SRPG Tryhard

I love this. Is this the first time an enemy unit can pull something like this in FE?

The Lissa discussion pretty much showed that the past lords cannot be held up to the standards set by 3H. None of them go through the same struggles as Dimitri or have to make the same choices as Edelgard. To say they "just side with the side that is being declared against" is naive to say the least. I'm pretty sure there are more than a few lords (Sigurd, Alm, Corrin) that go on offensive wars in FE, but all of them conquer their respective continents even if they are doing a "defensive invasion". "They started it" is not a legitimate cause to pretend conquering a continent is somehow more noble than uniting Fodlan with Edelgard and that she was evil to do so when everybody in the game says that uniting Fodlan is the right thing to do. Also I'm not sure what the point of the poll is, we've all seen how these go down with such discussions. Reddit is definitely not the best place to ask this.

Dimitri's participation in the story feels like an afterthought in general. Even the whole deal with being Edelgard step sibling but she having "amnesia" about it feels like it was a plotpoint added after her story was finished.

Ingrid has her unique outfit as a Paladin. There's no need to be upset over this.

Azure moon maps are just copy pastes of Silver Snow maps. The only two that are not, are copy pastes from Crimson Flower but gimped to be less interesting and difficult, like removing the ships and enemy reinforcements from deirdiu and the fire and enemy reinforcements from fhirdiad. I'll vote battle of the eagle and the lion since it's the only one not taken from SS and still fun (still not unique but at least it's shared with verdant wind only). I hope more Azure Moon players play the other routes too to see those maps in overall context.

This is particularly striking if you think about Felix's speech to Dimitri in AM, saying none of the BLs are following his leadership because of him but apparently they still follow and die for him in the Gronder Field battle of VW. https://fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/173 I would say this is an inconsistency similar to the plot hole of why Dimitri thinks Edelgard committed Duscur outside BL/AM. BL version: https://fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/110 BE: https://fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/109 GD: https://fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/111 As far as we are shown the reason Dimitri becomes suspicious of her is when Thales told the Flame Emperor that he did Duscur for their benefit. Sure the FE denounced Thales for it, but Dimitri in his head thought this meant that FE = Duscur and completely forgot about Thales for the rest of the route altogether. Then she drops the dagger and later she is unmasked which is all he needed to see to believe it. The problem is that he is not there to witness that scene in the other routes. We can tell because the scene unravels differently when Dimitri is there and he tries to attack them from the shadows. So it makes one wonder why Dimitri connected the Flame Emperor and Edelgard to Duscur in them. Care to expand on these? I thought Rhea already recognized Byleth as that child that she implanted the creststone of flames, which is why she says "has the flow of time brought you back here" (or so) during the first animated cutscene when they arrive in Gareg Mach. So Rhea, to her knowledge, didn't actually put Byleth in danger of being turned to crest beast when they allowed them to wield the SOTC in chapter 4. Your second point seems interesting. I was wondering why Rhea was so against Byleth chasing after Kronya. But she lets them go anyway after the lord of the route reassures her that it's better strategically. https://fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/114

This didn't answer my question.

Two missions featuring a relative of the BLs doesn't make it "BL focused" especially when those chapters are actually about a rebellion against Rhea's dogmatic lies and partly instigated by TWISTD and a noble family drama caused by crest inheritance, neither of which three are themes that AM follows up on. Rhea is non-existent in AM and TWISTD are irrelevant and relegated to a "we accidentally Thales" joke with Dimitri still having no idea who "those dark mages that just packed up and left" in the final chapter are. In fact, AM hardly actually deals with even Faerghus's problems set up during the academy phase, such as the Duscur genocide and their zealous chivalry. For example, Ashe and Dedue fixing racism by opening a restaurant in their ending is not very convincing when Duscur gets so little attention in that route before the endings fix everything. Meanwhile their concept of chivalry is completely dropped as a plot point. Saying WC is focused on the kingdom because two chapters happen to take place there because the country is in chaos, is looking at things way too superficially. I like BE the most and I think WC is pretty fine with showing everything that could lead the player to pick either of the two routes that branch from that house, so I think WC is BE focused actually.

