So I FINALLY did Silver Snow...Wow...

[omegaxis1]

53 minutes ago, Sid Starkiller said:

You know what would've made a decent CF substitute for Gronder? Have Dimitri and Claude fight on the Church's side during its version of Ch12.

Huh, that's pretty neat. Shame that never happens. Though honestly, I felt that the three lords all should have been more active in Part 1. 

[Timlugia]

Honestly, Gronder 2 doesn't really make much sense in the most routes, especially how the game force you to fight both sides

In AM Dimitri is insane but he's not commanding the army, Byleth and Gilbert were, and they have no reason to fight Alliance; in SS Dimitri isn't insane, or at least not the same level as AM since he sent delegation to Byleth for permission to pass and asked for reinforcement. Only in VW you have insane Dimitri in charge and wants to cut down everything, but Claude also has every reasons to avoid fighting Dimitri directly.

 

IMO, Gronder 2 should either only requiring you to fight Edelgard but not the other nation, or that having the two other sides started with already heavily engaged (units already mixed into each other) so it actually portrays as "chaotic battle" as dialogue suggests.

[Dark Holy Elf]

The Tailtean Plains map reminds me of Gronder a bit: it's a climactic moment in the story, and the location itself is an important reference. It's a hectic map with some nasty plot-important reinforcements, and you fight two of the game's big characters, with one meeting his end and the other retreating. You also fight a host of other named characters, and mid-battle events occur which change the feel of the battle. Gronder 2 definitely wins out in music, though.

Also, since I don't think I've responded to this thread yet, though I have read it: I agree with the criticisms of Silver Snow generally and find it deeply unsatisfying as a route. The fifth major point I'd add against it is that it alone of all routes seems utterly uninterested in addressing the major social problems present in Fodlan. Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude are all dearly interested in doing so, in different ways. With none of them on your side, you feel like you're fighting a battle to retain the ugly status quo, and I hate it.

[Jingle Jangle]

The strongest idea for me that Silver Snow introduced was Edelgard and Byleth going their separate ways. Either by Byleth willing siding with Rhea or not fully understand where Edelgard is coming from. Edelgard death in the route was one of the most satisfying ends to her; shame it got reused in Claude's route with no change. Makes her look more desperate to suck up to Byleth.

I wish Rhea had more to do than show up as the final boss. And the question of the church basically fully re-controlling the continent was asked with crests still being prized.

I happy that Silver Snow was included with the pathways. Otherwise it would be hold to more scrutiny.

[Geenoble]

18 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude are all dearly interested in doing so, in different ways. With none of them on your side, you feel like you're fighting a battle to retain the ugly status quo, and I hate it.

If you S support Rhea she admits her wrong doing and asks byleth to fix it with her, but outside of that their is no real mention of those things and the S support is optional anyway and won’t be seen by everyone (like me who romanced someone else) 

[omegaxis1]

14 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The Tailtean Plains map reminds me of Gronder a bit: it's a climactic moment in the story, and the location itself is an important reference. It's a hectic map with some nasty plot-important reinforcements, and you fight two of the game's big characters, with one meeting his end and the other retreating. You also fight a host of other named characters, and mid-battle events occur which change the feel of the battle. Gronder 2 definitely wins out in music, though.

Only Tailtean was just the best chapter and map in the game, bar none. The many symbolisms, both religions and otherwise, are just so fantastic. Not to mention that it's the place you fight Seiros, thus sort of recreating the very first cutscene we see in the game. And it's also got the history of Nemesis vs. Serios, and also the Loog vs. Empire. Now it's Byleth, whom Rhea sees as Nemesis, and the Edelgard vs Dimitri. The pieces are all in place.

[Timlugia]

3 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Also, since I don't think I've responded to this thread yet, though I have read it: I agree with the criticisms of Silver Snow generally and find it deeply unsatisfying as a route. The fifth major point I'd add against it is that it alone of all routes seems utterly uninterested in addressing the major social problems present in Fodlan. Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude are all dearly interested in doing so, in different ways. With none of them on your side, you feel like you're fighting a battle to retain the ugly status quo, and I hate it.

I actually interpret it very differently

Byleth is a projection of player. Since Fodlan lost all it's great leaders, it is up to Byleth to shape the new world to their will. They can reform it as radical as they wish since could be no opposition, even more so then Edelgard's vision. It references being "snow", an object without real color, the path is all about Byleth's will rather than other lords.

Many character endings suggested that Byleth is keen to reform, such as default ending about achieving True Peace ( a term originally used by Marth in FE1), Seteth's freedom of religion, or Rhea's progress of Miracle of Fodlan.

