
@@GhostWulf70792 wait, but was there a purple ranger at any point?
I actually am gonna check that.
If not, it is a dark enough purple...
Update: quick Google search shows there actually was one, in Dino Charged!
@@YourCrazyDolphin and jungle fury lol
The funny part is that edelgard tells Calude that he doesn't know the true history of Fódlan.....
He *doesn't.* Not at the time. Edelgard doesn't either, but at the time she says it, she knows more than him. She doesn't know that TWSITD created all of it, but she does have more details than Claude, and she knows that the Church uses the idea of the Goddess to justify a lot of actually atrocious shit, rewrites history on a whim, and glorifies and maintains the system of Noblilty that is hyper-obsessed with Crests. Given how much plotting, scheming and backstabbing and generally horrific behavior among nobility from all three territories is motivated entirely by Crests, and the horrifying experiments her (and Lysithea) were subjected to, it's pretty understandable that she would want to abolish *all* of that.
There's merit to her goals. And the way Rhea reacts to Byleth choosing to side with Edelgard certainly does *nothing* to make her look good.
@@Blazieth I just wish they expanded Black Eagles and Blue Lions to also dealing with the TWSITD. I know it's to make it so the routes look really different, but a casual coming in might think the Edelgard inadvertantly aided TWSITD to finally take over the surface world if they didn't read the relationship endings. Even in Blue Lions, unless you had specific paired endings (Dimitri x Hapi), you won't really know if you fully dealt with all the remaining TWSITD left.
@@jamesvalkyrie7469 100% Black Eagles should have been longer. It's the shortest route and my fave. Blue Lions was long enough for me personally so putting it in the ending cards would have been just fine. Black Eagles should have had the fights with TWSITD because it is constantly mentioned how much Edelgard and Hubert hate them and plan to conquer them after they take down the church. It also would probably help visualize her goals and she could hint at who she planned on making her successor. It's really a shame that she's "the villain" in 3 routes but her route is the shortest. Most of the characters are complex and have a lot of trauma. Think Edelgard getting revenge and defeating the ones who were manipulating her from the start would be awesome.
Neither does edelgard tbh. If she knows it, why tf did she made compliance with TWSITD instead of asking rhea and/or the entire monastery for help defeating TWSITD? Like, why did she go for rhea instead? Edelgard is fucking stupid
@@Blazieth Gee, I wonder why Rhea would react so poorly to her grandchild containing her mother essentially betraying her.
How is that a bad look exactly?
You know, the fact that we're able to have such complex debates on whether or not Edelgard or Rhea did the best thing is a testament to this game's stellar writing. Both lost their family because of Those who Slither in the Dark, and both take it in different ways.
Rhea tried to get back what she lost. She constructed the crest ruling system to try to bring those she lost back to a place close to her. As it appears that those naturally bearing crests may tend to have traits of those associated with the original bearers (Bernadetta has a minor crest of Indech, who was also a reserved archer), and this may also be the reason behind the creation of the Officer's Academy, to bring those with the crest properties (who, as nobles, would be highly likely to go) closer to Rhea, and we already know what she did to try to bring back Sothis.
Edelgard never fully let go of what happened to her siblings, but she accepted them as gone. She wished to make sure that what happened to her and her siblings, and, with a shortened lifespan, she could not do it with a slow, diplomatic process, though it would probably be the best option to reduce casualties, so she opted for war. She believed that the Crest system was corrupt (which it was at that point), but she didn't know the whole story (because Rhea never told it). When it comes to her pre-timeskip actions, I do not believe that she was involved with the plan to neutralize the "Fell Star" Byleth. When interacting with Monica (Kronya), I believe that she was trying to find out her plans, but Those who Slither really like going behind her back (if Remire was to be taken as an example). She believes that the Church of Seiros has to be destroyed because they reinforce "Crests are absolutely necessary to rule." It should be noted that while she does work with Those who Slither in the Dark, she and Hubert are preparing to destroy them as soon as the war is over.
I'm not actively trying to totally excuse their unethical actions, rather trying to understand them. Edelgard is pointing her axe at the wrong person, however, that is because Rhea, trying to bring back her lost family while taking action against any who disagree with the church, didn't make the true bad guys clear, and did a terrible job at making herself (as well as her system) look truly in the right. As the initiator, Edelgard is not excusable, but she had good reason why.
It's sad that in a different life they might have been close allies
@@zerohero4359 I wonder if we will get to see that life, where they come to understand each other in the DLC path.
@@gladiatordragon9219 It would be an interesting scenario. A non canon alternative universe where at least Edelgard and Rhea talked to each other...and Edelgard with Seteth. Believe me when I say that Seteth will surprise her with his view on the Crest.
Seeing them as nothing but a connection to someone from long ago and doesn't fully define you as a person.
Dimitri's route plays into that theme as well. He lost all of his family and closest friends during the duscar revolt. He lets their loss control him, leading him into madness. He believes he has to kill everyone who has wronged the dead as a sort of tribute. It's interesting how each leader faces their loss.
Finally, someone that actually summarizes both women's flaws without making a fuss about them!
Can we talk about how shitty life was for sothis? Like she leaves her home, wherever that is, (she might be a divine dragon like gods in the series usually are, she might be an actual goddess for once idk) she decides to help the natives because she's a kind individual and then she has children to help her with this goal, then those very people who she helped use that power against her and destroy the continent, she exhausts herself reviving the continent for those few descent Humana instead of just fucking off to find a new home. She then goes to sleep and is murdered, having her bodies ravished for her murderer's gain
Legends told early on in the game say that Sothis descended from a sacred star, but she seems to have arrived on Fodlan's world with a purpose in mind.
I'd say she is some form of goddess (there are a lot of hints that suggest she is eternal in some ways, having power even after her true form was killed and her heart destroyed), and it is her children who fill in the divine dragon trope for this game.
@@darkmoon2503 sothis is the greek translation of an Egyptian goddes who was the personification of the star sirius so what youre saying fits
i disagree if you try play god you pay the price that as simple as it gets
@@fakebunny1272very normal, excusing genocide and desecration of corpses for the pursuit of power. What could go wrong with that.
This game’s whole storyline seems like one big misunderstanding that could have been solved with proper communication and sitting everyone the hell down. So many lives would have been saved and the true enemy would have been targeted and killed
@Gabriel Thesken both of you are incredibly naïve yes its like our world in the sense that every and each party is both truly a victim and also at the same time a self interested asshole, if any of those characters actually truly cared about you they wouldn't jump to killing you the moment you don't join their side, this presumption of goodness is the source of all evil if we lived in unforgiving world were people were obsessed with finding the truth and thoroughly punishing the guilty nobody would do evil because they would know the whole f humanity would be against them no matter who they are, but like in our world we let ourselves be corrupted and inevitable conflict is the one end of this road
That’s exactly it
Like all wars, but probably wars in real life are way more stupid
but still rhea would neevr let that happen.
Ah, a true shakespearean drama
The problem I have with Els route is that you NEVER learn any of this. You (Byleth) go through the entire campaign without knowing the details of your connection to Sothis or Rhea, and when Rhea dies the Crest stone disappears, and Byleth has absolutely no idea. You don't learn anything about the Nabateans or their connection to Crests, you don't learn anything about the Agarthans or their connection to TWSitD. It's just a linear war campaign devoted to making you feelsbadman about killing your friends.
IMO Claudes route did the best job of fleshing out the lore and the world, and overall tells the most coherent, satisfying story.
