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So far, what route would you call canon? (OBVIOUS SUPREME SPOILERS)


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I need to hurry up and finish. LOL i really want to partake in this discussion. 

my honest opinion is - i don't think there is a 'canon" route. (if i had a gun to my head, I'd probably pick Blue Lions, mostly because that's the one that felt more.. fire-emblem-y? to me?)
I did go Golden Deer ---> Blue Lions --->>  Edelgard Part 1 (did not kill her). so I'll do the church route last.

While you have the splits etc - i do wish in a way some of the Part 1s were different enough (not just in dialogue but in actual missions) to help strengthen a lot of convictions.  (outside of Edelgard)I feel that really part one is basically giving you enough information that the Church is - for the most part slightly shady - or hiding something - but then Edelgard basically goes all dictator and wants to reunify everyone

that's something that I wish was hammered home more - more weight behind everyone's life choices: 

Claude just wants to end racism/xenophobia on both sides of the border. (it would have been nice if there were a lot of things showing that Claude/Petra(not of Fodlan), etc - were looked on supiciously even though they were royalty. maybe even some more officers. I was all team Claude Luther King Jr - wanting to tear down the walls between Fodlan and the world - so I understood ultimately why he wanted unification but i also feel had things just ended up still as. East/West/North - but there were no side-eyes on Duscar,Brigid/Dagda,, Almyra, it would have really hit home of that was Claude's ultimate goal. (I am not even going to lie. I S Supported Claude and i was still gut punched that he left me alone even though he promised to come back). a lot of the stuff that happens in part two is because, well Claude is like Sherlock Holmes. he needs to make everything fit andmake sense and nothing was making sense, and he was the best capable of trying to reach his endgame  - plus help save everyone. (as noted in BL/BE: Evil) paths. - when he loses, he basically goes, look. I don't really care - save my people, let me go home so i can bring peace there - KTHXBYE.

Dimitri is a total one sixty - because it deals with the xenophobia dead on more so than Claude's route because of Dedue. (which again - with Claude's route - maybe there would have been more impact had there been another 1-2 Duscar students, or - their missions dealt with more of that. the Miklan/Western Church fit here a lot more because of Sylvain + Ashe ). I have zero time for Catherine - but i feel her issues are in her supports (which i should youtube) but i think due to the Lonato/Cassandra-Catherine thing - a lot of that could have been explored. but i do feel a lot of his decisions are well spelled out. all he wants to do is be a king, protect his kingdom, (and get revenge for those who were massacred). so knowing the truth behind what happened (or basically a huge chunk of the truth) was important and i"m glad it focused on that. because a lot of his revenge - was directed at people whom he loved,and he had to learn/figure out what was more weightier - avenging the dead - or forgiving the living. - and i think it was blended perfectly. out of all  the paths - this is the one where i want to re do again. (I mean i want to do Claude's again - mostly because I want his personal battalion "Ashes and Dust" 😉 ) but i think so many of it is how everyone has to grow up from their ideals and cultivating a brand new world. (which happened to end up being unification). 

again I'm not really done with BE: EVIl. - but i talked with this with @Landmaster and a few other people. as of right now - I'm trying really hard to see her POV - and struggling big time.. I had had the idea that Lysithea and Edelgard were similar in regards (and massively giddy when i realised I was right), but i mean that's the point. both of these girls had something horrible and traumatic happen to them, but Edelgard wants to be all.Xena and destory them all where as Lysithea just wants to do the best she can to ensure her parents are safe/taken care of. and it's not like Lysithea is a commoner. her parents are part of the ruling nobility of the Alliance. i just feel. (and again - maybe this gets filled in when i am done, done), there's a huge. 

"but why, tho?"