-------

Since progression being mentioned, anyone noticed that in Silver Snow ending Byleth has an automobile? Some major technology breakthrough?

Edited January 5, 2020 by Timlugia

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

9 hours ago, Sid Starkiller said:

You know what would've made a decent CF substitute for Gronder? Have Dimitri and Claude fight on the Church's side during its version of Ch12.

The cutscene with Dimitri and Claude fighting to defend the monastery (while playing VW) made me think "huh, it'd be cool if we got Dimitri last map, even if just as a (controllable?) green unit." Same with Claude on AM, and both on SS.

[Sid Starkiller]

15 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

The cutscene with Dimitri and Claude fighting to defend the monastery (while playing VW) made me think "huh, it'd be cool if we got Dimitri last map, even if just as a (controllable?) green unit." Same with Claude on AM, and both on SS.

I think I'd make them AI allies, but it would be good either way.

[Timlugia]

On 1/3/2020 at 7:14 AM, omegaxis1 said:

Um... what? 

Like, right there, Edelgard makes a clear warning to Byleth that there's no doubt that a trap is waiting for him. If she really was trying to send him to a trap, wanting him to be killed, then she made the biggest mistake by saying that it's a trap.

 

I happen to just replayed this level,

Seteth was actually the one warn you about the trap, he told you this already in the previous cutscene when Edelgard encourage you to attack Solon, followed by Rhea considers it too risky and Ferdinand warned you not to be distracted by revenge. Only after then Edelgard gave the lines you quoted.

In the same cutscene she also knows that not just Monica, but Solon was there as well.

Either she's so confident that Byleth could somehow overcome Solon, or that she wishes Byleth to confront him. Like I said, whoever survives is always beneficial to her plan

[omegaxis1]

19 minutes ago, Timlugia said:

I happen to just replayed this level,

Seteth was actually the one warn you about the trap, he told you this already in the previous cutscene when Edelgard encourage you to attack Solon, followed by Rhea considers it too risky and Ferdinand warned you not to be distracted by revenge. Only after then Edelgard gave the lines you quoted.

In the same cutscene she also knows that not just Monica, but Solon was there as well.

Either she's so confident that Byleth could somehow overcome Solon, or that she wishes Byleth to confront him. Like I said, whoever survives is always beneficial to her plan

It doesn't change for a fact that Edelgard still warns Byleth that it's undoubtedly a trap and the enemies are expecting him. Warning him to be careful about it isn't her trying to use him for some grand scheme. And I think it's obvious that anyone that is going for CF route would know by that point what Edelgard's gone through, so she knows what it's like to lose family. So kind of makes it obvious that she's trying to help him get revenge, something she's not even had the chance of attaining for herself. 

But even though she wants him to get revenge, she's still reminding him that it's still definitely a trap and enemies are expecting Byleth, so that's still a last minute warning that Byleth has to be careful and not let himself get killed. Hell, she confronts Solon with her classmates about what Solon did to Byleth and stated that he won't get away with it.

Of course, then Byleth became god, and Edelgard, a once faithful believer of the goddess, felt like the biggest slap in the face where the goddess proved to bless Byleth, but had forsaken her back then. 

[Sid Starkiller]

11 hours ago, omegaxis1 said:

Of course, then Byleth became god, and Edelgard, a once faithful believer of the goddess, felt like the biggest slap in the face where the goddess proved to bless Byleth, but had forsaken her back then. 

EDIT: Statement retracted. I just happened upon the reddit post you seem to be referencing.

Edited January 6, 2020 by Sid Starkiller

[Jotari]

16 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

With none of them on your side, you feel like you're fighting a battle to retain the ugly status quo, and I hate it.

That's one of the things I actually liked about Church Route to be honest. There's something to be said for the status quo.

Edited January 6, 2020 by Jotari

[Sid Starkiller]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

That's one of the things I actually liked about Church Route to be honest. There's something to be said for the status quo.

That it tramples on those without crests and treats those who have them like commodities? That's something to be said about the status quo.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Sid Starkiller said:

That it tramples on those without crests and treats those who have them like commodities? That's something to be said about the status quo.

Sure, that's not great. But it's an issue that affects a tiny portion of the population. We're talking like less than a hundred people out of millions. It's the fact that it's feudalism at all that's an issue.

[Sid Starkiller]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Sure, that's not great. But it's an issue that affects a tiny portion of the population. We're talking like less than a hundred people out of millions. It's the fact that it's feudalism at all that's an issue.

You really think Edelgard would've had the massive army she did fighting for her if "less than a hundred out of millions" were the only ones suffering? I refuse to believe that.