This is the main reason I am struggling to play BE route. I want to finish all routes but so far I only finished GD/VW route. I'm in pre time-skip BE route now, the progress seems sooo slow I want to drop it and might turn to Church route to learn more about the lore instead of finishing CF.
@@oiln.c.186 Just finished CF. Ready to do Church. Already did GD. Following a playthrough of BL.
And his Route is just the best most fun and funniest overall
You have a good point. Since none of this is revealed, it makes Edelgard seem like a bad person, even in her own route. This one and SS are really the only ones where she gets her redemption, really.
I think part of it comes from how the routes were developed. The BE route was developed first, from my understanding. Based on the dates in the game files, Verdant Wind was the final route in development, so it likely cannibalized some of the story beats.
I could be wrong about this, as I haven’t read about it in a while. Feel free to correct me if anything’s incorrect!
Blue lions:KILL EDELGARD
Golden deer:SAVE THE WORLD
Black egales:WE DON'T NEED GODS
Church: OH NO WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO KILL LADY RHEA
Tiff Baby unless you date her
@@dragonstouch1042 a rule to remember:
If she knew of you long even before you were even born,
don't even think of it as a joke.
@@germandragon8664 Also the fact that you can also be considered as her Mom.
@@germandragon8664 the writers: “y’all hear something?”
When you realized all shit went down on Black Eagles route because Edlegard triggered Rhea's ptsd
Byleth, actually
Yikes
Byleth cuz he betrayed her and used her family's remains against her.
Just like those who slither in the dark did.
And edelgard out here blaming the crest system for peace when she should blame the people who caused the destruction of zanado
She's not entirely wrong. She can deal with them at any time (and supposedly, she does/will succeed at dealing with them). While they caused everything, the Church has committed countless horrible acts in the name of reviving the Progenitor/Creator god, and purging the truth from history (which while standard for war... I mean eesh). The fact the Church is made up of effectively immortal beings in their higher up rankings speaks volumes to how much they manipulate the world.
To make things worse, Rhea is prone to mental instability (a common trait amongst FE Dragons/Manakete), which only makes her far less reliable (and is the cause of her death in the Church Route - because she knows she can't be trusted to lead much longer either way). The ultimate truth is, Edel's just as right. The church has created a class system that promotes inequality and elitism, which hurts the entire continent, and has lead to many pointless wars and power struggles. And this was all on Seiros/Rhea.
"Even thought I had to do some... questionable things to achieve that goal, I wished to see Sothis... my mother... once more." - Rhea. 8:43.
This alone is her admitting to her doing the countless experiments and tortures upon people, creating homunculi (Byleth's mother being one of such, and implied there are 11 or 12 more before her), torturing innocents, probably causing multiple people to become beasts through the "10 Elites" weapons, etc etc. All that matters to Rhea is Sothis. And as long as Byleth plays good, she is hurt but sees Byleth as Sothis (seen in church route), and hence for the most part she don't care what happens as long as you live as you as her substitute for her mother.
When you join Edelgard on her route, Rhea's emotionally hurt, and refuses to accept you and Sothis are one being once you deny her. She doesn't think rationally and is quick to want to kill you, because she doesn't want to think her mom disagrees with what she's doing to the world. She thinks she can just take the Crest back, and done, she'll start anew. I'm not too certain here-in but you get the point.
@@katomamundara8106 I mean yeah she does have reasons for her motives of getting rid of the crest system but who knows maybe those who slither in dark had to do something with edelgards past and why she has those motives just saying
@@chipalo1413 She considered the Slitherers - a small organization in comparison - a lesser threat than the Church which had the backing of 2 Zealous countries that relied on the church for their power. Without the aide of the Slitherers she felt confident they wouldn't be able to win. For most purposes - she was right.
She used an evil to crush an evil, believing she could crush that 'lesser' evil. I'd agree with her assessment. The church aides you in the other 3 routes against the Edel-Slitherer forces, and two sides are STILL wiped out in the process (Edel's and the third house/army). If I remember right (I'm still looking over every video), the Church takes out the Slitherers (sans Nemesis force), and the three kingdoms in the Church route. That goes to show how much Edel was being pragmatic to use the Slitherers.
Edel made the right call - destroy the church, free the world from their machinations, then gather the continent under her and crush the slitherers. Having the entirety of three nations and the church's less zealous members would result in a far higher chance of dealing with the Slitherers after-the-fact. And we know this ultimately was her aim from her ending.
Katoma Mundara How do you go to the church route? Does that mean that there are 5 routes in total?
@@haisex3 yes there are 5 routes get church route u side with church and don't betray rhea u stay at church instead of going with eldelgard and keep rhea alive u need s rank support her supposedly
So this means that
Rhea is an emotional mess
Edelgard was a tool
Dimitri was a victim
and Claude was a weaking
Each of these cases Byleth was used as a device to save each of these characters from their flaws. Pretty awesome use of an avatar I'd say
Nah what are you talking about Claude is a Bae, golden Boi, master memer(and whatever other positive title you want to call him by) and while yeah he isn't the strongest physically or a natural born leader or the most charimastic, he is the only one who isn't dumb and he sees his job through the end
10/10 would deer again
And this is why i really want a 5th route
Claude ain’t weak
He’s the only one who knows when to cut his losses
@@justinrolandmalangen4243 its interesting i think that all the conflict could be resolved if all talk
@@agusinfinite2036 that is called naivety
In the thumbnail Claude looks like that polite cat meme :|
@Midnight Capricorn has cool
Poor rhea, living with a double personality must be hard.
If one S supports her in the church route, she manages to survive when defeated, and regains control of herself.
Kenneth Latorre Reincarnation sucks huh? :/
@@Jujube218 Reincarnation? HAHAHA
you mean double identity double personality sounds like she has an independent alter ego
@@fakebunny1272 no wonder she doesn’t make sense to so many people, she lost the plot even in universe
You know what is REALLY ironic about Edelgard? Don't get me wrong, I LIKE Edelgard. Black Eagles are my chosen faction/house. But it's still kind of ironic that Edelgard is extremely hypocritical in one aspect.
Just about anyone who has beaten the Black Eagles Edelgard route knows what happened to Edelgard's siblings and how that event is what drives Edelgard. They were experimented upon by Those Who Slither in the Dark because the nobility wanted to create the perfect Emperor for Adrestia. But look at it from this way, as far as the nobles were concerned, their actions were not based on For the Evulz. They legitimately wanted a Major Crest-bearing heir to the Empire because they thought it would be what was best for the Empire and they sacrificed Edelgard's siblings to achieve that in. In other words, THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS.
And what does Edelgard allow Those Who Slither in the Dark to do? That's right.Conduct experiments on students in the school (The Chapter where Jeralt dies) and learn how to transform people into monsters so that she could use those monsters in her army (Hubert confirms in one of his paralogues that Edelgard is aware of Those Who Slither in the Dark's crimes but tolerates them for the tactical advantage it gives her). Edelgard KNEW about them and didn't tell anyone. And she even could have done so anonymously. But chose NOT to because she wanted that power in order to fulfill her ambitions. In other words, THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS.
I love Edelgard. I really do. But the sad part is, even before the time skip, Edelgard has become EXACTLY like the nobility she hated. She allowed Those Who Slither in the Dark to experiment on and kill people for her advantage. She sees people's lives as being worth less than her ambition and goals. If Edelgard had been one of the nobles who experimented on her siblings, Edelgard would have allowed it for the sake of her ambitions. Edelgard is exactly what she hates. And THAT is what is REALLY sad about Edelgard. Not her understandable ambitions and goals, but the fact that she doesn't understand that her attitude is the very same attitude that caused all of the problems in her life.