They are indeed important to the story because they show just how Rhea's church worked and how everything about it revolved around her. There are also a number of comments that Seteth makes about the Empire under Edelgard as well as her death scene that are important to debunk a few common misconceptions. I suppose the DLC indeed expanded on Sitri by actually showing her, but SS already covered all the questions about what happened to Byleth. I said it's the "main" route because it's the first made and because the other two are clearly based on it. Forget the "canon"/"golden"/"true" epithets. It carries the main theme of making Edelgard out to be a subversion of the red emperor FE trope and a misunderstood antagonist that the director describes in that one interview everyone is talking about. I wouldn't dismissively call it a "first draft", especially in comparison to VW and how sloppily it handles Edelgard by pretending Byleth is still her special sensei that lead her class there. An obvious artifact of the rehashing it went through. The illogical exclusiveness of their final chapters also points towards more rehashing shenanigans. It makes no sense why Rhea degenerates only in SS and Nemesis wakes up only in VW when the same exact events transpired. They probably moved the chapter with Nemesis over to VW to justify its existence because otherwise VW is a carbon copy of SS, map wise. If SS is a first draft then VW is a sloppy rewrite to fill out the one route per lord quota. The complaints about how it never shows Almyra despite how it constantly teases it are a staple too. Teasing something but never delivering on it is a major problem for a story. Disclaimer: Claude is one of my favorite characters in the game that I was surprised to like as much as I did despite how I was predisposed to dislike him, which is a huge plus for me, but his route is just not as good. It might have been awsome when I played it before SS and AM, but in retrospect it's lacking. I'm not even an SS fanboy, I already made another post about my favorite. I'm just saying that playing SS is vital to understanding the story and that the misleading notion that "VW is just SS but better" should be put to rest.

The blood cult in the church revealed in the last chapter, Rhea degenerating like classic FE dragons, the origin of Byleth explained properly, Rhea confessing that she was wrong in her S support and more. Such a pity that the lie that SS is a rehash of VW and not the inverse, kept going around for so long as it did which resulted in people missing so many basic plot points from what was intended to be the game's main route.

Give them Goad/Ward, buffs are useless because of lulls now. It was already a handicap to have to position your units in formation to make them work. For others, a role specific C skill like def smoke on a Galeforce unit would be good like you said.

Seconding FEFTwiddler, I managed to add a Femui from a previous playthrough to a new one with Male Corrin on it.

Did you play SS? It reveals much more than VW does. I'm not sure why you think the origin of the relics is unexplained, they were made from the corpses of Nabateans that Nemesis slayed with the SOTC. Assuming you mean the usual complaint about not fighting TWSITD after Rhea, then Crimson Flower isn't more rushed or incomplete than Azure Moon is. If they were held up to the same standards that is. Any sort of comparison on the "completeness" of a route is arbitrary and moot when you fail to account for how much VW and AM recycle content from SS (not only the battles but also the base conversations, endings etc). What part of the "world" is not "built"? Seeing the way it has been abused on FE forums, "Worldbuilding" is a buzzword at this point.

Crimson flower because it follows from the narrative and questions established in part 1 about the church and the brewing conflict. It feels like the story does what I want it to do, rather than be forced to go along with "fate", a theme also present on the other routes and the game's main soundtrack theme itself. It directly follows on the climax of - in my opinion the single best chapter in the game on either route - chapter 12, and never lets up until the end. Meanwhile I always got bored while slogging through the early filler war phase chapters on the other routes and a few others such as the Deirdiu and Fhirdiad chapters in AM and the virtue signaling narrative that replaced what initially looked like a deconstruction of the "lawful good" blue FE lord.

Not for his fans. I mean, "revenge route", like wtf bro, she's not real, what did she do to hurt you so much?

I think a major reason for all the ignorance and misconceptions still prevalent even a year after release is AM and how it doesn't deal with so much of the important backstory. This is evident in this thread too.

