StormyAngel

Crimson Flower Spoilers And for the record, Edelgard is my favorite character. The writers of the game just did not follow through to my satisfaction.

Basically, This. If you exclude Echoes for being a remake, then the last 3 Fire Emblem games have all involved the protagonist secretly Yes it's a different kind each time, but at this point I felt like an idiot for not expecting it.

Naturally, And of course the aggressor in the war is always

That actually sounds like it would be pretty interesting. Sothis is kind of a linchpin of the story, but then she disappears one third of the way through the game. But I am still going to hold out hope that they'll fill in the missing crimson flower stuff. There's no reason they can't do that and something new.

I feel like there are actually multiple FE games written into the history of Fodlan. There's King Loog who famously had a tactician, and of course Seiros and the four saints with Wilhelm could easily be another. An advanced tech Fire Emblem game would be pretty interesting, but I also sadly think it's unlikely. Personally, I'm hoping the DLC will flesh out the crimson Flower route with an actual battle against TWSitD, and they should clarify things like whatever the hell happens to Rhea in the BL route. But other than filling in the missing stuff, I don't know what to expect really. I wonder what they're planning.

I think this is actually simplifying things too much. I think there were 2 ancient wars. Sothis was a beloved goddess who helped the Agarthans develop an advanced civilization, and they eventually grew power hungry and attacked the Nabateans. Seiros led the charge in that war in defending her people (according to what I read somewhere, can't remember where). To be honest I think Seiros was completely justified in that war, and the devastation of the continent was an unfortunate consequence of a fight on that scale, so it can be laid squarely at the agarthans feet. Seiros wins, the continent is devastated, Sothis restores it and is forced to hibernate to recover. At this point the 3 parties on the continent are: Nabateans (largely unscathed), A few surviving Agarthans (hiding underground), Other Humans reduced to the Stone Age. It is unclear how much time passes. But eventually I imagine the humans repopulate the (restored) land, and the crazy big war becomes a thing of legend just because of generations of humans that never lived through it. Then, at some point external threats arise, and Nemesis starts looking for some way to fight them off. TWSitD point him towards Sothis, and the Red Canyon Massacre happens. According to the Imperial Calendar, the War of Heroes (Which I called Seiros War) doesn't start for at least 32 more years after that. It's difficult to say with certainty when it actually began, given that we know the history has been actively manipulated, but I actually think it's probably that Seiros and Wilhelm spent a large amount of time building up their forces before attacking. Consider that first of all, Nemesis probably engaged in a large war against the invading foreign countries trying to take over fodlan after the red canyon, since that was the point of 'gaining power' in the first place. Seiros traveled to Enbarr where she started establishing her church, and later convinced Wilhelm to join her cause, but I highly doubt it happened within even a year of the red canyon. So yeah: two separate wars, one of which Seiros was actually quite justified in, and the other one more an act of revenge and establishing her power.

I don't think Edelgard believes in the goddess of the church of seiros at all, actually. The crimson flower route seems to indicate that she sees herself as throwing off the yoke of what amount to alien invader/puppeteers, who use their fantastic powers to imitate miracles and maintain the crest system. At the very least she is clearly aware that Rhea is Seiros, knowledge that was passed down through the hresvelg imperial line. So Edelgard knows that Seiros was the one to set up the crest/nobility system and not the goddess, even if she doesn't know whether or not sothis was real/existed. But you are correct in that Edelgard appears to believe those other 2 things. I think the church resisting change may be more of a consequence of Rhea controlling the church, but since it's rather difficult to kill a dragon...well, she wasn't going to change that situation easily. And exaggeration or not, Rhea was in a position of power across the entire continent. It's just unclear to what extent she would have exercised that power had Edelgard made different choices. Hopefully this will become more clear to me in the other routes... Thank you for pointing me in this direction! I'm in the middle of my BL run-through so I'll explore those supports as soon as I can. Is the paralogue pre- or post- time skip? It is entirely possible that all of the things I assumed aren't explained are just tucked away in support conversations somewhere, but this game is just SO LARGE that it's going to take me a while to collect them all. Thank goodness for NG+, or the task would be virtually hopeless.

Hm. This is an example of knowledge I lack from not playing all routes yet. Still, isn't it TWSitD who capture/imprison Rhea? The two aren't necessarily the same, because their goals were different from Edelgard's and thus they might have kept her alive against Edelgard's wishes. Or maybe Edelgard was happy to simply have her out of the way so she could focus on winning this war that was (because it wasn't crimson flower) going unexpectedly poorly for her.

