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The identity of a certain emblem and other matters (MAJOR SPOILERS)


cpsy1991
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On 1/24/2023 at 7:27 PM, WindSentinel said:

Oh Engage, keep on being your wonky self. Literally the writers can't stop making themselves look bad, and they aren't even trying to!

Awakening shat the bed in the lore/worldbuilding aspect (opens up new doors, but definitely shits the bed on a lot of established concepts for the sake of nonstalgia (sideeying at Panne, Nowi, and Priam), but Naga DOES mention in the lategame that she is no god, she can't create from nothing like Sothis and Ashunera. I think that's canon/adds up, because everything we've seen from dragons implies they create from body parts, metals, magic is still used by asking spirits (Duma calls on spirits when casting spells in Echoes so we can assume even dragons borrow from spirits to do blood pacts and dragon form storing via stones too) all of that, never just making stuff from nothing.

But yeah, most games are just like, "Divine dragons are good, have green hair, and like people. The rest went insane because they're too prideful to become elves" and leaves it at that, and then games outside of Archanea just play with this base (with 3H being the most interesting way to worldbuild them imo). The FE Wiki says that in the game data for the DS games straight up call the stones "GODDESSSTONE" and the manakete class "GODDESSDRAGON_F" but I think that the Divine dragons are meant to evoke godlike presence and power (esp with Tiki's early art having feathery wings, Mila's wing hair, and Naga's ghostly look post Awakening), but not be one, especially since they can be killed.

I found the source for Veyle's mother being a mage dragon- it was the Ally Notebook. Typical that they'd put it somewhere nobody would bother to look for it. Anyway, I still don't quite buy that Sothis was truly a creator god- what kind of deity could be slain by its own creations? Or be slain at all, at that matter? 

 

5 hours ago, WindSentinel said:

You know what? Reading this over and thinking about the already meta way Engage operates, this is a really good angle. Another poster @B.Leumade a joke of it, but I think you're both more on track than the OP and I despite our long back and forth about it.

Sombron's world had it's own Emblems, but there's no rule saying Emblems are FE only, this applies only to Elyos as far as we know. In his world, Emblems could easily be classic franchise protags instead of FE ones (off topic for a second, but honestly, it would be cool to see Adol as an Emblem-he'd be super powerful, I can only imagine using his ring in a war). The JRPG is the dad of SRPG, and FE is the dad of SRPGS. So I guess in a way, Engage, being the most recent entry of the franchise and celebrating it's dad status, is making a meta commentary on how Sombron is in the wrong genre despite being in a franchise born from it. If you want to be a one man show, don't come to a Fire Emblem world to do it. SRPGS are about friends and bonds carrying us through hardship, classic JRPGs are the only worlds that support being a rugged one man army, before JRPGs evolved to be more character/bond focused when consoles began to be able to hold more data and tell bigger tales.

I've seen the meta view of the Emblem being Kaga and Sombron's whole character being a jab at the old school players who can't accept that the old style of FE is gone, possibly for good; however, that seems to be a bit too highbrow for the average players and meta-references in general just end up being a crutch to cover for a work that can't stand on its own merits. I'm sure that Sombron's character there was also supposed to be sympathetic, but the execution has the exact opposite effect and just makes me feel contempt for his pigheaded stupidity. 

Regarding JRPGs, it's still prudent to remember that Final Fantasy, in many ways the granddaddy of all RPGs, still had a party of heroes instead of one guy slaughtering everything in his path. 

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2 hours ago, cpsy1991 said:

I found the source for Veyle's mother being a mage dragon- it was the Ally Notebook. Typical that they'd put it somewhere nobody would bother to look for it.

Found the notebook! So Awakening-esque. I actually really liked the little tidbits on the cast in this style, it's very cute. If there's one thing about this game I do like, it's that the camp is very well balanced with actual character beats. I especially love the many ways characters care for the pact ring, so much personality!

Ahem, now for the wall of text...

2 hours ago, cpsy1991 said:

Anyway, I still don't quite buy that Sothis was truly a creator god- what kind of deity could be slain by its own creations? Or be slain at all, at that matter?