 

when it comes to Edelgard's actions -

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2 hours ago, daisy jane said:

again I'm not really done with BE: EVIl. - but i talked with this with @Landmaster and a few other people. as of right now - I'm trying really hard to see her POV - and struggling big time.. I had had the idea that Lysithea and Edelgard were similar in regards (and massively giddy when i realised I was right), but i mean that's the point. both of these girls had something horrible and traumatic happen to them, but Edelgard wants to be all.Xena and destory them all where as Lysithea just wants to do the best she can to ensure her parents are safe/taken care of. and it's not like Lysithea is a commoner. her parents are part of the ruling nobility of the Alliance. i just feel. (and again - maybe this gets filled in when i am done, done), there's a huge.

It's probably a matter of which side you're on, but I'll never get how Dimitri's actions are any better than Edelgard's. Imo (stressing the "imo"), she's actually a lot and I mean a lot more justified than he is. Hell, they both take big part in various bloodshed, they're willing to do questionable things for a goal and it all comes down to this. She wants to end the control of Church and nobility, he wants to take gruesome revenge on people that he didn't even bother to verifiy if they were responsible of what he's claiming to revenge.

Honestly, Azure Moon is a great character driven story, but I don't see how it can be viewed as a "good side" story, Dimitri is quite literally a mad king, he acts on impulse, and the impulse is based on COMPLETELY wrong information. Sure, Edelgard does questionable stuff, can come off as cold, and she as well doesn't have the full picture of the story, but at least her goals are honorable.

Maybe it just depends on which route you play first or idk what, but I had the opposite problem in trying to see his PoV. At some point while playing BL I just gave up on trying to mentally side with him, and just went to consider it a nice spinoff for character development.

On Claude, he's obviously the least controversial leader out of the 3(4) and yet he doesn't always sit right with me. Sure his principles are nice, but I was truly hoping he was going to be a more politically driven character. The Alliance is quite clearly the most advanced nation of the continent in terms of ruling system, even though it's a very early form of it, I'd still say it's something akin to democracy. I was hoping his route was not only to seek truth, but also to progress Fodlan into a system of free people.

His anti racism motives are obviously relatable, but his goal of being king threw me off, and I'm not a fan of the Almyrian focus of his route, I was very interested in understanding and leading the alliance. It would've made for an amazing scenario, having to command a nation (and an army) that doesn't necessarily have to follow your orders if their nobles don't agree with them.

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Just now, Tenzen12 said:

I think Azure moon is "good side", because Dimitri get his redemption arc and change his ways. Crimson Flower is "bad side" because Eldegard never admit being wrong.

You don't have to keep repeating yourself, you know...
The wonderful thing about this game is it's up to interpretation as to who is right, and it's up to the person playing as to what they can forgive. Therefore, for you, Edelgard is the unquestioned villain, whereas to someone else, Dimitri is. Just because someone changes doesn't mean you're guaranteed to forgive their past actions!
(In my interpretation, Claude's the only really wholly "good person" in a position of power in the game.) 

 

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38 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

I think Azure moon is "good side", because Dimitri get his redemption arc and change his ways. Crimson Flower is "bad side" because Eldegard never admit being wrong.

What? The fact that a mad criminal redeems himself doesn't make him good, what about the people he tortured chasing revenge? Even worse, revenge on someone who has nothing to do with what he's trying to avenge? He wants to "stop the cycle of the strong trampling the weak" and yet he does exactly that, except he doesn't even have a good reason for it.

Sure, from a character development point it's very nice, but the story as a whole feels like playing villain to me.

Edelgard doesn't admit to be wrong, because she really isn't, at least not in her goals. Her goals are right. What is wrong are her methods (even then, in Crimson Flower she doesn't really do anything questionable), but she does admit to this, stating multiple times that she would do things differently if she could.

Her biggest problem is that she doesn't see that she COULD do things differently, at least slightly, and that's a problem shared with Dimitri himself. Those two trust only themselves and their ways without ever looking for alternatives, that's their big flaw. Which is also why Claude feels so refreshing, he always wants the full picture before acting.