Edelgard specifically states she would've stopped the experiment in Remire and it's never stated she new of Kronya's plan. It's much more likely she believed Kronya was meant to capture Flayn as Solon attempted to do with the help of the Death Knight. As for her "Ends justify the means" approach, I'd say it depends heavily on the end whether or not such thinking is justified.
@@wyveriusblackfire3834 Of course she would have stopped what happened in Remire, because none of that benefited her or her plan. Now if it would have had some tangible benefit to her ambitions? I'm pretty sure she would have greenlighted it. Probably reluctantly. Because Edelgard ISN'T a monster. But she most likely would have.
As for Kronya's plan. It's true that is never specifically stated, but it's repeatedly shown that "Monica" was attached to Edelgard the whole damn time she was around. I doubt Edelgarde didn't know what she was up to. And even if Edelgard didn't, she still capitalized on Those Who Slither in the Dark's ability to turn people into monsters for her benefit. More importantly, she still allowed the situation to escalate that far when she could have stopped it. Edelgard could prevented that entire incident with Monica just by warning others about Those Who Slither in the Dark. But Edelgard chose not to because she wanted them to provide her army with monsters.
As for me, I don't really believe that the ends justify the means. Primarily because I prefer to innovate. Instead of just giving up and resorting to a brute force method or an unsavory one. Honestly, humanity is capable enough without having to resort to deplorable means to achieve our goals. It's just easier to use the nastier methods. That's, generally, how I see it.
@@aarongoosby5532 Good luck innovating a way to discredit the world order set up by a totalitarian demigod without any violence breaking out. With the way Rhea was pre-timeskip, she would have never allowed any attempts Edelgard made to discredit the Church and crests. She only changes due to events during the war forcing her to realize she was in the wrong. And if you doubt that, just remember her response to Byleth turning against her. Also, in Edelgard's route, TWSITD are never used, merely kept as reserve forces, which is why the state of the war is so different from the other routes in Crimson Flower.
@@wyveriusblackfire3834 Rhea isn't totalitarian though. Like, at all. By any stretch of the imagination. The Emperor rules the Adrestrian Empire. The Alliance is full of a bunch of nobles who do whatever the hell they want. Fearghus is ruled by its King. How in the hell can Rhea be classified as Totalitarian with that many rulers who she does not have absolute authority over and has made no attempt to exert absolute authority over?
Also, the Church isn't really a problem at all. I mean, they commit the least amount of atrocities throughout the game. They only fawk with people who fawk with them first. The Crests are NOT their fault. Since they were created by Those Who Slither in the Dark, and given to the Ten Elites by Nemesis. And the Ten Elites' families became the nobility of today Fodlan. Whether the Church existed or not, that would have still happened. It actually happened BEFORE the Church existed. So the Crests are not even the Church's fault and the reason they're associated with nobility isn't even the Church's fault. Rhea just capitalized on it. Not caused it.
Honestly, the Crests don't even cause problems. Humans do and blame it on the Crests. People being discriminated against for not having a Crest is no different from the discrimination that Dedue, Shamir, Cyril, and Claude face just for being foreigners. The Crest Experimentation was carried out by Those Who Slither in the Dark. Not the Church and of course not the Crest themselves. The Crests are not the source of social inequality either. Caspard doesn't have a Crest but is STILL a noble. He is a noble because of his family. Which would not change with or without his Crest.
Neither the Crests nor the Church can be blamed for social equality in Fodlan. It's just an excuse to mask human nature. Edelgard was correct about wanting to establish a Meritocratic society. But the most egalitarian and meritocratic place in Fodlan is Garegg Mach Monastery. Which provides religious freedom (Rhea doesn't care if you're a non-believer, others may though), social equality (Rhea treats commoners and nobles equally), and doesn't give a damn how much money or status you have. Anyone can join the Church of Seiros or Knights of Seiros without a fuss. Even foreigners like Cyril and Shamir. So it's kind of far fetch to say that it's necessary to take down Rhea to usher in social equality when Rhea's institution is the most socially equal institution in Fodlan.
@@aarongoosby5532 Rhea is the one who created the social structures that put those who bear crests in power. Those structures would have existed if Nemesis was not stopped, but even though Rhea stopped him, she still falsified a history that saw crests and those who bear them glorified, resulting in inequality for centuries. And while Rhea doesn't directly control the countries, she doesn't need to. She controls the masses through scripture she concocted, and strikes down any who oppose her. Remember when she sends students to a war zone to teach them what happens to those who oppose the church? If Edelgard had moved to discredit crests, Rhea would've opposed her to preserve the peoples faith in the church. She even says people can't be allowed to know what happened to Miklan because they would lose faith in the crests and the nobles who bear them.
Ya know, I was confused by comment section until I realized lot of people in comment section played Crimson Flower first and believed Adrestian Empire's account of events. The account of events that is basically a centuries long telephone game and imperial propaganda :P
and they are such zealots too lol, like chill, we get it, you only play the secret route with terrible writing and 4 less chapters.
As opposed to Church propaganda coming from the person who lived the events and can freely censor whatever she chooses?
@@HappyPotat Eh, context of what she says isn't particularly flattering to church and isn't too contradictory to other facts. She might have left something out like "I was personally in charge of attacking Agarthans". Either way, calling it church propaganda is weird when what she basically tells you is that church is based on lizard people covering up what mole men did.
@@ShadowoftheMask She speaks solely from a subjective point of view.
Yes she is entirely justified in seeing Nemesis as a monstrous man filled with nothing but evil but at the same time, that's how she, as a victim, saw the events. It's not a very substantial and reliable account.
When Nemesis returns he is fixated on nothing but killing Seiros, not the destruction of the world or anything like that, just Seiros.
And Edelgard's account contradicts nothing of what was said, only citing that from an objective viewpoint, Nemesis no longer wanted to be ruled over by the Children of the Goddess and wanted to control his own fate.
Either way, the whole thing is done in a way that makes it easy to create an argument on either side: You can say Edelgard is given false information and Rhea is telling the truth or that Rhea is lying to you as she always has and Edelgard's account is true.
@@HappyPotat I mean, Nemesis was a bandit, I don't think he ever was trying to destroy the world, just kill and plunder like bandit tutorial bosses like to do :p
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is the game that brought old and new players together.
Edelgard supporters: EdelGard iS INnocent!1!1!1
Non-Edelgard supporters: ShE EvIL!1!1!1
And now the community is divided yet again...
Ya those Rhea tards and Dimitri stans are dumb
Heil Edelgard
😂 it's a sin. EDIE'S INNOCENT 😠😠
the divide this time is more on the moral ambiguity of the characters.
Fire Emblem : Civil War
We all fucked up
I love this part of comment section where we neutrally says that Edelgard started a wrong war against the wrong person.
Kinda understand her point of view yet I still think that is self-righteous.
Nobody asked for it.
It's not Rhea who values or says that only those with Crests shoul rule. Nobles do. They are the one to blame.
Edelgard supporters say that it's because of the Crest that people like Sylvain or Ingrid suffer.
For f*CK sake: it's their own parents fault not the Crests.
And about the meritocratic politicy that she wants to apply.