I'd call bull on how she was killed without a holy weapon/relic (she was sleep but surely she was huge? How did Nemesis do this?) for sure-the slaughter of her people/kids makes sense considering how they seem to be more like demigods with a dragon form rather than primarily dragons (maybe-Macuil and Indech are just chilling as a giant bird/turtle and don't miss being elves, so maybe it's like Tellius where both forms are equally the Nabatean's true self), so we can assume they lived like humans or something, it was a time of peace between all species on the continent, and so they weren't prepared for Nemesis. But yeah, the initial killing of Sothis makes no sense. Not to mention, wouldn't Sothis have retainers guarding her tomb? How did no one see a big hulking human bandit just waltz on in? Were humans and dragons just on that good of a terms, even after the dragon/EDM war, to the point that people visited Sothis for worship? Like, how does this work? I wish we got a third Fodlan game that worldbuilt pre modern Fodlan, but that would humanize Rhea too much and make Edel look too bad, I guess.

The only reason I give Sothis' death a pass is because FE kinda has a rule that creator gods are immortal, but the god can be slain with items she makes (Ashera blesses the twin blades, so they can also harm her) AND/OR at least not be completely killed even when they are. I forget how Tellius handles Ashera's defeat, but for Sothis, she is "dead" but she isn't so dead she can't talk to Byleth and live through them. In fact, the game implies that even after "fusing" with you she's alive, just in another plane being irresponsible and not taking on the responsibility of the goddess and possibly giving her children closure (she only does this if you marry Rhea, when she's having a near death experience-y'know, Rhea, your grandma and, if you believe Byleth is Sothis and not their own Nabatean, your child as well! Sweet home Fodlan, I guess!) and helping correct things. I really liked Hopes for giving her personality and a role, a goddess that takes no bull and will enact vengence for the sake of those she cares about, as she did when the Agarthans tried it on her ages ago. She could've been great, but Fodlan never wants to explore or explain anything.

3 hours ago, cpsy1991 said:

I've seen the meta view of the Emblem being Kaga and Sombron's whole character being a jab at the old school players who can't accept that the old style of FE is gone, possibly for good; however, that seems to be a bit too highbrow for the average players and meta-references in general just end up being a crutch to cover for a work that can't stand on its own merits. I'm sure that Sombron's character there was also supposed to be sympathetic, but the execution has the exact opposite effect and just makes me feel contempt for his pigheaded stupidity.

I can see that! I think most people who play games are not hardcore gamers to the point that they'd see the meta that way and get it-that's something only people who like J/S RPGs both and know their histories well would conclude to. FE's intertextuality has always been super self contained too, so I suppose being meta about genres is something FE isn't too keen on doing.

This being said, I don't think intertextuality/meta is bad if it's genuine homage to beloved tropes and the stories made from them, but I do think we're in an age where a lot of media is apologizing for being...what it is using meta, or using it for easy money. For example, in Pokemon Scar/Vio, one of your rivals has a line along the lines of "wow, that almost sounds like a video game quest, doesn't it?" when instructed to deactivate four terminals in Area Zero (should I tag this as spoilers?) and I had to roll my eyes. We get it. We're playing a goddamn video game. I know I am. You don't have to apologize or point it out.

I'd go as far as to say even Undertale gets on my nerves for this junk, but it only gets meta and annoying if you go out of your way to not play the game as intended, so it gets a pass-though I do kinda think as a concept it was easy to make bank off of thanks to the meta nature. Anyways, back on topic...

3 hours ago, cpsy1991 said:

Regarding JRPGs, it's still prudent to remember that Final Fantasy, in many ways the granddaddy of all RPGs, still had a party of heroes instead of one guy slaughtering everything in his path.

That is true. I think FF had team building/party mechanics before DQ actually (since the very first, you choose your party makeup, right? While for DQ, it was set party/solo until DQ3), so that also puts a dent into the idea of this Emblem being a classic protagonist from another franchise. 

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1 hour ago, WindSentinel said:

That is true. I think FF had team building/party mechanics before DQ actually (since the very first, you choose your party makeup, right? While for DQ, it was set party/solo until DQ3), so that also puts a dent into the idea of this Emblem being a classic protagonist from another franchise. 

In DQ2 (published January 1987) actually you have a party of three characters, you can't choose them since they are story based. Every other mainline DQ afterwards had a party
FF was published December 1987, for comparison.
I don't think single character jRPGs were that common in the late '80s, the genre was popolarized somewhat by the first Mystery Dungeon (1993).
In Japan the single character adventure was more commonly an arcade adventure (zelda and zelda inspired games) trope.

However things get more interesting if we extend this search to western RPGs.
Rogue is from 1980, while the Ultima series started in 1981, both had a decent number of clones in the following years.

That said, in my humble opinion, all the meta-commentary interpretations of sombron/zero emblem are just overthinking.