Edited by timon
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1 hour ago, timon said:

It's probably a matter of which side you're on, but I'll never get how Dimitri's actions are any better than Edelgard's. Imo (stressing the "imo"), she's actually a lot and I mean a lot more justified than he is. Hell, they both take big part in various bloodshed, they're willing to do questionable things for a goal and it all comes down to this. She wants to end the control of Church and nobility, he wants to take gruesome revenge on people that he didn't even bother to verifiy if they were responsible of what he's claiming to revenge.

Honestly, Azure Moon is a great character driven story, but I don't see how it can be viewed as a "good side" story, Dimitri is quite literally a mad king, he acts on impulse, and the impulse is based on COMPLETELY wrong information. Sure, Edelgard does questionable stuff, can come off as cold, and she as well doesn't have the full picture of the story, but at least her goals are honorable.

Maybe it just depends on which route you play first or idk what, but I had the opposite problem in trying to see his PoV. At some point while playing BL I just gave up on trying to mentally side with him, and just went to consider it a nice spinoff for character development.

On Claude, he's obviously the least controversial leader out of the 3(4) and yet he doesn't always sit right with me. Sure his principles are nice, but I was truly hoping he was going to be a more politically driven character. The Alliance is quite clearly the most advanced nation of the continent in terms of ruling system, even though it's a very early form of it, I'd still say it's something akin to democracy. I was hoping his route was not only to seek truth, but also to progress Fodlan into a system of free people.

His anti racism motives are obviously relatable, but his goal of being king threw me off, and I'm not a fan of the Almyrian focus of his route, I was very interested in understanding and leading the alliance. It would've made for an amazing scenario, having to command a nation (and an army) that doesn't necessarily have to follow your orders if their nobles don't agree with them.

Dimitri's actions aren't better than Edelgard's. 

Quite frankly, Dimitri was suffering from massive, massive PTSD, which never got treated. He said (in several supports) he's constantly haunted by the voices of the dead. he has nightmares of them burning, screaming, and begging for justice (something we've seen in a cut scene). even at 17-19 (I can't remember his school year age) while people keep begging him to rest and sleep -he keeps saying that he can't get rest. (and then the time jump explains why, he never can get any form of rest because he's not able to ignore the voices of the dead). 

What breaks him is Edelgard's deception. (again - this is a [I'm not finished the Church Route/Edelgard's Route thing yet so maybe some pieces of my final questions will be answered]),   - but while Edelgard has no part of Duscar - there's a lot of stuff she is involved with that's hurt him and those he cared about. and i think that's literally the straw that broke his back. that the first person he loved (even though they were siblings) - could be against what was right (the church), and even possibly involved with what murdered all his friends and family, caused him to snap. 

(actually, correction, I would say Byleth missing for five years is what breaks him completely. I do firmly believe that Byleth was his last touch stone and losing Byleth so soon after realising Edelgard's betrayal caused the mad spiral)


no one on the route justified his actions at all. Byleth's responses were all pointed to fact that - you have got to snap out of it, you've got to be better than this. same with Gilbert, Felix/Felix's dad, and so on. everyone kept saying - let's go to our country - we'll deal with the revenge later - so everyone's actions was to try to keep him from dying and steering him to the king they know he is. (I think a key part of the redemption and that he's trying not to be all Xena and kill them all - is when Dimitri finds out about his stepmother's part in Duscar. It's after -he's become lucid again. had he learned that at seven - I firmly believe he snaps. if he knew about it during the dark spiral - he's pushed further into the darkness. but learning about it after he basically had his Come to Sothis Moment - it's the clear first step that he's trying to put the voices of revenge and what not aside)

(You mention Dimitri's goal of the strong stopping to trample the weak. if i recall - that happens after he becomes lucid again.  - maybe in deference to himself. he knows how it's easy to just storm through people. and with that knowledge - he can stop it from happening again - while he betters himself). 

in turn to Edelgard - no one on Crimson Flower is questioning her, or asking why this is the right thing to do. for all of Edelgard's decisions there is no actual self-reflection just "yeah i'm still gonna do it, whatever." (again - maybe this changes in the last two months of the chapter - i'm nearly done).