There's definitely a comparison to be made between Insurmountable and Dividing the World, Edelgard's and Hilda with Cyril's paralogue respectively, that both deal with the same problem, an Almyran raid on Fodlan's Throat. Insurmountable gives a resolution to the problem of Fodlan's relations with Almyra, but from the least likely source, that being the Adrestian Empire. Sort of in a "we just stepped in here and already fixed everything" way, only to proceed to fart jokes and questions about just what caused Holst's bowel problems that sound so suspiciously similar to something Claude mentions. Meanwhile in Cyril and Hilda's paralogue the status quo seems to be maintained despite what one would expect when coming from other paralogues. Almost every student character has to deal with a problem that they inherit from their family, a sort of "minor route" about every character in which they go through their own route of making Fodlan better. From the three lords, to Felix, Ferdinand, Lorenz. For worldbuilding reasons of course that usually is the nobles. But the thing is Hilda is a noble, with a big influence on her brother (that takes the role that is usually taken by a character's dad), whose House has the dedicated role of having to deal with Almyra within this "every character's route" scheme. Yet she she does nothing about it. Her paralogue provides no resolution to the Almyran problem, only leaving it up to Claude in the case of VW, or nobody at all in the case of AM and SS. Disregarding Hilda, for me Dividing the World was more about Cyril's attitude towards his Almyran background. He still believes that Almyrans are a pretty stubborn folk, but he no longer feels shame for his origins. It went a long way to show how pragmatic he can be, but also made me all the more sad about how he lost his role to become the designated "Rhea exposition mouth" for when Rhea isn't present in the war phase, or worse, as Rhea's attack dog when she is. It's really interesting how every character's story, no matter how minor, manages to raise questions that we should ask ourselves. In many cases the multi-ended nature of the game's routes, shows how different outcomes can result from the story of the same character, either to show that there is no definitive answer to their "question", or to give us the opportunity to gain a better understanding about the consequences of their choices.

Is it about time to replace all our hone and fortify emblem (cavalry/armored/fliers) skills with the respective goads and wards? At this point every single relevant unit is running some sort of buff canceling with lull skills. This is mostly in the context of Arena Assault, where you have to field various teams of low investment units. Emblem buffs are an obvious way to counter the stat difference with the enemy. To that end, do you have a rule to decide what kind of unit gets the offensive or defensive emblem C skill? I am thinking of giving offensive support C skills to defensive units and vice versa, because it allows them to support units with their opposite role which are more likely to be fielded together.

This is the crux of the theme with dragons and humans in FE. Similar to Archanea and Medeus being Rhea, Earth dragons the Nabateans etc. Earth dragons ruled humans because they were stronger, but when they started degenerating humans rebelled. Medeus was supposed to be the most reasonable of them to choose to become a manakete, yet he hates humanity for rebelling against his kind and hunting them down, thousands of years before Marth. This is how manaketes are portrayed in FE and why "degeneration" happens. Like all FEs before, the game has a stance on immortality in the sense of “immortal” rulers - that people who are in power for indefinite periods of time tend to become corrupt or blind, regardless of their original intentions- which we see with Rhea having to be removed or stepping down in all routes in order to change Fodlan for the better, and how even Edelgard steps down after winning the war in CF and Byleth in CF who doesn’t become the immortal God-Emperor they do in other routes. Beings that live for millennia and eventually become dangerous simply aren't compatible with humans. Throughout the FE games, the kind of dragons we see to overcome this to be able to coexist are the ones who choose to live away from humanity, not control them even harder than before. Many of them have their reasons to act as they do, to feel betrayed or whatever, but this doesn't justify oppressing humanity like they do. I don't know why people only now decided to look into this dynamic after a dozen or so FE games that are about humans rebelling against dragons (or gods). Rhea having a reason to feel betrayed does not excuse her like it didn't excuse Medeus, Duma, Mila, Ashera and Anankos.