Edited by Dark Kain
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6 hours ago, Dark Kain said:

In DQ2 (published January 1987) actually you have a party of three characters, you can't choose them since they are story based. Every other mainline DQ afterwards had a party
FF was published December 1987, for comparison.
I don't think single character jRPGs were that common in the late '80s, the genre was popolarized somewhat by the first Mystery Dungeon (1993).
In Japan the single character adventure was more commonly an arcade adventure (zelda and zelda inspired games) trope.

However things get more interesting if we extend this search to western RPGs.
Rogue is from 1980, while the Ultima series started in 1981, both had a decent number of clones in the following years.

That said, in my humble opinion, all the meta-commentary interpretations of sombron/zero emblem are just overthinking.

Agreed. It also means that it could be literally anyone, which would make further theorycrafting nearly impossible. We should assume that it's at least from the FE franchise unless we get official confirmation saying otherwise (and good luck getting that, you'll need it).

But to go off on a tangent myself (again), I will however say that roguelikes (especially in that early era) aren't quite RPGs, they merely use some of the same mechanics. Plus, if you want to extend things further still to the tabletop RPGs that those games were first derived from, I can say from personal experience that PCs who refuse to engage with other PCs or NPCs beyond simple fighting have always been regarded with disdain as "murderhobos" that any vaguely functioning society would recognize as sociopaths. Of course, you could argue that such behavior was a response to the tendency of GMs back in the day to view DMing as a sort of competition where any of the PCs's friends or loved ones could and would be turned against you (either by making them spontaneously evil or by holding them hostage) for cheap drama: by this logic, no connections means fewer ways for a DM to railroad you into whatever plot they want you to follow. That way of doing things is far less common than it once was, but it still happens. 

Incidentally, I checked through the script again and I saw that Sigurd mentioned that any Emblem summoned by the Fell Dragon is fundamentally a mindless slave. But obviously this one wasn't mindless or a slave, so that's yet another rule this Emblem has arbitrarily broken. I swear, the closer I look at this the more baffled and irritated I become. It's even worse because a bad ending has a way of retroactively poisoning a whole experience- all the talk about the journey being more important than the destination rings hollow when you realize the destination is garbage. 

(Nearly forgot to add: with Ashera, RD basically implied that she and Yune would return to sleep, and at least 2000 years later they've reunited into Ashunera- though this is only shown if you're on a second or later playthrough and you recruited Sephiran.)

Edited by cpsy1991
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8 minutes ago, Goongus Goboogus said:

Keep in mind that Emblems summoned by the fell dragons can't speak, hence the muteness. Although it's in all honesty probably someone we don't know, given the infinite worlds and such going on. 

I thought so too, but if this Emblem is breaking all the other rules I see no reason why it should follow that particular one. Especially since Emblems summoned by Fell Dragons aren't supposed to just leave on their own either. 

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On 1/25/2023 at 10:35 PM, WindSentinel said:

Another poster @B.Leumade a joke of it, but I think you're both more on track than the OP and I despite our long back and forth about it.

if I turn out to be right about it. I'm eating brocollis, and I hate broccolis, but I will ate them while laughing a bit.
 

On 1/26/2023 at 4:41 AM, cpsy1991 said:

Typical that they'd put it somewhere nobody would bother to look for it

I dunno. I like looking at it. Even if the interface, of it and of the game in general, is kinda bad.
 

On 1/26/2023 at 4:41 AM, cpsy1991 said:

I'm sure that Sombron's character there was also supposed to be sympathetic, but the execution has the exact opposite effect and just makes me feel contempt for his pigheaded stupidity. 

So I know this is a low blow, but doesn't this remind you of Anankos and Rhea? Funny how the character that is a waifu is seen as sympathetic by the narrative.

 

On 1/26/2023 at 4:41 AM, cpsy1991 said:

Anyway, I still don't quite buy that Sothis was truly a creator god- what kind of deity could be slain by its own creations? Or be slain at all, at that matter? 

On 1/26/2023 at 8:17 AM, WindSentinel said:

I'd call bull on how she was killed without a holy weapon/relic (she was sleep but surely she was huge? How did Nemesis do this?)

The mere fact that she is called a Creator God imply that she created life everywhere, which is a big fat lie: she only ever created life in Fodlan. So either Sothis is that arrogant, or Rhea just made that up. There's also the God part, which she pretty much isn't.
There's implications that Sothis wasn't so much as sleeping, but was plain dead after doing her god things (implied to just be Time Power things), and Nemesis just picked the bones like Pathways Into Darkness and.... gave them to the dupsteper and soloing an entire race with his Sword of the King, which begs multiple questions, such as how did he do that without being seen, didn't the Nabateans tried to protect the tombs, just how big the bones must have been, how the HELL is he considered a Thief with this build, etc.