[Geenoble]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Sure, that's not great. But it's an issue that affects a tiny portion of the population. We're talking like less than a hundred people out of millions. It's the fact that it's feudalism at all that's an issue.

Even if the crest system is only affecting a few thousand people, it’s still been around for 1000 years. In medieval times that would be almost 30 generations, it’s impacted far more people than the game shows as well. It’s basically an issue on the same level as Laguz slavery in Tellius.

[SSbardock84]

For sure the worst route imo.

[Timlugia]

9 hours ago, Sid Starkiller said:

You really think Edelgard would've had the massive army she did fighting for her if "less than a hundred out of millions" were the only ones suffering? I refuse to believe that.

Do her people even know that the war was about the Crest?

Her speech to the army didn't mention the crest at all, but on how Kingdom and Alliance were "created by the Church to fool the mass", and how Church leaders lived off the people. Other lords, including Seteth didn't understand her motivation, makes me wonder if overthrowing crest system was a secret she only shared with very few.

 

On the other hand, empire clearly used conscription to create an army, as we saw in the loading cutscene the deer hunter was draft into imperial army. People could also fight for various reasons, like hatred to other nations, patriotic to own nation, promise of wealth or promotion or even land from conquered territory, sense of adventure, or simple being drafted. We know that some imperial forces are die hard that fought to the last man, while rest of them surrendered en mass once Enbarr was taken rather than trying to counterattack against small church army.

In you think three countries fighting for some hundred people were ridiculous, just look at the real world examples. WW1 was basically 20 million people from 80 countries died for a royal couple being assassinated, plus some old feud between a few other European royalties. What has average British workers have anything to do with Serbian nationalism? Most soldiers fighting in WW1 had no reason to hate their opponents other than being conscripted and their government order them to fight. If that's not ridiculous enough, El Salvador went to war with Honduras over football game (long term cause in immigration) one time

One problem I mentioned before about Three Houses is lack of true commoner perspective on war, nearly all characters in the game are either noble or high class civilians. There are very few people representing the commoner (average joe like peasant or workers) being forced into the war, as result we don't get to see their perspective or how war affects them.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Timlugia

[Jotari]

16 hours ago, Geenoble said:

Even if the crest system is only affecting a few thousand people, it’s still been around for 1000 years. In medieval times that would be almost 30 generations, it’s impacted far more people than the game shows as well. It’s basically an issue on the same level as Laguz slavery in Tellius.

No. No not at all. The only people who are in any way negatively affect by the crest system are the elder siblings who lose their inheritance due to crest favoritism and the people who get experimented on. Everything else is just basic feudalism. Even the people complaining about being pressured into marriage to continue their crest line are experiencing exactly what is normal for nobility in general (and hell not even nobility, look at commoner Ignatz being highly pressured by his parents, he seems to have it almost worse than Ingrid and Mercedes). It's a feudal society that ranks people on a caste based system that's the issue (and that's the type of society literally every Fire Emblem game features), which would exist with or without the crests as there are definitely noble houses without crests, given that there's less than twenty crests overall. Now feudalism does have a shit tonne of problems, but even then I'd say it in no way compares to institutionalized racial slavery and outright genocide. The fact that the system has been in place for a thousand years is a point in favor of the status quo. Though much like anything when it comes to blood lines and a thousand year gap, I really question how it even manages to sustain itself for so long without all of the blood lines either going extinct (a tonne of them are already on the brink, if that's the norm chance should have wiped them all out by now) or spreading massively into the population.

10 hours ago, Timlugia said:

One problem I mentioned before about Three Houses is lack of true commoner perspective on war, nearly all characters in the game are either noble or high class civilians. There are very few people representing the commoner (average joe like peasant or workers) being forced into the war, as result we don't get to see their perspective or how war affects them.

Aside from Dorethea, the prevailing opinion of the palayable commoners in the army is to basically just do what they're told and respect the nobility. They're all really paranoid about offending noble characters despite basically none of the noble characters being the type to get offended by commoners acting above their station.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Jotari

[DivineLion]

a bit biased considering its my 2nd favorite route and not a fan of edelgard but i dont really hate her. If she would first attack those who slither and then the church, i would probably enjoy it better. it sucks it falls on most parts but i dont regret playing it.

Edited January 7, 2020 by DivineLion

[Sid Starkiller]

She attacks the church first because she believes she needs Slither's help to defeat them. The Adrestian army is large, but when facing the Church's army and Faerghus' army and Leicester's army, she wouldn't stand a chance without Slither. You can see it in the differences between the routes: in non-CF routes, she takes full advantage of the troops and weaponry that Slither has to offer, and is on the verge of victory. In CF, she only uses the bare minimum of their power (hence why the player doesn't get to control any Demonic Beasts or actual Agarthans), and has been stuck in a stalemate for years.