Why not apply it firstly in your own territories and then SUGGEST others to do the same instead of forcing your way to other with war. There's no need to conquer all Fodlan for that reason...
EXACTLY!
El is still right
Dimitri would never agree to make his kingdom a meritocracy
He'd make it a democracy instead
@@shroomoid9403 exactly, he literally says that change comes by the hands of the people in his final conversation with Edelgard in Azure Moon.
@@benrogers8520 her ideals are not much different.
Rhea: Worship Seiros guys, she's a goddess
Also Rhea: I'm Seiros, false alarm.
Strike The Furry
Seiros was never called a goddess. She was a Saint and Prophet.
There's literally a moment where Rhea says "may the Goddess, Sothis, protect you"
and Sothis freaks out about it.
TacticalStampede
Seiros is not Sothis.
@@user-pp3tn2lt3q She is treated like a goddess, though. She has her own religion as well.
Tactical Stampede is correct. Near the end of White Clouds, before , if I'm correct, chapter 9, Rhea will say "May the goddess Sothis protect you" and Sothis goes crazy about it. If you were correct and Tactical Stampede was wrong, you would have proved yourself wrong.
@@olly_lmao the religion is about worshipping sothis not seiros
You know. A lot of people give Rhea shit for what she did to Byleth and I agree that it's kinda crappy that she did it. But at least she is admitting guilt and clearly regrets doing it.
Ya know what I mean? Dimitri came out of his insanity after losing Rodrigue and talking to Byleth, Claude never rly had a moment of instability. And Rhea at least admitted she was wrong. I can't think of Edelgard ever admitting to doing something wrong, and I can think of a LOT of wrong things she's done.
um she's an Emperor her word is literally the law she has done nothing wrong legally.
Charles Reid starting an offensive war to slaughter thousands on a whim of lies fed to you by the Agarthans isn’t wrong?
@@pickcollins9910 fodlan belongs to them they were there first, if possible in game I'd help nemesis slaughter everyone but utinfortunately that option is not available 😭
Charles Reid in what universe were the Agarthans preceding Sothis?
@@pickcollins9910 it's heavily referenced in the story. At one point if you fight Solon with anyone that is not byleth he refers to you as beasts, and says he is the savior of agarthians this coupled with the records in the monestary library insinuate agarthians preceded sothis as the residents of fodlan
I don't know why but I find it very funny the way she pronounced
P R O G E N I T O R G O D
So this cutscene confirms that the Church DID NOT CREATE the Crest system which Edgelord was supposed to get rid of. Another 10 points to Slither in the Dark!
They didn't create it, but the sure abused the fuck out of it
ronger97 Adrestian Empire were worse since they actually used broken crest beasts for their bidding
@@seikakurumiwari The church is the one that started that practice
@@ronger97 Pretty sure mole people came up with that :P
@@ShadowoftheMask Their name is Agarthan lol
Spoiler:
2:03 Seteth am I a joke to you.
Seteth is the grandson of the progenitor god
@@joeyrodriguezthethird2137 According to his wiki page he is the progenitor god's child along with Indech and Macuil. The only grandchild is Flayn. Again this is going by the wiki. I don't know where you get this info within the game itself.
Yeah, my bad, forgot about that part.
Actually it's a mistranslation. She was saying that she is the youngest child of the progenitor god.
@@basilofgoodwishes4138 That makes a LOT more sense.
Sothis: Yeah, I felt like looking like a loli. What of it?
Still it's kinda cool how Claude and Edelgard each get to right the wrongs of their respective ancestors in their routes - Claude's descended from one of Nemesis' henchmen so he deals with them whereas Edelgard is related to the guy who helped Seiros take power so her story's mainly focussed on taking her out.
wait what? Claude is what now?
@@lapniappe He's a descendant of the 10 Elites (As are most of the non-empire nobles). Those worked for Nemesis back in the day. Claude gets to beat up their zombified selves while awesome music plays.
@@KendrixTermina LOL i had read that before i had breakfast. I didn't see the "henchman" part i just saw "descended from Nemesis" and i was like. wow. did i every miss something
I love Claude's final map the most. Fire Emblem has never done that before
El just makes it worse really.
is it just me...when i see Rhea like this, remind me of Naga...
No your not the only one.
it was probably an inspiration behind her design
I was waiting for Rhea to reveal that her name is really Tiki.
After finishing Blue Lions and Golden Deer, I can never understand Edelgard's butthurt motivation. And I finished Crimson Flower first, I chose to not kill Edelgard solely because I want to know what she wants to do if I followed her. If it wasn't for that, I would side with Rhea even back then because I find it highly rude to raid a holy resting place and also what she said after killing Lonato's militia made me feel uncomfortable with her ideals.
Yes she was a victim of the Crests system but then the ones who truly caused the Crests problem was Those Who Slither in the Dark. Annihilating the entire Church organisation will not totally solve the problem because it will only create an internal instability with the people of Fodlan. Edelgard is probably an atheist but some people in Fodlan needs their faith as can be seen from various conversations you had with the NPC at the monastery and some even planned to rebuild the Church from within the Empire. In the long run, these people will be the death of Edelgard or her Empire because they might rise up to stand for what they believe in.
Plus, by defeating the Church of Seiros, the Alliance, and the Kingdom, Edelgard will only satisfy herself and her revenge on the organisation she thought was the reason of her suffering eventhough all those vengeance should be on TWSITD instead. But yeah, she chose to work with them and let them wreck havoc on various occasion for her benefit because for some reason, they are the only help she can seek from how convenient, also just by saying "I don't agree with you blah blah blah" once in a while does not redeem the fact that you chose the people who work in the dark for help, Edelgard! In comparison to how the other Lords dealt with the issues in Fodlan, it became a win win situation to everyone both the Church and the people of Fodlan. So yeah.
But hey, it's just an opinion, a game opinion... lmao jk
This XD played Edelgard's route first and then the Church before finally doing BL and GD, and while Edelgard's ideals aren't evil I did find them to build quite tunnel vision (which left her route sorely lacking for me personally considering how short it was) . More than anything Edelgard reminds me more of Lelouch XD
@@TheJeasley22 Except you can actually get behind Lelouch.
You are a moron, that's why.
I’m pretty sure edelgard wages was with twsitd at the end. She just used them first to take down the church, which greatly influenced the crest system, and took them down. I have no idea why they didn’t include that for gameplay. I mean, without Hubert they wouldn’t have been able to know about them or shambala (if that’s how you spell it lol)
@@arnowisp6244 and i can get behind edelgard.
15:48 how can you just give me that SPEC of God Shattering Star and not the rest?
"There is no such thing as truth in this world. Anyone can become a God or a Devil, all it takes is for someone to believe it."- Eren Kruger
I finished both golden deer and blue lions and am finally playing crimson flower. I’ve already seen parts of the story from all the paths and do agree with most people here that the actions El took weren’t completely right. I just killed Judith and usually killing the characters doesn’t get me as upset as they usually do. It’s because they are defending themselves from a war they didn’t want a part in that is pretty much unjustified. Edelgard could have taken many other plans of actions but decided to go to war so she could see it through her life time. The only reason I’m playing crimson flower is because I want to complete all routes. It pained me to side with Edelgard because what she was doing was a bit wrong. It’s sad what happened to her but her past doesn’t completely justify everything she is doing. Even though what Rhea did is a bit controversial and a bit wrong morally like lying to society about the past and “ruling” over fodlan as well as altering a child to resurrect her mother, she is ultimately more in the right then Edelgard is. Rhea slowly has given up hope over the years. She even tried a more humane way which is seen in the DLC where she used the chalice of beginnings and used the blood of 4 of her relatives who were willing and didn’t require their lives to be forfeited to achieve her end goal. It didn’t work in the end but it shows she tried to get things back to the way they were more peacefully which Edelgard didn’t one try to achieve. She started a way killing thousands which is kind of hypocritical when she started this because her siblings died
not really the war needed to happen either way.