I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one being utterly confused by what the writers were trying to do, and I really hate how they didn't seems like they wanted to commit to it. "There is no religion. The Goddess isn't a Goddess at all and was actually fairly bad, it's all made up by one of her daughter crippled by PTSD. Her daughter is cruel and controling because her mom was the same, and she also really, really want to have her back, using necromancy or cloning at random to do it. This is also why no Nabateans are trying to help, the Goddess was bad, Sothis is bad. Fodlans aren't humans at all. It's all a stupid lie made by a stupid person for a stupid but understandable reason. Santa Claus doesn't exist. The Sword of the Creator is a bad weapon. Most redesigns and haircuts in Three Hopes are stupid." (Do not, for the love of God, take offense of the fact that I'm making fun of a fictional religion, and take it as me making fun of real life religion, please.)
Imagine how ballsy it would have been, not in a JRPG animay Persona let's shoot notgod in the face to save xmass way, but a painfully sad, realistic something that happened and there's nothing you can do to change it because it's in the past, all that remains are the consequences. I can almost feel the writers wanting to just came out and say it, but in the end, there is not even a "So that's how it is" feeling, bitter, angry or whatever, by the characters or story.

Spoiler

And this is why Three Houses has a better story than Engage anyway!

 

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On 1/23/2023 at 5:36 AM, cpsy1991 said:

The Fell Dragons native to Sombron's world can't be inherently evil (otherwise Alear and Veyle wouldn't ultimately end up being the heroes), but what exactly would distinguish them from any other Manakete beyond the color scheme then? 

There's also the fact that their Incantations (including Veyle's one for raising Corrupted) aren't malicious at all and are pretty much just prayers said out loud. Fell Dragons in Engage seem to be the same as Dark magic in the GBA & Tellius titles: they have a gloomier/ negative aura compared to other kinds but aren't actually evil by nature.

On 1/25/2023 at 9:52 AM, Kiddo said:

Besides the description of the character's feats and demeanor (Silent, does quests solo, and has no attachments) matching that type of character better than any type that would fit in a SRPG, the other thing that stands out is the character being stated to be from "another world" - a strange terminology consider how most FEs feel like different settings or different timelines in and of themselves yet are all in the same "world" as defined by Awakening and Engage.

My crack theory was that it was Kris, but this makes a surprising amount of sense on top of being deliciously meta to boot, thanks!

On 1/26/2023 at 3:41 AM, cpsy1991 said:

I found the source for Veyle's mother being a mage dragon- it was the Ally Notebook.

It's mentioned in the story too. I don't remember where exactly, but it's either her explaining it around the time she's recruited or when Mauvier explains her past (I recall hearing her voice say it though).

Anyway, if the Emblem isn't a brand new person, I think it's likely an alternate version of Alear, since the two have a similar aura according to Sombron in the past and Sombron looks at Alear as he dies (he thinks he's seeing the Emblem, but... the imagery!)

Considering Sombron was likely projecting onto the Emblem and that the guy was clearly lonely, if the DLC is going to be a standalone story I would geniunely love one told from his perspective as a kid. If his arc is handled well he could very well become one of this franchise's best villains.

Hopefully it's not too sappy a thing to admit that I did feel a little sorry for him at the end. He's still a terrible person, but... the bit about him feeling isolated and abandoned got to me all the same.

 

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Is a fell dragon not simply a "fallen dragon". 

 

As in they decided to be evil at some point and "fell to the dark side" so to speak. As opposed to the good dragons. Kinda like how the Wicked Witch of the West is a bad witch but Glinda is a good witch and the only real difference between them is that and the whole aversion to baths thing (which probably is a consequence of being evil for too long). 

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On 1/22/2023 at 2:14 AM, cpsy1991 said:
  • A lone warrior who eschewed bonds with others, and apparently had neither followers nor an army- all of his fighting was done completely on his own.
  • Said to have carried out great conquests fueled by ambition and inspired Sombron's thirst for revenge.
  • Unable to speak (Perhaps due to a defective summoning? That seems relatively more probable than him being simply mute, but I could be wrong).
  • Activation chant is "Burn on, Emblem of Foundations."

its just kaga

  • he cut ties with nintendo, but the original FE teams dont follow him on leaving nintendo to make a FE rival
  • he make FE a well known franchise but dont get the same treatment like the maker of FF
  • cant speak about copyright or their problematic relation with former company?
  • dunno about the burning part, but he really laid out the foundation for future FE

 

but i like the theory about lone adventure. 

