Licoriceallsorts Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 As I understand it (and my knowledge isn't encyclopaedic), Rhea/the Church had a longstanding alliance with House Hresvelg and the Adrestian Empire, although she/it allowed first the Kingdom and then the Alliance to break off from the Empire, or else couldn't stop these fragmentations from happening. Was she aware of the coup against Ionius and his effective replacement by a council of 7 nobles? If so, was she in favour of it? Against it? Indifferent? Did she know that all of Edelgard's siblings had died in mysterious circumstances and that the remaining heir's appearance and personality had changed so profoundly as to make her almost a difference person? On the one hand, Rhea comes across as someone who doesn't like anything to happen in Fodlan without her knowledge and preferably her say-so, but on the other hand she seems astonishingly uninvolved and even ignorant of these major historical events that have had such profound and traumatic effects on Fodlan's future leaders. Did she think the Insurrection and the Tragedy of Duscur were trivial because they were just humans fighting humans the way humans do? If so, that was a major miscalculation on her part. I feel as if I've missed something that would help make sense of all this. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong 😊 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillmonger Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 It's more likely that it was orchestrated with the help of TWSITD to decentralize the power in the Empire and give them access to the Imperial heirs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Licoriceallsorts Posted February 20, 2020 Author Share Posted February 20, 2020 Yes. I wasn't suggesting that the Insurrection was something she was involved in.What I mean is that it seems strange that Rhea gives no indication that this insurrection, which seriously reduced the power of her crest-holder, was of any concern to her. From what I can recall, it's not clear that she even knew about it, though I could well be wrong about that. It seems like the kind of thing that ought to set her all her dragon senses tingling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkmoon6789 Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 From what I understand, the insurrection of the seven was orchestrated by Thales in order to gain control of the imperial throne. If Rhea thought this event unimportant than she would be a fool for doing so, considering how much that came back to bite her, the war could have never have happened without this event. Edelgard was evacuated from the empire and moved to Faerghus in order to escape the conspirators by her uncle Volkhardt Arundel (ironically, the real Arundel might have wanted to save her). It is only when Arundel is secretly killed and replaced by Thales he takes Edelgard back to the Empire to be experimented upon, for a period of time, which according to Edelgard's profile might has been as long as six years, that sounds absolutely horrifying. Seems to me that the fate that the original Arundel saved Edelgard from when he took her to Faeghus might have actually been those very experiments she was forced to undergo later. I don't know how what happened to Edelgard and her siblings could have escaped Rhea's attention during this time, it would be strange for the imperial heirs to all vanish and not be seen in public for years, that Thales was able to cover this up implies a truly terrifying level of influence. At the very least she should have been able to notice that Edelgard showed up to Garreg Mach after many years of not being seen by anyone with her originally brown hair turned white. Something obviously happened to her, did Rhea really not investigate this at all? You would benefit that this entire situation would seem fishy from a mile away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hardric62 Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 My personal take on this it that, at some level, she had given up. While she had the stated goal of enforcing peace and order on Fodlan, it is also painfully clear the situation has been going down the drain, up to the mess of canon start, with the sort of reformers the Officiers' Academy produced to correct that mess like Ionius or Lambert suppressed more or less definitievly by corrupt nobles and the Mole Men. I'm pretty sure Rhea is aware of that failing of her rule, but she also has this mindset of 'Only Mama Knows Better Than Me'. So I guess that at some point in time, resurrecting Sothis became not only about bringing back Mama for herself, but also so she could fix it all. but focus on that objective meant probably less time for day-to-day managing, beyond maintaining general peace. After all, once Mama was back, everything would be alright again. Except devoting all that (probably increasing as disasters pilled up) time to this chimera meant more headway for the Mole Men and whatever pasties they chose, leading to mess like losing Church Branches, deposition/assassination of leaders fighting that corruption... And while she was looking at the long-term Immortal Way, current suffering eventually boiled over to the point she tripped, and total war happened... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkmoon6789 Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 8 minutes ago, Hardric62 said: My personal take on this it that, at some level, she had given up. While she had the stated goal of enforcing peace and order on Fodlan, it is also painfully clear the situation has been going down the drain, up to the mess of canon start, with the sort of reformers the Officiers' Academy produced to correct that mess like Ionius or Lambert suppressed more or less definitievly by corrupt nobles and the Mole Men. I'm pretty sure Rhea is aware of that failing of her rule, but she also has this mindset of 'Only Mama Knows Better Than Me'. So I guess that at some point in time, resurrecting Sothis became not only about bringing back Mama for herself, but also so she could fix it all. but focus on that objective meant probably less time for day-to-day managing, beyond maintaining general peace. After all, once Mama was back, everything would be alright again. Except devoting all that (probably increasing as disasters pilled up) time to this chimera meant more headway for the Mole Men and whatever pasties they chose, leading to mess like losing Church Branches, deposition/assassination of leaders fighting that corruption... And while she was looking at the long-term Immortal Way, current suffering eventually boiled over to the point she tripped, and total war happened... This is probably true, but it makes me wonder. If Rhea knew that she was losing control over the corrupt nobles, she does technically agree with Edelgard, meaning that if they actually communicated for two seconds, they would realise that fighting each other is completely unnecessary. Spoiler for Cindered Shadows Spoiler If Rhea reacted like she did with Ailric in cindered shadows when discovering Edelgard as the Flame Emperor and actually asked her why she was doing what she was doing, she might have come to the correct conclusion that Edelgard was just trying to fix the mess Fodlan had turned into. I also think that Rhea should probably stop trying to resurrect her mother, it is blatantly necromancy the magic she has created to do it is obviously very dark in nature. Case in point being, the Chalice of Beginnings, not only is this artefact not holy, it is extremely evil blood magic requiring human sacrifice to function and it doesn't even work properly when it does, it can't actually bring back the dead, using it nearly always seems to lead to disaster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jawaunw Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 I think she knows about it but there's pretty much nothing she could do The empire really doesn't have anything to do with the church at all at that point remember that edelgard is like the first ruler of the empire to come to the academy in like 10 generations I think it's not like she could just walk over and tell them to stop Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hardric62 Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 1 hour ago, jawaunw said: I think she knows about it but there's pretty much nothing she could do The empire really doesn't have anything to do with the church at all at that point remember that edelgard is like the first ruler of the empire to come to the academy in like 10 generations I think it's not like she could just walk over and tell them to stop Euh her father did go to the Academy, she says so in her scenes around the Goddess' Tower. I think the lack of Hresvelg of last years at Garreg Mach would have more to do with the shortage of Imperial Princes and Princesses caused by the Mole Men. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jawaunw Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 I meant attended the academy as in was a student edelgards mother was a student her father wasn't Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axel987 Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 4 minutes ago, Hardric62 said: Euh her father did go to the Academy, she says so in her scenes around the Goddess' Tower. I think the lack of Hresvelg of last years at Garreg Mach would have more to do with the shortage of Imperial Princes and Princesses caused by the Mole Men. It's directly stated by an NPC that no member of House Hresvelg has attended the academy for -several- generations before Edelgard. Is that a mistranslation perchance? Bc it doesn't line up with what Edelgard says about her father at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Book Bro Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 Considering how surprised Rhea is that a member of House Hresvelg would betray her, I think it's fair to say she was probably so detached from real world events not directly threatening her rule that she wrote it off as humans being humans. I don't think she knew about TWSITD being involved or their experiments though, she might have acted if she had. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 (edited) I can't think of any reason why Rhea wouldn't know about a huge political event like that unless it was deliberately kept hidden from the public. She's just not in the habit of intervening with the other nations, or playing favorites with the noble families. Silver Snow also reveals Rhea and the remaining Children of the Goddess were totally unaware of the Slitherers of the last few dozen generations. Every targeted attack on Rhea or Flayn was assumed by them to be some generic power grab or Crest maniac and not a continuation of the genocide from 1000 years ago. Or at least I imagine Rhea wanted to believe, more than anything, that people aren't still trying to kill her because of what her ears look like and the supernatural powers she holds. Thinking about it, It's kind of uncomfortable that racial prejudice comes up so often in Fodlan only to be revealed that it IS some co-ordinated effort by a group of underground losers still mad about something that only happened long enough ago that almost nobody alive was actually affected by. The only real exceptions being Almyrans, Brigid, and Dagdans, all of whom we know so little about politically it's hard to say it's not more ugly business orchestrated by Slitherers to keep the people of Fodlan close-minded about those who are different. Edited February 20, 2020 by Glennstavos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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