Fact. Edelgard wanted peace but she started a pointless war by targeting the wrong person. If she declares war to TWSITD instead from the very beginning and asked the church to help her, she would've been a really good character. After all the one who made her suffer are TWSITD and not rhea by any direct mean. She's a fucking hypocrite
(FE warrior 3H spoiler)
If anything, i feel like claude's motive to kill rhea in golden wildfire is more justified than whatever the fuck edelgard is doing in 3 houses. Rhea is a dictator in fodlan, she doesn't let any diplomatic relationship with neighboring countries (which led to xenophobia, racism, and civil war), her teaching is too one sided and believes any form of mockery has to be resulted in death sentence. Claude feels that way because his brothers sees him as a coward and an outsider because his mother tiana is from fodlan, these are the results of rhea not allowing neighboring countries to have relationship with fodlan. He didn't kill rhea because of the crest system but because she's legitimately a dictator and he just want to reshape fodlan into a better country without having rhea ruling all the laws and systems in it. That's why in 3 houses ending he ask byleth to be the archbishop instead
Why does everybody treat the 10 elites like heroes? Why would Rhea rewrite history to make good guys out of the people who killed her kind and stole their power?
Maybe making the crest seem like Noble things made them desired, and being positively affiliated with the church's history in this way made it easier for Rhea to control the continent?
^ This and it is to make people to not dig further at the origin of Crest since Church defined the Crest as the 'gift from gods'. Church kinda promoted Crest-centered-nobility as well to seal the deal since it is easier to control Crest-wielder who feel indebted by the Church (with their raise of social rank to Nobility).
If we flipped it and the Church is in the different side of Crest-wielder while we know that Crest is god-killer-weapon, there is a chance that people will use Crest-wielder to destroy the Church. If the Church is destroyed, Rhea will lose her base of operation and can't do her project to revive Sothis.
@@HadeaRin That, and people don't really like to be villanized.
For control. It makes the crests out to be something created by the goddess vs. something made to oppose her by evil but undsoubtedly powerful humans. Compare RL religious arguments about how the devil is only a tool of god. You end up with a cosmology where all power was deliberately given out by Sothis and/or Seiros... and of course a world where those "divine gifts" are prized above all else hence half the characters' effed up backstories.
Because aside from all the other reasons that the guys in the comments pointed out, if humans knew that crests could be obtained simply by drinking dragon blood then she and her remaining siblings would be hunted down for their power
I don't get the people who say she is evil. I mean, yeah if you betray her in Edelgard route she become crazy but normally she's not.
Edelgard hate her for the Crest system BUT IT WASN'T RHEA WHO MADE THE CRESTS IMPORTANT, THEY ALREADY EXISTED BY THEIR OWN, the nobles who value and worships the crests are to blame, not the crests themselves nor the goddess who bestowed humanity with them.
The pain and suffering Edelgard and her siblings went through are by the hands of those who slither in the dark, yet she hate the church for it when the church teaching are actually good.
And she started a f*cking war against the whole continent just for that.
She hates Rhea? Ok, just kill her, why you need to capture her? And why continue the war against the Kingdom and Alliance if your primary objective (the fall of the church) has already been accomplished?
Rhea is not totally the nicest person herself, she executes the heretics of western church without letting them explain (that they were manipulated by those who slither in the dark probably), but it's still comprehensible: those people came to steal in the holy tomb and try to kill her, I mean if there were assassins who try to kill the empress Edelgard, Edelgard would do the same goddammit.
I think that beetween Edelgard and Rhea, the first one is WAY MORE IN WRONG. She just caused a war when nobody asked for. Of course they were people who are discriminated and suffered for bearing or lacking crests but it's not the church fault. Beside even if she eliminate the crest system people will always find a way to discriminate each other.
The best ending of all is the GD one.
Claude idea is similar to Edelgard but he would never ally himself with those who slither in dark and cause such tragedy for his dreams and goals.
Rain Blue Eastman totally agree. Even Seteth doesn’t understand why human value the crest so much in the support conversation with Ingrid. Those who claim Rhea is evil clearly didn’t play the entire route. Otherwise, they are just simply waifu defenders.
@@ollogan4453 Exactly my friend!
The problem with "Just kill Rhea" is that it would still end with war is she went that route. Not only would she be considered a terrorist for killing a major political and religious figure, she'd be seen as a threat to the safety of all. Yes, Edelgard's approach to the situation was too extreme. But you do have to remember that not only was she under the thumb of those that slither, she was attempting to dismantle a political system that would cause many to lose power, land and wealth. Even if she had supporters, most of the nobles, especially those in the Kingdom and Alliance, would not be willing to dissolve their hold. Neither is perfect, and neither is completely wrong. Which is a shame. If the two had the chance to come together and worked things out, there could have been a world in which Edelgard never had to declare war against the continent.
The power of perspective...
Lots of people mistrusted Rhea due to RPG genre savviness and Rhea’s genuine shadiness didn’t help things either
You could say that this is deconstruction of RPG religions that were popularized by SMT and Final Fantasy
While the religion is corrupt, simply destroying it and its god really wasn’t helping anyone
@@pn2294 but it did help people.
Rhea seems a bit more sane here, maybe because we are kinda in her side
It seems like in this game, whoever's side you're on, they're much more sane than when you're not.
@@WaxingName edlegard was pretty sane in my golden deer playthrough, she was never vengeful, she kept her emotions and she was very logical until the very end
To be honest everyone, except maybe Dimitri, is sane and can think normally. Rhea is in the border of insanity but much more stable in all route except Edelgard.
Edelgard in GD is a possible ally but her distrust to other after her horrible past made her unable to take Claude's hand in fear of betrayal. This is the reason why Claude can end up living in all route, he know how to compromise and he believe in Edelgard/Dimitri/Byleth enough to bring peace in Fodlan and join in on his goal to open Fodlan's border to other country in much peaceful way.
@@HadeaRin Plus, I don't see a real reason for Dmitri to want to kill Claude.
@@thelegacyofgaming2928 Especially since his main concern is Edelgard anyway.
I love how she says "progenitor god"
No matter what comment section your in, all the debates about Edelgard and Rhea point to the both of them being really bad people. Everything about them both is morally grey and that is the best part. You can pick one or the other and you'd not really be incorrect depending on your perspective.
As for me, I'd side with Claude in a heartbeat because he essentially wants the same thing Edelgard does, but doesn't go to the extreme that she does. He just wants to break down the barriers of Fodlan to the other countries like Almyra so that discrimination no longer exists. Plus not only does Jeralt tell you to watch out for Rhea, but a lot of part 1 notes of Claude's suspicions of Rhea. That she has to be hiding something and he doesn't like being kept in the dark, he did intend to find out what she was hiding eventually. It was able to naturally happen in this route because of her capture by the empire and Byleth wanting to find her to get answers.
the war was needed and claude admits the war was to his benefit.
Rhea is still the way better out of the two.