On 1/26/2023 at 10:41 AM, cpsy1991 said:

granddaddy of all RPGs

now thats just wrong. if you said JRPG, sure. but its not even the first JRPG from Japan. saying all RPGs is just plain wrong.

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On 1/21/2023 at 4:14 PM, cpsy1991 said:

This is my first post here, so pardon me if I make any gaffes with this. Also, if the title didn't tip you off this topic includes spoilers for the very last chapter of Engage. If you haven't gotten to it, turn back now.

  Reveal hidden contents

I've been trying to figure out who or what the character corresponding to the Emblem of Foundations is, with no real success. All we know about them is what Sombron told us (which isn't too reliable but it's all we have to work with), which I'll sum up below for the sake of convenience.

  • A lone warrior who eschewed bonds with others, and apparently had neither followers nor an army- all of his fighting was done completely on his own.
  • Said to have carried out great conquests fueled by ambition and inspired Sombron's thirst for revenge.
  • Unable to speak (Perhaps due to a defective summoning? That seems relatively more probable than him being simply mute, but I could be wrong).
  • Activation chant is "Burn on, Emblem of Foundations."

Other people I've asked about it think it may be Anri, but the only part of Anri's backstory that really fits with the description is his inability to marry Artemis- the rest of it may make sense if we assume he was projecting what he wanted to see onto the Emblem, but if that's really the case then theorizing about its identity becomes practically impossible. At the same time, the rest of the description doesn't seem to match any FE character at all, playable or otherwise.

It just...doesn't make sense that they'd try to build up something that's so critical to a character's motivations and is implied to be the single most powerful Emblem in existence, and then just leave it a complete and utter mystery without actually doing anything with it at all. I want to believe they'll give more hints in the Fell Xenologues or whatever they end up being called, but given how Cindered Shadows was functionally detached from the rest of 3H's plot and didn't do much to answer many of the loose threads of its main story I don't have much hope of that happening. 

Still, I can't be the only one who's bugged by not knowing this, right?

 

I'd assume it's Anri with Sombron projecting somewhat on him, which is why Marth didn't guess his identity.

"Emblem of Foundation" would be a fitting title for Marth's predecessor. The Engage chant being "Burn on" also seems imminently "Fire Emblem" related. Anri left to obtain the Falchion by himself according to Mystery - and New Mystery specifically added lines contrasting Marth making the journey with an army to Anri going through the same battles alone. So, that would fit the comment about doing his fighting entirely on his own.

It does talk about conquests, so clearly Anri having a kingdom after the battle that made him a legend wouldn't contradict that. Him being unable to speak is just because Sombron is a Fell Dragon, using his power to summon emblems results in an emblem unable to speak, it has nothing to do with the original hero speaking or not.

Edited by NeonZ
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On 2/1/2023 at 8:42 PM, B.Leu said:

I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one being utterly confused by what the writers were trying to do, and I really hate how they didn't seems like they wanted to commit to it. "There is no religion. The Goddess isn't a Goddess at all and was actually fairly bad, it's all made up by one of her daughter crippled by PTSD. Her daughter is cruel and controling because her mom was the same, and she also really, really want to have her back, using necromancy or cloning at random to do it. This is also why no Nabateans are trying to help, the Goddess was bad, Sothis is bad. Fodlans aren't humans at all. It's all a stupid lie made by a stupid person for a stupid but understandable reason. Santa Claus doesn't exist. The Sword of the Creator is a bad weapon. Most redesigns and haircuts in Three Hopes are stupid." (Do not, for the love of God, take offense of the fact that I'm making fun of a fictional religion, and take it as me making fun of real life religion, please.)
Imagine how ballsy it would have been, not in a JRPG animay Persona let's shoot notgod in the face to save xmass way, but a painfully sad, realistic something that happened and there's nothing you can do to change it because it's in the past, all that remains are the consequences. I can almost feel the writers wanting to just came out and say it, but in the end, there is not even a "So that's how it is" feeling, bitter, angry or whatever, by the characters or story.