 

In ref to Claude - Maybe because he grew up with a monarchy and Fodlan's version of democracy (the roundtables etc) -that he feels maybe having the monarchy was better. It wasn't like the Alliance was all roses and pegasus blessings.

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1 hour ago, timon said:

It's probably a matter of which side you're on, but I'll never get how Dimitri's actions are any better than Edelgard's. Imo (stressing the "imo"), she's actually a lot and I mean a lot more justified than he is. Hell, they both take big part in various bloodshed, they're willing to do questionable things for a goal and it all comes down to this. She wants to end the control of Church and nobility, he wants to take gruesome revenge on people that he didn't even bother to verifiy if they were responsible of what he's claiming to revenge.

They're not, and that's the point. Nothing he did was justified and everyone knows this and constantly drills it in him that what he was doing was not okay. He himself knows and accepts this when he returns to his sanity~ There is no excuse ever given for what he did and he knows he has to atone for it.

That is the very difference between the two because he knows that what he did was wrong, while Edelgard is constantly justifying her actions as "it was the only way". That is why I (stressing myself) sympathize more with Dimitri than her because no one lets him get off with a slap on the wrist and "well it's okay, we understand why you did it". Everyone, including himself, accept it was wrong. 

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56 minutes ago, timon said:

What? The fact that a mad criminal redeems himself doesn't make him good, what about the people he tortured chasing revenge? Even worse, revenge on someone who has nothing to do with what he's trying to avenge? He wants to "stop the cycle of the strong trampling the weak" and yet he does exactly that, except he doesn't even have a good reason for it.

Sure, from a character development point it's very nice, but the story as a whole feels like playing villain to me.

Edelgard doesn't admit to be wrong, because she really isn't, at least not in her goals. Her goals are right. What is wrong are her methods (even then, in Crimson Flower she doesn't really do anything questionable), but she does admit to this, stating multiple times that she would do things differently if she could.

Her biggest problem is that she doesn't see that she COULD do things differently, at least slightly, and that's a problem shared with Dimitri himself. Those two trust only themselves and their ways without ever looking for alternatives, that's their big flaw. Which is also why Claude feels so refreshing, he always wants the full picture before acting.

If nothing else he goal of Fodlan conquest is very not good, especially as in 3/4 she could just destroy church, kill Rhea and be done with it without invading her neighbours.

And it's miraculous she apparently somehow managed get good end. That said even if she did make Fodlan better place it was in spite  of her actions during story rather then because of it. Her methods weren't just wrong morally, they were wrong on practical level which make it actually much worse.

In the end both Di and El acted terribly, without good reason (even if Edie believed otherwise), and only one of them got better.

 

Edited by Tenzen12
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13 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

If nothing else he goal of Fodlan conquest is very not good, especially as in 3/4 she could just destroy church, kill Rhea and be done with it without invading her neighbours.

And it's miraculous she apparently somehow managed get good end. That said even if she did make Fodlan better place it was in spite  of her actions during story rather then because of it. Her methods weren't just wrong morally, they were wrong on practical level which make it actually much worse.

But she never intended to invade them in the first place? She declares war specifically to the Church, Kingdom and Alliance (or the ruling part of it at least) choose to side with the Church and fight back.

Hell I'd say the fight against the Alliance in CF is completely random and is there just for gameplay and feels reasons. Claude doesn't have many reasons to fight back and Edelgard doesn't have many reasons to fight him, the whole Crimson Flower campaign could've gone by just by fighting Kingdom and Church.

Actually I'm pretty sure it would make more sense for him to fight alongside her, he's perfectly aware that the Church is shady, he shares her principles, and he knows the Empire is 99/100 going to crush him. An alliance would make a lot more sense, but I guess it would take away feels and make it more of a "golden route", so they obviously couldn't do it like that.