It wasn't necessary.@@jkarma3356
yes it was.@@melonsauce1474
I wish we knew why the humans turned against sothis in the first place
YAYY CLAUDE
Very sorry about your family, Rhea, but the Relic Weapons look dope as heck
Yeah, they looks really cook. But nowadays, whenever I see them up-close, I cringe as I realize which body part the weapons come from. Like Hilda and El's axe are most likely made from wings with the bone and muscles still attached together. And the Sword is definitely Sothis's spine.
@@Maymei99 And Areadbhar looks like it's made of finger bones. Just a little creepy.
They probably didnt make rhea playable because you could make her wield her siblings bones and that would be severely messed up.
Then again, you can do that for seteth and flayn. Probably shouldve stopped that somehow
@@azureaether1661 “Is… is something the matter?”
“No, no. Of course not. Why would any part of this be wrong, I’m holding the blessings of the goddess in my hands. This is the most… spiritually uplifted I’ve ever felt.”
@@wildfire9280
Being hit by the 4 year old comment like an actual timeskip I thought this was gonna be about me when I'd argue about Edelgard
I have to wonder why the Smash developers are so hesitant to add actual guns now, considering Byleth is literally swinging around someone's FUCKING SPINE.
I think Edelgard and Claude Roads are the roads that explains more about the history and give us more details, blue lions was disappointed for me, no more information and nothing about Rhea, it's a shame :(
Sure, it doesn't tell much about the world and history, but story wise, it was the best imo.
It’s suppose to provide info on Dimitri and Edelgard’s relationship as well as the understanding of the tragedy of Duscur.
Each route summed up in a few words
Black Eagles Crimson Flower: Church of Seiros sucks, Edelgard is awesome
Black Eagles Silver Snow: Whoops why did we trust Edelgard at first?
Blue Lions: Love/hate relationship between Dimitri and Edelgard
Golden Deer: Boo Those Who Slither in the Dark
edelgard was right in the end.
It bothers me how this revelation is never really followed up. “So you’re the prophet of this world’s religion and also the powerful weapons we’ve been using are actually the skeletons of your people. That’s neat, let’s leave it at that.”
Maybe if they expanded on this more people would have understood better without the need for hundred page long debates like that one thread here. …or not.
This is why black Eagles is the most non sensical route in this game. and is just there for the "bad guys" perspective.
I know that some Fire emblem villains are not pure evil and just following their gut feeling on making a world a better place. Edelgard is one of them but the way the solve everyone`s problem always involve plunging their worlds into utter chaos.
Golden Gang
Golden Gang
Edelgard to claude: You don't know our history! Claude: lol bitch have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?
neiother of them understand it very well.
So if the fall of Shambhala caused Nemesis to awaken in this route, why doesn't he awaken in the Church of Seiros route?
Dr. Green Banana because then the route would be a 100% carbon copy of the GD route. They had to rewrite it somehow, even if it leaves massive plot holes.
@@AquaLantern
What Aqua Lantern said, but if I had to come up with a lore reason, the church raid shambhala one chapter (one month) earlier because they missed out on the Gronder party. Maybe nemesis' hibernation wasnt complete when shambhala got blown to shreds
Question; never understood if Rhea dies in thid path cause I never interacted with her and in the end it was Seteth who changed the church for better and also the one who directed it before leaving and finding Flay yet again
She says She has not much time left before explaining her history in this video
One question I have is that if the monastery was destroyed, then how the hell is it still in-tact when you choose to explore it and even teach your students?
Maybe once Byleth and people returned to the monastery, they started to rebuild it immediately. You can see scaffolds around the place.
Maymei1205 that is plausible
“I know you didn’t ask for me to use you as a proxy to revive my dead mom and land you with a ton of responsibility you didn’t ask for leading to your dad getting killed but can you go and kill this ancient enemy now?”
“....Sure. Why not.”
Why does Nemesis only show up in this route?
Claude's route focused heavily on Fodlans history and relics. Intelligent System also wanted to provide a difference between each of the story routes as well.
After playing red and blue routes, and watching golden playthrough i came with one theory. I dont know do old FE have routes in their games or not, but in this new FE existence of routes only hurts the game and her logic. I can perfectly see how it wouldbe as whole:
1 part of the game\beginning - full year of education and the beginning of timeskip.
2 part of the game\middle - we dealing deal with empire and kingdom war, with small hints and church and those who lies in the dark, while alliance have feud and claude tries to unite all parts of it.
3 part of the game\finita - the end of war between Edelgard and Dimitri, finding out whole truth about Rhea, heroes, saints and Nemesic. Everyone unites against common enemy and wins\lose in the end. Thats all.
@@alekzan5249 To answer your question: No, classical FE till recently (Radiant Dawn) has quite a linear story. There are certain routes/character branches but they have the same overall plot story, just different point of view from different main characters.
Because the Eagles and Lions are too busy fighting each other and Claude just wants to save the world. Golden Deers is the true protagonist route.
@@coolman5242 thats not what I mean. I mean, plot wise what is stopping him from waking up in the other routes?
Perfect order to play routes in terms of story and gameplay:
1. Black Eagles
2. Church
3. Blue Lions
4. Golden Deer
What a coincidence; that's the order I played them in.
I personally think that Black Eagles is best done first. After all, the twist in which Edelgard turns out to be the Flame Emperor has the greatest impact if she's the Lord you chose to fight with.
Hmmm I don't agree, the reveal in BL makes it feel like its the one you're supposed to start with. You really lose out on its effect in the other routes.
BL
BE
SS
GD feels like the order to me
Rewatching this after being done with the Church route and finally completing all routes I can say that if I only could choose one route to play it would be the golden deer one, which is by far the route where you get the most straight answers, the only thing that isn't touch here is the origin of Byleth's mother,
That's what the DLC is for
rhea was lying again.
This ain't spoilers since I finished Claude's route twice
I'm wondering what happened to Rheaaaa!!!
In this route, she probably died some time after the Deer kill Nemesis.
”The canyon painted red with blood”
Uh excuse me but isn’t the blood of the children of the godess green?
Only when they are transformed
It's possible that the red blood also came from the other normal humans who lived together with the Nabateans in Zanado. That place is big enough for both kinds.
I like this comment section because it’s mostly neutral
Why didn’t Rhea wanted to resurect her siblings
Lucina with glasses she did not say that
@@nintenbotgacha5517 The devs said that Sothis is not just a mother to Rhea, but a Creator as well. If Sothis were to be revived, she could easily recreate the fallen Nabateans and undo the damage Nemesis and the Agarthans caused.
Yuwan Yeah but she had to save Byleth so she did not undo everything
Seteth and saints: Are we a joke to you?
@@basilofgoodwishes4138 no sothis is not the creator.
so rhea admits that she did 'questionable things' experimenting on humans to bring back her mother... buuut she did see the geniside of her own race. well done writers, theres no black and white, its all gray
Who was first?
Naga or Sothis
Different worlds.
@@AquaLantern Who said this contradicts the validity of my question.
We know from Binding/Blazing Blades that inter dimensional travel is in fact a possibility, even if we count out FEH.
@@deadlineuniverse3189 well, yeah, but there’s no evidence of Naga being in Fodlan. Hell, the word “dragon” isn’t even in Fodlan’s vocabulary.
Golden Deer is my Golden Route.
there should a path to join the nemesis, LOL
Honestly you basically become nemesis in the Edelgard route
Something I really like is that neither Rhea's account or Edelgard's account on Nemesis contradict each other.