Spoiler

I think it's obvious what the game was trying to do. It tried to give a flawed narrator kind of story where every route is missing a piece of the story and every lord's ideals are incompatible with another's (except GW, where Claude learns of Fodlan's history due to being an outsider perspective and thus is implied to be privy to snooping around and finding info Dimitri and Edelgard can't, and that Rhea is hiding to protect the last of her race and to stop humans from ripping each other apart in a bad way. I call bullshit, but whatever, it's fiction lol) It also wanted to do the Fates thing where a secret, non human party is the cause of everything (ultimately the game WANTS to paint the dubstep people as the ultimate villains, similar to Valla) and is the real problem, but they're such a nothing race and are so backseat and generic and nothing about them is answered so this flops too.

The problem is 3H can't commit to the flawed nature/ideals of all 3 (four, Rhea is a pseudo-lord if you ask me) lords except Dimitri and Rhea, which I find very telling-of course the people with post-traumatic stress are the only ones allowed to be flawed and make mistakes.

The game can't commit because answering mysteries and showing and not telling would indirectly make many characters look bad or better. The game hinges on painting Rhea as a villain or a kind, one dimensional walking encyclopedia no in between, and Edelgard as a morally grey hero, but also a villain you don't want to face and has her heart in the right place-if we saw the war of heroes, if we saw the Nabateans being slaughtered, if we saw the dubstep people just be bad, if we were able to have a playable Rhea with supports and all, Rhea's trauma would make sense and this would humanize her and make her compelling, and his would also make Edelgard more compelling in a less favorable way (and she's the poster girl, so we can't let her be actually morally grey despite this being more interesting). This is too much work to do, and it's easier to leave stuff unanswered and neglect the worldbuilding (providing clear answers or heavy implications) or change worldbuilding rules on the fly so that all three routes and everyone's roles can work. Azure Moon is the one route that doesn't tackle social issues as much (it does, as Dimitri wants to become a good king and use his power to help the weak but this is not as emphasized as him overcoming his trauma) so the game doesn't have to bend itself backwards to justify why things happen.

The game knows this, and hides Fodlan's history/avoids explaining anything in favor of painting the picture they want us to see. Rhea as a PTSD crazed asshole in Edelgard's route to aggrandize her, and in every other she dies from her wounds after infodumping her trauma and revealing everything. Dimitri, on the other hand, becomes a caricature of what PTSD ridden people go through, with heavy emphasis on how he's demented because he dislikes Edelgard and because he survived a severe trauma. Edelgard is modeled after past Red Emperors and the devs say she's meant to be an anatagonist, yet the game spends most of its time kissing her toosh despite her working with genocidal maniacs and being straight up terrible to the other lords (this is a good thing! It makes her more intresting!). Claude is too busy being perfect and uncovering everything until Hopes course corrected (Nemesis should've been SS's final boss, Rhea should've been playable and this could've represented her letting go of her past, goodness, what were they thinking??).

On top of this, in 3H, trauma from systemic issues/power struggles are either glossed over/used as a way of going forward without any consequence to their bodies and brains (I mean, yeah Edel and Lysithea have decreased lifespans, but they're fine mentally, which is just bollocks) or heavily linked to being like a beast-Rhea is a dragon, Dimitri has an animal nickname, Marianne has Maurice, and all three are depicted unfavorably compared to people who carry their trauma well, like Claude with his rough childhood/racism and Edelgard with her 1 billion siblings dead, Lysithea and her "I have it worse you whiny wanker" rant in her supports with Marianne, Raphael being over the death of his parents and glossing over it etc etc.

3H sucks at displaying trauma unless it's extreme, because realistically written trauma causes friction even within factions, motivates characters to go forward even when their brains and bodies are fighting them, extreme trauma from triggering a survivor excuses putting the traumatized person down like a mad dog (Rhea and Dimitri in 3H's case) and this acknowledging history and the generational trauma of Fodlan's people and how it impacts the modern day is too much nuance they have to add in for ALL characters, side ones, and our lords Rhea (honorary), Dimitri, Edel, Claude, and even Yuri. And this is the crux of 3H's problems: there's way too much nuance in this story and the issues its trying to tackle, and they aren't willing to do the work of nuanced writing if it means people can walk away with their own properly informed conclusions.

Spoilered for the wall of text. TLDR. I agree to an extent, but I've solved the riddle that is 3H's janky writing. I think. This is just my take on what the hell they were thinking.

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Spoiler

Wait a second. Arvis burns people. Arvis destroyed an entire army by himself. Geneology is the first game in the timeline, ergo Arvis' actions set the foundation for the plot to come. Arvis abandons children.

Arvis is the Emblem of Foundations.

Yes this is a joke, but I don't actually have a better answer for this one and it's not that unbelievable. 

Edited by Fabulously Olivier
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