13 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

In the end both Di and El acted terribly, without good reason (even if Edie believed otherwise), and only one of them got better.

On this one I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, as I don't really see how her reasons aren't good.

Edited by timon
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20 minutes ago, timon said:

But she never intended to invade them in the first place? She declares war specifically to the Church, Kingdom and Alliance (or the ruling part of it at least) choose to side with the Church and fight back.

Hell I'd say the fight against the Alliance in CF is completely random and is there just for gameplay and feels reasons. Claude doesn't have many reasons to fight back and Edelgard doesn't have many reasons to fight him, the whole Crimson Flower campaign could've gone by just by fighting Kingdom and Church.

Actually I'm pretty sure it would make more sense for him to fight alongside her, he's perfectly aware that the Church is shady, he shares her principles, and he knows the Empire is 99/100 going to crush him. An alliance would make a lot more sense, but I guess it would take away feels and make it more of a "golden route", so they obviously couldn't do it like that.

I just got to this point and I don't think it's random. They are planning to take over the whole continent, so they have to overthrow the Kingdom and Alliance to do it. They still had opposition in the Alliance so they couldn't just ignore it~

Claude does have reason to fight back. Even if he shares some of her ideas, he's still opposed to the idea of war. He finds the church shady, but not enough to flat out fight against them for any reason. Claude wants answers, not to overthrow the whole system. They have similar ideas but not enough to side with her.

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For me, it's either all canon or not canon. I am kind of hoping for a DLC route where Byleth and Sothis doesn't join the monastery and everything plays out without them.

Rhea gets kidnapped?

Dimitri goes full mad king

Edelgard goes full cold

Claude dips

Those who Slither in the Dark gets nukes and nukes everything.

 

Also, a black pill route where you completely side with Slither in the Dark and everyone has to team up to defeat you

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Edelgard goal was starting a war to vhange a system that was working fairly well. Like, we ever get the feeling that the common people are in any way oppressed by the church? Many nobles suffered because of the crests, but every political system is going to make someone suffer and how many of then get experimented on or had to deal whit the Crest objectification and classism? At most a few hundreds people. The fake news are a real issue, but they are not something to start a war over, and Edelgard would spread a different brand of disinformation  anyway

On the flipside the church is protecting people from the bandits and the crest and relic were instrumental in repelling several invasions, and as long as you don't directly oppose it you will be left alone. Peace is almost always preferable to war. I am an uthilitarian myself but if you are proposing to me a plan that include the front loaded death of thousands of people in a war to achieve a system that maybe, just maybe, would cause less suffering in the long run, i would ask you to check if the current system is really worse than a war. Because Fodlan was clearly no distopia under Rhea. People act like she kill people just because they don't believe in the goddes, but this only happen when is pushed over the fence and in normal times there is an outspoken nonbeliever in the fucking Knights of Seiros. The only people she outright kill or try to kill are those that attempted to her life. And chapter 11 can easily be interpreted as at least an attempt of capturing her, Rhea had no way to know what Edelgard was going to do if she won the fight.

And even worse, she is supporting TWSITD, wich are even worse than the church and are the one to blame for a large part of the aforementioned suffering. You are supposed to join the lesser evil to beat the greater one, not the opposite.

And all of this whitout considering that her actions were meaningless.

Eventually, Rhea would have found Byleth and would have given the Church to them, because she is clearly tired of that role. Byleth would have started reforms anyway. Dimitri and Claude would have been left alone to do their own things, wich would put Fodlan in an excellent position to strike down the Slithers. Haneman is researching a way to solve the crest discrimination problem, and whitout a war distracting him he would get results faster. 

There was no reason to force changes that were going to happen anyway, if it was not for Edelgard's tunnelvision and disinformation.

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40 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

And all of this whitout considering that her actions were meaningless.