Her source is Wilhelm who describes events that he witnessed and everything that she says is confirmed by others. He is not aware of what transpired before the war begun for the simple reason that Wilhelm was not alive to witness it. This is why neither of them know Nemesis's initial motivation. There is no reason not to believe what Wilhem says for the events that he witnessed, just like Rhea, Macuil, Indech, or even Maurice. All of them may have been biased for participating in those events, but things such as what the origin of relics and crests is, should be an objective fact and Edelgard states the truth. So Rhea lied and this is good enough reason to doubt her Church's dogma. Edelgard doesn't seem to trust what the Slithers have to say: http://kagiyama.threebards.com/fire-emblem/1499 Edelgard doubts Thales calling Nemesis just a "thief/bandit". She understands there may have been more to his motivation to explain Seiros's hate, but does not know what it was. http://kagiyama.threebards.com/fire-emblem/1913 I note the proper JP translation is important here because "simple dispute" implies it was something petty. She recognizes they must have had their reasons, but it was definitely something more important than just him being "corrupted by his power". This is the extent of the things she *needs* to know to see that the Church is manipulating humanity. I don't see how any of this can be held against her, when she is the only person in Fodlan who is aware of the truth of the Church's lies. True and a very smart observation. They have no reason to say the truth about Nemesis and how they used him as a proxy against Nabateans. They won't say what his actual motivation for "stealing" was and what was the true reason Seiros fought against him, because they were in fact behind this. That would only give her more reasons to turn against them. So I recognize that Haar was actually correct in saying the Slithers withheld information. Still my point that Edelgard didn't trust them stands. Saying she got her information from them or that she believes them is completely wrong. Me too, I never got the impression or remember anything that would suggest this. But the reasons Agarthans and Nabateans had to kill each other are irrelevant thousands of years later when they both have put the people of Fodlan in the middle of their vendetta. After all, you could say the "genociding" was a reciprocated endeavor if you consider Sothis's flooding the world, but that is an even more difficult subject to discuss here when people doubt the validity of in-game texts. I agree like Haar said. I'll filter the kid having an insulting tantrum in the background. It doesn't have anything constructive to say anyway.

She doesn't parrot anything except the truth (that we have confirmed through other accounts) that is passed down from House Hraesverg: You are wrong about the "middle of the three" because simply none of what Edelgard says about the relics and 10 elites is false or is disputed by anybody else, including Rhea. Rhea is in fact the only person that we know for a fact has been lying, I don't see why people make the naive mistake of projecting this onto others to say that everyone is unreliable. Are you literally insulting me now? You're immature as hell.

I can't imagine someone would be so naive to say that what we read in the game is false even when proof is cited. At this point I don't consider that you are talking about the game at all. You said it yourself, you're making your own interpretations to believe instead. That's probably why so many people are fed up with it. I made a mistake to argue in the first place.

Well you already posted a falsehood about Edelgard parroting whatever Agarthans said which is debunked by a single line of in-game text that I posted. You also said that she believes them, which is also false since she doubts whether Nemesis was "just a thief" that Arundel dismissively calls him as. And that is the extent of what we are shown, everything else would be speculation. The reason I entered this thread is to correct these misconceptions that are being spread around. Including the "how can we believe Edelgard" canon denying speculation by the other poster. I don't really care for the forced politically correct analogy, but it's ironic that you complain for me disputing it when you supposedly claiming to be open to discussion. Actually posting my opinion on what group is similar to what irl historical party, would probably end up in deletion for being off topic, or worse, account suspension for political incorrectness.

No, already covered that. Edelgard never said anything positive about Nemesis. She has no reason to either, as Wilhelm fought against him and on the side of Seiros. Which is where her information originates from. I already proved this by citing in-game text. They didn't unless proven otherwise. Calling him a thief is directly contradicting Rhea's history while also painting him in a bad light, he's not withholding anything. It's not compatible with my argument because I don't willingly choose to ignore the times Thales didn't withhold the truth, or pretend that Edelgard praises Nemesis. The rest of the "analogy" is a big reach. Japanese writers don't have the same tropes that western ones do, which the trope you describe originates from. You just want to say what you want to say with no care for the logic behind it. Yeah who knows. Maybe house Hraesverg didn't know how to use written words on a piece of paper to preserve a story? What else are they hiding? Was Edelgard lying to us? Is Thales really Arundel? Did Wilhelm I actually exist? Did Hubert forge all the books in the monastery library? Is the game even real? So much stupid and pointless speculation and denial of canon in-game writing. This isn't going anywhere.

How did they omit something if they never talked about it in the first place? Thales already calls Nemesis a "thief" in front of her, he doesn't lie or attempt to withhold information about anything, as far as we see. House Hraelverg also knew the truth about it, which is the only part of this 1000 year old feud that matters in present day Fodlan. Edelgard knows as much as she needs to know to see that Rhea is lying to people about the crests. Whatever justification Agarthans have to hate the Nabateans is irrelevant. She wants to destroy them and end their 1000 year old cycle of revenge that worked at the expense of humanity in Fodlan, which is what truly matters to her. I can see that. What I disagree with is why this eye for an eye deal, that they had been doing for millennia with humanity caught in the crossfire, matters now. It doesn't excuse Agarthans conducting crest experiments, nor does it excuse Rhea for holding a grudge against the entire human race.