[Geenoble]

36 minutes ago, Sid Starkiller said:

She attacks the church first because she believes she needs Slither's help to defeat them. The Adrestian army is large, but when facing the Church's army and Faerghus' army and Leicester's army, she wouldn't stand a chance without Slither. You can see it in the differences between the routes: in non-CF routes, she takes full advantage of the troops and weaponry that Slither has to offer, and is on the verge of victory. In CF, she only uses the bare minimum of their power (hence why the player doesn't get to control any Demonic Beasts or actual Agarthans), and has been stuck in a stalemate for years.

Bringing up the point of not using Agarthan tech, another thing i dislike about Silver Snow is that Edelgard is obviously more Human in the BE routes since she was able to bond with Byleth. Edelgard states that Byleth and Hubert are the only people she has ever truely opened up to, and when she opens up to Hubert he always responds with his usual formalities, so Byleth is the first person to truely understand how she feels. This connection is what makes her rethink using the inhumane demonic beasts, but in SS she uses them anyway despite still having that human connection. Like it makes sense for her in VW and AM since she never had that relationship with Byleth but she did in SS, maybe she just decided not to use beasts in CF because Byleth siding with her suddenly made her realise it was bad, and not the 11 months they spent together before that made her realise that.

SS Edelgard is also my least favourite representation of Edelgard. At least in Vw she doesn’t really matter and in AM she’s one of the best antagonists the series has had in a long while, with personal and emotional connections to the Dimitri.

also Edelgard hated Twsitd and The church equally, she took on the church first since they were the tougher opponent so she needed more resources to take them down, that’s pretty much the only reason. Her reasons for teaming with Twsitd can be seen as her viewing it as the ‘Lesser Evil’ or Necessary evil.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Geenoble

[Julian Solo]

On 1/7/2020 at 1:23 PM, Sid Starkiller said:

She attacks the church first because she believes she needs Slither's help to defeat them. The Adrestian army is large, but when facing the Church's army and Faerghus' army and Leicester's army, she wouldn't stand a chance without Slither. You can see it in the differences between the routes: in non-CF routes, she takes full advantage of the troops and weaponry that Slither has to offer, and is on the verge of victory. In CF, she only uses the bare minimum of their power (hence why the player doesn't get to control any Demonic Beasts or actual Agarthans), and has been stuck in a stalemate for years.

Yep she only survived CF 17 by plot armor causing it to rain and Rhea losing her dragon powers plus somehow took away her hand to hand combat skills that are above Nemesis. There is absolutely no logical reason why CF Edelgard should survive against the most powerful army in Fodlan the church allied with the Kingdom. Who where both preparing for five years. Worst written map in the game by far. Edelgard remembering Dimitri was written far Better in Azure Moon. The route people act like it does Edelgard poorly for some reason. CF time skip is a hilarious joke as it has a healthy Rhea and a full powered church stated by Hubert to be more powerful then the empire. The game even proves this when a weakened church defeats the empire by themselves in Silver Snow.

[omegaxis1]

5 minutes ago, Julian Solo said:

Yep she only survived CF 17 by plot armor causing it to rain and Rhea losing her dragon powers plus somehow took away her hand to hand combat skills that are above Nemesis. There is absolutely no logical reason why CF Edelgard should survive against the most powerful army in Fodlan the church allied with the Kingdom. Who where both preparing for five years. Worst written map in the game by far. Edelgard remembering Dimitri was written far Better in Azure Moon. The route people act like it does Edelgard poorly for some reason. CF time skip is a hilarious joke as it has a healthy Rhea and a full powered church stated by Hubert to be more powerful then the empire. The game even proves this when a weakened church defeats the empire by themselves in Silver Snow.

You call it plot armor, I call it religious symbolism. The literal act of god, the rain that in religion is to wash away sins, is what messed up Dimitri's scheme to trick Rhea to fighting the Empire first so he could flank was thwarted in an instant cause of the rain. Not to mention, real life is also a case where entire battle strategies can be ruined by weather conditions. Plus, Edelgard was created to be a weapon against Rhea to begin with, as Nemesis 2.0. She's already the most powerful lord in 3H because of the Crest of Flames, rivaled or beaten by Rhea and Byleth. And Byleth is a demi-god with Sothis combined. 

It's the absolute best map and has so much symbolic meaning behind it that really makes it that much better. 

Edelgard never indicated to remember Dimitri, but she mourned for him nonetheless.