Eventually, Rhea would have found Byleth and would have given the Church to them, because she is clearly tired of that role. Byleth would have started reforms anyway. Dimitri and Claude would have been left alone to do their own things, wich would put Fodlan in an excellent position to strike down the Slithers. Haneman is researching a way to solve the crest discrimination problem, and whitout a war distracting him he would get results faster. 

There was no reason to force changes that were going to happen anyway, if it was not for Edelgard's tunnelvision and disinformation.

The first part is arguable, but these paragraphs are just pure hindsight, you can't really judge someone's actions based on the fact that you know how it will play out. I'd say the fact that Edelgard is the only one who actually takes action is even more honourable, the others appear to simply wait for stuff to happen.

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2 hours ago, timon said:

But she never intended to invade them in the first place? She declares war specifically to the Church, Kingdom and Alliance (or the ruling part of it at least) choose to side with the Church and fight back.

She wants to take back what the Empire lost in the Kingdom and Alliance, and for her to dismantle the nobility, she can't just take out the Church, she has to change all of Fodlan and that can't happen without taking over.

I mean, she tried to assassinate the future leaders of the other nations. Clearly she isn't intending to be friends with them.

 

Edited by Holder of the Heel
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The way I'd think about the question of what would be "canon" is to ask the question: What would the story be if they made an anime based on the events of the game?

The best thing they could do is a mix of them all, but if we are thinking about what they'd largely draw from, I'd say it's either Blue Lions or Golden Deer.

There's no way they'd resist having an internally conflicted Byleth against Edelgard, and typically animated protagonists will usually always try to take the path with the least amount of fighting necessary, so therefore Crimson Flower wouldn't be it.

I also doubt they'd have Dimitri just to have him disappear, show up, then die unceremoniously. Alternatively, the scenes of him freaking out in the Holy Tomb makes for a great moment for that reveal, and also him in the rain after he loses his father figure is probably an emotional scene they'd want in. And probably most of all, with there being a childhood connection between Dimitri and Edelgard here, I don't think anime conventions could allow that to go without a flashback, lol.

Azure Moon also handles the other lords very well compared to the others. In Verdant Winds, Dimitri is pathetic, and there's no interaction with Edelgard. But in Azure Moon, there is the scene with him and Edelgard discussing their motives/views, and Claude actually ends up playing a part and things end amicably.

The only argument to the contrary would be the fact that Verdant Wind's ending is already soooo anime, with the speech by Claude and the fight just in general. There's also the missile drop with the Death Knight, which does not exist in Azure Moon. So ideally they would do a mix of all three, and have all the professors teach and deal with all the Houses interchangeably and not be exclusively assigned to one. But overall Azure Moon feels like the one they'd canonize via adaptation.

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17 minutes ago, timon said:

The first part is arguable, but these paragraphs are just pure hindsight, you can't really judge someone's actions based on the fact that you know how it will play out. I'd say the fact that Edelgard is the only one who actually takes action is even more honourable, the others appear to simply wait for stuff to happen.

Most people, Claude in particular, were working to change stuff, but they were just more patients and were not trying to revolutionize the world in 5 years. Dimitri was trying to find the truth about Duscur, and to became a king that can unite people. Claude wanted to find out the truth before putting his plan to end racism in motion, wich is very wise and if Edelgard would have done the same she at least wouldn't join force whit fucking Thales. The only justification of Edelgard is if you believe that the Church is an unredeemable element that has to be destroyed no matter to cost in terms of human lives. But i don't think that it is the case. 

Personally i believe that slow, gradual changes are better than a continent encompassing war that would create a new order at the end. Even a change for the better has to be weighted againist the lives sacrified to get there. 

Edited by Flere210
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  • 9 months later...

There obviously isn’t an absolute canon route, however the church route does seem like the “most canon” out of all of them. Nemesis stays in his “tomb”, Rhea dies(unless you S rank), and Edelgard also dies, which makes all the other final bosses non-existent, which makes a full circle.

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