Sorry for the delayed response here: I was cut off from the internet whilst moving. I would also choose any alternative that preserves both lives. But I do believe that if someone invades my home and plans to kill me or any member of my family, I am fully justified in killing them if that is the only way to stop them. I don't know where you grew up, but any standard that would then hold me guilty of murder in those circumstances is ludicrous. As it happens, I am a christian, so I find it interesting that you think that's a christian standard. If anything, I would say you have a pacifist philosophy, which isn't a bad thing by any means, but is probably more "do no harm" than your average christian believes god expects of anyone. As for "destroying someone else's family", that is rather moving the goal post here. I never mentioned any family, and to assume that the kind of person who commits unprovoked murder has a family to be "destroyed" by their death is rather a large assumption. Nemesis, to hearken back to the game for a clear cut example, may have had a family, but he was also a genocidal murderer/home invader. If Seiros could have stopped his massacre only by killing him, would she have been wrong to do so? Well, here's where we get into the grey areas of the game. Too many things are vague in this game for us to settle things definitively. You and I are both doing our best to make justified assumptions, but without more details we can't actually settle which assumptions are correct. Very frustrating. For example, one of my assumptions is that Edelgard wouldn't start the war with Rhea if there was a path that would have allowed for peaceful reformation. Her pretty much stated reason for aiming to kill Rhea is that reform will be impossible while she is alive. Edelgard's a smart person, and knows more about the world than I do (partially because it's a video game with a finite amount of information that actually exists, whereas she presumably has all sorts of context the writers couldn't be bothered to explain/come up with.) But you note several reasons to support the idea that Edelgard is wrong, and to be fair, I haven't finished all the routes of the game, so you may be right and I just haven't seen all the data yet. The main reason I fall on the Edelgard side of things in my assumptions is because Seiros/Rhea did at least 2 things suggestive of the idea that she is clinging to the crest/nobility system: 1.She founded it. 2.She did nothing to change it for over 1000 years. I do want to note though, that whilst you have cast very reasonable doubt on the actual necessity of Edelgard's war, that doesn't change the fact that Seiros launching her war was just as bloody and likewise an evil thing to do. And I still hold that the difference in their motivations and actions afterwards (misinformed or not) indicates Edelgard was a better person. "Better" being very much a relative term. She's still very much the woman who launched a bloody war, guilty of quite a lot of bad things. I was mostly ignoring the fact that the battle was lethal because that's an artifact of the story being told through a video game. The students exercising the citizens arrest were also killing people, after all. I wonder how that chapter would have played out as written in a book. As for the killing everyone who challenges her authority, I can only point once more to the gray areas. It's very unclear, for example, why Lonato raised his army and what he intended to do with it (assault garreg mach? kill Catherine? invade somewhere?). His son was killed because of "church doctrine" but we're never given the details on what church doctrine, or what he did to contradict it. Lonato's militia was pretty much already being suppressed by the knights of Seiros when we came onto the scene, so it's unclear where the first battle took place or at what point the church said, "oh hey, that guy should be stopped" and got involved. Like I said, lots of unfortunate grey areas. Thanks for your thoughts everyone! You've given me much to think about!

Well that's simply not true. Killing in self defense is clearly not evil, for a clear example. And Seiros killing Nemesis wasn't something I would term evil either, and she clearly didn't do that in self defense. But launching a war is pretty evil, yeah. I'm not arguing against that. My point is more that it's an evil Seiros is also guilty of, and that Edelgard's differences with her make her slightly more justified than she was to launch her war. Relative evils, basically. Well, I obviously disagree, because my whole point is that they respond to very similar tragedies in very different ways, but I'm probably over simplifying things. You're ignoring the fact that the ultimate major power (Rhea) would absolutely fight tooth and nail against changing the crest/nobility system. There's a reason it's still around after 1000 years, and she is it. Diplomacy might have worked with everyone else, but definitely not Rhea. It's part of how she maintains her power, and she zealously guards her power. Well the western church interactions were very weird to me, so maybe my interpretation is wrong. That being said, I didn't lie, I was just skipping over my logic/supporting evidence straight to a conclusion in the interest of getting to the point. Allow me to spell out my reasoning here: 1.The Western Church and Rhea vocally disagree on doctrine, and she does nothing. That only serves to strengthen my point that the church was created as a tool to maintain power. Rhea doesn't actually care what the humans believe about the goddess, so she does nothing when they differ like this. Until... 2.The western church enters a "publicly open" tomb in order to do a little grave robbing. When some students attempt to make a citizen's arrest, they resist. This is where Rhea goes off the rails. She has no evidence the western church was behind the "assassination plot", other than Byleth and Co's reasoning that it was intended as a distraction in order to open Seiros tomb. But more important to Rhea here is that they're acting against her wishes. So, off with their heads. With (as shown) basically no questioning whatsoever. This is then followed by sending the Knights of Seiros on a mission to purge the entire western church...doesn't that seem a bit much? The point here is that this is a clear example of what would happen to Edelgard if she tried to peacefully oppose Rhea. She'd be fine so long as all she did was talk, but if she made any attempts to actually change anything that's when the swords would come out for 'rebelling'. She was personally provoked, sure, but the war of heroes started in Imperial Year 32, more than 32 years after the red canyon. There wasn't ongoing large scale conflict before that, so she clearly did start a war where there hadn't been one before. Besides which, she launched the war on the entire continent, and not just TWSitD.

