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Is the Church route worth playing?


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On 10/14/2019 at 1:24 AM, Seazas said:

. One of the more tragic and interesting characters in Crimson Flower aren't even from the BEs. It's Felix. There's a reddit write up about CF version of him that I can link if anyone hasn't seen it. It's so good.

 

me please i'd love to see it. (I THINK i found it but i want to make sure anyway). 

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2 hours ago, Seazas said:

Okay but even in Crimson Flower, Edelgard barely explains anything to them. We're expected to believe them randomly jumping on board and going all "water under the bridge" for everything without question is so fucking dumb. I find them in SS slightly more sensible than CF. We get to explore different sides of their characters meanwhile in CF they don't say or do much.

The main issue is that CF is Edelgard/Hubert/Byleth-centric and the others only add the occasional comment. As such, we don't get to explore their characters. However, not exploring their characters is VERY different from saying they "randomly jump on board and go 'water under the bridge' without question". Maybe it's just my headcanon but the idea that especially Dorothea and Petra would go to Edelgard and ask for clarification on how much of what happened was Edelgard, whether their bonds are genuine, etc. just makes sense to me. Again, they don't get that opportunity in SS.

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1 hour ago, daisy jane said:

 

me please i'd love to see it. (I THINK i found it but i want to make sure anyway). 

 

6 minutes ago, Ivan Tridelan said:

The main issue is that CF is Edelgard/Hubert/Byleth-centric and the others only add the occasional comment. As such, we don't get to explore their characters. However, not exploring their characters is VERY different from saying they "randomly jump on board and go 'water under the bridge' without question". Maybe it's just my headcanon but the idea that especially Dorothea and Petra would go to Edelgard and ask for clarification on how much of what happened was Edelgard, whether their bonds are genuine, etc. just makes sense to me. Again, they don't get that opportunity in SS.

That is headcanon, they hop on board no questions asked in actual canon. Edelgard's raid in the holy tomb isn't even brought up.

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8 hours ago, Seazas said:

That is headcanon

Yep, I agree with Seazas. If you can't direct us to a specific monastery conversation or unlocked cutscene in the extras, then there's no point in bringing it up in this debate. Whatever you feel doesn't really matter if you can't back it up with evidence. The only evidence of why any of the black eagles are working with them is because like what Caspar said, they saw the professor with them and followed. As you can see from Sylvain's monastery dialogue (part 4) in Crimson Flower, joining on such flimsy reasons was a mistake but they have little choice but to follow through on that point. 

 (pretty nice, check his videos, he covers all chapters.)

 

@Seazas thanks for posting the write up, it was nice to see an explanation in words for what I experienced (played Crimson Flower -> Golden Deer -> Blue Lions and recruited Felix every time.) 

Edited by CyberNinja
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15 minutes ago, CyberNinja said:

Yep, I agree with Seazas. If you can't direct us to a specific monastery conversation or unlocked cutscene in the extras, then there's no point in bringing it up in this debate. Whatever you feel doesn't really matter if you can't back it up with evidence. The only evidence of why any of the black eagles are working with them is because like what Caspar said, they saw the professor with them and followed. As you can see from Sylvain's monastery dialogue (part 4) in Crimson Flower, joining on such flimsy reasons was a mistake but they have little choice but to follow through on that point. 

 (pretty nice, check his videos, he covers all chapters.)

 

@Seazas thanks for posting the write up, it was nice to see an explanation in words for what I experienced (played Crimson Flower -> Golden Deer -> Blue Lions and recruited Felix every time.) 

Of course! It's amazing how Felix is one of the best written if not the best written character in Crimson Flower. A realistic bad end to his character and he suffers from his careless decision.

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On 10/15/2019 at 12:03 PM, CyberNinja said:

Those arguing silver snow is it of character are ignoring the true extant of betrayal the black eagles are feeling coupled with Hubert's smug reveal as well suggesting that their fondness for Edelgard had only ever been one sided.

Please cite evidence for these feelings of betrayal the students are feeling, because I don't recall that coming across strongly at all when playing SS. Hell, many of their monastery comments in SS are copypasted from Azure Moon/Verdant Winds (or vice versa, but the point is that they in no way relate to the scene at the Holy Tomb which only occurs on BE). Meanwhile, despite your and Seazas's concerns, we have plenty of evidence at the betrayal they do not feel on CF from their monastery comments in Crimson Flower and their collective A/A+ supports with Edelgard.