We know Nemesis committed Genocide against the Children of the Progenitor God and we know he desired domination, both Edelgard and Rhea attest to this but in different ways.
Rhea sees him as a monster that simply killed her family for power and Edelgard's entire bloodline saw Nemesis as a man who simply wanted to control his fate and nothing more.
Another factor to this is that Nemesis never states anything outright monstrous outside of this. He makes no big "End of the World" speech or "annihilation of humanity" claim, he simply wants to kill Seiros.
He's definitely a piece of shit but neither account contradicts each other.
So my interpretation is that the game gives you these two accounts and doesn't say which is right and which one is wrong so that the player can choose.
They can decide whether Rhea is telling the truth and Edelgard was somehow given false information or whether Rhea is bullshitting and censoring history and that the account passed down by Edelgard's ancestor is true.
I'm taking Rheas story since. She have met zombified Nemesis...and Rhea's make more sense.
@@arnowisp6244 This coming from the route that focuses on Rhea lying about all of history to control Fodlan more than any other route?
You're going to believe this psycho?
@@HappyPotat You just admitted earlier on how the game wants you to decide on which route you want to believe so it's that.
Also she is dying here, lying is least beneficial thing she can do right now.
@@arnowisp6244 I do, from an objective stand point the game makes sure both accounts don't contradict each other but also makes sure that neither tells the full story.
So you can choose to say one is right and the other is wrong how you please.
Rhea is a liar, she has always lied and if Crimson Flower is any indication, she doesn't give two shits about you, just her mother, that's how I see it.
She's also not dying here.
@@HappyPotat Crimson flower is about as representative as any route where the character isn't with Byleth. With the exception of Claude everyone goes mad and becomes the worst version of themselves.
And yes she is if her words on the fact she doesn't have much time left are any indication she obviously would tell them seeing she is nearing her end.
If anything her fate is ambigious in this route with claude hinting that she may have died.
Claude looks whiter.... For some reason
Drew Haynes It’s probably the lighting.
Drew Haynes there’s also a light yellow filter over the video for some reason
His older portrait is slightly lighter. Perhaps five years of “upper end” living kept him out of the sun more than when he was younger. x3
Remember when two dragons hailed as gods almost brought ruin to all of Valentia. While I feel really bad for Rhea, I can understand the motive of those that slither in the dark, Nemesis = Rudolf/Alm, while the children of the PG are like Mila/Duma & the Duma Faithfull.
Rhea/Seiros is equivalent to Tiki in the sense that she's the daughter of a divine dragon. There's a decent chance this game takes place in the same world as SD/SOV/Awakening and Sothis came to Fodlan much like how Mila and Duma went to Valentia when Naga cast them out. Given how the legendary weapons are made from the remains of Dragonkin it still follows the lore of Falchion being a fang of Naga hence the Dragons themselves becoming weapons.
Plus there are crests present in SoV and Awakening's main stories. Alm and Celica both have royal crests of Mila and Duma, and in Awakening Chrom has the Brand of the Exalt which is the crest of Naga. Hell even Robin has the Mark of Grima which is Grima's crest.
Also Nemesis is called the Fell King in this game due to his blood mixing with the blood of Sothis which links back to Grima's origin where he was born of the blood of a Human and a divine Dragon.
@@friendlyelites I wonder how Shambala* plays into all this.
@@friendlyelites how do we even know that sothis is a divine dragon and not just an actual goddess for once?
@@r.r815 Well, Rhea other self the Immaculate One is Dragon and it isn't the first time Dragon has time related power in this franchise so there is a high chance that Sothis herself is also a Dragon.
Even if she isn't a Dragon, it is visible that Sothis isn't omnipotent since her influence can't reach the other country except I missed my reading about Almyra, Dagda, and Brigid's religious text. At most Sothis would be Deity turned as Goddess figure by Church. The original poster has a nice idea since it is a nice call back to Archanea series anyway with the Mark and Crest stuff being rather similar.
Except that the children of the Progenitor God weren't doing anything and were just peacefully living out their lives at Zanado until Nemesis attacked them.
Edelfart BTFO
I have to admit... the music ruins the impact of this scene. Ugh.
2:08 she is lying again she is not the last one.
Nah I think she is. Seteth, Indech and Macuil are all descendants of Sothis creations while Rhea was actually created from Sothis’s blood.
The other Saints only refer to Sothis by name. Rhea is the only one that calls her mother, so Rhea is probably the last direct creation.
Ppl be hating on Edelgard for not having the full story either, but it's not like she could really doublecheck the tale she got from her ancestors since *the church purged all records* It's actually kinda cool that you need to play all 4 routes to really get the full story.
Also Claude's route also makes it very obvious that Rhea and the church are evil? He just deals with them via manipulation and subterfuge (which is simply what he's good at / has at his disposal), and takes a bunch of gambles for the sake of extracting information whereas Edelgard is more focussed on making sure she's removed, and also has her own situation to contend with.
Also while this makes you understand why Rhea was so nuts (her whole civilization was killed) that doesn't excuse how she basically subjugated the next 30 generations for the actions of like 12 evil humans.
She might not have created the crests and relics but she's the one who set up a sociopolitical system based on them.
EXACTLY
You do know that the nobles existed even before nemesis died? Nemesis was already a king before rhea killed him and the elites were influential clan heads. You can find the diary of one of the elites on the abyss. He stated that rhea was hunting the elites but spared their people and that they have no idea why rhea is hunting them
@@joshieeT but the nobile system is what she started.
@@jkarma3356 no. The nobles existed before already. The elis already had descendants even before rhea killed nemesis. They were nobles already. Read the books in the abyss
@@joshieeT i did and that is not all they mentioned.
Here is what I think Rhea said:
1 Sothis created a race and gave technologies to humanity and when wars happened, and humans challenged Sothis she committed genocide in retaliation because of course that’s how you deal with ur enemies.
2. Then Sothis felt remorse and used her remaining energy to create new life and fell asleep
3. Nemesis basically used Sothis to make a sword and tried to commit genocide on her children, because that’s how he deals with his enemies, leaving Rhea.
4. Rhea managed to beat nemesis with the help of the empire.
5 Rhea began a series of experiments to implant Sothis in people’s bodies leading to fucked up shit. She plans on stealing byleths body to bring Sothis back but Sothis is a new person with no memories of her past self and she refuses to take over Byleth.
6. Meanwhile twsitd have decided to create a weapon to destroy the church ie Edelgard with some fucked up experiments.
7 twsitd help cause the tragedy of duscur and help incite racist nobles in the kingdom to massacre and brutalize the people of duscur.
8. Rhea builds the power of the church and is pretty brutal about it. Honestly people oversell her madness.A lot of the shit she does makes sense from the perspective of a person who thinks that the church should be the most powerful force in fodlan. (When she burns fihrdiad it’s just a tactic to reduce Edelgard’s mobility which is brutally pragmatic and rational)
9 The church does genuinely create peace of course it does that by crushing all rebellion and maintaining and strengthening the rule of nobility with crests and its own army etc which means it empowers feudal lords over the common folk. Just imagine feudal lords with super powers in our world and how horrible that would be.
10 Finally she hid Fodlan’s history and covered up all her crap
Honestly Rhea is like the ultimate entitled noble. She clearly looks down on humanity and believes she should rule cuz her mom had powers. She sacrifices whoever she wants for her mom and to establish the church’s supremacy even though she can tell that she is unstable. Look I think Rhea is a badass but honestly she is a villain.