I haven't yet finished all four routes, so if the gamed directly contradicts me anywhere please let me know! Why Edelgard's War was More Justified than Seiros' War Both Seiros/Rhea and Edelgard suffered through the loss of their families to tragic deaths at the hands of mad men seeking power (Nemesis, Duke Aegir). In both cases, they were innocent and good people who suffered through no fault of their own. In each case, TWSitD were ultimately behind their suffering. Both of them were shaped by their suffering, and ultimately launched a war to "unite fodlan" as a consequence. Seiros War was later termed the "War of Heroes", whereas Edelgard's War is the main plot of the game Fire Emblem: Three Houses. So why, you ask, was Edelgard's War more justified? The answer lies, in the differences between the two women: their desires and their ultimate actions. Let's start with Seiros. Seiros Why did Seiros start her war? We don't have every detail, but it is not difficult to guess. She wanted revenge on Nemesis. It took her over 98 years to make it happen, but she did eventually meet him in battle and slay him. But what then? Obviously she desired revenge, but what else did she want? She appears to have wanted two things: to bring back Sothis (and most likely, subsequently her entire race), and to prevent a second Red Canyon. While her people weren't around to be massacred again just yet, Seiros had been badly burnt by the experience and wasn't going to take any chances. She falsified the history of Nemesis and his Ten Elites, established the crest/nobility system, and centralized power in her hands in the church. From her position of power, she guided the empire, and later the kingdom and alliance, with the ultimate goal of preventing the humans from becoming a threat to her or her soon to be (she hoped) resurrected mother and race. Compare this to Edelgard: Edelgard Why did Edelgard start her war? To destroy the crest/nobility system, so that nobody ever suffered again as she had. She wanted revenge, yes, but in the service of her greater goal was willing to work even with those she knew to be responsible for her suffering (Count Bergliez, Arundel/Thales/TWSitD, etc.), which serves to demonstrate the depth of her commitment to her cause. In the Crimson Flower Route, Edelgard succeeds. While that's probably at least in part because this is a video game, it reveals that she was sincere in her desires and followed through. She successfully destroyed the crest/nobility system before handing her throne over to a worthy successor and stepping down. She never wanted power or personal benefit, she wanted change (albeit, no matter the cost). The question then becomes: was Edelgard's war necessary? Couldn't she have found a better path? And here the answers are less certain, but it is worth noting that Seiros/Rhea was a direct obstacle to change. The woman/dragon had ruled for over 1000 years and had not changed anything despite the suffering inherent in the system. She also casually ordered the execution of people with personal grievances (Lonato) or doctrinal disagreements (the western church), because they threatened her power. The one thing that is certain is that Edelgard could never have succeeded at her ultimate goal without coming into conflict with Rhea/Seiros. If she had not launched her war unprovoked, the archbishop likely would have started a crusade shortly after any attempts she made to reform the system in the empire became known. The assault on Garreg Mach was, in a way, a preemptive strike upon a destined foe. But Starting A War is Always Evil Both Seiros and Edelgard had their own personal reasons for launching their wars. They both caused a great deal of deaths in the process. I am personally of the opinion that evil never justifies evil, and they were both wrong to launch their wars. Yes Nemesis needed to die, and Edelgard's desire to destroy the crest/nobility system imposed by the church was not wrong, but both women undoubtedly caused a number of tragedies themselves by launching their wars. It is a sad irony that in their desire to prevent second occurrences, they caused such things themselves. But I do believe that we can see in the results of the wars, and the personal motivations of Edelgard and Seiros, a level of morality worth judging. Seiros desire for revenge is, to my mind, less worthy than Edelgard's desire to protect the innocent. Likewise, the manner in which Seiros and Edelgard wielded the power their wars brought to them demonstrate an inherent difference to the nature of the conflicts themselves. Both wars were fought in error, but Edelgard's war at least actually served an ultimate purpose beyond self aggrandizement. So What's the Point? Well, isn't it interesting that Rhea/Seiros' history makes her such an excellent foil for Edelgard? And both of these tales unfold along the Black Eagles Routes of the game. I think that juxtaposition was not an accident. Edelgard is often praised by those who like her character, but decried by those who focus in on her actions. But I wonder if those who dislike her have considered the ways in which Seiros/Rhea is actually worse than Edelgard. Whether you choose to fight with Edelgard or with Rhea, you will ultimately be siding with someone who bears some responsibility for the tragedy at hand. There is no "correct" side, only differing shades of gray. As for me, I think that while they both suffered through similar traumas, the way that Edelgard responded to hers is ultimately superior to the way Seiros responded. Likewise, the outcome and purpose of Edelgard's war, while not strictly justifying it, does make it less evil than Seiros' war. What do you think?