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3 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Please cite evidence for these feelings of betrayal the students are feeling, because I don't recall that coming across strongly at all when playing SS. Hell, many of their monastery comments in SS are copypasted from Azure Moon/Verdant Winds (or vice versa, but the point is that they in no way relate to the scene at the Holy Tomb which only occurs on BE). Meanwhile, despite your and Seazas's concerns, we have plenty of evidence at the betrayal they do not feel on CF from their monastery comments in Crimson Flower and their collective A/A+ supports with Edelgard.

"Do not feel" doesn't make it any less of poor writing especially when they never bring it up again or ask why she raided for random crest stones to begin with.

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I think the reason why confronting TWSID is left out in CF is just not to make AM look incomplete in comparison because that route, TWSID are never directly confronted, though Thales is killed in his Arundel disguise. 

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6 hours ago, Seazas said:

"Do not feel" doesn't make it any less of poor writing especially when they never bring it up again or ask why she raided for random crest stones to begin with.

Do they bring it up on SS? Please provide quotes if they do, because all I remember are the generic "Edelgard is wrong" type quotes that you see on AM/VW as well.

The Holy Tomb reveal in general gets dropped on both versions of BE, probably due to the onset of the war being a much bigger, more immediate concern. So headcanon is really all we have on reconciling in CF/severing ties in SS. Edelgard's little speech and everyone's comments about why they're joining her is the closest thing we get in actual game-text and that's hardly satisfying to anyone.

The closest thing I can think of in regards to the crest stone issue is Hanneman's comment in CF where he comments that the separate group working with the Empire (TWS) clearly use Crest Stones to create demonic beasts but the process and how it works are unclear to him, and we should be prepared for if we have to fight them someday.

By and large, hardly ANYONE brings up the pre-time skip events post-skip, with Leonie talking about avenging Jeralt being the most prominent.

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Now that I think about it, the whole Holy Tomb setup in the Black Eagles route feels incomplete by comparison.

In BL and GD, the event gets a small buildup where the whole house wonders what and how it will be, Flayn acts a little suspicious and eventually one of the students gets the hunch something huge is gonna happen down there, all of which seemingly never happens in BE because the cutscene starts with everyone already in the Holy Tomb. Could it be possible a similar scene was planned for them but was cut out at the last minute?

12 hours ago, CyberNinja said:

The only evidence of why any of the black eagles are working with them is because like what Caspar said, they saw the professor with them and followed. 

That's at least how everyone sans Flayn end up following her to the imperial fort, but then later Edelgard asks them again if they really wanna join her cause after seeing the whole tomb raid + "Rhea was The Inmaculate One" fiasco.

From what I remember, Caspar doesn't really elaborate why he stays, but in the fort + monastery he states he's not thrilled with having to fight his family, which explains a bit (Randolph doesn't count since he barely knows who he is).

Petra wants Brigid to be in good relations with the Empire so she's willing to support her cause. Also, monastery dialogue in VW after the timeskip heavily implies her C support with Edelgard is canon so make of that what you will.

Bernadetta is conflicted about staying to fight but the others persuade her that she'll be safe with them.

Ferdinand stays because he believes it's his noble duty to prevent Edelgard from going crazy, in particular because his family wasn't on board with her plans.

Lindhart knows opposing Edelgard after ditching the monastery with the others is a very bad idea so he'll stick around even if he doesn't like it.

Lastly, Dorothea is the only one who flat out states she'll stay because the professor's with them.

Edited by Moltz23
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5 hours ago, ZeManaphy said:

I think the reason why confronting TWSID is left out in CF is just not to make AM look incomplete in comparison because that route, TWSID are never directly confronted, though Thales is killed in his Arundel disguise. 

That just makes them both feel incomplete.

But then I'd argue it is a deliberate design choice to compel you to play the other routes, but why else should they be there otherwise. Plenty of players start with CF and AM and still wonder WTF is up with Sothis/Byleth, and it's not like they're any less relevant to what's actually going on.