Edit:made some changes due to comment below
You got some things wrong
Sothis didn't create people, Sothis came from another planet and had shared her knowledge to the people that live in Fodland, for that reason the Agathans call her FallStar, the people that live there start to use they knowledge for war, growing arrogant and destructive, then they declared war on Sothis, Sothis for however reason couldn't go for another planet so she decided to fight back
Because of the Agathans greed and violence the planet or at least Fodland was almost completely destroyed, Sothis then decided to use her power to heal the land and save the people that live there.
Nemesis a bandits that had invaded Sothis home, killing her whe she was sleeping, cutting her into pieces and drinking her blood gain the Crest of Flames, then he gave her corpse to the Agathans that made the Sword of the Creator.
Rhea actually created the Empire, Rhea made 12 experiments, now it's heavily implied that they were not originally human, Rhea say that she create Byleth mother and there's some NPC who gives some few information that Byleth mother was a nun "without a past", Rhea does want that Byleth become the vessel of Sothis, she wants her mother back to her and that she become the new leader of the Church.
The Church is actually show to not be Brutal in any route other that Eldegard (there Rhea goes mad), we heard tons of accounts of the Church helping the population, maintain order, raising children, helping education and etc.
The Church actually does not approve the Crest system, you can read about that in the library.
Centurionzo 12 You are right about the fact that that Sothis did not make people, instead she basically created a different race. I will however push back against the idea that Sothis needed to nearly wipe out humanity in the her conflict with the Agathans. The second thing that I have trouble with is that Rhea says people went to war with each other and turned against Sothis’ teachings. Humans have conflicts for all sorts of reason but I am uncomfortable in the way Rhea frames that as a betrayal of the goddess. It is probably the case that Agathans started a savage war but it’s not clear that a genocide was necessary. As for the crests, it’s clear that by linking the crests to the progenitor god in the church’s made up history it is absolutely the case that they are portrayed as desirable by the church. I agree with you that the church very much like the real world church provides social welfare for the poor but I will disagree with the idea that the church creates stability.
Rhea’s power plays are too brutal and unjust, but she keeps going because she wants a powerful centralised church that can ensure that humanity will never hurt her. Her second problem is the church needs to keep pushing a censored form of history in part because if you suddenly change your tune people will lose their faith in you. So Rhea personally despises the crests but the story she sells that solidifies her legitimacy encourages the idea of crests being the goddess’s blessing. Finally I think it is unclear if Rhea made people or experimented on people but my guess is she experimented on them because I don’t think she has the power to just make people. But you are right it is ambiguous.
@@shahruknealam9832 She didn't nearly wipe out Humanity, she only wiped out the ones responsible for this, you are making it sound like as if they were the Native Americans, whoms lifes where ruined, they were more like the Nazis, who wanted to exterminate some imaginary oppressors and were wiped out for acting on it, it's more like Dresden than the Holocaust.
She is lying again though, she isn't the only survivor... Seteth and Flayn are also survivors of Zanado. Then again, I never trusted Rhea since the moment she just kept condemning people to die at a whim during first chapters.
And "doing quiestionable things" is putting it pretty lightly, considering she mercilessly slaughtered anyone who dared to turn against the church(Or presumably tried to advance technology too much) for around 1000 years... people who seriously consider Edelgard is worse(Presumably without even playing Edelgard's route... or worse, just playing Blue Lions where Edelgard is supposed to look worse than Dimitri... who is a goddamn psychopath himself.), really should think about it in perspective...
Maybe because she wants to keep their identities a secret?
Seteth and Flayn is in dark with Rhea's true motive unfortunately so maybe Rhea wanted to spare them from the judgement of people since they are brethren.
@@nyx_3210 Well I believe Edelgard, while not taking the most morally upstanding route, is probably the best ruler for Fodlan out of the possible outcomes(Not sure which routes you played, so I don't say who is where).
As she has the skills, ambition and vision needed to make changes, at least with Byleth by her side, without them she would probably be pretty bad(And same can be said for Dimitri, who would be absolutely horrible ruler without Byleth, and with them he is at least alright.).
And well she didn't have to explicitly say "Seteth and Flayn", she just had to bring up "Cichol and Cethleann"(And also the other two, who just stay in their non-human forms), which would keep them incognito as they want, but she says it as if she was the only survivor for some reason, which is kinda suspicious. Since in that route church won't be reformed too thoroughly like in Edelgard's(Since despite her claims to want to destroy it, Hanneman's and Manuela's epilogue actually reveals that in the end Edelgard just reformed and rehabilitated the church, presumably so that it didn't have political power anymore) so Saints will probably stay as they are.
@@Razor7557
If Rhea said that Cichol and Cethleann survived along with her, it would be easy to put two and two together and realize Seteth and Flayn's identities (they are *not* hiding very well). So making it seem like she's the very last one, stops the other 4 from being hunted down by greedy humans (like what happened to start all this in the first place). There were already people after Flayn's blood, there's no reason to give them extra ammunition.
Well they are her relatives and since her whole motivation is that she hates/mistrusts humans she probably feels like that would be akin to selling them out - Claude's totally got it figured out anyways and deduced that they're innocent way in part 1.
Rhea is not being entirely truthful here.
Yes she is
@@GhostWulf70792 Who told you that? Rhea?
She is a filthy witch
Rhea isn't entirely saying the truth but Adrestian Empire doesn't have the full truth either. She is saying the truth at the birth of the Crest although she divert the attention from her and Adrestian wrongdoing with their individual Crest Experiment to more about Nemesis' Crime in which she happily shared.
@@HadeaRin Rhea's only crime is the nobility system and manipulating the people of Fodlan. She did not experiment on live people. She had the technology to create homonculi which are artificial humans. Why would she turn around and use live humans like Edelgard if she could use homonculi like Byleths mother's. It was those who slither in the dark that killed edelgard's siblings. Probably because they couldn't create homonculi like Rhea.
I hate Rhea and i will be so happy to slain her white dragon head,manipulating people in following her,changing history to make Nemesis the evil...she will pay btw i followed Edelgard and hey i will be the next emperor #MarryageIsTheBest
SupperaLoL you are truly wicked if you think Nemesis was a good man, he and those before him were all consumed by hubris. He sought to gain the power of the gods despite wanting to get rid of them. What he did was absolutely atrocious and cannot be justified whatsoever.
@@odette5031 I saw the true self of Rhea and how she manipiulated everyone into following her i stay strong with the Empire by side of Edelgard and i going to rid the world of Rhea and her other beasts,once i decided to help edelgard she didnt even think about letting me explain she said im a failed experiment and tryed to kill me....so how holy is she realy if she experiments with a child? how holy is she realy when her true self is that of a White Beast?
The White Beast are those who have her blood. She is the Immaculate One, a Divine Dragon.
The other Children are pretty cool. Even Flayn and Seteth don't know the terrible things she's done, or how insane her dark side is(To the point her going mad completely blindsides Seteth on Church).
@@BlackfangDragon yea and thats why i joined my dear edelgard first of all i want to me an emperor so marriage is going to happen;D second i want to open the worlds eyes,third i want to unify the country^^
SupperaLoL yeah but her belief it's somehow cause they aren't human that things are so bad isn'f accurate.
It's one woman and her desperate obsession with her mother, and her unhinged dark side she can't control. And a cult of angry humans who hate dragons as much as they do the rest of humanity.