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53 minutes ago, Crysta said:

That just makes them both feel incomplete.

But then I'd argue it is a deliberate design choice to compel you to play the other routes, but why else should they be there otherwise. Plenty of players start with CF and AM and still wonder WTF is up with Sothis/Byleth, and it's not like they're any less relevant to what's actually going on.

To be fair for CF, Rhea is entirely built up as the big bad, so jumping to Slither, portrayed as a mere nuisance in CF, would be really anticlimactic.

 

Although Nemesis coming out of nowhere for VW shows that they're willing to do WTF stuff.

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idk they hint pretty heavily that the two factions are rearing to turn on each other and it's just a matter of who strikes first, and it's Edelgard who does so. Seems like a pretty natural progression of events, actually.

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I didn't mean to say it doesn't happen, I just mean from the perspective of the audience it would feel like a downgrade. Imagine a Mario game where after the final fight against Bowser, you have to fight the Koopalings again. Or after beating Ganondorf in a Zelda game, fighting a random Darknut.

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You do have a point: you'd be facing off against a roided version of Kostas.

I really need to actually play the route myself, to see where it could fit in narratively, if at all.

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7 hours ago, Sid Starkiller said:

To be fair for CF, Rhea is entirely built up as the big bad, so jumping to Slither, portrayed as a mere nuisance in CF, would be really anticlimactic.

If a confrontation with the slitherers was going to happen in CF, it should have happened after Chapter 16. You could even steal the plot point from Chapter 20 of VW/SS, that the javelins of light are used to locate the slitherer base, and the Black Eagle Strike Force could go mess them up. Definitely think it would be anticlimactic to have it after Fhirdiad though, yes. I really like how Crimson Flower ends as is (and Azure Moon as well), too many JRPGs like to draw things out with a conflict against less thematically appropriate but more evil villains after the primary antagonist is defeated, and it does those stories no favours.

That said generally the less a route deals with TWSITD, the better as far as I'm concerned.

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Half the point of the Arianrhod chapter is to show that Edelgard isn't ready to fight the Slitherers just yet.

The fight with Rhea is a better climax for Crimson Flower than fighting Thales would have been. At this point I've largely come around to the idea that saving the Slitherers for the epilogue was the right decision, it would have sacrificed a lot of narrative impact just for the purpose of tying up lose ends.

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Fire Emblem in the past that stories where the goal has been completed, but the game continues.  Zephiel and Conquest come into mind. But for the Crimson Flowers case, how can the finale of fighting a super dragon on top of a burning city be topped? Unless TWSITD is going to fire missiles on everyone in the endgame.

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3 hours ago, Arachnofiend said:

Half the point of the Arianrhod chapter is to show that Edelgard isn't ready to fight the Slitherers just yet.

The fight with Rhea is a better climax for Crimson Flower than fighting Thales would have been. At this point I've largely come around to the idea that saving the Slitherers for the epilogue was the right decision, it would have sacrificed a lot of narrative impact just for the purpose of tying up lose ends.

I don’t exactly disagree, but it all felt strange in retrospect. Despite being Edelgard’s endgame, CF really doesn’t go that deeply into the lore of TWSITD. CF being such a blitz to take out the other main royal forces without pause left no room to build them up organically, instead focusing on Rhea’s mental breakdown and second Seiros style revenge bender. 

Which is a shame since the Slither’s existence and past actions are used to justify Edelgard’s otherwise villainous actions up until Rhea starts screaming literal bloody murder.

 

As for the whole deal with students siding with Edelgard and Byleth despite the holy tomb chapter, keep in mind Rhea waxes horrific and goes full Immaculate One in front of everyone immediately after the confusing, botched ceremony with Byleth, all with Edelgard calm and collected.

In that position, I probably would’ve ran from the bloodthirsty dragon to protect my friend, so that never bothered me. 

 

The missile shot in CF was a warning to Edelgard to stay in line. The Slithers absolutely have the power to nuke everything, but don’t want to use it because the first time they had, during the huge wars in the pre-Red Canyon incident era, messed up the world so badly. I mean, they did let Sothis restore everything and go nap it off before Nemesis waltzed in. 

Thales unleashing the missiles in VW was a petty f-you move since they were completely defeated

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